BOOKS: Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies

I:Pad convenience when travelling - I have just finished Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies - as readable as her last - will she, can she, might she win the 2012 Man Booker Prize after winning last year?

POETRY: A PARABLE:

A PRINCE FROM WESTERN LIBYA

Aristomenis, son of Menelaos,
the Prince from Western Libya,
was generally liked in Alexandria
during the ten days he spent there.
In keeping with his name, his dress was also suitably Greek.
He received honours gladly,
but he didn't solicit them; he was unassuming.
He bought Greek books,
especially history and philosophy.
Above all he was a man of few words.
It got around that he must be a profound thinker,
and men like that naturally don't speak very much.

He wasn't a profound thinker or anything at all--
just a piddling, laughable man.
He assumed a Greek name, dressed like the Greeks,
learned to behave more or less like a Greek;
and all the time he was terrified he'd spoil
his reasonably good image
by coming out with barbaric howlers in Greek
and the Alexandrians, in their usual way,
would start to make fun of him, vile people that they are.

This was why he limited himself to a few words,
terribly careful of his syntax and pronunciation;
and he was driven almost out of his mind, having
so much talk bottled up inside him.

C.P. Cavafy

LIVING BY DESIGN: Hints

How to deal with a corner of a room - a comfortable chair covered in a woven stripe from Antico Setificio in Florence [represented by Tissus d'Helene at London's Design Centre, Chelsea Harbour], an antique mirror and a John Stefanidis designed oak table. 

BOOKS: Frederic Prokosch

I thought discovering the writer Frederic Prokosch was to be a source of joy and quickly ordered on Amazon. 'The Asiatics' and 'America, My Wilderness' [both best sellers in their time], proved to be travel books and fables - although remarkable - too artificial and dated.

MORE EGYPTOMANIA

Hollywood's version - Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra [1963]- a film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz - unforgettable for its grandeur and a Cleopatra WINK!

The Sphinx guarding Cleopatra's Needle, London by George J. Vuillamy [1880]

The Suicide of Cleopatra by Reginald Arthur [1892]

Cleopatra by  François-Auguste Fannière [1902]

Cleopatra by Demetre H. Chiparus [1925]

Moïse sauvé des eaux by Frederick Goodall [1885]

Cleopatra's eulogy was sung by the Roman poet Horace:

Indeed she preferred a finer style of dying;
She did not, like a woman, fear the dagger
Or seek by speed at sea
To leave her Egypt for distant shores.

But gazing on her desolate palace
With a soft smile, unflinchingly accepted
The angry asp until
Her veins had drunk the deadly poison deep;

And thus more determined, fiercer than ever,
Perished.  Was she to grace a haughty triumph,
Dethroned, paraded by 
The rude Liburnians? Not Cleopatra!    

FABRICS: Victoria

My fabric Victoria - from the John Stefanidis archive - inspired by a document in the V&A ... Bold old-fashioned bravura!

LIVING BY DESIGN: Hints

Japanese screens are beautiful, decorative and should be on the floor, not hung on a wall... a dining room in Dorset, England shows this to great effect.  The oak table and chairs are a John Stefanidis design.

In a Paris apartment [below] I used a stunning 8 panelled Coromandel screen instead of curtains. In front sits a Chinese table and, left and right, Art deco chairs which can be easily whipped away and replaced with light folding chairs, a cloth thrown over the table awaits luncheon guests.  On the far right, is an 18th century Chinese lacquer commode.  The screen can be closed to let in daylight.  None of this dates, I am proud to say, except for the spot lights in the ceiling!   

ART: ROYAL ACADEMY OF ARTS: BRONZE

Bronzes spanning 5000 years from Asia, Africa and Europe - Ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan, Medieval Renaissance and works by Rodin, Picasso, Jasper Johns, Henry Moore and Louise Bourgeois.  Admirably curated, beautifully lit.  

The most extraordinary bronzes of the highest quality, we are unlikely to ever see the like again - DO NOT MISS...until December 9    http://royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/bronze

DESIGN: DEVELOPING THE EYE

18th Century North Italian ladies in masks - instructive
and fun!

I am often asked what influences my work – the answer ranges from Alberti to Corbusier, Titian to Twombly – what an annoying question.
Nevertheless, the sale at Christies of the contents of Villa di Azzate [Ca'mera, Varese] vividly reminded me how influenced I was in my Milanese years by the great Italian antiquarian and taste-maker Sandro Orsi who possessed a splendid and discriminating eye. Museum Curator and Scholar of Italian Renaissance Art, John Pope-Hennessy was taken to the house by the erudite art historian Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios and, on leaving, whispered ‘I have never seen such an example of poetical taste’.

18th Century North Italian carved models of hounds 

French 18th Century engravings

Placed on a North Italian 17th Century walnut serpentine sideboard: Chinese Blanc-de-Chine [19th Century],
 a creche model of a camel [19th Century], a North Italian lion [18th Century].
In the background a Piedmontese Chinoiserie wallpaper [18th Century]   

ART: Goya The Nude Maja

Unposed nude pictures should be prohibited! 

      Unlike Goya's The Nude Maja
[The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, nude photos, topless photos  French closer magazine, topless photos