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

Travelling Trophies

In keeping with my All Abroad! story in the Journal, here is a lovely collection of luggage labels from David Craig’s book Luggage Labels – Mementoes from the Golden Age of Travel (Chronicle Books, 1988).

They are such quaint pieces of graphic design that have vanished from daily appearance in our lives, and with them disappeared the romance of foreign travel. Although I wonder – were travellers actually annoyed to have these bits of paper plastering their matching sets of luggage? Or were they trophies of all the wonderful places they’ve been?

Although I wonder – were travellers actually annoyed to have these bits of paper plastering their matching sets of luggage?

Many years ago I was lucky enough to find a couple of vintage travelling hatboxes that featured two or three labels on the side. I even used them as overnight cases occasionally. I was utterly distraught when I discovered they had become damp and mouldy from storage in the garage one winter – I had to throw them out. In fact, some of my books had also been stored in the garage with them, including this Luggage Labels book, and it is now somewhat warped from the damp – perhaps that is rather apt. (Fortunately it escaped the mould.)

The red suitcase I have now is also vintage, purchased a couple of years ago from an enormous vintage bazaar on the Mornington Peninsula. I store all my props in it.

The wonderfully evocative Canadian Pacific poster is from another book on graphic design of the Art Deco period: British Modern – Graphic Design Between the Wars, by Steven Heller and Louise Fili.

Click through to the Vintage Luggage Labels gallery to view twenty more labels.

What is Beauty?

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’ This, one of the most trite and oft repeated phrases ever, handed as a sop to plain women, remains true nevertheless. Beauty, in reference to physical appearance – and art – interests me, principally because the notion is so entirely subjective, and because so many proclaim loudly against its validity.

The subject was recently brought back to mind after reading about software that was supposed to ‘beautify’ people. Pictorial examples were given, and one comment caught my attention: a reader asserted that the (supposedly) more beautiful version of the subject was bland and boring. The implication being that even naturally attractive people (with regular features) are bland and boring. What an insult to a large and lucky proportion of the population.

Beauty is of course not the be all and end all, but it is dishonest and utterly disingenuous to dismiss it as unimportant. There have been numerous studies done to attest that human beings are naturally attracted to symmetry, proportion, and balance. Most human beings pursue beauty in one form or another – if it was unimportant in our lives, we would not do so.

Equally, art that is beautiful is often sniffily dismissed as the merely ‘decorative’, appealing only to the untutored masses and should therefore be pooh-poohed by the serious art critic.

We do however live in a time of mass obsession with youth, beauty and artifice, when natural beauty and aging gracefully has gone by the board. Sadly, too many forget to tend to the beauty and spirit within, where true grace resides. A so-called ‘ordinary’ man or woman will suddenly become beautiful when they move, when their eyes light up, when joy animates them; still photos show so little of the subject they depict.

The original article from The New York Times is very interesting. An excerpt from it (wow, this professor said the same thing I did just above, and I promise I wrote it before I read the article! I feel smart …):

“The first reaction we have to faces will be based on face symmetry, health, averageness,” said Alexander Nehamas, a philosopher and professor of the humanities and comparative literature at Princeton, who has written about beauty. “But we never see a face like that in real life. We see faces in connection with people expressing emotions and ideas, all those aspects of the face are essential to our deciding whether a face or a person is beautiful.”

Here are some words and pictures on the topic from the book What is Beauty?, by Dorothy Schefer (Thames & Hudson, 1997). Click images for larger versions.

The Cotton Route

Roller-printed cotton cloth (lining of a man’s black adras khalat); Russia, fourth quarter of the nineteenth century

Russian Textiles:
Printed Cloth for the Bazaars of Central Asia, by Susan Meller (Abrams 2007)When I discovered the book Russian Textiles, I knew I had to own it: my parents own a rug very similar to the green and red design above (except that it is woven rather than printed). It inspires such a strong sense of nostalgia for my childhood. (Fortunately none of my sisters like vintage fabrics as much as I do, so they won’t contest my future claim to it!) I love the Russian way of mixing up prints and patterns – particularly in linens – and this sumptuous book is filled with many examples, such as the robe (scroll further down), made up of polka dots, overblown florals and exotic ikat. These also bring the Ballet Russes strongly to mind.

Peasant girls, Russia 1909; three young woman offer berries to visitors in front of their izba, a traditional wooden house in a rural area near the town of Kirillov. Two of the girls are wearing silk brocaded sarafans, which are reserved for special occasions: the girl in the middle is wearing a printed cotton shirt under her sarafan, and the other girls wear printed head scarves. (Click for larger image.)
(Click for larger image)Between 1860–1960, these exotic printed-cotton textiles were created and manufactured in Russia, and were subsequently exported to Central Asia. The colourful 
and highly detailed fabrics were popular with the people 
of these Central Asian countries: Uzbeks, Tadjiks and Turkmen; Muslims and Jews alike. Their garments were constructed often from many pieces of contrasting fabrics: many of the spreads show the original garments beside a detail image of the fabric. 

(Click for larger image)There are more than 175 spectacular patterns spanning 
a variety of periods and styles, from pre- and post-
revolutionary and Art Nouveau florals to Soviet-era propaganda and stripes. Short essays accompanied by fascinating sepia photographs describe the ‘social life’ 
of these gorgeous materials.

This book will take you on an exotic journey, inspire you, and fill you with wonder, whether you are an illustrator, an artist or aspiring pattern designer. 

(Click for larger image)Turkmen Bokche (lining on left, exterior on right), mid-twentieth century; made from recycled fabrics, including an early nineteenth-century embroidered chyrpy fragment, lined with Russian printed cotton(Click for larger image)Roller-printed cotton cloth (lining of an adras ikat munisak); Russia, late nineteenth-early twentieth century

Of Shoes and Ships and Surface Prints

If you’re into surface patterns (designing or just admiring), this lovely little A5-sized book is a wonderful resource for vintage cotton fabrics collected in New York. About 600 prints cover patterns from the 30s to the 60s, with chapters on florals, checks, dots, stripes, novelty, and more. Textile designers of this era seem to have been inspired by a plethora of everyday objects, turning them into novelty prints that amuse and delight. And how many ways are there to do spots and stripes? Dozens!

Although the text is minimal and entirely in Japanese, the quality reproductions of the prints make actually reading the book unnecessary. Unfortunately the book is out of print, but if you can get hold of a secondhand copy, snap it up, as it really is an inspiring resource – I’ve flagged almost every page! Or Google it and you’ll see a lot more than these examples below.