December 29th

 

the breath of wanting

love the great leveller cleaves

a sword to the soul

the crown slips silent

shamed in his palsied grasp, dull

in her tender glow

the barefoot beggar

girl, august and comely eyed

the King at her feet

 

I’m really pleased with this three-tiered Haiku, it’s in tribute to one of my favourite paintings. King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1884, Edward Burne-Jones). It currently forms part of Tate Britain’s Pre-Raphaelite exhibition (Victorian Avant-Garde) although it has been on permanent display for a while in the main galleries.

I went to the exhibition today and to see it in the context of the other works was wonderful. I could have picked any one of a number of subjects, but this work always strikes me.

In summary, King Cophetua is transfixed and falls in love with a beautiful beggar girl Penelophon. In Burne-Jones’ painting, he paints her in a prominent position, elevated above the King, as if on a throne, he is her vassal. She looks beyond him, beyond the painting, she doesn’t meet our gaze either. She has a regal dignity, but also a humility. She is utterly beautiful. And he, seeing she ignores him, dares not approach, dares not be so bold as to sit next to her. He appears to remove his crown, to become the beggar, imploring her to be his bride. Love is the great leveller and this touching painting captures it so wonderfully.

Burne-Jones’ great friend William Morris was a staunch and principled socialist, so there is speculation that this painting is a homage to him, but whatever the inspiration, it sings. There is a tenseness and a tenderness, it talks of love and lust. And a hopefully happy future for the couple (and yes, they did live “happily ever after”).

Burne-Jones is my favourite of the Pre-Raphaelite painters, the subtlety of detail, the level of emotion conveyed in seemingly sullen faces. And the eyes, I am always drawn to the eyes. They take my breath away.

(image from Wikipedia, but images/painting owned by Tate)

November 24th

Degenerate art

a procession of mourners

pay their last respects

I was reading about “Degenerate Art” today, the label applied by the Nazi’s to any art which didn’t fit their ideals on realism, classically influenced art or promotion of the Reich. This meant that most modern art would be labelled degenerate, including art by such eminent German artists as Max Ernst and Otto Dix (both first world war veterans). Artists fled Germany, were prevented from working, or were in extreme cases, executed like poor Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, through forced euthanasia.

The Nazi’s put on a show of Degenerate Art with dismissive labels, to instruct the populace as to why the works were degenerate. As this BBC article states.

An exhibition of confiscated works titled Entartete Kunst, which took place in Munich in July 1937, was advertised as "culture documents of the decadent work of Bolsheviks and Jews".

When I was on a Munich walking tour some years ago, the guide said that the Degenerate exhibition had several times the number of visitors as the officially endorsed Nazi art gallery next door. It seems the German people were not all taken in by this propaganda and were (privately) curious to make up their own minds.

Many art works were sold, many were destroyed.

Hitler himself was a frustrated artist, before taking up politics, he led a life of someone he would have labelled “degenerate” once he’d got into power. He painted detailed architecture and landscapes, his work was fairly boring it seems, lacking in emotion. Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler’s predecessor as Chancellor, one of the military and political heavyweights of the early part of the 20th century called him the “Bohemian Corporal”, due to his failure at becoming an artist and his low rank during World War 1.

It’s interesting to compare Hitler’s work (of which only a few examples of survive or are attributable to him) with Churchill, another keen painter. Churchill, suffering depression, his “black dog” for most of his life, saw art as a way of release, of coping, of coming to terms with the darkness. His book, “Painting as a Pastime” is a treat (D has a copy which is wonderful). You can feel that in his work, which although quite naive, is expressive.

Hitler, you can imagine, with his dedication to detail and buildings seemed emasculated and stifled by his inability to express.

Above: The Courtyard of the Old Residency in Munich (Adolf Hitler, 1913, Watercolour)

Sunset Over The Atlas Mountains (Winston Churchill, 1935).

November 17th

Memento mori
the vanity of excess
and the peace of death

What an incredible exhibition Death: A Self Portrait at the Wellcome Collection is. I’m going to visit again as it’s quite a sensory overload. It’s a celebration of death, it’s not at all morbid in my mind. Some of it is sad and tragic of course but on the whole it’s about attitudes to life and our inevitable death, how we cope and the celebration of life.

One of the exhibits - “Death the Friend” by Alfred Rethel (wood engraving 1851). This is quite a compassionate piece. The old bellringer has died. Death waits till dawn and rings the bell on his behalf, paying respect to the fact that the bellringer has to some degree, been working for him all his life.

November 16th

from Poseidon’s purse

they drag the big eyed harvest

gasping on hot wharfs

the omniscient

God so fickle and angry

buries them with waves

I popped into the British Museum, I haven’t been there in years, it is an astonishing place, putting aside the dubious origins of how some of the antiquities ended up there, it is a magnificent collection.

This mosaic (Roman, approx 100AD) really caught my eye. The pieces of stone were so tiny, it allowed for fantastic detail. N.b – I know I use the Greek “Poseidon” as opposed to “Neptune”, but I prefer using the Greek names

November 12th

 

an eye blinks turquoise

from the fisherman’s drag net

the dancing satyr

I went to the Bronze exhibition at the Royal Academy. I’ve been to a lot of the big hitting exhibitions this year and Bronze is right up there. There were so many pieces covering 6000 years of history, unsettling old pagan pieces, pre-classical from northern Europe, of unknown function, all the way to the modern day where Bourgeois (one of her wonderful spiders seemingly skids across a wall), Moore and Matisse amongst others, were represented. The exhibition paid respect to both Asian and African artefacts too, the Nigerian pieces were astonishingly beautiful.

Perseus and Medusa (a copy of Cellini’s original) was also imposing, him holding aloft her serpent head, with serpents seemingly also spilling from her headless neck as he stands triumphant over her fallen corpse.

But my favourite piece, was the first piece, which get’s a room of its own as you enter the exhibition. The Dancing Satyr, a Greek classical piece pulled from a fisherman’s net off the coast of Sicily, fairly recently (1998). He’s incomplete, the leg he balanced on, both arms, part of the head and his tail are all missing, but this does not diminish him. The powerful realism really struck me, the definition of the muscles in movement of something beyond human, the detail in the face and hair. It was quite astonishing really.

It’s a great exhibition. Well worth going to!

Photo from the Royal Academy Website

November 3rd

 

flawed fallen angel

the goatherd of paradise

tainted by mortals

I watched a documentary “How the Devil Got His Horns”. It was another brilliant BBC programme. Basically it concentrated on the art history of the Devil, Lucifer, Satan, whatever you call him.

How the rarely mentioned character in the Bible took on more and more significance over the ages. Early depictions of him, were actually as an angel in the sense we would understand, beautiful, fine featured, feathered wings, even with a halo. But the image got more horrific and corrupted over time, horned, goat legged, sharp fanged, forked tailed, inflicting terrible tortures upon sinners. I can imagine the illiterate entering church and looking at these horrific frescoes and conceptualising eternal damnation. I can also imagine the wild imaginings of artists to make their devil more horrific, more violent and shocking. On the one side, for those commissioning the works, a prime example of fear used to control of course. On the other, the artistic license to have fun with a creating piece of work and really go to town on it!

The Devil is a complex character, I’m no Theologian or Philosopher, I’m not a believer, but I imagine that the Devil is much like anyone, neither “good” nor “evil”, just flawed, just as Jesus was flawed, but always doing his best, hanging around with the lowest of society, promoting equality and love, which led to his global appeal.

If the Devil was banished from heaven, then the last place you should send him to have a think about his actions is where us lot live. There’s no chance of redemption hanging around with us bunch of fucked up mortals.

From the BBC Website, detail from the frescoes painted by Luca Signorelli in Orvieto Cathedral. Considering how realistic and contemporary this looks it’s actually quite surprising this was painted in the early 1500s.

October 27th

A foundling token

pressed into her grubby palm

mother’s shame, renamed

I went to the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury. It’s somewhere I’ve never been before and covers the history of the building, which was London’s first home for abandoned children and the first public art gallery. It was also inspirational for Dickens in some of his works.

One of the most moving parts of the collection was the foundling tokens. Mothers would pin a little token to their child’s clothing, thus if they were able at some stage in the future to reclaim their child, they would use this token to identify the child that was brought in. As the child was given a new name upon entry into the hospital, this was the administrative method they used for identification. The children were not allowed to see or keep their tokens, in case it gave them some clue in later life to their identity. A photo of some of the tokens.

With the child would come a letter of petition, frequently illiterate, the mothers would ask a friend to write them a letter, requesting the hospital take on their child. Poverty, rape, abandonment, the death of a husband and the lack of work led to this desperate act by many mothers. Transcripts of some of their tragic letters are also on display.

There was also a letter from a mother who had married a farmer and found her feet, coming out of poverty, she wanted her child back. The tragedy was her child had died years before. The register shows that many children died, despite the care of the hospital, diseases were still rife. Many though did leave the hospital to employment to become maids or apprentices, or joining the armed forces. Some even became rich and contributed as a benefactor to the hospital in later life, never forgetting the experience that built them.

The art is also impressive, there are prints and painting by Hogarth. Hogarth was a social satirist and pulled no punches in his depictions of poverty stricken London.

The Enraged Musician (shared via Wikipedia) is below, showing the gentleman unable to practice his music due to the din from the people in the street below. The woman on the left is bare breasted, pregnant, holding her child, a little boy is peeing and various street vendors sell their wares.

More famously, a print of Gin Lane is also on display, it actually depicts the Bloomsbury area of London. Note the old man and the dog sharing a bone, the Gin shattered mother dropping her baby, the poor selling whatever they own to the pawnbrokers, the burial in the distance and the man dying in the gutter, his faithful hound by his side. Hogarth works are so detailed and rewarding when given time. This page on the British Museum website gives more info.

The accompanying Hogarth poem for this work is as follows:

Gin, cursed Fiend, with Fury fraught,

Makes human Race a Prey.

It enters by a deadly Draught

And steals our Life away.

Virtue and Truth, driv'n to Despair

Its Rage compells to fly,

But cherishes with hellish Care

Theft, Murder, Perjury.

Damned Cup! that on the Vitals preys

That liquid Fire contains,

Which Madness to the heart conveys,

And rolls it thro' the Veins.

I could write so much more, but I’ll just leave this post to say it’s well worth visiting.

October 19th

ankle deep in rain

cobbled back alleys echo

dark conversation

My friend Bossman got me a private view ticket for the Shepard Fairey opening night at the StolenSpace gallery in East London.

East London, despite the modernisation still has something of the Victorian sinister about it.

In amongst the warehouses you can imagine foul deeds taking place. And yes, I did drop my foot ankle deep into a cobbled puddle.

The queues were huge, people without umbrellas were getting soaked. Everyone seemed to be grumbling, so we went to a pub and killed some time. A few minutes before closing, we managed to get in. Here are a few of my shots from the event.

October 11th

the old hand traces

frail outlines in the wood grain

a kiss in the fields

We went to the Edvard Munch exhibition at the Tate. I love his work. I’m planning to write a longer review on my other blog, so I wont linger on such terms as ‘melancholy’ and ‘troubled’, but suffice to say I’m so glad we caught the tail end of this beautiful exhibition.

There were some incredible pieces of work there, but the one which moved me the most was perhaps a modest piece Munch worked on in the last few months of his life, he was 80 at the time. In 1943 he made a woodcut called “Kiss in the Field”. As was Munch’s style, it was a title and motif/style he’d repeated over the decades of his career. But this one was so feint as to almost be invisible, the grain of the wood was prominent, the spectral outline of the image just about recognisable amongst the powerful shapes within the wood itself. I could imagine his frail old hands working. It made me feel sad.

(photo I took from the exhibition catalogue)

September 21st

A penitent stag

the huntress fixed him, cursed him

run mute to your dogs

Yesterday I briefly visited the National Gallery, I wrote a one tweet poem for their competition relating to the Ovid / Metamorphoses exhibition they have there at the moment. The original poem I wrote is below. The above is the abridged Haiku version!

Of the Titian artworks on display, I chose the scene relating to Diana and Actaeon, the hunter meeting his match when he spies on the Goddess of the hunt Diana, who by way of punishment, turns him into a stag. He then gets stalked, run down and devoured by his own dogs.

(pic from wikipedia)

My original “one tweet” poem below, less than 140 characters of course.

#titianpoem He gasped, she turned, her fierce wisdom fixed him, froze him, a penitent stag, the huntress cursed him, run mute to your dogs

Co-incidentally I’d bought a second hand copy of Ted Hughes’ adaptation of Ovid’s work a couple of months ago. Before I visited I’d read a few passages. It’s steeped in Hughes’ descriptions of nature, of the wild. So vivid and powerful. My favourite passage from Diana and Actaeon was actually on the wall.

I copy an extract here (from the national gallery website), the late Ted Hughes is a wonderful poet.

……Actaeon
Stared at the goddess, who stared at him.
She twisted her breasts away, showing him her back.

Glaring at him over her shoulder
She blushed like a dawn cloud
In that twilit grotto of winking reflections,

And raged for a weapon – for her arrows
To drive through his body.
No weapon was to hand – only water.

So she scooped up a handful and dashed it
Into his astonished eyes, as she shouted:
'Now, if you can, tell how you saw me naked.'

That was all she said, but as she said it
Out of his forehead burst a rack of antlers.
His neck lengthened, narrowed, and his ears

Folded to whiskery points, his hands were hooves,
His arms long slender legs. His hunter's tunic
Slid from his dappled hide. With all this

The goddess
Poured a shocking stream of panic terror
Through his heart like blood. Actaeon

Bounded out across the cave's pool
In plunging leaps, amazed at his own lightness.
And there

Clear in the bulging mirror of his bow-wave
He glimpsed his antlered head,
And cried: 'What has happened to me?'

No words came. No sound came but a groan.
His only voice was a groan.
Human tears shone on his stag's face

……..

August 29th

birds decorate the

walls of the rowan cottage

welcome the new guests

Got a limited ed’ print from my great friend Bossman, very grateful for the gift, haven’t seen him or his family in ages. It’s wonderful. It’s now added to our collection of bird related art all over our house! it’s by Cole Gerst, simply called Blackbirds.

August 22nd

 

an aspiration

to ascend on angel wings

carried to the stars

Went to a great exhibition at Compton Verney, called Flight and the Artistic Imagination.

It captures the spirit of humanity’s longing to fly, from the earliest times, in antiquity, to the modern day. And how flight has been an influence.

There are works on display by diverse artists, among the great and the good, Goya, Da Vinci, Paul Nash, Delacroix to name but a few. The beautiful piece below, a paper collage, is by Matisse. It depicts Icarus. Perhaps flying, perhaps falling into the sea. His heart glows red, a nod to our mortality when faced with such lofty ambitions as wanting to fly. Icarus didn’t listen to his master craftsman father Daedalus. He took the wings his father made for him and flew too close to the sun. The wax on the wings melted and he crashed into the sea and died.

July 6th

my insignificance

in the majesty of stars

a lonely vigil

I popped into the new Edvard Munch exhibition at the Tate Modern after work. I rushed through as I wanted to get a taste for it, as a member I can visit anytime for a more leisurely (although leisurely may be the wrong word) visit at a later date. Munch is one of my favourite painters. The collection they’ve pulled together for this exhibition is great. There is an intense loneliness about his work.

For example, Starry Night. Initially it seems this is a celebration of stars and clear crisp nights. And indeed it is. But what appears to be the artists shadow thrown across the ground just speaks of loneliness and melancholy to me. How we are alone. It moves me. As does most of his work.

(pic from Tate website)

May 26th

The egg sac seething

silk severed weave and repair

afraid of the dark

I went to the Freud Museum, to catch the Louise Bourgeois exhibition “the return of the repressed” before it finished. I really admire Bourgeois work, so interesting and unique, so personal.

There is something ancient and deep seated about her art, from the darkest recesses of dreams and metaphor. It speaks of maternal relationships, sadness, abandonment. It really drags you in. It makes you feel something. Her work is honest and beautiful.

I’ve interlaced some of her words in the Haiku.

"I came from a family of repairers. The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn't get mad. She weaves and repairs it."

(one of Bourgeois’ spiders in the garden, i took the photo, then I noticed the “no photography” sign, oops)

And also from her textile piece “I am afraid”.

 

I am afraid of silence

I am afraid of the dark

I am afraid to fall down

I am afraid of insomnia

I am afraid of emptiness

 

Is something missing?

yes, something is missing and always will be missing

the experience of emptiness

 

To miss

what are you missing?

nothing

I am imperfect but I am lacking nothing

maybe something is missing but I do not know and therefore do not suffer

 

empty stomach empty house empty bottle

the falling into a vacuum signals the abandonment of the mother.

May 9th

Sleeping filament

Lampada Annuale

no one saw it glow

Went to the Tate Modern after work, getting the most out of my membership! I sat in the members room for a bit with a scone and some tea and did a bit of work on my laptop, then I had a wander.

The Alighiero Boetti exhibition is great fun and very thought provoking. Like many people, I kind of was drawn to the Lampada Annuale (annual lamp) which only switches itself on randomly for 11 seconds in any one year. So naturally you are drawn to it, hoping to be bestowed the wonderful gift of light.

For an online experience of the same sense of expectancy, check this fun website!

I didn’t dwell for long, but I’m sure some people wait ages. Patience is a virtue. I strolled away with a wry smile.

May 8th

Boy in wolf’s clothing

a son of truth and anger

where the wild things are

A great man died. I feel very sad. Rest in Peace Maurice Sendak.

“I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more.... What I dread is the isolation.... There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I’m ready, I’m ready, I’m ready.”

(images from the guardian and harper collins)

May 2nd

The friendly eye dulled

Goddess lashes framed by blood

A slow gutter crawl

It just seemed meaningless, the cows head being slowly devoured by flies. Sure it was probably going to be dumped anyway, picked up from an abattoir somewhere.

Damien Hirst says nothing to me.

(me and the Bossman went to his private view at the Tate Modern)

April 28th

While the blizzard raged

raw pained hands frostbitten black

wrote letters of love

Went to the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge today. This is the last week for the Captain Scott exhibition they are running. And what a gold mine it was. It covered a brief history of polar exploration, looking at artefacts from the likes of Ross, Perry and Franklin but also included such rare items as Scott’s last journal was on show, on loan from the British Library. A selection of the last letters each of the men who died is also there amongst other photographs and artefacts.

There is something calm,dignified and although a cliche, terribly British about their demise. So calm in the face of losing their friends, watching each other weaken, knowing they will never see their loved ones again. Even though their hands were probably shredded, blackened and crippled by frostbite, they wrote. Scott himself wrote to all of the families and loved ones of his party, telling them how brave they were, how proud they should be of them. His guilt at not being able to save them seeped out of his handwriting.

Edward Wilson, one of the party, was an incredibly talented man. Physician, Naturalist, Botanist and Artist, the letter below just made my heart ache. They knew they were going to die, they wanted to tell their friends how much they cared for them. Although the original letter was on show, I’m sharing a photo of the transcript of it.

And the famous last journal entry of Captain Scott. “For God’s sake look after our people”

Finally one of Wilson watercolours, Paraselena Jan 15. 1911. 9.30pm Cape Evans McMurdo Sound. This is also on display in the exhibition. A set of skis for every lost explorer.

April 25th

 

In the library

a sunny child explorer

is picked by a book

Rainy days are book days. I’m not a kindle person, I feel traitorous to that smell of new books, or the feel and smell of the battered lived in books that adorn my collection. A new purchase of mine is the Magic Of Reality by Richard Dawkins, illustrated by one of my favourite artists Dave McKean. That’s not to say I wouldn’t own the App which goes with it, it sounds fab, but alas I do not own an iPad, otherwise I’d be right there in that interactive world! But it would be to complement the book, not to replace it.

The Magic of Reality has that quality to inform and entertain, to keep you captivated. It covers the science of grand concepts beautifully and of course it is furnished with absolutely lovely art. It fired neurones in my brain which released happiness associated with childhood. Those wide eyed times when a trip to the library was a proper day out. Wandering through the shelves, being drawn to an evocative title, a story of true adventure or books where you could peel away the layers of skin for a subject and understand what makes things tick (literally so in the case of anatomy books).

Those were times where it felt books were precious. When the book chose you.

April 21st

Down hellish spirals

the virtuous pagan bounds

perpetually

 

After the football yesterday (a drab 0-0 draw vs Chelsea) I took my usual brisk stroll to Caledonian Road tube station. Unless I’m feeling particularly lazy, I take the spiral staircases down to platform level. I do it as fast as I can, bounding, sometimes two at a time. There is nothing like a leg burning descent to get the heart pumping and the mind racing. Although ascending is tougher, it hints at light and redemption. A descent however, (taking aside the pragmatic need to actually catch a tube train to reach a destination!), feels more sinister, feeding the primitive danger receptors in the ancient parts of our brain.

I thought about Dante and his layers of hell. And of William Blake and his depictions of it. According to this website, Caledonian Road has 134 Steps, making it sixth deepest in the tube network. In your face Moorgate! (seventh).

And here is one of Blake’s incredible images of Hell. The Lovers Whirlwind. 1824-1827. (pen, ink, watercolour). Just like the Piccadilly Line! Truly mesmerising. I’d love to see all of these works in full someday. Caught sight of a few of them in the Tate (Britain) last year.

(image from wikipedia)