As it's a feverish time of year for lists - presents to buy, 22 ingredients to stuff into a bird's bottom etc - I thought I'd add to the collection by compiling my own list. It's a favourites of the week effort and counts as a list because it has two items.
1) Tim Sanders pocket cartoon, sited at the Political Cartoon of the Year Awards at the Political Cartoon Gallery. Two glamorous girls wearing little slips of dresses stand at a bar, holding a newspaper saying 'Arrested Tory - Row Continues'. One girl comments "Mind you a lot of these MPs like being handcuffed." Well it's probably just my age and the fact it reminds me of the Tory tradition of sex scandals.
Sanders offering was positively sweet compared to Peter Brookes' take on Lucian Freud's 'Benefits Supervisor Sleeping'. Gordon Brown has been substituted for the benefits supervisor and appears to be decomposing, his skin has a creme de menthe glow and seems to be melting into the shabby velveteen sofa. My sympathies are with the benefits supervisor who is really rather attractive. I can't remember her name but she gave a very good interview to John Humphries on the Today show which is more than most people can manage.
2) Eunoia by Christian Bok which is pretty much a pocket sized book to go with Sanders' pocket cartoon. Eunoia is the shortest word in English to contain all five vowels and means 'beautiful thinking' even though it sounds like a complaint which renders you unable to speak clearly (there'll be a lot of that about over the next few weeks - no, I did not say 'Here comes the psychotic who has ruined every family Christmas for the past decade' I said 'How lovely to see Uncle Cyril and looking so well too'.)
Back to Bok's book - it contains five chapters and in each only one vowel is used - only A in chapter A and so on. The resulting verbal gymnastics are amazing and often beautiful too. Here's a very topical snatch from chapter A:
"Hassan can watch, aghast, as databanks at NASDAQ graph hard data and chart a NASDAQ crash - a sharp fall that alarms staff at a Manhattan bank. Hassan acts fast, ransacks cashbags at a mad dash, and grabs what bank drafts a bank branch at Casablanca can cash: marks, rands and bahts."
Clever or what? Or: Clever we feel, we reel, ejected, expelled then defected. Oh give up woman and return to the stuffing.
Sunday 14 December 2008
Saturday 6 December 2008
Stories and portraits
This week I was fascinated to read about Tracy Chevalier's time as artist in residence at York Art Gallery. Chevalier's novel, 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' was inspired by Vermeer's portrait of a young woman wearing a pearl earring and a blue and gold scarf, wrapped round her head, turban style.
During her time at York Art Gallery Chevalier encouraged visitors to write stories about the paintings they saw - a brilliant idea which set me thinking of paintings I'd like to write about. First up was a portrait of someone wearing a turban - yes, I've always had a sadly derivative mind. My justification is that I did actually have a dream about this painting of the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet II, which is attributed to the Venetian artist, Gentile Bellini, and now lives in London's National Gallery.
Fatih Sultan Mehmet, as he is known in Turkey, conquered Constantinople for the Ottomans in 1453. In Bellini's portrait, completed in 1480, Mehmet wears a large white turban which must contain enough material to rig out a boat to sail from one end of the Bosphorus to the other. His nose is long and sharp, his skin yellow, he doesn't look at the artist but gazes off to the side, occupied with his own thoughts. As one art critic said it is a face that always catches the eye, set amongst the pink northern European complexions which populate so many of the National Gallery's paintings.
I dreamt of Mehmet's portrait on a night coach from Ankara to Istanbul, snowflakes whirling past the window, my hands doused in lemon cologne, part of my mind waiting for the wheels to lock into an icy skid. Mehmet slept too, in a tent outside Constantinople's walls, dreaming of conquest and a more comfortable bed in a palace. His white turban sat on a small wooden chest, still maintaining its position above its owner's head.
I watched the string of prayer beads Mehmet held in his right hand. They began to move of their accord, half flowing in one direction, half in the other, like the famous Bosphorus currents. Byzantium rippled through his fingers, trying to fathom out its next move.
The next morning the coach stopped just outside Istanbul. I drank tripe soup and thought about Mehmet waking in his tent, the snowflakes turning into the pale faces of people worried about the next war.
During her time at York Art Gallery Chevalier encouraged visitors to write stories about the paintings they saw - a brilliant idea which set me thinking of paintings I'd like to write about. First up was a portrait of someone wearing a turban - yes, I've always had a sadly derivative mind. My justification is that I did actually have a dream about this painting of the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmet II, which is attributed to the Venetian artist, Gentile Bellini, and now lives in London's National Gallery.
Fatih Sultan Mehmet, as he is known in Turkey, conquered Constantinople for the Ottomans in 1453. In Bellini's portrait, completed in 1480, Mehmet wears a large white turban which must contain enough material to rig out a boat to sail from one end of the Bosphorus to the other. His nose is long and sharp, his skin yellow, he doesn't look at the artist but gazes off to the side, occupied with his own thoughts. As one art critic said it is a face that always catches the eye, set amongst the pink northern European complexions which populate so many of the National Gallery's paintings.
I dreamt of Mehmet's portrait on a night coach from Ankara to Istanbul, snowflakes whirling past the window, my hands doused in lemon cologne, part of my mind waiting for the wheels to lock into an icy skid. Mehmet slept too, in a tent outside Constantinople's walls, dreaming of conquest and a more comfortable bed in a palace. His white turban sat on a small wooden chest, still maintaining its position above its owner's head.
I watched the string of prayer beads Mehmet held in his right hand. They began to move of their accord, half flowing in one direction, half in the other, like the famous Bosphorus currents. Byzantium rippled through his fingers, trying to fathom out its next move.
The next morning the coach stopped just outside Istanbul. I drank tripe soup and thought about Mehmet waking in his tent, the snowflakes turning into the pale faces of people worried about the next war.
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