ARCHITECTURE / GARDENS:

Boughton House,
by Kim Wilkie

So far, so sad - the drawings of the Chelsea Barracks development are not inspiring. 

Work begins in the new year.  The architects are Squire & Partners.  The buildings on Chelsea Bridge Road will face the nondescript addition to Wren's Royal Hospital by Quinlan Terry [see my blog entry of July 24, 2013].  Promised are 'promenade gardens', which presumably means they will be open to the public and, most encouraging, is the choice of the talented landscape architect Kim Wilkie who loves water.

LIVING BY DESIGN: French Vogue [1976] discusses John Stefanidis

ART I Admire: The Eisenheim Altarpiece by Niclaus of Haguenau and Matthias Grünewald in 1512–1516

 

SEASON'S GREETINGS

MUSIC: 'Parsifal' at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

The production left one mystified, not surprising given Wagner's libretto - mystical, religious, sacrilegious, and self-indulgent** BUT the music was SUBLIME.

*The setting was modern, an obstructive cube centre stage. Grey seems to be mandatory in this kind of production, recalling the monochromatic Candy & Candy interiors. The more abstract the setting the better but....

BOOKS:

I think wanting to meet people who lived in past centuries rather fatuous.......BUT at the end of the 18th Century - before, during or after the Terror in the French Revolution - how I would have loved to know: 

Le Prince de Liège, Talleyrand**, Mme. de la Tour du Pin.

**I was reminded of Duff Cooper's biography on reading his wife Diana's letters to their son [see blog entry of October 23, 2103].  I re-read this masterly book with the greatest pleasure.

FABRICS: John Stefanidis Browns

JS painted mirror
 JS Diamonds in Mocha fabric walling

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

SHOPPING / BOOKS: Stocking fillers from John Sandoe Books

www.johnsandoe.com

COMMENT / MUSIC / ART

Lucky people who live in Chelsea, or in the vicinity.

The Saatchi Gallery, in the old Duke of York building, has more than fulfilled its promise, as has Cadogan Hall where I recently went to a concert performance of EURYANTHE by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826) -  based on a French 13th Century romance, the opera heralds Wagner - performed by the valiant Chelsea Opera Group and conducted by a promising newcomer Cameron Burns, it was enchanting and very well sung - the chorus somewhat under power.  The hall has good acoustics the chairs are hard but very comfortable - it is a pity that this eccentric building was not converted from church to concert hall with more flair, it has a church hall atmosphere which does not concur with all the NEW architectural spaces that abound in LONDON.....garlanded as it has become with visual excitements, exhibitions, theatre and music galore.

ART I ADMIRE: Francis Bacon

Man with Dog [1953]

I first saw a Francis Bacon in London and up at Oxford - note the 'parlance'. A dog peeing at Erica Brausen's ** Hanover Gallery and I was stunned.  

Next came the Study after Velasquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, [1953] and the rest is history, as it is said.

Lying Figure, 1969

**A German from a Berlin banking family, she escaped the Nazis and slipped into England anonymously in a group of white-clad worshipers of a famous Indian guru. Hers was the first gallery to my knowledge to show Bacon and, indeed, Magritte and Calder.

SHOPPING: NIWAKI.com

GARDENERS not aware of Niwaki.com need to get on to the site for the best secateurs available and much else...

www.niwaki.com.

BOOKS: Vladimir Nabokov & Orhan Pamuk

First UK Edition

Memory and nostalgia are selective and play a great part in literature of all kinds.  I have recently read Vladimir Nabokov's Speak Memory - a master work of memoir that vividly evokes pre-Revolutionary Russia. 

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk is a slog by comparison but it too
transmits an acute sensibility.  Now there is a picture book, The Innocence of Objects -Pamuk's meticulously arranged museum of nostalgia - an extraordinary and riveting indulgence. Rooms everywhere have reference to the owner's past or present interests, their travels, their sensibility and, in some cases, their ability to arrange all this memorabilia in ways that please - we all have a museum of sorts.  

LIVING BY DESIGN: A Show Flat

John Stefanidis

Big Ben is a neighbour. 
A commercial development for Ballymore

COMMENT: Feeling low?

Listen to a speaker on Ted.com and restore your faith in human nature.



Ted.com is financed by a non-profit organisation established in 1990 by Chris Anderson

POETRY: Stevie Smith

A salutary lesson - friends take note:

''People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith at best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages.''

Stevie Smith (1902-1971), British poet, novelist. The Past, Selected Poems (1962).

SHOPPING: David Linley & David Mellor

Xmas present from Linley?Smart cylinder contains matches to light a gladdening fire www.davidlinley.com

Firewood in basket ..multiple use... from a uniquely good shop: David Mellor.

www.davidmellordesign.com

ART I ADMIRE: The Drawings of Jasper Johns [1930 - ]

Jubilee

Untitled 1963

Flags

Souvenir 1964

CLEARING OUT OF POSTCARDS... with apologies to my friends

LIVING BY DESIGN / BOOKS: Jacques Grange

Un décor de Jacques ne s’explique pas, on y est sensible - Pierre Passebon

Grange epitomises the sophistication of a great designer adept at juggling, matching and mismatching different styles.  He is, in his very essence, a civilised and articulate man...with a Developed Eye.  He has a quintessentially French understanding of opulence, understatement and comfort.

ARCHITECTURE: St. George's Church, Bloomsbury

The portico is modelled on the Temple of Jupiter at Baalbek, the tower influenced by the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, with sculptures of lions and unicorns - the union of England & Scotland - a Hawskmoor (1661-1736) masterpiece.

Below: The Charles Grant Monument - Chairman of the East India Company [family famous for Grant's Whisky] - a friend of William Wilberforce, the abolitionist.

POETRY: Extract from Alexander Pushkin: TO NATALYA

So it's come to me at last ---

Cupid's such a flighty chap;

Fevered heart, has it fast --

In a trice I'm in his trap!

Vanished is the joyful day

When, not knowing love's dismay

I could live and blithely sing

At the theatre and fête,

Promenade and masquerade,

As a zephyr light of wing;

When I'd laugh at Cupid's spite,

Scoffing satires I would write

On the charming female kind;

But alas, I laughed in vain,

Felt at last his arrow's pain,

Fell myself out of my mind.

Freedom, mirth, wiped of the slate --- oh,

I must take a break from Cato

And assume a lover's part:

Saw the beauty of Natalya,

Lovely votaress of Thalia;

Now --- here's Cupid in my heart! 

LIVING BY DESIGN:

John Stefanidis 

 An Exercise in Luxury - Manhattan, NY

BOOKS: By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elisabeth Smart

Available from Amazon in paperback only

AWESOME - first published in 1945, it is three decades since I first read this extraordinary book and I was, once more, astonished.  A masterpiece of poetic prose.

To quote Brigid Brophy in her Foreword to the book 'Reading the book is like saying a tragic, pagan, erotic rosary'. 

LIVING BY DESIGN: Art Deco is still with us

Cecil Beaton, Loelia, Duchess of Westminster.
She is wearing a diamond tiara by Lacloche, [1930]

Still from Grand Hotel, directed by Edmund Goulding (1932)

Bernard Boutet de Monvel The Maharaja of Indore in Occidental Dress [1929)

Jean Dunand, pair of vases (1931)