John Constable at the National Gallery

John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. For some, the archetypal painter of the English landscape. His masterpiece “The Hay Wain” was recently targeted by Just Stop Oil.  

This blog post is about a few paintings of Constable at the National Gallery in London.

For me, Constable is important on a personal level and because he’s v. closely connected to one of my absolute favorites, Turner.

Inspired by Thomas Gainsborough, he studied at the Royal Academy in London. Constable once wrote, “I should paint my own places best.” Throughout his career, he developed a deeply personal vision of the countryside of his childhood home of Suffolk. I do love that real sense of nostalgia present in much of Constable’s works. 

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Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds

Sensational painting, and so beautiful.

A monument to the English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.

This painting captures you, it is beautiful and yet mournful and solitary. An homage to a departed spirit.

The beautiful autumnal trees climbing up the painting, the soft warmth in the hues of the setting sun, the chilly barren Leicestershire grounds, the busts of Michelangelo and Raphael.

In front of the monument, a respectful and elegant stag turns to regard the viewer.

The faint “REYNOLDS” letters legible on the epitaph. 

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The Hay Wain

Absolutely huge, and breathtaking. It’s also quite messy, a bit blotchy.

I think, in “The Hay Wain”, Constable painted happiness, or how life is meant to be.

The fluffy summery cumulus clouds. His skies are quite special. In the background fields, Constable painted labourers cutting hay.

The horse-drawn wagon (with 2 people on board relaxing, and 1 chap playing with a local dog) is shown crossing a charming ford. This is the River Stour in Constable’s native Suffolk. 

There are some wonderful details which fill you with joy — e.g.:

 

A chap heading towards a small boat through grass on the banks, 

a few sweet ducks, and a v. charming dog with his tongue out. 

Looks like one of the boys is waving and playing with the dog.

The horse-drawn wagon reminds me of a quote from a letter he wrote to one of his friends: 

“I associate my “careless boyhood” to all that lies on the banks of the Stour”.

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Stratford Mill

Love it. 

Once again, I find the the scientific exactness & the grace of his clouds incredible. At the background, we can see the grasslands covered by circles of illumination and sunlight and the rest covered in the cloudy darkness. The warmth of the painting seems to be the central figures at the fore.

This is another River Stour painting. The Stratford Mill can be seen on the far left — as an island in the river. It was used to make paper.

This time a group of boys are fishing — and they’re being watched by a young girl in a red skirt. 

A cautious meandering river which delicately reflects the trees and surrounding 

on its surface. The boys all wearing caps and enjoying the pace of life.

I love this sweetness of the children playing and fishing.

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The Cornfield

Wonderful.

Amazing clouds, they seem to illuminate the painting from the darkness of the trees and vegetation.

A little boy drinks from a stream ... while a sheepdog looks on, as it guides the flock through a lane sheltered by trees.

Harvesters can be seen busy in the cornfield beyond. 

Boy drinks, with a few sheep next to him. Took his hat off.

Harvesters, and the outlines of some buildings afar.

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Salisbury Cathedral and Leadenhall from the River Avon

I loved this painting — technically, it’s a “sketch”. 

It’s very engaging and vivid. It feels modern with its post-impressionistic heaviness and blotches.

It shows a view towards Salisbury Cathedral across the River Avon.

I love the messy thickness of the pigment applied which

juxtaposes differing colors and textures (e.g. tree branches).

Salisbury Cathedral today (from BBC).

Biden’s new 3-phased Israel ceasefire strategy

Here are my quick thoughts on the recent Biden speech. In short, the plan involves: 

• Phase 1 — Full and complete ceasefire, withdrawal of IDF forces & exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners. 
• Phase 2 — All remaining living hostages returned & full Israeli withdrawal.
• Phase 3 — The ceasefire will become the permanent with reconstruction of Gaza.

Yair Rosenberg in “Biden’s Bold Gaza Cease-Fire Gambit” (The Atlantic) takes the view that:

• Netanyahu probably has approved the plan.
• Netanyahu cannot back this plan publicly, or the coalition would shatter.
• The PM would benefit from Israel being seen to have been “forced” into accepting this deal. So, if anything goes wrong, the PM can blame “Biden’s deal”.

My thoughts

In my view, Israel should do the deal — despite the fact that it isn’t at all fair to Israel.

1. Phase 1 isn’t so bad — and may give Israel some of its hostages back.
2. Phase 2 will almost certainly collapse anyway. The Israeli government has been totally & absolutely clear that there won’t be any ceasefire unless Hamas rule is toppled. Hamas has been equally adamant to reject anything short of a commitment to a “permanent ceasefire”. Phase 2 will breakdown over this detail in the framework. Biden said the US (and Arab states!) will “make sure” Hamas can’t rearm. But, Israel wants them out of power. Hamas obviously won’t accept that.
3. Hamas’ leaders aren’t all situated in Gaza. The Israelis cannot “crush” them entirely through warfare in Gaza, and nor can Israel destroy their Iranian backers by staying in Gaza either. Even if they were in Gaza, Israel cannot crush them completely without resorting to extreme measures.
4. Phase 3 is completely vague and unattainable.
5. Israel does need American diplomatic support and military power. Israel cannot afford to have America siding with the ICC/ICJ actions. Israel produces very little weapons domestically. The withdrawal of US support would mean the Israel cannot fight anymore while the hostages are turned into sex slaves.
6. There may be non-public clauses — that haven’t been publicly discussed — in which require Hamas cedes power to another body (e.g. an Egyptian or an Arab coalition to oversee the Strip). If Hamas is no longer in charge, and their tunnels and terror infrastructure are destroyed, then Israel’s goals would be achieved.

All-in-all, this is a 6-week ceasefire with hostages dealing.

The problem here is the horrible precedent of “ceasefire-for-hostages” deals in terms of emboldening Hamas terrorists which is an enduring danger to Israel (and I’ve discussed before). More importantly, Hamas gets an indefinite ceasefire while continuing to hold the hostages and Israel retreats and start negotiating again. This can only be a hard sell. And we mustn’t forget that Hamas has broken every ceasefire it agreed to.

The Trump guilty verdict — some serious misgivings

Incredible headline yesterday — to go in history. 

The NY jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.

A lot of people hate Trump. And for most people — as long as they agree with the result — they don’t really care about how it was obtained, or what the broader consequences might be. 

In my view, we should all care about the process. And, my provisional view is that there is something wrong with this conviction.

It feels like the law has been manipulated for political purposes.

I think Trump may have the last laugh on appeal.

Legal irregularities

Andrew McCarthy, at National Review (an anti-Trump publication), highlighted the many ways in which this case applies a wholly novel and flawed legal theory to Trump and suffers from major constitutional infirmities that will be raised on appeal. E.g., the jury instructions.

From my own readings, the obvious problems seem to be:

1. Prosecutor Bragg resuscitated a single misdemeanor — which could have been resolved with a fine etc. — and claimed that Mr Trump falsified business records in order to conceal “another crime” — which we later learned was supposed to be a “campaign finance” violation. This is because, by 2024, the statute of limitations for that false accounting charge had already expired. So, the prosecution “repackaged” it as a felony — arguing that the 2016 election had been rigged as a result of that false accounting. The felony — which has a much longer statute of limitations — is a violation of NY election law 17-152, which states that you cannot promote election “by unlawful means”. The “unlawful means” being the hush money payment.
2. Bragg’s team did not definitively state this until their closing arguments — and after the defence already addressed the court. The indictment failed to specify this crime (which it must under the constitution). God knows how, but Bragg was able to convict someone without telling them exactly what the crime was that they allegedly intended to commit. Therefore, Trump couldn’t defend himself properly. (Although, Tony Diver for DT has written about the “deny everything” flaw in Trump’s defence.)
3. Moreover, this is despite the fact that the DOJ and FEC have exclusive jurisdiction over campaign finance law (under the constitution), and had investigated this purported violation, and chose not to pursue it. Presumably because it was plain that Trump’s payment to Daniels did not qualify as a campaign expenditure.

Extra reading: vexatious prosecution

The WSJ has a very interesting editorial. The WSJ originally broke the hush-money story; and think Trump obviously committed that bit of sleaze. 

Broadly, the argument is that this was a targeted — if even malicious — prosecution. I’ve summarised the interesting bits:

Mr Bragg, an elected Democrat, ran for office as the man ready to take on Mr. Trump. When the new DA didn’t indict shortly after winning office, his top Trump prosecutors loudly quit, increasing the pressure on Mr. Bragg to do, well, something. Even after a guilty verdict, the case he ended up filing looks like a legal stretch.

To elevate these counts into felonies, the DA said Mr. Trump cooked the books with an intent to commit or cover up a second offence. What crime was that? At first Mr. Bragg was cagey. He eventually settled on a New York election law, rarely enforced, that prohibits conspiracies to promote political candidates “by unlawful means.” 

Yet what “unlawful means” did this alleged conspiracy use? The DA’s argument was that there were three: First, the hush money was effectively an illegally large donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Second, more business filings were falsified, including bank records for Mr. Cohen’s wire transfer to Ms. Daniels. Third, false statements were made to tax authorities, since Mr. Trump’s repayment of Mr. Cohen was structured as income and “grossed up” to cover the taxes he would need to pay on it.

In some ways this Russian nesting doll structure, to use another analogy, defies logic. Did Mr. Trump falsify business records in 2017 to cover up an illegal conspiracy to elect him in 2016, whose unlawful means included false information in Mr. Cohen’s tax return for 2017? There was hardly any direct evidence about Mr. Trump’s state of mind. Federal prosecutors squeezed a guilty plea out of Mr. Cohen but notably didn’t pursue Mr. Trump. One news report said the feds worried that his “lack of basic knowledge of campaign finance laws would make it hard to prove intent.”

A help to Mr. Bragg’s prosecution is that the jurors were instructed that as long as they were unanimous that Mr. Trump was guilty of falsifying business records to aid or cover up an illegal conspiracy to get him elected, they didn’t all have to agree about which theory of the “unlawful means” they found persuasive. Perhaps this will be taken up by Mr. Trump on appeal. He will almost certainly argue, too, that the Stormy pay-off wasn’t a campaign expense, as Brad Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, has been arguing all along.

We don’t doubt the sincerity of the Manhattan jurors, but many voters will digest all of this and conclude that, while Mr. Trump may be a cad, this conviction isn’t disqualifying for a second term in the White House. Judge Juan Merchan tolerated Mr. Bragg’s legal creativity in ways that an appeals court might not. What if Mr. Trump loses the election and then is vindicated on appeal? If Democrats think that too many Republicans today complain about stolen elections, imagine how many more might next year.

Infected blood scandal — biggest scandal in NHS history

Only a few days ago, the long-running inquiry into the infected blood scandal produced its report.

It’s shocking and horrifying. 

The suffering of those affected has been appalling, and compounded by the fact that it has taken half a century for the truth to prevail!

• Between 1970 and 1998 more than 3,000 patients “died or suffered miserably” as a result of being given contaminated blood products that infected them with HIV and Hepatitis.
• Doctors, civil servants and ministers had “closed ranks” to hide the truth for decades.
• One of the most shocking episodes in the scandal happened at Lord Mayor Treloar School for children with disabilities in Alton, Hants, where many of the pupils were haemophiliacs. Children there were “betrayed” when they were used as “objects” of experimental trials. They were not always told they were part of a trial, then suffered a “nightmare of tragic proportion” after being given disease-ridden drugs, Sir Brian said.

It’s just so upsetting that so many people responsible will face little by way of meaningful punishment for their corruption, indifference, complacency. As with the revelations emerging from NHS whistleblowers & the Post Office Horizon scandal, Whitehall and other institutions act as though they are above the law.

Financial compensation will have to be given to the victims — but this burden falls to the taxpayers — whom these officials and corrupt doctors have also betrayed. Another insult.

The ridiculous ICC arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu

Political posturing

On/around the day the ICC prosecutor was seeking the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu — for so-called war crimes in Gaza; the UN Security Council had a minute’s silence for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi — the "Butcher of Tehran". The hypocrisy of these global organisations can sometimes be laughable. 

At any rate, the ICC prosecutor’s decision to apply for an arrest warrant for Netanyahu is a political gesture.

Who is going to take Netanyahu to court?

1. The Israelis — like India, Russia, US, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China — don’t recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. They didn’t sign any treaty & don’t recognise its authority.
2. Palestine is not recognised as a sovereign state. And under the ICC, the Palestinians must arrest anyone indicted by the ICC. The Palestinians couldn’t have expected this. Their political ambition, on joining, was not “suing” the Israelis. They never expected the ICC to indict the top leadership of Hamas also. Are the Palestinians ever going to arrest them? Never. 

If the ICC judges were to grant an arrest warrant to a democratically-elected official (a first by the ICC, if not mistaken); it would be implying a moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and Hamas and an inherent “guilt” on the state of Israel as a whole (as implied by the meaning of a “representative democracy” and the “will of the people”).

No warrants issued against anyone for the slaughter of 300,000+ innocent civilians in Syria. Where is the justice there?

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Israelis are defending their nation, there is no equivalence

It is anti-Jewish to compare these Hamas terrorists to the Israeli PM and his defense minister.

The ICC judges must reject this application. Hamas is guilty of the worst and severest of war crimes — while Israel is acting in self-defence. It is Israel which takes precautions to limit the number of civilian casualties. It is Israel that draws distinctions between military and civilian; and Israel which owns up to her mistakes.

The ICC should NOT draw some misplaced equivalence between a democratic-state legitimately defending itself and a genocidal fascist terrorist organisation who perpetrated the awful attacks of Oct 7 (and continue to hold hostages) and committed to the destruction of that democratic state.

We should not forget that it was Hamas that attacked Israel in October. They killed, injured and kidnapped thousands of innocent people.

It is outrageous to suggest that Israel is using starvation against civilians as a means of warfare, or intentionally directing attacks against civilian populations, or committing other crimes against humanity. It is a gross misrepresentation of a justifiable battle against very dangerous terrorists.

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The improper legal basis for the ICC arrest warrant

Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler gave an interview with The Times of Israel and said:

• “One of Cotler’s key criticisms is that Khan appears to have paid scant regard to a foundational principle of the ICC — that it is a court of last resort, meaning that a state with an independent judiciary that is willing and able to hold senior officials to account for crimes under the ICC’s jurisdiction must be given the opportunity to exercise that authority ...”
• “Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara herself has strongly criticized Khan, accusing him of ignoring Israeli judicial independence and the legal review of potential criminal misconduct currently underway, ignoring the review of petitions against the government’s humanitarian aid policy currently before the High Court of Justice, and failing to give the Israeli legal system sufficient time and opportunity to complete these processes.”
• Israeli officials were preparing to host ICC officials on the very day Khan announced his request for arrest warrants in order to plan an official visit by the prosecutor himself ... During Khan’s visit, he would have met with Israeli officials to better understand the judicial and legal oversight over the conduct of the war against Hamas, including Israeli policy on humanitarian aid to Gaza, a key issue behind his allegations that Israel is intentionally starving Gazans. Moreover, Cotler pointed out, the prosecutor has himself recently embarked on such a cooperative path with Venezuela.
• “I find this asymmetry and false moral equivalence [with the Hamas leaders] incomprehensible,” he continued. “The very issuance of arrest warrants criminalizes Israel and singles its leaders out for opprobrium and indictment in the international arena.

Joan Mitchell at the Tate Modern

Some thoughts with respect to Joan Mitchell at the Tate.

She was abstract expressionist who died in 1992. During her time (post-WWII), Joan excelled when there was a bias against women artists. She is part of the “action painter” school of abstract expressionism. For Joan Mitchell, she is supposed to have worked in “stages” as opposed to being fully spontaneous. An interesting quote from Mitchell:

“Sometimes I don’t know exactly what I want (with a painting). I check it out, recheck it for days or weeks. Sometimes there is more to do on it. Sometimes I am afraid of ruining what I have. Sometimes I am lazy, I don’t finish it or I don’t push it far enough. Sometimes I think it’s a painting.”

For her genre; art isn’t merely about the piece — it’s about the “story” and “personality” of the artists. This is something I don’t buy, and smells of art-as-a-commodity marketing and the need to hype up the “named artist” to change the perceived value of works. Otherwise, it’s value is the use of colour and mark making.

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Problem with fully abstract art

For me, I think highly or fully abstract art brings about very little real connection. Art should communicate something from the artist to the viewer — which should be done through the art itself. This is where abstract art such as Pollock simply fails. Communication requires some kind of shared ‘language’ to enable me to recognise what the other person meant by some expression. But in v. abstract art, such as Mitchell and Pollock, it is absent.

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South

This diptych is supposed to evoke landscapes and trees.

There is vibrancy, and the colours seem to match harmoniously. I do like her approach to the blood-red lines.

Otherwise, I think it’s entirely forgettable.

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Beauvais

She spent many years in France, hence the title referring to a town in the North of France.

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Two Sunflowers

A shower of encrusted dark-orange-yellow paint. Black soil at the bottom, and green for the leaves, and bursts of violet here-and-there.

I don’t think this is very interesting at all — I don’t think it shows much sophisticated use of colour.

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Cypress

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Minnesota

Interesting depths of yellow for the sun-drenched Minnesota.

Heavy and thick brushstrokes establishing zones of colour. I don’t really like this much. And I don’t like the way the columns seem to separate and not flow. I don’t get why Joan Mitchell left what seems to me as an empty canvas in the middle.

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Red Tree

The strokes of strokes of fiery-crimson horizontal marks are quite engaging.

But otherwise it’s ok.

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Plowed Field

Inspired my memories of landscapes.

I quite like it. I like the heavy maroons and yellows, and I can see the outlines of different fields.

But it’s ok.

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Tilleul

Great tree — bare, black, wintry branches thrusting upward.

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The gallery

Review: “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” — very disappointing

I saw this film earlier this week at the cinema.

In my opinion, this installment (following on from the previous trilogy) was confused and a serious drop in quality.

The underlying problem is that it is set too far in the future, and it took ages to get story going. The storylines seemed a bit confused and tenuous, at times. It’s unclear why the villain is so determined to break into the man-made underground bunker. It’s one of the many plot devices that we’re never really explained. So, the denouement feels sluggish.

The film’s protagonist is “Noah”, which I assumed would be Caesar’s son — as he seems to resemble him. However, it becomes v. clear that this film isn’t related to Caesar at all. The actual “kingdom” is surprisingly basic and primitive — notwithstanding an apparent and “serious” increase in the apes’ cognitive and linguistic abilities. 

The final action scene utterly strains the film’s credibility. Despite many generations of neglect and decay, there were apparently groups of humans somewhere with a computerised ground crew? Why was the satellite card from the bunker so important? How did the woman know where to find it? Why couldn’t the human battalion have simply built or fashioned some alternative? And why does the young woman, after all her experiences, decide not to go inside the human bunkers at the end — but stand outside to observe things?

Also, I found the apes less relatable. I found it difficult to care about Noah at all, or his eagles.

I enjoyed the theme of the de-evolution of Caesar, and his ideas, into some quasi-religious esoteric movement. That was very interesting with parallels in Christian sectarianism and Marxist groupuscules. The Orangutan was probably the most fascinating ape. He was teaching Noah about Caesar’s ideas (which are only referred in brief). It would have been fascinating to have heard more of his teachings. But, we don't get that.

Lots of Avatar-like CGI with some amazing landscapes though.

Rating: 1/5 ★

Review: “The Pale Blue Eye” — really enjoyed it

“The Pale Blue Eye” is a murder thriller/horror set in the early 1800s released by Netflix last year.

I really enjoyed it.

Directed by Scott Cooper & cast include Christian Bale, Timothy Spall, Harry Melling, and Gillian Anderson. It is a detective story with Bale as Detective Landor and Melling as Edgar Allan Poe. They team up to solve a series of grisly killings in this period gothic “drama”.

The film is great at creating an oppressive & chilling atmosphere. I really enjoyed the interaction and chemistry between the duo Detective Landor and Poe. Their partnership is the facsimile of the Holmes/Watson duo. 

Exquisite photography and a disquieting Howard Shore score accompanies this film throughout.

However, where the film lacks is an ordinate amount of time is devoted to unearthing the mysterious Marquis family. It has the effect of separating the detective duo. Harry Melling’s Poe falls in love and aches for a fellow cadet’s terminally sick sister; while Bale strays around aimlessly. For me, these meanders feel like we’re treading water as opposed to developing the plot.

The ritualistic “occult” scenes in the basement felt a little cliche, as if it were rushed. This, I think, was a lost opportunity to bring some horror.

The great “reveal” is great and Christian Bale gives an emotional final act.

All-in-all, I enjoyed the film all the way through. It isn’t a masterpiece but it’s good fun.

Rating: 4/5 ★★★★

King Charles III’s new portrait by Jonathan Yeo

I think it’s brilliant! 

Very vivid and engaging. Artistic and beautiful.

I like the atmosphere of the painting, but it’s HRH’s face that is most absorbing. It grows on you.

I think his face has the faint lineaments of a smile, but I also sense some melancholy or pathos.

Alastair Sooke has written that the portrait reveals “a vulnerability the late Queen was rarely allowed”. He “isn’t entirely sure of himself”. I don't think he is uncertain or anxious. But the heaviness of the eyebrows, the kindly wrinkles, and the narrowness of the eyes hint at some kind of sadness.

The awful effect of glazing to works of art in museums

This painting is “Saint John the Evangelist” by Domenichino in the late 1620s.

As you can see, there is a sheen reflecting the light in the glass installed in front of the painting. It doesn’t help that the National Gallery has bright lighting. 

I find it a bit depressing. It’s so intrusive, awkward and unwelcoming to any visitor. These glass panels were never part of the original display culture of the museum. 

I went to see a Rembrandt and noticed how hard it was to discern his deep blacks and background dimensions. It is quite common now to see a lot of the early impressionist works behind glass.

It must surely damage the artwork themselves, and create a humid micro-climate behind the glass?

And ... Why?

According to Dr. Finaldi — director of the National Gallery in London, it is because of how art has become cultural symbol of vandalism and attack:

Finaldi also speaks frankly about the impact of climate protesters who targeted John Constable’s Hay Wain in July 2022, Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in October 2022 and Diego Velázquez’s “Rokeby Venus”, in November 2023. The Velázquez incident, involving a hammer, represents “a gear shift to a more brutal and violent attack”, Finaldi says.

Reluctantly, the gallery has recently glazed several hundred of its most important paintings which had not previously been glass-protected. Finaldi explains: “It is costly and puts them at one slight remove from the public, since it pushes the painting a little further back into the frame and produces a deeper shadow at the top of the picture.”

In the 1990s the National Gallery proclaimed “from the Tube to the Titians in three minutes”. Entering the gallery is now slower, because of security checks, but this normally short delay is “part of modern life”. 

“Modern life”, indeed! 😑