After the glory
Blossom trampled in the mud
Sloes swell and take shape
Rain Rain Rain! Was cooped up working at home. I thought of missing out on all the fun in the moors. The blackthorn blossom would have fallen, tiny sloe berries would be forming in its place.
white wall of blossoms
blackthorns bowing and swaying
my guard of honour
When I go for a run or walk, I always take the same route, always run it the same way, I guess I’ve got a little bit of OCD or something :) Don’t know why I don’t reverse the route sometimes. You see a whole lot more, you are faced with the spectacle of new perspectives, stuff that will stop you in your tracks. I noticed something today which made me turn back, I was aware of a long row of blackthorns, all were white and bursting with flowers. I stopped running and turned back to look at the row and took in the view I’d never seen before, not from that angle anyway. It was beautiful. I then carried on my run.
Going to try and get a photograph of it in the next couple of days, it’s in Centenary Wood nearby, it wont be there for long.
Resplendent cherry
Transient beauty breathing
Blossom pink and white
Flowering cherry trees at this time of year are just stunning, the fact they flower in such a small window of time is one of the joys and sadnesses of the season. It’s a bit of a Haiku cliche to mention cherry blossom, I think of a shinto priest scribing as the blossom falls down onto his bald pate. A tear falls on his parchment….. yeah, all cliche’d, but sod it. I don’t care! It *is* beautiful :)
A photo I took from down the lane.
I’m publishing two days worth in one go today, the Haiku’s are so different, yet they seem complementary. We’ve just been for a two day trip to London, where, interrupted by a wonderful visit to the theatre (The Ladykillers – very funny adaptation by Graham Linehan) we saw the exhibitions by two of the giants, in fact I would say, the top two British Artists spanning the of 20th and 21st Centuries. Namely David Hockney and Lucian Freud. It seems apt to publish the Haiku’s side by side.
Hockney’s exhibition at the Royal Academy is stunning in its colour and joy. Since his return to England from L.A he’s been painting every day in his native Yorkshire, capturing the change in the seasons. His work for Spring is just so heart warming and vivid.
This painting captures the time of year Hockney calls “Action Week” where the transient Hawthorn Blossom appears and then swiftly disappears. It’s very poetic. This is a large painting, visually stunning.
My Haiku in humble appreciation of it, is below. I like the semi animalistic forms in the foliage too. And look at that sky. There’s something of the fairy tale about this work.
Hawthorn blossoming
Unbound spring bursts in the trees
Renewal brightness
Freud on the other hand, who divides opinion (I love his work by the way) has a retrospective of portraits at the National Portrait Gallery. This is the first major exhibition of his work since his death last year. I was discussing it with Debbie, but there is something of the instinctive, the animal in his work. And the capture of skin tone, it’s almost dead in pallor at times. But it feels real, raw and honest. I’ve used one of his own quotes in the last line of my Haiku where he talks about the importance of flesh in his work.
The Haiku itself relates to a specific self portrait “Self Portrait, Reflection 1981-82”. There is definitely something of the hunter about him in this, a bird of prey. His eye even looks like it’s pulled to the side of his head to give him a wider field of vision for observing his quarry.
Feral scrutiny
Tilted head hawk gaze devours
Paint to work as flesh
Londoners or those in the region are fortunate that both exhibitions are running concurrently. I would thoroughly recommend both, for different reasons. They will be worthy of a proper post on my main blog in due course.
