Literature

L M Montgomery’s Anne Of Green Gables (1908)

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Ah, the book­shelf in our class­room dur­ing my lat­er years at pri­ma­ry school, I remem­ber it well. Replete with titles and illus­trat­ed cov­ers promis­ing tales for chil­dren of adven­ture and der­ring-do in exot­ic lands: Robin­son Cru­soe, King Solomon’s Mines, Trea­sure Island. It had all the girls’ clas­sics, too: Black Beau­ty, Lit­tle Women, What Katy Did, Hei­di, and Anne of Green Gables. Of course, I nev­er read any of the lat­ter books…until recent­ly, that is, when I final­ly read L M Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, hav­ing been inspired to do so by watch­ing Netflix’s excel­lent Cana­di­an TV adap­ta­tion, Anne with an E (2017).

The nov­el was pub­lished in 1908 by Cana­di­an author L M Mont­gomery (Lucy Maud Mont­gomery 1874–1942). Set in the late 19ᵗʰ cen­tu­ry, it recounts the adven­tures of 11-year-old orphan girl Anne Shirley sent by mis­take to two mid­dle-aged sib­lings, Matthew and Mar­il­la Cuth­bert, who run their farm in the close-knit com­mu­ni­ty of Avon­lea in Prince Edward Island, Cana­da. They had planned to adopt a boy who could help them with the farm work and so when Anne arrives, their first instinct is to send her straight back. How­ev­er, her exu­ber­ant plead­ing per­suades them to keep her for a tri­al peri­od and soon her per­son­al­i­ty wins them over.

Amy­beth McNul­ty as Anne Shirley in “Anne with an E”

Anne is talk­a­tive to the extreme, huge­ly imag­i­na­tive, dra­mat­ic, an extrac­tor of joy from life wher­ev­er it may exist, and a touch­stone of youth­ful ide­al­ism, if a lit­tle prone to defen­sive­ness over her red hair, freck­les and pale com­plex­ion. She is also insis­tent that her name should always be spelt with an “e” at the end, hence the title of the TV adap­ta­tion. In this she was played impec­ca­bly by Amy­beth McNul­ty, the more so now that I have read the book and see how accu­rate­ly she nailed the char­ac­ter. The whole series turned out to be a large­ly faith­ful ren­der­ing of the book and cer­tain­ly it was a heart-warm­ing depic­tion of a sim­ple turn-of-the-cen­tu­ry lifestyle in rur­al Cana­da, well wroth the watch.

Since its pub­li­ca­tion, Anne of Green Gables has sold more than 50 mil­lion copies — that’s actu­al­ly not far behind J K Rowling’s Har­ry Pot­ter books albeit hav­ing had a cen­tu­ry longer to sell copies! And it has that acco­lade for good rea­son, so who knows, I may even have to delve into Black Beau­ty or Hei­di next?

Anne of Green Gables, 1st edi­tion book cov­er
L M Mont­gomery
Art

John Atkinson Grimshaw’s Boar Lane, Leeds (1881)

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Last Sun­day I popped along to see Monet’s icon­ic The Water-Lily Pond, on loan at York Art Gallery, and very nice it was too, being the cen­tre­piece of a nice col­lec­tion of key loans fea­tur­ing var­i­ous French en plein air pre­cur­sors to Impres­sion­ism. How­ev­er, whilst there, I was remind­ed that the gallery had also recent­ly acquired for its per­ma­nent col­lec­tion a piece by an artist a lit­tle clos­er to home, Leeds-born John Atkin­son Grimshaw, known not for the Impres­sion­is­tic brush­work or gar­den scenes of Mon­et and his ilk but for real­is­tic noc­tur­nal scenes of urban land­scapes. The paint­ing is Liv­er­pool Docks at Night (1870s) and it’s a fine exam­ple of Grimshaw’s oeu­vre. It was also some­thing of a coup for York Art Gallery, giv­en that it had been accept­ed by HM Gov­ern­ment in lieu of inher­i­tance tax from a col­lec­tion and had been allo­cat­ed to the gallery for the bar­gain­ous price of £0.

Grimshaw was born in a back-to-back house in Park Street, Leeds, in 1836, and at first looked des­tined for a nor­mal, anony­mous life —  he mar­ried his cousin Frances at age twen­ty and got a job as clerk for the Great North­ern Rail­way. How­ev­er, the young John had an artis­tic gift and an ambi­tion, and it must have tak­en a great deal of courage and self-belief for him to dis­may his par­ents by pack­ing in his job and launch­ing him­self as a painter, but he did just that, in 1861. His pri­ma­ry artis­tic influ­ence was the Pre-Raphaelites and true to their style he paint­ed with accu­rate colour and light­ing and with vivid detail. Although he did start out paint­ing a vari­ety of gen­res, Grimshaw was lat­er drawn to depict­ing moon­lit views of city streets in Leeds and Lon­don, and dock­side scenes in Hull, Liv­er­pool, and Glas­gow. James McNeill Whistler, with whom Grimshaw worked lat­er in his career in his Chelsea stu­dios, said: “I con­sid­ered myself the inven­tor of noc­turnes until I saw Grim­my’s moon­lit pic­tures”.

Unlike Whistler’s Impres­sion­is­tic night scenes, “Grimmy’s” noc­turnes were sharply focused and almost pho­to­graph­ic in their qual­i­ty, and there is an eerie warmth about them. Rather than con­cen­trat­ing on the dirty and depress­ing aspects of indus­tri­al life (that he would have had no trou­ble find­ing), Grimshaw imbued his paint­ings with a lyri­cal evo­ca­tion of the urban land­scape and there is poet­ry in his cap­tured mists, reflect­ed street­light in wet pave­ments, and dark fig­ures wrapped up against the weath­er. His twi­light cities became his “brand” and became very pop­u­lar with his mid­dle-class patrons; he must have done well because by the 1870s he and his wife were liv­ing at Knos­trup Old Hall, in the Tem­ple Newsam area of Leeds, a far cry from the back-to-back in Park Street.

Here is a favourite of mine, Boar Lane, Leeds (1881), a street we Leeds dwellers have walked down many a time on a win­ter’s day like this.

 

Boar Lane, Leeds (1881)
John Atkin­son Grimshaw
Film, TV, and Theatre

Spencer Tracy in Bad Day At Black Rock (1955)

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The Cot­tage Road Cin­e­ma in Head­in­g­ley is the old­est indie cin­e­ma in Leeds and has been con­tin­u­ous­ly show­ing films since 1912. As such it is regard­ed with fond­ness by much of the north Leeds com­mu­ni­ty and long may it con­tin­ue. Any­way, it has a clas­sics night every month, where view­ers can watch a series of nos­tal­gic ads and pre­views from back in the day, pri­or to set­tling back with a fair­ly-priced box of pop­corn to enjoy a clas­sic movie, select­ed for its his­tor­i­cal, cul­tur­al or aes­thet­ic sig­nif­i­cance. Last month, for exam­ple, I went to see Hitchcock’s Rear Win­dow; next month I’m tempt­ed by Irv­ing Rapper’s Now, Voy­ager; and this month I went to see the sub­ject of this blog, John Sturges’ Bad Day at Black Rock.

Bad Day at Black Rock is a 1955 Amer­i­can neo-West­ern film star­ring Spencer Tra­cy and Robert Ryan with sup­port from Wal­ter Bren­nan, Anne Fran­cis, John Eric­son, Ernest Borg­nine and Lee Mar­vin. The term “neo-West­ern” does not sig­ni­fy a west­ern movie as such, and instead implies the use of cer­tain themes and motifs redo­lent of west­erns but set in more mod­ern times (in this case, 1945). Real­ly, it’s a crime dra­ma but it con­tains the wide, open plains and desert land­scapes of the west­ern, and Spencer Tracy’s “stranger comes to town and is met with unfriend­ly sus­pi­cion” per­sona is top-draw­er Clint East­wood.

Tra­cy plays a one-armed stranger, John Macreedy, who dis­em­barks from the train that rarely stops in the iso­lat­ed desert ham­let of Black Rock and is soon put under hos­tile scruti­ny from the locals who lounge on the wood­en veran­das of the saloon and bar-and-grill and won­der who the hell this new guy is and what the hell does he want? At this point I should say that if I were har­bour­ing a dark secret – which you can be sure these Black Rock locals cer­tain­ly are — and a stranger comes to town ask­ing ques­tions, I would put on a friend­ly and coop­er­a­tive façade to deflect sus­pi­cion. This lot, how­ev­er, opt for the acute hos­til­i­ty and eva­sive­ness approach and thus come across as guilty as sin from the get-go, with Borg­nine and Mar­vin in par­tic­u­lar push­ing the enve­lope in the “I’ve clear­ly got some­thing to hide” depart­ment.

Still, Macreedy’s been ask­ing ques­tions about a cer­tain Japan­ese-Amer­i­can gen­tle­man named Komoko, but nobody seems to want to engage. Robert Ryan’s char­ac­ter Reno Smith is clear­ly in charge and holds the rest of the town in his thrall, includ­ing the inef­fec­tu­al, alco­holic sher­iff. Smith claims that Komoko was sim­ply interned dur­ing World War II but also reveals his vir­u­lent anti-Japan­ese sen­ti­ment devel­oped after Pearl Har­bor — we the audi­ence are only too aware that some­thing dodgy has gone down and not only that but Macreedy him­self needs to be in fear for his own life. Macreedy grad­u­al­ly breaks down the omer­ta of the towns­folk and begins to sep­a­rate the real cul­prits from the sim­ply scared, some of whom are inspired by Macreedy to step up. It’s a tour de force of psy­cho­log­i­cal dra­ma, with great tough-guy dia­logue and the stun­ning back­drop of the Mohave desert, and well worth my punt in ven­tur­ing out on a Wednes­day night!

Let’s watch Macreedy, despite his one arm, get­ting the bet­ter of thug Coley Trim­ble (Ernest Borg­nine), in this tense encounter.

Spencer Tra­cy and John Eric­son in Bad Day at Black Rock
Music

The Animals’ The House Of The Rising Sun (1964)

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If you’re a music his­to­ry enthu­si­ast, hours of fun can be had perus­ing the Roud Folk Song Index (https://archives.vwml.org/search/roud), the online data­base of around a quar­ter of a mil­lion ref­er­ences to near­ly 25,000 songs col­lect­ed from oral tra­di­tion in the Eng­lish lan­guage from all over the world, and named after its com­pil­er Steve Roud. It cor­re­lates ver­sions of tra­di­tion­al folk song lyrics inde­pen­dent­ly doc­u­ment­ed over past cen­turies by many dif­fer­ent col­lec­tors across the UK and North Amer­i­ca. Take Roud num­ber 6393, for instance: The House of the Ris­ing Sun.

Although wide­ly known from the most suc­cess­ful con­tem­po­rary ver­sion, record­ed by the Ani­mals in 1964, The House of the Ris­ing Sun is a tra­di­tion­al folk song with deep roots: it was first col­lect­ed in Appalachia in the 1930s, but prob­a­bly goes back much fur­ther, ema­nat­ing from the tra­di­tion of so-called “broad­side bal­lads”. A “broad­side” was a sheet of cheap paper used between the six­teenth and nine­teenth cen­turies to dis­trib­ute news and so on, but also, most pop­u­lar­ly, bal­lads. “Bal­lads” were nar­ra­tive rhymes and songs devel­op­ing from the min­strel­sy of the ear­li­er four­teenth and fif­teenth cen­turies, and which told folk sto­ries on every top­ic under the sun, from leg­ends and heroes and reli­gion to the more pro­sa­ic side of life.

The House of the Ris­ing Sun bal­lad tells of a per­son­’s life gone wrong in the city of New Orleans, and is a clas­sic cau­tion­ary tale, appeal­ing to his lis­ten­ers to avoid the same fate:

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Ris­ing Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I’m one

Folk song col­lec­tor Alan Lomax not­ed that “Ris­ing Sun” was the name of a bawdy house in at least two tra­di­tion­al Eng­lish songs, and a name for Eng­lish pubs (Leeds dwellers may be famil­iar with the one on Kirk­stall Road, albeit now sad­ly dis­used). He hypoth­e­sised that the loca­tion of the said drink­ing hole-cum-broth­el was then sim­ply relo­cat­ed from Eng­land to the US by roam­ing per­form­ers. In 1953, Lomax met Har­ry Cox, an Eng­lish farm labour­er known for his impres­sive folk song reper­toire, who knew a song called She was a Rum One (Roud 2128) with two pos­si­ble open­ing vers­es, one begin­ning:

If you go to Low­est­oft, and ask for The Ris­ing Sun,
There you’ll find two old whores and my old woman is one.

The old­est known record­ing of the song, under the title Ris­ing Sun Blues, is by Appalachi­an artists Tom Ash­ley and Gwen Fos­ter, who record­ed it in 1933. Ash­ley said he had learned it from his grand­fa­ther who had got mar­ried around the time of the Civ­il War, sug­gest­ing that the song was writ­ten years before the turn of the cen­tu­ry.

In 1941, Woody Guthrie record­ed a ver­sion; Lead Bel­ly record­ed two ver­sions in the for­ties; Joan Baez record­ed it in 1960 on her epony­mous debut album; Nina Simone record­ed a ver­sion for the live album Nina at the Vil­lage Gate in 1962; and Bob Dylan record­ed the song for his debut album, released in March 1962. But it was the Ani­mals, Newcastle’s own blues-rock band made up of Eric Bur­don, Alan Price, Chas Chan­dler, Hilton Valen­tine and John Steel, who scored a transat­lantic num­ber one hit sin­gle with it in 1964 and made it their sig­na­ture tune.

The Ani­mals, The House of the Ris­ing Sun

 

Music

John Newton’s Amazing Grace (1772)

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Amaz­ing Grace is one of the most recog­nis­able songs in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world — who hasn’t been exposed count­less times to these icon­ic open­ing lines?

Amaz­ing grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see

It was writ­ten in 1772 by Eng­lish Angli­can cler­gy­man John New­ton (1725–1807), drawn very much from per­son­al expe­ri­ence. He had grown up with­out any par­tic­u­lar reli­gious bent and after a time hav­ing been press­ganged into ser­vice with the Roy­al Navy, he became involved in the Atlantic slave trade. How­ev­er, in 1748 he was on a ves­sel caught up in a storm so vio­lent that he begged God for mer­cy and under­went (hav­ing pre­sum­ably got his feet back on ter­ra fir­ma) some­thing of a spir­i­tu­al con­ver­sion. There­after, New­ton gave up sea­far­ing, stud­ied Chris­t­ian the­ol­o­gy, and became a vocal abo­li­tion­ist. He once was lost but now was found.

New­ton was ordained into the Church of Eng­land in 1764, and took a post as curate at Olney in Buck­ing­hamshire, where he met and began to write hymns with William Cow­per (who him­self would become a cel­e­brat­ed poet and hymnodist). They wrote Amaz­ing Grace to illus­trate a ser­mon New­ton was giv­ing on New Year’s Day 1773 with the mes­sage that for­give­ness and redemp­tion are pos­si­ble regard­less of sins com­mit­ted and that the soul can be deliv­ered from despair through the mer­cy of God. It debuted in print in 1779 in their col­lab­o­ra­tive Olney Hymns.

At this stage, Amaz­ing Grace, like all the oth­er Olney hymns, was still rel­a­tive­ly obscure but it took off in the Unit­ed States when it was picked up and exten­sive­ly used by Bap­tist and Methodist preach­ers dur­ing the Protes­tant revival move­ment of the ear­ly 19th cen­tu­ry (the so-called Sec­ond Great Awak­en­ing). In 1835, Amer­i­can com­pos­er William Walk­er set the words to the tune known as New Britain and this is the ver­sion you’ll hear today.

The song has unsur­pris­ing­ly become a sta­ple of Gospel music, and has also crossed over into sec­u­lar music with a par­tic­u­lar influ­ence in folk music. It’s been record­ed thou­sands of times in the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, from Elvis Pres­ley to the Roy­al Scots Dra­goon Guards; today though, I offer a ver­sion by Amer­i­can folk singer Judy Collins, record­ed in 1993 with the Boys’ Choir of Harlem.

John New­ton
Film, TV, and Theatre

Phil Cornwell and John Sessions in Stella Street (1997)

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A British TV com­e­dy series that per­haps fell under the radar a lit­tle bit (you can actu­al­ly find peo­ple who nev­er saw or heard of it), Stel­la Street was nonethe­less a great find when it began air­ing in 1997 and con­tin­ued over four series to 2001. Its some­what bizarre premise is that an ordi­nary street in sub­ur­ban Sur­biton is peo­pled by a group of big­time celebri­ties going about their lives in ordi­nary, sub­ur­ban fash­ion, but adher­ing to some well-known and exag­ger­at­ed stereo­types per­tain­ing to said celebs.

The show was con­ceived and writ­ten by John Ses­sions, Phil Corn­well and Peter Richard­son, with the main char­ac­ters played by Ses­sions and Corn­well (and Ron­ni Ancona for some episodes). The celebri­ties cho­sen to live in Stel­la Street were pre­sum­ably influ­enced by the per­form­ers’ abil­i­ty to do great impres­sions of them and whose per­sonas lent them­selves to some great send-up com­e­dy. The pro­gramme takes the form of a mock­u­men­tary with film­ing done on a hand­held cam­era and Corn­well as Michael Caine talk­ing direct­ly to the cam­era to intro­duce char­ac­ters and sit­u­a­tions (just as he does in the 1966 film Alfie).

Jack Nichol­son is por­trayed as the invet­er­ate wom­an­is­ing bad-ass of his stereo­type (or his real per­son­al­i­ty?) com­plete with bad taste Hawai­ian shirts not exact­ly suit­ed to the British cli­mate. Michael Caine is full-on Six­ties’ Michael Caine with the trade­mark lacon­ic vocal deliv­ery, shock of gin­ger hair and horn-rimmed glass­es. Roger Moore is the quin­tes­sen­tial Eng­lish gen­tle­man with impec­ca­ble man­ners, and with a lone­li­ness theme ruth­less­ly exploit­ed by Ses­sions. David Bowie is the self-effac­ing and slight­ly awk­ward super­star stay­ing true to his Brom­ley roots. Mick Jag­ger and Kei­th Richards run the local gro­cery store, Mick with mas­sive enthu­si­asm, Kei­th with time-worn, dev­il-may-care cyn­i­cism and a gleam in his eye.

Let’s enjoy a mon­tage of Corn­well and Ses­sions bring­ing these char­ac­ters to life: the may­hem of Mick and Keef’s cor­ner shop, and then a glo­ri­ous vignette of David Bowie and Roger Moore exchang­ing spec­tac­u­lar­ly mun­dane Christ­mas presents (with Roger Moore tak­ing polite­ness to the next lev­el when gift­ed an under­whelm­ing £10 book token).

Mick and Keef
Film, TV, and Theatre

Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927)

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A few months ago I went to a screen­ing of the 1920 silent hor­ror film The Cab­i­net of Dr Cali­gari at local venue the Old Woollen in Fars­ley. The film is a quin­tes­sen­tial piece of Ger­man Expres­sion­ist cin­e­ma from over a cen­tu­ry ago and a fas­ci­nat­ing insight into cel­lu­loid cre­ativ­i­ty dur­ing the era of the Weimar Repub­lic. As fun as it is, with its sto­ry of a mad hyp­no­tist induc­ing a brain­washed som­nam­bu­list to com­mit mur­ders, I want­ed to look at an even more quin­tes­sen­tial movie from the era, one that most peo­ple have come across at some point, the great 1927 sci­ence-fic­tion mas­ter­piece, Metrop­o­lis, direct­ed by Fritz Lang (1890–1976).

Lang has been cit­ed as one of the most influ­en­tial of film­mak­ers of all time, and he is cred­it­ed with pio­neer­ing both the sci-fi genre (Metrop­o­lis, Woman in the Moon) and film noir (M). He didn’t shy away from pro­duc­ing epi­cal­ly long films, either, like the 4.5 hour Dr Mabuse the Gam­bler or the two-part Die Nibelun­gen based on the epic poem Nibelun­gen­lied, but the one film that cap­tures the zeit­geist of the auteur’s work is undoubt­ed­ly Metrop­o­lis.

It was writ­ten in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lang’s wife Thea von Har­bou and based on her 1925 nov­el of the same name. Metrop­o­lis is set in a futur­is­tic urban dystopia pre­fig­ur­ing Blade Run­ner and bring­ing to mind themes from Orwell and indeed Mary Shel­ley with its own Frankenstein’s mon­ster in the form of the sci­en­tist Rot­wang’s icon­ic robot the Maschi­nen­men­sch.

Mean­while, the film’s aes­thet­ics, with Goth­ic touch­es, draw heav­i­ly from the Bauhaus, Cubist and Futur­ist design move­ments of the time. We see a world of colos­sal sky­scrap­ers from which a wealthy elite lords it over the down-trod­den mass­es of the under­ground who toil in abject con­di­tions to keep the machines of the soci­ety run­ning.

One day a mem­ber of this elite, one Fred­er Fred­er­sen (Gus­tav Fröh­lich), has an epiphany when pre­sent­ed with what life is like for the poor, by the saint­ly Maria (Brigitte Helm, who also plays the Maschi­nen­men­sch), and the two con­spire to change the soci­ety and bring about social jus­tice. As such, it can be con­strued as a rather sim­plis­tic moral­i­ty tale, but there’s no sim­plic­i­ty in the styl­i­sa­tion and bril­liant tech­ni­cal effects, which serve to cre­ate a remark­able world, both visu­al­ly beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful. Enjoy the the­atri­cal trail­er, below, with an excel­lent sound­track by Got­tfried Hup­pertz.

Fritz Lang
Music

Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition (1874)

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The Russ­ian com­pos­er Mod­est Mus­sorgsky (1839–1881) wins my ‘coolest composer’s name’ award, with hon­ourable men­tion to Ger­man com­pos­er Engel­bert Humperdinck (1854–1921) who of course is not to be con­fused with mel­low British pop singer Arnold Dorsey who used Engel­bert Humperdinck as a stage name. Mus­sorgsky was one of the “The Mighty Five” along­side Mily Bal­akirev, César Cui, Alexan­der Borodin, and (anoth­er con­tender for the cool name award) Niko­lai Rim­sky-Kor­sakov. Togeth­er, these five fash­ioned a dis­tinct nation­al style of Russ­ian clas­si­cal music in the sec­ond half of the 19ᵗʰ cen­tu­ry.

Mussorgsky’s works were inspired by Russ­ian his­to­ry and folk­lore, such as his opera Boris Godunov (about the Tsar who ruled Rus­sia between 1598 and 1605), Night on Bald Moun­tain (a series of com­po­si­tions inspired by Russ­ian lit­er­ary works and leg­ends), and Pic­tures at an Exhi­bi­tion. This lat­ter piece is a piano suite in ten move­ments, writ­ten in 1874, and inspired by an exhi­bi­tion of works by archi­tect and painter Vik­tor Hart­mann at the Impe­r­i­al Acad­e­my of Arts in Saint Peters­burg. Hart­mann was as devot­ed as Mus­sorgsky to mak­ing intrin­si­cal­ly Russ­ian art and the two had become firm friends. Each move­ment of the suite is based on an indi­vid­ual art­work.

Art crit­ic Vladimir Stasov described the piece as Mus­sorgsky “rov­ing through the exhi­bi­tion, now leisure­ly, now briskly in order to come close to a pic­ture that had attract­ed his atten­tion, and at times sad­ly, think­ing of his depart­ed friend.”

The com­po­si­tion has become a show­piece for vir­tu­oso pianists, but has also became wide­ly known from orches­tra­tions and arrange­ments pro­duced by oth­er com­posers, such as Mau­rice Rav­el’s 1922 adap­ta­tion for orches­tra. The excerpt below is the open­ing prom­e­nade from the Rav­el ver­sion, as played by the Nation­al Youth Orches­tra at Carnegie Hall, New York. This is anoth­er tune where I say “I bet you know it…”.

Inci­den­tal­ly, prog rock trio Emer­son Lake and Palmer did a ver­sion of Pic­tures at an Exhi­bi­tion, just as they did a ver­sion of anoth­er blog top­ic here, Aaron Copland’s Fan­fare for the Com­mon Man.

Mod­est Mus­sorgsky
Art

John Everett Millais’ Ophelia (1851)

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If you were to choose any British art gallery to walk into today, you would be sure to find one or more paint­ings by one or more artists belong­ing to the Pre-Raphaelite Broth­er­hood. The Pre-Raphaelites were a group of Eng­lish painters, poets, and art crit­ics, found­ed in 1848 by William Hol­man Hunt, John Everett Mil­lais, Dante Gabriel Ros­set­ti, and oth­ers, who sought to reform art and return it to the glo­ry days, as they saw it, of Ital­ian fif­teenth cen­tu­ry art. That peri­od of art, so-called Quat­tro­cen­to art, was char­ac­terised by abun­dant detail, colour and com­plex­i­ty; in the fol­low­ing cen­tu­ry, how­ev­er, artists – such as Raphael – were seen by the group as hav­ing a cor­rupt­ing influ­ence on art, ush­er­ing in the unnat­ur­al and stylised art of Man­ner­ism. Parmigianino’s Madon­na With The Long Neck (1540) is often used as an exam­ple of Man­ner­ism play­ing fast and loose with prop­er per­spec­tive, as I’m sure you can see.

Parmi­gian­i­no’s Madon­na With The Long Neck (1540)

Today, we’re look­ing at a clas­sic of the Pre-Raphaelites, name­ly Ophe­lia, the 1852 paint­ing by British artist Sir John Everett Mil­lais (and held in Tate Britain). Ophe­lia is of course a char­ac­ter from Shake­speare’s Ham­let, a Dan­ish noble­woman dri­ven mad by her love for Prince Ham­let and who ulti­mate­ly drowns in despair. Her drown­ing is not usu­al­ly seen onstage in the play, but mere­ly report­ed by Queen Gertrude who tells the audi­ence that Ophe­lia, out of her mind with grief, has fall­en from a wil­low tree over­hang­ing a brook. She lies in the water singing songs, as if unaware of her dan­ger (“inca­pable of her own dis­tress”), her clothes, trap­ping air and allow­ing her to stay afloat for a while (“Her clothes spread wide, / And, mer­maid-like, awhile they bore her up.”). But even­tu­al­ly, “her gar­ments, heavy with their drink, / Pul­l’d the poor wretch from her melo­di­ous lay” down “to mud­dy death”.

Mil­lais paints Ophe­lia in a pose with open arms and upward gaze in the man­ner of saints or mar­tyrs (they did love a trag­ic woman, the Pre-Raphs). In keep­ing with the tenets of the Pre-Raphaelites, he has used bright colours, with lots of detailed flo­ra and fideli­ty to nature. Despite its nom­i­nal Dan­ish set­ting, the land­scape has actu­al­ly come to be seen as quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Eng­lish (Ophe­lia was paint­ed along the banks of the Hogsmill Riv­er near Tol­worth in Sur­rey). The flow­ers shown float­ing on the riv­er were cho­sen to cor­re­spond with Shake­speare’s descrip­tion of Ophe­li­a’s gar­land.

Fun fact: at one point, Mil­lais had paint­ed a water vole pad­dling away near Ophe­lia, but changed his mind (prob­a­bly cor­rect­ly) after an acquain­tance mis­took it for a hare or rab­bit. Although ful­ly paint­ed over, a rough sketch of it still exists in a cor­ner of the can­vas hid­den by the frame, appar­ent­ly.

Mil­lais’ Ophe­lia (1851)
Music

The Jackson Five’s I Want You Back (1969)

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It was Gladys Knight who first made a call to leg­endary Motown founder Berry Gordy to tell him about an excit­ing new act she had over­heard from her dress­ing room on the sec­ond floor of the Regal The­ater, Chica­go. Gordy nev­er returned that call but a short time late Motown was approached again, this time by Bob­by Tay­lor of Bob­by Tay­lor and the Van­cou­vers who told A&R Vice Pres­i­dent Ralph Seltzer about this sen­sa­tion­al act that had opened for them at the High Chap­ar­ral club. So it came to pass that the Jack­son Five – for it was they – went to Detroit to audi­tion for Motown, and Gordy signed them up right away.

In Octo­ber 1969, the Jack­son Five’s first nation­al sin­gle, I Want You Back, was released, and became their first num­ber one hit on 30ᵗʰ Jan­u­ary 1970. It was per­formed on the band’s first tele­vi­sion appear­ances on Diana Ross’s The Hol­ly­wood Palace and on their mile­stone per­for­mance of 14ᵗʰ Decem­ber 1969, on The Ed Sul­li­van Show.

The song was writ­ten and pro­duced by the pro­duc­tion team known as The Cor­po­ra­tion, com­pris­ing Motown chief Berry Gordy him­self, Fred­die Per­ren, Alphon­so Mizell, and Deke Richards. Orig­i­nal­ly con­sid­ered for Gladys Knight & the Pips and lat­er for Diana Ross, the song was re-worked to suit its main lead vocal being per­formed by a tween, the then-11-year-old Michael Jack­son. Here’s Jack­ie Jackson’s mem­o­ry of the event:

“I remem­ber going into the Motown stu­dio and hear­ing the track com­ing through the big stu­dio mon­i­tors right in our face,” says Jack­ie Jack­son. “It was slam­ming. The intro was so strong. Berry always taught us to have a strong intro to get people’s atten­tion right away. And I remem­ber the Cor­po­ra­tion teach­ing us the song. Michael picked it up so fast; it was easy to learn for all of us. They kept chang­ing it here and there for the bet­ter. We told them it was great, but the next day Fred­die and Fonce added more things to it. They want­ed to make it per­fect. Michael did these ad-libs at the end of the song. They didn’t teach him that; he just made up his own stuff.”

And “slam­ming”, it cer­tain­ly was: an exu­ber­ant pop mas­ter­piece that remains one of my favourite all-time songs. It’s joy­ful — even if it is about a lover who is ruing his hasti­ness in drop­ping his girl! Enjoy the whole pack­age here: the glo­ri­ous cos­tumes, the boys’ volu­mi­nous Afros, the well-rehearsed dance moves, and of course the genius of Michael Jack­son man­i­fest­ed at a pre­co­cious­ly young age. Record­ed in the Goin’ Back To Indi­ana TV spe­cial in 1971.

The Jack­son Five

 

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