COMMENT: Dreyfus Affair

The clearest summary of the Dreyfus Affair (pace Marcel Proust) in the International New York Times* January 18. by Robert Harris.
"The whistle-blower who freed Dreyfus". There will follow a book about Georges Picquart "An Affair and a Spy".

* Is it proof of American hegemony that this newspaper title was changed from 'The International Herald Tribune'? Reminiscent of Americans in Paris - cosmopolitan and so well established in the European psyche - a pity. 

POETRY: Lovely Woman - a ballad - Du Fu

On the third day of the month, when the weather

is clear and fresh

A number of lovely women come to the lakeside in

Chang'an.

Exquisite to look at, they carry themselves with a

distant, decorous air,

Their skin refined, their figures formed in elegant

proportions.

The clothes they wear of embroidered silk shine in the

late spring air,

With peacocks done in gold trim and silver unicorns.

And what are the ladies wearing on their heads?

 Flowered plumes of kingfisher green hung to the edge

of their hair.

And what are they showing at their backs?

Closely fitting outer skirts of pearls that hug their

waits.

Among them are kin of the Mistress of the 

Cloud-draped Pepper-scent Chambers,

Ladies ennobled with the names of the great states

Guo and Qin.

Purple camel humps are served, protruding from green

cauldrons,

And pure white fish is brought to them on plates of

crystal glass,

But sated with food, they have little use for their rhino

horn chopsticks,

So chefs waste effort cutting slices with their tinkling knives

While eunuchs' horses fly to and fro without

disturbing the dust

Bringing a series of delectable dishes from the

imperial kitchens.

Then flutes and drums call mournfully with a sound to

stir the gods,

And guests and followers come in throngs, a truly

mighty gathering,

As last of all a rider brings his sauntering horse to

the railing, 

Where he dismounts and goes inside to sit on the

patterned carpet.

Willow blossoms fall like snow and cover the

white frogbit;

A crimson kerchief in its beak, a bluebird flies away.

His power is extraordinary, enough to burn your

hands on;

Take care - do not get too close and provoke the

Chief Minister's anger.

- Du Fu

ART I admire: Robert Campin [1375-1444]

 

Portrait of a Woman [1435]                          Portrait of a Man [1430]

POETRY - Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore 1864-1941, the great Indian writer, whose poems were written in Bengali. Gitanjali (song offerings) was translated into prose by the author himself. The general consensus by W. B. Yeats, E. M. Forster et al is that much was lost in translation. 

Tagore wrote Gitanjali in 1910, received the Nobel Prize three years later. A polymath whose influence on Indian culture and Indian nationalism was vast - out of fashion perhaps his poetry lives on. 




Here is a fragment from song offering number 62.
"When I kiss your face to make you smile, my darling, I surely understand what the pleasure is that streams from the sky in the morning light, and what delight that is which the summer breeze brings to my body - when I kiss you to make you smile."

LIVING BY DESIGN: Boudin

Stéphane Boudin, who died in 1967 was the President of Maison Jansen the Parisian Interior Decoration firm founded in 1880. 

Mrs Charles Wrightsman - Palm Beach Living Room

Famous in England for the decoration of Leeds Castle in Kent for Lady Baillie and Henry Channon in Belgrave Square., London, SW1 - in the USA for his work for Jacqueline Kennedy at The White House, Washington DC, and the fabled philanthropist Mrs Charles Wrightsman, in Palm Beach and New York


Classical style, rigorous with emphasis on the best French furniture, very good pictures, beautifully bound books and 'objets de vertu', created a luxurious, unmistakable atmosphere of sophistication. 

Perpetuated by Henri Samuel who started his career with Boudin and became the doyen of this high style for decades.

TRAVEL: Glimpses of Morocco

 

 

PEOPLE I Admire - Christiane Amanpour

I hugely admire Christiane Amanpour (CNN), forthright, a melodious voice, well briefed natch but convincing on screen. Her personality and her looks are outstanding in the world of reportage where jabber jabber predominates - she is a beacon. 

LIVING BY DESIGN: Zaha Hadid

Zaha Hadid's talent simmered for years and then there was an explosion of buildings thanks be to an architects who is both innovative and a life enhancer. 

COMMENT - Tate Britain, London

Tate Britain at Millbank in London – extensively refurbished, more places to eat!  Very well done EXCEPT for the lights on the stairs and lobbies, the most mundane milk glass balls, surely the budget could have run to have hanging lights designed?  There are enough talented designers in this country. Admittedly on a very grey day, the lighting in the galleries was poor. The pictures, whether of the 1940’s or the 1600’s look FLAT, rather depressing - not so the Turners or a glowing Howard Hodgkins. 

Another exception - Henry Moore’s monumental sculptures, a room dedicated to him has pale lavender/blue walls – they look great.

ART I admire: Jacomo Pontormo [1494-1557]

Deposition from the Cross [1525-1528]

FABRICS: John Stefanidis Archive: MILETUS

LIVING BY DESIGN: Detail of John Stefanidis designed gros point [needepoint) rug with an Indian design

COMMENT / POETRY: Robert Browning

When to divorce was very difficult many a husband [or a wife, to be politically correct] on reading Robert Browning's poem My Last Duchess might wish today's mores were as they have been in centuries past - dispose of your spouse but have a portrait [photograph] painted to indulge your pride.

"There is my last Duchess painted on the wall
Looking as if she were alive!"

Find the rest on Google!

ART I Admire: Piero di Cosimo [1462-1521]

A Satyr mourning over a Nymph [1486-1510]

POETRY: Philip Larkin

'I have started to say'

I have started to say

'A quarter of a century'

Or 'thirty years back'

About my own life.

It makes me breathless.

It's like falling and recovering

In huge gesturing loops

Through an empty sky.

All that's left to happen

Is some deaths [my own included].

Their order, and their manner,

Remain to be learnt.

LIVING BY DESIGN: Abstract & Floral Designs by E. A Seguy

...From the days when the civilised world regarded Paris as the centre of the world of art and looked to that most chic of cities for the lead in fashions, not only in painting and music, but in dress and even, to some degree, in manners and mores....

Stephen Calloway, Assistant Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum 

BOOKS: The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil

Prompted by the BBC and the Press we have been amply reminded of 1914.

On the recommendation of Gita Mehta [see blog entry of Jan 13, 2013  ] I am about to embark on reading 1130 pages from the German translation of The Man Without Qualities, a Picador paperback previously published by Knopf in 1995 by Editor-in-Chief Sonny Mehta, a star of the publishing world, amongst whose writers are 10 Nobel Prize winners, is that not a WOW?

COMMENT: The New York Review of Books - the best!

ART I Admire: Oscar Murillo

Oscar Murillo, the new Colombian - a painterly painter - check him out, he is GOOD.

THEATRE: Ghosts

At London's Trafalgar Studios, I finally saw

the Almeida Theatre production of GHOSTS by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Richard Eyre who also directed the play: 'what I have written is a "version" or "adaptation" or "interpretation" of Ibsen's play, but I hope it comes near to squaring the circle of being close to what Ibsen intended while seeming spontaneous to an audience today".  

Impeccable - theatre at its best - an outstanding cast - Lesley Manville's performance as Helene Alving will be hard to forget. 

A searing criticism of nineteenth century values and hypocrisy but sympathetic to the human condition nonetheless. OMG has England not got good actors and talented directors.

FABRICS: John Stefanidis 'Paulina'

John Stefanidis Fabrics available from:

London, UK - Tissus d'Helene

Showroom: Chelsea Harbour, London, SW10 0XF

Phone: +44 (0) 20 7352 9977

Email: sales@tissusdhelene.co.uk 

Website: tissusdhelene.co.uk

Miami, USA - Monica James

Showroom: 40 NE 40th Street, Miami, FL 33137

Phone: + 1 305-576-6222

Email: sales@monicajames.com

Website: monicajames.com

Los Angeles, USA – Harbinger

Showroom: 752 North La Cienega Blvd,West Hollywood, CA 90069

Phone: +1 310 858 6884

Email: Info@HarbingerLA.com

Website: harbingerla.com

COMMENT: The New Yorker, Jan 27, 2014

Check out this issue - online if you do not get the magazine - ANNALS OF THE PRESIDENCY Going the Distance by the editor, David Remnick...level-headed and incisive, an article which gives a balanced view of Obama at the White House.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/01/27/140127fa_fact_remnick  

Obama was our hero, is he still?

BOOKS: The Parthenon by Mary Beard

A temple, an Orthodox church [for as long as it had been a temple], a mosque until the explosion of 1687 - bombed by Venetian forces, part of a Holy league against the Ottoman Empire.

A book of fascinating facts; it shows a plan for the Parthenon which was to become a royal palace for King Otto, the Bavarian who became the first King of Greece - the architect my beloved Schinkel [see my blogs posts of May 1, 2012 & May 25, 2013].

Mary Beard is very good on the Elgin Marbles controversy and never dull.

ART I admire: Albrecht Dürer

Young Dürer drawings at The Courtauld, London...haunting drawings of the artist's hands.

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/exhibitions/2013/durer/

POETRY: Rainer Maria Rilke from The Sonnets to Orpheus

Oh this is the animal that never was.
They hadn't seen one; but just the same, they loved
its graceful movements, and the way it stood
looking at them calmly, with clear eyes.

It had not been.  But for them, it appeared
in all its purity.  They left space enough.
And in the space hollowed out by their love
it stood up all at once and didn't need

existence.  They nourished it, not with grain,
but with the mere possibility of being.
And finally this gave it so much power

that from its forehead a horn grew.  One horn.
It drew near to a virgin, white, gleaming---
and was, inside the mirror and in her.

FOOD: Tramshed

Mark Hix's 'Tramshed' in Shoreditch is where it is at -- an attempted citizen's arrest of Tony Blair which 'hit' the newspapers .

The restaurant is famous for its huge Damian Hirst floating above the tables.  It has a chicken dish in which the bird is plunged head down into a plate of chips, its legs trussed - delicious (and you can take the carcass home for your dogs or to make soup).

The night I was taken to dine there - at the very long bar - perched on a stool, a white girl in a backless dress, with a mass of blonde hair, and a stunning black girl were kissing passionately. Very nice with a cocktail. 

LIVING BY DESIGN:

One of my very early commissions, a ball in the 1970's for Catherine Guinness, given for her at Kelvedon. White balloons were given radiations of pink by the lighting.  Flags were made of paper, inspired by Japanese Kabuki designs.

FILM: The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino

Set in Rome, the most beautiful of all cities, it was well received at the Venice Film Festival, very well received in the English press.  I ordered the DVD and waited in excited anticipation until it was released this month January 2014 and it is GARBAGE.  Federico Fellini must be revolving in his grave.

ARCHITECTURE I Admire: Santiago Calitrava

Felipe Science Museum, Valencia

Concert Hall, Seville

Milwaukee Art Museum, USA

FOOD: Bellamy's

The best chips in London are to be found at Bellamy's, good food, congenial in every way.

The 'patron' is Gavin Rankin (ex-Mark Birley--ran Annabels and Mark's Club)

Address: 18 Bruton Place, off Berkeley Square, Mayfair, London, W1

Web: www.bellamysrestaurant.co.uk 

POETRY: Guillaume Apollinaire

ART I Admire: Frank Gehry

Frank Gehry fish 

at the Gagosian Gallery, London W1