Yesterday evening on BBC 2 Simon Sharma as the start of his series The Importance of Art featured Caravaggio. This - The Cardsharps - was painted in 1586 and, I suppose, once seen never forgotten. He often included himself in his paintings - but never as the hero or good guy, always as the villian. I'll leave you to work out which is Caravaggio.He was like no other painter. Violently unstable - but he could certainly paint. He never did preliminary drawings; he would just wade straight in and apply brush to canvas.
According to our tutor this is a History Painting because it has a narrative. And how!!
An early work but it captures his style and the vigour.
Picture 2 is completely up-to-date and is the chrysanths I mentioned yesterday. From our 'bean-man' up the road.It isn't a panorama; it's just been cropped that way. And only a very minor bit of photoshopping.
I made a chicken casserole for main meal, containing peppers, mushroom, onion, celery and loads of fresh tarragon (which is still thriving in a tub because it's been so mild and frost-free). With it we had mashed potato, carrots and sugarsnap peas. And it was good, and enough left for tomorrow.
An interesting fact from David - who has inherited the gene that causes one to collect such snippets. WD40, which I am addicted to buying cans of, acquired it's name from an experiment into something else. It was found that the product displaced water. And, as it was experiment no. 40, the substance became WD40. I'm not a WD40 sniffer, or anything sinister but I think "Well, I've got a can in the garage and I've got a can in the car-boot. I really ought to have a can in the kitchen. And it would be better to have a spare - or perhaps two!".
June rang this evening and she and Y had a good chat. She still enjoys the Blog from time to time and "Thinks it's great". Praise indeed.
We enjoyed Strictly Come Dancing. I voted for Peter, the goalkeeper 'cos I thought they were the best this week. Y voted for Anton and partner. Not that they were any good, she says, but she likes Anton. And we've got the Culture Show to look forward to.
My PhotoShop Elements books arrived from Amazon - bang on time again. So efficient, trouble free and £9 cheaper than Waterstones...............
Snap! - we had chicken casserole too, but with carrots, bacon, pearly barley and a little onion, and mashed potatoes and runner beans. Followed by apple and blackberry crumble and custard.
ReplyDeleteMuch enjoyed the Schama programme - tonight for me it is Mrs. Beeton.
No link, but I quite enjoyed ‘The Culture Show’ on Saturday night despite not knowing much more about Velasquez after it was over. John Grisham came over well, I thought, but I don’t really like Mark Kermode a great deal, however much he knows about films (but then, I didn’t like his dad either, the self-righteous sarky sod). Thom Yorke left me cold and there wasn’t enough South Park. I suppose an hour isn’t long enough to give serious consideration to five or six wildly different subjects while still allowing the presenters to show themselves off and prove that they are just like the rest of us when they have their clothes off. Don’t know why I bothered watching really but it was certainly more entertaining and less demanding than ‘Blue Murder’ on Friday – perhaps a surfeit of Quentin? There, that feels better, doesn’t it?
ReplyDeleteSaturday was a good day for looking out of the window.. Not only a couple of chaffinches with their mates (I’d say the cock is perhaps the most underrated of birds for ornament and song) but also a pair of delightful little coal tits putting it about.
You have reminded me that I didn’t order’Tingo’ from Amazon. Although it was intended as part of a larger order it comes from one of their associated suppliers and the p&p would have brought it back up to shop price. Remaindered bookshop it will have to be, eventually.