David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


14 November 2023

TAR presents : Twombly, the Ancient Remains


Cy Twombly moved to Italy from the USA in 1957.

His ‘Poems to the Sea’ suite of twenty-four drawings were executed in a single day in 1959.

Twombly lived north of Rome at Bassano in Teverina. “Downstream from the city centre, not far away from the Tiber, lies Lake Vadimo, locally known as the "Pond", described by Pliny the Younger as "a lying wheel with a regular circumference [...] paler, greener and more intense than the sea." - Wikipedia

At the 1988 Venice Biennale he exhibited paintings responding to the Bassano in Teverina “Pond” along with unpainted plaster sculptures. Henry Weatherfield chanced upon that exhibition just hours before leaving Venice, that one time visit. “Paler, greener and more intense than the sea is the see", he later wrote.

Theatre of the Actors of Regard 
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