From Bagpuss to 'an emergency of the too realized'

The adorable granddaughter Summer, being a three-year-old of taste and discernment, is a big fan of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin's classic creation Bagpuss. Yesterday we were watching the very first episode, the tale of a ship in a bottle - or rather a shipwreck in a bottle, which is repaired and restored to ship shape by means of a little Bagpuss magic and music.
It put me in mind of a Kay Ryan poem, which I pass on with a tip of the hat to the incomparable Dave Lull...

Ship in a Bottle

It seems
impossible—
not just a
ship in a
bottle but
wind and sea.
The ship starts
to struggle—an
emergency of the
too realized we
realize. We can 
get it out but
not without
spilling its world.
A hammer tap
and they’re free.
Which death
will it be,
little sailors?

No one shakes things up quite like Kay Ryan, and in so few, so precisely placed words.

Colour

Because it's his birthday (born on this day in 1912), and because he isn't represented in the Royal Academy's AbEx exhibition, here's a splash of Morris Louis colour to start the week.
It's called Point of Tranquility...

Dr Gully: Stuff and Passion

Having found so much to enjoy in Elizabeth Jenkins' The Tortoise and the Hare, I've been seeking out her other novels, with limited success (this really is a very nearly forgotten novelist). I've just finished reading Dr Gully, which I found in a 1976 Penguin edition (published price 45p!). This is a fictionalised biography - or, more accurately, a fact-bound novel - that takes as its subject the eminent Victorian physician (and psychic researcher) James Manby Gully, who, towards the end of his life, became unwittingly embroiled in the sensational, and still unsolved, Charles Bravo murder.
 The most striking aspect of Jenkins' novel is that there is no mention of Charles Bravo until more than three-quarters of the way through, and the murder itself - and the ensuing inquests - don't happen until the closing chapters. This is all, as it were, back story. Charles Bravo doesn't even feature as a speaking or active character and is only heard of indirectly. That is how tightly focused the novel is on Gully's feelings and experiences. It is a rich and compelling portrait of a fascinating, clearly charismatic man with a mesmeric presence - a man whose spell the author herself seems to have fallen under.
 The essential action (as against plot) of the novel is embodied in the passionate love affair that develops between Gully and a beautiful, rich and very much younger patient, Florence Ricardo. She is trapped in a deeply unhappy mariage blanc with a hopeless alcoholic, while Gully is shackled by a defunct marriage to an older woman from whom he long ago parted but who is still alive. The course of the superficially unlikely romance between Florence and Gully is traced with such imaginative insight that it becomes entirely believable, and we follow its vicissitudes with real emotional involvement.
 Elizabeth Jenkins is not one of those rare novelists who don't so much write about the past as effortlessly inhabit it (think Penelope Fitzgerald). Rather she works her way in by building a world rich in abundant and intricate detail, a world of stuff - furniture, textiles, dresses, hats, coats, carriages, lamps, curtains, medications, mourning dress, stationery, wallpapers, toiletries, jewellery, wash stands, all the equipment of opulent upper-middle-class Victorian life. Jenkins not only tells you about these things, she often tells you which suppliers they came from - and you can be sure the information is accurate; this is a diligently researched book.
 In less skilled hands, this would be tiresome, but here it is essential to the writer's purpose, conveying the oppressive world of stuff - and servants, ever present, ever vigilant, ever gossiping - in which the principal characters are obliged to live their lives, while trying to keep their love affair secret. It is giving nothing away to say that this affair is ultimately doomed, and that in the end Florence Ricardo becomes Mrs Charles Bravo. By then she has parted decisively from Gully, and we have only indirect knowledge of what is going on in her life. Gully is now a helpless observer, looking on as the terrible climactic events unfold...
 After the parting of the lovers, a good deal of the heat goes out of the story, and it unfolds in a different manner, closer to a more conventional kind of true-crime historical fiction. This, however, is interesting enough in itself, and Gully's piecing-together of the events that led to Charles Bravo's death is entirely plausible. What is less satisfactory is the near-sentimentality of some of the final scenes, in which Jenkins seems almost besotted with her creation, her James Gully. She might have done better to end on a sharper, more ambivalent note. That said, though, this remains a very fine exercise in making a persuasive and involving fiction out of a mass of factual material. If you can get hold of it, do give it a try.
 (The picture above shows Dr Gully with the materialised spirit known as 'Katie King'.)

Ardizzone in the House of Illustration

Today I visited the House of Illustration, a new(ish - est. 2014) gallery devoted to the art of illustration. It's on Granary Square, part of the rather wonderful regeneration of the former post-industrial wasteland around King's Cross and St Pancras.
 The House of Illustration has an exhibition on (until 22 January) of works by the great illustrator Edward Ardizzone. I've always loved his work - since childhood, in fact - so this was a must-see, and it did not disappoint. There's a good range of work on show - drawings, watercolours, pen and ink, etchings, lithographs - representing his career as book illustrator, war artist, observer of the passing scene, and 'commercial artist'. In addition there are several of his delightful illustrated letters to friends and family, and a video in which Shirley Hughes, Quentin Blake and others pay tribute to Ardizzone, a man who seems to have been every bit as genial as his art would suggest.
 Ardizzone is a rare example of a cheering artist, one whose works often make you smile and always make you feel that bit better about being alive in this world. Even a picture of a burial party interring corpses - On the Road to Tripoli: A Cup of Tea for the Burial Party (one of his war paintings) - is more about the tommies enjoying their cup of tea than the grisly business they are engaged in. On the other hand there are a couple of war paintings, large watercolours, that are almost bleak - A Battery Position in an Orchard of Young Fruit Trees in the Snow and A Drunken Dutchman in a Street in Bremen, a sad, lone figure in an entirely blasted townscape. Nothing could be further from Ardizzone's usual happy drunks enjoying themselves - and occasionally fighting, especially the women - in the English pubs he loved (see, and enjoy, his illustrations for The Local, a book by Maurice Gorham, who also commissioned much of Ardizzone's work for the Radio Times).
 It's easy to undervalue illustrators and rank them far below 'real' artists - a good reason in itself to have a dedicated gallery like the House of Illustration - but a close look at the pictures in this exhibition leaves no doubt of Ardizzone's extraordinary ability. His use of cross-hatching, in particular, to create the most subtle gradations of tone and depth is quite prodigious, as is his all-round facility as a draughtsman. His rounded forms and broken lines suggest the influence of Rowlandson, his heavier lines and deeper shading recall Daumier, and there is something Baroque about the composition of his more complex pictures - but Ardizzone was himself from the start, instantly recognisable, instantly cheering. He brought something very special to the art of illustration, entering fully into the spirit of the book and creating real, complete pictures, with real depth, rather than just decoration. His art will outlast many of those books - indeed, it already has.
 As I wandered round this exhibition, I was delighted to find two girl students copying some of the pictures - and copying them so well Ardizzone would surely have approved. It's good to know that some students at least are still learning to draw.

The Hon. F.S. Jackson, Cricketer Extraordinaire

Born on this day in 1870 was Yorkshire and England cricketer Stanley Jackson - or, to give him his full name and honorifics, Sir Francis Stanley Jackson, GCSI, GCIE, KStJ, PC. As that list of initials hints, Jackson was a man of many parts, and he had quite a life.
 At Harrow, Jackson was a friend of the future Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, and had another one, Winston Churchill, as his fag. At Cambridge, he took the brilliant but unconventional batsman Ranijitsinjhi under his wing, getting him into the University First XI and ensuring that he won his Blue, all in the teeth of considerable racially-motivated opposition. Jackson played in the successful Yorkshire sides of the turn of the 20th century, scoring 1,000 runs each season and achieving the double (1,000 runs and 100 wickets) twice - all this despite his other commitments, mostly to do with his political career. These commitments also prevented him touring with England, but he played in 20 Tests (a record for a player who never toured) and was captain in 1905, retaining the Ashes.
 Jackson served in the Second Boer War and later became a Lieutenant-Colonel in the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was elected an MP in 1915, and served as Financial Secretary to the War Office. Then, in 1927, he was appointed Governor of Bengal, knighted with a GCIE and made a Privy Councillor. In 1932, while giving a speech in the Convocation Hall of the University of Calcutta, he was shot at five times with a pistol by a revolutionary nationalist. Showing that he hadn't lost his sportsman's reflexes, Jackson ducked and sidestepped all five bullets and, before the smoke had cleared, coolly resumed his speech, to admiring cheers.
 Jackson died back in London in 1947. Looking back on his funeral, the Bishop of Knaresborough recalled, 'As I gazed down on the rapt faces of that vast congregation, I could see how they revered him as though he was the Almighty - though, of course, infinitely stronger on the leg side.'

Tackling AbEx

My taste for Abstract Expressionism having been revived by my recent visit to the Guggenheim in Venice, I was inevitably going to visit the Royal Academy's blockbuster exhibition sooner or later. I reckoned I was feeling strong enough to face twelve rooms of AbEx yesterday, so off I went to Burlingon House - where I was delighted to find a complete absence of queues (if they'd managed to get Monet into the title - From Monet to Pollock? - it would have been a different story).
 For a blockbuster, this one was pleasingly uncrowded, with little or no jostling and clear views of the paintings, both close up and at a distance (often the better option with some of these vast canvases). It's a high-impact exhibition of mostly high-impact, large-scale works, and the overall effect can accurately be described as stunning.  Though it was interesting, enlightening even, to see so much Abstract Expressionism in one place, I was left wondering if it's the kind of art that lends itself to display on such a massive scale.
 Is a roomful of Jackson Pollocks more or less impressive than a few, carefully selected and hung? I'd say, on the evidence of the roomful at the RA, decidedly less. I'm happy to regard Pollock as a great artist (not Titian great, not Rembrandt great, but modern great), but paintings that are so assertive, so densely busy, so fizzing with energy are hard to take en masse and can too easily feel more like an assault than an aesthetic experience. And Pollock's are among the best paintings in the exhibition - lesser works in these circumstances can seem strenuous, inspissated, melodramatically gestural, almost comic (I must admit I was sometimes wearing a not entirely appropriate smile as I toured the rooms).
 Rothko - of whose greatness I have no doubts - does not come out of this exhibition as well as he should have done. Some very fine examples of his mature work have been gathered, but hanging them in the central hall - a space open on four sides, where all routes through the other rooms meet - does them no favours. Rothkos need an enclosed, peaceful, womb-like space to bring out their mysterious beauty - and they need carefully modulated, dimmish light. The central gallery is less brightly lit than the rest of the exhibition, but it's not a good Rothko light.
 So, what did I get out of this exhibition, and why am I glad that I girded my loins and tackled it? Certainly a new appreciation of Arshile Gorky (who gets a room to himself), whose Water of the Flowery Mill [below] struck me as a very beautiful painting indeed (and one which, like all such brushy, juicy, textured work, does not reproduce well). Then there was Willem de Kooning, who is abundantly represented here and whose works I studied with some care. I thought I didn't much care for De Kooning, but the more I saw of him here the more I realised that it was just a case of having come across too many De Koonings of the kind I don't like - the more angry, slashing, grotesque stuff - and too little of the rest. I stood long and happily in front of the glorious, quasi-pastoral Villa Borghese [above] and Untitled (1961) - such colours, such plenitude of light and air, such a relief after the claustrophobia and relentless tension of other De Koonings.
 A good deal of this exhibition left me cold - Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, even Clyfford Still. I was hoping there might be rather less rigour and absolutism, rather more colour for the heck of it, perhaps a bit of Morris Louis, some more decorative Helen Frankenthalers... Abstract Expressionism ends well, though, with a room of late works that includes a vast, light-filled four-canvas mural by Joan Mitchell, Salut Tom, a kind of leave-taking from the movement ('Tom' was the critic Thomas B. Hess, an early champion of Abstract Expressionism). And there are two glorious late De Koonings - ...Whose Name Was Writ in Water and Untitled V (1976). These sent me on my way weary and dazed but convinced that, in the end, I had seen some very fine art.

The Bright Wake: Adam Nicolson's Homer

Reading in bed is one of the great simple pleasures of life, but bedtime reading has to be chosen with care. Topping my bedside pile recently was Adam Nicolson's The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters, and this was not a good choice. Not because it's not good - it's brilliant - but because it was almost too good, certainly too intellectually stimulating, and it was too big; short books, or ones that divide themselves easily into smaller units, are better for bedtime. As a result, I took far too long to read it - but I have finally done so, and must report that I found it the most illuminating, exciting study of Homer I've ever read.
 Nicolson sets out to answer two linked questions: Where does Homer come from, and Why does Homer matter? He immediately declares his own conviction that the accepted dating of 'Homer' is wrong, that the Iliad had its origins in a period 1,000 years before the standard eighth-century BC date, at a time when the semi-nomadic, hero-based culture of the Eurasian steppe first came into contact with the sophisticated, authoritarian city-and-palace culture of the eastern Mediterranean. It's a case that he argues convincingly in the course of the book, and it certainly seems to explain a lot about that strange and bloody epic.
 Nicolson's great strength, though, is in conveying the sheer thrill of discovering Homer - which is not necessarily the same thing as reading him: Nicolson had 'done' Homer at school, but it was many years later, after the decidedly Homeric experience of sailing a 40ft ketch through a violent storm, that Homer first came home to him, in a blaze of revelation. 'I knew that this was the human spirit on fire, rapidity itself, running, going and endlessly able to throw off little sidelights like the sparks thrown off by the wheels of an engine hammering through the night. Speed, scale, violence, threat; but every spark with humanity in it.'
 What follows is a journey through Homer that is at once literary, historical, topographic, archaeological, ethnographic and intensely personal. It's a dazzling performance,  in the course of which Nicolson covers a lot of ground, in every sense - and a lot of sea, so essential to understanding Homer's world. His conclusion? 'Homer is not Greek; he is the light shining in the world. He provides no answers. Do we surrender to authority? Do we abase ourselves? Do we indulge the self? Do we nurture civility? Do we nourish violence? Do we love? Homer says nothing in reply to these questions; he merely dramatised their reality. The air he breathes is the complexity of life, the bubbling vitality of a boat at sea, the resurgent energy, as he repeatedly says, of the bright wake starting to gleam behind you.' As I closed this extraordinary book, I could only agree, and marvel.