Purple and yellow

Always good colours together. And these in a window at Ognisko looked sensational. But perhaps that was after the benefit of a large glass of white.  Before an amazing concert at the Royal College of Music. Pappano conducting.

If only it were this easy

Constable makes painting clouds look easy. If only!
This spotted at the Ashmolean today.

This wonderful cherry blossom at Quod on the High Street.  A good breakfast.

Coach rolling by Stonehenge

Love this Turner print - a mezzotint. Very atmospheric. Stonehenge (1924).

Someone said this morning that in our lifetimes we've moved not to another age but another era - which started at the turn of the 21st century.

Notes on pilgrimage July 2019

Gerard Hughes (In Search of the Way) on the uninhabited Scottish island. Most people would not have the resources to cope - not just physically, but mainly mentally.
p123 "The pilgrim must travel light, otherwise he cannot continue on his way."
p 124 "Unless you lose your life, you cannot find it."
Both of Hughes' sisters committed suicide: he seems tough. There is no talk of depression.
He said that his family didn't go on seaside holidays but visited the relics of saints.

p108 "Our whole life and character is contained in any incident, no matter how trivial it seems."


- George Borrow, like many other long distance walkers, was a depressive

Other books:
In Praise of Walking/Thomas Clark
The Path to Rome/Hilaire Belloc

A day trip to Durham and fish and chips by the sea

A 500-mile round trip from King's Cross but worth it...
A wedding at the church in Kelloe - then fish and chips on the beach at Seaham where there is a huge metal statue of a World War One soldier on the front. Traditionally people picked up coal on the beach at Seaham. Still the odd bit to be found....

Hawthorn grove

A small wood of hawthorns on the hill above Belstone on the edge of Dartmoor. How does it come to be there? 

Hawthorns the place for trysts. As in Tristan and Isolde: the plotters meet beneath one.  

--

Pilgrimage and St Anne D'Auray, Brittany

 St Anne D'Auray a famous place of pilgrimage in Brittany (in fact I think it's on the French section of the Camino de Santiago). But most exciting for me was discovering proof that the town is twinned with Camborne....
A wet day.  Lovely roses.
Thousands and thousands of names on the War Memorial, so poignant in the rain.

Annie Walke triptych at Truro Cathedral

Has no idea this lovely triptych by Annie Walke was in Truro Cathedral. Often think of her husband Bernard Walke (ill-fated vicar of St Hilary) and his fabulous autobiography. Annie Walke has some works at St Hilary but not as splendid as this.

Sketchbooks

Have to say - Turner's sketchbooks at Tate Britain are sensational. Imagine creating something like this in a notebook...

The west front of Winchester Cathedral in 1795....

And chez moi stunning flowers from friends from America who visited yesterday....

Hidden signals

You can (just) see the cross on this granite stone at Crelly in Crowan. But I would never have noticed it without the help of an Ordnance Survey map. 

--

Susan Roberts
Director
Bridging Arts
www.bridging-arts.com
Tel: 07772 128 014

A random day

A painting for a birthday card. 

Cherry blossom rescued from a tree trimmer - and the Cornish flag flying over Hammersmith on St Piran's Day.

Bradwell

Bradwell in Essex. One of (if not the oldest) churches in England. It was worth it. What a peaceful place.
It was so windy but inside completely calm. High windows. The tide was out and the salt marsh mud flats stretched for miles.  It reminded me (a bit) of Escomb church in County Durham.

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.