Thursday, January 18, 2018

Thursday 18th January - We live in interesting times

There is a beautiful peachy sky above the snow which had fallen last night but I suspect the snow will melt away.  Lucy rushing around playfully in it tumbled over and her large hairy paws have scuffed the back lawn untidily.



Napoleon and Marengo crossing the Alps, much better with flesh on...

Well what to write about, could it be 'Marengo' Napoleon's horse, now of course a skeleton, to be swapped for the Bayeaux Tapestry coming to visit England soon, better be careful of foreigners bearing gifts ;) we are already in a wretched mess!
The news has slowly unrolled, vast acres of papers will analyze the fall of Carillion and now we have to find 199 billion pounds for those PFI; come on just lets raid a few of those CEOs pockets, and what about Osbourne and Cameron making millions on hedge funds all these rumours float through the air, true or not I do not know, but I am beginning to think there is a large black hole which we are slowly edging towards - the end of capitalism? fools can wish.
The other thing that struck me yesterday was Anna Alma Tadema paintings so detailed and yet so reminiscent of a rich life style....




'One of the highly detailed, miniaturist watercolour interiors painted by Alma-Tadema's artistically gifted daughter, Anna, shows the drawing room at 1a Holland Park. She was influenced in technique and subject matter by her father and his second wife Laura, her stepmother, but her interior views are her most individualistic works. This example was painted in April 1887 at the house owned by the Coronio family, adjoining Alecco Ionides' much admired Morris-decorated 'Aesthetic' dwelling. Rossetti's red and black chalk study of Marianna visible on the left of the painting, was owned by Aglaia Coronio; it is now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. The drawing room painting was shown at Grosvenor Gallery in 1887, along with Laura Alma-Tadema's 'Always Welcome'.

Good news is that Rachel is back blogging, knew she would of course and even she is a bit cross with this government, tides are turning, tides are turning.......


6 comments:

  1. I have to say Thelma, he wouldn't have been a very comfortable ride if his shoulder really WAS that upright - that's a good shoulder to take a collar but not for a riding horse!! Perhaps it's just the angle they put him back together at. Off fore looks to have had a very big splint (or damage) at some point as extra bone laid down. He made a very good age, that's for sure, and he looked very good in real life in paintings . . .

    I don't think I have really come across Anna Alma Tadema before - but what a beautiful painting. Was she Pre-Raphaelite era?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Jennie expect they put the skeleton together badly, in my mind he was supposed to represent poor old England, skeletonised and not a penny to our name. As for Anna Tadema, yes you can see in the second painting the influence of the Pre-Raphaelite in the painting, plus her father was a famous painter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I heard on BBC about the tapestry exchange. That is what we are now reduced to. Instead of refugees. I have never heard of this woman painter, but I do like falling into all that lace and tapestry. She was amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well actually part of the deal with Macron is that we take some of the refugees, Napoleon's horse was just something in one of the papers. She is amazing Anna Tadema, I get these female artists from a site and it does show that women through the ages have been marvellous artists and craftswoman.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Roll on the revolution - I dont think. Oh dear, we are stuck with
    what we have got I am afraid Thelma. Looking at the Alma Tadema painting (which I love incidentally) I can only think it was ever thus.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes history doesn't change much, not in this country anyway. But I wouldn't mind a bloodless revolution....

    ReplyDelete

Love having comments!