Category Archives: Milady gets culture

Christmas Traditions – a Trip with Lunch

Each year I spend a special day with a friend during the run up to Christmas. In the past we’ve gone on a hike and had a lunch or combined with something cultural. Last year we hiked along the River Wharfe and ended up with lunch at The Devonshire Fell Hotel at Burnsall. In previous years we’ve been to The Yorkshire Sculpture Park where it’s possible to walk for a few miles before taking lunch in their lovely light and airy first floor restaurant. This year was no exception but instead of the walk/hike part we took the train to Manchester and visited The Manchester Art Gallery which is currently showing a Ford Madox Brown exhibition; subtitled “Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer”. Earlier this year I met with friends for an Art Fund visit to the city which included a tour of The John Rylands Library and should have included a visit to the Ford Madox Brown murals in Manchester Town Hall. However another event took precedence over ours and we had to make do with a ‘Behind the Scenes’ tour of the town hall.

The Last of England by Ford Madox Brown

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Brown_last_of_england.jpg)

During the 1990s I did a course in Victorian Studies which included a Victorian Art module. I can’t say that I love the Pre-Raphaelites but I did find the study of nineteenth century paintings interesting because they are laden with symbolism. Ford Madox Brown (1821-1893) was never a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but he did influence them through his ‘primitive simplicity’ style of the age before Raphael.

Emma Hill (Study for The Last of England) 1852.

Ford Madox Brown produced a prodigious amount of work in many forms and media. There are some beautiful sketches and drawings and several very famous paintings many of which are from the Gallery’s own collections, from the University of Manchester’s Whitworth Gallery and Birmingham Art Gallery. The most famous and featured here are Work and The Last of England (above).

The exhibition is divided into themes around FMB’s life and work including: The Artist and His Family, The Early Period, The Change of Direction, The Landscape Painter and The Portrait Painter. Perhaps of most interest to me was The Storyteller theme where the drawings and paintings depict characters from literature as in his King Lear series of drawings and his paintings of the origins of literature – Geoffrey Chaucer reading the ‘Legend of Custance’ to Edward III and his Court and Wycliffe Reading his Translation of the Bible. There are illustrations from the works of Lord Byron; significantly his Manfred on the Jungfrau and from Victor Hugo’s poem ‘A un passant’ – The traveller.

The Traveller

(Source : http://hoocher.com/Ford_Madox_Brown/Ford_Madox_Brown.htm )

Manfred on the Jungfrau

(Source : http://www.manchestergalleries.org/the-collections/search-the-collection/display.php?EMUSESSID=12973dc2d3d45aa915cf27ebd35dd39f&irn=654 )

On our way out of the gallery we caught sight of a new Grayson Perry exhibit so looks like I may be making a trip back to Manchester in the new year. Who knows?

And as we left the gallery the heavens opened and we made a mad dash for the tapas bar – Evuna – a couple of streets away where our weather woes were soon forgotten!

On our way home though we did express our relief to each other that we had chosen to spend our day in a gallery rather than on the hills – we got wet enough without!

Leighton House in Kensington.

Today I met up with my sister and friend and visited Leighton House in Kensington. It was a beautiful day – unseasonably warm – and we met at Holland Park Tube Station. It’s short walk from there to Holland Park itself. Once inside the park you could be miles away from the busy metropolis that is central London. It was easy to forget that we were only just in Zone 2!

There’s a modern cafe in the middle of the park and it was here that we stopped for coffee (or, in my case, tea) and a chat before heading to the house.

Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830 – 1896), was born in Scarborough, my favourite Yorkshire seaside resort. His father was a doctor and so was his grandfather. In fact his grandfather was primary physician to the Russian royal family in St Petersburg. He amassed a large fortune and because of this Leighton was cushioned for the rest of his life. Although his parents were unhappy with his choice of career they agreed to it and expected him to become “eminent in art”. His successes were many – not least that Queen Victoria bought his first major painting and in 1878 he was appointed President of the Royal Academy. On his death his sisters ensured that the house was left to the nation, or at least to the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

As usual no photography is allowed in the house. You enter a huge staircase hall, narcissus hall and the fabulous Arab hall. Leighton was a consummate collector of things Middle Eastern – tiles, textiles, ceramics, woodwork and other crafts collected on his travels – and art – from paintings by  Corot and Tintoretto to his contemporaries G. F. Watts, John Everett Millais and William de Morgan. Despite all the oriental artefacts the house struck me as rather spare and un-Victorian. There’s a lovely big garden at the back but it’s closed in winter. I noticed that they also plan some entertaining events. There’s an Operatic Evening and a Carol Singing evening coming up in December.

For lunch we headed down High Street Kensington to Whole Foods Market where Thanksgiving was in full swing!

Not The Last of the Duchess

My interest in the Windsors dates back to earlier this year when I stayed at their weekend retreat near Paris, now handily converted for self-catering holidays by the Landmark Trust. Back in the spring I read this book and the biography by Michael Bloch “The Duchess of Windsor”, and the one by Hugo Vickers “Behind Closed Doors: the Tragic, Untold Story of the Duchess of Windsor” and then most recently Anne Sebba’s new biography “That Woman”. The authors of each book, it seemed to me, had an agenda and I still feel I am nowhere nearer knowing what the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were really like. Of course we can never ever know for sure!

Reading the last sentences I realise that all my reading has concentrated on Wallis and not so much on Edward. I need to address that. I’m currently reading James Pope-Hennessy’s life of Queen Mary which will go a little way to adjust the balance. I think perhaps the library can help too!

Last evening the Duchess was the main subject of the play I went to see at the Hampstead Theatre. This was a performance of the world premiere of “The Last of the Duchess” adapted by Nicholas Wright but based closely on Blackwood’s book.

I booked tickets when I came upon a link to it by chance via Google. At the time I was searching for more information about Lady Caroline Blackwood, the author of the book I had just read, back in May or June this year. At the time there was no inkling as to the cast but I knew that I wanted to see it. And anyway the theatre is just steps away from my elder son’s flat.

The casting was inspired. Sheila Hancock played, as if she were a Frenchwoman herself, the role of Maitre Blum, the Duchess’s Parisian lawyer. Her accent, her French, her dress and demeanor all had that je ne sais quoi of Parisian style that is so hard for Englishwomen to replicate. Of course, that meant that Caroline Blackwood , played so wonderfully by Anna Chancellor, would be the antithesis of the smart, immaculate, maybe teetotal, Blum. There were touches of humour throughout but the major protagonist of act two was Lady Diana Mosley who was played magnificently by Angela Thorne (great buddy of Penelope Keith in TV’s To The Manor Born). Mosley was a Mitford sister and close friend of the Duchess. At this period in her life she was profoundly deaf and forbidden by butler Georges, on instructions from Blum, to see her dear friend.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1367933/Wallis-Simpson-Robbed-abused-Duchess-Windsors-days.html

Photo from Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1367933/Wallis-Simpson-Robbed-abused-Duchess-Windsors-days.html)

The setting is the house in the Bois de Boulogne leased to the Duke and Duchess by the City of Paris. The Duke has died some time before and the Duchess appears briefly at the beginning of the first act, in a kind of dream of Blackwood’s. That is the Last we see of her. From then on she is upstairs helpless in her bed as the arguments and contretemps continue below. Lady Caroline, thrice married  journalist, has come to Paris to interview the Duchess but Blum will have none of it. There’s a suggestion that Lord Snowdon has been appointed to take her photograph. This Blum forbids but somehow as a kind of bribe she manages to arrange her own photo shoot with Snowdon. This takes place offstage during the second act. In the final act Blum coolly responds to every accusation of Blackwood’s as she herself becomes more and more intoxicated. I came away from the play with the same feeling of uncertainty as after reading the book. Was Blum a consummate liar and villain or was she, in some strange way honestly  protecting the Duchess from exploitation?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8851278/The-Last-of-the-Duchess-Hampstead-Theatre-review.html

As it turns out, in the end, it is almost the last of Lady Blackwood. She died only months after the publication of her book whereas the Duchess of Windsor was to live for a further 12 years.

Every Inch a King

What’s this? Me thinking I’m a theatre critic?  How dare I? Well, of course, this isn’t really a critical review merely a comment on my feelings after seeing ‘King Lear’ at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last evening.

“KING LEAR


23 September 2011  to 22 October 2011


QUARRY THEATRE

King Lear abdicates the British throne, to divide his kingdom among his three daughters in proportion to their professed love of him. When Cordelia, his youngest and favourite daughter, refuses to flatter her father; she is disinherited and banished. 

King Lear, with its intense exploration of kinship, loyalty, old-age and madness is widely held as the greatest of Shakespeare’s tragedies; to some, it is the greatest play ever written.

 Award-winning stage, film and television actor Tim Pigott-Smith will perform the title role, directed by West Yorkshire Playhouse Artistic Director Ian Brown.”

Picture and Resumé from The West Yorkshire Playhouse website.

Over 25 years ago (is it really that long?) a dear friend, Mrs Wright, Snr., asked if I’d like to join her and subscribe to a season of plays at The Leeds Playhouse (as it was then). Of course, I did, and we have never looked back! Through the births of our children and various other upheavals we’ve stuck with our commitment and missed very few plays. In 1990 the old Leeds Playhouse was replaced by the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the ticketing became more complicated but we just stuck with our original plan and booked the longer running plays.

Yesterday evening we attended the last but one evening performances of King Lear. I don’t know whether this play will move to other theatres or even to The West End but it was a magnificent production and if you get the chance and enjoy Shakespeare – go see it! Tim Pigott-Smith (of ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ fame) stars in the title role. The final performance at Leeds is halfway through as I type.

The play opens strongly in reds and blacks and greys and there is no doubt who is in power and what form that power takes – it is King Lear and the power is absolute! Fast forward towards the end of the play and we see a desolate, senile and bereft Lear cradling his dead daughter Cordelia and we feel as exhausted, as surely the actors must do, with tragedy of it all.

Cordelia is played by Olivia Morgan. It’s her very first professional stage debut. How good is that?! To me it showed but was all the better for the ‘naivety’ – is that the right word? I think I read somewhere that Cordelia has just 120 lines but she’s pivotal to the play.

Photo : James Garnon [Mercutio] in the Globe’s 2004 Romeo and Juliet ( globe-education.org )

All evening I couldn’t get out of my mind of whom James Garnon (Edmund) reminded me. I checked the programme when I got home, found that he performed in Howard Brenton’s ‘Anne Boleyn’ at Shakespeare’s Globe which I saw in the summer and realised straightaway that he was James I. He is definitely one to watch.

At The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsmen

I’ve been hesitating as to whether to post about my visit to the British Museum on Thursday. Obviously I am no art critic, have no training in art and very little knowledge on the subject and even less knowledge about Grayson Perry himself so this is just my own personal comment. When I first heard about “The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman”  I was very excited to see it.

I had no idea what to expect but the thought of choosing artefacts, items made by craftsmen and women over the decades, centuries and millennia, from the vast archive of the British Museum had overwhelming appeal for me. Put together with recently crafted pots and tapestries and what I believe are called installations for me the mix was a huge success. I loved it!

We’ve had A History of The World in 100 objects and Our Top Ten British Treasures and now we have a kind of temporary memorial to all of the unknown craftsmen and women whose work has been collected by the museum – or donated to it – over the centuries of its existence.

The exhibition is divided into themes such as Shrines, Journeys, Magick, Maps, Souvenirs of Pilgrimage, Sexuality and Gender, Scary Figures and Patina and Texture. I think I’ve remembered them correctly.

There is Grayson Perry’s teddy bear Alan Measles in his own shrine on the back of GP’s motorcycle. There was a radio programme about the journey they made to Germany on the bike on Radio 4 last November.

No photography is allowed inside the Exhibition but I did take a few notes of GP’s comments on some of the themes that most interested me.

On the topic of Journeys he says :

“The “journey” has become a tired metaphor of reality TV describing a transformative experience. I come on a journey every time I visit the British Museum. I enjoy idealised foreign travel in my head. Walking from my house in WC1 within 20 minutes I can have an encounter with the world.” 

You may have thought the title of this post included a typing error but it is intentional because GP and many of us see The British Museum as a Tomb to Unknown Craftsmen. A pot by Perry on display is called “A Walk in Bloomsbury”.

On Maps he says :

“We trust maps. Maps are meant to be a trustworthy diagram of reality. All maps though contain some very human bias. They emphasise desirable features and leave out the undesirable. I like maps of feelings, beliefs and the irrational, they use our trust of maps to persuade us that there might be truth in their beauty.”

I have always loved maps and was delighted see a copy of  a book recommended to me by a friend and which has long lain in my Amazon shopping basket:  You are here : personal geographies ; by Katharine Harmon. A fabric map by Perry fills one wall – to see it at its best wait until you have moved into the next room and view it through a hatch in the wall.

On Souvenirs of Pilgrimage he says :

“We all make journeys to see places or people that are significant to us. It is natural to want a keepsake of the trip to remind ourselves and show others. Pilgrims usually travel light so the souvenir may only be a badge, a photo or a signature.”

I was delighted to see masses of badges collected over the years by the British Museum. Even such ephemera has a role in the exhibition. I smile because I have a box full of badges up in the attic.

This final quotation has a resonance for me too. I’m a great visitor to churches on my travels. On the subject of Scary Figures Perry says :

“We have always had images at gateways to warn and protect. Cathedrals had carvings over the doors showing the Last Judgement and the damned going to hell – now we have CCTV.”

To find out more  there’s a book that accompanies the exhibition (of course) and here’s a link to the exhibition in pictures :

Grayson Perry’s Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman – in pictures

In the end I didn’t buy a souvenir but I saw three books which will go on my library suggestions list :

50 British Artists you should know, by Lucinda Hawksley

You are here : personal geographies ; by Katharine Harmon.

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman by Grayson Perry.

The House that Mrs Jack Built

“Years ago I decided that the greatest need in our Country was Art… We were a very young country and had very few opportunities of seeing beautiful things, works of art… So, I determined to make it my life’s work if I could.” Isabella Stewart Gardner, 1917.

One of the loveliest and most interesting art museums that I have ever visited is just a few stops on the ‘T’ from downtown Boston.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is currently undergoing change. Not too sure what Mrs Jack Gardner would make of that but there you go. We’re told on the audio guide that she planned the whole place herself from the building to the purchase of the works of art themselves to where she meant them to hang and then left strict instructions that that was how it was to stay.

Isabella Stewart was born in 1840 in New York and married John (‘Jack’) Gardner in 1860. They travelled widely and ‘Mrs Jack’ developed an interest in art which turned into a passion for collecting after her father left her his entire fortune when he died in 1891. Jack died in 1898 and she continued to collect, purchasing some land on Fenway and designing and planning the museum just as it is today. It opened to the public in 1903. She died in 1924.

Photo from ISGM website

The Museum centres on the dramatic Japanese-style courtyard full of greenery and mosaic tiles which is in such great contrast to the darker rooms through which you approach it. On three floors each room has a theme of its own from The Titian Room to the Blue Room and the Yellow Room through to a Tapestry Room and a Gothic Room. Due to the work going on just now some of the rooms were closed and others had items removed.

My favourite room was the Dutch Room where an early Rembrandt self portrait hangs.

Photo from ISGM website

But when you enter the Dutch Room you are also in for a shock. There on the wall hangs an empty frame – where once Rembrandt’s ‘Storm on the Sea of Galilee’ was hanging. In 1990 the ISGM was victim of the largest single property theft in the world. None of the works of art has yet been recovered.

Also due to all the building works going on the shop and cafe are both closed. There were just two books for sale:

The Yale Guide, by H. T. Goldfarb and a biography of Mrs Jack by Louise Hall Tharp. No fridge magnets, no rubbers, no pens and not even one postcard!

Then, from the sublime to the ridiculous, I fulfilled a long term wish of mine since first seeing it in 1995 – I went on DUCK TOUR!

There we are reflected in office windows on Copley Square!