Botticelli exhibition, Victoria & Albert Museum

There are three aspects to this exhibition, split into sections. The first section is worth considering. It shows how modern and contemporary artists - in a wide spread of genres -  have bounced off Botticelli's images and produced something of their own - Warhol is an obvious one - but there are many others, for example, Dolce and Gabbana with a suit and dress with a Primavera pattern - recently worn by Lady Gaga. So many different takes on Venus and Primavera. You have only to Google "Venus Botticelli" and you see so many different pastiches of the image of the woman on the Half-Shell  -some are really naff   - others are thoughtful.

The second section is about the rediscovery of Botticelli in the UK; and how the pre-Raphaelites - from Ruskin to Morris to Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, in the post-industrial age, tried to find the same kind of beauty that Botticelli expressed, but of course they couldn't, - they didn't have the inherent piety - but they failed in interesting ways. I like the pre-Raphs because somehow, in spite of their espousal of the early renaissance aesthetic, they always seem English and they always seem Victorian - as Jane said, even while focussing on the daisies, you can smell the steelworks in the background.

The third section included some masterpieces by Botticelli - Mystic Nativity - Portrait Giuliano de Medici - Ideal Portrait of a Lady - Pallas and the Centaur - and two versions of Venus - amazing - plus some late work that expresses a change in the emotional and spiritual temperature in the Savonarola era. There are also pictures by Botticelli's "workshop" and pictures not by Botticelli but supposed to be. So some of them are wonderful and some are really bad! You can tell immediately which ones are by Botticelli.

Mystic Nativity

This picture of Giuliano di Medici was painted after he had been assassinated.

I think these are probably the loveliest pictures in London at the moment and I do recommend everyone to go and see this - take about 2 hours over it. I went with Jane and had a great time.

There are two of these Venuses to compare but I prefer the religious pictures myself.

Celandines: a nice surprise

As I have reported before, I am reading "Weeds" by Richard Mabey, a book which changes one's view of weeds, and turns one into an enthusiast. So now, as I take my constitutional around Virginia Water, I am saddened by the lack of weeds and thrilled to spot a few celandines in a glade - but on closer inspection they turn out to be a bijou type of daffodil.

Richard Mabey is particularly fond of celandines.

But the best lawn weed, the flower that says, decisively, here is the spring and the new sun, is the lesser celandine. It's rather fussy in our garden, and only really flourishes in a damp corner under the cherry-plums which we mow no more than three or four times a year. But for six or so weeks from the middle of February it makes that dappled glade shine. It's the only word. Celandine's petals, like buttercups, seem able to reflect the light, as if they were made of yellow metal, or oil, or most persuasively, molten butter...

Wordsworth noticed its precocious flowering, and wondered why such an exquisite bloom had not been more feted. For those of us who share Wordsworth's view, it is mysterious why celandine is hounded from most lawns, and why a turf of pure velvet green is preferred to a multi-coloured quilt. 

So, on my last trip to Virginia Water, I was accompanied by my friend Jane, and went raving on about my boring garden and its lack of celandines.


 So imagine my delight when Jane dropped off half a dozen celandine plants outside my door! What a great surprise. She has just told me that she dug them up from her sister's Hampshire garden.

I planted them in 2 locations in my garden and I hope they "take".

Jane takes her camera to VW because she has one with all sorts of clever settings, and is trying to find out what it can do, and even goes to classes to learn about Getting the Most from your Digital Camera. We both tried to take pictures of the buds on the birch trees. - not an easy subject.



I hope hers came out better than mine (camera phone again).
 

Jane found a lot of honey bees being very active in the heather - and told me that our native honey bee is actually quite small and black, but it suffered a terrible disease in Victorian times, so other bees which were more wasp-like in appearance were brought in from abroad, but she prefers, I think, to see quite dark ones. Jane keeps three hives of bees and even made her own - thing to keep bees in - made out of straw?