Lux oriens ...

How I don't decorate - sorta -  and a Friday cocktail.

Our place over the years has become an agglomeration of things we like, things we collect against our will and things that are souvenirs of times in our lives. 

For example, the looking glass hanging above a small, green, crumbling cabriole-legged console from the 1920s belongs to a time in the 1990s when Gustavian was the dernier cri and Ikea - yes, Ikea - had a small department selling licensed reproductions of 18th century Swedish furniture. Does anyone else remember this? 

The clock is a remembrance of 13 years in Amsterdam and was bought on the Spiegelstraat around the corner from where we lived. Though we bought it in Amsterdam it reminds me how on the last weekend in that city we drove to Paris for dinner and drove back again. It seemed such a romantic and adventurous thing to do. 

A souvenir of much more recent trip to Paris is a copy of the Turgot map hanging in the hall - each sheet framed individually and without mats. The large painting by the dining table is a souvenir of my graduate degree years and the dining chairs we bought in Provence after drinking a whole bottle of rose whilst lunching on a terrace overlooking the river in Ile sur la Sorgue. We have never regretted them.

The rug is a souvenir of an argument we had in the Metropolitan Museum store and neither of us has been completely happy with it. It is being replaced with a memory neutral rug.

The chinoiserie chest under the clock is certainly a souvenir - a souvenir of a ravaged cheque book caused by a whim not ignored in the decorative bits department of Nieman Marcus.

What I am asking, then, is how can one decorate in any other way? That one might need to replace, renew, clear out, is probably inevitable, but surely there has to be a connection with some of the things that surround one? As a correspondent put it recently, to have what has personal meaning around one is life affirming.

So, after that, let me suggest a cocktail I discovered and drank two of the other night -

A French 75 (or 76 or whatever)

As far as I can remember lemon juice went into a champagne glass, simple syrup followed as did a not too-assertive gin, and all was topped up with fizz.

No real recipe, but I'm sure you can work it out.

We drank it with two friends at their house - the husband, a superb cook - brought what he called Swine Flu Pork to the table and we all giggled. How could we not?

As I said in a previous post: at the edge of the precipice drink champagne. 

Life affirming!

The Morning Star Rising to a Dawn Chorus

Venus rising. 

From the eleventh floor, our kitchen, dining room and big balcony are oriented, thus we begin the day with a wonderful view down into the trees and to the sky above. 

This morning I saw Venus when the sky was translucently luminous but the sun had not yet risen and I had to go outside and just stand looking. The Dawn Chorus was at full force and to hear that before the city noise drowned it was a moment of pure peace. 

Such a simple, everyday thing at this time of year, if the great wheel of the heavens and the singing of the birds can be called simple. 

"Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence." 

Pace, Max Ehrmann.

Last reminiscence

When we lived in Amsterdam - for where, see bell-gable in photo above - the view from the window in the photograph below ...

... was the one on the postcard below.

Of course, we didn't live there as long ago as the clothes might suggest, and we had an oblique view of the statues in the niches as our house was two over on the left. The saplings had grown by our time to massive, stately copper beeches that in leaf ranged from olive/orange to deepest red in autumn, and in summer the head only of the right-hand statue was visible through a window in the leaves.

The first photo was taken from the Rietveld Cupola at the top of Metz & Co, the premier store for modern design in Amsterdam. 

The second, a polaroid, was taken in our breakfast room (no snickering about the skirted table, this was the early 90s) and the third image is a postcard bought at the Rijksmuseum because I recognized the view from our house. The painting "The Garden and Coach House of Keizersgracht 524, Amsterdam" is by Hendrik Keun (1738-1787). 

The walls of the room in the second photo had been washed twice in chrome yellow gouache and then varnished. Glorious, glorious, glorious! 

That's it as far as reminiscing is concerned. 

Tomorrow back to design after one last post (maybe) about Rex Whistler. The problem with Whistler, if I may express it so, is that he and his ilk are such a deep vein of creativity running through the first half of the 20th century and have so many connections that they just cry out to be explored. 

And explore I shall. 

Grisaille

When we lived in Amsterdam our house on the Keizersgracht was often filled with visitors, and we took them to the one of our useful places to visit, the Willet-Holthuysen Museum (above) on the Herengracht, which had been built about 1685. The facade was remodeled in 1739 in the Baroque style. In 1895 the house and all its contents were bequeathed to the city of Amsterdam and has been a museum since. 

The point I'm getting around to is that I have just discovered this photo of what was the most beautiful room, high-gloss blue with gilded molding, with a superb piece of grisaille by Jacob de Wit above the chimney piece. The blue is in my memory a wonderful cobalt, heavily varnished, and the gilding was bright - none of that aged, knocked back nonsense. It was stunning, and it links with my loosely connected themes of Baroque architecture and decorative painting, whether contemporary with that style or modern times. 

20th century decorative painting had a raucous and unseemly end in the 1980s, and many of us were grateful. Which is why it is such a relief to rediscover Rex Whistler, Martin Battersby et al - the Masters. I knew about them of, course, but one day, there they were right at the front of my mind wanting to be dealt with. 

In fact, its wrong of me to lump Rex Whistler, Martin Battersby, Frank Brangwyn, Etienne Drian, etc with the faux finishers of the 1980s, and not only in terms of era. Etienne Drian, by the way, painted panels for Elsie de Wolfe's Villa Trianon.  These men were artists. 

There was a time when what we know as faux finishes were simply part of the repertoire of the house painter and somehow after the 1960s migrated to the province of the "artist." Again, when living in Amsterdam I took a course of marbleizing. This was not the vague dabbing with a sponge or the flick of a brush, this was imitation of actual stone and there was no room for self-expression. The teacher was the owner of a painting company, all the other students were house painters, and they were so amused by me and at the same time proud that such a quotidian skill was being taken up by the likes of me - kunstenaaren and ontwerpers. They were also amazed that imitating marble in paint, was being part of a tradition and craft that certainly traced its roots to the ancient world.

Faux finishing didn't and doesn't quite cut it - the democracy of creativity is unfortunately not short-lived. Visit any craft show and see what I mean. Creativity is not just being awash in emotion and seeking-self expression: it is training; it is study; it is respecting the qualities inherent in self and material; it is knowing antecedents and one's place in the continuum. 

It is also knowing when to stop a rant! Click on the image below and appreciate the superb quality of the workmanship. Wallow for a while. 

To Luca and Jack, who only today reminded me that "grownups can never see what's right in front of them," a very big thank you! 

Blue remembered hills

Here's mine, seen from both sides - the Lancashire and the Yorkshire sides - Pendle Hill.

According to Wikipedia "The phrase Pendle Hill is unusual in that it combines the word for hill from three different languages. In the 13th century the hill was mentioned as Pennul or Penhul; apparently from Cumbric pen and Old English hyll, both meaning "hill". The Modern English hill was appended later, after the original meaning of Pendle had become opaque."

Fascinating stuff, don't you think? It gets better ...

The Pendle witch trials of 1612 are the best known examples of witchcraft in English history and Pendle is still associated with witchcraft. As a teenager I climbed it with friends every Hallowe'en "looking for witches". We never found any, that we knew of. 

If you are a Quaker, Pendle Hill will have special significance for you, for here it was that George Fox in 1652 had a vision whilst on top of Pendle. 

"As we travelled, we came near to a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill, the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered."

Thanks be to Wikipedia. 

Gilead

Sitting this morning before breakfast listening to the not-quite dawn chorus and the hammering of the woodpeckers was like taking a long draught of the Balm of Gilead. 

"There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole;

There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul."

Also, champagne at breakfast is very healing. 

Could not resist ...

This wonderful, humorous Rex Whistler entitled, HRH The Prince of Wales Awakening the Spirit of Brighton that, if I remember aright, lurks in some hallway on the bedroom level of the building below, the Royal Pavilion, Brighton.

We're going to the mountains for the weekend.