Thursday Painting


After all that cerebral activity, I thought I’d just put up a painting today – I love a lot of Stanley Spencer’s work, including this: Swan Upping at Cookham (1915-9) which is in the Tate (more info here).

Hope you’re having a good week! I’m finding reading a bit slow, but today read (as well as some interesting books about childlessness from the 1920s – did you know that a lack of commonsense could be to blame?[!]) two-thirds of a bizarre, funny, grotesque American novel published in 1980, but written in the 1960s by an author who killed himself in 1969. Any guesses?

11 thoughts on “Thursday Painting

  • June 15, 2011 at 11:38 pm
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    John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy of Dunces?

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  • June 16, 2011 at 12:27 am
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    I second A Confederacy of Dunces.

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  • June 16, 2011 at 4:48 am
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    That's a wonderful book. I hope you're enjoying it!

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  • June 16, 2011 at 8:52 am
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    It has to be A Confederacy of Dunces. I read it for the first time a few years ago (and I BOUGHT the book too) and thought it was absolutely wonderful from start to finish.

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  • June 16, 2011 at 9:20 am
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    Grotesque is the word for those characters. While I didn't love this book, it was good to read, and one of those modern classics that is really worth reading for the influences it has since had.

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  • June 18, 2011 at 7:34 am
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    Glad you like Spencer, Simon! So do I. Twenty years ago, I devised a one man show, 'A Present from Cookham', based on his life for an actor friend.

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  • June 20, 2011 at 9:50 pm
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    Hello Simon – I love Stanley Spencer too. I used to live near Cookham where there is a nice little village-hall-type place with his paintings in. Well, that's what it was like when I was there – with his painting gear too, as he used to pull a cart I think around with it all in, and an umbrella. He used to paint the inhabitants of Cookham rising from the dead – amazing!

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  • June 21, 2011 at 10:41 am
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    The nice little village-hall gallery in Cookham is still recognisable but is now a proper art gallery. No doubt much better for the paintings but not quite as charming as it used to be.

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  • June 21, 2011 at 10:42 am
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    The nice little village-hall gallery in Cookham is still recognisable but is now a proper art gallery. No doubt much better for the paintings but not quite as charming as it used to be.

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