From the archives: Bundi 2010. Once in a while you meet someone extraordinary. Someone with such an infectious positive energy, that the only thing you can do around them is smile. Mr. Prakash Gupta – alias Kukki, is known throughout Bundi. He began talking as he welcomed us into his living room cum bedroom. Pulling out book after book, he proudly showed us articles that … Continue reading The Intrepid Mr Kukki.
Shekhawati. 2010. Shekhawati is a landscape of narrow country roads, half forgotten villages and beautiful havelis. (large ornate traditional houses). Crops of bright green mustard seeds, wheat and cauliflower interlaced with sandy tracks, ornate yellow sandstone wells and crumbling cenotaphs. An open air painting of shifting colour and light. Once an area on the silk trade route between the ports of the Arabian Sea and … Continue reading Shekhawati: An Outdoor Gallery.
Above me a velvety night sky full of stars. Concentric circles shimmer. I’m in a vortex. Static but giddy. Drowning in light. It is a beauty that knocks me off my feet. For days now, I’ve been standing, head knocked back at a curious angle, neck cricked, staring up at apses and arches, mesmerised by sparkling, spangling bits of coloured glass. The mausoleum is small, … Continue reading Ravenna: Meals and Mosaics.
We stepped into the courtyard and straight into the heart of a little family business. And it was more heart than business. On a low bench along a wall a young man sat pencilling designs on small rounded tan-coloured gourds. Two young women next to him, carving out his drawings, using nothing more than a nail sharpened to a point. I noticed the plasters wound … Continue reading The Gourd Man.
The only thing Google came up with when I did a quick search of tourist attractions around Buntingford was Royston Cave. ‘Not interested’, I thought, and resigned myself to three weeks of reading books, sorting out Tokyo photos and playing catch up with blog writing. But after a week of damp, mist, and leaden skies I was going a little stir-crazy and suddenly a visit … Continue reading Royston Cave. One Of The Most Mysterious Places In England.
We recognised Henry Moore’s statues instantly – all those monumental curves and glistening bronzes – but we realised we knew nothing about Moore, the man. We would have been hard pushed to tell you what he looked like. So, our first stop at the Henry Moore Foundation was Hoglands, Moore’s home for half a century. Even today, Hoglands feels like it’s in the middle of … Continue reading Henry Moore And Intelligent Sheep.
Rembrandt and Amsterdam go together hand in glove. The Rijksmuseum has over two million visitors a year, and it’s a safe bet that all of them spend a few seconds in front of ‘The Night Watch’, his seventeenth-century masterpiece. But the painting has a doppelgänger. On the Rembrandtsplein, overlooked by the master himself, all of the twenty-two characters in the painting are cast in bronze, … Continue reading The Night Watch.
‘When they told me were mounting an exhibition of artworks with cheese as the subject I thought there can’t be that many paintings of the yellow stuff’, Oscar, a volunteer at the Stadsmuseum Woerden told me. I thought the same. My interest was piqued. And now, here we both were, he leading and me listening. Everyone knows that cheese and Holland go together. Cheese is … Continue reading I Do Like A Nice Bit Of Cheese…
Only one day in Paris! What to do? We went to our favourite museum – Musée d’Orsay – and I became spellbound by the face of a woman who lived 95 years ago. What do I see when I look in your pale, oval face? Hair neatly parted, scraped back in a bun. Deftness. Quietude. A certain passivity. You don’t look like you’d be the … Continue reading Madame Cezanne.
‘Well done. The kids will be delighted’, she said as she turned to face us, trowel poised mid-air, ‘We were a bit short-handed this year, we didn’t have time to put out the explanations.’ It was the music notes that gave it away – although, I admit, not to me, but to Jim. Those, and the big fat moustache. The trowel plunged downwards again and … Continue reading ‘Excuse Me, Is That Elgar?’
Wondering Woman 