Categories
Literature Poetry Uncategorized

“The poet’s business is not to save the soul of man but to make it worth saving.” James Elroy Flecker 1884-1915

Undated photograph of Flecker

“O friend unseen, unborn, unknown,
Student of our sweet
English tongue,
Read out my words at night, alone:
I was a poet, I was young.” To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence

Flecker is often said to have been influenced by the Parnassians about whom Wikipedia comments:-

The Parnassians were influenced by Théophile Gautier and his doctrine of “art for art’s sake”. As a reaction to the less disciplined types of romantic poetry, and what they considered the excessive sentimentality and undue social and political activism of Romantic works, the Parnassians strove for exact and faultless workmanship, selecting exotic and classical subjects which they treated with rigidity of form and emotional detachment. Elements of this detachment were derived from the philosophical work of Arthur Schopenhauer.

These poets were French and were published in an anthology that was first issued during 1866, then again during 1869 and 1876, including poems by Charles Leconte de Lisle, Théodore de Banville, Sully Prudhomme, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, François Coppée and José María de Heredia. The general style was influenced by the author Théophile Gautier as well as the philosophical work of Arthur Schopenhauer.

The Ballad Of Camden Town

I walked with Maisie long years back
The streets of Camden Town,
I splendid in my suit of black,
And she divine in brown.
Hers was a proud and noble face,
A secret heart, and eyes
Like water in a lonely place
Beneath unclouded skies.
A bed, a chest, a faded mat,
And broken chairs a few,
Were all we had to grace our flat
In Hazel Avenue.
But I could walk to Hampstead Heath,
And crown her head with daisies,
And watch the streaming world beneath,
And men with other Maisies.
When I was ill and she was pale
And empty stood our store,
She left the latchkey on its nail,
And saw me nevermore.
Perhaps she cast herself away
Lest both of us should drown:
Perhaps she feared to die, as they
Who die in Camden Town.
What came of her? The bitter nights
Destroy the rose and lily,
And souls are lost among the lights
Of painted Piccadilly.
What came of her? The river flows
So deep and wide and stilly,
And waits to catch the fallen rose
And clasp the broken lily.
I dream she dwells in London still
And breathes the evening air,
And often walk to Primrose Hill,
And hope to meet her there.
Once more together we will live,
For I will find her yet:
I have so little to forgive;
So much, I can’t forget.

Ballad of the Londoner


Evening falls on the smoky walls,
And the railings drip with rain,
And I will cross the old river
To see my girl again.
The great and solemn-gliding tram,
Love’s still-mysterious car,
Has many a light of gold and white,
And a single dark red star.

I know a garden in a street
Which no one ever knew;
I know a rose beyond the Thames,
Where flowers are pale and few.

A first attempt at translating into German

Ballade des Londoners

Die Glättung fällt auf die rauchigen Wände,
und das Geländer tropfen mit Regen,
und ich ueberquere den alten Fluss
Um mein Maedchen wiederzusehen..
Die grosse, ernstgleitende Strassenbahn,
Der ruhige geheimnisvolle Wagen der Liebe
Hat  viel  Licht des Goldes und weiß
und einen einzelnen dunkelroten Stern.

Ich kenne einen Garten in einer Straße
Den niemand je kannte überhaupt wussten;
Ich kenne eine Rose jenseits der Themse,
Wo Blumen bleich und wenige sind..

Categories
Art and Photographic History Poetry Uncategorized

The Parisian Paintings of Jean-Louis Forain (23 October 1852 – 11 July 1931)

la lettre et labsinthe vers-1885

With Maupassant’s new version of Bel Ami portraying the belle époque, having recently been released in the UK, Forain is certainly of current interest. The trailer may be found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1440732/ Of course the well-known previous version was released by director, Willi Forst inGermany in 1939.

Forain was a French Impressionist painter, lithographer, watercolorist and etcher and has recently been the subject of some interesting and charming exhibitions. About his drawing the Spaightwood gallery, Upton MA ( http://www.spaightwoodgalleries.com/Pages/Forain2.html) says,”A participant in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886 and a close friend of Manet and Degas, Forain was considered one of the most important artists of the first few decades of the twentieth century, frequently compared to Rembrandt for his emotional power as an etcher. His drawings were regularly reproduced just as Daumier’s had been in the mid-19th century, but Forain’s not only ridiculed follies but sympathisize with the poor and the unfortunate. He was one of Ambroise Vollard’s stable of artists along with Renoir, Rouault, Chagall, Dufy, and many others.”

Forain was strongly influenced by both Daumier and Degas, the latter was a friend of some fifty years and acknowledged the closeness of their styles when he said, “He paints with his hands in my pockets”. Additionally Forain attended the famous heated debates which took place Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas at the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes. There is a particularly relevant and interesting discussion on the social history of such cafés and the development of the modernist movement at http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-0903102-153114/unrestricted/Dees_thesis.pdf

Au café circa 1872 Watercolour 19.5 x 19 cm

Certainly, Forain was an assiduous painter of the café scene as may be discerned from the early watercolour sketch “Au Café” circa 1872. The engaging atmosphere and general bonhomie of the scene, perhaps in Spring depicts clerks and businessmen taking a breather at lunchtime, lovers meeting and the overarching foliage providing the shelter to bavarder over a glass of wine. The poise indicated by the extended legs of the figure seated at the table completes the mood. The influence of Daumier is certainly present; Forain was about 22 or 23 years old.

As is well known, Jean-Louis Forain had a ready wit and was the associate of Rimbaud, Verlaine and in particular Joris-Karl Huysmans. It was Arthur Rimbaud who wrote in a fragment,” Le haut étang fume continuellement. Quelle sorcière va se dresser sur le couchant blanc? Quelles violettes frondaisons vont descendre ?” Which has been translated as.”The upland pond smokes continuously. What witch will rise against the white west sky? What violet frondescence fall?” This is reminiscent of a lovely painting by Forain entitled Young woman standing on a balcony contemplating the Paris Rooftops, 1890.It was completed in Watercolour with black Conté crayons, red chalk and brush on paper and is to be found in theVancouver Art Gallery. It is appears as an early prototype of the bandes dessinées and the woman’s left profile stance resembles the figure in Seurat’s roughly contemporaneous Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte,1884–1886.

An idea of the range of Forain’s work may be obtained from a suitable search such as http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=Jean+Louis+Forain&z=e

Seurat fragment fom La Grande Jatte
Young woman contemplating the rooftops of Paris
Categories
Book Reviews Poetry Uncategorized

Heidegger Reframed By Barbara Bolt


 

Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889– May 26, 1976is renowned for the complexity and subtlety with which his thoughts on the philosophy of being (ontology) is expressed. His ideas are inspired by numerous sources from the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle and much of his thought dependent upon his early training as a Jesuit. He read and imbibed St Augustineand Duns Scotus. He trained under the phenomenologist, Edmund Husserl at Freiburgand his approach is deeply engaged with German philosophers like Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. He also read Kierkegaard with close attention.

His ideas about the nature of being are in stark contrast with those of Descartes which involve a split between consciousness and the external world. This Cartesian framework or dualism is embedded in modern science and Western thought generally. One result of Descartes philosophy is that Nature is subject by the mind to measurement and calculation and also to manipulation. This borders on what is termed instrumentalism and indeed the consequent exploitation of the environment. This, Heidegger with his alternative view of the direction of philosophy, he deeply and radically opposed. The implication of Heidegger’s thought for the creative artist and the making and meaning of art forms the thrust of Barbara Bolt’s text. His project is illustrated with specific reference to international artists like Sophie Calle, Anish Kapoor and Anselm Kiefer.

Generally considered as a great classic of Twentieth Century philosophy Sein und Zeit, 1927 is not an easy book to read even if you are thoroughly fluent in German. Concerned with existence and the nature of being, it is equally interested in associated questions about time. This central text focuses on the nature of reality and the being-right-there of existence for which Heidegger uses the term Dasein. Part of the difficulty of understanding this central work is that language almost seems to break down under the pressure of difficulty in communicating the awesome nature of human existence, which many would see as essentially spiritual. Barbara Bolt provides a thoroughly useful glossary to such terms in support of her guide.

This glossary contains some eighty terms; it is relatively clear but illustrates some of the difficulties in expounding Heidegger’s collected work, Gesamtausgabe, which itself runs to more than eighty volumes. Barbara Bolt explains in her early chapters concepts associated with Dasein which involve care for the self and other beings, Sorge, and in the face of personal and certain knowledge of death, the termination of existence on Earth, anxiety or Angst. For Heidegger there are two possibilities, it seems either falling into immersion in the day to day, which he terms ontic existence or striving with resoluteness for authenticity. This bears upon artistic endeavour in several ways; the acceptance of strife when faced with unsettling artworks, the necessity of praxis in art education and research which hopefully produces a practical and respectful understanding of materials by a heuristic approach. Bolt is interesting and thought-provoking in her exposition on this.

A perhaps greater difficulty in appreciating Heidegger, which Bolt mentions, perhaps too briefly, continues in current debate. This was his active involvement with Nazism and his eulogy of Hitler involving praise for his moral regeneration of the Fatherland. This has been, not surprisingly, a sticking point in the appreciation of the Heidegger canon. A discussion of this may be found in Inauthenticity: Theory and Practice, contained in JP Stern’s essays on literature and ideology, The Heart of Europe. There is particular concern over his treatment of his German-Jewish teacher, a Christian convert and former colleague, the proponent of phenomenology Husserl, to whom Sein und Zeit had initially been dedicated. He also took a renowned student, Hannah Arendt as his mistress and she it was who later to testified on his behalf at a denazification hearing in opposition to Karl Jaspers.

In a key chapter, Barbara Bolt uses two central concepts of Heidegger to evaluate particular art works. These are ‘enframing’ (Gestellung) and ‘poiesis’-a Greek term for making from which the word poetry is derived. Enframing, according to Heidegger, has negative connotations and is applied to methods like those of modern technology which treats nature solely as a means to an end and shows Heidegger to be an early proponent of environmentalism and certainly a critic of agribusiness. This seems to be echoed by concerns about the manner in which the business of art has been cheapened and debased by commercialisation and celebrity culture. There is, she explains an unholy alliance developing between advertising in late capitalism as evidenced, for instance, by Tracey Emin selling Bombay Sapphire Gin. Enframement also appears to include a criticism of managerialism; disapproval of the manner in which humans are treated often with statistical techniques as mere available resources. Before examining the concept of ‘poesis’, it is worth noting that this book is actually entitled ‘Heidegger Reframed’ and is one in a general series. This tends to give framing a different, presumably positive connotation that sits uneasily with the particular use of the term by Heidegger. Unfortunately, there appears to be no general series editor that could add guidance and cohesion to this demanding project of applying the thought of modern philosophers to art.

Bolt sometimes writes convoluted sentences in a somewhat orotund style which may be an understandable effect of propounding the concepts of this demanding, intriguing philosopher. Nevertheless, the style invites the reader to question some of the propositions expounded. There is no doubt that Heidegger had a particular view about the dominance of the scientific method as he conceives it. Also mathematics seems deemed uncongenial, whereas language, and also history with its different conception of time and certainly etymology are viewed by Heidegger as more relevant to his project. It is interesting to speculate how much he might have responded to philosophers of science like Thomas Kuhn whose views on paradigm shift, and those too of Paul Karl Feyerabend, might have influenced him had he been fully aware of them. Heisenburg, a contemporary and also a controversial figure, might have influenced Heidegger on his notion of how preconceived theories operate in science.

Heidegger as Bolt explains was inspired by poetry and must have been sensitive to its lyricism. This makes the reader question his apparent failure to respond to the beauty of mathematics which is in a sense a universal language. In general he was at pains to oppose certain notions of aesthetics associated particularly with the Enlightenment and Romanticism and the artist as an inflated, self-dramatising subject. In his conception of poesis, Heidegger approaches another mode of artistic appreciation and indeed gratitude which is guided by sympathy. The term, as Bolt makes clear is Greek in origin and involves openness to the bringing-forth or unconcealment of being. It is, for example, the sense of wonder when a butterfly emerges from a chrysalis or in the transformation when a flower blossoms from a bud. Heidegger spent a year in 1942 lecturing on Hölderlin’s Hymn “The Ister” which relates to theDanubeand examined the limitations of a metaphysical interpretation of art and appears to argue the case for spiritual values in art together with a feeling for place attained by intimate journeying. George Steiner emphasises elsewhere how Heidegger’s titles are those of peregrination and comments, “He has been an indefatigable walker in unlit places”.

Barbara Bolt has written an interesting book on a difficult topic. The publishers might have supported her with somewhat better illustrations than the few disappointing images provided. However, she has shown how Heidegger can illuminate the work of prominent international artists. She has provided an introduction to a highly influential and controversial thinker supported with a sound biography. This work encourages the reader to bravely question art and promote radically innovative ways of observing and researching related issues.

Categories
Uncategorized West Cornwall (and local history)

Lute Music in C17 Cornwall

lutesandguitars.co.uk

Lute players were highly prized musicians in this period. Their significance is perhaps illustrated by the fact that ”Il Divino”, a Lute player at the French Court, was the second highest paid member of the French Court. The French court itself often employed instrumentalists who were familiar with innovations currently being made in Italy. Players of the lute, harpsichord and violin were all highly prized for their services at weddings, festivals and feasts. Besides this type of popular music, which was often the subject of adaptation and improvisation, a more aesthetic variety of what might be termed art music was performed in the richer, grander houses of Lanhydrock, Trerice and Cothele.

Lutenists who developed their skills in Cornwall, like Charles Farneby, were drawn to London as is evidenced by the fact that they were, at the end of their days, buried there. It appears that children acquired knowledge of the lute, an expensive instrument which included its strings made from the small intestine of sheep, shipped from Venice, either at school or from private tutors. Their instruction was frequently passed on to children who in turn instructed servants so that they might entertain on a regular basis.

In 1978 a book of lute music was discovered at Lanhydrock which Brian had photocopied at a local solicitor’s office and has now been published as the Robartes Lute Book, 1654-1668 and contains pieces for the French lute in D minor tuning / with an introductory study by Robert Spencer. In general early C17 pieces were extravert in style. Later in the century the French influence of Queen Henrietta Maria showed itself in a livelier, more elegant manner as was illustrated by the performance of “La Maribelle”, a piece which gave some insight into the ambience of courtly refinement. A French painting of James Robartes, shows him fashionably depicted with his Lute at Lanhydrock. As the century moved forwards, the taste for the more complex and plangent tones of Dowland and pieces like “Merry Melancholy”, which Brian performed became more prevalent.

Categories
Art and Photographic History Uncategorized

Another interesting resource and paintings by Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)

The useful resource is http://www.flickr.com/photos/32357038@N08/collections/

It contains many paintings, portraits and sketches easily categorised under countries and covering the period from the early medieval but focuses strongly on recent times. It is very good on European art around 1900. There is a folder on Eastern European artists which itself contains some 6 folders with hundreds of images in each folder. In relation to Friedrich Hodler there is an amusing blog,”Bearded Blokes of the Belle Epoque” containing many Hodler self-portraits looking as the blog-author states, “His work had a clarity of light, color and structure that made his work both modern and timeless. He produced a series of uncompromising self portraits throughout his long career. Over the years Hodler’s strong weathered features seemed to peer stoically into the future.”

Hodler is an interesting figure and a prominent Swiss artist, born in Basle. One incidental fact is that his son Hector, as Wikipedia mentions,” was born in 1887, and founded the World Esperanto Association in 1908.” His worked traversed a number of changes from Symbolism and Art Nouveau in the 1890s to Expressionism by the time this self-portrait was painted in 1916. Ras Murley interestingly notes on his Flickr page that,” The latter works present firmly drawn nudes who express Hodler’s mystical philosophy through grave, ritualized gestures.”

Landscapes by Hodler may be seen at http://www.artinconnu.com/2008/06/landscapes-by-ferdinand-hodler-1853.html and some more images here http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/artist/960

An early portrait- prefiguring Dali?

A later composition

Categories
Art and Photographic History Uncategorized

Self Portraits 1900-1912 (4) Stanisław Wyspiański

Self-portrait, 1902

“Stanisław Wyspiański (Polish pronunciation: [staˈɲiswaf vɨˈspjaɲskʲi]; 15 January 1869 – 28 November 1907) was a Polish playwright, painter and poet, as well as interior and furniture designer. A patriotic writer, he created a series of symbolic, national dramaswithin the artistic philosophy of the Young Poland Movement. Wyspiański was one of the most outstanding and multifaceted artists of his time in Europe. He successfully joined the trends of modernism with themes of the Polish folk tradition and Romantic history.” This is how Wikipedia introduces the man who is referred to as being the fourth Polish Bard; this must refer to Wyspiański’s literary skills since the other three are poets. The self-portrait that accompanies the article shows Wyspiański at the age of 33 in 1902. Why is this such an interesting portrait?

The Wawel on the left bank of the Vistula River in Kraków

It is executed in pastels and measures just 35cm by 35cm. It makes fine use of the whiteness of the paper to produce a crystalline, pellucid effect. This is clearly a symbolist work and shows his constant predisposition to add elaborate and striking floral designs. The self-portrait is to be found in the National Museum, Warsaw. However,he only visited Warsaw once.As is quite well-known, Stanisław Wyspiański came from Kraków, in whose general history and culture Wyspiański was deeply immersed. He was responsible for the design of furniture and interiors, and the development of Wawel, the astonishingly beautiful palace on a limestone hill overlooking the Vistula. In 1904 just before the emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, gave the order to withdraw troops from Wawel, Wyspiański and the architect Władysław Ekielski worked on plans to develop the Warwel Akropolis. This is a location that he knew well.” His father, Franciszek, a sculptor, had an atelier at the foot of the Wawel hill, home to a cathedral rich with evidence of the strength of the former Polish state, and to a royal castle, by then an Austrian army barracks.” (http://www.culture.pl/web/english/resources-visual-arts-full-page/-/eo_event_asset_publisher/eAN5/content/stanislaw-wyspianski)

  Stanisław Wyspiański is associated with the movement which was referred to as “The Young Poland Movement”. It appears that some of its members attended the St Anne’s Secondary School in Kraków. Here the students were the pupils were taught in Polish-something which was unusual since the area was under Austrian domination and German used by the dominating power. Lectures were delivered upon Polish history and thus a counter-culture was inculcated.

A lovely presentation with a Chopin track can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpxtIs_aQhw

 

 

Portrait of Ireny Solskiej.1904. Pastel. 48 x 62 cm. Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań.
Categories
Book Reviews Uncategorized

The Hidden Landscape

The purpose of this book is to explore the connection between the landscape and the geology underlying it, which in one of many vivid similes Fortey  compares, the surface personality with the workings of the unconscious mind beneath. He starts by describing a journey he once made from Paddington Station to Haverford West, a market town in Pembrokeshire and with it a passage back into the plutonic depths of geological aeons, indicated by the large 60cm monster trilobites that have been found in the Cambrian rocks near St David’s. Fortey describes the magnificence of the Cathedral constructed from the local purple sandstone and mottled with moisture loving lichens. He contrasts this with the anonymous character of a nearby brightly coloured service station, anonymous and synthetic, an invader cheaply built and out of context.

Fortey’s tour begins with the ancient Lewisian Gneiss of theNorth-WestHighlandsand the formation in their complex metamorphic variety. He explains how these were penetrated by dark dykes of igneous Scourie, the action of glaciers and how in places the Gneiss has been overlaid by the local mountains which are masses of sediment. These latter layers are called Torridonian. They are some 1000 million years old and contain single-celled algae. Whilst describing the full complexity of this ancient scene, Fortey provides a useful glossary of key The Hidden Landscape by Richard Forteydefinitions which reassure the reader wanting to understand this full detail. He proceeds to explain the fundamental divide of theIapetusOcean. (Illustrated also in the accompanying photographs.) This once separated northern from southernBritainsome 500 million years ago, the closure of which created the magnificent Caledonian mountains.

The reader is swiftly conveyed through the Caledonian landscape which is economically characterised, ”This is where population density plummets, and where the Gaelic language lingers in patches. This is the country where metamorphism rules.” Crossing the MidlandValley, he is brought to the Southern Uplands- attract of land which sweeps across through the Irish Seato Down and Armagh. Here the rocks are dark sedimentary shales, paler grits and green mudstones. What makes the account engaging to the reader, is the digression into the fascinating history of geology where Fortey takes us back to the discontinuities in the rock, specifically at Siccar Point, which led to the discoveries of Hutton in the mid-Eighteenth Century of the processes of folding and overlaying with later Devonian sediments. We are shown with clarity how the early discoveries were made and the modern comprehension of geology as a subject derived. Fortey writes about the fascinating early episodes of making geology with the same skill as Roger Osborne in his excellent book, ‘’The Floating Egg’’

In the softer rocks and slates ofWales, the fossil trilobites are altered in shape in a manner which gives evidence of the deformations to which the rock has been subjected. In brief and characteristically diverting remarks, the connection between the geology of with Avalonia (Newfoundland),Canadaand theAppalachiansare mentioned. Additionally, Fortey notes that Cambria-Roman Wales, the Ordivicians, the tribes whom the Romans conquered and the barbarian Silures have all given there names to the internationally recognised geological divisions of the Lower Paleozoic. Fortey writes with poetic feeling for that land which also inspired Dylan Thomas to write:-

The heavenly music over the sand

Sounds with the grains as they hurry

Hiding the golden mountains and mansions

Of the grave, gay seaside land

‘’’The Hidden Landscape’’’ conducts the reader on an extensive tour that joins the primeval geology with the soil and the lie of the land as it now exists today. The flora, fauna, the occupations and lifestyle of recent generations are explored in detail. So in a later chapter the reader is introduced to the gentler morphology of the Weald. Even, the taste of the waters in Spa towns like Tunbridge Wells depends upon the sensitivity of human taste to very small amounts of iron salts. Water from ferruginous beds and the ions it contains gives it a medicinal taste- the reason the wells were established there in 1606. InKentthere are cretaceous chalks, sands and the blue Weald clay that forms the vale to the west of Romney Marsh.

This intriguing book finishes with a chapter encouraging respect for the visible landscape. ‘Texture is bequeathed by time’, Fortey urges attention to the local building materials that contribute to the individuality of vernacular architecture. He praises the use of these resources by traditional craftsmen. This beguiling book finishes with praises for the campaigns of Natural England, for protection of Sites of Scientific Interest and congratulates the hard working volunteers of Regionally Important Geological Sites, in their endeavours to preserve the variety nature has produced in the countryside over aeons. Well written and pleasingly presented this is a grand introduction to a popular subject.

Categories
Book Reviews

Proust and other such neuroscientists! A cross-cultural investigation

In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare wrote,” Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherin he puts alms for oblivion”. This fully accords with the discoveries of modern brain science. Proust in his famous novel, ‘’In Search of Lost Time’’ anticipates such discoveries by neuroscientists, such as Rachel Hertz, that smell and taste are the only senses that connect directly to the hippocampus. Thus the taste of a petit madeleine evokes a rediscovery by Proust of Combray and a flow of associations- it is the part of the brain in which long term memory is centred. Lehrer in ‘’ Proust was a Neuroscientist’’ weaves an intriguing argument about the relationship between recent neuroscientific discoveries and the novels of George Eliot, Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. A scientist, who has researched with Nobel Prize-winning, Eric Kandel, has a taste for philosophy; Lehrer intends to heal the rift between what C.P.Snow termed the ‘Two Cultures’. He wishes to accord respect to the truths and the intuitive discoveries, especially of modernist writers and painters.

‘’Proust was a Neuroscientist’’ illustrates how researchers have, for instance, located those receptors that are responsible for discerning new tastes and smells. In an interesting and amusing chapter, Lehrer explains how the latter discerning receptors take up a huge amount of DNA-about 3 per cent of the human genome. The nose contains at least 350 receptor types. Millisecond pulses have been detected in fruit flies have been doctored with fluorescent proteins which flash when an odour impinges. Scientists have studied the resulting flashes under high powered microscopes and mapped the resulting patterns as neon flashes in the fly brain. This is part of the melange contained in a light-hearted chapter about the French gastronomic chef, Auguste Escoffier, who created culinary symphonies by means of glutamate laden veal stock sauces that so delighted the Parisian haute bourgeoisie in the Hotel César Ritz.

In classical philosophy there exists the Hericalitean concept of the flux, a neo-Platonist view concerning chaos. This has certain parallels in the research by Kimura concerning random changes in DNA. Further discoveries by Elowitz on colourful bacteria in 2002 and fruit flies suggest that their variation is due to random atomic jostling. Jonah Lehrer quotes further research by Gage on junk genes that have the wonderful name of ‘’retrotransposons’’. Essentially this shows how individual diversity is created in line with evolutionary logic. These findings along with others on neural plasticity appear to accord with George Eliot’s belief, as exemplified by her treatment of character, that people have free will and this inspires her to produce a rich text such as ‘’Middlemarch’’, exemplifies this. A text which itself is open to alternative personal interpretations.

The chapter on Cezanne plunges into perception beyond impressionism; how the brain engages in an imaginative act when structuring forms out of ambiguous brushstrokes. The development of photography pushed Cezanne’s investigations in a new direction –with new postimpressionist studies he was attempting to figure how the mind creates the sense of external reality. In effect, Lehrer argues that this corresponds to how the conscious brain is involved in structuring the impressions which arrive onto the layers of the cortex. This part recently has been discovered to be sensitive to contrast and stripes. Thus Cezanne engages the viewer in a challenging and more ultimately satisfying process. From the abstract impasto, fresh to each viewer, the reality of adamantine structures emerges as Mont St Victoire or succulent green apples. Then, the reader is treated to an interesting coda on the clash between Zola’s naturalistic writing and Cezanne’s reaction to it when the latter finds himself, previously a close friend, reduced to an unflattering characterised in a novel as an unstable and wild artist.

‘’Proust was a Neuroscientist’’ teems with ideas and makes demands upon the reader tying together unfamiliar themes in a manner which finds a parallel in the author’s treatment of the music of Stravinsky. Yet it is mostly very clear in its exposition of complex physiology, although a glossary might have been usefully employed for physiological structures. Lehrer writes from a tradition which includes William James, and of course his brother, the esteemed novelist Henry. Pluralism and pragmatism, Rorty and Wittgenstein are all positively appraised. Dissecting self-awareness, as in his chapter on Virginia Woolf has harrowing aspects, however, two factors make this a thoroughly engaging read; it’s energetic pace and its provocative style. For instance, Lehrer doesn’t mention that Woolf was a victim of child abuse and this will have deeply traumatised her lonely sense of herself. However, being moved to sometimes argue with an exposition does not make it any the less valuable experience.

There is a growing interest; it would seem in both Proust and in neuroscience. In Nicholas Carr’s ‘’The Shadow lands’’, he poses the question whether new internet technology etc. and how it actually changes the brain. Merzenich and Kandel have both emphasised the plasticity of the organ. As we get more adept at scanning and highlighting in the new media, we are also damaging our ability to read, concentrate and thoughtfully reflect. The implication for child development adds to such concerns, as Maryanne Wolf has pointed out in ‘’Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain’’. This being an investigation into word poverty and dyslexia; learning literacy for which there seems to be little in built genetic planning. Hence, this short and accessible book of Jonah Lehrer is a valuable contribution to this debate and the fascinating discussion about how truth is variously constructed and validated in science and in literature.

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Uncategorized

Another Ukranian Self Portrait from 1908 by Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (Russian: Казимир Северинович Малевич)-

Self-portrait 1908

Kazmir Malevich is an interesting figure in so many different ways and stands on the brink of so much change both cultural and political. He painted in a wide variety of styles and created many masterpieces in a comparatively short period of time. For more detailed information on this extraordinary Ukrainian/Polish artist it is worth referring to http://www.theartstory.org/artist-malevich-kasimir.htm

He is most well-known for the invention of “Suprematism (Russian: Супрематизм) was an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms (in particular the square and circle) which formed in Russia in 1915-1916. ” However, his earlier work is very attractive and appealing. His self-portrait 1908 already shows a simplicity of form, intensity and dramatic  use of colour and composition. If that appeals then there is a pleasing You-tube accompanied by Bruch’s “Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op. 26 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTkLh8NTXHA and another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP31bqFiy6s which is rather short. At MOMA there is another useful introduction,supposedly for children at http://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/1/2168

Head of a Peasant Girl
Self-portrait in 1933

A later self-portrait shows the influence of Stalinist art but retains a strong feeling of renaissance influence and a notably defiant expression and added his signature the picture with a tiny black-over-white square (the suprematist painting for which he is most famous).

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Enlightening -Isaiah Berlin’s Letters from 1846-1960

A stenographer unscrambles taped musings of the polymath
A stenographer unscrambles taped musings of the polymath

Isaiah Berlin wrote in tribute to the memory of Dorothy de Rothschild of her personality, ”…..overwhelming charm, great dignity, a very lively sense of humour, pleasure in the oddities of life, an unconquerable vitality and a kind of eternal youth and an eager responsiveness to all that passed…” Reading this second volume of letters, now available in paperback, covering Berlin’s most creative period, these same characteristics might be aptly applied to Sir Isaiah himself. However, as this most self-aware of intellectuals recognised, his loquacity and compulsive socialising were driven by a persistent need to escape a sense of unreality, an inner void. In these letters he writes, ‘’my quest for gaiety is a perpetual defence against the extreme sense of the abyss by which I have been affected ever since I can remember myself…’’

He is at his clearest when actually writing rather than using the Dictaphone. His use of this device adds interest to the resulting text, transcribed by a sometimes confused stenographer. Here he is writing from Harvard to another editor of letters, in what he elsewhere termed his wretched Colefax-like hand,’’…my blindness to Mrs W’s true character makes you think of me as gazing through a telescope at remote, dimly distinguishable, dwarves round whom I construct mythologies which sometimes fit & sometimes don’t but always smother the subjects: I do that a little: I like rounded vignettes:& I cling to my hypotheses: it is the only sense I attach to understanding about people as opposed to moment-to-moment reactions to, or impressions of them…”

Berlin’s tendency to construct an overarching, grand scale view of people is interesting, indeed notable. When it comes to political philosophy it is the construction of universal systems, Marxism and Monism, theories he later studied and to coin the term, the ‘’counter-enlightenment’’, which overarching theories Berlin most deplores. The hesitancy and multiple qualifications in his communication, often results in a diffuse and difficult prose style. However, the thick impasto and layering of shades of meaning can also reflect, like some sort of rich expressionist painting, the intention of conveying a lasting and deep impression. If you can tolerate very lengthy sentences, laced with subordinate clauses, which are richly punctuated with colons and semi-colons; then memorable and multifaceted observations on the people, politics and those interesting times, emerge.

These were indeed both interesting and difficult times.The move from diplomatic service in the States to the daily grind of teaching and lecturing in post-war Oxford, Berlin found particularly irksome. Advising Chaim Weizmann and defending the newly found state of Israel in the period after the King David Hotel attack was a duty on which he focussed his considerable abilities and influence. Later he was to meet and to like Ben Gurion. However, as his interest turned once again to Herzen and Russian intellectual history, he was careful not to get side tracked. He was involved in Paris with the setting up the Marshall plan and frankly admitted his limitations when it came to discussions on economic practicalities. Yet he began to translate his beloved Turgenev and still found opportunities to advise government propagandists on what he saw as the dangers of mentioning Hegel and the imperative of countering Russian territorial ambitions. In addition to this involvement with high level politics he was pleased to be consulted by Churchill on his memoirs. When it came to making predictions, he agreed with his fellow don, Trevor-Roper on the accuracy of those proposed by that interesting Swiss cultural historian Joseph Burkhardt based on his study of the Italian renaissance.

At Oxford his coterie included brilliant talkers that included his mentor, Maurice Bowra, the witty Warden of Wadham; here described as having felt jaded in Greece, found Athens heavenly, full of jolly poets, and himself adored there. Sir Isaiah found a warm spot for that ‘’loveable scamp’’ Bob Boothby, talking over appeasement with which he recalled All Souls to be more than a little complicit. Then there was the scintillating company at lunch of the novelist Elisabeth Bowen. He entertains with the witty and erudite Lord David Cecil at New College, the renowned conversationalist and author of the brilliant biography of Lord Melbourne. We have only just begun the alphabet of Berlin’s extensive and amusing friends which extended far beyond the University to journalists, politicians, policy wonks (as they are termed in a less deferential age ), diplomats and heads of state. One of the pleasures of reading these letters lies in this investigation of this, the social hinterland of this philosopher of secular pluralism.

A supplementary reason for reading these letters is the insight they afford into Berlin’s relationship with women and otherchanging social attitudes. In 1956, he married Aline Halban, an exile from Russia, at the relatively late age of 46. There are indications of a developing maturity but there are also lapses into donnish backbiting, for instance A.L.Rowse is repeatedly characterised as a Malvolio in the fractious atmosphere of All Souls. This kind of gossiping is ultimately a sign of inanition and unworthy of an esteemed philosopher. However, it was a feature of the academic ambience at the time and Leslie, as Rowse is known amongst his Cornish friends, would probably have relished Berlin’s further remarks about his open emotionalism, ‘’Curious. In a way better than the stiff English upper lip, & stoicism, hypocrisy and inner rages..’’

Reading ‘’’Enlightening’’’ is no substitute for the study of Berlin’s works if you are interested in his approach to the history of ideas. On the other hand, given the range of his achievements, from founding Wolfson College to his friendship with Pasternak(he smuggled out ‘’Dr Zhivago’’ to the West) and also with the great poet Anna Akhmatova, these letters shine an interesting light on the author’s effervescent persona. In this splendid tome, his peculiar sort of Englishness, his fondness for vigorous debate and his concern to counter and defeat the monster of totalitarianism are sparklingly displayed.