Epigrams and Etchings

I enjoy reading poetry. Many years ago while browsing in a bookstore I discovered the Roman poets. Martial (c. 40–104 B.C.) and Catullus (c. 84–54 B.C.) became particular favourites for their wit – often I’ve laughed aloud at their very bawdy epigrams. They must have been brilliant men at a party! So rude and libellous, it’s a wonder if they weren’t sued by one of their outraged targets. Sadly though, I can’t read them in the original Latin, and must rely on clever translators.

Here is a small selection (the politer ones), accompanied by the drawings and etchings of Henri Matisse (1869–1954), which seemed eminently to suit.

MARTIAL
The Epigrams

Book I

I
May I present myself – the man
You read, admire and long to meet,
Known the world over for his neat
And witty epigrams? The name
Is Martial. Thank you, earnest fan,
For having granted me the fame
Seldom enjoyed by a dead poet
While I’m alive and here to know it.1

3
So, they’ve summed you up, my little book.
You’re now a ‘milestone in ironic outlook.’
This the price of your publicity:
MARTIAL VIEWS LIFE VERY SAUCILY.
Whatever they say is a load of balls
Certain to send you to second-hand stalls,
Unaware, little book, of the comforts of home
Your ‘low key wit’ now belongs to Rome.
What today’s ‘an incandescent event’
Soon winds up a ‘minor supplement.’
To set you off on the proper foot
Some shit’s written ‘Magic, a classic to boot.’2

38
They’re mine, but when a fool like you recites
My poems I resign the author’s rights.1

Femme Endormie, 1936

Book 2

I wrote, she never replied:
That goes on the debit side.
And yet, I’m sure she read it:
That I put down as credit.1

Book 3

90
She’s half-and-half inclined
To sleep with me. No? Yes?
What’s in that tiny mind?
Impossible to guess.1

Study of a model, 1934

Book 7

3
Why have I never sent
My works to you, old hack?
For fear the compliment
Comes punishingly back.1

Book 8

27
If you were wise as well as rich and sickly,
You’d see that every gift means, ‘Please die quickly.’1

Woman’s face, 1942

TO CHLOE

I could resign that eye of blue
Howe’er its splendour used to thrill me;
And even that cheek of roseate hue, –
To lose it, Chloe, would scarce kill me.

That snowy neck I ne’er should miss,
However much I’ve raved about it;
And sweetly as that lip can kiss,
I think I could exist without it.

In short, so well I’ve learned to fast,
That, sooth my love, I know not whether
I might not bring myself at last,
To – do without you altogether.3

FOOTNOTES
1 Martial – The Epigrams, translated by James Michie, Penguin Classics, 1978
2 Translated by W. S. Milne, (1953–) from The Roman Poets, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 1997
3 Translated by Thomas Moore, (1779–1852), from The Roman Poets, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 1997

La torsem et native nue 1932

CATULLUS

5
Lesbia,
   live with me
& love me so
we’ll laugh at all
the sour-faced strict-
ures of the wise.
This sun once set
will rise again,
when our sun sets
follows night &
an endless sleep.
Kiss me now a
thousand times &
now a hundred
more & then a
hundred & a
thousand more again
till with so many
hundred thousand
kisses you & I
shall both lose count
nor any can
from envy of
so much kissing
put his finger
on the number
of sweet kisses
you of me &
I of you,
darling, have had.

From The Poems of Catullus, translated by Peter Whigam, Penguin Classics, 1966

Variation 1, 1942

Compare the same poem translated four centuries earlier:

Come and let us live, my Dear,
Let us love and never fear
What the sourest Fathers say:
Brightest Sol that dies to-day
Lives again as blithe to-morrow;
But if we dark sons of sorrow
Set, O then how long a night
Shuts the eyes of our short light!
Then let amorous kisses dwell
On our lips, begin and tell
A thousand, and a hundred score,
An hundred, and a thousand more,
Till another thousand smother
That, and wipe off another.
Thus at last when we have numbered
Many a thousand, many a hundred,
We’ll confound the reckoning quite,
And lose our selves in wild delight:
While our joys so multiply
As shall mock the envious eye. 

Translated by Richard Crashaw (1612/13–49), from The Roman Poets, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 1997

Fata with a hat of light, 1933

Indie Posters

The Adventures of Artiomka, RussiaFilm posters are part of the urban landscape. We see them everywhere. Sometimes they are so generic that one banal film is indistinguishable from another. But not in Poland.

A tradition of poster art began with the emergence of a poster school in the late 1950s, lead by the painter, drawer and graphic artist, Henryk Tomaszewski. Everyone wanted a piece from this community of artists: for many years there was no film, opera or theatre premiere, concert, festival or other public event without a poster. One artist recalls that at the height of demand he was making a poster every week, and had to even decline commissions.

Japanese moster moviesFilms from around the world were reimagined by a great number of different artists, in a multitude of styles. These posters are works of art, a far cry from the commercial propositions inflicted on us today. Sadly, with the changes in applied graphics globally, the tradition of popular poster art is in decline in Poland. It is now more likely to be seen on the walls of an art gallery rather than plastered on the brick wall of a pub.

Read more about the history of this fine art at Polish Poster, where you can also purchase a vintage poster or three. Scroll down for some more of my favourites.

Scarlet Sails, RussiaAn Event, YugoslaviaThe Man Who Wanted to Live Forever, CanadaSunset Boulevard, USASombrero, RussiaThe Grasshopper, Russia

Magic Lantern

Puppet Man :: Lucifer VI // Dylan // No flashIt was a freezing evening on Saturday night, but since it was the last night, Rapunzel and I stepped out to view the Gertrude Street Projection Festival.

The Festival, organised by the Gertrude Association, has been running since 2008. This year’s theme is Elements, and the work of guest artists and community groups is projected on buildings all along Gertrude Street, from the high-rise commission flats to the humble pub wall.

From the amusing – a life-size shadow of a man playing with dolls in a window, to the tiny – a little magic lantern with a creature astride the branch of a tree, to the monumental – geometric patterns flung up on the twin tall apartment buildings; they all provided a challenge to the dedicated Hipstamatic photographer, as did the freezing air. Quite a few shop windows caught my eye too. It was a fun evening.

Alphonse Mucha – The Founder of Art Nouveau

Sarah Bernhardt, 1896Art Nouveau is for many an instantly-recognised style, and the illustrations and graphic works of Alphonse Mucha are inextricably (much like the motifs) associated with it.

He was most famous for the sinuous lines and florals of his commercial art, and understandably so – no other artist has truly matched the lightness and joie de vivre present in his illustrative oeuvre, not even the pyschadelic art of the 1960s when Art Nouveau experienced a revival of interest.

Salon of the Hundred, 1896Job, 1896Yet Mucha would have preferred to concentrate on more artistic projects. What has survived for over a century in the collective public imagination though, are his illustrations of the actress Sarah Bernhardt; ladies wreathed in the smoke of Job’s cigarettes and their own tresses writhing in the air; personifications of seasons and evening stars; and ladies advertising products from chocolate to champagne.

Champenois Imprimeur Éditeur, 1897Mucha (1860–1939) began his career painting theatrical scenery in Moravia (present day Czech Republic) and moved on to portrait painting. After studying in Paris, he achieved fame virtually overnight through a commission for a new advertising poster for a play featuring Sarah Bernhardt. He was simply in the right place at the right time, visiting a print shop just as the need arise. He took two weeks to produce a lithograph that thrilled Bernardt, and culminated into a six-year contract with the actress.

It also established him as an artist. He produced all kinds of graphic media in his distinctive style, as well as designs for jewellery, wallpaper, carpets and theatre sets. Initially dubbed ‘Mucha Style’, it was later known as Art Nouveau (French for ‘new art’), so it can truly be said that Alphonse Mucha was its founder.

The style was spread internationally by the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris – what an irony then that the founder of Art Nouveau struggled afterwards to disassociate himself from it. His frustration is comprehensible in light of his declaration that ‘art existed only to communicate a spiritual message, nothing more’. But surely there is still a place for lyrical beauty and a celebration of colour in this world.

See more of Alphonse Mucha’s work at Wikipaintings.

Chocolate Ideal, 1897Chocolate Masson, 1897Zodiac, 1897(Left) Summer, 1897, and (right), RubySpring and Summer, 1897

What is the Red Ball?

RedBall Project, BarcelonaImagine strolling along a city street, turning a corner to walk down the subway steps you expect to find there, only to be confronted by a giant red ball blocking your path. It’s the surreal stuff of dreams, a segue down the highway of The Matrix, but here it is in the real world.

The RedBall Project began life as a public piece for Arts & Transit St Louis, which commissioned the artist Kurt Perschke. As an artist whose work encompasses video, sculpture, drawing, prints and public projects, Perschke is interested in architectural space, and how people inhabit space.

In the initial project, Perschke was offered three spaces for his work: two pretty parks, and a rather ugly bridge descending into the earth. He found himself drawn to the latter, to the sheer mass of the bridge and negative space beneath it – that which he terms the ‘armpit’ space. He wanted to show it smashing something, and whimsically drew a red ball beneath it. Suspecting it was ‘too easy’, he nevertheless showed it to the curator, who laughed, and they decided it was perfect.

RedBall Project, NorwichThe ball is 15 feet high, weighs 250 pounds with or without air, and is inflated in situ, a process which takes 40 minutes. There is only one red ball.

It was Perschke himself who spent his commission fee to take the red ball to Barcelona, where it captured the public’s imagination; people actively threw themselves at it, leaned, pushed, posed. The Project garnered a lot of media attention; then a curator in Sydney brought it to Australia. Since then it has crossed cultures as well as continents, from Taipei to Abu Dhabi.

He says, “people approach me on the street with excited suggestions about where to put it in their city. In that moment the person is not a spectator but a participant in the act of imagination. … That invitation to engage, to collectively imagine, is the true essence of the RedBall Project.”

RedBall Project, Abu DhabiRead more at The RedBall website, watch a video interview with Kurt Perschke and eyeball some galleries of cities the Project has toured.