Art again, and Animation

[REVISED & UPDATED SUNDAY, 1ST SEPTEMBER 
AND TUESDAY, 3RD SEPTEMBER 2013]

Can you recognise where we are again?

A friend of Alice's persuaded us to go to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Two, in the pretty Dean Village area, and then to a talk about the exhibition, held at the Scottish National Gallery, which is in the town centre. [Dean, you'll be interested to learn, means "deep valley". Ain't surfing educational!]

It was a day of intense cultural input, not to mention much perusing of bus timetables and glances at watches. The wonderful Number 13 saved the day, as it turned out the Gallery bus was full. 

Johann H Füssli 1783

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This is what we were going to see: and then be lectured to about - or upon. [I just can't get the prepositions right and my typist is cross when I say it doesn't really matter.] A whole exhibition devoted to images of witches and witchcraft through the ages!

Macbeth's meeting with the three in Shakespeare's play, as on the poster, was a favourite subject. Click on the images to see them bigger - or open in a new tab for full size.

This one on the left is also by Fussli. It was huge, and Macbeth seemed to tower over you, so you had to look hard to spot Duncan just behind him, and the witches were fainter, in the background. We really liked that one. Alice said this Macbeth could have been painted by Blake, he was so majestic.[Alice insists on adding here that  there's a really facinating artist and poet!]

On the right is a William Blake painting: the Whore of Babylon. His typically idiosyncratic interpretation puts her into the category of a gorgeous and powerful figure, rather than old, ugly and wicked, as were most of the ones in the exhibition.

Alice's friend was quite outraged at the amount of misogyny on display. But see this review in the FT. Alice says wait until the talk for some answers to that...
Above is The Witches' Rout by Agostino Veneziano. Witches were always being pictured riding different objects or creatures, not just the familair broomsticks. [Do check out that link for some interesting lowdown on witches' use of drugs.] Drooping breasts seemed to be a common feature in the "ugly and old" category, you'll notice here. There were lots more like this in the exhibition.

Entitled simply Hooded Witch Rides a Colossal Phallus, on the left is a very rude one indeed. It's based on a design by Parmigiano. Like the cheese, he came from Parma.  

Witches in a Cellar (above right) is by Jacques de Gheyn II. [I reckon I must be "Monkey MMMMMIV"- at least...]  He's been called  "a proto-scientific skeptic" in a learned book by Claudia Swan. Alice insists on including the reference, even though it's all double-Dutch to me. [That's true, but it's also a rather nice pun - one of my weaknesses, I know.]

A much more strikingly beautiful "witch" is this Medea by Anthony Frederick Sandys. Notice the toad in the corner, and the Salamander motif on the brazier. In the frieze behind is portrayed Jason's ship, and the Golden Fleece of the legend. Alice says if I'd been paying attention in the talk later on, I'd have found out the model was a real gypsy, called Keomi Gray, one of Sandys' two mistresses. And he already had a wife! Very gorgeously Pre-Raphaelite, though, isn't she?
There were just a few rather more modern paintings in the exhibition. We rather liked this one by John Bellany, called simply The Witch. Not exactly beautiful, we admit, but full of raw character - especially the fish...  Right click and open in a new tab to see the details.

If any of you are complaining that almost all of Alice's links for the artists take you to Wikipedia, her response is that she tries to vary the sources, but in most cases it was simply the best.

Photo by Dan Welldon

We got to the Scottish National Gallery in plenty of time to grab a nibble and a drink before the related talk, Fatal Magic: The Attractions of Witchcraft. It was given by the renowned scholar and academic, Marina Warner. She came to wider public attention when Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary caused a furore in 1976. The title says it all, but you can also read an interview she gave The Telegraph on its recent reissue.

"Much of her writing is concerned with an analysis of the mythology, folklore and archetypes surrounding the feminine throughout history, as expressed in art, literary texts and fables." That's from the British Council's page on her. Gives you an idea of her scope - and style.

This link to Stanford University has loads of infomation about her "voracious research and writing", often focussing on legends and fairy tales. They have also included synopses of her many books, and excerpts as well. So feast away there, if she's your kind of writer.

I have to confess that most of the talk was way over my head - not just extremely intellectual, or even highfalutin to my little mind, but literally so. Alice wouldn't let me sit on her knee, and as I couldn't see the lecture slides, I dozed off and on in the bottom of her bag. My recollection of what was said is therefore somewhat patchy.

Gryphon, Alice & Mock Turtle

She started by explaining that in previous ages it was mostly older women who presided over the Great Mysteies of Life, such as Birth, peri-natal mortality and the afterbirth - and Death, laying-out and so on, with all the attendant rituals and superstitions. Men would have found it scarey stuff to imagine these women had special powers, so they set about denigrating them. And Uglified them, I imagined Alice saying.

[The Gryphon explains this in Alice in Wonderland in answer to a question about the four branches of Arithmetic: Ambition, Distraction, Uglification and Derision. Yes, there we go again!]

Miniature by Caroline Hayes

Later Ms Warner said that in other cultures, such as the Japanese, or the Hindu, what we would think of as frightening evil demons were often protective figures, who scared off the really nasty spirits or beasties. Interesting. Then I dozed off. 

I came to as she started to talk about a version of the Solomon and the Queen of Sheba story, where they have to test if she's a witch or devil by turning the stream she's crossing into mirror glass, so they can see if she's got hairy animal legs. [Oh, yes? That's a good one!] There are other versions of this story, too. More nodding off...

Lotte and her husband Carl Koch in Rome

It was a suppressed Ooooh of pleasure from Alice which brought me round again. The talk had progressed to the The Arabian Nights, on which Marina Warner has written a whole book, Stranger Magic, reviewed somewhat critically in The Telegraph.

This had led on to the topic of the wonderful 1926 film - the first ever feature length animation! - The Adventures of Prince Achmed, created by an amazing woman, Lotte Reiniger. She made her films by cutting silhouette figures out of card, which she placed over a light table and moved little by little to capture one frame at a time. There's a video of her at work here. See also this fascinating article, with lots of information about the film, Lotte's work, and an early restoration.

If you put her name into the search box at YouTube, you'll find plenty of clips of this and her other films too.

Carl Gustav Jung

As soon as the Chairman asked for questions, Alice shot up her hand and asked if the speaker considered the "uglification" (though she didn't use Lewis Carroll's useful term) was related to Jung's theory of the Shadow. Showing off a bit, I thought - she's quite a fan of the man, has actually read some of his worthy tomes, and believes we do project onto others the subconscious parts of ourselves we don't want to acknowledge. She didn't seem very satisfied with the answer.

Later, when she dipped into some of Marina Warner's own books, she discovered that MW doesn't subscribe to Jung's idea of a Collective Unconscious, but considers the historical connections and social implications of the tales, literary and oral, that she researches.

Finally, Alice asked Marina Warner after her talk if the film was still available, and was told that the BFI had just released a BD-DVD copy. So she sent away for one the very next day, and I can tell you it's just beautiful.  The collage below gives you a hint.
A very happy outcome from our day of culture, wouldn't you say?

Metro Moments

When we go somewhere on the bus, we try to pick up a Metro, the free daily newspaper designed for commuters, with digestible snippets of the Big News, plus some local information and varied entertainment.

We like to save it to read at home over a cup of tea and a crunchy Honey & Oat biscuit. To dunk or not to dunk? Not to - then let the bite dissolve in the tea as you drink it, of course!

Don't forget to click on the photos to see bigger images, or better still, open in a new tab or window.

The letters / texts page is always a hoot. Why a hoot? I wonder, we're not owls. Humans get really hot under the collar about all sorts of things, from other-people gripes like queue-jumpers or nose pickers, to larger issues like the environment (fracking, for example) and Scottish Independence. 

Alice tried to find the origin of hot under the collar for me (the phrase just slipped out, I do confess) but only came up with something about Rhetorical Tropes on a website about Semiotics, which was totally beyond me. She has put in the links, but honestly, I wouldn't bother...

But to get back to The Metro and its unique delights. Today we had photos of  skateboarding mice. Really.

The paper also has a number of regular cartoons, which are often quite fun. Even Alice, whose sense of humour is more restricted than mine, sometimes laughs at them. I think our favourtie is the Learn to Speak Cat series. It's both verbal and visual. Follow the link above, then the one to the facebook page. You don't have to belong or log-in (Alice totally refuses to have any dealings at all with that organisation) but just click on Photos to see lots of examples.

Here is the one that got us prompted to write this particular post. It was on Monday, 5 August. Alice did hoot at it, too.

You must know by now that we're quite keen on "Doing Art", even though our tastes differ somewhat. You'll get the reference to this cartoon if you've been following us from the start and recall that Alice actually enjoyed the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate in May 2012. I thought it was a load of pretentious old rubbish, but she says it's Conceptual Art and actually very clever.

See a photo of the original at totallycoolpix. Apparently the first one rotted (Hah!) but the artist went to work on a second one. It's title is The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.   See?    I rest my case.

Bees, blood and beauty...

I don't know who among you has been enjoying the UK's spell of hot weather this July. Alice actually finds it very troublesome, because it aggravates her hives. No, she doesn't mean annoying the bees, it's her "Urticaria". I don't think you'd really want to know - honestly.

Bees
But speaking of bees, we've seen several harvesting pollen from our lovely window boxes! But they've always flown away before Alice gets the window open and her camera ready for close focus. This photo therefore is a toal cheat, as you might just spot if you look carefully. But I asked Alice to concoct it, and she usually does her best to keep me happy.

Were they honey bees or bumble? I think it's hard to tell the difference, myself.

Bees are in trouble at the moment, too. Their population is declining alarmingly and no-one's 100% sure of the cause, or causes, though there's lots of theories. Very worrying indeed, if you consider the implications. Pollination, crops, and all that. Have a look here.

Blood on TV
Ah - blood. Yes, we've seen quite a lot of it, on screens large and small, recently. That's relatively recently, anyway, becuase there have been big gaps in our blogging.

Well, first on TV there was the terribly shocking (especially if you haven't read the book) slaughter in HBO's Game of Thrones, Season 3 episode 9, The Rains of Castamere.

It was very nasty altogether, and pretty gorey. This photo is of a guy who calls himself NikiPod on Facebook - in case anyone wants to know.

If you're some-one who doesn't have Sky (or can't, like us, babysit for someone who has) and who's going to have to wait til next February (yes, that long!) to get your box set, or still hasn't read the books, don't look at this review at IGN!

And you might not even be willing to risk watching this video of the reaction of a bunch of friends, or this compilation of several such. They don't show the scene in question, but there are hints, plus a soundtrack of clashing noises and screams.

Interesting how many in the know set up their cameras to record the shock and horror of their nearest and dearest!

Warning: Don't click on the next two links if you don't want any hints at all! George R R Martin (the guy on the left) author of the books, explained that this bit of his plotting was loosely based on Scottish history - The Black Dinner of 1440 and the notorious Glencoe Massacre in 1692.


For those who are in the know or just don't care about spoilers, there's a brilliant creation on YouTube: Hitler finds out about the R.. W... No, I won't expand.

It's a cleverly sub-titled scene from the excellent German film Downfall, starring that great actor Bruno Ganz.

Blood on film
We've not reported on many movies lately, mainly because none have struck us as being on a par with our fabulous favourites at the beginning of 2013.

Byzantium, however, is something of an original. Yes, it's a vampire story, but nothing like Neil Jordan's previous 1994 offering Interview with the Vampire. Alice says that was a bit tediously repetitive, one bite after another. This time there are no fangs or bites as such, but a more subtle finger nail.

The pricipal characters are two women, mother and daughter. They're not really supposed to have become vampires at all, according to the patriarchal Vampire Brotherhood. The tale of their initiation is an unusual and fanciful myth-like event, with mountains and simply huge torrents of blood. But we grow to like these renegades (we did, anyway) and their kind-of-feminist campaign. It's beautifully filmed (largely in Hastings, by the way) and all the acting is excellent.

Beauty

The other film we have appreciated lately is Renoir. As one of the critics says, it was shot with an eye for bucolic splendor by the cinematographer Mark Ping Bing Lee. There's another interesting review in the Guardian (with lots of links.)

Set during the elderly and ailing master painter's last years, it relates the impact on his whole household made by the arrival of an incredibly beautiful young woman who becomes his model. There are many luscious scenes of her posing nude in the heavenly golden light of Provence, on the actual Renoir estate.

We listen to Renoir's personal philosohpy: the flesh is all that matters. If you have not understood that, you have understood nothing. The painting is brilliantly portrayed, apparently using an expert forger to make the brush strokes!

Arriving on the scene later is his son, Jean, wounded in the war and soon to become famous as a filmmaker.  The plot, such as there is, thickens here...

Although all the lovliness is undeniable, we are not allowed to forget the horrors of war and death, which make a subtle counterpoint to the beauty. Well worth watching, or getting the DVD later.

Sorry. Way behind...

I only managed to persuade Alice to at least try and catch up a  bit, by saying she could put up the recent photos, but not worry too much about the worthy information, the obscure links, and all that jazz.

Of course that's the part she takes so much pride in. I'm sure my dear followers just want to see me in interesting places! I told her she can always come back later and add the other stuff when she's feeling better.

Oh, yes, I forgot to say, she's not been feeling at her best, and is down in the dumps again. (I'm not allowed to go into details here.) And just what are The Dumps anyway?

To start on an upbeat: this lovely photo is of me (of course) with the first of the nasturtiums. Or should it be nasturtia? Does anyone really care?

We went off on a June afternoon to do some more Art and see Mr Peploe's paintings. Why they call them still lifes (lives?) I really don't know. Some of it is alive, though it's certainly very still...

Most of it I thought was pretty boring, but Alice said we should keep going round and not give up.

Actually, we both rather liked this one of the lobster - the colours were great!

Open these images, and any others you like, in a new tab or window if you want to see them full size.

Accross the road was a rather more ominously titled exhibition. (Click the pic.) I was glad we weren't going in that way!

We only had time for a quick look and haven't got round to going again, yet. Still, it's on til 8th September, so watch this space - or rather, another space, maybe even soon.

One room wasn't deathly at all. It was super fun. Hee, hee, see me!

It's a construction (with the rather off-putting title of It happens when the body is anatomy of time) by this amazing guy called Ernesto Neto. You can read some stuff about him here, but really he just likes making gorgoeous sensual environments for people to take pleasure in. You'll find more pictures on his own website.

The bases of these mushroom stalk things were filled with cloves, cumin and turmeric. The lady in the shop said when it was first installed, you could smell them as soon as you came in the main door! Now there's imagination for you. I think they should call it Sniff Art, don't you?

This exhibition, which we caught a bit later on, was, not surprisingly, at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, which got done-up relatively recently. It has a nice cafe and shop, too.

You can look up Man Ray on Wikipedia (he had an interesting life!) but you'll get more lovely images if you Google for them. We saw lots and lots of photos in this exhibition, many of them surprisingly small. Alice got quite tired reading all the information. He seemed to know so many famous people!

We were also there to catch the unusual House of Annie Lennox show before it closed. There were some costumes and great videos to see. And she was certainly a terrific singer.  Mostly this visit was Alice's nostalgia trip: she was a fan of the Eurythmics in her younger days - good rhythmic (hah!) music to dance to. 

Annie Lennox is now well known as political activist and philanthropist, especially for AIDS charities.

The picture to the left of Annie Lennox with David Bowie was taken at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness in 1992.

Annie  experimented a lot with gender roles and appearance. Always an interesting thing to do, says Alice, who still calls herself a feminist. A long discussion we could get into there, but not now. I'm not sure quite where I stand on issues like that, though I do like a bit of dressing up now and again. But I'm just a simple soul, me.

So, that's us more or less up to date, folks. Alice admits she's cheered up a bit. [I told her it would!]

To wind up, here's another lovely photo of me with a great big nasturtium I just wanted to cuddle up to. No, of course I wouldn't eat it! This variety is called Empress of India, and it's the third year Alice has tried to grow some from seed. Third time lucky. Hurrah! Don't they just cheer you up as well?

Trying to catch up (1): Iain M Banks

Alice keeps putting off writing this post, because she knows she'll have to say something about the death of Iain Banks from cancer on June 9th, last Sunday. She was really quite upset (I say no more, to spare her embarrassment.) And so were thousands of others, too. See all the comments posted by fans and well wishers.

We thought he was going to have just a bit longer, before the big C finally ran its course. His latest and last novel, The Quarry, was brought forward for early publication, but not officially until June 20th. Still, he did get to see a preview copy. Even though the central character is a man dying of cancer, our novelist didn't actually know he himself had the disease until the whole book had already been fully planned and he was nine tenths of the way through the actual typing. His widow, Adele, pointed this out clearly on the Banksophilia website on June 14th. Early reviews are positive: see The Independent and The Guardian for example. Even though the book isn't by her favourite Iain M (Sci-fi) Banks, Alice will read it eventually, when it gets to be available in the Library, and / or comes out in paperback.

Iain Banks gave an amazing last TV interview to Kirsty Wark on BBC2. See quotes from it on the BBC News site. We watched it, tissues at the ready, and he seemed to us to be just the same old character we remembered from Edinburgh Book Festival events - with a fierce political stance (left, of course!) an atheist but optimistically humanist viewpoint (despite the despair of the Culture agent Diziet Sma in State of the Art) plus a naughty sense of humour and that familiar abrupt laugh.

The same characteristics come through in a final print interview with Stuart Kelly.

Some recent articles have focussed on the non-M mainstream novels, especially the brilliant and shocking Wasp Factory (Warning: there are spoilers on Wikipedia!) which was his publishing debut. However, Ken MacLeod, a friend and fellow Scottish writer of SciFi (whose novels Alice has also much enjoyed reading, by the way) has written an appreciation of his with-an-M work, and his supremely wonderful creation of the world of The Culture. Apparently IMB likened writing literary fiction to playing a piano, and writing SF to playing a vast church organ. Yes, sir! says I. [And Alice concurs, if not in bold...]

MacLeod also said: The personality that his fans can see through his writings is very as he was. He was exuberant, curious, compassionate and questioning. That's what he was like. (See the Scotsman article for quotes from other writers too.)

This uniquely talented writer will be sorely missed - but his books will continue to provoke and provide pleasure. See also our post below on 11th April, and the note at the end of  25th April.

Very belated indeed

Oh deary me, you must all be wondering what's happened to us lately.

To tell the truth, Alice has been mired down, she says - No Monkey, not in the mud, but metaphorically! - trying to help someone she knows get through a bureaucratic nightmare: one which isn't a fit topic for this blog. If I just say it's the dreaded ESA50, those in the know will know...

Meanwhile we have passed our First Birthday, having set up this blog on May 13th 2012, though I didn't actually write anything worth reading until the 21st. Hence the single candle here. And the little figure on my knee is  Ganesha, who is reputed to help remove obstacles, so we're honouring him right now. (Right click and open in a new tab for a better view.)

We'll bring you up to date later, when the crisis is passed.

Window box watch & Iain Banks update


One of my recent jobs has been to report on the progress of Alice's bulbs in the window boxes.

On the 21st March, Spring Equinox (here, anyway) the tulips were doing their best, and a few were in bud in each box.

She's got three boxes altogether...

But on the 27th of March it snowed and froze! 

I was glad Alice lent me her hat to keep my ears warm during the inspection. 

There's a white hyacinth in each box, replanted from indoors last year.

At least nothing had died.

This picture was taken on April the 3rd.

That's more like it!

Click on any photo to see a bigger image.
Right click and open in new tab for the full glory!

By the very next day they we were all opening out in the sunshine together.

I felt like staying there even longer, just to feel the warmth on my face.

April the 15th saw them fully open. Gorgeous.

Just as well, since next day the tulip petals had fallen and the gales arrived - so they were overblown and blown over.

Alice was too upset to take a picture of the carnage. She pretended it was just the light was poor, but I know her so well I could tell.

She cheered up on April 23rd, because the Narcissi (that's mini daffodils to you and me) were now in flower. So I was all smiles again as well! Yes, I know what you're going to say, but I was smiling inside, as well.

The (indoor) geraniums are coming out too. 

Never mind that there was wind and rain only ten minutes later...

Today she's just put some Nasturtium seeds to soak. Last year they didn't do too well, so she's going to start them off indoors this time. Those of you blessed with fingers, please cross them.

The wonderful Iain M Banks is back home now, "after a basically brilliant honeymoon / holiday". He says:

Discovering the sheer extent and depth of the feelings people have expressed on the message board over the past two weeks has been truly astounding. I feel treasured, I feel loved, I feel I’ve done more than just pursue the craft I adore and make a living from it, and more than just fulfil the only real ambition I’ve ever had – of becoming a professional writer. I am deeply flattered and touched, and I can’t deny I’ve been made to feel very special indeed.    [And more...]

If you haven't posted a message for him yet, you can still do so. See below for Alice's appreciation.