Dad was himself

Dad was himself. Even old, he was naturally inclined to hope for good things. Now confused, he cried when he found he couldn't go home. He could never go home again; he couldn't climb the stairs, two flights; how could he have climbed them a few weeks ago, after his last hospital stay? But he had, on his bandaged feet, on his legs that were losing their skin, he had done it through dogged determination. But a week later, was carried back again to hospital.

He and Sue lived two floors us in a flat where everything fitted together like a nest of oddments, collapsed together in a general impression of browns, smelling of cigarette smoke, the papers on the desk never moving, the books on the shelves never moving, just a small area of kitchen still a workspace, just a small current flowing through the still, dark pool of age.

So Mrs T thinks of her father, about to die, and about packing up her mother's flat - all the bedroom first, then on to the bathroom - chuck - chuck - chuck - she would put the toiletries in the sack - but the clothes go to Help the Aged, where they give her a Gift Aid number.

One morning she has a John Lennon song in her head - "I'm only Sleeping" so seductively beautiful -

"But he was depressed" Mrs T thinks. "He didn't want to get up, or think, or make a plan. He could hardly even finish the song - it just repeated itself and lasted only three minutes."

Sleeping too much was a sign of depression, as surely as sleeping too little. And sleep was a foretaste of death, too much sleep a flirtation with death.

Mrs T has wanted to say these things to her father, agonised on the brink:

"Death is but a sleep and a forgetting". "Our little lives are ended with a sleep."

She had not had the opportunity to say these things. And he would have mocked her anyway because he wasn't ready to "sleep". Mrs T had wanted to help, but everybody has to die by themselves and there is nothing to say, in many cases, nothing at all that will help.

Mrs T carried "I'm Only Sleeping" around in her head and its unhappiness hurt her. She found it on YouTube and then went on to other recordings of John Lennon, and there was the cure; it turned out to be - Early Lennon. "It won't be long Yeah! " "This Boy" "I call Your Name". It was a roughness about his voice that did it - a fierceness to his nature - he sounded like a friend to Mrs T.

Australian impressionists at the National Gallery

This is a very small exhibition so it doesn't cost that much to get in. Three of the four artists featured were not really impressionists in the way Monet was an impressionist, but more the way Singer Sargeant was an impressionist, or Manet  - they wanted to paint outdoors, quickly, and they wanted to show the impression of being out there - but they were not studying colour at the expense of forms. They painted the bright blues and the faded greens and greys they could see, but to make recognisable places and experiences. The three are Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder. Some of these pictures are in the National Gallery exhibitions. The first pictures, below, are by Tom Roberts, and show his interest in painting Australian everyday life.

Coogee Bay.

This beautiful picture is not in the exhibition.

This street scene is actually more typical of Australians lives than the rural scenes.

 

Sheep breaking away, a dog being trampled, 2 piles of bones of dead cattle.
A fantastic picture.

A very bold composition

These artists have been criticised for making a mythic Australia in which the men were strong and outdoorsy and rural. In fact, most Australians always lived in towns by the coast.

The next artist (pictures below) is Arthur Streeton. It's impossible to say which of them was more talented.

Blasting through a tunnel

 

Magnetic Island

I was less impressed by the work of Charles Conder who had a tendency to be Frenchified and enjoy painting pretty dresses more than the others. Pictures below.

The impressionists camped every year at Heidelberg, encouraging each other. This pic shows two of them discussing their work.

This exhibition is well worth spending time at.