Mortimer Menpes (1885–1938)

Twenty-one chapters for 21 painting destinations make this a thick book. It has an unbelievable number of colour plates as well as many ink drawings, all illustrating the wide world at the turn of the 20th century. The Menpeses simply did not know when to stop travelling! This book takes us around the world from England through many countries of Europe (where during their sojourn in Brittany they mock the "Spottist and Dottist" painters then appearing on the scene), with stops in various parts of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Mexico. There's a chapter on "Cashmere" which is particularly attractive. Very beautiful and of great historical interest, but don't expect depth of thought, or political correctness, from the commentary.… (more)

There is no city more written about, more painted, and more misrepresented, than Venice. Students, poets, and painters have combined in reproducing her many charms. Usually, however, Venice is described in a hurried, careless way: the subject is seldom gone deeply into, and studied as it should be, before attempting to compile a book. It is only one who has been there, and observed the life and characteristics of the people for years, who can gain any true perception of their character. Those who have not been to Venice must needs know by heart her attractions, which have been so persistently thrust before the public; but unless half a dozen really excellent books have been read concerning her, the city of their imaginations must be a theatrical Venice, unreal and altogether false. Normally one feels that the last word about Venice has been said—the last chord struck upon her keyboard, the last harmony brought out. But this is by no means the case. There are chords still to be struck, and harmonies still to be brought out: her charm can never be exhausted. The last chord struck, no matter how poorly executed it may be, goes on vibrating in our ears, and all unconsciously we are listening for another. How strange this is! Why should it be so? What other cities impress us in the same way? Oxford perhaps, and Rome certainly. These are the only two which come to my mind at the moment. They are the cities of the soul, round which endless romantic histories cling, endless dear and glorious associations. Perhaps the reason why one never tires of books on Venice, or of pictures of Venice, is that they none of them fulfil one's desires and expectations—they never express just what one feels about her—there is always something left unsaid, something uninterpreted; and one is always waiting for that. It is impossible to express all one feels with regard to Venice. One feels one's own incompetence terribly. Try as you may, you can only give one day, one hour, one aspect of sea and sky, only the four seasons, not all the myriad changes between;—only four times of the day—dawn, mid-day, twilight, and night—not the thousand melting changes, not the continual variations. It is not a panorama, not a magnificent view permanent before one's gaze. The cloud forms will never be quite the same as you see them at a certain moment; the water will never be again of that particular shade of green; the reflection of a pink palace, with the black barge at its base laden with golden fruit, will never again be thrown upon the water quite in that same way; there will not always be that warm golden light bathing sea and sky and palace; that particular pearly-grey mist in the early morning will never recur, never quite that deep blue-black of night with the orange lights and the steely water.… (more)

Brittany
The gray and somewhat uninteresting village of Douarnénez undergoes a change when the fishing-boats come home. Even with your eyes shut, you would soon know of the advent of the fishermen by the downward clatter of myriads of sabots through the badly-paved steep streets, gathering in volume and rapidity with each succeeding minute. The village has been thoroughly wakened up. Douarnénez is the headquarters of the sardine fishery, and the home-coming of the sardine boats is a matter of no little importance. The 9,000 inhabitants of the place are all given up to this industry. Prosperity, or adversity, depends upon the faithfulness, or the fickleness, of the little silver fish in visiting their shores. Not long ago the sardines forsook Douarnénez, and great was the desolation and despair which settled upon the people. However, the season this year is good, and the people are prosperous.

As one descends the tortuous street leading to the sea, when the tide is in, everything and everyone you encounter seem to be in one way or another connected with sardines. The white-faced houses are festooned and hung with fine filmy fishing-nets of a pale cornflower hue, edged with rows of deep russet-brown corks. Occasionally they are stretched from house to house across the street, and one passes beneath triumphal arches of really glorious gray-blue fishing-nets. This same little street, which barely an hour ago was practically empty and deserted, now swarms with big bronzed fishermen coming up straight from the sea, laden with their dripping cargo of round brown baskets half filled with glistening fish. They live differently from the sleepy villagers—these strapping giants of the sea, with their deep-toned faces, their hair made tawny by exposure, their blue eyes, which somehow or other seem so very blue against the dark red-brown of their complexion, their reckless, rollicking, yet graceful, sailor's gait. A sailor always reminds me of a cat amongst a roomful of crockery: he looks as if he will knock over something or trip over something every moment as he swings along in his careless fashion; yet he never does.… (more)