For the last month I've been reading these early 20th century, late 19th century, big hitting German masters: Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke and now Friedrick Nietzche's ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra. There is a lot of music in them all-music mentioned or described, but also repetitions and symmetries. The writing stylistically expressed as dance. Striking too is the occurrence of supernatural incidents. There are séances and discussions of visions. The supernatural is accepted as present. I think it was much more widespread then now with computerised virtual reality taking the attention. Even my mother, said that she had been to a séance as a student in the late 30's in Paris. She said she saw ectoplasm coming out of a woman's ear. It was waxy and whitish, going out to a large formless shape before retreating back in. This said matter-of-factly, with detached humour, by my mother who was an intelligent scoffing sort of person. Colette the writer probably summed it up when she commented, "It doesn't matter whether you believe or not." What is intriguing is whether these phenomena are self-generated, coming from within oneself, or actually present.
Come to think of it, I used to live in Holman Hunt's last studio, on Melbury Road, where he finished the painting ‘The Scapegoat', amongst others, went blind and slowly mad, as did one of his models. That had a black atmosphere about it, which was gradually dispelled by my years of occupancy. In the nights there used to be quite a lot of scuffling and whispering noises that I more or less slept through, but sometimes would go and investigate the hallway when it was particularly loud. Nothing was ever to be seen. I did a painting, abstract of course, in violet, purple grey, about this, titling it ‘Whispers In The Night', and hung it on the wall alongside others of my works. Every night then, consistently, persistently, this one painting crashed down off the wall. After about a fortnight of this, I got spooked and painted over it with burnt sienna, yellow, cerulean blue, as well as painting out the whispering title on the back. The new title became Illusion of Knowledge. Well that painting never fell off the wall again. Curious and creepy, non? So one's thoughts mull over things.
