tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post46892282475532262..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Dishing The Lady of Shalott (Maurice Baring: The Camelot Jousts)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-540201606889216372011-04-09T11:14:17.189-07:002011-04-09T11:14:17.189-07:00That's pretty impressive. I'm tempted to ...That's pretty impressive. I'm tempted to try it. <br /><br />Artur.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-62439953548434164032011-04-08T06:39:31.840-07:002011-04-08T06:39:31.840-07:00And what's more, Artur, the scene from The Tem...And what's more, Artur, <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Miranda-ani.gif" rel="nofollow">the scene from The Tempest with the crashing waves and blowing red hair gets even better -- or is it worse? -- when the waves start to move</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-16922856097325307592011-04-08T04:09:25.636-07:002011-04-08T04:09:25.636-07:00On the water theme, I see that the stream in the b...On the water theme, I see that the stream in the background is actually running through the lady's heart in the last picture, Windswept, but for a climax you can't really beat the scene from The Tempest with the crashing waves and blowing red hair.<br /><br />For whatever reason I often find myself disagreeing with that Guardian writer, Jonathan Jones. I think he has a terrible eye. I remember him saying that his favourite artist is William Blake. I don't see why he would then hate the Pre-Raphaelites, except that that's been the standard reaction in the London art world for about a century now - this meant that forty years ago, one of my neighbours was able to buy a huge Burne Jones pastel drawing in a marvelous arts & crafts gold frame for about £5.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-12066616181027217072011-04-07T22:34:25.004-07:002011-04-07T22:34:25.004-07:00By the by, Artur, I neglected to mention that that...By the by, Artur, I neglected to mention that that 1894 Waterhouse Ophelia (the non-soggy one, which I did not post but have linked to, above) is owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, who possesses the world's grandest private collection of late Victorian period art -- or, as the Guardian termed it in considering a 2003 exhibition of a large part of Lloyd Webber's inventory, of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2003/sep/17/2" rel="nofollow">colossally bad art</a>.<br /><br />(Though perhaps the standard qualification "to each his own" might apply here. When one has more money than one knows what to do with, probably almost anything one does do with it, unless that something is brilliantly contrived to assist one's less-well-off fellow creatures, might, if the amount in question is colossally large, be considered colossally bad.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-28754015723918044122011-04-07T19:43:38.782-07:002011-04-07T19:43:38.782-07:00Lucy, Yes, I think it's brilliant the way Bari...Lucy, Yes, I think it's brilliant the way Baring has transported the point of view and "tone" of Guinivere (and the other "correspondents" here) into something so instantly recognizable as "real" that we went to say, "Ah, it was ever thus"!<br /><br />And even better, the magnificent consistency of that tone, kept up throughout the piece... one almost hold one's breath, as when watching a high-wire walker. But he never loses control for a minute. (Any lesser writer would be unable to keep from relishing his own genius while exercising it, an error which, with parody, always seems to spoil the effect.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-35673940234508903682011-04-07T19:36:39.821-07:002011-04-07T19:36:39.821-07:00Ed,
That would be a boat ride well worth the pric...Ed,<br /><br />That would be a boat ride well worth the price of the ticket.<br /><br />Perhaps a good idea to bring along a tube of epoxy... the problems we're currently having with this old house would make me very wary of leaks in any hundred-year old (or shall I say hundreds of years old) dinghy that's been stored in a wet climate. <br /><br />(What's worse than a wet book, with all the pages wadded together... could it be that Prospero vowed to drown his book because it had anyway been water-damaged, what with all that unpredictable island weather?)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-73288212126451936422011-04-07T19:30:37.891-07:002011-04-07T19:30:37.891-07:00Artur,
It seems that Millais and Rossetti had mad...Artur,<br /><br />It seems that Millais and Rossetti had made the drowned/drowning Ophelia a sort of wet gold standard of painting success in the era. And in that as in other matters of style, Waterhouse followed along. That Ophelia of his which I have used -- prostrate there in the meadow grass -- won him entry to the Royal Academy. Five years later he did <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ophelia_1894.jpg" rel="nofollow">another</a>, this time a bit less soggy. And of course not to stop there, he also did a third... though in some sense, the paintings are all just one Ophelia after another, with the name and the garb and sometimes the posture (thank heavens) changing.<br /><br />I don't suppose it matters much to Google who did the Pre-Raphaelite paintings as long as they were done by certified P-Rs. Though in that (chronology) department, Waterhouse was a bit of a late entry. But he seems to have outlasted the pack and been to large extent awarded the lion's share of the spoils. Or would it be more correct to say the industrious vulture's share of what the comparatively indolent lions had left over?<br /><br />(It always looks to me as though there were a tiny bit too much lead in his paint, or perhaps his soul, presuming those latter things to exist?)<br /><br />The Barings Bank story is fascinating, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Trader_%28film%29" rel="nofollow">the film</a> likewise. A sort of parable really. Quietly relieving your employer of 927 million quid and then (after being caught out) "earning" the government another 200 m in recovered taxes would seem quite a feat, no matter how you slice it. And then getting let out of prison on compassionate grounds as you are apparently terminally ill... and then not dying.<br /><br />I did particularly like this line, which tells so much about the actual (human) workings of the "rarefied" world of high finance:<br /><br />"People at the London end of Barings were all so know-all that nobody dared ask a stupid question in case they looked silly in front of everyone else."<br /><br />—Nick Leeson, Rogue Trader (1996)<br /><br />As to the triumphantly minimal (or "crisp", shall we say) prose of Burke's Peerage, it's perhaps the best example I know of the writing rule, "Never use a word too many".<br /><br />I seem to recall de Brett's having much the same "just-the-facts-ma'am" style.<br /><br /> That's what the tough guy cop, sergeant Friday, played by the most laconic, or perhaps worst, actor of all time, Jack Webb, used to say, on the popular Fifties tv show about LA police, Dragnet. <br /><br />Interesting that over all those centuries Maurice was one of only five Barings to make the peerage. Heaven knows what Sgt. Friday would have thought of that, or in fact of any of the above.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91332501872987151262011-04-07T18:40:34.499-07:002011-04-07T18:40:34.499-07:00Google sometimes has these inexplicable moods, as ...Google sometimes has these inexplicable moods, as perhaps did Elaine of Astolat, The Lady of Shalott... though with friends like hers Elaine would at least had a had a proper excuse, which Google certainly does not.<br /><br />In any case, Google, which obviously neither requires excuses for what it does, nor stands on ceremony, has gobbled up a comment that is very much worth keeping; and since the commenter has been kind enough to send it along "through channels", I am going to atttempt to Defy the Corporation by putting it up myself. <br /><br />Here goes, then:<br />___<br /><br />A BAD GUIDE [i.e., Artur] SAID:<br /><br /><i>"Are they watching yet?"</i><br /><br />Yes, exactly! They all have expressions like that. <br /><br />If you google <a href="http://www.google.no/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=GwH&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=np&biw=1572&bih=1066&site=search&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=ophelia+millais&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=" rel="nofollow">Ophelia Millais</a> (I did so because I was going to say how similar Millais' Ophelia is to all these), google actually shows the Waterhouse <i>Lady Of Shallot</i>. I don't know enough about the pre-Raphaelites to know why they kept repeating these images. <br /><br />I don't know if you remember when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barings_Bank" rel="nofollow">Barings</a> went bust, a few years ago. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson" rel="nofollow">man responsible</a> went to prison, but he subsequently did quite well out of it: he wrote a book and it was made into a film that I saw on tv. <br /><br />I wonder if our Baring knew T.E. Lawrence. I like the repetition of the phrase "he wrote the book...he wrote the book"; it's like "begat" in the Bible, and although it's hard to cast your eye over you get the impression that he worked hard for many years.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-41316775635073756862011-04-07T17:48:02.552-07:002011-04-07T17:48:02.552-07:00I have enjoyed these letters immensely. Guinevere ...I have enjoyed these letters immensely. Guinevere could not be more manipulative! I had never pictured her that way. I love the story of the Lady of Shalott and certainly find Tennyson's verses delightful. I used to have the picture captioned "'I am half-sick of shadows,' said The Lady of Shalott: John William Waterhouse, 1916" as my profile picture when I just started with my blog. I sometimes feel like Elaine, you know? Watching the world through a mirror safe up in my tower...<br /><br />Lovely post, Tom.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-41528920102840803442011-04-07T13:01:12.353-07:002011-04-07T13:01:12.353-07:00these images everyone
AND that poem
[especially ...these images everyone <br />AND that poem<br /><br />[especially the (single) line] :<br /><br />"Through the squally east-wind keenly"<br /><br />"made" me the poet/artist that I am today<br /><br />and<br /><br />Oh to be that dinghy or in it cleanly ... I just might get into another book !Ed Bakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11285310130024785775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-9402886168237094852011-04-07T09:48:17.326-07:002011-04-07T09:48:17.326-07:00Artur, about the Waterhouses, they're very... ...Artur, about the Waterhouses, they're very... odd, in a way.<br /><br />In that top image of the Lady in her boat, for example, though ostensibly distraught, half-mad and about to drown herself, she has this... well, odd... look in the corner of her eye.<br /><br />I read from it something like: <br /><br />"Are they watching yet?"TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-49595597781786753032011-04-07T09:40:36.123-07:002011-04-07T09:40:36.123-07:00Here he sits, in somewhat rumpled state, with Bell...<a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00332/Conversation-piece?LinkID=mp00251&role=sit&rNo=0" rel="nofollow">Here</a> he sits, in somewhat rumpled state, with Belloc and Chesterton, for Sir James Gunn.<br /><br />A bit more light in spirit is <a href="http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw39171/Maurice-Baring?LinkID=mp00251&role=sit&rNo=4" rel="nofollow">this silhouette, with crown</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59502939389997893772011-04-07T09:39:35.544-07:002011-04-07T09:39:35.544-07:00"He was a Times special correspondent in the ..."He was a Times special correspondent in the Balkans in 1912. He wrote the book Lost Diaries, published 1913.1He wrote the book Letters From the Near East, published 1913.He wrote the book Palamon and Arcite, published 1913.He wrote the book What I Saw in Russia, published 1913.He fought in the First World War, where he was mentioned in despatches.He gained the rank of Temporary Lieutenant in 1914 in the service of the Intelligence Corps, and Royal Flying Corps, British Expeditionary Force. He wrote the book The Mainsprings of Russia, published 1914. He wrote the book Round the World in Any Number of Days, published 1914. He wrote the book An Outline of Russian Literature, published 1914. He gained the rank of Lieutenant in September 1915.He gained the rank of Captain in October 1915. He wrote the book English Landscape: an anthology, published 1916. He wrote the book Translations by S. C., published 1916. He gained the rank of Major in 1917.He wrote the book Poems, 1914-17, published 1918. He was invested as a Officer, Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) in 1918.He gained the rank of Staff Officer between May 1918 and December 1918 in the service of the Indian Air Force. He wrote the book Translations Ancient and Modern, published 1919. He wrote the book R.F.C.H.Q. 1914-18, published 1920.He wrote the book Poems, 1914-19, published 1921. He wrote the book Passing By, published 1921. He wrote the book The Puppet Show of Memory, published 1922. He wrote the book Overlooked, published 1922. He wrote the book His Majesty's Embassy, published 1923. He wrote the book A Triangle, published 1923. He wrote the book C., published 1924. He wrote the book Punch and Judy and Other Essays, published 1924. He wrote the book Collected Poems, published 1925. He wrote the book Cat's Cradle, published 1925. He wrote the book Translations with Originals, published 1925. He wrote the book Half a Minute's Silence, published 1925. He gained the rank of Honorary Wing Commander in 1925 in the service of the Reserve of Air Force Officers.1He wrote the book Daphne Adeane, published 1926. He wrote the book Last Days at Tsarskoe Selo, published 1926, translator. He wrote the book Tinker's Leave, published 1927.1 He wrote the book Algae, published 1928. He wrote the book Comfortless Memory, published 1928. He wrote the book The Boat Without Seam, published 1929. He wrote the book Fantastic, published 1929, translator. He wrote the book Robert Peckham, published 1930. He was invested as a Fellow, Royal Society of Literature (F.R.S.L.). He wrote the book In the End is my Beginning, published 1931. He wrote the book Friday's Business, published 1932. He wrote the book Lost Lectures, published 1932. He wrote the book Sarah Bernhardt, published 1933. He wrote the book The Lonely Lady of Dulwich, published 1934. He wrote the book Darby and Joan, published 1935. He wrote the book Unreliable History, published 1935.1He was decorated with the award of Officer, Legion of Honour in 1935. He wrote the book Have you anything to declare?, published 1936. He wrote the book Russian Lyrics, published 1942."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58765990304298606422011-04-07T09:38:57.687-07:002011-04-07T09:38:57.687-07:00I suppose if anyone should dare write about such m...I suppose if anyone should dare write about such matters, they had better be in Burke's Peerage.<br /><br /> "Major Hon. Maurice Baring was born on 27 April 1874. He was the son of Edward Charles Baring, 1st Baron Revelstoke of Membland and Louisa Emily Charlotte Bulteel. He died on 16 December 1945 at age 71, unmarried.<br /> "Major Hon. Maurice Baring was educated at Eton College, Eton, Berkshire, England. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. He was in the Diplomatic Service between 1897 and 1904. He wrote the book Hildesheim and Quatre Pastices, published 1899. He wrote the book The Black Prince, published 1902. He wrote the book Gaston de Foix, published 1903. He was a foreign correspondent for the Morning Post, reporting from Manchuria, Russia and Constantinople between 1904 and 1909. He wrote the book Mahasena, published 1905. He wrote the book With the Russians in Manchuria, published 1905. He wrote the book Desiderio, published 1906. He wrote the book Thoughts on Art and Leonardo da Vinci, published 1906, translator. He wrote the book Sonnets and Short Poems, published 1906.He wrote the book A Year in Russia, published 1907. He wrote the book Prosperpine, published 1908. He wrote the book Russian Essays and Stories, published 1909.He wrote the book The Story of Forget Me Not and Lily of the Valley, published 1909. He wrote the book Orpheus in Mayfair, published 1909.He wrote the book Landmarks in Russian Literature, published 1910.He wrote the book Diminutive Dramas, published 1910. He wrote the book The Grey Stocking and Other Plays, published 1911. He wrote the book Collected Poems, published 1911. He wrote the book The Russian People, published 1911."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-25449211936391372522011-04-07T09:32:38.895-07:002011-04-07T09:32:38.895-07:00Michael,
For some years now I have been reading M...Michael,<br /><br />For some years now I have been reading Malory as comedy. After all, what else would one write in prison. I once tried (well, embarrassingly enough, actually went so far as to write) a mock-Arthurian tale set in the American backwoods, with a a wandering-eyed hillbilly named Big Jesus as my Lancelot. But of course it came out not one-tenth as funny as Malory.<br /><br />Artur, the Norwich spoof of the Twelve Days of Christmas, very much in the Baring vein, induced laughs-out-loud:<br /><br />4th January<br /><br />This is the last straw. You know I detest bagpipes. <br /><br />The place has now become something between a menagerie and a<br />madhouse...<br /><br /><br />We did get a great rise out of the the Baring. The brightness and rightness of the undercutting humour some twenty years or more before Waugh or Mitford.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-55602742907275012562011-04-07T09:05:24.531-07:002011-04-07T09:05:24.531-07:00Oh that's funny! I didn't know about it be...Oh that's funny! I didn't know about it before. <br />Makes me want to give up my life and spend the next month reading Chretien Maleorre Tennyson T.H.White Gottfried Wolfram AndrewLang Layamon Wace Geoffrey of Monmouth the Mabinogion Gawain-poet and all the anonymous arthurians, the more obscure the better...Michael Peveretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17090710369630916194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-40900468273917057692011-04-07T09:01:36.271-07:002011-04-07T09:01:36.271-07:00Haha. Though it was written first, this reminds m...Haha. Though it was written first, this reminds me of <a href="http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dsalt/jokes/12days.htm" rel="nofollow">The Twelve Days Of Christmas, A Correspondence</a>, by John Julius Norwich.<br /><br />It's funny to think of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and that nearly a decade later Waterhouse was painting A Tale from the Decameron. After having attended our art history classes in Modernism it's easy to overlook things like that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com