Wednesday 17 April 2013

A Sea Symphony

Hello everyone,

There is a painting currently hanging in the gallery as part of the Shore Things exhibition entitled 'On the Beach at Night, Alone', one of three in the exhibition by wonderful landscape painter Hazel Cashmore. We always love showing Hazel's work - she is a master of colour, depth and texture, and manages to reproduce the dark brooding skies of her home in Caithness with consummate skill.  Everyone recognises her paintings to be on Northern landscapes as soon as they see them, and this one is no exception:













'On the Beach at Night, Alone', acrylic on canvas, by Hazel Cashmore.
This painting has such presence and power: a real favourite.

You may be wondering about the title - it seems so fitting for such a strong yet dark painting. In fact, On the Beach at Night, Alone is the title of a piece of music from Vaughan Williams' famous work, A Sea Symphony, and it happens to be a favourite piece of Hazel's. The piece is actually a poem by American poet Walt Whitman, which Vaughan Williams set to music, so how fitting that it is being used yet again, in yet another artistic endeavour. 
 

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef
     of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
[All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,]
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, [all inanimate forms,]
All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, [or in
     different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,]
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann'd,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

If you get a chance, you really should come and have a look at this latest re-incarnation of On the Beach at Night, Alone.

Speak soon.

Wednesday 3 April 2013