Author: penwithlit

Freelance writer and radio presenter

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Things to See: Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition Part 1

I thought it was an excellent exhibition too. I now want to see all of the films that I haven’t already seen.He oviously worked in meticulous detail

alexraphael's avatarAlex Raphael

Stanley Kubrick was one of the greatest ever directors, so I was never going to miss an exhibition that celebrated his extraordinary vision and the intense attention to detail that helped him make such incredible films. And that was even without the five star reviews from The Guardian, The Times, Time Out, BBC website and The Evening Standard.

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(New comic!) My Love Life

Sweet and amusing too!

summer's avatarPaper Pencil Life

my love life smallmy love life 1 small

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Vallotton @ RA

Well I really liked the Vallotton for several reasons. Firstly because he seemed quite modern. He was also concerned with dramatic situations, like Munch. He seemed to me to enjoy aspects of the city as in his triptych. I thought his self portraits interesting and his analysis of familial relationships. He was interested in making novel prints. I liked his portrait of the famous Gertrude Stein. He seemed sensitive too to the outbreak of the First World War. Fascinating on many levels. Hadn’t time for the other exhibition.

tashtasticblog's avatartashtastic

I visited the Felix Vallotton exhibition, imagining it would far exceed my estimation of the Helene Schjerfbeck show, also on display here. In fact, I found the comparison incredibly rewarding (I revisited Schjerfbeck afterwards) and actually changed a few of my opinions about her and indeed the exhibition. On that note, YES I do think blog posts can and should sometimes say ‘look, I was wrong there.’ It’s something that so many fail to do nowadays, like we’re all oh so set in our opinions and prejudices that we never put on different lenses and see in a new light. Well, I do, and I’m not ashamed. I feel it’s enriching to return to exhibitions, especially with someone new, who can lend their own perspectives. I’m sick of singularity. Let’s change our minds, let’s fight, I’m so bloody bored of safeness and being told to like something because it’s worthy…

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Schlögener Schlinge: Austria’s Hidden Gem

Viennese Mademoiselle's avatarViennese Mademoiselle

Not that long ago I was visiting my cousin in Upper Austria and we were planning a short road trip to Passau, Germany. Since the drive is not longer than two hours, we were already planning ahead of oursleves, including other things that we can do on the way. And that is when it occurred to me – this one place in Austria that has stuck with me through childhood, but never actually considered seeing one day.

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Rising Late by Derek Mahon

Sun on the eyes, clear voices, open window,
birdsong; ponies clop by on the road below.
Whine of a chainsaw, the recurrent roar
of power tools from a building site next door
with crashing, rumbling, safety beep and buzz.
A seagull shadow flickers; harbour noise;
a honking coaster backs out from the quay.
Enter a fly, the vast breath of the sea.

Waking mid-morning to a springlike new year
and a new age of unbeauty, rage and fear
much like the last one, I wonder if
a time could ever come when human life,
relieved of ego and finance, might thrive
on the mere fact of existence. A naïve
hope, but naïve hopes are what open
the doors when January comes round again.

Such tiny houses, such enormous skies!
The vast sea-breath reminds us, even these days
as even more oil and junk slosh in the waves,
the future remains open…

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A Disused Shed in County Wexford by Derek Mahon

They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
To do something, to speak on their behalf
Or at least not to close the door again.
Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
‘Save us, save us,’ they seem to say,
‘Let the god not abandon us
Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
We too had our lives to live.
You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
Let not our naive labours have been in vain!’
——————————————————-
This is the final stanza of ten lines. The full poem may be found at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/92154/a-disused-shed-in-co-wexford
The “Web-throated, stalked like triffids” i,e, some type of mushroom remind me of the deep impression that Anthony Gormley’s clay figurines made upon me when I saw them, years ago at the St Ives Tate.
Antony Gormley's Field for the British Isles at Barrington Court
See https://www.ntsouthwest.co.uk/2012/04/antony-gormleys-field-for-the-british-isles-arrives-at-barrington-court/
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Abram Arkhipov (1862-1930) -Russian Realist Painter

Abram Efimovich Arkhipov (Russian: Абра́м Ефи́мович Архи́пов; 27 August [O.S. 15 August] 1862 – 25 September 1930) was a Russian realist artist, who was a member of the art collective The Wanderers as well as the Union of Russian Artists.

Russian painter born in Yegorovo, Ryazan Province. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture with
Vasily Perov, Aleksey Savrasov, Vladimir Makovsky and Vasily Polenov as teachers. He joined the traveling artists (Peredvizhniki) in 1889 and the Union of Russian Artists in 1903.

Indebted to Perov’s realistic painting, Arkhipov also paid special attention to the effects of light, rhythm and texture, even on his most didactic canvases, such as laundress. Arkhipov found a source of rich and diverse inspiration in the Russian countryside and peasantry; painted peasants at work, the melting of the snow, the local church and the priest, the villages of the far north and the White Sea. Works such as The Lay Brother (1891) and Northern Village (1903, both from Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.) They are evidence of Arkhipov’s important position in the history of Russian landscape painting of the late 19th century. His concentration in plein-air painting was largely shared by other representatives of the Union of Russian Artists, such as Baksheyev, Leonard Turzhansky (1875–1945) and Sergey Vinogradv (1869–1938).

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The Last of the Fire Kings -an extract from Derek Mahon

Five years I have reigned
During which time
I have lain awake each night

And prowled by day
In the sacred grove
For fear of the usurper,

Perfecting my cold dream
Of a place out of time,
A palace of porcelain

Where the frugivorous
Inheritors recline
In their rich fabrics
Far from the sea.

I find these few lines deeply even profoundly moving.  The whole poem may be found at http://www.troublesarchive.com/artforms/poetry/piece/the-last-of-the-fire-kings 

There it states,”Derek Mahon’s reference to an ancient curse can be construed as referring to the weight of tradition in Northern Ireland and the legacies of division and violence.” However, it is the mythological images that it conjures up and which I do not fully understand which particularly appeals to me. Although it may help a little to know that a frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits, succulent fruit-like vegetables, roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. It can be any type of herbivore or omnivore where fruit is a preferred food type.

For those interested in an analysis or interpretation of the whole poem, there is a PhD thesis from Durham at https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/108461.pdf

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By Severn – Ivor Gurney

  1. If England, her spirit lives anywhere
    It is by Severn, by hawthorns and grand willows.
    Earth heaves up twice a hundred feet in air
    And ruddy clay falls scooped out to the weedy shallows.
    There in the brakes of May Spring has her chambers,
    Robing-rooms of hawthorn, cowslip, cuckoo flower —
    Wonder complete changes for each square joy’s hour,
    Past thought miracles are there and beyond numbers.
    If for the drab atmospheres and managed lighting
    In London town, Oriana’s playwrights had
    Wainlode her theatre and then coppice clad
    Hill for her ground of sauntering and idle waiting.
    Why, then I think, our chiefest glory of pride
    (The Elizabethans of Thames, South and Northern side)
    Would nothing of its needing be denied,
    And her sons praises from England’s mouth again be outcried.

by Ivor Gurney

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Gegen die Wand 11

wolframette2013's avatarTexte von Wolfram Ette

Die Klimaserie
Folge 11: Das “Überleben des Planeten”

In einer Radiorezension des Manifests Denkt endlich an die Enkel von Wolf Schneider [1] entgegnete der Journalist auf die Frage nach dem appellativen Stil des Manifests: Nein, die vielen Ausrufezeichen würden ihn nicht stören, es ginge ja schließlich um DAS ÜBERLEBEN DES PLANETEN.

Wie viel verbohrte Selbstgefälligkeit, wie viel Verblendung spricht aus dieser gut gemeinten Wendung. Wenn die Erde einige Grade wärmer wird, hat sie keineswegs um ihr “Überleben” zu kämpfen. Das ist schon öfters passiert. Ein evolutionärer Zyklus geht zu Ende. Irgendwann fängt ein neuer an, das Dasein des Planeten bleibt davon vollkommen unberührt. Die Gleichsetzung der Menschheit mit “dem Planeten” ist eine Anmaßung und gehört zum Problem, das zu lösen es vorgibt. Im erdgeschichtlichen Maßstab sind wir nur ein evolutionäres Augenzwinkern, das Vorüberhuschen einer gestörten Hochbegabung. Ob angesichts dessen nicht wir, sondern eigentlich die Viren das Optimum der Evolution darstellen…

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