Illustration-pen and wash/Aug,13 2019

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Chinese Calligraphy-1996

This scroll carrying ideogram for ‘tiger’ was an eyecatcher when I visited an exposition in Singapore. I bought it then but only today my wife and I thought of displaying it in our drawing room. Benny

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Giraffe-pen and brush

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Okapi-brush and ink

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Giraffe- brush and ink

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From my sketchbook-ostrich running

New sketchbook and new brushes (hogs hair)- with typex for highlights

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Parable: art and life-2

Bachmann the art dealer died and after due  process of a renaissance (to which the soul of Bachmann took to with no particular enthusiasm) he was entered in the rolls. At the end of a regimen to which seraphim and cherubim broke ranks to administer their ministrations they escorted him further into the hallowed grounds.

 It was thus he found blazing fire on one side and incense bellowing about; and in the belvedere he could not see anything but the exhalations of angels which are the very breath of the Lord Almighty.  Despite of himself his spirit was salved by water of life they by turns administered, and he dozed.

Once when he opened his eyes he had been transported to yet another strange terrain. He spoke but no words came. But in the inverted bowl  the malaikim call Paradise, he heard distinctly and it was as distant as thunder given vocal chords and its disembodied timbre was disconcerting. He said, “I nodded off, I guess.” Then came answer, “Time we don’t count here.”

He laid back once again as he were back in the neo-classic bower.

His wealth his pomp and circumstances were marked by the architectural statements he had favoured and chosen for his vast collection of paintings. No Inigo Jones, no Van der Rohe and yet the grounds were extensive and had a curious charm that is more the personality of the Establishment than of human art. He would have longed for grass and reeds by the brook. Nothing what he drank from and nothing of sand crunching under his feet connected with what he left for good.  He longed for a formal garden but as a night owl he had used garden as gilt edge to his affluence. Oh he was crushed. He had wasted his life. He wondered what it would have been had the regions known as Limbo in the hands of a Capability Brown. Ha-Ha. Or a Japanese garden with a curved bridge he would have given the angels at least grace marks for trying. No, nature there was as bereft as he of his physical body.

Meanwhile,-

His ministering angels at all hours hung about keeping spiritual body as lithe and sculpted as a work of Phidias and talked among themselves. After an eternity of time he could understand. So he asked ” Don’t you have some irises by Van Gogh? I had dealt with it and made quite a tidy profit.” The angels stopped with their their mouths agape, and said, “we have been wondering it ourselves. Your inventory of collections was art of your kind, We probed every inch of your soul for a little of it- alas it is as spotless as the vestments we sport for working clothes.”

The angels were pretty crushed, “If your soul did not transport the genius of a Gaugin or Monet you shall certainly not like it here. You disappoint us greatly.”

Benny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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