Patterns - Francoise Issaly (published in Canada)

Patterns

“Nature’s a shrine where living columns stand

And now and then breathe a confounded phrase,

Man wanders there amid a forestland

Of symbols, followed by their intimate gaze.

As long-drawn echoes blent from far away

together into dark deep unison,

As vast as night and like the light of day,

colors, sounds and perfumes respond as one.”*

‘Correspondances’ Charles Baudelaire

Patterns are everywhere. We can see them (if we care to regard them with more attuned and consciously discerning eyes). Between us are the invisible patterns (of molecules), within us are red patterns (of corpuscles). When we close our eyes, patterns appear. The young and the innocent can often see patterns in life that adults cannot. Poets, cognisant and observing, can see patterns. Artists perceive spaces between, and can see patterns. In ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ (1857), Baudelaire speaks of ‘Correspondances’ or our interconnectedness with nature and spirituality, much in the same way that Emanuel Swedenborg (scientist, philosopher and mystic) does in his works. For much of the 20th and 21st centuries artists have pursued patterns, sidestepping ‘figurative’ or ‘object based’ art in favour of the non-representational. If we let them, patterns will launch themselves into our subconscious minds. They will seep through into our consciousness, blindsiding us with their own reality. 

According to Robert C. Barkman, Ph.D. in “See the World Through Patterns” (Psychology Today, Jan 18, 2018)

 “Pattern recognition according to IQ test designers is a key determinant of a person’s potential to think logically, verbally, numerically, and spatially. Compared to all mental abilities, pattern recognition is said to have the highest correlation with the so-called general intelligence factor.” 

In retrospect, we observe patterns in our lives. When young Françoise Issaly fantasised about going to Canada, and of living in China. She achieved both. She is tenacious. A person of capabilities, and of a strong mind. Was it due to destiny, fate, kismet or things that are determined such as ‘Karma’ (Kamma in Pali), of cosmic ‘action’ (and ‘reaction’) which ‘The Story of Buddhism A Concise Guide to Its History and Teachings by Donald S. Lopez Jr.’ explains as “..the law of the cause and effect of actions, according to which virtuous actions create pleasure in the future and non virtuous actions cre­ate pain”.

We could imagine spiritual or cosmic patterns stretching from China into Françoise’s childhood. There was a large Chinese stone at her French grandmother’s house, in which the budding artist, as a small child, would play. There was also, back in France, her mother’s carved Chinese horse ‘chinoiserie’ statuette, the style of which Françoise instantly recognised on a later trip to Xitang, China. As a woman, as a Mahayana Buddhist and as an artist whose production is revealed as being poesy, Françoise recognises the above as indicators to the path which had chosen her, leading her to teach and create art in China.

As a child growing through to adulthood, like the Chinese musical instrument the ‘erhu’ Françoise always had two strings to pluck, those of science and of art. She studied maths, biology, optics and physics, yet still continued with her art endeavours. Finally, it became make-your-mind-up time. She had to choose one path or another, science or art. Françoise chose art. Though, in reality, she melded them rather than opted for one or the other, and continues to use her knowledge of science within her art production, just as many artists like Berthe Morisot and the French Impressionists, as well as Marie Laurencin, and her inquiries using echoes from ‘Cubism’ in the Section d'Or ("Golden Section") group (active between 1912 and 1914), have done before her. 

Over two decades Françoise has developed as a rational, painstakingly methodical artist. Who like Émile Gaboriau’s methodical, scientifically minded detective Monsieur Lecoq, investigates her art. As a traditional European art training suggests, Françoise begins with drawing as her visual thinking. Before the naming, before the colouration of her patterns comes the carefully investigated drawing process. She approaches her mark making as a scientist would, investigating, probing, scrutinising. She reveals the nuances in her thought and thoughtful processes with a studious intensity in her pattern making interactions; a mindful connection between her, her materials and inner spirituality eventually manifests the practically intangible, tangible.

André Breton de facto leader of the ‘Surrealist’ movement, believed that modern man had become too blaise, too familiar with everyday objects and things in his world, blaise enough to render him blind to what is there. ‘Surréalité’ is a reminder of the unseen, of the forgotten. Méret Oppenheim’s ‘Le Déjeuner en fourrure’ (‘The Luncheon in Fur’ 1936), is a cup, saucer and spoon covered in, ironically, the fur of a Chinese gazelle. Fur renders those objects useless for their purpose which, in turn, helps us reflect upon that purpose. Françoise Issaly, by focussing upon the space between objects in her abstraction, is similarly revelationary. 

‘Cadeau’ (The Gift, 1921) by Man Ray is a similar reminder. It is an iron having nails protruding from what is usually a smooth, flat surface suitable for ironing. This gift cannot fulfil its purpose as an iron, just as Oppenheim’s cup etc is unsuitable for its supposed purpose. We therefore reflect on the object’s purpose, just as we do when confronted by René Magritte’s ‘La Trahison des images’  (‘The Treachery of Images’, or ‘this is not a pipe’, 1929). The unseen becomes seen. Surrealism, or the notion of ‘Surréalité’, grew to encompass various forms of a more organic (or biomorphic) abstractions, as witnessed in the works of Joan Miró (such as ‘Carnaval de Arlequín’, or the ‘Carnival of Harlequins’,1925) or, looking further afield, the abstract works of the (non-Surrealist theorist artist) Wassily Kandinsky and his ‘Circles in a Circle’ (1923) and “Composition II’ (1910), or in the works of Jean (Hans) Arp. The ‘Modernist’ move was towards abstraction, with artists experimenting with non-object based imagery from which has grown offshoots such as those revealed in organic art, or ‘Biomorphism’.

Wassily Kandinsky (in ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’, ‘Über das Geistige in der Kunst’, 1910) remarks that “The spiritual accord of the organic with the abstract element may strengthen the appeal of the latter (as much by contrast as by similarity) ...” His ‘Squares with Concentric Circles’ (1913) is a testimony to this and the power of patterns.

We may step back and observe Françoise Issaly’s canon to date, remarking upon the vigorous 30 day challenge of her watercolour 'Meditation Series’ (2013), her series of ‘Manifolds’ (like ‘Manifold XI’, 2013, three dimensional manifestation of her patterning with Pollack-like webs such as bringing to mind ‘String Theory’, and Matisse-like cut outs such as ‘Conjoncture I’, 2014 and paper installations which bring her patterning to life, and a host of other three dimensional representations of patterns). We may marvel at Françoise’s intriguing ‘Plis & Formes’ series (2018) (acrylic-on-canvas) where shapes which are distinctly ‘biomorphic’ tantalise and present fresh pictorial stratagems, to her (also acrylic-on- canvas) 2020 ‘Clouds’ series, inspired by biomorphic minutiae gleaned from Buddhist Thangka imagery, the diligent observer might witness a distinct gliding towards a fresh spiritual theses within the artist’s patterning. 

Like Kandinsky, Françoise imbues her artworks with spirituality in form, shape and colour. Occasionally in name too, though the precise naming of her work has only begun later in her working life. In the marks she makes, the models she constructs and the hangings which grace halls and galleries, she draws essences from her love of China, her visits there, her understanding of Mahayana Buddhism and of various symbologies associated with differing sectors of Buddhist iconography (such as ‘Thangka’, Tibetan Buddhist scroll painting). Works such as Françoise Issaly’s ‘Clouds’ series, are conscious patterns observed from ‘Thangka’ iconography. This, as mentioned, is a conscious, rather than a subconscious process, and part and parcel of her ‘scientific’ approach (again similar to Kandinsky) to her work. 

In Tibetan imagery, swirling, graceful clouds (we are told), represent ‘Mahamudra’ (or the union of compassion and wisdom, the ultimate realisation of our true nature as mentioned in the Buddhist ‘Heart Sutra’). Other interpretations speak of the ‘Buddha Mind’; clouds eternally passing but the sky (mind) remaining unchanged. It is fitting that this scientific, and yet spiritual, artist chooses to bring to the fore those elements in the ‘Thangkas’ which grace the background to the Buddha and deities. Françoise’s focussing down on those clouds, painstakingly drawing, then painting those forms, like with her painting ‘c'est ici que l'on retrouve le mythe II’ (2020) and before that ‘In the Clouds I’ (2018) are enclosed within a sacred or perfect circle of completeness (a ‘Mandala’, essence/container) which brings us (her audience) closer to personal revelation. Kandinsky mentions 

“In each manifestation is the seed of a striving towards the abstract, the non-material...Consciously or unconsciously artists are studying and proving their material, setting in the balance the spiritual value of those elements....” 

Françoise Issaly’s patterns, and pattern making, is organic, redolent of biomorphism, and a byproduct of a keen analytical mind and skilled draughts person. Kandinsky had pointed out that it takes a greater skill to render abstraction than it does mimesis. Keener mental, analytical processes come into play when tackling abstraction, which is something demonstrated by Françoise over the past two decades of work. 

*La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers

Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;

L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles

Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent

Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,

Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,

Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

Jamal Ahmed - Stray Birds

Shelter - Jamal Ahmed 2021

Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.

And yellow leaves of autumn, which have no songs, flutter and fall there with a sigh.

 

Stray birds (part) Rabindranath Tagore, 1916.

Jamal Uddin Ahmed is a recipient of Bangladesh’s prized (second highest) civilian award the ‘Ekushey Padak’ in ‘Fine Arts’ (given by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2019). He has risen to be both Professor at the Department of Drawing & Painting of the University of Dhaka, and a much lauded figure in the art world of Bangladesh. Like many modern Bangladeshi painters, Jamal Ahmed studied at the art school (Faculty of Fine Art) in the University of Dhaka, fondly called ‘Charukala’, then went on to study abroad in Poland, Japan and the USA. 

In Bangladesh’s 7th century city of Dhaka (developed out of Jahangirmagar) I had the great pleasure of seeing Jamal Ahmed on more than one occasion. Ultimately I was invited to visit his studio. We talked and ate traditional Mithai (or Bangladeshi sweets) in that airy studio where I had the privilege of seeing his half-finished figurative paintings. The artist had explained that there were only few paintings to see, for as soon as he finished a painting it flew (metaphorically), out the door and into waiting collectors’ hands. Nevertheless, I had felt honoured to be there and to see those paintings before completion, and to have the freedom to wander around this remarkable artist’s studio.

While many artists in Bangladesh shift towards non-representational art, Ahmed is famed for his figurative work. He has, specifically, been noted for his portraiture and romanticised figures of women. Although some may wish to label Ahmed’s work as ‘Realism’, to which some degree it is, his work flutters between the expectations of the sort of realism considered by Gustave Courbet Champfleury (Le Realisme, 1855) and textured ‘sketches’ or revelations and a search for the ‘truth’ of lives in Bangladesh. 

This may be witnessed in images included in one exhibition, at Galleri Kaya, Dkaka (2020), featuring works such as the textured, mixed media, ensemble ‘Way to home - 2’ which incorporates very vivid images of women and small children. Another (from the same catalogue) is, again another mixed media artwork titled ‘Bathing’, with a female figure seen half naked from the rear, with a backdrop of fishing vessels - a natural image with romanticised, hazy, colouration. There is  ‘Nari o Nodi (women and rivers) -2’, more mixed media on paper with a stunning young woman with a red sari top expectantly looking out to the water. In  ’Waiting - 2’ another young lady, with a red sari top and yellow raiment, holds a small child. Together they watch a lone fisherman at work with his boat and nets. Again there is expectancy and perhaps longing in a couple’s simple tale. Then there is ‘Gypsy’. In this highly textured painting a lone fisher-woman carries a wicker basket of fish from our right. She is painted a third of the way into the picture, and before she moves out of frame we her audience observe both her grace and her dedication to her hard life. A riverine swathe of blue cuts across the paper as a red sun sets. 

Ahmed’s figure suggests a homage to ‘Shilpacharya’ (great master of art), Zainul Abedin’s painting ‘Santhal women’ (1969). Abedin was, of course, a founding father of modern Bangladeshi art. These images, and other figurative works by Jamal Ahmed, demonstrate the artist’s dexterity with, and his creative understanding of the female form, as well as an empathy for the plight of the Bangladesh fisherfolk and a feeling for his country’s rurality. 

Beyond images of females, Ahmed’s oeuvre extends to horses and to bird life, specifically pigeons. In the ‘Galleri Kaya exhibition catalogue’ there are no less than ten of the artist’s works containing pigeons. Some include a female figure, others are solely studies of pigeons. While Ahmed also portrays other traditional Bangladesh riverine life, such as fishermen, boats and nets, it is in his images of pigeons (the Stray Birds of this piece’s title) that he differs from the majority of his South Asian contemporaries.

Why pigeons ? 

When Jamal Ahmed was a fourth year art student at ‘Charukala’ (1977), he had painted a (four foot by two feet six inches) painting of two pigeons sitting betwixt palm leaves. Another story relates that he was in New York when pigeons flew onto the balcony where he was staying, and that it was from then that he began to take a serious interest in the movement of pigeons and, later, used that form to convey another side of his figurative romanticism.

From another catalogue (Chronicles in Charcoal, November 2018, at Galleri Kaya), pigeons are prominent. There are sixteen pages devoted to them, including the catalogue’s front cover (titled Pigeons - 2). For some, Ahmed’s pigeons are to be observed as symbols of love. However that is but the beginning of their significance, for it is no wonder that the artist Jamal Ahmed should devote so much of his energy to capturing images of doves/pigeons, for they are so very prominent in the history of Dhaka as seen in Ahmed’s metaphorical meditations on nature’s beauty.

The pastel and charcoal mediums are entirely suited to Jamal Ahmed’s recreated peaceful beauty, and his constant interest in people and nature. In this work there is an emphasis on the expression of emotion through a romantic quality or spirit in thought and sublime expression, for charcoal and pastel present the perfect mediums for this expression with its softened edges and subtle blending bringing an essence of calm. 

In a way these examples of Ahmed’s work bring to mind the pastel drawing techniques which the Indian artist Abanindranath Tagore had learned from Olinto Ghilardi and Charles Palmer in their idealistic romanticism, which strike at the viewer's emotions. 

There are many varieties of dove/pigeon. Many languages use the same word for pigeon as for dove as, in many cases, there is little distinction between them. Bangladesh has up to seventeen species of pigeon and Dhaka, depending upon what is read and where. Like many other South Asian cities Bangladesh is famed for its pigeon population, dating back into antiquity. Pigeon rearing, like that in India’s Old Delhi where the art of ‘kabootarbaazi’ (or pigeon rearing) continues until today. In Dhaka, pigeon flying and pigeon eating have long been part and parcel of the local tradition, as have its pigeon markets situated in Mirpur -1, Gulistan and Tongi areas.

It is believed that South Asian pigeon rearing began during the Mughal period (1500s), as the rulers used pigeons to communicate with their aristocracy. This was as true in Emperor Akbar’s (1556-1605) Eastern Bengal (now Bangladesh) as it was, at the time, for Delhi in Western Bengal.

History reveals that mankind has long coexisted with pigeons (through lifelike pigeon images existing beside figurines of the ‘Mother Goddess’ dating from the early Persians and, later, the time of Sumerian Mesopotamian Bronze Age 2400-1500 BC). In Mesopotamia, pigeons were domesticated, bred for food, and kept in small ‘houses’. 

Pigeons have been religious symbols for Sikhism and Hinduism where they have been seen to be messengers, having association with Yama (god of the dead) and Nirriti (a goddess of destruction). Doves/pigeons have been used to represent the goddesses Ishtar, Venus and Aphrodite. 2000 years ago the Greek poet Anacreon wrote a poem describing a pigeon/dove’s flight as a messenger carrying a billet-doux to the poet’s lover (Ode IX in The Odes of Anacreon, translated by Thomas Moore, 1869, p54), while in the Persian poem ‘The Conference of the Birds’ (1177) by the celebrated Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar both pigeon and dove are mentioned.

“Dear pigeon, welcome — with what joy you yearn 

To fly away, how sadly you return! 

Your heart is wrung with grief, you share the gaol 

That Jonah knew, the belly of a whale — 

The_Self has swallowed you for its delight; 

How long will you endure its mindless spite? 

Cut off its head, seek out the moon, and fly 

Beyond the utmost limits of the sky; 

Escape this monster and become the friend 

Of Jonah in that ocean without end. 

Welcome, sweet turtle-dove, and softly coo 

Until the heavens scatter jewels on you —

But what ingratitude you show ! 

Around Your neck a ring of loyalty is bound, 

But while you live you blithely acquiesce 

From head to claw in smug ungratefulness; 

Abandon such self-love and you will see The Way that leads us to Reality. 

There knowledge is your guide, and Khezr will bring 

Clear water drawn from life's eternal spring. “

(The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar. 1177 AD, trans Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis)

Paintings of pigeons survive from the Mughal times, such as ‘Portrait of Zayn Khan Kokah (c.1542–1601), Governor of Kabul. ‘ A portrait dating from around 1595 which was extended in the 1600s including pigeons to make it fit a standard size album; or there again in the 1788 work titled ‘Kabūtar nāmah’, by Sayyid Muḥammad Mūsavī Vālih. 

Not just in antiquity, but ‘Modernist’ artists too were fascinated by pigeons and doves. Jean Cocteau, ‘Le pigeon-terreur’ (1927) and Pablo Picasso, of course, contributed many images of pigeons/doves to Modernism including ‘Child with dove’ (1901) ’Le pigeon aux petits pois’ (Pigeong with peas, 1911) and ‘Studio Pigeons 3, (after Velázquez, 1957). It was an interested gleaned from Piccaso’s father José Ruiz Blasco, an artist who also bred pigeons and became known as El Palomero (the pigeon/dove fancier). 

Doves are frequently thought of as depicting beauty, gentleness and loyalty, in other words the more traditional famine traits. It is not difficult to see that the pigeon/dove form used by Jamal Ahmed may become a metaphor for particular notions of womankind, or intimations of a romanticised figure. In a catalogue (Holbein Gallery, Osaka, Japan, Contemporary Painting from Bangladesh, AKA DOT show, 2019) Ahmed is represented by four (acrylic on canvas) paintings of doves/pigeons (‘Meeting’, ‘Futari’ [couple in Japanese], ‘Girl with a Pigeon’ and ‘Two Pigeons’, out of the seven image spaces allotted to him in the publication. Three paintings, other than birds, are of women (‘Going Home’, ‘Waiting’ and ‘Beauty in the River’). The painting ‘Waiting’ also contains a (barely discernible) green pigeon within a conical cage. Throughout those works there is a heavy hint of symbolism, or a nod towards the romanticism of artists such as the Dutch Lawrence Alma-Tadema, renown for his classical symbolism.

In the 2020 ‘Galleri Kaya (Dhaka) catalogue’ Ahmed uses the title ‘Couple’ (a mixed media piece) to signify the relationship between his two pigeon subjects. One bird is more erect than the other, the second appearing coy, its head turned slightly from the onlooker’s gaze. The two are set against a very dark background which throws their delicate colouration forward. The fowl to the viewer’s right has the appearance of being more alert than the other, a watcher and protector, while the other gives the impression of being more genteel and possibly in need of a protector. The painting seems to portray a more traditional view of ‘coupledom’.

Jamal Ahmed, a strong Dhaka based figurative artist, has grown as his country has grown out from under the yoke of a foreign power into, finally, existing in liberation as Bangla - Desh (“Land of the Bengals”). He takes his inspiration from the country around him. He has a keen eye and an even keener interest for nature, human figure work and portraiture. He is as comfortable with charcoal and pastels as he is with acrylics and mixed media, depending on his feel for his subject(s). Ahmed, living in a riverine environment, is drawn both to aspects of Bangladesh’s rivers and their inhabitants, as well as to the city where he lives. He has encountered success through his commitment to romanticised figurative work which incorporates scenes of his motherland, his enormous stamina, work ethic and artistic diligence. And, due to the aforementioned, he is treasured by his peers.

Dracula the untold story - a review

At the  Mercury Theatre even my Fever-Tree Premium Indian Tonic Water (accompanying my Bombay Sapphire gin) didn't want to be stored in direct sunlight. It was the beginning of things to come... 

Dracula the Untold Story (an Imitating the Dog and Leeds Playhouse co-production), was playing for two days only at our regional theatre. As usual I opted for a matinée performance (not wanting to walk back to my residence in the dark, well  you never know do you). 

The story, well I'll not reveal the plot, but it successfully gives a fresh insight into the Dracula myth. 

Through a clever use of digital technology, cameras, projection, comic strip imagery, a multilingual performance and superb acting, the 'real' story of the 'Prince of Darkness' and his ending splattered blood across ben day dot images and a complicated storyline beginning and ending in 1965, with diversions in and out of time and of London. 

The 'Untold Story' weaves a fable from Bram Stoker through to Maroto's New English Library comic book and strip Dracula, to ITV's The Sweeney, conjuring Parisian silent film and Fascism in a sanguine world of horror on the way. 

Slightly into the second half of this riveting play a loud noise had us all intrigued. At first we (the audience) imagined it to be part of the play. Maybe something to do with the Marylebone Station setting in what could easily have been a modern day Dadaist reference. The play stopped. 

We were requested to leave our seats and step outside in the grey British autumn as per fire drill. After the all clear it was disclosed that preparations for an adjacent flower show had involved smoke. This had tripped the Theatre's fire alarm. It was real and not part of the plot.

Riana Duce as Mina Harker, Matt Prendergast as Multiple Characters and Adela Rajnovic also as Multiple Characters gave a stupendous performance. Made even more stellar by their quick recovery after the false fire alarm could have knocked them off their stride. It didn't. The show did indeed go on to the immense credit of all staff and players at the Mercury Theatre  Colchester.

Magical Manuscripts - Luo Qi (published in China)

The renown, astute and eternally stimulating avant-garde artist Luo Qi (who resides both in China and Portugal) continues to push artistic and textual boundaries in his latest work ‘Medieval Notes’. Having travelled and read widely Luo Qi has been able to push his calligraphic quest beyond the structures and strictures of traditional Chinese and Western calligraphies, into fresh areas of academic and artistic interest.

Having an eclectic, questing, turn of mind Luo Qi has continued to stride forward with his love for literature, poetry, music and visual art. Incidentally, all of which had coalesced in the European Middle Ages. Luo Qi’s latest presentation brings some of these interests together in this modern evocation and remarkable volume ‘Medieval Notes’. This is at once a homage to the past while, simultaneously, being a contemporary and original ‘Lucky Handwritten’ artwork incorporating images created on hemp paper and rice paper with grey and a hemp silk texture (2019). 

Instead of Medieval text, Luo Qi has synthesised asemic writing through the use of Chinese pictograms (FU) and faux (or false) Western script beside illustrated first letters, as was common in Medieval manuscripts. Similar to other asemic writing, the viewer is hoodwinked into believing that the text has meaning outside of itself, whereas it has none. Luo Qi mentions that… “It is just a hypothesis, a mixture of unrelated relationships, and the text does not belong to the story, it belongs to pretend description, or narrative symbol, which is a misreading of the image. This is the idea contained in all my own artistic creation.”

In these ‘Medieval Notes’ there are evocations of venerated illuminated texts such as ‘The Book of Kells’ (an illuminated manuscript Gospel book, in Latin, currently to be found in Dublin’s Trinity College Library), and intimations of China’s 4th century compendium ‘The Guideways through Mountains and Seas’ (also known as Shanhaijing). Both were ‘epics’ in their time and while ‘The Book of Kells’ remains a prime example of a handmade and illustrated volume, China’s ‘Shanhijing' has been illustrated many times over the centuries, by hand and later printed.

Luo Qi’s weaving together of Chinese pictograms and Medieval Western manuscript imagery delivers what could be imagined to be an imaginary scribe’s ‘lost’ masterpiece, (one never actually written) binding East and West together in 90 manuscripts of "Medieval Notes” and referencing medieval cities, buildings, details, fragments and eras including ancient Greece, Rome and leading to the Renaissance (15th and 16th centuries in Europe) whose tales lived on through the  "dark times" of Medieval times (Middle Ages - 5th to the late 15th centuries).

Once again Luo Qi has triumphed in his creation. Melding his imagination with the reimagining of antiquarian art and imagery, Luo Qi presents something new out of something old, as if a magician pulling rabbits from a hat. The fecundity of Luo Qi’s imagination apparently knows no bounds as he intrigues and delights us as yet another fully fledged dove takes flight from the same hat which had once hosted white rabbits.

Martin A Bradley, England, 2021

The Blue Lotus magazine issue 51

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/the_blue_lotus_magazine_51

on drinking Bombay Sapphire and Indian Tonic before seeing Antigone.

On drinking Bombay Sapphire, Indian Tonic Water and Antigone at the Mercury Theatre Colchester on a cold, grey, day in October. 

A mythological elephant stood guard between the Theatre and the town on one side, a gappy Roman wall on the other. We were sheltered from the storm, or so we thought. 

Dual storms raged, both on stage (at the Mercury Theatre) and in my heart. The former was part of the tragedy which has been Antigone since Sophocles wrote it in, or about, 442 BC (or BCE if you understand what that is). The Latter was on experiencing the absolute vision who is the amazing actor who played Antigone (none other than poster girl Adeloa Yemitan). It is she who Eros dangled before me to adore, to cherish and ultimately to part from in those seemingly short minutes of the play's performance. 

Antigone is billed as a tragedy, although it has all the ingredients of a family drama. Wicked aunty, rebellious niece who is partnered with wicked aunty's son, her cousin in other words, a devoted sister and dead brother. That is not to mention a family history of patricide, inscest and suicide. 

All this is somewhat hinted at in Merlynn Tong's brilliant adaptation of Sophocles' Antigone. All this drama and singing too. Although, technically, this production isn't a musical, it does have some incredible singing by Antigone's sister (Ismene, played by songstress Francesca Amewudah-Rivers). 

Like the magician his name hints at Mr Tong has woven a fresh narrative from the ancient Greek tragedy and, along with a very strong cast, brilliant direction, an imposing (virtually Art Brut) stage setting, exquisite sound and lighting we the onlookers were stunned in our seats, believing every word and action. 

To top it all, this was live Theatre not, hold on can we go again, television or film. The cast had to memorise all that action and lines. I was agog with the lengthy speeches, the passion and the production. I especially appreciated this as a man who, as a youth, couldn't remember his lines as a court usher in Toad of Toad Hall.

The War of the Worlds at the Mercury Theatre Colchester

The War of the Worlds

The bumf for the 2.30pm performance of ‘The War of the Worlds’, held this afternoon, at the Mercury Theatre Colchester reads….

Inspired by H.G. Wells’ sci-fi novel and Orson Welles’ classic radio play, this legendary science fiction thriller is playfully reimagined for our era of Fake News and ‘alternative facts’.

Originally commissioned by New Diorama Theatre. Co-produced by Brighton Festival and HOME. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Presented by Rhum and Clay Theatre Company and written with Isley Lynn

A few seconds after the lights went up at the end of the first act, "It wasn't what I expected" said a gentleman two rows back from me in the audience of Colchester Mercury Theatre to his female companion. We had just finished that first mesmerising act of the theatre’s performance of the play ‘'The War of the Worlds'. 

Inwardly I agreed. No it wasn’t what I had expected either. It was so much more.

That's the thing about expectations. We formulate opinions based on scant knowledge and then are surprised when our expectations are not realised. Some people believe that expectations shape and bend our reality. They further believe that expectations can change our lives both emotionally and physically. On the other hand, some experiences turn out to be greater than our expectations, this was one of those. 

The Mercury's performance of this new production far exceeded all my expectations. We, the audience, expected to be entertained, yet we were much more than mere entertained, we were transported into the true magic of theatre, into make-believe where gestures from actors conjure illusions of reality. This afternoon we willingly suspended our disbelief. We handed our collective imagination over to that production team and the ambience they so skillfully created. That performance was not just the HG Wells story of ‘The War of the Worlds’, nor only the Orson Wells (ironically named) Mercury Theatre on the Air 1938 radio drama broadcast (which prompted more lies and fakery about that which was already fiction). The Mercury Theatre performance was so much more. I’ll not go into detail as I‘ve no wish to spoil either the plot or the ending.  

With few props and a limited cast, the audience became enraptured by the tale telling. It was as if we were sitting cross-legged by some glowing campfire, on an autumn night, listening to a shaman weave his (or her) magic. The Mercury Theatre's War of the Worlds was a triumph of engagement, of deft illusion and the sheer power of theatre and its unique brand of multi-layered storytelling. That show ended with a close-to-black silence echoing a silence which had been utilised (to great effect) in the original radio show.

  

Garum (fish sauce)

It has long been known to Western culinary experts that there are four ‘taste’  senses (sweet, sour, bitter, and salty)  to tantalise the culinary questing palate. However, in 1909, one Dr. Kikunae Ikeda, a Japanese researcher, discovered that there was, irrefutably, a fifth taste our senses can detect. That extra taste was named ‘Umami' (or the essence of deliciousness), which had its base in ‘Glutamate’ (yes as in mono-sodium glutamate, or MSG which is taken from ‘kombu’, or kelp, an edible seaweed). The research, being in Japanese, was marginalised until nearly one hundred years later (2002) when Western researchers began to take notice of the ‘Umami’ finding.  

Now, culinary experts speak freely about umami as if it had always been there, which of course it had, but unnamed. Umami is the central taste of the West’s latest, and simultaneously oldest, fad - fish sauce which, in its simplest form, is fish (such as anchovies) and salt (which extracts the liquid via osmosis), these are layered in wooden barrels to ferment from a couple months up to a few years and slowly pressed, making a salty, fishy liquid which is used as a condiment and/or in cooking, but sparsely because of the strength of its saltiness. 

Fish sauce, specifically the Thai ‘Squid’ brand fish sauce (established in 1944 by Mr. Tien Chan)  has long been my go to condiment. It was not until recently (while I was looking at a sensory display in the Colchester Castle Museum, Colchester), that my curiosity was piqued about that enormously popular Roman condiment also called ‘fish sauce’. Was there a connection, and what happened to its popularity in the West, I idly wondered.

In Colchester Castle, and elsewhere, I was reminded that the invading Romans (43AD) had brought with them all sorts of strange new things into Britain like figs, cherries, plums, damsons, mulberries, dates, olives, turnips, apples, pears, celery, carrots, cucumbers, asparagus, lentils, pine nuts, almonds, walnuts and sesame as well as coriander, dill and fennel,  grapes, wine and the cultivation of oysters (for which Colchester is now renown) and, wait for it, fish sauce. 

When answering that now infamous Monty Python ‘Life of Brian’ sketch question, concerning what the Romans may or may not have done for us a modern day, gourmet, chef might well answer "fish sauce", or as it was known to the Romans - 'Garum'.  That salt and fish based condiment (originally made from the garus fish) was well known in Greek and Roman kitchens.

There is a current theory that even the very popular SouthEast Asian fish sauces, which are found in countries including Cambodia (‘prahok’, or ‘tuk trey’), Thailand (‘nam-pla’) and Vietnam (‘nuoc-mam’) and the ‘umami uzi’ of Japan,  had their origins in a Roman colony in northern Africa (Carthage), that is according to Mago, a Carthaginian agricultural writer who lived in the fifth/sixth century BC., and in Iran there is mehyawah which is the modern equivalent of the ancient Mesopotamian ‘siqqu’, the Greek ‘garos’ and the Roman garum fish sauces.

In that Colchester Castle Museum, upstairs,  under the label of ‘Learning from Objects’ there is a wooden box containing three wooden containers. They are near a sign urging visitors to 'Please Smell'. Beneath the sign a sentence explains 'The Romans liked strong flavours in their food'. Each container therefore holds a sample of Roman life, one is bayleaf, one is Rosemary and the third contains, yes you've guessed it, the aroma of fish sauce.

Jane Shuter (in her book ‘Life in a Roman Town’, 2005, page 29) mentions that “The Romans used this fish sauce the way many people use tomato paste now. They put a spoonful of it in almost anything they were cooking. They also spread it on warm toast as a snack or a starter before a meal.”

Gaius Plinius Secundus, also called Pliny the Elder, a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, as well as a naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, in his ‘The Natural History’ (AD 77), remarks ….

“At the present day, however, the most esteemed kind of garum is that prepared from the scomber, in the fisheries of Carthago Spartaria:it is known as "garum of the allies," and for a couple of congii we have to pay but little less than one thousand sesterces. Indeed, there is no liquid hardly, with the exception of the unguents, that has sold at higher prices of late; so much so, that the nations which produce it have become quite ennobled thereby. There are fisheries, too, of the scomber on the coasts of Mauretania and at Carteia in Bætica, near the Straits which lie at the entrance to the Ocean; this being the only use that is made of the fish. For the production of garum, Clazomenæ is also famed, Pompeii, too, and Leptis; while for their muria, Antipolis, Thurii, and of late, Dalmatia, enjoy a high reputation.”

Some time, over the centuries, fish sauce had declined in popularity in the West.  Some say that it was because of taxes the Romans imposed, the frequent assailing of fishing ports by various marauders, making the production of fish sauce increasingly difficult and, not to mention, the general decline of the Roman Empire. 

However, one small town in Italy (the fishing village of Cetara, Campania) has clung on to that particular gastronomic item from the once glorious Roman past. Its version of fish sauce had been recreated by the Cistercian Monks of Amalfi and is called  'Colatura di alici' (Anchovy Drippings), while  a recently recreated Spanish fish sauce (2017)  ‘Flor de Garum’ (Flower of Garum)  is made from an ancient 3rd century A.D.  recipe recreated from findings at Pompeii after it was entombed by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 A.D. At present the Italian and Spanish fish sauces are not commonly available in Britain, but there are many brands from South East Asia which can be found in specialist shops, such as those in London’s Chinatown and at least two of Colchester’s ‘Asian’ stores.

American Vietnamese writer Viet Thanh Nguyen (winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) has this to say about his favourite condiment in his 2016, Grove Press, novel “The Sympathizer”... 

“Oh, fish sauce! How we missed it, dear Aunt, how nothing tasted right without it, how we longed for the grand cru of Phu Quoc Island and its vats brimming with the finest vintage of pressed anchovies! This pungent liquid condiment of the darkest sepia hue was much denigrated by foreigners for its supposedly horrendous reek, lending new meaning to the phrase “there’s something fishy around here,” for we were the fishy ones. We used fish sauce the way Transylvanian villagers wore cloves of garlic to ward off vampires, in our case to establish a perimeter with those Westerners who could never understand that what was truly fishy was the nauseating stench of cheese. What was fermented fish compared to curdled milk?”.

Gourmands and gourmet chefs around the world are eagerly  promoting the umami taste and, in particular, the salty, sharp fish sauce taste. As well as the aforementioned brands for fish sauce, there is one fish sauce which seems to appeal to gourmet needs for a clear, tasty and somewhat elite condiment, and that is Red Boat 40° N Fish Sauce. That sauce is advertised as being “Made from black anchovies caught off the crystal clear waters of Vietnam’s Phu Quoc archipelago”  it is a ‘single-press’ and  ‘barrel-aged’ condiment using “a centuries-old fermentation tradition”. In fact this sauce has all the mystery and romance of the East you might need of a sauce made from the fermentation of fish into liquid. 

Colchester Cultural Strategy: Evening with Hanif Kureishi

On a cool evening in Colchester, Essex, England, goatee bearded Steve Mannix (Executive Director of the Mercury Theater), joined the internationally acclaimed author/playwright Hanif Kureishi for a ‘Colchester Cultural Strategy: Evening’ at the Mercury Theatre, Colchester.

For some rapturous minutes we (the audience) were treated to a reading by Britain’s former writer enfant terrible Kureishi, from his seminal and somewhat autobiographical work ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’. The author’s descriptions brought my 1960s/70s past right back to me with all the images of my black crushed velvet, black patent leather, brightly coloured kaftans, chunky beads, tiny bells and the curious scents of patchouli and hashish. Had the reading extended for a mere few minutes I might have expected someone to pass around a joint. It didn’t and they didn’t, though it was an opportunity missed.

I had gone to the Mercury Theatre, I must confess, to see and listen to Hanif Kureishi and not necessarily to become involved in the ensuing discussion about Colchester’s cultural future, inclusive or not. What emerged was a lively debate about the future of culture in Colchester and its surrounds and, as interesting as it was, I would have preferred more from that Pakistani Bromley boy (and intriguing cultural personage) sitting on stage.

Having only momentarily arrived back from the Far East, and the lack of cultural support for most events and affairs of the arts by various governmental bodies found there, I found that Colchester, and Britain, to be well blessed by governmental (local and central) support. The Colchester Cultural Strategy discussion, to me, sounded like a constant and never-ending moan about a lack which can never end. Britain looks to ‘officials’, to ‘government’ to fulfil their cultural needs, in places like Cambodia and Malaysia people, though wishing for governmental support, understand that the only way cultural events and happenings take place, is by people getting off their arses and doing something for themselves. And I was sorely tempted to say just that, last evening, so it was a good job that the microphone never reached me.

The Blue Lotus magazine issue 50

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/the_blue_lotus_magazine_50

Sessue Hayakawa heart throb

Until recently, I had never heard of Sessue Hayakawa, although I have must have watched him as Colonel Saito in David Lean’s ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ which, in the England of my youth, played on TV screens most Christmases, though I frequently confuse that film with Nagisa Ōshima’s ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ (1983).

From that youth I only remember Asian characters, not Asian actors. The ‘Chinese’ detective Charlie Chan was, incidentally, written by the non-Asian Earl Derr Biggers for a series of ‘Mystery' novels. The character of Charlie Chan was occasionally played on screen by nine different actors over the years, these include George Kuwa (Keichii Kuwahara) in a 1926 serial, Kamiyama Sojin in a 1928 film, E. L. Park in a 1929 film, then Warner Oland in 16 films, 1931-37; Sidney Toler, in 22 films, 1938-47; Roland Winters in six films, 1948-52, and none of those actors were Chinese, although the early actors, George Kuwa and Sōjin Kamiyama, were Japanese. In 1981, the British actor of Russian descent Peter Ustinov (Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinov) played the lead in Clive Donner’s ‘Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen’.

Then there was the Chinese character Fu Manchu in some 18 books written by another non-Asian writer, the British Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward, better known as Sax Rohmer. The character Fu Manchu continued after Rohmer’s death in 1959, and his total appearances are 25 to date.

In films, the dastardly evil criminal genius Fu Manchu had been played by Harry Agar(1924) Warner Oland (1929 - 1931), Boris Karloff (1932), Lou Marcelle (1939–1940), Henry Brandon (1940), John Carradine (1952), Glen Gordon (1956), Christopher Lee (1965 - 1969), Peter Sellers (1980) and Nicolas Cage (2007), and none of those actors were Asian.

All that was to change for me when that Hong Kong legend, Bruce Lee, came on the Kung Fu film scene during the 1970s. I was quickly to learn that not only did Hong Kong have its own films, but so did China. China’s first film being ‘Dingjun Mountain’ (1905) and Hong Kong’s ‘Zhuangzi Tests His Wife’ in 1913, though there is much debate about which really was first China, or Hong Kong.

The Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa didn’t get to play either Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu, but between 1914–1966 he did act in 80 feature films (including ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’, 1957). 

Kintaro Hayakawa (later known as Sessue, and as Kinbo by his friends) was born into a Japanese samurai family, on the 10th of June 1890. He lived in Nanaura township, Boso Peninsular, Honshu Island, Japan, with his father Yoichiro Hayakawa, the Governor of Chiba Prefecture, his mother Kane and four elder siblings.

As a young man Kintaro Hayakawa was fit and skilled in ‘Kendo’ and ‘Judo’, and longed to be in the Japanese navy like his father had been, but mishap and illness prevented that. Hayakawa felt disgrace (renshi-shin) that he had failed his warrior family and, to atone, he attempted hari-kari (Japanese suicide). Miraculously he survived the sword cuts to eventually embark on a journey to San Francisco, America, in 1909, aged 19. Crossing the United States from the West to the East, then to North, Hayakawa became an undergraduate in the University of Chicago then, in 1913, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science.

Intending to return to Japan, for a political career, Hayakawa’s attention was soon taken by amateur dramatics in a small Japanese theatre in Los Angeles, where he was awaiting the boat to return home. After being bitten by the acting bug, he soon changed his name from Kintaro, which he deemed unsuitable for an acting career, to ‘Sessue’, which means snow in Japanese, as he originated from Japan’s main island harbouring the famous snow-capped volcano Mount Fuji. 

Sessue Hayakawa acted in black and white silent films at the beginning of his film acting career. He was seen by the great film producer Thomas H. Ince in Hayakawa’s own production of the play ‘Typhoon’, (made famous by the great Laurence Irving in the Haymarket, London. 1912), Ince soon persuaded Hayakawa to follow him and starred him in his production of the play with Reginald Barker directing. In that film, Hayakawa was supported by fellow Japanese countrymen and women Tsuru Aoki, Henry Kotani and Thomas Kurihara (1914), the latter two formed part of a Japanese actors support group in the US, until returning to Japan in 1920 to be leaders of cinema there.

Hayakawa’s smouldering good looks soon had the ladies swooning. His career was built, not just on good acting, but on his oriental ‘bad boy’ appeal to women. He was undoubtedly a precursor to the matinee idol Rudolf Valentino, and had quickly became cinema’s hottest property. At the height of his career Hayakawa was reputed to be earning over 2 million dollars a year, the equivalent to 28 million dollars in modern terms.

In Kalton C. Lahue’s book ‘Gentlemen to the Rescue’ it’s indicated that…

“He owned a greystone castle at the corner of Franklin and Argyle in Hollywood (since replaced by a motel), where lavish entertainment in the early twenties was almost continuous—weekly luncheons were held for 150, buffet suppers for 900 with three different orchestras playing, and sit-down dinners hosted for 250 guests. Seven servants ran the place while Sessue and his wife, Tsuru Aoki (also a screen star) worked hard and played hard. Charles Ray with his solid gold doorknobs had nothing on the most cunning Oriental of the screen—Hayakawa owned a gold-plated Pierce-Arrow complete with liveried footman…”

A slew of best selling films, including ‘Typhoon’ and ‘The Cheat’ (directed by Cecil B. DeMille, 1915), helped Hayakawa make a name which was in every way equal to Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. However, in the 1930s, Japan went from being friend of the United Staes of America to being an enemy. It became harder for Japanese actors to exist in US cinema. 

During the Second World War, Hayakawa was in France, fighting with the Resistance against the invading German army. He was rediscovered there by Humphrey Bogart's production team and was offered a role in the film ‘Tokyo Joe’ (1949), and later ‘Three Came Home’ (1950).

As well as acting, Hayakawa wrote several plays, painted watercolours, performed martial arts, wrote ‘Zen Showed me the Way’ (his autobiography, 1960), and in 1961 became a Zen master as well as a private acting coach.

Other film roles followed, up to and including ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ in which Hyakawa was nominated for ‘best supporting actor’ in the 1958 Academy Awards. He died in 1973.