Happy New Year

By London Bridge.

River Thames, midnight recently.

“Giotto’s genius blooms afresh in Padua”

I would love to share a wonderful article by the historian Robin Lane Fox.

In “Giotto’s genius blooms afresh in Padua” (The Financial Times), he writes about “Joachim’s Dream” by Giotto di Bondone:

Restoration of the biblical frescoes in the Scrovegni chapel reveals the Italian painter to be not just the maestro of human gesture and form but a brilliant botanical artist as well.

Giotto was born in Tuscany. He was active from the 1290s until his death in 1337, not only as a painter but as an architect too, designer of the base of Florence’s multicoloured bell tower beside its cathedral. Modern critics like to decentre famous names and discover neglected talent among their contemporaries. Giotto was a genius, so much so that they tend to skirt around him. I have just checked what Kenneth Clark had to say about him in his wonderful BBC series, Civilisation, first broadcast in 1969. In episode three, Giotto, he declared, “ is one of the supreme painters of the world”.

Wearing a neatly pressed suit with a folded handkerchief in his top pocket, Clark spoke in the Arena chapel in Padua. In early October I stood there too, handkerchief-free in sagging trousers. Clark dwelt on some of the paintings that most captivated me, but said nothing about the items I have learnt to value. He presented Giotto as a master of human gesture, form and painted drama. Indeed he was, but Clark did not say that he was also a master artist of plants.

‘Joachim’s Dream’ Giotto painted borage, chives and a spiny thistle.

I had previously thought of Giotto’s landscapes as bare and rocky, unlike his lively human figures. His Nativity scene shows Mary lying on her side under a wooden roof and engaging with her baby Jesus, but the setting is a barren hillscape in which angels are bringing shepherds the glad news. However, in his Resurrected Christ, Giotto painted plants around Christ’s feet. The excellent restoration of the chapel’s frescoes has brought out the details. Christ has a laurel bush, a strawberry tree, or arbutus, and plants of parsley and dill behind him and a variety of calamintha under his feet. They are painted with exceptional precision. Some of the leaves on the parsley are yellow, just as in older age.

In ‘Joachim’s Sacrifice’, a goat eats a pink-flowered
clover; nearby is a marigold and a chamomile.

When Giotto painted The Dream of Joachim, father-to-be of the Virgin Mary, he also put in individual plants, this time on a rocky hill; borage, chives and a spiny thistle. When Clark discussed it in close-up, he ignored them. In the previous scene, Joachim’s Sacrifice, Giotto painted a goat eating a pink-flowered plant in the foreground. It is a clover, exactly painted, and around it there is a marigold and another chamomile.

Genius is capable of almost anything in its field: Giotto, I now realise, is a brilliant botanical artist. How and why did he paint particular plants? His Resurrected Christ is the Christ whom Mary mistook for a gardener. I do not think that he therefore showed plants behind him. Nor does Maria Autizi, one of the restorers who worked at close quarters on Giotto’s paintings.

Giotto in the Louvre

Huge fan of Giotto. A genius of an astounding ouvre. I’ve already discussed his “Pentecost” at the National Gallery, London.

Below are some of his masterpieces at the Louvre.

His art functions today as it did in his day - tell the story of Christ and Biblical tales - but I find them aesthetically beautiful and appreciate the affected humanism/drama.

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The Crucifixion by Giotto

“Christ on the Cross” between two thieves. I love the angels hovering over fiery clouds.

I do like the dark mountains and skyline - but it was originally golden, it seems. Stolen or “faded”?

Giotto’s innovation was his portrayal of events with believable emotions and recognisable settings and spaces.

Pain, upset, Mary overcome. Such ornate and glowing halos. And yet, most faces (eyes, noses etc.) seem to follow a given stylistic template. 

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Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata by Giotto

Beautiful.

Magical gold. Seraph’s wings appear brown because Giotto used vermillion (mercury sulphide) as a red pigment and egg tempera as a base. They made his colours particularly susceptible to darkening over the 7 centuries since he painted them. 

It’s easy to see the captivating magic of his golden halo.

The sense of perspective to the houses is funny and those lonely trees (esp. by St Francis’ knee) have such ornate leaves on them.

Notwithstanding the above, it does feel still detached from our world, our nature and reality.

For me, especially the folds and shadows along the creases/wrinkles along St Francis’ habit. Not only is it remarkable, but I’m struck by the fact that’s bound to be more difficult on egg tempera to create shades of brown.

The predella

The predella shows three scenes from the saint’s life: 

The Dream of Pope Innocent III

St Francis holding up the Church while the Pope sleeps. Highly ornate, and decent 3D structural effect.

The Approval of the Franciscan Rule

The Sermon to the Birds

Beautifully painted bird wings landing.

Tree is detailed in its real-life branches & leaves.

The birds painted with attention.

Beautiful.

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Painted cross with a pelican by Giotto

This is huge and v. beautiful.

Takes up a large space on the wall of the Louvre.

The cross - with Christ’s head protruding - was intended for worshippers to “see” Christ from below as they looked up at him.

Jimmy Carter (1924-2024)

President Carter is well before my time, so I only know what I’ve read about him over the years.

I think he was a misunderstood president who occupied the office of the Presidency during a particularly turbulent period - e.g. the Iran hostage crisis and inflation.

He was a dignified man who’s passing reminds us of a time when public discourse was a lot more respectful & dignified. 

Probably, the last decent American president ... and one of the few in recent history NOT to increase his net worth by million after their presidency. That says a lot to me.

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Update: I found this Channel 4 new piece “Jimmy Carter: how he’s eradicating the guinea worm”:

Fra Filippo Lippi - The Barbadori Altarpiece

I love the early renaissance which doesn’t get as much fanfare as its most celebrated superstars.

And among those are Filippo Lippi. He had a pretty scandalous life (as you’ll see below).

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The Barbadori Altarpiece by Filippo Lippi

Incredible altarpiece at the Louvre.

The Mother Mary (about to sit down?) with Christ at her side on their heavenly throne with ecclesiastical worthies.

Filippo Lippi channels Brunelleschi’s architectural style, complete with round arches and grey stone (pietra serena) which the latter was so fond off.

Dimensions and lines on the floor give us a sense of perspective.

St. Fridianus in richly embroidered robes.

The halo iconography in 3D.

Translucent silk around fingers with rings over glove.

Those angels are childlike. Playful and full of innocence.

Thick hair, calm - but also distracted.

Using fingers to lift robes, and wings of hawks?

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The Virgin with the Pomegranate by Filippino Lippi

Filippino Lippi was the son of Fra Filippo Lippi and the much young nun Lucrezia Buti. He became one of the most distinguished Florentine artists of the Quattrocento.

The pomegranate motif foreshadows the fateful destiny of Christ.

Christ seems to twist his body as if hogging the fruit. Two angels chatting in the back?

Style similar to his father.

The Labour Party - quangocracy or democracy

I’ve just read a fascinating column by Ms. Ella Whelan. It presented a really interesting argument a propos democracy and governance. 

In “For Starmer, the unelected Blob must always rule over the plebs” (Telegraph), she says:

It’s been 177 days since the Labour Government was elected. And in that time, our new Prime Minister and his MPs have set up at least 25 quangos – almost one a week. 

Take the Office for Budget Responsibility, initially set up as a panic response after the global financial crash to provide what was supposed to be independent and transparent analysis. The OBR’s pronouncements are now treated as gospel by many MPs, who quote it as though its staff should write economic policy, rather than politicians who are answerable to voters.

There’s the headliners like Great British Energy, Skills England and the Independent Football Regulator, the niche like the National Cladding Taskforce and School Support Staff Negotiating Body and the quangos to regulate the quangos, like the Regulatory Innovation Office. Pick an issue and it’s almost guaranteed that some Labour MP has come up with an unelected body to advise on it.

All of this makes Labour’s crocodile tears for democratic change in the House of Lords stick in the craw. The recent row over hereditary peers was our Government’s attempt at looking like it cared about the little people.

How dreadful that these earls, viscounts and barons get a say in the legislative process simply by dint of their bloodline. This cheap shot at unelected lords might be true, but it begs the question as to what right any other lord or baroness has to sit on the plush red seats deciding which laws the great unwashed are governed by.

The Labour crusade against the House of Lords is waged on the putative basis of “protecting” or affirming democracy.

And yet, the same party outsources enforcement of certain policies and decisions to these unelected quangos. They’re government-funded semi-public administrative bodies outside the civil service. The OBR (which was mentioned) is a classic case, but the same with the Climate Change Committee.

It seems to me that many, but not all, quangos are created to shift responsibility and blame elsewhere. It avoids or delays a difficult or embarrassing decision to someone else.

Why is “democracy” critical to the House of Lords — but not to the quangonistas?

The Rise of Reform UK

If there were a general election tomorrow, it seems more people would vote for Reform UK than the Labor party.

Just think about: the governing party has fallen to second position among voter preference within only four months of forming a government. That’s incredible.

Why has the government’s honeymoon been so short? Partly lying about their intended tax rises during the campaign, and partly gas-lighting and feigning hysteria about the state of the economy to justify their taxes. Then, there’s being over generous to public sector workers whilst simultaneously depriving pensioners off their winter fuel allowance. General incompetence & dishonesty. As for the conservatives, they messed up almost every policy area over the past 14 years.

Reform UK is, to some extent, a protest vote expressing general resentment by people left behind.

They’ve been able to tap into disaffection about both major parties and resentment among older voters. People are fed up with the mass and/or excessive immigration. Speaking for myself, I think we’re a little reluctant to admit that the UK needs immigration for the National Health Service, among others. So, something like 50% of nurses in the UK come from overseas. People are also fed-up with the culture of intolerance and discrimination in both the public and private sector (i.e. “DEI” in HR-think). For me, I’m sick of the “wokery” in trashing all-and-every aspect of British heritage and culture.

Traditional Labour voters are supposed to be patriotic English men and women who believe in local communities - as opposed to big corporations. The Labour party has, in recent times, drifted so far that’s unclear what they stand for other than just a name for their core vote.

Ultimately, Reform UK has a low ceiling.

The Farage-Trump nexus is off-putting for many off the middle-of-the-road people. There’s also a difference between opinion polls and actual elections. Finally, Reform UK have unworkable policies. For people coming over by boats, there’s no way France is going to accept them back. Why should they? They’re also a little too anti-environmental. Like the Green Party, I think they offer simplistic solutions to highly complex problems.

Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukkah from London

St Nicholas Church in Tooting.

Wish all of you, who celebrate, a very Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah and all Holiday Season joy.

“Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers” at the National Gallery - Pt 3

Note: My write-up of the NG’s major Van Gogh exhibition will be over 3 parts: see Part 1 and Part 2.

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Sunflowers - 1888 (London)

Incredible.  So uplifting and cheerful .

Photos doesn’t do this painting justice. It was part of a series of on a beautiful everyday subject that Van Gogh found alluring.

It looks like a simple painting (and it is) - but there is a life-force and meaning behind it - which I think is why people are drawn to it.

I believe this particular one was painted for Gauguin? (who really admired it). They reflect a warmth in Van Gogh’s yearning for companionship in Arles, which he called “the Japan of the South.” It feels happy.

Van Gogh sculpted these sunflowers out of paint. They protrude off the canvas and the petals are in different stages of wilt and decay.

The texture of the seeds is just magical.

I’m fascinated by the smidgen of reflective white.

Why emblazon the vaze with his forename: emphatic pride?

Beautiful long dash-like brushstrokes for petals.

Heavy thick seeds of various colours spiralling within the flowers.

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Sunflowers - 1889 (Philadelphia)

Another WOW !

Love it.

Sunflowers are Van Gogh’s stars. A celebration of life and nature - almost like a sun-god. 

Not at all realistic - but super thick brushstrokes which makes them seem alive.

His bold colours and expressive way of painting are his signature hallmarks.

The background creates an even greater contrast which makes the yellow brighter - as if it glows.

Thick brushstrokes. Heavy and messy, energy.

The reddish hue captures the full gamut of life.

Interesting red centre. More colours here than the first one.

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Field with Poppies - 1889

Beautiful and charming.

Van Gogh was painting the landscape at St-Remy.

Beautiful patchwork of fields with red poppies.

Painted partly outdoors. Van Gogh embellished 2 houses and cypresses.

A little yellow home by the cypress and striking patches of poppies.

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Road Menders at Saint-Rémy - 1889

Wow. So v. beautiful.

I love the whirling chalkiness, the swirling creaminess. 

The trees are incredible - marble luster pearliness. I love the golden-chrome leaves flaming-like at the top of the painting.

I’m fascinated by the people - a lady with a shopping basket, two men pushing a cart up the pathway, two ladies walking under a lampost. 

Such a great lamppost. Thick impasto.

Two men (?) lifting a box?

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Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier) - 1888

Captivating portrait.

The way he gazes out at us, the intensity, the profusion of deep & dazzling colours ....

This man (“Patience Escalier”) was a gardener Van Gogh knew. Van Gogh was convinced he could transform him into the quintessential peasant.

I love the contrasting background and the sheer force of the colours.

It feel daring and beyond post-impressionism.

Sunburnt cheeks and nose?

The harvest, the golden sunshine of the worker?

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La Berceuse (“The Lullaby”) - 1889

Moving and quite beautiful.

This lady was Augustine Roulin. Van Gogh also knew her husband postman Joseph Roulin. 

As Jonathan Jones explains: they typified the warm, hardworking and charming working-class family. As he goes on to explain:

This visionary portrait seems to rock soothingly, moving towards the viewer, creating a sense of completeness and inclusion. The rope Roulin holds, to rock a baby’s cradle, reaches towards the viewer, making you the loved and guarded infant.

Van Gogh hoped La Berceuse would be seen and felt by the poor and the “broken-hearted”. He said it was a picture that might console fishermen far out at sea in a storm. Instead of being thrown about by the ocean, they would feel they were being rocked in a cradle and remember their own childhood lullabies.

Mme Roulin looking out at us - as if reassuring us.

Her golden face fitting into the ornate flowery background.

“La Berceuse” ... and contrasting decorative wallpaper.

As if comets of white flowers around the sun.

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Oleanders - 1888

Exquisite.  So absorbing.

The beguiling wild flowers grew in Van Gogh’s “poet’s garden”. For him, it was associated with love and passion.

It is a variant of his Sunflowers on a different theme. The green background perhaps symbolising fecundity? 

Novel by Émile Zola’s novel “La joie de vivre” ...

AKA: The Bright Side of Life. A romantic optimistic novel.

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Still Life with Coffee Pot - 1888

Wow.

I found this still life really engrossing.

A harmonious and relaxing conjunction of blues and yellow/golds.

Note how Van Gogh painted a red frame onto the canvass. I.e. 2 frames.

Love the darker-blue shadowing effect around the lemons.

What incredible lemons. My god. Citron-yellow glory.

The shades of blue creating table-cloth texture.

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The Stevedores - 1888

Truly WOW.

One of my favourites.

Van Gogh’s expressive use of colours is incredible.

At the museum, I gasped a little at the evening-like lambent atmosphere to the painting - captured inadequately by my camera.

An incredible painting saluting Hokusai, as van Gogh wrote to Theo:

I saw a magnificent and very strange effect this evening. A very large boat laden with coal on the Rhône, moored at the quay. Seen from above it was all glistening and wet from a shower; the water was a white yellow and clouded pearl-grey, the sky lilac and an orange strip in the west, the town violet. On the boat, small workmen, blue and dirty white, were coming and going, carrying the cargo ashore. It was pure Hokusai.

Painting on fire.

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The Trinquetaille Bridge - 1888

The modern life along the riverscape.

Interesting use of Japanese perspective. Expressive use of colours - the sky, the waves, the people ...

It’s a rather sad painting. It was recently sold by Christie’s:

In Le Pont de Trinquetaille the young men lounging by the wall are described by Van Gogh as “ruffians of the Rue du bout d’Arles”. This was his euphemism for pimps, since Rue du bout d’Arles was the centre of the city’s red-light district. Six months later, Van Gogh would deliver part of his severed ear to a woman in this street.

The most mysterious element in Le Pont de Trinquetaille is the sketchily painted figure of the girl in the foreground. Her blue dress, composed of flicks of paint, gives her an almost transparent and rather ghost-like appearance. She lacks facial features and her right hand placed on her forehead is a pose suggestive of melancholia.

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The Courtyard of the Hospital at Arles - 1889

Stunning.

The springtime greenery. 

In this hospital, van Gogh was given a studio. He fills the details with emotion.

Wonderful welter of flowery dabs and spatters.

A dark (and characteristic) contorted tree branch.

Darker hues for darker emotions.

Is that van Gogh striding along in his hat by potted trees? 

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View of Arles, Flowering Orchards - 1889

Another lovely painting.

Beautiful for its (1) innovative perspective with 3 cropped poplars at the fore ... and (2) rich and detailed interwoven textures and colours.

And again, the wonderful swirling veneer of creaminess to the canopy; and an enchanting view of Arles on the distant skyline.

The landscape looks like clouds of marshmallows or green lakes?

Always the worker in the painting.

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The Arlésienne - 1890 (version 1)

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The Arlésienne - 1890 (version 2)

Iconic. I love the pose too.

This lady is Marie Ginoux. Van Gogh painted 5 versions of this lady who ran the local cafe.

She typified the charm of the Arlésienne Provencal dark-haired beauty.

Book of Charles Dickens.

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Landscape with Ploughman - 1889

Capturing the intensity of the autumn - a low but warm sun, ploughman with long shadows, poppies at the fore.

Van Gogh’s view from his hospital room.

I find this painting a bit dark, dispirited.

The shadows of the horse, the plowed row, and that glowing sun.

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Landscape at Saint-Rémy (Enclosed Field with Peasant) - 1889

Harsh painting.

Van Gogh described this painting as “nothing but rough ground and rocks, with a thistle and dry grass in a corner, and a little violet and yellow man”.

Thick impasto colour mishmash on mountain and plume of clouds.

Barren landscape.

Lonely.

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Landscape from Saint-Rémy (Wheatfield behind St-Paul Hospital) - 1889

The brushstrokes off the grass create the windswept impression, and that enormous hovering cloud dominates the top.

This was painted after a storm.

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A Wheatfield with Cypresses - 1889

Another WOW!!!

The combined aesthetic stylisations are breathtaking - curving landscape, the striking and dancing cypresses, the contrasts of fundamental colours (blue-green-gold), and the mass strokes of brilliant swirls and ripples of paint.

Van Gogh captures the summer windswept landscape at the foot of the Alpilles mountains in dramatic fashion.

Golden waves and curls of the windswept wheat - like the surface of the sea.

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The Olive Trees - 1889

A rhythmic stylisation of the earth (with its olives trees) at the Alpilles.

I love how van Gogh always makes his trees dance.

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Olive Trees - 1889

Wow.

I get that wonderful Mediterranean feeling.

This painting was made immediately after the one above.

I love the magical sun with its waves of warmth radiating outwards. The abstracted landscape with olive trees and purple shadows against the browny-soil earth.

The land resembles the surface of water of a lake.

I love his colourisation and that sun is sublime.

Golden.

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Mountains at Saint-Rémy - 1889

Reminds me of Cezanne.

An abstracted & rather invented landscape. Use of heavy black outlines though ...

Sunflowers make an appearance by the hut.

Cloudy sky of thining blue strokes.

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Olive Trees - 1889

Love it.

Another olive tree painting — this time the ground seems to swirl and move, like the surface of the sea.

The shaking and rippling shadows on the meandering ivory earth.

Curious orange embellishment on the olive tree.

Nothing is “too much” for van gogh. 

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Olive Grove, Saint-Rémy - 1889

Love it. Just magical.

I absolutely love the prismal kaleidoscopic sky which is burning with life. The sky flecked with wisps of blue and red clouds. They seem to be swimming in the sky. And the sky hitting the canopy and rebounding with blue sparks on its surface.

The dancing olive trees casting violet-blue shadows on the auburn-browny earth.

Just so good.

Two trees cavorting? Delicate yellows fruits, are olives yellow?

A whale swimming in the sky?

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Olive Grove with Two Olive Pickers - 1889

The same composition as above — but with olive pickers added.

Still beautiful - but I prefer the one above.

The woman is smiling, and the man with his orange

basket hanging on a nearby branch.

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Tree Trunks in the Grass - 1890

Another WOOW!

In contrast to the sadness he felt at St-Remy hospital grounds, here Van Gogh gives us the joy and hope of spring.

An embellished and blooming meadow brimming with the joie de vivre.

I love his dappled versicoloured branches.

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Long Grass with Butterflies - 1890

Beautiful and so uplifting.

Once again, Van Gogh captures the spark of burgeoning life.

Butterflies can be made out among the flowers, shrubs, saplings, and grass of the meadow.