Οι συνέταιροι Trevor Gulliver και Fergus Henderson


Καθώς γράφω αυτές τις γραμμές, το νέο εστιατόριο των συνεταίρων, St John Marylebone έχει ανοίξει τις πόρτες του στο κοινό του Λονδίνου. Η κριτική του Tim Hayward στην εφημερίδα Financial Times, που δημοσιεύτηκε την 12η Ιανουαρίου 2023, είναι διθυραμβική. Οι δε τιμές απολύτως προσιτές, για ένα εστιατόριο αυτού του επιπέδου. Ορεκτικά από 5 λίρες, κύρια πιάτα από 7 έως 21 λίρες, και επιδόρπια από 9 έως 11 λίρες (την 13η Ιανουαρίου 2023, 1 λίρα αγόραζε 1.1285 ευρώ).


Ας πάρουμε όμως την ιστορία από την αρχή, από εκεί που ξεκίνησε, το εστιατόριο St John, στο Smithfield του ανατολικού Λονδίνου. Το εστιατόριο άνοιξε τις πόρτες του στο κοινό για πρώτη φορά τον Οκτώβριο 1994. Είχε συνεταίρους τον Trevor Gulliver και τον Fergus Henderson . Η κρεαταγορά του Smithfield που είναι κοντά στο εστιατόριο είχε αρχίσει να παρακμάζει και δεν υπήρχε κίνηση στην περιοχή. Το να ανοίξεις ένα εστιατόριο στην περιοχή το 1994 ήταν ένα μεγάλο στοίχημα. Το κτήριο το βρήκε ο ένας από τους συνεταίρους, ο Trevor Gulliver. Μέχρι το 1967 φιλοξενούσε μια βιοτεχνία που κάπνιζε ζαμπόν και μπέικον. Μετά για κάποιο διάστημα είχε εκεί τα γραφεία το περιοδικό Marxism Today. Σήμερα εκτός από το εστιατόριο, στο ίδιο κτήριο βρίσκεται και ο φούρνος που ψήνει το ψωμί για το εστιατόριο αλλά πουλάει κιόλα, και ένα μπαρ με πρόχειρο φαγητό.
Ο πατέρας του άλλου συνεταίρου, του Fergus Henderson ήταν αρχιτέκτονας. Ο υιός Fergus φοίτησε στην αρχιτεκτονική, είχε όμως ήδη αποφασίσει ότι θα γίνει σεφ. Όταν ανακοίνωσε την απόφαση του στον πατέρα του, εκείνος του απάντησε: ‘Εντάξει, να γίνεις σεφ. Αλλά να γίνεις ένας καλός σεφ.’ Οι καταβολές της μαγειρικής και της απόλαυσης του καλού φαγητού ανάγονται στις παιδικές του διακοπές στη Γαλλία, όπου κάθε πρωινό η οικογένεια άνοιγε τον οδηγό εστιατορίων Michelin και ρώταγε τις δύο σημαντικές ερωτήσεις της ημέρας: «που θα φάμε το μεσημέρι;» και «που θα φάμε το βράδι;».

St John Restaurant

Όταν άνοιξαν το εστιατόριο St John, οι δύο συνεταίροι κατηγορήθηκαν ότι ήτανε 200 χρόνια εκτός εποχής, κάτι που και οι δύο θεώρησαν ως έπαινο. Η τραπεζαρία στήθηκε στο χώρο συσκευασίας της παλιάς βιοτεχνίας, ενώ στην καμινάδα φτιάχτηκε ένας φούρνος που κάθε πρωί φουρνίζει φρέσκο ψωμί. Σε όλο το συγκρότημα κυριαρχεί το άσπρο των τοίχων και το ξύλο στα πατώματα. Η έλλειψη οποιουδήποτε διακοσμητικού στοιχείου προσδίδει στο χώρο μια αυστηρότητα και λιτότητα, και βοηθά τον επισκέπτη να εστιάσει την προσοχή του στο φαγητό, που είναι ο μοναδικός λόγος της επίσκεψης του. Δεν πας εκεί για να σε δούνε, ούτε για να δεις, αλλά απλά για να απολαύσεις ένα καλό γεύμα. Δεν ακούγεται μουσική στο υπόβαθρο, και δεν υπάρχουν λουλούδια στα τραπέζια.
Από την αρχή στην κουζίνα έκανε κουμάντο ο Henderson. Τον βοηθούσε η γυναίκα του Margot, που αργότερα άνοιξε δικό της εστιατόριο. Στη μέση της κουζίνας, που είναι σχετικά μικρή, υπάρχει ο πάγκος του χασάπη. Εκεί τεμαχίζονται τα σφάγια που παραδίδονται στο εστιατόριο ολόκληρα. Η κουζίνα είναι ένα μεγάλο σχολείο για όλους. Ένα ήσυχο σχολείο, σε αντίθεση με τα όσα φαίνεται να κάνουν άλλοι σεφ στα εστιατόρια τους, που ακούγονται φωνές και βρισιές. Ο Tom Pemberton, που θήτευσε κοντά στον Henderson, είναι σήμερα ο ιδιοκτήτης και σεφ στο εξαιρετικό εστιατόριο μπιστρό Hereford Road που παρουσιάζω σε χωριστό εδάφιο.
Ο Henderson ζητά από τους σερβιτόρους να απασχολούνται για τακτικά διαστήματα στην κουζίνα, για να καταλαβαίνουν τα υλικά, την προετοιμασία τους, και τις παρασκευές. Εκτός από τα πιάτα με κρέας, το εστιατόριο σερβίρει και πιάτα με ολόφρεσκα λαχανικά. Το 1999 ο Henderson διαγνώστηκε ότι είχε τη νόσο Parkinson, οπότε αναγκάστηκε να αποχωρήσει από την κουζίνα.
Η παρουσίαση των πιάτων είναι απλούστατη, χωρίς γαρνιτούρες και άλλα πρόσθετα. Η κάβα του εστιατορίου προσφέρει στους πελάτες καλά κρασιά από τη Γαλλία, σε λογικές τιμές. Δεν υπάρχει προκαθορισμένο μενού πιάτων, ο πελάτης παραγγέλλει μόνο α λα καρτ. Ο Gulliver θεωρεί ότι το εστιατόριο πρέπει να είναι «ένας παλιός φίλος», και κάθε τι σε αυτό πρέπει να έχει νόημα. «Δεν θα σερβίρουμε ποτέ σολωμό ή χτένια, δεν έχουν κάτι το ξεχωριστό», συνηθίζει να λέει. Ο κατάλογος αλλάζει δύο φορές την ημέρα. Κάτι λογικό και αναγκαίο σε ένα εστιατόριο που δίνει υπέρτατη σημασία στην ποιότητα και την φρεσκάδα των υλικών. Ο Henderson ισχυρίζεται ότι τον κατάλογο τον συνθέτει η φύση. Αυτός απλά ακολουθεί.

Roast Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad


Ο Gulliver δίνει μεγάλη σημασία στην επαγγελματική ανάπτυξη του προσωπικού, που είναι συναρτημένη με την ανάπτυξη δεξιοτήτων. Σε ένα τέτοιο εργασιακό περιβάλλον, το προσωπικό είναι ικανοποιημένο, και αυτό περνάει στο φαγητό. Αντίστοιχη είναι η σημασία που δίνουν οι δύο συνέταιροι στους προμηθευτές τους. Ο ικανοποιημένος προμηθευτής προμηθεύει τα καλύτερα προϊόντα. Αυτή η αλυσίδα οδηγεί στον ικανοποιημένο πελάτη. Που μπαίνοντας στο εστιατόριο χαμογελάει, και αντικρύζει το χαμόγελο εκείνων που τον υποδέχονται.
Το εστιατόριο έχει ένα αστέρι Michelin (2022) που σημαίνει ότι το εστιατόριο προσφέρει φαγητό υψηλής ποιότητας και αξίζει να το επισκεφθείς. Ο οδηγός Michelin χαρακτηρίζει την κουζίνα «παραδοσιακή βρετανική».
Έφθασα νωρίς ένα ηλιόλουστο μεσημέρι τον Οκτώβριο 2012. Στην αρχή του μεσημεριανού σερβιρίσματος. Πάντα εφαρμόζω αυτήν την πρακτική, ώστε οι μάγειρες να είναι ξεκούραστοι. Ο ξεκούραστος μάγειρας είναι καλύτερος από τον κουρασμένο, και αυτό φαίνεται και στο πιάτο. Η τραπεζαρία γέμισε γρήγορα. Η αίσθηση που αποκόμισα μόλις μπήκα ήταν ότι το εστιατόριο αυτό έχει μια συγκεκριμένη αποστολή και όλα επικεντρώνονται σε αυτήν.

Roast Bone Marrow & Parsley Salad
Το πρώτο πιάτο που παρήγγειλα ήταν ‘Μεδούλι ψητό στο φούρνο με σαλάτα μαϊντανού’. Το είχα δει σε μια τηλεοπτική εκπομπή του Αμερικανού μάγειρα και τηλεοπτικού παρουσιαστή Anthony Bourdain, που το είχε περιλάβει στο μενού του τελευταίου του γεύματος και περίμενα πως και πως να το γευθώ. Η ζελατινοειδής ουσία περιέχεται στην κοιλότητα των οστών που έχουν ψηθεί στο φούρνο και κοπεί εγκάρσια σε ροδέλες μήκους 3 περίπου εκατοστών για να μπορούν να σερβιριστούν. Αφαίρεσα με το μαχαίρι το μεδούλι από το κόκκαλο και το άπλωσα στο φρυγανισμένο σκούρο ψωμί που συνόδευε το πιάτο. Πρόσθεσα πάνω από το μεδούλι λίγο από τη ‘σαλάτα μαϊντανού’ που ήρθε με το μεδούλι και λίγο χοντρό αλάτι. Το γευστικό μπουκέτο είναι πληθωρικό. Η βουτυρώδης υφή του μεδουλιού δένει με τα όξινα της σαλάτας μαϊντανού το αλάτι και το ψωμί σε μια μπουκιά που θωπεύει και σκανδαλίζει ταυτόχρονα.


Chitterlings
Το δεύτερο πιάτο που γεύτηκα ανήκει στην βρετανική παράδοση της κουζίνας των φτωχών. Σιγομαγειρεμένα έντερα χοίρου με ραπανάκια και λαχανίδα. Οι Γάλλοι με το ίδιο συστατικό από τον χοίρο φτιάχνουν την Andouillette. Τα είχαν εμβαπτίσει σε ξύδι για κάποιο διάστημα, είχε παραμείνει μια ξυδάτη επίγευση, και τα είχαν μαγειρέψει σε σιγανή φωτιά σε κατσαρόλα. Σκληροπυρηνικό και ατίθασο πιάτο, με άφησε με ανάμικτα συναισθήματα. Θα ήθελα να έχει και κάτι άλλο να συνοδέψει τα έντερα, να απαλύνει κάπως την έντονη τραχύτητα που τα διέκρινε. Τα ραπανάκια και η λαχανίδα θα συνοδεύονται ιδανικά παό ένα καλοβουτυρωμένο πουρέ. Αναπόφευκτη είναι η σύγκριση με την Andouillette, που έιναι βελουδένια σε σύγκριση με το πιάτο του Λονδίνου.

St. John Hotel Restaurant, London


Συνεχίζω με ένα εστιατόριο που δεν υπάρχει πιά. Το εστιατόριο St John στο ομώνυμο ξενοδοχείο που επίσης δεν υπάρχει πια, στην πλατεία Leicester Square, στο κέντρο του Λονδίνου.
Σε αυτό εκλιπόν εστιατόριο απόλαυσα δύο από τα καλύτερα γεύματα που θυμάμαι. Το επισκέφθηκα δύο φορές, και τις δύο περασμένες 2 το μεσημέρι. Πριν περάσω στις γαστρονομικές αναμνήσεις, θέλω να αναφερθώ σε ορισμένα επιχειρηματικά στοιχεία.


Το εστιατόριο ήταν στο ισόγειο του μικρού ξενοδοχείου St John Hotel, που άνοιξαν οι Trevor Gulliver και Fergus Henderson (εταιρεία St John Chinatown Ltd ) στην πλατεία Leicester Square στο κέντρο του Λονδίνου, στο κτίριο που μέχρι το 2006 φιλοξενούσε ένα εστιατόρια για ψάρι, το ‘Manzi’s’, που στην εποχή του ήταν ένα από τα λιγοστά σπουδαία εστιατόρια στο Λονδίνο. Τα σχέδια για το ξενοδοχείο και το εστιατόριο ξεκίνησαν το 2007. Το ξενοδοχείο θα είχε 15 δωμάτια μόνο. Ο εργολάβος διαβεβαίωσε τους ιδιοκτήτες ότι το κτήριο θα είναι έτοιμο να λειτουργήσει το Δεκέμβριο του 2010. Έτσι, η ιδιοκτήτρια εταιρεία St John Chinatown Ltd προχώρησε σε προσλήψεις προσωπικού και δέχτηκε κρατήσεις πελατών για τα Χριστούγεννα 2010. Όμως ο εργολάβος δεν μπόρεσε να ολοκληρώσει τις εργασίες ανακαίνισης του κτιρίου όπως προέβλεπε το πρόγραμμα. Το ξενοδοχείο άνοιξε τον Απρίλιο 2011, αλλά μόνο τα μισά δωμάτια ήταν διαθέσιμα. Το κόστος της ανακαίνισης και της λοιπής επένδυσης ανήλθε σε 5,5 εκατομμύρια λίρες ΗΒ. Από αυτά 2,25 εκατομμύρια λίρες ανήκαν σε διάφορους επενδυτές, φίλους των ιδιοκτητών, ανάμεσα στους οποίους και πολλοί επώνυμοι.
Οι καθυστερήσεις των εργασιών ανακαίνισης οδήγησαν σε ζημία 1,4 εκατομμυρίων λιρών ΗΒ για το 2011. Το εστιατόριο μπορεί να μην είχε εμπορική επιτυχία, όμως οι κριτικοί και οι εστιάτορες και ο οδηγός Michelin το αγάπησαν. Στον πρώτο χρόνο της λειτουργίας του, το εστιατόριο πήρε ένα αστέρι.

Στις 19 Οκτωβρίου 2012 η επιχείρηση πέρασε σε καθεστώς έκτακτης διαχείρισης επειδή δεν είχε την απαιτούμενη ρευστότητα για να ανταπεξέλθει στα δάνεια και τις άλλες οικονομικές της υποχρεώσεις. Το ξενοδοχείο και το εστιατόριο πωλήθηκαν στις αρχές του 2013 σε ένα όμιλο ξενοδοχείων με έδρα την Σιγκαπούρη. Οι ζημίες της εταιρείας St John Chinatown Ltd ανήλθαν σε 2.98 εκατομμύρια λίρες ΗΒ. Ίσως αν άνοιγαν μόνο το εστιατόριο, χωρίς το ξενοδοχείο, η εμπορική πορεία της επιχείρησης να ήταν διαφορετική. Αυτό όμως είναι κάτι που δεν θα το μάθουμε ποτέ. Οι δύο ιδιοκτήτες μαζί με τους επενδυτές ανέλαβαν ένα μεγάλο κίνδυνο, μπαίνοντας σε μια επιχειρηματική δραστηριότητα που δεν γνώριζαν, την φιλοξενία, και στο τέλος πλήρωσαν πολύ ακριβά, χάνοντας τα χρήματα τους.

Ο νέος ιδιοκτήτης στις αρχές του 2013 άλλαξε το όνομα σε ‘One Leicester Square’, κράτησε τον σεφ του εστιατορίου και συνέχισε να σερβίρει παρόμοιο μενού. Το 2015 το εστιατόριο άλλαξε και πάλι χέρια, αυτή τη φορά έγινε γαλλο – βιετναμικό, με όνομα ‘Leicester House’. Οι επαΐοντες αποκαλούν την περιοχή «μαύρη οπή» σε ότι αφορά το καλό φαγητό. Αφήνω λοιπό τα επιχειρηματικά και επιστρέφω στα γαστρονομικά.

Black pudding and eggs

Επισκέφθηκα το εστιατόριο δύο φορές τον Οκτώβριο 2012, λίγες μέρες πριν περάσει σε ειδική διαχείριση. Το εστιατόριο μου άρεσε από την πρώτη στιγμή που πέρασα την πόρτα της εισόδου. Παρά το προχωρημένο του απογεύματος, και σε ώρα που σχεδόν όλα τα καταστήματα εστίασης ήταν κλειστά, το St John Hotel Restaurant ήταν ανοιχτό. Η κουζίνα του έμενε ανοιχτή συνέχεια από το μεσημέρι μέχρι το βράδι. Ορισμένες δε μέρες, παρέμενε ανοιχτό μέχρι τις μικρές ώρες, προσφέροντας καταφύγιο στους ξενύχτες του Λονδίνου.
Και τις δύο φορές που το επισκέφθηκα, υπήρχαν στο εστιατόριο παρέες που είχαν μεν τελειώσει το φαγητό τους, όμως συνέχιζαν ακάθεκτοι με λικέρ, μπράντι, κρασί, καφέδες, και ήταν ολοφάνερο ότι περνούσαν πολύ καλά. Αυτή η αίσθηση της καλοπέρασης είναι μεταδοτική και ιδιαίτερα σημαντική σε ένα εστιατόριο. Και μόνο που τους κοίταζα αποκτούσα θέλοντας και μη αυτή την αίσθηση της ελαφρότητας του είναι, σα να εξαφανίζονται τα προβλήματα και οι έγνοιες, και να περιορίζεσαι στα καλά που θα γευθείς και θα απολαύσεις, χωρίς άλλες σκέψεις.
Το προσωπικό του εστιατορίου ήταν εξαιρετικό. Από την στιγμή που πάτησα το πόδι μου μέσα στην αίθουσα ήταν άψογοι. Σα να υποδέχονταν και περιποιούνταν ένα παλιό καλό φίλο, χωρίς υπερβολές, χωρίς την τυπικότητα και την έλλειψη έκφρασης που χαρακτηρίζει το προσωπικό σε διάφορα εστιατόρια.


Black pudding and eggs
Ενθαρρυμένος από όλα τα θετικά στοιχεία που είχα εντοπίσει, αισθάνθηκα ότι θα μπορούσα να κάνω κάτι που το κάνω συνήθως σε καταστήματα εστίασης που είμαι τακτικός πελάτης. Ζήτησα λοιπόν να μου φέρουν, αν ήταν δυνατόν, μια μερίδα black pudding με δύο αυγά μάτια, παρόλον ότι αυτό δεν περιλαμβανόταν στο μεσημεριανό κατάλογο.
Το μαύρο λουκάνικο (black pudding, black sausage) είναι ένα εκλεκτό έδεσμα που παρασκευάζεται από αίμα χοίρου και τρώγεται φρέσκο, το αργότερο 24 ώρες μετά την παρασκευή του και αποτελούσε στο παρελθόν βασικό στοιχείο του πρωϊνού γεύματος στην Βρετανία και την Ιρλανδία. Είναι ένα έδεσμα που είτε το λατρεύεις, είτε το απεχθάνεσαι. Το κύριο συστατικό του είναι το αίμα ενός σφαγίου, συνήθως χοιρινού, που αναμειγνύεται με πλιγούρι βρώμης ή κριθάρι, κομματάκια λίπους, αλάτι, πιπέρι, ενίοτε κρεμμύδια, και διάφορα μπαχαρικά. Δεν περιέχει κρέας. Τα δημητριακά, το λίπος, και τα μυρωδικά προστίθενται στο αίμα του χοίρου σε ένα μεγάλο σκεύος. Στη Βορειοδυτική Αγγλία ένας παραγωγός μαύρου λουκάνικου χρησιμοποιεί σκόνη από αποξηραμένο αίμα αντί για υγρό αίμα. Τα συστατικά αναδεύονται σε χαμηλή φωτιά, ωσότου να αρχίζει να πήζει το μίγμα. Στη συνέχεια, και αφού το μίγμα κρυώσει εισάγεται σε έντερο. Το τελικό βήμα είναι η εμβάπτιση του λουκάνικου σε κοχλάζον νερό όπου και μαγειρεύεται για λίγα λεπτά.
Σχετικό έδεσμα είναι η γαλλική boudin noir, που την εύρισκα σε κάθε κρεοπωλείο επισκεπτόμουν στην Αλσατία. Μαύρα λουκάνικα παρασκευάζουν και στην Κορέα όταν σφάζουν χοίρους. Παρεμφερές έδεσμα είναι η ισπανική morzilla που ωριμάζει σαν σαλάμι στον αέρα πριν καταναλωθεί.
Όπερ και έπραξαν, προς μεγάλη μου ικανοποίηση και τέρψη. Το πιάτο ήρθε με το μαύρο λουκάνικο κομμένο στη μέση, και δύο αυγά μάτια. Είναι σημαντικό να είναι ρευστός ο κρόκος των αυγών, γιατί η υπέρτατη γευστική εμπειρία επέρχεται από τον συνδυασμό της γλυκιάς κρεμώδους γέμισης του λουκάνικου με το κολλώδες του κρόκου του αυγού.
Γνωρίζοντας ότι το μαγαζί έχει εκλεκτούς προμηθευτές, ήμουνα βέβαιος για την ποιότητα των συστατικών, που καθορίζουν σε υπέρτατο βαθμό το γευστικό αποτέλεσμα.


Εδώ κλείνουν οι γαστρονομικές αναμνήσεις και αρχίζουν οι γαστρονομικές προσδοκίες. Ναι, σωστά το μαντέψατε, είναι η επίσκεψη στο νέο εστιατόριο του Λονδίνου, St John Marylebone.

Bristol upon Avon, UK

Early Saturday morning departure from London’s Paddington; destination: Bristol upon Avon.

Objective: walk around, have lunch with my cousin John, who at the time was a visiting Professor at the University of Bristol, and then return to London.

Going West. Just passed Swindon. One hour to go.

The train was fast. A group of youngsters in their early 20s next to me were talking about their experience doing voluntary work in Somalia. Some were thinking of going back. I liked that. It gives life a different perspective.

As the route map shows, we went by Swindon. I got to know Swindon in the early 1990s, when I was working in England, and had associated it woth the Honda car factory. This factory is now due to close on 2021. Times change.

I did not know it, but I heard about it when I got there.

Bristol upon Avon in the UK, was a prominent port in the transatlantic slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries. More than half a million enslaved Africans were traded by Bristol merchants.

Stowing the vessel with human beings (Source: Wikipedia)

It almost sounds like a story that never happended. But it did. The world has changed a lot since then. Overall, I think that it has changed for the better. I know that this is a “feel good” type of statement, but so be it. Survival is in addition to all else an emotional struggle.

This is a short report on a short visit that took place on the 16 November 2013. All photographs were taken by me, unless stated otherwise.

Walking from the rail station to the old center of the city, there is a bridge. This row of houses provides the background to the view on the left. I like the subtlety of the colours, tone. It matches the greyness of the sky, and somehow it betrays the existence of a muted exhuberance to be expressed some time in the future.

Row of Houses in Bristol, UK

Bristol was also active in corn trading.

The “Exchange” is a historic building that was previously used as a corn and general trade exchange. Today it houses offices and the administration of St. Nicholas’ market.

The clock was first installed in 1822. A second minute hand was later added to show the time in London as well as the local time in Bristol;the red minute hand shows Bristol time and the pink minute hand shows Greenwich Mean Time . This became necessary following the arrival of the railways, which required a standardised time for timetabling around the country, known as railway time; Bristol officially adopted railway time on 14 September 1852. The city is 2º 35′ west of Greenwich, so when it is noon in Bristol by old local time, it is just after 12:10 p.m. in London by standard time.

Bristol UK, The Exchange

The whole area of the Exchange in the old city has been transformed into a big market area with shops and stalls.

John is the pieminister in the photo. The shop is still there, in St. Nicholas’ market, just checked it on Google maps. In reality, John is an Associate Professor who teaches geology at the Australian National University in Canberra. He specialises in the geochemistry of economic minerals.

John the Piemaster
Bristol Pieminister

The Bristol Sausage Shop was there in 2013, but it is no longer. The product is a commodity that can be found everywhere in England. Given that a sausage is easy to make and store and costs very little, the margins are very low. I am not surprosed that the nice shop no longer is.

Bristol Sausage Shop

Bristol is a port city. It could not afford not to have a statue of Neptune. It could have been a bit bigger. Also, I think that there is a sensitivity around it, something soft and vulnerable, which does not fit with the image of the God who rules the Seas. May be the sculptor caught Neptune off guard.

Bristol UK, Statue of Neptune

Every major city in the UK seems to have its Hippodrome. Which literally means Horse Racing Track.

The most famous Hippodrome I know of existed in Constantinople, the Capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (later known as Byzantium). It was the place where people would go to have fun and forget the miseries of life. On occasions, they would also fight each other.

There were two major teams, the Blues and the Greens. Their rivalry often became mingled with political or religious rivalries, and sometimes riots, which amounted to civil wars that broke out in the city between them. The most severe of these was the Nika riots of 532, in which an estimated 30,000 people were killed and many important buildings were destroyed, such as the nearby second Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine cathedral. The current (third) Hagia Sophia was built by Justinian following the Nika riots.

Today it is a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı (Sultan Ahmet Square) in the Turkish city of Istanbul, with a few fragments of the original structure surviving.

Bristol Hippodrome

Going around town, I run into a lady selling handmade soap and other toiletries. I bought some soap and face cream, and still have the tin box with me.

Handmade Soap
Bristol, Anchor Square
Bristol Central Library
Statue of Ram Mohan Roy. Philosopher, Reformer, Patriot, Scholar, a founding father of Indian renaissance.
Born on 22 May 1772 in Radhanagar Bengal, Died on 27 September 1833 in Bristol.
Bristol City Council
Banksy, Well Hung Lover (Man Hanging)

Banksy is an anonymous graffiti artist based in Bristol. The blue and beige blobs are the result of vandalism. Since 2013 the painting has been attacked again.

Bristol Province Masonic Hall
Bristol, Suttons and Robertsons
Bristol, Wills Memorial Building Tower
Bristol, Wills Memorial Building Tower
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Following our short walk around town it was time for lunch. You can read all about it (and a little more) in the article I wrote back in 2013.

Unfortunately the restaurant is no longer in business. They closed down in the Spring of 2020 when the first UK lockdown was put in effect, and the proprietors decided not to reopen.

If you are interested in places that no loger exist, you might want to have a look at the article I wrote on “Osteria di Camugnone”.

Bristol, Buildings

On the way back to London I caught a “special” train that was returning from Cardiff, where they were playing a tournament Rugby. In the carriage there were a lot of passengers with flags of Argentina. They were all asleep.

Η ανάμνηση ενός κακού γεύματος

Ένα γεύμα μπορεί να αποτελέσει πηγή πολλών θετικών εμπειριών, να διεγείρει τις αισθήσεις, ακόμη και να δημιουργήσει ένα αίσθημα ευδαιμονίας. Από την άλλη μεριά, ένα γεύμα μπορεί να είναι τόσο κακό, που δεν μπορείς να το ξεχάσεις ακριβώς επειδή ήτανε τόσο κακό.

Ένα τέτοιο γεύμα ανασύρει από την μνήμη του και μοιράζεται μαζί μας ο Γερμανός συγγραφέας Βίνφριντ Γκέοργκ Ζέμπαλντ (1944-2001) στο οδοιπορικό πεζογράφημα του “Οι δακτύλιοι του Κρόνου” (Die Ringe des Saturn, Vito von Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 1995). Σημειώνω ότι στην έκδοση FISCHER Taschenbuch του 1997, υπάρχει και ο υπότιτλος “Eine englische Wallfahrt” (Ένα αγγλικό προσκύνημα).

Όπως γράφει μόλις στην πρώτη πρόταση του κειμένου, ο συγγραφέας ξεκινάει το οδοιπορικό του στην κομητεία του Σάφολκ “με την ελπίδα να αποδιώξω το κενό που με κυριεύει κάθε φορά που έχω τελειώσει μια σοβαρή δουλειά”. Ενδιαφέρον παρουσιάζει το πολιτιστικό σχόλιο του αρθρογράφου της αγγλικής εφημερίδας Γκάρντιαν (The Guardian) Στούαρτ Τζέφρις (Stuart Jeffries) ότι οι Άγγλοι πάνε μια βόλτα για να ανακάμψουν, ενώ οι Αμερικάνοι για να ανακαλύψουν.

Ο Ζέμπαλντ αναφέρεται στο δείπνο που είχε στην πόλη Λόουσtοφτ (Lowesoft), που είναι παραθαλάσσια και βρίσκεται στην κομητεία του (Suffolk), στην ανατολική ακτή της Αγγλίας. Για τους μουσικόφιλους αναφέρω ότι στην πόλη αυτή γεννήθηκε το 1913 ο συνθέτης Μπέντζαμιν Μπρίττεν (Benjamin Britten), που είναι κατά τη γνώμη μου ο κορυφαίος Άγγλος μουσικοσυνθέτης όλων των εποχών.

Δεν μου είναι γνωστό, και ο συγγραφέας δεν δίνει κάποιον λόγο για την επίσκεψη του στην πόλη αυτή. Κατέλυσε στο ξενοδοχείο Άλμπιον (Albion) που βρισκόταν επάνω στην παραλιακή λεωφόρο, και μετά από μια βόλτα επέστρεψε στο ξενοδοχείο, όπου και δείπνησε.

“Εκείνο το απόγευμα ήμουνα ο μοναδικός πελάτης στην πελώρια αίθουσα εστίασης, και το ίδιο άτομο (που είχε προηγούμενα υποδεχθεί τον Ζέμπαλντ στην είσοδο του ξενοδοχείου κατά την άφιξη του) πήρε την παραγγελία μου και λίγο μετά μου έφερε ένα ψάρι που είχε αναμφίβολα παραμείνει ενταφιασμένα στην βαθιά κατάψυξη για χρόνια. Η πανοπλία από το πανάρισμα του ψαριού είχε καψαλιστεί σε ορισμένα σημεία από το ψήσιμο, και τα δόντια του πιρουνιού μου λύγισαν επάνω της. Μα την αλήθεια, ήτανε τόσο δύσκολο να τεμαχίσω κάτι που αποδείχτηκε ότι ήτανε τίποτε περισσότερο από ένα αδειανό κέλυφος, που το πιάτο μου είχε καταντήσει να είναι ένα απεχθές συνονθύλευμα όταν τελείωσε αυτή η επιχείρηση. Η αλοιφή ταρτάρ που είχα αδειάσει από ένα πλαστικό σακουλάκι είχε αποκτήσει ένα γκρίζο χρώμα από την επαφή της με τα καψαλισμένα τρίματα του παναρίσματος, και το ψάρι, ή εκείνο που έπαιζε τον ρόλο του ψαριού, κειτόταν σαν ένα θλιβερό στραπάτσο ανάμεσα στα μπιζέλια που είχανε το χρώμα του χορταριού και τα μουλιασμένα υπολείμματα από τις τηγανητές πατάτες, που γυάλιζαν από το λίπος που τις κάλυπτε.”

Η μετάφραση στα ελληνικά από την αγγλική μετάφραση του Michael Hulse, έκδοση Vintage Books 2002, είναι δική μου.

Ο σιδηροδρομικός σταθμός του Λόουστοφτ

“Οι δακτύλιοι του Κρόνου” έχουν μεταφρασθεί στα ελληνικά από τον Γιάννη Καλιφατίδη και εκδοθεί το 2009 από τις εκδόσεις “ΑΓΡΑ”.

“How can you be tough with a Christmas cake in your face?” A Sex Pistols short story

The quote of the title belongs to John Lydon, lead singer of the Sex Pistols, the English punk group that shook England in the period from 1975 to 1978. Lydon was referring to band member Sid Vicious, known for his violent behavior, at the end of a benefit concert the Sex Pistols gave for the kids of striking firefighters in Huddersfield, on Christmas day 1977. The firefighters were on strike for nine weeks and needed to feed their children.

John Lydon eats his cake at the Huddersfiled gig in 1977

Lydon said about the childrens’ party: “That gig made me feel like I’d actually achieved something.”

Julien Temple, director of a film on the Pistols, who was present in the children’ gig has said:

“To most people they (the Sex Pistols) were monsters in the news. But seeing them playing to seven- and eight-year-olds is beautiful. They were a radical band, but there was a lot more heart to that group than people know.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2528815/When-Sex-Pistols-werent-quite-vicious-Unseen-film-1977-shows-band-handing-posters-dancing-pop-hits-childrens-charity-gig.html#ixzz4xXP9UkFi
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Eventhough at the time the group was only two years old, they had made their mark on the map. But the conditions were difficult for them, because they were banned from the mainstream media and from performing almost everywhere in the UK.

They were hated by the establishment, shut down by the police, pilloried by the press.

Ticket for the Sex Pistols Gig in Huddersfiled, Christmas 1977

There are no details of the location on the ticket, just the instruction to telephone a number two days before the event. The punters would call and get the details of the event.

Following the benefit gig for the firefighters’ kids, and the devouring of the car bonnet size cake, the band gave their last concert in the UK, in Ivanhoe’s Club on Manchester Road, Huddersfield.

In January 1978 the Sex Pistols toured the USA. At the end of the tour, John Lydon split and left the band.  This was the end of the Sex Pistols as we know them. Sid Vicious died of drug overdose in February 1979. The other wmembers of the band reunited in 1996, and a few more times after that. But the real stuff was gone in 1978.

Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren 1976

How did the Sex Pistols come about? To put it in simple terms, the context was provided by the punk movement of the early 1970s. The actors who made it happen, excluding the band members, were Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. Westwood was an elementary school teacher, and McLaren an art school dropout.

430 Kings Road, London

Without overstating it, one can say that the Sex Pistols were born in the shop that McLaren and Westwood kept on 430 Kings Road, London. Its name since 1974 was SEX, and it was the place to be for all who loved punk in London in the early 1970s. The shop’s main commodity was punk itself.

Glen Mattlock, the future bassist of the Sex Pistols was an employee of the shop.

The other members of the band were:

  • John Lydon (aka Rotten, because of his bad teeth), lead vocalist
  • Paul Cook, drums
  • Steve Jones, guitar
  • Sid Vicious (John Stuart Ritchie), bass – he replaced Mattlock in early 1977

As early as 1972, Mattlock, Vicious and Lydon were regulars at 430 Kings Road.

The Sex Pistols in Paradiso club – Mattlock plays the bass

At this point, one must answer the question “What is punk?”

Oxford Dictionaries define punk as “A loud, fast-moving, and aggressive form of rock music, popular in the late 1970s.”

In 1975 there were over 1.5 million unemployed workers in the UK, most of whom were castoffs from its deteriorating industrial base. In this context, it would not be an exaggeration to say that punk expressed to an extent the frustration and agony of the disenfranchised British youth.

Punk would mean you were the lowest of the low.

Robert Ebert, an American film critic, puts things in perspective:

“The Catch-22 with punk rock, and indeedwith all forms of entertainment designed to shock and offend the bourgoisie, is that if your act is too convinving, you put yourself out of business, a fact carefully noted by today’s rappers as they go as far as they can without going too far.”

The Sex Pistols went too far for their own good.

From left to right: Cook, Jones, Mattlock, Lydon, McLaren

On the 8th October 1976, EMI signs the Sex Pistols up for a period of two yers and a signing fee of UKP 40,000. But three months later, on the 6th January 1977 EMI fired the Pistols. They were too hot to handle.

On the 10th March 1977, A&M signed the Pistols for UKP 75,000, only to drop them a few days later!

It was the brave Mr. Branson and his Virgin company who signed the Pistols on the 18th May 1977.

“God save the Queen”, the band’s second single, was released on the 27th May 1977. It sold 150,000 copies in the first day and 200,000 in the first week. The song was banned by the BBC, as a song of “bad taste”. The members of the band were attacked in the treets by disgusted members of the public. Lydon had reported wounds in the knees by machetes and the in the face by bottles.

However, as Paul Cook, the drummer of the band has said: “We didn’t have a manifesto, but we wanted to shake things up.”

Sex Pistols nd Vivienen Westwood on stage, at Notre Dame Hall in Leicester Square, London, on 15 November 1976. Photograph: Ray Stevenson/Rex Features

In terms of the ideological foundations of the punk movement, I would like to mention Situationism, the movement that was behind May 1968 in Paris. (8) Apparently, Malcolm McLaren was a committed situationist.

Guy Debord’s theory of the Spectacle is the foundation of situationism. Simply put, the world we see is not the real world but the world we are conditioned to see, and the Situationist agenda is to explain how the nightmare works so that everyone can wake up.

One of the famous pieces of Situationist graffiti to appear during the Paris ’68 riots was “art is an academic headache.”

 

It It is almost 40 years since the firefighters’ children benefit concert given by the Sex Pistols in Huddersfield’s Ivanhoe Club. The Sex Pistols are gone. Punk is gone.

Is revolt gone as well?

Sources

  1. Anarchy in Huddersfield: the day the Sex Pistols played Santa, The Guardian

2. The Filth and the Fury, review by Roger Ebert

3. A Merry Punk Rock Christmas: Anarchy in Ivanhoe’s. For Malcontents Only

4. Get Pissed, Destroy (Or Eat Cake): The Sex Pistols’ Final UK Gigs, Christmas 1977. By Peter Alan Loyd. Bombed Out

5. God Save the Queen at 40: how the Sex Pistols made the most controversial song in history. By James Hall, The Telegraph

6. Anarchy in the EU: the Sex Pistols’ drummer on why Brexit isn’t punk. By Michael Henderson. The Spectator

7. How Vivienne Westwood’s Punk Revolution Changed Fashion Forever. By Asaf Rotman, Grailed.

8. Situationism explained! and its affect on punk and pop culture. By Amy Britton, Louder than War.

 

 

 

Bill Woodrow’s “English Heritage – Humpty Fucking Dumpty”

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.

(Humpty Dumpty, English nursery rhyme)

Denslow's Humpty Dumpty
Denslow’s Humpty Dumpty

Is it an egg, or is it a man?

This is a reasonable question when it comes to Humpty Dumpty.

Bill Woodrow is an English sculptor who gave his own answer to the question, by creating in 1987 the work “English Heritage – Humpty Fucking Dumpty”.

I saw Woodrow’s work at London’s London Royal Academy of Arts in January 2014. I was impressed by his ability to play with and transform everyday life objects into a contemplative story. This is why I write this note to present and discuss “Humpty Fucking Dumpty”. In what follows I have drawn heavily form the Tate curator’s notes (1).

 

Humpty Fucking Dumpty 1987 Bill Woodrow born 1948 Purchased 1987
Humpty Fucking Dumpty 1987 Bill Woodrow born 1948 Tate Gallery, London Purchased 1987

Woodrow attended St Martin’s School of Art (1968-71) and Chelsea School of Art (1971-2) in London where he rebelled against the formalist abstraction prevalent in sculpture at that time. At the end of the 1970s he began working with discarded household furniture and other objects to create incongruous juxtapositions often giving rise to allegorical or metaphorical readings. (1)

The sculpture should be seen in the context of the elevation of history and ‘heritage’ as a political value in Britain. (2)

Bill Woodrow
Bill Woodrow

This work consists of a wooden vaulting box that has been pulled apart like a concertina. Each constituent piece of wood is propped open at alternate ends by the insertion of a small object, most of which were made by the artist. The objects are intended to symbolize human progress, creating what Woodrow calls ‘a section through history’. (1)

 

Plough
Plough

Starting from the bottom, the lowest object represents a wheeled plough which denotes both the invention of the wheel and the early importance of agriculture. In conversation with a Tate curator in March 1992, Woodrow explained that, although ‘farming was probably invented a long time before the wheel; the two together seemed to be a very significant starting point for the development of the human race’. (1)

 

Book
Book

 

The second object used to wedge open the vaulting box is the representation of a book. (1)

The artist has described this as a leap forward in history, signifying ‘the dissemination of knowledge or development of the intellect … It was the beginning of some network of communication and knowledge’ (quoted in Tate Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1986-88, Tate Gallery, London 1996, p.517). (1)

Woodrow is very keen to use books in his works. The book I recall most vividly is the bench in “Sitting on History”.

Bill Woodrow: Sitting on History
Bill Woodrow: Sitting on History

‘Sitting on History,’ with its ball and chain, refers to the book as a receptacle of information. History is filtered through millions of pages of writing, making the book the major vehicle for research and study. Woodrow proposes that although one absorbs knowledge, one appears to have great difficulty in changing one’s behaviour as a result. (3)

Clocking-in machine
Clocking-in machine

The third motif is a clocking-in machine which is intended to invoke the industrial revolution. (1)

Bill Woodrow, Elephant, 1984, Tate Galley
Bill Woodrow, Elephant, 1984, Tate Galley

Woodrow is not soft on industrialisation. In his 1984 “Elephant”, we can see the relics of industrialisation forming a deadly circle around the gun carrying elephant.

Radiation box
Radiation box

The fourth object, and the only one not made by the artist, is a box which he painted yellow and black with radiation hazard markings to ‘signify the nuclear era’, which makes reference to both nuclear power and nuclear war. Woodrow has commented that he was also thinking about the damage to the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl, then part of the Soviet Union, which occurred the year before in 1986. (1)

This radiation box is the agent of instability and destruction. What up to this level has been benign, stable, and controllable, now assumes uncontrollable dimensions and has a clear touch of evil.

The Iran P5+1 negotiations on Iran’s nuclear weapons program testify to the evil factor that has been unleashed by the WWII victors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Bill Woodrow: Endeavour: Cannon dredged from the first wreck of the Ship of Fools, 1995
Bill Woodrow: Endeavour: Cannon dredged from the first wreck of the Ship of Fools, 1995

Weapons of destruction appear often in Woodrow’s work. In 1995 Woodrow sculpted a cannon dredged from the first wreck of the ship of fools.

This is the tenth sculpture in Woodrow’s series devoted to the theme of the ‘Ship of Fools’, a commentary on the foolishness of mankind, wrapped in wry humour. ‘Endeavour’ comprises uncomfortably penetrating insights into human nature, particularly, mankind’s seeming inability to learn from experience. (4) 

Bill Woodrow, The Swallow, 1984
Bill Woodrow, The Swallow, 1984

Back in 1984, Woodrow sculpted “The Swallow”, a rather ambivalent work, in the sense that there may still be the possibility of escape from the inevitability of massive destruction.

 

Humpty Dumpty
Humpty Dumpty

 

The figure of Humpty Dumpty was placed on top of the structure to further add to the sense of its precariousness. With this addition of Humpty Dumpty, Woodrow accepted that the sculpture had specifically English connotations. For him, it ‘seemed to signify, or to be a very appropriate symbol in a way for my notions about this country and the western world in general and its idea of progress, getting better and better and yet being very unstable’ (quoted in Tate Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1986-88, p.518). (1)

 Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

Woodrow seems to contemplate this great fall, and anticipates it. But he is not a doom and gloom prophet, he is simply a realist.

It is in this context that “English Heritage” comes into play.

Woodrow sounds sarcastic when he uses the word “fucking” in the title. Making a play with words, he appears to denigrate Humpty Dumpty, when in fact he does so to the prevalent notion of “English Heritage”.

Moreover, by using the words ‘English Heritage’ in the title, Woodrow refers not to the institution of the same name, but to the concept of his own heritage. He has commented on the way in which references to ‘Britain’s glorious past are used to take your mind off present difficulties and hardships. It is an escapist device and there seemed to be a lot of it around at the time’ (quoted in Tate Gallery: Illustrated Catalogue of Acquisitions 1986-88, p.518). Woodrow felt that nostalgic jingoism was particularly prevalent in the 1980s, prompted in part by the Falklands War in 1982. By employing the word ‘fucking’ in the title, the artist is being openly critical of this attitude. The word is used to denote a sense of anger and despair at the state of the nation. It was also a reaction against what he saw as the moralistic atmosphere of the period. (1)

Bill Woodrow at the RA in London
Bill Woodrow at the RA in London

Sources

(1) English Heritage – Humpty Fucking Dumpty 1987, Tate Gallery 

(2) The Oxford Index

(3) Bill Woodrow: Sitting on History

(4) Endeavour: Cannon dredged from the first wreck of the Ship of Fools

Female legs: works by Allen Jones

Allen Jones, Legs
Allen Jones, Chair Legs, 1968

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“Jones does for the leg what Stubbs did for the horse” John McEwan (art critic)

The artist and the creative process

We will never know what it takes to be a creative artist.

But it does not matter.

We can of course dwell into it, knowing that there is no “truth”.

Allen Jones, Legs, 1970, multiple plastics.
Allen Jones, Legs, 1970, multiple plastics.

While engaging in this, we must be aware of the fact that such an exercise may be an attempt to escape from the visual and sensual stimulus created by the work of art and hide behind cognitive constructs that nullify the excperience.

Of course the whole process may lead to the opposite direction. The enquiring mind may use the process as a fertilising agent, thus creating even more works of art as it ponders over these questions.

Allen Jones, Legs. 1976-1977. Screenprint on paper. Tate Gallery London
Allen Jones, Legs. 1967-1968. Screenprint on paper. Tate Gallery London

One avenue that may be explored is obsession. Obsession may take various paths of development, leading to scopophilia, even fetishism.

In another post I wrote some time ago on sexual fetishism I quoted Sigmund Freud saying:

“(Fetishism) … remains a token of triumph over the threat of castration and a protection against it. It also saves the fetishist from becoming a homosexual, by endowing women with the characteristic which makes them tolerable as sexual objects.”

Allen Jones, no title. 1976-1977, Screenprint on paper, Tate Gallery, London.
Allen Jones, no title. 1976-1977, Screenprint on paper, Tate Gallery, London.

The viewer and art

The same way an obsession, scopophilia or even fetishism may be driving the artist in the creative process, it may also drive the viewer of art. If, for example, I am obsessed by fishing boats, it would not be surprising if I like paintings featuring fishing boats.

But are female legs equivalents to fishing boats?

In the sexual fetishism post I also quoted Robert Stoller:

“A sexually exciting fetish, we know, may be an inanimate object, a living but not human object, a part of a human body (in rare cases even of one’s own), an attribute of a human (this is a bit less sure, since we cannot hold an attribute in hand), or even a whole human not perceived as himself or herself but rather as an abstraction, such as a representative of a group rather than a person in his or her ownright (“all women are bitches”; “all men are pigs”).”

Allen Jones, Wet Seal, 1966. Oil paint on canvas, wood and melamine. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, Wet Seal, 1966. Oil paint on canvas, wood and melamine. Tate Gallery, London

Another type of the viewer’s obsession could be “scopophilia”, which means deriving pleasure from looking, or love of watching, but also refers to the erotic pleasure derived from gazing at images of the body. Voyeurism is a synonym for scopophilia. Freud associated scopophilia with the anal stage of development.Does this imply that one who derives pleasure from looking is stuck at the anal stage? Or it signifies the concurrent existence of multiple erogenous zones, one of them being the anus?

Now I am totally confused. I started by talking about the pleasure of looking at legs and all of a sudden I am caught between multiple concurrent erogenous zones. A few steps away, the Rat Man (Freud’s famous case) repeats a sentence monotonously: “I have a burning and tormenting curiosity to see the female body”

Allen Jones, Sheer Magic
Allen Jones, Sheer Magic

The artist cannot worry about how someone might misconstrue the work’ Allen Jones

Allen Jones

A major Allen Jones’ retrospective opened in November 2014 in London’s Royal Academy of Arts.

Jones created many works with female legs.

Allen Jones, Leg-Splash 1970-1,  Lithograph on paper. Tate Gallery, London.
Allen Jones, Leg-Splash 1970-1, Lithograph on paper. Tate Gallery, London.

I do not claim that Jones is a fetishist or a voyeur or a scopophile, although he has been called many names over the years. As a matter of fact I could not possibly know it unless I were his psychoanalyst. But even if I were his psychoanalyst I could not say anything about it, because of the analyst – patient protocol of confidentiality.

Allen Jones, Untitled
Allen Jones, Untitled

If the artist remains terra incognita, what about me, as the viewer? Although I tremble at the thought of returning tot he anal stage, or even worse, staying there, I will venture to make some comments on Jones’ pictures.

A critic of the Royal Acedemy retrospective, found that there is no depth in Jones’ work. He gave the show 2 out of 5.

This triggered a question in my mind, which I want to share with you:

“Do legs have depth?”

“What do we mean by depth? Is it equivalent to the three dimensions? Or is it more than that?”

Allen Jones, Drama, 1966, oil on canvas and formica on panel
Allen Jones, Drama, 1966, oil on canvas and formica on panel

These may sound like simple questions, but trying to answer them may lead us to multiple discoveries. Let’s start.

Allen Jones, Legs, 1965, oil on canvas
Allen Jones, Legs, 1965, oil on canvas

One of the most striking features of Jones’ work is their simplicity. However, being simple is not equivalent to being trivial.

Allen Jones, First Step, 1966, oil on canvas and laminated shelf
Allen Jones, First Step, 1966, oil on canvas and laminated shelf

Looking at the paintings I cannot but assert that Jones likes female legs. Linking does not necessary lead to obsessions, but it is loud and clear. The artist likes painting legs over and over again.

Allen Jones, I, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, I, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

The third observation I want to make has to do with the context of a painting. As you can see in the samples of Jones’s work I have assembled in this post, Jones creates in two types of context.

The first is what I call “isolation”. Legs are shown as if they exist on their own. Its just legs, and nothing else.

Allen Jones, I, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, II, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

This “isolation” context is paired with the second type of context, which I call “relational”.

In a “relational” context legs do not exist on their own, but in relation to something else.

Allen Jones, III, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, III, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

Hands are coming out of nowhere, reaching for the legs.

A woman appears to be cut in two, she almost chasing her own legs.

Allen Jones, IV, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, IV, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

Female legs become entangled with male legs.

Allen Jones, V, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, V, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

A female body is portayed with an horizontal level surface cutiing it in two, and an almost vertical red and black curtain hiding half of it.

Allen Jones, VI, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, VI, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

The “relational” context becomes stronger and stronger as we look at the pictures. Legs are no longer alone. They belong to a woman and the woman is somehow somewhere with a man.

Allen Jones, Red Feat, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, Red Feat, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

“With” has a multitude of meanings and representations.

Allen Jones, Black Feat, 1976. Tate Gallery, London
Allen Jones, Black Feat, 1976. Tate Gallery, London

Another feature of the works is color. The artist plays with colors in many ways.

The stocking of one leg has a different color compared to the other.

A woman walks besides the sculpture 'Secretary' (1972) by  Allen Jones during a preview in the exhibition 'Allen Jones'  in eastern Germany. Allen Jones  is one of the main representatives and co-founders of British Pop Art.
A woman walks besides the sculpture ‘Secretary’ (1972) by Allen Jones during a preview in the exhibition ‘Allen Jones’ in eastern Germany. Allen Jones is one of the main representatives and co-founders of British Pop Art.

Or the picture is monochromatic. As in black feat and red feat.

Allen Jones
Allen Jones, Dangerous Curves

And in closing, I come to the issue of depth. When a knife becomes a female body, I would call this an exercise in three dimensions. When the legs of three females stick out of a wall, I would call this depth.

Allen Jones
Allen Jones

So all in all, the pictures by Allen Jones have depth, and much more. Provided that one can see them for what they are and no for what they should be.

Wilks Restaurant, Bristol upon Avon, United Kingdom

Bristol, UK
Bristol, UK

“Britain was a major player in the transatlantic slave trade. British ships carried 2,600,000 enslaved Africans in the 18th century to the Caribbean and the Americas. London was the leading British slaving port in the 17th century, with control over the trade until 1698. Bristol overtook London in the 1730s, and Liverpool overtook Bristol in the 1740s. ” (1)

I know, I know, I meant to write a restaurant review, and I cannot avoid becoming historical and all.

Aston Martin, Bristol UK
V8 Aston Martin Vantage

Driving a V8 Aston Martin Vantage, the trip to Bristol cannot be tiring. As a matter of fact, you don’t want it to end.

“Powered by the lightweight, compact 4.7ltr engine, V8 Vantage delivers a broad spread of effortless, exploitable performance. Mounted low and as far back in the chassis as possible Vantage’s centre of gravity is close to the road for supreme balance and handling.  Producing 426PS of peak power and 470Nm of torque, V8 Vantage sprints from 0-62mph in just 4.9secs.” (2)

I know, I know, this is meant to be a restaurant review, and I am starting to rant about cars. (Thank you Santa Claus).

Bristol, UK
Bristol, UK

I visited Bristol in November 2013, because my cousin was at the University of Bristol until December. On the occasion we went to have lunch at Wilks Restaurant, some 20 minutes walk from city centre.

I know, I know, this is not meant to be anything but a restaurant review, not my family and its members.

Wilks Restaurant, Bristol
Wilks Restaurant, Bristol

In any case, it is immaterial how we actually made it to the restaurant. But we made it, and we were one minute early! So we went in.

Wilks Restaurant, Amuse Bouche
Wilks Restaurant, Amuse Bouche

The amuse bouche was goat creamy cheese  and an onion concoction with olives and sardines. Botht asty, but the goat cheese was the winner.

Wilks Restaurant, Scallops
Wilks Restaurant, Scallops

Scallops from the Atlantic Oceaan. Fresh and perfectly cooked.

Wilks Restaurant, Truffle Risotto
Wilks Restaurant, Truffle Risotto

Truffle Risotto. Tasty and creamy!

Wilks Restaurant, Hake with Artichokes
Wilks Restaurant,Turbot Filet

Wild turbot fillet ~ parmesan gnocchi, artichokes & saute of fresh chanterelles, wild mushroom emulsion.

Wilks Restaurant, Aged Beef Tenderloin
Wilks Restaurant, Dry Aged Beef  Sirloin

Dry aged west country beef sirloin ~ caramelised onions, trompettes & spinach, black garlic & red wine jus

Wilks Restaurant, Selection of Cheeses
Wilks Restaurant, Selection of Cheeses

A selection of Cheeses to finish the meal.

Wilks is a relatively new restaurant, one year old. But they are on the right track to achieve a lot.

I liked the food, the service, the value for money ratio.

It did not come to me as a surprise that they have already received their first Michelin Star. More could be on their way.

Street Art, Bristol UK
Street Art, Bristol UK

On our way back to the city center, we had the opportunity to enjoy some of the famous Bristol Street Art.

Aston Martin, Bristol UK
Aston Martin, Bristol UK

It is time to get back to London. The beautiful V8 Vantage is patiently waiting to deliver effortless performance. Lets hit the road baby!

And thank you Wilks, thank you JM!

Merry Christmas!

Sources

1. Portcities Bristol

2. Aston Martin

The Sum of all Evil (2012-13), an installation by the Chapman Brothers

In London’s idyllic Sackler Gallery one can see on display the Chapman Brothers’ masterpiece “The Sum of all Evil” (December 2013).

A word of caution is in order before I proceed. This post is potentially harmful to people without an acute and tragic sense of humour, to people who think that extreme things do not happen, to people who think that Mars is only a planet, to people who …

Francisco de Goya, Atropos, or the Fates, técnica mixta sobre revestimiento mural, 123 x 266 cm. Museo del Prado (Madrid, España)
Francisco de Goya, Atropos, or the Fates, técnica mixta sobre revestimiento mural, 123 x 266 cm. Museo del Prado (Madrid, España)

In one of Goya’s 14 black paintings, Atropos, the Goddess of Death is leading the Fates.

War brings massive death. Goya’s etchings  ‘Disasters Of War’ has been a theme of constant interest to the Chapman Brothers.

Disasters of War No.72 2000 Hand-coloured etching 24.5 x 34.5 cm    9½ x 13½"
Chapman Brothers. Disasters of War No.72 2000 Hand-coloured etching 24.5 x 34.5 cm 9½ x 13½” (Saatchi Gallery, London)

Carl von Clausewitz’s dictum “War is the continuation of politics by other means” is a total understatement in view of Goya’s etchings.

Goya, Disasters of War No. 72 (1810-1820)
Francisco de Goya, Disasters of War No. 72 (1810-1820)

‘War is Hell’ William Sherman, Union General, American Civil War.

Chapman Brothers
Chapman Brothers

In ‘The Sum of all Evil’ the protagonist is Evil, not just War.

Lets go for a boat ride.

Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).
Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).

In the path that takes us to evil, inevitably we pass through Colonel Kurtz.

Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).
Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).

White Cube reports from the Hong Kong exhibition of the work. ‘Monumental in scope and minute in detail, The Sum of all Evil (2012-13) occupies the entire ground floor of the gallery and is the most densely imagined diorama installation that the artists have produced to date.’

Chapman Brothers.
Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).

The fourth in a series of Hell landscapes the work features a multitude of intricately modelled Nazi soldiers, along with various characters from the fast food chain McDonald’s, committing violent, abhorrent acts set amid an apocalyptic landscape within four glass vitrines. Darkly humorous, The Sum of all Evil, as its title suggests, is imaginative rather than descriptive: a summation of all the worst possible ‘evils’, violence runs amok in a trans-historical and a-temporal arena. (White Cube).

evil1
Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).

‘The Sum of All Evil’ (2012-2013) features cabinets filled with tableaux of detailed depravity in the manner of ‘Hell’ (2000), which was destroyed in the 2004 Momart warehouse fire. In one glass tank, dozens of Ronald McDonalds are crucified by Nazis. In another, Ronald turns torturer. (Time Out London).

Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).
Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).

Once evil has been unleashed, there is no stopping it.

Evil is something that makes me feel impotent. Not because of evil itself, but because of the way ‘ordinary’ people can commit evil acts (see my relevant post ‘action against evil acts’).

Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).
Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).

Massive carnage, death, everywhere.

Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).
Chapman Brothers.The Sum of all Evil (2012-13).

Only in one serene remote spot, Adolph flies his multi coloured balloons.

Sources

1. White Cube. Jake & Dinos Chapman.

2. Time Out London. Jake and Dinos Chapman: Come and See

Lord Byron’s “Giaour – A Fragment of a Turkish Tale”

Introduction

“Greece was the mostly sought Eastern country by travelers during the 19th century.” (1)

Lord Byron visited Greece for the first time in his 1809-1810 travels to the South of Europe.

While in Greece, he heard a story about a woman who experienced terrible death by been thrown into the sea alive inside a bag.

This story gave Lord Byron the material for his poem “The Giaour”.

The “Giaour” is Byron’s only narrative poem, and the first of four Turkish tales that he wrote.

It is also a poem that in a way contributed the birth of the “vampire”, albeit a vampire different from the one we are accustomed in the 21st century.

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George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron

George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron, was born on 22 January 1788 in London.

In July 1823, Byron left Italy to join the Greek insurgents who were fighting a war of independence against the Ottoman Empire.

On 19 April 1824 he died from fever at Messolonghi, in modern day Greece.

His death was mourned throughout Britain. His body was brought back to England and buried at his ancestral home in Nottinghamshire.

Byron had enormous influence on the romantic movement and European poetry. One of the poets greatly influenced by Byron was Goethe.

He is also the only English  poet Bertrand Russell included in his History of Western Philosophy.

FRO2010_70

Orientalism

“Romantic Orientalism, then, became part of the larger movement of British Romanticism, which was further enthused by Napoleon‟s invasion of Egypt (1798–1799) and Greece‟s War of Independence (1821–1828). To Romantic travelers, scholars, artists and men of letters the Orient constituted a distant world which conveniently suited their search for the exotic and sublime experiences.” (1)

In his book “Orientalism”, Edward Said observes: “Popular Orientalism during the late eighteenth century and the early nineteenth attained a vogue of considerable intensity”

Apparently Byron was not driven to orientalism by accident. In “Interrogating Orientalism”, the editors observe (3):

In late August 1813, Byron had advised his friend Tom Moore to read Antoine Laurent Castellan’s Moeurs, usages, costumes des Othomans (1812) for poetic materials:

“Stick to the East; the oracle, Stael, told me it was the only poetic policy. The North, South, and West, have all been exhausted; but from the East, we have nothing but Southey’s unsaleables. . . . The little I have done in that way is merely a “voice in the wilderness” for you; and, if it has had any success, that also will prove that the public are orientalizing, and pave the path for you. (Letters and Journals 3:101)”

adding that “the public are orientalizing.”

Following his own advice, he dashed off and published three more “Turkish tales” before the next year was out — The Bride of Abydos (published in December 1813 and reissued in ten further editions of 1814  and 1815), The Corsair (published in February 1814 — selling ten thousand copies on the first day — and reissued in eight or more editions through 1815), and Lara (published in August 1814, with five or six subsequent editions in the next couple of years). (6)

Eugene Delacroix: Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha
Eugene Delacroix: Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha, 1827, The Art Institute of Chicago

The Giaour

The word “giaour” means foreigner or infidel, and in this Moslem context Byron’s hero is a Christian outsider, in a situation enabling contrasts of ideas about love, sex, death, and the hereafter.

The Giaour was started in London between September 1812 and March 1813, first published by John Murray in late March 1813, and finally completed December 1813, after having, in Byron’s words, “lengthened its rattles” (BLJ III 100) from 407 lines in the first draft to 1334 lines in the twelfth edition. (4)

According to one of Byron’s letters, the story in the poem was a tale he’d overheard “by accident recited by one of the coffee-house story tellers who abound in the Levant,” and he blamed the fragmented style on a “failure of memory,”

The narrative is built around a doomed love triangle, composed of the Giaour, a nameless Christian, Hassan and one of his wives, Leila. Leila « breaks her bower, » goes out into the world of men and taking the Giaour as a lover, lashes out against the values that structure her society. Hassan attemps to reestablish the balance by confining her to a space even smaller than the harem : a canvas bag which is then summarily thrown over the side of a boat unbeknownst to its crew and the reader, to whom this episode is recounted through the eyes of a fisherman. The Giaour takes his revenge, ambushing Hassan in a mountain pass, then, crushed by his part in Leila’s death, spends the rest of his days spurning the solace offered him by a man of the cloth, representative of orthodoxy. (7)

Leila

The heroine of the poem, Leila is a silent and passive heroine.

Another Leila in Byron’s Don Juan has a similar profile (8)

Delacroix (5)

Following a visit to England in 1825, Eugène Delacroix, the leading Romantic painter in France, based this painting on the poem The Giaour (pronounced jor) written by English poet Lord Byron in 1813. The subject—passions avenged on the faraway Greek battlefield—is perfectly suited to the Romantic vision of exotic locales and unleashed emotion.

In the painting, a Venetian (my note: according to others, Giaour was a Christian without more specifics, but it does not really matter, does it?) known as the Giaour—a Turkish term for infidel—fights the Muslim Hassan to avenge the death of his lover, who was killed by Hassan after fleeing his harem. The stark setting and aggressive movements place the focus of the painting on these two main characters. Weapons poised, the enemies face off in mirrored poses: the Giaour in swirling white with bloodshot eyes, Hassan facing his opponent with his weapon raised. The dynamic motion and emotion of the composition, which looks back to the Baroque style of Peter Paul Rubens, is further heightened by the artist’s use of high-keyed colors and bold and loose brushwork. Delacroix’s handling of pigments was influenced by a mid-19th-century color theory that stated that a spot of color will appear to be surrounded by a faint ring of its complement. In Delacroix’s painting, the adaptation of this effect is seen in the artist’s use of complementary colors, rather than the addition of black pigment, to create shadows.

The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan was included in an exhibition at the Parisian Galerie Lebrun to benefit the Greeks and their war of liberation from the Ottoman Turks (1821–1832). This political cause inspired numerous Romantic artists, writers, and musicians, and was the subject of one of Delacroix’s best-known paintings, The Massacre at Chios. The latter painting was based on an actual incident in the Greek wars of independence, unlike the Art Institute’s painting, which is derived from a work of fiction. Both are examples of Orientalism in Romantic painting, in which depictions of the Middle East and North Africa emphasize the exotic appeal of the lands and their people.

Gericault: Portrait of Lord Byron
Gericault: Portrait of Lord Byron

Vampires

As an article in BBC informs us,

“Byron was one of the first authors to write about vampires and his image even inspired the look of the monsters.” (2) The following is an extensive quote from the article:

Dr Matt Green is a lecturer at the University of Nottingham. The Gothic expert said: “The vampire first comes into English literature around the end of the eighteenth century.

“One of the first poems the vampire features in is by Lord Byron. It’s a poem called The Giaour (a Turkish word for an infidel or nonbeliever).

“At one point the giaour is cursed by his enemy to become a vampire and to prey and feed on his descendents.”

The poem goes: “Bur first, on earth as Vampire sent, Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent: Then ghastly haunt thy native place, And suck the blood of all thy race.”

“At this stage the vampire in Byron’s poem and in English literature is more a zombie figure. He comes out of the ground and he eats those around him and then goes back into the ground. He can’t wander far from his place of birth and his family.”

That perception was about to change and Byron would be central to it.

The university lecturer said: “It’s not until a couple of years later that the vampire becomes this cosmopolitan, seductive figure. That has to do with Byron as well.”

Eugene Delacroix, Combat Between Giaour and Pasha, 1827, Art Institute of Chicago
Eugene Delacroix, Combat Between Giaour and Pasha, 1827, The Art Institute of Chicago

Excerpts of the poem

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover’s tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In soft incense back to Heaven;
And gratefu yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.

DelacroixCombatGiaourEtPacha
Eugene Delacroix, The combat of the Giaour with the Pasha, 1835, Petit Palais, Paris, France

The foam that streaks the courser’s side
Seems gathered from the ocean-tide:
Though weary waves are sunk to rest,
There’s none within his rider’s breast;
And though tomorrow’s tempest lower,
‘Tis calmer than thy heart, young Giaour!
I know thee not, I loathe thy race,
But in thy lineaments I trace
What time shall strengthen, not efface:
Though young and pale, that sallow front
Is scathed by fiery passion’s brunt;
Though bent on earth thine evil eye,
As meteor-like thou glidest by,
Right well I view thee and deem thee one
Whom Othman’s sons should slay or shun.

Eugene Delacroix, The Giaour over the dead Pasha
Eugene Delacroix, The Giaour over the dead Pasha

Not thus was Hassan wont to fly
When Leila dwelt in his Serai.
Doth Leila there no longer dwell?
That tale can only Hassan tell:
Strange rumours in our city say
Upon that eve she fled away
When Rhamazan’s last sun was set,
And flashing from each minaret
Millions of lamps proclaimed the feast
Of Bairam through the boundless East.
‘Twas then she went as to the bath,
Which Hassan vainly searched in wrath;
For she was flown her master’s rage
In likeness of a Georgian page,
And far beyond the Moslem’s power
Had wronged him with the faithless Giaour.
Somewhat of this had Hassan deemed;
But still so fond, so fair she seemed,
Too well he trusted to the slave
Whose treachery deserved a grave:
And on that eve had gone to mosque,
And thence to feast in his kiosk.

Alexandre-Marie Colin, The Giaour
Alexandre-Marie Colin, The Giaour

‘Yes, Leila sleeps beneath the wave,
But his shall be a redder grave;
Her spirit pointed well the steel
Which taught that felon heart to feel.
He called the Prophet, but his power
Was vain against the vengeful Giaour:
He called on Allah – but the word.
Arose unheeded or unheard.
Thou Paynim fool! could Leila’s prayer
Be passed, and thine accorded there?
I watched my time, I leagued with these,
The traitor in his turn to seize;
My wrath is wreaked, the deed is done,
And now I go – but go alone.’

Eugene Delacroix: Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha (detail)
Eugene Delacroix: Combat of the Giaour and the Pasha (detail)

Yet died he by a stranger’s hand,
And stranger in his native land;
Yet died he as in arms he stood,
And unavenged, at least in blood.
But him the maids of Paradise
Impatient to their halls invite,
And the dark Heaven of Houris’ eyes
On him shall glance for ever bright;
They come – their kerchiefs green they wave,
And welcome with a kiss the brave!
Who falls in battle ‘gainst a Giaour
Is worthiest an immortal bower.

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”Tis twice three years at summer tide
Since first among our freres he came;
And here it soothes him to abide
For some dark deed he will not name.
But never at our vesper prayer,
Nor e’er before confession chair
Kneels he, nor recks he when arise
Incense or anthem to the skies,
But broods within his cell alone,
His faith and race alike unknown.
The sea from Paynim land he crost,
And here ascended from the coast;
Yet seems he not of Othman race,
But only Christian in his face:
I’d judge him some stray renegade,
Repentant of the change he made,
Save that he shuns our holy shrine,
Nor tastes the sacred bread and wine.

Eugene Delacroix-939428

To love the softest hearts are prone,
But such can ne’er be all his own;
Too timid in his woes to share,
Too meek to meet, or brave despair;
And sterner hearts alone may feel
The wound that time can never heal.
The rugged metal of the mine,
Must burn before its surface shine,
But plunged within the furnace-flame,
It bends and melts – though still the same;
Then tempered to thy want, or will,
‘Twill serve thee to defend or kill;
A breast-plate for thine hour of need,
Or blade to bid thy foeman bleed;
But if a dagger’s form it bear,
Let those who shape its edge, beware!
Thus passion’s fire, and woman’s art,
Can turn and tame the sterner heart;
From these its form and tone are ta’en,
And what they make it, must remain,
But break – before it bend again.

images

My spirit shrunk not to sustain
The searching throes of ceaseless pain;
Nor sought the self-accorded grave
Of ancient fool and modern knave:
Yet death I have not feared to meet;
And the field it had been sweet,
Had danger wooed me on to move
The slave of glory, not of love.
I’ve braved it – not for honour’s boast;
I smile at laurels won or lost;
To such let others carve their way,
For high renown, or hireling pay:
But place again before my eyes
Aught that I deem a worthy prize
The maid I love, the man I hate,
And I will hunt the steps of fate,
To save or slay, as these require,
Through rending steel, and rolling fire:
Nor needest thou doubt this speech from one
Who would but do ~ what he hath done.
Death is but what the haughty brave,
The weak must bear, the wretch must crave;
Then let life go to him who gave:
I have not quailed to danger’s brow
When high and happy – need I now?

DELACROIX_Eugene_Woman_with_a_Parrot_1827

‘I loved her, Friar! nay, adored –
But these are words that all can use –
I proved it more in deed than word;
There’s blood upon that dinted sword,
A stain its steel can never lose:
‘Twas shed for her, who died for me,
It warmed the heart of one abhorred:
Nay, start not – no – nor bend thy knee,
Nor midst my sins such act record;
Thou wilt absolve me from the deed,
For he was hostile to thy creed!
The very name of Nazarene
Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen.
Ungrateful fool! since but for brands
Well wielded in some hardy hands,
And wounds by Galileans given –
The surest pass to Turkish heaven
For him his Houris still might wait
Impatient at the Prophet’s gate.
I loved her – love will find its way
Through paths where wolves would fear to prey;
And if it dares enough, ’twere hard
If passion met not some reward –
No matter how, or where, or why,
I did not vainly seek, nor sigh:
Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain
I wish she had not loved again.
She died – I dare not tell thee how;
But look – ’tis written on my brow!
There read of Cain the curse and crime,
In characters unworn by time:
Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause;
Not mine the act, though I the cause.
Yet did he but what I had done
Had she been false to more than one.
Faithless to him, he gave the blow;
But true to me, I laid him low:
Howe’er deserved her doom might be,
Her treachery was truth to me;
To me she gave her heart, that all
Which tyranny can ne’er enthral;
And I, alas! too late to save!
Yet all I then could give, I gave,
‘Twas some relief, our foe a grave.
His death sits lightly; but her fate
Has made me – what thou well mayest hate.
His doom was sealed – he knew it well
Warned by the voice of stern Taheer,
Deep in whose darkly boding ear
The deathshot pealed of murder near,
As filed the troop to where they fell!
He died too in the battle broil,
A time that heeds nor pain nor toil;
One cry to Mahomet for aid,
One prayer to Allah all he made:
He knew and crossed me in the fray –
I gazed upon him where he lay,
And watched his spirit ebb away:
Though pierced like pard by hunters’ steel,
He felt not half that now I feel.
I searched, but vainly searched, to find
The workings of a wounded mind;
Each feature of that sullen corse
Betrayed his rage, but no remorse.
Oh, what had vengeance given to trace
Despair upon his dying face I
The late repentance of that hour,
When penitence hath lost her power
To tear one terror from the grave,
And will not soothe, and cannot save.

Thomas Phillips: Lord Byron in Albanian dress
Thomas Phillips: Lord Byron in Albanian dress

Sources

(1) Romantic Orientalism-LU Lecture, Naji B. Oueijan, Notre Dame University-Lebanon

(2) BBC Lord Byron’s image inspired modern take on vampires

(3) Interrogating Orientalism, edited by Diane Long Hoeveler and Jeffrey Cass, The Ohio State University Press

(4) BYRON’S “TURKISH TALES”: AN INTRODUCTION Peter Cochran

(5) The Combat of the Giaour and Hassan, The Art Institute of Chicago

(6) The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Lord Byron, from The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale

(7) A domesticated villain – Lord Byron’s The Giaour, DesOrient

(8) A Comparison Between two Turkish Heroines in Lord Byron’s Poetry: Leila in “The Giaour” and Leila in Don Juan, Mona Sulaiman Farraj Albalawi

The diasappearance of the body from the work of Sarah Lucas

I recently visited a gallery in London, where works by Sarah Lucas are exhibited.

Sarah Lucas, Au naturel, 2008
Sarah Lucas, Au naturel, 2008

I have written about Sarah Lucas before, namely about her powerful metaphors of food, linking eggs, chickens, burgers to genitalia and body parts, recognizable or not.

Sarah Lucas, Penetralia, 2008
Sarah Lucas, Penetralia, 2008

What impressed me the most in the Sarah Lucas exhibition, is the disappearance of the body. Most of her recent works are about genitalia and body parts, twisted, deformed, or otherwise. But the body has disappeared, except in one of the exhibit rooms, where she presented some wall-size photographs of the lower half of male bodies ornated with artifacts.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, Fuckface
Jake and Dinos Chapman, Fuckface

This is quite interesting if you contrast it with the work of JAke and Dinos Chapman.  In @Fuckface@ we have not only a body, albeit a conflated one, but also faces. A merging of genitalia and the human face, accompanied by a rather sad rendition of the rest of the body. But in spite of its sorry state, the body is present.

Sarah Lucas, Nud Cycladic 10
Sarah Lucas, Nud Cycladic 10, 2010

This is not the case with Sarah Lucas. But it does not stop there. Her “Nud Cycladic” Series introduces renditions of body parts that cannot be called recognizable. They may trigger associational processes and as a result various other images, but immediately recognizable they are not.

Sarah Lucas, Pauline Bunny, 1997
Sarah Lucas, Pauline Bunny, 1997

I left the exhibition rather dazed and disoriented. I do not usually get exposed to this bombardment of genitalia and body parts floating about, or standing on their own on the floor, or hanging from the walls or the ceiling. My rescus came from the “Pauline Bunny”, Lucas’ of 1997. I recovered it from my archives and felt that I came back to some sense of regularity. What previously looked like a monster, became like a friend I had not seen for a long time.

Sarah Lucas in her studio
Sarah Lucas in her studio

Could it be that the body has not disappeared but is disappearing? And will eventually come back?