Tag: Richard Wilson
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In Nantlle
These are torrid days. On my way to the Mumbles shops this morning, on the shaded side of the road, I met an acquaintance walking with her stick and small dog. She looked down at the dog, a pug with a facial expression of one with a long prison sentence still to run. ‘He’s as…
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The artist from behind
What’s happening when artists choose to portray themselves in their work? The self-portrait was an invention of the Renaissance, but it’s just as common today, in painting (Jenny Saville’s work, now on show in a big retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery, is a striking example) and in many other forms. Perhaps the most famous…
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Delweddu pont: Pontypridd a’r artistiaid
Mae llawer o sôn yn yr Eisteddfod Genedlaethol, a gynhelir yng nghanol Pontypridd ym Mharc Ynysangharad, am ‘bontio’ rhwng siaradwyr Cymraeg a’r mwyafrif o’r trigolion lleol sy ddim yn medru’r iaith. Perthnasol iawn yw’r metaffor, o gofio bod Pontypridd yn cynnig esiampl wych o adeilad sydd wrth ei wraidd. Dyw’r gair ‘gwych’ ddim, mewn gwirionedd,…
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The Last Bard: loops of an invented tradition
By now the ‘invented tradition’ is itself a tradition. Since Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger published their edited collection The invention of tradition in 1983, we’ve become familiar with the idea that rituals, histories and beliefs that seem age-old were actually recent fictions devised with specific purposes in mind. One of the chapters in The…
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Richard Wilson on Cadair Idris
Last week I made my annual pilgrimage to Cadair Idris, which my father-in-law introduced me to as the best mountain walk in Wales, sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s. As usual I started from Minffordd. After reaching Llyn Cau I circled clockwise round Craig Cau, Pen-y-gadair and Mynydd Moel. Early cloud lifted from…