Friday, May 3, 2024

Brown - Hannaford - Hele - Staffordshire

Joan Brown
Flora
1961
oil on canvas
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Joan Brown
Girl in Chair
1962
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Joan Brown
Noel on a Pony with Cloud
1963
oil on canvas
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Joan Brown
The Journey #1
1976
enamel on canvas
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Robert Hannaford
Self Portrait
1966
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Robert Hannaford
Self Portrait
ca. 1980
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Robert Hannaford
Self Portrait with Anatomical Studies
ca. 1969
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Robert Hannaford
Self Portrait
1969
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Ivor Hele
Self Portrait
ca. 1935
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Ivor Hele
Self Portrait
ca. 1959
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Ivor Hele
Artist's Wife Reading
ca. 1960
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Ivor Hele
Artist at Work
1929
drawing
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Staffordshire Potteries
Basket and Stand
ca. 1805
glazed earthenware (creamware)
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

Staffordshire Potteries
Teapot and Creamer
ca. 1930
glazed earthenware
(commissioned by Cunard Steamship Lines)
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Staffordshire Potteries
Teapot
ca. 1745
salt-glazed stoneware
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

Staffordshire Potteries
Vase with Dolphins
ca. 1790
glazed earthenware (pearlware)
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

from The Sea and the Mirror

Gonzalo:

Evening, grave, immense, and clear,
Overlook our ship whose wake
Lingers undistorted on
Sea and silence; I look back
For the last time as the sun
Sets behind that island where
All our loves were altered: yes,
My prediction came to pass,
Yet I am not justified,
And I weep but not with pride.
Not in me the credit for
Words I uttered long ago
Whose glad meaning I betrayed;
Truths to-day admitted, owe
Nothing to the councillor
In whose booming eloquence
Honesty became untrue.
Am I not Gonzalo who
By his self-reflection made
Consolation an offence?

There was nothing to explain:
Had I trusted the Absurd
And straightforward note by note
Sung exactly what I heard,
Such immediate delight
Would have taken there and then
Our common welkin by surprise,
All would have begun to dance
Jigs of self-deliverance.
It was I prevented this,
Jealous of my native ear,
Mine the art which made the song
Sound ridiculous and wrong,
I whose interference broke
The gallop into jog-trot prose
And by speculation froze
Vision into an idea,
Irony into a joke,
Till I stood convicted of
Doubt and insufficient love.

Farewell, dear island of our wreck:
All have been restored to health,
All have seen the Commonwealth,
There is nothing to forgive.
Since a storm's decision gave
His subjective passion back
To a meditative man,
Even reminiscence can
Comfort ambient troubles like
Some ruined tower by the sea
Whence boyhoods growing and afraid
Learn a formula they need
In solving their mortality,
Even rusting flesh can be
A simple locus now, a bell
The Already There can lay
Hands on if at any time
It should feel inclined to say
To the lonely – "Here I am",
To the anxious  – "All is well".

     One tongue is silent, Prospero,
          My language is my own;
     Decayed Gonzalo does not know
     The shadow that Antonio
          Talks to, at noon, alone
.

– W.H. Auden (1942-44)