MOVIE MONDAY - INTERSTELLAR

“Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.” - Isaac Asimov

I was wary about Christopher Nolan’s 2014 movie “Interstellar” before watching it, as his 2010 film “Inception” had disappointed me greatly (see my review here). However, after watching this 169 minute epic at the weekend I was pleasantly surprised. The screenplay was by the two Nolan brothers, Christopher and Jonathan, and the film starred Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Matt Damon and David Gyasi.

'Interstellar' is the story of a future earth dystopia, where climate change and a plant blight does not allow crops other than corn to grow. Worsening conditions and disease amongst the population mean that humanity’s extinction is almost certain. The hero of the movie is an ex-NASA test pilot named Cooper (McConaughey), who is a widower, and a dedicated family man (now corn farmer as all scientific jobs have been scrapped). He has two children, and is especially partial towards his bright daughter Murphy (named after Murphy’s Law). Cooper is invited by the now covert and top secret NASA to become humanity’s last hope in finding a new home, as a wormhole has appeared near Saturn. This provides a portal that will warp a spaceship to another galaxy in quest of a habitable planet. Heading the project is Professor Brand (Caine), a brilliant physicist, whose daughter (Hathaway) is also an astronaut that accompanies Copper on his mission.

This is an intelligent science fiction movie, not one based on pyrotechnics and arcade-style shoot-‘em-up chases in space. Although one has to suspend scientific belief now and then, most of the science is valid and to their credit, the Nolans did consult with astrophysicists when writing the script and making the movie. Relativity and the way that time becomes elastic for those who travel very fast through space is significant in the storyline. Alternate universes where more than three dimensions exist are also explored in the film. However, more importantly, the film’s main focus is that of love. How important is love to human beings and what are we capable of doing to ensure the safety of those we love. There are other themes, including the gregariousness of humans and the scourge of loneliness, the concept of heroism and altruism, especially as they relate to the good of society and humanity as opposed to the good of any one individual, and how honest are we as individuals, as organisations as a species…

The acting in the movie is excellent, with McConaughey pulling out all stops and delivering a suitably heroic performance, although his first allegiance script-wise is to the concept of fatherhood. Hathaway looks prematurely aged in the film and is quite a far cry from the ingénue roles of her early career. She plays her role convincingly and has good chemistry with McConaughey, although their relationship is not one of lovers. Caine in his old age has mellowed and as one would expect delivers his lines well and looks the part of a brilliant if flawed scientist. The musical score is brilliant and composer Hans Zimmer, adds considerably to the action, but even more importantly underlines the emotional motivation of the characters. The cinematography and special effects were of the standard one expects nowadays of Hollywood and were suitably unobtrusive so that they did not detract from the meat of the movie.

Nolan has made some very interesting and in some cases extremely good films. Some say “Inception” would be his masterpiece, but I beg to differ. Other people would say it’s “The Dark Knight”, or “Memento”. His remake of the Norwegian thriller, “Insomnia”, was excellent, not something that one can always say about remakes. His vision of the “Batman” sagas, starting with “Batman Begins”, is a gem of the super hero genre. There are many others, with a favourite of mine “The Prestige”, adapted from the novel of the same name, which is dark and disturbing, although quite entertaining.

We thoroughly enjoyed the movie and even if there are some inconsistencies and flaws in it, one can overlook them, as in totality this is an emotionally satisfying film and one that gets the viewer to think a little, going beyond simple entertainment and eye-candy value of many of the standard science fiction films.

ART SUNDAY - SCHUFFENECKER

“I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.” - Vincent Van Gogh

Claude Émile Schuffenecker (1851 - 1934) was a French Post-Impressionist artist, painter, art teacher and art collector. A friend of Paul Gauguin and Odilon Redon, and one of the first collectors of works by Vincent van Gogh, Schuffenecker was instrumental in establishing the Volpini exhibition, in 1889. His own work, however, tends to have been neglected since his death – and even worse, recent season campaigns in the media have reactivated resentments virulent since the late 1920s, when Schuffenecker was suspected to have imitated the work of other contemporary artists, among them, Van Gogh. Still a contentious issue, it has not been established whether he produced forgeries…

The artist was born in the Franche-Comté, and his father, a tailor originating from Guewenheim (Alsace, today Haut-Rhin), died when Émile was little more than two years old; the same year his brother Amédée was born in Charentenay (Haut-Rhin). The widow with her two boys moved to Meudon, close to Paris, where part of her mother’s family lived, and where she had found work at a laundry. In the years to follow Emile was raised by his mother’s sister, Anne Fauconnet Monnet, and her husband Pierre Cornu in Paris, educated by the Frères des Ecoles chrétiennes, and started work in his uncle’s business, a chocolate and coffee-roasting facility in the Les Halles quarter.

Émile Schuffenecker studied with Paul Baudry in Paris in 1870, and later met Paul Gauguin when both worked at the stock brokerage firm of Bertin. He remained close friends with Gauguin throughout his life, and an extensive correspondence between the two artists survives. The stock market crash of 1882 led Schuffenecker to abandon his career as a stockbroker, and to support himself as an art teacher; a career he maintained, alongside his work as an artist, until 1914. In 1884 Schuffenecker was one of the founders of the Société des Artistes Indépendants and, along with Albert Dubois-Pillet and Odilon Redon, signed the statutes of the organisation.

Among the artists exhibiting at the inaugural Salon des Indépendants was Georges Seurat, whose work greatly impressed Schuffenecker. Two years later, Seurat’s painting of A Sunday Afternoon on the Grande Jatte was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants to immense popular interest and critical attention, alongside works by Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross and other Neo-Impressionists. Schuffenecker, who himself briefly painted in a pointilliste manner, was invited to take part in the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition in 1886.

He began to sell his paintings around 1888, after Theo Van Gogh held an exhibition of his work, alongside that of Gauguin and Federico Zandomeneghi, at the Boussod & Valadon gallery in Paris. The following year Schuffenecker organised an exhibition at the Café Volpini of paintings by the Groupe Impressioniste et Synthésiste, including works by himself, Gauguin, Emile Bernard, Louis Anquetin and others. The only solo exhibition of Schuffenecker’s work to be held in his lifetime took place in 1896 at the Librarie de l’Art Indépendant in Paris, and included seventeen paintings, twenty-one pastels and three drawings.

Although by no means wealthy, Schuffenecker was able to support the careers of Gauguin, Emile Bernard and other artists, whose works he purchased. In time he came to own a large number of works by Gauguin, as well paintings by Cezanne and Van Gogh and drawings by Odilon Redon and Charles Filiger, although he was forced to sell his collection following his divorce in 1903. As an artist, Schuffenecker remains relatively little known today in comparison to Gauguin and some of his contemporaries, and only a handful of exhibitions have been devoted to him outside of France. Indeed, he remained relatively obscure even in his lifetime, once describing himself as a man who, ‘placed in the margin, made himself at home there, without bitterness, without desire.’

The portrait above, “Jeune femme à la robe rose”, of 1893 is in the Portland Art Museum. The sitter is the Comtesse Antoine de la Rochefoucauld and there is also a pastel drawing corresponding to the oil portrait above. Schuffenecker experimented much with his painting and his style underwent frequent changes, chameleon-like depending on the company he kept at the time…

MUSIC SATURDAY - CARL DITTERS VON DITTERSDORF

“If music be the food of love, play on.” – William Shakespeare

Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739 - 1799) was an Austrian composer, violinist and forest ecologist. He was born in the Laimgrube (now Mariahilf) district of Vienna, Austria, as August Carl Ditters. His father was a military tailor in the Austrian Imperial Army of Charles VI, for a number of German-speaking regiments. After retiring honourably from his military obligation, he was provided with royal letters of reference and a sinecure with the Imperial Theatre. In 1745, the six-year-old August Carl was introduced to the violin and his father’s moderate financial position allowed him not only a good general education at a Jesuit school, but private tutelage in music, violin, French and religion. After leaving his first teacher, Carl studied violin with J. Ziegler, who by 1750, through his influence, secured his pupil’s appointment as a violinist in the orchestra of the Benedictine church on the Freyung.

Dittersdorf had composition lessons from Giuseppe Bonno in his native Vienna and served as a violinist in the orchestra of the Prince of Sachsen-Hildburghausen, before joining the imperial theatre. He then served as Kapellmeister to the Bishop of Grosswardein, where, in 1762, he succeeded Michael Haydn. In 1769 he became Kapellmeister to the Prince-Bishop of Breslau, at this period acquiring the patent of nobility that added to the name of Ditters the honorific ‘von Dittersdorf’.

Conditions in Johannisberg, the seat of the Prince-Bishop, deteriorated in the political circumstances of the time, and on the death of his employer in 1795 he moved with his family to join the household of a nobleman in Bohemia. Before his death he dictated his fascinating autobiography to his son, a vivid account of musical life in his time.

Dittersdorf wrote a large number of stage works. The earlier Italian works written for Johannisberg were followed by a series of Singspiel primarily for Vienna, and 11 further such works in 1793 and 1794 for Duke Friedrich-August of Brunswick-Oels. These, all in all, mark an important stage in the development of the form. Dittersdorf made his due contribution to oratorio in four such works. He wrote settings of the Mass and other liturgical works, as well as cantatas and arias for church use. His secular vocal works are few.

In orchestral music Dittersdorf may be compared in some respects to his near contemporary Joseph Haydn. His 120 listed symphonies include a set of six giving musical expression to the Metamorphoses of Ovid and another ‘nel gusto di 5 nazioni’ (‘in the taste of five nations’). His concertos, rather fewer in number, include 18 for violin, five for viola, one for cello and one for double bass, as well as a Double Concerto for viola and double bass. The chamber music of Dittersdorf, with all the clarity of Classical style, includes string quartets and quintets, divertimenti, and compositions for groups of wind instruments.

Here is his Viola Sonata in E-flat major:

00:00 I. Allegro moderato

04:47 II. Menuetto, Allegretto

07:54 III. Adagio

10:24 IV. Menuetto, Allegretto

12:52 V. Tema con variazioni, Allegretto

Viola: Anna Barbara Dütschler; Fortepiano: Ursula Dütschler

FOOD FRIDAY - CORNISH PASTIES

“‘Go on, have a pasty,’ said Harry, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Ron, eating their way through all Harry’s pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).” -  J.K. Rowling

This recipe is a favourite of ours and although there are both meat and meatless versions, these days we prefer the vegetarian option. It tends to be flavoursome enough without meat and is quite filling too.

Cornish Pasties

Ingredients - Shortcrust pastry

 2½ cups plain flour

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

120 g butter, chopped

1–3 tablespoons water

Filling

2 carrots, peeled and finely diced

2 medium, old potatoes, peeled and finely chopped

1 medium brown onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 turnip, peeled and finely chopped

1 cup green peas, shelled

2 tbsp olive oil

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup vegetable stock

white pepper

salt to taste

1/4 teaspoon English mustard

1 teaspoon grated horseradish

beaten egg to glaze

Method

Preheat oven to moderately hot 200°C. Brush a baking tray with melted butter or oil. Place flour and mustard in food processor bowl, add butter. Using pulse action, process until mixture is fine and crumbly. Add almost all the water. Process 20 seconds or until mixture comes together, adding more water if necessary. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

Combine vegetables and toss in a pan with some olive oil to soften. Add parsley, stock and season with pepper, salt, mustard and horseradish. Mix well.

Roll pastry out to 3 mm thickness. Cut out six circles, 16 cm in diameter, using a saucer as a guide. Divide the combined filling between the six circles, placing it into the centre of each circle.

Glaze the edge of the circle with egg and bring two sides together to form a half circle. With fingers, pinch to form a frill. Brush with egg and place on a baking tray in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to moderate 180°C and cook for further 20 minutes. Serve hot with a green salad and tomato sauce on the side.

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CALENDULA

“Whatever one loves most is beautiful.” - Sappho

The common marigold, Calendula officinalis, is today’s birthday flower. The name calendula is from the Latin calendae, the first day of each month, as it was believed that marigolds bloomed somewhere in every month of the year. It symbolises cruelty in love, grief and pain. A bouquet of marigolds and poppies signifies lightened cares and sympathy.  Mixed with other flowers, the marigold imparts the meaning “life is made up of joys and sorrows”. As is the case with many other yellow flowers, the plant is under the dominion of the sun, thus being considered lucky to bring it indoors.

Parting

“Sappho, truly I want to die…”

Such was her cry when she said goodbye.

These words she said to me:

“What sad calamity!

Sappho, I leave you most unwillingly.”

To her I made reply:

“Go with good heart but try

Not to forget our love of days gone by.

Else, I shall always bring to mind,

Even if your heart proves to be unkind

The most delightful memories you leave behind.”

Many a chaplet

Of sweet smelling rose and violet,

Crocus and dill upon your head you set;

Many a necklace too

Round your white throat you threw,

Woven with me of blooms of many a hue,

And often balm you spread

Of myrrh upon my head,

And costly ointment on my hair you shed.”

Sappho (Flourished ≈600 BC)

POETS UNITED - FOOD

“And there never was an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.” - Neil Gaiman

Happy New Year to all Poets of Poets United! This week the theme is “Food” and perhaps it is apt, considering how the holiday period we have just lived through is associated so much with eating and feasting!. I hope everyone enjoyed the break and got some rest. I seem to have been busier than usual and feel as though I need a holiday to get over the holidays…

Here is my offering, influenced perhaps by the Dalí painting above, “Cannibalism in Autumn” (1936). 

The Food of Love

The food of love
Is cooked in the kitchen of familiarity;
Each dish prepared
With consummate carelessness,
Bred by intimacy
That has been carefully cultivated over years.

Your flesh warm,
Inviting and desirable, more succulent
Than any carnivorous delectation
Placed upon dinner table
By a skilful chef,
And dressed by an expert saucier.

We feast on our carnality,
The kitchen table suitable for our excesses
As kiss upon kiss
Leads to our fusion according to our recipe
Perfected by practice
And by our apposite harmony of spicy mixtures.

Once sated to surfeit,
All spent, we gaze out of the windows of our eyes
Seeing both sides of the coin
An Eden and a Gehenna, both prized and reviled;
Our meeting fleeting, but,
Our love eternal, transcending the everyday.

The apple more than temptation,
The larder fuller than hunger would dictate,
The heart brimming with expectation,
The desire more searing than the hotplate,
Our cooking preparations more to feed the soul
Than jaded palates with sweetmeat to cajole.

TRAVEL TUESDAY #9

“Light is the task where many share the toil.” - Homer

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel!

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest us! Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.

Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.

Mycenae (Greek: Μυκῆναι Mykēnai or Μυκήνη Mykēnē) is an archaeological site in Greece, located about 90 kilometres southwest of Athens, in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Argos is 11 kilometres to the south; Corinth, 48 kilometres to the north. From the hill on which the palace was located, one can see across the Argolid to the Saronic Gulf. In the second millennium BC, Mycenae was one of the major centres of Greek civilisation, a military stronghold which dominated much of southern Greece. The period of Greek history from about 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is called Mycenaean in reference to Mycenae. At its peak in 1350 BC, the citadel and lower town had a population of 30,000 and an area of 32 hectares.

The Lion Gate was the main entrance of the Bronze Age citadel of Mycenae. It was erected during the 13th century BC in the northwest side of the acropolis and is named after the relief sculpture of two lionesses in a heraldic pose that stands above the entrance. The Lion Gate is the sole surviving monumental piece of Mycenaean sculpture, as well as the largest sculpture in the prehistoric Aegean.

The Lion Gate is a massive and imposing construction, standing 3.10 m  wide and 2.95 m  high at the threshold. It narrows as it rises, measuring 2.78 m below the lintel. The opening was closed by a double door mortised to a vertical beam that acted as a pivot around which the door revolved. The gate itself consists of two great monoliths capped with a huge lintel that measures 4.5×2.0×0.8 m. Above the lintel, the masonry courses form a corbelled arch, leaving an opening that lightens the weight carried by the lintel. This relieving triangle is a great limestone slab on which two confronted lionesses carved in high relief stand on either sides of a central pillar. The heads of the animals were fashioned separately and are missing. The pillar, specifically, is a Minoan-type column that is placed on top of an altar-like platform that the lionesses rest their front legs on.

Beyond the gate and inside the citadel was a covered court with a small chamber, which probably functioned as a guard post. On the right, adjacent to the wall, was a building that has been identified as a granary because of the pithoi found there containing carbonised wheat.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

Please link your entry using the Linky tool below:

MOVIE MONDAY - VALE, DAVID BOWIE

“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.” - David Bowie

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known as David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, arranger, painter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, and was considered by critics and other musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His androgynous appearance was an iconic element of his image, principally in the 1970s and 1980s.

Born and raised in Brixton, south London, Bowie developed an early interest in music although his attempts to succeed as a pop star during much of the 1960s were frustrating. “Space Oddity” became his first top five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a three-year period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by his single “Starman” and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved to be one facet of a career marked by reinvention, musical innovation and visual presentation.

In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single “Fame” and the album Young Americans, which the singer characterised as “plastic soul”. The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording the electronic-inflected album Low, the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno. Low (1977), Heroes (1977), and Lodger (1979) - the so-called “Berlin Trilogy” albums - all reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes”, its parent album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), and “Under Pressure”, a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with Let’s Dance, which yielded several successful singles. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle.

Bowie also had a successful but sporadic film career. His acting roles include the eponymous character in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Major Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Jareth, the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986 – see below), Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos.

Bowie stopped touring after his 2003–04 Reality Tour, and last performed live at a charity event in 2006. On 8 January 2016, the date of Bowie’s 69th birthday, the album Blackstar was released; he died two days later. Throughout his career, Bowie sold an estimated 140 million records worldwide. In the UK, he was awarded nine Platinum album certifications, eleven Gold and eight Silver, and in the US, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Jim Henson’s 1986 movie "Labyrinth" starring  David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, Toby Froud, Shelley Thompson and Christopher Malcolm, was one of David Bowie’s most memorable cinematic appearances in a suitably fantastical and visually engaging film.

Labyrinth is based on the premise that it’s only when we lose something that we realise its real worth. A young girl, Sarah, (Connelly) wishes that her annoying baby stepbrother, Toby, (Froud) would disappear, only to discover afterwards that she does indeed love him and misses him. Once Sarah’s grief sinks in, the Goblin King (Bowie) enters and challenges Sarah to navigate a huge maze in less than thirteen hours. If she is successful, Toby will return to her – if not, her brother will become a goblin.

The acting is wonderful and Jim Henson’s puppets are quite amazing. With Bowie’s involvement, one would expect song and dance sequences, and yes there are a few of those, not to disappoint Bowie’s fans. It is a wonderful film for the whole family, pleasing parents (uncles, aunts, grandparents, etc) as well as children. The fantasy is magical, the characters memorable and the cinematography, art direction and special effects great!

Rest in Peace, David Bowie, your legacy will be appreciated by many generations yet to come.

ART SUNDAY - FÉLIX VALLOTTON

“The portrait I do best is of the person I know best.” - Nadar

Félix Edouard Vallotton (December 28, 1865 – December 29, 1925) was a Swiss/French painter and printmaker associated with Les Nabis. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut. 

He was born into a conservative middle-class family in Lausanne, and there he attended Collège Cantonal, graduating with a degree in classical studies in 1882. In that year he moved to Paris to study art under Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger at the Académie Julian. He spent many hours in the Louvre, where he greatly admired the works of Holbein, Dürer and Ingres; these artists would remain exemplars for Vallotton throughout his life. Vallotton’s earliest paintings, chiefly portraits, are in the academic tradition. In 1885 he painted the Ingresque Portrait of Monsieur Ursenbach as well as his first painted self-portrait, which received an honourable mention at the Salon des artistes français in 1886.

During the following decade Vallotton painted, wrote art criticism and made a number of prints. In 1891 he executed his first woodcut, a portrait of Paul Verlaine. The many woodcuts he produced during the 1890s were recognised as innovative, and established Vallotton as a leader in the revival of true woodcut as an artistic medium. In the western world, the relief print, in the form of commercial wood engraving, had long been utilised mainly as a means to accurately reproduce drawn or painted images and, latterly, photographs. Vallotton’s woodcut style was novel in its starkly reductive opposition of large masses of undifferentiated black and areas of unmodulated white. Vallotton emphasised outline and flat patterns, and generally eliminated the gradations and modelling traditionally produced by hatching. He was influenced by post-Impressionism, Symbolism, and especially by the Japanese woodcut.

His woodcut subjects included domestic scenes, bathing women, portrait heads, and several images of street crowds and demonstrations (notably, several scenes of police attacking anarchists). He usually depicted types rather than individuals, avoided the expression of strong emotion, and fused  a graphic wit with an acerbic if not ironic humour. Vallotton’s graphic art reached its highest development in Intimités (Intimacies), a series of ten interiors published in 1898 by the Revue Blanche, which deal with tension between men and women. Vallotton's woodcuts were widely disseminated in periodicals and books in Europe as well as in the United States, and have been suggested as a significant influence on the graphic art of Edvard Munch, Aubrey Beardsley, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.

By 1892 he was affiliated with Les Nabis, a group of young artists that included Pierre Bonnard, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Maurice Denis, and Édouard Vuillard, with whom Vallotton was to form a lifelong friendship. During the 1890s, when Vallotton was closely allied with the avant-garde, his paintings reflected the style of his woodcuts, with flat areas of colour, hard edges, and simplification of detail. His subjects included genre scenes, portraits and nudes. Examples of his Nabi style are the deliberately awkward “Bathers on a Summer Evening” (1892–93), now in the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the symbolist “Moonlight” (1895), in the Musée d’Orsay.

In 1899 Vallotton married Gabrielle Rodrigues-Henriques, a wealthy young widow with three children, and in 1900 he attained French citizenship. Around 1899, his printmaking activity diminished as he concentrated on painting, developing a sober, often bitter realism independently of the artistic mainstream. His “Portrait of Gertrude Stein” (1907) was painted as an apparent response to Picasso’s portrait of the previous year, and in “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”, Stein described the very methodical way in which Vallotton painted it, working from top to bottom as if lowering a curtain across the canvas.

Vallotton’s paintings of the post-Nabi period found admirers, and were generally respected for their truthfulness and their technical qualities, but the severity of his style was frequently criticised. Typical is the reaction of the critic who, writing in the March 23, 1910 issue of Neue Zürcher Zeitung, complained that Vallotton “paints like a policeman, like someone whose job it is to catch forms and colors. Everything creaks with an intolerable dryness ... the colours lack all joyfulness.” In its uncompromising character his art prefigured the New Objectivity that flourished in Germany during the 1920s, and has a further parallel in the work of Edward Hopper.

He continued to publish occasional art criticism, in addition to other writings. He wrote eight plays, some of which received performances (in 1904 and 1907), although their reviews appear to have been unfavourable. He also wrote three novels, including the semi-autobiographical La Vie Meurtrière (The Murderous Life), begun in 1907 and published posthumously.

Vallotton responded in 1914 to the coming of the First World War by volunteering for the French army, but he was rejected because of his age. In 1915–16 he returned to the medium of woodcut for the first time since 1901 to express his feelings for his adopted country in the series, “This is War”, his last prints. He subsequently spent three weeks on a tour of the Champagne front in 1917, on a commission from the Ministry of Fine Arts. The sketches he produced became the basis for a group of paintings, “The Church of Souain in Silhouette” among them, in which he recorded with cool detachment the ruined landscape.

In his last years Félix Vallotton concentrated especially on still lifes and on “composite landscapes”, landscapes composed in the studio from memory and imagination. Always a prolific artist, by the end of his life he had completed over 1700 paintings and about 200 prints, in addition to hundreds of drawings and several sculptures. He died on the day after his 60th birthday, following cancer surgery in Paris in 1925. His brother Paul was an art dealer; he founded the Galerie Paul Vallotton in Lausanne in 1922, which continued operation for many years under the control of his descendants.

The painting above is “Felix Jasinski in His Printmaking Studio”, painted in 1887. Feliks Stanisław Jasiński (1862-1901) was a Polish painter and graphic artist. He moved he moved permanently to Paris in 1882 and enrolled at the Académie Julian, where he met Valotton. This is one of my favourite early works of Valotton…

MUSIC SATURDAY - ROSSINI'S LITTLE SOLEMN MASS

“Good God, behold completed this poor little Mass; is it indeed sacred music [la musique sacrée] that I have just written, or merely some damned music [la sacrée musique]? You know well, I was born for comic opera. Little science, a little heart, that is all. So may you be blessed, and grant me Paradise!” – Gioachino Rossini

Gioachino Rossini’s (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) “Petite Messe Solennelle” was written in 1863 and described by the composer as “the last of my péchés de vieillesse” (sins of old age). The witty composer, who produced little for public hearing during his long retirement at Passy, regarded his mass fondly although it was characterised, apocryphally by Napoleon III, as “not little nor solemn, nor particularly liturgical”.

Its first performance was at the dedication (14 March 1864) of the private chapel in the Hôtel of Louise, Comtesse de Pillet-Will, to whom Rossini dedicated this refined and elegant piece, which avoids the sentimental opulence of most contemporary liturgical works, such as those by Charles Gounod. Rossini specified twelve singers in all, with the soloists doubling the SATB chorus, and scored it for two pianos and harmonium. (The second piano plays only occasionally, and then merely doubles the first.

Among the first hearers were Giacomo Meyerbeer, Daniel Auber and Ambroise Thomas, who would succeed Auber as director of the Paris Conservatoire. Albert Lavignac, aged eighteen, conducted from the harmonium. The soloists were Carlotta and Barbara Marchisio, Italo Gardoni and Luigi Agnesi. It has been said that all this piece requires is a small hall, a piano, a harmonium, eight choristers and the four greatest singers on Earth.

Partly for fear that it would be done anyway after his death, Rossini discreetly orchestrated the Petite Messe Solennelle during 1866-67, without losing its candour and subtlety, and the resulting version had its first public performance on 28 February 1869, three months after the composer’s death, and as close as could be to what would have been Rossini’s seventy-seventh birthday at the Théâtre-Italien, Paris. That year both versions were published.

Here it is, performed by the Orquesta Sinfónica & Coro de Galicia under the direction of Alberto Zedda, with María José Moreno, soprano; Veronica Simeoni, mezzosoprano; Yijie Shi, tenor and Mirco Palazzi, bass.
Kyrie (0:39)

Gloria (8:07)

Gratias (10:13)

Domine Deus (14:25)

Qui Tollis (19.55)

Quoniam (26:26)

Cum Sanctu Spiritu (33:47)

Credo (39:13)

Crucifixus (43.33)

Et Resurrexit (46:46)

Preludio religioso (55:31)

Sanctus (1:03:00)

O Salutaris (1:07:15)

Agnus Dei (1:12:39)

FOOD FRIDAY - QUEEN OF PUDDINGS

“I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.” - Elizabeth I

I can’t believe how busy we have been. Supposedly, this is the quietest time of the year with lots of leisure time, the holidays, not so much work… However, we have been busy with a couple of gardening projects, chores around the house, a couple of repairs, looking for a new fridge as the old one is threatening to die, and the days just vanish! Nevertheless, there is always time for some cooking and as we hadn’t had a proper dessert for some time, we decided to revisit an old favourite, especially as peaches are in season. One can always use canned fruit – especially if in a hurry or if the fruit is out of season.

QUEEN OF PUDDINGS

Ingredients

415g can peach slices in syrup, drained

425g can raspberries in syrup, drained

2 cups fresh breadcrumbs

1 and 1/2 cups caster sugar

1 and 3/4 cups milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 eggs, separated

1/2 cup raspberry jam, warmed

Method

Preheat oven to 170˚C. Grease a 6 cup-capacity ovenproof dish or 6 individual ramekins. Drain peaches and raspberries  well and then pat dry with paper towel.

Combine breadcrumbs and 1/2 cup sugar in a heatproof bowl. Heat milk in a saucepan over medium heat until just starting to simmer (do not boil). Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Add milk mixture to breadcrumb mixture. Stir well to combine. Cool for 10 minutes.

Add egg yolks to breadcrumb mixture. Stir well to combine. Pour mixture into prepared dish or equally into the ramekins. Bake for 12-20 minutes or until just set (depending on size of dish/dishes).

Meanwhile, using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gradually add remaining sugar, beating well after each addition, until mixture is thick and glossy and sugar has dissolved.

Increase oven temperature to 180˚C. Spoon warm jam over warm pudding base. Top with peaches and raspberries. Dollop meringue over fruit. Bake for 10 minutes or until meringue is golden and fruit is heated through. Serve immediately.

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TWELFTH DAY OF CHRISTMAS

“Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.” ― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

January 6 is the Twelfth Day of Christmas. It is also the Epiphany (also called Theophany), which the Eastern Church, the Orthodox Christians, celebrate with particular brilliance as the day Christ was baptised by John the Baptist. On the other hand, the Western Christian Churches celebrate on this day the Arrival of the Magi at Bethlehem, where they presented the Christ Child with their gifts: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

As Epiphany Eve (that is, the Twelfth Night), especially, was associated with the arrival of the Magi, in many countries children expected to be left gifts in their shoes or stockings. In Italy, an ugly but kind witch, called La Befana, came and distributed sweets and presents to the good children. In Syria, children were brought presents by the smallest of the Magi’s camels. This is because according to tradition, the other two camels lost their determination and strength on the way to Bethlehem and they were about to give up. The smallest camel, however, refused to give up and was rewarded by Jesus with immortality for its belief in Him.

Tradition has it that Christmas celebrations are to end on the Twelfth Night of Christmas and decorations should be taken down on this day. However, a sprig of holly should be retained in the house to protect the occupants against lightning. Twelfth Night celebrations were once very popular and traditionally, this night was one of the merriest in the Christmas season. Twelfth Night parties were held everywhere, ostensibly to celebrate the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem, however, many of the traditions surrounding the Night’s celebrations were pagan in origin.

A Twelfth Night cake was baked and a single bean was hidden in it. The person who found it in his piece became the Bean King for the Night. This tradition hails back to the Roman Saturnalia where a King was chosen by lot. The bean was a sacred seed in ancient times. A pea was sometimes baked in a cake in order to choose a Twelfth Night Queen, also. Midnight signalled the end of their rule and the world would return to normal. These cakes have now merged with the tradition of the Christmas Cake and the Christmas Pudding (the latter which may contain the silver sixpence to determine the lucky one amongst its consumers.

In medieval and Tudor England, the Twelfth Night marked the end of a winter festival that started on All Hallows Eve (Halloween). The Lord of Misrule reigned on this day and symbolises the world turning upside down. This Lord of Misrule tradition dates back to pre-Christian European festivals such as the Celtic festival of Samhain and the Ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia.

Food and drink are the centre of the celebrations in modern times, and all of the most traditional ones go back many centuries. The punch called wassail is consumed especially on Twelfth Night, but throughout Christmas time, especially in the UK. Around the world, special pastries, such as the tortell and king cake are baked on Twelfth Night, and eaten the following day for the Feast of the Epiphany celebrations. To herald the celebration (especially in the countryside), the extraordinary Holly Man (the Winter guise of the Green Man from pagan myths and folklore) decked in fantastic green garb and evergreen foliage may appear in order to ensure that Spring arrives on time and the crops do not fail.

At the Twelfth Night party, it was customary to draw cards, on which were represented certain stock pantomime-like characters, exemplifying humorous national traits, for example, Farmer Mangelwurzel, François Parlez-Vous and Patrick O’Tater. People had to act out the part of their chosen character and also submit to the humorous “commands” of the Bean King. Much laughter, good humour, fine food and drink were expended on these occasions.

TRAVEL TUESDAY #8

“The glamour of it all! New York! America!” - Charlie Chaplin

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel!

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest us! Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.

Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.

Please link your entry using the Linky tool below:

The Statue of Liberty (Liberty Enlightening the World; French: La Liberté éclairant le monde) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor in New York City, in the United States. The copper statue, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, a French sculptor, was built by Gustave Eiffel and dedicated on October 28, 1886. It was a gift to the United States from the people of France.

The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States, and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.

Bartholdi was inspired by French law professor and politician Édouard René de Laboulaye, who is said to have commented in 1865 that any monument raised to American independence would properly be a joint project of the French and American peoples. He may have been minded to honor the Union victory in the American Civil War and the end of slavery. Due to the troubled political situation in France, work on the statue did not commence until the early 1870s.

In 1875, Laboulaye proposed that the French finance the statue and the Americans provide the site and build the pedestal. Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and in Madison Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882.

Fundraising proved difficult, especially for the Americans, and by 1885 work on the pedestal was threatened due to lack of funds. Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World started a drive for donations to complete the project that attracted more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than a dollar. The statue was constructed in France, shipped overseas in crates, and assembled on the completed pedestal on what was then called Bedloe’s Island. The statue’s completion was marked by New York’s first ticker-tape parade and a dedication ceremony presided over by President Grover Cleveland.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

MOVIE MONDAY - LATCHO DROM

“It is impossible to imagine a more complete fusion with nature than that of the Gypsy.” - Franz Liszt

We watched an excellent film at the weekend. It was Tony Gatlif’s 1993 documentary “LatchoDrom”. This is the second in a trilogy that examines the life and culture of the Roma people. The Romani (also spelled Romany) are a traditionally itinerant ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas, who originate from the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent, specifically from Northern India, presumably from the northwestern Indian states Rajasthan and Punjab.

The Romani are widely known among English-speaking people by the exonym “Gypsies”. However, according to many Romani people and academics who study them, the word has been tainted by its use as a racial slur and a pejorative connoting illegality and irregularity. Other exonyms are Ashkali and Sinti.

Romani are dispersed, with their concentrated populations in Europe (especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe) including Turkey, Spain and Southern France. They originated in Northern India and arrived in Mid-West Asia, then Europe, around 1,000 years ago, either separating from the Dom people or, at least, having a similar history; the ancestors of both the Romani and the Dom left North India sometime between the sixth and eleventh century.

Since the nineteenth century, some Romani have also migrated to the Americas. There are an estimated one million Roma in the United States; and 800,000 in Brazil, most of whose ancestors emigrated in the nineteenth century from eastern Europe. Brazil also includes some Romani descended from people deported by the government of Portugal during the Inquisition in the colonial era. In migrations since the late nineteenth century, Romani have also moved to other countries in South America and to Canada.

The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million. The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large (several times as large according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two; those varieties are sometimes called Para-Romani.

This film is an amazing celebration of Roma music, explored through travel along the migration route from India to Spain. The music and dance of the Roma is the common thread that binds them all, but it is interesting to also note the differences in the various countries they have settled in and the various local influences they have absorbed.

It is a touching film, very sad in parts while full of joie de vivre and unbridled passion in others. The music is quite amazing and varied, ranging from the flamenco music of the Spanish Gypsies, to the sweetly melancholy music of the Central European Gypsies – and everything in between! If you like music, this film is a treat. If you are interested in world culture and folklore this is the film for you. And I am sure that some people who watch this and have no special interest in either gypsy music or culture will enjoy it because of its sheer humanity.

ART SUNDAY - FRÉDÉRIC BAZILLE

“A person himself believes that all the other portraits are good likenesses except the one of himself.” - Edvard Munch

Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) was born in a Protestant family of the upper middle class of Montpellier in the south of France. His father was a rich landowner and wine grower as well as a notable of the city of Montpellier. In 1862, he went to Paris to continue with his studies of medicine, while spending most of his time at the School of Fine Arts to paint in the Workshop of Charles Gleyre, where he befriended Monet, Renoir, and Sisley. His artistic vocation went back to his meeting with a friend of his parents, the art collector and patron from Montpellier Alfred Bruyas , who influenced Courbet as well as the Impressionists. Initially, Bazille’s painting was strongly influenced by the works of Courbet and Manet.

During Easter of 1863, he stayed with Monet at Chailly in the forest of Fontainebleau in order to experiment with open air painting. In 1864 he rented an artist studio in Rue Vaugirard and in June stayed with Monet in Honfleur, where he met Boudin and Jongkind. On his return to Paris, he learned that he had failed his examinations in Medicine and obtained his parents’ permission to totally devote himself to painting. In 1865 he shared an atelier in Rue Furstenberg with Monet, whom he helped financially. He submitted two works to the Official Salon of 1866, “Girl at the piano” and “Still life with fish”, the latter being accepted. Thereafter he will be regularly admitted to exhibit to the Salon.

In 1866 he shared with Renoir a new studio in Rue Visconti. He then moved to the district of Batignolles, in the Rue de la Condamine, near the Café Guerbois of which he had become a regular patron. It is in this new workshop that he executed in 1870 his painting “Bazille’s Studio, Rue de la Condamine”, where one can see him presenting a new work at Manet and Monet, whereas his friend Maître plays at the piano and Zola is in conversation with Renoir. This painting with an open composition (where Manet himself painted the high silhouette of Bazille) underlines the friendly and good working relationships of the protagonists with no hierarchical order between them.

Pissarro, Cézanne, and sometimes Courbet, visited him in his successive studios. He was also one of the rare persons able to face verbal arguments with erudite and ironic painter Degas, showing of a clear thinking and a realism which one can find in his paintings. The work of Bazille, stopped by his untimely death during the war of 1870, shows new compositions developed with audacity and diversity: open-air portraits with lower panoramic view as in " “The Pink Dress” (1864) or View of the Village of Castelnau-le-Lez” (1868), family scenes as in his large painting “Family Gathering” (1867 – see above), plein-air paintings such as “Summer Scene” (1869) . He particularly applied himself to combine figure painting in the open-air with an intense attention to natural light.

Bazille joined voluntarily and enthusiastically the regiment of the Zouaves just before the war of 1870. He was killed while fighting at Beaune-la-Rolande (close to Orleans) on November 28, 1870, at the age of 29. A number of works of Frédéric Bazille are kept at the Fabre Museum of Montpellier.