Dear All,
London is in Tier 2. The clocks are going back this weekend. It’s been raining all week. We are entering the time of year in London which one American friend on experiencing it commented ‘Oh, so this is why I don’t visit Northern Europe in the winter’!
A few years ago I wrote a piece about byzantine mosaics and every year about this time, as the nights grow darker, they come glistening and glimmering to the forefront of my subconscious. Painting with light the mosaicists embedded these glimmering marvels almost into the structure of the building itself offering a shimmering vista of world unexperienced illuminated apparently without terrestrial source- a fleeting glimpse of heaven itself?
These mosaics held me in their thrall far longer than any self respecting London based lover of well finished concrete and really excellent metalwork should admit to. I have a growing collection of brass candlesticks on top of my bookcase because the way they throw light and gleam through the darkness not only brings a cosiness to the white box I live in, but also because occasionally the light reminds me of the dancing glimmer of the mosaics I saw in Italy and Turkey- and all the meaning that it held for the artist, and for the millions of eyes who have glanced their way since.
(image is one I took in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul- it really doesn’t do justice to the mosaics- nothing static could)
Ghostly luminescence doesn’t only hold me and admirers of ancient mosaics in its thrall though; leafing through the gorgeous ‘in praise of shadows’ the other day I was reminded why I love Junichiro Tanizaki- with his preference of a ‘pensive lustre’ to a ‘shallow brilliance’ so much:
“lacquerware decorated in gold is not something to be seen in brilliant light, to be taken in at a single glance, it should be left in the dark, a part here and a part there picked up by a faint light. Its florid patterns recede into the darkness, conjuring in their stead an inexpressible aura of depth and mystery, of overtones but partly suggested.”
He posits that ‘in making for ourselves a place to live, we first spread a parasol to throw a shadow on the earth’. As I look around my home at the growing shadows of the evening I hope you are finding in yours a beauty in the variation of its shadows; and that as the evenings lengthen there are glimmers in the gloaming. In the uncertainty of this winter we all need them!
In other news I am continually stunned and sobered by the reporting of the Grenfell inquiry; discovered some of my very talented colleagues have written the sort of book I will clearly be spending far too much time pouring over- maps!!!; and found Martin Amos’ views on literature refreshing! Oh and for those that missed it - my first musings in this space are here.
Until next time!
P.S. Please feel free to forward on to anyone you think may enjoy this- and I don’t know what happens if you hit reply but assuming I get that email I would love to hear from you!
How refreshing to read an email that makes me curious and want to find out more rather than frown and grind my teeth in exasperation! Thank you '
Hilary G