Summer Showers

Last Wednesday dawned on Ellie’s resolve to go to London to see some very special books and do research related to her thesis. I decided to be a tourist, and we had plans to meet up at Canary Wharf for outdoor dinner (more on that later) –on the site of London’s historic docklands.

I had found two free lunchtime concerts listed for that day, and resolved to spend the day at St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the heart of London. I walked into the cavernous nave to the sound of about 40 American voices singing “O Happy Day” and swaying in gospel harmony. A group from South Carolina, they arrayed in a semi-circle right under the awesome cathedral dome – some 100+ feet across, nearly 200 feet above us – and gave us tourists some old time religion. Actually, since this is a cathedral space, I found it very gratifying that once an hour a canon comes to the PA system to ask for a few minutes of silence and prayer amid the London hubbub.

I took the full tour of the place, amazed at the treasures, the memorials to famous men, and all the history of the place. The fifth cathedral on the site, it was built in 1677-1708 following the Great Fire of London, by Sir Christopher Wren, and remains much as he has envisioned it. Lord Nelson and the Iron Duke (of Wellington) are buried in the crypt, and there are countless monuments linking glory with death in battle: including one to Captain George Blagdon Westcott (of Devonshire), buried at sea after a glorious victory over the French in 1797, and doubtless related to my forbearers (from neighbouring Somerset).

St. Paul’s is an inspiring architectural monument, and I climbed the 530 steps to the “Golden Gallery,” able to look out over the Thames and the great metropolis before thundershowers chased us down. The Quire (that’s right; not spelled “choir”) features amazing baroque carving Grinling Gibbons, whose decorative arts Ellie has come to know in her studies. The American Memorial Chapel stands behind the High Altar in an area that was bomb-damaged during the Blitz of 1940: it has three stained-glass windows that contain images of the seals of the 48 (wartime) states, and a leather volume listing the 28000 Americans who didn’t come home from Europe.

As dinner time approached Ellie and I conferred by cell phone to assess the unstable weather, as we planned to rendezvous for outdoor supper on a blanket on the (damp) grass. The occasion was the outdoor simulcast from the Royal Opera House of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia. We had been to a digital simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera (NY) before, and guessed that the sound quality and camera work would be excellent. As silly as anything from Gilbert & Sullivan, we saw excellent acting and a major heartthrob tenor Juan Diego Florez. It rained – HARD – for the first five minutes, but we got through the three hour performance damp but excited, and protected by the ground cloths and inflatable pillows provided free by the sponsors. But the big story was the American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato, who performed flawlessly from a wheelchair, having broken her leg on opening night(!!) Her performance got rave reviews, and she tells the entire story on her blog. Talk about a class act! As the stars came out and the chill took hold, we found our way back to Cousin Nancy’s for the night on the wonderful Underground.

Holland Journal, from Ellie -- Part 3

Friday, 19-June
On my last day here, I went back to Amsterdam to take in the Rijksmuseum. It is undergoing renovations, and everybody had told me that it was disappointing because only half the paintings are on exhibit, but when I got there I found that they were exhibiting all of the Old Dutch Masters, so that was good enough for me. I only had two hours, but that was enough to feel completely satiated.
The thing that quickly becomes clear is that the likes of Vermeer and Rembrandt did not come out of the blue. Exquisite technical abilities were all around them. I got introduced to some wonderful portrait painters, namely Johannes Verspronck, whose portraits remind me of Richard Avedon photo portraits--they seem completely modern in sensibility. Yet they were painted in the 1650's. The background is like a photostudio backdrop, like the ones for school pictures, and the people are painted so meticulously that it looks like a color photo. Extraordinary.
Then I saw Rembrandts, some that I would never have known were Rembrandts. I think of his style being a bit loose and fuzzy, which I've never been that thrilled with, but here I saw huge, crisply painted portraits, with the characteristic glow of Rembrandt. "The Night Watch" is an enormous painting, about 18 ft wide by 12 ft tall; HUGE. It is a group portrait of Burghers, each of whom had to contribute money to be included in the painting, so only rich men are in it. One of them was so pleased with the painting that he had a very small copy made for himself, also exhibited, from which you can see that the Night Watch used to be wider than it is now, because there are two men on the left side of the copy who are chopped off in the original. Apparently, when the huge painting was done, they wanted to hang it between two doorways, so ...snip snip!!!
I didn't think any museum experience could top the Van Gogh exhibit, but surprise surprise. There are two Vermeer paintings there that had me in tears. I actually had to leave the room until I could collect myself.
The two paintings are "The Little Street" and "The Milkmaid,” each about 18” by 20”. At ten feet away, you think, wow, what beautiful paintings. But when you walk right up to them, something weird happens. At a foot and a half away, The Milkmaid, about which I've never seen anything particularly special, starts to have an electrifying effect, as though it has diamonds embedded in the paint. Something is going on in these two paintings. The effect on me was of being seared as though I were looking at the sun. It is perfect. The stillness of his scene, the moment in time that is absolutely perfect, grabs you by the throat and holds you there until you start to feel shattered, and you can’t figure out why, but you’re compelled to try. The girl's dress is of a blueness that no print can come CLOSE to depicting. Her face is of pure quiet focus, lit from the side window; the plaster wall is so perfectly represented and no amount of staring at the brushstrokes can explain it. Vermeer also mixed sand with the paint, in areas, to create some three-dimensionality, and this makes the paint jump out at you.
In “The Little Street,” again, it is a moment of infinite stillness, even though the women are doing things. On close inspection, you see that the bricks, so tiny, are not painted as bricks at all, just tiny spots, and glimmerings of shape. In both of these paintings, the composition is utter perfection, and that is a beautiful thing to behold. Why are these paintings so moving? Why is perfection so affecting? I've had the same weeping response in the Lacrimosa of Mozart's Requiem. Seeing them was like having the veils removed from your eyes; the clarity and brilliance is almost painful. I felt like running away screaming, "I didn't know!"
Well, now I know. That's all for the Holland Journal, Ellie.

P.S. Any musings on perfection and emotion would be appreciated.