As the Elephant Laughed - An evening with Peter Rodulfo

Recently I had the pleasure of an evening with the artist Peter Rodulfo. Modest and soft-spoken, Rodulfo is a gifted, prolific and visionary painter who is equally adept in portraiture as in fantasy as in landscape. His paintings are by turns graphic, witty and mystical.

While in conversation with the artist, over a bottle or two of wine, and in between reminiscing about 1970's Norwich, the setting of our youth, and while listening to recent songs by Lou Reed and Kevin Ayers, Rodulfo insists there's a strong element of the charlatan within most artists. The public these days, he states, demand a constant pulling-rabbits-out-of-a-hat conjuring act from artist's and are required to provide ready-made meanings and answers to all of life's questions. Some artists, more than others are willing to fulfil this role of conjurer, often compromising their artistic integrity with financial reward. Rodulfo's’s art however speaks strongly of independent creativity. He is indebted to nothing other than the combustive energy of his own industriousness and imagination.

There’s more than a little of the rebellious and eccentric about Rodulfo who exhibits archetypal Aquarian characteristics in his personality and art. Reticent and even downright self-depreciating at times, a casual glance at his book-case reveals favourite authors such as Honore de Balzac, who was no mean occultist and physiognomist, and the autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflections by the seminal psychologist C.G.Jung. Almost all the available wall space at his home is given to a kaleidoscopic gallery of his art, recent work and older personal favourites are all mixed together - Tolkienesque landscapes, animated portraiture of sharply-observed character and dream-like imagery jostle for the viewer's attention. Such a cornucopia of paintings gives a strong impression of a life-time's productivity and testimony to an industrious and disciplined creativity.

Although he’s travelled the globe, it’s the city of Norwich which Peter Rodulfo has chosen as home for decades. Here in an ancient, almost forgotten corner of the English psyche, the mysterious east of England,  life moves at a Do Different pace. Many artists have appreciated Norwich's relative calm; its been the home to gifted artists throughout the centuries, from the days of medieval stained-glass designers to nineteenth century 'Norwich School' artists, John Crome, John Sell Cotman and Joseph Stannard, who celebrated Norfolk’s ‘bootiful’ landscape. Norwich has often quietly nurtured creative artists with it’s relatively stress-free urban living. The city is encircled by an expansive, yet intimate landscape; a not quite flat, but undulating rural county; which makes the city geographically remote and not easily accessible, to the delight and consternation of its inhabitants.

It’s easy for Rodulfo to give a nod to the art of Paul Klee, Max Ernst and De Chirico for example, while remaining very much his own man. Although his art utilizes some of the techniques and motifs associated with surrealism, as well as magical realism, he retains his artistic integrity. Labels are often misguiding and Rodulfo wisely eschews any eager and simplistic labelling of his still evolving creativity. But although comparisons can be misleading, there is one British artist whose art is worthy of note in both technique and imagination to Rodulfo's - that of the self-exiled British surrealist artist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). Like Carrington, Rodolfo acknowledges the role the unconscious psyche plays in his creativity. Like Carrington, Rodulfo's symbolism is home-grown and capable of striking a deep chord in its unconscious association. Finally, like Carrington, Rodulfo is equally adept at draughting a layered field of perspective to showcase his artistic vision. His paintings, like the best surrealist or magical realist painters can be a vivid encounter with the unconscious psyche, or more correctly in Rodulfo's case, a polite enquiry into the viewer's relationship to their own unconscious psyche.

Rodulfo's canvas As the Elephant laughed (above) exhibits a rich vocabulary of symbolism evoking a panorama of life on earth. The relentless march of time is depicted by the eroding cliffs of the Norfolk coast framing the composition. Its detailed brushwork includes stars and the ocean, perhaps the most common of all symbols of the unconscious psyche. Protozoan marine-life, animals and ageing humans are also depicted in a skilfully layered composition evoking the cosmic nature of time. It's a canvas lush in colouration which instantly transports the viewer to internal landscapes of the imagination where as in much of Peter Rodulfo's art, imagery, technique and imagination coagulate to form an absorbing viewing experience.

Through decades of hard work Rodulfo has now become a grand-master of magical realism; his creativity has yet to reach its zenith. One cordially wishes the artist will enjoy many years more of painting to the delight of his growing number of admirers.

In January 2012 Peter Rodulfo released no less than twelve photographic images of new paintings to public view. I've chosen just two of his paintings from a total of over 60 in his facebook portfolio for 2011/12  alone. With such a varied and expansive back-catalogue and with many paintings quite different in subject-matter, but equal in terms of technical virtuosity, its well worth checking out more of Rodulfo's art-work.

                    An Intruder in the Forest by Rodulfo. 

See also -

Rodulfo's Mandala of Loving-Kindness

 more of Peter Rodulfo's paintings here

Wikipedia entry for Peter Rodulfo

As the elephant laughed - A panorama of evolution

Romeo and Juliet

A scene from Moscow City Ballet performing Romeo and Juliet

Last night I attended a performance by the Moscow City Ballet of Sergei Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet. Composed in 1935 during the dark days of Stalin's iron rule of Russia, the story of the tragic lovers of Verona is of course originally the subject of a play by William Shakespeare.  The ballet Romeo and Juliet is the musical work which established Prokofiev's fame as a composer upon his return to Soviet Russia - its become firmly established in the ballet repertoire. Written for a large orchestra including 6 horns, mandolin, violin d'amore, piano, organ and an extensive 'kitchen-department' of percussion, an unusual aspect of the musical score is the addition of a tenor saxophone. This single instrument adds lush colouration to the orchestral timbre. Prokofiev was not averse from occasionally re-cycling earlier musical material, and in Act 2 of Romeo and Juliet  inthe Ball room scene, the Gavotte of the Classical symphony (1917) is used to great effect.

Romeo and Juliet  has been choreographed a number of times. When Kenneth MacMillian re-interpreted it  for the Royal Ballet company in 1965  the leading roles were danced by Margot Fonteyn and Rudolph Nureyev to great critical acclaim, re-launching and extending Fonteyn's dancing career. In 1977 Nureyev himself choreographed a new version of Romeo and Juliet for the London Festival Ballet company.

The Moscow City Ballet company was founded in 1988 by Russian choreographer Victor Smirnov-Golovanov. Their performance at the Theatre Royal Norwich, was marked with vitality and sensitivity. With lavish costumes and designs by Natalia Povago, the dance company  added gaiety and humour to the essentially dark tale of tragic love. In particular the company's leading female dancer Oryekhova Liliya in the role of Juliet, and Kozhabayev Talgat as Romeo, carry the success of the night's performance. It's a fairly long ballet with the best pas de deux of the ill-fated lovers occurring in the last ten minutes of Act I. If there is a weakness to any choreographing of Romeo and Juliet, it occurs in Act III which demands a lot of scene changing and coming and going during night-time in the plot. Indeed I noticed the love of my life glancing at her wrist-watch more than once during this final act. One highly original aspect of Golovanov's choreography of Romeo and Juliet is its very beginning coinciding with its ending. The bodies of all three tragic deaths are  presented to the audience carried in bier-fashion as if upon an  upside-down cross.

Golden Boy and Gherkin

Today on a  rare excursion to London, attending a conference, I saw this (above) with its inscription - This boy is in memory put up for the late FIRE of LONDON occasioned by the Sin of Gluttony 1666 and below - the 'Gherkin' tower, so-called because of its shape. Maybe it's an over-imaginative juxtaposition, but I can't help thinking the two monuments are related. But without doubt a certain seventeenth century Norwich physician and philosopher would have approved of Sir Norman Foster's quincuncial lozenge design in glass.

                                                                        

Wiki-links - Golden Boy of Pye Corner - London Gherkin

Philip Glass

         
Today's the birthday of American composer Philip Glass (b.1937)
   

Ever since hearing the song-cycle Songs from Liquid Days (1986) in  the year 1988  (it sometimes takes a year or two for American culture to filter through to British consciousness) I've followed with interest this most prolific composer's musical career. The three large-scale operas Einstein on the Beach (1976) Satyagraha (1978-9) and Akhnaten (1983) were for myself works which opened my eyes to Glass as a composer of unique vision. The ground-breaking 4 hour opera Einstein on the Beach is well-worth a fresh production (2012). It includes awe-inspiring ensemble singing and is as experimental today as when first performed in 1978. The last work in the trilogy of opera based upon Science and Religion, the dark and brooding Akhnaten (its dark orchestral colouring is achieved partially by the omission of violins) in particular the aria for counter-tenor Hymn to the Sun with its expounding of  monotheism and  plaintive coda chorus of Hebrew slaves is a personal favourite. The haunting Facades (1981) for saxophone and strings, is another relatively early work I enjoy hearing.

Philip Glass studied music under one of the most influential teachers of composition in the 20th century Nadia Boulanger (1887- 1979). He has integrated the hypnotic, rythmic patterns of Indian music with elements of pop and World-ethnic music to his classical training to formulate one of the most distinctive and instantly recognisable voices in modern music. It seems as if he has collaborated with  nearly every big name in modern music - David Byrne, Paul Simon, Laurie Anderson, Tangerine Dream, Mike Oldfield and Mick Jagger for starters as well as  Ravi Shankar, Brian Eno,  Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson and the Aphex Twins - testimony to the fact by all the evidence given, that he is no vain and difficult to work with prima donna, but of an easy-going nature and thoroughly professional in his music-making. Included among his many friends and artistic collaborators are the poets Allen Ginsburg (1926 - 1997) and Leonard Cohen (b. 1934) both of whom Glass has written a song-cycle based upon,  Hydrogen Jukebox (1990) and  Book of Longing (2006) respectively. The list of film directors, choreographers,  theatre directors and musicians Glass has collaborated with is seemingly endless, nearly every big name in theatre, dance, film and pop seems to have worked with him at one time or another.

In 2007 I had the pleasure of attending a performance of Glass's opera Satygraha at the Coliseum, London. Sung in Sanskrit, the opera celebrates the lives of those who have fought against racial prejudice in the 20th century.Each act of Satyagraha focuses on a major figure in the struggle against oppression, namely, Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The demographics of the audience attendance of performances of this opera are worth noting. The London theatre discovered it was staging a performance attended by the highest percentage of people outside London who had booked tickets on-line and then travelled to the metropolis to hear the opera in its entire history. Some several years earlier I  attended a performance of The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 based upon a Doris Lessing novella, also at the Coliseum (world premiere 1988) yet another early memory of hearing Glass's music. Some of the best themes and motifs of  this work appear in the highly popular Violin concerto no. 1 (1987) which again I had the pleasure of hearing  performed  a few years ago in Norwich.

Throughout the decade of the 1990's Glass consolidated his status to the point of near over-exposure. There once seemed a time whenever one attended a cinema or turned on the TV one would encounter Glass's unique and hypnotic music, this is reflected in the fact that he has won awards for music for films such as Kundun (1997) Dracula (1999) performed by the Kronos Quartet and The Hours (2002). Wikipedia gives a long and comprehensive list of the many films Glass has written music for and in this context one cannot overlook mention of the trilogy of Qatsi films, Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of balance (1993) Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation  (1998) and  Naqoyatsi: Life as War ( 2002)  all directed by Godfrey Reggio.  Each of these three films were inspired by Glass's music and filmed specifically and primarily to showcase his music. They contain the essence of the composer's message - a deep concern for the ecological survival of our endangered planet, whether from over-population, pollution or war. Glass's 'message' often seems to be a reminder that we are sleep-walking into our own extinction as a species and according to Wikipedia the composer describes himself as 'a Jewish-Taoist-Hindu-Toltec-Buddhist'. He's been involved  over the years in the campaign for Tibetan independence and is a friend of the Dalai Lama.

It's a few years ago now since the amazing coup by the organisers of the Norfolk and Norwich music Festival ( the oldest of its kind in the UK ) of booking Philip Glass to perform his piano music at the Theatre Royal. I really wanted as much to attend this recital, to meet the composer whose music has accompanied and inspired many moments of my listening for the last 20 plus years. I imagined quite wrongly, that after performing Glass would retire and rest up for the evening, but no, apparently and frustrating, taking advantage of  a warm May evening, he visited the park adjacent to the Theatre to meet and encourage young musicians. I wonder how many of those young people realised they were in the presence of one of the world's most successful and popular composers of the late 20th century. I shall just have to content myself with playing  recordings of his Dance No. 4  for Organ (1978) and a transcription for organ of the touching aria from the finale of Act IIII of  Satyagraha  in the church of Saint John Maddermarket occasionally for visitors.  

European Ice-Skating Championship 2012

The European Ice-skating championship was held in Sheffield, UK this year, not that TV coverage is exactly extensive these days. Long gone are the days of live coverage of each of the competitive events. As a sport ice-skating has lost some of its credibility, partially from blatantly biassed judging in the past. Nor is the sport quite so dominated by Russia any more as it once was. Anyway, here's a couple of pictures which covey some of the excitement and grace of the sport. 

Above - Siobhan Heekin-Canedy and Dmitri Dun of the Ukraine  

Below - Kiira Korpi of Finland. 

Results include - Gold for Carolina Kostner of Italy who won the Ladies event for the 4th time and Gold for Evgeni Plushenko of Russia who won the Men's event for an unprecedented 7th time. Nathalie Pechalat and Fabian Bourzat won  Gold in the Ice-Dance for France for a 2nd time.