Brantwood – Poppies

A window at Brantwood (above)
A spore print from a Brantwood fern (above)
Demeter - the Earth mother - Prosperina's mother (above)

We began to think more about the Poppy today – there are some real beauties in the lower garden, a wild, fragile, translucent red. We have also been enjoying Dinah Birch’s book on Ruskin’s myths. “Demeter, the “Earth Mother” as Ruskin calls her, is the mother of Proserpina and in the mythology of the Greeks is closely linked with her. The Poppy is her flower, and thus comes to be associated with Proserpina herself.” She quotes the following passage from Ruskin “Nearly all the flowers keep with them, all their lives, their nurse or tutor leaves, - the group which, in stronger and humbler temper, protected them in their first weakness, and formed them to the first laws of their being. But the poppy casts these tutorial leaves away. It is the finished picture of impatient and luxury-loving youth, - at first too severely restrained, then casting all restraint away – yet retaining to the end of life unseemly and illiberal signs of its once compelled submission to laws which were only pain, - not instruction.” Ruskin could be talking about his own childhood and probably is, but he could also be talking about Rose and he, and he is probably doing that too. But this image, of the Poppy leaf, when you look closely at it, its translucent petals are ever-rumpled from its containment. Yet, these “signs of its once compelled submission” serve to catch the shapes of light and reflection upon the petals like no other flower I know of. I have never seen such a fine texture of reflective red – and it is incredibly reflective. Yet, it makes us think of the way in which we bear the scars of our upbringing.

Proserpina of course has a whole chapter on the Poppy, and unlocking its depth of meaning is complex. He wonders, for instance, “whether poppy leaves themselves….are not too thin, im-properly thin?” I don’t know about the leaves; in fact I think he’s referring to the leaves of the flower, the petals. But the petals seem that way to me, there is something truly sensuous in their thin-ness and delicacy as they are moved by the gentlest of breezes, like the finest of fabrics, too delicate even to touch, though one longs to do so. That sensuousness would no doubt have unnerved Ruskin. When Ruskin says of the Poppy, that it is “robed in the purple of Caesars”, he goes on to say “what I meant was, first, that the poppy leaf looks dyed through and through, like glass, or Tyrian tissue; and not merely painted; secondly, that the splendour of it is proud, - almost insolently so. Augustus, in his glory, might have been clothed like one of these; and Saul; but not David, nor Solomon; still less the teacher of Solomon, when he puts on ‘glorious apparel.’ ” There’s loads more about poppies – the heads drooping like those of dying soldiers, “the specific sense of men’s drooping under weight, or towards death, under the burden of fortune which they have no more strength to sustain… the poppy became in the heathen mind the type once of power, or pride, and it’s loss”. He likens the poppy head also to the Pomegranate fruit, saying “the cause of Proserpine’s eternal captivity – her having tasted a pomegranate seed… Demeter, associated with the Poppy by a multitude of ideas which are not definitely expressed, but can only be gathered out of Greek art and literature… the fullness of seed in the Poppy, as an image of life.”

I am minded to think, in reading Proserpina, and trying to get to the true meaning of plants, of all the problems of nomenclature and classification, which Ruskin (and in fact anyone who gets interested in botany) gets mistakenly seduced into. So, the Herb Robert – a good English name – apparently it’s really a geranium. Only it’s not a Geranium is it? In fact it’s nothing like a Geranium. This business of grouping things into plant families, whether scientifically botanical, or mythalogically Ruskinian, seems to me to be useless. There are no families of plants, there are just plants, with definite characters. Ruskin is right that the true meaning of botany is in the biography of plants, but in many ways he would have been better off just exploring that idea in Proserpina, rather than trying to create a whole new classification system.

So Alex made cyanotypes of the poppy, and cyanotypes of posies of flowers with complex meanings in language. And he had some spore prints which I photographed - there's a real challenge in fixing them to the paper. I filmed the Poppy in the studio. But I want to do more with it yet, to capture the delicate way it’s petals move so gently in the wind. So little time left to us, and I also have a plan to shoot the Vervain in one of Brantwood’s Ruskinian gothic arched windows (above), in mind of Carpaccio’s St Ursula, with double exposure. Tomorrow morning I have first to dig some Vervain, pot it, then hope for an interesting pattern of clouds through the window, or rain drops upon the glass. Vervain looks nothing like Ruskin’s Vervain, or Carpaccio’s, but I don’t really care about that. It has become, for me, the light through which Carpaccio’s St Ursula is illuminated.

Late afternoon we met with Howard Hull, as ever a wonderful and enlightening talk ensued. We showed some of the work we have created so far to Sally and he, discussing also how we might show the final work here. The rooms in Brantwood, quite coincidentally we discovered, are themed with the seven lamps – Sacrifice, Truth, Power, Beauty, Life, Memory and Obedience. We are quite keen to put one screen in each room, making these correspondences with the rooms in the language of flowers. The whole idea of the language of flowers is worthy of so much more than we have been able to get to yet. We’re very aware of how our time here, or with this subject, is woefully incomplete. Further to that, we may use the exhibition space in the house for some cyanotypes and Ruskin’s flora drawings, plus books, like his pressed Alpine flower book, or some of his botanical books. And we all got quite excited about doing something that connects the exhibition with the living truth of the garden here – the real and beautiful world from which everything we have done, and much of what Ruskin did, stems. Sally Beamish, the head gardener here, is its inspiring and dedicated custodian.

Finally, went to see a copy of the ‘Library Edition’ which was for sale in Coniston, the whole 39 volumes of Ruskin’s work… which we have had the intense pleasure of perusing here for several hours each day, these last few days. There are very few things in life I covet, but this set of books is one of them.

It has been wonderful being here – I woke this morning anxious to appreciate every moment of the day ahead - an opening of mind and heart, and there is much that both of us will continue to learn from it, long after we have left. Above all, the separation we have experienced from the usual realities of life, to sink into creative thought as the sole and true basis for life, even if temporary - this is a most rare and powerful thing.

Brantwood – Roses and Foxgloves

Ruskin - Study of a Wild Rose (above)
Brantwood - Wild Rose (above)
Sally Beamish - 'Locked out'!

We are very aware today that our time here is coming to and end (today is Wednesday and we leave on Friday) and this has a peculiar affect. In many ways, we’re very aware of only just having begun here. Every day, some aspect of Brantwood’s secret plant life comes into focus, grows and becomes meaningful. This leads us to enquire into Ruskin’s mythology about a particular plant, which is always an incredibly rewarding journey. But we have but two more days. Proserpina is unlocked to us, but that is all. To really enter into it, to go through it and back out into one’s own life, requires much more time. So pressure of time leads to an urge to get on with things, to get a lot of stuff done. This is always at the expense of truth, and we are consciously resisting it.

We have both been very aware of the Rose, of the Dog Rose in particular. Interestingly, Ruskin has little really to say about the Rose in writing – it is simply present, as a given form of complete perfection, everywhere within and beneath his writing. We have looked several times at his portrait of Rose La Touche, downstairs – it is quite unlike anything else Ruskin has drawn. It has this quality of whiteness, of fragility, ethereality and subtlety, or dare I say it, love of a higher order, coupled with a strange degree of uncertainty, which quite overwhelms me in its poignancy. She has flowers in her hair – wood sorrel leaves and its flower perhaps, or is it clover (being Irish)? And Dog Rose I am sure of. I wanted to capture this somehow, to respect it, in dealing with the Dog Rose. For any artist, this is a kind of terrifying responsibility. He did a most wonderful drawing of the Dog Rose too, in 1871, which is just like the portrait of Rose in so many ways (above). Ruskin chose this drawing as part of a display for the teaching collection at Oxford, “the choice almost certainly had a very private significance for Ruskin, for on the 26th May 1875, Rose La Touche dies after a long illness.” Says Robert Hewison. Ruskin describes the drawing (in colour, and one if his very best), thus: “A sketch made expressively for these schools to show the degree of attention with which rapid studies should be made for landscape foliage. It will be seen that the leaves are almost in every case laid first with a single wash of colour and never retouched more than once. It is impossible to get a true study of a complex branch of Rose unless done at this pace, for the buds always open or the leaves of the open flower drop in the course of an hour. Exertion of attention in doing this piece of work, as this is to me the hardest task of any in art-practice, and in this particular case the exhaustion brought on by doing this drawing before breakfast, I believe, was the beginning of my Matlock illness.”

Matlock is often cited as his first episode of madness. But I don’t believe in madness at all.

I approached the Dog Rose with apprehension, not just for the brevity of its life, but because in many ways the Rose is Proserpina, the true deity of the book, never directly addressed, but assumed. The book is devotional in tone, though this devotion is shrouded in some kind of spurious educational intent. She is his greatest life-love, but also, somehow, the highest of all flowers. A god-like plant – though nothing like the christian god – essentially fragile, kind, wild and unruly, yet so subtle and full of love. Searching first of all for a sprig of Dog Rose that would do, and would not be missed if cut - rejecting those few in the garden here (pitifully), I eventually found a very old plant growing by the wall, across the road, between the house and the meadow which leads to the water. A small sprig cut, just like the one he drew, which I took back to the studio and carefully filmed, against white, for its purity.

Now, this Dog Rose, it doesn’t last an hour, as Ruskin states, but less than half an hour, before it loses its subtle glory. How anyone ever managed to draw it when picked I do not know. This fragility is quite unique, shared perhaps only by the poppy. Fragility, subtlety and purity (of both colour and form) are the essence of this plant. Though it’s petals fall quickly, you will find they are perfectly heart shaped, like the violet’s leaf, but white and pink and translucent in gradations.

Further, today, I finally captured, in the studio, the tumbling fall of the Erba Della Madonna (Ivy leaved Toadflax), with much better result. I believe Rose loved Ruskin when she saw this plant. When she looked at it, she thought of how he loved it as it tumbled from the ruins of the Venice architecture he loved. But maybe, though it was fair, he did not love it quite as she supposed, but loved the Rose far more.

There are so many plants we cannot reach in the time we have – the Milkwort (Giulietta), Butterwort (Pinguicula), Self-Heal (Brunella), Red Rattle (Monacha), the Poppy (Papaver Rhoeus), Cyclamen (the plant, with it’s petals turned out, it’s associations with spirals, circularity and death, that precipitated his abandonment of Proserpina). Salvia Silvarum (what’s that?), Hawthorn blossom (ever now associated with the death-day of Rose La Touche). Then there are those in a Proserpina passage, where he imagines a walk with Proserpina to gather flowers at Brantwood – The Foxglove, the Eyebright, Common and Spiked Speedwell, a crimson Snapdragon, Figwort and Teucrium Scorodonia (what’s that too?). The Vervain and Dianthus, of St Ursula and Carpaccio – we haven’t worked yet with those even. And what about the Whortleberry, the Anagallis Tenella (Pimpernell), Contorta Purpurea, the Buttercup leaf, the Bramble, the Wood Sorrel, Saxifrage, Herb Bennet, Herb Robert, Bog Myrtle? Oh yes, and the marvellous Agrimony? Or Ivy? And Moss… the moss is beneath all, in almost everywhere we might look.

The Vervain here… it should be in a big clump, alone, in a way that we can see its similarity to the clump of Vervain in St Ursula’s window. It has a wonderful sculptural form. I know little about this plant, but have always been intrigued by it.

But together Alex and I filmed the Foxglove today, in the garden, blowing in clumps naturally in the breeze off the lake. It was a wonderfully sunny day, made all the better for the fact that my shoes finally actually fell apart, which necessitated a trip to Consiton to buy some new ones – and new shoes made me cheerful all day. We locked ourselves out too.. but we were rescued by the warm and wonderful Sally Beamish… it was she who is responsible for the note you see today above. By chance after our daily late afternoon coffee, we at last met Pamela – who informed us that Proserpina was in fact written for children. She runs guided tours here, and we hope to join her on one.

Reading also; the library here is an (almost) endless joy. And conversations about India and Ghandi and the idea of passive resistance and Ruskin’s influence on Gandhi. A bust of Gandhi sits on the shelves - sent here, it appears, by the High Commissioner of India, to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Gandhi. We’ve also been especially drawn to the letters between Ruskin and Susie Beever (unusually for Ruskin, a woman14 years his senior), over the last two days. The letters reveal a quiet, loving tenderness – she lived just across the lake here, at the Thwaite. In an early one, Ruskin says gently “and above all, you’re to write me just what comes into your head”… Think about it – it’s an incredibly beautiful thing to say to anybody.