Woop woop! 😎
I received my marks on Friday. I was studying on the Bar Course in London.
Passed everything with an overall mark is 86%!! Shocked it was that high. 80%+ is a distinction.
I’m very happy. No more exams EVER!
Just need a job now!!
Update: Thank you all for the nice comments.
Pro-Palestine groups splattering Senate House with red paint on Saturday morning.
They “Protest at failure to act against Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza, say pro-Palestinians.”
But ... what is the University of Cambridge expected to do to resolve the Hamas-Israel war?
Apparently, “it is unclear whether it can be cleaned in time for the ceremonies”.
The actual painting is in Melbourne, Australia.
It’s moving. Loneliness and despair indeed.
And the calm and patient gathering of crows beautifully captures the cold indifference of nature.
These ongoing protests are outrageous. As can be seen in “Israeli anti-government protesters rally in Jerusalem” (Reuters).
They make me so angry. Why:
It’s also worth asking why should the families of the hostages get a platform.
Everyone in Israel is hostage to these maniacs.
Note: This is part of a series on room 12 of the National Gallery. An incredible & priceless repository of masterpieces of the Renaissance.
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Sebastiano del Piombo was one of the most outstanding portrait painters. Some of his portraits are v. famous and instantly recognisable — e.g. Pope Clement VII — but, for some reason, the importance and the name of this artist has faded.
It was Pope Clement who, in 1531, appointed Sebastiano to the lucrative position of the “Keeper of the Papal Seal” (“del Piombo”), from which his nickname is derived. The post demanded frequent attendance on the Pontiff, even on excursions outside Rome.
In his own time, Sebastiano was as famous as his contemporaries Raphael, Michelangelo, Giorgione and Titian. He was born in Venice and began art training relatively late. He entered the studio of Giovanni Bellini and subsequently studied with Giorgione.
At some point, I need to visit his key work, “The Judgment of Solomon”, which was a little-known canvass until the 1980s — Kingston Lacy, in Dorset.
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Judith, or Salome
My favourite.
So striking and v. powerful; and also beautiful.
This is a painting of Salome (daughter of Herodias) and Salome is (it seems to me) alluring and beautiful (lascivious?) — but also cold & ruthless. The contours and details of her magnetic eyes and nose are amazing. Those tight lips suggestive of a short-temper. And ... those little threads of hair by her ear are just delightful.
Salome, at the request of her mother, asked for the head of St John the Baptist from King Herod. On a platter.
Her sleeves are incredibly and so delicately painted. The folds of her vibrant blue dress shimmer in the light while also balancing the shadows in its crevices.
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Portrait of a Lady
Beautiful.
This lady reminds me of “the Madonna” in Sebastiano’s other famous painting which I reviewed before. (“The Madonna and Child with Saints and a Donor”).
The portrait style is interesting (probably mannerist).
The subject’s assured stance and gaze suggest that she was probably some prominent figure of her time, yet she remains (apparently) “unidentified”. Her magnificent costume, trimmed with exquisitely painted fur, adds to her imposing presence. She holds pieces of cloth with a Latin inscription warning of the risks of love: “the snares of Venus: beware”.
The fabulous green in the folds of the curtain is such a wonderful contrast.
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The Raising of Lazarus
Amazing.
Enormous and captivating in its drama and religious reverence. A vast landscape extending to the horizon.
The pink (originally red; which has since degraded) and blue robes of Christ are a recurring colour theme of Sebastiano. Christ stands out — as does Lazarus. Lazarus has yellow-brown hue of jaundiced flesh. Face dark and covered.
All attention is directed towards the Christ & his outstretched arm and finger. In other paintings, a subject of Sebastiano’s “looks” at us. Here, Sebastiano doesn’t “include” us in the environment. I love the reactions of the women (light green dress and blue). So much drama & shock.
There is a huge backstory to this painting.
In 1511, the Sienese banker Agostino Chigi visited Venice. He was the financier to the popes and kings. At that point, his master Giorgione had died, and Titian was in Padua. So, Agostino Chigi reckoned that Sebastiano was the finest artist Venice had to offer. He invited him to return to Rome. Thereafter, Michelangelo befriended and promoted Sebastiano — mostly because he saw him as a useful rival to Raphael, whose rising popularity seemed to the Florentine to be undermining his own. (They fell out later on with respect to the Sistine Chapel’s “Last Judgment”).
Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici organised a public contest between Sebastiano and Raphael by simultaneously commissioning the painting of ‘‘The Resurrection of Lazarus” from Sebastiano and the “Transfiguration” from Raphael. The “Lazarus” was shown first, and critical opinion regarded it favorably with Raphael’s latest works. Raphael became anxious to prevent the two paintings from being exhibited side-by-side, and this only happened after his death in 1520.
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The Madonna and Child with Saints and a Donor *reconsidered*
I wrote about this painting in August 2023:
Not sure what to think of this.
Perhaps somewhere in the middle of late and high R.. It seems to have a triangular composition at its centre; but background is a strange curtain under which John the Baptist sleeps (which suggests a private viewing?). The Madonna does have a disproportionately large size and has her arms around the Christ and the donor. Long fingers too. Donor = friend of Michelangelo and Sebastiano and was a wealthy friend. The Christ is barely holding on and he seems to have a similarly disembodied presence too with an asymmetric twisted figure.
Not sure if I warm to this painting. It feels a bit unsettling.
I was totally wrong. It’s not “unsettling” at all. It’s amazing how much art we learn in a space of a year.
It’s beautiful and very intense & dramatic. I love the tenderness of The Madonna and the cute way the Christ’s plump hand reaches for her breast. I have since learned that it was a private devotional painting.
The saints are St Joseph and John the Baptist (pointing to the Christ, and as an adult). The Christ v. similar to Raphael’s “Madonna della Seggiola”.
Very recently, President Biden went all-out and twisted-arms to get his ceasefire proposal accepted by everyone. Israel said yes ... the United Nations said yes ... but now Hamas have made more demands.
“A deal was on the table that was virtually identical to a proposal that Hamas put forward on 6 May - a deal that the entire world is behind, that Israel has accepted, and Hamas could have answered with a single word: ‘yes’,” he said ... “Instead, Hamas waited nearly two weeks and then proposed more changes, a number of which go beyond positions that it had previously taken and accepted. As a result, the war that Hamas started… will go on, more people will suffer, Palestinians will suffer, more Israelis will suffer.” ...
The statement did, however, reiterate a demand for what Hamas called “a complete halt of the ongoing aggression against Gaza” and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.
My thoughts
Reading between the lines; the key point seems to be Hamas’s demand that Israel makes (1) some up-front commitment to a “permanent” truce (or some “guarantee” protecting Hamas’s future) and/or (2) a withdrawal of Israeli forces in the territory by Egypt. This is obviously against the 3-staged Biden plan; and completely unacceptable.
Israel should not be willing — at all — to make a deal that leaves Hamas in power. It must focus on (1) eradicating Hamas’s military capabilities, and then (2) hostages. If Israel were to make a written “guarantee” to a permanent ceasefire with Hamas; then Hamas wins. That simple.
Let’s not forget: there was a ceasefire in place on October 6. We know that if Hamas were to have an opportunity to repeat this pogrom, we’d hear the same calls for a ceasefire the day after. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I think United States should just “stay out of it” now and let Israel fight it out. Get this over-and-done-with. If not settled now; then back to terrorist attacks and border clashes — with even more malice.
We can then move to a US-Saudi-Israel brokered deal on Palestinian statehood.
Very interesting & chilling article in the WSJ today by Summer Said and Rory Jones (see below).
The WSJ analysed dozens of private messages from Yahya Sinwar (Hamas Chief terrorist in Gaza) to Hamas negotiators in Qatar.
The greater the Gazan civilian deaths; then for Hamas, the more that calculated human sacrifice can be leveraged to Hamas’ strategic advantage. Those not warped by antisemitism knew this: Hamas wants Palestinians to be killed, knowing that more civilian casualties means increased world pressure on Israel.
Despite evidence of their “strategy”, many in the media and so many protesters play their part in Hamas’ drama: turning a blind eye to the evidence and continue to do exactly what Hamas wants. Various wings of the Left begin with the proposition that Israel is a “colonial state” with no inherent right to exist, black-and-white, and then reason backwards from there. So predictable. Then, there is the propaganda operation for Muslims in Western countries who see this as a religious war.
The problem is that the terrorist strategy seems to be working: people criticise Israel as being unreasonable entering a refugee camp to rescue hostages. As opposed to it being unreasonable to hide hostages in a refugee camp! Or, for example, that Hamas strategy was to count death of Hamas combatants as civilian casualties. The UN then quietly released a report that drastically reduced the number of purported casualties in Gaza. Etc.
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Most interesting points in the article:
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Click to enlarge & read:
Note: This is part of a series of a write-up vis-a-vis room 12 of the National Gallery. It is a breathtaking collection of portrait masterpieces of the Renaissance.
Hans Holbein the Younger was the 16th century German artist who — like successful Renaissance artists generally — spent much of their career attached to a court. In this case, Henry VIII’s court.
He is one of the great painters in the history of art. His reputation emerging from his ability to draw and paint with such compelling verisimilitude — as if the subject were alive. In today’s photographic era, we take these kinds of paintings for granted — but in the 16th century this was considered a wonder.
Due to the Protestant Reformation, a wave of iconoclasm swept across Northern Europe in which religious work, even made under the auspices of the Catholic Church, was destroyed. The artist’s livelihood was severely compromised. The severity of Protestantism meant that his earlier work was too indulgent for the residents of Basel. So, Holbein fashioned a new career in Catholic England.
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“The Ambassadors”
Really compelling, and huge. The sheer detail is incredible.
In the 16th century, this must have been mesmerising.
A paean to two scholarly diplomats (to the court of Henry VIII) and to the artist’s virtuosity (in using anamorphic perspective).
Between them, Holbein has depicted a broad array of wide interests — a compendium of the culture of their age. A celestial globe, astronomical and navigational instruments
On the marble floor, between them, is a distorted skull. Memento mori. The brevity of life.
The threads in the tapestry is sumptuous defined.
From the anamorphic perspective, the viewer is reminded that all their wealth and power is void in the end by inescapable death.
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Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam
Really like it.
The humanist scholar Erasmus rests his hands on a book. I love the soft tawny furry sleeves and interior, and the sharp nose and slight-wrinkled lips.
The book inscription says “The Labours of Hercules of Erasmus of Rotterdam”. Reference to his editions of the Holy Scriptures. Graco-Romano columns and books in the background tell us about his interests.
A man of wealth and luxury, but also a reserved & serious scholar. A man of distinction.
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Christina of Denmark, Duchess of Milan
Beautiful painting by Holbein.
This is a portrait of the 16-year-old widow (widowed in black) Christina of Denmark.
This painting was commissioned by King Henry VIII. She lived in Brussels, and he lived in London; and before the internet, he needed to “see” her. He sent Holbein to capture her. She piqued the King’s interest as he was looking for a new bride. He kept the painting even though they never married. Sadly Holbein lost favour with the King after the Anne of Cleves portrait.
There is some interesting shadowing (against the wall) and she is wearing exquisite black robes with browny fur. She is certainly tall, she has charming elegant pursed lips and engaging eyes. Her hands are beautiful and elegant — made more striking by the white ruffle. And the gloves between her fingers are a sweet homely charm.
Beautiful and elegant, propitious.
There is an interesting talk on this painting on YouTube by the National Gallery:
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A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?)
Another lovely portrait. Beautifully painted. Simple but elegant clothing, and a stoic look.
The squirrel and starling allude to a special family connected to Henry VIII.
Apparently, the pet squirrel is a heraldic symbol. He sits on the woman's arm; nibbling away. He seems to be chained.
Amazing news. 😀
I watched the clip and had a few tears of joy. I can’t believe Noa is back home and safe now.
Noa was the face of the kidnapping and Israel’s hostage crisis — she was specifically named in the early hostage deals. Now she can finally be the face of happiness and beauty.
Her poor mother has brain cancer; and came out, begging and pleading to see her daughter before she dies! I couldn’t even imagine.
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Israel is being criticised for the 200 Gazan death (e.g., EU's Josep Borrell). The criticism of the IDF is just mind-boggling.
It is the fault of Hamas:
All this could have been avoided by returning hostages — but it seems a few Israeli hostages are worth the protracted suffering of the Palestinians, they can thank Hamas for its priorities.
This photograph is the landing on Omaha beach.
It absolutely gripping and terrifying. And also mournful.
Those poor soldiers were sitting ducks in front of the landing crafts when the ramps dropped.
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Coast Guard historian Scott Price wrote a brief historical account of the photo in which he explains Sargent’s experience: (excerpted)
The photograph was captured by Coast Guard Chief Photographer’s Mate Robert F. Sargent, and entitled “Into the jaws of death.”
Sargent, a veteran of the invasions of Sicily and Salerno, took the photo from his landing craft at sector “Easy Red” of Omaha Beach around 7:40 a.m. local time.
The Coast Guard carried out another important mission — sending combat photographers and correspondents in with the troops. Thus, Sargent was at Normandy where he was able to capture the most famous invasion in modern history.
The Historian’s Office recently acquired a copy of the press release issued with the publication of Sargent’s photograph. Printed on brittle mimeograph paper, it has browned with age but is still legible. It was written by Coast Guard Combat Correspondent Thomas Winship who quotes Sargent extensively.
Original caption: “Into the Jaws of Death: Down the ramp of a Coast Guard landing barge Yankee soldiers storm toward the beach-sweeping fire of Nazi defenders in the D-Day invasion of the French coast. Troops ahead may be seen lying flat under the deadly machinegun resistance of the Germans. Soon the Nazis were driven back under the overwhelming invasion forces thrown in from Coast Guard and Navy amphibious craft.”
What those men went through — in that photo — that day was incredible.
Today, a few remaining veterans at Normandy were sharing their memories & being honoured.
In the story below, Mr Alex Penstone was only 19 when he was deployed to Normandy. Joined by Mr Harry Birdsall. According to the Daily Telegraph, “he made the journey to remember lost fellow”. The wreath (in the photo) is a symbol of those who never made it back home.
More than 150,000 soldiers from America, UK, Canada and the Commonwealth bravely went into battle to deliver a decisive blow against Nazi Germany.
I think of my own dear great-grandfather that I never knew but survived WWII.
Much respect & thanks to these elderly gentlemen who were so young going to war.
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John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. For some, the archetypal painter of the English landscape. His masterpiece “The Hay Wain” was recently targeted by Just Stop Oil.
This blog post is about a few paintings of Constable at the National Gallery in London.
For me, Constable is important on a personal level and because he’s v. closely connected to one of my absolute favorites, Turner.
Inspired by Thomas Gainsborough, he studied at the Royal Academy in London. Constable once wrote, “I should paint my own places best.” Throughout his career, he developed a deeply personal vision of the countryside of his childhood home of Suffolk. I do love that real sense of nostalgia present in much of Constable’s works.
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Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sensational painting, and so beautiful.
A monument to the English painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.
This painting captures you, it is beautiful and yet mournful and solitary. An homage to a departed spirit.
The beautiful autumnal trees climbing up the painting, the soft warmth in the hues of the setting sun, the chilly barren Leicestershire grounds, the busts of Michelangelo and Raphael.
In front of the monument, a respectful and elegant stag turns to regard the viewer.
The faint “REYNOLDS” letters legible on the epitaph.
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The Hay Wain
Absolutely huge, and breathtaking. It’s also quite messy, a bit blotchy.
I think, in “The Hay Wain”, Constable painted happiness, or how life is meant to be.
The fluffy summery cumulus clouds. His skies are quite special. In the background fields, Constable painted labourers cutting hay.
The horse-drawn wagon (with 2 people on board relaxing, and 1 chap playing with a local dog) is shown crossing a charming ford. This is the River Stour in Constable’s native Suffolk.
There are some wonderful details which fill you with joy — e.g.:
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Stratford Mill
Love it.
Once again, I find the the scientific exactness & the grace of his clouds incredible. At the background, we can see the grasslands covered by circles of illumination and sunlight and the rest covered in the cloudy darkness. The warmth of the painting seems to be the central figures at the fore.
This is another River Stour painting. The Stratford Mill can be seen on the far left — as an island in the river. It was used to make paper.
This time a group of boys are fishing — and they’re being watched by a young girl in a red skirt.
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The Cornfield
Wonderful.
Amazing clouds, they seem to illuminate the painting from the darkness of the trees and vegetation.
A little boy drinks from a stream ... while a sheepdog looks on, as it guides the flock through a lane sheltered by trees.
Harvesters can be seen busy in the cornfield beyond.
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Salisbury Cathedral and Leadenhall from the River Avon
I loved this painting — technically, it’s a “sketch”.
It’s very engaging and vivid. It feels modern with its post-impressionistic heaviness and blotches.
It shows a view towards Salisbury Cathedral across the River Avon.
Here are my quick thoughts on the recent Biden speech. In short, the plan involves:
Yair Rosenberg in “Biden’s Bold Gaza Cease-Fire Gambit” (The Atlantic) takes the view that:
My thoughts
In my view, Israel should do the deal — despite the fact that it isn’t at all fair to Israel.
All-in-all, this is a 6-week ceasefire with hostages dealing.
The problem here is the horrible precedent of “ceasefire-for-hostages” deals in terms of emboldening Hamas terrorists which is an enduring danger to Israel (and I’ve discussed before). More importantly, Hamas gets an indefinite ceasefire while continuing to hold the hostages and Israel retreats and start negotiating again. This can only be a hard sell. And we mustn’t forget that Hamas has broken every ceasefire it agreed to.
The NY jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.
A lot of people hate Trump. And for most people — as long as they agree with the result — they don’t really care about how it was obtained, or what the broader consequences might be.
In my view, we should all care about the process. And, my provisional view is that there is something wrong with this conviction.
It feels like the law has been manipulated for political purposes.
I think Trump may have the last laugh on appeal.
Legal irregularities
Andrew McCarthy, at National Review (an anti-Trump publication), highlighted the many ways in which this case applies a wholly novel and flawed legal theory to Trump and suffers from major constitutional infirmities that will be raised on appeal. E.g., the jury instructions.
From my own readings, the obvious problems seem to be:
The WSJ has a very interesting editorial. The WSJ originally broke the hush-money story; and think Trump obviously committed that bit of sleaze.
Broadly, the argument is that this was a targeted — if even malicious — prosecution. I’ve summarised the interesting bits:
Mr Bragg, an elected Democrat, ran for office as the man ready to take on Mr. Trump. When the new DA didn’t indict shortly after winning office, his top Trump prosecutors loudly quit, increasing the pressure on Mr. Bragg to do, well, something. Even after a guilty verdict, the case he ended up filing looks like a legal stretch.
To elevate these counts into felonies, the DA said Mr. Trump cooked the books with an intent to commit or cover up a second offence. What crime was that? At first Mr. Bragg was cagey. He eventually settled on a New York election law, rarely enforced, that prohibits conspiracies to promote political candidates “by unlawful means.”
Yet what “unlawful means” did this alleged conspiracy use? The DA’s argument was that there were three: First, the hush money was effectively an illegally large donation to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Second, more business filings were falsified, including bank records for Mr. Cohen’s wire transfer to Ms. Daniels. Third, false statements were made to tax authorities, since Mr. Trump’s repayment of Mr. Cohen was structured as income and “grossed up” to cover the taxes he would need to pay on it.
In some ways this Russian nesting doll structure, to use another analogy, defies logic. Did Mr. Trump falsify business records in 2017 to cover up an illegal conspiracy to elect him in 2016, whose unlawful means included false information in Mr. Cohen’s tax return for 2017? There was hardly any direct evidence about Mr. Trump’s state of mind. Federal prosecutors squeezed a guilty plea out of Mr. Cohen but notably didn’t pursue Mr. Trump. One news report said the feds worried that his “lack of basic knowledge of campaign finance laws would make it hard to prove intent.”
A help to Mr. Bragg’s prosecution is that the jurors were instructed that as long as they were unanimous that Mr. Trump was guilty of falsifying business records to aid or cover up an illegal conspiracy to get him elected, they didn’t all have to agree about which theory of the “unlawful means” they found persuasive. Perhaps this will be taken up by Mr. Trump on appeal. He will almost certainly argue, too, that the Stormy pay-off wasn’t a campaign expense, as Brad Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, has been arguing all along.
We don’t doubt the sincerity of the Manhattan jurors, but many voters will digest all of this and conclude that, while Mr. Trump may be a cad, this conviction isn’t disqualifying for a second term in the White House. Judge Juan Merchan tolerated Mr. Bragg’s legal creativity in ways that an appeals court might not. What if Mr. Trump loses the election and then is vindicated on appeal? If Democrats think that too many Republicans today complain about stolen elections, imagine how many more might next year.
