Chiaroscuro

An article of contrasts

Dear Abi Daily Fam

I woke up on Tuesday morning thirsting for something true, good and beautiful from the ‘old world’, the world that makes me feel rooted in something golden beyond the tedium of grey insularity.

At 10am, I found myself walking to the National Gallery. I can’t remember the last time I was there. Like a misty Turner, time and the potholes of grief have altered the road of recollection.

Over the past few months, I haven’t walked as regularly, and I’ve really noticed the difference; not just in my body, but in my brain. As Pierre Gassendi replied in response to Descarte’s oft- quoted cliché cogito ergo sum: Ambulo ergo sum. I’m with Gassendi. If you’re walking, you can let the inner voice take over – if you have one – or you can focus on the ground beneath your feet. Even on London’s dirty, uneven pavements, I find some kind of peace in the steady process of putting shoe-covered trotters on the earth.

You’re propelling yourself forward. Towards some point in the distance. It doesn’t matter what that point is, sometimes just the act of propulsion is enough.

With the Rondeau from Mozart’s sublime Concerto for Two Pianos played by the magnificent Alfred Brendel cascading through my ears, I approached the main entrance. There was a security guard standing outside wearing one of those dystopian blue medical muzzles. I stiffened and barked: “Why have you got that on?”. He replied: “To keep myself safe.” “Safe from what?” I said. He whispered, sheepishly: “I know…” To which I replied: “If you know, then why are you wearing it? I haven’t worn one, I’m unvaccinated and miraculously I’m still here four years later…”

And with a final “for fuck’s sake, come on mate”, I went inside.

Dear pearl-clutchers, Mozart loved rude words, so fucking get over it.

It was already quite busy with various groups of foreign tourists. I chuckled to myself when I heard a Chinese guide talking about Tintoretto in Chinese. Tintoletto.

Weirdly, none of them were in masks.

There was a sweet group of school children sitting on the wooden floor of one of the rooms. The teacher, who looked to be in his mid-fifties, asked them if they knew what the word for the technique of contrasting light and shade was in Italian. Nobody put their hand up, so he told them about chiaroscuro which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted.

As I looked at the children, sitting quietly on the floor, their small faces directed in curiosity towards the teacher; I felt a jolting surge of sadness and fury at what they must have been subjected to during the Covidmania™️. It is our moral duty to tell children every day that we are deeply sorry for what happened to them. It was evil and must never ever be repeated. Justice for the crimes committed against them is my dearest wish.

Despite so much to see in the various rooms, I found myself gravitating towards the religious paintings depicting biblical stories and Christ’s life. I found myself standing completely still, trying to shut out the chatter, and staring at the almost painful beauty of the reverent brush strokes. There was a small, dark room that held a limited exhibition: The Last Caravaggio. In the gloom, a small group of us gazed at his great painting entitled Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist. As I have often said on my podcast, religious or not, the collective emotions that we feel looking at these works of art can never be replaced by any earthly ideology. Totalitarian regimes have tried, and they will try again, but they will always fail.

The pillars of Truth, Goodness and Beauty are eternal principles.

By lunchtime, it was pretty busy – quite a few people were wearing the dreaded, dystopian muzzles – so I decided to grab lunch in a café just off St Martin’s Lane. I sat down and started writing this article, when I suddenly remembered the employee I had met in the Apple Store in Covent Garden a few weeks ago. We were talking about using cash in transactions when he suddenly confided that he bitterly regretted taking the Covid-19 ‘vaccines’. He was worried about the fact that, having been very healthy throughout his life, he had been unwell since having them.

As I said in the podcast that day, I left the store and wept.

I weaved my way up Long Acre to Covent Garden to see if he was there so I could tell him about the Yellow Card Scheme and other ways he could get help. Sod’s Law he wasn’t working that day. I will go back.

Interestingly, one of the paintings that grabbed my attention earlier was The Good Samaritan by Jacopo Bassono.

Those pillars are always present, calling us back to them.

In stark contrast to the mostly contemplative nature of the morning’s viewing, I found myself walking home through a sea of angry men draped in St George’s flags being kettled by a line of police. I have seen many comments on social media describing them as far-right, drunk thugs. Easy to say that of course when you don’t live in, say, Ilford, Bradford, Glasgow or Dublin. Imagine waking up one morning and finding your familiar surroundings suddenly changed beyond recognition, and without your permission. It would be like somebody breaking into your house and getting rid of the furniture you bought or inherited, and replacing it with things you don’t like or want. Of course, there is a vile snobbery behind all this – it’s all in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The working classes have always been used by socialist ideologues, whilst also being told their lives matter.

I would argue that these are men and women who feel that all that is precious to them, particularly perhaps the comfort of being surrounded by English law, culture and language, is being stolen from them. The people really doing the stealing, however, are not necessarily the immigrants, they are are the political leaders who want to change the fabric of our country as part of a wider Western project to eliminate borders and sovereignty. This is all deliberate. This is not wanky, tin foil burbling, it’s fact.

Some of you reading this might say what does having other cultures here matter? To which I would reply: that depends on the influence of that culture or ideology. Would an Islamic state, for example, keep the paintings in the National Gallery? Whether you agree or not, if you care about the exquisitely transcendent paintings I looked at on Tuesday, these questions must be asked.

We live in turbulent times that are also full of opportunity to create exciting new things, but one thing I am absolutely sure of is that not striving for what is True, Good and Beautiful and insisting that night is the same as day, is what got us into this mess.

Something to think about over the weekend.

Be seeing you.

Abs X

A selection of paintings at the National Gallery, London