Through the Fog

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Art

At JiF on Tuesday evening, as we explored how God speaks through art which at first glance might seem to have nothing at all to do with religion, I discovered an artist new to me namely Caspar David Friedrich.  How he has passed me by before now I am not quite sure.  He is said to be the leading German Romantic artist of the 19th century and it was this picture which introduced me to his work.  Titled ‘Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’ some people weren’t impressed by it at all, but I just lost myself in it.  For those gathered it asked questions about; creation in the making; Moses surveying the Promised Land that he will never enter, or about to cross the Red Sea; Jesus being taken up to a high place to be tempted; Jesus’ turmoil in the Garden of Gethsemane; the single tree symbolic of the cross; finishing the race.

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich

After trawling the internet for more of his work I think is my current favourite, but that might change.  I can feel the urge for an expensive book purchase coming on.

Cloister Cemetery in the Snow

A Visitor

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Glasgow

During the past week we have had a visitor, fortunately Hubby was able to take some time off work, so while I got on with watering this corner of the vineyard, he entertained.

However I did manage to join them for a trip to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery on Tuesday, a place you really should visit if ever coming to Glasgow.  Inside there are many well-known works of art and famous artists – along with some frankly awful ones – work on display, the good ones by far outweigh the not so good.  However for me one of the most wonderful things there are the door handles, what a splendid way to greet any visitor.

Arcing the Spark – Cells and Creation

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Arcing the Spark

This picture is of a tile designed by Marian de Caleuve, and made by Della Robbia Pottery in Birkenhead between 1900 and 1905.  It is called ‘The First Day of Creation’.

The First Day of Creation

‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.  And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.  And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.  And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.’  Genesis 1:1-5

Those that know me know I like angels and also know that if I could I would have my home filled with everything Arts and Crafts.  So it is maybe no surprise that for me this tile is a joy to behold.  However as just about everything nowadays is arcing the spark for me, it is that spark that is the reason for posting this picture today.  Now I don’t know if this was what Marian de Caleuve intended, but when I look upon that angel holding that sphere I see it dividing just like that now oh so familiar picture of cell division.

The term ‘cell’ was first coined by Robert Hooke in his 1665 book ‘Micrographia’ because the walls of a cell reminded him of Monks cells.  ‘Micrographia’ was the first scientific best seller and made people wonder at the detailed illustrations drawn from looking through a microscope, a new world was being seen for the first time and a doorway to new discoveries and wonders was flung open.  However with those discoveries barriers were built between those who believed that God made the world and those that believed that the world had evolved through the wonder and chance.

In this tile however I see the arcing spark, not between news and religion, but between the creationist and the evolutionist, surely they can together look at this tile and see creation.

Art, religion, science all coming together, it makes my heart sing.

Beaulieu

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Beaulieu Abbey

This image is my current desktop, and at a recent Property Committee Meeting it caused some discussion over what it actually was.

The answer is the stone floor in Beaulieu Abbey worn by years of monks feet, I think it is beautiful.

There was also this little bridge which while the hand rail is new you can see the wear that hundreds of feet have made into the stone.

And while we are on Beaulieu, how about this for a pulpit?  St Mary’s Beaulieu is now the parish church in what used to be part of the Abbey.

A Duck For Mr Darwin

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The Baltic

If you are in Newcastle I would recommend you go to the Baltic.

Sitting beside the Millennium Bridge over the Tyne on the Gateshead side it is a splendid building which used to be the Baltic Flour Mills and is now the center for Contemporary Arts.  I have a love hate relationship with contemporary art I just can’t see the point in some of it, while other bits communicate wonderfully, and their exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’, or to give it its full title ‘The Origin of the Species By Means of Natural Selection’ which runs until 20th September.  This exhibition manages to have works in both camps.  The Baltic’s own literature states that it “is a group exhibition of nine contemporary artists exploring evolutionary thinking and the theory of natural selection.”

I am not going to mention which pieces I felt fell into the former category but I do wish to mention two exhibits which definitely fell into the later, they are video presentations and filmed on the Galapagos Islands by the same artist Marcus Coates.

Human Report

A news presentation in which one of the islands iconic birds, the Blue Footed Booby, reports on the humans on the island.  It points out with humour how the invaders have changed the island, how they can not adapt to their surroundings so instead adapt the surroundings to endanger the very things that brought them to that paradise in the first place.  How even having adapted the island they still struggle and depend on things being brought from other places.  It ends with poignant words about how these invaders could live any where else in the world and survive, and if they were to die out the species would continue to survive.  While  the Blue Footed Booby, has but one home that has been changed forever.  The report was shown on Channel 9 TV on the Galapagos and the news station didn’t seem to get it, and cleverly it is the longer clip direct from the news channel that is shown in the exhibition.  As if to underline what the report was saying the couple who were presenting it, a male and a female, then introduce the next news item.  The man gets in a fluster while the female anchor gets all serious about an important event that is happening on the island, a beauty contest!

Intelligent Design

Probably the Galapagos are most well known for their giant tortoises and it is these which Marcus has made a film of and in doing so questions the whole idea of intelligent design.  For any species the ability to reproduce is essential yet for the giant tortoises this activity is near impossible and a lot of time and energy is wasted on not succeeding, as the film shows.  Marcus leaves you with the unanswered double edged question.  Has evolution pasted the Giant Tortoise by; for it certainly hasn’t evolved to make mating more successful and easier; or is the Giant Tortoise a less than intelligent design which has still managed to avoid natural selection?

The other works, which in our opinion, were definitely worth spending some time over were those by Charles Avery, Mark Dion, Mark Fairnington and Hubby’s favorite ‘On the Ark and I’ by Ben Jeans Houghton, a greenhouse full of found items all arranged by colour.

While at the Baltic it is worth going upstairs to see Tilting Planet by Sarah Sze which is showing until 31st August.  It might not be your cup of tea when it comes to art, but I fail to see how anyone can be impressed by the imagination which conceived such a large intricate installation.

Unfortunately you will have missed out on Matt Stokes, The Gainsborough Packet, which was another exhibition at the Baltic that when we visited, however if you are in London you can see that at the 176 Gallery in Prince of Wales Road, NW 5.

It’s Been a While

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Angel Of The North

Partly due to Lent, Holy Week and Easter, although some blogs did appear there weren’t that frequent, and more recently due to a holiday.  The holiday started off just south of Southampton and ended up in Newcastle, via London, Braintree, Ipswich and Norwich.  A lot of driving and only one day when we didn’t get the hood down on ‘Baby’, and even tackling London’s traffic wasn’t that much of a chore (even when Hubby forgot to turn the sat nav back to driving and it took us a very complicated route out of London thinking that we were walking).

Angels travelled with us throughout our journeyings the first offering however is from nearing the end of our journey when for the first time rather than just driving past we actually stopped at the Angel of the North.

The Other Side Of You – Salley Vickers

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Books, Salley Vickers

The Book Group gave this book mixed reactions.  On one extreme *B* didn’t like it at all, although they acknowledged that it was a very good piece of writing, while on the other extreme I loved it despite the first part which I had struggled through initially.  It was one of those books which made me cry, made me think, made me question and made me go searching for the pictures mentioned in it on the internet.  We all agreed in the end that it was a book with many aspects and probably what aspects you took from it depended on the readers’ viewpoint at the time when it was read.  It is a book about discoveries, about secrets, about love and most of all about life.  As Gus one of the characters in the book says ‘There is no cure for life.’

Once more Salley Vickers sets part of her book in Italy, once more Caravaggio’s painting have an important role to play in the story as it unfolds.  On more than one occasion one of the characters reminded me of my paternal grandfather and his instance to me as a young child that a table was only there because I believed it to be there and that is wasn’t really solid as it was made up of millions of electrons all moving around and that if I stopped believing that it was a table then I would be able to pass my hand straight through it.  The premise of the book is that love is like that, it is only there when we acknowledge it is there, believing in love turns it from an idea into a reality.   Just as it was only at that point of belief that the disciples on the Road to Emmaus recognised Jesus before them, although they knew long before the breaking of the bread that their hearts burnt within them with the knowledge of who he was, it was in the breaking that the belief was found and Jesus was seen for who he was.

The book in my view is powerful and moving and one I will most certainly return to again.

Salisbury Cathedral

I had never been to Salisbury Cathedral before and what a joy it was, even though our visit was somewhat rushed. It is a splendid example of Medieval architecture, and the start of the restoration to the once colourful roof reminds me of an old fashioned carousel, in a good not a bad way, in case you were wondering.

One of the joys for me at least was the number of angels, both inside and out, here are just a few examples.

The rederos in the Chapel of St Michael and All Angels is magnificent!

We paid a quick visit to the chapter house too – no photographs allowed in there – one of the original copies of the Magna Carta is housed in that grand setting, the document itself however is small and rather unassuming. One day I hope to get back and spend some more time there.

Bird Of The Air – Well Almost

On several occasions I have gone past this bird, which hovers over the traffic going back and forth on the A120 in Essex, but last time we finally got around to making the short detour of going to see it.

The grey steely skies gave it a very threatening feeling as if it could take off at any moment – there had not long been a thunderstorm and another one was brewing – why it was put there I didn’t find out as the weather put us off walking up the small hill, next time maybe.