Dame Blanche

Oil on Canvas Board 14 x 10.75in (35 X 25cm)

 This is from a photo I took in Portugal. (The lady came walking along leisurely later -- as it were -- after I'd looked at the path and thought it needed an occupant.)
The painting is for the January challenge of Alice Thompson's Calypso Moon Artist Movement:

Christmas Card

Oil on art paper 7.5 x 9.5in

I watch Dickens's 'Christmas Carol' with Alistair Sims almost every Christmas. It's become part of the ritual, along with the tree and the turkey -- although, in South West France, where I live, there is a tempting alternative to the traditional turkey: a magret de canard -- i.e. a sort of duck steak. Of course the film drips with sentiment, but the acting is superb, the black and white has a specially potent dramatic atmosphere, and when Scrooge flings open his bedroom window after his nightmares, and learns that it is Christmas Day and he is not too late to do some good in the world, and he capers for joy . . . well, I admit to having, at that moment, a lump in my throat and a slightly moist eye.
This was painted for Alice Thompson's Calypso Moon Artist Movement: artistalicethompson@live.com

AN ODD LETTER

This letter, having wafted in my way during the recent windy weather, I print here, in hope that exposing it to public view may lead to its being claimed by the sender and redirected:

The Atheneum
Baffin Island June 31, 2012

Sir:

From earliest infancy it was borne in upon me by my elders and betters that I must avoid giving offence to others; how a careless word or unintentionally snide remark, or the wilful continuance of a questionable custom, could effect this. I was therefore not surprised when I read the other day that all dogs -- even small pugs and poodles -- were to be shipped to an obscure country of continental Europe. On precisely these grounds the Bill to ban pork,
currently being debated in the House, has my approval; even the clauses relating to roast pork, together with censorship of Charles Lamb's celebrated essay on the subject -- recounting this delicacy's chance discovery in medieval China and Ho-ti's regularly setting alight his piggery in order to partake. Thank goodness most banks have already removed piggy banks from their savings account counters.

The sensitivity to possibilities of offence now generally shown is surely to be applauded. We hear that the mayor of a great city has enjoined that when fasting is the requirement for some, others, indeed all, should likewise fast, in order not to give offence. I understand that church bells are no longer to ring, even at Christmas and New Year's, as being offensively clamorous to sensitive ears. It has been argued (meretriciously, I submit) that liberty consists in being able to tell others what they do not wish to hear; yet personally, I am relieved whenever I learn that certain public speakers, the content of whose intended discourse was deemed likely to give offence, have been turned away or denied a venue. Equally so, at developments in the education of children; I mean the curricular toppling of bygone national heroes and heroines from their pedestals, along with their feet of clay being bared and scrupulously dwelt upon to the last baby toe-nail.

I do wonder at finding nothing as yet said or written about Art; surely an egregious omission from public discourse. Human figures in landscape paintings, all portraits, and certainly Greek and Roman statues, brazenly unclad, are likely to cause offence. Let us hope that in the near future measures are taken to, if not destroy, then at least banish, such works to less enlightened lands; and close the galleries and museums which contained them.

But all these other positive developments, which I have mentioned -- taking place gradually and without being much noticed by the population, like the movement of the small hand of a clock -- are welcome; and for those responsible for having given offence to feel offended at no longer being allowed to do so would be manifestly unjust, and perhaps even racist.

Yours truly,

W. C. Struldbrug

Try Again Later

Oil on Canvas Sheet 12 x 9 1/2in (30 x 25cm)

There is a wonderful wide boardwalk or esplanade overlooking the St Lawrence in front of the Chateau Frontenac Hotel in Quebec City, on which to enjoy a summer evening stroll. This small person would like to have taken a look through the viewer at the passing ship. Her parents had walked on a little and were listening to the man who sits playing  his transportable piano. I've submitted this painting to the Calypso Moon Artist Movement challenge.

WOMAN WITH FACELIFT

                                             Oil on canvas board, 7 x 9 1/2in (18 x 24cm)

This young woman had arranged herself demurely on a bench in Paris, but she was not at ease.  I'm no expert on body language but I thought she looked nervous.  I didn't get a good look at her face as I passed.

INNOCENT ORDEAL

    
Alison Hughes, the central character of this love story set in Britain and France between 1916 and 1918, gaily and thankfully leaves her Canadian prairie town for England and the ‘great adventure’ of the First World War; having been recruited by the officious and irresponsible Aunt Madge to ‘do her bit’ to help the Mother Country. In the exhilerating atmosphere of the London of thès dansants, Campagne-done-up-as lemonade, and Zeppelin raids, she becomes the protégée of her older flat-mate, the beguiling, jealous and unscrupulous Lenore Trevelyan, who points out what fun war can be on the home front and what opportunities it offers young women like themselves.  Lenore, a quasi-Suffragette, secretly plots with her cynical friend, Clive Wimbush, the loss of what she views as Alison’s antique and deplorable colonial innocence. Ulnderstanding of the implications of Lenore’s dictum of ‘entertaining the troops,’ and shock following forced proximity to the War, spark reflection and self-scrutiny: prompting Alison to train as a V.A.D. and undertake duties in a military hospital in France. She also comes to realise that Gavin Piers, of the Royal Flying Clorps, is not to be taken for granted simply because he is the childhood friend from the old home town.
Boulogne, the frenzied nerve centre and point of departure for Allied troops bound for the Front, is the setting for Alison’s ordeal of love and anguish in the second half of the novel.
Her passage from innocence to experience spans war’s brutal mix of glamour and excitement with suffering and death; and mirrors, to an extent, her nation’s baptism of fire.

  Available from Trafford Publishing, orders@trafford.com; or from Amazon, $19.69; or from the author.

Après Vuillard -- encore

Oil on Board, 40 x 22cm (14 x 8 3/4in)

P.S.  I've just been dining with my wife, at home on a rainy evening, and she has just looked at my blog. 'You stuck that there without saying anything about it? Just like that?' -- I count her an expert on blog etiquette, but I tried over the second glass of Côte de Bourg to defend myself.  'I painted that some years back,' I said, 'and really I had nothing to say about it.  And besides, I"d talked about Vuillard in my last.'  'It's egotistical, and impolite; you'll lose all your few followers. If you don't want to say anything about the painting (which I've alwasys loved; and I want to put it in the guest room) change the subject,' she drove on, quite fired up. ' Talk about other things -- anything; you're supposed to be a writer.' 'Well, but I've been painting walls and fixing things and getting the garden in shape, summer is a busy time. And besides I've been proccupied with what's going on in the wider world.'  'Ah,' she said with something approaching a snort, 'your fixation on Islam! Well, don't talk about that.'

And yet, why not?

This 'Freedom Flotilla' incident has had me fuming -- fuming at the skewed reporting in British newspapers and the BBC; interviews with the aid activists under captions like: 'We were unarmed,' etc. In the Washington Post I found the full Israeli account (04/06/2010). According to this, four hours were spent trying to persuade the ship to turn from Gaza, met by shouts of 'Go back to Auschwitz!' The Israelis did not expect an attack from humanitarian aid activists, but rather to see them chaining themselves to protect the engine room. They were set upon  by 30-40 men. Seven soldiers were wounded, two critically, with gunshot wounds; 3 were captured and their pistols taken. Two escaped by jumping into the sea. Found on the ship were 100 metal rods, 200 knives, 50 wooden clubs, 150 military vests, steel and concrete building supplies. Many of the attackers had 10,000€ on them, raising a suspicion of their being mercenaries.

Is this version credible? -- I think it is.  Question:  If the Israeli soldiers were the ones bent on attacking, how is it their take-overs of the other ships in the Flotilla went peacefully?

In truth, like a lot of others, I've been proccupied for a long time by the Islamist threat to our way of life in the West. (How much painting could we do, with an Imam watching over us?) And my reading reflects my worry. Try, for starters, Melanie Phillips's Londonistan and The World Turned Upside Down, and maybe Irshad Manji's The Trouble with Islam -- if you haven't read them.

But enough of this.  I'll get off my hobby horse. A copy of Oriana Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride arrived today from Amazon and I want to go to bed and start it.

Cheers.

'