“Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly...” “Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.”
*****
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.” “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
“The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
*****
“You have power over your mind -- not over outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” “The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” “Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.” “Your life is what your thoughts make it.” “The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.”
*****
“Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretence.” “Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what's left and live it properly. What doesn't transmit light creates its own darkness.” “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive--to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
*****
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” “Observe the movements of the stars as if you were running their courses with them, and let your mind constantly dwell on the changes of the elements into each other. Such imaginings wash away the filth of life on the ground.”
Last Thursday, I and other supporters had the privilege of being invited to a very special occasion at the Bronson Centre (a downtown community centre); I sat on the front row for a rehearsal of the Orkidstra by one of its recently appointed "Ambassadors", the English Alexander Shelley. Mr Shelley is the current musical director of Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra.
Here's a video clip of Mr. Shelley conducting a few elite members of the Orkidstra last year:
On Thursday, a much larger group of youngsters was taking part, including a very young trumpeter on a back seat, relishing every moment.
The Orkidstra, now responsible for 500 multi-ethnic children and adolescents, goes from strength to strength, and their enthusiasm is electric. Everyone present at the rehearsal was thrilled by it; although this wasn't a concert, we gave them a standing ovation they deserved. The school-aged youngsters, very few of whom have parents who can actually afford music lessons or instruments for their children, so they have to rely upon charitable donations, were rehearsing all four movements of Dvorak's New World Symphony, not a trivial piece of music to learn! This may well be the most ambitious piece music they have tackled to date (the Orkidstra is 10 years old). To involve as many "kids" as possible, the Largo movement involved a line of the KidSingers group, joining in with the words of Going Home, sung to the famous tune. Admittedly most of the instrumental tutors were present, playing along within the orchestra, including Karen Donelly, principal trumpet from the NACO, for example, so the standard of performance, boosted by these older music students and professionals, was pretty high.
I liked the way Mr. Shelley taught his charges with such energy, got the impression he enjoyed it tremendously and didn't want the rehearsal hour to be over. He is conscious of the players' potential. He joked with them but did not condenscend to them at all; he prompted the cello section to lose their inhibitions and urged the brass and woodwind sections to listen to one another.
Early self portrait showing
Chagall's place of birth
Last week I took the train to Montreal and saw the exhibition of Chagall's art at the Musée des Beaux Arts, subtitled Couleur et Musique. I have been interested in Chagall since writing a previous blogpost about him, in 2012.
Le Rabbin de Vitebsk
Vitebsk, the Yiddish speaking community where Chagall was born in 1887, was a remote place, 500 km from both Moscow and St. Petersburg, in Belarus. About half the population of the town was Jewish, in those days. Chagall treasured the memory of it and its doomed people for the rest of his life.
As an adolescent, he wanted to be a dancer, a poet, a violinist. The sound of the violin, to Chagall, was the voice of the Jewish soul. There's a "Fiddler on the Roof" in the painting entitled La Mort (a dead man lying on the street with candles around him, apparently a scene the artist remembered literally). Chagall was obsessed with images of violinists; he painted a Violiniste vert in 1923 (see below) and a Self portrait with violin, in 1954. On a Jewish wedding day, so it is said, the quality of the music reflects the quality of the marriage. Klezmer music is "the vessel of song" at Jewish celebrations.
The Montreal exhibition includes a black-and-white video recording of a production of King Lear from the Jewish Theatre in the 1920s Soviet Union, starring its leading actor and director, Solomon Mikhoels. Chagall designed scenery and costumes for this theatre.
Throughout his life, he painted entertainers, acrobats and dancers --- le cirque comme métaphore du monde! --- some of them headless or legless, floating in the air. Birds, pigs, horses and goats float through his paintings too, as if through a series of dreams. People appear with chicken's heads.
... with 7 fingers
Self portrait with Bella
There is a cubist self portrait of Chagall at his easel with seven fingers to his hand, a reference to a Yiddish saying, signifying that he was working well and with all his heart. L'Ange à la palette, 1927-1936, shows the artist, with wings, as a messenger of peace, or of God, or of love. Love meant a great deal to him, as witnessed by the tenderly executed paintings of his first wife, Bella, who died young. The bouquet of flowers she carried on her wedding day is a recurring motif, as is her wedding dress.
In Mannheim, in 1933, his works were condemned and burned by the Nazis as degenerate art and to escape the war and holocaust in Europe in the following decade he moved to America, to return to France in 1948, at which point he became involved with Jewish puppet theatre in Paris, recreating figures from the Shtetl of his youth (Yiddish for "little town"), creating Hakl-Bakl (i.e. "a little bit of everything") puppets.
Violiniste Vert
Chagall's costume for
Papageno, The Magic Flute
Intensely Jewish as his loyalties were, Chagall was not narrow-minded about this; he also did several crucifixion paintings, admittedly with Jewish figures included. There is a stained glass window by Chagall in Chichester cathedral, which I saw last year; he also created stained glass windows for Reims, Nice and Chicago (which I saw in November 2015 and failed to mention in this blog).
1964 he designed the ceiling of Paris' L'Opéra and subsequently did paintings for the Met in New York (1966). While based in New York in the 1940s, he visited Mexico City, working with the production team for the ballet Aleko, New Mexico and Arizona too, where he discovered Katsina dolls that influenced his designs for the costumes. These were on display in the exhibition, as were his costumes for Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute. For New York productions of Stravinksy's Firebird ballet, too, he designed the scenery and costumes.
As an old man, in 1973, he revisted Russia. He died at the great age of 97.
At the museum, I spent a good two hours concentrating on Chagall's world, then came out to clear my head and walk around the city before catching my train home.
We had the good fortune to watch a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest on a local cinema screen, broadcast live from Stratford-upon-Avon, a production of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the experience was so enriching that this morning I woke up still mulling it over.
I hadn't before realised to what extent this is a play about letting (things, people, places) go; its lines are full of references to releasing, drowning, setting free. My mother used to tell me that the play was about forgiveness, although it seems to me that the forgiveness only comes into it right at the end, because only after all has been said and done is Prospero in a fit state to forgive, and his "enemies" prepared to be forgiven.
Although I have seen many different interpretations of this play, another thing that only struck yesterday is that every character in the play, even the inhuman spirit Ariel, learns something from his exposure to the tempest, and matures, Miranda too, although it seems from her innocent remarks about the brave new world that's peopled by her father's former associates (How beauteous mankind is... ), that she still has some growing up to do.
Prospero, the engineer of the upheaval, must surely be the one who learns the most. It's almost as if he forces himself to recover from his anger at the way he was treated twelve years previously. It seems he has bottled it all up until now, and the moment when he begins to tell his daughter the story for the first time is the moment when his recovery, his catharsis, begins.
MIRANDA You have often Begun to tell me … but stopped, … Concluding, “Stay. Not yet.” PROSPERO The hour’s now come.
The expression of his fury –– the storm and its aftermath –– is what heals him.
The RSC production showed the most sympathetic portrayal of Caliban I've yet seen; although he looked so monstrously unattractive, he exhibited distinct signs of sensitivity and intelligence. (The filmed close-ups of his face were wonderfully revealing.) He is another one whom Prospero seems to forgive, eventually, and Caliban does, after all, inherit the island for himself, since Prospero is leaving his cell in his charge, which almost implies that Caliban has become deserving of it, after the torments he has suffered.
And I’ll be wise hereafter And seek for grace,
says Caliban.
By the end of the play the ship (the microcosm of human society) that we thought wrecked, is miraculously back on course.
our ship—
Which, but three glasses since, we gave out split—
Is tight and yare and bravely rigged as when
We first put out to sea.
The storm has passed. The world has calmed down (for the time being). Hearts and minds have been pacified. There is hope of better life ahead or at least of a fresh start. Prospero has given up, or has let go of his troubles, whichever way you choose to look at it, and his life is coming to an end. Now it is the entranced audience who must be the agent of release and relief:
... my ending is despair, Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself and frees all faults. As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free.
"This drop in temperature is wreaking havoc with my harpsichord!" said Roland Graham, artistic director of the lunchtime concert series, Doors Open For Music at Southminster church in Ottawa. He was today's accompanist for a recital by the soprano Isabelle Lacroix, performing nine arias by GF Handel, these being unusual in that the words were in German, whereas Handel usually wrote settings of English or Italian words. The performance lasted nearly an hour, so was quite demanding for her, although her voice seemed to improve, rather than tire, as she went along. Her fellow soloist was Adam Nelson on the violin, playing the obligato part to each aria, which might also have been done by a flute or oboe player. All three performers were excellent.
Perhaps I was in the right receptive state to hear this music and the church was a warm, bright and peaceful place to be today; I found it all very satisfying. The first aria -- Künft'ger Zeiten eitler Kummer stört nicht unseren sanften Schlummer... set the tone in words and music. The words were by a long-time friend of Handel's, Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-1747; I'd never heard of him), singing God's praises for creating such a magnificent and peaceful natural world for us, in which ambitions are irrelevant (my own paraphrase). With the life the Creator has granted us, said this aria, we have every reason to be ruhig und vergnügt, tranquil and gratified. The running passages of the second aria, remarkably well executed by the singer in this instance, echo the lyrics that describe streams rushing along and water glinting like jewels. The third one (Süsser Blumen Ambraflocken) was in a minor key, slower, sounding not unlike the famous I know that my Redeemer liveth from The Messiah. Ms Lacroix embellished the repeat of the first section here with lovely musical decorations.
And so on. I basked in the mood and melodies and appreciated the quaint old German too (sei gepreiset, sei gerühmet...) which I could easily make out, so good was the soloist's articulation, even though we in the audience were only given the translation. Alles jauchzet, alles lacht! Everything rejoices, everything laughs ... at the splendours of Spring in full bloom. Well, a little premature maybe, at -24 C today and the canal still frozen solid, but it was all very upbeat.
We got free coffee and cookies before the concert, too, as well as the free Wednesday rides on the busses for those of us over 65.
Details of dreams fade fast, once you wake up, but let's see, at this early hour, if I can record some of this one from which Chris has just woken me. It was, as always, a dream about travelling. We were in a "Cloudhopper" hotel in Paris with George. I'd had trouble remembering the name of the hotel, but got it in the end. Rob and Sally had just confessed to us that they had just paid $50 for a taxi fare from their hotel opposite the art gallery in Ottawa to a restaurant on the next block. "That is ridiculous," I'd said.
Neither Chris, George nor I had remembered to pack trousers for our trip to Paris, although we wanted to sight-see from one of the posh modern skyscrapers nearby, but to my surprise a notice in the hotel room written in Dutch ... something about Undemokratie ... advertised that spare clothes would be provided if we had forgotten any. I ordered the three pairs of trousers from reception and they were soon delivered to our rooms above the swimming pool (full of children), but they were unusable, too long and narrow, and coloured pink!
Morning Star by Janvier, at the Canadian Museum of History
This season's special exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada is a retrospective of the works of Alex Janvier. Born on a reservation by Cold Lake in 1935, he belongs to the Dene people, but at the age of 8 he was obliged to live at a residential school. The school staff recognised his artistic talent and encouraged him to go for formal art training at the Alberta Institute of Technology and Art in Calgary whence he graduated with honours in 1960. During his education he came across the art of Kandinsky, Klee and Miró, which was to have a big influence on him, although his style is all his own.
Fishy Flowers Talk
The exhibition in the National Gallery is not laid out chronologically, so I picked up Janvier's life story by degrees as I went through the rooms. (I had only intended to walk through for 10 minutes, out of curiosity, but actually spent over an hour there, which indicates how fascinated I became.) The first gallery is full of circular paintings from the artist's gallery at Cold Lake, an unusual format but one that appeals to someone whose native culture and beliefs have a lot to do with circles. Many are watercolours on paper; some are linen canvasses stretched drum-skin like over a circular frame, painted with acrylics. One of these is called Drum Talk (2011). Native drumming was banned at one point in Canadian history, although the people say that this sound represents their heartbeat. Eagle Song (same year) includes the likeness of an eagle's head and wings, the eagle denoting spirituality for North American native peoples. The colours are what strikes you first. October Sun revels in the many colours of autumn; Fishy Flowers Talk incorporates dots of colour like the dots in Australian aboriginal art.
Janvier's most famous work of art, Morning Star (see above) is based on a circle too. I had assumed that the four sections around the circle represented the four seasons, but I was wrong. The yellow quarter stands for the old days, when native tribes lived in harmony with nature. The blue segment stands for the turmoil that resulted when the European settlers began to interfere with them. Red symbolises the struggle to preserve the native languages and culture in the face of opposition. In other paintings too, Janvier's use of red is a way of expressing anger. White, the final quarter, represents the recent healing and reconciliation that has taken place, or is taking place.
Now in his 80s, Janvier has been awarded the Order of Canada. When he was 50, already famous, he was part of Pierre Trudeau's delegation to China which I mentioned in a previous blogpost, and (like me) was enamoured by the public gardens of Beijing. His life was not always so happy. He suffered a great deal at the residential school, partly from empathy with the other children. One little girl died there and he never forgot her, bringing references to her into his paintings. Apparently her body was sent back to her parents on a train, in a cardboard box, delivered to the wrong station. (Such injustices and disrespect rankle with the First Nations to this day.) One of Janvier's earlier pictures was a representational one of a native woman holding a young-old boy on her lap who is crying. After being sent to school, the artist rarely had the chance of a reunion with his mother. When he was 15 he did a large and, to me, garishly grotesque painting of Jesus with a bleeding heart, for the Catholic missionaries. The Vatican took notice and gave him an award for it.
Until the late 1970s, Alex Janvier signed all his artworks with his Indian Act number, "287". Then he went on a work-related trip to Sweden and realised that such numbers mean absolutely nothing to the international community, since when he has just used his name. Inevitably, some of his paintings are charged with political implications, such as Coming of the Opposite (i.e. the European church and system of government) and Lubicon Lake (1988), to which he added a bright red background in a fury against the injustices dealt out to the Cree of that region. Quite recently (in 2005) he did a rare, representational painting of a flowering plant in close-up, called First Call, distressed that Dene lands were going to be appropriated by the military as a bombing range. The oil sands around Fort McMurray displease him too.
Other paintings are more serene. He has used all kinds of media: watercolour, tempera, acrylics, inks, chalk pastels and oils. At one point in his career he became a member of the so-called Group of 8 (an oblique reference to the more famous Group of 7) –– a group that also included Morrisseau, Odjig, Reid... One of the works Janvier displayed in their exhibition was Alberta Rose (1977), its predominant pinks and pale greens inspired by that wild flower. There's a wonderful abstract blue painting done in 1994 which he entitled Cold Lake Air as a tribute to the clear skies of his home. Big Fish Waters is a huge painting that also represents Cold Lake and records the idea that whales swam there in prehistoric times (bones have been found that give this legend some substance).
North Primrose, a circular, mixed media painting, looks like a satellite image of merging rivers on the Alberta plains. Grand Entry, similarly, could be seen as a bird's eye view of the start of a Pow Wow ceremony, the Elders, dancers and youths swirling in to join the circle from all directions.
Janvier's most recent creation is a very large scale piece called Tsa Tsa Ke K'e. It is a mosaic spread out on the floor of a public space, a stadium in Edmonton. At the end of the exhibition you can watch a short documentary video about its installation, featuring the artist himself at its opening, looking very proud and moved, while people of all denominations and origins join the circle dance on top of it.
