As
is so often the case, I open by bemoaning the fact that my writing is
not going well. Not that I do not have much to say, that is not the
problem, it is matching what I have to say with the dictates of the
essay title we have been given. As is also the case, I am heartened
by the cries of despair that emanate from the forums which are there,
ostensibly, to keep some sense of calm cohesion among the disparate
student body of a distance learning community. It doesn't work of
course. The forums are much more efficient of whipping up hysteria
than allaying it. Still, I gain a perverse sense of well-being from
the heartfelt cries of academic desolation, as they tend to show up
the triviality of my own sense of mild frustration!
Come
hell and/or high weather I will have a rough draft of the first of
the three essays that I have to write by the end of the night. Or
not. One mustn't set one's expectations too high! It is a sure sign
of my exasperation that I have been driven to write notes for the
essay! Clearly following (at last) the strict advice that I have
given to generations of schoolchildren. Following your own advice!
How bizarre is that?
The
first essay is a sort of compare-and-contrast – which should, of
course, be academic bread and butter to me. And it is, to a certain
extent, but it is the little bit 'extra' in the title that is causing
all the problems.
We
have to account for the differences in the artworks that we are
comparing by relating our observations to the way in which they were
made. As the artworks are respectively a gilded bronze plaque and a
group of three statues, you could well ask what the hell I know about
casting and gilding bronze and producing sculpture!
Well,
I have to admit, I know a little more about the lost-wax method of
casting than is probably natural for someone who is never going to
get even remotely near to anyone adopting it (I have, after all,
watched the sections of the CDs that we have been given as part of
our course) and, as for statues, I always remember reading
Michelangelo's supremely unhelpful observation that sculpture was
quite easy, all you have to do is chip away the bits of stone that
you don't need to allow the figure to emerge. That reminds me of one
of my frighteningly intelligent tutors in university who helpfully
told us that he always started with the bits of a work of art that he
didn't understand. - the exact opposite to what I taught the kids!
But,
there again, I didn't have the sort of first at Oxford where the
faculty had to stand up and applaud when he went for his viva for his
degree! Or was that just a story told us to make us in awe of him?
What I do know is that he once slept on the floor of my room in Hall
for political reasons that now escape me. And it was because of him that I
made my first and only nervous telephone call to The Daily Worker (does that
Communist rag still exist?) and delivered a report written by him,
down the line, to a journalist! God, I haven't thought about that for
umpteen years! And he must now be a professor somewhere or other, or
professor emeritus now given the passing of time! I must look him
up.
I
have and he is. And, what is more I think that I will order some of
his books. His High Anglican faith comes as something of a shock,
but I am sure that it just as valid as my Anglican Atheism!
All
this typing is displacement activity (again) when I should be writing
pellucid prose studded with coruscating insights into Renaissance
Art. With a capital 'A'!
Allons-y!
