Poem.

 

Like a military parade of trees,

Commercial Spruce, in bottle-green uniform,

stand to attention on the lower slopes, mile upon mile.

Golden Larch, like Red-Hot Pokers,

frame plantations in spectacular contrast,

acting as expendable fire-breaks in order to sustain the bulk of the forest.

Delicate fronds of the Silver Birch droop and waiver in the breeze.

Lower branches speckled by what seems countless golden doubloons “sparkle” with an iridescent glow.

Millions of leaves metamorphose into their Autumnal apparel.

The deeper, richer bronze of the bracken adds to this awesome, multi-coloured tapestry, but Broom and Gorse hang on to their now, flowerless, green foliage.

Blacks and greys of leafless bushes and the scaffolding of straight, deeply grooved pine-tree-trunks, gives an architectural solidity to the scene.

The richness of colour and texture is momentous, mesmeric and moving.

It is a joy to behold.

  

Oil on canvas; 55 x 38 cm.

 

Modigliani was born into a Jewish family of merchants. As a child he suffered from pleurisy and typhus, which prevented him from receiving a conventional education. In 1898 he began to study painting. After a brief stay in Florence in 1902, he continued his artistic studies in Venice, remaining there until the winter of 1906, when he left for Paris. His early admiration for Italian Renaissance painting—especially that of Siena—was to last throughout his life. In Paris Modigliani became interested in the Post-Impressionist paintings of Paul Cézanne. His initial important contacts were with the poets André Salmon and Max Jacob, with the artist Pablo Picasso, and—in 1907—with Paul Alexandre, a friend of many avant-garde artists and the first to become interested in Modigliani and to buy his works. In 1908 the artist exhibited five or six paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1909 Modigliani met the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, on whose advice he seriously studied African sculpture. To prepare himself for creating his own sculpture, he intensified his graphic experiments. In his drawings Modigliani tried to give the function of limiting or enclosing volumes to his contours. In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne eight stone heads whose elongated and simplified forms reflect the influence of African sculpture. Modigliani returned entirely to painting about 1915, but his experience as a sculptor had fundamental consequences for his painting style. The characteristics of Modigliani’s sculptured heads—long necks and noses, simplified features, and long oval faces—became typical of his paintings. He reduced and almost eliminated chiaroscuro (the use of gradations of light and shadow to achieve the illusion of three-dimensionality), and he achieved a sense of solidity with strong contours and the richness of juxtaposed colors.

 

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 increased the difficulties of Modigliani’s life. Alexandre and some of his other friends were at the front, his paintings did not sell, and his already delicate health was deteriorating because of his poverty, feverish work ethic, and abuse of alcohol and drugs. He was in the midst of a troubled affair with the South African poet Beatrice Hastings, with whom he lived for two years, from 1914 to 1916. He was assisted, however, by the art dealer Paul Guillaume and especially by the Polish poet Leopold Zborowski, who bought or helped him to sell a few paintings and drawings.

 

Modigliani was not a professional portraitist; for him the portrait was only an occasion to isolate a figure as a kind of sculptural relief through firm and expressive contour drawing. He painted his friends, usually personalities of the Parisian artistic and literary world (such as the artists Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz, the writer and artist Jean Cocteau, and the poet Max Jacob), but he also portrayed unknown people, including models, servants, and girls from the neighborhood. In 1917 he began painting a series of about 30 large female nudes that, with their warm, glowing colors and sensuous, rounded forms, are among his best works. In December of that year Berthe Weill organized a solo show for him in her gallery, but the police judged the nudes indecent and had them removed.

 

In 1917 Modigliani began a love affair with the young painter Jeanne Hébuterne, with whom he went to live on the Côte d’Azur. Their daughter, Jeanne, was born in November 1918. His painting became increasingly refined in line and delicate in colour. A more tranquil life and the climate of the Mediterranean, however, did not restore the artist’s undermined health. After returning to Paris in May 1919, he became ill in January 1920; 10 days later he died of tubercular meningitis. Little-known outside avant-garde Parisian circles, Modigliani had seldom participated in official exhibitions. Fame came after his death, with a solo exhibition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in 1922 and later with a biography by André Salmon. For decades critical evaluations of Modigliani’s work were overshadowed by the dramatic story of his tragic life, but he is now acknowledged as one of the most significant and original artists of his time.

Whitman referred to this as "the best picture of all" when it came to portraits of himself.

 

Later in his life, he described it as having "almost the old professor look". He mused, "How well I was then! Full of initiative, vigor, joy, not much belly, but grit, fibre, hold, solidity. Indeed, all through those years, I was at my best, physically at my best, mentally, every way."

 

Original black and white photo by Alexander Gardner (1812-1882), courtesy of the Library of Congress

Chassis n° V8COL/15191

 

Les Grandes Marques du Monde au Grand Palais

Bonhams

Parijs - Paris

Frankrijk - France

February 2019

 

Estimated : € 225.000 - 265.000

 

Aston Martin had always intended the DBS to house its new V8 engine, but production difficulties meant that the car first appeared with the DB6's 4.0-liter six. Bigger and more luxuriously appointed than the DB6, the heavyweight DBS disappointed some by virtue of its slightly reduced performance, but there were no complaints when the V8 finally arrived in 1969. With an estimated 315 bhp available from its 5.340 cc four-cam engine, the DBS V8 could reach 100 mph in under 14 seconds, running on to a top speed of 160 mph, a staggering performance in those days and one which fully justified the claim that it was the fastest production car in the world. After Aston Martin's acquisition by Company Developments in 1972, production resumed with the Series 2, now known as the Aston Martin V8 and distinguishable by a restyled front end recalling the looks of earlier Astons. The most successful Aston Martin ever, the V8 survived the changes of ownership and financial upheavals of the 1970s, enjoying a record-breaking production run lasting from 1969 to 1988, with 2.919 cars sold.

 

Described by former Aston Martin Chairman Victor Gauntlett as 'a stylish thoroughbred, beautifully built, luxurious, fast and immensely safe', the V8 was built in several variants, one of the more exclusive being the Volante convertible. Introduced in response to customer demand for such a car, the Volante first appeared in June 1978. Arguably the ultimate in soft-top luxury, the newcomer boasted a lined, power-operated top which, when erected, endowed the walnut embellished interior with all the solidity and refinement associated with the saloon version. The 5,340cc DOHC V8 Engine with 4 Dual-Throat Weber Carburetors produced 300bhp at 6,000rpm. Although its open-car aerodynamics meant that top speed suffered with the top down, the Volante's 240km/h maximum nevertheless ranked it among the world's fastest convertibles. V8 Volante and Vantage Volante chassis numbers ran from '15001' to '15849', a total of only 849 cars.

 

According to copies of Aston Martin's factory build records, this V8 Volante was shipped from the UK on 23rd May 1980 to Aston Martin Sales Inc of New Rochelle, New York. Left-hand drive and equipped with the five-speed manual transmission and a Vantage front air dam, it was finished in Jubilee Silver with black leather interior, black carpeting, and a black Everflex convertible top, as it is today.

 

Sold in July 1981 to its first owner, the Aston was transported to California where it would remain until it was sold to the second owner six years later with only 14,000 miles recorded. For the following three decades, this superb V8 Volante was driven sparingly and is today presented with only 43.106 miles showing on the odometer. The immediately preceding owner purchased the car from Doc Severinsen, former bandleader on 'The Tonight Show', and before Mr Severinsen's ownership it resided in Palm Springs.

 

The current vendor, specifically looking for this rare (Volante, early series with carburation, left-hand drive, ZF 5-speed manual gearbox) version purchased the Aston in the USA in August 2016, since when it has been re-commissioned and converted to EU specification with correct bumpers, etc. In addition, the engine has been checked over, a new convertible hood installed, and the interior detailed. Close to € 30.000 has been spent and the car now looks wonderful with a nicely patinated interior.

 

Offered here with its owner's manual, parts book, workshop manual, copy of factory built sheet,

tools, invoices and car cover, this V8 Volante must be one of the best preserved examples currently available. As a well-cared for California car, it has a wonderful patina and originality that is difficult to replicate. The car's maintenance and service records are exceptionally comprehensive, running to several hundred invoices.

 

Left-hand drive and equipped with the desirable and rare ZF five-speed transmission from new, this beautiful V8 Volante is definitely 'the one to have'.

Nestled within San Francisco's iconic Nob Hill neighborhood, the Masonic Temple stands as a beacon of history and architecture. This striking building, known for its unique blend of modern and classical design elements, has been an integral part of the city's landscape since its completion in 1958. The structure's facade, crafted from pristine white marble, is adorned with intricate bas-reliefs depicting Masonic symbols and figures, paying homage to the rich heritage of the Freemasons.

 

The building's architectural significance is further enhanced by its modernist influences, with clean lines and minimalist detailing that reflect the mid-20th-century design ethos. The temple's upper portion features a series of stylized figures that seem to march in unison, symbolizing unity and fraternity, core values of the Masonic brotherhood. Below, large glass panels invite natural light into the building, creating a harmonious blend of transparency and solidity.

 

The Masonic Temple is not only an architectural marvel but also a cultural hub. The building houses the Nob Hill Masonic Center, a popular venue for concerts, lectures, and community events. The center's auditorium, known for its excellent acoustics and seating capacity of over 3,000, has hosted countless performances, from classical concerts to modern rock shows.

 

This building's location in Nob Hill places it in one of San Francisco's most prestigious neighborhoods, known for its historic mansions, luxury hotels, and stunning views of the city. Whether you're a history enthusiast, an architecture aficionado, or simply exploring San Francisco, the Masonic Temple is a must-visit landmark that encapsulates the spirit and history of the city.

"The Dolder was the entrance of the city of Riquewihr built along the wall to the 13th century (in 1291). It was used to defend the city against any foreign intrusion thanks to its watchtower installed on the belfry. Dolder means in Alsatian "the highest point". The belfry is 25 meters high and was built to impress the enemy thanks to the military aspect of its exterior facade. The side facing the city gave a more pleasant aspect thanks to its beams in the form of and its four floors which were occupied by the caretaker's family. The guard had to keep watch and close the gate at the entrance to the village every evening and warn the population if something abnormal happened by sounding the alarm. For this he had a small bell on the top of the belfry. This bell was cast in 1842 and bore the inscription "It is joy, it is the alarm that my sound produces. By day I announce the din and the rest of the night ”. This monument is still today the most noticed emblem in the city. The interior of the Dolder, once the keeper's home, now houses the local museum of folk art and tradition on three of its floors. The tower houses a collection of 15th to 17th century weapons and various tools and objects directly related to the wine profession. There are also documents and memories of families as well as utensils from the time, the use of which has now completely disappeared. A glance along the surrounding wall, to the right and to the left of the Dolder and along the Semme reveals its picturesque side, the solidity and the importance of these fortifications.

 

Riquewihr / ʁik (ə) viːʁ / ( Rïchewïhr Alsatian) is a French commune located in the department of Haut-Rhin, in the region East Grand.

 

This town is located in the historical and cultural region of Alsace.

 

Riquewihr is a famous village in Alsace, very visited for its architectural heritage, a picturesque medieval city, untouched by the destruction of the two world wars. The village is south of Hunawihr and Ribeauvillé, 10 km north of Kaysersberg, in the heart of the Alsatian vineyard, on the Alsace wine route.

 

Nestled at the entrance of a wooded valley, protected by the Schœnenbourg against the northerly winds, Riquewihr slightly overlooks the Alsace plain and offers a magnificent view over the Rhine valley, from the Alps to Sélestat.

 

The three surrounding hills gave the logo of the Hugel et fils house, one of the largest wine-growing families in Riquewihr.

 

The mild local climate is very favorable to the cultivation of vines, the slopes with heavy soils and steep slopes offering no other possibilities.

 

Riquewihr is 3 km from Hunawihr where the stork park is located, 5 km from Ribeauvillé, 5 km from Kaysersberg, 13 km from Colmar and 70 km from Strasbourg.

 

It is one of the 188 municipalities of the Ballons des Vosges regional natural park.

 

In German, its name is Reichenweier, sometimes Reichenweiher or Reichenweyer.

 

Legend has it that the name of Riquewihr came from a certain Countess Richilde, for some, daughter of Adelaide, sister of Pope Leo IX, or for others granddaughter of Sainte-Hune, who would be, for her part, originally from Hunawihr.

 

Alsace (/ælˈsæs/, also US: /ælˈseɪs, ˈælsæs/; French: [alzas]; Low Alemannic German/Alsatian: 's Elsàss [ˈɛlsɑs]; German: Elsass [ˈɛlzas]; Latin: Alsatia) is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2017, it had a population of 1,889,589.

 

Until 1871, Alsace included the area now known as the Territoire de Belfort, which formed its southernmost part. From 1982 to 2016, Alsace was the smallest administrative région in metropolitan France, consisting of the Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin departments. Territorial reform passed by the French Parliament in 2014 resulted in the merger of the Alsace administrative region with Champagne-Ardenne and Lorraine to form Grand Est. Due to protests it was decided in 2019 that Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin would form the future European Collectivity of Alsace in 2021.

 

Alsatian is an Alemannic dialect closely related to Swabian and Swiss German, although since World War II most Alsatians primarily speak French. Internal and international migration since 1945 has also changed the ethnolinguistic composition of Alsace. For more than 300 years, from the Thirty Years' War to World War II, the political status of Alsace was heavily contested between France and various German states in wars and diplomatic conferences. The economic and cultural capital of Alsace, as well as its largest city, is Strasbourg, which sits right on the contemporary German international border. The city is the seat of several international organisations and bodies." - info from Wikipedia.

 

During the summer of 2018 I went on my first ever cycling tour. On my own I cycled from Strasbourg, France to Geneva, Switzerland passing through the major cities of Switzerland. In total I cycled 1,185 km over the course of 16 days and took more than 8,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.

Fed 5B rangefinder with Industar 61 L/D 2.8/55 lens

Expired Kodak 400 f/8 @ 1/250

 

It helped at time to focus on the massive solidity of the thing that was holding me up above the water so effortlessly.

 

(Low-resolution scans by TheDarkroom.com High quality scans or prints available for purchase on request)

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor 18/10/2022 19h18

A twilight photo between the bars of the bridge looking towards the Musée du Louvre and Pont Royal.

 

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor

The passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, formerly known as passerelle Solférino (or pont de Solférino), is a footbridge over the River Seine in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is served by the Metro station Assemblée Nationale.

For a century, a cast iron bridge inaugurated by Napoleon III in 1861 allowed vehicles to cross between quai Anatole-France and quai des Tuileries. Built by the engineers of the Pont des Invalides, Paul-Martin Gallocher de Lagalisserie and Jules Savarin, it was named after the June 1859 French victory of the Battle of Solferino. Having weakened over time (particularly due to barges crashing into it), it was demolished and replaced in 1961 with a steel footbridge, which was demolished in 1992.

The new passerelle de Solférino linking the Musée d'Orsay and the Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Gardens) was built between 1997 and 1999 under the direction of the engineer and architect Marc Mimram. Crossing the Seine with a single span and no piers, this metallic bridge is architecturally unique and covered in exotic woods (ipê, a Brazilian tree also used for outdoor flooring[1] at the Bibliothèque nationale de France) which gives it a light and warm appearance. Its solidity is, however, never in doubt - at either end, its foundations are in the form of concrete pillars extending 15m into the ground, and the structure itself is made up of six 150 tonne components built by the Eiffel engineering company, Eiffel Constructions métalliques. Its innovative architecture brought Marc Mimram the award "Prix de l'Équerre d'Argent" for the year 1999.

 

The bridge also has benches and lampposts for promenaders who can reach the Jardin des Tuileries through a subterranean passage on the Rive Droite.

 

The bridge was renamed after Léopold Sédar Senghor on 9 October 2006 on the centenary of his birth.

 

FACTS & FIGURES

Crosses: River Seine

Next upstream: Pont Royal

Next downstream: Pont de la Concorde

Design: Marc Mimram

Total length: 106m

Width: 15m

Opened: 1999

 

[ Wikipedia - Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor ]

Myanmar Images : Detail of the wall surrounding Dhammayangyi Temple, Bagan's largest temple, Myanmar, built 1167-1170

Bauhaus Museum Weimar, Germany

 

German architect Heike Hanada designed a minimalist concrete museum to celebrate the Bauhaus in Weimar, where the design school was founded 100 years ago. The building is dedicated to the design school creates a physical cultural presence for the Bauhaus in the German city where it was based between 1919 and 1925. Located near the Nazi-era Gauforum square and the Neue Museum Weimar, the Bauhaus Museum is a simple five-storey concrete box broken only with its entrance and a couple of windows. The enclosing shell of light-grey concrete lends the cube stability and dynamic solidity. Equally spaced horizontal grooves run around the facades of the museum, with the words "bauhaus museum" repeated in a band near the top of the building. Hanada designed the museum to be a public building for the city and has attempted to clearly connect it to the neighbouring park. With elements such as plinths, fasciae, portals, stairways and a terrace to the park, the architecture incorporates classical themes that underscore its public character.

 

The museum contains 2,000 m2 of exhibition space, which will be used to display around 1,000 items from the Weimar Bauhaus collection. A shop and entrance hall is located on the ground floor, with a cafe and toilets below, and three floors dedicated to telling the story of the Bauhaus above. Each of the galleries overlooks double-height spaces and are accessed from a long ceremonial staircase that stretches the height of the building. The visitors ascend a succession of interchanging open spaces and staircases until they finally arrive at the top floor where they are presented with an unobstructed view of the park. The cascading staircases are encased by ceiling-high walls and function as free-standing, enclosed bodies in the interior space. The collection is arranged to inform visitors about the history of the design school, with the gallery on the first floor dedicated to its origins in Weimar and the Bauhaus manifesto that Walter Gropius wrote in 1919. The second floor has exhibits that show how these ideas were implemented, with galleries dedicated to each of the Bauhaus directors – Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe – at the top of the building.

 

The museum in Weimar has opened to coincide with the centenary of the Bauhaus, which was established in the city in 1919. The school was forced to relocate from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, where Gropius designed a new school building for the institution. Following a short time based in Berlin the school closed for good in 1933. Although only open for just over a decade, the Bauhaus is the most influential art and design school in history. The ideas and people associated with the school had an incredible impact on design and architecture, and to mark its centenary we created a series exploring its key works and figures.

 

Bauhaus Museum Weimar, Germany

 

German architect Heike Hanada designed a minimalist concrete museum to celebrate the Bauhaus in Weimar, where the design school was founded 100 years ago. The building is dedicated to the design school creates a physical cultural presence for the Bauhaus in the German city where it was based between 1919 and 1925. Located near the Nazi-era Gauforum square and the Neue Museum Weimar, the Bauhaus Museum is a simple five-storey concrete box broken only with its entrance and a couple of windows. The enclosing shell of light-grey concrete lends the cube stability and dynamic solidity. Equally spaced horizontal grooves run around the facades of the museum, with the words "bauhaus museum" repeated in a band near the top of the building. Hanada designed the museum to be a public building for the city and has attempted to clearly connect it to the neighbouring park. With elements such as plinths, fasciae, portals, stairways and a terrace to the park, the architecture incorporates classical themes that underscore its public character.

 

The museum contains 2,000 m2 of exhibition space, which will be used to display around 1,000 items from the Weimar Bauhaus collection. A shop and entrance hall is located on the ground floor, with a cafe and toilets below, and three floors dedicated to telling the story of the Bauhaus above. Each of the galleries overlooks double-height spaces and are accessed from a long ceremonial staircase that stretches the height of the building. The visitors ascend a succession of interchanging open spaces and staircases until they finally arrive at the top floor where they are presented with an unobstructed view of the park. The cascading staircases are encased by ceiling-high walls and function as free-standing, enclosed bodies in the interior space. The collection is arranged to inform visitors about the history of the design school, with the gallery on the first floor dedicated to its origins in Weimar and the Bauhaus manifesto that Walter Gropius wrote in 1919. The second floor has exhibits that show how these ideas were implemented, with galleries dedicated to each of the Bauhaus directors – Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe – at the top of the building.

 

The museum in Weimar has opened to coincide with the centenary of the Bauhaus, which was established in the city in 1919. The school was forced to relocate from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, where Gropius designed a new school building for the institution. Following a short time based in Berlin the school closed for good in 1933. Although only open for just over a decade, the Bauhaus is the most influential art and design school in history. The ideas and people associated with the school had an incredible impact on design and architecture, and to mark its centenary we created a series exploring its key works and figures.

 

An extract from Praying with Icons

 

The Vladimir Mother of God

 

One of the most frequently painted of all icons reminds us of the love that binds Mary and Jesus to each other, and also of the connection between Mary and ourselves, for we too are her children. There are numerous variations, but all of them show Christ in his mother's arms with their faces pressed together. One of her hands holds him, the other draws our attention to him, a motion reinforced by the gentle tilt of her head. There is a subdued sense of apprehension in Mary's face, as if she can already see her son bearing the cross, while Christ seems to be silently reassuring his mother of the resurrection.

 

This is one of the icons attributed to the Gospel author Luke. While we know of no surviving icon painted by his hand with certainty, according to tradition the original of this icon was his.

 

The most famous version of the icon, the Vladimir Mother of God, was given by the Church in Constantinople to the Russian Church in 1131. Every movement and use of the Vladimir icon has been chronicled ever since. It was in Kiev until that city was destroyed by the Golden Horde. From there, in 1155, it went to the city of Vladimir in the north. In 1395 the icon moved once again, this time to Moscow, a river town that had grown to be the chief city of Russia.

 

At present the icon is in a church adjacent to Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery, where it was housed through the Soviet period. On one occasion, during an attempted coup in 1993, it was taken out of the museum by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexei, and used to bless the city -- the kind of action long associated with this icon. Even when it was housed in the museum, it was not unusual to see people in fervent prayer as they stand before this battered image. (There are many good printed reproductions of the Vladimir icon, but nothing I have seen does justice to the original. Partly this is because the surface of the icon, having suffered much damage, reveals level upon level of the overpainting of those who restored the icon over the centuries. We see portions of earlier painting in one area, later retouching in others. The rough terrain of the icon's surface is lost in prints.)

 

In some versions of the icon -- the Vladimir prototype is one -- Mary appears to be looking toward the person praying before the icon, in others her gaze is slightly off to the side, but in either case her eyes have an inward, contemplative quality. "The Virgin's eyes," Henri Nouwen comments, "are not curious, investigating or even understanding, but eyes which reveal to us our true selves." [Henri Nouwen, Behold the Beauty of the Lord: Praying with Icons (Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1987), p 36.]

 

Invariably, Christ's attention is directed to his mother. Always there is the detail of Christ's bare feet, a vivid symbol of his physical reality: he walked among us, leaving his footprints on the earth.

 

In some versions of the icon there is an additional detail of love, the arm of Christ around his mother's neck. This too is in the Vladimir prototype.

 

In contrast to Renaissance religious paintings with a similar subject, we notice in the icon that while Christ is an infant in size, his body's proportions are those of a man; a baby's head would be much larger. This is intentional. The noble face we see pressed against Mary's cheek is the Lord of Creation and the Glory of God. He wears adult clothing, a tunic and coat woven from gold, the color iconography uses for the imperishable and all that is associated with the Kingdom of God. In these details the icon reveals the real identity of the son of Mary.

 

Over her dress, Mary wears a dark shawl which circles her head, has a golden border, and is ornamented with three stars (one is hidden by Christ's body) symbolizing her virginity before and after her son's birth. At the same time they suggest that heaven has found a place in her.

 

The icon's triangular composition not only emphasizes the stillness of the two figures and gives the icon an immovable solidity but is a reminder of the presence of the Holy Trinity in all things.

 

The center of the composition is at the level of Mary's heart. A much used Orthodox prayer declares, "Beneath your tenderness of heart do we take refuge, O Mother of God." As anyone discovers in coming to know the Mother of God, her heart is as spacious as heaven.

 

In any version of the icon of the Mother of God of Tenderness, the Vladimir icon being only the most famous example, we see Mary's perfect devotion, a devotion so absolute that God finds in her the person who can both give birth to himself and who will ever after serve as the primary model of Christ-centered wholeness -- the woman whom all generations will regard as blessed. In her assent to the angelic invitation, Mary said not only on behalf of herself and all her righteous ancestors but for all generations, "Yes, Lord, come!" Through her all humanity gives birth to Jesus Christ, and through Christ she becomes our mother.

 

Because the icon portrays the profound oneness uniting Mary and Jesus, it is a eucharistic icon: in receiving the Body of Christ, we too hold Christ, and are held by Christ.

 

In the Gospel, we hear Mary praised for having given birth to Jesus and having nursed him. Christ responds by remarking on what is still more important about his mother and all who follow him wholeheartedly: "Rather blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep it." [Luke 11:28] She who gave birth to the Word of God also keeps it eternally.

 

It was at Mary's appeal that Christ performed his first miracle, changing water into wine at the marriage feast at Cana, and at Cana that we hear her simple appeal to each person who would follow her son: "Do whatever he tells you." [John 2:5] These few words would serve well as another name for this icon.

 

Praying with Icons web page: jimandnancyforest.com/2005/01/praying-with-icons/

The budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus), also known as the common parakeet, shell parakeet or budgie (/ˈbʌdʒi/ BUJ-ee), is a small, long-tailed, seed-eating parrot. Budgies are the only species in the genus Melopsittacus. Naturally, the species is green and yellow with black, scalloped markings on the nape, back, and wings.[5] Budgies are bred in captivity with colouring of blues, whites, yellows, greys, and even with small crests. Juveniles and chicks are monomorphic, while adults are told apart by their cere colouring, and their behaviour.

 

The species is the only member of the genus Melopsittacus, which is the only genus in the Melopsittacini tribe.

 

The origin of the budgerigar's name is unclear. First recorded in 1805, budgerigars are popular pets around the world due to their small size, low cost, and ability to mimic human speech. They are likely the third most popular pet in the world, after the domesticated dog and cat. Budgies are nomadic flock parakeets that have been bred in captivity since the 19th century. In both captivity and the wild, budgerigars breed opportunistically and in pairs.

 

They are found wild throughout the drier parts of Australia, where they have survived harsh inland conditions for over five million years. Their success can be attributed to a nomadic lifestyle and their ability to breed while on the move. The budgerigar is closely related to lories and the fig parrots.

 

Etymology

 

Pair of budgerigars

Several possible origins for the name budgerigar have been proposed. One origin could be that budgerigar may be a mispronunciation or alteration of the Gamilaraay word gidjirrigaa (Aboriginal pronunciation: [ɡ̊iɟiriɡaː]) or gijirragaa from the Yuwaalaraay. Another possible origin is that budgerigar might be a modified form of budgery or boojery (Australian English slang for "good") and gar ("cockatoo"). While many references mention "good" as part of the meaning, and a few specify "good bird", it is quite possible that reports by those local to the region are more accurate in specifying the direct translation as "good food".

 

Alternative spellings include budgerygah and betcherrygah, the latter used by Indigenous people of the Liverpool Plains in New South Wales.

 

Alternative names for the budgerigar include the shell parrot or shell parakeet, the warbling grass parakeet, the canary parrot, the zebra parrot, the flight bird, and the scallop parrot. Although more often used as a common name for small parrots in the genus Agapornis, the name "lovebird" has been used for budgerigars, because of their habit of close perching and mutual preening, and their long term pair-bonds.

 

Taxonomy

Evolutionary history

parrots

  

Lories and lorikeets

  

Budgerigar

 

Fig parrots

genera Cyclopsitta & Psittaculirostris

 

... other parrots

 

Phylogenetic chart

The budgerigar was first described by George Shaw in 1805, and given its current binomial name by John Gould in 1840. The genus name Melopsittacus, from Ancient Greek, means "melodious parrot". The species name undulatus is Latin for "undulated" or "wave-patterned".

 

The budgerigar was once proposed to be a link between the genera Neophema and Pezoporus, based on the barred plumage. However, recent phylogenetic studies using DNA sequences place the budgerigar very close to the lories (tribe Loriini) and the fig parrots (tribe Cyclopsittini).

 

Description

 

Wild budgerigars average 18 cm (7 in) long,[6] weigh 30–40 grams (1.1–1.4 oz), 30 cm (12 in) in wingspan, and display a light green body colour (abdomen and rumps), while their mantles (back and wing coverts) display pitch-black mantle markings (blackish in fledglings and immatures) edged in clear yellow undulations. The forehead and face is yellow in adults. Prior to their adult plumage, young individuals have blackish stripes down to the cere (nose) in young individuals until around 3–4 months of age. They display small, iridescent blue-violet cheek patches and a series of three black spots across each side of their throats (called throat patches). The two outermost throat spots are situated at the base of each cheek patch. The tail is cobalt (dark-blue); and outside tail feathers display central yellow flashes. Their wings have greenish-black flight feathers and black coverts with yellow fringes along with central yellow flashes, which only become visible in flight or when the wings are outstretched. Bills are olive grey and legs blueish-grey, with zygodactyl toes.

 

In their natural Australian habitat, budgerigars are noticeably smaller than those in captivity. This particular parrot species has been bred in many other colours and shades in captivity (e.g. blue, grey, grey-green, pieds, violet, white, yellow-blue). Pet store individuals will commonly be blue, green, or yellow. Like most parrot species, budgerigar plumage fluoresces under ultraviolet light – a phenomenon possibly related to courtship and mate selection.

 

The upper half of their beaks is taller than the bottom half, covering the bottom when closed. The beak does not protrude much, due to the thick, fluffy feathers surrounding it, giving the appearance of a downward-pointing beak that lies flat against the face. The upper half acts as a long, smooth cover, while the bottom half is just about a half-sized cup-piece. These beaks allow the birds to eat plants, fruits, and vegetables.

 

The colour of the cere (the area containing the nostrils) differs between the sexes, being a lavender/baby blue in males, pale brownish/white (non breeding) to brown (breeding) in females, and pink in immature birds of both sexes (usually of a more even purplish-pink colour in young males). Some female budgerigars develop brown cere only during breeding time, which later returns to the normal colour. Young females can often be identified by a subtle, chalky whiteness that starts around the nostrils. Males that are either albino, lutino, dark-eyed clear or recessive pied (Danish pied or harlequin) retain the immature purplish-pink cere colour for their entire lives.

 

Behaviours and head shape also help indicate sex. Veterinarians can determine the sex of a bird by invasive examination or samples of blood, feather, or eggshell.

 

Mature males usually have a cere of light to dark blue, but in some particular colour mutations it can be periwinkle, lavender, purplish or pink – including dark-eyed clears, Danish pieds (recessive pieds) and inos, which usually display much rounder heads. The behaviour of males can distinguish them from females. Males are typically cheerful, extroverted, highly flirtatious, peacefully social, and very vocal.

 

Female ceres are pinkish while immature. As they age, they move from being beigeish or whitish outside breeding condition into brown (often with a 'crusty' texture) in breeding condition and usually display flattened backs of heads (right above the nape). Females are more dominant and less socially tolerant. This behavior is more pronounced around other females than with males.

 

Budgerigars have tetrachromatic colour vision, although all four classes of cone cells will not operate simultaneously unless under sunlight or a UV lamp. The ultraviolet spectrum brightens their feathers to attract mates. The throat spots in budgerigars reflect UV and can be used to distinguish individual birds. While ultraviolet light is essential to the good health of caged and pet birds, inadequate darkness or rest results in overstimulation.

 

Ecology

 

Budgerigars are nomadic and flocks move on from sites as environmental conditions change. Budgerigars are found in open habitats, primarily in scrublands, open woodlands, and grasslands of Australia. The birds are normally found in small flocks, but can form very large flocks under favourable conditions. The nomadic movement of the flocks is tied to the availability of food and water. Budgerigars have two distinct flight speeds which they are capable of switching between depending on the circumstance. Drought can drive flocks into more wooded habitat or coastal areas. They feed on the seeds of spinifex and grass, and sometimes ripening wheat.

 

Outside of Australia, the only long-term establishment of naturalised feral budgerigars is a large population near St. Petersburg, Florida. Increased competition for nesting sites from European starlings and house sparrows is thought to be a primary cause of the Florida population declining from the 1980s. The more consistent, year-round conditions in Florida significantly reduced their nomadic behaviour.

 

The species has been introduced to various locations in Puerto Rico and the United States.

 

Budgerigars feed primarily on grass seeds. The species also opportunistically depredates growing cereal crops and lawn grass seeds.[35] Due to the low water content of the seeds they rely on the availability of freshwater.

 

Behaviour

 

Breeding in the wild generally takes place between June and September in northern Australia and between August and January in the south, although budgerigars are opportunistic breeders and respond to rains when grass seeds become most abundant. Budgerigars are monogamous and breed in large colonies throughout their range. They show signs of affection to their flockmates by preening or feeding one another. Budgerigars feed one another by eating the seeds themselves, and then regurgitating it into their flockmate's mouth. Populations in some areas have increased as a result of increased water availability at farms. Nests are made in holes in trees, fence posts or logs lying on the ground; the four to six eggs are incubated for 18–21 days, with the young fledging about 30 days after hatching.

 

In the wild, virtually all parrot species require a hollow tree or a hollow log as a nest site. Because of this natural behaviour, budgerigars most easily breed in captivity when provided with a reasonable-sized nest box.

 

The eggs are typically one to two centimetres long and are pearl white without any colouration if fertile. Female budgerigars can lay eggs without a male partner, but these unfertilised eggs will not hatch. Females normally have a whitish tan cere; however, when the female is laying eggs, her cere turns a crusty brown colour. Certain female budgies may always keep a whitish tan cere or always keep a crusty brown cere regardless of breeding condition. A female budgerigar will lay her eggs on alternating days. After the first one, there is usually a two-day gap until the next. She will usually lay between four and eight eggs, which she will incubate (usually starting after laying her second or third) for about 21 days each. Females only leave their nests for very quick defecations, stretches and quick meals once they have begun incubating and are by then almost exclusively fed by their mate (usually at the nest's entrance). Females will not allow a male to enter the nest, unless he forces his way inside. Clutch size ranges from 6 to 8 chicks. Depending on the clutch size and the beginning of incubation, the age difference between the first and last hatchling can be anywhere from 9 to 16 days. At times, the parents may begin eating their own eggs due to feeling insecure in the nest box.

 

There is evidence of same-sex sexual behaviour amongst male budgerigars. It is originally hypothesised that they did this as a form of "courtship practice" so they were better breeding partners for females, however an inverse relationship exists between participation in same-sex behaviour and pairing success.

 

Chick health

 

Breeding difficulties arise for various reasons. Some chicks may die from diseases and attacks from adults. Other budgerigars (virtually always females) may fight over the nest box, attacking each other or a brood. Another problem may be the birds' beaks being under-lapped, where the lower mandible is above the upper mandible.

 

Most health issues and physical abnormalities in budgerigars are genetic. Care should be taken that birds used for breeding are active, healthy and unrelated. Budgerigars that are related or have fatty tumours or other potential genetic health problems should not be allowed to breed. Parasites (lice, mites, worms) and pathogens (bacteria, fungi and viruses), are contagious and thus transmitted between individuals through either direct or indirect contact. Nest boxes should be cleaned between uses.

 

Splay leg is a relatively common problem in baby budgerigars and other birds; one of the budgerigar's legs is bent outward, which prevents it from being able to stand properly and compete with the other chicks for food, and can also lead to difficulties in reproducing in adulthood. The condition is caused by young budgerigars slipping repeatedly on the floor of a nest box. It is easily avoided by placing a small quantity of a safe bedding or wood shavings in the bottom of the nest box. Alternatively, several pieces of paper may be placed in the box for the female to chew into bedding.

 

Development

 

Eggs take about 18–20 days before they start hatching. The hatchlings are altricial – blind, naked, unable to lift their head and totally helpless, and their mother feeds them and keeps them warm constantly. Around 10 days of age, the chicks' eyes will open, and they will start to develop feather down. The appearance of down occurs at the age for closed banding of the chicks.

 

They develop feathers around three weeks of age. (One can often easily note the colour mutation of the individual birds at this point.) At this stage of the chicks' development, the male usually has begun to enter the nest to help his female in caring and feeding the chicks. Some budgerigar females, however, totally forbid the male from entering the nest and thus take the full responsibility of rearing the chicks until they fledge.

 

Depending on the size of the clutch and most particularly in the case of single mothers, it may then be wise to transfer a portion of the hatchlings (or best of the fertile eggs) to another pair. The foster pair must already be in breeding mode and thus either at the laying or incubating stages, or already rearing hatchlings.

 

As the chicks develop and grow feathers, they are able to be left on their own for longer periods of time. By the fifth week, the chicks are strong enough that both parents will be comfortable in staying out of the nest more. The youngsters will stretch their wings to gain strength before they attempt to fly. They will also help defend the box from enemies, mostly with their loud screeching. Young budgerigars typically fledge (leave the nest) around their fifth week of age and are usually completely weaned between six and eight weeks old. However, the age for fledging, as well as weaning, can vary slightly depending on the age and the number of surviving chicks. Generally speaking, the oldest chick is the first to be weaned. Although it is logically the last one to be weaned, the youngest chick is often weaned at a younger age than its older sibling(s). This can be a result of mimicking the actions of older siblings. Lone surviving chicks are often weaned at the youngest possible age as a result of having their parents' full attention and care.

 

Hand-reared budgies may take slightly longer to wean than parent-raised chicks. Hand feeding is not routinely done with budgerigars, due to their small size and because young parent raised birds can be readily tamed.

 

Relationship with humans

Aviculture

The budgerigar has been bred in captivity since the 1850s. Breeders have worked to produce a variety of colour, pattern and feather mutations, including albino, blue, cinnamon-ino (lacewing), clearwing, crested, dark, greywing, opaline, pieds, spangled, dilute (suffused) and violet.

 

"English budgerigars", more correctly called "show" or "exhibition budgerigars", are about twice as large as their wild counterparts and have puffier head feathers, giving them a boldly exaggerated look. The eyes and beak can be almost totally obscured by these fluffy head feathers. English budgerigars are typically more expensive than wild-type birds, and have a shorter life span of about seven to nine years. Breeders of English budgerigars show their birds at animal shows. Most captive budgerigars in the pet trade are more similar in size and body conformation to wild budgerigars.

 

Budgerigars are social animals and require stimulation in the shape of toys and interaction with humans or with other budgerigars. Budgerigars, and especially females, will chew material such as wood. When a budgerigar feels threatened, it will try to perch as high as possible and to bring its feathers close against its body in order to appear thinner.

 

Tame budgerigars can be taught to speak, whistle and play with humans. Both males and females sing and can learn to mimic sounds and words and do simple tricks, but singing and mimicry are more pronounced and better perfected in males. Females rarely learn to mimic more than a dozen words. Males can easily acquire vocabularies ranging from a few dozen to a hundred words. Pet males, especially those kept alone, are generally the best speakers.

 

Budgerigars will chew on anything they can find to keep their beaks trimmed. Mineral blocks (ideally enriched with iodine), cuttlebone and soft wooden pieces are suitable for this activity. Cuttlebones also supply calcium, essential for the proper forming of eggs and bone solidity. In captivity, budgerigars live an average of five to eight years, but life spans of 15–20 years have been reported. The life span depends on breed, lineage, and health, being highly influenced by exercise and diet. Budgerigars have been known to cause "bird fancier's lung" in sensitive people, a type of hypersensitivity pneumonitis. Apart from a handful of illnesses, diseases of the species are not transmittable to humans.

 

Colour mutations

Main article: Budgerigar colour genetics

 

All captive budgerigars are divided into two basic series of colours; namely, white-based (blue, grey and white) and yellow-based (green, grey-green and yellow). Presently, at least 32 primary mutations (including violet) occur, enabling hundreds of possible secondary mutations (stable combined primary mutations) and colour varieties (unstable combined mutations).

 

Mimicry

Main article: Talking bird

Male specimens of budgerigars can be skilled at mimicking human speech.

 

Puck, a male budgerigar owned by American Camille Jordan, holds the world record for the largest vocabulary of any bird, at 1,728 words. Puck died in 1994, with the record first appearing in the 1995 edition of Guinness World Records.

 

In 2001, recordings of a budgerigar called Victor got some attention from the media. Victor's owner, Ryan B. Reynolds of Canada, stated Victor was able to engage in contextual conversation and predict the future. Although some believe the animal was able to predict his own death as was claimed, further study on the subject is difficult without the bird. As of 2001, the recordings still remain to be verified by scientific analysis. Critics argue Victor's speech in the recordings is not coherent enough to be determined as spoken in context.

 

The budgerigar "Disco" became Internet famous in 2013. As of 2023, Disco had been viewed over 24,198,346 times on his YouTube channel. Some of Disco's most repeated phrases included, "I am not a crook" and "Nobody puts baby bird in a corner!". Disco died in 2017.

 

In popular culture

Small bathing suits for men, commonly referred to as togs or "Speedos", are informally called "budgie smugglers" in Australia. The phrase is humorously based on the appearance of the tight-fitting cloth around the male's genitals looking like a small budgie. The phrase was officially added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016

Albrecht Dürer, Nürnberg 1471 - 1528

Eva - Eve (1507)

Museo del Prado

 

Like the painting of Adam, represented on a separate panel, Eve´s unstable posture, her rhythmical movements and her affected gestures are sometimes interpreted as a return to earlier models of Gothic art, instead of what they really are, a foretaste of Mannerism. The solidity of the two bodies, Eve´s slightly Gothic curves -the prototype of a Germanic Venus- and Adam´s fascinated expression, his mouth open in a personification of desire; are outstanding aspects of these two grandiose nudes, the first life-size ones in all of northern painting.

Dürer nuances the differences between the two bodies, using a tan color for the man´s and a pinkish white one for the woman. And he conceives them as isolated, rather than alluding to the fall of Adam and Original Sin, which are subtly symbolized in the character´s expressions and in the motives that accompany them. The reference on the tablet to the fact that the work was painted after the Virgin gave birth (Christmas) determines its date of execution more exactly and alludes to Mary as the new Eve, who saves men from the sin which Adam and Eve are about to commit. Dürer set out his studies and conclusions in a treatise on the proportions of the human body and perspective. This was a fundamental text for successive generations of northern artists.

 

Queen Christine of Sweden gave this painting to Felipe IV.

Source: Prado

nothing special, i guess. yet somehow this photograph achieves a solidity, a presence, an ineffable something. by pushing everything to the top of the frame, what does the photographer gain?

"Jukka Mäkelä (1949 - 2018) ranks among the leading pioneers of Finnish postmodernism and neo-expressionism. During a career spanning many decades, Mäkelä continually renewed himself, his rich oeuvre varying radically from one period to the next. The recognizable quality shared by all his paintings is the idiosyncratic way they express a strong bond with nature. Mäkelä’s art is inspired by Finnish nature, though his paintings are anything but traditional landscapes. What endows them with their special quality is the play of light and shadow they capture, as well as a palette of colors that can be described as quintessentially Finnish. These qualities – combined with Mäkelä’s spontaneous, expressive brushwork – immediately call to mind the Finnish landscapes.

 

This exhibition features a pick of Mäkelä’s paintings dating from 1989 to 1995. The 1990s marked a clear watershed in his oeuvre: he started working with charcoal, and new lightness and buoyancy crept into his work. His lines became almost translucent, as if defying gravity with their flightiness, while still retaining a sense of solidity and confidence, always finding the perfect path in the composition. Mäkelä’s lines are not there to enclose or lend contours to forms or colors, rather they are active, autonomous elements that exist unto themselves.

 

Nature is not confined to the idea of a landscape in Mäkelä’s paintings, which embrace the entire spectrum of the natural world, as evinced by everything from his organic treatment of line to his perceptive use of color. His paintings might take their cue from virtually anything, whether a ray of light or a minuscule detail in an urban setting. The essential point to note is that Mäkelä never regarded himself as something separate from nature – he depicted nature not from the vantage point of an external observer but as an integral part of it.

 

Jukka Mäkelä received the State Prize in 1977 and 1981 and was awarded the Pro Finlandia medal in 2007. He represented Finland at the 1988 Venice Biennale and exhibited widely at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Rovaniemi Art Museum, and Oulu Art Museum. His work is represented in notable public collections, including Stockholm’s Moderna Museet, Oslo’s Museum of Contemporary, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, and the Saastamoinen and the Wihuri Foundation."

San Francisco salutes the Beat Generation poets Jack Kerouac, Philip Lamania, Michael MClure, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen. By Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier and Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books.

  

Howl

BY ALLEN GINSBERG

For Carl Solomon:

 

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz,

who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,

who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy among the scholars of war,

who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,

who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in wastebaskets and listening to the Terror through the wall,

who got busted in their pubic beards returning through Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,

who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos night after night

with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls,

incomparable blind streets of shuddering cloud and lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the motionless world of Time between,

Peyote solidities of halls, backyard green tree cemetery dawns, wine drunkenness over the rooftops, storefront boroughs of teahead joyride neon blinking traffic light, sun and moon and tree vibrations in the roaring winter dusks of Brooklyn, ashcan rantings and kind king light of mind,

who chained themselves to subways for the endless ride from Battery to holy Bronx on benzedrine until the noise of wheels and children brought them down shuddering mouth-wracked and battered bleak of brain all drained of brilliance in the drear light of Zoo,

who sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s floated out and sat through the stale beer afternoon in desolate Fugazzi’s, listening to the crack of doom on the hydrogen jukebox,

who talked continuously seventy hours from park to pad to bar to Bellevue to museum to the Brooklyn Bridge,

a lost battalion of platonic conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off windowsills off Empire State out of the moon,

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars,

whole intellects disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes, meat for the Synagogue cast on the pavement,

who vanished into nowhere Zen New Jersey leaving a trail of ambiguous picture postcards of Atlantic City Hall,

suffering Eastern sweats and Tangerian bone-grindings and migraines of China under junk-withdrawal in Newark’s bleak furnished room,

who wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go, and went, leaving no broken hearts,

who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night,

who studied Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross telepathy and bop kabbalah because the cosmos instinctively vibrated at their feet in Kansas,

who loned it through the streets of Idaho seeking visionary indian angels who were visionary indian angels,

who thought they were only mad when Baltimore gleamed in supernatural ecstasy,

who jumped in limousines with the Chinaman of Oklahoma on the impulse of winter midnight streetlight smalltown rain,

who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup, and followed the brilliant Spaniard to converse about America and Eternity, a hopeless task, and so took ship to Africa,

who disappeared into the volcanoes of Mexico leaving behind nothing but the shadow of dungarees and the lava and ash of poetry scattered in fireplace Chicago,

who reappeared on the West Coast investigating the FBI in beards and shorts with big pacifist eyes sexy in their dark skin passing out incomprehensible leaflets,

who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,

who distributed Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square weeping and undressing while the sirens of Los Alamos wailed them down, and wailed down Wall, and the Staten Island ferry also wailed,

who broke down crying in white gymnasiums naked and trembling before the machinery of other skeletons,

who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in policecars for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication,

who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts,

who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists, and screamed with joy,

who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors, caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,

who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their semen freely to whomever come who may,

who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked angel came to pierce them with a sword,

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom,

who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a package of cigarettes a candle and fell off the bed, and continued along the floor and down the hall and ended fainting on the wall with a vision of ultimate cunt and come eluding the last gyzym of consciousness,

who sweetened the snatches of a million girls trembling in the sunset, and were red eyed in the morning but prepared to sweeten the snatch of the sunrise, flashing buttocks under barns and naked in the lake,

who went out whoring through Colorado in myriad stolen night-cars, N.C., secret hero of these poems, cocksman and Adonis of Denver—joy to the memory of his innumerable lays of girls in empty lots & diner backyards, moviehouses’ rickety rows, on mountaintops in caves or with gaunt waitresses in familiar roadside lonely petticoat upliftings & especially secret gas-station solipsisms of johns, & hometown alleys too,

who faded out in vast sordid movies, were shifted in dreams, woke on a sudden Manhattan, and picked themselves up out of basements hung-over with heartless Tokay and horrors of Third Avenue iron dreams & stumbled to unemployment offices,

who walked all night with their shoes full of blood on the snowbank docks waiting for a door in the East River to open to a room full of steam-heat and opium,

who created great suicidal dramas on the apartment cliff-banks of the Hudson under the wartime blur floodlight of the moon & their heads shall be crowned with laurel in oblivion,

who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery,

who wept at the romance of the streets with their pushcarts full of onions and bad music,

who sat in boxes breathing in the darkness under the bridge, and rose up to build harpsichords in their lofts,

who coughed on the sixth floor of Harlem crowned with flame under the tubercular sky surrounded by orange crates of theology,

who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,

who cooked rotten animals lung heart feet tail borsht & tortillas dreaming of the pure vegetable kingdom,

who plunged themselves under meat trucks looking for an egg,

who threw their watches off the roof to cast their ballot for Eternity outside of Time, & alarm clocks fell on their heads every day for the next decade,

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they thought they were growing old and cried,

who were burned alive in their innocent flannel suits on Madison Avenue amid blasts of leaden verse & the tanked-up clatter of the iron regiments of fashion & the nitroglycerine shrieks of the fairies of advertising & the mustard gas of sinister intelligent editors, or were run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality,

who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer,

who sang out of their windows in despair, fell out of the subway window, jumped in the filthy Passaic, leaped on negroes, cried all over the street, danced on broken wineglasses barefoot smashed phonograph records of nostalgic European 1930s German jazz finished the whiskey and threw up groaning into the bloody toilet, moans in their ears and the blast of colossal steamwhistles,

who barreled down the highways of the past journeying to each other’s hotrod-Golgotha jail-solitude watch or Birmingham jazz incarnation,

who drove crosscountry seventytwo hours to find out if I had a vision or you had a vision or he had a vision to find out Eternity,

who journeyed to Denver, who died in Denver, who came back to Denver & waited in vain, who watched over Denver & brooded & loned in Denver and finally went away to find out the Time, & now Denver is lonesome for her heroes,

who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals praying for each other’s salvation and light and breasts, until the soul illuminated its hair for a second,

who crashed through their minds in jail waiting for impossible criminals with golden heads and the charm of reality in their hearts who sang sweet blues to Alcatraz,

who retired to Mexico to cultivate a habit, or Rocky Mount to tender Buddha or Tangiers to boys or Southern Pacific to the black locomotive or Harvard to Narcissus to Woodlawn to the daisychain or grave,

who demanded sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism & were left with their insanity & their hands & a hung jury,

who threw potato salad at CCNY lecturers on Dadaism and subsequently presented themselves on the granite steps of the madhouse with shaven heads and harlequin speech of suicide, demanding instantaneous lobotomy,

and who were given instead the concrete void of insulin Metrazol electricity hydrotherapy psychotherapy occupational therapy pingpong & amnesia,

who in humorless protest overturned only one symbolic pingpong table, resting briefly in catatonia,

returning years later truly bald except for a wig of blood, and tears and fingers, to the visible madman doom of the wards of the madtowns of the East,

Pilgrim State’s Rockland’s and Greystone’s foetid halls, bickering with the echoes of the soul, rocking and rolling in the midnight solitude-bench dolmen-realms of love, dream of life a nightmare, bodies turned to stone as heavy as the moon,

with mother finally ******, and the last fantastic book flung out of the tenement window, and the last door closed at 4 A.M. and the last telephone slammed at the wall in reply and the last furnished room emptied down to the last piece of mental furniture, a yellow paper rose twisted on a wire hanger in the closet, and even that imaginary, nothing but a hopeful little bit of hallucination—

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time—

and who therefore ran through the icy streets obsessed with a sudden flash of the alchemy of the use of the ellipsis catalogue a variable measure and the vibrating plane,

who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus

to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame, rejected yet confessing out the soul to conform to the rhythm of thought in his naked and endless head,

the madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death,

and rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into an eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio

with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

  

II

 

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!

Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!

Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!

Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!

Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!

Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!

Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!

Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!

  

III

 

Carl Solomon! I’m with you in Rockland

where you’re madder than I am

I’m with you in Rockland

where you must feel very strange

I’m with you in Rockland

where you imitate the shade of my mother

I’m with you in Rockland

where you’ve murdered your twelve secretaries

I’m with you in Rockland

where you laugh at this invisible humor

I’m with you in Rockland

where we are great writers on the same dreadful typewriter

I’m with you in Rockland

where your condition has become serious and is reported on the radio

I’m with you in Rockland

where the faculties of the skull no longer admit the worms of the senses

I'm with you in Rockland

where you drink the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica

I’m with you in Rockland

where you pun on the bodies of your nurses the harpies of the Bronx

I’m with you in Rockland

where you scream in a straightjacket that you’re losing the game of the actual pingpong of the abyss

I’m with you in Rockland

where you bang on the catatonic piano the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse

I’m with you in Rockland

where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void

I’m with you in Rockland

where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha

I’m with you in Rockland

where you will split the heavens of Long Island and resurrect your living human Jesus from the superhuman tomb

I’m with you in Rockland

where there are twentyfive thousand mad comrades all together singing the final stanzas of the Internationale

I’m with you in Rockland

where we hug and kiss the United States under our bedsheets the United States that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep

I’m with you in Rockland

where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse O skinny legions run outside O starry-spangled shock of mercy the eternal war is here O victory forget your underwear we’re free

I’m with you in Rockland

in my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night

   

One of the real pleasures of Flickr is finding out so much more about the areas you thought you knew.

 

I have been to Wymondham a few times, delivered beer to a hotel (more of that another time) and a friend used to run the Railway Inn near the station, but I hadn't really explored the town.

 

But having seen a friend's shots, I really thought I should go back and look at it anew. And then there was this building, the Abbey Church with two towers, ruins and all the associated history.

 

Whatever you think of the works inside, it is as a complete building, something to leave me, at least, in awe at the beauty. Of course, it might not please everyone, but it does me.

 

Many thanks to Sarah and Richard for taking me here.

 

--------------------------------------------

 

This massive church and its famous twin towers will be familiar to anyone who has ever been within five miles of Wymondham, pronounced Win-d'm; its presence always there above the roof tops, and still there on the horizon when the rooftops can no longer be seen. Closer to, it is like a mighty city on a hill. It is often referred to as Wymondham Abbey, which isn't entirely correct; but there was an Abbey here, and you can see a scattering of remains in the fields between the church and the river, gradually reduced over the centuries as the stone and rubble were taken away for use elsewhere.

We came to Wymondham on a day that was breathtakingly cold; although the temperature was hovering around freezing, there was a biting east wind that made it feel colder still. Hence, the clarity of the light in the photographs above. The top photograph, taken from the south on the far bank of the river, is worth a second glance, because it provides a number of clues as to how this extraordinary and magnificent building came to be the way it is today.

 

In the beginning, there was a Benedictine Priory, an offshoot of the Abbey of St Albans. It was founded here because, after the Conquest, William I granted the lands of Wymondham to the Duc d'Albini, and the Duke's brother was Abbot of St Albans. Part of the project consisted of building a massive Priory church, much bigger than the one you see today. In style, it was like the Abbey church of Bury St Edmund, or Ely Cathedral. It was a cruciform church about 70 metres long, and had twin west towers - you can see something similar today at Kings Lynn St Margaret. As at St Margaret, there was a third tower above the central crossing, the chancel extending a long way eastwards, and transepts that were as tall as the nave roof. It was completed during the 12th century.

 

You can see a surviving trace of the south-west tower in the photograph above. The base of its northern wall rises above the roofline at the western end of the clerestory, just beside the current west tower. The central crossing tower, however, was built to the east of the current east tower, the chancel extending eastwards beyond it.

D'Albini intended the church to serve the parish as well as the Priory, but this was not managed without recourse to the advice of Pope Innocent IV, who granted the people use of the nave and the north aisle, the Priory retaining the south aisle, transepts and chancel.

 

However, when the central crossing tower became unsafe in the late 14th century and had to be taken down, the Priory rebuilt it to the west of the crossing, actually within the nave. This is the east tower that you see today, now a shell. In turn, the parish extended the church further west, demolishing the two west towers and replacing them with the massive structure you see today. It really is huge; although it is not as tall as the church tower at Cromer, its solidity lends it a vastness not sensed there.

 

When the new east tower was built, the western face of it cut off the nave from the chancel, creating two separate spaces. When the west tower was built, it blocked off the former west window between the old towers. Because of this, Wymondham is the only medieval parish church in Norfolk, and one of the few in England, that has no window at either end.

Wymondham Priory became an Abbey in 1448, and seems to have lived its final century peaceably enough before being closed and asset-stripped by Henry VIII in the 1530s. The church then became solely the charge of the parish; the eastern parts, apart from the tower, were demolished.

 

Still without parapet or panelling, the west tower was never finished; but it features in the turbulent history of mid 16th century England because William Kett, one of the leaders of Kett's Rebellion, was hung from the top of it by Edward VI's thought police, a reminder of just how closely church and state became allied during the Reformation. It did give me pause for thought - hanging your enemy from a church tower seems such an obvious thing to do when you want to make a point. I wonder just how many more times it happened to less notable victims over the centuries, on church towers up and down the land?

 

You enter today through the great north porch, which is similar to that nearby at Hethersett, even to the extent of having an almost identical series of bosses. They depict rosary scenes in the life of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

 

As I said, we came here on a spectacularly cold day, but I was delighted to discover that the interior of the church was heated, even on a Saturday. The church attracts a considerable number of visitors, as you might expect; but I still thought this was a nice gesture.

 

Wymondham church is above all else an architectural wonder; but in many ways this is a simple building, easy to explore and satisfying to visit. It has the feel of a small Anglican cathedral in that there is a pleasing mix of ancient Norman architecture and modern Anglican triumphalism; as in a cathedral, there are open spaces, and the old pews have been replaced with modern chairs, which almost always seems to work well. The glorious arcading, triforium and clerestory create a sense of great height; this, coupled with the lack of east or west windows, can make you feel rather boxed in, but I found I quite liked that; it made the place seem more intimate, despite its size.

 

The modern, triumphant feel to the place is largely owing to the vast reredos by Ninian Comper. This is generally considered to be his finest single work, and forms the parish war memorial. It was built and gilded during the 1920s and 1930s, and you have to say it is magnificent. It consists of three tiers of saints, with a glorious Christ in Majesty topping the tiers under the great tester. It was never completed; the space where the retable should be is now hidden by curtains.

The rood and beam, a bay to the west, is also Comper's work, and it is hard to conceive that work of this kind and to this scale will ever again be installed in an English church. The low sun, slanting through the south windows of the clerestory, picked out the gilding, and clever lighting from underneath helped to put Comper's vision of Heaven into practice. The row of candlesticks on the altar leaves you in no doubt in which wing of the Church of England Wymondham finds itself.

 

Comper's glory shouldn't distract you from the early 16th century facade above the sedilia. It is terracotta, and probably from the same workshop as the Bedingfield tombs at Oxborough. Here you see what might have happened to English church architecture if theReformation hadn't intervened. Looking west from the sanctuary, the original west window is clearly discernible, now home to the organ.

 

If Comper's work is a little rich for you, you may prefer the north aisle, which is wide enough to be a church in itself. Cleared of clutter, a few rows of chairs face a gorgeous early 20th century triptych depicting Mary and John at the foot of the cross. The Madonna and child towards the west is also Comper's, but the 1930s towering font cover on the typical East Anglian 15th century font is not; it is by Cecil Upcher. The south aisle is truncated, the eastern bays now curtained off; but here are the few medieval survivals in glass. From slightly later, but the other side of the Reformation divide, is an Elizabethan text on the arcade. It probably marks the point to which the pulpit was moved by the Anglicans in the 16th century.

 

St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury is a church that it is easy to admire, and it certainly impressed me. Perhaps, it is not so easy a building to love. Inevitably, there is something rather urban in its grandeur, and even the warmth of the heating couldn't take the edge off the remoteness and anonymity you inevitably find in such a space.

 

However, the friendliness of the people on duty helped to make up for this. The area beneath the west tower has been converted into a shop, and the nice lady working there was very chatty and helpful. I have to say that I think it would concentrate my mind a bit, knowing that mighty weight was above me. The shop itself is good of its kind, selling books and religious items rather than just souvenirs, and more icons and rosaries than you would normally expect to find in an establishment of the Church of England.

 

The lady said that she was a Methodist really, and found the services rather formal, but she'd started coming to the Abbey because her daughter went there. "You ought to come, Mum, we're just like real Catholics!", she giggled, as she recalled her daughter's words. As a 'real Catholic' myself, I couldn't help thinking that we would have stripped out Comper's reredos long ago, and Masses would be accompanied by guitars and percussion, possibly with a modicum of clapping and the help of an overhead projector screen; but I kept my counsel.

 

Simon Knott, January 2006

 

www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/wymondham/wymondhamcofe.htm

Bauhaus Museum Weimar, Germany

 

German architect Heike Hanada designed a minimalist concrete museum to celebrate the Bauhaus in Weimar, where the design school was founded 100 years ago. The building is dedicated to the design school creates a physical cultural presence for the Bauhaus in the German city where it was based between 1919 and 1925. Located near the Nazi-era Gauforum square and the Neue Museum Weimar, the Bauhaus Museum is a simple five-storey concrete box broken only with its entrance and a couple of windows. The enclosing shell of light-grey concrete lends the cube stability and dynamic solidity. Equally spaced horizontal grooves run around the facades of the museum, with the words "bauhaus museum" repeated in a band near the top of the building. Hanada designed the museum to be a public building for the city and has attempted to clearly connect it to the neighbouring park. With elements such as plinths, fasciae, portals, stairways and a terrace to the park, the architecture incorporates classical themes that underscore its public character.

 

The museum contains 2,000 m2 of exhibition space, which will be used to display around 1,000 items from the Weimar Bauhaus collection. A shop and entrance hall is located on the ground floor, with a cafe and toilets below, and three floors dedicated to telling the story of the Bauhaus above. Each of the galleries overlooks double-height spaces and are accessed from a long ceremonial staircase that stretches the height of the building. The visitors ascend a succession of interchanging open spaces and staircases until they finally arrive at the top floor where they are presented with an unobstructed view of the park. The cascading staircases are encased by ceiling-high walls and function as free-standing, enclosed bodies in the interior space. The collection is arranged to inform visitors about the history of the design school, with the gallery on the first floor dedicated to its origins in Weimar and the Bauhaus manifesto that Walter Gropius wrote in 1919. The second floor has exhibits that show how these ideas were implemented, with galleries dedicated to each of the Bauhaus directors – Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe – at the top of the building.

 

The museum in Weimar has opened to coincide with the centenary of the Bauhaus, which was established in the city in 1919. The school was forced to relocate from Weimar to Dessau in 1925, where Gropius designed a new school building for the institution. Following a short time based in Berlin the school closed for good in 1933. Although only open for just over a decade, the Bauhaus is the most influential art and design school in history. The ideas and people associated with the school had an incredible impact on design and architecture, and to mark its centenary we created a series exploring its key works and figures.

 

Ferstel

(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

Ferstel and Café Central, by Rudolf von Alt, left the men's alley (Herrengasse - Street of the Lords), right Strauchgasse

Danube mermaid fountain in a courtyard of the Palais Ferstel

Shopping arcade of the Freyung to Herrengasse

Entrance to Ferstel of the Freyung, right the Palais Harrach, left the palace Hardegg

The Ferstel is a building in the first district of Vienna, Inner City, with the addresses Strauchgasse 2-4, 14 Lord Street (Herrengasse) and Freyung 2. It was established as a national bank and stock exchange building, the denomination Palais is unhistoric.

History

In 1855, the entire estate between Freyung, Strauchgasse and Herrengasse was by Franz Xaver Imperial Count von Abensperg and Traun to the k.k. Privileged Austrian National Bank sold. This banking institution was previously domiciled in the Herrengasse 17/ Bankgasse. The progressive industrialization and the with it associated economic expansion also implied a rapid development of monetary transactions and banking, so that the current premises soon no longer have been sufficient. This problem could only be solved by a new building, in which also should be housed a stock exchange hall.

According to the desire of the then Governor of the National Bank, Franz von Pipitz, the new building was supposed to be carried out with strict observance of the economy and avoiding a worthless luxury with solidity and artistic as well as technical completion. The building should offer room for the National Bank, the stock market, a cafe and - a novel idea for Vienna - a bazaar.

The commissioned architect, Heinrich von Ferstel, demonstrated in the coping with the irregular surface area with highest conceivable effective use of space his state-of-the art talent. The practical requirements combine themselves with the actually artistic to a masterful composition. Ferstel has been able to lay out the rooms of the issuing bank, the two trading floors, the passage with the bazar and the coffee house in accordance with their intended purpose and at the same time to maintain a consistent style.

He was an advocate of the "Materialbaues" (material building) as it clearly is reflected in the ashlar building of the banking institution. Base, pillars and stairs were fashioned of Wöllersdorfer stone, façade elements such as balconies, cornices, structurings as well as stone banisters of the hard white stone of Emperor Kaiser quarry (Kaisersteinbruch), while the walls were made ​​of -Sankt Margarethen limestone. The inner rooms have been luxuriously formed, with wood paneling, leather wallpaper, Stuccolustro and rich ornamental painting.

The facade of the corner front Strauchgasse/Herrengasse received twelve sculptures by Hanns Gasser as decoration, they symbolized the peoples of the monarchy. The mighty round arch at the exit Freyung were closed with wrought-iron bare gates, because the first used locksmith could not meet the demands of Ferstel, the work was transferred to a silversmith.

1860 the National Bank and the stock exchange could move into the in 1859 completed construction. The following year was placed in the glass-covered passage the Danube mermaid fountain, whose design stems also of Ferstel. Anton von Fernkorn has created the sculptural decoration with an artistic sensitivity. Above the marble fountain basin rises a column crowned by a bronze statue, the Danube female with flowing hair, holding a fish in its hand. Below are arranged around the column three also in bronze cast figures: merchant, fisherman and shipbuilder, so those professions that have to do with the water. The total cost of the building, the interior included, amounted to the enormous sum of 1.897.600 guilders.

The originally planned use of the building remained only a few years preserved. The Stock Exchange with the premises no longer had sufficient space: in 1872 it moved to a provisional solution, 1877 at Schottenring a new Stock Exchange building opened. The National Bank moved 1925 into a yet 1913 planned, spacious new building.

The building was in Second World War battered gravely particularly on the main facade. In the 1960s was located in the former Stock Exchange a basketball training hall, the entire building appeared neglected.

1971 dealt the President of the Federal Monuments Office, Walter Frodl, with the severely war damaged banking and stock exchange building in Vienna. The Office for Technical Geology of Otto Casensky furnished an opinion on the stone facade. On the facade Freyung 2 a balcony was originally attached over the entire 15.4 m long front of hard Kaiserstein.

(Usage of Leith lime: Dependent from the consistence and structure of the Leitha lime the usage differed from „Reibsand“ till building material. The Leitha lime stone is a natural stone which can be formed easily and was desired als beautiful stone for buildings in Roman times. The usage of lime stone from Eggenburg in the Bronze age already was verified. This special attribute is the reason why the Leitha lime was taken from sculptors and masons.

The source of lime stone in the Leitha Mountains was important for Austria and especially for Vienna from the cultur historical point of view during the Renaissance and Baroque. At the 19th century the up to 150 stone quarries of the Leitha mountains got many orders form the construction work of the Vienna „Ring road“.

At many buildings of Graz, such as the castle at the Grazer castle hill, the old Joanneum and the Cottage, the Leitha lime stone was used.

Due to the fact that Leitha lime is bond on carbonate in the texture, the alteration through the actual sour rain is heavy. www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2HKZ9_leithagebirge-leithak...)

This balcony was no longer present and only close to the facade were remnants of the tread plates and the supporting brackets recognizable. In July 1975, followed the reconstruction of the balcony and master stonemason Friedrich Opferkuh received the order to restore the old state am Leithagebirge received the order the old state - of Mannersdorfer stone, armoured concrete or artificial stone.

1975-1982, the building was renovated and re-opened the Café Central. Since then, the privately owned building is called Palais Ferstel. In the former stock exchange halls now meetings and presentations take place; the Café Central is utilizing one of the courtyards.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palais_Ferstel

Known for Achitecture and design

 

Kengo Kuma (隈 研吾, Kuma Kengo, born 1954) is a Japanese architect and professor in the Department of Architecture (Graduate School of Engineering) at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, Kuma is also noted for his prolific writings. He is the designer of the New National Stadium, Tokyo which has been built for 2020 Summer Olympics

 

Early life and education -- Kuma was born in Kanagawa, and attended Eiko Gakuen junior and senior high schools. After graduating in Architecture from the University of Tokyo in 1979, he worked for a time at Nihon Sekkei and Toda Corporation. He then moved to New York City in the USA for further studies at Columbia University as a visiting researcher from 1985 to 1986.

 

Career -- In 1987, he founded the "Spatial Design Studio", and in 1990, he established his own firm "Kengo Kuma & Associates". He has taught at Columbia University, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Keio University, where in 2008, Kuma was awarded his Ph.D. in Architecture. As a professor at the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Tokyo, he runs diverse research projects concerning architecture, urbanity and design within his own Laboratory, Kuma Lab. His firm, Kengo Kuma & Associates employs over 150 architects in Tokyo and Paris, designing projects of diverse type and scale throughout the world.

 

Philosophy and writings - Kuma's stated goal is to recover the tradition of Japanese buildings and to reinterpret these traditions for the 21st century. In 1997, he won the Architectural Institute of Japan Award and in 2009 was made an Officier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. Kuma lectures extensively and is the author of numerous books and articles discussing and criticizing approaches in contemporary architecture. His seminal text Anti-Object: The Dissolution and Disintegration of Architecture written in 2008, calls for an architecture of relations, respecting its surroundings instead of dominating them. Kuma's projects maintain a keen interest in the manipulation of light with nature through materiality.

 

Material theory -- Although remaining in continuity with Japanese traditions with the clarity of structural solutions, implied tectonics, and importance of light and transparency, Kengo Kuma does not restrain himself to the banal and superficial use of ‘light’ materials. Instead, he goes much deeper, extending to the mechanisms of composition to expand the possibilities of materiality. He utilizes technological advancements which can challenge unexpected materials, such as stone, into providing the same sense of lightness and softness as glass or wood. Kuma attempts to attain a sense of spatial immateriality as a consequence of the ‘particulate nature’ of the light and establishing a relationship between a space and the natural round around it.

 

“You could say that my aim is ‘to recover the place’. The place is a result of nature and time; this is the most important aspect. I think my architecture is some kind of frame of nature. With it, we can experience nature more deeply and more intimately. Transparency is a characteristic of Japanese architecture; I try to use light and natural materials to get a new kind of transparency.” –Kengo Kuma

 

In many of Kengo Kuma’s projects, attention is focused on the connection spaces; on the segments between inside and outside, and one room to the next. The choice of materials stems not so much from an intention to guide the design of the forms, but to conform to the existing surroundings from a desire to compare similar materials, yet show the technical advances that have made possible new uses.

 

When dealing with stone work, for example, Kuma displays a different character from the preexisting buildings of solid, heavy, traditional masonry construction. Instead his work surprises the eye by slimming down and dissolving the walls in an effort to express a certain “lightness” and immateriality, suggesting an illusion of ambiguity and weakness not common to the solidity of stone construction

 

Projects -- Key projects include the Suntory Museum of Art in Tokyo, Bamboo Wall House in China, LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) Group's Japan headquarters, Besançon Art Center in France, and one of the largest spas in the Caribbean for Mandarin Oriental Dellis Cay.

 

Stone Roof, a private residence in Nagano, Japan, built in 2010, consists of a roof which is meant to spring from the ground, providing a complete enclosure to the home. A local stone was chosen to intimately relate itself to the preexisting natural environment of the mountain side. The exterior stone work is made light and airy by cutting each stone into thin slices and bracing each slice as a pivoting panel. In this way, the heavy quality of stone is diluted and provides the eye with an illusion of lightness, allowing light and air directly into the space within. With this choice of material and construction, a new kind of transparency emerges; one that not only frames nature the way a glass curtain wall would, but also deeply relates itself to the mountain side.

 

In 2016, Kuma also delved into designing pre-fabricated pavilions in partnership with Revolution Precrafted. He designed the mobile multifunctional pavilion named The Aluminum Cloud Pavilion. The structure, composed of aluminum panels joined using Kangou technique, can be used as a teahouse or a space of meditation.

 

Kuma Lab -- Kuma Lab is a Research Laboratory headed by Kuma based in the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo's Hongo Campus that was started in 2009. In 2012, Kuma Lab published the book Patterns and Layering, Japanese Spatial Culture, Nature and Architecture,including the research from various Doctoral Candidate Lab members.

 

Its research topics consist of a comprehensive survey of architectural, urban, community, landscape, and product designs; survey of structural, material, and mechanical designs; and methodology for bridging sustainable, physical, and information designs. Its activities include participation in architectural design competitions, organization and management of regional and international design workshop, joint research with other departments at the University of Tokyo, and research and proposal to aid the recovery from the Great East Japan earthquake. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kengo_Kuma

 

Born in Kanagawa, Yokohama, Japan

  

Orginal picture by: PEY INADA : www.facebook.com/icomkyoto2019/posts/1971527296309298/

 

Artwork by TudioJepegii

St Edmund, Southwold, Suffolk

 

I kept meaning to come back to Southwold - the church, I mean, for I found myself in the little town from time to time. I finally kept my promise to myself in the summer of 2017, tipping up on a beautiful sunny day only to find the church closed for extensive repairs. The days got shorter, and by the time the church reopened it was too late in the year for me to try again. In fact, it was not until late October 2018 that I made it back there, on another beautiful day.

 

Southwold is well-known to people who have never even been there I suppose, signifying one side of Suffolk to which Ipswich is perhaps the counter in the popular imagination. Some thirty years ago, the comedian Michael Palin made a film for television called East of Ipswich. It was a memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, and the basic comic premise behind the film was that in those days families would go on holiday to seaside resorts on the East Anglian coast. In the child Palin's case, it was Southwold.

 

The amusement came from the idea that people in those days would sit in deckchairs beside the grey north sea, or shelter from the drizzle in genteel teashops or the amusement arcade on the pier. In the Costa Brava package tour days of the 1980s, the quaintness of this image made it seem like something from a different world.

 

I remember Southwold in the 1980s. It was one of those agreeable little towns distant enough from anywhere bigger to maintain a life of its own. It still had its genteel tea shops, its dusty grocers, its quaint hotels and pubs all owned by Adnams, the old-fashioned and unfashionable local brewery. In the white heat of the Thatcherite cultural revolution, it seemed a place that would soon die on its feet quietly and peaceably.

 

And then, in the 1990s, the colour supplements discovered the East Anglian coast, and fell in love with it. The new fashions for antique-collecting, cooking with local produce and general country living, coupled with a snobbishness about how vulgar foreign package trips had become, conspired to make places like Southwold very sought after. Before Nigel Lawson's boom became a bust, the inflated house prices of London and the home counties gave people money to burn. And in their hoards, they came out of the big city to buy holiday homes in East Anglia.

 

Although they are often lumped together, the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk are very different to each other (Cambridgeshire and North Essex are also culturally part of East Anglia, but the North Essex coast is too close to London to have ever stopped being cheap and cheerful, and Cambridgeshire has no coastline). Norfolk's beaches are wide and sandy, with dunes and cliffs and rock pools to explore. Towns like Cromer and Hunstanton seem to have stepped out of the pages of the Ladybird Book of the Seaside. Tiny villages along the Norfolk coast have secret little beaches of their own.

 

Suffolk's coast is wilder. Beaches are mainly pebbles rather than sand, and the marshes stretch inland, cutting the coast off from the rest of the county. Unlike Norfolk, Suffolk has no coast road, and so the settlements on the coast are isolated from each other, stuck at the ends of narrow lanes which snake away from the A12 and peter out in the heathland above the sea. There are fewer of them too. It is still quicker to get from Walberswick to Southwold by water than by land. Because they are isolated from each other, they take on individual personalities and characteristics. Because they are isolated from the land, they become bastions of polite civilisation.

 

Between Felixstowe in the south, which no outsiders like (and consequently is the favourite of many Suffolk people) and Lowestoft in the north, which is basically an industrial town-on-sea (but which still has the county's best beaches - shhh, don't tell a soul) are half a dozen small towns that vie with each other for trendiness. Southwold is the biggest, and today it is also the most expensive place to live in all East Anglia. Genteel tea shops survive, but are increasingly shouldered by shops that specialise in ski-wear and Barbour jackets, delicatessens that stock radicchio and seventeen different kinds of olive, jewellery shops and kitchen gadget shops and antique furniture shops where prices are exquisitely painful. Worst of all, the homely, shabby, smoke-filled Sole Bay Inn under the lighthouse has been converted by the now-trendy Adnams Brewery into a chrome and glass filled wine bar.

 

If you see someone in Norfolk driving a truck, they are probably wearing a baseball cap and carrying a shotgun. in Suffolk, they've more likely just bought a Victorian pine dresser from an antique shop, and they're taking it back to Islington. Does this matter? The fishing industry was dying anyway. The tourist industry was also dying. If places like Southwold, Aldeburgh and Orford become outposts of north London, at least they will still provide jobs for local people. But the local people won't be able to afford to live there, of course. They'll be bussed in from Reydon, Leiston and Melton to provide services for people in holiday cottages which are the former homes they grew up in, but can no longer afford to buy. Does this seriously annoy me? Not as much as it does them, I'll bet.

 

So, lets go to Southwold, turning off the A12 at the great ship of Blythburgh church, the wide marshes of the River Blyth spreading aimlessly beyond the road. We climb and fall over ancient dunes, and then the road opens out into the flat marshes, the town spreads out beyond. We enter through Reydon (now actually bigger than Southwold, with houses at half the price) and over the bridge into the town of Southwold itself.

 

Having been so critical, I need to say here that Southwold is beautiful. It is quite the loveliest small town in all East Anglia. None of the half-timbered houses here that you find in places like Long Melford and Lavenham. Here, the town was completely destroyed by fire in the 17th century, and so we have fine 18th and 19th century municipal buildings. One of the legacies of the fire was the creation of wide open spaces just off of the high street, called greens. The best one of all is Gun Hill Green, overlooking the bay where the last major naval battle in British waters was fought. The cannons still point out to sea. The houses here are stunning, gobsmacking, jaw-droppingly wonderful. If I could afford to buy one of them as a weekend retreat, then you bet your life I would, and to hell with the people who moaned about it.

 

At the western end of the High Street is St Bartholomew's Green, and beyond it sits what is, for my money, Suffolk's single most impressive building. This is the great church of St Edmund, a vast edifice built all in one go in the second half of the 15th century. Only Lavenham can compete with it for scale and presence. Unlike the massing at St Peter and St Paul at Lavenham, St Edmund is defined by a long unbroken clerestory and aisles beneath - where St Peter and St Paul looks full of tension, ready to spring, St Edmund is languid and floating, a ship at ease.

 

Southwold church was just one of several vast late medieval rebuildings in this area. Across the river at Walberswick and a few miles upriver at Blythburgh the same thing happened. Blythburgh still survives, but Walberswick was derelicted to make a smaller church, as were Covehithe and Kessingland. Dunwich All Saints was lost to the sea. But Southwold was the biggest. Everything about it breathes massive permanence, from the solidity of the tower to the turreted porch, from the wide windows to the jaunty sanctus bell fleche.

 

Along the top of the aisles, grimacing faces look down. All of them are different. The pedestals atop the clerestory were intended for statues as at Blythburgh, but were probably never filled before the Reformation intervened. At the west end, above the great west window, you can see the vast inscription SAncT EDMUND ORA P: NOBIS ('Saint Edmund, pray for us') as bold a record of the mindset of late medieval East Anglian Catholicism as you'll find.

 

As at Lavenham and Long Melford, the interior has been extensively restored, but not in as heavy or blunt a manner as at those two churches. St Edmund has, it must be said, benefited from the attentions of German bombers who put out all the dull Victorian glass with blast damage during World War II. Here, the interior is vast, light and airy, and much of the restoration is 20th century work, not 19th century.

 

Perhaps because of this, more medieval interior features have survived. Unlike Long Melford, Southwold does not have surviving medieval glass (Mr Dowsing saw to that in 1644), but it does have what is the finest screen in the county.

 

It stretches right the way across the church, and is effectively three separate screens. There is a rood screen across the chancel arch, and parclose screens across the north and south chancel aisles. All retain their original dado figures. There are 36 of them, more than anywhere else in Suffolk. They have been restored, particularly in the central range, but are fascinating because they retain a lot of original gesso work, where plaster of Paris is applied to wood and allowed to dry. It is then carved to produce intricate details.

 

The central screen shows the eleven remaining disciples and St Paul. They are, from left to right, Philip, Bartholomew, James the Less, Thomas, Andrew, Peter, Paul, John, James, Simon, Jude and Matthew.

 

The south chancel chapel is light and open. The bosses above are said to represent Mary Tudor and her second husband Charles, Duke of Brandon. The screen here is painted with twelve Old Testament prophets, and Mortlock suggests that they are by a different hand to the images on the other two screens. Here on the south screen, some of the figures have surviving naming inscriptions, and Mortlock surmises that the complete sequence, from left to right, is Baruch, Hosea, Nahum, Jeremiah, Elias, Moses, David, Isaiah, Amos, Jonah and Ezekiel. Further, he observes that the subject is a usual one for the English Midlands, but rare for East Anglia, and that perhaps this part of the screen came from elsewhere. The same may be true of the other two parts - it is hard to think that the central screen was deliberately made too wide for the two arcades.

 

The north aisle chapel is reserved as the blessed sacrament chapel. The screen is harder to explore, because the northern side is curtailed by a large chest, but it features angels. Unlike the screens at Hitcham and Blundeston, which show angels holding instruments of the passion, these are the nine orders of angels, with Gabriel at their head, and flanked by angels holding symbols of the Trinity and the Eucharist. Mortlock says that they are so similar to the ones at Barton Turf in Norfolk that they may be by the same hand, in which case the central screen is also by that person. They are, from left to right, the Holy Trinity, Gabriel, Archangels, Powers, Dominions, Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Principalities, Virtues, Messengers, and finally the Eucharist. The Holy Trinity angel still has part of the original dedicatory inscription beneath his feet.

 

If part or all of this screen came from elsewhere, where did it come from? Possibly either Walberswick, Covehithe or Kessingland, the three downsized churches mentioned earlier. More excitingly, it might have come from one of the churches along this coast that was lost to the sea, perhaps neighbouring St Nicholas at Easton Bavents, or, just to the south, St Peter or St John the Baptist, the two Dunwich churches lost in the 16th and 17th centuries. We'll never know.

 

If you turn back at the screen and face westwards, your eyes are automatically drawn to the towering font cover, part of the extensive 1930s redecoration of the building. The clerestory is almost like a glass atrium intended to house it. Also the work of the period is the repainting and regilding of the 15th century pulpit (a lot of people blanch at this, but I think it is gorgeous) and the lectern. Beneath the font cover, the font is clearly one of the rare seven sacraments series, and part of the same group as Westhall, Blythburgh and Wenhaston. As at Blythburgh and Wenhaston, the panels are completely erased, probably in the 19th century, an act of barbarous vandalism. Given that Westhall is probably the best of all in the county, we must assume that three major medieval art treasures were wiped out. Astonishingly, vague shadows survive of the former reliefs; you can easily make out the Mass panel, facing east as at Westhall, the Penance panel and even what may be the Baptism of Christ.

 

Stepping through the screen, the reredos ahead is by Benedict Williamson and the glass above by Ninian Comper, familiar names in the Anglo-catholic pantheon, and evidence of an enthusiasm here that still survives in High Church form. There is a good engraved glass image of St Edmund to the north of the sanctuary, very much in the 1960s fashion, but curiously placed. On the wall of the chancel to the west of it, the high organ case is also painted and gilded enthusiastically.

 

As well as the screen, Southwold's other great medieval survival is the set of return stalls either side of the eastern face of the chancel screen. They have misericord seats, but the best feature are the handrests between the seats. On the south side, carvings include a man with a horn-shaped hat and sinners being drawn into the mouth of hell. On the north side are a man playing two pipes, a monkey preaching and a beaver biting its own genitals, a tale from the medieval bestiary, apparently.

 

What else is there to see? Well, the church is full of delights, and rewards further visits which always seem to turn up something previously unnoticed. St George rides full tilt at a dragon on an old chest at the west end of the north aisle. There is good 19th century glass in the porch and at the west end of the nave. A clock jack stands, axe and bell in hand, at the west end, a twin to the one upriver at Blythburgh. This one has a name, he's called Southwold Jack, and he is one of the symbols of the Adnams brewery.

 

As Mortlock notes, there are very few surviving memorials. This is partly because St Edmund was not in the patronage of a great landed family, but it may also suggest that they were largely removed at the time of the 19th century restoration, as at Brandon. One moving one is for the child of a vicar, and there are some interesting pre-Oxford Movement 19th century brasses in the south aisle.

 

High, high above all this, the roofs are models of Anglo-Catholic melodrama, the canopy of honour to the rood and the chancel ceilure in particular. But there is a warmth about it all that is missing from, say, Eye, which underwent a similar makeover. This church feels full of life, and not a museum piece at all. I remember attending evensong here late one winter Saturday afternoon, and it was magical. On another visit, I came on one of the first days of spring that was truly warm and bright, with not a cloud in the sky. As we drove into town, a cold fret off of the sea was condensing the steam of the brewery, sending it in swirls and skeins around the tower of St Edmund like low cloud. It was so atmospheric that I almost forgave them for what they have done to the Sole Bay Inn.

Roof boss in St Edmund & St Dunstan's chapel.

 

The attractive town of Tewkesbury has been dominated by its superb abbey church since the beginning of the 12th century, and we can be forever grateful to its townspeople for purchasing the monastic church in 1540 for £453 for use as their parish church, saving it from the fate that befell countless similar great churches across the land during the turmoil of the Dissolution. It reminds us both how lucky we are to still marvel at it today, yet also how great a loss to our heritage the period wrought when many more such buildings were so utterly plundered as to have gone without trace (the fate of the monastic buildings here and even the lady chapel of the church whose footings are laid out in the grass at the east end).

 

Tewkesbury Abbey is thus rightly celebrated as one of our greatest non-cathedral churches, and remarkably much of the original Norman church remains substantially intact, most apparently in the great central tower, a fine example of Romanesque architecture adorned with rows of blind-arcading. The west front is dominated by a massive Norman-arched recess (enclosing the somewhat later west window) and the nave and transepts remain largely as originally built, though this is less clear externally owing to the changes made to the windows, nearly all of which were enlarged in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. This century also saw the complete rebuilding of the eastern limb of the church, of a form less common in England with radiating chapels surrounding the eastern apse of the choir (the central lady chapel sadly missing since 1540).

 

The interior reveals far more of the Romanesque structure with mighty columns supporting the round Norman arches of the nave arcades giving the building a great sense of solidity. The space is further enlivened by the changes made during the 14th century by the stunning vault over the nave (adorned with a rewarding series of figurative bosses) which sits surprisingly well with the Norman work below. Beyond the apsidal choir beckons, and both this and the space below the tower are enriched with stunningly complex vaulted ceilings (replete with further bosses and gilded metal stars), all ablaze with colour and gilding.

 

There is much to enjoy in glass here, most remarkably a complete set of 14th century glazing in the clerestorey of the choir, seven windows filled with saints and prophets (and most memorably two groups of knights in the westernmost windows on each side). A few of the figures have fared less well over the centuries but on the whole this is a wonderfully rare and well preserved scheme. There is much glass from the 19th century too, with an extensive scheme in the nave of good quality work by Hardman's, and more recently a pair of rich windows by Tom Denny were added in one of the polygonal chapels around the east end.

 

Some of the most memorable features are the monuments with many medieval tombs of note, primarily the effigies and chantry chapels of members of the Despenser family around the choir (two of the chantries being miniature architectural gems in their own right with exquisite fan-vaulting). In one of the apsidal chapels is the unusual cenotaph to Abbot Wakeman with his grisly cadaver effigy, a late medieval reminder of earthly mortality.

 

Tewkesbury Abbey is not to be missed and is every bit as rewarding as many of our cathedrals (superior in fact to all but the best). It is normally kept open and welcoming to visitors on a daily basis. I have also had the privilege of working on this great building several times over the years (as part of the team at the studio I once worked for), and have left my mark in glass in a few discreet places.

www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/

Chassis n° V8C0L15040

 

Zoute Sale - Bonhams

Estimated : € 150.000 - 200.000

Sold for € 166.750

 

Zoute Grand Prix 2021

Knokke - Zoute

België - Belgium

October 2021

 

Aston Martin had always intended the DBS to house its new V8 engine, but production difficulties meant that the car first appeared with the DB6's 4.0-liter six. Bigger and more luxuriously appointed than the DB6, the heavyweight DBS disappointed some by virtue of its slightly reduced performance, but there were no complaints when the V8 finally arrived in 1969. With an estimated 315bhp available from its 5,340cc four-cam engine, the DBS V8 could reach 160km/h in under 14 seconds, running on to a top speed of 250km/h, a staggering performance in those days and one which fully justified the claim that it was the fastest production car in the world. After Aston Martin's acquisition by Company Developments in 1972, production resumed with the Series 2, now known as the Aston Martin V8 and distinguishable by a restyled front end recalling the looks of earlier Astons. The most successful Aston Martin ever, the V8 survived the changes of ownership and financial upheavals of the 1970s, enjoying a record-breaking production run lasting from 1969 to 1988, with 2,919 cars sold.

 

Described by former Aston Martin Chairman Victor Gauntlett as 'a stylish thoroughbred, beautifully built, luxurious, fast and immensely safe,' the V8 was built in several variants, one of the most exclusive being the Volante Convertible. Introduced in response to customer demand for such a car, the Volante first appeared in June 1978. Arguably the ultimate in soft-top luxury, the newcomer boasted a lined, power-operated top which, when erected, endowed the walnut embellished interior with all the solidity and refinement associated with the saloon version. Although its open-car aerodynamics meant that top speed suffered with the top down, the Volante's 240km/h maximum nevertheless ranked it among the world's fastest convertibles. V8 Volante and Vantage Volante chassis numbers ran from '15001' to '15849', a total of 849 cars.

  

The motorcar offered :

 

According to copies of Aston Martin's factory build records, this elegant V8 Volante was hand built at Aston Martin's Newport Pagnell plant during the fall of 1978 and is titled as 1979. The car received the final inspections in January 1979, and then shipped from the UK to its destination, the US. The car was equipped with left-hand-drive steering and the desirable 5-speed manual transmission. It was finished in Cambridge Blue over a Natural coloured leather interior, Onslow brown carpeting, just as it appears today. It was the 40th V8 Volante built and as such an early example it received the elegant chrome bumpers, neatly fitted tightly to the Volante body. It is believed that only a maximum of 10 of these 40 early cars were fitted with the desirable manual transmission.

 

The car's first owner was a FedEx executive and from the 1990s until 2016 the car was retained by Aston Martin enthusiast Mr. Jack Miller of Pittsburg, PA, who would display the beautiful V8 Volante at various Aston Martin gatherings. The car's extensive history and maintenance file includes much service work performed during Mr. Miller's ownership, including the installment of a new exhaust by renowned Aston Martin shop Steel Wings and a rebuilt braking system.

 

Today this well restored Aston Martin on a highly original basis shows less than 25,000 miles on the odometer, a figure that is indeed believed to be original and can be traced in the history file. Acquired by the vendor in 2017 the car was imported to Europe where restoration work for a total of approximately CHF100,000 was carried out on mechanicals, the body and paint, new trim and was recently fitted with a new convertible top in dark blue, with the work done to exacting factory standards. A solid and very well cared for car, close inspection of the V8 reveals many original finishes throughout. Complete with jack and tools, an owner's handbook with an original warranty booklet and a history file containing correspondence with Aston Martin and copies of the factory build records, this fine V8 Volante must be considered well-pedigreed. The car is EU duty paid and comes with its US title and EU duty paid import certificate. Bonhams recommends close inspection of this fine example of a true drophead V8 'British Bulldog'.

My brothers, both creative geniuses in their own right, looking at a book on Berlin (whose name I don't remember). Don't hands say such a lot about the individual. My father was a confectioner and he had big slow hands that could determine the temperature in an oven just by putting his hands into it and feeling, could weigh flour to within a gram in both hands and put his hand on a child's head with love and solidity. My brothers also have slow, creative, careful hands - mine are fast and restless and don't stop moving.

St Edmund, Southwold, Suffolk

 

I kept meaning to come back to Southwold - the church, I mean, for I found myself in the little town from time to time. I finally kept my promise to myself in the summer of 2017, tipping up on a beautiful sunny day only to find the church closed for extensive repairs. The days got shorter, and by the time the church reopened it was too late in the year for me to try again. In fact, it was not until late October 2018 that I made it back there, on another beautiful day.

 

Southwold is well-known to people who have never even been there I suppose, signifying one side of Suffolk to which Ipswich is perhaps the counter in the popular imagination. Some thirty years ago, the comedian Michael Palin made a film for television called East of Ipswich. It was a memoir of his childhood in the 1950s, and the basic comic premise behind the film was that in those days families would go on holiday to seaside resorts on the East Anglian coast. In the child Palin's case, it was Southwold.

 

The amusement came from the idea that people in those days would sit in deckchairs beside the grey north sea, or shelter from the drizzle in genteel teashops or the amusement arcade on the pier. In the Costa Brava package tour days of the 1980s, the quaintness of this image made it seem like something from a different world.

 

I remember Southwold in the 1980s. It was one of those agreeable little towns distant enough from anywhere bigger to maintain a life of its own. It still had its genteel tea shops, its dusty grocers, its quaint hotels and pubs all owned by Adnams, the old-fashioned and unfashionable local brewery. In the white heat of the Thatcherite cultural revolution, it seemed a place that would soon die on its feet quietly and peaceably.

 

And then, in the 1990s, the colour supplements discovered the East Anglian coast, and fell in love with it. The new fashions for antique-collecting, cooking with local produce and general country living, coupled with a snobbishness about how vulgar foreign package trips had become, conspired to make places like Southwold very sought after. Before Nigel Lawson's boom became a bust, the inflated house prices of London and the home counties gave people money to burn. And in their hoards, they came out of the big city to buy holiday homes in East Anglia.

 

Although they are often lumped together, the coasts of Norfolk and Suffolk are very different to each other (Cambridgeshire and North Essex are also culturally part of East Anglia, but the North Essex coast is too close to London to have ever stopped being cheap and cheerful, and Cambridgeshire has no coastline). Norfolk's beaches are wide and sandy, with dunes and cliffs and rock pools to explore. Towns like Cromer and Hunstanton seem to have stepped out of the pages of the Ladybird Book of the Seaside. Tiny villages along the Norfolk coast have secret little beaches of their own.

 

Suffolk's coast is wilder. Beaches are mainly pebbles rather than sand, and the marshes stretch inland, cutting the coast off from the rest of the county. Unlike Norfolk, Suffolk has no coast road, and so the settlements on the coast are isolated from each other, stuck at the ends of narrow lanes which snake away from the A12 and peter out in the heathland above the sea. There are fewer of them too. It is still quicker to get from Walberswick to Southwold by water than by land. Because they are isolated from each other, they take on individual personalities and characteristics. Because they are isolated from the land, they become bastions of polite civilisation.

 

Between Felixstowe in the south, which no outsiders like (and consequently is the favourite of many Suffolk people) and Lowestoft in the north, which is basically an industrial town-on-sea (but which still has the county's best beaches - shhh, don't tell a soul) are half a dozen small towns that vie with each other for trendiness. Southwold is the biggest, and today it is also the most expensive place to live in all East Anglia. Genteel tea shops survive, but are increasingly shouldered by shops that specialise in ski-wear and Barbour jackets, delicatessens that stock radicchio and seventeen different kinds of olive, jewellery shops and kitchen gadget shops and antique furniture shops where prices are exquisitely painful. Worst of all, the homely, shabby, smoke-filled Sole Bay Inn under the lighthouse has been converted by the now-trendy Adnams Brewery into a chrome and glass filled wine bar.

 

If you see someone in Norfolk driving a truck, they are probably wearing a baseball cap and carrying a shotgun. in Suffolk, they've more likely just bought a Victorian pine dresser from an antique shop, and they're taking it back to Islington. Does this matter? The fishing industry was dying anyway. The tourist industry was also dying. If places like Southwold, Aldeburgh and Orford become outposts of north London, at least they will still provide jobs for local people. But the local people won't be able to afford to live there, of course. They'll be bussed in from Reydon, Leiston and Melton to provide services for people in holiday cottages which are the former homes they grew up in, but can no longer afford to buy. Does this seriously annoy me? Not as much as it does them, I'll bet.

 

So, lets go to Southwold, turning off the A12 at the great ship of Blythburgh church, the wide marshes of the River Blyth spreading aimlessly beyond the road. We climb and fall over ancient dunes, and then the road opens out into the flat marshes, the town spreads out beyond. We enter through Reydon (now actually bigger than Southwold, with houses at half the price) and over the bridge into the town of Southwold itself.

 

Having been so critical, I need to say here that Southwold is beautiful. It is quite the loveliest small town in all East Anglia. None of the half-timbered houses here that you find in places like Long Melford and Lavenham. Here, the town was completely destroyed by fire in the 17th century, and so we have fine 18th and 19th century municipal buildings. One of the legacies of the fire was the creation of wide open spaces just off of the high street, called greens. The best one of all is Gun Hill Green, overlooking the bay where the last major naval battle in British waters was fought. The cannons still point out to sea. The houses here are stunning, gobsmacking, jaw-droppingly wonderful. If I could afford to buy one of them as a weekend retreat, then you bet your life I would, and to hell with the people who moaned about it.

 

At the western end of the High Street is St Bartholomew's Green, and beyond it sits what is, for my money, Suffolk's single most impressive building. This is the great church of St Edmund, a vast edifice built all in one go in the second half of the 15th century. Only Lavenham can compete with it for scale and presence. Unlike the massing at St Peter and St Paul at Lavenham, St Edmund is defined by a long unbroken clerestory and aisles beneath - where St Peter and St Paul looks full of tension, ready to spring, St Edmund is languid and floating, a ship at ease.

 

Southwold church was just one of several vast late medieval rebuildings in this area. Across the river at Walberswick and a few miles upriver at Blythburgh the same thing happened. Blythburgh still survives, but Walberswick was derelicted to make a smaller church, as were Covehithe and Kessingland. Dunwich All Saints was lost to the sea. But Southwold was the biggest. Everything about it breathes massive permanence, from the solidity of the tower to the turreted porch, from the wide windows to the jaunty sanctus bell fleche.

 

Along the top of the aisles, grimacing faces look down. All of them are different. The pedestals atop the clerestory were intended for statues as at Blythburgh, but were probably never filled before the Reformation intervened. At the west end, above the great west window, you can see the vast inscription SAncT EDMUND ORA P: NOBIS ('Saint Edmund, pray for us') as bold a record of the mindset of late medieval East Anglian Catholicism as you'll find.

 

As at Lavenham and Long Melford, the interior has been extensively restored, but not in as heavy or blunt a manner as at those two churches. St Edmund has, it must be said, benefited from the attentions of German bombers who put out all the dull Victorian glass with blast damage during World War II. Here, the interior is vast, light and airy, and much of the restoration is 20th century work, not 19th century.

 

Perhaps because of this, more medieval interior features have survived. Unlike Long Melford, Southwold does not have surviving medieval glass (Mr Dowsing saw to that in 1644), but it does have what is the finest screen in the county.

 

It stretches right the way across the church, and is effectively three separate screens. There is a rood screen across the chancel arch, and parclose screens across the north and south chancel aisles. All retain their original dado figures. There are 36 of them, more than anywhere else in Suffolk. They have been restored, particularly in the central range, but are fascinating because they retain a lot of original gesso work, where plaster of Paris is applied to wood and allowed to dry. It is then carved to produce intricate details.

 

The central screen shows the eleven remaining disciples and St Paul. They are, from left to right, Philip, Bartholomew, James the Less, Thomas, Andrew, Peter, Paul, John, James, Simon, Jude and Matthew.

 

The south chancel chapel is light and open. The bosses above are said to represent Mary Tudor and her second husband Charles, Duke of Brandon. The screen here is painted with twelve Old Testament prophets, and Mortlock suggests that they are by a different hand to the images on the other two screens. Here on the south screen, some of the figures have surviving naming inscriptions, and Mortlock surmises that the complete sequence, from left to right, is Baruch, Hosea, Nahum, Jeremiah, Elias, Moses, David, Isaiah, Amos, Jonah and Ezekiel. Further, he observes that the subject is a usual one for the English Midlands, but rare for East Anglia, and that perhaps this part of the screen came from elsewhere. The same may be true of the other two parts - it is hard to think that the central screen was deliberately made too wide for the two arcades.

 

The north aisle chapel is reserved as the blessed sacrament chapel. The screen is harder to explore, because the northern side is curtailed by a large chest, but it features angels. Unlike the screens at Hitcham and Blundeston, which show angels holding instruments of the passion, these are the nine orders of angels, with Gabriel at their head, and flanked by angels holding symbols of the Trinity and the Eucharist. Mortlock says that they are so similar to the ones at Barton Turf in Norfolk that they may be by the same hand, in which case the central screen is also by that person. They are, from left to right, the Holy Trinity, Gabriel, Archangels, Powers, Dominions, Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Principalities, Virtues, Messengers, and finally the Eucharist. The Holy Trinity angel still has part of the original dedicatory inscription beneath his feet.

 

If part or all of this screen came from elsewhere, where did it come from? Possibly either Walberswick, Covehithe or Kessingland, the three downsized churches mentioned earlier. More excitingly, it might have come from one of the churches along this coast that was lost to the sea, perhaps neighbouring St Nicholas at Easton Bavents, or, just to the south, St Peter or St John the Baptist, the two Dunwich churches lost in the 16th and 17th centuries. We'll never know.

 

If you turn back at the screen and face westwards, your eyes are automatically drawn to the towering font cover, part of the extensive 1930s redecoration of the building. The clerestory is almost like a glass atrium intended to house it. Also the work of the period is the repainting and regilding of the 15th century pulpit (a lot of people blanch at this, but I think it is gorgeous) and the lectern. Beneath the font cover, the font is clearly one of the rare seven sacraments series, and part of the same group as Westhall, Blythburgh and Wenhaston. As at Blythburgh and Wenhaston, the panels are completely erased, probably in the 19th century, an act of barbarous vandalism. Given that Westhall is probably the best of all in the county, we must assume that three major medieval art treasures were wiped out. Astonishingly, vague shadows survive of the former reliefs; you can easily make out the Mass panel, facing east as at Westhall, the Penance panel and even what may be the Baptism of Christ.

 

Stepping through the screen, the reredos ahead is by Benedict Williamson and the glass above by Ninian Comper, familiar names in the Anglo-catholic pantheon, and evidence of an enthusiasm here that still survives in High Church form. There is a good engraved glass image of St Edmund to the north of the sanctuary, very much in the 1960s fashion, but curiously placed. On the wall of the chancel to the west of it, the high organ case is also painted and gilded enthusiastically.

 

As well as the screen, Southwold's other great medieval survival is the set of return stalls either side of the eastern face of the chancel screen. They have misericord seats, but the best feature are the handrests between the seats. On the south side, carvings include a man with a horn-shaped hat and sinners being drawn into the mouth of hell. On the north side are a man playing two pipes, a monkey preaching and a beaver biting its own genitals, a tale from the medieval bestiary, apparently.

 

What else is there to see? Well, the church is full of delights, and rewards further visits which always seem to turn up something previously unnoticed. St George rides full tilt at a dragon on an old chest at the west end of the north aisle. There is good 19th century glass in the porch and at the west end of the nave. A clock jack stands, axe and bell in hand, at the west end, a twin to the one upriver at Blythburgh. This one has a name, he's called Southwold Jack, and he is one of the symbols of the Adnams brewery.

 

As Mortlock notes, there are very few surviving memorials. This is partly because St Edmund was not in the patronage of a great landed family, but it may also suggest that they were largely removed at the time of the 19th century restoration, as at Brandon. One moving one is for the child of a vicar, and there are some interesting pre-Oxford Movement 19th century brasses in the south aisle.

 

High, high above all this, the roofs are models of Anglo-Catholic melodrama, the canopy of honour to the rood and the chancel ceilure in particular. But there is a warmth about it all that is missing from, say, Eye, which underwent a similar makeover. This church feels full of life, and not a museum piece at all. I remember attending evensong here late one winter Saturday afternoon, and it was magical. On another visit, I came on one of the first days of spring that was truly warm and bright, with not a cloud in the sky. As we drove into town, a cold fret off of the sea was condensing the steam of the brewery, sending it in swirls and skeins around the tower of St Edmund like low cloud. It was so atmospheric that I almost forgave them for what they have done to the Sole Bay Inn.

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor 30/05/2025 18h45

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor seen from the side with in the background Jardin des Tuileries. It looks like the footbridge has been stormed by demonstrators in yellow vests, the (des manifestants en gilets jaunes} but this is a group of tourists by bike.

 

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor

The passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, formerly known as passerelle Solférino (or pont de Solférino), is a footbridge over the River Seine in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is served by the Metro station Assemblée Nationale.

For a century, a cast iron bridge inaugurated by Napoleon III in 1861 allowed vehicles to cross between quai Anatole-France and quai des Tuileries. Built by the engineers of the Pont des Invalides, Paul-Martin Gallocher de Lagalisserie and Jules Savarin, it was named after the June 1859 French victory of the Battle of Solferino. Having weakened over time (particularly due to barges crashing into it), it was demolished and replaced in 1961 with a steel footbridge, which was demolished in 1992.

The new passerelle de Solférino linking the Musée d'Orsay and the Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Gardens) was built between 1997 and 1999 under the direction of the engineer and architect Marc Mimram. Crossing the Seine with a single span and no piers, this metallic bridge is architecturally unique and covered in exotic woods (ipê, a Brazilian tree also used for outdoor flooring[1] at the Bibliothèque nationale de France) which gives it a light and warm appearance. Its solidity is, however, never in doubt - at either end, its foundations are in the form of concrete pillars extending 15m into the ground, and the structure itself is made up of six 150 tonne components built by the Eiffel engineering company, Eiffel Constructions métalliques. Its innovative architecture brought Marc Mimram the award "Prix de l'Équerre d'Argent" for the year 1999.

 

The bridge also has benches and lampposts for promenaders who can reach the Jardin des Tuileries through a subterranean passage on the Rive Droite.

 

The bridge was renamed after Léopold Sédar Senghor on 9 October 2006 on the centenary of his birth.

 

FACTS & FIGURES

Crosses: River Seine

Next upstream: Pont Royal

Next downstream: Pont de la Concorde

Design: Marc Mimram

Total length: 106m

Width: 15m

Opened: 1999

 

[ Wikipedia - Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor ]

When I looked up what the meaning is for number four I found this:

 

The symbolic meaning of number Four deals with stability, and invokes the grounded nature of all things. Consider the four seasons, four directions, four elements all these amazingly powerful essences wrapped up in the nice square package of Four. Four's represent solidity, calmness, and home. A recurrence of Four's in your life by signify the need to get back to your roots, centre yourself, or even "plant" yourself. Four's also indicate a need for persistence and endurance.

 

As I look at our family number four and it’s meaning plays a big part of our lives these days. Funny how a number can tell me so much more about us and how we stand in our loves now.

 

The sanctuary of Hippolytus at Troizena, directly connected with the mythical love of Phaedra for Hippolytus, lies in an idyllic environment about 170 kilometers away from Athens and in a short distance from Epidaurus. In spite of its significance, it remains unknown to the broad public. The enclosure and buildings of the sanctuary were erected outside the walls of ancient Troizena in the late fourth or early third century BC around an earlier nucleus of worship, which is located in the area of the small shrine of the Geometric period. Although the existence and function of an Asclepieion in the sanctuary is ascertained by relevant inscriptions, it seems that the celebrated Asclepieion of Epidaurus outshone it, therefore it remained rather obscure. The earthquake caused by the eruption of the Methana volcano in the mid-third century BC obviously contributed to the decline of the Troizena Asclepieion: its buildings suffered serious damages and remained in ruins until the Roman age, when they were restored. After the prevalence of Christianity the ancient building material was removed from the original structures and was used for the erection of Christian churches such as Episkopi. It should be noted that the removal and reuse of ancient building material has been continued until the recent decades. Some of the ancient monuments face today certain solidity and static problems due to the inherited weakness of the building material (limestone) and the reactive thrusts of the ground. The archaeological site remains undefined by enclosure, it lacks informational plates in front of the buildings and does not provide the necessary facilities for the few, for the time being, visitors.

Boy in a Stable, aka, The Eavesdropper

Private Collection

Watercolor, bodycolor, gum arabic, and scratching out

29 5/8 X 21 1/2 inches, 75.3 X 54.6 cm

with inscription and number '12./The Eavesdropper./William Hunt' on a label attached to the backboard.

 

Provenance:

Charles Oddie by 1857;

John James (S) Christie's. 17 May 1873, Lot 35 (P) £546 to Agnew (dealer);

William Quilter (S) Christie's, 9 April 1875, Lot 229 (P) £787 10 s. Eley, but, in fact, bought in;

The late William Quilter (S) Christie's 19 May 1889, Lot 80 (p) £693 10s Agnew, acting on behalf of Harry Quilter,

Harry Quilter (d. );

Sir Cuthbert Quilter (d. );

Quilter family, by descent (S) Christie's London, 20 Nov 2003, Lot 107 (P) £26,290, $44,640 by the current owner

 

This exceptional Hunt watercolor from 1838/39, which was included in Ruskin's exhibition of works by Samuel Prout and William Hunt, is an actual example of the type of watercolor which Ruskin considered to be within the highest, first class, of Hunt's work. It bears very little resemblance to the early watercolors in the Country People exhibition which are erroneously identified as being of the type most praised by the great art critic. This and the next three images, figs. B - D, are the actual watercolors identified and most highly praised by Ruskin in his Notes, and all date from the mid-1830s to 1850s, i.e., from the middle period of Hunt's career, after he had developed all of his techniques for accurately depicting the colors and textures of nature, as encountered daily in both urban and rustic settings.

 

No one would reasonably doubt that tastes in art vary by individual, and there will necessarily be differing opinions as to which were the artist's best works.But, if I were a betting man, I would wager that the vast majority of persons who encounter Hunt's art for the first time would greatly favor the artist's later single figures of both country and city life and his late still life subjects over his early depictions of rural workers rendered in brown ink outlines and almost monochromatic watercolor washes.

 

Yet his watercolors from the beginning of his career, painted in traditional 18th and early 19th century watercolor techniques, are still largely the focus of most studies on the history of British watercolors and exhibitions such as Country People. The organizers of the Courtauld exhibition should be commended, however, for presenting at least a small number of the type of watercolors which actually made Hunt famous and which still justify the conclusion that he was a major English watercolorist who greatly advanced techniques used in watercolor painting in 19th century Britain.

 

Lot Notes from 2003 sale:

The present watercolour is included in Ruskin's exhibition of Prout and Hunt at the Fine Art Society in 1879, where it is referred to by Ruskin as Mr Quilter's Stable Boy. Ruskin considered this type of watercolour as amongst the highest class of Hunt's work, 'Drawings illustrative of rural life in its vivacity and purity, without the slightest endeavour at idealisation ... All drawings belonging to this class are virtually faultless, and most of them very beautiful.' In addition Quilter op.cit. states, 'I remember Sir Frederick Burton saying many years ago to my father-perhaps in a fit of generous enthusiasm-that this is the finest water-colour in the world.'

 

During the late 1830s Hunt executed a series of works of barn interiors and outhouses. Hunt executed a watercolour of a similar interior with his wife as the model, entitled The Outhouse, (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) dated 1838 and illustrated in J. Witt, op.cit., p. 173, no. 321, pl. 15.

 

A similar watercolour showing a girl in a barn interior was sold Sotheby's, London, 10 April 1997, lot 113 (£51,000).

 

Exhibited:

1839, London, Society of Painters in Water-Colours, No. 92 (Interior of a Stable, sold prior to opening of exhibition);

1857, Manchester, Exhibition of Art Treasures of Great Britain , No. 544 (Stable Boy, lent by Charles Oddie);

1878, Nottingham, England, No. 76 (The Eavesdropper, lent by William Quilter);

1879-80, London, Fine Art Society, Exhibition of Prout and Hunt, No. 121 (Stable Boy, lent by W. Quilter).

 

Literature

E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, Library Edition of the Works of John Ruskin, 1904, vol. XIV, pp. 373-84 and 440-54.

H. Quilter, Preferences in Art, p. 182, illustrated p. 177.

J. Witt, William Henry Hunt (1790-1864) Life and Work with a Catalogue, London, 1982, pp. 254-5.

  

One of William Henry Hunt's major figure paintings, this large watercolor was exhibited at the 1839 Old Water Colour Society spring exhibition under the title Interior of a Stable. John Ruskin included it [No. 121, Mr. Quilter's Stable Boy] in his exhibition of the works of Samuel Prout and William Hunt in 1889-1890 at the Fine Art Society, a major Bond Street art dealer. Ruskin said of this painting: "... [Hunt] is here again in his utmost strength -- and in qualities of essential painting - unconquerable. In the pure faculty of the painter's art - in what Correggio, and Tintoret, and Velsquez, and Rubens, and Rembrandt, meant by painting - that single bunch of old horse collars is worth all of Messonier's horse-bridles, boots, beeches, epaulettes and stars, together."

 

Sir Frederick Burton, an accomplished painter and one-time director of the National Gallery of Art in London, stated, after Hunt's death, that this was "the finest water-colour in the world." And while that opinion might have been an overstatement, this is , without doubt, one of the most important, highest quality, and best preserved watercolors by Hunt. Large watercolors, i.e., those which could not be kept in albums, safe and away from light, typically have suffered some or, more often, a great deal of fading. For a watercolor which hung on a wall for over 170 years to retain virtually all the original color is a tribute to Hunt's choice of paint, his heavy use of gum arabic, and the density of his application of paint, i.e., thick application compared to what was typical of most earlier English artists who instead used thin washes of transparent color. Of equal or greater importance was the fact that one family owned this painting for at least 130 years and most likely hung the watercolor in an interior room, protected from the damaging affects of natural light.

 

The model for the painting was, most likely, William Swain (b. 1823) the older of two brothers from Hastings, England who served as models for a large number of the artist's works. But if the model is younger than 15 or so years old, which would have been Bill's age at the time this watercolor was painted, then this painting would instead show the younger brother and Hunt's most used model, John Swain (b. 1826). Both were children of a fisherman from Hastings, England, Zebulon Swain, and his fishmonger wife, Lucy Allard. Hunt would spend his winters working in Hastings, on the south coast, from about 1830 onward. It is almost always incorrectly said that there were three Swain brothers who served as Hunt's models. The two brothers of William and John were both too old to have been models for any of Hunt's famous pictures from the 1830s showing rustic boys. The eldest sibling, Edward Swain, was born in 1812 and would have been 27 when this work was painted, while Zebulon Swain, Jr., born in 1815, was already well into his teens when Hunt began to paint the two younger brothers in 1830. The fact that both Edward and Zebulon, Jr., were both still alive at the time of the artist's death in 1864, yet only William (Bill) and John were left some money in Hunt's will, is consistent with the conclusion that there only being two BOYS from the Swain family who were shown in the artist's figure subjects.

 

There were also two Swain sisters who might well have been the models for the two girls who appear in some of Hunt's paintings from the 1830s, e.g., The SIsters at the Huntington Library and Art Galleries in San Marino, CA, and The Fortune Teller, another large watercolor exhibited by Hunt in 1839 (under his original title for the work, Juvenile Palmistry. No direct evidence of the identities of these two girl models has yet surfaced, however.

 

A member of the Quilter family, Harry Quilter, was a solicitor (lawyer) and prominent art critic of the late 19th century. Although his discussion from 1892 of Hunt's painting techniques, as demonstrated in this watercolor, is somewhat wordy and at times a bit difficult to follow, it remains one of the best explanations of why Hunt was so successful at imitating the natural appearance of many objects in a single composition:

 

... look at the engraving which forms the frontispiece of this article, and is from William Hunt's most celebrated picture, The Eavesdropper -- a work which embodies all the best qualities of the painter and many of the most marked characteristics of English art. I remember Sir Frederic Burton saying many years ago to my father -- perhaps in a fit of generous enthusiasm -- that is the greatest water-colour the world. And some long while afterwards, when The Eavesdropper was exhibited at the Fine Art Society's Rooms in Bond Street, Ruskin wrote almost as strongly as the president of the National Gallery [Frederick Burton] had spoken. So at least there are some good judges who would endorse the present writer's opinion, for the work in question has long appeared to me to be the highest point to which water-colour painting has ever attained. Of course it is not a drawing in transparent colour only -- none indeed of Hunt's finest works are so executed -- and in the present instance a full use of body colour [opaque white] has been made throughout. The extraordinary excellence of this drawing, technically speaking, is in its preservation of the delicacy. brilliancy, and transparency of effect of mere water-colour, while the strength, solidity, and richness of a fine oil-painting are obtained by the dexterous use of opaque tints. Those who have studied technically the art of water-colour painting, especially in its later developments under such great artists as Walker and Pinwell, know that even in the very finest examples of the art there is scarcely to be found this union. In, for instance, the most admirable of the Fred Walker drawings, beautiful as they are in color and atmosphere, there is in the aspect of the paint itself some lack of transparency and brilliance -- they in no way suggest the white paper beneith; the colour might have been mixed like mortar and laid on with some most Liliputian trowel, of such mortar-like consistency is it. No trace of such deficiency, for deficiency it is, is to be found here. Alike in the opaque and transparent portions, the work appears transparent, fresh, and lively, and in the modelling and texture of the flesh especially is this to be seen -- where the delicacy of work has been so great and its result so exquisite, that it is almost impossible to mark the portions wherein the opaque colour has been used. In other parts of the picture, where the artist relied less upon delicacy than strength, the use of white is far more apparent, especially in the more brilliantly lighted details. The painting, for instance, of the boards which line this rough stable is a masterpiece of solid, almost rough painting, as large and free in method of work as if the artist had had a twenty-foot canvas in front of him. Without passage from the strong-lighted side of the picture to the shadow behind, the transparent colour comes into use again, and perhaps from a technical point of view the greatest triumph of the drawing is in the delineation of the old horse-colar and harness which hang in the shadow. [He stole this opinion from Ruskin, who praised the collar, but I strongly disagree with both critics - there are many areas which are more impressively painted -- the roughness of the wood around the window, the texture of the boy's jacket, and, above-all, the metallic lantern hanging down from above.] But apart from the mere handicraft of the picture, its supreme quality is the marvellous richness and beauty of the colour. This is at once deep and lustrous, full of subtle changes and pleasant contrasts, shifting each moment, or rather, in each smallest fraction of the composition, and presenting, when viewed as a whole, a piece of mingled tone and colour which might hang between a Rembrandt and a Titian without fearing the comparison.

 

Harry Quilter, Preferences in Art, Life, and Literature, London, S. Sonnenschein, 1892, pp. 182-183.

 

In my opinion, the watercolor of the Head Gardener which is the focus of the Courtauld Gallery's Country People Exhibit is not in the same league as watercolors such as the Eavesdropper, which truly represents the very best of Hunt's contributions to English watercolor painting.

Cathedrals, not the religious aspect of them as such, more the solidity

After Puglia and Basilicata in 2017, we went to Sardinia during the Summer of 2018. Even though we spent three weeks there, we had family with us most of the time, therefore photographic activity was sometimes a bit curbed —to the point that I decided to return on my own in March–April 2019, after my retirement, to concentrate on photography (those pictures will be uploaded later).

 

I have been standing here for a thousand years...

 

In the small town of Sadali, the Sant’ Elena church was built in the 900s on a Byzantine, very simple, floor plan. Even though the walls are not tall and the church was not vaulted, but simply roofed with timber and fired clay roofing tiles, the sides are supported by the massive buttresses you can see in the photo: that tells a lot about how unsure of the general solidity of the building the builders were.

 

Entirely devoid of ornamentation, this humble church was built with certainly a lot of fervor, and an equal lack of financial means. The small to medium apparel stones are mostly mediocre, although it is obvious they did their best to square and polish them, but they were not very skilled at it. And they were procured locally.

One of the real pleasures of Flickr is finding out so much more about the areas you thought you knew.

 

I have been to Wymondham a few times, delivered beer to a hotel (more of that another time) and a friend used to run the Railway Inn near the station, but I hadn't really explored the town.

 

But having seen a friend's shots, I really thought I should go back and look at it anew. And then there was this building, the Abbey Church with two towers, ruins and all the associated history.

 

Whatever you think of the works inside, it is as a complete building, something to leave me, at least, in awe at the beauty. Of course, it might not please everyone, but it does me.

 

Many thanks to Sarah and Richard for taking me here.

 

--------------------------------------------

 

This massive church and its famous twin towers will be familiar to anyone who has ever been within five miles of Wymondham, pronounced Win-d'm; its presence always there above the roof tops, and still there on the horizon when the rooftops can no longer be seen. Closer to, it is like a mighty city on a hill. It is often referred to as Wymondham Abbey, which isn't entirely correct; but there was an Abbey here, and you can see a scattering of remains in the fields between the church and the river, gradually reduced over the centuries as the stone and rubble were taken away for use elsewhere.

We came to Wymondham on a day that was breathtakingly cold; although the temperature was hovering around freezing, there was a biting east wind that made it feel colder still. Hence, the clarity of the light in the photographs above. The top photograph, taken from the south on the far bank of the river, is worth a second glance, because it provides a number of clues as to how this extraordinary and magnificent building came to be the way it is today.

 

In the beginning, there was a Benedictine Priory, an offshoot of the Abbey of St Albans. It was founded here because, after the Conquest, William I granted the lands of Wymondham to the Duc d'Albini, and the Duke's brother was Abbot of St Albans. Part of the project consisted of building a massive Priory church, much bigger than the one you see today. In style, it was like the Abbey church of Bury St Edmund, or Ely Cathedral. It was a cruciform church about 70 metres long, and had twin west towers - you can see something similar today at Kings Lynn St Margaret. As at St Margaret, there was a third tower above the central crossing, the chancel extending a long way eastwards, and transepts that were as tall as the nave roof. It was completed during the 12th century.

 

You can see a surviving trace of the south-west tower in the photograph above. The base of its northern wall rises above the roofline at the western end of the clerestory, just beside the current west tower. The central crossing tower, however, was built to the east of the current east tower, the chancel extending eastwards beyond it.

D'Albini intended the church to serve the parish as well as the Priory, but this was not managed without recourse to the advice of Pope Innocent IV, who granted the people use of the nave and the north aisle, the Priory retaining the south aisle, transepts and chancel.

 

However, when the central crossing tower became unsafe in the late 14th century and had to be taken down, the Priory rebuilt it to the west of the crossing, actually within the nave. This is the east tower that you see today, now a shell. In turn, the parish extended the church further west, demolishing the two west towers and replacing them with the massive structure you see today. It really is huge; although it is not as tall as the church tower at Cromer, its solidity lends it a vastness not sensed there.

 

When the new east tower was built, the western face of it cut off the nave from the chancel, creating two separate spaces. When the west tower was built, it blocked off the former west window between the old towers. Because of this, Wymondham is the only medieval parish church in Norfolk, and one of the few in England, that has no window at either end.

Wymondham Priory became an Abbey in 1448, and seems to have lived its final century peaceably enough before being closed and asset-stripped by Henry VIII in the 1530s. The church then became solely the charge of the parish; the eastern parts, apart from the tower, were demolished.

 

Still without parapet or panelling, the west tower was never finished; but it features in the turbulent history of mid 16th century England because William Kett, one of the leaders of Kett's Rebellion, was hung from the top of it by Edward VI's thought police, a reminder of just how closely church and state became allied during the Reformation. It did give me pause for thought - hanging your enemy from a church tower seems such an obvious thing to do when you want to make a point. I wonder just how many more times it happened to less notable victims over the centuries, on church towers up and down the land?

 

You enter today through the great north porch, which is similar to that nearby at Hethersett, even to the extent of having an almost identical series of bosses. They depict rosary scenes in the life of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

 

As I said, we came here on a spectacularly cold day, but I was delighted to discover that the interior of the church was heated, even on a Saturday. The church attracts a considerable number of visitors, as you might expect; but I still thought this was a nice gesture.

 

Wymondham church is above all else an architectural wonder; but in many ways this is a simple building, easy to explore and satisfying to visit. It has the feel of a small Anglican cathedral in that there is a pleasing mix of ancient Norman architecture and modern Anglican triumphalism; as in a cathedral, there are open spaces, and the old pews have been replaced with modern chairs, which almost always seems to work well. The glorious arcading, triforium and clerestory create a sense of great height; this, coupled with the lack of east or west windows, can make you feel rather boxed in, but I found I quite liked that; it made the place seem more intimate, despite its size.

 

The modern, triumphant feel to the place is largely owing to the vast reredos by Ninian Comper. This is generally considered to be his finest single work, and forms the parish war memorial. It was built and gilded during the 1920s and 1930s, and you have to say it is magnificent. It consists of three tiers of saints, with a glorious Christ in Majesty topping the tiers under the great tester. It was never completed; the space where the retable should be is now hidden by curtains.

The rood and beam, a bay to the west, is also Comper's work, and it is hard to conceive that work of this kind and to this scale will ever again be installed in an English church. The low sun, slanting through the south windows of the clerestory, picked out the gilding, and clever lighting from underneath helped to put Comper's vision of Heaven into practice. The row of candlesticks on the altar leaves you in no doubt in which wing of the Church of England Wymondham finds itself.

 

Comper's glory shouldn't distract you from the early 16th century facade above the sedilia. It is terracotta, and probably from the same workshop as the Bedingfield tombs at Oxborough. Here you see what might have happened to English church architecture if theReformation hadn't intervened. Looking west from the sanctuary, the original west window is clearly discernible, now home to the organ.

 

If Comper's work is a little rich for you, you may prefer the north aisle, which is wide enough to be a church in itself. Cleared of clutter, a few rows of chairs face a gorgeous early 20th century triptych depicting Mary and John at the foot of the cross. The Madonna and child towards the west is also Comper's, but the 1930s towering font cover on the typical East Anglian 15th century font is not; it is by Cecil Upcher. The south aisle is truncated, the eastern bays now curtained off; but here are the few medieval survivals in glass. From slightly later, but the other side of the Reformation divide, is an Elizabethan text on the arcade. It probably marks the point to which the pulpit was moved by the Anglicans in the 16th century.

 

St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury is a church that it is easy to admire, and it certainly impressed me. Perhaps, it is not so easy a building to love. Inevitably, there is something rather urban in its grandeur, and even the warmth of the heating couldn't take the edge off the remoteness and anonymity you inevitably find in such a space.

 

However, the friendliness of the people on duty helped to make up for this. The area beneath the west tower has been converted into a shop, and the nice lady working there was very chatty and helpful. I have to say that I think it would concentrate my mind a bit, knowing that mighty weight was above me. The shop itself is good of its kind, selling books and religious items rather than just souvenirs, and more icons and rosaries than you would normally expect to find in an establishment of the Church of England.

 

The lady said that she was a Methodist really, and found the services rather formal, but she'd started coming to the Abbey because her daughter went there. "You ought to come, Mum, we're just like real Catholics!", she giggled, as she recalled her daughter's words. As a 'real Catholic' myself, I couldn't help thinking that we would have stripped out Comper's reredos long ago, and Masses would be accompanied by guitars and percussion, possibly with a modicum of clapping and the help of an overhead projector screen; but I kept my counsel.

 

Simon Knott, January 2006

 

www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/wymondham/wymondhamcofe.htm

Enjoy LARGE view and tags on right.

____________

Magdi Allam Recounts His Path to Conversion

Benedict XVI Baptized the Journalist at Easter Vigil

 

VATICAN CITY, MARCH 23, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is a translation of Magdi Allam’s account of his conversion to Catholicism. The Muslim journalist was baptized by Benedict XVI at Saturday's Easter Vigil Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

 

An abbreviated form of this account appeared as a letter to Paolo Mieli, the director of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. Allam is the paper’s deputy director. The Italian version of the complete text is available at magdiallam.it.

 

* * *

 

Dear Friends,

 

I am particularly happy to share with you my immense joy for this Easter of Resurrection that has brought me the gift of the Christian faith. I gladly propose the letter that I sent to the director of the Corriere della Sera, Paolo Mieli, in which I tell the story of the interior journey that brought me to the choice of conversion to Catholicism. This is the complete version of the letter, which was published by the Corriere della Sera only in part.

 

* * *

 

Dear Director,

 

That which I am about to relate to you concerns my choice of religious faith and personal life in which I do not wish to involve in any way the Corriere della Sera, which it has been an honor to be a part of as deputy director “ad personam” since 2003. I write you thus as protagonist of the event, as private citizen.

 

Yesterday evening I converted to the Christian Catholic religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. Thus, I finally saw the light, by divine grace -- the healthy fruit of a long, matured gestation, lived in suffering and joy, together with intimate reflection and conscious and manifest expression. I am especially grateful to his holiness Pope Benedict XVI, who imparted the sacraments of Christian initiation to me, baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, in the Basilica of St. Peter’s during the course of the solemn celebration of the Easter Vigil. And I took the simplest and most explicit Christian name: “Cristiano.” Since yesterday evening therefore my name is Magdi Crisitano Allam.

 

For me it is the most beautiful day of [my] life. To acquire the gift of the Christian faith during the commemoration of Christ’s resurrection by the hand of the Holy Father is, for a believer, an incomparable and inestimable privilege. At almost 56 […], it is a historical, exceptional and unforgettable event, which marks a radical and definitive turn with respect to the past. The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance in the face of the “different,” uncritically condemned as “enemy,” were privileged over love and respect of “neighbor,” who is always, an in every case, “person”; thus, as my mind was freed from the obscurantism of an ideology that legitimates lies and deception, violent death that leads to murder and suicide, the blind submission to tyranny, I was able to adhere to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom.

 

On my first Easter as a Christian I not only discovered Jesus, I discovered for the first time the face of the true and only God, who is the God of faith and reason. My conversion to Catholicism is the touching down of a gradual and profound interior meditation from which I could not pull myself away, given that for five years I have been confined to a life under guard, with permanent surveillance at home and a police escort for my every movement, because of death threats and death sentences from Islamic extremists and terrorists, both those in and outside of Italy.

 

I had to ask myself about the attitude of those who publicly declared fatwas, Islamic juridical verdicts, against me -- I who was a Muslim -- as an “enemy of Islam,” “hypocrite because he is a Coptic Christian who pretends to be a Muslim to do damage to Islam,” “liar and vilifier of Islam,” legitimating my death sentence in this way. I asked myself how it was possible that those who, like me, sincerely and boldly called for a “moderate Islam,” assuming the responsibility of exposing themselves in the first person in denouncing Islamic extremism and terrorism, ended up being sentenced to death in the name of Islam on the basis of the Quran. I was forced to see that, beyond the contingency of the phenomenon of Islamic extremism and terrorism that has appeared on a global level, the root of evil is inherent in an Islam that is physiologically violent and historically conflictive.

 

At the same time providence brought me to meet practicing Catholics of good will who, in virtue of their witness and friendship, gradually became a point of reference in regard to the certainty of truth and the solidity of values. To begin with, among so many friends from Communion and Liberation, I will mention Father Juliàn Carròn; and then there were simple religious such as Father Gabriele Mangiarotti, Sister Maria Gloria Riva, Father Carlo Maurizi and Father Yohannis Lahzi Gaid; there was rediscovery of the Salesians thanks to Father Angelo Tengattini and Father Maurizio Verlezza, which culminated in a renewed friendship with major rector Father Pascual Chavez Villanueva; there was the embrace of top prelates of great humanity like Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Monsignor Luigi Negri, Giancarlo Vecerrica, Gino Romanazzi and, above all, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, who personally accompanied me in the journey of spiritual acceptance of the Christian faith.

 

But undoubtedly the most extraordinary and important encounter in my decision to convert was that with Pope Benedict XVI, whom I admired and defended as a Muslim for his mastery in setting down the indissoluble link between faith and reason as a basis for authentic religion and human civilization, and to whom I fully adhere as a Christian to inspire me with new light in the fulfillment of the mission God has reserved for me.

 

Mine was a journey that began when at four years old, my mother Safeya -- a believing and practicing Muslim -- in the first in the series of “fortuitous events” that would prove to be not at all the product of chance but rather an integral part of a divine destiny to which all of us have been assigned -- entrusted me to the loving care of Sister Lavinia of the Comboni Missionary Sisters, convinced of the goodness of the education that would be imparted by the Catholic and Italian religious, who had come to Cairo, the city of my birth, to witness to their Christian faith through a work aimed at the common good. I thus began an experience of life in boarding school, followed by the Salesians of the Institute of Don Bosco in junior high and high school, which transmitted to me not only the science of knowledge but above all the awareness of values.

 

It is thanks to members of Catholic religious orders that I acquired a profoundly and essentially an ethical conception of life, in which the person created in the image and likeness of God is called to undertake a mission that inserts itself in the framework of a universal and eternal design directed toward the interior resurrection of individuals on this earth and the whole of humanity on the day of judgment, which is founded on faith in God and the primacy of values, which is based on the sense of individual responsibility and on the sense of duty toward the collective. It is in virtue of a Christian education and of the sharing of the experience of life with Catholic religious that I cultivated a profound faith in the transcendent dimension and also sought the certainty of truth in absolute and universal values.

 

There was a time when my mother’s loving presence and religious zeal brought me closer to Islam, which I occasionally practiced at a cultural level and in which I believed at a spiritual level according to an interpretation that at the time -- it was the 1970s -- summarily corresponded to a faith respectful of persons and tolerant toward the neighbor, in a context -- that of the Nasser regime -- in which the secular principle of the separation of the religious sphere and the secular sphere prevailed.

 

My father Muhammad was completely secular and agreed with the opinion of the majority of Egyptians who took the West as a model in regard to individual freedom, social customs and cultural and artistic fashions, even if the political totalitarianism of Nasser and the bellicose ideology of Pan-Arabism that aimed at the physical elimination of Israel unfortunately led to disaster for Egypt and opened the way to the resumption of Pan-Islamism, to the ascent of Islamic extremists to power and the explosion of globalized Islamic terrorism.

 

The long years at school allowed me to know Catholicism well and up close and the women and men who dedicated their life to serve God in the womb of the Church. Already then I read the Bible and the Gospels and I was especially fascinated by the human and divine figure of Jesus. I had a way to attend Holy Mass and it also happened, only once, that I went to the altar to receive communion. It was a gesture that evidently signaled my attraction to Christianity and my desire to feel a part of the Catholic religious community.

 

Then, on my arrival in Italy at the beginning of the 1970s between the rivers of student revolts and the difficulties of integration, I went through a period of atheism understood as a faith, which nevertheless was also founded on absolute and universal values. I was never indifferent to the presence of God even if only now I feel that the God of love, of faith and reason reconciles himself completely with the patrimony of values that are rooted in me.

 

Dear Director, you asked me whether I fear for my life, in the awareness that conversion to Christianity will certainly procure for me yet another, and much more grave, death sentence for apostasy. You are perfectly right. I know what I am headed for but I face my destiny with my head held high, standing upright and with the interior solidity of one who has the certainty of his faith. And I will be more so after the courageous and historical gesture of the Pope, who, as soon has he knew of my desire, immediately agreed to personally impart the Christian sacraments of initiation to me. His Holiness has sent an explicit and revolutionary message to a Church that until now has been too prudent in the conversion of Muslims, abstaining from proselytizing in majority Muslim countries and keeping quiet about the reality of converts in Christian countries. Out of fear. The fear of not being able to protect converts in the face of their being condemned to death for apostasy and fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries. Well, today Benedict XVI, with his witness, tells us that we must overcome fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even with Muslims.

 

For my part, I say that it is time to put an end to the abuse and the violence of Muslims who do not respect the freedom of religious choice. In Italy there are thousands of converts to Islam who live their new faith in peace. But there are also thousands of Muslim converts to Christianity who are forced to hide their faith out of fear of being assassinated by Islamic extremists who lurk among us. By one of those “fortuitous events” that evoke the discreet hand of the Lord, the first article that I wrote for the Corriere on Sept. 3, 2003 was entitled “The new Catacombs of Islamic Converts.” It was an investigation of recent Muslim converts to Christianity in Italy who decry their profound spiritual and human solitude in the face of absconding state institutions that do not protect them and the silence of the Church itself. Well, I hope that the Pope’s historical gesture and my testimony will lead to the conviction that the moment has come to leave the darkness of the catacombs and to publicly declare their desire to be fully themselves. If in Italy, in our home, the cradle of Catholicism, we are not prepared to guarantee complete religious freedom to everyone, how can we ever be credible when we denounce the violation of this freedom elsewhere in the world? I pray to God that on this special Easter he give the gift of the resurrection of the spirit to all the faithful in Christ who have until now been subjugated by fear. Happy Easter to everyone.

 

Dear friends, let us go forward on the way of truth, of life and of freedom with my best wishes for every success and good thing.

 

Magdi Allam

 

The pair of windows in St Catherine & St John the Baptist's chapel off the south ambulatory were reglazed in 2002 with stunning new glass by Tom Denny. They were created by to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the monks’ arrival at the Abbey, the theme being the Benedictine motto ‘to work is to pray’.

www.thomasdenny.co.uk/tewkesbury-abbey-two-windows

 

The attractive town of Tewkesbury has been dominated by its superb abbey church since the beginning of the 12th century, and we can be forever grateful to its townspeople for purchasing the monastic church in 1540 for £453 for use as their parish church, saving it from the fate that befell countless similar great churches across the land during the turmoil of the Dissolution. It reminds us both how lucky we are to still marvel at it today, yet also how great a loss to our heritage the period wrought when many more such buildings were so utterly plundered as to have gone without trace (the fate of the monastic buildings here and even the lady chapel of the church whose footings are laid out in the grass at the east end).

 

Tewkesbury Abbey is thus rightly celebrated as one of our greatest non-cathedral churches, and remarkably much of the original Norman church remains substantially intact, most apparently in the great central tower, a fine example of Romanesque architecture adorned with rows of blind-arcading. The west front is dominated by a massive Norman-arched recess (enclosing the somewhat later west window) and the nave and transepts remain largely as originally built, though this is less clear externally owing to the changes made to the windows, nearly all of which were enlarged in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. This century also saw the complete rebuilding of the eastern limb of the church, of a form less common in England with radiating chapels surrounding the eastern apse of the choir (the central lady chapel sadly missing since 1540).

 

The interior reveals far more of the Romanesque structure with mighty columns supporting the round Norman arches of the nave arcades giving the building a great sense of solidity. The space is further enlivened by the changes made during the 14th century by the stunning vault over the nave (adorned with a rewarding series of figurative bosses) which sits surprisingly well with the Norman work below. Beyond the apsidal choir beckons, and both this and the space below the tower are enriched with stunningly complex vaulted ceilings (replete with further bosses and gilded metal stars), all ablaze with colour and gilding.

 

There is much to enjoy in glass here, most remarkably a complete set of 14th century glazing in the clerestorey of the choir, seven windows filled with saints and prophets (and most memorably two groups of knights in the westernmost windows on each side). A few of the figures have fared less well over the centuries but on the whole this is a wonderfully rare and well preserved scheme. There is much glass from the 19th century too, with an extensive scheme in the nave of good quality work by Hardman's, and more recently a pair of rich windows by Tom Denny were added in one of the polygonal chapels around the east end.

 

Some of the most memorable features are the monuments with many medieval tombs of note, primarily the effigies and chantry chapels of members of the Despenser family around the choir (two of the chantries being miniature architectural gems in their own right with exquisite fan-vaulting). In one of the apsidal chapels is the unusual cenotaph to Abbot Wakeman with his grisly cadaver effigy, a late medieval reminder of earthly mortality.

 

Tewkesbury Abbey is not to be missed and is every bit as rewarding as many of our cathedrals (superior in fact to all but the best). It is normally kept open and welcoming to visitors on a daily basis. I have also had the privilege of working on this great building several times over the years (as part of the team at the studio I once worked for), and have left my mark in glass in a few discreet places.

www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/

La iglesia de San Sebastián de los Caballeros se encuentra en torno al primer recinto amurallado de Toro. Es una zona céntrica próxima a la Plaza Mayor, a la cual se puede llegar a través del Arco del Postigo.

Fue parroquia al menos desde principios del S. XII hasta 1896. Su primera fábrica seria de ladrillo, de estilo románico-mudéjar, aunque a principios del S.XVI fue reconstruida por el trasmerano Juan Martínez de Revilla a expensas del famoso teólogo toresano Fray Diego de Deza, profesor de Salamanca, preceptor del príncipe don Juan, hijo de los RR.CC., Inquisidor General, Arzobispo de Sevilla y protector de Colón. Esta construcción gótica tardía destaca por la solidez, continencia ornamental y el predominio del macizo sobre el vano. La tribuna data de 1570 y su hermoso alfarje es obra de carpinteros locales. La torre fue acabada en 1573 por el cantero Antonio de Villafaña. Ya en época barroca sufrió un proceso de barroquización bastante mediocre que, sumado al abandono posterior en el S.XX, casi significa la ruina del conjunto.

En la década de 1970 el Estado decide restaurarla para albergar las pinturas murales procedentes del monasterio de Sta. Clara. Aparte de estas pinturas, su patrimonio quedó reducido al arte mueble. Se conserva el retablo mayor in situ.

El museo está formado por una única sala, que coincide con la nave de la iglesia. Ésta consta de capilla mayor, precedida de arco de triunfo agudo y sobre pilares y coro alto. También tiene una sencilla torre adosada al muro norte y la sacristía pospuesta a la cabecera. A los pies se levanta una hermosa tribuna con antepecho de balaustres torneados en arenisca sobre arco escarzado que arranca de pilares. El templo tiene tres puertas a norte sur y oeste pero la entrada al museo se realiza a través de la sacristía en la cara este.

La iglesia-museo de San Sebastián de los Caballeros expone las pinturas murales procedentes del monasterio de Santa Clara.

 

Las pinturas corresponden a la primera fase del gótico lineal o franco-gótico, que todavía no conoce la perspectiva. Aproximadamente, se realizaron en la tercera década del S.XIV. La composición es sólo de dos dimensiones y las trazas lineales, así como la caligrafía grácil y espontánea funcionan como esqueleto sustentante de los colores, formados con muchos matices y abundantes sombreados. Los frecuentes arrepentimientos hablan de la rapidez con la que se debió efectuar la obra. Se trata de una manifestación de la fe sencilla del pueblo cristiano medieval que aceptaba sin crítica la historia de los santos. Se inspiran en la leyenda áurea. De su autoría se habló del nombre de Teresa Diez, ya que este nombre aparece escrito en las pinturas, pero ésta debía ser la donante como indican los escudos heráldicos de la familia que también aparecen. Descartada entonces Teresa Diez, es posible que sean obra de Domingo Pérez, el pintor que se representa como criado de Sancho IV en la firma de la policromía de la Portada de la Majestad de la Colegiata de Toro. Nos consta de este autor que también efectuó unos murales en la catedral de Zamora.

 

torosacro.com/historia/san-sebastian-de-los-caballeros/

 

The church of San Sebastián de los Caballeros is located around the first walled enclosure of Toro. It is a central area near the Plaza Mayor, which can be reached through the Arch of the Postigo.

It was parished at least from the early 12th century until 1896. Its first factory would be brick, Romanesque-Mudejar style, although at the beginning of the H.XVI century it was rebuilt by the transmerano Juan Martínez de Revilla at the expense of the famous Toresian theologian Fray Diego de Deza, professor of Salamanca, preceptor of Prince Don Juan, son of the RR. CC., Inquisidor General, Archbishop of Seville and protector of Columbus. This late Gothic construction stands out for its solidity, ornamental continence and the predominance of the massif over the vain. The grandstand dates back to 1570 and its beautiful pottery is the work of local carpenters. The tower was finished in 1573 by the goalkeeper Antonio de Villafaña. Already in baroque times it suffered a rather mediocre baroque process that, together with the subsequent abandonment in the twentieth century, almost means the ruin of the whole.

In the 1970s the State decided to restore it to house the mural paintings from the monastery of St. Clare. Apart from these paintings, his heritage was reduced to the art of furniture. The main altarpiece is preserved in situ.

 

The museum consists of a single room, which coincides with the nave of the church. This consists of main chapel, preceded by a sharp triumphal arch and on pillars and a high choir. It also has a simple tower attached to the north wall and the sacristy postponed to the headboard. At the feet stands a beautiful grandstand with a balustle of balusters turned in sandstone on a frosted arch that starts from pillars. The temple has three gates to the north south and west but the entrance to the museum is made through the sacristy on the east side.

The church-museum of San Sebastian de los Caballeros exhibits the mural paintings from the monastery of Santa Clara.

 

The paintings correspond to the first phase of linear gothic or Franco-Gothic, which does not yet know the perspective. Approximately, they were held in the third decade of the S.XIV. The composition is only two dimensions and the linear traces, as well as the graceful and spontaneous calligraphy function as a skeleton supporting the colors, formed with many nuances and abundant shades. Frequent repentances tell of how quickly the work should be done. It is a manifestation of the simple faith of the medieval Christian people who accepted the history of the saints without criticism. They are inspired by the golden legend. From her authorship was mentioned the name of Teresa Diez, since this name is written in the paintings, but this was to be the donor as indicated by the heraldic shields of the family that also appear. Discarded then Teresa Diez, it is possible that they are the work of Domingo Pérez, the painter who is depicted as a servant of Sancho IV in the signature of the polychromia of the Cover of the Majesty of the Collegiate of Toro. We are aware of this author who also made some murals in the cathedral of Zamora

 

Just simple, bold and straightforward - the style echoes the solidity of the product.

Oil, casein, charcoal, chalk, graphite, and ink on Masonite; 121.9 x 91.4 cm.

 

A refugee from czarist Russia, where he was an officer in the cavalry regiment of Grand Duke Michael and in the footguard of Czar Nicholas, John Graham arrived in the United States in 1920, where he began his second career as an artist and critic. His early training at the Art Students League with such teachers as John Sloan and Kenneth Hayes Miller from 1922 to 1924 is in sharp contrast to his subsequent avant-garde association. He made frequent trips to Paris and became friendly with the Surrealist group there, although his style remained eclectic: while his figurative painting displayed affinities with Giorgio de Chirico and André Derain, he was also making small, purely abstract compositions that he called "minimalist."

  

In the early 1940s Graham underwent a radical philosophical transition, during which his belief in Marxism and psychoanalysis was replaced by more magical thinking. His taste for modernism shifted to the old masters, particularly those of the Renaissance. "Celia" was painted during these transitional years and is one of the many portraits of imaginary women dating from this time. In these paintings he achieved a monumental reinterpretation of classical art. Here, the calm and dignity of the lovely woman, her elegant silhouette, and her monumental solidity are reminiscent of ancient Roman portraiture, of Ingres, and of Raphael, while the forms, as well as the curious sense of detachment from place and time hint at biomorphic Surrealist sculpture. The tension between the figure and the flat pictorial structure belies Graham's avowed dismissal of modernism. He maintained that he gave his sitters staring (sometimes crossed) eyes not as an expressive device, "but as a means to anchor space to a point in the room, to create more tension...to make the figures immutable, fixed and timeless."

  

Graham was also an active collector and critic of contemporary art, and encouraged the careers of many young artists. In 1942 he organized an exhibition in which he combined the works of the great European modernists—Picasso, Braque, Matisse—with young unknown American expressionists, among them Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, and Jackson Pollock. It was the first exhibition for the latter two. Arshile Gorky and the sculptor David Smith were also among his friends and admirers.

 

This is lulu affectionately named after an obsession for Louise Brooks in the late eighties, used for light study while learning photography in the early nineties. She was made of fiberglass and plaster, the faint drip falling from her lip was from her moonlighting days as a Halloween witch, a slight trickle of blood fashioned from a red shade of nail polish in which she seduced young children to her lovingly. For all her portraits and illusions of womanhood she failed to be true.

 

This is a letter to a real woman who was loved. Who's to say if the love was real it was felt that much is certain. It was written on a Friday evening by the author Gustave Flaubert to Louise Colet in 1846:

 

"You tell me, my angel, that I have not initiated you into my inner life, into my most secret thoughts. Do you know what is most intimate, most hidden in my heart, and what is most authentically myself? Two or three modest ideas about art, lovingly brooded over, that is all. The greatest events of my life have been a few thoughts, a few books, certain sunsets on a beach at Trouville, and talks five or six hours long with a friend now married and lost to me. I have always seen life differently from others, and the result has been that I've always isolated myself (but not sufficiently, alas!) in a state of harsh unsociability, with no exit. I suffered so many humiliations, I shocked people and made them indignant, that I long ago came to realize that in order to live in peace one must live alone and seal one's windows lest air of the world seep in. in spite of myself I still retain something of this habit. That is why I deliberately avoided the company of women for several years. I wanted no hindrance to my innate moral precept. I wanted no yoke, no influence. In the end I no longer desired woman's company at all. Stirrings of the flesh, throbbings of the heart, were absent from my life, and I was not even conscience of my sex. As I told you, I had an overwhelming passion when I was little more than a child. When it ended I decided to divide my life in two parts: to put on one side my soul, which I reserved for Art, and on the other my body, which was to live as best I could. Then you came along and upset all that. So here I am, returning to a human existence!

 

You have awakened all that was slumbering, or perhaps decaying, within me! I have been loved before, and intensely, though I'm one of those who are quickly forgotten and more apt to kindle emotion than to keep it alive. The love I arouse is always that felt for something a little strange. Love, after all, is only a superior kind of curiosity, an appetite for the unknown that makes you bare your breast and plunge headlong into the storm.

 

As I said, I have been loved before but never the way you loved me; nor has there ever been between a woman and myself the bond that exists between us two. I have never felt for any woman so deep a devotion, so irresistible an attraction; never has there been such complete communion. Why do you keep saying that I love the tinselly, the showy, the flashy? 'Poet of form!' That is the favourite term of abuse hurled by utilitarian's at true artists. For my part, until someone comes along and separates for me the form and the substance of a given sentence, I shall continue to maintain that that distinction is meaningless. Every beautiful thought has a beautiful form, and vice versa. In the world of Art, beauty is a by-product of form. just as in our world temptation is a by-product of love. Just as you cannot remove from a physical body the qualities that constitute it - colour, extension, solidity - without reducing it to hollow abstraction, without destroying it, so you cannot remove the form from the Idea, because the Idea exists only by virtue of its form. Imagine an idea that has no form - such a thing is as impossible as a form that expresses no idea. Such are the stupidities on which criticism feeds. Good stylist are reproached for neglecting the Idea, the moral goal; as though the goal of the doctor were not to heal, the goal of the painter to paint, the goal of the nightingale to sing, as though the goal of Art were not and foremost, Beauty!"

   

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor 30/05/2025 18h45

The statue of Thomas Jefferson proudly standing in front of teh Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor. Thomas Jefferson (1745 -1826) was the third president of the United States of America. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was the nation's first U.S. secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams. Jefferson was a leading proponent of democracy, republicanism, and natural rights, and he produced formative documents and decisions at the state, national, and international levels.

 

Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor

The passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor, formerly known as passerelle Solférino (or pont de Solférino), is a footbridge over the River Seine in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is served by the Metro station Assemblée Nationale.

For a century, a cast iron bridge inaugurated by Napoleon III in 1861 allowed vehicles to cross between quai Anatole-France and quai des Tuileries. Built by the engineers of the Pont des Invalides, Paul-Martin Gallocher de Lagalisserie and Jules Savarin, it was named after the June 1859 French victory of the Battle of Solferino. Having weakened over time (particularly due to barges crashing into it), it was demolished and replaced in 1961 with a steel footbridge, which was demolished in 1992.

The new passerelle de Solférino linking the Musée d'Orsay and the Jardin des Tuileries (Tuileries Gardens) was built between 1997 and 1999 under the direction of the engineer and architect Marc Mimram. Crossing the Seine with a single span and no piers, this metallic bridge is architecturally unique and covered in exotic woods (ipê, a Brazilian tree also used for outdoor flooring[1] at the Bibliothèque nationale de France) which gives it a light and warm appearance. Its solidity is, however, never in doubt - at either end, its foundations are in the form of concrete pillars extending 15m into the ground, and the structure itself is made up of six 150 tonne components built by the Eiffel engineering company, Eiffel Constructions métalliques. Its innovative architecture brought Marc Mimram the award "Prix de l'Équerre d'Argent" for the year 1999.

 

The bridge also has benches and lampposts for promenaders who can reach the Jardin des Tuileries through a subterranean passage on the Rive Droite.

 

The bridge was renamed after Léopold Sédar Senghor on 9 October 2006 on the centenary of his birth.

 

FACTS & FIGURES

Crosses: River Seine

Next upstream: Pont Royal

Next downstream: Pont de la Concorde

Design: Marc Mimram

Total length: 106m

Width: 15m

Opened: 1999

 

[ Wikipedia - Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor ]

"We never look deeply into the quality of a tree; we never really touch it, feel its solidity, its rough bark, and hear the sound that is part of the tree. Not the sound of wind through the leaves, not the breeze of a morning that flutters the leaves, but its own sound, the sound of the trunk and the silent sound of the roots."

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Made this composite out of a picture of a dead magnolia petal and the picture of a sunset I took a few years ago. I wanted to kind of contrast the fragile nature of leaves with the solidity of rock.

Carlo Dolci -

Selfportrait (drawing) in octogonal frame [1674] -

Florence, Uffizi Gabinetto

*********************************************************************************

Instead of wearing the garb of a citizen, Dolci presents himself here in modest work clothes as a practising artist. The drawing is so elaborate that only in the depiction of the individual hairs do supposedly fine strokes emerge, while otherwise the impression of a certain graininess, which imitates the materiality of red chalk and charcoal, determines the surface effect. The glasses that Dolci wears in the drawing emphasise the sharpening of the eye in the process of painting: his own work is virtually scrutinised. The bundle of brushes, which consists of four different fine hair brushes, fans out on the left-hand edge of the picture. In his right hand, Dolci holds a brush that is overlapped by the edge of the drawing. The quill shaft alone indicates that it must be a fine hair brush. While the fictitious drawing, which shows him at work, functions as a depiction, the dominant representative image, in which the artist withdraws as a creator, creates presence through the evocative power of colour. The white collar harbours a rich spectrum of chromatic refractions. In its simplicity and solidity - fine creases at the neck emphasise the stiffness of the fabric (through strength) - it looks like a blank page and thus makes subtle reference to the cardboard.

I met Carlo a few months ago as I was looking for some honey and I discovered this passionate beekeeper lived only half a mile from my home.

 

As we got to know each other over time, I found out that this amazing 84 years old was a true genius in building anything out of wood and metal in his well-equipped workshops.

 

I asked him to help me tame the biggest and heaviest lens I own, so that I could finally mount it onto a 4x5 camera and give it some use.

 

A few years ago I actually devised a way to mount this beastly lens, but I was never entirely satisfied with the results, as they lacked the solidity such a heavy piece of glass demands.

 

Carlo was able to quickly solder together a metal cone, permanently attached to a clone of a Plaubel lens board (which he cut and carved by hand !) where the heavy 12 Inch Aero Ektar f2.5lens would snugly fit.

 

The lens was to be further supported by a metal bracket that Carlo created, inspired by a plastic telescope lens bracket I had showed him earlier, but much, much sturdier than the original one.

 

Now came the shutter: we opted to drill a hole in a pine wooden board the size of the large packard shutter we were going to use (1/10th of a second maximum speed !!!).

 

To attach the “shutter board” to the lens Carlo hand-carved a slot of exactly the same diameter of the lens front element rim on the back. Once the rim slid into this groove, a couple of elastic bands were sufficient to stabilize and firmly attach the entire contraption to the camera body.

 

The heavy 12Inch Aero Ektar Lens can be a wonderful tool, giving you a very Shallow Depth Of Field and a Creamy Bokeh at a great Focal Length for portraiture (at 12 Inch FL this lens does cover 8x10 although I prefer using it on 4x5 and even 6x9, something I am able to do on the old Plaubel Supra camera by just changing the back).

 

It’s just that the lens is freakin’ big and heavy to mount anywhere but on a military aircraft!

 

Carlo was able to find a really good and elegant solution (in a retro-post-industrial style) that I truly love !!

 

My heartfelt THANK YOU to this wonderful, genial, inventor friend of mine!

   

The attractive town of Tewkesbury has been dominated by its superb abbey church since the beginning of the 12th century, and we can be forever grateful to its townspeople for purchasing the monastic church in 1540 for £453 for use as their parish church, saving it from the fate that befell countless similar great churches across the land during the turmoil of the Dissolution. It reminds us both how lucky we are to still marvel at it today, yet also how great a loss to our heritage the period wrought when many more such buildings were so utterly plundered as to have gone without trace (the fate of the monastic buildings here and even the lady chapel of the church whose footings are laid out in the grass at the east end).

 

Tewkesbury Abbey is thus rightly celebrated as one of our greatest non-cathedral churches, and remarkably much of the original Norman church remains substantially intact, most apparently in the great central tower, a fine example of Romanesque architecture adorned with rows of blind-arcading. The west front is dominated by a massive Norman-arched recess (enclosing the somewhat later west window) and the nave and transepts remain largely as originally built, though this is less clear externally owing to the changes made to the windows, nearly all of which were enlarged in the 14th century in the Decorated Gothic style. This century also saw the complete rebuilding of the eastern limb of the church, of a form less common in England with radiating chapels surrounding the eastern apse of the choir (the central lady chapel sadly missing since 1540).

 

The interior reveals far more of the Romanesque structure with mighty columns supporting the round Norman arches of the nave arcades giving the building a great sense of solidity. The space is further enlivened by the changes made during the 14th century by the stunning vault over the nave (adorned with a rewarding series of figurative bosses) which sits surprisingly well with the Norman work below. Beyond the apsidal choir beckons, and both this and the space below the tower are enriched with stunningly complex vaulted ceilings (replete with further bosses and gilded metal stars), all ablaze with colour and gilding.

 

There is much to enjoy in glass here, most remarkably a complete set of 14th century glazing in the clerestorey of the choir, seven windows filled with saints and prophets (and most memorably two groups of knights in the westernmost windows on each side). A few of the figures have fared less well over the centuries but on the whole this is a wonderfully rare and well preserved scheme. There is much glass from the 19th century too, with an extensive scheme in the nave of good quality work by Hardman's, and more recently a pair of rich windows by Tom Denny were added in one of the polygonal chapels around the east end.

 

Some of the most memorable features are the monuments with many medieval tombs of note, primarily the effigies and chantry chapels of members of the Despenser family around the choir (two of the chantries being miniature architectural gems in their own right with exquisite fan-vaulting). In one of the apsidal chapels is the unusual cenotaph to Abbot Wakeman with his grisly cadaver effigy, a late medieval reminder of earthly mortality.

 

Tewkesbury Abbey is not to be missed and is every bit as rewarding as many of our cathedrals (superior in fact to all but the best). It is normally kept open and welcoming to visitors on a daily basis. I have also had the privilege of working on this great building several times over the years (as part of the team at the studio I once worked for), and have left my mark in glass in a few discreet places.

www.tewkesburyabbey.org.uk/

One of the real pleasures of Flickr is finding out so much more about the areas you thought you knew.

 

I have been to Wymondham a few times, delivered beer to a hotel (more of that another time) and a friend used to run the Railway Inn near the station, but I hadn't really explored the town.

 

But having seen a friend's shots, I really thought I should go back and look at it anew. And then there was this building, the Abbey Church with two towers, ruins and all the associated history.

 

Whatever you think of the works inside, it is as a complete building, something to leave me, at least, in awe at the beauty. Of course, it might not please everyone, but it does me.

 

Many thanks to Sarah and Richard for taking me here.

 

--------------------------------------------

 

This massive church and its famous twin towers will be familiar to anyone who has ever been within five miles of Wymondham, pronounced Win-d'm; its presence always there above the roof tops, and still there on the horizon when the rooftops can no longer be seen. Closer to, it is like a mighty city on a hill. It is often referred to as Wymondham Abbey, which isn't entirely correct; but there was an Abbey here, and you can see a scattering of remains in the fields between the church and the river, gradually reduced over the centuries as the stone and rubble were taken away for use elsewhere.

We came to Wymondham on a day that was breathtakingly cold; although the temperature was hovering around freezing, there was a biting east wind that made it feel colder still. Hence, the clarity of the light in the photographs above. The top photograph, taken from the south on the far bank of the river, is worth a second glance, because it provides a number of clues as to how this extraordinary and magnificent building came to be the way it is today.

 

In the beginning, there was a Benedictine Priory, an offshoot of the Abbey of St Albans. It was founded here because, after the Conquest, William I granted the lands of Wymondham to the Duc d'Albini, and the Duke's brother was Abbot of St Albans. Part of the project consisted of building a massive Priory church, much bigger than the one you see today. In style, it was like the Abbey church of Bury St Edmund, or Ely Cathedral. It was a cruciform church about 70 metres long, and had twin west towers - you can see something similar today at Kings Lynn St Margaret. As at St Margaret, there was a third tower above the central crossing, the chancel extending a long way eastwards, and transepts that were as tall as the nave roof. It was completed during the 12th century.

 

You can see a surviving trace of the south-west tower in the photograph above. The base of its northern wall rises above the roofline at the western end of the clerestory, just beside the current west tower. The central crossing tower, however, was built to the east of the current east tower, the chancel extending eastwards beyond it.

D'Albini intended the church to serve the parish as well as the Priory, but this was not managed without recourse to the advice of Pope Innocent IV, who granted the people use of the nave and the north aisle, the Priory retaining the south aisle, transepts and chancel.

 

However, when the central crossing tower became unsafe in the late 14th century and had to be taken down, the Priory rebuilt it to the west of the crossing, actually within the nave. This is the east tower that you see today, now a shell. In turn, the parish extended the church further west, demolishing the two west towers and replacing them with the massive structure you see today. It really is huge; although it is not as tall as the church tower at Cromer, its solidity lends it a vastness not sensed there.

 

When the new east tower was built, the western face of it cut off the nave from the chancel, creating two separate spaces. When the west tower was built, it blocked off the former west window between the old towers. Because of this, Wymondham is the only medieval parish church in Norfolk, and one of the few in England, that has no window at either end.

Wymondham Priory became an Abbey in 1448, and seems to have lived its final century peaceably enough before being closed and asset-stripped by Henry VIII in the 1530s. The church then became solely the charge of the parish; the eastern parts, apart from the tower, were demolished.

 

Still without parapet or panelling, the west tower was never finished; but it features in the turbulent history of mid 16th century England because William Kett, one of the leaders of Kett's Rebellion, was hung from the top of it by Edward VI's thought police, a reminder of just how closely church and state became allied during the Reformation. It did give me pause for thought - hanging your enemy from a church tower seems such an obvious thing to do when you want to make a point. I wonder just how many more times it happened to less notable victims over the centuries, on church towers up and down the land?

 

You enter today through the great north porch, which is similar to that nearby at Hethersett, even to the extent of having an almost identical series of bosses. They depict rosary scenes in the life of Christ and the Blessed Virgin.

 

As I said, we came here on a spectacularly cold day, but I was delighted to discover that the interior of the church was heated, even on a Saturday. The church attracts a considerable number of visitors, as you might expect; but I still thought this was a nice gesture.

 

Wymondham church is above all else an architectural wonder; but in many ways this is a simple building, easy to explore and satisfying to visit. It has the feel of a small Anglican cathedral in that there is a pleasing mix of ancient Norman architecture and modern Anglican triumphalism; as in a cathedral, there are open spaces, and the old pews have been replaced with modern chairs, which almost always seems to work well. The glorious arcading, triforium and clerestory create a sense of great height; this, coupled with the lack of east or west windows, can make you feel rather boxed in, but I found I quite liked that; it made the place seem more intimate, despite its size.

 

The modern, triumphant feel to the place is largely owing to the vast reredos by Ninian Comper. This is generally considered to be his finest single work, and forms the parish war memorial. It was built and gilded during the 1920s and 1930s, and you have to say it is magnificent. It consists of three tiers of saints, with a glorious Christ in Majesty topping the tiers under the great tester. It was never completed; the space where the retable should be is now hidden by curtains.

The rood and beam, a bay to the west, is also Comper's work, and it is hard to conceive that work of this kind and to this scale will ever again be installed in an English church. The low sun, slanting through the south windows of the clerestory, picked out the gilding, and clever lighting from underneath helped to put Comper's vision of Heaven into practice. The row of candlesticks on the altar leaves you in no doubt in which wing of the Church of England Wymondham finds itself.

 

Comper's glory shouldn't distract you from the early 16th century facade above the sedilia. It is terracotta, and probably from the same workshop as the Bedingfield tombs at Oxborough. Here you see what might have happened to English church architecture if theReformation hadn't intervened. Looking west from the sanctuary, the original west window is clearly discernible, now home to the organ.

 

If Comper's work is a little rich for you, you may prefer the north aisle, which is wide enough to be a church in itself. Cleared of clutter, a few rows of chairs face a gorgeous early 20th century triptych depicting Mary and John at the foot of the cross. The Madonna and child towards the west is also Comper's, but the 1930s towering font cover on the typical East Anglian 15th century font is not; it is by Cecil Upcher. The south aisle is truncated, the eastern bays now curtained off; but here are the few medieval survivals in glass. From slightly later, but the other side of the Reformation divide, is an Elizabethan text on the arcade. It probably marks the point to which the pulpit was moved by the Anglicans in the 16th century.

 

St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury is a church that it is easy to admire, and it certainly impressed me. Perhaps, it is not so easy a building to love. Inevitably, there is something rather urban in its grandeur, and even the warmth of the heating couldn't take the edge off the remoteness and anonymity you inevitably find in such a space.

 

However, the friendliness of the people on duty helped to make up for this. The area beneath the west tower has been converted into a shop, and the nice lady working there was very chatty and helpful. I have to say that I think it would concentrate my mind a bit, knowing that mighty weight was above me. The shop itself is good of its kind, selling books and religious items rather than just souvenirs, and more icons and rosaries than you would normally expect to find in an establishment of the Church of England.

 

The lady said that she was a Methodist really, and found the services rather formal, but she'd started coming to the Abbey because her daughter went there. "You ought to come, Mum, we're just like real Catholics!", she giggled, as she recalled her daughter's words. As a 'real Catholic' myself, I couldn't help thinking that we would have stripped out Comper's reredos long ago, and Masses would be accompanied by guitars and percussion, possibly with a modicum of clapping and the help of an overhead projector screen; but I kept my counsel.

 

Simon Knott, January 2006

 

www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/wymondham/wymondhamcofe.htm

Parte del set: Morelieses

I'd never stopped in Ponoka before, but on my way to Edmonton this past weekend, it was on my radar and was my first stop. My primary subject here was the abandeoned concrete structure that a company was hoping to be a pre-form concrete technology showroom...who went out of business before the building was complete. But then I came through downtown and boy oh boy!!! LOTS of gems here, and unlike Camrose, their historic downtown buildings have plaques on them wtih information on the building.

 

Below is what I found on this beautiful building.

  

George Bowker's livery stable stood on this site until it was destroyed by fire and replaced by this brick building in 1925. After a brief period as the Merchants' Bank, the building was purchased in the 1930s by Jim Mah Poy and Jack Mah Ming who ran a men's clothing store and dry cleaning operation. Glen Mah Poy and his wife took over the business at the end of World War II and operated here for over fifty years. The 1951 remodeling of the north storefront with a stylish neon sign and carrara glass panels, popular in post-war commercial buildings, makes this former bank a unique contrast of building styles.

 

While it's not on the more common (for a bank building) corner lot, the small details which mark the building as a one time bank are the little pediment with Classical or Romanesque brackets over the transom of the entrance and the terra cotta cornice below the parapet. Built in 1917 by the Merchants Bank, it remained so until the bank's merger with the Bank of Montreal, at which time said bank took over the premises. The "Great Depression" took its toll here, forcing closure of the bank in 1934.

The building was purchased by Jack Mah Ming in January of 1935, in which he opened a men's clothing store. With the aid of family members, Jack et al remained in business here for 68 years, enlarging the premises in 1950. As a historical reminder, the large painted JACK'S MEN'S WEAR sign, a bit faded with time, remains emblazoned across the façade.

 

As well, from 1950 to 1959, the Imperial Bank of Canada occupied part of the building, creating a second association with banking for the building.

 

The Merchant Bank/Jack's Men's Wear Building

The heritage value of the Merchant Bank/Jack's Men's Wear Building lies in its initial historical association with banking as the Ponoka branch of the Merchant Bank of Canada, first established in Reid's Store on 51 (Donald) Avenue circa 1914, and relocated in this imposing custom built structure constructed in 1917, signifying the prosperity enjoyed by the town through the 1920s. It demonstrates the competitive evolution and fortunes of banking in Canada; the Bank of Montreal merged with the Merchant Bank of Canada in 1921, and took over the premises. By 1934 the economic depression had affected the world of finance and the Ponoka clients of the Bank of Montreal found their accounts closed and transferred to the Canadian Bank of Commerce located on Railway Street since the turn of the 20th Century. The closing of the Bank of Montreal signified the local economic downturn in Ponoka and marked a significant change in the structure's function when it was bought by Jack Mah Ming in January 1935 to house his clothing business. An association with banking was rekindled for the Merchant Bank/Jack's Men's Wear Building when the Imperial Bank of Canada rented the rear south half of the store from June 1950 until 1959, when it moved into a new structure.

 

The Merchant Bank/Jack's Men's Wear Building is equally valued for its continuous 68 year connection to Jack's Men's Wear, which sold a myriad of items including hats, coats, pyjamas, suits, pants, sweaters, shoes, winter rubbers and swim suits in summer, providing tailoring services as well as housing a steam cleaning plant, including a press in one of the bank's vaults that was located in the basement.

 

The Merchant Bank/Jack's Men's Wear Building is significant for its association with the Mah Poy family who ran the Union Café. In 1946 Glen Mah Poy, returned serviceman, together with his wife, Toy Win (née Chun) Mah Poy went into the clothing business with his sister Song and brother-in-law Jack. In 1950 they extended the premises with a 60 foot two-storey addition that housed apartments up stairs, accessible by two sets of exterior stairs and new openings on the side brick walls of the 1917 structure. The divided lower floor served as bank premises in the south half of the original structure, while the clothing business expanded into the addition on the north side, with a modernised street entrance and continued as Jack's Men's Wear under Glen Mah Poy's proprietorship until 2004.

 

Hailed by the Ponoka Herald in 1917 as a handsome structure that would add much to the streetFs appearance, the Merchant Bank/Jack's Men's Wear Building has architectural value as the only remaining example in Ponoka of the type of brick masonry design with cast stone features that characterized the contemporary image of permanence and solidity projected by the chartered Canadian banks. Its significance lies in its imposing principal façade, notably its unaltered second storey façade featuring high brick parapet walls with projecting moulded brick detail, five window openings with cast stone sills and lintels, a projecting pressed metal cornice, a painted decorative brick belt course serving as a sign band that indicates the subsequent retail function of the building, as well as the central stepped doorway surmounted by a cast stone hood supported by volutes on the lower storey. The asymmetrical arrangement of the lower storey demonstrates the remodelling of the main floor of the structure into a retail store when a large display window was installed to the west of the original entrance and a separate secondary recessed entrance opening cut into the east side of the main façade in 1950.

THE STATUE WAS COMMISSIONED AS A TRIBUTE TO THE BRAVERY OF THOSE WHO WORKED IN THE GREAT LAXEY MINES HAS BEEN UNVEILED IN THE ISLE OF MAN.

THE ONE-TONNE STONE STRUCTURE, WHICH HAS BEEN ERECTED ON A PLINTH IN THE HEART OF LAXEY, WAS MADE IN BALI BY SCULPTOR ONGKY WIJANA.

CO-ORDINATOR IVOR HANKINSON SAID THE STATUE IS DEDICATED TO THE MINERS WHO WORKED IN VERY DIFFICULT CONDITIONS.

THE GREAT LAXEY MINE EMPLOYED MORE THAN 600 MINERS BETWEEN 1825 AND 1929.

AT ITS PEAK, IT PRODUCED A FIFTH OF ZINC EXTRACTED IN THE UK.

MR HANKINSON ADDED: "THEY WERE AN EXTREMELY HARDY MEN, VERY TOUGH INDEED AND THE SCULPTOR HAS MANAGED TO CONVEY THAT IN HIS WORK VERY EFFECTIVELY.

"WE HAVE ALSO HAD A PLAQUE MADE IN MEMORY OF THOSE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES DOWN THE MINES".

ABOUT 30 MEN WERE KILLED IN MINING ACCIDENTS BETWEEN THE YEARS OF 1831 AND 1912.

SOME DROWNED, SOME WERE CRUSHED IN ROCK FALLS AND OTHERS DIED IN DYNAMITE EXPLOSIONS.

"THE WORKING CONDITIONS WERE INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT," SAID MR HANKINSON.

"SOME OF THE MEN HAD TO WALK MILES TO GET TO WORK IN THE FIRST PLACE. ONCE THERE, THEY HAD A TWO-HOUR JOURNEY ON LADDERS DOWN INTO THE MINES - SOME OF THE SHAFTS WERE A THIRD OF A MILE DEEP."

SCULPTOR ONKY WIJANA SAID HE WANTED TO CAPTURE THE STRENGTH AND DETERMINATION OF THE LAXEY MINERS

THE STATUE, CARVED FROM A FIVE-TONE BLOCK OF CARLOW BLUE LIMESTONE, TOOK MR WIJANA 10 MONTHS TO COMPLETE IN HIS STUDIO IN BANJAR SILAKARANG, INDONESIA.

"THESE GUYS WERE TOUGH BUT OFTEN LOOKED WEATHER-BEATEN, SUNKEN-CHEEKED AND WORN OUT," SAID MR WIJANA.

"HOWEVER, THEY ALSO HAD A SOLIDITY TO THEM AND ALWAYS A DETERMINATION IN THEIR EYES THAT I WANTED TO CAPTURE."

ONCE ERECTED ON ITS PLINTH, THE STONE MINER STATUE STANDS 13FT (4M) HIGH.