Joseph J. Thorndike

Fantastic articles on the Battle of Hastings (on its 900th anniversary, with excellent fold-outs of the Bayeux Tapestry), Monet’s legacy (his son Michel, sole owner of his father’s estate, had just passed away), Casanova’s experiences while in England, Charles Darwin’s breakthroughs, and Catherine the Great’s lavish boat procession to Crimea in 1787. There are also some mind-bending drawings by M.C. Escher.

Some things of note…
One wonders how English history and culture would have show more been different had Harold not been pulled north to Stamford Bridge before coming back to face William, or had his men not fallen for William’s feigned retreat which proved decisive. Interesting that 1066 was a Halley’s comet year as well, and that it was as large as the full moon for two weeks.

Monet’s son had 138 works by a number of masters (including his father of course), stacked in the cellar, piled up in the attic, shoved under beds, and in the case of those at Giverny, practically unguarded. This was how they were kept all the way up to 1966! The paintings were not worth all that much for decades: before 1950, at least some of Monet’s paintings, were valued at about a thousand dollars each. Michel Monet cared more for hunting in Africa and fast cars than these paintings, but he did honor his father by snubbing the Louvre, which had snubbed the Impressionists, and leaving everything to the Academie des Beaux-Arts.

Casanova was rather annoying, and good for La Charpillon to refuse him. Interestingly, rape was a hanging crime in England at the time, so he couldn’t go further than use his considerable arts of seduction and persuasion. Among many others, he had apparently just conquered an impoverished widow and all five of her daughters – what a guy.

Darwin’s theory had many precursors dating back as far as the Greeks (who believed life and gradually developed out of primeval slime), and including Diderot as well as Darwin’s own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. Where Erasmus and a few others had it wrong was in believing new needs in an organism somehow gave rise to new organs which were then transmitted to offspring. Darwin was skeptical but after his 5 year, 40,000 mile voyage on the Beagle he amassed an extraordinary amount of data, and distilled it down dispassionately into his elegant theories. He and Huxley consistently took the moral high road, sticking to facts, despite religious outrage. I found it interesting that his father was dismayed at him in youth, saying “you care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.” In the forward to the edition, Editor-in-chief J.J. Thorndike mentions the implications, and notes that “’Genetic surgeons’ talk of operating on the microscopic filaments of the chromosome, to replace defective genes or perhaps perfectly good genes with even better ones. Do you want a baby with blue eyes, strong lungs, and I.Q. of 150? Perhaps it can be arranged.” How prescient. show less

This edition’s highlights:
A fantastic article on Pierre Bonnard (synchronicity! I just saw an exhibition of his) with several full page photos of his work. While I’m not a huge fan, it helped me understand Bonnard a bit better - his somewhat childlike thought process, his ‘love of the accidental’ in terms of what he painted (as Degas put it), his painting from memory that would result in a reality as if painted from a dream, which was the opposite of the surrealists who painted show more dreams as if they were real, and lastly, his timid nature which allowed for intimacy in his paintings, without an excessive feeling of voyeurism.

‘Pompeii’ – which in addition to explaining the tragedy and the ruins, had four full-page pictures from the remarkable frieze of the initiation rites of a Dionysiac mystery cult, and a description of how neoclassicism evolved in European culture and art over the 18th and 19th centuries. The side by side comparison of a regal Arcadian from a fresco in Herculaneum with Ingres’s portrait of Mme Moitessier, and Romney’s portrait of Lady Hamilton in ‘Emma as a Bacchante’ (1795) stand out.

‘The Time of Man’ about the then-recent discoveries in southern Africa as well as the ominous warning from the fact that over 90% of the world’s animal life from past periods is extinct, coupled with man’s predisposition to violence and growing destructive power. It’s a very balanced piece, and includes the better aspect of humanity as well: “A little while ago I handled a flint knife, from Stone Age Egypt, running my hand over its beautifully rippled surface. A human mind, an artist’s mind, whispered to me from the stone. I held the knife for a long time, just as in another way I might hold in my mind the sunlit Parthenon, feeling some emanation, some re-entering power deriving from minds long ago but flooding my own thought with renewed powers and novelties. This is a part, a mystical part if you will, of man’s emergence into time and history.”

‘The Judgments of Joan’, which explained the life of Joan of Arc, her improbable and incredibly heroic role in the Hundred Years War at the tender age of 16 after ‘hearing the voice of God’, only to be later tried and burnt at the stake at 19 for ‘cross-dressing’ while in battle, a heretical act. It’s hard not to be reviled by the church (again), and skeptical about the legend, and yet it’s fascinating.

Lowlight:
These dated clunkers from John Rader Platt, on article about genius:
“But even if they were released from these invisible chains, I think the women who have a real vocation for abstract creation might still be rare.”
And: “I sometimes suspect that intelligence, smell, and politics are what really determine our choice of a mate. Dimwits, garlic-eaters, and do-nothings must marry one another.” Wow. show less

Easily the best article was on the troubadours of the middle ages, who originated in southern France and who were the first (in the west, in centuries) to appreciate love and pleasure. Prior to that, as Frederic V. Grunfeld explains in the article, the philosophers of classical antiquity believed love was a sort of madness, and the fathers of the Christian church that physical love was a mortal sin and women to be corrupters (Clement of Alexandria writing “Every woman ought to be show more overwhelmed with shame at the thought that she is a woman”). Bernart de Ventadorn writes of his hopes that his mistress will have the courage “to have me come one night there where she undresses, and make me a necklace of her arms.” Beatrice, Countess of Die, writing to her lover the troubadour knight Raimbaut d’Orange, says “how I would like to hold him one night in my naked arms, and see him joyfully use my body as a pillow…”. It’s all so wonderfully liberated, and there were political elements as well, with one song about social injustice going “If a poor man robs a bedsheet, he’s called a thief and bows his head, but if a rich man robs a treasure, he is honored in the court…If some beggar robs a bridle, he’ll be hung by a man who’s robbed a horse.” Unfortunately, it would be relatively short-lived, as Pope Innocent III would proclaim a military crusade from the north of France against them that all but eradicated Provencal civilization. Very well written, and with beautiful illustrations from 13th century.

Another nice article is on how Calouste Gulbenkian acquired his massive fortune, and used it to amass a wonderful collection of art (which now resides in a museum in his name in Lisbon). The standout for me was Rubens portrait of his second wife Helena Fourment at the time of their marriage (Rubens, 53, Fourment, 16), which had belonged to Catherine the Great, but was among the many artworks foolishly sold by the emerging Soviet state. Another was Rembrandt’s ‘Portrait of an Old Man’.

The others are pretty nondescript, though I loved this line in the article on Edward Gibbon, author of ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’. “Every period that he chronicles marks a steady falling off. Though men of goodwill are constantly struggling to control and check the fatal process, unreason prevails over reason, superstition over faith in human values, cruelty and cupidity over the rule of peace and law.” Let’s hope the same won’t be said of the American Empire someday, with Trump playing the part of Commodus. show less

Another diverse and interesting set of articles, starting with a few that focused on the Hippies (hey, it was 1968 after all). Several of these put them in a historical context with other groups that had rejected the mainstream and sought utopia, dating back to the early Christians. They were generally insightful, and it’s always fun to see in hindsight what the interpretations were at the time.

One included outrageous statements like the Hippies’ need for heightening perception through show more psychedelic drugs as “of course, due to the absence of God”, and “The hippies are largely the waste products of extensive university education systems.” (J.H. Plumb, “The Secular Heretics”). Another warned of the inevitable consequences to the Hippie movement, noting that Stalinism followed the Bolshevik revolution, and that the Nazis had followed the Dada futurists. The article ends ominously with a full page photograph of an East Coast motorcycle club member wearing an Iron Cross around his neck. Wow. (Edmund Stillman, “A Reckoning to Come?”).

On the other hand, there is a nice account of a visit to the Morning Star commune in Northern California, run by Lou Gottlieb, expressing the good and bad aspects of a place where anyone could come, and there was absolutely no organizational structure to things like work assignments. This included interesting quotes from Morning Star residents put side by side with those from New Harmony, a Utopian community from 1825, as well as a photo of Bruegel’s “The Land of Cockaigne” from 1567 (which now resides in Munich’s Alte Pinakothek). (Kenneth Lamott, “Doing Their Thing at Morning Star”)

There is an article that made the argument that (1) the human brain may be fatally flawed because of its reptilian limbic system, and (2) the way of fixing this should be through advances in drug research, and mass distribution of a cure when it’s found. The argument for the first part is quite good. The second part is naive in its optimism, and belief it would happen within a generation. “It is not utopian to believe that it can and will be done. Our present tranquilizers, barbiturates, stimulants, antidepressants, and combinations are merely a first step toward a more sophisticated range of aids to promote a co-ordinated, harmonious state of mind”. (Arthur Koestler, “Is Man’s Brain an Evolutionary Mistake?”)

There is a first-hand account of Joseph Stalin’s son Jacob, when he was captured by the Nazis during WWII, from a Polish prisoner of war who was in the same camp, Oflag Xc. In addition to describing life at this camp and various escape attempts, there is the ominous understanding by all that “Joseph Stalin’s order that the Russians who surrendered would be ruthlessly punished regardless of the circumstances”. It details the fluke that led to his son being relocated to Oranienburg, where he would later be executed. (Michael A. Budek, “The Fate of Jacob Stalin”)

There is an article on the might of the British Empire under Queen Victoria in the 19th century, with lots of photos and backgrounds of the power players it had around the globe. “The British Empire was the greatest agglomeration of possessions the world had ever known – nearly a quarter of the earth’s land mass, nearly a quarter of its population. Given a head start by their original industrial revolution and sustained by the remarkable social and political stability of their kingdom, the British had ringed the globe with their wealth, strength, and pedigree. The lost American Colonies had long since been replaced; half of Asia; half of Africa; half of North America; all of Australia; scattered islands, fortresses, and coaling stations in every ocean…” . Some of the individuals described are fascinating (Sir Henry Stanley, who led quite an adventurous life), others are of course disgusting (Edward Eyre, who “put down a Negro riot with unusually ferocious zeal” in Jamaica in 1865). (James Morris, “The Imperialists”)

There are absolutely fantastic full-page color close-ups of Botticelli’s Primavera over eight pages – wow! The painting’s meaning is on the whole readily understood, but there are elements of ambiguity that the author of the article attempts to sort out. However, I have to say, in looking through other accounts of its meaning online, I’m not sure he does all that well. Certainly one of the big highlights of the issue, though, for the close-up photos. (Roy McMullen, “Botticelli’s Primavera”)

This is followed by the story of Savonarola, apropos given the Botticelli article (an aged, converted Botticelli supposedly handed over some of his art into the ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’). The story is known to me, among other things through George Eliot’s Romola, but it was interesting nonetheless. The fact that his audiences had 13,000-14,000 attendees in the Piazza del Duomo out of the 90,000 who lived in Florence at the time, used youth squads ala Mao’s Red Guards, and had himself been frustrated in love before turning to firebrand preaching, among other things, that “wives whose husbands refused to let them enter a convent were to refuse themselves to their husbands” is all fascinating. He, of course, met his own bitter end – torture, confession, hanging, and burning, where a diarist at the time notes that ironically a mob of youth hurled rocks at his charred, hanging body. (Joseph Barry, “Savonarola: Reaping the Whirlwind”)

Lastly, an article on the original assassins of the Alamut valley in modern-day Iran, whose reign of terror lasted 150 years before meeting their end at the hands of the Mongols. They appealed to Europe and Christendom for help, but in the words of the Bishop of Winchester at the time, “Let Dog eat Dog.” In this article, one of the interesting points was Marco Polo’s account of how the Old Man of the Mountain would get young men to obey him: “He would give them draughts that sent them to sleep immediately. Then he had them taken and put into the garden, where they were wakened. When they awoke and found themselves in there and saw all things I told you of, they believed they were in Paradise. And the ladies and the damsels stayed with them all the time, singing and making music for their delight and ministering to all their desires.” Thereafter, they would obey his every command, hoping to return to the garden. Somehow this seemed to have a parallel to the events of today. (Timothy Severin, “To The Valley of the Assassins”)

There were several other articles over the issue’s 120 pages, but those were the highlights. It really is quite a joy to read through these old publications. show less