Monday, July 06, 2009
Pies at Holkham
To Holkham Hall for a performance of Orpheus in the Underworld in the Marble Hall. It was all terribly Glyndebourne with picnics in the park during the long interval. Ah, England! There was even a cricket match winding up as we arrived. Kent's grounds were universally acclaimed, his house, as usual, universally excoriated. The problem is, I think, that it's not cosy and the contemporary imagination is surprisingly drawn to the cosy. The exterior is voraciously undecorated even by Palladian standards. This is part Kent, part his client, Thomas Coke. The result is a severe, hyper-symmetrical essay in anti-Baroque. But, if you suppress your desire for cosy and see this as a stern, Roman palace and if a low sun is casting Italianate shadows, it all makes perfect sense. Holkham is built for serene authority as much as for delight. The pork pies, needless to say, were excellent.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Ah the life of a media plutocrat. Notiing Hill to Notting Hill-on-Sea.
ReplyDeleteYou're right though. English architectural tastes are stuck on a Elizabethan/Jacobean default setting, with a touch of the Queen Anne's for the marginally more sophisticated.
You say that like it's a bad thing, Recusant.
ReplyDeleteHey, have you seen? Jeffrey Archer is poking fun at this post!
ReplyDeleteAnd Gluck?
ReplyDeleteNot Gluck, Offenbach. Very jolly.
ReplyDeleteNot at all Brit. Not at all.
ReplyDeleteI'd far rather put my feet up in Compton Wynyates than Blenheim.
Was the Orpheus any good?
ReplyDeleteBad pork pies are enough to put you off food for 10 years; but a good pork pie - that redeems everything.