Books
Isaiah Berlin - A Life by Michael Ignatieff.
I enjoyed this biography of the great Latvian born English philosopher and historian of the 20th century. Berlin was primarily known for his defence of liberalism and concept of negative and positive freedoms.
Berlin was admired across the political spectrum (other than the hard right and left who, naturally, despised him).
In the days following his death, newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Atlantic accorded him the space in their obituary pages usually reserved for statesmen.
William Waldegrave, in a Daily Telegraph obituary, said:
if you had asked me to show you what I meant by the ideal of Englishness, I would have taken you to see a Latvian, Jewish, German, Italian mixture of all the cultures of Europe. I would have taken you to see Isaiah Berlin.
I love that!
A hike in Suffolk
I sallied forth on my first hike of the year. A bright, frosty 16 miles in the East Anglian county of Suffolk.
We enjoyed the traditional end of hike pint at the excellent Red House pub in Stanningfield.
2024 will be my year of hiking and cycling in Suffolk and Norfolk, expect further posts.
More thoughts on art
Sir Charles Holmes - Constable and his Influence on Landscape Painting (1902)
Through every age, and recently every decade, has held a different ideal of Art, a single broad principle seems to underlie and to interpenetrate each of them. One period or School may make sincerity to fact the goal of all effort, another the spread of religion or morality ; a third may take pride only in perfection of craftsmanship ; a fourth may see in Painting merely a supremely splendid means of decoration. Great art may combine in varying proportions all such ideals, good art may do no more than attain the single ideal of its own period, but all examples of great or good art agree in this — they aim first of all at the revelation of beauty, and attain their end, whether it be realistic or moral or technical or sensuous, through that revelation only.
The writer, Charles Holmes was a landscape painter. At this point in my wanderings in the history and meaning of art I find myself agreeing with the highlighted sentence. I’m looking in particular at Constable as he painted many scenes in Suffolk, a county I intend to explore more deeply this year.
A thing to think about in your new ‘trying to get into art and recognise its importance’ kick
You (and I) have no idea who the prime minister or king (or whatever it was) of Holland was in the 1870s and 1880s but we all know the name of a penniless Dutchman from that time who liked painting and cutting off his ear
Another great blog, Martin, such a varied collection of things you have in your mind! The walk looks lovely. We’ll have to get you down to Dorset for some good walks. You can see the sea from the south Dorset ridgeway, which is studded with standing stones and tumuli. We even have some good pubs!