ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (6)

RMOAMLC (6)

OTHERWISE OCCUPIED

It’s Monday morning and joy of joys I have an out of office meeting in Ludgate Circus. I have left myself plenty of time to spare and exit the tube at Bank to walk the remainder of the way. As I walk along Cheapside it occurs to me that I haven’t met up with Julian for a while so I call him.

“Hi Julian, its Olly.”

“Olly, I was going to call you.”

“Well what do you know I’ve saved you the trouble. I was wondering if you wanted to meet up this week.”

“Definitely. Love to. What did you have in mind?”

“I thought we could have a few beers and get a curry,” I venture.

There is a definite pause at the other end of the line. It is pregnant with unease. “I’m not sure I fancy that,” says Julian.

I’m taken aback. “Well what do you want to do instead?” I ask.

“I’m not sure really. I just don’t fancy beer and curry.”

It just goes to show you never really know another person. Julian and I always have beer and curry. Sometimes if we're in a rush we might skip the curry but I thought we held a shared belief that beer and curry represented the zenith of human social interaction. “What’s wrong with beer and curry?” I ask unable to keep a slight edge of petulance out of my voice

“There’s nothing wrong with it as such,” says Julian sounding defensive.

“’As such?’ ‘As such?’” I repeat, “We always have beer and curry what’s changed?”

“Well if you must know,” says Julian, I’m tired of waking up with a thick head and a bad stomach.”

I’m forced to pause and consider these points. There is more than a grain of truth in his objection but before I can acknowledge this Julian goes on, “And I’m fed up of waking in the middle of the night with a raging thirst because of all the salt…..” This too is something I am familiar with but there is more, “..And we always end up talking shit…”

“But its entertaining shit,” I interject hoping Julian will laugh and realise how petty his objections sound but he is warming to his subject and is not about to be deflected.

“…And the last time we went out I fell asleep on the train and woke up at the end of the line. It cost me £50 to get home by taxi…..”

“Well you can’t complain if you have to pay the idiot tax,” I joke.

“…And Tamzin made me sleep on the sofa when I got in and didn’t speak to me for 2 days.”

“Well that’s marriage for you,” I say in what I hope is a sympathetic tone.

“Oh it’s alright for you. No wonder you’re separated.”

This last comment brings the conversation to a juddering halt as we both realise that Julian has crossed an invisible line.

“I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that last bit.”

“Don’t mention it,” I say magnanimously. “So let me just summarise where we are. You are suggesting that just because it gives you a headache, bad stomach, disturbed sleep, makes you talk nonsense, renders you incapable of alighting from a train at the correct stop, costs you £50 and damages your relationship with your wife this somehow outweighs the positive sensations you get from the complex matrix of delights that is created when you mix beer and curry.” I’m confident that striped down and stated starkly like this Julian will see the folly of his position.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” says Julian seemingly blind to the obvious flaws in his case.

I try another tack. “So what do you suggest we do?”

“I don’t know,” says Julian, “I haven’t given it much thought.”

I seize on this. “Well you seem to have given an awful lot of thought to the negatives,” I pause to let this well made point sink in, “I simply thought that if you were going to suggest that beer and curry  was somehow deficient as a night out you might have taken time to consider how we might improve on it.”

“We could have a coffee,” proffers Julian apologetically.

I snort derisively, “Oh yes, let’s buy Vespas and pinch young girls’ bottoms while we’re at it.”

“Well, like I say I haven’t really given it much thought,” says Julian.

“Obviously!”

“Surely as two mature adults we could conceive of some alternative way of spending the evening,” implores Julian.

“The floor is all yours,” I say, “You name it and we’ll give it a go.”

“Oh I don’t know,” sighs Julian with a resigned air, “how about we meet at the Red Lion?”

“Great idea,” I answer triumphantly and as I approach St Paul’s Cathedral and ring off I can almost taste the chicken biryani. Out of idle curiosity I decide to visit the collection of tents that house the Occupy London protest. On my inspection it appears that capitalism can sleep safely in its bed. The tightly packed tents seem to significantly outnumber those visibly protesting. A young man is labouring energetically to produce a sound from two small hand drums and another man is producing a very proficient depiction of St Pauls on the pavement using chalks. Neither of these two exertions seems likely to bring the existing world order to its knees so I turn my attention to the sheets of agitprop taped to every available wall in the vicinity. I’m reading a fascinating polemic against the global conspiracy of bankers and have just reached the point where I‘m invited to consider the works of David Icke for further information on the subject when I am approached by a woman wearing a woolly hat. “You a banker?” she asks.

“No,” I reply. The woman seems a little disappointed. “Would it matter if I was?” I ask helpfully.

“Course it would. Bankers are why we’re in the mess we’re in.”

I suspect that Woolly Hat could talk at some length on this topic and so, hoping to throw her off her stride, I launch a pre-emptive strike. “Surely bankers are not solely responsible,” I say. She looks at me with a mixture of pity and dismay and emboldened by her evident surprise I go on, “Our current problems are symptoms of far bigger issues; it is a feature of our economic system that there will be cycles of boom and bust.”

“Exactly!” says Woolly Hat and now it is my turn to be surprised. I’m not quite sure how I come to be in agreement with this woman. “The whole system is corrupt, it needs to be changed,” she asserts stridently.

“So you are advocating that we do away with capitalism are you?” As I ask my question I am confident that Woolly Hat does not realise the rhetorical trap I’m setting for her.

“Most definitely,” she responds.

“Right, and what do you say we should put in its place?” I ask.

I haven’t given it much thought,” replies my interlocutor.

“Ha! I thought as much,” I comment and as I head to my meeting I congratulate myself on not one but two victories for cool headed reason over the perils of woolly thinking in the course of a single morning.

ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (5)

RMOAMLC

LIVES OF THE ARTISTS No. 1

Listen to the news, read a paper or speak to friends and you would believe that any time you go on-line your personal information is available to anyone who cares to see it; millions of people just sitting in front of their screen waiting on your every key stroke. Fear not, I have the answer to your internet security concerns. Publish all your personal data in a blog and then be assured that nobody will be remotely interested in it. If you are reading this congratulate yourself on being part of a select band. I appreciate that blogging is very noughties and that I ought to be Tweeting but when I started I had hoped that my audience wouldn’t all fit in my car.

Not that small can’t be beautiful; I am very grateful to my American readership and would like to thank you both for your loyalty. It has occurred to me that perhaps you are sitting in some CIA reading room like Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor. If you are, let me assure you that I have no plans to subvert the world order but please don’t let that deter you from continuing to read this blog. I need all the followers I can get and there are more laughs in this than in an Islamist chat room.

Appreciating what it is to be ignored I have decided to pay homage to other artists who were unappreciated in their own time in a series of profiles entitled “Lives of the Artists”.

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Claude Beaudaire

“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder,” is perhaps the best known of

Beaudaire’s many bon mots. The man whose passion for life was exceeded only by his capacity for vast quantities of industrial strength alcohol is little known now but in his time his light shone as brightly as any of the famed artists of the Paris demi-monde. A voracious and undiscerning lover of women he was a habitué of the Moulin Rouge and friend of the artistic elite. Paul Cezanne said of him “He sees the world through the eyes of a child and paints it with the hands of an arthritic blacksmith.” Toulouse Latrec is said to have commented, “I look up to Monsieur Beaudaire”.

Born in 1854 in the tiny hamlet of Oublie in the Loire Valley, Beaudaire was the youngest of five children. His father an accountant died in a freak accident while  sorting the tax affairs of a local land agent. This incident is seen by many biographers as a defining event in the life of the young Beaudaire. The art historian, Clough, in his work “Bad Impressions”, claims that the painting “Les Livres Sur Mon Pere” was an attempt by the adult Beaudaire to come to terms with the childhood trauma. 

The death of his father left Beaudaire in a female dominated household. His four older sisters and doting mother are said to have dressed the young Claude like a doll. Whatever the emotional consequences of this upbringing, it is plain that as a man Beaudaire was never happier than when in the intimate company of women. In his most famous series of works Beaudaire gives us an uncompromising representation of the female form in a variety of poses. “Tournebroche” (literally translated as “Spit Roast”), as this series of works is generally referred to in artistic circles, was painted between 1880 and 1882 while Beaudaire was at the height of his powers. Many commentators have been struck by the bold application of oil on canvass to create images that are both visceral and visually arresting.

Undoubtedly his unashamedly sexual representation of women meant that Beaudaire’s work never enjoyed a wide audience. While he enjoyed a good deal of fame if not notoriety within the permissive confines of Paris’ artistic community the wider world was subject to a far stricter moral code and his paintings struggled to find an audience.

Beaudaire’s ability to polarise contemporary opinion can be seen in a cutting from the London Daily News from September 17^th 1888. It is reported that a small exhibition of impressionist paintings was held in the Stubbings Gallery in Whitechapel. Beaudaire was among the artists whose work was selected for display. After only a single day the exhibition was picketed by a cross section of local womens, temperance and church groups all professing outrage at the images portrayed in Beaudaire’s work. After some public disorder the gallery suffered fire which was extinguished before it could do serious harm but nevertheless it resulted in the closure of e exhibition.

This event appears to have been a turning point in Beaudaire’s life. Thereafter he struggled to exhibit or sell his work and his life began a downward spiral. He found himself living in a brothel in one of Paris’ poorer quarters. He used the establishment’s employees as models and his paintings reflect the seedier and less glamorous side of life. “Elle non perspirant bien pour une grande femme,” is a striking example of his work in this period. It is interesting to note that much of Beadaire’s work from this time was exchanged for the necessaries of life and his paintings from this time have surfaced in some rather bizarre circumstances.

In 1892 Beaudaire’s health began to deteriorate. This was almost certainly as a result of excessive drinking. He moved to a hospital just outside Paris catering for the long term sick and run by the Sisters of Constant Virtue. Very few paintings from this period of his life remain. Whether Beaudaire was simply unable to work at the same rate as before or whether his work was destroyed after his death cannot be said. The few pictures that we do have suggest Beaudaire, whilst physically unwell washappy in his surroundings. His use of colour at this time is reminiscent of his earlier work and his choice of subject is certainly more spiritual than his previous work. “La Novice,” depicting a young woman in a shift nightdress is thought to be a picture of a novice nun involved in Beaudaire’s care. Whilst chaste in comparison to other work there remains a hint of surpressed carnality that reassures us that Beaudaire’s appetites had not entirely deserted him. Beaudaire died in 1897 and was buried in the small burial ground attached to the hospital in which he spent his final years. There was little interest in his work after his death but in the late 1960’s he enjoyed a brief renaissance his work being favoured particularly by those who espoused free love. His rehabilitation was short lived. Feminist commentators objected to his depiction of women and his work was one more consigned to oblivion. Beaudaire’s work is not on show in any major museum but some examples can be seen in the Town Hall in Oublie, his place of birth.