Not quite my scene

Our evening meal was taken outside a bar in the centre of town just by the railway station.  Considering its central position, as Laura noted, it was airy and tranquil, with the pots of sturdy greenery giving an illusion of a stunted dell.  Perhaps Laura’s comment was a hostage to fortune as almost immediately a deranged looking man staggering along the street with a plastic beaker full of what looked like liquid mud, lurched up to the entrance of the bar and asked the Chinese waiter if he could have a fill up of water.

The good-natured waiter complied with the request and the man went on his way muttering to himself and spilling quantities of his evil looking concoction and lurched his way into the open square space in front of the station.

Then the dogs started barking.  And went on barking.  And then there were sounds of an altercation with raised voices above the threnody of yelps.

Like the aristos in ‘Dr Zhivago’ looking out at the protesters in the snow from their warm and secure privileged position behind falsely secure windows, we, in our leafy bower watched developments, while I sipped my end of meal cup of tea.

Sirens heralded the arrival of the first police car and as the ‘trouble’ veered towards the pedestrian underpass through to the station car

parks someone shouted out to the emerging policemen, “He’s got a knife.”  From behind the safety of a couple of pot plants, we felt the thrill of proximity to danger and were determined to make our post-prandial beverages last the distance!

More police cars arrived, their flashing lights giving not only a suitably lurid setting for the excitement, but also marking a similarity to the ‘festa major’ fair that had been established at the far end of the car park - I do like an element of the serendipitous in my evenings out!

An ambulance then arrived, shortly followed by a second.  And we settled in for a suitably gory finale to the evening’s entertainment.

As we were finishing our meal it had the temerity to start raining, not convincingly admittedly, but still water falling from on high in August!

This soon stopped, as indeed did the drama as, one by one the police cars and ambulances drove off with nary a corpse or villain in sight.

The rest of the family were frankly sceptical about my explanation of the whole event being part of a street happening as part of the ‘festa major’ of our town – though Toni’s sister did applaud me politely at the end of the little drama and congratulate me (because surely I had something to do with it?) for finding a way to pass the time to the next event on the horizon.

This was a free concert.   

Now I have been to a totally memorable free concert next to the beach here in Castelldefels that featured the student orchestra of the University of Southampton playing a spirited performance of Sibelius’s second symphony, this concert, however, was not like that.

The entertainment, that had started by the time we got there, was of a Catalan group who sang, very loudly, in Catalan.  There were no seats.  But I soon discovered a fringe group of the elderly and infirm and the opportunistic who had found a limited number of metal chairs from somewhere.  I soon found the somewhere and Carmen and I were soon part of the group.

The disadvantage of our position (seated, with the rest of the audience standing) did mean that our view was, to put it mildly, limited.  But the very professional light show that accompanied the singing, together with a liberal amount of stage smoke, did ensure that the lighting effects were clearly visible ell beyond the confines of the stage.

I did attempt to take some photographs, where my mobile phone (disconcertingly) recognized that I was taking pictures of a ‘musical event’!  How did it know?  [I really wanted to use an interrobang at the end of the last sentence, but I don’t know how to print one.]  The end results were patchy, but taking pictures at night at x5 zoom on a handheld phone, I am not sure what I expected to get!

A long (for me) walk back to the car, bidding ‘bye’ to our second set of visitors and bed.  I slept as though drugged and snoozed more on the beach this morning!

It’s a hard old life, but someone has to live it!

Tomorrow Barcelona, and the start of my serious research in the library of MNAC to find out more, much more about the life and times of Adam Elsheimer.

Questing continues!

The direction is set!

Adam Elsheimer, self portrait

The hunt is on! The game’s afoot!

There is nothing quite so satisfying as playing at research. I have had numerous opportunities to do this seriously, but have generally squandered those opportunities, and have instead settled for the more mundane and parochial research of Man + computer + limited library.

Having been fascinated by a painting that I saw in the National Gallery in Edinburgh, I am slowly garnering information and indications about the life and work of Adam Elsheimer.


Elsheimer (1578-1610) is a famously un-famous painter, whose work is generally unknown and unappreciated, but a painter who influenced a whole direction of pictorial representation, influencing painters as famous as Rembrandt and he was a painter who counted Rubens as an admiring friend.

Of course, in the world of art history Elsheimer is well regarded and has a respectable number of scholarly monographs and books written about him, but outside this rarefied world his is not a name that comes to mind when talking about great artists.

Adam Elsheimer. Rest on the Flight to Egypt.

Probably his most famous painting is “Rest on the Flight to Egypt” where the Holy Family is depicted in a landscape setting at night. Illumination comes from separate sources: the moon and its reflection on water; the constellations and a depiction of the Milky Way; shepherds around a blazing fire and a torch held by Joseph. This is a small painting of oil on copper measuring only 31 x 41 cm. It is believed to be one of the first naturalistic depictions of a night-time scene with accurate rendering of stars in their constellations. It has been suggested that Elsheimer might have been influenced in his painting by the discoveries of Galileo. It was a painting that Elsheimer kept for himself, in his bedroom and may well have been one of the last paintings that he completed before his early death at the age of thirty-two.

Elsheimer was a meticulous artist whose paintings demand intimate viewing. Indeed, in one exhibition of his work, visitors were given a plastic magnifying glass as part of their admission price so that they could look at aspects of his work that were difficult to appreciate with the naked eye: “Devil in the detail” was the subtitle of the exhibition!

Elsheimer was German, born in Frankfurt and ended his life in Italy. Although he produced a small number of paintings because of his attention to detail and the painstaking way in which he worked, the influence of his paintings was extended throughout Europe by their use as the inspiration for a number of etchings and prints. The influence of his tiny paintings explodes into something more epic in the much larger paintings of Rubens and Claude.

Although Elsheimer was modest about his own ability, he was famous and, what is more, he seems to have been what you might term “an artist’s artist” who was highly regarded and much copied.

Altogether, Elsheimer is a fascinating character as well as a wonderfully gifted artist and well worthy of more study. At least by me.

The first thing to do is (breathe it not to Toni) buy more books. I have no books on Elsheimer, and reading through what I have already written that is hardly surprising. His name does not jump out at you from what is generally a fairly meagre collection of volumes of art history in most bookshops.

I will, assiduously, set about building up a collection of and about Elsheimer that will be the wonder of . . . well, at least my street. And yes, I do realize that owning a single volume of his work will probably allow me to gain that accolade!

If the fates are generous then I should be able to utilize not only my course books from my last OU Renaissance Reimagined module, but also the course books that I have bought from the module that I cannot afford to take about art and its global histories.

Although it seems a simple statement to say that Elsheimer was born in Frankfurt and moved to Rome via Venice, it does not give the requisite detail to realise just what the moves meant and what the places represented.

Italy (Metternich’s famous dismissal as nothing more than a “geographical expression”) was not a country then; Rome was the home of the papacy, but a European power in its own right; Venice was one of the most powerful city states in the world with financial and cultural links to the known and unknown world, a centre where the interchange of cultures could thrive. While Frankfurt, a commercial and intellectual centre by the middle of the sixteenth century, had become crucial in the development of the Reformation linked with the rise of a confident middle class. In other words, there is a lot to think about before you even get to a consideration of the works of art. I do enjoy a good wallow in historical, social, religious and political background!

I am not sure if we have any Elsheimer works in Barcelona, but I will find out. And if not, then I will travel to where there are.

Any excuse!

When in doubt, read about it and write!

If anyone cared, which of course they do not, I could list the excuses that would justify my lack of written blog-stuff over the last weeks and months.  That indolence is in the past (he says again) and today, today is the first of the Writing Days that will see me not only complete my daily thoughts, but also see me complete the work on two outstanding books.  I have to admit that I prefer the adjective before the noun in that last part of the previous sentence because it gives me the personal boost that I need to put finger to key and actually get stuff done.

As is so often the case, my return to writing is as a result of reading, and that reading is a result of my hatred of airports.

I am one of the multitude of people for whom travelling is a chore: I like arriving, not going through the process of getting there.  I am well aware that great travel writers (and my late, lamented, and much missed Aunt Betty) are able to make all aspects of their journeys seem fascinating.  Aunt Betty never went on a boring holiday: yes, there were disasters, including one memorable occasion when the family did not have enough money left at the tail end of the holiday to be able to afford a family meal and so my redoubtable Aunt made the executive decision and went out for a meal for one – her!  But for we ordinary folk, the actually process of getting somewhere is almost always tedious and (for all six-foot people) cramped.

The nadir of the travelling experience is everything to do with aircraft.  At least it is if you are travelling low-cost and the person in front of you thinks that the aircraft seats recline and refuses to give up the idea of travelling prone!

It is not all irredeemably bad: one piece of cabin luggage and pre-check-in at least take some of the horror away and, I have discovered, if you are wearing a blue (one has still to be fashion conscious) pressure stocking and are walking with the aid of a Foldystick (god bless them!) and have thrombosis, embolisms and an over working heart, the lady at the check in will look kindly upon you and give you early boarding!  On the return trip from Edinburgh to Barcelona, for the first time in my life, I was the first person on board the plane – having been escorted to the bottom of the steps (where is an air-bridge when you want one?) by not one, but two (count them!) members of staff.  But, for that moment of isolated triumph you have to endure the seemingly endless waiting.

Now, I am not good at waiting.  I would prefer to be doing.  My definition of doing is flexible and doesn’t actually need to be too physically demanding.  Doing, for me, may well be reading.

So, as our little travelling party making the journey from Edinburgh to Barcelona was overwhelmingly composed of people who believed slavish in the necessity for the full (and more) two hours purgatory in the airport before the flight I had steeled myself to an extended period of teeth gnashing frustration – but I had omitted to realize that I would be waiting not in some foreign airport but in a British one.  A British airport where W H Smiths was open for business and had the buy one and get the cheapest half price offer on books.

Toni’s attitude towards my purchasing yet more reading matter that will not fit into a house pleasingly overloaded with books usually means that I limit my impulse buying in the airport, but this time I was positively encouraged to spend because we were in Scotland.

I can still remember my profound disbelief when I first saw a Scottish bank note – soon followed by my plaintive whine about why we in Cardiff did not have our own versions too.  I was very young, still in the days of the large white fivers, when my dad explained that Scotland had its own version of the currency and it was also explained to me that this Scottish money was legal tender in the rest of Britain.  And that was a fact.

In an early example of ‘facts’ not necessarily being generally accepted, I suggest you try and use a Scottish banknote in Cardiff.  On the, admittedly few, occasions that I have been slipped a Scottish note in my change, I have NEVER had the recipient (outside Scotland) accept the ‘foreign’ note with anything other than healthy scepticism or downright rejection.  I was able to play on this attitude to such an extent that Toni was positively urging me to ‘get rid’ of the notes that I still had in any way possible – including the purchase of books!

In what must be a first, Toni actually accompanied me into W H Smiths (!) to aid and abet me in the purchase!

Nowadays, like my Dad, I find myself drifting towards the non-fiction section of the bookshop to get my impulse buys.  I ended up with two books: the first, “Humans” by Tom Philips which had a graphic of an inky left handprint and a subtitle of “A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up” and the second was “Prisoners of Geography” by Tim Marshall with a graphic of half of the world filled with words, and a subtitle of “The maps that tell you everything you need to know about global politics”.

I have to admit that I bought “Humans” on the strength of thinking I knew the writer, Tom Phillips.  I thought that he was the writer who had produced another Mapp and Lucia novel to add to the all-too-brief sequence written by E F Benson.  He wasn’t.  And I really should have known that someone who could publish a subtitle of such vulgarity could not possible have been comfortable with the style of E F Benson!  I am, however, glad that I made the mistake as I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

For years I looked forward to owning a book with the wonderful title of “Great Planning Disasters” in which the site of the British Library; B.A.R.T.; Concorde and of course The Sydney Opera House were all discussed in loving detail.  The fact that, for example, The British Library and The Sydney Opera House are both excellent entities, the first being an excitingly magical place in which to work and the second being an instantly recognizable, iconic masterpiece do not detract from the absurdly farcical way in which they were created.  In the same way, I look forward to the Olympics, not for the sporting excellence that sometimes appears, but rather for the political, social and financial disasters that so frequently follow the awarding of the questionable honour of staging them and their reality.  For me, the games themselves are something of an anti-climax after the unreal shenanigans leading up to the opening ceremony!

So, my mind set is predetermined to wallow in human cupidity and ineptitude, and “Humans” provides dollops of Man’s (and let’s face it, in the history of global incompetence, the use of the masculine is terribly, and I mean that word literally, appropriate!

For those who might find the language used in this book informal to the point of vulgarity, then I would suggest that the sub-title would have given a fairly clear indication of the attitude of the author and they have only themselves to blame.

I think the book reads like an informed comic novel – the text bounces along and ranges freely through history to find the most glaring examples of what can only be described as f*ukupedness!  For me, the whole book was justified by giving much more information about Thomas Midgley Jr. the “genius engineer, chemist and inventor . . . whose discoveries helped shape the modern world to a remarkable degree” – to find out just how catastrophic his “genius” was.  As the author points out, “He’s in this book because, incredibly, being killed in his bed by his own invention doesn’t even make it into the top two biggest mistakes of his life.”!  And if that little extract doesn’t make you want to find out why and read more then you are a person so far removed from my own way of thinking that I wonder why you are reading this blog in the first place.  Read, and enjoy!

The second book “Prisoners of Geography” (which now I come to think about it sounds like the title of a second musical review at the end of the truly excellent film, “The Producers”) is a more conventionally written book, though it is filled with the personal opinions which, refreshingly, make it into the main historical, social and geographical descriptions in the book.  It is packed with information which is compelling by its sheer obviousness – as soon as you have been told about it!

Reading it reminded me of what turned out to be the first mentioned book in the Bibliography under the General references section: Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” published in 2005.  I read Diamond’s book in a state of continual revelation and “Prisoners of Geography” has a real debt to it – but that does not make “Prisoners of Geography” derivative, it ploughs its own furrow and a compelling one it is too.  Well worth reading.

For those academics among you the most pressing differences are: “Humans” has a brief, chatty section of further reading at the end, while “Prisoners of Geography” has a sectioned bibliography and a full index.  But I must emphasise that both books read themselves and I will be returning to them in the sure and certain knowledge that I will be shocked anew!

My other purchases in Edinburgh comprised some short stories by Ian Rankin (two quid reduced, I couldn’t resist, and the book has been read and already given away as a ‘reader’ for English with an Edinburgh background to Toni’s sister for her edification; catalogues to the Nolde exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art, the Rembrandt exhibition in the National Gallery, and the gallery guide to the National Portrait Gallery.  I also bought an old catalogue of watercolours of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, because yes, and gallery guides that I purchased second hand on Amazon together with a Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland volume which, as the contents went on tour in the US of A must have depleted the galleries to an astonishing extent, but must also have made a truly startling exhibition.

Books are heavy, and with only one cabin case I had to be especially winsome and “walking wounded” during my early boarding attempt, to deflect anyone from actually weighing my case.  I had to manfully reject any offers of help just in case they realised by the sheer gravitational pull that I might have been just a smidgeon over the approved weight limit.

All the books are safely home and make a truly satisfying ziggurat of colourful information on the coffee table next to my armchair – and because so many of them are catalogues of paintings I have actually “read” them all as well.  Though, I think that I would aver that actually “reading” a painting takes up a great deal more time that a similar allowance made for text.

One painting stands out, for reasons that I am still working on: Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610) The Stoning of Saint Stephen.  Not the beggared version of the painting in Cologne, but rather the “magnificent Edinburgh version, far richer in detail and more complicated in composition” and in particular the extraordinary young man in tip toes in the right hand foreground whose upstretched arms are about to bring a rock on the hapless Stephen’s head.  I also find the dramatically up lit dark haired angel (looking more like a disturbing figure from Degas or Sickett) worthy of note.  To say the least.

I am fascinated by the painting and I am trying to find out more about painter and painting and I think I might write a short monograph on the subject, Watson!

So, plenty to do, plenty to read – as long as the enervating heat keeps off.  Which it doesn’t, so my monograph will be in the realms of fantasy until the weather breaks and I return to my desk rather than the sun lounger!