Van Gogh in Paris: The Radicalising of a Palette and a Brush

A few weekends ago, I began what is intended as a short series, impelled by the selection of paintings by Vincent van Gogh which have been on show at the Hermitage Amsterdam. The exhibition there, entitled Vincent, comprised a thematic arrangement of seventy-five paintings whilst the Van Gogh Museum was undergoing refurbishment. It came to a close – having run since September – at the end of last week; with the Van Gogh Museum to reopen this Wednesday, 1 May.

The purpose of my series is to consider and draw out some of the aspects and juxtapositions which the thematic display at the Hermitage Amsterdam suggested. I gave the first piece in my series the title ‘Gauguin’s Chair and La Berceuse: Conceptualising Red and Green in the Art of Van Gogh’. This is the second of the series; a third part will be published here over the next week.

Having essentially foregone an early career as an art dealer; then failing on his explicitly religious mission; Van Gogh turned to art around 1880, at the age of twenty-seven. He had drawn frequently while pursuing a religious ministry in the Borinage through 1879; dismissed from his post there by the authorities – due to his unkempt appearance and squalid living conditions, which rendered him indistinguishable from the miners and peasants he was supposed to be ministering to – Van Gogh embarked in earnest on an artistic pathway; and in 1880 was encouraged to travel to Brussels, where he enrolled, in November, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts, to study drawing formally.

He was in Brussels only a few months before moving with his parents to Etten, where he resumed drawing the countryside and the locals. After a string of arguments with his family concerning his lifestyle, his prospects, and his forceful and hasty attempts to begin a relationship with his widowed cousin, Kee Vos-Stricker, Van Gogh departed from his family in late 1881, and moved to The Hague. It was here that Van Gogh began painting. He was instructed in oil and watercolour by his cousin-in-law, the realist painter Anton Mauve. Though he continued to admire Mauve, and held him as a model artist, the pair soon fell out – owing, Van Gogh believed, to Mauve discovering and disapproving of his nascent relationship with Clasina Maria Hoornik, ‘Sien’, a prostitute who was pregnant when she and Van Gogh first met. Van Gogh lived with Sien, her young daughter, and her infant son, from the middle of 1882 until the autumn of 1883 – when he abruptly left, moving to Drenthe, then soon on to Nuenen.

Van Gogh’s first acclaimed artistic compositions were painted in Nuenen. Commencing at the beginning of 1884, the numerous studies Van Gogh made of weavers, of still lifes, of peasants’ heads, culminated in The Potato Eaters, which he completed in April 1885. There are some consistencies in these early paintings with Van Gogh’s later works: shared compositional characteristics, for instance a perspective when painting buildings whereby the top and front of the building comes towards the viewer, appearing both sturdy and dynamic (compare The Cottage (1885) and Old Cemetery Tower at Nuenen (1885) with The Church at Auvers (1890)); and a thick application of paint. Yet these Nuenen scenes were dark, often dimly lit and with brown the predominant colour; there are none of the vivid colour combinations, bold lines and lively brushstrokes for which Van Gogh is most recognised.

Van Gogh’s art changed in stages and owing to key influences. He left Nuenen for Antwerp in November 1885. Immediately enthralled by Antwerp’s bustling docks, and by the Japanese woodcuts on sale there, he conflated the two in a letter to Theo soon after arriving, on 28 November. In this letter, he evocatively describes the mass of contrasting figures and scenes which have caught his eye on walks about the docks; and tellingly for his art explains:

One of De Goncourt’s sayings was ‘Japonaiserie for ever’. Well, these docks are one huge Japonaiserie, fantastic, singular, strange — at least, one can see them like that.

I’d like to walk with you there to find out whether we look at things the same way.

One could do anything there, townscapes — figures of the most diverse character — the ships as the central subject with water and sky in delicate grey — but above all — Japonaiseries.

I mean, the figures there are always in motion, one sees them in the most peculiar settings, everything fantastic, and interesting contrasts keep appearing of their own accord.

…

The overall effect of the port or of a dock — sometimes it’s more tangled and fantastic than a thorn-hedge, so tangled that one can find no rest for the eye, so that one gets dizzy, is forced by the flickering of colours and lines to look now here and now there, unable to tell one thing from another even after staring at a single spot for a long while.

Whilst in Antwerp, Van Gogh took exams at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts. However, he was drinking heavily and became sick, and in March moved to Paris where he stayed, despite his brothers’ reservations, with Theo. The two years Van Gogh spent in Paris before departing for Arles were full of experimentation; he was able to view the Impressionists and Cézanne, but was propelled most by his fervour for ‘Japonaiseries’, his introduction to the works of Monticelli, and his acquaintance with Paul Signac. His palette became progressively brighter and more colourful, and towards the end of 1886, and through the spring of 1887, his brush came to life.

A number of paintings from this period – the endpoints and focal paintings of this piece – demonstrate this conflux of influences. In late 1886 Van Gogh began a group of portraits which evince looser brushstrokes and highlights, resulting in more nuanced and energetic works of art. These include Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat; Portrait of a Man with a Skull Cap, the first two of three portraits of Père Tanguy (the first a typical portrait, the second highly colourised with Tanguy seated in front of a Japanese screen and Japanese prints – which Van Gogh reworked a year later for the third piece); and Portrait of the Art Dealer Alexander Reid.

Compared with these portraits, around March 1887, Agostina Segatori Sitting in the Café du Tambourin is less posed, Van Gogh capturing Agostina from a short distance, seemingly lost in thought, with a single Japanese print suggested on the wall behind. All of these paintings are radical extensions – in colour and in brushwork – upon the portraits Van Gogh had painted previously. Some of the street scenes and landscapes which Van Gogh produced in the same spring appear more radical departures than extensions in any linear sense.

Boulevard de Clichy is comprised of short, narrow, but consistent lines, and an almost neon palette with prominent greens and pink-purples. The thin application of paint, with the canvas apparent between brushstrokes, is quite unlike the impasto of Van Gogh’s later career. The colours and the dress and poise of the figures show the effects of the Japanese woodcuts Van Gogh was continuing to collect. View of Paris (or View of Paris from Vincent’s Room in the Rue Lepic) demonstrates a thicker application of paint, and the marked influence of the pointillism practiced by Seurat and Signac; quick lines are joined and overlaid by dots of paint, with juxtapositions of blue and yellow, green and red.

The Stedelijk Museum recently altered those Van Goghs showing from its collection; La Berceuse has left the wall, and in its place has appeared one of a group of paintings Van Gogh made of vegetable gardens in Montmartre. Completed towards that summer, Vegetable Gardens in Montmartre (also known as Kitchen Gardens in Montmartre) shows the same utilisation of thin lines and vibrant colours, here moving rhythmically in all directions to produce a coherent composition. These paintings, as much as Van Gogh’s emerging qualities as a painter, emphasise his skill as a draughtsman; echoing his drawings, predating his revolutionary use of the reed pen in Arles.

Margaret Thatcher’s Funereal Week; And Her Political Legacy

With her funeral passing easefully enough last Wednesday morning, the inclination to join those voices contending the legacy of Margaret Thatcher is strong. Severe criticism of Thatcher in the week and a day that passed between her death and her funeral was limited in the mainstream press, and significantly restrained amongst the political classes. David Cameron cut short his European tour and gratuitously recalled parliament for a day intended to serve purely as tribute to her, and it largely did so, with a flurry of fond Conservative reminiscences; though of the Labour MPs who attended – around half of Labour’s total of 255 – a small number, Glenda Jackson prominent, stood to censure her time in power, along with some of the several DUP and SNP MPs.

Of the numerous official statements political figures made on the day of her death, Ken Livingstone and Neil Kinnock lamented the effects of her premiership, and George Galloway was more vociferous but marginalised. Serving Labour politicians, and Labour leaders from Tony Blair onward, were sympathetic. Blair was boldest, arguing that she changed the political landscape of the world, and admitting his Labour government had retained some of her policies. Ed Miliband and his predecessor as Labour leader, Gordon Brown, typified the stilted tone struck by most: the former stating that, though he disagreed with much of her politics, he respected her ‘political achievements and personal strength’; the latter similarly praising Thatcher’s ‘determination and resilience’, the ‘strength of her convictions and her unwavering belief in Britain’s destiny in the world’ – adding that he was pleased he had been able to treat the Lady by inviting her to Downing Street during his time in office.

The idea was heavily promulgated that any criticism was undignified and unacceptable, as one must not speak ill of the recently deceased. Labour MP Tom Watson said, ‘I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today’. This thought was echoed a week later by the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres – a friend of Thatcher’s – who gave the address at her funeral, and put it that, ‘Lying here, she is one of us, subject to the common destiny of all human beings’. Chartres’ address has been widely praised, and it sought to humanise Thatcher through a focus on her Methodist Christianity; her moral rather than explicitly political values; and via a pleasant enough but fairly banal recapitulation of her response to a letter from a nine-year-old boy – a tale fitting for any Sunday homily.

However, though many of the parliamentary tributes sought to evoke a similarly human figure, it remains that a great deal of the business around Thatcher’s death – the rhetoric, led by the Conservatives, which was forwarded as entirely fitting and acceptable; and the events, the impromptu parliamentary session and the ceremonial funeral – was undeniably political, ideology masked as commemoration. David Cameron stated in his first interview upon her passing that ‘The real thing about Margaret Thatcher is she did not just lead our country, she saved our country. And I believe she will go down as the greatest British peacetime Prime Minster’. These lines – that Thatcher ‘saved our country’ and was ‘the greatest British peacetime Prime Minister’ – were ones he repeated throughout the day. Ian Duncan Smith, former Conservative leader and current work and pensions secretary, said of Thatcher, ‘Watching her set out to change Britain for the better in 1979 made me believe there was, at last, real purpose and real leadership in politics once again’.

With such statements brazenly upholding and acclaiming Thatcher’s political values and her political legacy, the attempts to restrain and limit even the most fervent criticism were patently absurd, if not insidiously immoral. The words and acts of Thatcher’s supporters were neither confined to nor resting upon her humanity, but celebrated her politics. So those who disagreed with her politics, however strongly, should have been permitted to make the opposing argument. Otherwise those in power are rewriting history, sending Thatcher off from this world bathed and profiled in a light coming only from one side; and attempting simultaneously to manipulate the present political spectrum to their own ends. The recalling of parliament and the granting of a ceremonial funeral, with military honours, were themselves political and politicising acts, exceptionalising Thatcher (Cameron argued that her funeral plans had been established by the previous government; but implied he had amended these plans in whatever ways he saw fitting).

The endeavour to halt any untoward word attained the realm of farce in the headlining debate over The Wizard of Oz song, ‘Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead’. The song – originally from the 1939 film – rose quickly in the UK music charts in the days after Thatcher’s passing, its popularity rooted in an online campaign to propel the song to mark her death. The Daily Telegraph and The Daily Mail expressed outrage at the song’s rising chart position; arguing that to air it would be to hand a ‘propaganda victory to left-wing agitators’, politicising the charts and ceding to those seeking to denigrate Thatcher. The Sun found two of the three surviving Munchkins from The Wizard of Oz, and stressed their ‘fury’ at the way the song was being used.

With the song at number two in the charts by the week’s close, BBC Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper felt forced into a decision: writing that he found the campaign ‘as distasteful as anyone’ and that ‘in the middle of this furore is a grieving family’, he argued he had reached a ‘compromise’ by determining to play only seven seconds of the 51-second song on air, accompanied by a short news report explaining why the song was present. Yet surely the only impartial thing when it comes to the top forty of the music chart is to play the top forty of the music chart, uncensored, unfettered by explanation. The arguments that the charts shouldn’t be in tow to minority groups, and that music shouldn’t be politicised, seem to neglect the nature of the music business; of mass marketing by major labels; of all songs which achieve their success as representatives of specific groups, or as viral sensations; as well as ignoring a rich history of political music, and the referential and re-contextualising nature of the art form.

After all of this, what is the political legacy of Margaret Thatcher? Primary among the global responses to her death was Barack Obama’s statement, in which he called Thatcher ‘one of the great champions of freedom and liberty’. The Economist chose to summarise her in a related way, with the cover of its 13 April edition carrying a picture of Thatcher beneath the headline, ‘Freedom fighter’. The notion of Thatcher as an international combatant for freedom is contentious, and rests on her willingness to engage with the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev, which undoubtedly served to help bring about an end to the Cold War. After leaving office, she spoke against Serbian aggression, in support of Croatian and Slovenian independence. These things must be contrasted with her open and covert support for the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and for Augusto Pinochet in Chile; her opposition to sanctions against South Africa during apartheid, and her declaring Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress a ‘typical terrorist organisation’; and her efforts – and expressions to Gorbachev – against the reunification of Germany.

The Economist‘s emphasis on Thatcher as ‘freedom fighter’ implicates, as much as international affairs, her economic liberalism. Citing a quotation by Abraham Lincoln, beginning ‘You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong’, which Thatcher supposedly carried about her wherever she went, The Economist depicts ‘The essence of Thatcherism was a strong state and a free economy’. Yet the short and long-term results of Thatcher’s economic policy are as much fought over, and as open to vastly differing interpretations, as any other aspect of her politics.

Influenced by Friedrich Hayek – whose The Constitution of Liberty Thatcher once produced and declared the defining text of her form of Conservatism – and adopting the monetarism of Milton Friedman, drawn through her guide Keith Joseph, Thatcher’s economic policy at the beginning of her government sought first and foremost to lower inflation. To control the amount of money in circulation, she increased interest rates; and cut subsidies to industry, spending on education, and spending on housing. Summarising her achievements, The Economist notes that, owing to these policies, under Thatcher ‘The inflation rate fell from a high of 27% in 1975 to 2.4% in 1986’. This was relatively short lived: by 1990 and the end of her leadership, inflation was up, at just under 10%. More, the focus on lowering inflation had significant and lasting repercussions.

The Housing Act 1980 gave tenants the ‘Right to Buy’ their council houses at vast discounts: from 33% up to 50% for those who had lived in their council home for twenty years or more. This was certainly a populist policy, and won Thatcher significant working class support. James Forsyth in The Spectator argues that the policy evinced Thatcher’s pragmatism; that, taking only the right bits from Karl Marx, she created a new class of property owners; but it is debatable whether the policy provided long-term security for the individuals concerned, much less for the country as a whole. Home ownership rose from 57% to 67% as £17.6 billion worth of council house property was sold by the government between 1980 and 1990. That amounted to 1.34 million properties; while in the same period, fewer than half a million new council homes were built, Thatcher’s restrictions upon local councils – who she viewed as left-wing, distrusted, and increasingly controlled – preventing them from spending the proceeds of house sales on new builds.

The legacy of this has been an ever-greater shortage of social housing. The lack of available housing has seen house prices rise: the average house price doubled from just over £20,000 when Thatcher took over, to around £55,000 when she left office; and after falling slightly through the middle of the 90s, it rose rapidly through the 2000s so that the average house price today stands at £160,000. The ground was laid for the significant growth of the private rental market. The Housing Act 1988 shifted the balance of power in private rental agreements from tenants to landlords, who were allowed to charge as they liked. With those who would otherwise take social housing having to rent on the private market, susceptible to its high and ever-increasing rents, Thatcher’s housing policy is considerably responsible for the huge increases in the state’s housing benefit bill, which the present Conservative-led government uses to vilify welfare.

Thatcher was content for people not to work. The Economist describes how, for the generation of politicians after the Second World War, ‘full employment became the overriding object of political life’; so that when Edward Heath attempted a more free-market approach to the economy in the early 1970s, rising unemployment – which briefly passed the 1 million mark for the first time – saw him quickly backtrack. After the Winter of Discontent of 1978-79, by the time Thatcher won her first election, unemployment was at 1.3 million. Her early spending cuts saw this figure rise sharply: by 1981, there were 2.7 million unemployed, street protests, and 364 leading economists criticised her economic policies in a letter to The Times. By 1982, unemployment passed 3 million, and stood at 13% – up from 5.7% in 1979.

The unelectability of the Labour Party and national sentiment after the Falklands War enabled Thatcher to nevertheless sweep to a second term in 1983. It was at this point she began her privatisations: of British Gas, British Telecom, and British Airways. The sale of these nationalised industries brought in £29 billion; and in another populist move, the public were encouraged to buy shares in the newly privatised companies, though this resulted in no lasting change in the balance of share ownership across the country, with individual share ownership continuing to decline.

There were some areas which Thatcher would not touch or struggled to affect. She would not contemplate the privatisation of the railways, reportedly stating ‘Railway privatisation will be the Waterloo of this government’. John Major’s government enacted the difficult and still-contested privatisation of British Rail in 1993. The rewording of Clause IV by Tony Blair in 1995, detaching the Labour Party from a commitment to nationalisation, marked a break with the party’s past and with its divided 1980s. Blair’s Labour government embarked upon the privatisation of facets of the NHS and state education, through much-criticised Private Finance Initiatives, whereby public infrastructure projects are funded with private capital – the interest rates private providers demand, allied to the mismanagement of projects, often leaving the taxpayer with an extortionate bill over a prolonged period. Under Andrew Adonis, Blair’s minister for education, Labour also began their academies programme, enabling schools to become independent of local government control. In their leading piece on Thatcher’s death, entitled ‘Mrs T’s unfinished business’, The Spectator discusses Keith Joseph’s inability to pass significant school reform in the early 80s; and argues Michael Gove is successfully bringing to fruition in education the seeds sown by Adonis.

Alongside these privatisations, Thatcher’s second term saw her biggest battle with the trade unions, which came in the form of Arthur Scargill, the National Union of Mineworkers, and the miners’ strike between 1984-85. Thatcher won the battle, in so far as the miners returned to work, the NUM leadership was shorn of authority, and the government’s public spending cuts were consolidated. The Economist highlights this as ‘a battle for the right of management to manage over the arbitrary use of union power, and her victory broke the unions for good. From a British perspective, it was the most important thing she ever did’. It notes that ‘The number of working days lost to strikes fell from 29m in 1979 to 2m in 1986′.

It seems clear that the unions had too much power and were striking far too often; and Thatcher’s achievement here was important. Her privatisations and her triumph over the trade unions drastically improved the country’s overall productivity, and helped secure her a third term in 1987. Moreover, the decline in overall manufacturing output that is often assumed as part of Thatcher’s cuts has perhaps been overstated. Statistics show that manufacturing output – after falling during the recession from the early-to-mid 80s – had risen from its 1980 level by 1990. Unemployment remained above 3 million until late 1987, then fell over the next three years, to 1.7 million in late 1990; though this was in conjunction with the aforementioned rise in these years of inflation. The truth seems less that manufacturing declined under Thatcher, more that the focus in manufacturing shifted from heavier to lighter industries; falling only as a proportion of the GDP, as non-manufacturing industries, notably the financial services sector, grew and took up space. Manufacturing in the UK experienced a more severe decline under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The problem regarding Thatcher, the miners, trade unions and manufacturing concerns the divisive nature of Thatcher’s battles: her emboldened, sometimes belligerent rhetoric; and the way that the closure of mines and other changes in manufacturing had a disproportionate impact on northern communities. During the miners’ strike, Thatcher notoriously said, ‘We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty’. Characterising those striking as ‘the enemy within’ stoked anger and contributed to a deep-seated resentment, which grew as former mining communities were forgotten, left without work.

The Spectator‘s leader admits, ‘When pits and factories closed, ministers imagined that men of a certain age – who could not be expected to retrain – would sign on to benefits and wait for retirement. A one-off cost. Instead, welfare dependency moved in as industrialisation moved out, and it continues to blight each new generation’. The response to this, according to The Spectator, is that people on incapacity benefit should be forced to do whatever work they can; and that the country must be persuaded this is being done ‘to save lives not money’. It seems dismissive to depict the demise of a way of life as ‘a one-off cost’; contemptuous to presume that lives will be saved by propelling people into a vacuum of underpaid, intellectually and physically stultifying menial labour. The ramifications of Thatcher’s policies devastated communities in the north; and made the Conservatives a party of the ‘rich south’, no longer a national party, making it difficult for them to attain a parliamentary majority.

In the realm of taxation, Thatcher broadly worked towards two goals: she lowered direct taxes, preferring methods of indirect taxation; and her tax changes systematically favoured the wealthy. Early in her first term, while increasing interest rates and cutting spending, she almost doubled the rate of VAT, from 8% to 15%. The top rate of income tax was cut from 83%; initially, in her government’s first budget, to 60%, then in 1988 to 40%; and the investment income surcharge – which had, in the mid-70s, put the top rate of tax on investment income at 98% – was altogether dropped. The basic rate of income tax was cut in successive budgets from 33% to 25%.

Domestically, Thatcher’s Community Charge – the infamous poll tax – did much to undermine her premiership. The poll tax sought to replace the rates system of taxation, according to which local government was funded by taxes people paid depending on the nominal rental value of their home. The rates system thereby implicitly linked taxation and wealth – those with higher value properties paid more in local government tax. Yet the rates were difficult to evaluate and there was no upper limit, and Thatcher was eager for an alternative. The poll tax instead levied a flat-rate tax on every adult. Thus a father earning a minimum wage, living in a cramped home with his family, was required to pay the same to his local government as a millionaire living alone in a mansion. The tax was implemented first in Scotland in 1989, then in England and Wales in 1990, to demonstrations and riots; it proved difficult to administer and enforce; and was soon dropped by the subsequent government.

The Big Bang of 1986 was the deregulation of the financial markets, which strengthened London’s position as a major financial capital and saw the boom of the financial services sector. Economic liberalism did not extend to liberalism elsewhere: like her counterpart in America, Ronald Reagan, Thatcher was unable to ‘roll back the frontiers’ of the state. Public spending took up the same proportion of GDP in 1990 as it had in 1979, with the cuts to education, housing and industry offset by rises in spending on law and order, employment, health, and social security. Power was centralised, both in her person and in Whitehall, as it was taken away from local councils.

She did lower the national debt markedly, from 44% of GDP in 1979 to 27% in 1990 – but this was only made possible by the exceptional revenue afforded the government through the sale of industries and council houses, and from taxing at 90% the extraction of North Sea oil. Oil revenues, which barely registered in the 70s, gave Thatcher’s government close to £100 billion during the 1980s (estimated at around £18 billion  per year when adjusted for inflation). Without this flow of oil, there could have been neither the reduction in the national debt, nor the tax cuts for the rich. Even with these things, GDP – though more stable – rose only marginally throughout Thatcher’s leadership when compared with the previous decade. The year-on-year average rise in GDP across the 70s was 2.55%; in the 80s, it was 2.79%.

The anger which had built towards Thatcher amongst miners and teachers; which had developed in much of the north; which was felt by many of the working class, who hadn’t benefited from her tax breaks; which anger became an outpouring in response to the poll tax: this was not what ultimately brought about her demise. This owed instead to anger from within her own party, ostensibly concerning Europe. Thatcher was not single-mindedly opposed to European integration. In fact, before becoming Prime Minister, as leader of the opposition in 1978, she had been critical of the Labour government for failing to sign to the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In 1986 she agreed to the Single European Act, which bound the countries of the European Common Market (or European Economic Community, the precursor to the EU) closer together: the first major revision of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, it set a date of 1992 for the creation of a European single market, and codified the integration of foreign policy among member states.

On the other hand, having campaigned for it since 1979, in 1984 she secured a rebate from the EEC for the UK, amounting to two-thirds of the difference between the UK’s European contributions and receipts. This rebate amounted to £700 million when first obtained, and continues to be worth around £3 billion a year today. As the 80s progressed, Thatcher became more confrontational on European matters – both against fellow European leaders, and in opposition with members of her Conservative party.

The Westland affair in 1986 saw a fallout with her Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, which Thatcher even feared might end her leadership. Thatcher and Heseltine disagreed over how to save the Westland company, Britain’s last remaining helicopter manufacturer, with Thatcher desiring a merger with an American firm, Heseltine with Italian and French companies. After correspondence was leaked casting Heseltine in a poor light, he resigned his position, criticising the lack of collective cabinet responsibility. Then came a speech in Bruges in which Thatcher theatrically decried proposals for an EEC with a new federal structure – condemned by Thatcher as an attempt to impose a ‘European super-state’. She moved against joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism, even as her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, and Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe, fervently encouraged her to set a date by which to join. Though she finally agreed to join in October 1990, her refusal to set a date, and her vehemence in European debates, had alienated some of her closest ministers.

Perhaps there is a sense in which Europe became the battleground, magnifying upset within the party at Thatcher’s increasingly authoritarian and dismissive leadership style. More, the Conservatives had fallen well behind the Labour Party in the opinion polls over the preceding eighteen months. On 1 November, Howe – Thatcher’s initial Chancellor and the longest-serving member of her Cabinet; who was at the time Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House of Commons – resigned from his roles. Issuing at first a careful, considered letter of resignation, Downing Street in response downplayed his differences with the Prime Minister; and so he was compelled, on 13 November, to give a resignation speech in the Commons. His withering speech evoked, by means of a cricketing analogy, Thatcher’s attitude towards her ministers on Europe: ‘It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease, only for them to find, as the first balls are being bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain’.

The following day Michael Heseltine announced a challenge upon Thatcher’s leadership of the Conservative Party. Thatcher won the first ballot over Heseltine, but not by the 15% of votes required to prevent a second ballot. With speculation that Conservative MPs were ready to switch allegiances, Thatcher finally considered her position untenable and chose to resign. In the subsequent round of the leadership election, John Major entered the fray, and was so close to obtaining a majority ahead of the other candidates – Heseltine and Douglas Hurd – that they withdrew. Major was thereby appointed Prime Minister on 28 November.

David Dimbleby closed his narration of Thatcher’s funeral on BBC One with more emphasis on her political strength: she was, he said, ‘a figure who imposed her will on this country’. Aside from the debates over her policies, her political and economic philosophies, the practicalities of her battles with the unions and in foreign affairs, Thatcher – as the longest serving Prime Minister of the twentieth century, and because of her lasting impact on politics, and her shifting of the political spectrum to the right – is central to any contemporary debate on leadership. What do we want from our political leaders? How should we vote for them? Is the traditional theory of incumbency – where an incumbent is presumed to have a strong advantage in any election race – changing where leaders are concerned?

It is arguable that imposing their will is precisely the opposite of what a premier should do, and of what we should want from them. Thatcher can be said to have made the role of Prime Minister more presidential, developing a cult of personality around herself; utilising sound-bites and the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi; neglecting parliament and, far from being first among equals, increasingly filling her cabinet with yes-men, abusing those who would dare to disagree; and doing all of this without the set of checks and balances inherent in the US system of government. Yet she receives relatively little censure for this enlarging of her role, because she is considered the epitome of a conviction politician, and convictions are admired, and the UK consistently desires strong political figures.

This is expressed in the distrust and resulting apathy there is in the country towards electoral reform, which is perceived as weak and European, leading to coalition governments of the general sort widely loathed today in the shape of the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition. In many ways it seems that coalitions are misunderstood, that their basis in compromise is antipathetical to the the public – two separate mandates cannot, of course, be implemented at one and the same time. The arguments that the Liberal Democrats, in choosing to enter a coalition with the Conservatives, have been able to amend and mollify and insert some policies; and that without them a minority Conservative government would have sought, and probably won, a majority in a hastily arranged subsequent election – these are seldom heard and little accepted.

Elsewhere, The Economist‘s leader posits that ‘Tony Blair won several elections by offering Thatcherism without the rough edges’. Like Thatcher, Blair stands accused of acting more President than Prime Minister. Yet his leadership carried a different strain. Whilst a strong leader in terms of political effects, election results, and world stature, Blair is viewed – owing much to Iraq, and with the convictions he does espouse held with suspicion and readily dismissed – as the adverse of a conviction politician. As a result of this there appear fewer ready to fight his corner (Blair, incidentally, in the week of Thatcher’s death, was published in the centenary issue of the New Statesman advising on the future direction of the Labour Party). With the phenomenon in the UK’s recent political history of two such large but controversial leaders, who each led three-term governments; and now the novelty of the present coalition; it is interesting to consider how the politics of leadership in the UK will be shaped over the coming years.

Rabindranath Tagore, E. E. Cummings; Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Björk

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was a Bengali polymath, best known as a poet. Born in Calcutta – then part of the Bengal Presidency, and the capital city of British India – Rabindranath was the youngest child of Debendranath Tagore, the first leader of the Brahmo Samaj, a religious and social reform movement prominent in the development of the Bengal Renaissance.

The Brahmo Samaj was a coming together of the Brahmo Sabha, founded in 1828 by Raja Ram Mohan Roy; and Debendranath’s Tattwabodhini Sabha, a related movement which he founded in 1839. Both Ram Mohan Roy and Debendranath Tagore sought to reform Hindu religion, culture and society along humanist lines, based upon a clear conception of the Upanishads, the philosophical texts which comprise the closing texts of the Vedas. When Ram Mohan Roy died in 1833, the Brahmo Sabha declined as a force; and the movement merged with the Tattwabodhini Sabha to become the Brahmo Samaj, under Debendranath, in 1843.

The Bengal Renaissance which Ram Mohan Roy fathered, and to which Debendranath and the Brahmo Samaj were central, essentially entwined the teachings of the Upanishads with the political and cultural influences of the European West. In this it served to shape modern Indian society. Rabindranath – himself often considered a later character of the Bengal Renaissance – was brought up in the conflux of these religious and secular, these spiritual, philosophical, cultural and political rivers.

Many of his seven brothers and four sisters became notable figures in the arts and sciences. Rabindranath eschewed formal schooling in his youth, preferring to learn and to discover in his own way, from the expanse of resources located at the family’s Jorasanko mansion. At sixteen, he published his first collection of poetry under the pseudonym Bhanusimha (‘Sun Lion’). It was well received –  taken as a lost seventeenth century classic – and he would continue to write poetry throughout his life; completed eighty-four short stories, four novellas and eight novels; several pieces for the theatre; over two-thousand musical compositions, many drawing their lyrics from his literary works; and took up painting later on in life, at the age of sixty.

Rabindranath’s artistic reputation across the Indian subcontinent is unsurpassed. Two of his compositions, Jana Gana Mana and Amar Shonar Bangla, serve as the national anthems of India and Bangladesh respectively. In the West, he is best known for his Gitanjali (‘Song Offerings’). This collection of 157 poems was originally published in Bengali on 14 August, 1910. Over the following two years, Rabindranath set about translating fifty of these poems, plus other pieces, into English, into free verse. Travelling to England in the summer of 1912, and staying with the artist William Rothenstein, Rabindranath’s translations were passed about literary circles and led to the publication of the Gitanjali in English in November of the same year. The English Gitanjali were readily and widely acclaimed.

They came accompanied by an introduction by W. B. Yeats. Yeats compares Tagore to St. Francis and William Blake; and writes that the poems ‘have stirred my blood as nothing has for years’, and that,

‘I have carried the manuscript of these translations about with me for days, reading it in railway trains, or on the top of omnibuses and in restaurants, and I have often had to close it lest some stranger would see how much it moved me.’

Yeats met Rabindranath for the first time on 27 June, 1912; the two remained friends until Yeats’ death in 1939. Their friendship has been described as an important influence on both: ‘To Yeats, Tagore represented the wisdom and dignity of the East, and justified the faith that he had placed in the strength and vitality of Asian philosophy. For Tagore, Yeats was a vibrant symbol of the creative energy of the West’.

Owing much to the reception of the English Gitanjali, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913 – becoming the first non-European to receive the award. He was knighted by George V in 1915, but repudiated the honour after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in 1919. Rabindranath’s poetry would go on to be translated across Europe, notably by André Gide into French (Gide and Tagore met in Paris in 1921, and shared correspondence in 1930), and by Anna Akhmatova into Russian.

A number of Rabindranath Tagore’s poems as translated in the Gitanjali share similarities with some of the works of E. E. Cummings: both poets made use of free verse forms, a gently rhythmic syntax, and formal and archaic phrases and pronouns. A point of comparison and an additional point of connection may be found through the music of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (the pseudonym of Will Oldham) and Björk.

In 2000, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy collaborated on an EP with Marquis de Tren – a name used by the Australian musician and artist Mick Turner. The EP, Get on Jolly, includes a song entitled ‘2/15’, whose lyrics are drawn from the second and fifteenth songs of Tagore’s translated Gitanjali. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy performed ‘2/15’ live during a 2003 performance in Coney Island (as part of a festival at which Björk also appeared); the performance segued into ‘New Partner’ from Viva Last Blues, and was captured on video by the filmmaker Lance Bangs.

———

Gitanjali 2

———

When thou commandest me to sing it seems that my heart would break with pride; and I look to thy face, and tears come to my eyes.

All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet harmony – and my adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its flight across the sea.

I know thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only as a singer I come before thy presence.

I touch by the edge of the far-spreading wing of my song thy feet which I could never aspire to reach.

Drunk with the joy of singing I forget myself and call thee friend who art my lord.

———

Gitanjali 15

———

I am here to sing thee songs. In this hall of thine I have a corner seat.

In thy world I have no work to do; my useless life can only break out in tunes without a purpose.

When the hour strikes for thy silent worship at the dark temple of midnight, command me, my master, to stand before thee to sing.

When in the morning air the golden harp is tuned, honour me, commanding my presence.

———

Bonnie Prince Billy – ‘2/15’ / ‘New Partner’

———

———

Björk has adapted three poems by E. E. Cummings to music. Questioned by Interview Magazine in 2004, at the time of Medúlla, Björk considered her relationship with Cummings, whose poetry she first became familiar with five years previously. She recalls immediately wanting to sing his words; evokes his poetry as ‘euphoric, but humble at the same time’; and notes that ‘It goes so well in the mouth!’.

Björk’s first adaptation of Cummings came in 2001, on Vespertine. The album includes the song ‘Sun in My Mouth’, with lyrics from Cummings’ 1923 poem, ‘I Will Wade Out’. ‘Hidden Place’ was Vespertine‘s first single; ‘Mother Heroic’, featuring an excerpt from Cummings’ ‘Belgium’, appeared on the second of the singles’ two discs. Then on Medúlla, her subsequent solo album, released in 2004, the tenth song, ‘Sonnets/Unrealities XI’, is an adaptation of Cummings’ poem of the same name.

———

‘I Will Wade Out’ (1923)

———

i will wade out

till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers

I will take the sun in my mouth

and leap into the ripe air

Alive

with closed eyes

to dash against darkness

in the sleeping curves of my body

Shall enter fingers of smooth mastery

with chasteness of sea-girls

Will i complete the mystery

of my flesh

I will rise

After a thousand years

lipping

flowers

And set my teeth in the silver of the moon

———

‘Belgium’ (1916)

———

Oh thou that liftest up thy hands in prayer,

Robed in the sudden ruin of glad homes,

And trampled fields which from green dreaming woke

To bring forth ruin and fruit of death,

Thou pitiful, we turn our hearts to thee.

–

Oh thou that mournest thy heroic dead

Fallen in youth and promise gloriously,

In the deep meadows of their motherland

Turning the silver blossoms into gold,

The valor of thy children comfort thee.

–

Oh thou that bowest thy ecstatic face,

Thy perfect sorrows are the world’s to keep!

Wherefore unto thy knees come we with prayer,

Mother heroic, mother glorious,

Beholding in thy eyes immortal tears.

———

‘Sonnets/Unrealities XI’ (1917)

———

It may not always be so; and I say

That if your lips, which I have loved, should touch

Another’s, and your dear strong fingers clutch

His heart, as mine in time not far away;

If on another’s face your sweet hair lay

In such a silence as I know, or such

Great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,

Stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

–

If this should be, I say if this should be —

You of my heart, send me a little word;

That I may go to him, and take his hands,

Saying, Accept all happiness from me.

Then I shall turn my face, and hear one bird

Sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

———

Björk – ‘Sun in My Mouth’

———

———

Björk – ‘Mother Heroic’

———

———

Björk – ‘Sonnets/Unrealities XI’

———

———

Björk and Oldham have worked together on several occasions and are linked in a number of ways. Valgeir Sigurðsson, who produced both Vespertine and Medúlla, also produced Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s 2006 album, The Letting Go. A year later, Oldham covered ‘I’ve Seen It All’ – from the soundtrack to Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark – on Ask Forgiveness, an EP comprising a collection of covers. More closely, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy toured with Björk in 2003. With Björk working around the same period on the soundtrack to her partner Matthew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9, Oldham sang on the first track, ‘Gratitude’: a setting to music of a letter from a Japanese fisherman to American General Douglas MacArthur.

———

‘Gratitude’, from Drawing Restraint 9

———

________

Björk’s interview with Interview Magazine, 2004: http://www.bjork.fr/Interview-Magazine-2004

Cummings, E.E. Complete Poems, 1904-1962 (Liveright, 1994)

Hurwitz, H. M. ‘Yeats and Tagore’ Comparative Literature, Vol. 16, No. 1, Winter (1964) pp. 55-64

Tagore, R. Gitanjali (1912) (A full flash version of which may be accessed here)

Tagore, R. Selected Letters of Rabindranath Tagore eds. Dutta, K. & Robinson, A. (Cambridge University Press, 1997)

Amsterdam: Photographs via Instagram III

The acutely observant follower of this site, or that individual who has, once or twice, idly happened upon it, may have noticed an emerging series in which I post here a selection of photographs taken and initially uploaded via Instagram. The first edition of this series, which took in York and Amsterdam, may be found here; the second edition, with a focus on the Museumplein and Keizersgracht in the snow, is here. And now right here, extending below, are fourteen more photographs. These cover a period from the end of February throughout much of March.

The photographs start around Jachthavenweg and the Nieuwe Meer; show the Rijksmuseum; an area just south-east of the centre, beyond the Sarphatipark and along the Amstel; the Begjinhof, one of Amsterdam’s inner courtyards and home to the English Reformed Church; and come to a close on the Leidsekruisstraat and Prinsengracht with bicycles and boats, canals and cars.

Bookshops in York

I am spending this week in York: the city in which I lived from the age of two until the age of nineteen; then returning, after four years in Sweden, for three years before moving to Amsterdam last October. York’s city centre is compact but plentiful, with a good variety of shops, an abundance of places to eat and drink, and a solid group of cultural venues: though York Art Gallery, traditionally insufficient, is currently undergoing an £8 million redevelopment – set to increase the gallery space by 60%, furnishing it with its own garden, and due to be completed by spring 2015 – there are a handful of contemporary art galleries, notably at Bar Lane Studios and According to McGee; the central cinema, City Screen, shows a consistent selection of foreign and classic films; the city boasts the National Centre for Early Music; and there are regular jazz performances, and comedy evenings at the city’s two theatres and at the City Screen basement.

One of the things York most excels in is books, for there are a profundity of second-hand bookstores across the city. These have stood and have even flourished – or at least slightly increased in number – following the demise of Borders in 2009 (which, however, has left the city short of magazines and international newspapers), and whilst WH Smith continues to excise and limit its range. I know these second-hand and antiquarian bookstores well, and thought I’d depict them here for the sake of specific planning, or else general knowledge and broad or vague interest.

Entering the centre through Micklegate Bar, one will ineluctably spend some period of time on Micklegate itself. The street has been popularly known for the ‘Micklegate Run’, a figurative term suggesting the profusion of bars along its course, and the traversing of the street at night by inebriated revellers. Micklegate used to possess two wonderful music shops, devoted to new and second-hand classical, jazz and world music; these departed years ago, along with the much-missed Track Records in the very centre; still, York retains a quantity of independent stores selling secondhand CDs and, more so, LPs. Passing beyond Bar Lane Studios at the top of the street, the first good bookstore arrived at is Ken Spelman, arguably the best in the city. It sells books of all sorts over two floors, with a particularly strong collection of books about literature, and in art, architecture and design; a wide selection of travel writing; and rare books and manuscripts. Ken Spelman is also increasingly showing the drawings and etchings of contemporary artists throughout its shop, and is selling their prints and photographs. Those books you buy will typically – provided their size renders this possible – be wrapped in heavy green paper.

The first of two Oxfam bookshops is located just a few doors further down Micklegate. This Oxfam has solid selections of literature, including foreign language literature and poetry; of history and politics; and it stands out as it specialises in classical music LPs, bearing by far the most extensive and accomplished accumulation of these in the city. There are also popular music LPs, books on music, and DVDs. Continuing on down Micklegate, over the bridge crossing the River Ouse, and Waterstones, on High Ousegate, is the outstanding chain bookstore in the centre (there is also a Blackwell’s out at the University of York campus). Alas, this post is not to discuss the demise and persistence of chain bookstores across the United Kingdom.

And so on to Fossgate, on which street there are three offerings to the world in bookstore form. Fossgate Books, the furthest down the street, has a superb collection of books containing and concerning literature, and on poetry, art and architecture. Up narrow stairs, there is rare and antiquarian literature, and strong sections on philosophy, film, food, and languages. Lucius Books, a few shops up, is dedicated to rare books, first editions and manuscripts; with an inclination towards illustrated books, crime, fantasy and science-fiction. Across the road, the Barbican Bookshop is a Christian book store, with large holdings of books about York and Yorkshire, wildlife, aviation, the railways, and upstairs nineteenth century literature, poetry and Greek Classics.

Across from Fossgate, along Colliergate there is an Arthritis Research UK bookshop, with a good choice of books on two floors at good prices. St Pauls Bookshop on Kings Square hosts, in its book section downstairs, not only a wide range of religious books, but a significant collection of books in theology and philosophy. The second Oxfam store focusing on books is down Low Petergate, with a ranging selection including much contemporary fiction and classic literature. The Minster Gate Bookshop, at 8 Minster Gates – a short street which then opens out onto the south façade of York Minster, usually the Minster’s entryway (though not while restoration works are ongoing) – possesses all manner of books across five floors. The basement contains literature and assorted books on art, travel and culture at reduced prices; the ground floor boasts maps, lithographs and prints in addition to antiquarian and oversized books; the first floor has a fantastic array of art, architecture, design and religion; and the next two floors are home to books featuring history, literary biography and criticism, foreign literature, and the Classics.

Books For Amnesty on Goodramgate offers an interesting choice of books in a variety of subjects, including a few rare items. The Red House Antique Centre has, on its upper floor, an antiquarian collection, as well as maps and prints. Finally, Janette Ray towards the top of Bootham bears rare and out of print books in architecture, art, urban planning, and garden design.

A Top Three for Books Alone:

• Ken Spelman – 70 Micklegate, York.
• The Minster Gate Bookshop – 8 Minster Gates, York.
• Fossgate Books – 36 Fossgate, York.

Four Purchases Memorable at This Moment:

• Two Soviet Studies on Frege (translated and edited by Ignatio Angelelli) – bought at Fossgate Books.
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms, by Luo Guanzhong (two-volume boxed set) – procured at Ken Spelman.
• King, Queen, Knave, by Vladimir Nabokov (second UK edition, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson) – discovered at the Red House Antique Centre.
• Pages from the Goncourt Journals (hardcover, edited and translated by Robert Baldick) – via Ken Spelman once again.

Gauguin’s Chair and La Berceuse: Conceptualising Red and Green in the Art of Van Gogh

The Hermitage Amsterdam’s exhibition Vincent – bringing together seventy-five of the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, plus drawings and letters, whilst the Van Gogh Museum undergoes refurbishment – is into its final few weeks. The exhibition, which began 29 September last year, will run until 25 April; with the works then being relocated to the Museumplein for the reopening of the Van Gogh Museum on 1 May.

Van Gogh’s temporary stay at the Hermitage Amsterdam has allowed his paintings to be shown in a novel way: his works are displayed not chronologically, but according to seven themes – in order, ‘Practice makes perfect’, ‘A style of his own’, ‘The effect of colour’, ‘Peasant painter’, ‘Looking to Japan’, ‘The modern portrait’, and ‘The wealth of nature’ – with a room or section devoted to each theme, and each section’s walls a different colour. The strength of this approach is that it juxtaposes the broad range of techniques by which Van Gogh painted; shows where subject matter and method remained consistent despite a divergence of painterly styles; and highlights illuminating points of connection between paintings which might not otherwise be displayed together. Over the final few weeks of the exhibition, I intend to discuss and compare here a few of the paintings which Vincent has encouraged me to consider and appreciate.

As its heading indicates, the third theme and the third room of the exhibition has as its focus Van Gogh’s use of colour. In particular, it consists of a group of paintings significant for their use of bold colour and bold colour contrasts (the room itself is notable for bearing one of the paintings from Van Gogh’s Arles Sunflowers series). Two of the paintings which have most stood out for me from this room are Gauguin’s Chair and The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital: painted a year apart; featured a few paintings apart in the room; and both predominating in reds and greens.

The caption the museum provides for The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital notes Van Gogh’s psychological interpretation of the colours in the painting. It draws upon a letter Van Gogh sent to his fellow painter Émile Bernard on 26 November, 1889, whilst finishing off work on the canvas. That letter can be read in full here; the two paragraphs in which Van Gogh depicts his painting read:

Here’s description of a canvas that I have in front of me at the moment. A view of the garden of the asylum where I am, on the right a grey terrace, a section of house, some rosebushes that have lost their flowers; on the left, the earth of the garden — red ochre — earth burnt by the sun, covered in fallen pine twigs. This edge of the garden is planted with large pines with red ochre trunks and branches, with green foliage saddened by a mixture of black. These tall trees stand out against an evening sky streaked with violet against a yellow background. High up, the yellow turns to pink, turns to green. A wall — red ochre again — blocks the view, and there’s nothing above it but a violet and yellow ochre hill. Now, the first tree is an enormous trunk, but struck by lightning and sawn off. A side branch thrusts up very high, however, and falls down again in an avalanche of dark green twigs.

This dark giant — like a proud man brought low — contrasts, when seen as the character of a living being, with the pale smile of the last rose on the bush, which is fading in front of him. Under the trees, empty stone benches, dark box. The sky is reflected yellow in a puddle after the rain. A ray of sun — the last glimmer — exalts the dark ochre to orange — small dark figures prowl here and there between the trunks. You’ll understand that this combination of red ochre, of green saddened with grey, of black lines that define the outlines, this gives rise a little to the feeling of anxiety from which some of my companions in misfortune often suffer, and which is called ‘seeing red’. And what’s more, the motif of the great tree struck by lightning, the sickly green and pink smile of the last flower of autumn, confirms this idea.

The notion that the interplay of reds and greens in the painting relate to a ‘feeling of anxiety’ is interesting in its own right, and conducive for comparison; especially since the same combination is to be found in Gauguin’s Chair.

Gauguin’s Chair was completed in December, 1888. Van Gogh had moved to Arles from Paris in February of that year, enticed by the warmer climate – his health was poor; he was suffering from a persistent cough – and having some idea of forming an artists’ colony. Staying at a couple of hotels, he signed a lease for what would become known as the Yellow House, 2 Place Martine, on 1 May; but didn’t move into the house until late September when, furnishing it with two beds, he began to prepare for the arrival of Gauguin, whom he had enthusiastically encouraged to come and stay. Gauguin arrived 23 October; but just a couple of months later tensions between the pair had reached such a point that, so the account goes, on the evening of 23 December, Van Gogh stalked Gauguin through the streets of Arles with a razor, before ultimately cutting off part of his own ear.

Gauguin returned to Paris. Van Gogh spent the next few months in and out of hospital until, on 8 May, 1889, he entrusted himself to the care of the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole, in Saint-Rémy. Van Gogh was initially confined by his doctor to the asylum’s walled garden; though he gradually began taking trips out into the surrounds, he painted numerous paintings of the garden and of details within it, its trees, tree branches and flowers. The canvas The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital showing at the Hermitage Amsterdam is one of two nearly identical paintings of the Saint-Paul garden, which Van Gogh painted between November and December (within Van Gogh’s catalogue, F numbers 659 and 660).

Van Gogh mentioned Gauguin’s Chair in four letters to his brother Theo (letters 721, 736, 751, and 767, written between November 1888 and May 1889) and in one to the art critic Albert Aurier (letter 853, in February 1890). He calls the ‘twin studies’ – that is, Gauguin’s Chair and Van Gogh’s Chair, the painting of his own chair, with pipe, which he completed in tandem – ‘rather funny’; notes their ‘thick impasto’; and describes the former’s ‘broken tones of red and green’ in the letter to Aurier, in which he writes warmly of Gauguin and states that he owes Gauguin ‘a great deal’. Yet Van Gogh offered no analysis of the work, nor suggested any revealing purpose for it.

It is tempting to view the twin studies as comprising, together, a piece of artistic symbolism – a mode of expression, incidentally, more associated with Gauguin. The empty chairs themselves encourage a symbolical interpretation; and knowing the difficulties in the two painters’ relationship, and the disastrous climax of their time spent living together in Arles, it is easy to see Van Gogh’s Chair – with its soft blues and bright yellows and oranges – representing warmth and openness, the reds and greens of Gauguin’s Chair Van Gogh’s way of suggesting something agitated, even deceptive in his companion. There are other points which could be made – Van Gogh’s chair appears less sturdy, more prone to flight, where Gauguin’s merges with the floor – but Van Gogh’s remarks concerning the palpable anxiety of The Garden of Saint-Paul Hospital support this point-of-view.

Yet at the same time as Van Gogh was working on Gauguin’s Chair, he began a group of paintings of Augustine Roulin which feature a decidedly similar palette and thick application of paint. Augustine Roulin and her husband, Joseph, a postman, became close friends with Van Gogh during his time in Arles, and he painted numerous studies of both husband and wife, as well as their three children. Completing his first painting of Augustine in December 1888, Van Gogh would repeat the same composition four more times: twice in January, and once in February and March. He entitled these paintings La Berceuse, which means ‘The Lullaby’. The March repetition is in the collection of and has been recently showing at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

As implied by the title he gave to the paintings, Van Gogh saw La Berceuse evoking a sense of maternal affection and comfort. He considered the painting first in a letter which he sent to Gauguin, on 21 January, after Gauguin’s departure; then expanded on his thoughts to Theo on 28 January:

On the subject of that canvas, I’ve just said to Gauguin that as he and I talked about the Icelandic fishermen and their melancholy isolation, exposed to all the dangers, alone on the sad sea, I’ve just said to Gauguin about it that, following these intimate conversations, the idea came to me to paint such a picture that sailors, at once children and martyrs, seeing it in the cabin of a boat of Icelandic fishermen, would experience a feeling of being rocked, reminding them of their own lullabies. Now it looks, you could say, like a chromolithograph from a penny bazaar. A woman dressed in green with orange hair stands out against a green background with pink flowers. Now these discordant sharps of garish pink, garish orange, garish green, are toned down by flats of reds and greens. I can imagine these canvases precisely between those of the sunflowers – which thus form standard lamps or candelabra at the sides, of the same size; and thus the whole is composed of 7 or 9 canvases.

In a letter to Theo around 23 May, Van Gogh detailed his strengthening conception that the Berceuse paintings should form tritptychs with the Arles Sunflowers series. Van Gogh’s idea was that a La Berceuse should sit in between two Sunflowers; and he wanted both Theo and Gauguin to possess versions. A consideration of the colour combinations this would entail – red and green flanked by orange and yellow – emphasises that Van Gogh may have considered his two chair paintings decidedly complementary, rather than somehow opposed or antagonistic. Exhibitions which feature the paintings routinely display the chairs facing away from one another, thereby running with a symbolic interpretation which is in tune with the popular account of relations between the artists. Van Gogh, of course, painted the Arles Sunflowers to greet Gauguin and to decorate the house he hoped they would contentedly and productively share.

Van Gogh’s contemplating on La Berceuse eschews any simple analysis of Gauguin’s Chair. As viewers we may have recourse to look also towards the rhythms and contours of Van Gogh’s painting; and may wonder at the differences which demarcate and define portraits, studies of objects, and paintings of and in nature. There are other paintings too in Van Gogh’s oeuvre which play on contrasts between red and green: for instance, Paul Gauguin (Man in a Red Beret), which Van Gogh is believed to have painted in early December 1888, with its swirls of green in Gauguin’s jacket, his rich red beret set against the lime-coloured walls, and a peculiar grey brushstroke serving as his nose; and The Zouave, whose red cap is backed by a green door, painted in June 1888.

‘Daily Bread’ – A Short Story

Daily Bread

It was already now several weeks after Easter. The Ascension had taken place, feast days had come and gone, and the time for fasting was so much a thing of the past that Thomas had well settled back into his regular mealtime habit. In the developing day the relevant hour had arrived; and time for Thomas had fallen precisely on those moments which he usually reserved for lunch – typically enjoyed between a little after twelve, and around half-past-one – this latter time, in accord with his generous nature, being only the limit by which lunch was to be served, not a deadline at which the meal was to be removed and discarded. Thomas liked to savour his meals, to revel in them, so that even lunch could last well past a single hour. Still, no matter how long he took, it could well be considered that Thomas had lunch rather early, taking into account the fact – surely risible to the working men – that only several hours earlier, at ten, would Thomas rise to greet a veritable feast of a breakfast.

Yes, this man ate well – he liked his food. And then with lunch eaten Thomas sat quite satisfied, his arms all but fastened around his sizeable belly; his fingers entwined as if trying to catch his stomach and pull it back in. Thomas was not a religious man – but let’s say he was: well then, even if he had fasted the whole of Lent, fasted like a Saint, like a Catherine of Siena, for an example, Thomas ate so profusely that he would already have grown back that gut which served to separate him from the average fellow. Simply put, he didn’t half like his food! He was fully cognisant of the fact, and remained through it all verily content.

As Thomas maintained his stomach, and leant back in his chair – a big thing with plush green cushions, two sturdy walnut arms, and a blue florid pattern on the back and seat; which remained permanently in the kitchen in spite of the contradiction of its heft with the kitchen’s compact size, and was pulled in and out from under the small oak table – he also tapped his feet, each in turn, upon the kitchen floor. And since all things in this world are interconnected; considering that man is positioned as steward of nature and, despite nature’s overwhelming power, can still affect things in his own determined way; this tapping on the floor had one particular repercussion. Underneath Thomas’s house, the plodding of his feet caused the soil there to alter, to break apart and fertilise, and from the resulting void there appeared a man – not a dwarf, nor was it an elf, nor did he wear a red cap and wink out at you like a gnome: this was a fully formed human being. He emerged from the earth in a seated position, saw his new surroundings with sharp darting eyes, then scurried out and into the open using his fingers to wade and scrabble through the earth.

Thomas of course knew none of this; could, of course, have barely even imagined; and happened to be just in the process of shutting his eyelids. His stamping had subsided, and his feet had planted apart; his two heels rose and fell as one, his calves tensed then relaxed; as he pushed himself blissfully, rocking in sequence, backwards and then forth. Oh, but if Thomas had known, if there had been any sort of clue, then he wouldn’t have rested his eyes, and he may even have withheld his meal that day, saving it for later. Certainly, and in retrospect it goes without saying, he would never have gone and done this: gone to open the door when, moments later, his eyebrows lifted upon hearing a knock.

Yet Thomas did not know. And so – raising both brows and then lids, placing hands upon knees and staring quite plainly before him for a few seconds – he lifted himself up with a sigh, padded out of his kitchen, along the corridor, and to the front door. Unhesitant he opened it, and there presented before him was a man – no doubt a man, but since coming from the dank earth under the house into the full breadth of the daylight sun, inversely he seemed to have grown a little smaller, narrower, and somewhat haggard. But then perhaps he was neither small nor haggard; perhaps he was precisely as when we first met him, and simply appeared enfeebled in the presence of Thomas’s size and girth. Or then again, maybe he looked haggard all right, but this was just a put on, played as a game, a demonstration, done for a show.

For he was all bent over, his hands squashing together in front of him and his head bowed, and Thomas could not make out whether he was muttering things, or whether he was not. Thomas tried working it out, greeted him warmly, ‘Oh, well hello there!’, ‘Then how are you today?’, ‘What’s up with you, my old mate?’, but received no response. Instead, as if by way of gesture, the man slowly raised his head to reveal pupils the likes of which I don’t know what; had Thomas questioning to himself where the irises had got to or what subtle colour they were; and then he strained his gums to draw his mouth out and into an O shape, before clasping it at once shut as if attempting to catch something inside. This was not a pleasant sight, and for Thomas, face to face with it all, it took on connotations which were quite horrific. He looked askance at that which was in front of him, frowned, took an expression which combined grief and pity, then turned in horror as it scampered past him, through his legs and into his home.

Once in his home, the fellow made straight for the kitchen, where he proceeded to cause a furore. He ran about Thomas’s table; with hands that seemed to grow by the second, first in the palms, then twice as much in each of the fingers, he groped and slapped at the kitchen tops; he ran pell-mell into Thomas’s chair, not quite sending it over, but shoving it right out of place, all skew, pointing in an unspecified direction. Even when Thomas had entered the room, come in and positioned himself at the foot of the table, this creature did not stop at its head, did not acknowledge Thomas or glance broadly his way. He simply continued to scamper, seemed to be doing some sort of dance, performing a ritual or casting a type of spell, and Thomas stared on for an instant, then shook and went after him, in the end having come to the conclusion that he wanted it out was all – he just wanted it out.

But whatever it was, it was hard to catch. Thomas tried, but would continually close in on his enemy only to feel his forearms crash against each other, having failed to clasp or smother that which they sought – that which they sought having an apparent knack for avoiding his clutches, managing to as if disappear, as it were, at just those precise points. Several times, Thomas even overextended himself to such a degree that he would tumble to the floor face first, hitting his chin or his nose, which was opposed to his everyday good nature. On other occasions in his life, under different circumstances, Thomas may well have stayed down after such falls – despite his broad stature and otherwise manly attributes, he was wont, at such times, to play something of the ridiculous man – often, falling upon his face, he would not get up for a long time, but would cover his head, roll round, whimper and rub his ailments whilst saying, ‘ah-owwwh’, in some reaction which he intuited would make people sympathise with him rather than laugh, or would at least stop them from actively poking fun. However, the laughter would come twice as loud in private, behind his back, and some people would even roll their eyes at him, tut under their breaths, and say that it shouldn’t be done.

The time came for departure and, with Thomas once more on the floor, the creature – his work apparently done – crawled over Thomas’s back, down the corridor, and out again into the open; where, after a few hurried steps, he soon calmed down and was soon barely even jogging, ambling as he moved through adjacent fields and away. Yet to Thomas, who was now standing erect in the doorway, straining to watch his visitor off into the distance, it seemed as if the man was more crazed with each step – he perceived him still running frantically, waving his arms with their huge hands above him in the air, kicking out his legs, galloping off, a maniac ever-increasing in strength. Possibly the heat of the sun distorted Thomas’s vision, and in the refracted light the man appeared more alive than he was; potentially this funny fellow – who was, after all, quite awkwardly built; who had, as we have seen, rather ungainly and surprisingly mobile joints and limbs – was suffering at that moment from spasms of the musculature, with his shoulders also popping in and out of place. Whatever was the case, we shall never know – perhaps the former is more likely, for there came a point when, having traversed several fields, the man all but disappeared, as if swallowed whole by the sun. Certainly across all his remaining days, Thomas was not to see the creature again: though occasionally finding himself outside, and with nothing in the vicinity, yet perceiving a steady distension in space, still no such encounter was once more to be felt.

At this time, however, Thomas could not have cared less, would not have wanted a repeat of any such incident; and was in fact neither contemplating nor caring about much of anything at all. He moved in a daze, back into his house, absent-mindedly leaving open the front door so that sunlight filled the structure, glistening across his floorboards, accompanied by an occasional rustling gust of wind. Moving back down the corridor, Thomas wavered, felt out with his hands so as to maintain his balance, so as not to fall; but it was no use; everything seemed changed; the walls of his house were not the walls of his home any more; and the support they could offer was not enough.

He flickered between two feelings and modes; the predominant finding him empty-headed and confused, looking about readily but blankly, lacking conviction and heart; which sensation only infrequently departed, to be replaced by its near opposite, a heavy-settedness which suggested, in its immobility, something desperate, and placed a tint of sorrow into his eyes. Thomas came to prefer this latter sensation, found it easier to bear, and it would gradually usurp the former in the regularity of its occurrence. Gladly, through force of habit, Thomas still found his way back into the kitchen and, finding his old chair in its usual resting place, was able to tumble into it at once.

Sleep is often said to be a great healer. In the midsts of a bout of deep melancholy, as one sits staring and pining into the night, one is often told reassuringly that they will feel better, after a good night’s sleep. Indeed, in the opinion of man, it seems only time is better prescribed for the curing of anguish. And, it is true, as Thomas drifted, in his chair, off to sleep, he felt washed over by a vague sense of ease; which perhaps came only with the knowledge that through sleep time also would be lost, the possible sufferings of the next few hours happily escaped and forgotten. For though Thomas slumbered a long time, right through to the following day – a day in appearance much like the one before – upon waking all sense of ease was lost, or was rather nowhere to be found – he experienced an immediate emptiness and disorientation as though struck on the head with a mallet in the seconds before rising, as if someone had been awaiting him, and this had been planned all night long.

Unable to remain seated in such a state, Thomas stood in the same second and began to pace the room. And it was only then, after circling the space three times, tapping at the wood on top of his chair and gazing out the window intently for a few long moments, that Thomas realised, in some distress, that he had not eaten now for some time. Indeed, since yesterday’s lunch, lost in the ensuing events, both dinner and supper had passed; and also, really, looking at the clock and determining things practically, now had this morning’s breakfast. But the devil with breakfast, Thomas thought. He was in such a way so that even his beloved, his food, could not exert an absolute control over him. Besides which, he had been especially looking forward to yesterday’s dinner, for which he had bought, seasoned and otherwise prepared a delicious – his favourite – cut of veal. Now it was not yesterday any more, but today in its place; dinnertime with veal could not commence; things could not be made good; and it seemed to Thomas as though everything concerning him was coming to an end.

How terrible for such to be the case! Thomas felt without a hope; but groping for some right path – and overcoming the progression of yesterday, the loss of three meals, and an utter lack of the veal he had so craved – still inclined towards sustaining his stomach with just a little bit of food, if insufficient to satisfy it completely. He made haste for what is the staple of all diets – for the bread basket, one which Thomas had even spent a sizeable sum of money on – it was a large, shining silver tin, a quarter circle the outline of its shape, with two flat sides, and the curved end acting as a sort of flap – utilising the wooden handle protruding from its front, you were to pull the flap up to reveal the bread. This tin almost filled at least half of the space on Thomas’s kitchen top – it had cakes in it and buns too – but at the centre lay a lovely crusty wholemeal loaf, and it was this loaf which Thomas now sought.

Quick of mind but casual of gesture, for Thomas was feeling lethargic; and more was perhaps even underestimating this loaf, treating it as a make-do, no substitute for a lost veal (he even muttered once under his breath about how bread was really a good accompaniment for meat, went well on the side and served to fill one up, but was not at all a meal in itself); Thomas at last reached the tin. He was about to raise its flap – he rose one arm intent upon doing so – but saw there was no plate – he had to get a plate out first, something to lay the bread upon. So he reached down into the cupboard below, took hold of a plate, and placed it in the middle of his kitchen table.

He went once more to the bread basket – this time was decisive, there was no holding back. However, though Thomas’s hand gripped the wooden handle well and true, whilst he still possessed the strength to tug and pull at it, it would not give, and the flap remained stoutly shut. At first, Thomas could make no sense of it; did not know just how it could have become jammed in such a way; and tore at the handle with all his strength. He then felt he was perhaps not using the whole of his strength; that he had strength in reserve, but could not use it because he was not concentrating hard enough, could not concentrate; and in any case, his hands kept slipping from the handle. So he towelled his hands dry, floured them hoping to soak up thereby any remnant moisture, and went at it again, but the bread basket would not budge. In the midst of his endeavour, before Thomas had quite given up, an inner flash came to him and told him what was what – that yesterday’s creature must have been up this, this must have been his aim; and how was Thomas, an ordinary man, to fight against a power such as this? He backed away from the bread tin, struggled for breath, and began to motion about the room repeating, ‘My daily bread! My daily bread!’, continuing as if in a trance for a time to come.

Hours passed. Thomas’s hunger grew, but he did not feel it any more: the problem was not his hunger, but the very lack of bread. It is interesting to consider that, in all the time which had been, and in all that which was to follow, Thomas never hit upon, for instance, wandering to the store for some other food; perhaps stopping off at a nice little café on the way; or else simply rolling the flour which still covered his hands into a dough, in order to make something for himself. He thought not of veal any more either, but was concerned only with that which lay stranded in his large, silver bread tin with wooden handle – namely, one crusty wholemeal loaf. And so, something had to be done to retrieve it.

An unforeseen period of time stretched over – Thomas could not bring himself to do that which, however, seemed like the only way forward – to lift up the silver tin, and throw it to the ground, hoping it would break apart and replenish him. It was not at all the tin itself he was worried about – oh no! – such thoughts were well past him – but he worried solely and intently on his wholemeal loaf inside. He knew the loaf was old now, that it must be hard and covered with mould – and yet let it be hard – he could not face the possibility of breaking it! But what else? So Thomas pushed off against his knees and stood up; he took the silver tin in his hands, he cradled it for a few moments, before finally raising it above his head where, weeping, hunched over to the ground, it was at last dropped.

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About the story: This is pretty much the first short story I ever wrote and completed, around seven years ago, when I was nineteen or twenty. I recalled it recently and read through it for the first time in a few years, and I thought it was worth publishing here, particularly fitting since we have just had Easter weekend.

The story can be viewed and downloaded as a PDF file, with a frontispiece, here: ‘Daily Bread’