Hildegard von Bingen

Today (September 17th) is the feast day of the German Christian mystic Hildegard von Bingen (1098 -1197 ) who not only wrote music but  was also a poetess, theologian, a Benedictine Abbess and all round polymath. The Sibyl of the Rhine as she was known, was consulted by princes, popes and emperors for her prophetic insight. Like Julian of Norwich, Hildegard experienced serious illness before receiving her visions. 

It was the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who remarked -

The creative mystic was ever a cross for the church, but it is to him that we owe what is best in humanity.

Jung might have added  and her as far as Christian mystics are concerned for many notable women mystics are recorded throughout the history of Christianity. Recently, feminist interest in Hildegard has  also grown, as has her place in  'New Age' philosophies for her holistic approach to life.

The above picture entitled  Motherhood from the Spirit and the Water dates from 1165. It's an extremely intriguing quaternity of images conveying a certain numinous quality of Hildgard's mystical experiences and   shares in my view, an affinity with the Layer Monument quaternity.

The other image worth pondering upon in Hildegard's art is her Universal Man, an illumination from her Liber Divinorum Operum (1165). To my mind its an image which strongly suggests that perhaps Hildegard had the opportunity to read of the so-called Vitruvian man of antiquity, the human proportional representation which Leonardo Da Vinci based his own famous image upon. Essentially a vision of the Anthropos, or Greater Man within, of which Christ remains the most potent living symbol of; Hildegard can be seen in the bottom left corner,  receiving and writing her vision.

But with mystics one can never be too confident there was ever a previous vision to the original one presented. However, universal and cosmic, Hildegard von Bingen and her Christian faith has endured, nine centuries on, to speak deeply of the spiritual life. The mystic, as ever, has the last word on the soul.

There's been a renaissance in recordings of Hildegard's music in the past two decades, I particularly like Richard Souther's pop music interpretation Vision (1995) with Emily van Evera singing. Hildegard's music has been considerably modernized on this recording, complete with multi-tracking and synthesizers but nevertheless its a very inexpensive buy on Amazon and a great introduction and reinterpretation. I used some of its tracks as interludes when first acting as Sir Thomas Browne in the church of Saint John the Baptist, Maddermarket in December 1996. 

A more traditional approach to Hildegard's music is A Feather on the Breath of God with Emma Kirkby and Gothic Voices (Hyperion 2000). But there's a bewildering range of recording available in the catalogue at present, a veritable mine-field of good and uninspired  interpretations of Hildegard's music.

Here's the link to the Wikipedia entry on  Hildegard von Bingen

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.  

Ascension

Living in a city which has more medieval churches anywhere north of the Alps and rich in other cultural treasures, it's easy to overlook some art-work in Norwich's churches. It's not all entirely medieval here in Norwich, at the church of Saint Margaret for example, there's an east window commissioned in the 1960's and utterly 60's in style, depicting the Ascension of Christ. A refreshing change from the garish colours of Victorian stained-glass in many churches.

The Norwich organisation HEART (Heritage Economic Regeneration Trust) a charitable body, promoted four 'Open Days' from September 8 -11 to celebrate the City's extraordinary rich cultural heritage. Held every September the 'Open Days' make accessible some historic buildings not always open to the general public.  HEART's annual event grows in popularity each year, as I and a small army of volunteers will testify, after a hectic four days of meeting and greeting literally hundreds of visitors.

It's time to take stock of Norwich's cultural heritage. The public support and interest in the city's cultural heritage is strong and enthusiastic. However this support can never be matched economically in full by public donation alone. The future of many historical buildings in Norwich cannot be guaranteed until government or local council designates a greater value and percentage of tax or rates towards regional heritage. Although the whole world cannot thrive upon the growing tourist industry, Norfolk and Norwich in particular could gain enormously if highlighted as a tourist destination, including the creation of new jobs. The shortage of hotel space for visitors which Norwich once suffered from has now been remedied by several new large hotels, while HEART's recent 'twinning' with the city of Ghent could well provide further insights into how to effectively develop a tourist economy. 

The problem in reality is one which not only haunts Norwich but England as a whole, as the recent riots demonstrated. It's one of identity and self-confidence, who we are, how we address the world and how we wish the world to  view us. Norwich is a city rich in tourist attractions and mellow in atmosphere, but which cannot at present either decide or is lacking funding between the following - a faster and more efficient travel connection to London, which is feared will somehow erode the city's character - the construction of a new Northern bypass causing some serious local ecological  damage - or the  development  and expansion of routes from its airport, enhancing  its  continental connections. Its not seen as possible to have both a Northern by-pass and extended runways for a larger airport. Each of these projects, delayed or otherwise, impact considerably upon the city's future. Norwich's geographical location, as much of its cultural past indicates, lays very much towards the North-sea board of Europe, its historic past is intimately connected with the Baltic ports, the Benelux coast-line and even remoter parts of Europe. These geographic locations may ultimately be the source of Norwich's future economic well-being. Governments however, especially the present-day Euro-sceptic's, may influence the future otherwise. Norwich's true, radical identity is revealed by it's motto, which is Do Different. Whether the city will live up to its motto in the future is another matter.

For myself the Heritage week-end gave me the chance to create a few of my own modest events including the opportunity to talk on the Layer Monument and a demonstration of the marvellous acoustical properties of the church of Saint John Maddermarket. Connecting my ipod to an amplifier which in turn was connected to two 75 watt PA horn speakers placed high up in the organ gallery, when playing recordings of organ music by Pachelbel, Jehan Alain and Arvo Part, some visitors believed they were hearing a newly restored church organ!

I met many interesting people throughout the four open days and was amazed at the knowledge displayed by many on Norwich's cultural history. I also slowly began to realise as the four days progressed, that in many ways the greater part of Norwich's cultural heritage is to be found not so much in  its stone and art-work but in its people, both living and deceased.

P.S. Extensively restored at great cost in 2007, the 17th century Berney Monument remains as elusive as ever to view. I've lived in Norwich my entire life and have yet to see it. Although advertised as viewable from 10-4 p.m. on Saturday the church of Saint Peter Parmentergate was locked up by 1 p.m. !

The Berney monument is of particular interest having like the Layer Monument, a quaternity of statuettes in this case allegorical figures of Faith,  Hope, Charity and a winged Father Time. 

Links to -

Norwich HEART

Norfolk Stained Glass

Saint John Maddermarket

La Strada

La Strada by the Italian film-director Federico Fellini (1920-93) is the story of the relationship between strong-man performer Zampano (Anthony Quinn) and his assistant Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina). It's the film which won the first ever Oscar for Best Foreign Language in 1954 and in which Fellini subtly side-steps the agenda of Italian Neo-realism to develop his own unique perspective upon  human nature.

Zampano, arriving at a remote coastal hovel, offers 10,000 lira to Gelsomina's impoverished mother to take her daughter away with him. Together Zampano and Gelsomina traverse Italy on a motor-cycle caravan making a meagre living by Zampano's performing a strong-man act in which, expanding his chest he breaks apart the links of an iron chain. However Zampano is also an unfeeling bully who, although training Gelsomina as his assistant, treats her little better, if not worse than a dog, speaking little and expressing no feelings towards her. Yet Gelsomina endures her cruel treatment, having no other person, home or income. When she and Zampano join the Circus troop of one Senior Giraffa, the real tragedy begins to unfold; soon during their brief time as circus performers, they encounter the Fool, a daring tight-rope walker with an unexplained antipathy toward Zampano. The Fool admits that he himself does not know the reason behind his dislike of Zampano and with a frequently irritating giggle needlessly taunts and ridicules him. The Fool's teasing of Zampano leads to tragic consequences upon the lives and destiny of all three central characters.

It's been suggested that the character of the Fool is a voice-piece for Fellini who experienced a serious clinical depression during the production of La Strada, in particular the romantic heart-to-heart moment  when the Fool confesses to Gelsomina -

Everything has a purpose. I don’t know the purpose of this stone, I’d have to be God to know that. But it has one. Because if it’s useless all is useless, even the stars.

In contrast to the Fool's sensitivity and understanding of human nature (except his own) the brutish Zampano when finally pressed by Gelsomina about the contents of his inner life boorishly declares - there's nothing to think about.

Fellini’s La Strada (The Road) is unusual in its casting of two American actors, starring Anthony Quinn (1915-2001) as the bomber jacket clad, motor-biking strong-man Zampano and Richard Basehart (1914-84) as the enigmatic Fool. But it is the Italian actress Giulietta Masina (1921-1994) as the innocent dreamer Gelsomina who steals the limelight. Masina's rapid, highly expressive and fluent facial features speak swifter than words throughout the film. As the unloved and maltreated Gelsomina, Giulietta Masina, with a nod towards Charlie Chaplin's world-famous tramp, creates her own clown-like pathos. Masina who was Fellini's wife for fifty years, spoke of  the English-born comic genius and Hollywood's first superstar thus  -

‘Chaplin deeply moves me. My husband and I cannot watch any of his films in it entirety. We are always so stirred that we have to leave the theatre before the end of the projection. He’s a great artist. He saw our film in England and declared during a press conference that Gelsomina was his spiritual daughter’.

The back-drop to La Strada includes shots not only of Italy's varied landscape but also the numerous apartment blocks which sprang up in towns throughout Italy in the 1950's. It's against the back-drop of a desolate mezzo-montano landscape that Zampano finally abandons Gemolina to her fate, even though she is  seriously mentally traumatized by events. For many years after making La Strada both Federico Fellini and his wife Guiletta Masina would regularly receive fan-mail from women who declared their lives and destinies were similar to those of Gelsomina or of being trapped in a  loveless relationship with a Zampano-like person. 

The soundtrack to La Strada is composed by Fellini's life-time musical collaborator, Nino Rota (1911-1979) who also composed the soundtrack to The Godfather. Nino's score is not merely incidental, but integral to the film and features some very modern-sounding Mambo-style music in a cafe scene, in which Zampano abandons Gelsomina for a one-night affair, collecting her from the street the next morning without a word of explanation for his behaviour. It's the Fool who teaches Gelsomina to play a slightly melancholy melody upon the trumpet. Not wanting to state spoilers, Gelsomina's poignant trumpet tune lives on to become a sharp prick upon Zampano's conscience, haunting him when hearing it several years later. The importance of this melodic theme for the actress Gulietta Masina can be gauged by the fact that when Fellini  died at the age of 73, a day after their fiftieth wedding anniversary, she requested the theme music of  La Strada entitled Improvviso dell'Angelo by Nino Rota to be played during her husband's funeral ceremony held in Rome.

Shortly after making La Strada Fellini became fascinated with his own inner world of dream imagery which subsequently became a rich fuel for his creativity. He also began to take an interest in parapsychology and the psychology of Carl Jung, reading his autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963). Fellini once stated-

In dreams there is nothing without significance. Every image therefore also has significance in the film. There is no such thing as coincidence, there is nothing unwanted, extraneous in a dream. Nothing is without significance. Each colour, each picture means something, nothing has been put there in order to resemble reality, or in order to copy something pre-existent. This is the thing that gives film its heraldic, aristocratic identity, which puts it on a level with all other forms of art.

Along with a growing interest in dreams, parapsychology and the psychology of C.G. Jung, Fellini in 1964, under the supervision of his analyst, experimented with the drug LSD. For many years he was reserved about what happened to him one Sunday afternoon after ingesting LSD, however in 1992 a year before his death, Fellini  spoke of his experience thus-

'objects and their functions no longer had any significance. All I perceived was perception itself, the hell of forms and figures devoid of human emotion and detached from the reality of my unreal environment. I was an instrument in a virtual world that constantly renewed its own meaningless image in a living world that was itself perceived outside of nature. And since the appearance of things was no longer definitive but limitless, this paradisical awareness freed me from the reality external to my self. The fire and the rose, as it were, became one.

The leisurely pace of La Strada, surely one of the earliest of all 'Road-Movies', allows Fellini to introduce curious scenarios and settings which anticipate his predilection for dream-imagery, the surreal and even the grotesque in his later films. Examples of Fellini's 'dream-imagery' are abundant throughout 8½ (1963), Juliet of the Spirits (1965), Satyricon (1969) and in Roma (1972). The near-obsessive excesses of Fellini's dream-imagery are manifest in less critically acclaimed films such as his homage to Casanova (1976).

Fellini's La Strada goes beyond the constraints of Italian neo-realist cinema with its insistence upon realistic depiction of the lives of ordinary, working-class Italians struggling in the economic conditions of post-war Italy. Fellini's  portrait of the socio-path Zampano and the weak and indecisive Gelsomina, shifts far from the rigid agenda of Italian neo-realism into the realm of psychological portraiture and motivations of the psyche. But above all else La Strada besides including a sometimes disturbing pathology of a man who is unable to express his feelings, explores  the mystery of love and the deep need inside the human soul to both give and receive love.

The Maias

The Portuguese novelist Eca de Queiroz's vast novel The Maias (Episodes from Romantic Life) first published in 1888, chronicles the life and fortunes of one of Portugal’s most distinguished families, the Maias. As such it offers a portrait of upper-class Portuguese society from circa 1820 to 1887, centering specifically upon the life and times of its protagonist, Carlos da Maia. 

Carlos da Maia is lovingly  nutured by his grandfather Afonso da Maia. Upon coming of age he leads the life of a privileged Portuguese aristocrat. Crucial to the story is the fact that Carlos is the last in lineage of the ancient family of da Maia. Admired by his good-looks, his fine English thoroughbred horses and impeccable taste, Carlos da Maia eventually chooses to study medicine in order to become a doctor, however he is invariably distracted from advancing himself in his profession by love, social events, his many friends and his essentially weak nature.

Much of the  novel’s broad canvas of 700 pages is a near seamless procession of glittering balls, poetry recitals, nights at the theatre and opera house, dinner parties and evening soirées which Carlos gaily attends. There's also a great deal of drinking - Port, Champagne, Cognac and wine flow in abundance as well as much fine cuisine and dining throughout the novel. More often than not Carlos is pre-occupied with a love-affair and in finding accommodation, selecting furniture and interior decoration suitable for a tasteful boudoir  for romantic trysts with his mistress. It's only towards the novel’s conclusion that a devastating revelation occurs shattering the lives of both Carlos and Afonso da Maia. The ramifications and aftermath of this revelation profoundly alters the lives of both Da Maia's and brings the novel to its tragic conclusion.

Counterbalancing the essentially tragic tale there's a strain of quite subtle humour coursing through The Maias. The novel also includes a revealing chapter which describes the events of a horse-race meeting in which the love–hate relationship of the Portuguese towards the English is explored. De Queiroz  makes cultural comparative humour about both Portugal and England thus- 

The Maquis….. continued to inveigh against Portugal. ..'This is a country fit only for picnics and funfairs. Horse-races, like many other civilized pastimes, they enjoy abroad, require, first and foremost, an educated public. Basically, we’re nothing but thugs ! What we like is cheap wine, a bit of guitar music, a good brawl, and plenty of back-slapping bonhomie afterwards ! That’s how it is !'

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‘… the national anthem is the musical definition of a nation’s character. The rhythm of a country’s national anthem is, he says, the moral rhythm of the nation… The “Marseilles” marches forth like an unsheathed sword. “God save the Queen” advances, dragging a royal train…’

‘And ours?’

‘Ours minces along in a tailcoat’.

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‘And tell me something else,’ Senhor Sousa Neto went on, full of interest and curiousity . ‘In England, do they have the same pleasing literature we have here, writers of serials and important poets?’

Carlos placed the stub of his cigar in the ashtray and replied shamelessly:

‘No, no, there’s none of that.’

‘I thought as much,’ said Sousa Neto. ‘They’re all businessmen over there, I suppose’.

Eca de Queiroz (1845-1900) began writing The Maias in 1878 while resident in England when living in Bristol and took over ten years to complete it. An English translation of his masterpiece was not published until 1965. Margaret Jull Costa's acclaimed translation of De Queiroz's great novel highlights its full stature as a work of world literature and captures well the witty dialogue, eccentric characters and social foibles of  Portuguese upper-class as described by Queiroz. 

The Maias is a portrait not only of the moral decline of its protagonist, Carlos da Maia, but also by implication, in its depiction of inept politicians, petty bureaucrats and dilettantism in high places, the moral decline of nineteenth century Portugal itself. Not unlike Querioz's novel The Tragedy of the Street of Flowers (unpublished in his life-time) The Maias offers the reader a portrait of upper-class Portuguese society with a back-drop of a passionate love-affair, only to deliver a devastating revelation late in the novel, which colours and shapes its tragic conclusion.

Eca de Querioz  has been compared to Balzac for his sharp eye on human nature, to Marcel Proust for his description of the prejudices of upper-class society, and to Flaubert for his realism. In fact Queiroz greatly admired Flaubert for his development of Naturalism in writing. Yet, as Margaret Jull Costa points out in her excellent introduction to the 2007 Daedlus edition of Querioz’s masterpiece, The Maias fluctuates between sympathy and stern judgement towards its protagonist and floats ambiguously between Naturalism and Romanticism in style and content. Its this undefinable stance, somewhere between a harsh portrait of the cruel reality of life and romantic idealism which imbues The Maias with a quite unique sensibility. 

Eca de Queroz’s masterpiece is a novel which deserves to be much better-known, and it probably shall in time, due to Costa's decisive translation which showcases De Queiroz as a literary figure equal to his contemporaries, Tolstoy and Dickens. The real tragedy is no longer the moral decline of Portugal, but the neglect by western readers, translators and publishers alike, of a major nineteenth century novelist.

                                                           

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Post top picture  - The front cover of the Dedalus paperback edition of The Maias (2007) reproduces a portrait of an aristocratic French woman by the French painter Ingres. Closer in geography, unable to find a striking Portuguese portrait, but having enjoyed viewing it at Dublin National Gallery, this post is headed by a portrait of  Dona Antonia Zarate, an actress painted by Goya cica 1805.