No.18

LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY
1880/1
Oil on Canvas
130.2 cm x 175.6 cm 
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
1841-1919
Nationality - French

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Three poems by Thomas Hardy

AFTERWARDS

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay, 
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves
like wings, 
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the
neighbours say, 
"He was a man who used to notice such things"? 

If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's
soundless blink, 
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades
to alight 
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer
may think, 
"To him this must have been a familiar sight." 

If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, 
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, 
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, 
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone." 

If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, 
Watching the full-starred heavens that
winter sees, 
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"? 

And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, 
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, 
Till they rise again, as they were a new
bell's boom, 
"He hears it not now, but used to notice
such things"?

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A BACKWARD SPRING

The trees are afraid to put forth buds,
And there is timidity in the grass;
The plots lie gray where gouged by spuds,
And whether next week will pass
Free of sly sour winds is the fret of each bush
Of barberry waiting to bloom.

Yet the snowdrop's face betrays no gloom,
And the primrose pants in its heedless push,
Though the myrtle asks if it's worth the fight
This year with frost and rime
To venture one more time
On delicate leaves and buttons of white
From the selfsame bough as at last year's prime,
And never to ruminate on or remember
What happened to it in mid-December.

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THE RIVAL

I determined to find out whose it was -
The portrait he looked at so, and sighed;
Bitterly have I rued my meanness
And wept for it since he died!

I searched his desk when he was away,
And there was the likeness - yes, my own!
Taken when I was the season's fairest,
And time-lines all unknown.

I smiled at my image, and put it back,
And he went on cherishing it, until
I was chafed that he loved not the me then living,
But that past woman still.

Well, such was my jealousy at last,
I destroyed that face of the former me;
Could you ever have dreamed the heart of woman
Would work so foolishly!

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Lake Garda, Italy

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LOVELIEST OF TREES
A.E. Housman 1859-1936

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

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BLUE SEA, IONA
1927
Samuel Peploe
1871-1935
Nationality - Scottish

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Drawings of this little man peeping over a wall were to be found everywhere during World War II and their popularity spread all over the world.

It has been suggested that the idea came from a character called Chad, who had been created by a British cartoonist in 1938. However its popularity seemed to begin in America and, like so many other novelties, was exported to the UK and beyond.

The drawings in chalk, paint, ink - in fact anything that would make a mark on walls, lamp posts, street signs and posters, would turn up in the most unusual places and continued right into the 1950s.

There were other names by which he was known - Clem, Smoe, the Jeep, Private Snooks, and in Australia the caption was “Foo was here.”

I suppose part of the fun of “Kilroy was here” lay in the fact that it was so easy to draw - even a small child could make a good attempt at it. Why not have a go yourself? Perhaps you try it out on your neighbour’s filthy car using your finger. But make sure you’re not caught!

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Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Garden

John Constable 1776-1837

Nationality - English

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