Personal Blogs

Features, stories and poems are enough. Whilst studying for an M.A. Art History there would not have been enough time for journalism and comps. I've sent one proposal for an illustrated feature this week and another's almost ready. I've also been working on two short stories and two poems. Had coffee with friends yesterday. Maybe I'll do the M.A. Art Hist. later - when I'm rich.

Shall I or shan't I? I must know by tomorrow. An M.A. only takes two years to complete. I've enjoyed reading about Raphael and David haven't I? The course book interesting, and absurd has given me ideas for essay and dissertation. I haven't got any family or employment committments.

       I cook, walk, read, everyday, socialize occasionally, so there's time to study isn't there?

Vasari's account of Raphael ( Penguin Classics ) and his art is personal compared with later critics and art historians. 

          'Eventually Raphael's father', a painter, placed his son with Pietro Perugino, 'not without many tears from his mother'. ... 'Raphael imitated his work so exactly' ... 'that it was impossible to tell the difference between the copies he made and his master's originals.'  Did Vasari know Raphael intimately? According to him Raphael, gradually,  developed his own way of painting which, it seemed to his critic was 'utterly realistic and' 'inexpressibly beautiful'.

     It had never occurred to me that Raphael's portrait of Baldassare Castiglioni, ( c.1514 ) according to V., was influenced by the Mona Lisa, ( c.1504-6 ). If that was so and it seems likely because Raph., apparently, went to Florence after his apprenticeship and met Leonardo and Michaelangelo. Titian's Man With A Blue Sleeve (c.1509) might also have been influenced by Leonardo, given the dates.

      Peter and Linda Murray's Dictionary of Art and Artists gives an account of Raphael. Have not read Gian Pietro Bellori on Italian Renaissance art yet.

Refs;

1) Penguin Classics, P. and L. Murray, Dictionary of Art and Artists

2) Penguin Classics, Vasari, trans. Bull, Lives of the Artists Volume 1

Wednesday 4th June is LIBRARY VAN day.

Sent my list poem ( c.f.n.) to the Writers' News Competition yesterday. Today I read it to a group of friends and there was a burst of laughter after the final line. I assumed that they were amused by the poem, but they may have been embarrassed, or hysterical with relief.

         After reading a story to the Scriptores last Monday I decided to emphasize the climax. Originally, after being assaulted by a rival whilst dancing the heroine rushes into the arms of her date who is just arriving. Now she falls to the floor during the assault and is rescued by the manager when the lights go up and the music stops. He accompanies her to the bar where the farmer she dated is clad in muddy boots and a stained overcoat waiting for the uproar to subside.

        The heroine now has to wait, after the brutality, for the hero's embrace; a more satisfying ending I trow. 

         I read a story by Ruth Rendell last night about a man and woman who are holidaying in Africa whilst attempting to revive their marriage. The jungle made an interesting setting. There were some spooky moments and an exciting climax but after a subtle reversal the ending seemed weak to me.

No amount of tweaking a dull story is going to make it more exciting I decided and set about dismantling the structure. The end is now the beginning and the beginning the middle. The narration was 1st person, present but now the protagonist tells the back story using the past tense and the present is reserved for what is actually happening. In this way greater tension is created.

Summary of original plot;

Woman invited to dance incurs vicious wrath of rival and rushes from the ballroom into the arms of the man she had been waiting for all evening. They had met online exchanging emails, no photos. He dressed in working gear having just delivered a calf, introduces himself but she does not reveal her identity. She goes home alone trusting that he'll continue corresponding and ask her for another date.

2nd Draft

They meet outside the Corn Hall and he erupts when she tells him her name. As they get to know each other during the course of the evening she tells the back story and they finish up dancing cheek to cheek.

The second version comparing then and now allows the most important relationship to develop in relief as it were against the raffish back story and there is a satisfying climax.

Birds scattered, as I opened the door, and I galloped in slippers, waving my toothbrush, across the lawn.

         "Stop! Stop!" I yelled but he did not hear. It'll be another month before the van comes here again so I can change my books.

 Must take this opportunity to praise BBC Radio Four's production of Anthony Trollope's Barchester Chronicles. The episode that was broadcast last Sunday afternoon had me enraptured. Will the aristocratic Cambridge student and the doctor's daughter, overcome the heartless opposition to their romance? I can hardly wait for next week's episode.

I received an email from admin. stating that my quals. are okay. Now all I have to do is pay. Sent my entry for the Bridport Prize, a heartfelt poem of thirty six lines about an injured bird. Invited to a surprise party. The birthday girl will be ninety years of age and she likes shopping in M&S. So, I plan to attend the party with a voucher for her. 

     Yesterday bought my course book; Anne D'Alleva, Methods and Theories of Art History, Laurence King Publishing. I've read two and a half chapters. Thought provoking questions are printed at the end of each section and titles for further reading which I'm sure will be useful not only for the TMA, but also the dissertation.

Divertimento;

Goofy ( friend of Micky Mouse ) shoots heavenward holding the stick of a firework rocket he just lit.

Goofy ( with Hollywood drawl ) "Dunno no where am goin' - but am on my way,"

P.S. Those words of his, admirably, express my feelings on preparing for the Art Hist. M.A.  Don't demand the reference for the above extract. I was about six when I first read the book, which is no longer in my possession.

I have reserved a course place and plan to begin the Art History M.A. in October. I want to write features for Art journals and therefore need to increase my knowledge.  

With the Art History M.A. in mind I have been reading Svetlana Alpers book titled, The Art of Describing. Sent an entry for the Daily Telegraph 'Just Back' Competition today and I've edited my poem for the Bridport Comp. The poem concerns the story of two pigeons who fight until one of them breaks a wing. The working title is 'Pigeon Pie'.

My Yahoo is misbehaving today. While I was writing an email to an editor the page vanished and an irrelevant message appeared. Is that what Yahoo does to try and get customers to pay for a screen without adverts?

While on holiday in Madeira I read John White's Art and Architecture in Italy 1200-1450 and 'An Introduction to Art' by Charles Harrison and all but lost contact with terra firma on learning that painting is considered more visually effective than sculpture by some critics. 

         An artist to whom I put the theory replied,

"That depends on the works of art in question." I agree with that up to a point but surely the three dimensionality of sculpture, and the fact that you cannot see all the facets immediately is mystifying and therefore more visually effective than a painting. A painting is flat like a page of a book and does not occupy space in the same way as you and a sculpture. 

     Imagine viewing The Dying Gaul Lifesize, ca.230-220 B.C. Museo Capitolino, Rome and Ribera's Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew ca.1639, Prado, Madrid in the same room. I know which work of art would most intrigue me. 

Madeira was hot and the natives are handsome. I perched half way down the rocky hilliside above the shoreline among the cacti to sketch. Met a troupe of wild tabby cats. 

This time next week and a day I'll be unplugging in final preparations for an eleven forty p.m. departure. The flight to Madeira is scheduled for six a.m.ish on the first of April. I'm taking documents and currency, notebook, pens, camera, and summer clothes including bikini. The weather is usually warm, so swimming in the sea might be fun.

    Scriptores are expected tomorrow. The terza rima and ballad forms are on the agenda besides chattering and drinking coffee. Beverley, a new member writes a whinge column, weekly, for the Diss Express. David'll probably accompany himself singing one of his own compositions, with guitar. Elizabeth might have written a poem to read aloud and I have.  

     This afternoon I'm going to edit a poem that I'm writing for the Bridport Prize Competition 2014. Closing Date; 31st May. First Prize; £5,000  

   'He leapt from his chariot, hit the ground at a run

through enemies, Trojan spears, and left his sister

grieving as he went bursting through the lines.

Wild as a boulder plowing headlong down from a summit,

torn out by the tempests - whether the stormwinds washed it free

or the creeping years stole under it, worked it loose,

down the cliff it crashes, ruthless crag of rock

bounding over the ground with enormous impact,

churning up in its onrush woods and herds and men.'

Publisher; Penguin

Author; Virgil, trans. Robert Eagles

Title; The Aeneid, p. 377 - 8, Book Twelve: The Sword Decides All, Ls.791-799

'...whether the stormwinds washed it free

or the creeping years stole under it, worked it loose, ...'

 How does Vergil achieve that exciting effect? First he has an irresistible storyline. Then he describes the 'wild' pace of the boulder, which is threatening, leaving the reader in suspense, in its path. The subsequent two lines comment offhandedly like an expert naturalist on possible reasons why the boulder was in full spate. Thus the reader is mighty anxious to know what happens next. 

        He takes from Homer's Iliad, but reinvents ingeniously.