Day: March 25, 2022

The Artistic Priests

~ JezzieG ~ 2 Comments
The Talisman, the River Aven at the Bois d’Amour by Paul Sérusier, 1888. Oil on board. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

The Artistic Priests
Movement: Les Nabis
Started: 1880
Ended: 1910

Les Nabis (originating from the Hebrew and Arabic term for prophets) were a cult group of the Symbolist movement founded by Paul Sérusier by organising his friends into a secret society. The group wanted to connect with higher powers and saw the artists as high priests and seers who had the ability to reveal the invisible. Within Les Nabis artists were creators of subjective imagery deeply rooted in the soul of the artist. While subject matter varied between individual artists they all followed formal tenets including the concept that a painting was a harmonious combination of lines and colours. The subjectivity and artistic individuality was accomplished through the choice of how lines and colours were arranged.

Les Nabis group grew from the work of Paul Gauguin, literary theory, and Symbolism – especially the concept that colour and shape represented experience. Les Nabis artists considered themselves initiates of a brotherhood devoted to exploring the purest sources of art, personally and spiritually, seizing on the mysterious and mystical even if the subject related to the mundane and every day.

Nabi Landscape by Paul Ranson, 1890. Oil on canvas. Private Collection

Les Nabis expanded their aesthetic style into applied arts, including murals, posters, decorative screens, illustrations, and theatre design. The interest in decorative art was part of the retreat into beauty and aesthetics in the late 19th century and the ensuing taste for abstraction within the age of advertising.

Through the artist Émile Bernard, Sérusier reluctantly met Gauguin at Pont-Aven in the summer of 1888. Together they visited a beautiful natural area of Bois d’Amour. Under the guidance of Gauguin and his Synthesist technique, Sérusier painted The Talisman. On returning to Paris he started preaching this new style. Sérusier was also influenced by the current ideas circulating amongst the Symbolists including the Neoplatonic philosophy combining Pagan and Christian thought with other spiritual directions. Sérusier organised his friends into a secret society – Les Nabis. The group met at the home of Paul Ranson on Saturdays, and Ranson served as the social connection holding the group together.

Amongst the most noted Nabis, Sérusier and Ranson were the most mystical, serious, philosophical, and Neo-Catholic, reviving sacred art and studying theosophy. Ranson’s work bears the closest resemblance of all the Les Nabis to the decorative and organic style of Art Nouveau. Vallatton, the Swiss artist and anarchist created portraits of Symbolist writers and in the 1890s created high-quality wood engravings. Roussel, another anarchist, focused on mythological subjects, combining the Rococo style of the 18th century with the interests of the fin-de-siecle – a form of drawing-room paganism.

La Revue Blanche by Pierre Bonnard, 1894. Lithograph. Private Collection

In several articles outlining Les Nabis ideas, Denis saw Symbolism and its rejection of Naturalism and its leaning towards abstraction as a means of spirituality, the feeling that a work of art is derived from the soul of the artist. Denis is also famous for one of the key statements of modernist painters of the 20th century – ‘A picture – before being a warhorse, a female nude, or some anecdote – is essentially a flat surface covered in a particular order.’

Among the most significant artists of the Les Nabis were Bannard and Vuillard who shared a studio at the foot of the Montmartre and both were keen readers of the French symbolist poet Stephane Mallarme. Bannard created several graphic works including the cover of La Revue Blanche (1895) and a number of book illustrations. He ascribed the Nabi doctrine of abandoning three-dimensional modelling for flat areas of colour; however, he didn’t follow the Symbolist subjects as chosen by others of the group. Vuillard’s Au Lit (1891) depicted flat areas evenly painted in, revealing the influence of Denis’ ideas, but he is best known for his interior scenes depicting a system of value tones and surface patterns.

Paul Ranson in Nabi Costume by Paul Sérusier, 1890. Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France

Bonnard and Vuillard had a greater interest in fashionable Symbolist milieu with the talk about Neo-Platonism and Mallarme taking place as well as the fashionable women in attendance. Vuillard became a painter for Misia Sert, the wife of the editor of La Revue Blanche. Frequently described as intimist Bonnard and Vuillard’s work consisted of contemporary paintings of the daily life around them rather than remote people or biblical scenes, myths and or transcendental imagery.

As one by one the group members became more conservative the movement fell apart. Villard, catered to his upper-class patrons, turned to a more naturalistic and conventional style whilst Bonnard seldom exhibited his work after 1914

Game of Shuttlecock by Édouard Vuillard, 1892. Oil on canvas. Desmarais Collection, Paris, France

Vuillard, Bonnard, and Roussel renounced the Nabi doctrines for their own personal styles. Ranson and Sérusier upheld the Nabi aesthetic, and Ranson and his wife Marie-France founded the Academie Ranson to further its influence. There were many students but none attained the stature of the original Nabis

Jonah and the Grampus by Marriott Edgar

~ JezzieG

Jonah and the Grampus

I’ll tell you the story of Jonah,
A really remarkable tale;
A peaceful and humdrum existence he had
Until one day he went for a sail.

The weather were grand when they started,
But later at turn of the tide
The wind started blowing, the water got rough,
And Jonah felt funny inside.

When the ship started pitching and tossing
He tried hard his feelings to smother,
At last he just leant his head over the side
And one thing seemed to bring up another.

When the sailors saw what he were doing
It gave them a bit of a jar;
They didn’t mind trippers enjoying theirselves,
But thowt this ‘ere were going too far.

Said one “Is there nowt you can think on
To stop you from feelin’ so bad?”
And Jonah said “Aye, lift me over the side
And chuck me in, there’s a good lad.”

The sailor were not one to argue,
He said “Happen you know what’s best.”
Then he picked Jonah up by the seat of his pants
And chucked him in, as per request.

A Grampus came up at that moment,
And seeing the old man hard set,
It swam to his side and it opened its mouth
And said “Come in lad, out of the wet.”

Its manner were kindly and pleading,
As if to say R.S.V.P.
Said Jonah “I’ve eaten a kipper or two,
But I never thowt one would eat me.”

The inside of Grampus surprised him,
‘Twere the first time he’d been behind scenes;
He found ‘commodation quite ample for one
But it smelled like a tin of sardines.

Then over the sea they went cruising,
And Jonah were filled with delight;
With his eye to the blow-‘ole in t’Grampus’s head
He watched ships that passed in the night.

“I’m tired of watching,” said Jonah,
“I’ll rest for a minute or so.”
“I’m afraid as you wont find your bed very soft,”
Said the Grampus, “I’ve got a hard roe.”

At that moment up came a whale boat,
Said Jonah, “What’s this ‘ere we’ve struck?”
“They’re after my blubber,” the Grampus replied,
“You’d better ‘old tight while I duck.”

The water came in through the spy-‘ole
And hit Jonah’s face a real slosher,
He said, “Shut your blow-‘ole!” and Grampus replied
“I can’t lad, it needs a new washer.”

Jonah tried ‘ard to bail out the water,
But found all his efforts in vain,
For as fast as he emptied the slops out through the gills
They came in through the blow ‘ole again.

When at finish they came to the surface
Jonah took a look out and he saw
They were stuck on a bit of a sandbank that lay
One rod, pole or perch from the shore.

Said the Grampus, “We’re in shallow water,
I’ve brought you as far as I may;
If you sit on the blow ‘ole on top of my head
I’ll spout you the rest of the way.”

So Jonah obeyed these instructions,
And the Grampus his lungs did expand,
Then blew out a fountain that lifted Jo’ up
And carried him safely to land.

There was tears in their eyes when they parted
And each blew a kiss, a real big ‘un,
Then the Grampus went off with a swish of it’s tail
And Jonah walked back home to Wigan

Marriott Edgar

Marriott Edgar
Born: 5 October 1880, Kirkcudbright, Scotland
Nationality: English
Died: 5 May 1951, Battle, East Sussex, England

Edgar was a poet, scriptwriter, and comedian. He is best known for the sixteen monologues written for Stanley Holloway, including the ‘Albert’ series

All Night Long

~ JezzieG

All Night Long
Form: Cornish Sonnet 4
Theme: Love
Subject: Night-shifter

It is working all night to pay the rent
It’s not quite skint, just making the ends meet
But still counting each and every cent
Tears of relief, there’s enough to get by
For food on the table, maybe a treat
She taken what’s left she has shoes to buy
Working all night for her high maintenance
The price of her love measured by the buck
My credit card her idea of romance
She’s having fun, I’m working on the line
If this is love then I’m all out of luck
For when I get home there’s nothing that’s mine
She’s taken what’s left she has shoes to buy
Working all night for her high maintenance

©JGFarmer2022

Ballade Supreme Notes

~ JezzieG ~ 1 Comment

Similar to the Ballade, the Ballade is a longer poem with a slightly different rhyme scheme that accommodates the extra lines. It consists of three 10-line stanzas and a closing r-line envoi. Ideally written in iambic tetrameter or octosyllabic lines. The last line of the first stanza forms the refrain.

Rhyme scheme: ababbccdcD ababbccscD ababbccdcD ccdcD

Example

The Lullaby by Jez Farmer

That babe in arms was you my son
All bathed and dried, ready for bed
The future of you just begun
I kissed my love upon your head
Wishing you joy where’re you tread
Through good and bad my love is true
But now you have sleeping to do
For my love you’ll always keep
A blessing from my soul to you
As I would sing you to your sleep

That playful child was you my son
Exploring life that lay ahead
Beneath your feet and summer sun
Gathering joy as grazes bled
I would cry when I saw that red
Wishing I could take pain from you
I’d patch you up best I could do
And wipe those tears you dared to weep
Promised I’d always be there to
As I would sing you to your sleep

Now a man that is you my son
Doing it your way, your path to tread
I’m so proud of all you’ve done
I’m behind you where’re you head
The moral rock in words unsaid
My son no matter what you do
I’m the loud voice gunning for you
My shoulder where you come to weep
When things go wrong and you feel blue
Still I would sing you to your sleep

A mother’s love is always true
That don’t change despite what we do
My babe in arms beyond skin-deep
No matter what I’m there for you
Perhaps I’ll sing you to your sleep