St Paddy's day, London 2012

Quoting the Bard

"To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live."


Henry VI, part III, act II, scene 5 (circa 1591)

The awkw-art-ness in the Tate

For me, some parts of the Tate Britain are like this sort of exhibitions in which people stare wondering at a humidifier, looking in vain for the label bearing the name of the artist, in which you almost consider not sitting on a bench lest it is part of the exhibition, in which a bare wall could bear a label and in which you end up being the work of art.

Tate Britain

Don McCullin (born 1935): Homeless Irishman, Spitalfields, London 1969

(Photograph, gelatin silver print, on paper)

Don McCullin: Bradford, Yorkshire 1978 (Photograph, gelatin silver print, on paper)

Don McCullin: Hadrian's Wall, Northumberland 2009 (Photograph, gelatin silver print, on paper) 

Peter Peri (1899-1967): Stalin I 1942 (Concrete)

Peter de Francia (born 1921): The Bombing of Sakiet 1959 (Oil on canvas)

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925): Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose 1885-6 (Oil on canvas)

 

Frederic Leighton (1830-1896): An Athlete Wrestling with a Python 1877 (Bronze)

George Romney (1734-1802): Mrs Johnstone and her Son (?) about 1775-80 (Oil on canvas)

 

John Everett Millais (1829-1896): Ophelia 1851-2 (Oil on canvas)

John William Waterhouse (1849-1917): The Lady of Shalott 1888 (Oil on canvas)

Paul Noble (born 1963): Lidonob 2000 (Graphite on paper)

Cerith Wyn Evans (born 1958): Inverse Reverse Perverse 1996 (Acrylic)

Here is a short video showing the artwork at work:

Not blind to everything

"Aye, when the torch is low and we prepare
Beyond the notes of revelry to pass—
Old Silence will keep watch upon the grass,
The solemn shadows will assemble there."

XXII, The Diwan of Abu'l-Ala, Abu Al-Ala Al-Ma'arri (973-1058).


Wikipedia says of him that he was a "blind Arab philosopher, poet and writer. He was a controversial rationalist of his time, attacking the dogmas of religion and rejecting the claim that Islam possessed any monopoly on truth. [...] He lost his eyesight at the age of four due to smallpox. [...] Al-Ma'arri was skeptic in his beliefs and denounced superstition and dogmatism in religion. Thus, he has been described as a pessimistic freethinker, some argue that he might have been a deist. One of the recurring themes of his philosophy was the rights of reason against the claims of custom, tradition and authority.

"Do not suppose the statements of the prophets to be true; they are all fabrications. Men lived comfortably till they came and spoiled life. The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce."

He rejected claims of any divine revelation. His creed was that of a philosopher and ascetic, for whom reason provides a moral guide, and virtue is its own reward.

Al-Maarri's fundamental pessimism is expressed in his recommendation that no children should be begotten, so as to spare them the pains of life. In an elegy composed by him over the loss of a relative, he combines his grief with observations on the ephemerality of this life:

"Soften your tread. Methinks the earth’s surface is but bodies of the dead,

Walk slowly in the air, so you do not trample on the remains of God’s servants.""

Abridged by me. Source: Wikipedia

(Chewy) Snapshots III

St Bartholomew (the great), one of the oldest churches in London (1123)

In Smithfield. See next picture for a detailed (gruesome) explanation of the laconic 'put to death'.

No comment. 

16th Century portrait bust of 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta Jean de la Valette (1495?-1568),

Museum of the Order of St John (Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, founded in 1099). Valette led Malta to victory during the Great Siege of 1565. He is honoured in the name of the island's capital, Valetta (only capital city to be named after a person, if I'm not mistaken).

Maltese cross, symbol of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller (or Knights of Malta

because they moved there in 1530)

A WWI soldier posted this ration biscuit back home to his wife as a prank (he wanted to show her how hard those were). He wrote on the back of it that he tried to hit one of them biscuits on the sharp corner of a brick wall, in order to break it into pieces, but ended up bruising his hand.

Who said Britons didn't have any sense of humour?

Distant presence

"It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us."


Epicurus, philosopher (circa 341-270 BCE)

Pulling faces and other nonsense

All the above pictures have been taken in Temple Church, London.

Today, I had lunch and conversed (mainly about the weather) with this particular daffodil,

on Russell Square.