The Fortnightly Flag #13 New discovery St Albans

The Fortnightly Flag
19th December 2017

Santas at Bushey Station on their way to the Santa Race, South bank, London

2017 GOOD YEAR FOR BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY

There have been a number of exciting discoveries this year and the latest of them is right on my doorstep. 

Archaeologists of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust have just uncovered the relics of Abbot John of Wheathampstead, who died in 1465, at St Albans Abbey. The find is reported in The Herts Advertiser (Thursday 14 December 2017) by Matt.Adams@archant.co.uk.

Abbot John is of special interest here because he was 'of Wheathampstead' which is just north of St Albans so he was a local man. As an Abbot he was of national and international renown. His remains are identified by the discovery alongside him of a collection of seals, also known as papal bulls, issued by Pope Martin V (1417-1431). Early in his career Abbot John secured three special privileges for his monastery at an audience with Pope Martin and was remembered thereafter for his success in negotiating with the Papal Court, hence the bulls were buried with him. It is possible that his grave also marks the site of the chapel he had built.

Abbot John is a little late for my period of interest (5th - 10th century AD) but the discovery of his remains is an important find for the history of the late mediaeval Abbey.

'I must go down to the sea again

To the lonely sea and the sky'

John Masefield of course. We all learnt it at school. We Brits are an island race and so we love our seascapes. Apart from a couple of sketchy watercolours of Margate Sands and Hastings Pier (which subsequently burnt down - nothing to do with me Guv) I have not hitherto done any seascapes so my latest effort is my first proper go at this genre (not counting my last painting which gives only a glimpse of the sea).

Titled unimaginatively Fishermen at the lighthouse, Porthcawl  it depicts a cold and wintry sea. The picture is almost monochrome, unusually for me, my pictures are normally quite highly coloured, but I couldn't abandon colour altogether so there is just a faint tinge. I went down to the harbour last week and it looked just like this.

I am planning to do more seascapes over the next few months now I have a home near the sea to see what I can do with this genre

I have finished reading William Hardie's excellent book on Scottish Painting (Scottish Painting: 1837 to the Present in a handsome 3rd edition) which I highly recommend. This is not only a great introduction to Scottish painters, very well illustrated with colour plates throughout, it also serves as a very good run through different styles of painting from the mid-Victorians onwards.

I learned that the mid-Victorians were overly fond of brown because of the development of a new pigment called 

asphaltum brown which, influenced by Sir David Wilkie who favoured a brown tonality, they used a lot. Sadly this was a mistake because it cracks badly and has ruined many paintings of the period. I don't know if you can still buy it but if you can one word - don't.

I especially like the work of Scottish artist Stanley Cursiter, hitherto unknown to me because his best work is in private collections, but I think he's quite brilliant and deserves to be better known.

The next blog will be on 9th January 2018 so it just remains for me to wish you all Nadolig Llawen (Welsh for Merry Christmas) and Happy New Year.

Covent Garden Market, London

The Fortnightly Flag #12 Impressionists in London The Lady in Grey

The Fortnightly Flag
5th December 2017
Still life - blue vases Carol Richards 2004

IMPRESSIONISTS IN LONDON

This month's recommended exhibition is Impressionists in London at Tate Britain. It's a bit pricey but well worth it. It's a large exhibition with a great many wonderful paintings on display.

The exhibition looks back to the period of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the Paris Commune of 1871 when a number of French Impressionists headed for the safety and art market of London. Impressionism as a painting style suited them well as they needed to produce works quickly suited to the English market so their output initially was made up of small paintings depicting conventional subjects that might appeal to the middle-class residents of the semi-rural London suburbs they found refuge in.

Pisarro's initial works are quite traditional landscapes, nicely done but a far cry from the pointilliste style of his later pictures of Kew and Hampton Court. I lived for a while in Richmond and have painted a fair few paintings along the riverside. I never tried the full pointilliste style of Pisarro but did pick up one technique they all seem to have adopted, that of using small tick brush-strokes in different colours - blue, grey, green (the river is very green at Richmond) white and silver (gives the river a nice sheen). I don't know if this counts as impressionist but it works a treat giving the impression of light and movement on the surface of the water.

Lots of the paintings, most notably by Monet and Whistler, feature London fog. Oscar Wilde apparently declared Whistler invented it. Not so. I grew up with it. Before the Clean Air Act we still had the real pea-soupers where you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Everything came to a standstill and the city was quiet and mysterious and the sunsets over Highgate and Islington Cemetery were breathtaking. What Wilde meant was that nobody has noticed the fog as an artistic effect before Whistler although that is to discount Turner of course.

Having said that, the exhibition has a whole roomful of Monet's paintings of the Houses of Parliament with and without sunsets which are simply miraculous.

There are a great many paintings by Tissot who has been one of my favourite artists since my mother gave me a print of  'The Captain's Lady' which hung on the wall in my flat for many years until the frame got broken in a move. I am in awe of Tissot's ability to paint straight lines not only in his maritime pictures (check out the rigging) but also in the large painting of visitors outside a London church - the steps and the fluted columns all dead straight.

Tissot is not strictly an impressionist. He painted finely detailed pictures beautifully finished in classical style. He might have been a bit aggrieved to find himself lumped with the Impressionists as he painted in a very different style although he moved in the same circle.

Another artist represented in the exhibition who is similarly not really an impressionist is the sculptor Dalou. Dalou was a Communard who came to London in 1871 when, after the collapse of the Paris Commune, he would not have found much work in Paris. He taught in London with Alphonse Legros and from the examples of their work on show I would say they had a marked influence on Mary Bromet whom I mentioned in my last blog. Dalou was rather annoyed that his customers preferred his more sentimental works but they do have an extraordinary sweetness.

THE LADY IN GREY

The artists who were 








.

The artists who were refugees in London did not reflect what was going on in their homeland except for a tinge of homesickness. That was left to the artists who stayed. Manet was conscripted into the National Guard and he produced two prints illustrating the trauma of war - a picture of a casual execution and a powerful image of a dead soldier. Tissot was trapped in Paris throughout the siege and only left after the Paris Commune of 1871 made being a bourgeois painter of high society a less than attractive prospect.

Manet's images and Tissot's 'The Wounded Soldier' would have made excellent illustrations for my novel 'The Lady in Grey'.

Originally published in 1988 under the title 'Disciple of Temptation' the novel tells the story of French novelist and short story writer Guy de Maupassant.   Like Manet he was conscripted aged 19 and so traumatised by the experience the subject dominated his life and work. The book entailed a lot of research into the Franco-Prussian war.

Why did it appeal to me? Apart from the fact that it is simply a wonderful story it came to me (via my uncle who gave me a copy of Sherard's biography of the writer) it followed a decade of IRA terrorism, miners' strikes and the Poll Tax riots, not quite on a par with the Franco-Prussian War but a fairly unsettled period. Added to which I was taken very ill in 1982 and suffered a long period of excruciating pain for 13 years which was akin to torture except I had no way of making it stop, no secrets to save me. All of which, looking back, must have coloured my choice of subject as up until then I had written mostly comedy.


I did an interview for Chiltern Radio when the book was published and the presenter chose to read a passage from the book. Rather to my surprise he did not pick a passage taken from Maupassant's own words but one where I realised that, although at the time I thought I was writing about Maupassant, I really was writing about myself.

I suppose I was asking the question if a writer has to go through terrible pain in order to create the work is it worth it? If Maupassant, who went through such terrors, had known that over a hundred years later his books would still be read and admired, would he have thought it worth the price he paid?

I'm sorry to say I think he would.

The Fortnightly Flag#11 St Columbanus Day Empress Irene I told you so

The Fortnightly Flag

21 November 2017


St Columbanus' Day

Columbanus died on Sunday, 23 November 615 AD so this week is his saint's day. The monasteries celebrated the death of a founder-saint rather than his/her date of birth as this was the date they were, in the words of the Salvation Army, "promoted to glory".

Been there Seen it Done it Got the T-shirt

Gender fluidity is much in the news although I think we need to be careful to distinguish between gender fluidity in a social context which is quite common and the biological state of being transgender which is very rare.

I have written about the subject in a social and political context in a stage play, a biography of sorts of another saint's life, that of the Byzantine Empress and Emperor Irene.

She was well-named. Eirene is Greek for 'peace'. She became Empress when she married Leo IV who, possibly as a result of a brain tumour, embarked on a regime of strict iconoclasm with predictably dire consequences for freedom of thought and worship. When he died of his illness Irene took over as Regent for their young son. When she took over the reins of power she did not relinquish them until shortly before her own death twenty years later.

The play was briefly titled 'The Empty Throne' because the Pope insisted that the imperial throne was vacant because it only had a woman sitting on it. In a manner of speaking he was right because women were ineligible for the position of Emperor. Irene had at this time been successfully ruling the empire for twenty years, the first woman to rule the Roman Empire, east or west, in her own right. Sadly what she thought of the Pope's comment is not recorded.

The title was used recently by Bernard Cornwell so I have reverted to my original title 'Irene Basileus' which is how Irene styled herself and demonstrates how gender fluidity works in politics. Basileus is the masculine form of the Greek word for emperor so she called herself Emperor Irene to indicate she was no longer the consort but held executive power.

I was not only interested in Irene's official change of sex but also that of her partner, Stauracius who also broke the mould of gender restrictions. Stauracius was a palace eunuch. Eunuchs were regarded as a 'third sex' and formed the equivalent of the civil service being held to exhibit less competitive traits than the testosterone-filled (and therefore more dangerous) elements in the army.

The palace eunuchs were not slaves necessarily. Many came from aristocratic families who saw a good career in the administration for their younger sons. Stauracius came from such a background. These androgynous  young men in their fine silk robes were the models for angels in many mediaeval paintings.

Crucially for Irene, although like her Stauracius was ineligible to be Emperor (because he was regarded as being disabled - any physical disability ruled you out), he was able to act as commander-in-chief and lead the army, the one thing as a woman she couldn't do. Stauracius was her general as well as her principal adviser.

In the end he rebelled against her because she was contemplating a marriage alliance with Charlemagne which would have reunited the eastern and western Roman empires. He died on the eve of battle but, despite this last disagreement, Irene had him buried in the church where all the emperors were laid to Rest acknowledging that he had effectively been her co-emperor so it is a love story of sorts although not a conventional one.

Also in the news is a warning from the Prime Minister to the Russian Government telling them to desist from cyber attacks on UK technology.

In 1983 I published a book called The Xanadu Program under the pseudonym Richard Carroll. This was before computer technology had become ubiquitous. There were no computers in the office, no laptops or mobile phones. When the hero needs to make a phone call he has to find a call box. He is a new kind of policeman, a cyber security expert.

This was one of the first detective stories to feature computer crime although the old-fashioned baddies are pretty clueless about the new technology. The hero explains to the equally clueless police officer: "Satellite communications make on-line computing possible on a global scale...All you need is a PhD in Pure Mathematics, a course in software design and a telephone. The Russians are already at it. The best mathematicians can work out how to penetrate a computer up to Cray-1 level and they don't even have to leave Vladivostok.'

Forgive me for saying it but I told you so.

The Fortnightly Flag #10

The Fortnightly Flag
7th November 2017

Arriving at Paddington Station last week (in my duffel coat like a certain famous literary bear) I was greeted with a rather unexpected fanfare. It was not for me of course. As I reached the concourse I saw we were all being treated by a concert by the band of Guardsmen you see above. They were raising funds for Remembrance Day on 11th November next.

Coincidentally, I am just completing a painting of our local war memorial, still decorated with its poppy wreaths from last year. It's quite a striking memorial for a village of only 1500 people standing on the green with a magnificent view of a green valley and the sea beyond. I hope to have the painting finished for Remembrance Day.

In Watford the 1914-18 war memorial was the Peace Memorial Hospital, which was built by subscription. Some years ago the NHS wanted to sell the site for offices but I am proud to say the citizens of Watford rebelled. They insisted that the building must be retained as it is the actual Memorial and it must be used for a medical purpose. It is now known as the Peace Hospice and has very successfully been transformed into a charity which I am very happy to support.

I have a personal interest in the building because it used to have in front of it the Peace Memorial Statues created by Mary Bromet, an internationally renowned sculptress in her day. 

The statues were created more or less in my mother's kitchen. The Bromets' house, Lime Lodge, was demolished in the 1960s to make way for a row of new houses, one of which was bought by my parents. Mary Bromet used her conservatory as a studio - it was quite a big one as you can see the statues are life sized - which stood on the site of our house.

I used to paint in my parent's conservatory, a rather more modest one, and rather hoped some of her extraordinary talent would rub off on me.

Her statues were moved from their imposing position in front of the Peace Memorial Hospital to allow for the road-widening scheme and were moved to a dark corner opposite the library. They have recently been put back up on their plinth and there is some talk of putting them in the new square that is currently under development in the town centre.

The statues are of three naked young men representing Peace, Victory and Freedom. My friend's father used to try and kid me he was the model for them although he could only just have been born when they were created. I used to give him The Look which only teenage girls can do which made him laugh. He was, however, born around the corner in Field Road so knew the Bromets and where the studio was. It was he who told me all about it.

The Fortnightly Flag #09 Halloween Painting Autumn

The Fortnightly Flag

24th October 2017

It's that time of the year again when, in the northern hemisphere, the clocks go back and we are plunged into the ever-growing darkness of winter.

So a good time for a Festival of Light. Diwali, a Hindu festival that has just passed is growing in popularity in Britain, mainly I think because it chimes with our traditions being a celebration of the triumph of the forces of Light over the forces of darkness.

Which is what Halloween, our traditional festival is all about

 It derives from the Celtic Samhain which goes back who knows how many thousand years which was held either side of the autumn equinoxes. The central event is Halloween or the Eve of All Hallows.

Halloween has become highly commercialised after the American example. It used to be quite a modest affair but now it has become an important event for retailers with whole aisles dedicated to merchandise but without any corresponding display celebrating All Hallows or All Saints Day which is why I think many parents are grateful for Diwali.

In Druid belief light and goodness seem to have been believed to be the same substance, not such a daft idea because we don't know what light is but we can see its beneficial effects. The equinoxes in Northern Europe are when the most important religious celebrations take place because this is when the power of the sun waxes and wanes. Traditionally this is when there is more light/goodness coming into the world or leaving it. At the autumn equinoxes sunlight begins to decline and we have to create more light artificially with bonfires and candles or spiritually by seeking more goodness within ourselves by following the examples of the saints.

We can see this thought pattern at play in the sermons and letters of St Columbanus who was not a Roman Catholic but an Abbot in the Celtic Church so a Christian Druid.  Sometimes his ideas are not really Christian at all but they are distinctly Druid. He says, for instance, there is no such thing as evil only the absence of goodness (just as there is no such thing as darkness only the absence of Light).

His objection to the Roman Catholic decision to move the date of Easter in the late 6th century was argued from the Druid position that you could not hold a Festival of Light while darkness was still in the ascendancy so Easter had to be celebrated after the spring equinoxes and not before it. He wrote a book detailing why he believed this which he sent to Pope Gregory the Great but it has been lost.

It was for this reason that the great henges of Britain were built. They are not just agricultural calendars - there are cheaper and easier ways to create an astronomical clock - they are magnets for light and therefore goodness.

Halloween is a good opportunity to write a ghost story but I am not much good at them. The best I can offer is a young adult adventure The Ghostrider, a tale of highwaymen and bodysnatchers which is based on a true story that was told to me by my history teacher, Mrs V. Sweeney, who was a notable local historian. It was she who first got me interested in local history and history in general so I am mightily indebted to her.

PAINTING AUTUMN

This time of year is also when painters like to get out and about with sketches and watercolours to try and capture the blaze of colours that make the season such a joy to paint. You don't need any inspiration at this time of year, you just want to paint what's in front of you. This autumn has been rather disappointing. All the rain and strong winds (again last night) have brought down a lot of the leaves before they have changed colour. Fortunately last year was glorious and I spent the winter painting a Welsh Valley. By way of an experiment I did it all with a palette knife which gives the painting a lot of texture. See what you think.

The Fortnightly Flag #08 The Scythians New Work

The Fortnightly Flag

10th October 2017

THE SCYTHIANS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM

This Autumn's exhibition at the British Museum in collaboration with The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, which has provided most of the items on display, is The Scythians.

The Scythians were a nomadic people who flourished between 800 and 200 B.C. Originally from Southern Siberia they controlled a vast region from northern China to the Black Sea.

They had no written language so we rely on archaeology and Greek historians for the documentary record.

The only structures they left behind were graves marked by burial mounds. Graves could not be dug when the ground was frozen so bodies were mummified to preserve them until they could be buried. They were buried with everything they needed for the afterlife giving us a good picture of their material world.

Although as nomadic herdsmen their life appears quite simple, they were exceptionally fine goldsmiths and their grave goods include some of the finest gold jewellery I have ever seen. Belt buckles and studs are decorated with hunting scenes and writhing animals with an exuberant energy that charges across the millennia. They are exquisitely worked and well worth a visit.

The first discoveries in the 1770s were commandeered by Peter the Great who insisted all the artefacts were sent to St Petersburg where they formed the beginning of the Great collection that is now The Hermitage Museum. Peter insisted that drawings were made of all the finds, the start of an archaeological tradition, and many of the articles on display are accompanied by their drawings.

In the light of recent discoveries in Greek DNA, it is interesting to see items as far back as 700 B.C. indicating contact with early Greek colonies in Anatolia around the Black Sea. These trading links show that there was early contact between the Greeks and the people of the steppes as borne out by their share of Mycenaean and Minoan DNA.

WHERE DO I GET MY IDEAS FROM?

This is the first question everyone asks and for once I can answer it with my most recent work.

Regular readers will know I went earlier in the year to the Hokusai exhibition where I was very taken with a scroll depicting chrysanthemums painted in Rinpa style on a background of gold leaf. Gold leaf is a bit expensive and doesn't stick very well to canvas so I have given the traditional idea of naturalistic botanical studies -I also went to the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art in Kew Gardens you might remember - on a gold background by using modern iridescent paint and giving it an up-to-date twist with an abstract background. The hydrangea and ramble are out of my garden. It works a treat. With a light on it the picture really gleam. Not quite as sumptuous as gold leaf but a good substitute.

The Fortnightly Flag #07 - The Romans and Elvis

The Fortnightly Flag

26th September 2017

 

 

 

The first of this season's Archaeologists' Meetings was a lecture by archaeologist Harvey Sheldon on "Roman pottery manufacturing in Highgate Wood."  He has worked on excavations on the site since the 1960s so knows whereof he speaks.  I was especially interested as I come from this part of North London.  The Brownies used to hold their district meetings in Highgate Wood.  I had no idea there were Roman kilns under our feet.  They were not discovered until 1966 by which time we had moved to Hertfordshire so this is the first I've heard of it.

 

 

 

So to St Albans to visit the Roman Museum (above) which has an impressive collection of Roman pottery mostly of local or London manufacture.  Also some well-preserved wall-paintings, naturalistic subjects on the distinctive Roman red ground with gilded borders, and a number of beautiful mosaics.

 

Then on to the Fighting Cocks (Ye Olde Fighting Cocks as it is rather unnecessarily known) which claims to be the oldest pub in England dating back to the 11th century.  I had always believed the distinctive hexagonal shape was down to it being used as a cockpit for centuries but it was apparently only used for cock-fighting in the 19th century when it took place in the bar.  Cock-fighting was banned in 1849 and the pub was briefly renamed "The Fisherman" but as this stretch of the River Ver is not popular with anglers it reverted to the name everyone knew it by.  Its distinctive shape is actually due it being originally a dovecote, sited near the Abbey.  It was moved to its present site and became a pub after the Reformation, so not the oldest pub at all but one of the oldest surviving timber-frame buildings.  Oliver Cromwell is said to have stayed for one night during the English Civil War (1642-1645).  What he thought of it is not recorded (Bed lumpy? Food terrible? Premier Inn?  We don't know.)  It is very picturesque so popular with local artists.  Here is a sketch I did some while back from the other side of the park - Multi-media on paper.

 

 



 

The Romans imported wine and drank a lot of it judging from the number of amphorae dug up but nothing keeps a Brit from his beer which leads us neatly to the St Albans Beer and Cider Festival which is next weekend 29 September - 2nd October at the Alban Arena.  £3 entry unless you are a member of CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) in which case admission is free.  300 different ales and ciders are on offer.  You are not advised to try them all.

 

 

Back in Wales the Porthcawl Elvis Festival is in full swing and the town centre is given over to all things Elvis-related.

 



 

 

Ladies of all ages strut their stuff in 1950s style prom dresses, chaps dust off their leather jackets and daft furry ears and Hawaiian garlands abound.  Elvis songs belt out of every doorway and confederate and US flags flutter all along John Street and The Esplanade.  I am not aware that Elvis had any connection whatsoever to South Wales so it's completely barking but good fun and rounds off the summer season nicely.



The Fortnightly Flag #06 Leonardo to Rembrandt

The Fortnightly Flag  All about Art
12th September 2017



Rembrandt's Lion

I was walking home one day past Habitat's showroom. The floor to ceiling glass shop-front was plastered with jazzy posters by modern artists in bright garish colours which interested me not at all. My eye was caught by a small print 8" x 6" of a chalk sketch of a lion. It stopped me in my tracks. I just had to go over and take a closer look.

When I looked at it closely I had to laugh. It was by Rembrandt. The other artists were all pretty good artists but when you can stop someone dead in the street you have really got 'it' whatever 'it' actually is.

I am reminded of this because I have just been to the National Portrait Gallery's new exhibition "The Encounter: From Leonardo to Rembrandt" #The Encounter  npg.org.uk/encounter

The title is a bit of a tease because the collection only includes two sketches by Rembrandt and Leonardo, one apiece, neither of which is particularly remarkable. Tehran's contribution is a page of small doodles, quite superior doodles to be fair but doodles nonetheless in no particular context, while Leonardo's sketch is a small male nude which is just an exercise in proportion. I wouldn't go just to see them.

However the rest of the exhibition is a good collection of drawings by other Renaissance masters, the theme being the relationship between the artist and the sitter so most of the sketches are preparatory drawings for portraits.

From an English perspective the collection of drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger of subjects from the Tudor court are fascinating.

Artists need two things - inspiration and technique and, as usual, I wanted to study the latter. The artists use Silverpoint (a silver point on prepared paper - we now use pencil because it's cheaper), black, red and white chalk and sometimes all three, pen and ink, and chalk with a colourwash to give more depth or to highlight a feature like a red cap.

I can't show you any of the Masters because photography is forbidden in the exhibition but to demonstrate how important classical drawing techniques are to modern artists here are a couple of my sketches which use them.

The Head of a Woman uses the colourwash technique but by way of a modern twist I added the colour digitally. The original drawing is just pencil on paper.

The discus thrower, from a statue in the British Museum, is charcoal, red chalk and pencil on paper which makes the sketch a bit more dramatic.

And all because I could not walk past Rembrandt's Lion.

The Fortnightly Flag #05

The Fortnightly Flag

29 August 2017

WRITING AND ART

I went to visit the Bank of England Museum's 'The City in Literature' exhibition which celebrates the Bank's literary connections. A number of prominent writers have worked in banking but apart from Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows), who worked for the Bank all his working life, none of them seem to have liked banking very much although it brought several of them some financial stability.

P.G. Wodehouse, who joined HSBC in Lombard Street in 1900 "was often late and once disgraced himself by defacing a new ledger". The Bank charitably adds that he was keen on the staff sports club and his 1910 novel 'Psmith in the City" was based on his experiences.

Many writers and artists have been inspired by tales of fraud and financial crisis since this tends to affect everyone. There are cartoons on display by James Gillray who in 1797 first depicted the Bank as 'The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street'.  There are also cartoons by John Tenniel published in Punch in 1890 referring to reckless speculation by the merchant bank Baring Brothers. The collapse of the banking system was only averted by a rescue of £17 million orchestrated by William Liddendale, Governor in 1889-1892, which sounds vaguely familiar. Also the fact that misdemeanours committed by the Chief Cashier, Frank May, were deemed 'unactionable' although they led to the establishment of the Audit Department in 1894.

I found the exhibition fascinating and admission is free.

My own contribution to the City in Literature is a stage play 'The Liquidator' (cast of 6, 1 set) about a couple of nefarious bankers on the run from the eponymous heroine who is trying to track down their assets.

From there I went along Lothbury to the Guildhall Art Gallery, also free of charge, where the City of London displays around 250 of its collection of around 3000 paintings. My thanks to the City of London guide who was excellent. The Guildhall gallery has many fine paintings but is best known for its good collection of Pre-Raphaelites.




In the basement the Guildhall Art Gallery has the remains of London's Roman Amphitheatre which was discovered when the old building was being redeveloped.  Rebuilding was held up nine years while the site was excavated.  There is not a lot to see apart from some walls and ancient drains but the display is imaginative.  There is a black line around the square in front of the Guildhall showing the extent of the amphitheatre.  It is huge.



The Fortnightly Flag #04

 

The Fortnightly Flag

 

15th August 2017

 

WRITING AND ART  ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY  STAGE AND SCREEN

 

WRITING AND ART

 

The Hive, Kew Gardens

 

Another must-see art event in London this summer is The Hive at Kew Gardens, an art installation intended to give an impression of what it's like to be inside a beehive, part of Kew Gardens' on-going campaign to regenerate our dwindling population of honeybees (kew.org/bees).  For my part I have planted more lavender in the garden.  Bees love lavender.

 

 

 

 

 

The Hive is a metal mesh structure 17 metres tall.  A feat of British engineering, it was commissioned by the UK Government and created by artist Wolfgang Buttress, Simmonds Studio and BDP.  Formerly it was the centrepiece of the UK Pavilion at the 2015 Milan Expo.


The Hive is in Kew Gardens until November.

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Sadly by the time I got there the surrounding meadow garden had gone to seed but the Great Broad Walk, Britain's largest double border which stretches for 320 metres and is packed with 30,000 late summer perennials was gorgeous.

 

 

Art at Kew

 

There are two art galleries at Kew, the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of Botanical Art housed in a modern building linked to the 19th century Marianne North Gallery.  Botanical Art is a specialist genre, usually in pencil and watercolour to record fine detail.  Its purpose is to produce scientifically accurate drawings of botanical specimens. In the hands of talented artists some of these are very beautiful.  The Shirley Sherwood Gallery has a fine collection.  It leads to the Marianne North Gallery.

 

Marianne North

 

Marianne North, born 1830 to a wealthy and well-connected family, was an exceptionally gifted artist.  Her gallery, which she commissioned and arranged herself to show her works in context, contains 848 paintings together with the panel decorations which she painted herself.  Her paintings are exquisitely beautiful.  She travelled across the globe recording the flora and fauna and collecting plants which she sent back to Kew as she was acquainted with the first Director, Joseph Hooker.  Marianne's studies are not strictly botanical being in oils but, crucially, she painted the plants in context and additionally supplied a landscape showing the environment in which they grew.

 

Her landscapes are particularly fine.  They are smaller than those of her male counterparts - size evidently mattered to Victorian male painters - because she was constantly on the move and needed to keep her equipment portable - but the extraordinary range of her paintings from a North American autumn to South American mountains, from India and Indonesia to Australia, New Zealand and Japan surely puts her up there with the best.  No-one else that I can think of painted such a wide range of different landscapes.

 

The Gallery, for reasons of conservation,, has been plunged into semi-darkness, which makes it hard to see the paintings in all their vibrant colour but Kew offers for sale a very good biography "Marianne North: A very intrepid painter" by Michelle Payne shop.kew.org/kewbooksonline which gives a straight-forward and informative account of her life and work with many illustrations of her wonderful artwork.

 

ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY

 

Greek DNA Analysis reveals surprises

 

I studied Greek history and literature in my first year at university so have a long-standing interest in the subject.  In a recent issue of Nature journal researchers published the results of their analysis of genetic data from skeletons dating from the Bronze Age.  The team, led by Dr Iosif Lazardis from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, focussed on the Minoan Civilisation of Crete (2600 - 1000 BC) and the Mycaenean culture of mainland Greece (1600 - 1100 BC)

 

Most of the people appear to be local deriving 62% - 86% of their ancestry from the people who introduced agriculture to Europe from Anatolia (Turkey) in Neolithic times but the Bronze Age Mycenaean and Minoan skeletons revealed ancestry from populations originating in either the Caucasus mountains or Iran.

 

Between 9% and 17% of their genetic make-up came from this source.  In addition, the team report the Mycenaeans, but not the Minoans, show evidence of genetic input from people who lived further north on the flat grasslands that stretch from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.  Between 4% and 16% of their ancestry came from this northern source.

 

We were taught - based mainly on linguistic evidence - that the Mycaenean Greeks were descended from the Dorians who came from the north.  This appears to be scientifically accurate and the new evidence gives us some idea who these Dorians were. 

 

Surprisingly the researchers found no evidence of suggested migrations to Greece or Crete from ancient Egypt or from the areas of the eastern Mediterranean occupied by the Phoenicians, who were famously a sea-faring nation.  This is especially surprising in the case of Crete which also had a maritime culture but only ten skeletons were examined from the island and it may be that a larger sample would provide a wider perspective.

 

STAGE AND SCREEN

 

Tom Hiddleston to play Hamlet at RADA

 

The Thor and Night Manager star will lead the cast in a fund-raising production of Hamlet for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) which will run from 1 - 23 September at RADA's Jerwood Vanbrugh Theatre in London.  The production will be directed by Kenneth Branagh, RADA's president, who also directed Tom Hiddleston in his breakthrough movie Thor in which he plays the mischievous Norse God Loki.  All proceeds will go towards RADA's Attenborough campaign to raise £20m to upgrade one of their main London sites and provide accommodation for their students.

 

Gina McKee at Shakespeare's Globe

 

Gina McKee will play the title role in a production of Boudica, a  new play telling the story of Britain's famous warrior queen written by Tristan Bernays and direted by Eleanor Rhode which opens on Friday 8th September at The Globe Theatre on the South Bank.  blog.shakespearesglobe.com

 

 

The Fortnightly Flag #03 Senior Open Tintagel Royal Porthcawl Film and Drama news

The Fortnightly Flag

1st August 2017

 

 

 

WRITING AND ART            ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY     STAGE AND SCREEN

 

 

WRITING AND ART

 

 

 

This week I went to the Senior Open Championship www.senioropenchampionship.com at the Royal Porthcawl Golf Club. 

 

The weather was atrocious even by the standards of South Wales which, let's face it, can be quite moist but the Royal Porthcawl is one of the best links courses (don't go by my opinion - this was from Tom Watson who described it as an 'unsung course') and the tournament was very well organised so, rain and wind apart, we had a good time and saw some of the top golfers we have followed since we were all a lot younger and less grey.

This got me thinking about how much sport in Britain has influenced our art and literature.  My favourite golfing book is P. G. Wodehouse's charming and funny collection of short stories as told by the Oldest Member 'The Clicking of Cuthbert'.  No prior knowledge of golf is needed.  It will make you laugh anyway.

 

                                                      ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY

 

 

New discoveries at Tintagel - Life in Post-Roman Cornwall

 

My first novel 'The Serpent's Cove' was set near Tintagel and I am currently researching post-Roman Britain so I was excited by the news that archaeologists at the site have made important new discoveries there.  Last year's dig by the Cornwall Archaeological Unit, the first research excavation at the castle in decades, confirmed that it was certainly a royal site with links to Ireland, Scotland and Brittany south to the Eastern Mediterranean.  Finds included a fine Phocaean red slipped ware bowl from Turkey, imported amphorae from Southern Turkey or Cyprus and fine glassware from Spain.

 

Evidence showed that someone did live like a King at Tintagel on a diet of oysters, roast pork and fine wine, dining and drinking from good quality imported tableware and glasses from Spain.

 

It used to be assumed that the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain threw the islands into obscurity but finds at Tintagel confound this suggestion which is good news for me, of course, as it also adds evidence to the argument I put forward as a result of my own research in my book 'A History of Post-Roman Britain: The High Kings".

 

Jacky Nowaskowski, the project director at the archaeological unit says their plan in 2017 is to open up a much larger area on the southern terrace to get a good look at the scale and size of the stone buildings they have unearthed.  Photos and more information can be found at www.englishheritage.org.uk/tintagel.

 

Although the archaeologists say we do not know which kings lived at Tintagel this is not strictly true.  King Mark of Cornwall and the King Arthur of the Tintagel legend are both mythical but Constantine II, the nephew of the real King Arthur, was King of Cornwall and succeeded his uncle in 543 AD.  He is mentioned in Gildas (c 560 AD) as a contemporary who was still alive at that date.  His son, Conanus Aurelianus, also mentioned in Gildas, succeeded him, so we know of at least two of the kings from documentary evidence, who would have been based at Tintagel in the late sixth century and who were the likely owners of the objects unearthed in the dig.

 

Royal Porthcawl Golf Club - Local History

 

I unexpectedly learned a bit of local history at the Senior Open.  The Royal Porthcawl Golf Club is a historic local institution.  It dated back to the 13th November 1891 when H. J. Simpson and the Vivian brothers, Willlie and Harry (the Vivians were an influential family in South Wales - I once lived at Clyne Castle in Swansea which belonged to the family of wealthy copper manufacturers - along with some other locals met at the Angel Hotel in Cardiff to set up a Golf Club.  Porthcawl, which had originally been a coal port, had recently become a quiet holiday resort, as it was superseded by the larger docks at Barry and Cardiff to take the bigger coal ships that could not fit in the harbour at Porthcawl.  The first site for a nine-hole golf course was Locks Common but the club gradually moved north, leaving the original course which was full of cart tracks and holes left by cattle to the ladies (!) and an 18-hole course was established behind the convalescent home 'The Miners' Rest' (where Florence Nightingale once worked - I didn't know that either) where the distinctive red club-house still overlooks Rest Bay.

 

STAGE AND SCREEN

I mentioned in my last blog Alan Ayckbourn's new play "The Divide" (in two parts lasting six hours) will have its world premiere at the Edinburgh Festival @edinfest.  Edinburgh International Festival www.eif.co.uk runs from August 4th to August 28th 2017 presenting performers from the worlds of opera, music, theatre and dance for three weeks.

Also in August are two music festivals which feature performance art and visual arts as well as music.

For campers and glampers Wilderness is at Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire from August 3rd to August 6th.  The line-up includes Two Door Cinema Club, Grace Jones, Artwork, Nightmares on Wax, Bonobo, Michael Kiwanuka, Toots and The Maytals, Ray BLK and Sigrid.

Curated by Craig Richards (no relation) Houghton includes visual art and sculpture as well as a musical line-up including Ricardo Villalobos, Nicolas Jaar, Floating Points, Seth Troxler, Andrew Weatherall, Ben UFO, Optimo, Joy Orbison and Cassy.  It will take place at Houghton Hall, London from Friday 11th August 2017 to Sunday 13th August 2017.

Watford Palace Theatre are holding an 'Elton John's Glasses' Open Day on 10th September, which is free for all, in conjunction with their autumn production of 'Elton John's Glasses'.  There will be backstage tours and a display of objects from Watford in 1984 (I remember that!) including items from the FA Cup Final.  They are collecting for Watford Museum and the Hertfordshire Heritage Hub and are interested in objects, photos, clothing and memorabilia which illustrate what was happening in Watford in 1984.  My mother was teaching at a local primary school so may have some photos I can look out.  The theatre is asking people to bring their items along to be digitally recorded and/or potentially donated to the Museum.

Finally, Tom Hanks will be speaking about his book #Uncommon Type at @southbankcentre's London Literature Festival this November.  Tickets go on sale at 10:00 am on 2nd August.
po.st/TomHanksTickets#UncommonType.

 









The Fortnightly Flag #02

The Fortnightly Flag

18th July 2017

 

WRITING AND ART    ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY    STAGE AND SCREEN

 

 

Writing and Art

The must-see art event of this summer is the exhibition of work by the Japanese master Hokusai (1760-1849) currently at the British Museum www.britishmuseum.org

 

 

 

Creation is my Master

Katsushika Hokusai was born in Edo (modern Tokyo) in 1760 and died aged 90 in 1849.  He often changed his professional name but was originally named Tokitaro.  Apprenticed to a woodblock cutter in his teens, in 1779 he joined the studio of Katsukawa Shunsho, a leading artist in the floating world (ukiyo-e) school of art which celebrated the hedonistic pleasures of Edo and remained with him until his teacher died in 1792.

 

One of the early works in the exhibition 'Yuzhi and her dragon' (1798) bears a seal declaring 'Creation is my master' - Hokusai's personal affirmation of an artist's vocation.

 

From 1807 is a lovely painting of the Warrior hero Tamatomo exhibiting Hokusai's skill as a fantasy artist, a style that has much influenced Western fantasy art, and the energy and life he instils in his figures.  It also demonstrates the hallmarks of his style, subtle colouring, a simple landscape as a background and, in this painting, a clever use of gold leaf to create the effect of autumn leaves, just dappled dabs of gold in drifts across the picture.  Tamatomo's black bow stands out against the muted colours.  It is just gorgeous.

 

In 1820 Hokusai re-invented himself as Iitsu (One Again) following the East Asian belief that at 61 a person's life-cycle begins again. His '36 Views of Mount Fuji' (there are actually more) was published in 1831 when he was in his early 70s.

 

He learned the use of perspective in European Art from Shiba Kokan (1747-1818).  There is an example of this artist's work in the exhibition showing his introduction of European perspective into Japanese art, use of natural colour and, one of Hokusai's favourite subjects, a breaking wave.  No artist comes from nowhere.

 

This use of perspective is in marked contrast to traditional Japanese style which shows perspective by putting different levels of viewpoint one on top of another with the most distant viewpoint at the top.

 

Hokusai quickly mastered the principles of European perspective and became adept at it.

 

'The Flower-viewing Party' (1824-26) shows how he demonstrated his skill by placing the distant garden in the lower part of the picture.  There are four levels of viewpoint in this painting - the grass in the foreground, the middle distance where the figures are standing, then, clearly placed behind and below them, the garden and cherry trees with the clouds and sky beyond them.  This must have seemed quite an extraordinary shift in perspective to Japanese eyes in the early 1820s.

 

The '36 Views' demonstrate the spare use of colour as well as Hokusai's superb technique.  In 'Irises and grasshopper' the water in which the irises are growing is suggested audaciously just with a wash of Prussian blue.  It is also used to represent water in the picture of the 8-plank bridge in Mikawa (1834) with unpainted paper providing the light on the water.  He also cleverly uses just straight lines to suggest the horizon.  At the same time, although the landscape is rendered with such simplicity, the figures, which are tiny, are each drawn as individuals in fine detail.  It's a real tour de force and, for me, another favourite.

 

He worked with his daughter Oi, who was a fine painter in her own right.  A lovely scroll of chrysanthemums caught my eye, beautifully detailed and richly decorative.

 

I bought the book published in conjunction with the exhibition, 'Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave' edited by Timothy Clark, published by Thames and Hudson www.thamesandhudson.com and the British Museum www.britishmuseum.org.  It's a tad expensive at £35 (and heavy) but chock-full of wonderful illustrations comprehensively researched and will make a great addition to your Art Book collection or start one off.

 

Archaeology and History

Exciting New Finds at Vindolanda

A new hoard of Ancient Roman writing tablets has been found at the Roman fort of Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland.  It consists of around 25 Roman ink documents on wooden writing tablets (letters, lists and personal correspondence).  The fragile, wafer-thin pieces of wood about the size of modern postcards were found during the excavation of a small area of the site three metres in length.  They are likely to represent part of an archive from the late 1st century AD.  Some of the letters are complete and had partial or whole confronting pages.  This is where the pages are protected by the back of adjoining pages and are the most exceptional discoveries providing the greatest chance of the ink writing being preserved.

 

The first Vindolanda tablets were discovered by Robin Birley in 1973.  These documents are the very personal accounts of the residents of the fort, mostly written before the construction of Hadrian's Wall in cAD120.  They form the most important archive of Roman writing from north-western Europe, a discovery that has revolutionised our understanding of life on the frontier of the Roman Empire.

 

More information and photographs can be found on the website at www.vindolanda.com/pressrelease

Twitter: @VindolandaTrust

Facebook: @thevindolandatrust

 

Stage and Screen

The Royal Court Theatre (@royalcourt) has announced its new season in which two thirds of writers and directors are women.  Compare this with when I started as a playwright in 1979 when you could have counted us all with your fingers and toes.  This is an enormous improvement. (Cheers) Having said that the Royal Court has never put on any of my plays. (Boo! Chiz! Shame etc.)

 

Alan Ayckbourn's #The Divide will play at the Old Vic Theatre (www.oldvictheatre.com) from 30 Jan - 10 Feb following its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival (@edinfest

 

The Divide is a tale that unflinchingly explores a dystopian society of repression, insurrection and forbidden love.  It is directed by Annabel Bolton, an Associate Director of The Old Vic. 

 

The play is set in the aftermath of a deadly contagion which a century from now has decimated the English population and rendered contact between men and women fatal.  Under the dictates of an elusive Preacher an unthinkable solution is enforced.  Separated by The Divide, the adult survivors are segregated by gender.  Men wear white as a mark of their purity and the still-infected women wear black as a mark of their sin.

 

It's a far cry from Alan Ayckbourn's signature Middle England comedies.  It will be interesting to see what he makes of the subject and, please note, another woman director. 

 

 

 

 



 



The Fortnightly Flag

Writing and  Art                                 Archaeology and History                       Stage and Screen            
 

Writing and Art

Just returned from a Writers' Retreat at Moniack Mhor, Scotland's Creative Writing Centre near Inverness, organised by the Society of Authors, Scotland. My first writers' retreat and my first visit to Scotland. Fifteen writers in a variety of genres got together to work in peace and tranquillity in idyllic surroundings and talk about literature, a thing almost unheard of in my long experience. Writers usually talk about money.

The Bruntwood Prize now open

The 2017 Bruntwood Prize, a biennial prize for playwriting run by the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester is now open.  It is open to all playwrights of any level over the age of 16.  The closing date is 5th June 2017 so get your skates on.  Entries can be uploaded at www.writeaplay.com.