How Art Changes the World

Picasso’s Guernica.

I will never forget the Radio 4 programme on  Picasso’s Guernica. Of course this is an emotionally devastating picture symbolically showing the bombing of the Basque town of Guernica in April 1937, carried out on the behest of Franco by the Nazi German Luftwaffe. The radio programme covered the history of Picasso’s politics (he became a communist in 1944) and the painting techniques in its construction

Guernica pulls you in as you gaze on it. The lack of colour intensifies the drama – it's almost as if we're looking on a confused photograph of carnage. People are screaming in this painting, their necks stretched, their arms raised in defeat. People lie dead; babies lie dead in their mother's arms. And among this carnage, are a bull and a horse. In my last blogpost, I started a new series looking at symbols in writing, and here, both these creatures are present as dominant symbols of what Picasso is telling us. 

As a symbol, bulls  symbolise fertility and stamina, but although it's a powerful beast, it is often unable to defend itself. It's staked in a field by a ring through its nose, or allowed to enter a ring where it will be stabbed to death..Art critics have speculated that Picasso felt many personal parallels with the bull, incorporating it into his work as a symbolic form of self-portrait.The bull is almost totemic in Spanish society, protective of the people and especially the 'Madre'; the mother that is Madrid. However, it has also been interpreted as the fascist state that was attacking the ordinary people of Spain.

The horse has been said to represent the tragedies of war and the suffering it inflicts upon individuals, particularly innocent civilians. In the picture, the horse is screaming in pain and if you look closely you'll see it has been run through with a javelin. People wondered if Picasso was trying to predict the downfall of his nation. There is no doubt that this horse is as least a  distressing sight, as the agony of mothers and children. It has become helpless as it dies its senseless death.

But the thing I took away from this programme on the painting was how ordinary people are affected by it. The contributors said that four and five year olds taken to see it are rendered speechless, that in 1939 working men brought their boots to the Whitchapel Gallery in London where it was displayed, to show their solidarity with Spain. It has gained a monumental status, an anti-war symbol, and embodiment of peace. In 1937, it was widely acclaimed and a  tour helped bring the Spanish Civil War to the world's attention. Sixty year later, Colin Powell stood in front of the UN building to announce the start of hostilities in Iraq, and the tapestry of the picture they have there was covered with a cloth as he spoke. The inhabitants of Guerica wrote to the UN in protest, pointing out the tapestry had been hung to remind all delegates as they entered the building, that their priority was to prevent war. 

This suggests great art is among the finest mediums of communication. In the right place (I think I mean 'available to be seen'),  pieces of great art can be equal in effect, if not having a greater effect, to mass media, social media or advertising. Art does not leave you indifferent. 

In a small survey, people were asked how Banksy’s art makes them feel. The results said: 51% Thoughtful. 24% happy. 22% Rebellious and there is a huge appetite to view his art, which is always brimming with messages. 

Since the M4 was built through the centre of  Port Talbot,  it has become the most polluted area in the UK, and one of the nation’s most deprived town. But just before Christmas 2018, Port Talbot woke up to a very special present. Two sides of a concrete block garage suddenly displayed a painting: a small boy with his tongue out to catch snow that, when viewed from another side, turns out to be ash from an industrial bin. After a brief period of suspense and speculation, Banksy confirmed the work as genuine by posting it on his website in the late afternoon, with the artist commenting: “season’s greetings”. In the frenzy that followed, thousands descended on the small street and the owner of the garage, who used to work at the steelworkss,  went without sleep for two days as he tried to protect the image. He was quoted as saying;  "It's really dusty in Port Talbot. I've lived there for 54 years." From this  terraced street, the  chimney stacks of the steelworks can just be seen above the rooftops, and streets nearby were home to actors Michael Sheen, Richard Burton and Sir Anthony Hopkins before they left for London and  Hollywood. 

Wire fencing was initially placed around the garage wall to stop vandalism, followed by perspex sheets. The artwork was finally sold for a six-figure sum and was displayed in the town.

Leonardo do Vinci is known for so many famous paintings, but this one is not a household name. It is the study of a foetus curled up in a womb, drawn in red chalk with traces of black chalk, pen and ink and wash, and has a  note expressing his thoughts attached to it:

"In this child the heart does not beat and it does not breathe because it rests continually in water, and if it breathed it would drown. And breathing is not necessary because it is vivified and nourished by the life and food of the mother... And one and the same soul governs these two bodies, and desires, fears and pains are common to this creature as to all other animated parts. From this it arises that a thing desired by the mother is often found imprinted on those parts of the infant that have the same qualities in the mother at the time of her desire; and a sudden terror kills both mother and child. Therefore one concludes that the same soul governs and nourishes both bodies." 

It is possible that this drawing by Di Vinci made more impact on the world than the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper put together. Da Vinci took his anatomical drawings from real life dissections, which the Church strictly forbade for non-physicians, but he determined to study human anatomy, including the relation between structure and function Often he worked by candlelight in the crypt of a church,  painstakingly dissecting bodies, both of men and women of all ages. Da Vinci described how others “...might be deterred by the fear of living in the night hours in the company of these corpses, quartered and flayed and horrible to see.” His work showed remarkable powers of observation,  perspective, accuracy and clarity, and through this he effectively was pioneering the future sciences of anatomy and forensic medicine. 

By creating a perfect depiction of what happens to the baby inside a woman's body, he challenged moral and artistic convention and changed the way that scientists studied the human body.

Guernica can be seen in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Season's Greetings by Banksy can be seen at T'yr Orsef, Parkway, Station Rd, Port Talbot SA13 1UH

Da Vinci's famous embryological drawings of the fetus are held in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle in England

Symbolism in Literature – The Sea

Full fathom five thy father lies;  

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.  

In literature, symbols are often settings, images or other motifs that stand in for bigger ideas.  Poets, novelists and dramatists use then to give their work meaning and resonance.

In this new occasional series, I'm going to look at some of the symbols used in this way, and ask why writers have chosen to use them. I'm starting with the sea, because it is a primal symbol of life. The ocean is of course, where we believe the beginning of life on Earth was formed.

The Sea, the Sea                                                                                                      Iris Murchoch was for a long time my favourite writer. I referenced her in my third novel Beneath the Tor. Goodness, love and freedom were lifelong philosophical concerns of Murdoch and she uses the theme of 'virtue and perception' in her Booker Prize winner The Sea, the Sea, her 18th novel.

Murdoch's  protagonist, Charles Arrowby, has bought Shruff End, a house with no electricity perched at the edge of the North Sea.  Arrowby is a pompous figure with weird tastes in food, difficult to like, but he quickly obsessed me as I got into the book. He wants to: become a hermit: put myself in a situation where I can honestly say that I have nothing else to do but to learn to be good. Sadly, Arrowby soon finds out just how hard it is to be good.

The Sea, the Sea  is said to be inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The irritating Arrowby echoes Prospero’s attempt to transform magic into spirit, echoed, by Ariel's Song, which opened this blogpost. Martin Amis said that Murdoch…believes in everything: true love, veridical visions, magic, monsters, pagan spirits…Arrowby imagines the sea below his house to be the home of a hideous monster, and Murdoch brilliantly depicts the distinction between imagination and fantasy, and the vital importance of negotiating these dangers. Of course, it's bound to end with a drowning – rather like…

David Copperfield                                                                                                   One of the best-known writers to use the sea regularly as a symbol was Charles Dickens. (He also loved to feature rivers, especially the Thames, in his stories, but that, as they say, is another blogpost.) As a child, he'd visit Yarmouth. Towards the end of the book, David Copperfield remembers the sea off Yarmouth as connected to the disasters of his youth, and an element that takes loved ones away. Dickens is

using the sea as an unknown and powerful force in the lives of the characters, beyond human control. Towards the end of the book he returns.to find his old schoolmate drowned; And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children--on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered by the wind--among the ruins of the home he had wronged--I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school.

The World Is Too Much With Us                                                                                  

Wordsworth's lovely sonnet uses the sea to symbolise the wild, passionate, creative force of Nature:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. 

The Life of Pi                                                                                                                                    

The Man-Booker winner in 2002, is mostly set on the ocean as Pi struggles to survive a hazardous journey. The sea symbolises one of the main themes of the book –  the will to live – while the lifeboat Pi is in with the tiger Richard Parker, would symbolise a place of both danger and safety. This is a complex novel, which uses fantasy, magical realism and meta-fiction to weave its tale.

Moby-Dick                                                                                                                     A novel set almost fully on the ocean waves of the 19th century, Moby-Dick has a myriad of themes, especially that of revenge and pursuit. But Herman Melville uses the sea to represent some very subtle ideas, including the way Ishmael's journey in the whaler is also a metaphorical voyage of understanding, Melville doesn't stop there though; the sea becomes beauty and chaos, instability and mystery. You can read more about the book here.

The Old Man and the Sea                                                                                          An epic two-day battle between man and a marlin, The Old Man and the Sea, was
one of the first adult books I read as a growing child. Its real significance was probably lost on me at the time, but  there are deeper meanings behind Hemingway's story than just a tussle with a fish. The old man is said to represent humanity, while the fish signifies achievement or purpose in life. According to Hemingway, man is most worthy in isolation because he has to work and survive on his own. The sea, in the novel, allows Hemmingway to describe the struggles all of us endure in life.

I Started Early                                                                                                           Finally there is the idea that the sea, in all its wild fierceness can represent sexuality. Look at this poem by Emily Dickinson, which starts as innocently as you like...

I started Early – Took my Dog –

And visited the Sea –

The Mermaids in the Basement

Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor.  

Extended Hempen Hands –

Presuming Me to be a Mouse –

Aground –  upon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide

Went past my simple Shoe –

And past my Apron – and my Belt

And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –

As wholly as a Dew

Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –

And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –

I felt His Silver Heel

Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes

Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –

No One He seemed to know –

And bowing – with a Mighty look –

At me – The Sea withdrew –

 Mermaids in the basement? Or the subconscious perhaps? The hard, upright frigates? The sea itself might awaken sexual feelings as you watch it drive itself forward, 'past your bodice'  but for the 19th century lady, the Solid Town of social expectation would make the those desires withdraw...

On the Gallows                                                                                                        
I've used the theme of the sea in my writing, especially On the Gallows, the second of the Shaman Mysteries, in which a young girl's body is found in the sea off Bridgewater Bay... 

Ahead was a luminous sheen of grey. The Bristol Channel. 

 Like Ellen, I examined the desolation of the bay. The tide was low, and the stone causeway could be seen clearly, a formation of flattened boulders with a squiggly pattern across the far shore made up of shingle, rock and mudflat. At its far edge was a ridge where hardness fell away into sea. A cold wind blew in, but the water only rippled slightly, as if it might be on its way to freezing. 

  From the first section of deep water rose a skeletal structure, ragged with seaweed. It felt as bare as bones, and the wind moaned through it. Or was it the cooling tower that moaned, in sheer misery of its location?  

 The cooling tower could have been a gallows, a complex gallows. I could see how it might trap a victim, cling on to her. I kept staring over the bay as the light failed, desperate to get my thoughts into shape, but my heart was racing too fast, keeping in time with the wind that flapped in my ears. 

 'It’s odd,' said Ellen, 'because I didn’t think about it, when we agreed a time on the phone. But this was when I came here. The light was almost gone.'

 I nodded. I’d known that. It was how I’d wanted it. 'What were you doing,' I said, desperate to ask if she’d come in stilettos on that occasion. 'Walking the dog, something like that?'

'They didn’t tell you?'

'No, The police never pass on personal details.'

She began walking towards the beach as if it was beckoning her. When she got to the fence, she stopped, pulled her hands out of her pockets and gripped it. 

'Looking back, I can see just how crazy I’d got. But it was a day out of hell. Complete hell. Had some hell-like days in my life, but God, not many worse than that.' 

Have fun in your own ideas and try using the symbology of the sea in your  next piece of writing – let us know how you've done so by adding comments below this post.

To read more blogposts about symbolism in literature, click here

Your Favourite Author

 

One of the first questions I ask my writing students is 'who is your favourite author'? Perhaps it's an unfair question – it often throws them! But I think that if you write, you will take some of your best-loved writing with you into the process. 

Writer or not, we should all stop to consider which author we love best, because it's not an easy question. In fact, I've broken it down, for this blogpost, into seven. Seven questions about your favourite author(s) might be easier than just one. 

Number One: Who is your favourite Author?

Don't take too long to think about this; just blurt out the first writer that comes into your head – plenty of space below to change your mind! But, before you go on to question two, you might like to think why you love this author so much. Just one reason, off the top of your head.

For me, I've got to say Kazuo Ishiguro. I've read every novel he's written and practically cracked open champagne when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is experimental, mystical and great with sympathetic characters. Every book is different, even in genre. He's so fantastic, I want everyone to appreciate him and I review some of his books here and here and here.

Number Two: Which is your favourite book?

Deciding this may show you that you actually have more than one favourite author; choose the book you love to read the most, regardless of whether it's by the author you've just chosen. Again, asking 'why' will give you some insight into your own reading habits. Remind yourself why you love it, and how many times you've read it.

I may not be alone when choosing Lord of the Rings. This is a landscape book, which takes you through many histories of many creatures, languages and mythologies. I've read it three or four times, but love to dip back in from time-to-time. Lovers of this book are lucky in that they can also indulge in 10 hours of Peter Jackson's 'director's cut' on DVD or streaming. As Tolkien writes;  "He found himself wondering at times, especially in the Autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams. He began to say to himself 'Perhaps I shall cross the river myself one day.'…" Book 1, Chapter 2, pg. 66

Number Three: Who is your other favourite?

Let's be honest here, most people could not settle on an absolute favourite author. So why not have two favourites? Or three? Or more?  

Or, like me, perhaps one cherished writer has been over-taken by another. Ishiguro published his first book in 1982. Before that, and for some years after, if you'd asked me which novelist I loved the most, the answer would have be unequivocal; Iris Murdoch. She was a tour-de-force in the literary world and is still revered. Read about my favourite novel of hers here; also check out the Iris Murdoch Appreciation page on Facebook. 

Number Four Who's your other favourite author from childhood?

You may have already answered this question as questions one, two or three! Many people love the books they used to read with a torch under the bedclothes, perhaps dozens of times. I know which book I read the most when I was a kid, it was Alice in Wonderland. It changed as I grew, and then changed again when I read it to my children. Although it was not really written with children in mind, it has become a perennial favourite for children of six to a hundred and six!

Number Five: Who is your favourite in translation?

Bit of a trick question, because not many people read books that are not written in their own language. In the UK, we publish so many new novels in one year that you don't ever have to read books from other lands, let alone books translated from a foreign language. But doing so will widen everything you know about stories. Why not take a tip from author and TED speaker Ann Morgan, who runs the 'Read the World' blog site. She set herself a year-long challenge of reading a book from every country of the world. I'm way behind Ann, but my favourite recent reads includes Voices from Chernobyl  by Russian writer Svetlana Alexievich, who I heard talk at the Hay on Wye literary festival, and two books by Danish writer Peter Høeg – Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne)  and Borderliners (De måske egnede)/ Both are amazing novels.

Number Six: Who do you love from 2021?

It's true to say that we all have favourite novels from each year's reading, which then fade into a different perspective as the years roll along.Without a doubt, Piranesi, Susanna Clarke's second novel, is my best-loved this year. And she's now short-listed for the Women's Prize with this great story. You can hear her speak about it here and read my blogposts about her writing here and here.

Number Seven… What next? Asking questions yourself

Let's all keep reading new writers and new books. And as we read, let's try asking questions that help us both understand the books in our hands, and also the other authors we've loved in the past.

Keeping notes is a great idea so start with simple questions to yourself like these;

• What did you like best about this book? 
• What did you like least about this book? 
• What other books did this remind you of? 
• Have you read other books by this author?
• Which characters in the book did you like best? 
• Which characters did you like least? Why?
•  Did someone recommend the book to you? 
• If you were making a movie of this book, who would you cast? 
• Choose a favourite quote from the book. Why did this quote stand out? 
• What feelings did this book evoke for you? 
• What did you think of the book’s length? If it’s too long, what would you cut? If too short, what would you add?
•  What songs does this book make you think of?
• If you got the chance to ask the author of this book one question, what would it be?

12 May 2021; Write a Diary Entry for the Archives

You many have never heard of the Mass Observation Archive, but it's been active since 1937, when it started recording what ordinary people all over the UK did on one day, from the moment they work up to the time they went to sleep on the night of the 12th May.

This day was chosen because it was the day of George VI’s Coronation. The resulting diaries provide a wonderful glimpse into the everyday lives of people, and immediately they become a repository for scientists, anthropologists,  historians and sociologists (probably politicians, too), researching countless aspects of the era."

Last year, in the middle of the Covid pandemic they received over 5000 diaries that gave a clear, cross-cultural account of a very difficult time.

Now the Mass Obersvation Archive are recording a single day in the lives of everyone yet again. 

They say "We understand it has been a very difficult year and we were touched that so many people chose to share their stories with Mass Observation. If you didn't send a diary in last year, why not join in this year and tell us about your life now in 2021?"

Here's a snippet of the diary I'm recording.

"I woke up to find I had one dirty foot. My wellie had split yesterday as I prepared the no-dig beds for root seeds and brassica seedlings. As well as spreading a good layer of the lovely compost we'd bought from a local supplier who makes it  from household waste, I'd also had to actually dig one of the no-dig beds because, over the winter, I'd covered it with sheets of plastic taken from the polytunnel that needed recovering. Never known for my common sense, I hadn't realised that clear plastic sheeting wouldn't keep the weeds from growing.

I jumped in the shower, scrubbed my toes, dressed, drank some water, pulled back all the curtains, and, grabbing the car keys as I went through the hall, I put the dog on her lead. Pulling on a less wrecked pair of books, I drove to the  plantation.

 This is a lovely wild area about two miles from our house.  Once among the trees, we are in a peaceful heaven. The plantation hasn't been harvested for perhaps thirty, forty years, and amongst the pines, which attract the high calls of goldfinches, are many native species of shrub, plant and tree, It's a wet place, with runnels of water that babble after rain, and the willows are garlanded with lichen. I heard the song of chiffchaffs, 

willow warblers, chaffinches and dunnocks, one wood pigeon, a wren, a thrush, and a blackbird. Oh, and two woodpeckers competing with each other to drill the perfect hole. 

Luci had a great time too. Although her delight in bird song is non-existent, her interest in small furry creatures gives her at least four times the exercise I get.

I got back to the house and threw my coat over the little bannister (it's a slit-level ground floor) and one of the spindles came crashing out; broken in half. 

I had a quick cup of tea and did some early shopping in the nearest town.The market fruit and veg stall, the garden centre and the health food shop were on my list, but I also popped into the farming stores and bought a stronger pair of wellies. They'd better be stronger; they were three times the price of the old ones.

After breakfast I booted up my Mac to continue with the coursework I'm writing. My husband was already sitting on one side of the office, surfing spindles. He looked up briefly, to ask if I realised there are over two hundred design of bannister spindle, but I didn't really hear him because I had just pulled up the document I'm working on, which had taken me hours to get right, and discovered I'd over-written it – that is I'd used it as a template for another document then saved that other document in its place with its name.  I'm not sure I believe in ill omens, but today is proving a little too star-crossed for me.

So right now, and I'm sitting on the other, rewriting my document, furiously.

Except I'm not! I'm writing this, instead. "

How you write a diary entry is up to you. You can simply recount your day, or reflect back over the past year and look forward to the future and life beyond this year. You can record your lives, your hopes and your dreams. Reflections on the day and on how you felt while keeping the diary are a good place to start. You can be as creative with your writing as you please, but a brief self portrait: your age, where you live, your relationship status, your present job or occupation if you are working and any other information that you think is important to record is a good start. They would like the submissions ideally in electronic form as a Word document email attachment sent to moa@sussex.ac.uk  

You should not include your real name, contact details, or the personal details of the people mentioned in your diary. because the diaries are read and used for research and teaching, they should not include anything that may identify you or others. Clearly, you don't include photos, but I've added mine here for fun.

What you must include, however, is this statement at the end of your diary (If you don’t attach this statement. they won’t be able to keep your diary or make it part of the Archive):

“I donate my 12th May diary to the Mass Observation Archive. I consent to it being made publicly available as part of the Archive and assign my copyright in the diary to the Mass Observation Archive Trustees so that it can be reproduced in full or in part on websites, in publications and in broadcasts as approved by the Mass Observation Trustees. I agree to the Mass Observation Archive assuming the role of Data Controller and the Archive will be responsible for the collection and processing of personal data and ensuring that such data complies with the DPA.”

Good luck with your diary writing!