Drove up to the mountain house at the end of
last week – the village is under half a metre of snow and was shivering in
minus 13 during the night. But the place was beautiful.
Had to check out the
alarm – which had been triggered either by the powerful high winds early last
week or by mice. Everything was in order and properly operational.
A log fire
had the bedroom snug and warm in no time – the heat lasting in the brick-stove
for a good day. So two books (and some Bulgarian and Romanian wine) were duly
consumed – the former being the spell-binding The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal; and Hilary Spurling’s gripping Matisse – the Life
Both books evoke the worlds of the late 19th/early 20th
Century – but using very different approaches. De Waal’s book is a one of a kind –
using a collection of small Japanese ivory artefacts to weave a highly personal
story of an emblematic banking family in first Paris, then Vienna and, finally,
Tokyo. A whole era is superbly captured in his taut prose – culminating in the destruction
of family fortunes in one week with the Nazi putsch of Austria in 1938.
I also have a (small but) lovely collection of Uzbek terra cotta artefacts which I treasure - so I can understand the fascination.
Spurling’s purpose is more biographically conventional – but the tale she tells
of the courage of Matisse in facing outrage and frequent migrations in the
first half of the 20th century is a vivid one. His powerful sense of colour
was apparently developed as a child in the environment of the silk-weaving towns of NE France
and she paints a wonderful picture of a man driven with his own sense of what
was right.
This is the sort of detail I need when I meet a painter whose work speaks to me; and which I would love to develop for many of the Bulgarian and Romanian artists of the same period.
I have become an avid collector of books about such artists but the cyrillic of the Bulgarian texts totally defeats me. The Romanian texts I can make stabs at!
You can therefore imagine my delight at being presented yesterday with a large book in English - Bulgarian Art; 120 years - 1892-2012 - Unions, Societies and Groups - published in 2012 with superb reproductions.So many new names!! Although, sadly, no details are given of their lives - instead we are fed a general drip of references to internecine squabbles between the various artists's associations - with no attempt made to explain them.
There is one blog which does sterling work in sketching vignettes of the lives of interesting older artists - its called my daily art display
This is the sort of detail I need when I meet a painter whose work speaks to me; and which I would love to develop for many of the Bulgarian and Romanian artists of the same period.
I have become an avid collector of books about such artists but the cyrillic of the Bulgarian texts totally defeats me. The Romanian texts I can make stabs at!
You can therefore imagine my delight at being presented yesterday with a large book in English - Bulgarian Art; 120 years - 1892-2012 - Unions, Societies and Groups - published in 2012 with superb reproductions.So many new names!! Although, sadly, no details are given of their lives - instead we are fed a general drip of references to internecine squabbles between the various artists's associations - with no attempt made to explain them.
There is one blog which does sterling work in sketching vignettes of the lives of interesting older artists - its called my daily art display
Early Sunday morning a significant earthquake (5.2) was experienced by people in central Romania - my partner was in her Ploiesti flat and had to seek shelter under the eaves of the hallway as the place trembled. Very frightening - particularly as everyone is fearing the next big one to hit Bucharest........
Back Monday in Sofia after a gap of 5 months – a beautiful run down, just 5 hours in a Kia loaned by the nice management by way of apology for the delay in my car’s arrival.
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