Back to Nature

Far from the madding crowd....

Sunrise over the North Sea, streaming across the extraordinary poppy fields that this year have coated north Norfolk in waving fields of blood.  

A little while before sun rise I just caught the moon going down, a tiny bright pinprick in the sky:

And then here comes the sun, and I say, "It's alright...."

It all happens so fast.  Daylight like a rising flash, a lightning, I find it all hard to believe, so I ask a passing skylark to take my pic from above:

And then he takes a speckled stutter of spatters without me (can you trust anyone these days?):

And that was last week. 

Yes, life is racing by.  Only a few weeks ago the cowslips were like a delicately quilted coverlet spread across the countryside.  

 

Then they gradually faded, seeping into beige and pale lemony green.  And then we had the poppies, fields and fields of them, filling the air with a dozy haze in the evening air while we walked.

Today I walk from my home to the north coast, some eight and half miles along lanes and footpaths, and the poppies are pale and fringed with age, their petals bruised with the flapping winds we have had in the last few days.....

And now they are being succeeded, by hawkweeds, or hawkbits, or common cat's-ears (please excuse my inexactitude; life is too short....)

So anyway.  I've been in the city.  I've had some slightly startling speedy heartbeats, and I am glad to be back in the fresh air, walking comfortably above the ground, fluttered by butterflies:

Two ringlets exchanging greetings

I am just off the Peddars' Way, only sixteen miles north of Castle Acre,

The landscape tells human stories.  Here a dry cereal crop leads you down to a red stone farm which lies just by the old railway line from Hunstanton to Fakenham.....

Here a shady oak frames a bucolic fold of hills with, though you cannot see it, a red kite trawling for worms.....

Then we have the hedgerows and wildflowers, exchanging their bodily fluids with the insects of the air to enable life, of all sorts, to go on.  Without this, you should know, we are all doomed....  Insect sex is everything we need....

A white-tailed bumblebee on knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on Knapweed

A six-spot Burnet moth on field scabious

A small white butterfly on bramble flowers

John Clare wrote:

Though simple to some I delight in the sight

Of such objects that bring unto me

A picture of picturesque joy and delight

Where beauty and harmony be

Oh I love at my heart to be strolling along

Oer the heath a new impulse to find

While I hum to the wind in a ballad or song

Some fancy that starts in the mind

All seems so delightful and bring to the mind

Such quiet and beautiful joys

That the mind when its weary like hermits may find

A retreat from earths folly and noise

The Heath

John Clare

I walk on.  Every day is new.  The shift from yellow to red to brown and so on is all part of the rich weft of colour that our world, when undisturbed, offers to the wanderer.  Seasonal.  Transitional. Always changing; always developing.  I am just perplexed by the rapidity of these changes.  

Don't read anything into these musings.  I breast the hill leading down to the coast and see,  distantly but clearly, Lincolnshire to one side, and a wind farm to the other.  As far as I can see there is life.  And life only.  

The foreground is filled with asparagus ferns, from the young plants that need to mature before they are harvested.  This is where I live, now.  This is beautiful.  I am happy to share it with you.....

Time flies by

In the blink of an eye

When you get paid for having too much fun

Kicking out the foot lights

Living the night life

Like tomorrow ain't never going to come

Wouldn't change much of nothing

About this road we've been running

For of wild times, wild women, and a song

But we would've taken much better care of ourselves

If we would have known we would live this long

Live This Long

Willie Nelson 

Merle Haggard

Amazing Grayson.....

Delusions. Of Grandeur?

Marlon Brando as Regulator Robert E Lee Clayton
in Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks

Q. When is a National Treasure not a National Treasure?

A. When it doesn't know who it is.

Grayson Perry as Shirley Smith
in Madge Gill's The Wallace Collection

The dress Grayson Perry designed for Marlon Brando
[Are you sure?  Ed]

Amazing Grayson, How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

And the first thing I see, on regaining my sight, are London rooftops, which conceal the life within.  Layer upon layer of obscurity, through which I attempt to spy something relevant.  

And so, in search of reason, we attend Her Madge's show in the underworld of the Wallace Collection, within the dusty confines of Hertford House.  Here she is. Lying in wait.....

The exhibition, on the occasion of Grayson's 65th birthday [Only a year or so to the Bus Pass. Ed], is one masked by a plurality of personae, where Ms Perrin [Shome mishtake? Ed], sorry, Grayson Perón. [Shtill not right. Ed] OK. Where Grayson shelters under a plurality of alter egos, starting with Shirley Smith, an outsider artist who believes herself to be The Honourable Millicent Wallace, rightful heir to Hertford House and its collection, including the Armoury.

Gun for shooting into the past

I have to declare something of my ignorance here. Apart from hearing that he won the Turner Prize in 2003, catching snatches of Perry's 2013 Reith Lectures, seeing some knitted bicycles and floral pots in the Arnolfini in Bristol, learning that in 2014 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Art, and that in 2019 he was appointed a trustee of the British Museum, I have not been a Grayson Perry groupie. But he is an articulate, and skilful creator and his ideas are considerable. Initially a potter,

What a Wonderful World - Glazed ceramic
(When I first came to London I was poor.  Forty-two years later, as a successful artist, I am fairly rich.  But I never take it for granted.....  Try being poor and you soon find out how all-consuming anxiety about money can become - Grayson Perry)

He has mastered many materials, such as textiles,

I Know Who I Am 
Cotton fabric and embroidery appliqué bedspread
(I imagine Shirley making this bedspread as a talismanic protection for her body and her sense of identity - Grayson Perry)

AI designed tapestries:

Modern, Beautiful and Good
(I imagined this tapestry as a seductive logo-wall, in front of which virtue-signalling aesthetes could advertise their good taste and their munificence - Grayson Perry)

Multi-media productions:

Wall paper:

Furniture:

The Great Beauty - Oak, brass and ceramic
(A shrine to friendship - No one knows what Shirley actually kept inside the cabinet, for it was found empty upon her death - Grayson Perry)

And various styles of portraiture:

The Honourable Millicent Wallace - Woodblock print
(This portrait is how Shirley Smith saw herself; it is a mirror to her self-soothing delusion.  Millicent is the essence of regal elegance.  She is desirable, stylish, rich, confident and a crack shot - Grayson Perry)

Magical Thinking
('Magical thinking' is when we believe our thoughts and feelings can have an effect on the world - Grayson Perry)

This show is dazzling, and is great fun. It has had some interesting reviews, not all of them five star. The Week UK reported thus in April: The trouble is that Perry's heart just isn't in it, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph [Perhaps they would?  Ed]. Indeed, "his irritation with the project is palpable": in his captions, he expresses his dislike for the Wallace and its contents, even its West End location; he describes an intentionally crude new pot he has made for the show as "a grumpy outburst in pottery form", its rough edges hewn in response to the museum's trove of exquisite 18th century Sèvres porcelain. "OK, so he hates French rococo style – but, given that this is a speciality of the Wallace Collection, why take this exhibition on?" Perry's teasing provocations are usually offset by his "famous wit", but here he comes across as stroppy.....

I am not at all sure that I agree, but that is my dilemma.  In his first Reith Lecture, under the title Playing to the Gallery, Grayson offered a mathematical formula for art in the twenty-first century:  What you do is you get a half-decent, non-offensive kind of idea, and then you times it by the number of studio assistants, then you divide it with an ambitious art dealer and that equals the number of oligarchs and hedge-fund managers in the world.....

There is an underlying cynicism in this, but perhaps it should not be disregarded. Grayson also once said: If you want to be successful in the art world you've got to look to the art world; you don't make it for the bloke next door and then hope the art world is going to look at it. That's one of the big mistakes people make.  I think that Duccio probably knew that.  And isn't that what drove Van Gogh to despair?

A Tree in a Landscape - Etching
(The tree stands in a landscape of potential causes.  We all exhibit some traits that could be pathologised - Grayson Perry)

'Twas Grayson that taught my heart to fear,

And Grayson my fears relieved.

How precious did that Grayson appear

The hour I first believed.

It is hot.  London is not cool, though across the royal parks the shade makes us welcome.  I am grateful to Grayson for his interaction, for his interest in offering tools to understand and appreciate art.  Autobiography is a narrative, I think to myself, as I try to understand my fears.

And then, returning from cross town perambulations, I am driven to quench my thirst in the Mercato Metropolitano, a cultural and foodie hub in the deconsecrated church of St Mark’s, a Grade 1-listed building on North Audley Street.

It is cross-dressing in stone, an expression of the ongoing confusion of human endeavour.  Built as a temple to thought and faith, it is now an office for the pursuit of epicureanism  - but no matter: we are used to multiple personalities. 

And then, sated, it is time to follow the sun down through the quiet streets,

Past the Phantom of Liberty (remember the wallpaper?) where - according to Luis Buñuel - chance governs all things......

To stand with eager devotees to hear Pallas Athena [You mean Evita? Ed] intone her heartfelt imprecation to the people of her country as she faced her untimely death [Remember that we need not cry because (a) Evita got everything out of life she dreamed of, and (b) Argentina should cry for itself...... Ed]

Rachel Zegler as Eva Perón (Grayson's sister?)
on the balcony of the London Palladium
{Avenida 9 de Julio}

So many duplicates.  So much duplicity.  The tenuous links between film and art, between life and imagination.  Which is real?  Which is true?  It is all part of the game.  That sparkling game that is life.....

Oxford Street, early

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

Lao Tzu

Siena

 Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300 ‒1350

Siena Cathedral

The National Gallery in London is currently inviting us to:

Step into Siena. It’s the beginning of the 14th century in central Italy. A golden moment for art, a catalyst of change. Artists Duccio, Simone Martini and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti are forging a new way of painting.....

Il Palazzo Pubblico, Siena

And it is a stunning exhibition:

Duccio:  The Virgin and Child Enthroned with Angels

Little is known about Duccio di Buoninsegna, the greatest painter of the Sienese school, who was active from 1278 to 1318. His masterpiece is the Maestà, a double-sided altarpiece created between 1308 and 1311.  

The whole piece was about five metres high and five metres wide and it has a wide central panel with the Virgin and Child adored by the patrons of Siena and surrounded by saints and angels, all created with tempera and gold leaf. The main panel and the bulk of the narrative scenes are now in the Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana, Piazza del Duomo, Siena.

Duccio was probably assisted in this work by his pupil Simone Martini (c 1284 - 1344) who did several frescos in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, among other works, and Pietro Lorenzetti, who painted this Polyptych in 1320:

And his brother Ambrogio, who painted this Annunciation in 1344, with Gabriel and Mary's words tooled into the gold leaf:

The exhibition has been organised by the National Gallery and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and contains over a hundred exhibits made by artisans working in Siena, Naples, Avignon and beyond, and is open until the 22nd of June.

The Marriage of the Virgin 
Niccolò di Buonaccorso (active 1355 - 1388)

So, with minds full of golds and blues, we leave the exhibition and walk out along the avenue at Middelharnis....

The Avenue at Middelharnis - Meindert Hobbema (1689)

Into Hyde park, where the blue pedalos are out on the Serpentine:

Homeward 2020 - Arpita Singh

Under the blues and golds of the Serpentine Pavilion 2025,

A Capsule in Time
Marina Tabassum

And in the Serpentine South Gallery in Kensington Gardens, Giuseppe Penone  is showing Thoughts in the Roots, with a golden  representation of a respiratory system in a room lined with laurel leaves.  More Italy; more gold....

Respirare L'Ombra (To Breathe the Shadow)
Giuseppe Penone (Garessio, Italy, 1947 - )

While outside, we walk by three life-size bronze trees, one of them shattered by lightning to reveal its golden heart:

Albero folgorato (Thunderstruck Tree) 2012
Giuseppe Penone

The sun begins to slip away, golden against the lapis lazuli blue of sky and Serpentine, Sienese colours at their best,

And Albert sits quietly under his angels, golden against the fading blue,

The Albert Memorial

I take refuge in my lodging, which glows with gold,

To dream of darkling Siena in my golden slumber.

San Domenico, Siena

Inside this northern summer's fold

The fields are full of naked gold,

Broadcast from heaven on lands it loves;

The green veiled air is full of doves;

Soft leaves that sift the sunbeams let

Light on the small warm grasses wet

Fall in short broken kisses sweet,

And break again like waves that beat

Round the sun's feet.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Siena

A Group of Four Poor Clares
Ambrogio Lorenzetti (c 1325)

My favourite place; I look forward to returning:

Il Duomo di Siena