This week, instead of the proposed risky attempt to call back the heatwave – after all, we don’t want a hosepipe ban – I’ve decided to focus on a very desirable seasonal effect, in the hope that the weather will take a gentle hint, and do a bit more of what we like to see in August. Store of happiness is a one-elephant artist’s book made from a sheet of handmade paper, torn and folded into a book form, which you read by opening and turning the pages, following the spiral form of the book.
The text is by from La Possession du Monde by Duhamel, quoted in one of my favourite books, M. Minnaert’s Light and Colour in the Open Air, and like the text in The lovely blue, it’s characteristically brimming with an infectious enthusiasm for the delights of nature, while being rather formally expressed; the lettering reflects this combination of firmness and pleasure. I’ll show it to you page by page.
This way of looking at nature – Do not depart before you have understood - reminds me of Margaret Tait’s penetrative investigating gaze, as described in her text ‘On seeing’ in Subjects and Sequences: A Margaret Tait Reader. She calls it ‘peering’ through the camera lens, a combination of studying and contemplating that allows her to see the thing more deeply, to ‘follow’ it. This in turn reminds me of Van Gogh’s opinion (in an 1888 letter to Theo) that ‘It’s not enough to have a certain dexterity. It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper understanding.’
Margaret Tait suggests further that ‘treating everything equally’ is also important – that ‘the woman standing here, and the leaf on the wall, it’s all got equal significance.’ This is another echo of Minnaert’s inspiring philosophy. Some obedient close observation of birch trees against the February sky this year proved that it’s absolutely true about the ‘delicate glow’ – a pleasure to look forward too, but not just yet.
The Summer hath her joyes,
And Winter her delights.
(Thomas Campian)
Perhaps I should repeat the first line of that couplet.
