Fieldfare

It is not often I wake up with a mission in mind, but this morning I decided that I needed to herald winter in by seeking out the one bird that for me confirms the season: the Fieldfare Turdus pilaris. Described aptly by the Birds of the Western Palearctic (BWP) as a "rakish" bird, the Fieldfare is the aristocrat of the Thrushes (although its tendency to roam in packs would perhaps contradict this). Chaucer's 'frosty feldefares' are, for most of us in the UK, winter visitors from the frosty north, although they do occasionally breed in the Highlands.

Meaning, from the Anglo-Saxon felde-fare, a traveller over the fields, the Fieldfare, like many birds, has a host of local names throughout the land: a Feltiflier to the Scots, a Velverd to the people of Wiltshire, and a Storm Bird to those from Norfolk, with the Welsh name picking up on its noisy calls: they call it socen llwyd, which means 'grey pig'.

A resplendent coat of many hues, chestnut back, speckles on a soft beige breast with a slate grey head and black tail, the Fieldfare stands proud, no more so than when it is perched in a wind blown tree in November with its kin, and its cousin, the Redwing.

Fieldfares, and Redwings seem to leave as quickly as they arrive, once April is here these handsome thrushes beat their way back to northern skies. As John Clare wrote, Fieldfares "come and go on winters chilling wing / And seem to share no sympathy with Spring", March in The Shepherd's Calendar.

Turning the Pages

Perhaps the closest any of us will ever come to some of the first editions and manuscripts that shape our culture is through the marvel that is Turning the Pages (TTP). Conceived by The British Library way back in 1996, and brought to reality in partnership with Armadillo New Media Communications, TTP produces an impressive digital facsimile, enabling libraries and museums to display the contents of valuable books and manuscripts.

Currently being used by The British Library, The Royal Society, The Wellcome Collection, National Library of Medicine (US)

Who cares how it works, it just does. My personal favourites are Robert Hooke's Micrographia (for the famous Flea etching, above), Vesalius's De Humani Corporis Fabrica (and you thought Gunther von Hagens was an original), the Lindisfarne Gospels, Sherborne Missal, Blake's notebook (all British Library) and the, frankly, intriguing Wellcome Apocalypse (check out the blue g-string, above). In fact they are all wonderful, enjoy!

William Blake and relief etching

Happy birthday William Blake, 250 today. Although most famous for having his poem Jerusalem misinterpreted as a jingoistic anthem for public schoolboys, Blake's biggest contribution to printmaking methods was his invention of relief etching. This technique was supposedly revealed to Blake by the spirit of his dead brother, who Blake had adored, although it also had great practical benefits to Blake as it enabled him to paint his images directly on to the plate using etch resistant varnish. The acid would therefore eat away at the areas he did not want printing, as opposed to intaglio etching where the etched lines are the areas to be printed. The only real obstacle was to then reverse all the images and words on the plate; although his training as an engraver would have made this process second nature.

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: Infinite. This I shall do by printing in the infernal method by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid." The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Blake's new method was first used around 1788 in the first of his 'illuminated books' All Religions are One and There is No Natural Religion. His first illuminated book of poems, Songs of Innocence appeared in 1789 with much of the hand colouring and printing carried out by his wife Catherine. The books were then mostly sold by Blake directly to collectors. Blake's other Illuminated Books include The Book of Thel, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Milton, Jerusalem and Visions of the Daughters of Albion.

The Great Naturalists

Thames & Hudson continue to impress with their art books, and out in time for Christmas is this marvellous collection of biography and illustration of the great naturalists from Theophrastus to Darwin and Russell Wallace. My only complaint is that they chose to illustrate the cover with an Audubon instead of a less well known image (from, say, Catesby). Interestingly, the image used, Audubon's Flamingo, is actually inaccurate in that the Flamingo's pose would be impossible to achieve in real life. Audubon's aim to paint all his bird's life size meant that he had to squeeze his flamingo into this odd position. It has also been pointed out that no flamingo in the wild would ever achieve such a flaming pink as this individual (although it's colleague in the background is a healthier hue).

The Word from Wormingford

If there is such a thing as a modern sage, then we must surely look no further than the understated pastoral colossus that is Ronald Blythe. Even leaving aside Akenfield, that magnificent hymn to a changing rural land and people-scape, anyone familiar with his wonderful column in the Church Times, Word from Wormingford, will be left bathed in a warm glow of poetry and wisdom.

As much sermon as country diary, Word from Wormingford draws not only on Blythe's immense "book learning" (he was a Reference Librarian at Colchester Library, later editor of Penguin Classics), but, more importantly, on his deep experience and love of people and nature. In fact, it is his ability to see everything as nature, to draw on the "connectedness" of all living things and the places they inhabit that lifts Word from Wormingford into the realm of poetry, and Blythe into the role of Poet-Seer. Almost every sentence is a call to contemplation of the world around us:

"Waiting is a kind of involuntary study. On the station platform, I study the painted iron flowers planted there in 1860. At the bus stop, I study the wild flowers pushing through the lawnmower’s stripes." Church Times, Issue 7549.

Ben Nicholson Prints 1928-1968

The Alan Cristea Gallery is currently showing the largest retrospective exhibition of Ben Nicholson's prints ever mounted. Nicholson made prints throughout his career, from linocuts in his early days, through drypoint, and finally etchings (with only one woodcut, Abstract 1934, below, Tate Gallery). It is an intriguing exhibition, and one (probably) for the Nicholson and/or print purist. Most of the work has come from a private collection, with some early linocuts on loan from Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, such as the marvellous Head of 1933 and Profiles of the same year. Interestingly, a version of the 1938 linocut on the left (which is actually my version, as this is a linocut I did for a cover for the catalogue) is also displayed, but it is an earlier, less worked version from 1937. They even display the two lino plates used to produce the Princess textile design, complete with the original pattern still visible on the uncut sections of lino which illustrates how new the medium was in terms of producing art.

What is particularly fascinating about Nicholson's approach to printmaking is his lack of any rigid structure in how the medium is to be treated: edition sizes are random or non existent; linocut lines are painted over (the Foxy and Frankie series are a case in point) ; etchings are handcoloured or given a grey wash; old etching plates are reused, and best of all, the physical plates are trapeziums (see Siena, 1968, left, Tate Gallery)
Nicholson's etchings are not technically proficient (edges are not filed, plates are sometimes grubby), but then anyone who would use this argument against them misses the point: the imperfection is integral to the work itself. Like his drawings they display an unerring ability to find a balance between representation and abstraction with a magical economy of 'line'. This economy is further enhanced when he hand colours a small section, turning a flat image into something with great depth.