The first member of the artistic Gentileschi family that I became aware of was the Italian Baroque artist, Orazio Gentileschi, whose Rest on the Flight to Egypt I came across a few years back in Vienna’s magnificent Kunsthistorisches Museum. However, as acclaimed as Orazio was, it is his daughter, Artemisia, whose name has come down to us today bearing the most critical acclaim, and not just because she is championed as a woman who thrived in a man’s world, but also because she was literally a brilliant and accomplished world-class artist.
Artemisia flourished in the first half of the 17th century, working in her father’s workshop in Rome but also later working in Florence, Venice, Naples and even in London where both she and her father had a spell working as court painters for Charles I not long before the outbreak of the English Civil War. She specialized in painting naturalistic pictures of strong and suffering women from myth, allegory, and the Bible — Susanna and the Elders, Judith Slaying Holofernes, Delilah, Salome, Bathsheba, Lucretia, Cleopatra, Jael, Mary Magdalene…
Her works are convincing depictions of the female figure, anywhere between nude and fully clothed, and she clearly had a wonderful talent for handling colour and building depth. Her Judith Slaying Holofernes, painted between 1614 and 1620, is a dramatic piece of art theatre. It depicts the scene of Judith beheading Holofernes, an episode taken from the apocryphal Book of Judith in the Old Testament, in which the Assyrian general Holofernes is assassinated by the Israelite heroine Judith. The painting shows the moment when Judith, helped by her maidservant, beheads the general after he has fallen asleep drunk. Artemisia was just seventeen when she painted this, so precocious was her talent.
That she was a woman painting in the seventeenth century is worthy of note, of course (how much more art would exist today had talented female artists, the ones that were less connected or gutsy than Artemisia, been allowed to express themselves?). But purely on her work alone she was one of the most progressive and expressive painters of her generation, and that was a generation that was already rich in artists inspired and flourishing in the footsteps of Caravaggio. As it happens, she is due to be commemorated this spring in a retrospective exhibition at London’s National Gallery. I’ll be there, hopefully!
The Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachtsoratorium) was one of three oratorios written by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1734 and 1735 for major feasts, the other two being the Ascension Oratorio and the Easter Oratorio. The Christmas Oratorio is by far the longest: in full, it is nearly three hours long but it is made up of six parts, each cantata being intended for performance on one of the major feast days of the Christmas period.
The first cantata would be played on Christmas Day, and describes the Birth of Jesus; the second, for 26th December, describing the annunciation to the shepherds; the third (27th December), the adoration of the shepherds; the fourth (New Year’s Day), the circumcision and naming of Jesus; the fifth (the first Sunday after New Year), the journey of the Magi; and the final one (Epiphany, on 6th January), the adoration of the Magi.
Bach wrote his pieces in his role as musical director for the city of Leipzig, where he was responsible for church music for the four churches there, and head of the internationally known boys’ choir, the “Thomanerchor”. The oratorio was incorporated into the services of the two main churches, Thomaskirche and Nikolaikirche, during the Christmas season of 1734. That would have been some Christmas service to behold!
The part I’m highlighting here is the first aria from Part I, featuring oboes d’amore, violins and an alto voice, and known by its opening line, Bereite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben (“Make yourself ready, Zion, with tender desires”). It is here performed exquisitely by this choirboy and soloists from Munich’s Tölzer Knabenchor, and conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. A more haunting piece of music fit for this season would be hard to find. Grab a mince pie and listen to this. Merry Christmas!
Bereite dich, Zion, mit zärtlichen Trieben, Den Schönsten, den Liebsten bald bei dir zu sehn! Deine Wangen Müssen heut viel schöner prangen, Eile, den Bräutigam sehnlichst zu lieben!
Observational comedy takes for its source the minutiae of everyday life that people recognise without necessarily having consciously acknowledged or discussed out loud. Essentially, it begins with “Have you ever noticed…?” and follows up with some amusing observation that hopefully strikes a chord with the audience. A large part of stand-up comedy is based on this premise, of course. When you bring in some well-observed characters, themselves honed from years of observation of various archetypes, and put them into a well-devised situation comedy, you can add a whole new level of humour; Peter Kay is a past master at this.
It’s his observations of life growing up in Bolton that informs Peter Kay’s comedy. In Phoenix Nights, we see his comedy oeuvre at its finest, having filled it with idiosyncratic but true-to-life characters and scenarios gleaned from his experiences of northern working men’s clubs (for fairness, it should be mentioned that it wasn’t solely Kay’s baby: Dave Spikey and Neil Fitzmaurice were co-creators and writers). The Phoenix Club is a fictional working men’s club, home to the usual variety of club themes: cabaret entertainment, bingo nights, karaoke, raffles, fundraisers, and themed nights, with a stage bedecked with a tinselly back-drop and — all mod cons! — a smoke machine.
The scene I’m highlighting is the one starring “psychic medium”, Clinton Baptiste, and it strikes, I think, a seam of comedy gold. Replete with the motifs of the end-of-the-pier entertainer – the campness, the mullet, the flamboyant suit, the local accent at odds with the assumed gravitas of a true mystic – actor Alex Rowe’s character is a gift, and he portrays it brilliantly. The conceit is that Baptiste is a rubbish medium, with no redeeming qualities, and none of the empathy that you would expect from a truly spiritual person.
Not only is he clumsily obvious with his cold-reading techniques (“is there a John in the audience?”), but he also manages to cause offence and upset by delivering the bluntest of messages from “beyond the grave”. To one lady: “You’ve not been well have you? And it is terminal, isn’t it…?” (which is evidently news to her!). And to a man sitting with his wife: “Is there something you wanted to tell her? Get off your chest maybe?”. “What is it?”, we hear the wife demanding, as Clinton walks away.
Incidentally, Alex Rowe has gone on to develop the Clinton Baptiste character, outside of the Phoenix Nights episode – check out the hilarious Clinton Baptiste’s Paranormal Podcast. But for now, let’s watch his original scene, and enjoy Clinton “getting a word”…
My daughters’ piano teacher, Chris, is a gifted pianist who plays in a band called Louis Louis Louis. They specialise in jazz, swing, big band, boogie-woogie and jump blues, focusing (as their name suggests) on the three great Louis’s: Jordan, Armstrong and Prima. Sadly, the time constraint of the piano lesson window (along with the girls’ mortification at any conversation initiated by me going beyond normal pleasantries) precludes me from proclaiming to Chris: “I love Louis Jordan!”. Yet it’s true: I discovered the marvellous up-tempo jump blues and rich vocal tones of Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five many years ago, specifically from this compilation album here called Out Of Print:
Jordan had started his career in the big-band swing era of the 1930s, being a member of the influential Savoy Ballroom orchestra, led by drummer Chick Webb, in New York’s Harlem district. He specialised in the alto sax, but also played tenor sax, baritone sax, piano and clarinet. He was also a great songwriter, a consummately good singer, and had a wonderfully comic and ebullient personality that soon made him stand out from the crowd. This was the same period that a young Ella Fitzgerald was coming to prominence and she and Jordan often sang duets on stage.
Jordan would soon have his own band, pared down to a sextet, and a residency at the Elks Rendezvous club, down the street from the Savoy on Lenox Avenue. Their style was a dynamic, up-tempo, dance-oriented hybrid of earlier genres which became known as “jump blues” and was an instant hit with the audiences. His band, the Tympany Five, started recording music with Decca records in December 1938, and throughout the 1940s they released dozens of hit songs, including Saturday Night Fish Fry, the comic classic There Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens, and the multi-million seller, Choo Choo Ch’Boogie.
From July 1946 to May 1947, Jordan had five consecutive number 1 songs, and held the top slot for 44 consecutive weeks, an amazing testament to his popularity at the time. It’s true to say that history has given him a raw deal, since his name is not as widely known as it should be, given the above stats (outside sophisticated circles such as our own, of course!).
I’ve selected a song (from many candidates) that is typical of Jordan’s wit and charm: 1953’s A Man’s Best Friend Is A Bed. As well as being a jumping tune, the song extols the comforts of the bed, and on cold mornings like today, who can’t relate to that?
Listen to Louis:
I want a great big comfortable bed, so I can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ed, A man’s best friend is a bed
I want a big fat pillow that’s softer than a billowy cloud, for my head Take it from me Nat, the best head piece ain’t a hat
Yes, a friend will ditch you, a horse will pitch you A car will give you lots of grief A dog will bite you, your wife will fight you But if you want some genuine relief
Just get a great big comfortable bed, where you can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
When you’re in trouble, worries double And everybody’s talking back Just take your shoes off, you’ll shake the blues off If you would just let go and hit the sack
In a nice cool comfortable bed where you can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
Ask any soldier, marine or sailor Or anyone who’s been without, what do they miss most, What thought is foremost? No Sir, you’re wrong!
It’s just a great big comfortable bed, where you can really spread out, and all that Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
Yeah, if you dig me Jack, you’ll hit the sack This ain’t no junk boy, hit that bunk Take it from me Ted, a man’s best friend is a bed
Many leading artists in mid-19th century France liked to test their artistic skills by depicting farm workers and peasants at toil in the countryside – Courbet’s The Stone Breakers (1850) and Millet’s The Gleaners (1857), for example.
As the century wore on, some artists began to explore the concept of men and women at work in urban settings – Manet’s The Road-Menders in the Rue de Berne (1878) springs to mind, as does Women Ironing (1884) by Degas. Of this genre, a personal favourite of mine comes from Gustave Caillebotte and is called The Floor Scrapers (Les Raboteurs de Parquet).
It depicts three topless men working on hands and knees, scraping away at a parquet floor in a Parisian apartment (thought to be Caillebotte’s own studio). The composition is documentary-style, focusing on the actions and techniques of the floor-scrapers. Daylight enters the room from a window on the far wall and glosses the smooth floorboards with a white sheen. There are several floor-scraping tools as well as an opened bottle of (presumably cheap) wine. The diagonal alignment of the floorboards is offset by the rectangular panels on the far wall and by the curlicue motif of the iron grill on the window and the wood shavings that litter the floor. It is a masterpiece of realist painting.
His piece was perfectly in keeping with academic traditions, in terms of its perspective and the modelling and positioning of the nude torsos of the workers. However, despite this, the painting was rejected at the 1875 Salon because of its ‘vulgar’ realism. There’s no accounting for taste. So Caillebotte threw his lot in with the Impressionists and exhibited it at the Impressionist Exhibition of 1876.
These days, The Floor Scrapers is held in the Musée d’Orsay, although when I visited, a few years ago, I was disappointed to find it was not on display – you can’t win ‘em all (and I’ll just have to visit again when next in Paris)!
Thomas Stearns (T S) Eliot (1888–1965) was a giant literary figure: one of the major poets of the 20th century, as well as essayist, publisher, playwright, and literary critic. He was born in St Louis, Missouri into a prominent Boston Brahmin family, but moved to England at the age of 25 and settled and married here, becoming a British subject in 1927.
Within a year of arriving in Britain, Eliot had published his first major poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which came to be regarded as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement, and he followed that up with some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1943).
Eliot also had his whimsical side, however, and in 1939 published Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. This was a series of light poems about cats and their traits which he’d written throughout the thirties in letters to his godchildren (“Old Possum” was fellow poet Ezra Pound’s nickname for him). The best-known poem from that collection, Macavity the Mystery Cat, is the one that arrested my attention the moment I read it (or heard it recited) when I was a lad (it may well have been the only poem from the Book of Practical Cats that I read or heard recited, given that it was the “stand out” that primary school teachers regularly latched onto).
Eliot was a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories and the character of Macavity is a literary allusion to Moriarty, the arch-villain and mastermind of those stories (Holmes dubs Moriarty the “Napoleon of crime”, which is how Macavity is described in the last line of the poem). I loved that repeating final line: “Macavity’s not there!”. It conjures up the trope of the master jewel thief or gentleman spy, always one step ahead of the Law, always outwitting his pursuers. You can imagine the nonchalance.
But of course in reality it’s a cat, so it’s the spilled milk, the feathers on the lawn, the crash of a dustbin lid, the scratch on the sofa…and of course he’s never there. The little devil’s scarpered!
Here’s a recording of the man himself reciting the poem:
Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw— For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law. He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair: For when they reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, He’s broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity. His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare, And when you reach the scene of crime—Macavity’s not there! You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air— But I tell you once and once again, Macavity’s not there!
Macavity’s a ginger cat, he’s very tall and thin; You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in. His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly domed; His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed. He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake; And when you think he’s half asleep, he’s always wide awake.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, For he’s a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity. You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square— But when a crime’s discovered, then Macavity’s not there!
He’s outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.) And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard’s And when the larder’s looted, or the jewel-case is rifled, Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke’s been stifled, Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair Ay, there’s the wonder of the thing! Macavity’s not there!
And when the Foreign Office find a Treaty’s gone astray, Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way, There may be a scrap of paper in the hall or on the stair— But it’s useless to investigate—Macavity’s not there! And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say: It must have been Macavity!’—but he’s a mile away. You’ll be sure to find him resting, or a‑licking of his thumb; Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.
Macavity, Macavity, there’s no one like Macavity, There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity. He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare: At whatever time the deed took place: MACAVITY WASN’T THERE ! And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known (I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone) Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!
2nd June 1951: American-English poet and playwright, TS Eliot (1888 — 1965). He wrote amongst many other things, ‘The Waste Land ’ and the plays, ‘The Cocktail Party’ and ‘Murder in the Cathedral’. Original Publication: Picture Post — 5314 — Are Poets Really Necessary? — pub. 1951 (Photo by George Douglas/Picture Post/Getty Images)
The Edo period in Japan was a 250 year period of stability, lasting between 1603 and 1868, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was a rich time for the development of Japanese culture and saw the development of Japanese cultural themes recognisable today like kabuki theatre, Geisha girls, sumo wrestling and ukiyo‑e woodblock print art.
Ukiyo‑e translates as “pictures of the floating world” and referred to the hedonistic lifestyle prevalent in the pleasure districts of Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Thus, we see a variety of erotic themes in this art, but also plenty of landscapes, flora and fauna, and scenes from history and folk tales. A famous proponent of ukiyo‑e was Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), best known for his woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji which includes the internationally iconic print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Hokusai created the Thirty-Six Views both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. The series depicts Mount Fuji from different locations and in various seasons and weather conditions. It was this series, and specifically The Great Wave print, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan and overseas. They are wonderfully simple yet evocative pieces.
The series was produced from around 1830 to 1832, when Hokusai was in his seventies and at the height of his career. As well as The Great Wave, you may also recognise Rainstorm Beneath the Summit and Fine Wind, Clear Morning. My personal favourite, however, is Ejiri in Suruga Province: a sudden gust of wind takes some travellers by surprise, blowing away the hat of a man who tries in vain to catch it. Bits of paper whirl away from a woman’s backpack and scatter into the air. The woman’s wind-tossed cloth covers her face, and the tall tree in the foreground loses its leaves. Other travellers face the wind, crouching low to avoid it and clinging to their hats. Fuji, meanwhile, stands white and unshaken, affected neither by the wind nor the human drama.
The Everly Brothers were first-generation pioneers of rock ‘n’ roll’s first golden era, but they always stood apart from many of their contemporaries due to their roots in rural Southern white music traditions rather than the blues and R&B that drove Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard et al. Bob Dylan was a fan (“We owe those guys everything; they started it all”), whilst John Lennon and Paul McCartney modelled their own vocal blend on Don and Phil’s tight harmonies. Simon & Garfunkel were clearly inspired, as were the Byrds, the Hollies, and the Eagles who all acknowledged their debt to the brothers’ unique sound.
They were born (Don in 1937 and Phil in 1939) into a family already steeped in country music. Ike Everly, their father, was a well-respected guitarist who landed a show on radio station KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa, in 1944, and he moved the family there. Shortly after that, Don and Phil began appearing on his program, and by 1949 they were regulars on the show, lending their angelic harmonies to traditional mountain tunes popularized by the likes of the Blue Sky Boys, the Stanley Brothers and the Louvin Brothers (there were a lot of family-based groups in those days!).
In 1953, the family moved to Kentucky, and the following year Don and Phil got their first break when a family friend, guitarist Chet Atkins, picked one of Don’s early compositions for Kitty Wells to record. Atkins further convinced the brothers to move to Nashville to try to break into the business as a duo, and they were soon picked up by Archie Bleyer, the owner of New York label Cadence Records, who was suitably convinced by what he’d heard to make a record with them.
The first song Bleyer cut with the Everlys was Bye Bye Love, recorded at RCA Studios in Nashville on 1st March 1957. It became an instant national smash and over the next six years, the Everlys would land a staggering number of tunes on the upper reaches of the charts — including Wake Up Little Susie, Bird Dog, and All I Have to Do Is Dream (all written by husband and wife songwriting team, Felice and Boudleaux Bryant), as well as a handful penned by Don or Phil, such as (’Til) I Kissed You, When Will I Be Loved and Don’s lovely paean to teenage romantic angst, Cathy’s Clown.
By the time the Everlys recorded Cathy’s Clown in early 1960, their recording style was already very well-established. As always, the recording session was live with no overdubs, and the instrumentation was simple: acoustic and electric guitar, Floyd Cramer on piano, Floyd Chance on bass and Buddy Harman on drums. Released on 4th April 1960, it hit number one and remained there for five weeks.
For the next three years, the Everlys scored more hits, but by the end of 1964 the British Invasion was sweeping America and the brothers’ look and sound started to seem a bit dated; their staggering success began to subside. Nevertheless, the Everly Brothers’ place in pop history is secure, and this song remains a fabulous reminder of their wonderfully complementary vocal harmonies.
In 2013 the London Underground celebrated its sesquicentennial, and to mark that milestone, the London Transport Museum launched “Poster Art 150”, a selection of the best posters from 150 years of London Underground marketing, everything from this from 1905…
…to this from 1998…
One of the many artists and designers who contributed to the London Underground’s campaigns happened to be one of the pioneers and leading exponents of the linocut in England: one Cyril Power.
In 1925, along with fellow artists Sybil Andrews, Iain McNab and Claude Flight, Power had co-founded the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in Warwick Square, London. He became the principal lecturer and Sybil Andrews became school secretary. Power taught aesthetics in architecture; McNab taught woodcut, and Claude Flight ran classes in linocutting, the printmaking technique that is a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum is used for the relief surface. Soon, the school achieved a name for itself and it began to attract students from as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.
Cyril Power and Sybil Andrews themselves attended Flight’s classes and became adept linocut artists. They began co-authoring prints together, and mounted a series of exhibitions which attracted considerable interest. In 1930, they established a studio in Hammersmith close to the River Thames, a location which inspired many prints by both artists, such as The Eight by Cyril Power and Bringing in the Boat by Sybil Andrews (both in the gallery below). Then, beginning in 1932, the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (as the London Underground was then) commissioned a series of posters, including Power’s Tube Station (1932) and The Tube Train (1934).
Power’s linocuts explored the speed, movement, and flow of modern urban London, and you can clearly discern the movement and energy in his prints. It’s no surprise that one of his favourite subjects was the London Underground, a symbol of the modern industrial age. Let’s look at Power’s vibrant Tube linocuts and a selection of other linocuts by both him and Sybil Andrews.
The period, in Germany, between the end of World War I in 1918 and Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 is a fascinating one: there was a rapid emergence of innovation in the arts and sciences, embodied in the term “Weimar culture” (after the Weimar Republic, which was the unofficial designation for the German state at that time).
Luminaries in the sciences during the period included Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Max Born; Walter Gropius was busy inventing modern architecture and design with the Bauhaus movement; Ludwig Prandtl was pioneering aeronautical engineering. In the arts, German Expressionism was reaching its peak: Fritz Lang’s Metropolis expressed the public’s fascination with futurism and technology; concert halls were beginning to hear the atonal, modern experimental music of Kurt Weill and Arnold Schoenberg, whilst Bertolt Brecht was shaking up the theatre.
However, 1920s Berlin also had a dark underbelly and a reputation for decadence. There was a significant rise in prostitution, drug use, and crime. The cabaret scene, as documented by Britain’s Christopher Isherwood in his novel Goodbye to Berlin (which was eventually adapted into the musical movie, Cabaret), was emblematic of Berlin’s decadence. Many of the painters, sculptors, composers, architects, playwrights, and filmmakers associated with the time would be the same ones whose art would later be denounced as “degenerate art” (Entartete Kunst) by Adolf Hitler.
A new cultural movement started around this time, however – named New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit). Its members turned away from the romantic ideals of German Expressionism and adopted instead an unsentimental perspective on the harsh realities of German society. A leading member of this movement was Otto Dix, and it is his paintings – satirical and at times savage — that I’m showcasing here. He wished to portray the decay of the post-war life; thus, frequent themes include the prostitutes and downtrodden of Berlin, their defects exaggerated to the point of caricature. He also painted many of the prominent characters from his milieu, in a style influenced by the dadaism and cubism art movements.
Here is a small selection of his art from the Weimar years, beginning with his 1928 tryptych, Metropolis (Großstadt), which incorporated crippled war veterans, prostitutes, musicians, dancers, and night club revellers into its three-panel indictment of contemporary Berlin life. Incidentally, when the Nazis came to power, Dix had to promise to paint only inoffensive landscapes: that must have been excruciating for him!
Metropolis
Otto Dix
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