The Shop around the corner

                         

The Shop Around the Corner (1940, trailer) directed by Ernest Lubitsch and starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan (one of the great voices of cinema) is one of my favourite romantic comedies ever, and is in fact, my foremost alternative Christmas movie. I watch it every year, in addition to It’s a Wonderful Life (I’m a big Jimmy Stewart fan).

There’s a specificity that Lubitsch brings to his characters that allows them to scale comedic heights, but also experience great outbursts of feelings otherwise not shown in comedies, emotions such as sorrow, grief and despair. And Lubitsch captures these mecurial qualities with dazzling simplicity and panache.

There is one shot in The Shop Around the Corner that just breaks your heart. It is one of the few close ups in a film largely captured in mid-shot, where a hand seeks a letter in a post-box and finding none, retreats in despair. You don’t see her face but you know just from this simple gesture that this character’s heart has just been broken. It is such a fragile, economical shot, but so inexpressively moving. Likewise while the merry war between Margaret Sullivan and Jimmy Stewart’s characters hurtles towards its inexorable happy ending, the film parallels this bright romance with the darker, tragic consequences of love and marriage, presenting a scene almost too dark, too compelling its in existential grief. Yet, it is precisely such a reminder of the darker aspects of human experience that make the romance of The Shop Around the Corner all the more exquisite and meaningful.

Dorothy Parker

                               

It has been so frightfully busy that I have nary the time to read something other than uni readings, much less pick up a paintbrush. I’m writing an essay on Flannery O’Connor (more on her in a future post) whose writing is so fascinating but so unbelievably uncompromising that I need often need a palate cleanser after perusing her work. Dorothy Parker’s poems serve very well. They are so funny and so sardonic and ideally for me, very succinct. This poem, Coda (1928), is very compelling, not just for its ferocious cynicism, but because it reveals a singularly interesting and extremely frank confession of self loathing:

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Bear Hunt

                               

I made this under the duress of my niece, who demanded a painting of pirate bears. This is based on our own treasure hunting trips, which we do accompanied by our trusty steed (my labrador Ebony).

Glass

                 

Today my family and I visited St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney for to watch my brother sing in the choir at a mass celebrating his high school’s 25th anniversary.

The problem with St Mary’s Cathedral is that it is such a ravishing example of 19th century Gothic Revival that it is quite easy to get distracted. Whenever I visit I can never quite take my eyes off the cathedral’s high vaulted ceilings, its spacious and beautifully figured nave and its marvelous marble altar-frontpiece (which Cardinal Pell helpfully informed us today is made of Carrara Marble, the same type of which Michelangelo’s David is hewn). Most of all however, I love the prismatic, carefully coruscated and wildly incandescent surfaces of the cathedral’s stained glass windows.

A cup of tea

                                    

I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon a couple of weeks ago and loved it. While Chabon’s prose and ability to turn a phrase is peerless, it is his immense love for his own characters that is the most striking aspect of his writing. In a cynical and ironic period of literature - perhaps most typified by the Johnathan Franzens of the world (Don’t get me wrong - I loved Freedom), the essential goodness of Chabon’s characters is deeply refreshing and makes his novels all the more suspenseful, because the fate of his characters matter.

This is one particular image from the novel that has stuck with me all these weeks. It is only mentioned briefly in the novel but its meaning for a particular character is incalculable.

It was on the steamer carrying him through the Golden Gate that he happened to reach down into the hole of the lining of the right pocket of his overcoat and discover the envelope that his brother had solemnly handed to him almost a month before. It contained a single piece of paper, which Thomas had hastily stuffed into it that morning as they all were leaving the house together for the last time, by way or in lieu of expressing the feelings of love, fear, and hopefulness that his brother’s escape inspired. It was the drawing of Harry Houdini, taking a calm cup of tea in the middle of the sky, that Thomas had made in his notebook during his abortive career as a librettist. Josef studied it, feeling as he sailed toward freedom as if he weighed nothing at all, as if every precious burden had been lifted from him.  (pg. 86)

A Doggerel of English Monarchs

These rather absurd paintings are illustrations to accompany Jane Austen’s History of England which is my very favourite piece of juvenalia by that esteemed author, written in 1791 when she was only fifteen. I have a really delightful copy- a little booklet with illustrations by Jane’s sister Cassandra- that was given to me by a friend who was lucky enough to visit Chawton. These are actually pretty accurate recreations of actual portraits of the monarchs- apart from the obvious. I find animals quite challenging to draw, but hopefully you will find these amusing. I plan to to do up to the our current chatelaine of Buckingham Palace: Queen Elizabeth II herself, so keep watch for more installments!

A Purrfect World!

TGIF! I am so glad it’s the end of the week that I’m bringing out the cat puns! I saw this teapot lamp last night on design*sponge and knew that that it would have to be the subject for today’s painting. As you can probably tell, I am very fond of drawing cats. Though I think I’ll always love dogs a tiny bit more, youtube is making it harder for me to take a side. This is my absolute favourite cat video- but Cat Burglar comes pretty close.

This is what I imagine Angela from The Office’s house must look like. All of these cat figurines really do exist in real life (I cheated and used Google Image). My favourite is the pink fat cat.

Marguerite

This is based on another photo from Of Another Fashion. The name of the woman pictured is Marguerite Willard (Unfortunately I couldn’t find any more information on her). It’s not so clear here, but I used quite a liberal amount of gold gouache. It was ridiculously expensive to buy a 14ml tube ($12!) but the results are magical!

A Door Opens

This was an attempt to achieve the rippling effect that light creates when it streams through a window but it turned out a little bit too grey in the original painting. As you can see I’m still practicing creating light and shadow using watercolour and goauche. Using these mediums to create gradients is a particularly precarious process as even the slightest amount of water on the tip of your brush can change the effect completely.

Interiors

When I move into my dream house, along with my library (with ceiling to floor bookshelves) and open plan kitchen, I will have a telephone bench just like this one in a quiet nook somewhere, as my go to when I need a healthy dose of gossip. The idea of calling on landline is rapidly becoming an arcane habit- much more having a dedicated telephone bench. But like wearing hats to church, it’s one piece of nostalgia that I’d like to revive.