A Poem from the 19th century. The Victorians were very keen on this kind of thing.

                                                                      If you are tempted to reveal
                                                                     A tale to you someone has told
                                                                     About another, make it pass
                                                                     Before you speak, three gates of gold.
                                                                     These narrow gates: First, “Is it true?”
                                                                     Then, “Is it needful?” in your mind
                                                                     Give truthful answer. And the next
                                                                     Is last and narrowest, “Is it kind?”
                                                                     And if to reach your lips at last
                                                                     It passes through these gateways three,
                                                                     Then you may tell the tale, nor fear
                                                                     What the result of speech may be.

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                                   A Girl Reading (The Reader) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard 1732-1806.

Fragonard was the complete opposite of an impoverished artist. He became rich by painting the kind of pictures that wealthy people liked. However, when the French Revolution began, he had to escape from Paris and, by the time it was all over and he was able to return, his name had been forgotten. He spent the rest of his life in poverty.

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This video devised by Phlip Scott Johnson is an astonishing example of "morphing." More then 70 actresses are featured in "Women in Film."  The music is the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No1 in G, played by Yo-Yo- Ma.



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Now on A Touch of Culture - Looking at Some Paintings by Scottish Artists
http://atouchofculture.blogspot.com

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A Day in Autumn, Sokolniki painted by the Russian artist Isaac Levitan 1860-1900

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One day Ryokan a Zen master was walking on the beach. There had been a severe storm and thousands of little starfish had been washed up on to the sand. Realising that they would soon die, he started to pick them up and throw them back into the sea.

A fisherman who was going for his boat saw what Ryokan was doing and told him he was wasting his time. There were thousands of starfish lying on the shore and, since there was no possibility of rescuing them all, his efforts would make no difference.

Indicating the starfish in his hand, Ryokan replied, “It will to this one.”

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O Autumn, laden with fruit and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

“The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve,
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

“The spirits of the air live in the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.”
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

(William Blake 1757-1827)

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The music on this video is the Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni 1863-1945, with views of the Terrazo Mascagni in Livorno, the town where Mascagni was born. 



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On A Touch of Culture this week - four poems by Thomas Hardy
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                                                          Remembering last spring and looking forward . . . .

                                             Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? (Percy Bysshe Shelley)

                                                            I dreamed that as I wandered by the way
                                                            Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring,
                                                            And gentle odours led my steps astray,
                                                            Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring
                                                            Along a shelving bank of turf, which lay
                                                            Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling
                                                            Its green arms round the bosom of the stream,
                                                            But kissed it, and then fled, as Thou mightest in dream.

                                                        (Percy Bysshe Shelley, from "A Dream of the Unknown")

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The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home, first with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms.

Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said “Bother!” and “Oh blow!” and also “Hang spring-cleaning!” and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat.

Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, “Up we go! Up we go!” till at last, pop! His snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

“This is fine!” he said to himself. “This is better than whitewashing!” The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout.

Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side. 

[from “The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame 1859-1932]

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"It was a Lover and his Lass" - Thomas Morley's setting of Shakespeare's words, sung and played here by Flauto Dolce.




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This week the subject of A TOUCH OF CULTURE is the ballet and includes short extracts from four popular ballets.http://atouchofculture.blogspot.com

***A Touch of Culture**A Touch of Culture**A Touch of Culture***
 

No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face. (John Donne 1572-1631)

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Within the orchard’s many shadows,
Flitting softly round our feet,
While burning hot, the sunlight shot
Between them in the summer heat;
We went, at times, by dock-leaves, falling
Limp, beside the mossy walling.

The way from garden into orchard
Through an arched gateway led,
Where rose a dovecote up above
The grey old arch, above the head,
By flower-beds of the oldest fashion,
Sweet with rose and red carnation.

There spreading trees of mossy oldness,
This and that way leaning lay;
And others, young and upright, sprung
For year-stunned old ones cast away;
Within a thorny hedge that girded
Ground, and tree bough, many birded.

There shone the boughs, in May’s gay sunshine,
Out in blooth as white’s a sheet;
Or else their flowers fell in showers
Softly down about their feet;
Or else they nodded, many-appled,
Green, or lastly ruddy-dappled.

And then the time of apple-taking
Came, and apples pattered down
Below the trees, in twos and threes,
Full thick; and yellow, red and brown,
To folks that filled, from baskets by them,
Bags as full as they could tie them.
(William Barnes 1801-1886)

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Thanks to Elsa Laura of Mexico for this video. The music is from The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi 1678-1741

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My new blog A TOUCH OF CULTURE is now online and this week is showing five great paintings by the American artist William Merritt Chase 1849-1916.

http://atouchofculture.blogspot.com

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