Two Paintings and what I think of them




Madonna con Bambino Benedicente
or, Madonna del Pollice
by Giovanni Bellini in 1460-1464

This is my favourite picture in the world. Available to view at the Accademia Gallery in Venice. Top quality workmanship with delightful Infant Jesus and engaging air of pensive melancholy shown by Mary. Highly conducive to holy contemplation.

 

 

And here is one by D Hockney called Mr and Mrs Clark and their cat Percy (painted in 1970-1971; now at Tate Britain Gallery). The cat wasn't even called Percy - its name was Blanche though speaking as one whose cat is called Blackie I can't really complain about a white cat called Blanche. However, the name Percy is the best thing about this painting in my opinion. I nearly called our son Percy but decided he might never forgive me so there was a fontside rethink. Now he is 15 and he regularly berates me for not calling him Percy as he would have liked it. He is lucky not to be still called G-AHLK actually so he should count his blessings. 

 

 

Here is what I object to about this painting:

1) General style. It is like one of the illustrations they used to have in Ladybird books - perfectly adequate in its way, but hardly great art. In fact the colours are rather less subtle than one would hope to find in a Ladybird book. The treatment is crude and undetailed.

See what I mean? Far better.

 

2) Composition. Vastly improved if a live figure stands in front of the painting. 
I can not understand why the telephone or the yellow book have been included. They are not things of beauty and their significance escapes me.

  

 

 

 

3) Figures: Has Mr Clark a club foot? It appears so. (His left foot). [One presumes his right foot looks peculiar because half of it is buried in the decadent thick carpet. It could be a homage to the fact that Bellini's Jesus' right foot seems only to have 4 toes, but I doubt it.] Also he might have had the good manners to sit up straight for the portrait.  It is unconventional anyway for a gentleman to be sitting down if there are ladies present who have not got a seat and this is a possible explanation for the peevish mood in which Mrs Clark is here depicted. Alternatively she may be looking cross because even though Mr Clark is a fashion designer (I looked it up) they have put her in an old sack for the occasion.

4) Other annoying things: Why is the telephone on the floor? What is that weird thing beside it? Why aren't either of these plugged in? The shadow under the chair does not look right. That picture hanging on the wall on the left is (I looked this up too) an etching by D Hockney so one can only admire the nerve of the artist in displaying such self-aggrandisement. The lilies are OK but I must point out that in real life people do not advisedly use narrow vases with high centres of gravity on low tables. That will certainly be knocked over when the cat gets off the bloke's knee.

 

Verdict: I'll have the Bellini. Julia can have the Percy one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cows 'are not Julia' says Expert

Cowkind - already reeling from
i) gross and widespread misrepresentation by hideous fibreglass effigies, and
ii) recent publication of a newly-discovered poem written by T S Eliot, sample lines of which include "Of all the beasts that God allows... I most of all dislike the cows,"  -

has this week suffered a further blow as members of the cow community were subjected to a horrifying serenade by a silly human dressed in what he imagined was a cow suit. The cow suit was actually an unconvincing costume incorporating a most indelicate udder which was embarrassing for everyone present. The event was being done as a publicity stunt to advertise a musical entertainment taking place in London. Needless to say, the cows failed to buy a single ticket. They just stared, bewildered, as one of their human masters behaved like an absolute imbecile. 

 

 

 

One can only hope that the poor creatures, pictured, later took matters into their own hands and stampeded, trampling the guitar-and-pretend-cow act to the ground.
 

It's time for Society to pause and take stock. When even the cows look aghast at our activities, we have surely gone too far. We owe it to the dumb animals who are at our mercy, to conduct ourselves with a modicum of dignity. Otherwise they feel terribly insecure, wondering what idiotic thing we might do next.

A bovine spokesperson and cow expert said yesterday, "Cows aren't Julia. They should not have to undergo this sort of distress."

 

Philip Larkin - A Psychiatric Appraisal

Patient Name: Larkin, Philip

DoB: 09/08/1922

Symptoms: Has written poem, Aubade, see below with doctor's responses and recommendations.

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.     I suggest patient should drink rather more; it will help him sleep better.

Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.     Lucky him - AGES till the alarm goes off.

In time the curtain-edges will grow light.     Dawn! Don't knock it, friend. A lovely time of day.

Till then I see what's really always there:

Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,     Oh come now old chap. Lighten up!

Making all thought impossible but how     All thought? really? What about "UGH NO - Monday again"?  

And where and when I shall myself die.     Don't dwell on it so. It does no-one any good.

Arid interrogation: yet the dread

Of dying, and being dead,

Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.     Golly. He must have been VERY BAD.

The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse     Perhaps if he did express a little remorse he might feel less doomed.

- The good not done, the love not given, time

Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because

An only life can take so long to climb

Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;

But at the total emptiness for ever,

The sure extinction that we travel to     You're jumping to conclusions here. The Pope of Rome (God bless him) disagrees with you.

And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,     I'm not sure many of us are going to mind terribly much if you aren't here, you old misery.

Not to be anywhere,

And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid

No trick dispels. Religion used to try,     Yes it still does, and succeeds quite well in many cases.

That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade

Created to pretend we never die,     "Pretend"? Dear me you are going to find the doorkeepers at the Gates of Pearl don't take kindly to that sort of talk.

And specious stuff that says No rational being

Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing

That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,

No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,     Well I do think you are worrying unnecessarily here. If there aint nothing there it aint nasty is it?

Nothing to love or link with,

The anaesthetic from which none come round.    Nice. Sleep after toil doth greatly please and death after life likewise. 

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,

A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill

That slows each impulse down to indecision.     Come on, man. Get a grip.

Most things may never happen: this one will,     That's the first thing he's said which I can't argue with.

And realisation of it rages out

In furnace-fear when we are caught without     Steady now! Calm down.

People or drink. Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave 

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.     Death may be no different, but you'd find life more agreeable if you would just RELAX about it a bit. Ignore it, do. Stop paying it so much attention.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.    OK; that's true.

It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,

Have always known, know that we can't escape,

Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.     Eh? He'd feel a lot more composed if he would accept it, as everyone else does and gets on with living.

Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring

In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring

Intricate rented world begins to rouse.     Yes well I admit that is a bit grim.

The sky is white as clay, with no sun.

Work has to be done.    Yes, in fact, very grim, specially if it's Monday.

Postmen like doctors go from house to house.     "like doctors" : this simile reveals a preoccupation with matters of illness and mortality.

Conclusions:

This patient is morbidly obsessed with death, and it is making him miserable. It interferes with his ability to engage socially in a normal way and is affecting all areas of his life. 

Diagnosis: possibly Thanatophobia, but probably merely Existential Death Anxiety which the patient has failed to address by the normal mechanisms i.e. denial, religious faith, or blindly ignoring it.

Patient needs to be encouraged to think about other things and other people. Keep the fellow busy, and tire him out physically. He might benefit from reading Friends Beyond by Thomas Hardy who, despite being another old misery himself, here presented a more cheerful view, with the dead obedient to their fate and perhaps even grateful for some of Death's peculiar mercies.

Suggested treatment: 

?Confirmation Classes. I can refer him to Fr O'Hanrahan.

Dose of Voluntary Work.

Spell in the army (a tough regiment would be best).




A sensible well-adjusted person, unlike P Larkin, enjoying a pleasant chat with the Reaper.