Sidebar book cover thumbnail pictures are affiliate links to Amazon, and the storefront links to Blackwell's and The Book Depository are also affiliated; should you purchase a book directly through those links, I will receive a small commission. Older posts may also contain affiliate links to one of those bookshops. I am not paid to produce content and all opinions are my own.
"I give you permission to write in the margins of your knitting. Make your mark by slipping stitches and watch the colour changes flow. Use the stitches as you would words. Use your yarn as ink."
Just arrived, my backer's copy of Karie Westermann's new book This Thing of Paper. "Drawing fascinating parallels between two enduring forms of self-expression, this book will strike a chord with book lovers, readers, and knitters everywhere." Very much so, I'd say.
Here at Cornflower Towers we are without heating and hot water for two days while the boiler is being replaced. Front and back doors are open to the elements as work progresses, the radiators have been drained - so no residual heat, even - and the Aga is off. It is 4 degrees outside and likely not much warmer in, but we can layer on the knitwear and fill hot water bottles so we can't complain.
Purcell* does seem appropriate, though, and for those of us who like that sort of thing, here's the Nyman version.
At the National Gallery of Scotland on Friday I went to a talk by Dr. Andrew Paterson, "Two Flower Paintings of the 18th. Century", looking at Flower Still Life with Bird's Nest, c.1718 by Jan van Huysum, and A Vase of Flowers, early 1760s, by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin. The juxtaposition was illuminating, showing two alternative conceptions of what the medium can achieve, the first picture being "a tour de force of theatrical illusion, almost microscopic in its detail", the second being much more "painterly" and natural. I've tried to capture the main points here.
The van Huysum, above, includes 20 different species of flower and would have been impossible to create in real life - given the flowers' blooming seasons - so the artist would have either relied on his own image bank of studies, or assembled the picture in a piecemeal manner over the course of a year. In addition to the flowers there are flies, ants, butterflies (including a Grizzled Skipper), while the nest is that of a mistle thrush. Luminous colours rely on layers of translucent glazes, and the copper on which they are painted allows for great fluidity and precision. In terms of meaning, flowers are the prime signifiers of the transience of earthly beauty, while the insects and eggs suggest decay, death, and also renewal of life. The picture is marked by the skill of its composition, the control of chromatic relationships, and by its tonal balance.
The Chardin, in contrast, is a very simple composition, "virtually artless". A Delft vase contains carnations, tuberoses, and sweet peas (it is thought), all realised in an almost impressionistic manner with the feel of an oil sketch. Known for the quality of his observation and the freshness of his vision, Chardin's brushmarks are here unblended creating a painterly texture, while empty space plays an important compositional role and creates a harmonious atmosphere. Only five pigments were used, the background likely being a mixture of all of them, and although limited, "the subtleties of the tonal range are the equal of van Huysum's". Chardin was "alchemical" in his handling of oil paint, apparently, and did not share his secrets with anyone.
While the earlier picture is the apogee of a tradition*, the later one is very forward-looking and modern, showing an individual sensibility and that there is more to painting than a mastery of technique. As Chardin said, "One uses colours but one paints with feeling."
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*For more on Dutch flower painting, touching on the development of the art, below is a talk which accompanied last year's National Gallery Dutch Flowers exhibit:
This is The Angler (c.1912) by William Orpen. Tate Britain has it, allegedly, but along with almost all the Sargents I went to see there on Sunday, it's frustratingly 'not on display'. I wish I had the keys to the cupboard they keep them in.
Imagine if these people actually lived in the same building - Noel Coward popping next door to borrow a cup of sugar from Laurence Olivier, Joyce Grenfell chatting to J.M. Barrie as they put out the bins, Charles Laughton helping Edith Evans up the stairs with her shopping ...
In fact, the names are those of rooms at the Draycott.
The above is an illustration by Angela Barrett for Eleanor Farjeon's story Young Kate.
(For more on the collection in which that story appears - though not the book from which the picture comes - have a look here, and for a postscript to that post, click here.)
"A chocolate spice cake that smells of fairy tales."
"... a sprinkling of edible glitter will banish any thoughts of Cromwell."
"Marmalade is a glowing reminder that cooking is about so much more than the end result."
I've read The Christmas Chronicles from cover to cover, broken with tradition by discarding our usual Christmas pudding recipe and making Nigel's version instead - the proof will come next month, but at the mixing and first steaming stages last weekend it promises much, and I've taken note of his various rituals and his judicious use of treats to temper the more chore-like seasonal tasks.
The book is an excellent read (there's a little more on it here) as well as a source of typically appetising food, so if you've been swithering about getting it I'd hesitate no longer.
"To garden is to elide past, present and future; it is a defiance of time. [...]
The great defiance of time is our capacity to remember - the power of memory. Time streams away behind us, and beyond, but individual memory shapes, for each of us, a known place. We own a particular piece of time; I was there, then, I did this, saw that, felt thus. And gardening, in its small way, performs a memory feat: it corrals time, pinning it to the seasons, to the gardening year, by summoning up the garden in the past, the garden to come. A garden is never just now; it suggests yesterday, and tomorrow; it does not allow time its steady progress."
Sidebar book cover thumbnail pictures are affiliate links to Amazon, and the storefront links to Blackwell's and The Book Depository are also affiliated; should you purchase a book directly through those links, I will receive a small commission. Older posts may also contain affiliate links to one of those bookshops. I am not paid to produce content and all opinions are my own.
