tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post9121022909250717747..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Abel Evans: On Sir John Vanbrugh (The Architect)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-34002676554362767922012-09-30T14:46:21.263-07:002012-09-30T14:46:21.263-07:00I like seeing what the Brits have done restoring t...I like seeing what the Brits have done restoring the old henge, here. Lots of extras.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-81292963509761416152012-09-30T14:44:34.335-07:002012-09-30T14:44:34.335-07:00Yes, I see the perfect place for a murder. It hap...Yes, I see the perfect place for a murder. It happened in the potato patch. The crime was hunger. The victim turned out to be Peru, yet again, and only recently mentioned in the papers.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-85046700759950962652012-09-30T13:21:59.695-07:002012-09-30T13:21:59.695-07:00Peel
We prayed for an elixir. It arrived
about t...Peel<br /><br />We prayed for an elixir. It arrived<br />about the size of a knuckle,<br />then a hand. Hearty tuber.<br />Digging for it, I found gold,<br />under that float field.<br />It divided us up<br />into rich and poor.<br />We wanted more<br /><br />waiting in the deep<br />dank earth<br />sparkling with little eyes<br />sending up shoots<br />spies, purple flowers<br /> purple stars.<br />They can rent the dirt<br />tell them<br />how to eat it.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-5015700672666702742012-09-30T05:57:19.404-07:002012-09-30T05:57:19.404-07:00Atlas Shrugged?Atlas Shrugged?vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36405828654655202972012-09-30T04:39:11.220-07:002012-09-30T04:39:11.220-07:00Ha!
I love the conception of cosmic justice hinte...Ha!<br /><br />I love the conception of cosmic justice hinted at in this bluntly disrespectful epigrammatical epitaph -- the roughness of the epitaph only partially excused by the harshness of the genre. The heavier one weighs upon the earth, the heavier it will weigh upon one. Just imagine that formula being applied to the powerhouse businessmen, politicos, entrepreneurs -- not to mention the academic racketeers of "the arts" -- of the present era.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-91115512369482554192012-09-30T03:21:06.105-07:002012-09-30T03:21:06.105-07:00If Sir John had been a Greek buried on Greek soil,...If Sir John had been a Greek buried on Greek soil, the mourners at the cemetery would have been heard to say "Let the earth that covers him be light."vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67717912263474020072012-09-29T14:19:20.811-07:002012-09-29T14:19:20.811-07:00Michael, Blogger, which has a mind (?) of its own,...Michael, Blogger, which has a mind (?) of its own, had consigned your good comment to spam... but I have now retrieved it, and am grateful to have some balance in the view.<br /><br />Andrew Sanders calls Vanbrugh "a flamboyantly inventive architect... His buildings are brilliant, balanced, whimsical and weighty."<br /><br />The historical dialectic of aesthetic taste stumbling along in the dark as it does, one period's airiness is another's gravity, which in turn... and so on.<br /><br />As to the plays, I remember them as robust, funny, with comic figures (Sir Tunbelly and his daughter) that seem to have vaulted into the age of Congreve straight out of the age of Elizabeth.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2897108957881946642012-09-29T13:56:17.591-07:002012-09-29T13:56:17.591-07:00Horace Walpole was unimpressed by Blenheim Palace,...Horace Walpole was unimpressed by Blenheim Palace, describing it in a letter to George Montagu of 20 May 1736 as "'execrable within, without & almost all round... a quarry of stone that looked at a distance like a great house."<br /><br />Voltaire, who inspected Blenheim in the Fall of 1727, thought it '"a great mass of stone with neither charm nor taste" and suggested ironically that if the apartments "were but as spacious as the walls thick, the house would be commodious enough."<br /><br />Jacob Friedrich, Baron Bielfeld, a German visitor to Blenheim, reported his reactions in a letter on 10 March 1740: "This building (Blenheim) has been severely censured, and I agree that it is not entirely exempt from rational censure as it is too much loaded with columns and other heavy ornaments. But if we consider that Sir John Vanbrugh was to construct a building of endless duration, that no bounds were set to expense, and that an edifice was required that should strike with awe and surprise even at a distance; the architect may be excused for having sacrificed, in some degree, the elegance of design to multiplicity of ornament."<br /><br />The nineteenth-century English architect Sir Robert Smirke, a proponent of the Greek Revival style that opposed itself to Vanbrugh's heavyweight version of English baroque, expressed a certain professional consensus: "Heaviness was the lightest of (Vanbrugh's) faults... The Italian style...which he contrived to caricature...is apparent in all his works; he helped himself liberally to its vices, contributed many of his own, and by an unfortunate misfortune adding impurity to that which was already greatly impure, left it disgusting and often odious."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-40143298614487987282012-09-29T13:30:36.317-07:002012-09-29T13:30:36.317-07:00Americans view this
as a great place
to play fris...Americans view this<br />as a great place <br />to play frisbee<br />or toss the sac<br />beside the old<br />potato fields<br />too close <br />for comfort<br />crazy for spices, crazy<br />like crazy monkeys<br />chained to the sill<br />with no chance of escape<br />back to the ship<br />unnoticed; never again<br />held harmless; marooned<br />taking the place of peasants.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-66851022643852084132012-09-29T13:25:57.711-07:002012-09-29T13:25:57.711-07:00My favourite architect! and he wrote terrific play...My favourite architect! and he wrote terrific plays too. There is also Kingsweston House in Clifton...Michael Peveretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17090710369630916194noreply@blogger.com