Wild Things Afoot

Good morning.  No relief.  The AQI ratings on the U.S. embassy site are still squarely in the hazardous column.  And a quick check on the news suggests that the authorities have not adjusted the warning level.  I hadn’t expected they would.  That would be real news.  I told my wife not to breathe as she headed out the door, and made her way into the city.

A few days back I mentioned Paddy Fermor’s quote about German artists.  He mentioned three, only two of whose names Holbein and Durer did I recognize, the third, Cranach, I did not.  But in fairness he later also adds two other German master’s to the list, neither of whom I’d every heard of either.  But if Paddy Fermor says they’re on his list, well, they're certainly worth adding to mine.  And so I had a look at Albrecht Altdorfer and Matthias Grünewald.  I think I am more struck by both their work, than I was by the earlier three. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_Altdorfer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Gr%C3%BCnewald

Both gents span the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance; the prior born in 1480, the latter in 1470.  Both are associated with the Danube and Bavaria where Mssr. Fermor is currently making his way through .  Aldorfer seems to inject light into his work which, in a remarkable manner brightens rather than rejects the medieval style.  There are unimaginable pavilions, all encompassing battle scenes and of course, the tortured martyrs. 

Far less of Matthias Grünewald’s work survives.  A large trove of it, war booty, sunk, 堕云雾中[1], en route to Sweden where it was intended for the collection of Gustavus Adolfus, I presume.  Grunewald's most famous work, the Isenheim Altarpiece, which hangs in the museum at Colmar in Alsace France has a scene of what I suppose is the Ascension that is utterly surreal.  The crucifixion tears in a way that pulls at your own stomach muscles, your own sinews, in the viewing.  http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FIsenheim_Altarpiece&h=0&w=0&sz=1&tbnid=nZRTNzXnmmNgJM&tbnh=169&tbnw=298&zoom=1&docid=ZYZqKU1BRiUFyM&ei=9vULU_ixB5GJrQHViYCADQ&ved=0CAUQsCUoAQ

I forget precisely what it was that St. Anthony was tempted by; but it must have had some rather profoundly nasty consequences.  Grunewald's “Temptation of St. Anthony", a grotesque anthropomorphic nightmare, that seems to anticipate centuries of children’s fairy tales including certainly, Maurice Sendak.  How persuasive these images all must have been, to actually visualize the miraculous and the horrible of the Bible, there before you with Medieval eyes, when the "Wild Things" were probably a whole lot closer at hand, just outside in the woods over there, when it got dark.  https://www.google.com/search?q=matthias+gr%C3%BCnewald&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=IOgLU-u-ComgrAHMnYCYCA&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1118&bih=528#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=tuHaxhRaAgV7eM%253A%3BJ4rq1YsEMIR33M%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.sci-fi-o-rama.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2009%252F01%252Fgruen.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.sci-fi-o-rama.com%252Fcategory%252Fthe-artists%252Fmatthias-grunewald%252F%3B650%3B693

I’m sure that there are examples of their work in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, in Vienna, which I dragged my girls around in.  But I can’t recall having seen any.   Well Aldorfer perhaps.  Only ten or so of Grunewald’s paintings actually survived a trip to the briny bottom of the Baltic.  I’ve never traveled to that remarkable border country between Germany, France and Switzerland.  Colmar, certainly is now certainly added to the list for whenever I do that dream ski vacation in that part of the world, that I’ve always wanted to do.  

(As a side note, that I found interesting, my elaborate methodology when searching for chengyu  is to include a relevant term and search for it with the word “idiom.”  There are no classic Chinese idioms to be found that include the word “temptation” or “martyr” or even . . . “nightmare.”  “Lost” however, proved pan-Eurasian.)

Tulsa Oklahoma is another place I’ve never been to and that’s where Earl Bostic hails from.   Born there in 1912, he came up with the classic Lionel Hampton band that featured the Charlie Christian.  Listening I would have said straight away he was playing a tenor sax, but he’s blowing an alto so deeply it growls.  The Wiki entry cites that he was influenced by the clarinetist Sidney Bachet and his characteristic trilling and I can hear it.  It also suggests he was a big influence on John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy which is more difficult to discern, casting forward for impact rather than backward for residue.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Bostic

He died young, at 53, blowing on stage up in Rochester, New York, in 1965.  I’ve got “The Major and the Minor” on from what I believe was around 1938.  There’s another cut, called “Walk on the Wild Side”, and they are so unabashedly positive and swingin, there is no question of running into any unmanageable Wild Things.  I think I need this kind of innocent, upbeat potency to kick on through the day.  If I look outside too long thoughts turn dark and Grunewald-ian. 

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[1] duòyúnwùzhōng:  lit. to become lost in a fog (idiom); fig. at a complete loss