MORE ABOUT MY FATHER: Part One

Young Sacha from a photograph  NdA 2003. Acrylic on canvas. 40 cm X 30 cm 

 

I had decided to post something on October 30th, the fourteenth anniversary of my father's final departure (1996) but I've been finding it really hard to get down to blogging recently. It could be the blogging blues, which we all experience from time to time, or it could be the advancing dark dreariness of winter, or it could be that I'm concentrating on other things. 

Whatever the reason for this twelve-day delay, I will now write this post for Sacha, my dear father Alexander d'Arbeloff (not the same person as Alex V. d'Arbeloff who died in July 2008 - see my blog post July 9, 2008).

I mentioned Sacha on this page of my ongoing autobiography - yes, the autobio will be updated: it's on my to-be-continued list so of course it will be continued - and also blogged about him on October 23, 2003 but such a many-sided individual can't be summed up in a few family memories or an obituary - he deserves a whole book to himself. I wouldn't be the person to write it but there's no doubt that he had a tremendous influence on me and certain things in his story stand out particularly sharply in my mind. 

Sacha had already undergone several life-shaking traumas by the time he was in his teens: boiling water from a samovar accidentally spilled on his chest when he was a child. Confusing (or repressed) memories of intense family upheavals. Seeing dead bodies on the streets of Baku during chaotic political riots. Escaping from Russia during dramatic circumstances of the revolution. A hyper-sensitive and deeply introspective young man, it's not surprising that he then had a nervous breakdown - or what we would now call clinical depression - and was sent to a sanatorium. There are a lot of blanks and question marks in the information we tried to gather about those years in Sacha's life but I do know that after some temporary periods in Switzerland and the U.S.A. he stayed in Paris and became involved in cinema and publishing.

The film-maker and film historian Kevin Brownlow when researching his book Napoleon, about Abel Gance's film of that name, interviewed Sacha in the 1980s about his role in that production (my father's comments are on pp 99-101 of Brownlow's book). Briefly: a small film company was formed by Sacha and his cousin, Jacques Grinieff and other associates. Eventually, they were able to raise the funds to make Abel Gance's ground-breaking movie. By then my father had resigned from the company but Grinieff went on to become a film producer in America.  (Many many moons later, in New York, Uncle Jacques gave me a job adapting film scripts. But that's another story).

After the cinema experience, Sacha decided to publish a magazine. It was called AUDACES  (boldness in the plural: boldnesses?) Below is the cover of one 1934 issue. The magazine was a mix of current events - eg: article by J.B.Priestley about an ominous fascist demonstration in Manchester. Themed interviews - eg: What role have men played in your life? answered by actresses Colette, Gaby Morlay and others. How they judge - Judges talking about their experiences. Some comic pieces. A sensational crime story. Lots of pictures of women in 'seductive' poses. Photo-montages of people in the news. Cinema reviews etc.

I don't know how long Sacha persisted in the magazine venture but apparently it was successful. It must have been around this time in Paris that he also wrote and published two novels under the pseudonym Alexandre Darlaine. One was: Il Etait Une Fois Une Femme et Une Jeune Fille (There was once a woman and a young girl). The other was titled Crépuscule de la Raison (Twilight of reason). I have a very time-scarred copy of the first. The latter was turned into a play but was never performed, although many years later, probably in the 1960s or 1970s, the well-known Italian sound-track composer, Mario Nascimbene, composed two pieces of music for it - I'm unsure about dates but I do have these music sheets: Chanson de Florine  and Scène Florine et Daniel.
Sacha's novels were poetic, romantic, melancholy - more reveries than stories. I'm incapable of judging them objectively because I know that they were about his view of Blanche, my mother, and their relationship, however fictionalised.

My aim with this post is not to analyse my father's personality but simply to present some of the achievements of his life that are little known. I'm getting the references together for Part Two so don't go away. 

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PURSUED BY APPLES

I have a thing about apples, not so much about eating them as painting them. I like eating them too but that's nothing to do with my attraction to them as models. There's something basic, down to earth and yet mysterious about the shape and colour of an apple and, if you want to dwell on the mysterious, of course there's all that mythological apple-lore. The fact that I happen to have an Apple computer is neither here or there. 

Every so often I go back to painting an apple in order to try and capture what else  is going on: what is Appleness? What's happening when my eyes and consciousness meet this apple? What is there that isn't obvious? 

Here's my latest apple, finished yesterday, painted entirely with a palette knife. My model was just one apple placed on a slanting drawing board, supported by a bit of BluTak so it wouldn't roll down. The lower apple is not another apple but the top one repeated. 

Appleness  Oil on canvas. 41 cm X 30 cm  October 2010

 

And this one, painted a few years ago in the same spirit of exploration.

Yellow apple in space  Acrylic on wood.  46 cm X 28.5 cm

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BUILDING BLOCKS

Here they are, the things I saw in my studio out of which I composed the painting Frames of Reference.

Whether based on life or imagination, artists are always composing, assembling, organising selected fragments into something more than the sum of their parts. Not only artists - isn't everyone engaged in the same task, within the composition-factory that is the mind? Our memories, opinions, beliefs, the story of our lives - isn't all this a carefully constructed composition that we create and re-arrange daily, a work-in-progress? 

How about this for an experiment: 

Identify a number of things which you consider to be most significant in shaping your life, your self. Give them each a visual form - could be symbols, photos, cut-outs, whatever - doesn't have to be literal. Assemble these fragments into a composition of some kind. Publish it to your blog. Discuss! 

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I THINK IT'S FINISHED

Unless I see something else that needs changing (and I may) Frames of Reference (formerly known as Prism, formerly known as My DNA ) is done. Here it is along with a close-up of the top left-hand corner where I've painted a version of the whole snapshot of my parents which was the basis for the two central figures.

I believe this painting is about different dimensions of space and time and maybe multiple universes but any and all interpretations are welcome.

Frames of Reference  October 2010  Oil on canvas. 121cm X 91cm

 

 

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A DAY IN THE LIFE

Do you have typical days, when the pattern of the previous day is repeated almost identically, like wallpaper ? Can you remember all details of the pattern? Here's one of mine.


Got up about 10 am when the phone rang. I usually set the alarm clock for an optimistic 7:30 but since I rarely get to bed before 3 or 4 am, when it rings I switch it off, reasoning that I deserve another couple of hours. Mornings are something I would like to be better acquainted with and enjoy the benefits of more often. My mornings are blurry, foggy, indecisive. Decisions like: should I turn on the computer or have breakfast loom unresolved. Breakfast won today so I shuffled to the kitchen wearing pyjamas and red bathrobe - this is a very old mumsy robe which I must get rid of. Something jazzier and more morning-friendly is required, as long as it doesn't have a belt. I hate belted robes so don't get me one if you're thinking of it. 

Breakfast is two wholewheat mini-pitta (from Marks & Spencer) toasted in the toaster then spread with unsalted butter and a couple of slices of Emmental. An apple, a clementine, a cup of maté, no sugar or honey. While consuming this petit déjeuner I read yesterday's newspaper, the Independent. Because my morning brain is foggy, I read everything, even if I'm not interested. I have been known to read the advertisements for cars, which I have no interest in whatsoever. Droning in my blurry consciousness is a robot voice which sounds, I'm afraid, like Stephen Hawking, insisting that I should stop this robotic behaviour and Get On With The Day. 

Eventually I obey and shuffle to the bathroom. No, first I turn on the computer to check email and to find out if there are any comments here on the blog. Well, overnight somebody in another time zone might have commented, innit? Bugger, no new comments. Quick peek at my stats: not much traffic there either. Shit. But wait: the stats say I've had 699 visitors so far this month - 699 and October has just begun! That's more people than I've met in my entire life, probably. Okay maybe it's not 699 visitors but 699 visits. Even if it's only 300 people that's still more real people than I actually know. So what if they don't comment? They have visited this space and I should be gleeful. I am gleeful. I make a couple of administrative phone calls.Then I put some laundry in the washing machine. Then I go in the bathroom. 

Bathroom business takes quite a while. I need to stand in the shower for at least ten minutes even though that's terribly wasteful, ecologically speaking, because only hot water running down the back of my neck dispels the brain fog. I dress in my painting clothes, old striped purple top and blue no-Yoga Yoga trousers and then it's face-the-face time: in magnifying mirror on bedroom window-sill I examine my morning mug and adjust whatever can be adjusted, which is not much. A bit of concealer under the eyes, some plucking of stray hairs, lipstick. Now I'm ready for the day. It's about 2 pm.

I go upstairs to my studio and confront The Painting (DNA/Prism/Frames of Reference). I stand back and examine what still needs to be done. While I'm working I notice how much painting ressembles carpentry or construction in general. All about fitting this into that, balancing, assessing, eliminating, concealing, revealing. It's not glamorous or inspirational, it's just work - if some mystery or chemistry subsequently occurs between viewer and finished canvas, that's a bonus. I work until about 5 pm then go downstairs and make coffee, eat a couple of biscuits and a clementine. Quick look at email then back upstairs. More work on the painting until daylight starts to fade. Very annoyed that the days are getting shorter. Have to stop, the colours are wrong under electric light. The painting still needs more work, I'll do it tomorrow. It's about 7 pm.

I start preparing dinner, my only real meal of the day. I've got some organic beef and a lot of vegetables. I rarely eat beef but when I do, I like to make a hearty dish and tonight a casserole suits the approach of winter. I'm a good cook, if I say so myself, unschooled but creative within a limited range. Occasionally I'll follow a recipe but mostly I improvise, throwing together flavours I like. Turn the oven on to 200C and while it heats up, sauté the beef chunks in a bit of olive oil with a chopped red onion, garlic, chopped ginger, a red pepper. Add spices: cumin, coriander, thyme, black pepper, salt. A dash of red wine and stir on high heat until the meat is well-browned. The oven is ready so transfer the contents of the pan into a deep earthenware pot, add more red wine then pile in the rest of the chopped vegetables: carrots, new potatoes, parsnips, courgette, baby corn. Put the lid on the pot and bung the thing in the oven. It will take an hour and a half/two hours. Meanwhile I nibble a few black olives and drink cold coffee in a tall glass with ice cubes and a dash of port, the real Portuguese Port from Porto, a recent gift. I don't know if my mixture is a proper drink but it tastes good. 

Back to the computer to look at email again, write a few replies, browse some blogs, then begin writing this blog post. Around 9:30 pm the delicious smell says my dinner is ready. I add some quickly boiled fresh peas to the mix and ladle out a very generous helping of my casserole. It is exquisite, of course. Half a glass of red wine remains in the bottle so I drink it. A clementine is my dessert. End of food for today. Washing up can wait until morning. 

I come back to the Mac and move the August and September blog posts to my archive. It is now five past 1 am on October 13 and I think I will go to bed unless I decide to add a picture to this post and then maybe browse some blogs. 

This was my typical day that was. How typical was yours? 

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GAUGUIN AT TATE MODERN

I had booked early for this show, hoping to transform my indifference to Gauguin into enthusiasm. I've seen his paintings in museums here and there and of course in reproductions - his art seems made for high-tech printing, looks great in coffee-table books and on posters, cards, scarves, bags and baubles such as those currently adorning the Tate Modern shop. But I don't think I ever saw a comprehensive collection of his work gathered in one place so this was an opportunity to lose my immunity to his universal appeal.

Keeping eyes wide open, I amble respectfully through the galleries, stopping for long reflective pauses. The background story I'm familiar with so I ignore the big wall-captions and never ever opt for portable audio-guide - no matter how informative, I don't want somebody's voice interrupting my own impressions. I need to have silence in my head to allow the work itself to speak to me, unmediated, if it's going to speak at all.


One thing immediately creates a barrier between the painting and the viewer: those frames! Those ornate, overwrought, overweight, overprotective gold frames - why why why do museum curators still think they must burden modern paintings with these antiquated trimmings? Do they think that art won't seem like great art to the public unless it's got ten inches of baroque chocolate box icing around it? 

Never mind the frames, what about the work? Am I dazzled, excited, inspired? Well...yes and no. Gauguin's prints, woodcuts and wood-carvings are marvellous - the craftsman-artisan in him is at ease in solid media, materials he can cut and gouge and smoothe and polish. In many of his drawings there is the same sense of inhabiting the medium, neither dominated by or dominating it. Noa-Noa is a masterpiece. But put him in front of a canvas and Gauguin becomes self-conscious: he's got a message, he is an illustrator, a decorator, he makes pretty patterns out of a pretty setting. I go back and forth in the rooms, absorbing different periods of his work, but only four or five paintings escape the shocking conclusion forming in my mind that, underneath the bohemian runaway rogue artist with his hat and cape and exotic teen-age vahine, a conventional, bourgeois banker is trying to get out. 

Compare Gauguin to Van Gogh - I'm sorry but I have to make that comparison - and the difference is obvious. Vincent loses himself in the subject he chooses to paint, he is entranced by it, his technique is entirely at the service of it. All that he has learned about colour and form sits before a tree, a field or a person and humbly offers itself, like a lover. I'm yours, he says. Every drawing and painting is for Van Gogh a love affair and the pen or brush caresses the love-object, coaxes it to reveal itself. 

For Gauguin painting is not such a visceral, intuitive experience. He's attracted to the picturesque, the exotic, and uses elements of it to construct a mythical scenario. He has an agenda. 'Maker of Myth' is an apt description of the man as well as the artist. I think that when Paul came to Arles, finally giving in to Vincent's lonely and hero-worshipping entreaties, he must have been stunned by the work Vincent had produced. Gauguin was sensitive enough to realise that this work was something unprecedented and perhaps he knew in his heart that it was far beyond anything he himself could have created. Of course this is just conjecture, but my feeling is that his pride couldn't allow him to admit this and the famous Gauguin/Van Gogh fight and ensuing ear-slicing incident was an explosion of these undercurrents - Paul's envy and competitiveness, Vincent's disappointment that Paul had not expressed the appreciation of his work that he had hoped for.

So, am I glad I saw Gauguin at Tate Modern? Absolutely. Do I recommend this show? Definitely. Did I lose my immunity to Gauguin? No, apart from the prints and wood-carvings.

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FATHER AND CHILD PICTURE

My youngest niece and her husband (I posted pictures of their wedding some time ago) had their second baby on September 14th. I haven't seen the infant boy in the flesh yet but of the photos they sent, one in particular just cried out to be painted. So here's my version, digitally drawn on graphic tablet, from the photo below. 

By the way, in case you're wondering, I don't use photos as digital layers to trace and paint over or to make more 'painterly' by using filters. In this and other digital portraits I start with a blank page and look at the original photo as if it were a live model, drawing and painting directly from it onto my graphic tablet, using Photoshop brushes. I consider it cheating to manipulate a photo itself with digital processes in order to produce something that may look like a painting but is actually an altered photograph. 


Mother-and-child paintings are legion but, at least to my knowledge, there aren't that many of father and child. This one has got to be a contender, don't you think?

September almost gone already! Sorry for the long gaps between posts - have been busy offline. I will (really really) be posting more Vie en Rosé soon.

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NOT THE BLAIR INTERVIEW SHOWN ON THE BBC ON SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

but my altered version, inserting a different view from those spectacular windows and a more appropriate soundtrack. Unfortunatley the sound doesn't come up on my video below but it's working fine on the main Blaugustine and also at blip.tv

If you didn't see that BBC interview it's available at this link for another five days. Try watching it while playing Leonard Cohen's The Future.

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RECENT PORTRAITS

Just to show I'm not sitting around brooding guiltily all the time, heh heh, here are some recent portraits done for the ongoing Julia Kay's Portrait Party. If you go to my Flickr page there you can see bigger versions by clicking on each picture. And I'm nearly nearly done with the big Prism painting. 

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GUILT PURSUED

The thoughtful comments to the last post here and at my main blog are forcing me to look further into this murky topic. Having established that what my own particular guilt-harpy keeps harping about is that I'm guilty of Squandering My Gifts and Not Living Up to My Potential the logical next question is: what exactly are these gifts or potential which I'm supposedly not living up to? Do they exist at all or are they yet another mirage? Another false concept plugged into my brain by the competitive, egocentric, celebrity-obsessed culture we live in? 

Well, you know, maybe. But I don't think so. What I think, what I know gut-wise, is that I really do have gifts I'm not using. It's not vanity or arrogance to say so because gifts are gifts and the real reason why the exasperating little guilt-bug keeps buzzing around me is because it knows that I know that I'm built to fly but settle for crawling - I crawl very well but that ain't flying - and I'm designed to burn bright but settle for flickering, a flicker flicker here, a flicker there. 

You may say ah, but that's what we are: crawling, flickering creatures, doing our best against all the odds. Well if that's what you'll say, I'll have to disagree. Because what I really know down in my deepest of deep guts is that many of us have a locked cellar full of unused gifts - or maybe just one unused gift. It's not a thing, not even a talent, but a degree of feeling. It doesn't necessarily mean achievement or success in worldly terms. It means being willing to risk flying, Icarus-like.

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