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Albrecht Durer surely had the sharpest eye of any painter. Think of his watercolour A big piece of turf, made in 1503, half a millennium before the hyperrealist painters of our own time. Or the astonishing sketch of his own…
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Cefn Bryn and the painters
Looking out of the window of my lockdown attic, I’ve a south-west view of south Gower. If I stretch my neck I can see the eastern end of the ridge of Cefn Bryn, the long sandstone backbone of the peninsula. …
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‘Reports of my death’: the many lives of Jean Rhys
False news is now so natural a part of our world that few people are surprised to read about the deaths of people who remain stubbornly alive. There are plenty of examples, many of them recent. Wikipedia lists over 300…
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Circles of light
A virus, the Oxford English Dictionary tells us, is ‘an infectious, often pathogenic agent or biological entity … able to function only within the living cells of a host animal, plant, or microorganism’. It’s a dark and invisible thing, that…
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One hill, two painters
Peter Wakelin’s book Refuge and renewal: migration and British art, written to accompany his exhibition of the same name – its run in MOMA Machynlleth was sadly curtailed by coronavirus – is a rich source of information about artists who…
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Ar ôl Covid-19: beth?
Dyw’r firws ddim eto wedi cyrraedd ei anterth. Ond eisoes mae llawer o sylwebwyr yn edrych ymlaen at y cyfnod ôl-Govid-19 ac yn gofyn y cwestiwn, a fydd pethau’n hollol newydd, yn ein bywyd cyhoeddus, ar ôl i’r afiechyd gilio,…
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Lludd and the three plagues
Lludd, son of Beli Mawr (‘Lud’ in English) is king of the Island of Britain, and a wise and successful ruler. From his capital, Caer Lludd (London), he takes care of his subjects, housing them well and supplying them with…
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Jazz recordings: gwallter’s top ten
A while ago I suggested ten favourite blues recordings you might try. All of them were tracks I’d treasured, most for over forty years. So here are ten more, this time old jazz favourites, in chronological order. Actually, these are…
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A journey around my room
One of the many effects of the coronavirus pandemic has been to put a stop to all but the shortest and most qualified kinds of walking. But if social distancing means that your personal movement is restricted to walking around…
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Thucydides on the plague in Athens
In the bath the other morning I happened to catch an interview with the novelist Kamila Shamsie. She was asked what books she’d want to have with her if the coronavirus forced her to self-isolate for a lengthy period. She…