A Gentle Escape...

As I wandered around the Tate Britain a few weeks past, I felt as if I were again encountering and reconnecting with what had once been the foundations and fabric of so much that I had loved in art. Looking at the paintings that had so fascinated me all those years ago, I had the impression I was revisiting places or people precious to me. Stepping out of busy 21st century London streets, and into this vast art gallery enabled me to escape from the less savoury aspects of modern life in a realm far removed from the pettiness, paltriness and often plain ugliness of today’s civilized society. There was something soothing and gratifying to be surrounded by the art of centuries past, a reflection of History that gives the present day, our lives and even mortality itself another perspective. Like Nature itself, History just is; and as such is deaf and blind to our perceptions and reactions to rights and wrongs; the good and the bad that punctuate its substance finally seem to highlight the words 'This too shall pass'. In one of the rooms, a small painting caught my attention with its curious jewel-like quality and tranquil air. Coming from Evening Church by Samuel Palmer (1805–1881), painted in 1830, somehow seemed to possess a strange essence unlike any other of the works that were familiar to me and were certainly more well-known. Its combination of tempera, chalk, gold, ink and graphite on gesso creates an almost enamel aspect, and the colours both calm yet curiously vibrant, with ocre, reds and dark blue in the clothing of the procession of worshippers winding their away towards us, away from the church. The latter has a bizarre almost childish cone-form nave, that is repeated in several other oddly-shaped buildings, but its spire stands tall, moonlit in the night sky. The whole scene is framed by trees with delicate leaves and branches that are silhouetted against the huge full moon which is set in skies that are pale blue, in contrast to the stark forms of dark green bushes and outlined trees. In the background, strangely steep hills tower up with their undulating forms that pick up the curves and rounded shapes in the valley scene below, and of course the moon itself. The gallery inscription next to the painting cited Palmer himself - describing the work of William Blake (1757–1827) - pointing out that these words could indeed be applied to his own art and vision; “There is in all such a mystic and dreamy glimmer as penetrates and kindles the inmost soul”. Samuel Palmer was an admirer of Blake’s visionary art, and is known today for his images of rural scenery that were based on an imagined, sensory reality rather than disciplined observations of landscape before him. Born in London in 1805 to a bookseller father and a devout mother, Palmer grew up with literature but had no formal academic artistic training as such, yet at the age of 14, his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy. Despite this achievement, he himself was increasingly inspired by art that seemed to flout a staid, conventional approach and he was influenced in part by work displayed at the British Museum.

Key influence on his early life was his meeting with landscapist John Linnell (1792-1882) in 1822. Linnell not only saved the young artist from “the pit of modern art” by enabling him to learn from ancient Italian and German masters, but more importantly introduced him to William Blake. Palmer’s vision thus grew from art “as old as time”, with Gothic art and the Northern Renaissance artists such as Van Leyden and Dürer but also Turner and Blake himself. Wishing to experience the same spiritual visions as Blake to fire his art, Palmer earnestly devoted himself to his work, becoming a member of the Ancients, an artistic brotherhood that preferred a more primitive approach to life and art over the slavish, descriptive Classical pieces so favoured by the Royal Academy. He moved to Shoreham, Kent in 1827, where he produced his most other-worldly images of the rural lands that he found more mesmerizing than any other. Drawn to the night skies, moon and stars, he and his fellow Ancients wandered in the dark to capture the nocturnal landscapes. With Palmer dressed in archaic clothing, complete with flowing beard and a Christ-like allure, the group must have made quite an impression on the locals who referred to them as ‘astrologers’!

The seven-year period in Kent were in fact to be his most productive as he was drawn to the mystic, Romantic qualities of nature, seeing the spiritual all around him, transforming the visible through the lens of his heightened imagination. He mourned the demise of the pastoral way of life and the land itself that was being transformed by the Industrial Revolution. Having returned to London, his subsequent marriage to Hannah Linnell (daughter of John) in 1837 marked the beginning of a new stage in his life, and indeed his art… Unable to support his family, Palmer sought to pursue a more conventional approach to his art, and was obliged to pander somewhat to public taste and give private lessons to increase his income. His mature work – often watercolour – was artistically accomplished but never quite captured the same sensory essence as his Shoreham art and Palmer was largely a commercial failure during his lifetime. Much of his work and studies were lost due to their destruction by his son, after Palmer’s death, in the belief that “…no one would be able to make head or tail of what I burnt; I wished to save it from a more humiliating fate". And so one individual’s decision to whitewash the past deprived the world of a piece of collective history. Hmmm...

Crochet Comfort..

Although I seem to have achieved very little this month, I have managed to make a start on a new crochet blanket which was initially an endeavour to use up the leftover wool from previous pieces. However, as I soon realised that I do not want a mini replica of these past works, I have ended up buying new colours and so I suspect that the process is destined to go on in a never-ending circle. Still, I do know two precious beings who will be quite content with that state of affairs as they seem to take a great deal of comfort from the actual wool itself and from taking centre stage in any kind of creative activity, usually depositing a few stray hairs in the process!

Nocturnal Blossom, Branches and Buds...

I thought March would be a month of calm but that has not been the case and all the positives of the end of February fizzled away... As always, however, there was beauty to be found, even on the coldest evenings, as I trudged home...

With the night lights shining through the branches and blossom, another delicate world of magic seemed to come to life and take me away from dull routine...

And even in the darkness, the spring buds are visible, bursting open again as another year begins...

And the blossom appears...

Calm away from the Cold...

The desire to hibernate has got the better of me this year, and I cannot wait to get back to the warmth and calm of home - or my favourite haunts offering those creature comforts and above all the essential element in the mix; actual creatures in the form of cats!

When I travel, cats are somewhat rather few and far between - certainly in the winter months - so I turn to coffee shops to give me an alternative fix - typically of cafeine and coziness.

This time, the beautiful flowers of Spring in the café windows in Penzance were the perfect antidote to the bitter cold outside and just looking at them even now makes me feel calm, though the fact that I have returned home to my cats does help towards that general feeling of well-being!

Butterflies and Beauty from your Fingertips...

Walking home last night, the fading light behind the strangely pollarded trees outlined the spidery boughs with the silhouettes of their spear-like branches and forceful buds, fighting against the cold in order to burst out for Spring. This reminded me again of the painted fairy-tale scene that my aunt had worked on about 70 years ago. While the image itself is quite intriguing, with its eerie atmosphere as the delicate dancer performs her arabesque - her features so similar to a Aubrey Beardsley drawing - the volume of her gown mesmerizes and draws you in as the lustrous crumpled satin catches the light and makes it glow.

That magical iridescence is of course from the butterfly-wing background that creates a mesmerizing effect unlike any other. Although I would not wish to endorse the trade in mounted butterflies and insects, I did recently acquire a beautiful framed Morpho 'Menelaus' at a local antique market using the flawed reasoning that as I did not buy this specimen first-hand from a shop, my act is not quite as condemnable. Its bright blue wings, bordered in black like the framed picture, catch all and any light, giving a strange metalic sheen and density to their papery substance in a almost contradictory way.

Meanwhile, my aunt recently showed me some of her other work that pre-dates the butterfly piece, when she was just 18; watercolour and oil paint miniatures set in a gold pendant and a brooch.

One is a Pompadour courtesan in her flowery finery - with features quite like those of the butterfly dancer - and then the other, based on a Gainsborough lady, dressed in her flowing dress as a dog prances at her feet in the English countryside. Even after all these years, the delicate paintings are still intact, even though the watercolour has flaked a little. These reminded me of the Elizabethan portrait miniatures, one of which can be seen on this beautiful painting that I happened to see this weekend at the Tate gallery in London.

And so what has my aunt been doing over the decades? Well, she has continued to produce beautiful art that has been exhibited in galleries in Birmingham and London, although perhaps her moment of glory was shortly before her 90th birthday... Her version of Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring - Bubby the dog - led to her acceptance in the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Just goes to show, there is no age for creating beauty - it is in the eyes and fingertips!

Tightrope Tales from Brum and Beyond....

In 1992 the statue of a famous character was erected on the busy Ladywood ring road in Birmingham, England. Having passed by this figure many times, I just assumed it was a quirky but obscure reference to Cervantes’ Don Quixote but never quite understood what the eccentric Spaniard, complete with lance but minus his side-kick, Sancho Panza had to do with Brum.

Well, following a recent walk around the nearby Edgbaston Reservoir I finally discovered that Don Quixote had never actually tilted at windmills in the Midlands at all, and therefore the odd figure balanced between the lines of relentless rush-hour traffic is someone entirely different, albeit unique in his own way too.

It is Charles Blondin, the infamous tightrope artist, who tiptoes above the traffic at Ladywood, to mark a momentous crossing he had made across the reservoir waters in 1873, 150 years past. Little did I know this, however, as I stepped along the Reservoir’s grassy expanses surrounding the water in search of snowdrops and crocuses!

Almost two hundred years ago in February 1824, a certain Jean-François Gravelet was born into a family of acrobats in the Pas de Calais region of Northern France with performance skills in his very blood. By the time he was orphaned at the age of 10, he had already earned the stage names Le Petit Prodige and La Petite Merveille, having been enrolled in the Ecole de Gymnase in Lyon at 6 years old.

Needing to support himself, he commenced work as a performer – an aerialist acrobat, specializing in the tight rope skills - and made his way around provincial France. Travelling to the New World, he hoped to find new opportunities in mid-century America and at one point he even performed in New York City as part of Phineas Taylor Barnum’s Greatest Show on Earth. He went on to tour the States with the Ravel acrobat troupe, shortly after adopting his stage name ‘Charles Blondin’, partially due to his golden hair.

During one tour in 1858, he was stunned by the natural wonder of Niagara Falls and so was born his obsession to cross this vast abyss as a hitherto-never-performed stunt. Despite opposition from officials, duly concerned by the safety practicalities (non-existant), Blondin performed his legendary walk the following year. Although it had taken 5 months to prepare the rope and guy lines, Blondin made his way across the treacherous falls in less than 20 minutes and then retraced his light-footed steps back in under 10! Thousands of spectators watched on in disbelief and with bated breath as the diminutive Blondin became a living legend.

Eager to prove that he was no one-trick pony, he then upped his public display by incorporating other stunts into his performance, wherever he went and relished the opportunity to do so. Thus, he would walk blindfolded, on stilts, pushing a wheelbarrow, taking photographs, cooking an omelette mid-course, generally having transported the cumbersome equipment on his back… and of course carrying his manager likewise!

The Great Blondin had naturally gained international acclaim overnight as The Daredevel Wire Walker yet often the tightrope used was made of Manila hemp, hence giving him another rather exotic title as the Prince of Manila. Due to the vast earnings garnered by his unparalleled feats, Blondin set up home near London in an Ealing home fittingly named Niagara Villa.

For all his financial ease, Blondin manifestly thrived on dares and adrenalin and continued to perform across England. The Prince of Wales requested that he carry out a dramatic stunt at the Crystal Palace in 1861 and Blondin duly obeyed, adding to his already breath-taking act by pushing his young daughter along the highwire in a wheelbarrow as she dropped rose petals on the mesmerized crowds below. Such was the shock and outrage caused that Blondin had to desist using this particular touch on order from the Home secretary.

Charles Dickens rightly and wrily observed that "Half of London is here eager for some dreadful accident." On another occasion in Liverpool, the audience almost got what they most dreaded and desired in equal measure when a wheelbarrow transporting a lion (live, needless to say), entangled itself in a guy rope. Incredibly, the beast and Blondin survived this exploit and he went on to perform many others – such as high-wire somersaults and a bicycle ride stunt. Even with age, it seems that little deterred this old dog from learning new tricks, leading him to deliver acts well into his sixties. He died of a diabetes-related illness in February 1897, with his last performance at 72, the previous year…

A Boar's Maw...

One curious image that I had kept of a piece of art seen in my childhood, but retained only as an unidentified haze in my mind, finally turned out to be that of a Medieval illumination. Delighted to come across the intriguing picture again - some fifty years after initially seeing it a child – I was able to learn of its significance in the Middle Ages. It is an odd scene – I recalled staring at the dark boar with its powerful jaws bearing down on the trunk of a tree whilst a curious character perches at the very top, his funny claw-toed feet pointing down. Looking at it today, this unsettling mix of menace and melodrama creates an almost sinister effect, albeit a little comic.

In fact, this was one of the illuminated pages from the 14th century treatise on hunting Le livre du Roy Modus et de la Royne Racio (1354–1376), attributed to Henri de Ferrières. King Modus (referring to ‘good practice’) enters into discussion with various individuals about the nature of animals and the manner in which they should be hunted whilst Queen Ratio (‘reason’) explains how animals behave. Such was the importance of hunting in Medieval times that studies were devoted to its art so that its rituals could be observed and honoured in the correct manner. The precise terminology, and rich symbolism and ceremony of the hunt were expounded in Le Livre de Roy Modus which often acted as the reference to subsequent works such as Livre de Chasse (1387–1389) by Gaston III Phėbus, Comte de Foix.

Far more than a mere bawdy and boorish sport, hunting was thought to represent idealized noble virtues that it brought to the fore. In times of peace, the hunt not only enabled knights to practice and perfect their martial skills to fight for king and country, it also presented royalty and nobility alike with an honourable passtime of sophistication, skill and great finery. In some respects, it was almost on a par with the ceremonial acts of worship, with the chase and kill seen as rituals of redemption and purification, offering the huntsman the tantalizing promise of paradise. Hunting was likewise associated with courtly love – fin amor – expressed in the troubadours’ poetic music that developed the notion of chilvaric romance in 12th century southern France before spreading far further afield. Indeed, love and courtship followed the same stages as hunting – pursuit, struggle and conquest – with purity and virtue reflected in the deeds of the Medieval knights of valour just as they were in the mythological figure of Diana the huntress, goddess of the moon.

Through Medieval bestiaries most creatures were given symbolic importance, often representing religious sins, vices or virtues, and hence hunting could be seen as an act of faith. Deer-hunting was the most noble form of the art as the stag – preferably a white hart –lauded as a symbol of Christ Himself, pitted against the Satanic serpent that it would readily track down and trample. As the stag represented the words of Jesus and heralded Christian virtues, you might well wonder why it would then be deemed appropriate to slay it, but bloodshed was indeed an essential rite in the proceedings. A perhaps more ‘suitable’ quarry, on polar opposites to the virtuous stag was the beastly boar which fell into the same category as other ‘beste noire’ creatures of ‘stinking feet’; the bear, wolf and otter, according to Queen Ratio in de Ferrières’ treatise,. The good queen indeed listed a number of the boar’s base characteristics; black and bristly, raging and rampant, proud and petulant, low and lawless, fearless and ferocious. At best, it was a brutish yet brave beast, ready to stand its ground and defend it to the last with its dagger-like tusks and formidable force. At the worst, the boar was taken to be an anti-Christ, or at least its mouthpiece, spewing evil words to exhort sin, so much so that after death, its tongue had to be pierced with a sword and its heart and entrails burnt rather buried or fed to the hounds.

Unlike the noble stag that could be pursued and shot at with arrows before being dealt a final blow to the neck, the boar had to be charged at head on, if possible. Rather than immobilizing the boar with a lance wielded like a jousting weapon, from a height (horseback) or hurled from a safe distance, it had to be struck with a special sword, thus demonstrating great mastery and even greater courage. The boar would thrash and thrust at hounds, huntsmen and horse alike, its tusks fully capable of killing pursuers and tormentors in the ensuing struggle of literally epic proportion until finally incapacitated. The poor much-maligned boar – not much has changed over the centuries! At least what passed for the defiant ‘pride’ of the unrepentant boar in Medieval times had been lauded as commendable bravery in early Anglo-Saxon culture where pagan gods and spirits were worshipped. The image or form of a bellicose boar would often feature on helmets or battle weapons, offering sacred protection to warriors such as Beowulf, leading them to hold their ground and fight to the end…

On my illuminated boar, the usually voracious, ferocious gaping mouth – known as the maw – appears slightly comic as it casually closes around the spindly trunk of sapling tree bearing a rather underwhelming anti-Christ. The latter looks on, the whites of his widened eyes glinting in contrast to the dark, stark talons on his hands and feet and the spikes on his crown. Although unable to understand his full role here, I am quite content just to have tracked down this particular beast after all these years. What did the illuminator intend centuries ago, I wonder? Why was the anti-Christ boar trying to dislodge this hapless Anti-Christ?

Just by chance I happened to see a boar attack in the 1994 film, La Reine Margot by Patrice Chéreau whilst trying to track down scenes filmed in l'Ancien Collège des Jésuites in Reims (today Sciences Po)... This was an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alexandre Dumas père, dealing with the life of Marguerite de Valois, entwined with the French Wars of Religion, leading to the Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy of 1572 with the slaughter of the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants). In both novel and film, king Charles IX is turned on by a boar during the Royal hunt...

« Les dogues ! cria Charles, les dogues !... » A ce cri, le piqueur ouvrit les porte-mousquetons des laisses, et les deux molosses se ruèrent au milieu du carnage, renversant tout, écartant tout, se frayant avec leurs cottes de fer un chemin jusqu'à l'animal, qu'ils saisirent chacun par une oreille. Le sanglier, se sentant coiffé, fit claquer ses dents à la fois de rage et de douleur. « Bravo ! Duredent ! bravo ! Risquetout ! cria Charles. Courage, les chiens ! Un épieu ! un épieu ! - Vous ne voulez pas mon arquebuse ? dit le duc d'Alençon. - Non, cria le roi, non, on ne sent pas entrer la balle ; il n'y a pas de plaisir ; tandis qu'on sent entrer l'épieu. Un épieu ! un épieu ! » on présenta au roi un épieu de chasse durci au feu et armé d'une pointe de fer. « Mon frère, prenez garde ! cria Marguerite. - Sus ! sus ! cria la duchesse de Nevers. Ne le manquez pas, Sire ! Un bon coup à ce parpaillot ! - Soyez tranquille, duchesse ! » dit Charles. Et, mettant son épieu en arrêt, il fondit sur le sanglier, qui, tenu par les deux chiens, ne put éviter le coup. Cependant, à la vue de l'épieu luisant, il fit un mouvement de côté, et l'arme, au lieu de pénétrer dans la poitrine, glissa sur l'épaule et alla s'émousser sur la roche contre laquelle l'animal était acculé. « Mille noms d'un diable ! cria le roi, je l'ai manqué... Un épieu ! un épieu ! » Et, se reculant comme faisaient les chevaliers lorsqu'ils prenaient du champ, il jeta à dix pas de lui son épieu hors de service. Un piqueur s'avança pour lui en offrir un autre. Mais au même moment, comme s'il eût prévu le sort qui l'attendait et qu'il eût voulu s'y soustraire, le sanglier, par un violent effort, arracha aux dents des molosses ses deux oreilles déchirées, et, les yeux sanglants, hérissé, hideux, l'haleine bruyante comme un soufflet de forge, faisant claquer ses dents l'une contre l'autre, il s'élança la tête basse, vers le cheval du roi.