The painting combines elements of still life, portraiture and landscape with a strong diagonal divide provided by the railing, which is still evident in the present day view, below.
To Discover Ice
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
View my previous blog here: http://bazzablog-uk.blogspot.com
I reply to all comments except spam, no matter how old!
Please ignore any email address displayed here! My email is shamp123 AT sky.com

Tuesday, 5 January 2021
Painting of the Month (96) Jan 2021: Renoir
The painting combines elements of still life, portraiture and landscape with a strong diagonal divide provided by the railing, which is still evident in the present day view, below.
Thursday, 17 December 2020
My Sad Captains by Thom Gunn
My Sad Captains
By Thom Gunn, English, 1929 - 2004
One by one they appear in
the darkness: a few friends, and
a few with historical
names. How late they start to shine!
but before they fade they stand
perfectly embodied, all
the past
lapping them like a
cloak of chaos. They were men
who, I thought, lived only to
renew the wasteful force they
spent with each hot convulsion.
They remind me, distant now.
True, they
are not at rest yet,
but now that they are indeed
apart, winnowed from failures,
they withdraw to an orbit
and turn with disinterested
hard energy, like the stars.
Source: Collected Poems (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1994)
“Let’s have one other
gaudy night. Call to me
All my sad captains.
Fill our bowls once more.
Let’s mock the
midnight bell.”
But why captains? Captains could be those who steer us to our
destinations as the leader of the ship. It might also be referring to these
people as having once been seen as role models. There is some evidence that
Gunn had in mind those such as Elvis Presley, Marlon Brando, James Dean, Caravaggio
and even Napoleon Bonaparte. Quite a mix! He was an admirer of Jean-Paul Sartre
which chimes in with the existentialist attitude in this poem.
I'm listening to the original version of Walk Away Renée as written and recorded by The Left Banke in 1966! Listen here.
Wednesday, 2 December 2020
2020: My Year on Spotify
I have been using the Music App Spotify for about 12 years, even before it was generally available to the public, (through a friend in the music industry). They have just sent me a list of the 100 songs that I played most in the last 12 months.
At number TEN is Thirteen by Big Star. Very underrated group featuring Chris Bell. Listen here.
NINE is The Kiss by Judee Sill, Listen here. Fabulous, tragic, artist. Blog post coming.
EIGHT is A Man of Constant Sorrow by Sharon Shannon with Jackson Browne. Listen here. She invited guests on her Galway Girl album.
SEVEN is And Your Bird Can Sing by The Beatles. Listen here.
SIX is It's All Over Now Baby Blue by Bob Dylan. Listen here.
FIVE is City Girls by J J Cale. Listen here. Passed away in 2013.
FOUR is Stormy Weather by Etta James. Listen here. Even beats Ella!
THREE is Memphis by Faces. Listen here.
TWO is You Ain't Going Nowhere by Bob Dylan. Listen here.
And at NUMBER ONE is Roll on Babe by Ronnie Lane. Listen here.
I have dozens of favourite songs and this list isn't necessarily the top ten just those I have played the most. My next post will be a selection from the remaining 90 tunes!
Friday, 27 November 2020
Painting of the Month (95) November 2020: Cave Painting
CAVE ART, generally meaning the paintings and engravings found in caves and shelters dating back to the Ice Age, roughly between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, is generally considered to have a symbolic or religious function, sometimes both. The exact meanings of the images remain unknown, but some experts think they may have been created within the framework of shamanic beliefs and practices. A shaman would have been someone believed to have access to good and evil spirits.
Most cave art consists of paintings made with either red or black pigment made from iron oxide, manganese oxide and charcoal and about 400 are known of in several European countries and also in Indonesia. The majority of the paintings (and some sculptures) depict mostly animals and a few
Recent studies have been made of the numerous geometric signs, though the specific types vary based on the time period in which the cave was painted and the cave’s location. A remarkable realisation was that a range of 32 different signs repeated themselves over and over across the entire European continent over a period of thirty thousand years! That means that the symbols must have been meaningful to the people who were using them because of the replication. It has also been hypothesised that this use of symbols led to the creation of written languages.
These
discoveries have overturned the conventional timeline of humans and art pushing
back the ‘first art’ to pre-human times in Europe and suggesting there may have
been a continuation that came ‘out of Africa’!
I'm listening to Van Morrison's Into the Mystic. It's a truly magical song and an ever-lasting joy! Listen here.
"It's too late to stop now..."
Wednesday, 18 November 2020
Albert Shamplin Centenary
I have a box of old photo's in which there is a letter to Dad from a lady in Belgium. I'm surprised that the letter has not spontaneously combusted! Hot....
My sister and I are convinced we have an older sibling in Belgium.
He was a very good ballroom dancer and especially liked the Latin-American stuff. I'm listening to Perry Como singing Papa Loves Mambo, one of his favourites. Listen here!
Thursday, 8 October 2020
Painting of the Month (94) October 2020: Lionel Smit
I don’t think I’ve included any African artists in this
series before now. I don’t have a title or much information for this painting
but I think there is a deep psychological element to it. The subject has
incredibly sad eyes and there is hurt and pain behind them. I do know that the
artist quotes Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol and Lucian Freud as his favourites. I
think the use of impasto (heavy layering of paint with palette knife or brush)
can be seen here and that’s evident in the work Francis Bacon and particularly
Lucian Freud. You can clearly see the brush-marks the artist has made and that’s
something I like in this kind of picture. Compare it, for example, with work of
the Dutch masters where brush marks are never visible.
I found a quote about this painter and sculptor: “Each of
Lionel Smit’s works offers us an entry point into the variety and
richness that lies beneath every face we encounter, whether in life, in bronze
or in paint”. I have shown some more of his work below.
Sunday, 13 September 2020
Come From Away
My daughter and future son-in-law were on a plane approaching New York at the time. Their aircraft was turned around and sent back to Heathrow, London. If they had been ten minutes earlier, they too would have been diverted to Gander, who did a miraculous job of hosting their unexpected guests.
Leah and I were lucky enough to be at the final preview when
the show opened in London in February 2019. To our surprise we discovered that
two of the main real-life characters who were being portrayed on stage were
sitting next to us. And they pointed out that we were actually surrounded by most of
the real-life characters and the creator and original producer were sitting
behind us!
Tuesday, 8 September 2020
Painting of the Month (93) September 2020: August Macke
August Macke (1887 – 1914) was one of the leading members of the German Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). He lived during a particularly innovative time for German art which saw the development of the main German Expressionist movements as well as the arrival of the successive avant-garde movements which were forming in the rest of Europe.
August Macke was inspired by the leisure
activities of his fellow citizens, and captured shopping trips on numerous
occasions. This painting from 1914 features the standard style used throughout
his career - relatively small use of detail, concentrating more on bright and
bold colour. This expressionist approach was relatively new during the early
20th century but is now a well-accepted thoroughbred of art history. Most of his
paintings of shoppers capture them looking through the windows of stores,
rather than actually inside. They would always be well dressed, presumably wealthy.
Leisure time was something that not everyone could enjoy at that time. The
Victorian age marked major changes across European society and artists like
this provide a window into that time. In truth, most of Macke’s success was due
to the bright, expressionist style of his work, rather than the content
included. Sadly, this was to be one of the artist's final artworks, with his life soon
being lost in the First World War. It was later seized at around the time of WW2
because of the artist's relatively modern style which did not find favour with
the Third Reich. Here are some other paintings he made:
Wednesday, 26 August 2020
Some more laughs!
Here are some more of the laughs I have published on my Facebook page:
Listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-wekAq-s34
Thursday, 20 August 2020
Julian Bream 1933 - 2020
He
was a very expressive player and this compared with his near contemporary, John
Williams (born Melbourne, Australia 1941) who was, technically the better player
(Segovia had said of Williams that ”God has laid his finger on his brow.”)
However, Bream had a flair and emotional connection
to his music that I don’t think Williams displays. As a 17 year-old student of
the guitar I met John Williams when he gave a concert at the Commonwealth
Institute in London. He approached me in the queue and asked me what time the
concert started. I told him and we chatted for a while. As he walked away, my
friend told me who he was. I had no idea!
Bream retired from performing in 2002. Unlike many of his professional colleagues,
he had a wide range of interests outside of music. He was passionate about
cricket and was a member of the MCC. He was also a formidable table
tennis player. Apart from his interests in gardening and his famously well-stocked
wine cellar, the visual arts were a constant stimulation – he had a fine
collection of late 19th- and early 20th-century English and Scottish paintings
– and he was a well-informed collector of English period furniture. The
companionship of his dogs became increasingly important to him, particularly
after a heart attack on Christmas Eve 1998, when his doctors recommended a
routine of regular exercise. Thereafter he became a familiar sight on the North
Dorset Downs, striding along with his beautiful flat-coated retrievers at heel.
Listen to Julian Bream playing Cadiz (from the Iberia Suite by Albeniz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L0sdZ3TbJ8.
Go on, treat yourself!
Wednesday, 29 July 2020
Song by Ben Jonson
The first half of the poem is a witty series of
variations on the lover’s pledge. Traditionally, a lover would toast his or her
love and drink a glass of wine; here, the poet asks only for a pledge from
Celia’s eyes—a loving look—that he promises to return in kind. He
says that if she leaves a kiss in the cup, he will have no need for the wine
but we can’t be sure how much Celia
likes the speaker. The thirst that he mentions in line five is not literal
but for love.
There is a marked contrast between
the first and second stanza. In the first one the poet is making light-hearted
and witty remarks to the lady he admires but the second one becomes more
serious. The rejected wreath he has sent
is something more concrete.
I'm listening to Landslide by the Dixie Chicks. I think it's better than the Fleetwood Mac original version. Have a listen here!
Wednesday, 15 July 2020
REPOST from January 2014: The Raft of the Medusa. Géricault
![]() |
The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault 1791-1824 Completed 1819, oil on canvas. 16 x 23ft. (it's big!) |
You can just about see the ship on the horizon in this detail.
I'm listening to the adagio from Khatchaturian's Spartacus played by the London Symphony Orchestra also known as the Theme from The Onedin Line. Listen here.
|
Tuesday, 23 June 2020
The Secret Sits by Robert Frost
Robert Frost |