Quixotically Authentic

Quixotically Authentic

The imaginative creative existence of puritanical abstraction of dramatically sparse all­white relief, and coolly intersecting colored rectangles, is a feature of modernism that appeals to put it at the service of tradition. The deep thrill of revolution or the invention of new modernist subject matter, or however abstract art becomes, it is still a development of the first still­ life’s, or a glorious landscape. Take for instance, a beautiful painting of a blue bowl in front of a mirror, is full of deep shadows into which a painter squints to inspect the intersection between the round edge of the bowl and the square frame of the mirror. Such intersections continue to be admired till the end.

It’s a source of some hilarity, I might almost say, derision to my stylish friends that I’m writing for the style section ­ nobody, they tell me is less stylish than me. I counter by remarking stiffly, that there is such a thing as “literary” style, you know, but they are right in their limited way ­ I don’t read interior design magazines or couldn’t tell whether swags or ruffles are in. for instance, a friend of mine frightened me by saying, “distemper is black”. It turned out she didn’t mean the dog disease, but the flaky wall paint that comes off on your hands. She’s redoing her country cottage in what she calls, “an authentic `50’s rural look”, which apparently means ordering distemper from the approved range of colors, waiting for it to be freshly mixed, then slapping it on with a special wide brush. It is not true that you have to mix it up with pig’s urine. Upholstery is “natural, neutral, oatmeal, even plaids are out, and there is no question of ruffles or swags”, she added. “I want to get that really skimpy sort of unlined pre­war curtains that stop just above the window sill and let in the light? . I asked, “Will you have those genuine`50’s coils of fly paper hanging from the ceiling, preferably just above the table where you eat breakfast?” She looked thoughtful.

Another stylish friend urged me to “think driftwood”, and gave me a very “inspirational” article from an interior design magazine, entitled “Some like it Hut”.

This was a fantastic essay about an artists’ potting shed in North Holland, where the chief decorative features consisted of some acorns and rusty bits of iron, a greased­covered burner, and several disintegrated matchboxes. The bathroom was well. When I objected that I couldn’t really see myself washing in a bucket or heating stones on the stove, to take to bed, my friend looked at me pityingly and said, “Well, obviously, you adapt”. I think after due consideration, we shall paint the drawing room yellow as usual. Inspiration of course!

Gossip is a funny stuff, we all know what it is, but I ’ve yet to hear a workable definition; it’s the reverting bits that live between news and fiction. In private, it ’s the things I wouldn’t say to your face. In print it’s what is supposed to separate the gutter from the quality. Tabloids have gossip columns, broadsheets have diaries, and only diary editors seem to be able to tell the difference. Very few of us are as confident in our tastes, or as wide­ranging. The book is woven out of the complex relationship between freedom and restriction, the world within and the world without. Five thousand miles from home, claustrophobic and hunkered down in the middle of a milling crowd; I’m stuffing Kleenex in my ears, to escape the roaring music ­ the Anthem of the Moment.