Beaux Arts Bath

Freezing days and a fond farewell

 

As the mercury drops we welcome December with our Christmas show – a bright, diverting, peaceful respite from the hustle and bustle outside, though not in truth, many degrees warmer…Sonnet 94, by W. Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!
What old December’s bareness everywhere!
And yet this time remov’d was summer’s time,
The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime,
Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:
Yet this abundant issue seem’d to me
But hope of orphans and unfather’d fruit;
For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And thou away, the very birds are mute;
Or if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

We do, however, have this handsome fellow on display to welcome all visitors….

 

Nichola Theakston  Standing Silverback,  Bronze, Ed. of 12, 59 x 47 x 28 cm. £9,850

 

And if it is hustle and bustle in the cold  you are after, there is always New York…

Akash Bhatt Houston Street, Mixed media on canvas 61 x 61 cm. £2,800

 

‘The World is a Beautiful Place’ by Lawrence Ferenghetti‘The world is a beautiful place                                                           to be born intoif you don’t mind happiness                                             not always being                                                                        so very much fun       if you don’t mind a touch of hell                                                       now and then                just when everything is fine                                                             because even in heaven                                they don’t sing                                                        all the time              The world is a beautiful place                                                           to be born into       if you don’t mind some people dying                                                                  all the time                        or maybe only starving                                                           some of the time                 which isn’t half so bad                                                      if it isn’t you       Oh the world is a beautiful place                                                          to be born into               if you don’t much mind                                                   a few dead minds                    in the higher places                                                    or a bomb or two                            now and then                                                  in your upturned faces         or such other improprieties                                                    as our Name Brand society                                  is prey to                                              with its men of distinction             and its men of extinction                                                   and its priests                         and other patrolmen                                                         and its various segregations         and congressional investigations                                                             and other constipations                        that our fool flesh                                                     is heir to Yes the world is the best place of all                                                           for a lot of such things as         making the fun scene                                                and making the love sceneand making the sad scene                                         and singing low songs of having                                                                                      inspirationsand walking around                                looking at everything                                                                  and smelling flowersand goosing statues                              and even thinking                                                         and kissing people and     making babies and wearing pants                                                         and waving hats and                                     dancing                                                and going swimming in rivers                              on picnics                                       in the middle of the summerand just generally                            ‘living it up’ Yes   but then right in the middle of it                                                    comes the smiling                                                                                 mortician

 

Upsatirs in the gallery a small room is hung with Helen Simmonds’ beautiful still life paintings.

Garden Primroses, Oil on Board 20 x 17.5 cm. £1,000

 

And if it is cold here in Bath, imagine what it is like in a Shetland storm….

 

Evening Autumn Gale by Boddam, Mixed Media on Board 30 x 30 cm. £850

 

 

And finally…We have all been saddened in the gallery this week by the death of my friend and colleague Colin Carlin who worked in the gallery for many years. He died peacefully with his son and daughter by his side. He was very proud of them, spoke often about his grandchildren on his forays into Bath, and kept up his interest in the contemporary art scene since retiring. I am grateful to have known him.  Sincere condolences to Jenny, Olivia and James.

is soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.James Joyce  The Dead

 

Thank you for reading.

Aidan.