A Buyer’s Market

Le chapeau de paille/Rubens

Loving A Buyer’s Market - second volume in A Dance to The Music of Time/Anthony Powell.
Two interesting references.
Le Chapeau de Paille and this poem - his helmet shall be a hive for bees....

George Peele. 1558?–97

102. A Farewell to Arms (To Queen Elizabeth)

HIS golden locks Time hath to silver turn'd;
O Time too swift, O swiftness never ceasing!
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurn'd,
But spurn'd in vain; youth waneth by increasing:
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;	5
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees;
And, lovers' sonnets turn'd to holy psalms,
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are Age his alms:	10
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His Saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
He'll teach his swains this carol for a song,—
'Blest be the hearts that wish my sovereign well,	15
Curst be the souls that think her any wrong.'
Goddess, allow this agèd man his right
To be your beadsman now that was your knight.

Mahler Piano series - From the Countryside

Great recital last night at 1901 Arts Club - Iain Farrington, piano with Simon Wallfisch, baritone.
Loved Symphony No 1 arranged for piano by Warrington - and also the traditional songs by Wallfisch. A cantor singing in the synagogue,a Moravian folk song, Jewish klezmer melody and an Austrian country dance....

Highlights of Monet and Architecture

Waterloo Bridge, the Sun in the Fog/Monet

At the National Gallery.... Gorgeous reds and purples in the 1908 paintings of Renaissance palaces on the Grand Canal - the Palazzo Dario and the Palazzo Contarini.... The sun in the fog over Waterloo Bridge .... and the paintings of Rouen Cathedral in 1894 which are so impressionistic that they are almost abstract....

Rouen Cathedral 1894/Monet

The Palazzo Contarini/Monet

Highlights of All Too Human at Tate Britain

Fantastic pastels by Paula Rego - black lines edging everything. A collection of feet in the centre of this (below).....

The Betrothal Paula Rego

The Deer Park Michael Andrews

S

 Swimming Pool 1971 Leon Kossoff

Highlights of the Groeningemuseum, Bruges

Van Eyck

Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele

Joseph Denis Odevaere
Lord Byron on His Death Bed

Judgement paintings hung in courtrooms in medieval times - I didn't know that. This one isn't for the squeamish: The Judgement of Cambyses by Gerard David. Cambyses is being flayed alive. What a truly horrible form of torture.

Flemish primitives i.e. detailed realism in the depiction of materials....

Peter Lanyon and Trevega Cliff

Felt like walking today even though the weather wasn't that promising - and it was a good 4 mile walk in the end which started on Trevalgan Hill just outside St Ives.
Wonderful to see a slate in memory of Peter Lanyon at the summit on a huge granite boulder.
His paintings have such strong links to this landscape - the painting below of Bojewan Farm, not far off.
More here.
Then a depressing walk (alas) downhill to Trevalgan Holiday Farm and caravan park, past territorial signs and electric fences to keep walkers on track. Narrow walkways in the mud, close to hedges and a slurry pit.
Anyway - onward to the sea - exhilarating.
In just over two hours, I didn't see a soul, unless sheep have souls.

Even the track back inland was lovely - not always the case on circular walks.
Main thoughts:

• I wonder what a (very) long walk  would be like - the Camino, for example. Though people talk about all the people they meet - companions along the way etc. Solitary walking is very different.
• There was a moment - suddenly - when I could hear the sea.  'I can hear the sea.' Someone's favourite quote from King Lear. Such a noise....
• Seagulls diving bombing into the water. Must have been a shoal of fish driven into the rock
• Demons in the mind: Cavafy and Ithaca. Travel well - but remember that you will bring many monsters with you.... 

Icy spring and music in Leipzig

Click here

A whirlwind trip to Leipzig to see Siefried at the Opera House - and just by chance was lucky enough to catch the Dresden Boys' Choir rehearsing at St Thomas's Church, Leipzig. Breathtaking. Bach was a choirboy in this church. The first performance ever of St Matthew's Passion was here.
Outside, an icy wind and few signs of spring apart from these baskets on the pavement (the bulbs are planted so high, they become part of the display - must remember).
The white interior of St Nicholas' Church very peaceful - especially the painted pews .... Bach was organist here. Near the altar is a striking crucifix from  Coventry Cathedral: didn't manage to take a picture.

Siegfried started at 4pm and by the second Act the square outside was so busy with skaters.  Blue lights - reminded me of visits to Warsaw soon after Epiphany.
Inside the opera house, Katherine Broderick takes a bow after her debut as Brunnhilde on this stage.

Ecce homo and flipping a chess board

The monochrome exhibition at the National Gallery - Rembrandt's Ecce Homo alongside a print by Jan Van Vliet, his engraver. The image is flipped and some parts of it in reverse gain strength, others lose. The man beckoning to the crowd is more noticeable in the print, as is the  man in the turban in the centre of the picture.
It's like flipping a chess board online - you see all sorts of possibilities, for losing as well as winning.

Derbyshire Alabaster, St Just and the Three Kings

Going to see the reredos behind the altar in St Just Church is a Christmas ritual (am not sure that it is backlit at any other time of year). More about the history here.  It's very delicately carved in Derbyshire Alabaster.
This year someone has enthusiastically placed flower arrangements right in front of them, but never mind.
Outside - there's no escaping it - St Just's can look pretty bleak. Such a lot of granite. But everywhere does this time of year when the sun doesn't shine.