By Nature I'm not an activist, I rather take after my mother, who was all for a quiet life. So it is easy for me to sympathise with those artists who do not want to get involved in my lifelong struggle with the art historians. But I am getting old and someone needs to continue the struggle unless you are prepared to live under the present ill-informed dictatorship for ever. Few would insist that art is thriving at present and I am sure that is because our rulers have been deluded for centuries. They have refused to investigate the use of life-casts, they regularly are prepared to believe the most blatant boasts of Bernini in order to bolster their absurd claims for the power of the ancient imagination or visual memory (see also saveRembrandt.org.uk). They see art as a consumer object of value, where artists tend to see it as a way to sharpen their perception. They are better at defending their job than at doing it..
It was by chance I have stumbled upon a good number of of really damaging art historical ideas that I have opposed continuously. The most recent instance of the way in which my criticisms have been resisted was at the Ancient Plaster Conference (March 30 & 31 2021).
The blocking was very blatant and entirely on record, insofar as the conference was on zoom and is now available on You#Tube. The advertisement for the conference mentioned me by name and suggested there might be a revolution in our understanding of Greek and Roman sculpture. To this end I made a video called “A Sculptor’s Perspective” the title was a reuse of a title of an exhibition I gave at Imperial College in 1976 that exhibition besides showing my work as a sculptor showed my discovery of Rembrandt’s use of models and mirrors; using the models I had made to mimic Rembrandt’s live models in front of mirrors. One could say that the exhibition was a huge success. First of all it earned me the assistance of Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich and second, a large number of encouraging letters from wise and well-respected art historians plus a number of of reviews that were clearly on my side - that is in favour of a fundamental revision of Rembrandt scholarship.
That was the high point of my my achievement in art history. Since then although I have continued to make discoveries I have been largely blocked from publications or conferences and when I do manage to get through the censorship my controversial ideas (damaging to the status quo) are ignored. By good fortune I was recently invited to join a conference on the ancient use of plaster and I use that to further two important discoveries that I had made previously. Life casting was used in Greece from about 480 BC onwards and though this had been published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology in 2004 it had absolutely no influence on the firm taboo that has surrounded this subject since Pliny the elder first mentioned it in the first century AD. To my surprise and delight my view was carried by the conference in a number of contributions.
Alas, the revolution in our understanding of Greek and Roman sculpture got no time to discuss, nor even a mention. My video was to be viewed before the conference. The Roman contribution to our visual culture is generally ignored but is fundamental to the way art is viewed today. The editing out of the main theme of the conference was a sad reiteration of the way in which art historians have treated my views for nearly 50 years. I am now calling on the general public to complain on my behalf and their own. This new light on The Elgin Marbles must surely impact on the Greek demands for their return. In the context of The British Museum we can appreciate the differences and begin to make amends for the time wasted by failure to see that Roman geometry has underpinned the best of European drawing; back in Athens those qualities would fade out of sight.
Few looking at art today can feel particularly happy with our epoch's contribution to human culture and I believe this is the result of at least 300 years of of wish-fulfilment on the the part of artists and art historians. The evidence centres round the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum where I can point to patterns of smoke and weathering on the sculptures quite sufficient to convince non-specialists, as it is to do with experience which everyone can recognise; specialists can also find corroboration in changes of style. The West pediment I maintain is entirely Roman, probably restored by Hadrian 570 years after the originals on the East pediment, completed in 432 BC. To everyone’s horror the Roman work is regularly preferred by the experts to the genuinely Greek! Precisely the opposite to what we are regularly told by art history. This is a serious failure attributing to Phidias what was achieved by a later Roman.
Because I had been doing my own bronze casting for many years I knew that archaeologists had grossly underestimated the difficulty of melting bronze. The alloy of bronze varies enormously at it's lowest end it is brass and melts at about 800 centigrade but the bronze used by the sculptors of the Bronzes of Riace is closer to what is known as gunmetal because it was used for making cannon in the Middle Ages and that has a melting point that requires a temperature of around 1150 centigrade to pour. I knew therefore that “The Foundry Cup” which is taken by archaeologists as the Greeks method of melting bronze was totally inadequate to the task of pouring the Bronzes of Riace, let alone the figure of Athene that stood outside the Parthenon at over 9m high. I therefore went to Athens to search for a chimney and in fact I found two. One in Athens and another in Olympia where Phidias also worked. These chimneys were published in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology in 2002. To my knowledge they have never been cited, taken notice of or investigated by the archaeological establishment in spite of my badgering the British School in Athens. Their Titch Laboratory there is fully equipped to make the necessary tests to prove or disprove that the deposits in the chimney are sufficiently similar to the smoke deposits on the Parthenon to verify my theory or refute it. The Greek authorities have put up a notice that informs the public that there was a chimney where I suggested.
It is of course painful for art historians to admit to a number of major bloomers. Huge swathes of the subject will need to be revised but the level of proof justifies the upheaval and their resistance over the years and up to a few days ago, deserves a good rap over the knuckles. I would recommend that university courses of the study include years of practical experience of the techniques as it was my superior practical knowledge that enabled me to become the world’s best art history detective. Perhaps the second edition of my book should be put back on the syllabus.
I came out of the army in early spring and so had two terms of freelancing before September enrollment in a proper course. I took a number of drawing classes at St. Martin's with the intention of training to be a fashion drawer. It was the most valuable interlude because during that time I felt a complete misfit in fashion (which uncle Robert Harling had advised as a good payer) and did some sculpture in the evening classes. I took to it naturally. I had done some sculpture at school but as no one else did it I had no idea it was my metier. At St. Martin’s there were many full-time students with whom I could compare myself. It did not take me long to discover that sculpture was my special gift and I was a misfit in fashion. On the recommendation of my cousin (Lorna Dunn) I moved on to Camberwell to study sculpture.
Had I remained at St Martins I would have been in the thick of the most modern sculptural education in the world. There were 50 members of staff, led by Anthony Caro and endless students who became a byword in modern circles, mostly welding steel together in stylish pointlessness. Caro had taught me in evening class and gave perfectly good advice. He had been a star student at the RA Schools; then an assistant of Henry Moore’s. But soon after I left he went to USA and came back preaching David Smith etc. Neither of us knew it at the time but we appear on the same Piza family tree, Grandma’s. He became very famous and so did his school but I did not regret my move.
At Camberwell I spent a year studying for ‘Intermediate’. That year of general art was crucial to my subsequent artistic development. My attitude to drawing changed radically as a result of fierce criticism from the staff. I learned to love Rembrandt rather than Tiepolo and the classical draughtsmen I had previously modelled myself upon. At the sculpture school we spent almost all the time working from life models at life-size. The normal length of pose was 6 weeks, nearly always the models stood for ¾ of an hour with a ¼ of an hours rest, from 10 till 4.30 with a break for lunch. It was hard on the models but a huge benefit to the students. I stayed in the sculpture school just over 2 years.
Dr. Carel Vogel who was head of sculpture had been trained in Munich. But for the rise of Hitler he would have become a professor there. His doctorate was in archaeology and he was a passionate admirer of Classical Greek sculpture. (I dread to think what he would have done had he lived long enough to hear of my discovery that the Greek ‘leap of the imagination’ was in fact a technical improvement in casting from life!) He and I never got on all that well as I was a follower of Rembrandt and therefore fairly cool about the Greeks. Though he did start drawing for the first time in his life under my influence and he did well. I have one of his drawings.
I admire his small bronzes of which he made quite a few. Alas when he died at little over 60 his wife willed them all to some distant relative in Germany. I doubt whether there are any left in Britain. He was well enough know to have a sculpture in the first Battersae Park exhibition. But by the time I was his student he was persecuted by the LCC inspectors for being so old fashioned
During my second year I found a garage/studio in Tufnell Park and left Camberwell to pursue my art before completing the course there. Camberwell Sculpture Department was chronically short of candidates for the National Diploma exam. I was persuaded to return to take that exam which included a small thesis, quite a trial for me. I took the exam and along with the large majority of students of that year, failed. The examiners were Arnold Machin and John Skeaping, both rather craft oriented.
Barnet Freedman was a patient of my father’s and felt he owed him a big favour. The favour turned out to be getting me into the Royal College of Art; but without asking me whether I wanted to go. I had tried for the Slade and failed to get in. They were the top two schools and were very different from one another, Skeaping was professor at the College. It was very commercially oriented. To be honest I despised Skeaping’s work. He personally, was a charming rogue (#Me Too would have had him but things were very different then). There was considerable prestige attached to the Royal College, furthermore, my then girl-friend Anna had ascended from the textiles department at Camberwell to textiles at the Royal College. I accepted Barnet’s gift without enthusiasm.
In retrospect I am glad I attended the RCA. The Camberwell culture was very restricted and inward looking. I learned at the College that my contemporaries could be very dedicated to their work even if they had not participated in Camberwell culture. It made me much more tolerant of other people’s approaches. Funnily enough my years intake had all failed their NDD as I had. To add to the injury in my case County Hall at the LCC kept my work as a sample of that years achievment! Presumably Skeaping had chosen the failures from a large application.
I also learned bronze casting on a small, homespun scale at the RCA, which was most valuable. Leon Underwood had just introduced his method of casting at the College. The scale of the operation was small. They could hardly melt 12 lbs of bronze when I was there, where at Camberwell we were pouring 100 lbs with a very professional furnace that seemed way beyond the means of an individual. While at the College I bought myself an ex-army cooker which was a good step up on the large blow-lamp that they were using. I built my own furnace and was able to pour 25lbs immediately. My second furnace melted 100 lbs with the same cooker. I was on my way.
After I left the RCA installed a very professional foundry, which would not have served my needs so well. I was probably instrumental to a number of sculptors setting up foundries on their own behalf. Bronze casting is a very expensive business but 90% of the cost is in the labour; so if you do it yourself it becomes possible, even a way of earning a crust in a profession where that is very difficult by other means. I met Mike Gillespie through the college though he wa not an official student there, he was a wonderful source of help in casting and a good friend thereafter. He went on using the blowlamp as a professional caster; he was a very thorough and a dedicated craftsman who did a lot of Frinks small bronzes..
I really enjoyed the architectural lectures we had from J.Cadbury Brown at the Royal College. They meant a lot to me. Kenneth Armitage from Corsham talked the same architectural language. (Later Armitage got a studio half a mile from mine.I had looked at the ex-stables when it still smelt of horse before I found Norland Sq.) Other lecturers at the College were boring and so were the sculpture staff. I was dismayed by Skeaping’s own demonstration of modelling a portrait head. It was so lacking in cultural reference, provincial and formulaic.
I also met my wife Janet there, another benefit of my stay. She was much better qualified than I with two art diplomas and an ARCA. When I finally set up my own art school we shared her honours by advertizing teaching by Nigel and Janet Konstam ARCA! I doubt whether I would have done much better at the Slade which had a name for painting not for sculpture. Vogel’s teaching had been on a much higher plane. My cousin Lorna’s advice had been very good.
When Barnet died at the end of the summer term I left the college with relief. While I was there I modelled the first version of “The Good Samaritan” at about half the size of my final stone carving of the same subject here in Casole, (made 42 years later). I was very pleased with it but it did not cause a ripple at the college. Their tastes were more for slick modelling in the manner of Manzu or Greco, while I finished the clay more like shuttered concrete. The two heroes who had left the year before I arrived at the RCA were Ralph Brown and Sid Harpley, both very competent in that idiom. Both from Hammersmith, a college I might well have chosen for myself had I not been guided to Camberwell. Young people are not necessarily the best judges of what is best for themselves.
When I left the College, I searched for a bigger studio and found the bargain of my life – a house with a studio in the garden of 40 Norland Square. The house was full of controlled rent tenants and was more or less thrown in at no extra cost. The property market changed so radically after my coup that none of my fellow students who left college two years later with ARCA after their name could begin to afford such a place. It’s value simply went on increasing fast (£1000 per month) till I left for Italy 24 years later. I had some change out of the £5000 Dad had given all three children to invest.
I cast my own bronzes (up to life-size) which saved a lot of expense but added enormously to the time taken on each work. I sold little but augmented my income with teaching both at home and as a visiting lecturer in art schools. I was swimming against the current of fashion my whole career. It was very difficult to interest patrons or critics in anything figurative. The abstract vogue has been with us now for so long that scarcely any critic has the knowledge to comment on humanism. Probably future generations will find it hard to believe how sudden and complete the move was to abstraction, a stable culture can disappear in a year and judging by the fall of the Roman Empire can take a thousand years to reestablish at any level.
I had the advantage of being one of a very small minority that was still able or willing to teach life drawing; an exercise that previous generations regarded as fundamental. So I got called in occasionally to teach special projects at art schools. Such peripathetic teaching was remarkably well paid in those days. Many artsts relied on no more than 2 days a week to keep them going. I had a reliable one day at Wimbledon for several years.
In 1974 I made the Rembrandt discovery hailed by The Observer as “The Rembrandt Revelation”. After 2 years of silence from the profession Hans Brill invited me to show at Impeerial College. That caused an initial flurry of enthusiasm in which I was lecturing to art students everywhere, the opposition from art historians gradually squeezed me out. Through a friend (F.Aimes Lewis) I was once invited to lecture to amateur art historians at Birkbeck. I invited myself to Harvard, (the centre of Rembrandt studies) where I was received with the utmost hostility. After that in spite of letters to all departments of art history in Britain I was never invited to present my point of view on Rembrandt (or anyone else) again.
I visited America in the hope of interesting them in my book on Rembrandt. I visited both Harvard and Yale. At Harvard I lectured to about 30 doctoral students and staff out of term time. They really did not want to hear from me inspite of the fact that my Burlington article mentions Gombrich as having helped me present the substance. He was world famous at the time. They were furious, reasonably enough as I was telling them (politely) they were wasting their time . The questions came like machine-gun fire. I was able to answer all with ease. At the wine and cheese party after, designed for further questioning, was myself and the first year student in charge of the wine. He spent our hour together trying to persuade me of my error. Afterwards at Smith I learnt that Harvard had admired my foot-work in answering the questions. In fact it was a walkover.
IMPERIAL COLLEGE
I gave two exhibitions at The Imperial College Consort Gallery. The first (1976) was a great success in launching my Rembrandt discoveries. Many of the museum people came and admired. Gombrich came and through his influence I was eventually published in The Burlington Magazine Feb.’77 (the top magazine of art history in Britain). A similar article was published in Rembrandthuis Kroniek (1978.1).
I wrote a book on the subject which Phaidon accepted, ‘with the whole editorial board’ behind me though they realized that it was revolutionary. They afterwards rejected it on receiving an entirely unjustified, hatchet job as a peer review. Had I been invited to defend my manuscript I could have done so with ease but I was not. My agents (Schuckberg Reynolds, who had prepared a book design) went on searching through nearly 30 publishers but word gets around there were no takers. They later became a very well thought of publisher themselves (Bloomsbury) but did not chose to run the risk of my book. I have finally put a shortened version on the internet, where it receives no real attention. As a result of this chapter I have resubmitted to Bloomsbury as they are richer than ever on the back of Harry Potter and actually advertise for my kind of book but no reply..
In my second exhibition at Imperial College I was unwise enough to exhibit a number of new discoveries including the use of mirrors by Velazquez, Vermeer, Poussin and Brunelleschi. In his speech at the opening Gombrich said “Konstam has prepared a great feast for art historians at which he invites us to eat our own words”. My invitation to the feast has failed to find a single art historian with sufficiently open mind to seek guidance. The sad truth is that one may be brave on ones own behalf but to be brave to benefit someone elses’s ideas is another thing completely. I was so far commited there was no turnng back, nor any moving forward.
. I have backed someone elses’s idea once in the washless hull affair and got some egg on my face to benefit no one. I had thought that the idea would at minimum benefit Venice. But the design based on 2 Venturi tubes plunged as soon as you accelerated. My own discoveries have proved a millstone round my neck and would have been for others I guess, the art establishment is medieval in its governance: a gambling paradise without the inconvenience of a Jockey Club to regulate it. It also takes as its prophet Heindrich Wolfflin who set it on the road to ruin with his “The Principles of Art History”. I made a video to debunk it (link) so I will limit myself here to saying that what interests artists and the general public is why some works are regarded as exceptionally great and others not. Artists particularly are interested in how great works were achieved. Art History interests itself in style but has not got a clue about that or the other more general interests. To be an expert in a sport you have to have played yourself up to a certain level, without that experience you cannot see the nuances but art historians are recruited for their word-smithery, not their visual talent.
The goal-posts moved in the early ‘60s just as I found my feet as a figurative sculptor. I had two successes a seated figure in the John Moore’s Liverpool show and a life-size standing figure in the London Group, which was given pride of place and brought Henry Moore to assess it for a prize. The prize went to a modernist in the same show, who afterwards wrote rather a good book on modern sculpture. His name was Neil Something I think. His work in the London Group was not bad but he developed badly.
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So much for my beginnings; while teaching part-time at Wimbledon Art school I made an analysis of the bust of Hadrian, which came to be the foundation of my art philosophy. It was eventually published in Apollo (Aug 72). In truth I had always looked to Roman portraiture as a touchstone for quality. It’s three dimensional geometry seemed to me a much better basis for character than the Greek egg. I felt the same geometry present in the best Renaissance portraits. Yet no art historian has a good word to say for the Romans.
I am told the BM put on a show of Roman portraits in which they suggested that Hadrian had deformed ears! Years later I realized they had repaired the damage above the lobes, which constituted my best evidence of the Roman pocedure. I wrote in protest they refused to remedy what they had done. If you look very carefully you can just make out the repair by a change of colour. My museum cast has the damage but not nearly as clearly as on the original before ‘restoration !’
I joined a film club in North Kensington and we made good films of this analysis and the Rembrandt, Velasquez, Vermeer discoveries. I ran 3 “Eye Opener Courses at my London studio, which were reasonably well attended but did not take off in the way I had imagined they would. I did become a sort-after lecturer on these subjects at all the major art schools and some provincial ones for a couple of years after the Imperial College success.
Hans Brill whom I had known as the librarian at Wimbledon was promoted to librarian at the RCA and from there he was invited to arrange exhibitions at Imperial College. I think mine was the first he put on there. It was a breakthrough for me on the intellectual level but fizzled out after 2 or 3 years through the silent opposition from art historians, who obviously stand to lose a great deal if and when my revolution finally takes off. One hears that the truth will always come through in the end. I see no sign of that happening in my life-time. The Plaster conference might still prove this wrong.
I am writing 3 years after my discovery of the Roman origins of most of The Elgin Marbles, where the evidence is always available at the BM and seems to me to be not only water-tight but also very relevant to the arguments with Greece over the ownership of the marbles. The final short note in “Elgin Arguments” points out that if they were sent back to Greece the crucial difference between Greek and Roman would be obscured. Yet I have again failed to gain public notice for a discovery, which is of great importance to the hisory of art. The proper appreciation of Roman three dimensional geometry could transform the quality of art criticism which has fallen to a contemptable level from an admittedly fairly miserable level over my active life time.
I used a quote from Gombrich in my introduction to my first show at IC and invited him to the private view. He came and was obviously impressed with the evidence there. He suggested I send it to The Burlington. I told he I had and it was rejected out of hand. He invited a sub-editor to the show and they agreed it should be submitted again with Gombrich’s recommendation. It was rejected again with the same speed so he called a governors meeting and then helped me rephrase the article which was then accepted with his name attached. It was published but ignored ever since.
After my Burlington article I wrote to Harvard, the centre of Rembrandt stuies since before WWII, they were not keen to hear from me but gave me a slot out of term (paying nothing). I presented a film which told the story perfectly but quoted their Prof.Slive in a less than flattering light, I was not surprised by the reception but I thought once they had time to see that it made perfect sense at least some of the younger ones would come round, No, never. One day the world will wake up to their deceits, they have been ruining Rembrandt for no reason but to save their own faces; a day of reckoning must come.
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I did a psychological tuning up course called “Insight” in 1979, more of that later (Chapter Insight) after which I was invited to show my sculpture in Madrid, Barcelona and Salamanca. These exhibitions were a great success. They occupied me for two years and by the time I got back to Britain there was no way of finding work as a teacher, lecturer or selling my sculpture there. Mrs Thatcher had done her worst; the whole climate of Britain had changed fundamentally; greed had become good. The art world in Britain was no longer civilized.
Within a year I had taken off for Italy, where I have been running The Verrocchio Arts Centre for nearly 40 years. Access to a variety of beautiful stones here led me to returned to stone carving, on which I now spend as much time as on modelling. Teaching has kept the adrenalin flowing. I still hope to educate a team of connoisseurs to keep the reform of Rembrandt studies alive when I am gone. For humanity to lose contact with the greatest humanist artist ever, has been a disaster; we see the results everywhere. So far I have attracted no students to any of the several courses I have advertized to that end. Now Covid 19 has forced a change of approach for Verrocchhio we will be floating a Community of Artists in which I will offer tuition in the hope of reviving and restoring art history.
I have had a number of uncredited victories on Rembrandt's paintings. When“The Old Man Sitting in a Chair” was de-attributed I wrote a long letter to the RRP telling them it was a mistake, 28 years later it was reported that Prof. Van der Wetering admitted “it was a vaste mistake... it is a very important painting.”( The Guardian). The second, my YouTube defence of “The Adoration of the Shepherds” seems to have prompted The National Gallery to replace it among their Rembrandts for a short time (it is now in restoration and will remain there no doubt until the disgrace is forgotten). It had been languishing in their basement since the RRP had dismissed it; inspite of the fact that the staff at the National Gallery had examined it thoroughly and found no fault. (see their ‘Rembrandt, Art in the Making) no hint it might be a dud.
I believe “The Good Samaritan” at the Wallace has also been readmitted. No move whatever to revise among the scholars of the drawings where my proofs should have convinced an open mind 40 years ago that they are grossly mistaken. Mr. Schatborn recently of the Rijksmuseum believes there are only 500 surviving drawings by Rembrandt I believe in more than 2000. My version of Rembrandt is very close to that of his contemporaries, while the scholars have neglected the historical records indeed their version contradicts them entirely. (see the Wallace ad link)
I am not an argumentative person in normal life. I tend to shy away from political or philosphical debate. I do not have the capacity to think on my feet. My brain gets there in the end but slowly. I remember looking down from a window in St. Martins at a figure striding down Charing Cross Road and thinking to myself – I would like to be like him. He was well dressed and marched like a sergent-major vigorously swinging his umbrella horizontally in a very determined manner; the very picture of aggression. He knew where he was going and he was going to get what he wanted. I need a lot more of that “backbone” as Grandma K would have called it. It has surprised me how much I have persisted in my herecies in art history when I am so ‘diplomatic’ otherwise in life.
I have surprised myself with the bulldog persistence I have mustered in my defence of Rembrandt. Its not like me. Most artists today see themselves as creators, I am a receiver. I allow the light of nature and truth to shine through me (that is the affirmation I made for myself in Insight). My art is to enhance nature’s geometry, so it lodges firmly in the human brain; I hope it festers there, fostering love for, and understanding of life on Earth. - that is my type of creativity in a nut-shell. Like Rembrandt I see anything else as worthless. I am a devoted follower of his realistic love of truth; not the scandalous modern image of him.(see Ch. Rembrandt’s Character)
As an art detective I have seen more reality than the whole tribe of art historians put together. That has kept me in the out field of debate since the beginning. I ran rings round the audience at Harvard. At Smith I heard Harvard admired my footwork as an example one student stated that in the 17th century artists did not even need to have still life in front of them. I asked how he came to that conclusion? The answer because in the 17 century they made flower paintings with flowers that we're not all in season together. NK but flowers fade, flower painters pick them one at a time. General consternation - fore Harvard scholars had clearly built an edifice on this lunacy. They had decided that it was so much more worthwhile to paint from ‘imagination’ - therefore Rembrandt must have worked in that way inspite of all the evidence to the contrary from Rembrandt’s contemporaries. Otto Benesch, who wrote the Catalogue Raisonne seems to have been responsible for this madness.
An informal but ubiquitous black-list is the only way I can account for the thoroughness with which I have been kept out of sight. The press takes advice from academe. I have yet to find the key to unlock the lock-out. Of course one does not expect to find a genius detective in a holiday art school but that turned out to be my best option for survival.
Since I wrote the above my discovery of the Roman origin of most of the Elgin Marbles has been recognised to the extent that I am advertised as one of the main speakers in a conference “which has the potential to revolutionise our understanding of Greek and Roman sculpture”. The conference is on the the use of plaster in antiquity. I am using the opportunity to speak of life-casting and the Parthenon discoveries based on damage done early to the sculptures by smoke from the chimney I recognized in 2000. It got poblished in the OJA in 2002 through the help of my friend Herbert Hoffmann. He was so well known in archaeology they could not refuse two articles we wrote jointly. The second on life casting was published in 2004. Between the two any classical archaeologist should have jumped to the conclusions that took me 15 years because they all must have known of the Carrey drawings that I saw many years later by chance; those drawings triggered my rethink. The evidence at the British Museum was overwellming.
I had no previous knowledge of the drawings made by Carrey in 1674 which showed how very much more complete the sculptures were before the Venetian bombardment of 1687. I had previously assumed that the damage to the west pediment was done by smoke. Carrey’s drawings made me realize - no, that damge was repaired by Hadrian (117 – 138). The damage we see today is the result of Venetian cannon. I have made a video which I am confident demonstrates all the evidence for my wicked theories and goes some way to reconcilling archaeologists to their follies. I am less confident that they will prove sufficently humble to accept the obvious truth. It shows them in a very bad light over the centuries and up to the present. They not only overlooked the evidence of an enormous chimney in the area of the acropolis where archaeological activity is concentrated, they utterly refused to attend to the evidence when it was pointed out by a mere sculptor, actually a sculptor with a long history of discoveries behind him of corrections to art history.
The fundamental error of art history is to presume that artists of the passed were so much more able than those we know. I continue to presume the opposite, that they were very similar in ability. Many of my contemperaries at the RCA were very capable; if they have left no impression that is because society was looking the other way – the Serota way. More on this theme in the chapter on talent.
The resistance to my revelations should come as no surprise. I hope to overturn a whole history of misconception and mythologising in art. This myth-making has come about partly through the propaganda of artists but mainly through the misunderstanding of art historians who have little understanding of how artists truly approach their work or their cast of mind. They need to spend more time in the studios and listen to what artists tell them.
Artists need dealers and critics to sell their work. Artists themselves may not be their own best sales person, normally a third person is needed as advocate. Art dealers and critics are usually recruited from a verbal background, where the artist is by nature ruled by images. Through practise I have become more articulate than most in an area that needs clear thinking. My vocation is as sculptor and teacher. I have spent my life at it. Most artist are obliged to teach for their living, I teach because I feel an obligation to keep art, as I understand it, alive. That ambition is clearly going to take more than one life-time.
The majority of educated people today may feel they know nothing about art but this has not always been the case. In the great moments of art it certainly was not. Art came to prominence as a communication to the illiterate as well as the literate. Like music it once had a universal appeal which it has now lost. I wish to propagate the idea that art is not a luxury but is necessary for our survival. It is an exploration of life; life as we are able to perceive it on the one hand, and as it truly is on the other. The gap that exists between the two is the result of the complex development of the human brain. Our image thinking has been overpowered by the success of abstract reasoning: word and number have submerged the original animal-brain imagery. We all have the animal instincts and the brain to go with but for most people the convenience of abstraction has submerged the primitive thought process. I seem to have held onto it.
I see art as building bridges between the world of the senses and the world of ideas. There has always been an abstract element in art which is inevitable; the result of the human abstract brain development over the last 40,000 years. Instinct and feeling go back way beyond that, they need to be constantly exercised if they are not to atrophy. The practice of drawing should keep those instincts alive but logic and reason are required also. The bridging of the two response mechanisms is the centre piece on which I hope to build a web of new possibilities.
In 1983 I was in a position to open my new school of art in Casole d’Elsa. My ambition was as above to educate artists with a new emphasis using my earlier Eye Opener course as a basis. Every year opened with that course until the number of students applying faded beyond what was viable. It is difficult to swim against the current in art and survival has to take precedence over preference. In the event the school has catered mainly for holiday painting courses run on as sensible lines as the market will allow. I think I can boast that the painting tutors are among the best landscape painters that Britain can muster. The teaching is in English. In sculpture I can manage in Italian also.
I had bought a ruined barn in Tuscany. A huge amount of renovation was necessary but by 1983 I had managed to put enough of it in order; it was so large that we could work in one end and build in the other. Our first course was of Australian art historians who came to Tuscany to visit the surrounding art treasures. I was still hanging doors in the bathrooms when they arrived. The whole course took place in a building whose amenities were well short of Faulty Towers. Fortunately Australians are very adaptable, they arrived at the end of April, a storm shortly followed, there weren't many windows in the place and I tried to limit the draughts by hanging a very heavy curtain in a doorway but the wind was so strong that the curtain simply blew out horizontally. One of the Australians was overheard saying “if I die here I'm going to make bloody sure the world knows why”. Nonetheless they returned the next year when it was much better prepared.
By 1985 we were able to cater for quite reasonable sized courses and by lucky chance a journalist came to one of the fuller courses and had such a good time that she wrote it up, The article came out in the Sunday Times on Easter Sunday, we had a queue of 200 people hoping to come.
It made all the difference, we got off to a flying start after that but before that recruitment was very slow. Advertising in Art magazines didn't really do a great deal to push us off. We have run about 10 fortnight's a year in painting and sculpture ever since.
I'm doing a lot of carving now. It is so much easier to carve while one is teaching. Students need a lot of looking after and I was constantly interrupted by student’s needs. As a carver all one need do is put down ones tools. As a modeller one needs to cover the clay to stop it drying out. I managed to get quite a lot done as a carver. The Verrocchio website and my own nigelkonstam.com will show you what's going on here.
There is great convenience in living abroad it gives one a lot of extra time; fewer friends, of course, my Italian is not up to much so I have more time to myself for my work. I have been very prolific as a sculptor and now at the age of 87 my catalogue has topped 700 pieces, some of them are quite big and many of them are dotted around this Village. I sometimes wonder how an Italian living in the same size Village would fare in Britain, I'm quite certain he would not have 7 sculptures displayed and floodlit at night. Altogether the village has been very friendly and it's a huge support to the business. Italians value art, they know they are good at it.
When I first came to look for a place to run courses I had looked in the country thinking that only there I would find a barn big enough to run sculpture courses however Italian villages often have the kind of Tythe Barn that I found. It once belonged to a count for keeping his share of the crop from his 92 farms. Naturally half the crop took a great deal of space. I bought it from an agricultural cooperative, The same peasants who once share cropped for the Count had formed a cooperative when land reform finally hit italy in the sixties, they had never used the barn because access with modern farm vehicles was near impossible.
Rumour has it that land reform was engineered by the CIA who were alarmed at the speed with which communism was advancing here. Italy cast off feudalism hundreds of years after Britain; but amazingly much more thoroughly than Britain. I am constantly delighted to observe that class consciousness is far less powerful a force here than in Britain.
The conversion took an enormous amount of time and effort and of course many things went wrong including the budget that more or less doubled. Nonetheless, after 2 years we had something like a simple hostel with kitchen and studios. I had had a very large studio by London standards that was entirely full of sculpture after 26 years in it and by the time I left I was spending nearly all my time trying to earn a living rather than using it. Here I had an amazing studio space, less sculpture to put in it, and more time to work in it. I have never regretted my move to Italy. Dr Johnson told us that when one is tired of London one is tired of life; on the contrary I have found life here much more rewarding in fact rejuvenating.
I had enjoyed carving as a student but I never liked the results. We all knew how Michelangelo worked but he was a genius we were told, you have to work by walking round the stone cutting off bits much the reverse of modelling; it does not work. Michelangelo worked from the front only pushing back into the stone and creating an arm for instance, almost finished and of a particular size in order to be able to understand exactly what scale of figure one was able to get in the stone. This is vital, nearly always one overestimates the size and if you're walking around dwindling the figure you lose all the movement as it shrinks. Michelangelo’s method is by far the best. We call it Michelangelo's method but in fact every Italian sculptor who knows what he's doing uses this method because it works.
Materials are very easy to find round here; there's an alabaster quarry about 3 miles away and we used to go there for stone. The man on the bulldozer was a delight in himself. His hobby was training dogs for hunting, now long retired and the quarry is closed alas. I had not carved since being a student but in helping students I realised it was a very pleasant activity in the sun. So I got some alabaster for myself and allowed myself to use Michelangelo's method for the first time; it was a revelation; by amazing chance I had not even finished my first carving when a German tourist walked by and bought it. We called her Elsa. This good luck certainly pushed me on my way but did not repeat itself for many years until I sold a large Mother and Child to an American paediatric doctor, also just passing by.
This place is a sculptors paradise. Now I am working on a fairly small scale simply because I don't like lifting heavy objects. With modern scanning equipment one can enlarge in any material remarkably cheaply compared with the old manual methods. Clay was also available from a brickworks no more than a mile away and plaster is being created from gesso mined round the corner. Add Italy’s history in art and no wonder this is the centre of the world for sculptors.
I do not weld myself but my next door neighbour does. Local people are used to the dust and noise created by sculpture so there's never a complaint. The village is a huge asset the people are friendly and there's an amazing amount of activity for entertainment during the summer. The village has 960 permanent residents. The number of concerts, dances, rock concerts and exhibitions they put on is quite amazing. We have no less than 4 bars 3 restaurants and a bistro that also does food. The views are amazing and the village itself very picturesque. A painter does not have to walk more than 10 yards before setting up his or her easel. There is enough space in the studios for about 20 people; all was well till this Corona virus struck. Let us hope it's under control as soon as possible.
An amazing synchronicity, as I finish my chapter on the first years at Verrocchio a very old friend rang up, old in the sense that I have not heard a word from him for 35 years or so. He spent more than a year here and built the spiral stairs, even digging the hole for them. We argued every step of the way but I am very pleased with the outcome. In fact I did the upper tile-work that looks like bricks, while he was away at the Venice carnival dressed as Akernaton with an enormous mask practically down to his navel. Kenton was an American architect who wanted hands-on experience and he got it. It was really nice of him to ring. Italy leads Europe in cases of the virus and we are all locked-down, meaning that we cannot leave the territory of Casole without a form containing a good excuse and permission! A big fine if you try anything on. I am glad the government is being so draconian, only worried that Italians are not used to obeying laws. Kenton was worried about me after 35 years. Sweet of him, he seems to be very successful in Sweden, manufacturing well insulated houses, three times better insulated than the stone I live in. Our winters are milder of course.
I got his message by chance as I am not really up to facebook and the like. I must have pressed the wrong button by mistake and there was a message from him only 5 days old; all I had to do was press another button and his phone started ringing. I am a realist who does not really believe in things like synchronicity but it does keep happening. A girl friend insisted on getting my chart read by her special astrologer. Apparantly I am a triple fire sign, very rare, also, God loves me, though I don't believe in him, I accept that I am lucky. Another astrologer told me I was particularly lucky with property. Yes I am, do you own a very big house? Yes in fact three. Is one of them abroad? At the time, no but look at me now - an enormous house abroad which I was able to buy by selling a cottage for which I had paid £250 in 1961. My stars are more attentive to me than I am to them.
My present ambition is to run an Artists’ Community here throughout the year. That is fewer people but for longer to cut down on the chances of infection. Open to anyone interested in the arts, musicians, poets etc. All are welcome. I will be offering courses in Revolutionary Art History as well as sculpture and drawing. We will have visiting painters and sculptors. Caro, who has been here for over 20 years, as a permanent teacher of painting.
There is a relationship between my Parthenon discoveries and Rembrandt. Both suggest we are grossly undervaluing Roman art because we have wrongly attributed the superior part of the Parthenon sculptures to Phidias. There is now strong evidence to suggest the best of the Elgin Marbles are Roman not Greek. A respected connoisseur, Richard Payne Knight insisted the sculptures were Roman at the time Elgin was selling his collection but everyone wished to go on believing they were Greek, so that view prevailed till now.
I recognised a chimney used by Phidias himself to melt bronze so close to the Parthenon that it’s smoke slowly destroyed his sculptures on the west facade. They had to be replaced – probably by Hadrian (117 – 138 AD) that is 570 years after the original works, plenty of time for the acid produced by the mixing of smoke and rain to penetrate the marble bruised by the earlier method of carving with iron or bronze tools. The replacements, carved with steel and improved geometry, were damaged much later by the Venetian bombardment of 1687. They are without smoke staining and the damage is clearly much newer than that on the east pedimant.
The evidence for these different causes of damage is very clear at the British Museum because the east pediment sculptures are all damaged by smoke coming through the building and seeping up to stain the sculptures from below, Clearly they were not sufficiently damaged to need to be replaced. Only the horse of Selene which is particularly vulnerable is Roman and it is very obviously crisper, cleaner and better than the horses of Helios which are genuine Greek and in my view artistically third rate; while the Horse of Selene has mistakenly come to representthe height of Greek achievement. These cleaner, crisper qualities are seen again on the west pediment added to which the damage from cannon is clearly far less weathered than the weathering on the Horses of Helios. Once we acknowledge that there were two sources of damage: the first from smoke the second from cannon, the evidence is widespread and entirely consistent.
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I have never doubted that Roman portraits are infinitely more characteristic, individual and in every way better than the Greek. Greek idealized heads are unrecognisable as a particular individual. Rembrandt must have been of the same opinion because he actually bought 30 Roman portraits for his collection and we know they were very highly valued in his time. Rembrandt went further and filled two books with drawings of them. Though the books themselves have been lost the results of these studies are obvious in his drawing and painting. He did not visit Italy where the worship of ancient Greece was all pervading he was interested in imitating nature “anything else was worthless in his eyes”. His works all prioritise truth over idealised beauty.
The subject matter of the majority of his drawings was from the Bible. He was a first generation Protestant, the Bible had just been translated into Dutch so he was also of the first generation to be able to understand the psychological nuances of the stories without the interpretation of a priest. My video on his drawing “David on his Deathbed” describes how accurately he depicted those nuances. The accuracy was based on his command of space relationships between the protagonists as well as their gestures.
Rembrandt the great portraitist used an assemblage of geometric forms as the basis of individual portraiture. The classical Greek egg as a basis for a head is far too generalised. What critics are pleased to describe as idealised, is better, more truly described, as generalised or formulaic. With Roman portraits we can name each emperor without doubt. My analysis of a bust of Hadrian, (Apollo August 1972) shows how the business of copying naturally results in geometry and how that geometry became admired and emphasised. Rembrandt was not alone in recognising the importance of three dimensional geometry. Most artists use Roman geometry as a basis for their male portraits even Ingres, the great defender of the classical tradition almost inevitably used Roman form as the foundation for his male, and Greek for his female portraits. A whole sequence of great artists mainly rely on Rome: – Masaccio, Holbein, Rembrandt, Degas, Van Gogh and Giacometti; so have thousands of minor artists. The idea of despising Roman art seems to be rooted in the teachings of the critic Winckelmann (1717-1768). As far as artists’ instinctive choice is concerned it is clearly nonsense.
A factor that undoubtedly fed the value of Greek art was it’s scarcity. Roman generals and emperor's had been stealing Greek examples since Greece became a colony in 146 BC. Anyway, the ethnicity of Roman sculptors is not clear-cut. The Greeks had century's of experience in carving before Italians became involved. Many of the studios are likely to have been run by Greek masters. All the marble for the Parthenon sculpture is Pentelic, therefore the replacements were almost certainly made in Athens; it is their date that defines them as Roman.
We know for sure that Greeks also were measuring from 480 BC onwards because measuring bosses were found on the sculptures in Olympia. What is less clear is what they were measured from; life casting in wax is proven in the Bronzes of Riace (OJA 2004) the same waxes used as the original models would be the best answer to that mystery. Summer sun would prevent their use for 3 months, otherwise wax is ideal: light, adaptable and best of all - many positives can come from one plater negative mould.
These are facts as clear as checkmate; they should not be subverted by ‘professional opinion’. Yet the OJA article on the subject has been neglected by the establishment. . The naturalism of the soles of the feet could not have been observed. The rest of the bodies are modelled in exquisite detail such as has never been seen since from a sculptor/modeller unaided. Rembrandt’s reflections again are far too numerous and precise to be the product of “17th century imagination” (see YouTube, The Adoration video; the odds against the use of a reflection there must be astronomical). Yet forty years after my publication (Burlington 1977) these facts are still denied by the acts and judgements of Rembrandt experts. If this degree of bias had happened at a football match there would have been hell to pay immediately. Why are Rembrandt’s fans less active on his behalf?
The Roman contribution to the European tradition in art has been neglected, so aesthetic judgement has suffered. There is an ugly pattern of behaviour from the referees of art today: they do not stick to civilised rules. Modern experts use taxpayers money to subsidise outrageous works and insulate themselves from government oversight by continuously backing art with no genuine basis for consideration. Naturally, the government cannot comprehend what they are doing and wash their hands of responsibility. The practice of the visual arts have been seriously damaged by experts in theory. Without public interest the experts will not reform. Please participate in these discussions.
LINKS:
Janet read an article in the Observer sometime in 1979 about a new American psychological tuning up course named Insight, it sounded fascinating. The article was written by Ariana Stasinopolos it glowed in Janet’s mind and although it was rather expensive we decided she should do it. It lasted for 5 days in all, the weekend 2 full days and three long evenings before. She did it and came back so radiant that I, my sister Gemma, and her husband Alvin all immediately signed on for the next course.
The first evening I didn't really feel it was for me. Others also felt the same because they spoke out against the slick, American presenters, who dressed and presented themselves like smart hotel staff. But the last session in the evening was called “The Game of Life”, that struck home for me. By the end of the second evening I had participated and felt very interested. On the 3rd evening as I was walking home about half passed one in the morning I had the first spiritual experience of my life, a kind of waterfall of light coming down into me at a particular point in an ordinary street in west London. I still emote when I think of it.
The first spiritual experience is not entirely true because I'm not sure when probably in the early 60s Janet had introduced me to the Maharishi’s TM meditation, it was well before The Beatles got interested in him. Since before I knew her Janet was a member of a group called the Study Society it was roughly based on the teachings of Ouspenski who's book I had read. I used to go to the annual general meeting which included a lecture on philosophical subjects ; often by artists teaching at the RCA but I was never attracted to becoming a member of the group. However, the group became interested in the Maharishi and I was intrigued by what I heard from Janet.
The Maharishi held court near London Zoo and I went along with Janet and enrolled. This meant at a ceremony. I was given a mantra to repeat as a meditation ; the technique caught on with me very soon and and after a few months I had to ask myself the question - did I want to be a monk or a sculptor because I was spending so much time in meditation. The answer was clear that I wanted to be a sculptor and I gave up the meditation. I don't remember from that experience any one moment that could begin to compare with the cascade of light that I experienced that night. Doubtless there were rewards but of a much gentler kind. A kind of switching into infinity rather than the usual time. One meditated with one’s back against the wall and I involuntarily started to bang my head gently against the wall, I told the Mahrishi of the problem, he said carry on. I did not carry on for long. Possibly this previous experience had opened the way for the experiences of Insight
The next morning at Insight I felt I had something special to say to three people. We were assembling about 9 and as I entered the building with the first person and I gave my message whatever that was I can't remember; then I'd hardly gone 10 paces when I met the second person who happened to be Gemma and I said to her - today it seems to me like magic, all I have to do - and I wave my arm like a magician and as my arm came down it encircled the waste of the third person who had just come up behind me! It truly was magical. If we had practised it as a play the precise timing would have been very difficult.
From then on I had a wonderful time and left the course in a highly elated state, which is not at all unusual for participants. I had obviously been noticed by the staff who were running the course because I was asked to speak at a recruiting meeting a week or two later, and I accepted. That meeting went off very well until someone asked me about the religious affiliation of the course staff. I knew that the course was run by an unusual sect called started by a Californian cop. The staff had been wonderfully supportive and certainly was not evangelising. I told the truth, I told them I was not a member of the sect but from that point on the atmosphere changed. I do not know how the recruiting went but I guess the mention of the sect put a lot of people off. It would have put me off too but what else could I have done?
After Insight One I signed on for the advanced course. I did it about 6 months later but didn't have a return of that magic that I'd found on the first course. Nonetheless, the whole experience certainly changed my life. The high state after Insight 1 really only lasted 3 or 4 days but I felt at that time that I could achieve anything and in fact it was that sense of confidence that allowed me to uproot myself from all that I knew and start a new life in Casole d’Elsa. They warn you against being over confident after a course and I did not uproot till two years later. Significantly, one of the exercises was to write down something you really wanted in life. We had 15 minutes to do it. After 10 mins I could not think of anything I really wanted and in desperation wrote down a farmhouse in Tuscany. And here I am in an ex-fattoria in Tuscany and have been here for the last 40 years!
Many years later I did a Vipassana, a 10 day Buddhist silent retreat the magic of which hit me 2 days after it ended. On the way home we had a car crash, I was not driving. The next day a course was assembling at the Centro and I was circling Colle for an hour in search of a group of students who had rung for a lift to Casole. I eventually found them enjoying drinks inside a bar without the slightest thought of their taxi. I was not pleased.
The magic began the next morning when I had the feeling that I could not put a foot wrong, nor could I. Instinct guided me in a way that it had never done before – or since alas. That experience lasted more than 2 very memorable days. I presume enlightenment is like that all the time. Pascal tells us all one can do to repeat such experience is to wait and hope. Certainly my attempt at a repeat by signing on for a second Insight was disappointing.
SPAIN
The other bit of magic that happened after the second course at Insight was a Spanish scientist who believed that he had cured cancer and was receiving a huge retainer from a drug company, dropped into my life within three days of finishing the course. At the time my second exhibition at Imperial College was going on. He came to the exhibition and made me an offer I was in no mode to refuse. He said buy yourself a new suit and come to Madrid and I'll arrange an exhibition for you.
I did just that. All that he promised there, that is – not one but three exhibitions and a number of commissions came to pass. The most memorable of the commissions was portraits of the King and Queen of Spain. This is sounding like a fairy-story and for a man of 48 having not really got very far in his career it was a fairy story. I had a retrospective exhibition of over 100 pieces of sculpture and some drawings in the largest, smartest gallery in Madrid, with a handsome colour catalogue and a poster both of which where out of reach of most artists at that time because the cost of such a catalogue was very much higher then than it is today. The exhibition was a huge success with lots of press coverage and good sales; the portraits of the King and Queen were of course the centre piece. The success was mainly the result of my patron’s fame but I also had become famous in Spain by then due to a huge publicity campaign.
The Royal Palace, that is where the royals lived, was out in the country, perhaps 7 miles from Madrid. It was rather disappointing, no more than a millionaire might live in. It was set in a bleak Spanish desert, it took ten minutes to drive from the military checkpoint to the palace itself. The surrounds were depressingly desert-like. I was balancing prepared portraits in clay in the back of the car. I had done them from drawings I made from many photographs as preparation; they turned out to be pretty good.
We set up work in their sitting room, they were sitting on the sofa, not the most convenient height for the sculptor. I suppose I spent about an hour on each while they spoke in English mainly to my patron. I really liked the King, he seemed to be utterly unpretentious, rather boy-scoutish in his simplicity. The Queen was rather more reserved. The King offered another sitting which I would have been keen to accept but my patron immediately said no that would not be necessary, thank you.
At the time the King was up for the Nobel Peace Prize for the way he had brought Spain through the transition from Franco to democracy. I made the Royal couple in the guise of Noah and his wife, Noah was launching the dove of peace. Alas, he did not win it so I had to remove the hands and dove before the exhibition. Had he won, the sculpture would probably have been put on a stamp or coin. Such is life. I gave the bronze hands and dove to my cousin Lorna who had moved to Spain near Alicanti.
I had chosen to live outside Madrid in a little village (Aganda del Rey) because it had a big bronze foundry in it. I had a very good time there. The foundry was set in a garden and the family who owned it offered a lunch every Sunday to all the sculptors, the lunch was usually a delicious paella, the wine flowed as did the conversation, of which I gathered little. I cast a lot of new work. The difference in speed of production in those few months with real money and the wind in my sails was tremendous. The quality of the bronze work was very good. I liked the family very much. There were 2 sons in the business and when I returned unexpectedly from England I found my Tiranti sculpture stand in pieces; they were making copies for themselves.
A few months later we followed the Madrid success with a bigger success in Barcelona, sales broke the record for the gallery, a branch of the same gallery. I spent the time of the exhibition in Barcelona and had a great time, particularly visiting Gaudi's monuments. Barcelona boasts a number of other splendid treats of museums, the Ramblas and shopping around Barcelona, a glorious city.
The Cohns drove out with Janet and Hannah and we had a holiday after the show, north of Barcelona. There was a bull-fight advertised not far away. Hannah was keen to go. I made inquiries and it seemed very expensive as two of the fights were to be on horseback. I reported back but Hannah aged 14 said “I think we should go regardless of expense” – so we did. I must admit the horseback fights were absolutely thrilling. The horses were totally magnificent in looks and courage, so were the riders. They placed daggers in the bulls neck as they rode by and the bulls horns missed the hamstrings of the horses by inches as they chased after. The foot fights were disgusting. I am glad we went, the experience has stayed with me. I had not realised that those long mains in Velásquez’ Royal portraits were true. The beasts must have been worth a fortune. The experience turned none of us into vegetarians.
Around this time my patron must have heard that his recipe may have cured rats in the laboratory but did very little for human beings. He did not tell me, I worked that out afterwards. We did complete the three exhibitions but I never went to Salamanca and when the accounting was done there was virtually no more than a handful of cash to take home which just covered the cost of a new kitchen-unit we had ordered during the bonanza. As we parted he promised me a fairly handsome annual stipend while I prepared to go on to Paris and New York. I went home still full of expectation but the monthly payments never arrived. I tried to sell my work on the strength of my new “international” reputation but no good came of it. It was at that time I decided to take off for Italy. Spain had reminded me of how pleasant life could be in the Mediterranean but Italy seemed a deeper cultural centre to attract students and maybe even buyers.
I am a rationalist and a realist. I see no reason to believe in astrology or anything of that sort, nonetheless I have to admit that on the very rare occasions that astrology has entered my life either because Janet insisted on some astrological marriage guidance or because Nancy wanted her special astrologer to read my chart, the readings we're remarkably accurate. In the case of the marriage guidance the astrologer asked me if I had a very big house; the truth was that I had at that stage three houses. Then she asked me was one of them abroad the answer was no. I owned two in London and one in Stert. She told me I very lucky in estate deals; I could not argue with that but a farmhouse in Tuscany? and here I am in an ex fattoria, that is a central deposit for the product of 92 farms once owned by a Count Albertis. It is enormous.
Nancy’s astrologer read my chart and found that I was a triple fire sign. That too has some resonance insofar as as I have been a foundryman for at least 20 years and even at prep school many of us were in quarantine for some childhood disease and therefore had the run of the very big gardens attached. The headmaster had left a bonfire dying at a good distance from the house; we found it and I managed to keep it going for at least a week by excavating a very old tree stump which was damp and mainly underground. I kept embers going for the the 14 or 15 hours we were away asleep or eating breakfast. Even now I live with wood burning stoves or fireplaces because I enjoy them.
There is one rational way of accounting for the partial success of astrology that rigorous tests have shown to exist; that is by being born in a cold time of year means one makes ones first moves into the world in summer and this would predispose one to have a sunny temperament, as I have; and vica-versa. Another possibility is those who favour astrology remember the successes and tend to forget what did not conform as predicted. Perhaps the dark matter that we cannot observe but of which 60% of the universe consists is responsible in some way; who knows.
Another amusing possibility, not astrology but similar, is that one hears in bird-song a message in times of stress like the present corona virus outbreak, words that answer one’s inmost thoughts. I hear a tit crying “Paracite” with an Italian pronunciation, emphasis on cit. At 87 I am not allowed out to help in any way but it irks. I must have heard that bird many years but never heard those words before.
Another encounter with a bird was with a white owl who flew into my windscreen as I was driving towards a large show of my work in Florence. Being of an optimistic temperament I interpreted that as a good omen. It was not, the show was at the smartest riding centre on the periphery of Florence and the weather was the hottest June for a century. No one went riding and the reviews were obviously concocted from previous reviews. Good photos, no sales.
We made a holiday of the search for a place to run holiday courses. At that time I did not expect to spend all my life in Italy, just the summers. We spent a good deal of the holiday looking at places which seemed incredibly expensive by comparison with Spain. In Spain at that time you could buy a farmhouse that you could walk into and live in reasonably for £250 sterling. In Italy miserable places cost at least 50 times as much. On the penultimate day of our holiday I told the English lady who had been showing us round that I was sorry but I had found nothing and was sorry I'd wasted her time. She rang around and.
CASOLE
On the final day she showed me the ruined barn in Casole that I decided upon. Janet thought I was completely mad. I sympathised but felt that in Italy things were so casual that one could get by with building as I thought fit. I was wrong about that, the bureaucracy of building in Italy is even worse than it is in London. I had done quite a bit of flat conversions in London to supplement the pittance that I earn from sculpture; so I was not entirely a beginner in the enterprise I had undertaken. I had visited Italy three summers running as a student and felt that in three months I would speak the language fluently. I was wrong about that also. In Spain they thought I was speaking Italian but in Italy they knew it was Spanish. There is a button in my skull labelled “foreign” I cannot distinguish one foreign language from another, the part of the brain that learns languages dies early. Ironically my brother Gavin has a real gift for languages, he lives near Bolton Lancs - and I live and work abroad.
During my previous travels in Italy I had never visited the countryside. It was the main tourist cities – Florence, Rome, Naples and Venice which had attracted me. I am an art fanatic. The experience of a small village in Tuscany was altogether new, exciting and overwhelmingly positive.
Janet asked me if the experiment only lasted 5 years would it have been worthwhile? My answer was a resounding no! I have now been here for nearly 40 years and it has been very, very worthwhile. Much of the Mediterranean-style life I enjoyed in Spain was repeated, and more so here in Italy. There are other advantages too in living abroad, fewer friends of course, but offset by fewer social obligations. This gives a lot of extra time for private thoughts. Having the village of Stert to compare with life in Casole I am often reminded how quickly and completely Italy has cast off the yoke of feudalism (only since the early 1960s) where England 500 years after Magna Carta is still suffering from a formidable class-consciousness which undermines inter-class relationships. Italy suffers in many ways unknown in Britain but it’s embedded humanity easily outweighs its problems.
Furbo
Where the name Machiavelli is synonymous with Satan in England, here they name secondary schools after him. Ancient cultures tend to give much greater credit to cunning than is the case in Britain. As an example our rival contrada (district of the village) was led by a president who was cunning (furbo) -Mario Dei. His contrada won many times, whereas ours never won. But one year we had the very best of horses. That year there were 7 false starts in which our horse ran half the course on each false occasion before it could be pulled in. On the final accepted start our horse was eating grass in the background – furbo! There was such bad feeling as a result that the next year our lads were saying we are going to win this year even Mario Dei says so! And we won with a very average horse; another demonstration of Mario’s power; extra important in Italy.
In the Siena Palio there is much more money involved and much more furbo. Nearly always the richer contradas win but that does not diminish by one iota the passion involved. The Sienese live and die for the Palio; you become a contradaiolo from birth and are expected to contribute to contrada funds generously every year, how else can you expect to win but by bribery? I have seen tears of joy spurt a metre from the eyes of a boy after his contrada won. There are many stories to illustrate the passion involved in Siena, a little old lady was caught with cannon balls in a bowl of fruit she intended to throw at her wounded jockey whom she was sure had pulled his horse for a bribe. But there are very seldom scuffles on the day, full of pageantry. If you are a member of a contrada that has won 55 times, then you are expected to march around the city singing your contrada song 55 times for 55 days!