Rome, December 2023 – Bernini and Borromini
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Art, baroque, bernini, borromeni, graham-dixon, italy, Rome, schama, sculpture
Comments (1) We are struggling a little bit this holiday. Both of us are under the weather, but doing our best, safely, to enjoy the city. Yesterday’s theme emerged as women – or the absence of them in the recorded history of the city. Of course, when they are depicted, it is not in the best light. The mother of Romulus and Remus left her children to the fate of a wolf – and that did not end well history tells us.
In previous cultural adventures we have piggybacked on art critics. We do so again. Andrew Graham-Dixon with his cook Giorgio Locatelli, did a series “Rome Unpacked” for the BBC. Likewise Waldamar Januszczak’s Baroque series (both of which can be viewed on Youtube, at the time of writing). Much of what we are witnessing is on their recommendation, as it were.
Rome boasts hundreds of fountains. Every square has church and fountain. The fountains are very much part of building civilisation – fresh water, effectively. The example (right) is found close to the entrance to the (former) Jewish Ghetto. It is called Fontana delle Tartarughe – fountain of turtles, I think. If you look carefully, they scale the upper rim! It is renaissance bronze.
Talking of bronze, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius Michelangelo at the centre of the Capitaloni Square and in front of the Palazzo Senatorio (seat of government) is as bold as they come. It was sculpted in 175AD. It apes the imagery of bestriding – and all conquering – leaders; though his gestures are those of peace rather than vanquish. There are no weapons on display. It is apparently still there by accident (the original is in a nearby museum – this example was erected in 1981). Graham-Dixon suggests that the Pope seemingly thought it was of a more godly leader and hence it survived a great meltdown (of precious bronze).
The history of Rome’s art and architecture is so often determined by rivalries. Caravaggio famously killed a rival and fled the city, but Bernini and Borromini were particular rivals – the latter committed suicide on his sense of worthlessness, the former had a confidence and arrogance to see him through and leave his mark through ubiquitous examples architectural and sculptorial talent. Though his ill-advised – and subsequently demolished – south Tower of St Peter’s Basilica nearly destroyed him until the commission for the sculpture in the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria. A nun experiencing ecstasy is not a good look. But, as Januszczak argues, how are we supposed to depict devout ecstasy? What if it is the same as a sexual ecstasy? The nun was no ordinary nun, she was St. Teresa and no stranger to controversy. Indeed Bernini’s sculpture is a marble representation of her own words! Just a word of note, she is impossibly young in the sculpture. And Bernini – like so many artists – is even more subversive than we might think. The drapery around her, explains Simon Sharma, is particularly revealing. Whilst we might think of it providing her with some cover at a time of extreme exposure and intimacy (with an angel and a spear), the opposite is true. It depicts the human sensation of ecstasy. If Schama is right, that is even more impressive. That’s the baroque for you.
Note also that the scene is being observed as if it were a theatre experience. I am presuming the four men in a theatre box paid for the sculpture (I think they were from the Cornaro family whose chapel the sculpture sits)? And below the whole scene is a depiction of the Last Supper. Almost incidental!
Bernini had rich sponsors, Borromeni did not. And so his seeming Masterpiece – Chiesea di San Carlino alle Quattro Fontane (1638-41) is modest by comparison, but architecturally clever in its use of space and geometry. The ceiling is oval but not, and the light penetrating from the dome adds to the effect. The commission was from an order of Trinitarian monks that did not have much money – or space for that matter. Real skill comes in being able to deliver innovative designs to make the most of what is available. To that end, Borromeni also created a small cloister for the monks. Also modest, also baroque. The balustrade on the gallery is inventive with the pillars arranged in a way that no renaissance architect could countenance.
Bernini also did fountains. His masterpiece is Fontana dei Fiumi (1651, Piazza Navona) with its curious mix of representations of continental peoples and animals found – or thought to be found – along four rivers over which Papal authority had been extended – Nile, Danube, Ganges and Rio de la Plata. All of this sat on an obelisk. The crocodile-type creature (right) is seemingly to be found in the Ganges (though maybe the Nile would have been more appropriate).
But there are clues as to Bernini’s thinking. The Nile is draped with cloth because no-one at the time knew where its source was; the Danube has the Pope’s coat of arms on it (he knows where the river flows); Rio de la Plata has money around it – riches to be plundered and the Nile has a long oar that someone will have to use to navigate it and spread the word.
Just another note, if anyone is visiting and needs to understand how the city was planned, here is a good source:
Holidaying in the UK, 2023
Filed under: History, Travel | Tags: Cosmic Kitchen, Joshua Reynolds, Plymouth, The Box
Leave a Comment Well, this year, we decided to keep our holiday simple – UK, one location for accommodation and lots of train options. Yes, of course, the West Country. We drove to Plymouth, coming off at the Devon Expressway to stay at the IBIS Hotel (more of a motel, really). From there buses to Plymouth and from there trains to St Ives, Newquay and Torbay. All good. We used the van only to get to Dartmoor for a couple of walks.
Our first day, naturally, was in Plymouth. It is years since I have been there. Short of remembering Plymouth Hoe, it was a new place. And whilst it is nice to walk around the bay, observe its great breakwater, marvel at the Tinside Lido and raid the tourist information office, there are three highlights. A day at the Box – the city’s museum and art gallery, the Guildhall (not actively open to the public, but certainly allowed) and food.
The Box is everything a municipal museum should be. It is full of the place’s history – however (in)auspicious it may be. Plymouth certainly celebrates Napoleon’s capture and exile to St Helena as he was quite a tourist attraction when he landed. Immediately inside the box the grand figures that guided the town’s ships now hang from the ceiling (above left). It also has temporary displays in its magnificent galleries. We enjoyed very much a display of work by (Sir) Joshua Reynolds, a locally-born portrait painter of the rich. The I’m no expert, but the pictures a fine works, at scale and full of questions that artists pose because they can. One big question is around the identity of the black woman in his picture of Lady Elizabeth Keppel (painted somewhere around 1762, right, after at least two live sittings compared with Keppel’s eight). The question is asked for two reasons, first, she is not named, but second, she is depicted not as an equal, but neither as an absolute subordinate. Her clothes and jewellery may have been donated by the family, but that in itself is significant such that she can be represented as a woman of status, albeit as a maid servant. The likelihood of Reynolds seeking to represent a black woman as one with status is not high, but it is one of the quirks of art that inadvertently demonstrate more than perhaps intended.
Maybe I do Reynolds a disservice as there is another picture in the collection (left) of a black man – just his portrait; he too, is depicted as a noble. He could have been Samuel Johnson’s servant, Francis Barber (originally named Quashey), born in Jamaica and came to England as a valet. He may have assisted Johnson in his dictionary. What is clear, he became Johnson’s heir. He could also have been Reynolds’ own servant (footman), is written about in his memoirs (without actually naming him).
The museum’s permanent collection includes some fabulous ceramics, some of which are nearly 400 years’ old from China – at the time when the porcelain was a unique Chinese export. A first glance the pot (right) is rather dull, but the “double gourd” has a form that is one of the most ancient of Chinese ceramic shapes (undated, unfortunately). The colour jade was seemingly extremely difficult to achieve!
Also, Barbara Hepworth’s work gets a look in. Three paintings (Opposing forms, 1970; Autumn Shadow,1969 and Oblique Forms, 1969) are on display, probably just to point to the people at St Ives, where she lived and worked, they do not have exclusivity. Though with Hepworth, there are many public examples, not least the work, Winged Figure (1963), adorning the side of the John Lewis shop on Oxford Street, London.
The Guildhall is for fans of 20th Century Guildhalls or – what I prefer to see them as – public spaces for citizens to attend functions, exhibitions, entertainment, etc. The main hall in the Guildhall has it all – height, a painted ceiling, natural light, a stage, an upper circle. We stumbled into it and the caretaker was delighted to share his own knowledge of the place, open the curtains, put on the lights and leave us to it, basically.
Finally food. I sense there is a single place for vegetarians to consider eating in Plymouth – though happy to be corrected). That place is Cosmic Kitchen, run by twin sisters, Gabriela and Lucia Evangelou, serving Mediterranean-style food, including their vegan moussaka and a regular specials board. The venue is worth a visit in itself (old chapel) and at the weekend it doubles up as a club (for younger people than us, I predict).
One Gallery, climate messages
Filed under: Art, Environment | Tags: David Hockney, LS Lowry, Paul Nash
Leave a Comment I recently went to Tate Britain in London. The gallery is home to many of my “friends” – a strange idea, but I always relax when I see the images in the flesh, as it were. In recent times, however, I have visited galleries with very different intentions. I want to know how – and if – art delivers a climate message, either by chronicling environmental decline or in championing its salvation. Both are true, of course.
On this visit, March 2023, I set myself the challenge of cataloguing one gallery (one gallery and bit, to be honest) for its climate message. Here is what I found.
Of course, LS Lowry has a story to tell. I always remember Brian and Michael’s song, Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs (no women for some reason). I even bought that record. But revisiting Industrial Landscape (left) I noticed other things in the picture not seen before (that is the beauty of art, there is always something new in the familiar to see. There are not too many people in this image – a few in front of the houses and along the central street leading to the factories. I see the trains on the viaduct and the barges on the aqueduct (if I see it correctly). What was new was the colour of the chimney emissions. They are not just sooty, they are toxic red, particularly those in the background. I wonder!
Slightly earlier (1937) the work of Peter László Peri. Peri does not paint, he uses stone to represent urban life. His rush hour incorporates one of my favourite images, that of the double-decker London bus. The image is effectively carved from a block of stone coloured in a rudimentary way; for example, copper red and earth brown. It is orderly and very English. On the one hand it looks like a depiction of the daily drudge of travel to-and-from work. But Peri sought to represent positively industrial society, so perhaps the woman climbing to the top deck of the bus represents progressive views about woman and work? There is also the cyclist taking on the diesel bus and wider traffic.
It is perhaps not surprising that Peri chose stone – he had been a apprenticed brick layer as well as a student of architecture in his birth city of Budapest, Hungary. Moreover, he was associated with the Constructivist movement dedicated to representing modern industrial society formed in Germany in 1915.
Peri arrived in England in 1933 – he was not in any way popular with the Nazis being both Jewish and a Communist.
Cliffe Rowe’s picture, Street Scene (left) depicts a pram (presumably for the health benefit of the baby inside) outside a terraced house. There is a woman sat of the step knitting (oddly revealing her underwear) and a man in shorts reading a newspaper. How typical this was, I do not know, but it seems to be a scene of aspiration. There is street lighting. Net curtains. In 1930, Rowe travelled to the Soviet Union and stayed for 18 months. He was impressed with the Soviets’ use of art to support the working class struggle; though he may have been taken in simply by propaganda. That said, on his return to England he became a founder member of the Artists’ International Association (along with Peri) which used art to oppose fascism.
Predating both of these artists was Winnifred Knights. Her picture The Deluge (1920, right) has a very contemporary interpretation. Men and woman either flee or resist rising water in a representation of the Biblical flood in Genesis. Clearly a contemporary interpretation – or translation – is climate change and rising sea levels. Not an act of God, but an act of humanity against itself (and all other inhabitants of the planet).
To see what we forfeit in the industrialisation of economies, we can draw on some of the more conservative images of the period. Frederick Cayley Robinson’s Pastoral (left) is a good example from the gallery. It depicts a family and a flock of sheep by the waterside. A child holds a lamb as a symbol of rebirth. It is rural idyll in the post WWI world. It is rural, but not idyllic. There is only a windmill as a concession to technology – enough to enable this simple life. Of course, it is not where we ended up.
My penultimate choice is work by probably my favourite artist, Paul Nash. Nash was greatly affected by his experience of WWI. On my visit for the first time I saw Landscape at Iden (1929). His geometric shapes “blend” with the landscape, and in this case with felled trees. The felled trees are interpreted to mean lost souls in the war. The snake on the fence is easy to miss. It can represent evil, for sure (it was a serpent that tempted Eve to eat the apple), but pharmacies use the symbol of the serpent to represent healing. In Nash’s work it could go either or both ways, I sense. Whatever they are meant to represent, war, through history, has impacted on the natural environment. Despoiling it with armaments, clearings and extraction. I have not entirely convinced myself that this picture is translatable, but his pictures always leave me feeling understood.
I’m going to take a liberty with my next choice – reinterpreting a living artist, David Hockney. His picture The Bigger Splash (1967) is a representation of the water’s response to a dive into a pool. I have always seen Hockney’s California period as a reflection of unreality (Hockney admits his splash is not realistic) – the good life that comes from industrial society that is endured by others, particularly in the industrial Eastern USA. I feel vindicated inasmuch as when Hockney returned to the UK he bought a house close to where I was brought up in East Yorkshire. Those images are most certainly about the land, its plants and change.
Pompeii and Amalfi Coast – Festive period 2022/23
The obvious out-of-Naples places to visit are Pompeii/Vesuvius and the Amalfi Coast. Pompeii we self-organised. We took at train from Naples Central towards Salerno and a short shuttle bus to the Pompeii excavation from Pompeii railways station. All very straightforward. The Pompeii site closes about 1700 at this time of the year, so there was a bit of a rush to the train back to Naples. In the summer I suspect it is a bit of a crush.
The second – Amalfi Coast – we subcontracted out to a company called Tramvia. Tickets are sold from the many street kiosks. They pick up in the morning on a big coach from around the town and then separate passengers by tour at a spot on the edge of the city. We ended up in a transit van (with seats, obviously) with a driver who shocked many of us with his clifftop hustling and adventurous overtaking. In the dark. We were first dropped off at Positano (right). We had a couple of hours to walk down to the beach, get coffee, visit the church and wander through some of the many pottery shops. Enough time.
And then on to Amalfi itself. Another two hours sufficient for a bit of wandering along alleys in search of an entrance to the so-called cathedral (left) which we did not find – the entrance, that is. We settled for a glass of wine and a light snack. Suffice to say, the driver wasted no time getting back to Naples. We needed more wine to calm the nerves, or that is at least our excuse.
Pompeii…well, at least we controlled the getting there. We hired a guide (shared with a few others) who was good value. His Italian English was perfect. He sounded a bit like Francesco da Mosto, for those in know. And mischievous with it. We subsequently found out that some of the things he told us were not absolutely true; though it took the great Mary Beard to put him right. For example, the difference between slaves and slave owners was not as great as we were told. Beard tells us that many slaves won their freedom and became citizens of the city in their own right, though not if they did something that warranted a flogging. To be flogged is to be permanently labelled. Moreover, some slaves were highly educated and skilled by the standards of the time. The rich could have a slave doctor, for example. What was constant was food – rich and poor, slave and slave owner all ate much the same – seafood, grains and nuts.
Pompeii is a great experience. There is plenty of room and quiet areas, apart from the ever-popular brothel – which is not really worth visiting – there is more erotica on display in the Naples Archaeology Museum which we also checked out. There are a few lessons for all of us to take from Pompeii. Many people died because they did not know that Vesuvius was a volcano. And when they tried to flee, they hid. Knowledge is important; there was nowhere to hide from the ash. And those not prepared to forfeit their wealth, perished with it. Knowledge also was lacking in the plumbing. Whilst it was sophisticated in terms of capture of rainwater, piping and pressurizing, the lead pipes were also lethal (above right).
It is quite an extensive excavation – and ongoing (above left). The killer – Vesuvius – sits to the north. Pompeii itself used to sit directly on the shoreline, but the eruption essentially moved it backwards! The city is a great snapshot, too, in the developments in architecture. This bit of Italy is prone to earthquakes as well as volcanic activity. The Pompeiian – if that is who they are – architects learned how to strengthen their buildings – eventually adopting the diamond formation (right).
But ultimately the lives of the people before the eruption look just like our own: domestic, consumptive, with entertainment (albeit gladiators) and eating (restaurants/home).
And having written all of this, I suddenly read this in the Guardian under the headline ‘Astonishing’ Pompeii home of men freed from slavery reopens to public.
Naples – Festive season, 2022/3
The dread of winter, of course, prompts thoughts of being somewhere a little warmer for at least some of the colder time. We’ve been to Seville/Andalucia over this period before, but travelling by train there this time proved prohibitively expensive. Second best – though with hindsight unfairly so – was Naples.
We travelled on 25 December Euro City Munich to Padua (end station, Venice) and then TrenItalia Frecciarossa (high speed, right) to Napoli via Rom. It is a good day to travel – busy but not too busy. A cafe was open in Padua station (above left). The coffee was timely and great! Total journey time around 12 hours. One hour changing time in Padua. A bit of a delay in Rom. Dodgy power sockets on train.
We were staying in the Municipio district of Naples – three stops on Line 1 on the metro. There was a ticket kiosk in the passage between the main station and the metro station. It takes about ten minutes to walk between the two.
The first thing to say about Naples – and it has been said many times by many – it is busy. Crazily so. Be prepared for cars – and particularly motor scooters – to demand you get out of the way, even in streets (for want of a better word) that look like pedestrian walkways. They are not.
Eating is easy, even on 25 December. A local diner (right) was open adjacent to the hotel. There are many examples like this. Pizza, of course. Pasta and a mix of vegetables for those seeking vegetarian options, as we were.
In fact, we had many eating experiences. There are a couple of vegetarian options. Both good, one less friendly than the other. Friendly was Cavali Nostri (left). This place was not a concession to vegetarian food. Whoever runs it knows what is vegetarian food. So good the first time that we entrusted to them new year’s eve. We knew there was a special menu, but we had not quite digested the fact that there would be nine courses. Nine! And course 6 would be risotto – a meal in itself. Still, we got some of our new favourite vegetable, friarielli broccoli. Not really broccoli. More like tough and chewy spinach.
The other place was Un Sorriso Integrale Amico Bio. The menu was extensive and interesting. And it was quick. But we never felt truly welcome. The first time we went it was “full” – we could come back in an hour (by then 2130); the second time, we could come back, but we’d get ignored once the order was taken. And so it proved. It became a rather an inexpensive meal, in retrospect.
We had various other experiences in – and off – the main thoroughfares. All very similar. Pizzas are great. Service mixed. Prices very fair, including for wine. Mostly street food, including fried pizza, for which people were well prepared to queue quite some time to get. One of the odd things about pizzas is that many people cut off the crusts and leave them (along with other food items – food waste is a problem here, I sense).
There are many wonderful little bars for coffee and cake. Quite a lot are quirky, and not traditional in any way; for example, this place on the left – Posca-Bar Bakery Bistro – is located on Via Port ‘Alba close to the Dante Metro.
And so to the nine courses at Cavali Nostri:
Summer 2022: the €9 ticket holiday – 2
Filed under: Environment, International, Museums, Race, Railways, Travel | Tags: art and climate, Berlin, Dresden, Elblᶏg
Leave a Comment Art
Holidays often feature art – why would they not? In this journey we’ve been to Berlin, Elblᶏg and Dresden. The latter two are provincial cities with their own take on what should be shown and what not. And how.
Elblᶏg surprised me. The art is everywhere in the public realm. Seemingly in 1965 a number of artists were commissioned to make art and place it just about everywhere in the city. Examples of the work are below, but what it does to a place is interesting. In some cities the art would be defaced, damaged or vandalised. I saw none of this. 1965 – that’s 57 years! I assume that the art reflects the town and its people. Most of the artwork is made of steel, yet compelling. Maybe no one notices it, but it is there.
In Dresden, art has a very different role. Dresden celebrates its kings or “electors” The Residenz – effectively the palace of the elector August the Strong (apocryphally he can snap a horse shoe by his brute strength). He was strong, but probably not in this sense. His art collection – or treasures – illustrate just what constituted his ego. There is no question that most of the objects in the galleries are exquisite. I simply cannot imagine how most of them were decorated. Some of them were linked to what was probably 17th Century high technology such as clocks. The example on the left is a roll-ball clock. The ball is rock crystal and it rolls down the tower. It takes exactly one minute. Inside, seemingly, another ball is raised “emporgehoben” (whatever that is supposed to mean in reality) which moves on the minute hand. Saturn then strikes a bell, and twice a day the musicians raised their wind instruments and an organ played a melody. It is an extraordinary piece; but somehow I prefer time keeping to be a little simpler, at least in its reporting.
The jewels are one thing, the ivory is quite another. I have to say I’ve never seen so much carved ivory in one place. It is quite sickening. The carving is amazing, however. Take this frigate (right). I do not know how many elephants died for this piece, but everything apart from one feature is obscene. It dates from 1620 and bears the signature of Jacob Zeller. Of course the frigate is supported by the carved figure of Neptune. The sails are not ivory, nor the strings. But there 50 or so small human figures climbing those ropes. They are extraordinary.
There is an ivory clock to rival the jewelled example above. But quite the most sickening is to carve an elephant from ivory (left). There’s a receipt for its purchase in 1731. It is actually four perfume bottles hidden the castle turrets. What gets me particularly is the failure of the gallery to say anything about the exploitation of nature. These are simply curated as exquisite objects of great value.
It was not only elephants from the natural world that were exploited. Here is something I absolutely did not know, coral was a material for artists and treasures in this period. The bizarre figure on the right is seemingly a drinking vessel in the shape of the nymph Daphne who metamorphosised into a tree (coral) to escape Apollo’s “harassment”. It is not just one piece, there’s lots of it in this gallery. Not a word about how the coral was gathered and where from.
But there’s more. There are some deeply troubling figures of black people. I am not going to upload the photos of a sedan chair occupied by an ivory Venus and carried by “Hottentots”. Venus is attributed to court sculptor Balthasar Permoser (1738 or so) and the figures to court jeweller Gottfried Döring.
I left this gallery feeling troubled and dissatisfied with the curation. They must do better.
The Albertinum is another gallery in the historic centre of Dresden. There is some interesting stuff here. Sculpture is not usually my thing, but it has a number of examples of art that was deemed by the Nazis as “degenerate”. For example, Wilhelm Lehmbruck’s “Kneeling Woman” (1911, left) which is quite extraordinary, but obviously too extraordinary for the Nazis. Then oddly there is a piece by Barbara Hepworth, Ascending form Gloria, 1958). Odder still is a decorated wooden crate ascribed to Jean-Michel Basquiat (I am probably wrongly describing it). There are a couple of contrasting pieces by Tony Cragg – a wooden abstract sculpture and a cube made up of compressed rectangular objects ranging from lever-arch files to old VHS video players.
The upper floors are full of fine art. Again, keeping to the theme of degeneracy, climate and perhaps art that captures some of the potential consequences of unchecked warming, I start with Ernst Ludwig Kirschner’s Street Scene with Hairdresser Salon (Straβenbild vor dem Friseurladen, 1926). Kirschner was part of a group of artists known as the Brücke Group. Like many art movements the members were all against “old establishment forces” and following artistic rules. The bright colouring is an example. So shocking were the paintings that they could not be purchased by the City. Eventually, they became accepted and acceptable, only to find them labelled as degenerate in 1937.
What was not degenerate was Hermann Carmiencke’s Holsteiner Mühe (1836, Holstein Mill). I choose this because water was a natural source of sustainable motive power. The steam engine was arguably introduced to break the collective power of labour and because the water resource ultimately could not be shared by the direct owners of capital.
Finally from the Albertinum I selected Wilhelm Lachnit’s Der Tod von Dresden (1945, The Death of Dresden). It is, of course, a reflection on the human suffering arising from the second-world war. The climate crisis will bring its own deprivations and a fight for resources. We will see these times again, I fear.
A quick word on Dresden. The historic centre was essentially rebuilt from 1985. Many of the historic buildings were left as shells and rebuilt using plans and authentic materials. It was an exceptional achievement and good on the eye; the Semper Opera House, for example (above left). But this is not a city preparing for rising temperatures. Whilst there are green spaces, this central area is totally devoid of natural shade. The new centre around the railway station is largely concrete-based retail. Could be anywhere.
Meanwhile in Berlin, we visited the Nationalgalerie. I was taken by the work of Adolph Menzel. He obviously earned his money painting portraits of rich men, but he also had much to say about contemporary issues of the time – the mid 19th century. He is, by definition, a contemporary of Turner. And Menzel’s picture Die Berlin-Potsdamer Eisenbahn (1847) has some similarity to Turner’s Rain Steam and Speed which dates from 1844.
Menzel also painted a number of factory scenes – Flax Spinners, dangerous women’s work. The only safety equipment is clogs on their feet.
Contrast this image with that of his painting Flötenkonzert Friedrichs des Groβen in Sanssouci (1850-52). This depicts Frederick the Great playing the flute with a small ensemble and aristocratic audience. It takes place in a grand setting. At night with candles galore as illumination (expensive, if nothing else). It is incongruous. Those flax spinners will not be consuming high art at this hour, for sure.
The industrial revolution and the ruling (plutocratic) elite play their distinct roles in the journey to the current climate crisis. Images of trees being cut down are visual reminders of how the natural environment is the source of all exploitable resources. Constant Troyon’s painting Holzfäller (1865, Woodcutter) is a great illustration of this. Though I am sure this is not the actual meaning of the painting. Trees were, of course, felled well before the arrival of the industrial revolution for shelter, housing and agriculture. What is significant is how the deployment of technology turned it into a truly industrial process. Watch how trees are harvested in modern times as though they are bowling pins, to understand how the pace of destruction has increased.
There is one other theme here, to share. And that is “otherness”. Mihály Munkácsy’s 1873 painting Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Camp, right) expresses it well and nicely contrasts with Menzel’s Woodcutter (I note and am aware that both Zigeuner and Gypsy are pejorative terms. The Nazis, we remember, committed genocide against this group. Hence the word Zigeunerlager is particularly troubling. The correct term is Der Roma). That very same landscape lost to the axe is potentially a place of refuge for nomadic people. These are people who are seen as being rootless (and stateless), where in actual fact probably the opposite is true.
Summer 2022: the €9 ticket holiday – 1
Travel
There is a certain normality currently as I sit on ICE928 heading to Frankfurt and then Brussels. What is not normal is that the trains are running to time and my Eurostar connection is within reach. This is not normal!
Nor is a holiday facilitated by train journeys courtesy of the €9 ticket. This ticket has been available since June 2022 and allows unlimited travel on regional services, buses, U-Bahn and trams. It is wonderful and has taken us from one end of the country to the other. The DB Navigator app is the essential companion. The downside is that sometimes the demand generated by the €9 ticket has not been met by DB or the private rail operators. It has been difficult to board trains, let alone get a seat. But on the whole, trains have been on time and reliable. And people have been polite. On the whole.
So, we wanted to go to the Baltic coast. We also wanted to go into Poland to visit a place in Eastern Poland called Elbląg – the birthplace of my beloved’s mother and trace the movement of the whole family seeking to avoid a confrontation with the Red Army as it pushed back the Nazis and established what we now refer to as the “Eastern Bloc”.
We made it to Berlin on one day and then visited the Reisezentrum in Berlin Hauptbahnhof to book tickets to Elbląg. There were two substantive problems. First, demand for trains in Poland is high. It’s the summer and “walk-on” is not always possible. Second, as others have noted, booking trains – or even just getting tickets for cross-border services – is thwarted by insufficiently integrated IT systems. Or just insufficient systems. Buying tickets online or through an app is not easy. We did not try it. We used the Deutshe Bahn Navigator to provide times, as well as Koleo. Since looking more deeply into this, I have found another online option, Polish Trains, though I have no way of validating this site. (as buying tickets online or through an app in Poland is not easy).
We delayed our journey by a day and bought tickets as far as Zbasznek via Frankfurt an der Oder and Rzepin. We thought that buying a ticket at Rzepin should be straightforward, but there is always something about border towns. The stations are often either not open or simply building sites. The towns themselves may be a good walk away. It was difficult to find a café, or a bank as we needed some cash (Poland is not in the Eurozone). We did find a bank and the bank machines dispensed cash, though in unwieldy-denominated notes. Most shops do have card payments, but I dare not look at how much it costs per transaction.
We managed to buy a ticket using the machine (right) to Poznan. We stayed overnight and carried on the following day, but not without a 90-minute wait in the queue at the station ticket office. In the end we took regional trains from Posnan to Elbląg (via Bydgoszcz, Tczew and Malbork). For the return journey we did book ahead and got a seat on the direct InterCity service Elbląg to Szczecin. Another overnight stay and another ticket purchase problem. I asked the conductor on a Germany-bound train whether we could buy tickets on board (as there was another long queue at the ticket office and the two auto ticket machines were out of order). She basically said no, but as we discovered the following day, it is possible, but at a greatly inflated price. It was about €20 to get to Pasewalk (below left) – advanced purchased more like €2. By the morning the ticket machines were again functioning, but unable to sell tickets across the border. Though you have to go through the motions to discover this. The touch screens assume you have a paw rather than a finger, so it is easy to mess up and have to start again.
I am learning something about border crossings. We crossed the German/Polish borders at two different locations (hin und zurück). Both services were operated by Deutsche Bahn – both were diesel traction and made up of two coaches. It is very similar to what I experienced in recent times crossing the border between Germany and Belgium. Welkenraedt, for example, is not an obvious place to cross from Aachen (Liège, surely?). But the border history of European countries cannot be ignored. They are located where checks could be made, identities validated.
Polish railways are quirky like in most countries. This is partly due to the EU which requires a split between infrastructure and operation, and partly to facilitate operational efficiencies – essentially separating longer-distance Inter City services from regional services and freight. To that end, in Poland the Inter City services are run by PKP (Polskie Koleje Państwowe) centrally and the regional services, (Przewozy Regionalne) are just that, regional and managed so. Additionally the Gdansk areas has its own brand, (SKM). There is no inter-operability between PolRegio and Inter City. Over many routes they compete with one another. Though those aforementioned auto ticket machines can dispense both.
The Inter City services are fantastic. They run using refurbished rolling stock manufactured in the 1980s (the plates in each corridor specify exactly when they were built. The locomotives seem to be of more recent vintage. They are not high speed. They have many timing points. But they do seem to be reliable. Many have European power sockets, but no wifi. That is for East to West. North to South has some impressive new Pendolino trains but seemingly they run fast not so often as, again, the infrastructure cannot support it. That said, I saw lots of evidence of infrastructure renewal using equipment from Alstom and Bombardier.
The units used for regional services seem to be more modern, with a few exceptions – Malbork to Elbląg being a case in point.
The PKP (right) logo is interesting. It has a period design and the obligatory arrows associated with mobility – and railway mobility in particular.
Naturally, the younger company, PolRegio has a much more modern appearance and a bit more of primary colour. The livery of the trains reflects this, too. Though exactly what it is supposed to say, I’ve no idea. PolRegio seems to be enough. But what do I know about design?
Most of the cities that we have visited have street trams. Elbląg, not a huge place, has a complex network of trams. Some of them are dated – rustbuckets, even (left). They run – in certain parts of the city over beautifully grassed avenues. They are a delight (we did not ride the trams, but they sat with me as characterful as the art – see blog entry 2).
Reflections on “The Pie at Night” by Stuart Maconie
Filed under: Book reviews | Tags: Hull, Stuart Maconie, The Pie at Night
Leave a Comment It was at least three years’ ago that a colleague lent me this book, knowing full well that I am a regular listener to Maconie’s radio programme, the Freak Zone, on BBC Radio 6 Music. I have finally read it and have some thoughts on its content. Maconie is the same generation as I am and the cultural references are meaningful in a way they would not be for younger people and indeed people not from the North of England.
In the book Maconie discusses – effectively – the leisure pursuits of northerners – music, art, education, museums, fun fairs, eating, walking/countryside, sport/football/speedway/betting. Let me start with music. His Freak Zone show is sometimes inaccessible – or unlistenable. He says of the show’s playlists “[I like what] some people might call ‘weird shit'”. He also likes “well-crafted pop” such as Chic, Abba, disco and Tamla Mowtown. “What I do not like is the stuff in between: middle of the road rock, landfill indie, earnest singer songwriters, self-important rock stars who think they are old bluesmen or great poets, stadium rock bands, divas, legends, anyone who has got to the stage in their career when they now wear a hat thinking it makes them interesting, all the stuff that ends up in those rock critics’ list of the 100 Greatest Albums.” I love some of the phraseology without actually knowing exactly what it means. Landfill indie – I sense I could be partial to a bit of that. Earnest singer-songwriters…I have often struggled with this genre; not least because I wish music changed things, but it does not. Earnest, but fruitless. Anyway, does he mean Bob Dylan (who also wears a hat)? The rock critics’ top 100 albums…as he is a former rock critic, I defer to him on that. Interestingly he then admits to his dislike of opera. He has tried, he says. And then he tries again with Opera North and a performance of The Marriage of Figaro. I have seen some opera at the BBC proms and a little bit in Munich. I have also seen some Gilbert and Sullivan at the English National Opera. A hoot, but I am not sure it is really opera. I will never admit to it being a favourite genre, or anywhere close. It is potentially captivating. One problem is that I’m not so interested these days in stories. I stopped going to the cinema about 10 years’ ago. I just cannot cope any more with people getting hurt. An opera without betrayal and the odd stabbing is not really opera. I know most of it is not real, but even an edition of “Yes Minister” makes me feel bad.
On fun fairs and the places that host them such as Blackpool, I am reassured that people have always gone there to escape from their day-to-day lives (work is illustrated throughout the book from mills to mines). With a fun fair and “white knuckle rides”, the sheer terror is guaranteed to focus the mind – I’ve never been a great fan of such rides. The best I have been able to manage is the Waltzers. The side-shows, too, serve that purpose. I can still remember as a kid shaking hands with the “tallest man in the world”. He did have large hands. On the basis of this chapter, I am going to give Blackpool a pass.
His football chapter takes readers to Rochdale – the club that has never won anything – and FC United, a club that resulted from Manchester United fans who could not endorse the take-over of the club by the Glaziers. They did what was unthinkable for most fans – leave the club (relinquish the season ticket) and set up a new one that would start at the bottom of the most amateur of the amateur leagues. But FC United is a club with ambition – and now its own ground, Broadhurst Park.
Maconie – against a Lancastrian’s better judgment – visits my home town of Hull to go on the Larkin trail, named after the city’s adopted poet and librarian to Hull University’s students. When I lived in the city (from birth until I was 23), we had absolutely nothing to do with the University. I am not even sure that I knew who Larkin was. Or a library for that matter. We lived in the East. The University was in the West and across the river. And for others. So I now know that Larkin enjoyed an occasional drink in Ye Olde Black Boy pub. I confirm it is a dark cave. It is where I used to hold the animal rights meetings until we moved into the much-more welcoming Blue Bell (for animal rights people, that is). Larkin also enjoyed, seemingly, cycling out of the city to places like Broomfleet (Humber flood plain) in the West and the Holderness peninsular in the East. Both as flat as anything. Both always foggy and mysterious. Both offered silence – until my first (and only) Siouxsie and the Banshees gig at the City Hall that gave me tinnitus which remains to this day. Maconie concludes that “I like Hull a lot”.
Maconie is perhaps at his best when taking on the leisure activities that good Methodists like me would never contemplate. For example, where can one bet on crown green bowling? There’s one place, Westhoughton. Through a shabby green door on Wigan Road in the town is “the home of professional crown green bowling”. Inside, everyone knows everyone else – outsiders are easy to spot. The betting is not with bookmakers like at the races, but between punters. They square up at the end of the day having made their bets using a language that needs learning. But if you want to see the world’s best CGB player, Brian Duncan, play, this is where you come. If you dare.
A lot of the north is “if you dare”. I’ve been away for a while and going back can feel alien. I do recall being singled out one time as an outsider, so much must my accent have changed. I said I was born-and-bred. But perhaps leaving was a betrayal. Hull City is my football team. It was not when I lived there. I may be a citizen of nowhere now. Or at least in my head, a world citizen.
European travel by train, post-Covid
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Deutsche Bahn, European railways, German railways
Comments (1) 
Since leaving planes behind pre-Covid, I have been travelling by train regularly between London and Munich. It can be a very stressful journey because connections are invariably missed. Deutsche Bahn is not having a good time at the moment. For example, whilst writing this, I am writing this on a train that has picked up a technical fault and goes no further than Köln (it should be going to Brussels).
I cannot remember the last time that I had a trouble-free journey. There is always a problem. Here are the most common:
- technical fault on train (the train does not arrive, or it does and gets cancelled on the spot)
- detour to avoid damaged overhead lines and failed points
- failed AirCon (whole coaches closed)
- bad weather (which now increasingly means hot weather)
So, going out from the south coast of England a couple of weeks ago (midweek), my first leg was delayed (Hastings to Ashford, 0615). I took a slower train to London (0620), changing at London Bridge. I reached the Eurostar terminal (St Pancras Int) with 5 minutes to spare (before the check-in closed at 0830). Important here is just to go to the front of the queue and ask to get straight to the gates and through security.
I usually give myself a lot of connecting time in Brussels (careful of thieves, they are active and I have had a bag stolen, use the cafes). Eurostar arrives in Brussels at around five-past the hour. Deutsche Bahn ICE usually leaves at 25 past the hour. It is according to The Man in Seat61 a recognised change. But 20 minutes is not long. I usually allow more for the next train (in my case 1425, Brussels – Frankfurt). Often this train is cancelled or starts at Liège. If the latter, there are plenty of trains to Liège. Take one. But if the former, travellers need to get to Aachen. This is not possible from Liège. If readers end up there, then the place to go is Welkenraedt. From there, it is possible to get across the border on a small local train to Aachen, and from Aachen to Köln and from there options are available to go south, east or north in Germany and beyond.
Where delays are involved, DB conductors do not care whether passengers are on their booked train or not. So, It is not necessary to ask in the Reisezentrum to validate a ticket (I used to do this), for general travel. Just get on. I do not print out my tickets these days. They are stored on the DB app, DB Navigator (right). The app records the journey and sends updates. Take screen grabs where cancellations occur (DB does take them from your app shortly after the cancellation notification, so it is good practice – readers may want to claim back money, too).
On the way back, I was booked on 0746 InterCity train Munich to Frankfurt (left). The app had warned me early of a 10-minute delay; the train was 40 minutes late leaving Munich after experiencing engineering works between Salzburg and Munich (though the app reported a technical fault on the train as the cause). I had given myself a 45 minute change time. The app allows users to specify how many minutes are preferred for changing – I set mine to at least 30 minutes, but increasingly that is not enough. On this first leg of my journey the app kept saying that the connection would be met in Frankfurt. And then not. And then once again possible (erreichbar). In the end it was 4 minutes. A bit of a run from platform 11 to 18 (the station is a dead end, so there are no stairs). It was all rather in vain. The ICE to Brussels developed a fault at Köln and went no further. I waited for the next scheduled train two hours’ later (having given myself this extra time in Brussels to accommodate such a failure). I squeezed on, only for the train to develop a fault at Aachen. So then it was back to Welkenraedt, this time with two ICE trainloads to be accommodated on a two coach electric train! The Belgian rail staff keep their distance. Not everyone got on. From Welkenraedt there is a direct train to Brussels Midi (Oostende service).
Now I did not think that I was going to be confronted by two failed ICEs in one day. At Köln I could have taken a regional service to Aachen, and from there to Welkenraedt. That would have given me time to get to Brussels. Though I held back because the immediate next Aachen train was itself cancelled. I chose to wait for the ICE. I should have thought that something might have gone wrong as my way out was plagued by two failed trains. But I edged my way forward. But Eurostar is a bottleneck. There is only one tunnel (and not enough trains).
To finish the story I arrived Brussels at 1900 (missing the Eurostar comfortably). On the train I used Booking.com to find a hotel in the vicinity of the station. The only meaningful option was Park Inn. Pretty standard. Been before. I also booked a Eurostar ticket for 0852 on Sunday morning. €200 – about double what I paid for the original ticket. Ultimately I was lucky to get a ticket as I had no seat options other than that allocated.
Advice –
- keep a mobile phone charged/charging (use the power on DB trains – though do not forget an adapter)
- ensure that you have roaming
- always go forward – though decisions are tight. I am disappointed that I did not go for the Aachen-Welkenraedt option in the first instance. I would have made the Eurostar
- always assume something will go wrong – ensure you have room on credit cards for unexpected payments (I heard some people on the train trying to book a hotel with insufficient credit).
- I appreciate that is a bit of a privilege, but a bunk bed in a hostel in mid-summer in Brussels will cost €100. Sleeping in the station really is not recommended
- always carry food and water.
I’ll work out how to claim back money for failed services and post again.
I’ve also got something to say about Germany’s €9 ticket. Great idea but comes with some systemic failures.
Book Review – Barnabas Calder, Architecture From Prehistory to Climate Emergency
Filed under: Art, Environment, History, Housing, Religion | Tags: architecture, Barnabas Calder
Leave a Comment Regular readers will know that I have much regard for the work of Andreas Malm. His book Fossil Capital was influential in my thinking about how to reframe my teaching of business strategy at my university. It tells the story of our addiction to fossil fuels. It posits the idea that it did not need to be so; the addiction arose primarily from the owners of capital using technology to outflank organised labour on the one hand, and competitors on the other. Organised labour was quite powerful in the British mill towns of the 18/19 Centuries because of the static nature or source of motive power – flowing rivers. Steam, generated by burning coal and heating water was so much more flexible and, what’s more, the owners could be confident the government would intervene to crush organised labour when called on. But equally, water was a shared resource and the owners proved themselves to be unable to agree how to share it.
Calder has made me think again in his extraordinary book (right). Calder is a historian of architecture, but very particular kind. In every building he sees energy. In the prehistory it is in the food that provides the energy to build shelter. In later periods of human advancement – particularly in respect of agricultural efficiency and yields – excesses meant that labour could be siphoned off by kings and emperors to build the great vanity projects of history such as the pyramids, the Parthenon, etc. With the advent of fossil fuels, not only was more labour displaceable from the land, but the building materials themselves were innovated as well as construction techniques. That bundle of stored energy found in coal and oil liberated architects, builders and clients. Later they were aided and abetted by information technologies that were able to do the calculations that legions of humans could not realistically handle (Calder offers the example of the challenge to realise Jørn Oberg Utzon’s vision for the Sydney Opera House and the pioneering work of Ove Arup crunching the necessary numbers).
The first part of the book examines culture, energy and architecture interesting pairings. Greeks and Persians; Rome and the Song Dynasty – different places, different times. Though he also uses this technique for the 20th Century in comparing New York and Chicago (chapter 9 – good value even if one does not read the rest of the book – difficult to keep Donald Trump out of the mind, however). In all cases through history, powerful men are deliberately trying to outdo one another. Rightly, we are constantly reminded about infrastructure, bridges, water supply and sewerage.
What are some of the curiosities? I learned (always a good indicator of a worthwhile read) from prehistory, Dogon village houses (Mali, left) have low height forcing occupants to sit. This specifically prevents men from fighting one another. Uruk (in modern-day Iraq) is perhaps humanity’s first city. Not everyone worked the land and hence specialisms developed – bronze casting, currency and writing. The transformative agricultural technology was animal-drawn ploughs and, of course, irrigation. We are talking 5000 years ago. 2000 years ago, 172 men pulled crafted stones of 58 tonnes with a lone individual throwing water to keep down the friction. Though 200 tonnes was not unheard of as manageable by human strength – though the men needed to be fit and, crucially, well fed.
For the Parthenon, Calder tells us why the columns are not evenly spaced (of course, Doric order!), reveals that it bends upwards to the middle, there are other distortions too (entasis) and that these are a deliberate manifestation of intellectual debate and democracy prevalent in Athenian society.
I learned about opus incertum (random), Opus recitulatum (standard square bricks), opus latericium (like a brick wall – rectangular fired bricks that overlap, right). I did not know about Roman concrete and that the Pantheon’s dome is made of it and that it gets lighter as the dome extends so that the whole structure does not collapse. It is impressive, notes Calder, that it has survived 1900 years!
Not surprisingly, religious buildings feature highly in the prose. There is a chapter on mosques and some insights on the architecture of what is now Istanbul (the text is not limited to Istanbul, there is an extensive section on the Great Mosque of Damascus – the initiative of Caliph al-Walid I c705-15 and the mosque in Timbuktu c1320, the product of Mansa Musa’s great wealth as emperor of Mali). I have visited the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, as well as the near-adjacent Sultanahmet Mosque (also known as the Blue Mosque), a private enterprise that, on cost grounds, sourced materials much closer to home than the builders of its neighbour. For Christian buildings (notwithstanding the Hagia Sophia’s regular changes of denomination), Calder discusses the 13th Century cathedral in Bourges, so big that it breached the city walls and so tall it reached to what we would now identify as 10 storeys high. To the locals living in tiny dwellings shared with animals the internal cleanliness, order and light, Calder says, would have seemed astonishing. But Cathedral building was not immune to ego – the next one needed to be bigger: Notre Dame, Reims, Amiens and Beauvais (left) all bigger than the rest. Though there were limits, Beauvais repeatedly collapsed under its own weight.
Next on Calder’s list is the impact of plague on European civilisations. Bubonic plague devastated populations in the 5th and 6th centuries leading to reduced cultivation and construction. With no surplus, building returned to basics and bricks were no longer fired. The Black Death did wonders for pay rates and educational opportunities. There is room, too, for the Renaissance, the Vatican and the Reformation. These are gems for readers of this blog to explore without my help.
Into modern times, and into territory that is really Calder’s heartland, modernism and concrete. There is rightly an extensive review of the work and life of Le Corbusier (asa Edouard Jeanneret). His influences included Giacomo Matté-Trucco’s Lingotto factory (Fiat’s manufacturing plant in Turin with its roof racing track, right). Le Corbusier was quite a self-publicist, it seems like he sold more books about his architecture and the attendant vision for concrete, steel, glass and electricity), as he did design buildings. I certainly did not know how awful the buildings were to occupy. Concrete and glass enabled a very particular spacious and well-lit living and work spaces, but with no insulation and relatively poor heating, the houses had serious condensation problems. It is not surprising that one famous building – Villa Savoye – ended up as a barn after its occupant-family fled the Nazis. Nor was I aware that the beautiful Bauhaus building in Dessau was similarly afflicted by intense heat loss rendering it totally unsuitable for its use as a workshop. Le Corbusier is, however, celebrated for his Unitè d’Habitation in Marseille – a huge block of 337 flats with a row of shops half way up. It’s founding principles as a community with its roof garden for children is visionary and only possible because of new building materials and the fossil fuels that generate the energy to make cement from limestone and steel from iron ore (Calder gives us the figures to demonstrate their consumption). The Barbican in London was a later manifestation of this principle.
My own alma mater – the University of East Anglia – gets a mention for its Ziggurat-shaped student accommodation (which was my home for some of my university career) for its modular design and manufacture. Concrete remained in the 60s the building material of choice for the new inclusiveness captured in school and university buildings. It is true, the building I studied in was one continuous block of concrete. Magnificent it was, too.
And so to conclusions. Calder is clear, we need more renovation of failing properties. Demolition might be a viable business proposition using current measures, but the energy needed cannot be justified in a carbon-reducing world. Calder does not find too many exemplars. Even buildings like the Blomberg HQ in London falls far short of being sustainable. Calder introduces us to the Cork House in London. Built from cork as the name suggests. But its limitations are such that it cannot accommodate current and future needs for buildings.
On his own sustainability, Calder tells us early on that some of the buildings he writes about he has not actually visited, to do so would have been to make the carbon problem worse. This is a brave statement and one that sets a standard. Modern technology gives us unprecedented virtual access to so many cultural artefacts, sufficient to be a scholar and produce work of this quality. If your summer is short of reading, this is 20 GBPs well spent.
Be informed 
