Deprivation and Inspiration - A Travelog

This blog post is a travelog of a recent trip to England.  

There are as many references to poetry and to Scotland as I can find to uphold the spirit of ScotPot but sometimes I digress. I am in good company, as many much better writers than me are famous for their digressions. 

Fashion on the Ration at the Imperial War Museum in London

was my first culture stop. It runs until September.

http://www.iwm.org.uk/exhibitions/iwm-london/fashion-on-the-ration

Although the exhibition put a positive spin on the austerity years with much discussion of creativity being born of restriction - I was left with a greater awareness of the endless dreary shortages and the real hardship for ordinary people during those long war years. 

It was still a fun exhibition in many ways and here are a few of the memorable images:

Here is one of my favourite quotations from this time:

The Women's Group of Public Welfare stated, "....decline in clothing standards may be accompanied by a decline in self-respect and a consequent slackness of the mind."

The government took this idea very seriously (who wants a slack mind?) and women were allowed to have some lipstick (or beetroot juice if one ran out) and there was a Utility Corset available. A very high value seems to have been placed on firmness of all kinds.

There were one or two Scottish connections.  This is from the Scottish War Savings Committee and I couldn't agree more.

Next culture stop was: RIBA http://www.architecture.com/WhatsOn/Feb2015/MackintoshArchitecture.aspx

At the Royal Institute of British Architects for an exhibition of work by the famous Scotsman Charles Rennie Mackintosh

The main focus was on CRM the architect (naturally) and there were many architectural drawings and models as well as a fascinating Timeline linking his work to the bigger event of the time.

Last year's fire at the Glasgow School of Art stunned Scotland and it was fascinating to see a film made about the School a few years ago.

                                                     The library - Glasgow School of Art

I also learned a little about Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh and intend to find out more - he rated her very highly(see above) but she's not nearly as well known.  Perhaps she will feature on a later post about special Scotswomen.

Leighton House Museum was next for "A Victorian Obsession" an exhibition of Pre-Raphaelite paintings.  http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/museums/leightonhousemuseum1.aspx 

Leighton House is the former home of painter and collector Frederick Lord Leighton (1830-96)

The house is well worth a visit even without this special addition of the Perez Simon collection adoring the walls. It is famous for the Arab Hall

     Some of my favourite pictures were Classical Beauty by John William Godward

Queen Esther by Edwin Long

and a very strange painting inspired by George Meredith's fantasy tale that glories in the title of
The Shaving of Shagpat! You may not be familiar with it - neither was I - but it really impressed George Eliot and others at the time.

The Enchanted Sea by Henry Arthur Payne.

Please note that the princess is making her escape in a magical cockleshell.

As far as I know none of these painters were Scottish but I just had to show you them.

Another strange painting was saved until last and the huge canvas displayed on the top floor.
As we left the studio and ascended the stairs there was a hugely powerful smell of roses and perfumier Jo Malone had created a special fragrance to enhance the heady experience of
The Roses of  Heliogabalus by Lawrence Alma-Tadema,

The seemingly romantic title and presentation makes it all the more shocking: it depicts a grisly story of a depraved young emperor who suffocated his dinner guests with a torrent of rose petals!

Still in London (the Herefordshire stage of the trip on the next post) I was lucky enough to get in to the National Portrait Gallery's special exhibition of the work of John Singer Sargent.

http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/sargent/home.php

One of his most favourite portraits is a pin-up for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery:

                                                         Lady Agnew  John Singer Sargent SNPG

This exhibition brought together nearly 70 pictures from various collections. It was quite a marathon to go round it all but well worth the "museum fatigue".  JSS seems to have been in the fortunate position of having enough money to live comfortably and to choose his subjects.  Far from starving in a garret, he spent his time pleasantly. He went travelling and painted his friends and famous people of the time; he was well connected and seems to have been admitted everywhere.  He particularly liked the theatre and classical music and many of these paintings have a theatrical impact.

But poor JSS got more drama than he wanted when in 1884 the Paris Salon showed this "scandalous" portrait of Madame X  (later revealed as Mme Gautreau).  In the original version of the portrait the strap of her gown had fallen off her right shoulder and this provoked the outrage. The Salon refused to let the painter alter the painting at the time  (no doubt it boosted the footfall) but he later re-painted the strap of her dress to placate the family.  He was mesmerised by the lady himself and didn't want to distress her.

A less controversial picture is the innocent  Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose.

This was inspired by a sight seen by Sargent on a boating trip on the Thames - two little girls lighting paper lanterns at dusk in a garden planted with roses.

To end with - a Scotsman and Poet.  Robert Louis Stevenson 

                               Robert Louis Stevenson    John Singer Sargent 1887

This was painted at Stevenson's home in Bournemouth, Dorset.  RLS looks calmer than usual and there is another more typical one with his wife in the background showing her dramatic side.

Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850–1894

Sadly RLS was constantly on the move in search of better health and died in his adoptive country of Western Samoa.  A path was cleared by nearly sixty Samoan men to the summit of Mount Vaea, where Stevenson was buried.  There are many tributes to RLS in Scotland and he is still much read and enjoyed throughout the world. Here's his own requiem poem - UNDER the wide and starry sky   Dig the grave and let me lie: Glad did I live and gladly die,   And I laid me down with a will.    This be the verse you 'grave for me:          5   Here he lies where he long'd to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea,   And the hunter home from the hill. So we need an upbeat finish and I'll give you a cheerful Scottish poem (no that's not an oxymoron). The Jeely Piece Song Adam McNaughton I'm a sky scraper wean, I live on the ninteenth floor But I'm no goin' oot tae play any more. 'Cause since we moved to oor new house I'm wastin' away For I'm getting one meal less every day. Chorus: Oh ye canna fling pieces oot a twenty story flat Seven hundred hungry weans will testify to that If it's butter, cheese or jeely, if the bread is plain or pan The odds against it reaching us is ninety-nine to one On the first day my Maw flung oot a daud o' hovis broon It came skitin' oot the windae and went up instead o' doon Noo ev'ry twenty seven hours it comes back into sight Cause my piece went intae orbit and became a satellite On the next day my Maw flung me oot a piece again It went up and hit a pilot in a fast, low flying plane He scrapped it off his goggles, shouting through the intercom The Clydeside Reds have got me wi' a breid 'n jelly bomb On the third day my Maw tho't she would try another throw The Salvation Army band was standin' doon below 'Onward Christian Soldiers' was the tune they should've played But the Oompah man was playing piece 'n marmalade We've wrote awa' to Oxfam to try an' get some aid We all joined together and have formed the Piece Brigade We're gonna march to London tae demand our civil rights Like nae more hooses over piece flinging height Glossary breid: bread doon: down hoose: house jeely piece: bread and jelly sandwich oor: our oot: out piece: sandwich wean: child  This is a song by Scottish folk singer Alan McNaughton.  You can listen to it here in a version sung by Matt McGinn via Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A7SAPmcwXA So now you know I'm all about High Culture - including high rise buildings. Next Post - Herefordshire - "Land of Enchanting Beauty"