reginald marsh ... seems to have been very popular in his lifetime but i only happened on him when i googled images for my wimmin with horses blog

3BT, 16 March 2016

An ancient wood that stretches along a hillside above the curving road is being coppiced.  The woodcutters have masterfully left enough of the big trees for it still to be a wood.   Now it encloses the gracious spaces that characterize a gothic cathedral.  Within the wood I glimpse huge bounteous stacks of massive beech logs that only machines might lift.  Between them, here and there, the machines have piled up mountainous bonfires of cuttings, and red sheets of flame blast up into the canopy whilst the charcoal base glows even in the golden morning light.

On the radio in the cab, I can hear a writer named Richard Hines talking about the kestrel he once tamed.  Within two miles such a bird hovers twenty feet above the hedge on my left and then descends slowly in a dead straight line across my path, narrowly missing the truck, as he closes on his prey in a narrow space between a hedge and the nearby wood.

I stop at Reigate for my second break after nine hours at work, and shamble in to a small High Street supermarket to buy a drink and a sandwich, then find myself approaching the till in step with an acquaintance, Zoe, the smartest and funniest woman I know.  She is wearing a lovely high collared grey woollen coat, probably an antique but good as new, pinned with a diamante brooch in the shape of a fern, or is it a feather ? I’ve already forgotten.  We only chat for a minute, and as always I am astonished at her perfect face-paint, perfect coiffure, dark intelligent eyes compelling my full attention, and her unfailing talent for making me laugh out loud. Hurrah !

i thought i didn't much like poussin's painting style until i just discovered this late work, blind orion searching for the rising sun ... it has an endearingly childish perspective on an ancient myth

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pous/hd_pous.htm

from wikipedia ...

The legend of Orion was first told in full in a lost work by Hesiod, probably the Astronomia; simple references to Hesiod will refer to this, unless otherwise stated. This version is known through the work of a Hellenistic author on the constellations; he gives a fairly long summary of Hesiod's discourse on Orion.^[6] According to this version, Orion was likely the son of the sea-god Poseidon and Euryale,^[7]daughter of Minos, King of Crete. Orion could walk on the waves because of his father; he walked to the island of Chios where he got drunk and attacked Merope,^[8] daughter of Oenopion, the ruler there. In vengeance, Oenopion blinded Orion and drove him away. Orion stumbled to Lemnos whereHephaestus — the lame smith-god — had his forge. Hephaestus told his servant, Cedalion, to guide Orion to the uttermost East where Helios, the Sun, healed him; Orion carried Cedalion around on his shoulders. Orion returned to Chios to punish Oenopion, but the king hid away underground and escaped Orion's wrath. Orion's next journey took him to Crete where he hunted with the goddess Artemis and her mother Leto, and in the course of the hunt, threatened to kill every beast on Earth. Mother Earth objected and sent a giant scorpion to kill Orion. The creature succeeded, and after his death, the goddesses asked Zeus to place Orion among the constellations. Zeus consented and, as a memorial to the hero's death, added the Scorpion to the heavens as well.^[9]

Almost everything that Poussin painted in later life was allegorical, perhaps to suit his clients' needs for a little dignity.  Many of his clients were scholars and bishops who had their own private passions.  Look closely.  This painting shows a mythical landscape through which the blinded hunter Orion is guided towards the rising sun ... it is a complicated story in which every figure represents a human or divine trait of some kind ...  clicketty click for some possible and plausible explanations ...

https://potbanks.wordpress.com/2018/02/01/blind-orion-searching-for-the-rising-sun/

... and some ...

https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/videos/2020/5/insider-insights-poussin-orion

... and some more ...

https://fullreads.com/essay/on-a-landscape-of-nicolas-poussin/

burning man ... i don't think i'll ever go because of the heat and dust BUT i am fascinated by this great festival ... examples herewith

Robert Hooke, from his Micrographia, c.1665 ... but, much more fun, Jan van Kessel, c.1659

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hooke

Hooke was the subject of discussion on Radio4's In Our Time this morning ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b070h6ww





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_van_Kessel_the_Elder

gratuitous doggy stuff ... pictures by elliott erwitt and richard avedon ... apropos de nuffink in partikuliere ... borrowed from the great italian fashion photography blog "pleasure photo"

https://pleasurephoto.wordpress.com/

five pounds, new money

an eastern parable, widely told ... the blind men and the elephant

... and on thursday they'll be discussing the persian poet RUMI on BBC Radio4

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06ztx2w

here's a YouTube fillum of his telling of the tale ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxMPt0LBHOo

and of course, there's a wikipedia artickle ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

and after they've put their grubby hands everywhere ....