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House of Cards: building Orkadian Identity

House of Cards and Local portrait by Stanley Cursiter

Skech from early period, Stanley Cursiter

Stanley Cursiter is a person not known to modern audience. I stumbled upon his grand painting House of Cards in Museum of Kirkwall, was mesmerised by subtle merging between cubist architectural sense and classical softness and fluidity, and stepping stone by stepping stone, his story unfolded.

Born in Orkney, he had vast knowledge to strange and soaked in mystery history of Orkneys, to later, in spite of not having academic arts degree, become in 1948 director of National Galleries of Scotland, be appointed as His Majesty’s Painter and Limmer, and initiate foundation of Scottish Modern Art Gallery, now occupying two buildings in Dean Village.
He has given the grandfather of a person I had a chance to meet, the mansion owner next to Scara Brae Megalithic Village, a strange Viking artifact, presumably a calendar; called his permanent house guest herring gull he was feeding, “Sigurd”, and invested in reconstruction of St.Rognvald’s chapel in St.Magnus cathedral, Kirkwall.

Viking calendar, private

I need to take a tiny swing back in history. Old days Orkney, rumoured by historian Neil Oliver to be as fertile and vastly populated that is was the actual capital of prehistoric Europe, was invaded by Vikings under king Harald the FairHair, who added the islands to Norway, while making his cousin, Earl Rognvald, the first Earl of Orkney, who’s cousin in turn, St.Magnus, is still venerated in Norway as one of Catholic Saints, having amongst others a dedicated shrine in Trondheim Cathedral. Later on, the Orkney Earls participated in Jerusalem Crusades which were depicted in poetry of Earl Kari Kohlsson of same family, took up family name Rollo deriving from longer version “Rongvald”, married to French /Norman nobility on way back from Jerusalem and took up family name Sinclair, under which Earls of Orkney, Caithness and Roslyn are known to present day, not the least through famous polpularisation in Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code”. All the family timeline is recorded in Orkneyinga Saga, of islandic origin.

Stanley Cursiter knew this story well, and was captured by it. Here is an abstract from his biography: “Throughout his busy retirement, Cursiter was also broadcasting regularly on local and national radio, and writing many articles, and even some short stories. He was resident celebrity; the spokesman for Orkney, turned to whenever information was needed on cultural or historical questions or any kind of public debate required a rational and architectural response.
The project that probably meant most to him, however, was when he was given the opportunity to make a significant contributing to a building he had loved all his life. In 1965 he proposed and designed the St.Rognvald’s Chapel in the east end of the choir of St.Magnus Cathedral; a labour of love which stands as a permanent memorial to his contribution to local heritage. He designed a pulpit, a communion table and lectern, incorporating some wooden panels of 16th and 17th centuries, and the three distinctive figures that stand behind them representing the founding fathers of the Cathedral: The Norse earl Rognvald, his father Kol, and bishop William the Old, first bishop to be associated with the cathedral. Some of the wood used for new carvings had been found in the Cathedral crypt by Cursiter. “

During his time as a youth in London, he dedicated himself to study of illuminated books, amongst others, Manuscript of Henry III and Arthur, King of Britain, and illustrated in Arts and Crafts style George Eliot’s scenes from Clerical Life.

His portraits of local persons of prominence and their family members are still decorating many private collections throughout Scotland.

His portraiture in a step away from gentle realist society style of Sargent portraits towards more graphic Scottish Colorists like People, who he wrote a monograph about. Still in the time between two World Wars his painterly style retains incredible cerenity and vital stability.

Venus

Answering to an open call by Poets and Artists publication about a themed “Venus” issue, i decided to participate. Open calls to me are not a competitive challenge, but an idea for work, an opportunity to explore a theme.
Venus is obviously associated with iconic Boticcelli tempera, although it had been rendered endlessly over the ages. I came across a story once, that Venus came out of a severed penis of a male god (Neptune?) which gives the subtle erotic explanation of metaphoric meaning of foam she, more commonly, appears from.
I never found any reference to this story, either in Virgil or Ovid. It might have been someone’s modern fantasy.
Still in my painting both the foam and the Venus-shell are present.
A more biologically correct version of a Venus-shell is a clam shell, also known as christian symbol further pointing to Magdalelene, and familiar as a prize one receives after completing a piligrimage to Santiago de Compostella, in its turn having Roslyn as first, or reversed, final destination in old days. It is often seen as decoration of altars, a symbol integrted as jewelry, or a randomly scattered object in christian artworks. Mine is more of a fantasy oyster shell, having venus as a little hidden pearl, just about to come out.

Edvard Munch Studio in Ekely, Oslo

Edvard Munch bought the estate Ekely, a former plant nursery at Skøyen on the outskirts of Oslo, in 1916. Ekely became his permanent residence until his death in 1944, and here he finally had enough space for his work. It consisted of two buildings, a main house, and studios, built especially for him after own drawings by his architect friend. It has fantastic high half glass ceiling giving cold luminous atmosphere of norwegian sun.
(Photo from 1916)
After artis’t death the main building got demolished and the studios stood in ruins until recently, when Munch Museum gave support to open studios for visitors.
Also, the studios are now let to artists and for painting groups. The exhibition of works of modern artists in residence is on the walls, as all Edvard Munch possessions had been stored in Munch Museum under desolation years.

(c) Carl-Martin Sandvold who also administers live figure drawing sessions at Ekely



For a model at evening live figure drawing sessions we have a fantastic young russian ballerina from Yoshkar-Ola, which is a very exotic place. She did some yoga poses and very expressive character short poses for this weeks evening session.




(Edvard Munch Studio in Ekely, view from outside. Photos and sketches by Natasha Kimstatsch)

Just in time for premiere of film D.Strange, on William Fettes-Douglas

I was mentioning the scottish family of Douglas-Hamilton and the famous ancestor Douglas, who together with Sinclair headed the crusade to Jerusalem carrying a cask with heart of Robert the Bruce which gave them victory in battles and guided to find and bring back to Scotland, according to the legend, unknown treasures of templars, after which on return to Scotland the families became very rich (in fact, two of most powerful) and received their titles and lands around Edinburgh.
Now i am going to draw attention to another Douglas, this time artist Fettes-Douglas. Coming from family of founders of Fettes College which later educated hundreds of prominent members of british elite from James Bond prototype to Tony Blair, his works exhibit unprecedental knowledge, read initiation, into mysteries of occult. There is not a hint of vague fantasy in his works, they are detailed depictions of alchemic process and occult ceremonies.

Scottish social scene of the period was full of occult societies and organisations, but none of them were ever open about the rituals. Fettes-Douglas is probably the only artist, apart from Rembrandt, who has insight into alchemic “kitchen” and knows what he is talking about. His colors also follow alchemic scene, this one called “The Alchemist” being in emerald green, while Rembrandt kept to secretive sketchy black-white etching. But please study the seal appearing in the ray of light in Rembrand’s etching – it is for real and he knew what he was drawing!

Dr. Faustus, Rembrandt
From the Scottish Rite of Masonry to Hellfire Club, floating gradually into Golden Dawn, Scotland was the cradle of occult. They knew rituals from necromancy to transmutation of metals, most practices lost otherwise in 15-16 century. This painting by Fettes-Douglas represents such a ritual, and the objects point towards artist-s own initiation into the mysteries.

Now, to the new Marvel blockbuster Dr.Strange: we see there same seals as in Rembrandt’s etching, which proves that it is not modern fantasy imagination, but glimpses into lost reality. Lost, or?

Channel the Spirits, on Georgiana Houghton in Courtauld Gallery

https://thecometiscoming.bandcamp.com/album/channel-the-spirits

As some migt know, i had started my artistic career by channeling dead artists. When i was taking the very frist class, untutored, i was getting tuition from a spirit of pre-raphaelites. It is very good solution for chosen sensitive souls when quality tuition is not available.
With people who paint by channeling, their expectation and the result often differ, the works being mostly abstract or some other way different from the hand of the artist they are channeling. In my case i used too bright colours. I also hesitated with putting in the pupils of eyes, as if the information was coming from there. Nevertheless, i am very proud of it, as it is first, completely untutored experiment of mature person who was never taught before, guided in advice by departed John Everett Milais, with only model and artist supervisor present.

Portrait in studio, 2010

Another famous person who was painting guided by spirits is Aleister Crowley. He depicted the spirits themselves, aliens, and painted esoteric frescos on walls of OTO mansion in Sicily.

Portrait of Aleister Crowley in National Portrait Gallery, London

This summer Courtauld gallery of Somerset House saw exhibition of Georgiana Houghton: Spirit Drawings, who created a series of spirit guided abstract pieces in 1860s-70s. Starting from spirit of her uncle, she moved to deeper realization of Godhead-trinity. The drawings are very musical, and we know that many music pieces, from masonic to Paul mcCartney’s Yesterday, are being dictated by spirits or come in sleep as well.

Most of my own paintings’ motifs still come in sleep on the moment of awakeing, so that i can rememebr them and carry through execution, although studying the technique too thoroughly in the analytical atelier method does make the thin and gentle bond with spirit world weaker.

Spirit photos from book, part of Georgiana Houghton display

All three by Georgiana Houghton

Memorial blog entry for Christopher Van Schaak, the person who made me my first silverpoint pen

Last week close friends gathered in a garden of mansion near Temple, Midlothians to plant a memorial palm tree for Chris Van Schaak, who passed away after lung infection which he caught treating a rose in his garden in rainy weather, over half a year ago.
Christopher was a person who made for me by hand my first silverpoint appliance, and who accompanied me on a road trip to Borders looking for Merlins grave and baptism stone, which we both identified.

He probably identified himself with Merlin a little, maybe the astral meeting exploded the vortex of wisdom and carried him away into the realm of ancients.

Posting abstracts from memorial speech by his friend, photos from palm ceremony and some silverpoints i had done on a journey to Merlindale, Stobo.

***

“Christopher van Schaack would surely want to have been thought of for his labours and for his legacy. I thought I knew a bit about Artists materials. It was all readymade out of acrylics and pastels and chalks and inks and oils and pencils and wax and it came in pretty tubs and tubes and plastic pots that you could buy at Artists suppliers. You did not consider where it came from. In his choosing to create using the old methods of grinding down minerals at source to acquire pigmentation for painting – when just about everyone else had turned their back on this as a viable method and indeed forgot or held it in modern contempt – Christopher van Schaack was utterly unique in the Art world. At that level of unique in the sense that his was of a kind of weird esoteric genius and a labour of love. He truly believed in his Art.

Others I have talked to do so too.

I was fortunate to be able to help him one afternoon. All we were doing were making explanatory labels for some completed artworks that were due to be used for a forthcoming exhibition to be held in London. You will some of you recall that Christopher was dyslexic and needed assistance with reading and writing. So there he is dictating to me the names of the minerals that had produced these pigments used in his
pictures! The only one to my shame I can recall now was the lovely sounding mineral, “Chrysacolla.” Very difficult to spell. That is some of Christopher’s important legacy.”
***

“There was something old fashioned and Thomas Hardy-esque about Christopher and the way he would dress for special occasions with his bow tie. Perhaps he had been born in the wrong time period. It was during the time when our sun was in the constellation of Sagittarius that he was born in 1947. To a well to do Southern family from Birmingham Alabama in the US. They had owned plantations and also apparently slaves. His grandfather was a doctor. He had a stormy relationship with his father, though, who according to one source, kind of abandoned him. His mother, Margaret and he were very close though and they maintained a special connection up to her death in 2008. She was a noted researcher, writer and curator in the field of fine arts and a specialist in 19th Century furniture. Christopher also had a sister, Anne Hope but she died earlier. One senses that there is a family tragedy to be found there.

Christopher being a child of the sixties went in a more diverse direction than most. This is born out by his knowledge of many people who were movers and shakers of the American counter-culture and of the Art world and the acting world of the 80’s 60s and 70s. Warhol for example. Or Peter Fonda. Country Joe, Edie Sedgwick. Jack Nicolson. Then the earlier surrealist, De Chirico who he had met and studied under. Christopher through the Art world was in fact acquainted with quite a few names. And also some highly connected and powerful top flight US familes through his associations. The strength of his own convictions alone can tell you that Christopher was certainly one who might be considered not just of the counterculture but “radical.” He was often to be found venting to us on the subjects of the CIA, (did you ever hear the story of how they tried to recruit him?) Or of the Chemtrails in the Sky, or of Syria, False flags? What he considered was the, “Global warming hoax.” You name it. MK ULtra, “the evil Royal Family.”

“They’re all morons! Ruled by Satan!”

But people told me he would talk about these subjects and then mysteriously after they had discounted them as paranoid nonsense he’d be proven right in some manner. Not always though…

He moved from The South state of Alabama over to West Port in Connecticut where he developed a love of sailing and retained strong associations with that Eastern Seaboard of the United States all his life. I have said that I would speak for some of those who knew him intimately and cannot be here with us today. Anthony the son of Stevan Dohanos an acclaimed and noted social realist painter is now a fair-trade cocoa
farmer in his beloved Hawaii. Then he was a radical and fellow painter. He had been at the boarding school Avon Hills Connecticut with Christopher in 1966-1967 and had dated the same girl in Westport as Christopher. In Southport Connecticut they had sailed together as children: He had this to say:

“Christopher was a classy guy, he was a gentleman.. And generous.. I remember he gave my father a few gifts.. The one time I remember he gave my dad a bag full of Old Pocket watch Faces.. And he gave me a whole bag of Silver dollars once.. Lol.. I helped him get to Hawaii in ’69 . I have a photograph of him, 19 years old or so in Alabama and he looks like a young Marlon Brando!”

Anthony told me that within the American counterculture Christopher was in fact instrumental in setting up Health food stores in Hawaii and also bicycle racks. Anthony was in Glasgow at the time and got Christopher his ticket. They swapped in fact. Christopher to Europe, Anthony to Hawaii. Christopher lived in a famous “let it all hang out” type hippie commune called “Taylor camp” in Maui, Hawaii in 1969 at the time.

To sketch this biography out briefly now. I apologise for any errors. I will do better next time. He had then lived in a sort of villa upon the shores of Lake Maggiore in Italy and also in Switzerland (the details absent) with Christine, his wife. There they began to raise his two sons, Justin Ten Haaf and Manolis Ten Haaf. There it was too that he rode horses. Afterward he moved over to a house in Amsterdam. There he continued with his art work until he came finally to his beloved Scotland in 1980. This proved an inspiration to him. In Glasgow he started to make his etchings. Then later at Edinburgh in the Printmakers studio.”

from left: Gordon, neighbour, George, KT chevalier, me, Author of speech, John, Chris’s art agent

Newtonian telescope

Sir Isaac Newton by Godfrey Kneller

Recently, in one of my revelationary trances, i had to check some data. Here are some interrsting calculations i came up with.

The year 1322bc saw a comet landing in Britain, whos impact on Scotland was so noticeable it was recorded in pictish stones, and in cave drawings in Wemys Cave near Kircaldy. It is often depicted as a twin comet, and is rumoured to thus symbolise a twin indoeuropean deity, or others say Ishtar or Venus.

If one takes the amount of years between now, 2016, with huge anticipstion of Nibiru, and this day and divides by two it gives number 1665, pointing to year when Sir Isaac Newton was personally appointed by court to watch over a Red Comet which was omenous for Plague of London.

Further. The amount of years between 2016, 1665 and 1322 would give 3338 years, which is approximate amount of years between creation and foundation of First Temple of Solomon, set to be between 832 and 997 bc, but more exactly number 666, as the amount of years after creation of world.

The year the interval is pointing to is 347ad, while year 365 is mentioned in regards of huge earthquake which altered much of shoreline of mediterranean.

Is the Nibiru to be expected? Are we to buy Newtonian telescopes to watch?

Botticellis Divine Comedy: Trick or treat?

This spring saw epochal exhibition in Somerset House of treasures from auctioned in early decades of last century collection of 13th Duke Douglas-Hamilton. The family, one of scottish oldest, has a haunted history. Known from Black Douglas featured in scoolbooks as Robert Bruce opponent, at the same time another Douglas, whos job was to carry around enbalmed and encapsuled in gold Robert Bruce head as talisman for battle victories, accompanying Sinclair known from notorious Dan Brown fiction in crucade to Jerusalem upon which sharing the legendary Templar treasures, 13th Duke was a charitable person. It was going bad for family for some generations. With arrival of electicity the bills were just tooo huge for a non-working person, although the family had stakes in newly fashionable aviation. WWI saw the estate used for hospital, then sold, then demolished. Yes, the beautiful 16c paladian mansion, upgrafed and enlarged in stages to become one of the biggest estate houses in Britain, is now grounds of parking lot and sports field, except for Mausoleum in Hamilton village.
Now to Botticelli, known as one of first Grand Masters of Sion from Sauniere files. Duke of Hamilton owned a sequence of drawings, chapter by chapter, the same way as Gustave Dore illustrating Dante.
Not only that. According to the legend, Botticelli had framed the drawings in a special way. Drawn on half transparent, almost rice paper, he layered handwritten text underneath, halfseen through the drawing. Which is how Duke of Hamilton re-framed it later, to be exhibited in Somerset collection.
Subtle effect of heavenly beauty.
Why does is mimick my grandfathers silkscreen, which unveiled a level of handwritten poetry after upper silkdrawing of ravens was taken off by me to be frsmed separately?

Another question: why is Botticelli so profound judging by exhibition, not mentioned in my Silverpoint and Goldenpoint all-embracing anthology, apart from one single piece, where he is mentioned in collaboration with Lippi?
We all have a seen a Boticelli coloured chart of hell in Dantes house in Florence. Why is it so different in style?
My good old friend, granddaughter of Duke of Hamilton, has mentioned that her daughter, my former best friend, graduate of Edinburgh Art College with history of burlesque and methadon, is dating Banksy, who happens to be son of Jenners former owner.

But who is Banksy? Can she be sure he is who he says he is? Or is it a hoax from her?

Is Botticelli exhibition, so subtle and so advanced, a hoax grom Banksy, commisioned to draw to a japanese anime artist?

In modern times it is upto a true connoisseur and true heartfelt artlover to figure it out.

Chess, a short story

Chess.
(I wrote this story as 17 year old in my native language and found it recently in my mother’s cupboard. Reading it again I was surprised by its metaphorical intricacy, and decided to translate to English. As with all bi- or tri-lingual writers, like Nabokov, it is an advantage to write in the language it would be published at once rather than to translate, so does my story also lose a bit on poetic fluency and semantic depth compared to original version, still I hope it will tease and please some of intellectual and aesthetic tastebuds of readers.)
© Natasha Kimstatsch, 2016

Claus Kurtzweil hated to play chess since he was a child. And now he felt that he was being dragged into this useless game – and panicked.
This morning nothing omened the awaiting tribulation. Claus got up in ordinary mood, he was not heavied by glimpsed memories of the night’s mares, as his dreams he simply did not remember.
Claus washed his face, cleanly shaved his chin and cheeks with a safe razor, scrupulously brushed his teeth and was all in all satisfied with the reflection in the mirror. After breakfast, which was cooked as usual by the old woman from whom he was renting a room facing orange painted windowless wall of perpendicularly placed house, he decided to take a walk.
It was the first half of a glorious sunny Sunday, and Claus carelessly was mumming in his head the refrain of the song he had just heard on the radio. Claus walked his street and turned into a little green tree-livened-up square. He was often here during the weekdays, but never knew that early on Sundays on one of the benches, in the most remote and shadowed part of the square, gathered amateur chess players. The bench where they would gather was unchanged for many years, and generations of chess players having already forgotten according to what principle it was chosen, every Sunday the first part of the day, as if obeying the same blind instinct which unmistakably leads a hungry moose to the spot of previous feeding, or a ringmarked and released hundreds of miles away robin to the place of previous years nesting, so would the chessplayers stream every week to this bench.
Their society was at times freshened by out-of-town chessplayers, who would gladly tell how, during the first half of the day on a Sunday they came out of a hotel took a walk and absolutely accidentally in a square walked upon a bench, where brothers in hobby would gather.
Ha, one could only laugh at their naivity. They sincerely thought that really came to this town on a business trip on completely different affairs, and that they walked into this square in the first half of a Sunday out of nothing-to-do, and that they bumped into this bench by mere coincidence, and that the invitation for a “little chessie game” they could have declined, but simply did not see any weighty reasons for that.

But Claus was never a chess player! And still the relaxed worrieless flair of a sunny Sunday morning led him out exactly to the alley of the square leading to the bench. Truthfully, there was more than one bench. At both sides of the bench there were two other benches of exactly same appearance, and facing it a hammock in which one could relax at will. Nevertheless passing by the notorious bench Claus felt irritation, that it was exactly this one occupied by some retirees, nosing around something. The retirees were swarming, constantly moving and changing places so as to assume the position allowing the best way to see something hidden in the heart of a moving living hive. Some retirees were with their shiny patches inbetween missing hair reflecting light, which was increasing the effect of swirling and mobility of the living clump. At that the retirees were also exchanging glances, gestures, were grimacing and producing unpleasant caw sounds.
Nevertheless first Claus did not even pay attention to the retirees. He simply felt irritation at the fact that he did not have opportunity to sit down and relax exactly at this bench, that exactly it was busy. Claus stopped and started to examine the group of retirees with growing dismay. His thoughts had not yet summoned upon construction of versions of what it was the retirees had gathered around. He was simply consumed by sensation of irritation and was as if immersing in it.
Suddenly the retirees silenced, and out of the center of the hive rose a man. The retirees stepped aside, made the way, let him step out and were standing there following with their eyes his figure moving away. The man was moving down the alley, and the sight of his back was evoking for some reason in Claus the feeling of having no exit. He was long following the gradually diminishing figure of a man, and when he turned back towards the bench, he noticed that the retirees were uninterruptedly staring at himself. The feeling of exitlessness was increasing. Claus, powerless, glanced at the bench opening up for his sight. It revealed a chessboard with readyset figures.
“Would You like a little chessie game, not?” – with a squeaky voice asked one of the retirees. Claus started to decline, to say that he does not play chess, but subconsciously was already feeling that he is doomed. “Who am I playing against?” – asked as firm as possible Claus. “Over here, with Shortie. He is our winner, has just won a game. And we have a rule – the winner plays the next game with a newcomer. Take a seat, please!” – and a roof of grimacing wrinkly oldies shattered over Claus. That is right where and when panic took a grip of Claus. “Why did I agree? I should have run away, ask passers-by for rescue, resist!” His head was overflowing with hundreds of solutions, which could have been useful only a second ago. “I should have said that I was blind, that I am being contageous with siberian plague which is tansmittable through contact with objects”…. But now there was no turning back. And we between us know that there was no way out even there and then.
Claus rose his eyes at the opponent and shrugged. In front of him was seated a boy of 11-12 years of age, in white shirtie with a jabot and kneecut trousers, but with a strangely wrinkly face of an old man. A dwarf! Claus felt a rush of cold sweat on his forehead. Could it be that a minute ago this creature won over a grown up clever man! And I am the next! This situation had a hint of something frightening, infernal. Claus was understood, that he should not be start the game if he did not want to become the next victim. He should gather all strength, rise up from the bench and leave – but Shortie was already making the first move with the pawn, and Claus powerlessly began to move a symmertical pawn from his side. And here in front of him arose the picture of his birth in expensive area, his still young father – a prominent lawyer, the nannies him surrounding, the smell of cleanness and bourgeois comfort. The picture gradually dissolved in memory, and triggered by the second move of Shortie, Claus re-lived the episode from early childhood when he with his own hands made a christmas tree decoration formed as a butterfly and, to applauds of parents and nannies, dangled it solemnly on the pine. Everyone was complementing the decoration. The third move enlivened the picture of being admitted to grammar school when Claus, wearing the new uniform and gymnasium cap brilliantly passed the entry exam in arythmetics and spelling. Here Claus’s attention became slightly shattered and the Shorty takes with a horse his pawn. And infront of Claus assembled itself the picture of shameful punishment for receiving first E in callygraphy for omitting to prepare homework thoroughly enough. The eve before that he was staying busy with side tasks and did not have time left for this one. But Claus decided to grip into sensces, to self-improve, and is finishing the year with excellent result, taking the Shortie’s pawn with a rook.
Further the game developed with changeable success. Claus was becoming more and more engaged, getting almost into gambling suspense. On the board there were less and less figures. And right here the Shortie to astonished row of jubilation of cheerers took the most precious figure of Claus – the queen. And Claus saw in front of him the most charming girl named Klava. He had made her acquaintance by chance at one party. She is nothing like anyone he knew. She is incredibly sensitive and refined. She was reading same books as him, loved the same music, same smells and dishes, as him. She understood him from half-a-word. She was send from above. And, while he was immersing himself in very fact of her existence, Klava is leaving for her aunt, fist for a short while then for a month, then Claus learns that she got married to a promising surgeon. Claus is hardening up. He felt that the game’s success was not on his side. He gathered all his will in one point. He believes that for him the victory is a matter of honor. He saw that he was being looked at by all the world, all humanity. Would he not overcome some filthy small midget with intellect and appearance of a boy! Claus must win. And he is taking a pay-back. First he is taking the Shortie’s bishop, then his queen, announces a check. Everything inside is jubilating. Why has he never played such encaptivating game as chess? Another move and – checkmate! Brilliant! Marvelous! The oldies are glorious, shaking Claus’s hands, one even is kissed him in bloodless looking like a sponge cheek. Astonishing debut! Of course, Claus is now as a winner would gladly play another match with a newcomer. Yes, he would surely not let victory slip between his fingers. So pity You gather only on Sundays matinees. Anticipating, will he wait for next time.

When Claus after several triumphant matches and wishes of soon-to come re-visitation returned home for dinner, he entered the bathroom to wash his hands. From the mirror there stared at him the wrinkly face of an old man.

The slippery alpine slope of folk romanticism in nordic tradition

This month saw epochal opening of individual retrospective of Nikolai Astrup in Dulwich gallery of London, the first time to leave the country after being long prepared by gathering items from private collections and family members with huge support from DNB Bank of Norway. It started with impressive invited guests only reception with bonfire in the gallery’s garden being the main theme in several of Astrup’s oil paintings and sketches.

Why bonfire and why Astrup to choose as iconic image of Norway for imprint in stereotypes of 21 century art connoisseurs?

First it was Edwared Munch, then it was academicians like J C Dahl or Adolf Tidemand, to follow with majestic solitude of monochromatic arctic visions of Balke at National Gallery last year.

The choice is strange and personal. It is in the legend.

Artist’s life story is as much his artwork as his physically created pieces.

Born to a family of lutheran minister with bad health, struggling both with self-imposed poverty being part of lutheran ministry upbringing and pains in joints and chest, he with heroic effort similar to one of Per Gynt rips himself out of well-known environment to explore the world in a zeal of being a painter. He studies with Krogh and moves for several years to Paris, where he gets engaged with Toulouse-Lautrec and Henri Rousseau, moves further to London to attend The New English Arts Club, and further Berlin steeped at the time in experimentalism from Den Blau Ritter to Bocklin and Stuck. After which he returns to Norway, secludes himself in a hut in the mountains and paints.

The cabin is traditional, no electricity or drive access to it, so the artist carries all necessities by feet up the hill, miles upon miles. He is happy, and in no way is his art as dismal and hysterically close to nervous breakdown as Edward Munch, whos artistic flourishing fell upon decade earlier in capital of Christiania.

Was he mad, as mad as Munch, maybe as Van Gogh? Probably, suffering from pain, he was extracting out of it naivist joyful visions of austere norwegian folk life in utmost remotest hideaways. It obviously is style of mad naivist art, not intentionally and deliberately naive as Henri Rousseau’s, but the whirlwind spirals of fire do remind in shape ones of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a sign of insights in the universal mysteries through emercing in them through direct contact with life rather than academic study of it. Also, he was not keen on selling it.

Nevertheless, how safe is romancing the folk life in the eyes of growing monster of industrialism, the Moloch consuming all sacred and authentic bit by bit, and on the other hand, of a misfit fetus of culture of nazism and fascism?

The rest of the artists of generation of nordic folk romanticism have been stored away from public for almost a century, as a shameful reminder of greatness than never got to be. The bordrline between innocent folk romanticism and historism, involving much higher academic background both in study of motifs and their execution, is almost invisible, the two floating into each other, as mythology, fairy tale and historic fable are intertwined with spirit of folk, being its vital artery.

Not to mention Peter Nikolai Arbo or Knud Baade deliberately conveying and propagating nordic myth as ultimate aesthetic and spiritual salvation.

How far is too far? how close is too close? Shall we see ban on performing Wagner in public?

(Erik Werenskjold, Peasant’s Burial)

(Hans Heyerdahl, Brunhilde’s March)

(Eilif Peterssen, Duchess dreaming)

With personal thanks to Ian Dejardin, co-curator of exhibition, for insights into artist’s life
Intentionally blury photos from book by Knut Ljøgodt “Historien fremstilt i bilder”