VE Day (Victory in Europe) celebrates the day, seventy five years ago, that Europe crawled out of the Second World War, as Germany unconditionally surrendered, following Adolf Hitler’s suicide in a Berlin bunker days earlier. We will celebrate the occasion, May 8th, this Friday with a bank holiday. Will it feel any different to Thursday…
Category: Painting of the Month
Easter Day – St Giles Oxford
Welcome everyone to a very sunny Easter in lockdown. I thought a modern painting might be appropriate. I have always recommended to people to see The Menorah if they are visiting Oxford. Roger Wagner, like Giotto seven hundred years earlier, chose to represent this most Christian of images using contemporary language. The cooling towers, which…
Psalm 91
Cooped up in solitary confinement with a cough and sneezes. Bliss. The Galleries, Museums and libraries are all shut.Thought I might send out a few cheerful images over the next few days and weeks. This one from Psalm 91, one of the very beautiful bits of scripture. The image is no longer available but do…
March Painting of the Month
Monet’s Rough Sea at Étretat has very evocative feelings for me. His 1883 painting of the cliffs at the Normandy village of Étretat was one of his regular views. Étretat is a place with memories of summer, having visited several times, but the stormy seas reminds me of the current weather with its succession of…
February Painting of the Month
Brexit; now there’s a word you don’t hear very often. Now we have cast ourselves away from Europe I thought I would post an image that evokes memories of starting a journey to a new exciting world,while still having a longing for the old (you may not all agree with this diehard European!) Ford Madox…