The Incredulity of Saint Thomas or the Rockox Triptych (or “Altarpiece”), is a triptych painting by Peter Paul Rubens(1577 – 1640), and was produced between 1613 and 1615. On either side of the triptych you can see sir Nicolaas II Rockox and his spouse Adriana Perez. This painting was originally commissioned for the Lady Chapel in the Recollects Convent in Antwerp but now sits in the Great Hall of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, where I saw it in October.
If you can bring yourself to ignore the ‘freaky Dutch bastards’ as Dr Evil would call them, the central panel is something of a masterpiece. I went to the museum with Celia and she must have thought me quite queer because I stopped and stared at this painting for at least ten minutes. I felt like Ongo Gablogian having an epiphany.
Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”John 20:25
Here, three apostles, Thomas, Peter and John, are incredulous at Christ’s returning from the dead. This event is the bedrock of the Christian faith. They are looking at Christ with surprise, with Thomas wanting to verify this incredible event with empirical evidence, namely putting a finger in the wounds. The event speaks to the quality of faith, asking us whether we believe this core tenet of our faith without needing for it to be verified. I was so moved by this painting. Seeing Christ depicted with such light and looking at his doubting apostles with love in spite of their doubt electrified me. There are three reactions in this painting as I can see, shock by Thomas, interest by Peter (closest to us, presuming this is indeed Peter) and love from John in the back. I may have got the apostles in the wrong order, for which I can only apologise. Which of these three reactions would we have when confronted with this event in scripture?
I noticed at once that Jesus’ halo was missing in this painting but that a faint gold glow can see seen behind his head. The absence of a halo emphasises the corporeality of the risen Christ, that is to say that Christ is here in human form again. This was another striking aspect of the painting for me, with Rubens, who was always inspired to his work by faith, stating clearly his belief in the resurrection.
Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”John 20:29
Overall this is a work of genius which left a lasting impression on me. It tackles the founding event of the Christian faith and was profoundly moving to me. I am very much looking forward to my next trip to Amsterdam when I will be able to see it again.
“My passion comes from the heavens, not from earthly musings.” Rubens
Henry Vaughan was a Welsh metaphysical poet, born in Brecknockshire in 1621. He wrote The Retreat in 1650 when he was just 29 years old, a poem part of the Silex Scintillans, his most famous collection. Retreat here has a dual meaning. One is to hide, to get away from one’s life. The other is a pleasant place where one might go to stay, such as a religious retreat at Ampleforth. Both a return to the past, and a longing to escape to an easier time are desired by Vaughan, which you will find below:
Happy those early days! when I
Shined in my angel infancy.
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought;
When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of His bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to every sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
O, how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train,
From whence th’ enlightened spirit sees
That shady city of palm trees.
But, ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way.
Some men a forward motion love;
But I by backward steps would move,
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.
Such power in 32 lines. What does this poem say to me?
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to consider my present ‘grown up’ problems with angel infancy and a blameless outlook. What would my younger self have made of my present self? Perhaps a futile exercise, but our present lives are quite riddled with difficulties. It can be easy to wish to shirk responsibilities and be in peace. Vaughan highlights in the first six lines the ease with which he reached a state of mental peace and laments, impliedly, that now he must make a great effort to reach white (pure) celestial thought.
Lines 7-14 speak of the forlorn memories of one’s first love; their childhood home. Looking back on these with adult eyes, as it were, helps the reader see how precious these moments were. It also helps us see the value Donne places on purity of mind and thought, unsullied by what we learn as we go through life. Indeed these were so precious that the reader sees God in them.
Again lines 15-20 continue on this theme, lamenting the loss of childhood innocence of thought, and not yet knowing how to over indulge the senses. In a way, Vaughan is saying that a state of purity is required for us to attain the everlasting. The following six lines develop this vague longing into an expressed desire – the writer tells us that he would rather live in the past than in the present, a shocking revelation to me.
The final six lines show us that the speaker realises that he is living in the past, and that this is unhealthy but he still chooses to do so. He writes expressly that some men prefer to move forward but he would rather go back, and this longing to go back transforms itself into a longing to skip the present and go furthest into the future – this is to say, to die and rise again and follow Christ into heaven.
This is undoubtedly a beautiful poem. I am a man who loves forward motion, so I cannot entirely relate to the longing for childhood in this poem. Nor can I relate to the longing to return to purity of thought and the awed wonder of initial discoveries. This belief that our current mode of thought is somehow inferior to that of our childhood selves is nonsensical to me. The idea that one should long for the past, or past purity of mind, to such an extent that they wish to die and return there, even in heaven, is horrifying. Surely one should acknowledge their childhood, note its passing, and focus on living in the present. They might also focus on planning for the future. Notwithstanding my philosophical objections with the subject matter, I recognise, especially given the unpleasant nature of the present what with its virus and storms, that some may find solace in this poem. Reading The Retreat, one may be comforted realising they are not alone in their wish to return to a simpler time.
I looked for Stratford Upon Avon’s best eateries and alighted on Honey Blue, supposedly the best place to eat in Stratford. It is tucked away in a side alley away from Sheep Street in the centre of town. Now, if one is to go by the Trip Advisor review, they might expect a lavish beautiful small scale indy paradise, but when we went, the menu was limited to a few toasties, which was fine as I did not want to have too heavy a lunch.
Charlotte ordered the three cheese panini, which was quite delicious. There was a slightly rough texture to the cheese which was most pleasant indeed and the bread was high quality, easy to chew through. I had the goats cheese and spinach toastie which was rather good also but tasted fairly similar to the one above. Now, these were at the end of the day, pieces of cheese between bread, so not much more can be said for them. I think the reason this establishment is so popular with the people of Stratford are the beverages:
The cafe’s Facebook page has some excellent photographs of their marshmallow toasted and hanging precariously atop a mountain of cream, as can be seen in the back of my less impressive photograph. I would recommend ordering these after your sandwich as the cream tends to melt rather quickly. The cinnamon cappuccino I ordered was excellent. The cream was light and the cinnamon sung through the whole drink. Charlotte’s hot chocolate with the aforementioned marshmallow was delicious also, rich and fulsome with similar comments about the cream.
Now, beware, the manager’s taste in music, at least on our visit, was limited extremely grating saxophone based techno pop, which was so loud that both Charlotte and I were on the edge of a nervous breakdown by the time we left. I suggest eating outside or asking the owner to turn down the racket. We had already asked for the door to be closed to keep the February cold out, so did not feel able to make a second demand but the music really was atrocious. Overall a good place for drinks, would not recommend the £7 cheese and bread.
Welcome to the February 2022 edition of Five Favourites. My thanks again to Nick for pressing me to do this originally many moons ago. See below five album covers which have been, in Stephen Fry’s words “intriguing me rather“.
Hugh Maskela – Trumpet Africaine (1962)
There’s something marvellous about 23 year old Hugh taking up the full cover with a symmetrical shot of him playing the trumpet. The framing is beautiful, the instrument is magnificent. The cover is telling the viewer what they can expect from the album, a talented young man, playing the trumpet. Superb, in my view.
Ted Nugent – Cat Scratch Fever (1977)
If you feel like googling this afterwards, I suggest using the artist’s name to avoid some disturbing images of havoc wrought by our feline friends. This cover is excellent. It shows one’s internal emotions after being attacked by a cat, which causes initial pain, but then being reminded of this betrayal by itching in the place we have been struck. I can relate to Mr Nugent on many levels, though my hair has never been that long or frizzy.
Kraftwerk – Computer World (1981)
This truly magnificent album is covered by a three coloured, minimalist feast. I love the contrasting colours, the four teletext Germans and the grey of the computer. This cover does not hint at the magnificence of the album which is to follow.
Face Value – Phil Collins (1981)
In 2016, the beloved artist, formerly of Genesis, re-released his albums in a suite called ‘take a look at me now’. I have included both as they are quite extraordinary, both. This was and remains a searingly honest cover which lives up to its title. The notable similarity in the 2016 cover is Collins’ eyes, and his piercing gaze. A great cover.
Shakara – Fela Kuti and the Afrika 70 (1972)
I have kept this hilarious cover for the last. Here, Fela has put together a group of topless women to create an aerial outline of Afrika and the number 70, with him, speedoed, gleefully at the centre of the 0. Woke feminist politics aside, this is quintessentially Fela and he must have had the greatest time planning and orchestrating this cover. If nothing else, it is a lot of fun, which we could all use more of.
Described to me as a ‘less morbid Donne poem’, see below my brief reflection on this beautiful poem by eminent metaphysical poet John Donne. Donne, far from being co-pilot to Clarence Oveur in Airplane!, was an English writer and Anglican cleric, born in 1572. His poem Air and Angels is marvellous and beautiful, speaking to the quality of human love.
Twice or thrice had I lov’d thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp’d be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love’s pinnace overfraught;
Ev’ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt’ring bright, can love inhere;
Then, as an angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,
So thy love may be my love’s sphere;
Just such disparity
As is ‘twixt air and angels’ purity,
‘Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be.
I believe from my research that Donne was inspired by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarch, who saw love in a different way, having had his love revealed to him on Good Friday to a woman, Laura de Sade, who could not love him back. The idealised this unattainable figure. The beauty he felt she represented, having been revealed to him on an important day in the Church’s calendar, went beyond the physical.
Petrarch was not selfishly obsessive, but a man instead who knew love in a different way. That God revealed Laura to him on Good Friday was everything. For him, Petrarch’s unrequited love for Laura was about directing his soul, “From her to you comes loving thought that leads, as long as you pursue, to highest good.” The Imaginative Conservative
Air and Angels takes this theme and applies it. The poem speaks of the difference between love in its temporal physical form and love in the eternal sense, a higher love which is carried in the soul beyond death. Love as we experience it is corporeal, it is bodily. Donne draws a distinction here between our experience of love and how angels appear to manifest themselves through air, which is the purest of the four elements. Indeed human love is derided in the poem, with Donne saying that he tried to visualise his past love and alighted on a ‘lovely glorious nothing’, which seems to say, in the absence of a woman to look at and objectify, the male gaze is impotent. This is carried on by his imagining her features (lip eye and brow). Man’s love for woman, here, is restricted to the physical and cannot assume the position of the soul’s love, which is above such things as the soul itself is not corporeal.
Resorting to the metaphorical usage of air and angels, the poem furnishes a conceptualisation of love cognisant of its empirical being, of the necessitude of shared mutuality between the man and the woman within its ambit. The soul, if extricated from the body, would be aloft the pleasure of corporeal love, which is very much rooted in desire, which has its own legitimacy, as it were.
Love then, must not come from earthly longing, nor from angels and heavenly things, but from somewhere in between. The poem argues that the combination or synthesis of man’s love (angel) and woman’s love (air) is needed for the success of both.
The air producing the angel is as impure as the latter. By analogy, the poet argues that the woman’s love is also as pure, or as independent as that of the man’s love, and it is rather a mutual transaction of the two that will diminish the space between man’s passion and women’s response
So thy love may be my love’s sphere;
Just such disparity
As is ‘twixt air and angels’ purity,
‘Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be.
The final four lines leave the result of such synthesis unclear, perhaps intentionally.
I suppose it was about time I wrote about local Tamworth boy Julian Cope. Unbeknownst to my father, perhaps among the foremost Copey fans, I have been listening to Cope for some time in secret. Peggy Suicide is named after “a figure representing Mother Earth who appeared to Cope in a dream in the “loose fit” summer of 1990”. It speak of ecological and social collapse with a focus on creating moods through song, rather than an oppressive picture painted through a structured concept throughout the album. In my view he does so quite successfully. This is a double album of some length so I shall focus only on my three highlights and let you discover the might of this album for your good selves.
Peggy Suicide offered up songs about safe sex and AIDs, killing Margaret Thatcher, the wisdom of fighting the police, pollution and the “nascent” climate emergency, swimming with dolphins, drowning on hallucinogens, the Poll Tax, and a late night taproom band comprising a rat, a cat and a barman. All in all, a lot to take in. The Quietus
Safesurfer is a song about AIDS and its consequences, personally and in the public’s perception of the sufferer. Being written in the early 90s, one can imagine public perception of, and sympathy towards, AIDS sufferers was not yet at its current level. The turmoil felt by them is captured in a “long luxuriant guitar squall”, a powerful musical statement, perhaps akin to the musical foray in Heroin by The Velvet Underground.
Peggy Suicide is a global creation, I believe Julian Cope created it as God created the earth – in the beginning all was void and darkness imbued with silence were upon the face of the deep. And Julian Cope said, let there be lyrics: and there were lyrics. And Julian Cope said, let there be music: and there was music. And in mellow and rich Morrisonesque voice Julian Cope sang: “You seem lonely oh Avalon I feel evidence very strong. Beautiful love, now beautiful love where have you gone. You make my life oh so long, say, make believe it ain’t so wrong”. Review by user Vitabenco on Discogs
East Easy Rider is also one of my highlights. Described in the Quietus as creating a giddy heaviness, this track is toe tappingly catchy. The riff is so catchy that it will stay with you for the whole evening. It is ostensibly a song about riding around at leisure on a motorbike, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
Picking out only some highlights does the album as a whole a disservice, but besides offering up an instant catchy pop single, “Beautiful Love,” Cope handles everything from the minimal moods of “Promised Land” and experimentation of “Western Front 1992 CE” to the frenetic “Hanging Out and Hung Up on the Line” and commanding “Drive, She Said.” An absolute, stone-cold rock classic, full stop. Allmusic
These newly sonorous tones catered for a preacher-style delivery and allowed deft switches in tone and meaning; ones that could be applied to the wider range of material, sonically and thematically. Cope’s addiction to falling on his arse and keeping the serious blues at bay suddenly came to his aid artistically, courtesy of some fantastic rants and strung out pleadings throughout the record. Two classic examples on Peggy Suicide are heard in the radiant love song to his wife Dorian, ‘The American Lite’, where Julian worries whether a new song “sounds like The Boss”. The Quietus
The American Lite is the penultimate track on the album. It is a love song to his wife. It is insistent, confusing, urgent and unnerving. The piano is quite cool, the Catholic overtones caught me off guard. Indeed if he has been to confession, not committed any mortal sins, and received his last Rites then drowned in Holy Water, I suppose he would not die, if you are of the Catholic persuasion. This feverish urgency sets up the last and final track of the album quite beautifully.
I’m gonna douse myself in holy water
Got the fever inside
I’m gonna drown myself in holy water
Got the fever, it won’t dieFact my love is stronger now
And my life is leaving jail
She’s got a love, it’s getting wide and bright
Concentric circles running to the American lite
Overall, no review I could write would do justice to this wonderful album. It is a whole fully fledged product. Peggy Suicide is well ahead of its time and largely flawless. Please do go listen to it and make room for dancing.
