Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!,,,,,,,,
If you were paying attention, you may have noted Konstantin Korovin’s painting of a woman holding a guitar in a post from about a week ago. It appears that lots of artists have been attracted to this theme, and many of them are Russian. There are also other great names – notably Renoir and Matisse and Botero and Braque. In fact, Vermeer also painted a guitar-playing woman, and she bears a strange resemblance to Alanis Morissette – at least to my eye.
I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I stick the images of the Russian (and I hope you recall that when I say ‘Russian’ I continue to mean ‘of the erstwhile Russian / Soviet empires / diaspora / modern Russia / post-Soviet republics’) artworks first, and then point you to a few links for the depictions of women with guitars from the rest of the planet. How about that?
As part of my Year of Russian Reading, I have begun Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman’s magnum opus which was ‘arrested’ by the KGB in 1961. It was the book that was arrested, not its author, because he was the highly esteemed Soviet journalist who had documented the Battle of Stalingrad, and the first to document the horrors of Nazism when Treblinka was liberated. So the Soviets were careful not to make a martyr of him.
Grossman was allowed to go on writing, but Life and Fate was stuck in the censor’s office. Beyond the USSR nobody knew about him or his work, so there were no campaigns for freedom of speech on his behalf as there were for other dissident writers, and he died in 1964 with the novel unpublished. But a copy had been smuggled out on microfilm, and in 1980 it was translated by Robert Chandler. It was recently reissued under the Vintage Classics imprint as…
Although I count myself as more of a tourist than a traveller these days, I do like to know something about the countries that I plan to visit, more than I can get from the usual DK Guides. And so because I’d come across Robert Cole’s excellent and very readable Traveller’s History of Paris, I got hold of a copy of A Traveller’s History of Russia, by Peter Neville in the same series. But it was a bit of a disappointment.
Of course, it’s much easier to write about a tourist-friendly place like Paris than it is to write about a vast and complex place that has been hostile to western visitors for most of the twentieth century. In fact, you have to admire any academic or author taking on the Russians as a field to specialise in, because until glasnost the country was difficult to visit without restrictions, and it was obstructionist to anyone trying to find out what…
This painting can be found in the National Portrait Gallery in London and shows the celebrated composer, Sir William Walton in 1948 in Capri where he was recovering from jaundice. Its atmosphere suggests recuperation and the date also reminds us that Europe was slowly convalescing from the devastation of war. Walton was to permanently settle the following year on Ischia, a volcanic island in the Tyrrhenian Sea some 30 km from Naples, of which it is a province. The painting with its remarkable diagonal composition and repeated dynamic lines is reminiscent of Wyndham Lewis, who was a significant influence on Ayrton and whose portrait he was to paint, a few years later in 1955; this is discussed at this link- http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/ayrton-portrait-of-wyndham-lewis-t07133. It is perhaps interesting to compare Wyndham Lewis’s well-known portrait of Ezra Pound with Ayrton’s Walton. The subject in the latter case looking a good deal more awake and serenely pondering the pleasures of the view and the prospects of reloading his pipe from the tobacco pouch.
In the portrait, Walton almost seems to be couched against the rocky promontory which cascades down to the sea-where the line of the cliff appears submerged rather than reflected by the water surface. The pale tones in grey, purple, reds and blues convey serenity to the composition. The repeated folds and linear motif however add a contrasting energy to the figure that is captured as though by a camera and achieve a monumental charm at what might otherwise not seem a particularly significant moment. The subject has a contemplative gaze which will be prolonged, indeed deepened by the next twist from the “fragrant weed”. The glass, decanter and bill/slip of paper seem to encourage the viewer to share into his own pensive mood.
Ayrton photographEzra Pound 1939 Wyndham Lewis 1882-1957 Lewis was inspired by Lewis
The Oxford Companion to Western Art, says this about English Neo-Romanticism, the movement which both Ayrton and as we shall see Minton both belonged, “Never more than loosely affiliated, its painters took inspiration from the early 19th-century landscapists: from SAMUEL PALMER and his circle at Shoreham, and from TURNER. They were also influenced by French post-CUBIST developments during the 1930s. The beginnings of the movement were dominated by GRAHAM SUTHERLAND and PAUL NASH, and, to an extent, by JOHN PIPER. Their conception of the anthropomorphic potential of natural landscapes and the objects within them had a powerful influence on the younger generation of artists who became popular in the early 1940s, developing a style of agonized and sinister landscape very different from their early exemplars. MICHAEL AYRTON, JOHN MINTON, and John Craxton (1922– ) were the most expressive and innovative of the painters involved; others who shared the concerns of the movement for a time included Keith Vaughan (1912–77) and the Scottish artists Robert Colquhoun (1914–62) and Robert MacBryde (1913–66).”
Minton by Michael Ayrton
John Minton (1917- 57) was a talented but troubled teacher,painter and stage designer who trained at St John’s Wood School along with Ayrton who strongly influenced him. This period between 1935 and 1938 was a time when neo-romanticism seems to have flourished, again the Oxford Companion to Western Art writes of him, “British painter, graphic artist, and designer, born at Great Shelford (Cambs.). After studying in London at St John’s Wood School of Art, 1936–8, he spent a year in Paris, where he shared a studio with MICHAEL AYRTON (with whom he later collaborated on designs for John Gielgud’s production of Macbeth at the Piccadilly Theatre, London, in 1942). Among the artists whose work he saw in Paris, he was particularly influenced by the brooding sadness of Eugene Berman (1899–1972) (More information also at http://www.sullivangoss.com/eugene-berman/) and Pavel Tchelitchew (1898–1957). (There is a You–tube, in Italian at http://www.encyclopedia.com/video/aQpp6epASaQ-la-danza-delle-ombre-pavel.aspx) In 1941–3 he served in the Pioneer Corps, and after being released on medical grounds he had a studio in London at 77 Bedford Gardens (the house in which RobertColquhoun (1914–62), Robert MacBryde (1913–66), and Jankel Adler (1895–1949) lived), 1943–6. From 1946 to 1952 he lived with Keith Vaughan (1912–77). Minton was a leading exponent of NEO-ROMANTICISM and an influential figure through his teaching at Camberwell School of Art (1943–7), the Central School of Arts and Crafts (1947–8), and the Royal College of Art (1948–56).
John Minton Self-Portrait
He was extremely energetic, travelling widely and producing a large body of work as a painter (of portraits, landscapes, and figure compositions), book illustrator, and designer. After about 1950, however, his work went increasingly out of fashion. He made an effort to keep up with the times with subjects such as The Death of James Dean (1957; London, Tate), but stylistically he changed little. Minton was renowned for his charm and generosity, but he was also melancholic and troubled by self-doubt. He committed suicide with an overdose of drugs.”
Daniel Daran (or Reichman) (Даниил Борисович Даран) (1894 – 1964) was born in Voronezh, studied at Saratov, worked in graphic design, executed landscapes, portraits, book illustrations, yearned for recognition even whilst remaining indifferent to fame, and spent nearly thirty years of his life admiring and sketching circus life. Here are some of his remarkable watercolours and drawings.
Dorothy B Hughes (1904-93) took a journalism degree in Kansas City, Missouri and started her distinguished career with a prize-winning book of poems. Her first hard-boiled thriller appeared in 1940 and it was followed by more than a dozen in the next decade. Three were made into noir films and in 1944 Hughes went toHollywoodto assist Hitchcock on his film, ‘’Spellbound’’. Here she met Ingrid Bergman and consequently Humphrey Bogart came to buy the film rights to one of her novels.
Available from Persephone Books The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes (Paperback – 22 Sep 2006)
‘’The Expendable Man’’ was her last book and appeared in 1963, a time when Hughes was living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It combines high suspense with an examination of the endemic racism in the town ofPhoenix,Arizona. Hughes had learnt her craft thoroughly; influenced by deep readings of Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and William Faulkner. She also had written a critical study of Erie Stanley Gardner, perhaps best remembered for the Perry Mason series. It is the lawyers, petty criminals, politicians, soured plainclothesmen of Phoenix that form the suffocating web around the novel’s heroic proponent, doctor Hugh Densmore, that gives this novel a dramatic momentum and an insight into the morally corrupt towns- folk and contrasts Phoenix and its suburbs, with the magnificent circling and exotic desert.
Densmore, a medic from Los Angeles hospital driving through along the highway from Indio, through the hot desert littered with hazy clumps of mesquite, on an early May evening is making his way to a family event in Phoenix. He stops to give a lift to the feckless, reckless and manipulative Iris, a rebellious teenager on a wild and urgent mission. This initial act of generosity is one which Hugh comes to deeply regret and propels him into an entanglement of Kafkaesque proportions. Without revealing the taut and swiftly flowing plot, which would spoil the reading, suffice it to say that carefully crafted dialogue and what seems like Densmore’s paranoia makes this a thrilling and convincing read. With a combination of dramatic skill and sensitive understanding, huge issues of crime, illegal abortion and diehard racial discrimination are handled. This compelling novel is an insight into America at a time when President Kennedy was encountering the vigorous opposition and enduring rigidity of demagogues like Governor George Wallace.
The engaging and driven plot has many heart-rending at moments. Hugh Densmore is forced to dissemble to his own family. Indeed circumstances conspire to inhibit his free pursuit of Ellen, the elegant lady that he loves and admires. A significant pleasure in reading Hughes is her poetic and cinematic description of atmosphere;Phoenix, its peculiar suburbs and the drive across the copper and tan sands surrounding the highways that lead into it. There are passages describing anonymous motels, drugstores and diners that repeatedly remind the reader of the anonymity encountered in Edward Hopper’s well-known painting ‘’Nighthawks’’. Dominic Power points out in an intriguing after word just how this background scene was an important prompt in Hughes’s writing. The bleached desert motorway becomes reminiscent of a GeorgiaO’ Keefe landscape. The heat of the day personifies the crushing rapidity impinging on Densmore forcing him to seek a resolution of the situation into which he has been placed.
There is a sense of isolation which dire circumstances force upon Hugh and is particularly poignant in relation to the beautiful Ellen, whose encouragement and earnest support underlines his compelled dependency upon her and his consequent loss of a certain sense of dignity. This is reinforced in pellucid passages, ‘’Hugh and Ellen drove away in silence, over the winding deserted roads that led to town. The moon was high and white; each fence post, each clump of cactus was as distinctly outlined as by the sun. The mountains were moon-gray against the deep night sky. A dog barked from a distant house, the only reminder that they were not on a distant planet.’’
Within the confines of a provocative thriller, Dorothy Hughes has written a superb evocation of American society on the turning point of change. There is a tangible feeling of temperature and pressure- the effect of this is to produce a metamorphosis in the characters which is as instructive as it is engaging to read. Persephone Books have done an excellent job in resurrecting this classic novel which appeals on many levels and holds an emotional tone which is bracing, moving and instructive about the creative struggle for goodness, legality, fairness and truth.
Looking at any historical map of Poland anyone may see how its borders have changed over the centuries. Where will you find the Polish home? One answer must be that it is founded deep in the hearts of the Polish people who fought for the liberty and the integrity of the Polish homeland. Now consider the promontory of land around Vilnius, or Wilno as it was then known, which was contained inside Poland in 1921. It was an area in which the small market town of Hruzdowa, comprising some 52 buildings and just large enough to warrant a town hall, was situated. These wild borderlands –known as the Kresy-were fought over for centuries by Austrians, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Lithuanians. It was here that Matthew Kelly’s great-grandfather, who had imbibed the values and élan of the dashing officer class, Rafał Ryżewscy, came to teach with his clever young wife, Hanna. They were deeply committed to progress through education and to peaceably raising their two little daughters. However, the dreadful and calamitous year of 1939, was approaching when Hitler and Stalin partitioned Poland in the most cynical pact.
Matthew Kelly’s intriguing book
The particular attraction of this tale is the engaging manner in which personal and family recollections are intermingled, with a detailed but succinct account, of the history. A tragic history too; its wide parameters were to have a sorrowful effect on the couple and their children. Kelly is a young academic who teaches at Southamptonand gives a thorough background to the action. To give just two instances concerning major figures; he accounts for the vacillations in the policy of the renowned Józef Piłsudski, who steered Poland through the difficult period after 1918 and General Władysław Anders, the leader of the Polish II Corps, is presented as a humane leader in the confused period after the German attack on Russia.. His authoritarianism is recorded and yet the respect that he inspired in the Polish officer class is also described. Kelly’s writing strives to give a fair account and this aspect of his prose engages the reader.
The progressive cultural and linguistic values of thePolish-LithuanianCommonwealth, based on what we might now describe as inclusiveness, are shown to stretch right back to the Reformation. Other strands of nationalism are indicated as well as the conflict that resulted in a temporary dominance of the Poles over the Soviets which resulted in the treaty of Rigain March 1921. This is the necessary background to the love story between Rafał and Hanna, comrades and settlers together in the wild lands. Photographs of their marriage add poignancy to the story as we see and read of Hannah and her two tiny growing daughters, Wanda and Maria. These three were to be so suddenly driven into exile, separated from their very affectionate father, and exposed to multiple dangers during their hurried and harrowing departure, in cattle wagons transported across frozen wastes, eventually toKazakhstan.
There are many moving vignettes which will remain in the reader’s mind long after completing the book. There is mention of an unfortunate small child who incurred her mother’s desperate wrath by spilling a small supply of flour during the severe Siberian winter. The sacred vigil that Wanda kept by the window on Christmas Eve waiting for the first star to appear that indicated the start of celebrations. Throughout, Matthew Kelly indicates the importance of Catholic Christianity in sustaining believers in dark times; these links with the historic concept of Poland as a martyr nation. Hanna, the long-suffering mother, had to be wrapped in layers and layers of clothing to labour on the construction of a railway or her back-breaking gleaning on a collective farm. Dire images of body lice being burnt during long evenings in crackling candle flames are recorded. Then finally, the moment arrives, afterGermanyattackedRussia, when Polish troops are assembled into a ragged bootless army. Most touching is, when after a hazardous journey across the Caspian, the whole family escape to the gentler, more fertile climes ofPersia. However this was still wartime, travel arduous and hazardous and their final destination inIndia,AfricaorMexicoundecided. This was in the uncertain hands of official authorities, American, British and Polish; once again, and for a long while the outcome remained indeterminate.
Well supplied with notes and reference material, the only lack is a map to supplement Nana’s sketch map on which to track the vast distances involved before the final return to Devon. Otherwise, ‘Finding Poland’ is a magnificent and constantly informative account covering everything from the Katyn massacre to the persecution of Kulaks, the organisation of the Polish army to allegations of anti-Semitism. Informative on these and many other issues, it highlights the background of the Polish struggle to establish identity. It is deeply stirring as it describes the cost of conflict upon the author’s family. It is also very well-written and, at this price, something of a bargain.
penwithlit 