My Inspirations for March II

I must say that I have discovered some new and interesting things in March. First of all, Claude Debussy; his music is so calming and magical, it has the same effect on me as Monet’s paintings do. I’ve started by listening Debussy’s ‘Afternoon of a Faun’, then listened to Reverie, Nocturne, The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, Arabesque, Le Mer, and Sirenes; his melodies are simply enchanting, perfect for this springtime, along with Rimbaud’s poems, and Monet and Renoir’s paintings. I’ve also been listening to Oasis and The Stone Roses pretty much all the time, it’s irresistible! My other inspirations were Vincent van Gogh’s Letters, Britpop, Klimt, and films Shutter Island and Lolita (1962).

If you have never, you must listen to Rachmaninov’s ‘The Isle of the Dead’. It’s so melancholic and gloomy, typical for Rachmaninov’s work, and strangely morbid and intriguing at the same time, full of dark beauty.

I started reading Crime and Punishment five days ago, but I have about 150 pages left. Still, it is the most intriguing, the most touching book I’ve read in a while. The very thought of finishing the novel makes me insufferably sad.

Vincent van Gogh – Explosion of Colours in Arles

Van Gogh, born on 30 March 1853, is a painter whose works I greatly admire, whose letters I consider an endless source of inspiration, whose paintings are one of my dearest subjects to write about. He managed to passionately and eloquently express his deep sadness, loneliness and despair and turn them into the most magical, most captivating and intriguing paintings ever painted. With those brush strokes of magical blues and ecstatic yellows, Van Gogh is saying to us that despite all misery, poverty and painful solitude ‘…there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me.’

1888. Van Gogh’s Chair – Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh moved to Arles in February 1888, ill, tired and weary, with hopes of founding an utopian art colony where artists would paint side by side, in harmony and serenity.

Warm melodies of the south have lured artists from the North for a long time, ever since Albrecht Dürer traveled to Italy in Renaissance. It wasn’t just the architecture, or the art of Quattrocento; monuments of old glory which longed to be discovered. It was something higher, something more powerful; warm sun of the south that spoke to the soul, not the mind. Artists were attracted by the sublime sense of entering the historic land, fascinated with Mediterranean landscape and its warm climate, created for idle time and pleasure. Effects of this ‘art tourism’ were especially evident on the colour palette which became lighter, more vivid, and more passionate, enriched by golden rays of the sun and rich fragrances of the South. For Vincent van Gogh, Arles brought explosion of colours; mauve, ultramarine and yellow, and, in addition, he found the landscape enchanting and inspirational.

In Arles, Van Gogh was able to live out his visions of Japan by simply gazing at the sunbathed meadows and delicate trees in bloom, while in Paris he needed to get absorbed in Hiroshige’s wood-cuts in order to feel that way. His paintings of Flowering Orchards painted in spring of 1888, symbolise this optimism, sudden outburst of joy, a sense of all the wishes becoming true. It was enough for him to open his eyes and feel alive, caressed by the soft southern breeze, kissed by the rain drops, and mesmerized by the beautiful landscapes, interesting people of Arles; beauty of life opening right in front of his eyes. These months were rather happy for Van Gogh, which is not something that can easily be said, as sorrows in his life followed one another.

1888. Vincent van Gogh – Peach Tree in Blossom, Arles, April-May

Paul Gauguin arrived in Arles on 23 October 1888, and the two very different painters painted together during November. Van Gogh’s utopian dream of an art colony seemed to be realized, at least for a month. However, the differences between these two painters were insurmountable. Van Gogh was, in comparison with Gauguin, a tactic rationalist, too impulsive, too intrusive, and he indulged himself in wistfulness of his imagination a tad too much. Van Gogh was a romantic, and Gauguin was prone to primitivism, Van Gogh loved thick layers of colour, and Gauguin hated disorder. For some time the two got along, but their relationship was beginning to deteriorate as early as in December 1888. In addition to Gauguin’s arrogance and domineering behavior, Vincent van Gogh, who longed to be treated as Gauguin’s equal, had an enormous fear of being deserted, doomed to solitude and sadness again. Their quarrels ended in that infamous ear incident which happened in December 1888, after which Gauguin left and never saw Van Gogh again.

Van Gogh was a fragile person, full of love and sympathy for everyone around him, and along with his own fears, destitution and self-criticism, Gauguin’s patronising behavior had certainly not helped matters. I prepared for this post by reading his letters from Arles again, and it is clear to me, now more than ever, how every word he wrote expresses optimism and silent but profound hope, and how all poverty and lack of understanding had not hardened his feelings, and how in deepest sorrow he found beauty everywhere he looked. I feel in love with Van Gogh’s soul after reading his letters. They are more beautiful than any book because they are real.

I already mentioned this, but I’ll mention it again. In an episode of Doctor Who, the Eleventh Doctor traveled to past and met Vincent van Gogh. After spending some time with him, the doctor took him to a present day gallery. After Van Gogh saw his paintings and the popularity of them, tears of joy came down his cheeks. I confess it made me cry from happiness too! Too bad Amy Pond rejected his offer to stay with him; they could have gazed at the sunflowers all day surrounded by their red-haired children.

1888. Vincent van Gogh – Gauguin’s Chair

As a vision of loneliness, Van Gogh painted his and Gaugin’s chairs in December 1888. Both of them are painted as empty; metaphors for artists that are not there anymore, but once shared their thoughts and feelings; friends have vanished but the chairs are here, empty. Van Gogh’s chair is a modest wooden chair with a tobacco pipe which Van Gogh smoked because Dickens had advised it as a cure for melancholy. On the other hand, Gauguin’s chair is lavishing with books and a candle, indicating education and ambition.

Van Gogh painted his own chair in yellow and blue tones, symbolising light and hope. In the painting with Gauguin’s chair he used red-green contrast which, just like in the painting The Night Cafe, gives a sinister feel to the painting, witnessing darkness and lost hopes of their friendship. The message is clear; Gauguin had brought night and darkness into Van Gogh’s idealistic world. These chairs are portraits in alienation in which Van Gogh expressed ‘…not sentimental melancholy, but serious sorrow.‘

With the help of art, the world that seemed threatening and unfriendly was suppose to become his world too. Van Gogh did not want to repress reality, neither did he want to renounce it; he wanted reality to become understandable and accessible. Was this simple desire too much for the harsh world? With these painting Van Gogh proved the audience that ‘Paintings have a life of their own that derives from the painter’s soul.‘

‘The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting.’

Monet – Women in the Garden

‘Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.‘ – Claude Monet

1866. Women in the Garden by Claude Monet, Musée d’Orsay

This painting, depicting four women, elegant, idle and carefree, is the best attainment of Claude Monet’s biggest ambition – to paint an everyday scene, in the open air, in the sunlight.

Upon arriving to Paris and visiting Louvre, Monet witnessed art students copying works of old masters. He also brought his paints and brushes but instead painted a view from the window, capturing his own impressions, rather than simply painting a lifeless copy of someone else’s masterpiece. In 1859 he settled in Paris. Disillusioned with the traditional art, Monet enrolled at the Académie Suisse. It was a ‘free studio’ which meant that nobody taught you anything, you decided for yourself what you wanted to paint. He soon met Camille Pissarro and the two got on very well, bonding over their love for painting outdoors. He met Frederic Bazille, Alfred Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir at the same time; all these painters would later be the heart of the Impressionism. Young Claude was dashing, handsome chap, a bit of a dandy but girls, lorettes, loved him. ‘I only sleep with maids and duchesses. Preferably duchess’s maids‘, he once proclaimed haughtily.

Although a typical Impressionistic canvas is rather small in dimensions, this painting is actually large, about eight feet high. In the past, large canvases were always used for representing coronations, mythological or historical scenes, something grand, serious and significant, but Monet’s subject was a simple everyday scene! With this discourteous move, Monet secured himself a role of a rebel; a role he was yet to confirm with his painting Impression, Sunrise. As a boy, Monet was known for his cunning caricatures of the famous people of Le Havre where he grew up but in Paris his artistic wind blew in a different direction. It was Eugéne Boudin who encouraged Monet to start painting landscapes, and, in addition, to start working en plein air (‘in the open air’), that is, paint in the nature itself, not in the studio. By the way, Boudin’s pastels of stormy skies, boats, beaches, sunsets of Le Havre gained him admiration from both Baudelaire and Courbet who called him ‘king of the skies‘.

So, Monet followed Boudin’s advice and took up painting landscapes; frozen moments in time, decorated with flowers and women. However, in Women in the Garden Monet wanted to capture a bit more than just nature and idleness of women. He wanted to capture the play of light and shadow, one of the hardest tasks in art. Monet painted this painting in the summer of 1866, in his garden in Ville d’Avray in Paris. But painting on such a large canvas proved to be a difficult task so he dug a trench and lowered the canvas into it. Model for all of the figures was Camille Doncieux, Monet’s mistress and eventually wife. In this painting Monet aimed to capture the movement of light and air around figures, and he succeeded, partly. No one in art had previously painted sunshine as bright as this. Monet brilliantly captured the light on the white dress in the foreground, but there’s a sense of unreality about the painting. Isn’t a garden scene suppose to be playful and lively? And women gracefully strolling around, flaunting like butterflies? Instead, these modern women look like dolls, their idleness preserved for eternity.

The artificiality of their poses is partly due to Monet’s study of fashion magazines in order to paint his ladies in the latest finery. Still, heavy brushstrokes, interpreted as a sign of carelessness, and the obvious modernity prevented the painting from being exhibited at the Paris Salon. Other artists, writers and bohemians appreciated the painting, such as Emile Zola who commented: ‘The sun fell straight on to dazzling white skirts; the warm shadow of a tree cut out a large grey piece from the paths and the sunlit dresses. The strangest effect imaginable. One needs to be singularly in love with his time to dare to do such a thing, fabrics sliced in half by the shadow and the sun.‘

The painting was eventually bought by Frederic Bazille for 2500 francs as a way of helping Monet financially.

1866. Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre in the Garden by Claude Monet, Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Painting Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre in the Garden belongs to the same time period and shows Monet’s obsession with the play of light and shadows, and his enormous wish to capture the air, the sunshine, and nature in full flair.

Rimbaud – Sensation

Spring has finally sprung! Every daisy in the grass, every drop of spring rain, every velvety breeze promises excitement! My days will soon be filled with laughter and colourful clothes, reading on the window sill, daydreaming to the sounds of Psychedelia or Madchester music, ‘Lazing in the foggy dew‘, and endlessly strolling around.

1872. Springtime – Claude Monet

Arthur Rimbaud’s poem ‘Sensation‘, written in March 1870 when he was just sixteen years old, perfectly expresses a sense of freedom, excitement and being young. Along with Kerouac’s On the Road, this poem is the epitome of freedom, at least for me.

Sensation is Rimbaud’s rapturous dream of escaping into nature which was his main inspiration. Nature represented a wellspring of freedom and inalienable love at the same time. In Rimbaud’s eyes Nature was Venus, his love inspiration to whom he dedicated his poem Sun and Flesh (Credo in Unam). Poem ‘Sensation’ evokes sensuous freshness of Rimbaud’s early verses which were written while he still lived in a small town of Charleville. Life in the province suffocated Arthur Rimbaud, an intelligent and eloquent young man, with eyes that a childhood friend described as ‘pale blue irradiated with dark blue—the loveliest eyes I’ve seen‘.

His father had already left the family, and his mother, Vitalie, was a dominant and pious woman, patronising young Arthur and depriving him from his freedom. In all of his early poems there’s a sense of longing for freedom, an enormous wish to fly away, venture into the unknown; a typical teenage rebellion and yearning for excitement. His poems are marked by revolt against traditional values; family, patriotism and Christianity. For young Rimbaud the only escape from that bleak world of tradition was to wander off into the woods, and idle in the shadow of trees, imagining Venuses, Nymphs and fatal women, while still as inexperienced as a sixteen year old lad can be. Fruit of his musings were poems such as Sensation, A Dream for Winter and Nina’s Replies (‘Seventeen! You’ll be so happy!/Oh! the big meadows/The wide loving countryside! – Listen, come closer!…‘), all of which have an aura of dreamy and idle afternoons. A woman is an adventure, an escape into solemnity of senses, and a realised love equals liberation from all constraints of society.

Strong desire to escape boredom which pervades Rimbaud’s early poems, and their mystical quality is a combination which makes them popular today still. Rimbaud’s poems were read and admired by many different artists, from Amedeo Modigliani to Richey Edwards. I can’t even put it in words what this poem means to me, how it enlightened me, inspired me! Memories of reading Rimbaud’s poems for the first time are still vivid in my mind. I remember the thrill, the passion, the tremble, the rapture I felt upon reading ‘Sensation‘ for the first time, then Season in Hell and Illuminations. I was reborn after discovering Rimbaud!

Ever since I read ‘Sensation’ for the first time, these verses stayed etched in my head (‘I shall not speak, I shall think about nothing:/But endless love will mount in my soul’). I know the poem by heart, and do not hesitate to recite it during one of my long, long walks, in the rain, in the sun, in the dusk; those are the moments when I really feel free, like a bird released from its cage.

Sensation

‘On the blue summer evenings, I shall go down the paths,
Getting pricked by the corn, crushing the short grass:
In a dream I shall feel its coolness on my feet.
I shall let the wind bathe my bare head.

I shall not speak, I shall think about nothing:
But endless love will mount in my soul;
And I shall travel far, very far, like a gipsy,
Through the countryside – as happy as if I were with a woman.‘

1873. Reading by Berthe Morisot

His ‘genius, its flowering, explosion and sudden extinction, still astonishes‘.

The Stone Roses – Second Coming

Cheerful and hypnotic melodies from The Stone Roses’ debut album shone like a ray of sunshine over the once gloomy and industrial city of Manchester, now turned into a background for a never ending, optimism fueled Second summer of love. However, their divine debut album was followed by five years of silence; the music scene was Waiting for Godot.

Photo found here.

Music scene waited five and a half years for these cheeky, arrogant and above all whimsical blokes to descend on the ground and confirm whether their debut album was just a coincidence or merely a beginning of their divine mission. During that lengthily period of waiting, The Stone Roses weren’t forgotten, quite the contrary, the expectation of their second album turned into a ‘Waiting for Godot‘ situation.

After the glorious 1989, The Stone Roses performed a ‘Pollock experiment‘ as we could call their rebellious demonstration against FM Revolver’s boss Paul Birch and his re-issuing of the band’s early single ‘Sally Cinnamon‘. The band members threw cans of blue and white colour on Birch and his office, leaving the paint to spread freely and drip on the floor, in a full Pollock manner. Their art experimentation ended on court, which is exactly what these Mancunian blokes expected for they knew that while you’re vinycally inactive, you need to raise dust in media any way you can.

Soon after the court case, The Stone Roses separated themselves from Manchester’s club culture and spent time traveling Europe until settling at Rockfield Studios in Wales where they started working on the music material the world was waiting for, modesty was as always, the band’s main characteristic. Love Spreads, the first single from their long awaited album ‘Second Coming‘ reached number two hit in the UK, indicating that The Stone Roses might shine again. The song also foreshadowed the albums more blues influenced melodies, rather than the cheerful psychedelic sounds the audience was used to listening to their debut album.

Musically, Second Coming is continuing the tradition of Fools Gold and I Am the Resurrection in a way that it explores and sums up all important events of rock ‘n’ roll; from blues and soul to acid house. While the debut album is mainly Ian Brown and John Squire’s work, in Second Coming Squire’s guitar solos and hypnotic reverberating sounds are dominant. Heavy ’60s Psychedelic vibe is evident as well. Songs Driving South evokes Jimmy Hendrix’s manic guitar style, while ‘Ten Story Love Song‘ features a sense of The Byrds again.

Love themed Your Star Will Shine evokes the spirit of Sgt. Pepper (‘Your star will shine again one day/Through deep blue velvet skies/Shine for all the world to see/The universe in your eyes’), while Begging You offers a transcendental, hypnotic and ecstatic experience to the listener. The next song, Tightrope, leads us back to the ‘Kingdom of LSD‘; San Francisco in 1967/68.

Good Times, one of my favourites, exudes an atmosphere of The Doors, starting with Ian’s Morrison like way of singing, to the rapturous love-hedonistic refrain; ‘All I want is those, good times, baby, show me a sign/I need to know that your love is mine/Love me up yeah, yeah, reel me in, I’m hooked, line and sinker/She’s my heroin’.  The solo is absolutely hypnotic and magical, like a darker version of The Stone Roses, Ian’s voice longingly singing about good times, perhaps indicating that The Stone Roses were aware that the glory and magic of their debut album is invincible, and that the hedonistic, optimism fueled days of Madchester are counted. The penultimate song How Do You Sleep explores nightmares along with typically British fluttering guitar overtones.

Although Second Coming is a good album, it could have been at least a shade better, not because the songs are bad but because The Stone Roses has that powerful magical and hypnotic quality that’s impossible to surpass. The Stone Roses never recaptured their early magic.

Renoir – The Umbrellas

‘Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.’ – Bob Marley

1881-86. The Umbrellas

This afternoon, while casually listening to the song Motorcycle Emptiness by Manic Street Preachers for the hundredth time, the opening scene with James Dean Bradfield singing in the rain, under neon loneliness, in a Tokyo street crowded with people and umbrellas reminded me of Renoir’s painting The Umbrellas. Bustling street, in the rain, dark coloured umbrellas permeated with melancholy, and the feeling of alienation in the city, themes the painting and the song share in common,  have all alluringly drawn me into the story that lies behind Renoir’s magnificent painting The Umbrellas.

This paintings is very interesting for many reasons. Firstly, it was painted in two different stages, the right part indicating the Impressionistic style with its loose brushstrokes and slightly brighter colour palette, while the left portion, featuring a lady dressed in a dreary grey dress, was painted around 1885-86, the dress style indicating the precise years. In the middle of the 1880s Renoir became disillusioned with the Impressionism and sought inspiration in the works of Courbet and Manet, admiring their realistic approach, and also in the works of old masters such as Antoine Watteau and Francois Boucher, the sentimentality of whose paintings had always been deep-rooted into Renoir’s works. That so intriguing female figure on the left is actually a modiste or a milliner’s assistant, modeled by Renoir’s lover Suzanne Valadon, a very rebellious, passionate and seductive young lady, not even twenty years old when the painting was started. Bleak grey shades of her dress and those realistically sad brush strokes are the best legacy of Renoir’s change of style. The figure that he had so unhesitatingly repainted originally wore a white dress with lots of lace and frills and a lavishing hat. By changing her dress, Renoir changed her position in society, from an upper class lady, this figure became a grisette; a coquettish and flirtatious working class girl. The composition is quite unusual too; instead of a central composition one would expect, Renoir emphasised the left part of the canvas giving the figure of modiste even more depth and meaning. Behind the lady we see a vigorous young gentleman, a student or a dandy perhaps, that is about to engage her, maybe offer her shelter under his umbrella. She is not even remotely interested, instead she gazed longingly at the viewer. While her face appears rosy and innocent, her eyes are filled with melancholy, despair, and wistful reconciliation.

Renoir in general wanted to capture the mood of modern Paris; the bohemianism, the nonchalance, the laughter; an aim he fulfilled in works such as ‘Le Moulin de la Galette‘, but in the painting The Umbrellas, Renoir presented a rather different view on modern Paris, emphasising its isolation. The scene itself is very dynamic, the sky is almost hidden away by all the umbrellas, but the crowd of people are barely having any contact with each other. Apart from the gentleman on the left, all the other characters are rushing in their own ways, fairly uninterested for one another. It’s a rainy day and Parisian streets are busy, who has time for chatter!?

Essentially, isn’t it the same, the feeling of estrangement in the city, whether it is the 19th century Paris seen through the eyes of Renoir or the late 20th century alienation that Richey Edwards has so eloquently expressed, the feeling of being lost, isolated and trapped in a big city is universal.

Gustav Klimt – Magical Kaleidoscope

Affirmation of Expressionism in the early years of the twentieth century denoted the end of Gustav Klimt’s ‘Golden phase‘. The audience had moved on, and Klimt’s ‘golden femme fatales’ were outdated, and powerless against the works of Edvard Munch and Henri Matisse which, when presented at the exhibition in 1909, astonished the viewers with their overwhelming scope of expression. Raw energy, despair and passion woven into the works of Expressionists were overpowering.

1913. The Virgin – Klimt

Upon traveling to Paris in late 1909 Klimt discovered the works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Fauvists which motivated him to reinvent his own style, a magical kaleidoscope of colours, shapes and patterns influenced by Japanese art; this was the last splendor of Klimt’s art before the end; the end of his life, the end of La Belle Epoque, the end of Vienna he had known.

For a fresh start Klimt decided to tone down the ornamentation, which sometimes made the subject appear lifeless and meaningless next to the rich background, and this enabled him to find new ways to express himself. A whole new world of abstract motifs, patterns and colours opened up for him. Another thing that influenced him, and many many artist before, was Japanese art. He spent his afternoons reading in his library, absorbed by the books about Ukiyo-e prints and Japanese art in general. Gustav Klimt first became acquainted with Japanese woodblock or Ukiyo-e prints in 1873. at the Weltausstellung (World Fair). This fascination with Japanese art was something that plenty of intellectuals and artists at that time shared. Klimt collected Ukiyo-e prints and other Japanese objects, and it greatly influenced his drawing skills, and encouraged his exploration of perspectives.

Klimt’s enchantment with Japanese art is most evident in his paintings such as Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt, and Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer, all of which have a pyramidal composition, and a massive amount of ornaments, all fresh, vivid and exuberant, plenty of birds, animals and oriental figures in the background. While looking at these paintings, it is impossible not to think of Monet’s ‘La Japonaise (Camille Monet Wearing a Kimono)‘ or perhaps van Gogh’s ‘La Pere Tanguy‘, and not see where Klimt found his inspiration.

1914. Portrait of Baroness Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt

1912. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II

Word kaleidoscope means ‘observation of beautiful forms’, and by watching these magnificent paintings one does nothing else but observe those vivid colours full of life, those backgrounds so rich they could be paintings themselves, and then those ladies that almost blended into the opulent background, perhaps belonging to that other world more than the one they are painted in. These are not Klimt’s seductive femme fatales from the beggining of the century, these ladies are tamed, dreamy and lost.

Another interesting painting that belongs to the same time and style period is The Virgin (Die Jungfrau) painted in 1913. Scene is allegorical, but the influence of Japanese art is evident in every brush stroke; flatness of the surface, vivid colours and all those different swirls, circles and flowers amalgamated, the line between the dresses and the background being unclear. Still, the painting explores Klimt’s foremost interest; a girl becoming a woman, with all the emotional awakening that comes with it. All those pale figures, even paler in contrast with the rousing colours, are united and mingled in a kaleidoscope of colours and patterns, from the mystical purple decorated with swirls and some orange flowers that look as if they came from one of Klimt’s landscapes, to the ecstatic yellow colour that rules the backdrop.

1916. Portrait of Friederike Maria Beer

1913-14. Portrait of Eugenia Primavesi

1917-18. Gustav Klimt – Dame mit Fächer (Lady with a Fan)

1916-17. Girlfriends or Two Women Friends

Gustav Klimt – Beechwood Forest

Syd Barrett’s keen eye introduced me to Klimt’s painting ‘Beechwood Forest‘, thereby introducing me to Klimt’s landscapes; magical worlds where trees become femme fatales, sensual creatures of nature.

1902. Buchenwald I

Gustav Klimt is best known for his sensual and sinister femme fatales, but at the same time he enjoyed painting landscapes, which were usually created in moments of contemplation, peace and relaxation. Although he had been drawing numerous sketches for his portraits and allegorical scenes before painting them on canvas, Klimt painted nature while residing in it, painting flowers and trees without previous sketches, portraying nature in the most natural way.

Klimt found peace in painting landscapes, the same way Renoir had found it earlier, painting flowers with colours that were left after painting portraits. From 1897. Klimt had been spending his summer days in Litzlberg at Lake Attersee, enjoying the warm, sunny days with his life companion Emilie Flöge. He was known for starting his holiday days early, around 6 o’clock, with long strolls in the woods which prompted locals to call him ‘Waldschrat‘; someone who lives in the woods on his own. I can’t resist adding a few verses from Syd Barrett’s song ‘Octopus’; ‘Isn’t it good to be lost in the wood/Isn’t it bad so quiet there, in the wood.‘ Gustav Klimt undoubtedly drew inspiration from these long walks, connecting his soul to nature, breathing the fresh air. I wonder are the trees that he touched still there?

Beechwood Forest (Buchenwald, 1902) is one of my favourite landscape paintings by Klimt, along with The Swamp (1900). These two paintings are significant as one of the earliest examples of Klimt’s landscapes, daringly combining styles of Impressionism and Symbolism. Brush strokes evoke the painting style typical for Impressionism, while the simplified and symbolic treatment of surface, along with the influence of the Orient, make these paintings typical for Art Nouveau. Still, Gustav Klimt was never interested in the game of light and shadow, his landscapes, the same as his portraits, display his interest in allegories. The Swamp was painted on the shore of one of the ice ponds near Litzlberg. Paintings such as ‘Beechwood Forest‘ or ‘The Swamp‘ resemble a tapestry, filled with patterns that could easily be found on a dress of one of his femme fatales. Sensible trembling of his landscapes enhances their ornamentation and symbolic meaning. In ‘Beechwood Forest‘ dense beech trees blot the sky, and each leaf is captured in one golden brush stroke; such paintings were appealing to Syd’s Cantabrigian sensibilities.

1900. The Swamp

Klimt approached painting landscapes the same way he painted women, with visible sensuality and liveliness. The absence of people in all of his landscapes suggest that Klimt perceived the landscape as a living being, mystical pantheism was always prevalent. The nature, in all its greenness, freshness and mystery, was a beautiful woman for Klimt.

The Stone Roses – Divinity of Madchester

If there’s one band after the 1960s that captured the spirit of optimism and good times to be had, than it’s The Stone Roses whose debut album was treated as a ‘Holy Bible‘ by a generation of British rockers.

Cover of their debut album ‘The Stone Roses’ (1989)

‘Kiss me where the sun don’t shine/The past was yours/But the future’s mine/You’re all out of time‘ (She bangs the drums); even before they gained their widespread fanatical following The Stone Roses were assured in their ‘role of saviors‘. This modest philosophy is evident in many 0f their songs from the debut album, in verses such as ‘I don’t need to sell my soul/He’s already in me/I wanna be adored‘ and ‘My aim is true/My message is clear‘ (Elizabeth my dear). Indeed, The Stone Roses gained a cult of followers despite having released only two albums, and paved the way for a new generation of Indie rock musicians, encouraging them to delve into the 1960s Psychedelia. Still, their success and self confidence brought a mass phenomenon of immense arrogance of some British bands who tend to behave like gods after only a few singles.

British music scene saw a decline in the 1980s. A nation that gave music so many legends (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Kinks, Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols, The Clash etc.) was in the shadow of American bands. The Smiths were there, providing a glimpse of light and hope in desperate times, but they split in 1987. Embittered and clueless, British music scene was in desperate need of someone who’d come up with a vision of salvation. The desperately awaited Resurrection came in a form of The Stone Roses. The new era of Manchester music was just beginning; Madchester was born.

The Stone Roses (Ian Brown – vocals, John Squire – lead guitar, Mani – bass guitar, and Reni – drums) were part of a new wave of Manchester bands who’d give indie music a psychedelic twist. Their early sound captured that west coast psychedelia, a sense of The Byrds. Front man Ian Brown walked on the stage with a Mancunian swagger, and, along with equally cocky and cheeky musicians, he led the way on the Madchester scene. They believed they were born to do it, and that’s what they did. With their debut album of the same name, The Stone Roses gave indie music a completely fresh start.

‘1989 was the year the white kids woke up‘, said Ian Brown, and this can well and truly be applied to the Manchester scene at the time. Manchester’s bleak and gloomy image, based partly on the cold climate of north England, and over yet on the legacy of post-punk legends of Joy Division, was transformed in 1989. Rave houses such as Hacienda, along with the emerging new psychedelia bands, turned Manchester into Madchester, the mecca for the new generation of hedonists and 24 hour party people. Cheerful and hypnotic melodies from The Stone Roses’ debut album shone like a ray of sunshine over the once gloomy and industrial city of Manchester, now turned into a background for a never ending, optimism fueled Second summer of love.

Workaholic materialism of the ’80s faded, at least for a moment, and youth culture blossomed in the dawn of the 1990s. Ian Brown remembers ‘…a feeling of community strength … coming out of a club at the end of the night feeling like you were going to change the world. Then guns come in, and heroin starts being put in ecstasy. It took a lot of the love-vibe out.‘ The Stone Roses themselves detached from the club scene as the time progressed, but it the early days a spirit of psychedelia colourised the city’s drab legacy and turned it into a place to be. Idealism pervaded the air once again. For the young people whose mindsets were tuned with the ones of The Stone Roses, Manchester’s rainy days and gray landscapes turned into psychedelic swirls and paisleys, the sky was coloured with melodies from The Stone Roses’s debut album released in April/May 1989. For a moment, Manchester was a living dream.

The magnificent thing about this album is that it perfectly captures that free spirited atmosphere and could easily stand as a soundtrack to those fleeting times, but it’s unbelievably timeless. The quality of the album itself has never been debated by true artistic minds, and the NME named it the greatest British album ever in 2006. Clever mixture of psychedelic sounds and dance beats proved a lasting influence on rock music, and set the tone for the Indie music in the 1990s. Liam Gallagher bought the album four times, not only because the record wore out, but as a way of showing respect to a band that has influenced him so much.

As the time progressed, the album became even more critically acclaimed, gaining adjectives such as ‘godlike‘ (Melody Maker). However, the album’s popularity, which came almost over night, is not a coincidence. The Stone Roses owe credit to their success not only to the situation in UK at the time, but mainly to their artistic skills. Before venturing into their own playing, the band explored the 1960s music, wowing psychedelia of bands such as The Byrds into their own hypnotic guitar sounds.

On a visual level, The Stone Roses were influenced by Jackson Pollock in the same way they were influenced by The Byrds and ’60s psychedelia musically. Jackson Pollock, an American painter and a pioneer of Abstract-Expressionism, discarded the easel painting in favour of letting colour find its own way, spread freely and live a life of its own. He said ‘The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.‘ The Stone Roses joyfully embraced Pollock’s philosophy in a way that they created a completely new ‘time and space‘, allowing their listeners to fall in a trance through their songs.

Photo found here.

Album The Stone Roses is a magnificent combination of the ’60s psychedelia and Pollock’s vision of expressing feelings through colours. Most of the songs from their debut album (‘Waterfall’, ‘Made of Stone’, ‘This Is The One’, ‘She Bangs the Drums’) start with a slight drumming and psychedelic lingering over the guitar strings, over which Ian’s hypnotic voice spreads like colour, only to end in an explosive guitar storm.

The album cover is a Pollock-inspired artwork by John Squire titled ‘Bye Bye Badman‘, which makes reference to May 1968 riots in Paris. Lemons gracing the cover are connected to the latter event as well. Squire said ‘Ian Brown had met this French man when he was hitching around Europe, this bloke had been in the riots, and he told Ian how lemons had been used as an antidote to tear gas. Then there was the documentary—-a great shot at the start of a guy throwing stones at the police. I really liked his attitude.‘ Even the covers of their singles are pastiches of Jackson Pollock’s work.

The summer of ’89 The Stone Roses began limiting themselves to spectacular gigs. First of these was the legendary concert at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool’s Winter Gardens. Outside of Manchester the band had struggled to fill venues holding just a couple of hundred people. Concert at the Empress Ballroom was a gamble for it held a crowd of over 3000 people. Mani said that the band have always considered doing gigs like walking on tightrope; you could fall at any time but you enjoy the danger. The Stone Roses wanted to see how far they could go. On Saturday August 12th 1989 they held a headline gig at the Empress Ballroom to a crowd of 4000 people. The moment was there. The world was ready for The Stone Roses. ‘We’re anti-trivia above all else,’ Ian Brown said in 1989, and the band’s shimmering guitar sound along Ian’s hypnotic voice have surely colourised many boring trivialities.

Later that year, the band released their legendary single ‘Fools Gold‘; a ten minute epic that gives an impression that it could last ten hours and still wouldn’t become boring. In ten minutes it sums up all important events of rock ‘n’ roll; from blues and soul to acid house. Ian Brown said in December 1989 ‘We’re the most important group in the world, because we’ve got the best songs and we haven’t even begun to show our potential yet.‘ (NME) In May 1990 some 27,000 people attended The Stone Roses outdoor concert at Spike Island in Widnes. Although the sound and organisation were bad, the venues became legendary, often called ‘The second Woodstock’.

‘What the world is waiting for‘ were The Stone Roses. However, caught in a web of contractual wrangling, their fortunes took a downward turn. Although the Roses would never recapture their early magic, their legacy is still considerable.

For me, listening to The Stone Roses album is like dreaming a really magical, magnificent and purifying dream in which everything is possible. And after the last hypnotic reverberating sounds of the song ‘I am the resurrection‘ ends, and I wake up from that dream, Ian’s haunting voice singing ‘I wanna be adored…‘ resonates throughout my head the entire day, week, month, eternity…

I WANNA BE ADORED

‘I don’t have to sell my soul
He’s already in me
I don’t need to sell my soul
He’s already in me
I wanna be adored
I wanna be adored…‘