My Inspiration for April 2017

This April I was inspired by Berthe Morisot’s loose brushwork and images of women, romantic ruins, heather fields and hawthorn trees, Chopin’s Mazurkas, Eugene Onegin, Winterhalter’s portrait of Empress Elisabeth Sissi in her gorgeous tulle gown, gardens in bloom, straw hats, Victorian fashion photography, Turgenev’s heroines, Beardsley’s decadent glamour, moonlit Dutch landscapes, portraits of women with harps, 1840s fashion. I’ve read a few interesting short stories; First Sorrow by Franz Kafka, and I’ve been rereading Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s short story collection Twelve Pilgrims; when I first read it six years ago and now still my favourite story is The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow; it’s about two wealthy Columbian newly weds, Nena and Billy Sanchez, who come to Europe on honeymoon, and Nena cuts her finger on a rose thorn, leaves a trail of blood in the snow… and, well read for yourself. The atmosphere of the story has similarities with Kafka’s style. I’ve watched an interesting three part BBC documentary narrated by Lucy Worsley called Elegance and Decadence: The Age of Regency, and a film with nice costumes set in times of the English Civil War – The Devil’s Whore (2008); both are on Youtube.