Bernard Berenson and friends, Beethoven, Crass.
27th of February to the 4th of March 2024
February books
Rumour and Reflection - Bernard Berenson
As a Jew, and to a lesser extent as an American, art historian Bernard Berenson found himself in a dangerous situation in Italy, where he resided during the Second World War. Rumour and Reflection is his journal of those years (1941-45).
In the book Berenson describes daily life under Italian fascism and German Nazism, he reflects on possible post-war outcomes, history and literature.
One Year's Reading For Fun - Bernard Berenson
This book is a record of the books Berenson read during 1942.
With the war upon him, Berenson faced a terrifying future. In time of crisis some people go to church, some take to drink, others simply run away. Berenson turned to his library. The diary shows the remarkable degree to which, through absorption in reading, he managed to rise above the horror of current events. Surely, no one could have been in greater peril from Nazis and Fascists alike. Berenson was not only an American citizen; he was a Jew, and was well known as an anti-Fascist. Yet he declined the opportunity to be repatriated.
This books has so many rabbit holes to run down! One one of those merry runs led me to:
History of England - George Macaulay Trevelyan.
Berenson was impressed with Trevelyan’s book and wrote several entries on the work, this being the last:
3 December
Finished George Trevelyan's one volume History of England. Never read anything so satisfactory on similar subject in such small compass. It is a serious and successful attempt to explain what has made the England of today, going from significant joint to significant joint, appreciating it both for its own value and as a link in the chain, ignoring superfluities, never sinking to anecdote. Free, too, from undue self-congratulation, with no touch of nationalism. In short, as good a history of one's own country as human nature at its best will achieve.
It is indeed a fine history, a little dated certainly, and one could now quibble with some of his remarks regarding the British Empire, but Trevelyan was a man of his time and by all accounts a decent man. The book is beautifully written, with many stirring moments, although I skimmed much of the descriptions of religious machinations and controversy.
Historian Asa Briggs had this to say of the book:
The qualities of Trevelyan’s History are immediately apparent - largeness of view, freshness of expression, compression of judgement, fluency of narrative, and above all, evocative power in descriptions of events and of places as much as of people. The combination was and remains unique. The book as a whole is very much a work of its time, but its qualities have ensured that it has outlived its time.
I also appreciated how the book’s notes were placed at the foot of the page and dates in the margin:
There are also maps galore, I bought my hardback copy on Ebay for less than the price of a pint of English bitter in London.
Letters from Syria - Freya Stark
For me, Freya Stark stands alongside Patrick Leigh Fermor as one of the finest authors of the golden age of travel writing. Here is an example:
Damascus, April 7 1928.
Camels appeared on our left hand: first a few here and there, then more and more, till the whole herd came browsing along, five hundred or more. I got out and went among them to photograph. The two Beduin leaders, dressed gorgeously, perched high up and swinging slowly with the movement of their beasts, shouted out to me, but the Beduin Arabic is beyond me. I can’t tell you what a wonderful sight it was : as if one were suddenly in the very morning of the world among the people of Abraham or Jacob. The great gentle creatures came browsing and moving and pausing, rolling gently over the landscape like a brown wave just a little browner than the desert that carried it. Their huge legs rose up all round me like columns ; the foals were frisking about : the herdsmen rode here and there. I stood in a kind of ecstasy among them. It seemed as if they were not so much moving as flowing along, with something indescribably fresh and peaceful and free about it all, as if the struggle of all these thousands of years had never been, since first they started wandering. I never imagined that my first sight of the desert would come with such a shock of beauty and enslave me right away. But I left it feeling that somehow, some time, I must see more of the great spaces.
The excellent Explorers Podcast has recently finished an excellent series on Freya, go check it out, you won’t regret it, she was one fine woman.
Oh, Freya was a friend of Bernard Berenson!
A Bright Remembrance - The Diaries of Julia Cartwright 1851-1924
Julia Cartwright was a Victorian writer whose works were primarily concerned with the art and history of the Italian Renaissance. She had a highly successful career, producing twenty-three books on art and history. Five of her books were biographies of women, her most well known being Isabella d’Este.
The diaries are a fascinating glimpse into the life of a liberal-minded Victorian woman.
Oh, yet another friend of Bernard Berenson!
Black-out : listening to Beethoven
I love this sketch by Helen Knapp of a group of friends listening to Beethoven during the London blitz.
Crass at the Bingo Hall
On this day, forty years ago, I saw English anarcho-punk rockers Crass at a squatted bingo hall in London. It was quite an evening, Crass were a searing rage of fury and anger. We all had a wonderful time, I must write about Crass one day, ah, to be a young punk again!
Photos borrowed with thanks from the Kill Your Petty Puppy fanzine archive site.
Martin- Learned a lot here. Especially of Trevelyan’s History. I appreciate you sharing. Hope you're well this week? Cheers, -Thalia