Mark Burrell: North Sea Magical Realist artist extraordinaire

Lowestoft Floods 1953

The absurdly slow and long bus-journey from Norwich to the coastal town of Southwold through the darkest interior of Suffolk, was well worth enduring for an early viewing of Mark Burrell’s latest work, currently exhibited at CraftCo, until the 28th September.  

Mark Burrell (b. 1957 Lowestoft) is an established artist who has developed his distinctive style and unique vision from decades of industrious creativity. Nationally, Burrell’s work has featured frequently on British TV. He was awarded first prize on the programme Moving Art and won the Lucy Memorial Prize at the Royal Overseas League. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Interart Gallery and the Williamsburg historical Art Centre at New York. 

Choosing to work in alkyd resins, giving his canvases a stained-glass luminescence and sometimes restricting his tonal palette in order to create a highly-charged emotional atmosphere, Burrell’s art is strongly feeling orientated. His often dark, near Gothic and sometimes disturbing art is however, not without great beauty and charm also, as is evident in his Memories of a Merry-Go-Round (below).

Burrell’s resourcefulness is such that the closely-knit community of his home-town of Lowestoft has supplied him with an abundance of artistic inspiration.His personal memories of growing up at the now long-gone Beach village, of a Lowestoft town long gone in particular, have provided him with fertile subject-matter. His artistic imagination sometimes draws upon common and personal childhood fears of a ghosts-on-the-washing-line-in-the--moonlight variety such as the Freudian terror of being told one's mother is, 'going to visit the Fish-man' (fish-shop) for example. Childhood memories and fears are prominent in his Bogey Boys.

   

Burrell's extensive back-catalogue also includes a number of  both land and seascapes. In his Lowestoft Floods 1953 (top) Burrell conjures the events of the North Sea Flood at Lowestoft. Taking a bird-eye perspective of the cataclysmic surge tide, local landmarks are featured, along with the chaos of the event. There's perhaps a nod in style in Burrell's canvas to the primitive simplicity of English art as exemplified by Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) (it was while alone in the winter of 1937, when resident in Southwold, Suffolk, that Stanley Spencer begin a series of paintings entitled The Beatitudes of Love). What's certain is that it's a work of considerable artistic imagination for Burrell was not actually born until several years after the event; however, local folk-lore recollection of the disaster in conjunction with Burrell's fertile artistic imagination and distinctive draughtsmanship, contribute to a highly-imaginative reconstruction of the effects of the 1953 North Sea storm tide upon  the east coast town of Lowestoft.

Far from viewing the world through rose-tinted spectacles, Burrell considers the world today to be a sometimes dark place. Sharing this view-point with the German artist Otto Dix (1891-1961) whom he admires, the influence of the Neue Sachlicheit (New Objectivity) artist can be discerned in his Midnight Circus, Backstage (below). 

Mark Burrell, along with fellow North Sea Magical Realist artist, Peter Rodulfo, is also receptive to the ideas of C.G.Jung (1875-1961). In particular the Swiss psychologist's essays The Spirit of Man, Art and Literature, in which the psychic processes and archetypal structures involved in artistic creativity are discussed. Jung's essays, especially On Picasso (1932), Burrell considers to contain the most perceptive of all psychological observations upon artistic creativity he's ever read. 

With words applicable to both Burrell's and Rodulfo's art, C.G. Jung declares in The Spirit of Man, Art and Literature, -

'Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever-enduring'.

and 'All art intuitively apprehends coming changes in the collective unconsciousness'.

Its no sweeping hyperbole to state that Mark Burrell is quite simply the greatest creative artist to flourish from the coastal-town of Lowestoft since the days of the composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76). He's also of a calm, thoughtful and affable disposition in his personality. We therefore cordially wish him along with fellow North Sea Magical Realist artist Peter Rodulfo, many more years of good health and inspiration.

There's a distinctly Mark Chagall-like quality to the beautiful painting entitled Sky of Stars (above); however reproductions barely do justice to the glowing splendour of Burrell's work. Nevertheless they're worth posting, if only to inspire the reader to visit a current exhibition and view the far greater originals for themselves ! 

Links

A film about Mark Burrell

More Mark Burrell paintings at Mark Burrell Art

See also - 

Mark Burrell;s 'The Homing-Ground'

Peter Rodulfo: As the elephant laughed

Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party

Last night I re-read in one sitting Graham Greene's novella Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party (1980). One of the greatest of 20th century English novelists, Greene's novels contain acute and sometimes controversial observations upon the human condition. In his last ever novel, Graham Greene (1904 -1991) explores the nature of greed, in particular the greed of the rich. 

The novella (140 pp) is narrated from the perspective of the endearing character of Alfred Jones, a translator for a chocolate factory in Geneva. When Alfred meets Anna-Luise, the estranged daughter of the fabulously wealthy Doctor Fischer, he becomes her lover. Anne's father has acquired his enormous wealth through the invention of Dentophil Bouquet, a toothpaste which ironically Alfred notes, is antithetical to the effects of eating too much chocolate. Alfred is invited to attend one of Dr Fischer's notorious parties at which extraordinarily valuable presents are given to guests on sufferance of humiliation. At the first party which Alfred attends cold porridge is served to his sycophantic guests. The sadistic nature of Dr Fischer ensures his guests are well aware of his rules, one must endure considerable humiliation from him in order to receive an expensive gift. Without wanting to post spoilers to what is a short story which packs a punch, the denouement of the novel involves a variant of Russian roulette, in which the ultimate test of human greed is made. 

Throughout his novella Greene makes several noteworthy statements upon the human condition, he suggests, through the voice-piece of Alfred, that the human soul is like an embryo which develops from suffering. Because children and animals do not suffer except for themselves, Alfred proposes they do not have souls. A soul, states Alfred, requires a private life. 'If you have a soul you cannot be satisfied', he asserts. When asked by Anna-Luise whether her father, Dr. Fischer has a soul, Alfred replies, 'He has a soul alright, but I think it may be a damned one'. Alfred also notes that silence can only be enjoyed by those not experiencing unhappiness. 

But its the subject of greed, and by extension, its poisonous relationship to the soul, which is central to Greene's novella, especially the rapacious greed of the rich. Published at the onset of decades of sanctioned greed (1980) Doctor Fischer, not unlike certain members of the present-day British government, justifies his greed and contempt for humanity in general, as a healthy and natural instinct. Having little or no empathy or understanding of the suffering of others, once more not unlike the legislative policies of the present-day British government, Doctor Fischer is quite happy to feed his greed at the expense of others.

Often closely allied to cruelty, greed inevitably knows no morality and often quite mercilessly exploits the vulnerability of others. Its estimated that the wealth of the very richest in society has actually increased since the world recession of 2008 began.  Present-day economic policies in the USA and GB continues to increase the wealth of the very richest 1% of society at the expense of the poor, quite literally robbing from the poor in order to make the rich even wealthier. The madness of greed, as Greene masterly depicts in his novella, has neither shame or social conscience.  

Although it is purely advertising blurb, on this occasion I'm inclined to agree with The Times literary critic who's quoted stating on the back-cover of the Penguin edition of Greene's novella - 'Manages to say more about love, hate, happiness, grief, immortality, greed and the disgusting rich than most contemporary  English novels three times the length'.

Incidentally, and somewhat surprisingly, although Graham Greene's novella its set in Geneva, there's no mention of the famous landmark of the Swiss city, namely the Jet d' eau, the fountain which spouts water some 140 metres into the air (photo above). The setting of Geneva is however highly appropriate for the novella's theme of greed. Well-known as a city of great wealth, Geneva is listed as one of the most expensive cities in the world, as I personally discovered when visiting the Swiss city one summer and winter last century. I also vaguely remember watching a 1985 TV adaptation of Dr Fischer of Geneva or The Bomb Party with James Mason in his last ever acting role as Doctor Fischer, Alan Bates as Alfred and Greta Scacchi as Anna-Luise.

Norwich 1912 Floods

The summer of 2012 in England has been a bit of a wash-out, not just the wettest ever April to June since records began in 1910,  but in fact the wettest summer for over one hundred years.  However, no  matter how dismal this summer's been, no loss of life has occurred from the weather, unlike events in Norwich a century ago. 

After 7 inches of rain fell over several days in late August 1912, the river Wensum which flows through the City finally burst its banks, resulting in floods radiating over a 40 mile area. It's estimated that the rain fell at the rate of one inch of water an hour and in total four people lost their lives. Those who remained in their homes had food and other supplies delivered to them by boat or horse and cart. The city's rail-links to the outside world were  temporarily blocked by flood-water, fallen trees and debris.

On August 31, Henry John Copeman, Lord Mayor of Norwich at the time, wrote to all the nation's leading newspapers - “Following a rainfall unprecedented in the records of the Meteorological Office, whole streets in the low-lying part of the city have been flooded, houses rendered desolate, the furniture and bedding destroyed, and their occupants homeless and resourceless".

But as ever, such a disaster united people and brought out the best in them. Members of the Royal Family donated £300 and the King and Queen of Norway gave £21, but the biggest donation came from the local industrial entrepreneur J. J Colman who donated £1,000,  an enormous amount of money a century ago. The total amount of money given to the people of Norwich came to £24,579 14s 7d. A report outlining how every penny was spent was duly published.

Nowadays we tend to attribute natural disasters to climate change, but in fact natural disasters, in particular flooding in this region, have occurred throughout history. The worst case being the 1953 North Sea floods, which, due to a fatal combination of winds, atmospheric pressure and high tides, affected not only East Anglia, but also Scotland and Holland, resulting in the loss of over 80 lives on the North-West Norfolk coast alone. The 1953 floods claimed over 2,500 lives, the low-lying Netherlands being by far the worst affected nation. 

Wiki-Link - 1953 floods

Mermaid

The seductive figure of the mermaid has a fascinating place in world art and literature. 

An early western literary account of the mermaid legend occurs in a medieval Romance which tells of Melusine, a fairy of extraordinary beauty who sometimes changes into a serpent. A popular fifteenth century Romance recounted the tale of Melusine, a fairy who promises to marry Raimondin of Lusignan and make him a rich king if he agrees to marry but never to look at her on a Saturday evening. They marry and Raimondin grows wealthy, while Melusine with her magic builds him a castle. Raimondin however, is also consumed with jealousy, suspecting his wife of unfaithfulness. One Saturday evening he gouges a spy-hole through a wall to watch Melusine when she retires to her room. While she is bathing he sees that his wife has become half woman, half serpent. Melusine, distressed at being seen transformed flies away with frightful screams. Associated through marriage with the Lusignan family, Melusine appears over the centuries on the towers of their castle, wailing mournfully every time  a disaster or death in the family is imminent. 

In the utterly charming novel The Wandering Unicorn (1965) by the Argentinian author Manuel Mujica Lainez (1910-64) the legend of Melusine is developed further. Set in medieval France and the holy Land of the Crusades, Lainez’s novel is a rich serving of fantasy and romance. Narrated from the perspective of the shape-changing Melusine, the early events of the original legend are soon recounted before she embarks upon an adventure and unrequited love-affair with Aiol, the son of Ozil, a crusader knight who bequeaths a Unicorn’s lance to his son. Together the young knight Aiol and Melusine travel across Europe to eventually arrive in war-torn Jerusalem of the Crusades. The reader is drawn into Lainez’s neglected gem of magical realism with growing empathy towards Melusine as she recollects her adventures and love of Aiol, only to experience the full emotional impact of the tragic and sad ending of the love-affair between a mortal and an immortal.

18th century Melusine with the four Elements

The Renaissance alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) also fell under the potent spell of the mermaid Melusine. It’s worth remembering that Paracelsus, above all others, was the foremost alchemist who influenced the psychologist C.G. Jung. Both men were physicians of Swiss-German nationality as well as radical protestant theologians. In the darkest year of World War II, 1942 C.G. Jung delivered a conference paper on the Swiss physician at Zurich for the quatercentenary anniversary of Paracelsus's death in 1542, which analysed the symbolism of the mermaid, stating in his essay Paracelsus as a Spiritual Phenomenon -

Melusine comes into the same category as the nymphs and sirens who dwell in the watery realms. In his De Pygmaeis Paracelsus informs us that Melusina was originally a nymph who was seduced by Beelzebub into practising witchcraft. She was descended from the whale in whose belly the prophet Jonah beheld great mysteries. This derivation is very important: the birthplace of Melusina is the womb of mysteries, obviously what we today would call the unconscious. Melusines have no genitals, a fact that characterizes them as paradisiacal beings, since Adam and Eve in paradise had no genitals either……Adam and Eve “fell for” the serpent and became “monstrous”, that is, that they acquired genitals. But the Melusines remained in the paradisal state as water creatures and went on living in the human blood. Since blood is a primitive symbol for the soul, Melusina can be interpreted as a spirit, or some kind of psychic phenomenon. Gerard Dorn confirms this in his commentary on De Vita longa , where he says that Melusina is a “vision appearing in the mind.” For anyone familiar with the subliminal processes of psychic transformation, Melusina is clearly an anima figure. She appears as a variant of the mercurial serpent, which was sometimes represented in the form of a snake-woman by way of expressing the monstrous, double nature of Mercurius.[1]

C.G. Jung defined the alchemists of the medieval and Renaissance era as none other than embryonic psychologists who recognized the very real existence of the psyche but lacked a terminology to describe the psyche’s workings. According to Jung-

Paracelsus seems to have known nothing of any psychological premises. He attributes the appearance and transformation of Melusina to the effect of the “intervening” Scaiolae, the driving spiritual forces emanating from the homo maximus.[2]

The four Scaiolae or spiritual powers of the mind of Paracelsian alchemy have a distinct affinity to C.G. Jung’s preciser four nominated functions of the psyche, namely, thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition. Jung defined the Paracelsian Scaiolae and their relationship to Melusina thus-

Since the Scaiolae are psychic functions….as functions of consciousness, and particularly as imaginato, speculation, phantasia and fides, they “intervene” and stimulate Melusina, the water-nixie, to change herself into human form….Now this figure is certainly not an allegorical chimera or a mere metaphor: she has her particular psychic reality in the sense that she is a glamorous apparition who, by her very nature, is on one side a psychic vision but also, on account of the psyche’s capacity for imaginative realization is a distinct objective entity, like a dream which temporarily becomes reality. The figure of Melusina is eminently suited to this purpose. The anima belongs to those borderline phenomena which chiefly occur in special psychic situations. [3] 

In this context the anima figure's role in the individuation process is of great significance. Paracelsus apprehended this fact when identifying the 'difficult' nature of Melusine in her relationship to the Scaiolae of the homo maximus or  the greater man within.

Illustration by Charles Robinson 1937

J. Jacobi in a glossary to selected works by Paracelsus, defines Melusina as -

A legendary, magic being, whose name Paracelsus also uses to designate an arcarnum. He conceives of it as a psychic force whose seat is a watery part of the blood, or as a kind of anima vegetativa (vegetative soul.)

In a fine example of how male fantasy invariably  either under-values or over-values the anima figure (although often considered of a helpful, guiding nature there's also malevolent aspects of the femme fatale in the mermaid) and how Christian misogyny conspired to condemn the mermaid as symbolic of sinful sensuality, the Paracelsian scholar and lexiconographer, Martin Ruland in his Dictionary of Alchemy (1612) asserted -

Mermaids were Kings' daughters in France, snatched away by Satan because they were hopelessly sinful, and transformed into spectres horrible to behold...They are thought to exist with a rational soul, but a merely brute-like body, of a visionary kind, nourished by the elements and, like them, destined to pass away at the last day unless they contract a marriage with a man. Then the man himself may, perish by a natural death, while they live naturally by this nuptial union.

Invariably portrayed as solitary and beautiful with long-flowing hair, not easy to become acquainted  with, changeable in mood and elusive, often fleeing from human presence when approached, with an ability to inhabit an alien element, namely water, the mermaid represents the archetype of the anima in Jungian psychology. The anima is born from unconscious contents associated with, and projected onto ‘the other’  which in the male psyche is the female sex, gender being the greatest divide of nature which includes human nature. 

C.G.Jung considered fish to be perfect symbols of the contents of the unconscious psyche and the element of water itself as a symbol of the unknown and therefore also of the unconscious psyche. In essence the mermaid is a composite symbol of alluring virgin attached to an alien and repellent fish-form. From this tension of opposites, half seductress, half fish, C.G.Jung recognised the mermaid as another symbol connected to the shape-shifting deity associated with reconciling the opposites in alchemy, Mercurius.

During the romantic era of the nineteenth century  the mermaid became an object of sentimentality. Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy-tale The Little Mermaid (1837) inspired Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of the Carlsberg brewery who had been entranced by a ballet he'd seen based upon Anderson’s fairytale at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre. In 1913 Jacobsen commissioned a bronze sculpture of a mermaid by Edward Ericksen which was placed in the entrance to Copenhagen harbour. Ericksen’s sculpture, though often sadly frequently vandalized, has become emblematic of the city of Copenhagen. The capital city of Warsaw in Poland has had a mermaid as part of its heraldic coat-of-arms since the 14th century.

Fascination with the slippery and wet fantasy of the mermaid became increasingly eroticized in paintings of the late romantic era. In British artist Frederic Leighton’s The Fisherman and the Siren (top picture) for example, the sheer unashamed erotic content of the mermaid is celebrated as in many other late 19th century paintings in which the mermaid is an object of  male fantasy and elusive desire.

The mermaid could not possibly slip away into the sea of obscurity and escape from the sharp-eyed scrutiny of the 17th century British scholar of comparative religion Sir Thomas Browne. In his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica, he noted of the mermaid's resemblance in the ancient world to the winged siren, and to Dagon, an ancient Assyro-Babylonian fertility fish-god, noting-

Few eyes have escaped the Picture of Mermaids; that is, according to Horace his Monster, with woman’s head above, and fishy extremity below: and these are conceived to answer the shape of the ancient Syrens that attempted upon Ulysses. Which notwithstanding were of another description, containing no fishy composure, but made up of Man and Bird; ........

And therefore these pieces so common among us, do rather derive their original, or are indeed the very descriptions of Dagon; which was made with human figure above, and fishy shape below; whose stump, or as Tremellius and our margin renders it, whose fishy part only remained, when the hands and upper part fell before the Ark. Of the shape of Atergates, or Derceto with the Phœniceans; in whose fishy and feminine mixture, as some conceive, were implyed the Moon and the Sea, or the Deity of the waters; and therefore, in their sacrifices, they made oblations of fishes. From whence were probably occasioned the pictures of Nereides and Tritons among the Grecians, and such as we read in Macrobius, to have been placed on the top of the Temple of Saturn. [4]

Japanese hentai anime of the anima figure of the Mermaid.  

Notes

[1]  C.G.Jung  Collected Works vol. 13. 180 

[2]  Vol. 13:220

[3]  Vol. 13:216-217

[4]  Pseudodoxia Epidemica book 5 chapter 19

Wiki-Links - Mermaid 

Posted for Emily Josephine Jackman on her birthday with love.

Boston Stump

Although Noel Coward once wittily declared, 'Very Flat Norfolk', in fact large tracts of Norfolk are slightly undulating in landscape and even downright hilly in places. Surely the much-loved Norwich poet and performer Timothy Sillence (1944-2002) conveyed a much deeper understanding of the intimate and mystical nature of the Norfolk landscape when humorously writing-  

Norfolk

is a flat land

within easy reach 
of the Himalayas.

Recently on a rare excursion out of the county of  'bootiful Norfolk', I had the pleasure to travel through the Fens, the geographical region of England which is definitely 'Very Flat'. The Fens are a vast expanse of fertile agricultural land situated predominately in the counties of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. Travelling through the many square miles of low-laying land effectively drained and reclaimed from the sea by Dutch engineering in the seventeenth century, one senses how much the Fen landscape with its huge domed skies must have affected the psychology of its inhabitants. This thought is reinforced once arriving at Boston in Lincolnshire and viewing the enormous tower of Saint Botolph's. Long known as Boston Stump or just The Stump, the medieval architects of the extraordinary Perpendicular style tower utilized the flat landscape of Lincolnshire to make their House of God into a bold, enduring statement. Like the so-called 'Ship of the Fens', Ely Cathedral, Boston Stump dominated the landscape during the Middle Ages and was visible from great distance.

The 202 steps and 83 metres which lead up the Boston Stump collectively and discreetly enquire  upon one's assumed fitness, but the views are well worth  the effort !

The windmill (centre) was working with its sails rotating. Its said that from Boston Stump with good visibility and powerful binoculars one can  see the back of one's head ! ( Actually it's claimed one can see over thirty miles from the tower).

The river Haven stretches into the distance. Boston was a thriving sea-port during the Middle Ages until access to the port silted-up over the centuries. As with much of Fenland, Boston is home to a network of rivers, canals and  inter-connecting drainage conduits.

Wiki -link   St. Botolph's Church Boston 

Norfolk Chalk Reef

Photo:Rob Spray

The ancient coast-line of East Anglia, once the furthest extent of retreating glaciers during the last Ice Age, continues to reveal astounding evidence of early man's activities and prehistoric nature. The North Norfolk coast-line in particular is a rich source of geological and archaeological wonders. These include the Cromer Ridge, a terminal glacial moraine formed during the last Ice Age; the discovery of a fossilised skeleton of a steppe mammoth approximately 600,000 years old in the cliffs of West Runton in 1990, and  a circular arrangement of over fifty split oak tree trunks, an early man-made ritual monument named  Seahenge, dated circa 2100 BCE, which was first exposed at Holme-next-the-Sea in 1998.

It's recently  been announced that the world's longest chalk reef, over 20 miles in length, stretching from Cley to Trimingham along the Norfolk coast, complete with massive two metre high arches and deep gullies has been discovered.  So far three species never recorded before have been found in the Chalk reef including the Leopard Spotted Goby, two rare anemones and an obscure purple-coloured sponge.  The Chalk Reef was the subject of a BBC regional TV  programme which was spectacular in viewing. Here's the link for a 3 minute filmed dive through the Norfolk chalk Reef . The discovery of the Chalk reef was made by Rob Spray who runs the Marine Conservation Society survey project with a team of volunteers.

Even during my hedonistic and ecstatic summers of youth, swimming, sunbathing and reading on the  beach, I never dreamed of a submarine world some 300 million years old just half a mile out from the shore and  just eight metres below  the surface of the North sea.

However, the seventeenth century doctor and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne did dream of submarine worlds. His miscellaneous tract   Museum Clausum  or Bibliotheca Abscondita  identified by W.G. Sebald  in his Rings of Saturn  (1998) as a  curious minor masterpiece of the imagination,  includes among its inventory of lost, rumoured or imagined books, pictures and objects-

9. A Sub Marine Herbal describing the several Vegetables found on the Rocks, hills, Valleys, Meadows at the bottom of the Sea, with many sorts of Alga, Fucus, Quercus, Polygonum, Gramens and others not yet described.

The world of the submarine must have been of great interest to Browne as included in his miscellaneous tract under the entries of  pictures, one reads the worthy doctor dreaming of -

3. Large Submarine Pieces, well delineating the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, the Prairie or large Sea-meadow upon the Coast of Provence, the Coral Fishing, the gathering of Sponges, the Mountains, Valleys and Deserts, the Subterraneous Vents and Passages at the bottom of that Sea ; 

Joseph Stannard

Today is the birth-date of Joseph Stannard, the Norwich artist who died tragically young of tuberculosis aged just 33. Joseph Stannard ( Sept. 13th 1797- Dec. 5th 1830) was one of the most gifted artists who exhibited collectively under the banner of  Norwich School from 1803 to 1833, the city being the home of the first regional art movement in British art. Such was the precocious development of the young Joseph  that he began exhibiting his paintings aged 14 in 1811. He looks confident and aware of his talents in his teacher Robert Ladbrooke's portrait of him.

Joseph Stannard's life is exemplary of  the romantic notion of a struggling  artist. Living in the turbulent era of  the early nineteenth century, he was often in financial difficulties and in poor health. In addition to his artistic skills he was, like his younger brother Alfred, a strong rower. He was also an  accomplished ice-skater who entertained the locals with his skill during cold winters. Stannard's era was also that of the Napoleonic wars which were prohibitive to travel  in mainland Europe. When stability returned to Europe, Stannard took the opportunity to visit Holland. In Amsterdam in 1821 he viewed paintings by seventeenth century Dutch landscape masters Ruisdael, Berchem and Hobbema which deepened his interest in marine and seascape subjects. He married in 1822 and in 1824 his fortune changed when the Norwich manufacturer John Harvey commissioned him to paint what is his master-work, Thorpe Water Frolic, Afternoon. Harvey's agenda was to establish Norwich as a sea-port for the export of his merchandise. After visiting Venice and witnessing festivities held on the water there he organised a similar event for Norwich society which promoted his idea of Norwich returning to its sea-port status.

In many ways Stannard's  Thorpe Water Frolic is an important social document of a rare day off work for Norwich's textile workers who are depicted upon the right bank of the river Yare. The growing middle-class, civic dignitaries and aristocracy of Georgian England are located on the opposite river-bank.

Joseph Stannard has used a fair amount of poetic licence in his capturing the mood of the event, complete with musicians playing Schubert, courting couples, naval officers, rugged seamen and city loom workers  all enjoying a work-free day on the river. Particular attention to weather conditions and a vigorous cloudscape frames the lively water-event.

Stannard's own boat the Cytherea is on the extreme right of the canvas. Joseph can be seen shielding his brow with his hand looking toward his patron Harvey standing in a gondola. He certainly entered into the spirit of the event which attracted 20,000 people in 1824, his boat is described thus-

'its colour is purple; the inside is adorned with an elegant gilt scroll, which completely encircles it; on the back-board where the coxswain sits, is a beautiful and spirited sea-piece, representing a stiff breeze at sea, with vessels sailing in various directions, painted in oils, and the spoons of the oars are neatly covered with gilt dolphins'.

There's an interesting inter-play between Stannard the sailor who depicted the rigging and canvas sails of boats with every rope in its correct place and the medium of canvas on which he painted. Thorpe Water Frolic, Afternoon is dominated by a canvas sail catching the breeze. The large-scale oil on canvas painting itself measures 108 x 172 cms and  is a jewel in the crown of the Crome and Cotman  galleries in Norwich Castle Museum.

Although the artists of the Norwich School  had the inspiration and natural beauty of the Norfolk landscape and its waterways upon their door-step, the tragedy many artists suffered from was a distinct lack of local patronage, obliging many talented members to engage in much drudging, teaching work in order to make a living, such was J.J.Cotman's frequent fate; worse still,  it also suffered from an  intense rivalry between leading families.

Ever since the young Joseph Stannard had enquired about lessons from the founding father of the Norwich School 'Old Crome'  John Crome (1768-1821) a bitter hostility existed between the two families. Crome quoted an extortionate sum which was in effect a snub to the Stannard family. The hostility between the Crome and Stannard families seems to have persisted throughout the nineteenth century, even to the grandchildren of the two masters of  'Old Crome' and Stannard, both families producing several generations of artists.

In some respects Joseph Stannard's biography comes across as the consumptive poet of romanticism not unlike Keats. In his finest paintings, Stannard's paintings burst beyond the confines of restrained Classicism into a lyrical, early Romanticism.There's also an equal balance between landscape and realistic portraiture of people who are active and integral to the landscape in Stannard's painting, unlike Crome's landscapes in which people are often incidental, or present only for emphasis of scale and perspective.

Throughout the 1820's Stannard  had intermittent bouts of poor health and resided at various Norfolk coastal resorts in order to recuperate. His later works include several highly original beach scenes which include activities of working fishermen. However in December of 1830 he died of tuberculosis aged 33. A memorial stone commemorating Joseph Stannard can be seen in the church of Saint John Maddermarket, Norwich.

Wikipedia has a page on Joseph  Stannard which links to a number of his paintings.  

Neptune

Today the planet Neptune completes one full revolution of the Sun since its discovery in 1846. Neptune has of course  been orbiting the Sun for millions of years, taking 165 years to orbit our nearest star,  but its only since 1846 that its existence has been known  by humans. It was the first planet to be discovered by mathematical calculation, being not visible except by telescope.  

In mythology Neptune was the ruler of seas and oceans and this is reflected in its designated symbol of a Triton. Neptune is also associated with the horse, the god often being depicted riding a shell-shaped chariot drawn by horses. 

Roman Mosaic 2/3 century CE

Astrologically Neptune is the ruler of the Zodiac sign of Pisces as well as hospitals, prisons, mental institutions and monasteries; in fact all places which involve a withdrawal from society  are believed to be under the rule of Neptune as well as psychic phenomena such as dreams, hypnotism, extra-sensory perception, illusion and deception in general. Alcohol and drug-taking, especially hallucinogenic mushrooms, along with melodrama and cinema are all classic examples of Neptunian influence. Neptune is also associated with humility and spiritual illumination.

Neptune was a popular subject for Renaissance and baroque fountains in Italy, in particular Berni's Trevi fountain in Rome. The Roman god of the seas influence in popular culture continues in the curious ritual  of paying homage to Neptune when crossing the equator, especially upon cruises.

Thunder and Lightning

The first summer storm of the year. Thunder and lightning are invariably associated with God by most religions. In ancient Greek mythology lightning is a weapon of Zeus which is forged by the Cyclops. In Norse mythology the god Thor (Thursday) is a god of thunder, its sound  was believed to come from the chariot Thor rode across the sky,  lightning was believed to emanate from his hammer, Mjölnir. 

I've written on the symbolism of lightning in the Tarot in a previous post entitled The Tower. A detailed account of a violent thunderstorm at Norwich in June 1665 involving fireballs by Sir Thomas Browne can be found here.

Drought

After one of the driest Springs recorded, the drought in five English counties, all in the east of England has now been made official. I would suggest however that this current drought, and the severe shortage of rain which farmers and food-growers are experiencing,  goes much deeper. There's a serious and  wide-spread drought and thirst throughout many regions of the world for a fairer distribution of wealth and resources, moral integrity, compassion, leadership and  spiritual  vision. These droughts can't begin to be remedied until humanity acknowledges, as drought along with volcanic eruption, earthquake, hurricane, flood, famine and  war,  painfully reminds those suffering, that humanity isn't as much in control of its destiny as it imagines, and the words of the Prince of Peace  are heeded-

Whoever drinks water shall be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water  I  give shall not thirst;  for the water  I give shall be a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Cromer

Because it has a rail connection to Norwich Cromer is  probably the coastal resort I've frequented most. It's been a while since I visited the 'Gem of the Norfolk Coast', which is situated some twenty-odd miles north of Norwich. A barmy summer of crab sandwiches, swimming and putting on the green, now long gone.

Cromer is also the place where over many years I've read innumerable books while on the beach. These days I have a small tent with me in readiness for the vastly differing weather conditions between  hinterland and coast. 

I'd almost forgotten how relaxing it is to turn the pages accompanied by the  sound of  surf  and waves breaking. As ever there was an fairly stiff off-shore wind from an icy North sea, but the quality of light, bracing air and immensity of space, easily compensated. Geographically, the Norfolk coast is famous for being a place where facing due north there is no land between oneself and the frozen ice of the Arctic. A little too early in the year for a swim in the sea.

At low-tide one begins to sense the prehistory of the coast-line. In fact much of the beach was once part of a prehistoric forest bed which was formed between 780,000 to 450,000 years ago.  Known  as the  geological era of  the Cromerian Stage, during the last ice-age or Pleistocene, the Cromerian Interglacial is the benchmark that all European countries use when studying their own  geological  deposits. 

The fossilized skeleton of a steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) an elephant some 600,00 years old was discovered not far from Cromer,  at West Runton in 1990.

Further along the coast is the site of  Seahenge,  an early man ceremonial ritual site marked by a circle of wood beams with an upturned tree-root at its centre dated  circa 2100 BCE (scroll down to earlier May post for pics of Seahenge).

It's very pleasant on a summer's evening to sit on Cromer Pier with a drink and watch the sun sink into the sea.

Cromer by James Stark (1794-1859) 'Norwich School'

Wiki-links
West Runton Elephant
Cromerian Stage
Seahenge
Norwich School

King's Lynn

                 
Custom House and statue of George Vancouver

The historic Norfolk market-town of King's Lynn is well worth visiting. King’s Lynn Custom house  (above) was built in 1683 by Henry Bell  and modeled upon Dutch architecture which occupied the site previously. In fact, the influence of  the Dutch  permeates the cultural history of Norfolk. Evidence of the Dutch influence in trade, migration and immigration and even dialect can be found in the place names, family surnames and architecture of  Norfolk including King's Lynn. 

The architecture of King's Lynn's  historic quarter affords a generous insight into its  medieval past and hints of  voyages  of  trade, exploration and  pilgrimage made by its citizens. Situated forty miles due west from Norwich at the mouth of the River Ouse and  the Wash estuary,  sheltered  from the North Sea yet within easy sailing distance to the coast-line of  Scandinavia, North Germany,  Flanders and the Baltic, King's Lynn's  location meant that it became a busy and prosperous  sea-port during the Middle Ages.  Inland it's geographical position to the Midlands and Norfolk meant that it also exported large quantities of  British produce including wool and pottery.

Such was Lynn's sea-trading importance that it was once a member of the Hanseatic League. The Hanseatic League, a confederation of sea-ports radiating around the  Baltic Sea, traded in commodities such as  amber, resins, furs,  rye and wheat. Individual Hanseatic ports had their own representative merchant  warehouses.  There was a Hanseatic representative  in the English cities of Boston, Bristol, Hull, Ipswich, Norwich, Great Yarmouth and York. However, the only surviving example of a Hanseatic warehouse in England can be found standing close to the harbour at King's Lynn.

Nikolaus Pevsner, author of the authoritative guide to the architecture of England,  was  an admirer  of King's Lynn. Pevsner stated that the walk from the Tuesday Market Place to the River by the Customs House was one of the finest in the world. Near the market-place is the medieval Guildhall. Like Norwich's medieval Guildhall its facade has a chequer-pattern design, a symbolic reminder that it was once where revenues were collected, payments placed upon  a table of the same chequer pattern, like a Chess-board. In Britain, the Minister for finance is known as  the Chancellor of the Exchequer,  a  title which retains a  remnant of the  money-collecting tradition.

The church of Saint Margaret’s has some remarkable, ornately-carved pews known as misericords, (folding chairs which flip upwards as in cinemas). They were made for monks to support them standing during long church services and date from circa 1370.

Also in King’s Lynn there’s the  Red Mount, a  peculiar 15th century chapel   described by the architect  Nikolaus Pevsner as 'one of the most perfect buildings ever built' and 'unique'. In a flat landscape it was a prominent land-mark and  stop-over point for  religious pilgrims en route to the holy shrine of Walsingham.

King's Lynn's most famous pilgrim  of the Middle Ages was  Margery Kempe. The daughter of a Lynn mayor, Margery Kempe (c.1373 -1440) was a remarkable woman. In addition to bearing fourteen children when married, she  embarked upon pilgrimages throughout England and Europe to Aachen, Venice, Rome, Spain, Norway,  and even made pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in 1414. A dramatic enactment of Kempe's recorded visit to Julian of Norwich was recently realised by a UEA drama group in their re-construction of their medieval mystery play Mary's Step's.

Margery Kempe's religious mysticism  was portrayed as all accounts of her agree, with  emotional, volatile and fervent  piety, not untypical of much religious sentiment of the Middle Ages. Although she was unable to read or write Margery Kempe dictated her life's events to produce one of the earliest European autobiographies and an informative travelog of the age.

King’s Lynn was also  the birth-place of George Vancouver (1757- 1798). A statue of  the sea-port's  most famous citizen was erected nearby the Custom House. Vancouver was an officer in the British  Royal Navy who explored and charted North America's northwestern  Pacific  Coast, including the coast of Alaska, the Hawaiian Islands and  even the southwest coast of Australia.

It's also in King's Lynn ( in a museum adjacent to the Bus-Station ) that  an important  prehistoric artifact is now on display. It's the so-called 'Seahenge', a timber circle with an upturned tree root at its centre, which was first detected during an exception low-tide in 1998. It's estimated that Seahenge was constructed in the twenty-first century BCE,  over 4000 years ago during the early Bronze Age in Britain.  Like its more famous Stonehenge, the wooden circle of tree-trunks were most probably constructed for religious and  ritual purposes.

                             Seahenge at  Holme-next-the-sea, 1998.

. 
An artist's impression of how Seahenge may have looked 4000 years ago.

Lobster

'Lobsters in great number about Sheringham and Cromer from whence all the country is supplied.'

 Sir Thomas Browne was a  significant  natural historian so it's not too surprising that The Project Gutenberg EBook has recently  reproduced his  'Notes and Letters on the Natural History of Norfolk'.

 First published in 1902 by Jarrolds of London, Browne's 'Notes and Letters upon the Natural History of Norfolk more especially on the birds and fishes', is a valuable document  inasmuch as it provides evidence not only of Browne's  keen-sighted observations  and  his willingness to assist  the ornithologist Christopher Merritt, but also to the abundance and decline throughout the intervening centuries of particular species in Norfolk. However, those expecting to read highly-stylized 'vast undulations of sound' as exemplified in  the poetic Discourses of 1658 will be sorely disappointed, for it is Browne at his most scientific  note-book prose encountered in his natural history notes.

The county of Norfolk is described by Browne as having a 'great number of rivers, rivulets & plashes of water', elsewhere in his notes he writes of its 'broad waters' which may well be from where the term 'Norfolk Broads' originates. I've written before upon Browne as an ornithologist here's the link.

Thomas Southwell in the 1902  introduction to Browne's notes, 'emphasises the originality which pervades all  Browne's observations, a characteristic so conspicuously absent in the work of most of his predecessors'.

Southwell also laments-

'It may be truly said of Sir Thomas Browne that a prophet hath no honour in his own country; the writings of this remarkable man are little known in the city of his adoption, and a recent movement to erect a monument to his memory has hitherto met with feeble support'.

Although a statue of Browne was in fact erected in his honour upon the tercentenary of his birth  in 1905 by the citizens of Norwich,  it remains true a full century later that, 'the writings of this remarkable man are little known in the city of his adoption'.

Willows on the Wensum

Now spring has finally arrived there are some very  green and scenic views near to home. The ancient and senile river Wensum winds slowly through Norfolk entering Norwich just a mile or two from my door-step.

Cheltenham Festival

                                      

                          Water-jump at Cheltenham race-course

This year sees the staging of the 100^th Cheltenham Festival, a truly unique event in the world sports calendar. It’s the  apotheosis of the British National Hunt horse-racing season. The atmosphere at the Festival  today is considerably enhanced by the fact that it’s Saint Patrick’s Day, with as many as 10,000 Irish fans travelling over the sea to join in the festivities. In fact Irish-trained horses and jockeys seem to be winning almost every race at this year’s Festival. The fabled luck of the Irish with all its fickleness seems to be shining on the Irish, deservedly so for all their recent economic woes.

For many years the climax of the Festival, the Gold Cup, coincided with the British budget day until it was finally realized,  there was a far greater interest nationwide in who would win the Gold Cup than government economic policies. The Budget day has since been shunted to another week. The Cheltenham Festival itself has an enormous financial turn-over, with an estimated half-billion pounds gambled during the 4 day Festival. It would appear that  people gamble as much, if not more, during times of recession, although nowadays football generates a far greater percentage of gambling in total than horse-racing. However, until the advent of mass-spectator sports such as football in the 20 th century, horse racing, the 'Sport of Kings' was in many ways the true National sport of Great Britain, uniting the whole spectrum of British society in participation.

When once a dedicated gentleman of the turf, I had the pleasure of witnessing Imperial Commander win at Cheltenham. He progressed further to win  last year's Gold Cup. And though at present the unlucky star of fast women and slow horses seems to be my ascendant along with a moderating of my stake, I still enjoy the spectacle and thrill  of  watching  man and beast united in equestrian competition and bravery. Actually I do believe I am up a few pennies this week so far, backing both Sizing Australia and Sizing Europe. Who says names are unimportant factors in selecting a winner ?  My earliest Cheltenham memory ? Desert Orchid winning the Gold Cup in the mud in 1989.

  

Jockey of the day on Tuesday at the Festival was surely the champion Ruby Walsh, the reigning Irish National Hunt champion jockey. He was the leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival in 2004 - 2006 - 2008 - 2009 and 2010. Returning to the saddle after  a 4 month lay-off from a broken leg,  Ruby Walsh won no less than 3 races on Tuesday. What other sportsmen frequently  suffer cuts, bruises and broken bones yet repeatedly  return to the saddle risking injury ? 

Although moral objections are sometimes made about a sport which involves both animals and gambling, in truth National Hunt jump racing is one in which animals are  lovingly cared for by owner and stable-staff  alike. As for gambling, well not every person who drinks alcohol becomes an alcoholic. Gambling can even, as the late Clement Freud observed, teach a few moral lessons, such as how to forebear loss, sharpening an indecisive mind, teach how to live with the consequences of  greed and how to be  modest and magnanimous in winning. Indeed many aspects of  life are a fated combination of  good or bad  fortune supplemented by good or bad decision-making. In brief a gamble. 

The City of Lost Children

'The City of Lost Children' (1995) is a highly imaginative blend of fantasy, science-fiction and fairy-story by the French film-makers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. Set in a dystopian world of steel-grey docklands and a phosphorescent green sea, the action involves a semi-robotic gang of one-eyed henchmen called Cyclops who kidnap children for the evil Doctor Krank (Daniel Emilfork) to 'feed' upon their dreams. The crazy doctor Krank is the resident of a sea-rig laboratory along with Uncle Irvin, a disembodied brain who floats in an aquarium and six identical cloned brothers, amazingly filmed and acted by Dominique Pinon.

When Krank's hench-men the Cyclops, kidnap the young brother of circus strong-man One (Ron Perlman), he unites with Miette (Judith Vittet), the ring-leader of a gang of children who are the enforced subjects of sadistic and conjoined school-mistresses, to rescue him. The blossoming romance between the adult strong-man One and the nine-year old orphan heroine Miette is particularly touching, challenging and transcending taboo notions of relationships between child and adult.

Together Jeunet and Caro conjure up an imaginative and claustrophobic landscape in which sets, special effects, photography, fast narrative pace and performances equally contribute to a brilliant film. It's a self-contained world in which lugubrious fog-horns, low-tech mechanisms and humorous sequences of cause and effect occur. Among the many inventive special effects throughout the film the sight of a Titanic-sized ocean-liner crashing through dock-lands, is particularly stunning.

Not unlike Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' (1985) and their earlier collaboration, also set in a dystopia, 'Delicatessen' (1990) Jenet and Caro's artistic agenda is in essence a discourse upon the world of appearances and the loss of soul in the modern world. As the credits roll the sound-track features the distinctive voice of Marianne Faithfull singing, 'Who will take your dreams away?'