I have had two songs stuck in my head over the past few days: "Eglantine" and "Old Kent Road." Both of these songs come from movies that I watched a lot as a little girl: Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Little Princess. I watched both of these movies relatively recently, which I guess explains why I am thinking about these songs. It's been fun to rewatch these films and remember the things that I loved about them as a child. I also made some new connections that I didn't realize before. For example, I didn't realize that the opening credits for Bedknobs and Broomsticks was inspired by the imagery from the Bayeux Tapestry!
The chorus of "Eglantine" from Bedknobs and Broomsticks has been stuck in my head ever since this weekend (although I should note that the version of this song that my family knows is much shorter, I think because our copy of the film was taped off of the TV):
I have also had the "Old Kent Road" song stuck in my head from The Little Princess. This song is played twice in the movie, one when Shirley Temple ("Sara") is living at a private school, and later when she performs the number in the hospital for wounded soldiers. My mom would always point out to me that Sara decided to perform for the soldiers and cheer them up, "even though she didn't feel like it." Perhaps I often said that I "didn't feel like [doing things]" as a young girl?
First scene:
Second scene:
These are the lyrics to "Knocked 'Em in the Old Kent Road":
Last week down our alley came a toff
Nice old geezer with a nasty cough
Sees my missus, takes his topper off
In a very gentlemanly way
"Wot cher!" all the neighbors cried
"Who yer gonna meet, Bill
Have yer bought the street, Bill"?
Laugh! I thought I should've died
Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road
Every evenin' at the stroke of five
Me and the missus takes a little drive
You'd say, "Wonderful they're still alive"
If you saw that little donkey go
When we starts the blessed donkey stops
He won't move, so out I quickly lops
Pals start whackin' him, when down he drops
Someone says he wasn't made to go
"Wot cher!" all the neighbors cried
"Who yer gonna meet, Bill
Have yer bought the street, Bill"?
Laugh! I thought I should've died
Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road
When I showed The Little Princess to J a few weeks ago, I also made an interesting connection with the Sara's dream sequence. Part of that dream involves a ballet number, in which the ballerinas come together in a circle and wave their arms (like flower petals). Then, a little ballerina (Shirley Temple) is "born" out of this "flower." You can see this segment at about 5:55 in the clip:
When I watched this sequence recently, I immediately thought of these "ballet classes" that I used to hold for my little sister C and two neighborhood girls. I was probably about eleven or twelve at the time. I didn't really know much about ballet (I had a year of lessons when I was probably seven or eight), but I checked out a whole bunch of books from the library and thought that I knew enough to be an instructor. I would have C and her friends come and practice a routine that I choreographed for "The Waltz of the Flowers" (from The Nutcracker). About thirty seconds into the song, there is a little harp flourish which I envisioned as a time for the dancers to create a similar type of circular "flower" (from which one of the dancers would emerge). At the time, though, I don't think that I realized that I had pulled inspiration from my choreography directly from The Little Princess. That movie was so engrained into my life that I didn't even realize I was referencing it.
A lot of the movies that I watched as a girl were either made in the early-to-mid 20th century. And, for that matter, a lot of the books that I read were from the 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries. I suppose my mom predisposed me to become an art historian without realizing it: by exposing me to older forms of language and visual culture, I grew to have an affinity for the past and nostalgia (even if it the nostalgia isn't for something I actually experienced).
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Saturday, November 9, 2013
"Welcome to Dog Land"
Sam hasn't been feeling well today, so we have spent the day at home. He did have enough energy, though, to create a drawing for his school's upcoming art contest. The theme of the contest is "Believe, Dream, Inspire." Sam and I brainstormed some ideas for things that he could create, and this drawing is the final product. Sam gave it the title, "Welcome to Dog Land." I tried not to intervene (even though the curator in me was compelled to at least explain that marker or pen would be more visible than pencil). Sam insisted on pencil, though, which is fine.
Here is Sam's artist statement, which we are sending along with his submission. My only modification was to put "just yet" in the first sentence, so I wouldn't come across as a completely heartless mom!
I wish that I could have a dog, but my mom won't let me just yet. I like to dream about having a dog and playing with dogs. This drawing is of a pretend land where everyone can be a dog or play with dogs. Kids who don't have a dog can look at this drawing and think about playing with dogs too.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Farewell, Hasan
My friend Hasan sent me this picture a few years ago, as a joke. We had recently met online through our art history blogs, and this was the first photo that I ever saw of him. I remember thinking that the photo was both funny and strange, and I wondered if Hasan was actually a weird person. (He wasn't weird, at least not in a bad way!) Here Hasan is doing an impersonation of the Commodus as Hercules bust, which he sent not long after I wrote a post on the sculpture on my art history blog. The image in the background is a reproduction of Alma-Tadema's A Roman Emperor AD 41; Alma-Tadema was Hasan's favorite classicist painter and this reproduction hung in his home.
Hasan suddenly passed away about a week ago, due to an epileptic seizure. He was thirty-seven years old, the same age as his favorite artist Raphael. It breaks my heart to know that this kind person, who had friends all over the world, died alone. If someone had been with him in his apartment at the time, perhaps he wouldn't have died. The online art history community was consequently put in shock, and I spent several days this past week
Hasan and I became friends in in May 2010, after I commented on a post that he wrote about Botticelli on his Three Pipe Problem blog. We became online blogging friends since that point, which was easy since we had similar interests in Renaissance and Baroque art. I have been going through our emails and correspondences this past week. With all of the tweets, emails, and blog comments combined, we communicated hundreds of times. And I know that I am just one among dozens and dozens of people that Hasan met online, particularly in the small online art history community. He crafted and made sure to maintain good friendships with art historians and those interested in art all over the globe.
Although we didn't share a lot of personal information about ourselves, we did get to know each other rather well and could perceive a lot about each other's character. I remember offering some support and condolences when his dad passed away a few years ago, and I discussed what it was like when my mom passed away. Most of the time, though, we talked about art and art history. We also shared an interest in Renaissance and Baroque music and sometimes would talk about the soprano Emma Kirkby (see Hasan's post on Kirkby HERE). He once sent me this picture, saying that it was one of his most prized possessions:
Although I wrote a tribute to Hasan on my art history blog, I wanted to have a little bit more of a personal tribute here. I also wanted to remember a lot of the ways that we interacted with each other, especially through our blogs.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS ON HASAN'S 3PP BLOG
- An interview with me (September 10, 2010)
- "Lavinia Fontana and the Female Self-Portrait" (March 18, 2011)
- "Exploring a New Caravaggio Attribution" (August 23, 2011)
- "Why Art History? Bernini's David" (February 13, 2013)
- Hasan's posts "Misrepresenting Botticelli for the Modern Era" (May 28, 2010) and "An Update on Botticelli's Venus and Mars" (June 10, 2010) inspired y post "Hallucinogenic Plant or Exploding Cucumber?" (June 14, 2010)
- Back-and-forth discussion on Hasan's post "Unraveling Giorgione's Tempest" (July 28, 2010) inspired my post "Giorgione's Gypsy" (August 5, 2010). The discussion between Hasan and Frank (Dr. F) was the beginning of their friendship, as well as my own friendship with Frank.
- My post "Handel as Art Collector" (September 2, 2010) inspired Hasan's post "Introducing Emma Kirkby" (September 5, 2010)
- My post "Boy Bitten by a Lizard: Posner vs. Gilbert" (September 20, 2010) inspired Hasan's post "Revisiting Caravaggio's 'Boy Bitten by a Lizard'" (September 22, 2010).
- An interview of Alexandra Korey that was hosted on Hasan's blog (October 26, 2010) inspired my post "Art History Bloggers as Les Indépendents" (November 2, 2010).
- Hasan's post "Giorgione, Carpaccio, and the Siege of Padua" (later reposted January 9, 2011) inspired my post "Durer's 'Virgin Among a Multitude of Animals" (December 7, 2011).
- My post "Titian, Mulvey and Lacan" (February 25, 2011) inspired Hasan's post "Titian: Mirrors, Courtesans, and the Queen of Cyprus" (March 1, 2011)
- Hasan developed a relationship with a dealer at Inbooks publications, and subsequently got review copies of new books for me and other art history bloggers to review. He even set up a system where bloggers could request books to review through his site. My review of Riegl's The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome (June 28, 2011) was due to Hasan's handiwork.
- My review of Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome (September 17, 2011) was also from Inbooks, due to Hasan's connection with them.
- My post "The Sting of Love" (February 13, 2012) was inspired by conversations that Hasan and I had on Twitter. We had several twitter and email discussions about Cupid depicted with beehives and/or dolphins. Even when I was in museums, I remember taking pictures of beehives or dolphins to show to Hasan.
- My post "Christian and Islamic Art: Flesh vs. Word" (March 23, 2013) inspired Hasan's post "Piero della Francesca's Symbolic Egg" (March 29, 2013).
Hasan was a very kind and thoughtful person. Over the course of our friendship, we mailed a few things to each other. More often than not, Hasan was the one who had something to mail to me. I do remember shipping one or two things to him in Australia, including some rare volumes on Raphael by Shearman that he had purchased online from an American dealer. I want to remember the things that he sent to me. Some of these books and movies I still haven't read or watched in entirety:
- A hardbound copy of Alexander Graham-Dixon's Caravaggio (which I won in a giveaway hosted by Hasan in the fall of 2010, based on a limerick that I wrote):
- There was a young ten'bristic wizard
Who painted a boy with a lizard
These paintings sit prett'ly
In London and Italy
Yet always give shock to one's gizzard - A copy of How to Mellify a Corpse by Vicky Leon (a writer with whom Hasan became friends)
- A bookmark with my moniker "M" (the imagery is inspired by medieval and Renaissance manuscript decoration) which Hasan found for me when he was in Florence
- A copy of Clovis Whitfield's Caravaggio, which Hasan mailed to thank me for shipping the Shearman volumes to him
- Burned copies of the Fame or Fortune series
- A burned copy of the Artemisia Gentileschi 1997 film
- My review copies of Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome and The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome were due to Hasan's contact with Inbooks.
It's really strange to realize that I won't see tweets, emails, or posts from Hasan anymore. The day that Hasan died, I told J that blogging would not be as fun without Hasan around. In many respects, Hasan held the art history community together. Our friend Frank described Hasan as "the sun that our fledgling blogging community revolved about." Tributes to Hasan have been pouring in online:
http://storiedellarte.com/2013/11/dear-hasan-sorry-for-the-delay.html
When I met other art history bloggers in New York earlier this year (see photo of me with Ben, Frank and Sedef), we all agreed that Hasan had brought us all together. All four of us lamented that he was not able to come to the CAA conference, especially since Ben and I had written letters of recommendations for Hasan to get a travel grant. Even though Hasan is no longer with us in the online community, we still have each other. And in truth, Hasan is still living in our hearts and memory. I really appreciated that Ben wrote a tweet directed to Hasan's account last night, mentioning a conference talk on da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" which Hasan would have liked. All of us can (and will) still think of him as we continue to discuss art history online.
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