Dear Learners,
Some learners may recall that Rick generously made a space some months ago
for a picture that Leonard McComb created of a beautiful young woman named
Rebecca.
[Host's Note: http://www.learning-org.com/images/LO25653_Rebecca.jpg ]
About ten years ago I experienced a kind of personal trauma in London.
This had quite a profound effect upon both my physiology and psychology.
Len, at about that time, suggested I start writing as an adjunct to
painting. It is some years now since I have visited Len. Last time was to
celebrate the unveiling of a bronze he'd created of the founder of
Oxford's newest university. Since then I have bought a drawing from his
dealers, paying twice what I should have...could have. Did he give me a
telling off when he found out;-) When I called the gallery I said I wanted
a watercolour drawing. They enquired as to my budget, as they always do. I
told them. They said they had just the one for that price and... Would I
like to come and see it? I said, No, it will be fine, just send it. When
it arrived it was very beautiful indeed. It is a portrait of a woman in
middle age. She is looking downward. Pensive;-) I have seen many
beautiful drawings in my life. I am very strongly under the impression
that working with, loving and being loved by any 'master', a reciprocal
relation for sure, is among the greatest of treasures among humans.
Like a dog having a 'friend', just as Bucket has Daisy, and we have them
both. That might seem a strange connection to make. It is knot;-) so much
so, after all - Rumi the great poet of the east is said to have come to
love the world so much that even a horses dropping was a source of wonder
and joy to him. This evening in the lane behind the houses I saw an
animal's 'dropping' that was, well, just plain beautiful. It was not the
form 'per se' ;-) so much as the colour gradations, from a beautiful
ochre, through venetian red to several burnt umbers and a silvery grey.
There it was, here I am and there you are reading this.
How strange.
Connections.
Well, about this time last year some 'back room operators' decided to
break a connection that is most important to me, those who operated 'front
room' mode lacked the courage of a temporary conviction. And others it
seems to me learned in a more genuine way that a master is a master is a
master. Just so -- as a pupil is a pupil is a pupil.
Why do people like to break connections?
Mmmmm.
The thing about art and artists and what they create is that it's a kind
of like 'a standing outside of time'. Recently, in a very different forum
to this one, a very person seemed to me to question the value of claiming
'belonging' in some 'claimed lineage' to one's own dear;-) master;-) Few
people IMHO question 'human values' more than artists do.
I will not be drawn today into what constitutes 'lineages', 'provenances',
'qualities' issuing thereto and therefrom any implied pupilage and its
mastery;-) but I was delighted yesterday to see that at the Canterbury
Christchurch University College in the UK some lines are drawn by names
and here are some and there is that special one. The exhibition is titled
'The Importance of Drawing from Old Masters to the 20th Century' Here are
the names of exhibitors (note a sense of tense present tense?)
a<>bridged;-)
Domenico Tiepolo
Rembrandt
Claude Lorrain
Camille Pissaro
Paul Cezanne
Pierre Bonnard
Leon Kossoff
Sir William Coldstream
Leonard McComb
Francis Hewlett
The last three each variously 'masters' and 'tutors' during the nineteen
seventies. I know that Coldstream who Len directed to see me is dead, I
think Francis Hewlett who was the head of my painting department for three
years is dead and, I think Len is still with us .
Point is,
" -the work lives".
What's the latin...?
Oh yeh!
"vita brevis, ars longa'
( Hippocrates Aphorismata I,1.Tr)
No French 'accents' as far as I know.
I may well write to Len, find out how the old 'Brixton Boot Boy';-) is
...question is, how 'alive' am I feeling these days?
Andrew
Andrew Campbell
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