Viaggio pittorico e storico ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano e Como, 1818

Viaggio pittorico e storico ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano, e Como  (Pictorial and Historical Journey to Three Lakes Maggiore, Lugano, and Como) was printed and published in Milan in 1818. 

The book includes fifty-six hand-coloured aquatint plates of famous attractions and places around the lakes, each accompanied by a short description. In the early nineteenth century, these kind of publications helped to promote the beauty of Milan and its region and were increasingly popular among refined and educated travellers.

Twenty-six of the fifty-six views are the work of Federico and Carolina Lose, painter and engraver, husband and wife. Born in Dresden, Germany, as Heinrich Lohse (1776-1833) and Karoline von Schlieben (1784-1837), they had arrived in Milan from Paris in 1805, following the new Viceroy of Italy, and Napoleon's step-son, Eugene de Beauharnais. They decided to settle in the Italian town, Italianized their names, and grew here their five children. By 1815, they collaborated with different publishers: Federico drew views of Milan and its surroundings and Carolina engraved them. Natural sceneries, rather than architectures, better expressed their artistic talents.

Viaggio pittorico e storico ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano, e Como is a slow, romantic journey along the green banks and across the great lakes embraced by the Alps.

View of Stresa and Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore

View of the Villa called la Torre near Intra on Lake Maggiore

View of the castles of Canero on Lake Maggiore

View of Balbiano with villa Sepolina on Lake Como

View of Villa Tanzi near Torno on Lake Como 

Further reading:
Friedrich e Carolina Lose, Viaggio pittorico e storico ai tre laghi Maggiore, di Lugano e Como. Milano 1818, Milano, Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense.

Nel segno di Kleist. I coniugi Lose e il paesaggio romantico lombardo. Franco Monteforte. “Notiziario della Banca Popolare di Sondrio”, n. 124, 2012.

The Christmas Dinner Table

TABLE XXIV

The Christmas Dinner Table

This design is intended to appropriately decorate the Christmas Dinner Table, and consists of a Wreath which is composed of pieces of Fine-leaved Ivy, Leaves of Variegated Box, Holly, Sprays of Mistletoe, intermixed with Small Apples, Winter Cherries &c. &c. Nos 1 are for Lamps; Nos. 2, Plants; Nos. 3, Fruits; Nos. 4, Confectionery, Nos. 5 are intended to be Glass Dishes, large size, for cut Flowers; Nos. 6 are Glass Tubes eight inches high; Nos. 7 Glass Tubes four inches high; and Nos. 8 are Small Low Glass Dishes - all to be filled with Cut Flowers.

Floral Designs for the Table; Directions for Its Ornamentation with Leaves, Flowers & Fruit. John Perkins. London, Wyman & Sons, 1877

Barr's Descriptive Catalogue of Hardy Daffodils, Autumn 1886.

Daffodils are growing quickly and the warmth and the gentle rain of these days help.

Waiting for flowers, I found an old plant catalogue with a promising title: Barr's Descriptive Catalogue of Hardy Daffodils, also a List of Easily Cultivated Hardy Bulbs and Plants, for All Seasons. Dated Autumn 1886, the Catalogue was published by the Barr & Sons Nurseries, founded in Surrey in 1860 with mail order and shop in Covent Garden in London. 

The Catalogue has a lyrical opening: 

"THE most beautiful of all hardy Spring flowers is the Daffodil; for centuries it has adorned our gardens and withstood uninjured our severest winters. Its blossoms suffer less from frost, snow, rain, and wind, than any other spring flower, and this was observed by Shakespeare, when he wrote-

" Daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares, and take 

The winds of March with beauty."

With a flowering season from January to June, daffodils are perfect for mixed borders and shrubberies, and "to naturalize in woodland walks, and for large groups in grass or on sloping banks,..."and "on the moist margins of lakes and streams, or islands, where their golden nodding flowers contrast with the cerulean reflection in the limpid water below." Poetic verses by Keats and Wordsworth celebrate this beautiful flower.

Then, the Catalogue turns to more practical information with general notes for cultivation in pots indoors and in beds out of doors, as well as offers. A "Selections of inexpensive daffodils... to plant in grass, orchards, woodlands, walks, ..." was sold at the price of 150/ for 1.000 in 30 var.,  or 120/ in 20 var., or 84/ in 10 var.; or 1.000 "Inexpensive Poeticus to plant in Grass, Orchards,..." in 12 var. for 95s. Daffodils for pot culture were more expensive: 6 "Polyanthus Narcissus each 12 splendid varieties 22 s." 

Daffodils are divided into three different groups, (Magni, Medi and Parvi-coronati of Baker) and "to assist amateurs in making their own selections of these hardy and beautiful spring flowers, a number of woodcuts have been supplemented to illustrate each group." 

A little history is included too, from: "The first systematic arrangement of this family is found in Parkinson's 'Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris; or, A Garden of All Sorts of Pleasant Flowers,' published 1629" to "Baker's review of the genus Narcissus appeared in the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1870."

Pots, flowerbeds and woodland areas did not exhaust the uses of this versatile flower.

"As a cut flower the Daffodil is one of the most prized for ladies' dresses, bouquets, and vases", and the  Double Roman  Narcissus was perfect  "in  small  bouquets  and  for  buttonholes."

Did Daffodils decorate dresses or dresses were inspired by daffodils? 

The Narcissus bulbocodium is called Hoop Petticoat Daffodil, and its flower has the perfect shape of a Victorian hoop skirt. Barr sold 6 bulbs in a 4 or 5 inch pot in charming golden-yellow, pure white, sulphur or rich yellow colours from 2s. for the Large Yellow Hoop Petticoat to 10s for the Small Yellow Hoop Petticoat.

Fashion plate, from the Petit Courrier des Dames,
 July 1855

The idea of having fresh daffodils pinned on a broad skirt or a broad skirt that looks like a spring flower would definitely change my mood on Monday morning. 

Now it's raining hard again; daffodils are growing.  

Hoop-petticoat daffodil,
Oxford plants

Further reading:
Barr's Descriptive Catalogue of Hardy Daffodils, also a List of Easily Cultivated Hardy Bulbs and Plants, for All Seasons. Autumn 1886.
http://dafflibrary.org/


Images:
Photo Growing Narcissus -TravelinaGarden, March 2018

All woodcuts from Barr's Catalogue

Daffodils and Tulips in Munstead Glasses, from Flower Decoration in the House, 1907, by Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932)
http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/

Fashion plate, from the Petit Courrier des Dames, July 1855. Corsets & Crinolines in Victorian Fashion, Victoria and Albert Museum.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/

Hoop-petticoat daffodil - Oxford plants
https://herbaria.plants.ox.ac.uk/

Spring and Winter Flower Garden, John Fleming.

I walked along the flower beds of the Great Garden at Cliveden, in Buckinghamshire, reading 'Spring and Winter Flower Garden'.

Written in 1864 by John Fleming, Head Gardener to the Duchess of Sutherland at Cliveden, the book explains his 'system of Spring Flower Gardening': a successful succession of bloomings that allowed him to have appealing flower beds before and after the explosion of summer flowers.
Common practices to overcome this problem included the creation of 'separate gardens, covering their surface with different coloured materials; ... filling a portion with evergreens in pots, ...[using] ivy'. These solutions, however, proved not entirely satisfactory to Mr.  Fleming, who, especially near the house, felt the need for something more thrilling. Inspiration came from nature, from the wild flowers that he saw blooming after winter. In the book, he muses:

'Why then should we not in this matter take a lesson from nature? and if flowers at that season bloom in the fields and woods, they can also be made to bloom in the garden. The most beautiful of these wild flowers are gone before we can venture to turn out the summer plants.'

In the following chapters, he sums up his experience providing combinations of flowers and shrubs. Flowers with 'good habits and plenty of bloom', 'sufficiently hardy to keep the beds green in the dead part of the winter months, and come out in spring with that display necessary to make the garden attractive'; flowers 'well adapted for the season in which they are required' so that 'they are got without the expense of houses or fuel and ...without glass'. He focuses on colours for the spring display, while berries and variegated leaves are considered for the winter months. For spring, he suggests: Anemone 'if a good bed of scarlet is wanted', Alyssum saxatile 'a fine yellow', while 'for blue we have the beautiful Myosotis arvensis', and Pansies and Primroses are available in 'an extensive variety of colours.' Annuals are preferred and the use of bulbs is encouraged to arrange rows, chains and ribbons and create sophisticated designs.
He offers some practical examples choosing among the flower beds created at Cliveden in 1862 and 1863. In 1863, for example, the Great Garden, the impressive formal parterre to the south of the house, was arranged with:

n.1 bed blue Myosotis and La Candeur Tulip.
   2       Anemone and yellow Jonquil.
   3       Limnanthes Douglassii and Tournesol Tulip.
   4       Silene pendula, pink, and Rex Rubrorum Tulip.
   5       Silene pendula, white.
   6       blue Myosotis, Queen Victoria Tulip.
   7       mixed Anemone and Narcissus poeticus.
   8       yellow Alyssum saxatile and yellow Rose Tulip.

The beds 'have edging of Evergreen Privet ... 8 inches high and 9 broad', 'next to this .. is the same with grass' and 'the centre of each bed being planted with either Rhododendrons or Azaleas'. Spring flowerings matched those of the surrounding Thorns and Lilacs, while Gladioli and Hollyhocks followed in summer.
Nothing is neglected: 'each round circle is planted with a good row of Crocus, then Cerastium tomentosum; behind this a belt of blue Myosotis and Wallflowers, with a centre of Honesty.' Mr. Fleming explains that he gets a best effect with a limited variety of plants, which is also more convenient for cost savings and labour. 'To fill the beds moderately it requires two thousand plants, and from six to eight hundred Tulips when well filled'. A triumph.

There is much more to read in the book and to see in the garden, a living page of garden history. But, looking at the parterre that, from 2010, is planted again according to Mr. Fleming's designs, I thought about the observation of wild nature and its consequences, about the bedding system of Mr. John Fleming, and, few years later, the natural garden of Mr. William Robinson.

Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Cliveden, UK, May 2015.
Drawings from 'Spring and Winter Flower Garden'.

Further reading:
John Fleming, Spring and Winter Flower Garden, Journal of Horticulture and Cottage Garden Office, London, 1864.
https://archive.org/

Links:
Cliveden, Taplow, Maidenhead, Buckinghamshire
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/cliveden/ 

Записки охотника, Sketches from a Hunter's Album, Ivan Sergeevic Turgenev.

Охотники на привале, Hunters at Rest. 1871. Vasily Perov (1833-1882).

I was waiting for the sun to shine on green apples and orange persimmons, for the smell of olea fragrans under my bedroom window, for the blooming of autumn crocuses under the cherry tree. I was waiting for the first days of autumn to read Sketches from a Hunter's Album.

The book, published in 1852, is a collection of twenty-five short stories written, between 1847 and 1850, by the Russian novelist Ivan Sergeevic Turgenev (1818-1883) for the Russian journal The Contemporary. He was abroad in this period, travelling in Germany and France, and the unexpected success of these hunting stories situated in the Russian countryside gave him new strength and determination to pursue his literary ambitions.

Сборы на охоту, Preparation for Hunting. 1836.

A passionate hunter himself, Turgenev found inspiration in life at Spasskoye-Lutovinovo, the family's estate near Oryol, a town 360 kilometres southwest of Moscow. Rural life: sky and clouds, woods, fields, hay, narrow dusty paths, flocks of birds, 'eggs, milk and rye bread.' And people. In his hunting expeditions, the hunter meets landowners, administrators and, above all, the multitude of serfs that lived and worked in their properties. He shares with them frugal food and nights under the stars, talking and listening to their stories. He observes them, describing with minute details faces, clothes and izbas, intentions and gestures, tragic destinies marked by the absurd decisions of despotic and cruel landowners, and quiet and hard-working families. If hunting literature was a successful literary genre in Russia in the 1840s, Turgenev’s choice was not obvious: no sentimental and pathetic tones, no stereotypes about peasant life or judgements, just the reality told with the serfs' words. He considers them people, a revolutionary idea that would lead to the abolition of serfdom in 1861.

Turgenev describes a world that was disappearing relying on unheard voices and on the beauty of the Russian countryside. The golden leaves of linden trees in a foggy day of autumn move on the page. But it is not just autumn. A sudden storm, the unbearable heat of a summer afternoon, the first light at dawn in a spring day, Turgenev's words reveal his passionate love for nature. Hunting was part of it, a tradition that put man in touch with nature, with untamed nature. Birch woods, old orchards and a vegetable garden in autumn:

Рука с цветами, A Hand with Flowers. 1896.
Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942).

".... A recently cleared path quickly let us out of the lime grove and we entered a vegetable garden. Amid old apple trees and overgrown gooseberry bushes there grew innumerable round pale-green heads of cabbage with hop tendrils winding round their tall stems; sticking up in the beds were close-set rows of brown sticks all entwined with peas; large flat pumpkins literally lay about on the ground; cucumbers hung yellowing under dusty angular leaves; tall nettles sway above the fence; in two or three places there grew masses of wild honeysuckle, elder and dog rose, the remains of what had formerly been well-kept flowerbeds."
from My neighbour Radilov.

осень в деревне,
 Autumn in a Village. 1942. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942).

Further reading:

Осенний пейзаж,  
Autumn Landscape. 1934. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942).

Sketches from a Hunter's Album, Ivan Turgenev, Penguin UK.

Paintings:

Охотники на привале, Hunters at Rest. 1871. Oil on canvas. Vasily Perov (1833–1882).
http://commons.wikimedia.org/

Сборы на охоту, Preparation for Hunting. 1836. Oil on canvas. Evgraf Feodorovich Krendovsky (1810-1870s, unknown).

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Рука с цветами, A Hand with Flowers. Study for the Painting On the Hills. 1896. Oil on canvas. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942)
http://www.abcgallery.com/N/nesterov/nesterov18.html
Осенний пейзаж, Autumn Landscape. 1934. Oil on canvas. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942).
http://www.wikiart.org/
осень в деревне, Autumn in a Village, 1942, Oil on canvas. Mikhail Nesterov (1862-1942).
http://www.wikiart.org/

Some Flowers - Vita Sackville-West.

Tigridia pavonia is a bulbous flower introduced in Europe from Mexico around the end of the Eighteenth century. In late summer, at the top of firm stems covered with lance-shaped glossy green leaves, single flowers appear in succession. Their beautiful shape, large size and rich bright colours do not go unnoticed.

However, today, they are still as unusual in gardens as they were when Vita Sackville-West included them in her book Some Flowers, a collection of some of her favourite flowers published in 1937. Inspiration came from her own experience at Sissinghurst Castle, where she and her husband, Harold Nicolson, were creating the famous garden around the Elizabethan mansion bought in 1930. By June 1938, the garden would open to the public and she would begin her successful collaboration with several magazines, sharing her knowledge and thoughts about gardening. This collection anticipated the enthusiastic tone and practical content of her future writings.

She addresses Some Flowers to the amateur gardeners, writing an intriguing list of twenty-five plants that can add something special to their cherished gardens. Flowers for all seasons, from Hamamelis mollis to Lilium auratum her choices reveal the interests of a woman who lived the garden all year round. And worked in the garden too. She provides practical information about their cultivation, from exposure to soil preferences, and effective solutions to grow plants with specific needs. She is also attentive to their costs and lavishes advice for their multiplication. This for the gardening side, but Vita Sackville-West was a poet and novelist, she wrote stories, and, in this book, she gives each flower its own story. In just a few sentences, she portrays a group of majestic Fritillaria imperialis in a wild ravine in Persia or the Iris unguicularis picked up in a garden in Italy; she introduces the Dianthus caesius, the Cheddar pink, with the lines of a poem and explores the origins of the name of the lovely Tulipa clusiana, the lady tulip, while for the neglected Gerbera jamesonii, the Transvaal daisy, she imagines a fantastic greenhouse with light blue walls, nymphea, agapanthus and lilies.

The flowers of the tigridia are compared to large butterflies for their vibrant colours and their short life, as coloured insects that stop for a while and then fly away. The rich border with masses of tigridias she imagines would be a wonderful sight, but even the handful of tigridias I found at Sissinghurst this summer, emerging from blue agapanthus and a carpet of sedum, proved extremely succesfull among curious visitors.

She confesses that writing about flowers is not easy task, but she overcomes the problem with her pleasant conversational prose, avoiding a detached scientific language and excessive poetic imagination, using Latin names and technical terms with moderation and limiting the use of adjectives.

Some Flowers is a small book and it was a perfect reading in a rainy Sunday morning in London. Sitting at the window of a cafè, with a frothy small cappuccino in front of me and all the plants I bought early in the morning at the flower market in Columbia Rd already potted, I read with pleasure these portraits of flowers, an open invitation to experiment and to look closer at the flowers we cultivate, not only to understand their effect in a flower-bed but to create a more intimate knowledge, to discover their incredible resources and details, their perfect beauty. Vita Sackville-West suggested to cut the flowers and put them into a vase and then to look at them again and again. For this book, she did not choose those more unusual or expensive but those that a painter would like to paint.

Photos:
Sissinghurst Castle, Kent, August 2014.

Further reading:
Vita Sackville-West, Some Flowers, National Trust, London, 2014.

Link:
Sissinghurst Castle, Biddenden Rd, Cranbrook, Kent.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle/













 

Le pâtissier pittoresque - Antonin Carême.

I discovered the life and work of Marie-Antoine (Antonin) Carême (1783-1833) while I was researching for my thesis. I was looking for information about the garden follies, those fanciful buildings scattered in the parks of the eighteenth century, when, typing “hermitage” I got this result:

 

This Russian Hermitage, paired with an unexpected palm, is part of the book Le pâtissier pittoresque (1815), a collection of drawings of elaborated centrepieces, in French pièces montées, accompanied by practical instructions to prepare the necessary pastes. Ingredients are flour, sugar, white of eggs, almonds and tragacanth (a natural gum) worked in smooth, shiny mixtures, subsequently gilded or coloured. The book includes just 12 of the original 125 drawings (3rd edition) designed by Antonin Carême, the talented French chef defined “le Palladio de la cuisine”(1) for his passion for architecture, design and decoration. His life did not start auspiciously. Born in Paris in 1783, he was abandoned in the street at the age of ten by his father, too poor to support his family. By 1794, however, the young boy was working as apprentice for the famous pâtissier Sylvain Bailly in his shop at Palais-Royale. Besides, supported by Monsieur Bailly, Carême spent hours among prints and engravings at the nearby library, the Bibliothèque Nationale, each Tuesday and Friday. Books made him travel in space and time with the discovery of far countries and antique civilizations whose architectures touched his imagination and inspired his work. Ambitious and very disciplined, Carême spent his nights working to improve his recipes and to draw new spectacular pieces for the shop. Prestigious jobs, in France and abroad, rewarded his efforts: he would work for the French Prime Minister, Talleyrant, tsar Alexander I, and the Prince Regent, later King George IV. Nobles and ambassadors praised his delicacies and elegant presentations that triumphed in great soirées, sumptuous celebrations and official ceremonies. His genius went far beyond the kitchen and a new approach to cooking, to a special attention to table decoration, food presentation and service.

As mentioned, books were an important source of inspiration for Carême. Reading was not an easy task for him, but designs captured his imagination, and aroused a definitive passion for architecture, while he perused the pages of travel books or the flourishing literature about garden follies. He probably knew the books of J. C. Krafft, Plans des plus beaux jardins pittoresques de France, d’Angleterre et d’Allemagne, George Louis Le Rouge, Details des nouveaux jardins à la mode and William Chambers, Dissertation on Oriental Gardening. These are just some examples among the large number of publications, in different languages and formats, which favoured the success of the fabriques, French for garden follies. The term, borrowed from painting, was extended to the small picturesque buildings arranged in gardens. Increasingly popular during the eighteenth century, these decorative structures surprised and amused with their architectural styles that recalled different periods of time or distant countries, and invited to meditation with their sophisticated symbolism. Carême’s fabriques represented pavilions, bridges, temples, ruins, towers, belvederes, cottages, hermitages, pyramids, mills, cascades and fountains inspired by his “travels” to Italy, India, China, Russia, or Egypt. He replaced table decorations of baroque taste with elegant Chinese pavilions and Gothic temples made of almonds and sugar, with perfect proportions and the most seductive details, the result of long hours of study, practice and research. 

In the first pages of Le pâtissier pittoresque, Carême retraces his difficult beginnings and how his passion for architecture became the key for his success. He wrote this book for the young, ambitious pâtissiers, offering his experience and knowledge, using a practical language and useful drawings. Extremely scrupulous and serious, he concludes with a short history of architecture and brief explanatory notes about the five orders of Vitruvio, completed with the relevant drawings. He ascribes great importance to drawings that, giving an immediate idea of the final product, help to memorize and to work speedily and better. In Le pâtissier pittoresque, he adroitly overcomes the limit of black-and-white, accompanying each drawing with a short description, mainly suggesting the best colour combinations to decorate his  creations. Tender shades give the best results. For the Russian Hermitage he definitely recommends:

Le rocher doit être exécuté de couleur orange, tandis que l’ermitage sera de couler vert-pale, et les toits en chaume; la cloche, la croix et la boule, ainsi que le cadran, doivent être de couleur jaune, de même que les vitraux des croisées. Les branches du palmier et les groupes de mousses  qui décorent le rocher, de couleur vert-printanier. (2)         

Notes:
(1) Le pâtissier pittoresque, pg.13.
(2) Ibid, pg. 53. "The rock must be executed in orange, while the hermitage will be pale green with thatched roofs; the bell, the cross and the ball, as the horologe, must be yellow, as well as the stained glass windows. The palm branches and the groups of mosses that decorate the rocks, spring-green."

Photos:
Travelinagarden except:

Carême's drawing of the Hermitage Russe which Jacobin constructs for the Prince Regent's dinner in honor of the Russian  Ambassador. Available at:
http://www.mirandaneville.com/antonin_careme.php#cherries

Further reading:
Antonin Carême, Le pâtissier pittoresque, Paris, Mercure de France, 2003.
John Dixon Hunt, "Follies, Fabriques and Picturesque Play." In A World of Gardens, Reaktion Books, 2012. 

Bonnet Jean-Claude, "Carême ou les derniers feux de la cuisine décorative." In: Romantisme, 1977, n°17-18. pp. 23-43. doi : 10.3406/roman.1977.5121
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/roman_0048-8593_1977_num_7_17_5121http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/roman_0048-8593_1977_num_7_17_5121

Prospero's Cell A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfù - Lawrence Durrell

6.5.37
Climb to Vigla in the time of cherries and look down. You will see that the island lies against the mainland roughly in the form of a sickle. On the landward side you have a great bay, noble and serene and almost completely landlocked. Northward the tip of the sickle almost touches Albania and here the troubled blue of the Ionian is sucked harshly between ribs of limestone and spits of sand. ..."


7.5.37 
... It was on a ringing spring day that we discover the house. The sky lay in a heroic blu arc as we came down the stone ladder....You will think it strange to have come all the way from England to this fine Greece promontory where our only company can be rock, air, sky - and all the elementals. ... There is no explanation. It is enough to record that everything is exactly as the fortune-teller said it would be. White house, white rock, friends, and a narrow style of loving; and perhaps a book which will grow out of these scraps as from the rubbish of these old Venetian tombs the cypress cracks the slabs at last and rises up fresh and green."

These words are part of the opening pages of Lawrence Durrell’s book Prospero’s Cell, A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfù. Fascinated by the Ionian island where he had settled in 1935 with his wife Nancy and his family, Lawrence Durrell wrote its history just in 1945. By that time, he lived in Alexandria, Egypt, after his escape from Greece during the Second World War. 

Durrell gives a lyric and evocative portrait of the island that accomodated Ulysses and inspired Shakespeare, in Durrell's words "an ante-room to Aegean Greece." He combines entries from his journal, dated from April 1937 to January 1941, to fragments of the history of the island, its characters, landscapes, and anecdotes. Year after year, season after season, the young man firmly determined to become a famous writer lived and absorbed the island. When it came to write about it, his experience could no longer be separated by the history of Corfù. The freedom of those years, the colours of the landscapes, the people he had met, the stories he had learnt had changed his words and life forever. 

Other countries may offer you discoveries in manners or lore or landscape; Greece offers you something harder – the discovery of yourself.


Further reading:

Prospero's Cell A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfù, Lawrence Durrell, London, Faber and Faber, 1945.

Photos:
TravelinaGarden.

The lumber room - Saki

The gooseberry garden is abruptly introduced at the beginning of this short story by the nameless aunt. Punished for having put a frog in his milk bowl during breakfast, Nicholas cannot enter into it. I imagine this square garden with the clipped gooseberry shrubs lined up along the perimeter, with round translucent green berries and small spring-green leaves that hide sharp spines. The compact rows are interrupted just in proximity of the two doors that allow the entrance into the garden. These are flanked by large ball of glossy-green buxus and framed by scented roses and clematis. Unrestrained plants grow inside the geometric area disturbing the ordered perspective. Over grown artichokes, excessive raspberry canes and other fruit bushes create a screen around this “…forbidden paradise.” They hide beds of vegetables, maybe zucchini, spinach and carrots or potatoes and tomatoes or salads, onions and abundant flowers. Buzzing bees, annoying flies and lonely butterflies are not mentioned, nor is the smell of the earth and the grass, or the drip of water in the watering can. Hector Hugh Munro, the British novelist known by the pen-name Saki, does not linger on this picture full of life, as Nicholas does not attempt to enter into the forbidden garden but twice, after the departure of his cousins and younger brother for an afternoon expedition to Jagborough cove. He has other plans. Finally, when he is sure that the aunt alarmed by his sorties is firmly settled in the garden occupied in “… trivial gardening operations”, Nicholas takes a key and enters into a place “… carefully sealed from youthful eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered”: the lumber-room. 

The contrast between the garden and the room is striking: outside life flows in the sunshine while the large room is dimly lighted, damp and maybe cold. But, “… it came up to his expectations.” Beautiful and useless objects, banished from the house to prevent their damaging, lie forgotten in the dust. In his imaginative mind, these wonders recall exotic unknown worlds he can create to his fancy: Indian hangings with hunting scenes, “… twisted candlesticks in the shape of snakes, and a teapot fashioned like a china duck..”, ”… little brass figures, hump-necked bulls, and peacocks and goblins delightful to see and to handle…” A large anonymous square book “… full of coloured pictures of birds.” The gooseberry garden becomes a “…stale delight, a mere material pleasure” compared to this “…unknown land”.

His aunt’s shrieks catch his attention, and he leaves the secret room for the garden. She is calling for help: she slipped in the rain-water tank while she was looking for him, and now she is not able to get out of it. Nicholas’s revenge is firm but measured. And sweet, as he skillfully turns against her all those arguments she usually says to control and scare the children. So, he cannot fetch the ladder to help her because he is an obedient and respectful child who has been told not to enter the garden. Besides, her strange voice awakes his suspicions: is the Evil One hidden in the garden to tempt him? He promptly proves his assertion with a trick, then, satisfied, leaves the garden and the task to rescue the angry woman to a maid who is looking for parsley. 

It is easy to love this brave child who challenges the adult world to test its consistency and follow his fantasies. He does not dispute rules and punishments, but this does not prevent him to reason about the “older, wiser and better people”. He observes them concluding with “childish discernment” that they make mistakes, they are unfair and they contradict themselves. But he is a child. He lives the present. The aunt, actually his cousins’ aunt but with extended educational powers on him too, was inspired by the real author’s aunt. She exerts a tyrannical authority that reveals her hypocrisy and unfair character. She has no love and is not able to understand or communicate with these children. She banished beauty, fancy and enjoyment from their lives and with perverse pleasure restraints their education to absurd punishments and prohibitions.

The end of the day is the epilogue of the short story. They gather around the table for the tea in a cold atmosphere and “in a fearsome silence.” His aunt is still angry for the fall in the water-tank and the other children complain a disastrous expedition to the cove. Nicholas does not care. He is absorbed in the magic world he discovered behind the door, in a hunting scene with hounds, wolves and a wounded stag.

This is the only real world for a child and certainly the only impossible world for adults.

This short story is included in the collection “Beasts and Super-Beasts”, published for the first time in 1914. I am currently searching this book, I hope to find more about the gooseberry garden in the other 36 short stories.

Photos:
Travelinagarden.

The Queen of Spade - Alexander Pushkin

Supposing Hermann turning the last of three fated cards had won the game. Supposing he had fallen in love with the innocent Lizaveta during their secret rendezvous. Supposing Alexander Pushkin had written a happy-ending for his work titled “Pikovaja dama”, or “The Queen of Spade”, published in Russia in 1834.

Despite being a short story, it is divided into chapters, six chapters. Epigraphs, sometimes in French, anticipate their content, introduce the characters and unfold an articulate plot. In a winter night in St. Petersburg, a group of army officers is lingering over a late dinner with champagne and talks, after long hours spent playing cards. The story of the Countess Anna Fedotovna, one of the men’s grandmothers, slipped into the conversation awakening their interest. Once a stunning beauty with a strong character and a condescending husband, she lost a fortune playing faro, a card game, when she lived in Paris sixty years before. An adventurer rescued the noble dame disclosing three secret cards that played consecutively would win back her money. This is what happened and during her entire life, she never confessed the secret, but once. At early dawn, the sceptic group of men breaks up, but for one of them these casual words have changed his life.

Hermann has German origins, a solid position as officer in the engineers and a small inheritance he firmly protected from his innate love for gambling. He appears quiet and composed when, night after night, he assists endless card games without touching any cards. The story of the old noble dame captures his mind, revealing the possibility to increase his small treasure in a simple and safety way. He succumbs to this idea, sifting through improbable solutions to get hold of the secret. A pair of young black eyes, glanced at the window of the Countess Fedotovna’s palace, shows him the way.

The eyes are those of Lizaveta Ivanova, the Countess Fedotovna’s pretty ward. Sad eyes indeed: she lives among carriage rides and sumptuous balls according to the capricious and despotic desires of the Countess. Lizaveta knows that just marriage can save her. A few days later, while she is embroidering sitting at the window, she casually glimpses the eyes of a young soldier looking at her from the corner of the street. The passionate but respectful letters she receives from the man, Hermann of course, quickly conquer her heart. Her first, distant answers give way, in less then three weeks, to a nocturnal meeting after a ball at the embassy. She sends him a letter with detailed instructions to guide the man up to her bedroom. Here, she waits for him in her evening dress with flowers in her hair, surprised by her own courage and audacity but a little anxious.

The night where love should have triumphed became a dramatic failure. The sudden death of the Countess, frightened by the threatening pistol of Herman, puts an end to Hermann’s hopes and Lizaveta’s love. He discloses his real intentions and the young girl realizes the frailty of her illusions.
Three days later, Hermann falls in a troubled sleep after the turmoil of the funeral. The ghost of the Countess appears, unknown forces obliged her to reveal the three cards: three, seven and ace. Excited Hermann played the fated cards, one a night, in front of an astonished public. But, the third night, the last card he turns is the queen of spade. He loses everything.

He could never win. We know that behind this irreproachable man, there is an ambitious and cold mind. Greed unleashes all his withheld passions and devours his mind. His obsession to attain wealth is shaded with gloomy words, with evil and ominous signs without remorse or regret.

He could never marry the sweet Lizaveta. He sent her words of love copied from a book and deceived the young girl to reach the old Countess and her secret. She easily falls in his trap. Love is the magic words that could save her but, lonely and inexperienced, she shaped this love according to romantic novels and dreams. 

I read the story again and again. Pushkin describes a reality he knew very well with few words and great skill. Time and place are enriched with details to sketch the Russian aristocracy with its rites and secrets. It created a realistic scenario where romance is just something in the air and supernatural creeps along the story to burst at the end. He interpreted popular themes that fascinated and scared, opposing good to evil, old to new, transforming the trivial desire for money in an amusing, intriguing and ironic story. Poems are considered his best works. He approached prose during his last years, when he dedicated times and energies to explore the story of his country. He believed that good prose needs a different style: essential, with short, simple sentences, no flourishing adjectives,  no lingering on emotions, only facts and actions. Pikovaja dama was a great success and a source of inspiration for future artists.

Pushkin could have finished here, with the mocking image of the dead Countess winking at Hermann from the card on the table, the queen of spade. Instead, he wrote the conclusion. 

Last summer, after visiting Pushink’s house in St Petersburg, it seemed that he was died just from a few weeks and not in 1837. Turning around a corner, halting in a wide square, looking the water of a canal, or glancing beyond the door of a smoky café there were traces of his life. They were not the wild, crazy days of a young boy who discovered love, pleasures and fame. They were the last days of a man around his forties, married to one of the most beautiful girl of the country, father of four children, with uncertain finance and the fame of classic poet, where classic meant just old. He was suffocating. The malicious, envious and gossip court poisoned everyday of his life. The severe censure, managed directly by the tsar, spied every thought and judged every sentence paralyzing any action or work. In the museum, tourists’ heads turned in sync towards a door, the bed, the imposing library while a voice in the headphones recalled the snow, the duel, the hurried steps and the mortal wound.

He wrote the conclusion: Herman becomes insane and Lizaveta marries another man. In life, everything can happen. For a man who had had love and glory but fought for hope, madness was freedom. A happy-ending.

Further reading:
La Dama di Picche e altri racconti - Aleksandr Puskin Adelphi Edizioni S.p.A. Milano 1998 (this is italian edition I read).


Photos:
Travelinagarden: St. Petersburg 2009.

The Rape of the Lock - Alexander Pope

The tragic event that gives the title to this poem occurs just at the end of Canto III.

Before, we follow a young, beautiful Lady called Belinda in her typical day under the reign of Her Majesty Queen Anna. From the late awakening, urged by the tender lickings of her dog Shock, to the rites of a complicated toilette, whose result is a triumphant sortie along the sunny, silver Thames, heading for Hampton Court.
After, we hear her screams of rage and despair. The Baron, armed with malicious scissors and burning desire, had cut off one of the two shining curls that adorn her ivory neck. She looks for comfort and relief in the arms of Lady Brown, just to find the bitter confirmation of her dishonoured and shameful fate. Then, she addresses to Lord Plume for him to claim her precious lock. His words, not so well articulated, and the ironical but categorical refusal given by the Baron do not leave any hope. She does not succumb to such adverse circumstances. Ignoring the words of common sense and experience spoken by Clarissa, the Lady who offered the sharpened arm to the Baron, Belinda launches a proud assault against the mean, young man. She wins the fight with a clever move, a handful of snuff thrown in his nose, but she cannot have her lock back. This is ascended to the sky to celebrate her name among the brightest stars. Forever.

I will never get tired of the perfect rhyme of these lines. They have the joyful, carefree spirit of a lullaby, the magic, exquisite fancy of a dream and the careful, solid construction of a stately home.
They shape a world of luxury, wealth and amusement where everything is refined and precious. Displayed on the dressing table of this innocent Lady are glowing gems from India and “…Puff, Powders, Patches Bibles, Billet-doux”. They come from the far countries of an expanding empire that indulges, in declining afternoons, in the pampering rites of snuff and coffee. It is a world where elegant men called Florio and Damon are supposed to meet at court to spend in “various talk th’instructive hours” or to play cards. Ladies participated to all these activities with their rich brocade gowns, pricking words and fans; waved with intention and expertise, used as a secret language to be deciphered in the never-ending game of love. Under the glittering surface, it results a vain and superficial world, engaged in frivolous activities and useless chat. Worried for a “…manteau’s pinn’d awry” and a respectability made of appearances, of formal and polite behaviours. The verses celebrate beauty, but a fragile one.

This is a true story. Alexander Pope wrote these lines quickly in 1711. He accepted the invitation of his friend, Mr. Caryl, who wanted to reconcile two Catholic families, the Petres and the Fermors, offering them this amusing poem. They had broken their long friendship after the young Lord Petre had cut off one of the famous locks of Mrs. Arabella Fermor. The poem did not work in this sense but it was a great success. It was published in 1712, then revised and enlarged by Pope in 1714 and again in 1717.

The definitive version includes the Machinery: small, invisible, flying creatures that live in the air, in the earth and in the water. Their duty is to support and guide women:
“Instruct the eyes of young Coquettes to roll,
Teach Infant-cheeks a bidden blush to know
And little hearts to flutter at a Beau.”
They should protect the beautiful Belinda but they fail. The new, exciting emotions that agitate the young girl’s heart, uncertain and changeable as their fluid bodies and colours, cannot be ignored.

Sylphs, as supernatural, magic beings, represent the deities and the angels of the classical tradition. The poem presents all the elements of the epic conventions: the invocation to the muse, the preparation of the hero, the battles and more. Today’s readers probably are not aware of the complexity of the references to Greek and Roman epic contained in these perfect heroic couplets. The choice to use a form, a structure and a language traditionally referred to grand and important events for a trifle subject underlines the mock intention of the poem.

Nature has not a great importance in these verses, but this does not close the matter. With the income of this poem and of the English translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Pope settled in a house outside London, Twickenham. Here, he spent his days writing and gardening. His experience as gardener is considered a turning point for the garden style in England. He left the formal and severe rules of geometric garden to develop the idea of a more natural, pictorial environment that respected the characteristic of the place.
This happened later, after the rape of the lock.

Thrice rung the bell, the slipper knock’d the ground,
And the press’d watch return’d a silver sound.
Belinda still her downy pillow prest,
Her guardian Sylph prolong’d the balmy rest…



Further reading:
The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope Oxford University Press, 1990

Photos:
Travel in a garden:
"Belinda embarking for Hampton Court", watercolour by Thomas Stothard from The Rape of the Lock Oxford University Press 1990;
Photos a-side: Hampton Court, August 2001.