Aubrey Beardsley

 

 
    Now this fellow knew how to wind the victorians up.
    Wierd sexual images in stark black and white were Beardsley's forte. He was heavily influenced by japanese woodcuts and Toulouse-Lautrec's poster art. In his turn he influenced the art nouveau movement.
    I'm fascinated by the white/black contrast. Maybe it's a consequence of being slightly colourblind. It's what draws be to printmaking.
    Aubrey Beardsley died in 1898, only 26 yers old, with most of his work in the last six years. In his last year he got religion and ordered his publisher to destroy his more salacious works. So he may well have churned out decades of dull work had he lived longer. Thankfully the publisher ignored his demands.
 

IKEA

  I've always been very suspicious of men who like shopping. Shops, to me, are places men are driven to by necessity, or are dragged to by their partners. I love IKEA, though. The stuff is displayed in a n interesting way. It's usually well designed - I walk along thinking 'Wow!'. It has amusing names, like 'Snott', 'Minj' or 'Arsse'. And all the stuff I've bought has been pretty tough. Most people bitching about IKEA furniture don't seem to have grasped the fact that you're not supposed to dismantle flatpack furniture.

  Even the steelwork looks nice...

  And check out this light. It's about three feet across. Reminds me of the 'Exploding Tableware' light in the design section of Manchester Art Gallery. Fantastic.

They didn't think it through

 This is 24 Fenchurch Street, aka the walkie-talkie building, from the Monument in London. Another in the long list of architectural eyesores inflicted on the british public
     Architects being what they are, the design meeting probably went like this:
     "What do you think of this one, then?"
     "Well, it's pig-ugly, and everyone will hate it".
     "Great! Let's build it at once!"
  But this building isn't just painful to look at. It has the power to inflict actual damage on its surroundings. Yesterday this story came out:
    

'walkie talkie' scyscraper melts jaguar car parts

 

Yep, the concave glass wall is reflecting destructively powerful rays down onto the street below. A journalist has even managed to fry an egg in it.

 I wonder if this possibility was pooh-poohed at the design meeting, along with all the other qualms about its looming disproportionate bulk overshadowing the Tower of London?

   

York railway museum

 If you like gleaming metalwork, this is the place for you. York Railway Museum is a nostalgia wonderland.

 I was nine when steam disappeared but, despite being taken to watch the trains at Clayton Bridge crossing by my mother, I have only the dimmest memories of it. But I love a steam loco, and probably for the same reason millions of others do. They are the nearest thing mechanical to a living being. You can see the bits moving as they pass. They give the appearance of breathing. And from what old engine drivers have told me, they are all different. Locos of the same class can have wildly different temperaments - some more powerful, willing or faster than others - for no obvious mechanical reason.
 
  When I visited the museum was gearing up for a reunion. Gresley A4 Pacific Mallard and her five remaining sisters were to be assembled together later in the summer. Mallard still holds the world speed record for steam, 126mph, set in 1938. Unlike most of the 1930's streamlined trains, where the cowlings were just for show, the A4's streamlining was windtunnel-tested and integral to the loco's construction. They are beautiful things, looking, like the E-type Jag, as though they are moving even when stood still.

 

There were these three inside and one other peering through the doors, waiting to be reunited with her siblings.  I also saw something that did bring back memories:

 

This was the trainset that trainee signalmen practised on. It lived at Victoria Station when I worked there.

Wensley Church

Holy Trinity church in Wensley, North Riding of Yorkshire, is pretty interesting in its own right. It has a crusader's tombstone, bits of furniture pillaged from Easby abbey, and this really cool sundial. When I visited, though, it was serving as an art gallery.

   Ian Scott Massie is a local artist and printmaker, based just down the road at Masham. He was exhibiting a series of pictures of the dales landscape. 
 


   I like these impromptu exhibitions. You get to talk to the artists, for a start. Ian said he'd tried pretty much every style and medium going, just to see what felt right for him. He also told me about the Art in the Pen exhibition. An interesting, and very useful conversation. Check out his site here.

Tomorrow belongs to me

  

    Last night I saw a tv ad for a stage version of the musical 'Cabaret'. And it reminded me of one of the most powerful scenes I've ever seen in cinema.

        The plot of the film, based on a stage musical, based on a book by Christopher Isherwood - local lad, born just up the road at High Lane - centres around a cabaret in Germany, just before the nazis come to power. It's a typical musical, so unless you like that sort of thing give it a miss. The scene I'm on about, though, is fantastically powerful in an if-only-they-knew way.
         Picture the scene. A lovely tavern in the countryside. Honest, hard-working germans gather to eat and drink in the flower-bedecked garden. A young blond lad gets up and starts to sing;

 The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me

          Aww. How sweet. All the old folk look on indulgently. Then the camera pans down. And he's wearing a Hitler Youth uniform. The song continues:

The branch on the linden is leafy and green
The Rhine gives its gold to the sea (Gold to the sea)
But somewhere a glory awaits unseen
Tomorrow belongs to me

            Uh -oh. He's singing about glory now. The other pubgoers are looking more animated. The song continues;

The babe in his cradle is closing his eyes
The blossom embraces the bee
But soon says the whisper, arise, arise
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me 

            -And suddenly people are jumping to their feet and joining in. Lots of them are wearing nazi uniforms too. Voices grow more strident, eyes blaze with nationalistic fervour. They look determined, fanatical, staring into a future where they are the masters.

               One old bloke isn't impressed, though. He clutches his head. His expression says "Oh fuck, 

here we go again".

Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign
Your children have waited to see
The morning will come
When the world is mine
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me
Tomorrow belongs to me

       Most everyone is on their feet now. singing with fervour. The little nazi fart slaps his hat on his head and throws out his arm in the fascist salute. And on they sing, lost in the rapture of victory and supremacy.

        The schwerpunkt here, to use a german expression, is that many germans were convinced they hadn't actually been beaten in the first world war. No, they had been 'stabbed in the back' by the 'November Criminals', rather than being battered from pillar to post by a British army that had mastered the infantry/tank/artillery/aircraft combination necessary to break the deadlock of the trenches. This delusion was promoted by the nazis. Consequently many germans were itching for a rematch. 

        It's pleasant, if you're of a vengeful disposition, to dwell on these people's probable fate fourteen years later. The old ones weeping among the ruins left behind by the RAF raids, the young ones mostly dead. Lost the rematch as well.

          

        Ironically, it's not a genuine nazi song either. It was written especially for the movie, by two jewish blokes.  And it's catchier than the Horst Wessel Lied. Check it out here

Origami Animals

Spotted this on the 'Colossal' site.

It's a King Cobra folded from a single sheet of tissue paper. Amazing. Check out some more paper animals from the same guy here