Cornflower

Sights and scents

    Seen at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh this afternoon: a mass of meconopsis (Slieve Donard, above) and Remarkable Trees - a most striking and evocative exhibition of black and white photographs of trees taken in the Victorian era by George Paxton.

    Smelt there: maianthemum racemosum or false spikenard, a plant I hadn't come across before, its lovely scent wafting through an area of woodland on the slight breeze.

You shall go to the ball

 

     Opening soon at the V&A, Ballgowns: British Glamour since 1950.

 

    Click here for a short film "on the significance of the ballgown and what it is to be truly glamorous". One can dream ...

Cover stories

 

    The subject of jacket design crops up on Cornflower Books from time to time, and I even have a recently created Pinterest board devoted to it to which I add any particularly striking covers as I come across them. If you're interested in the occasional art-related posts which appear on this site, you may like to see what's over the way as there are some very talented artists and illustrators making beautiful books.

    Today's post is a case in point with an appropriately 1950s feel to the lovely jacket for an equally charming book. Do have a look.

In a fankle*

    William Holman Hunt's Lady of Shalott at her loom is to be one of the highlights of the forthcoming exhibition at Tate Britain - Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde will be on from 12th. September to 13th. January.

    Going off at a slight tangent, I can recommend Diana Holman-Hunt's book My Grandmothers and I which the excellent Sightly Foxed have recently re-issued.

 

*tangle or muddle.

Mothering Sunday

    "Mother", bronze by William Landles.

(There's more on mothers here.)

Girls, girls

   First of all, pop over to Cornflower Books, if you will, and look at what is featured there, because it's the cover image of the book in question which you see above: Ford Madox Brown's Mauvais Sujet (1863).

    Browsing for more information on that picture, I came across this entertaining piece, contrasting Mauvais Sujet with FMB's The Irish Girl (1860), a painting we had here ages ago because of the cornflowers - it's always interesting to see art through the eyes of another.

God save the Queen

(Queen Elizabeth II by Dorothy Wilding, hand-coloured by Beatrice Johnson, 1952)

    "On 7 February 1952, the Prime Minister, who was once again Winston Churchill, broadcast to the British nation, Empire and Commonwealth to pay a heartfelt tribute to King George VI, who had died the previous day. Now in peacetime, as he had so often done before in wartime, Churchill caught and crystallised the prevailing mood, paying eloquent homage to the late sovereign, who, along with his consort, had refused to leave the country in 1940 and had endured the Blitz with his people, and whose sense of patriotic duty and public service had remained with him to the very end.

(Queen Elizabeth II arrives at London Airport, 7 February, 1952)

But Churchill concluded his eulogy on a more buoyant, optimistic and forward-looking note, leaving behind what he called 'the treasures of the past' and turning to what he felt certain, on the basis of past precedent, would be the glorious future that the new era of the second Elizabeth would now bring.

(Queen Elizabeth II, Dorothy Wilding, 1952)

'Famous have been the reigns of our Queens,' he observed. 'Some of the greatest periods in our history have unfolded under their sceptres'; and there were two particular female monarchs from earlier times that were very much in his mind. One was the previous Queen Elizabeth: that 'magnificent figure who presided over and, in many ways, embodied ... the grandeur and genius' of the age to which she rightly gave her name. And the second, who defined and dominated her epoch with equal distinction and equal distinctiveness, was the sovereign who had occupied the imperial throne during the first twenty-seven years of Churchill's own life. He ended his broadcast, linking history and hope, times gone by with times yet to be: 'I whose youth was passed in the august, unchallenged, tranquil glow of the Victorian era, may well feel a thrill in invoking once more the prayer and the anthem "God save the Queen" '."

(Queen Elizabeth II, Annie Leibovitz, 2007)

From The Queen: Art & Image by Paul Moorhouse with an introductory essay by David Cannadine - to mark sixty years of the Queen's reign.

Gloriumptiously collectable

    Royal Mail have just issued these lovely stamps featuring Quentin Blake's illustrations for Roald Dahl's books.

They have very kindly sent me five presentation packs to give away,

so please pop over to Cornflower Books to see more and to enter the draw.

Ghostly images

    Inspired by the wild flower the Ghost Orchid (Epipogium aphyllum), Scottish artist Siobhan Healy's delicate and lovely glass pieces - currently on display in the John Hope Gateway atrium at Edinburgh's botanical gardens - are intended to encourage the viewer to reflect on the transience and potential loss of this and other rare species. "The ghost orchid is an evocative emblem of the 1 in 5 of our wild flowers that are threatened with extinction. It is the most mysterious wildflower in Britain, the strangest, the rarest, and it was declared extinct during an absence of 23 years. But like a wandering spectre, the ghost orchid has reappeared." You can read more about it here.

    Sadly, the Royal Botanic Garden (our neighbour) lost 40 trees in the gales earlier this week. I haven't yet been in to see the sorry sight, but I know there were some important specimens among those that have fallen.

A Scottish beach in midwinter

    Never before, not even in the height of summer, have I seen Gullane beach as busy as it was on New Year's Day - the carpark full, the sands crowded with families, dogs galore, and even some brave people (in wetsuits) going for a swim. Despite the bitter wind and a smirr of rain, some groups were barbecuing! We enjoyed a bracing walk, and Pip and Mollie had lots of fun in the waves, so a good time was had by all, but it was nice to come home to a warm house.

    I haven't been inside the church at Gullane, but I see it has three fairly recent stained glass windows - detail here, full picture on the artist's website, and click here for a slideshow on the making of them).

All neat and tidy

    That is not my Christmas tree, but my neat streak rather approves of this level of deconstruction! It's the work of Ursus Wehrli and can be found in his book Die Kunst, aufzuräumen ('Tidying up Art/The Art of Tidying Up' - no text, pictures only), in which he takes everyday objects or scenes and re-arranges them in their constituent parts.

    This book is an extension of Wehrli's orderly versions of well-known paintings, some of which you can see in this video - I particularly like his super-tidy Jackson Pollock, but it's all good fun.

Domenica's dogs

    Do have a look at Domenica More Gordon's amazingly characterful, utterly lifelike, highly covetable felt dogs. If you want to try your hand at making your own, you can buy a kit, or just admire the sketches with which she begins the creative process and watch this short clip to see the dogs and Domenica herself.

    I kick myself now that I didn't take the opportunity to buy one when Domenica made some dogs for a sale of work in aid of Mindroom two years ago. Ah well, perhaps another time ...

Things to do with kale

    What to have for supper can be a vexed question here at times as we try to work round our offspring who number a vegetarian, a cheese-hater, and a fair omnivore who yet avoids fruit and vegetables when possible. A suggestion of Kale and Chickpea Curry (which sounds good in Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook and may yet appear on the table) was greeted with a resounding 'No', but tonight, with one member of the family away and another one out for Edinburgh's finest fish and chips, that kale had to be used, so I opted for Hugh F-W's Pasta with Greens, Garlic and Chilli from River Cottage Veg Every Day.

    The verdict on this was "tasty, warming, filling - and virtuous", and it's quick, simple and cheap as well. While you're waiting for your pasta water to come to the boil you gently cook an onion, garlic and chilli in olive oil. Then when the pasta has about three minutes left to go, toss your greens in with it (I used chard along with my kale), and when done combine the lot, drizzle with oil if liked, and have plenty of Parmesan ready. One of the variations given involves adding a tin of chickpeas (and adjusting other flavours) for a more substantial dish; I used mixed beans instead. because that's what I had, and I'd do the same again.

    The picture is Kale Field, Beaumont Quay by Robert Buhler.

Flying colours

    Some of the glorious paintings by the Scottish Colourist F.C.B. Cadell which are currently on show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, and which have been hung in rooms specially painted the lavender grey of the artist's own studio.

    Cadell's was a sad life at the end as he died, aged 54, in straitened circumstances, dependent on the generosity of friends and charitable grants, and that despite his standing and reputation. Today his work sells for very large sums indeed.

    I bought the exhibition catalogue but I've added this larger book to my wish list as I love his elegant Edinburgh interiors, stylish ladies, still lifes and Iona landscapes, while his use of colour would light up a room. If you can't get to the gallery, there's lots to see on the exhibition website including this short film (scroll down).

Point of view

    Put a convenient foreground feature between the camera and the focal point, and the message is a much more promising one! (Taken in the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art No. 2 - formerly the Dean Gallery, and you can see the artist, Nathan Coley, talking about this work from the 2.40 mark here).

    Meanwhile, across the road at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art No. 1, a reassuring message: