Charleston and beyond

Yesterday i went with my daughter to Charleston Farmhouse, underneath the South Downs. Every stick of furniture is painted by members of the Bloomsberry with colours, sometimes radiant, sometimes beautifully faded. Towards the end of the tour, in the studio which is one of my favorite rooms anywhere, the guide read out Virginia Woolf's suicide notes. How moving.

Virginia W, Vanessa Bell, Lytton Strachey, Maynard Keynes, Grant, Fry - the Bloomsberry group seems to be a counter example to my assertion that when you scratch the lives of people who have changed consciousness you generally discover a well-developed interest in esoteric philosophy. Rebelling against Victorian piety, they were resolutely atheistic.

The general effect in the farmhouse is wonderful, uplifting. But in one of the corridors, you pass a lithograph by Picasso, and what stands out amongst all the well-meaning English clutter and excited delight in colour and decorative charm are the bold, perfect lines of a man-god who was perhaps incapable of drawing a line wrong. In Picasso's case this surely goes beyond confidence.

The inside of the church in nearby Berwick was decorated with paintings throughout by the Bloomsberries, some of them extraordinarily beautiful . Biblical scenes have recognizable features of the downs in the background. At the moment it's also been decorated for harvest festival and there are hung up, too, drawing, studies made by Vanessa Bell in preparation for the paintings.

It's one of the places I like to take people I love. Less well known is a church the other side of Charleston at Firle, where there is a wonderful window by Piper. Piper like Sutherland continued a tradition of English nature mysticism in landscape that goes back to Blake's pupil Samuel Palmer. Then Sutherland's disciple Francis Bacon broke away and found his own style, and consciousness changed again to something much more raw and modern, urban, darker, brutal even.

I read a fascinating piece by Brian Sewell in the Evening Standard about Bacon, whom he obviously knew quite well. Sewell mentioned 'his interest into the quasi-supernatural field of the emanations, auras and energies of his subjects'. I wonder if 'quasi' is right?

Comments

[Michael Allen]

I remember the church at Firle with its Piper window and beech hedge. Beautiful. And a beautiful, unspoiled village too. I always enjoyed a Sunday afternoon down there, walking on the Downs.
I wonder if that beautifully situated little pub, the Anchor Inn, near Barcombe Cross north of Lewes, at the end of a dead end lane and from where you can rent boats on the Ouse, is still open? It's probably not so well known, except to locals, as it's hard to find.

[jonathanblack]

I don't know, Michael - that sounds lovely. We went to the pub in Firle - the Ram, maybe, something like that. Very nice, but perhaps a bit too smart.

[picasso etching]

what a wonderful description of the picasso and its placement amongst the "well-meaning English clutter". I am curious which picasso lithograph it was. I am considering purchasing a PICASSO ETCHING myself. I'm currently looking here for a picasso etching http://www.masterworksfineart.com/inventory/picasso or picasso lithograph.

Thanks for the post!

[jonathanblack]

Thank you, Picasso etching. It was a female figures - that's all I can remember, and it's not catalogued. My favourites are the Minotaur series.

I believe that Picasso carried in some part of his being the spirit of the demi-god Theseus - which may be more than you want to know if you've just wandered onto this site on a Picasso connection!