In the early years of the twentieth century, the great Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff had been searching for inspiration for a Symphonic Poem. He even sought suggestions from friends, but none satisfied his questing mind. In Paris, in 1907, Rachmaninoff saw a reproduction of the Swiss symbolist artist Arnold Böcklin's painting, THE ISLE OF THE DEAD. In the painting, he saw a boat being rowed across water towards a sepulchral island, the picture turgid with the morbid melancholy that at times plagued the composer. He had found his muse in imagery. Rachmaninoff composed his symphonic poem of the same name between January and March 1909, later making revisions and redactions, a process which culminated in the powerful musical composition that we know today. Written in an irregular, hypnotic five-beats-in-a-bar, the music's mournfully obsessive rhythm evokes the lapping of water and the sculling of oars. Like many other musical works of genius – for instance, Claude Debussy's LE CATHEDRALE ENGLOUTIE, its harrowing climax occurs at, approximately, the music's Golden Mean point. But what of the painting that so inspired Rachmaninoff? As it happened, Böcklin painted THE ISLE OF THE DEAD in different versions at least five times within seven years, beginning in 1880. The version that so impressed the great Russian composer was a black and white reproduction, possibly of Version 4. THE ISLE OF THE DEAD - Arnold Böcklin. Version 4 Apparently, when Rachmaninoff later saw one of the original paintings, he was disappointed, saying "If I had seen first the original, I, probably, would have not written my ISLE OF THE DEAD. I like it in black and white." Rachmaninoff is perhaps best known in the mainstream for lyrical, passionate outpourings such as his second piano concerto. That concerto is a supreme work indeed, but it does not eclipse such incredible compositions as the SYMPHONIC DANCES op 45, one of several Rachmaninoff works laced with quotations of the darkly terrifying 'Dies Irae' (Day of Wrath) chant from the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. THE ISLE OF THE DEAD also draws heavily on this doleful motif. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbbtmskCRUY&t=56s Let us look at the other four versions of Böcklin's canvas, each painted for a different client. Each version is similar in general outlook. A boat is being rowed towards a rocky island, the central opening of which is shrouded by cypress or, more probably, yew trees, the species traditionally associated with death. (The legends and symbolism associated with this latter fact in itself, are fascinating, if anyone wishes to research them!) The boat bears a shrouded figure and, in front of it, a draped coffin placed broadside-on according to the direction of the boat. The boatman is assumed to be Charon, the ferryman of Greek mythology who transports the deceased across the River Styx. The white-shrouded figure might be the soul of the recently-departed, on its journey to the afterlife. The mood is dreamlike and heavy-laden. Böcklin himself did not offer an interpretation for the paintings, merely stating that they were redolent of dream, as if they “must produce such a stillness that one would be awed by a knock on the door". After the principal five versions, Böcklin painted a sixth, in 1901, the last year of his life, in collaboration with his son Carlo. I have been unable to find an image of this sixth version. THE ISLE OF THE DEAD - Arnold Böcklin. Version 1 THE ISLE OF THE DEAD - Arnold Böcklin. Version 2 THE ISLE OF THE DEAD - Arnold Böcklin. Version 3 THE ISLE OF THE DEAD - Arnold Böcklin. Version 5 Version three was purchased by Adolf Hitler and is now a property of the German State. In 1888, Böcklin painted DIE LEBENSINSEL (The Island of Life) in an effort, perhaps, to exorcise the morbidity of his earlier visions. THE ISLAND OF LIFE - Arnold Böcklin, 1888 I must confess to preferring the twilight mystery of the ISLE OF THE DEAD series to this later 'Lebensinsel' painting, the imagery of which I find somewhat naively idealistic, a little akin to the illustrations in certain insidiously persuasive religious tracts. The central figures in the water seem to be having a lot of fun though; but I don't like being in water, and I wouldn't want to get too close to those swans! Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

There is a great deal of music, both in my erstwhile professional genre of classical piano, and in other very diverse forms, which readily brings tears to my eyes. This can be embarrassing in company, but there is nothing I can do about it. As examples, I can cite Bud Powell's interpretation of 'It Never Entered My Mind' - I am listening to it now https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSDgKAT_wJg ; much of Bob Dylan, especially 'Visions of Johanna' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwuCF5lYqEE; Joni Mitchell's early version of 'Both Sides Now' when she was already so sensitively philosophical but also full of joy and hope, and especially her heartrendingly intense performance of the same song at the Newport Folk Festival last year. In this latter version, the wisdom is so deep, so calm, so measured, accepting and balanced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxiluPSmAF8. There are many other examples. Maybe I will disclose a few more here, in time. Apologies for 'bringing it back to music' once again, but my readers know by now how indivisible Music and Art are for me. I live by Art and I live by Music. I see and hear both in everything around me that I hold dear. Another song that makes me collapse emotionally is Leonard Cohen's 'Anthem'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8-BT6y_wYg In this extraordinary utterance, Cohen articulates a truth that I feel is fundamentally important for the darkly troubled times in which we find ourselves today. “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in”. The new painting below contains the energy of that beautiful song, and consequently the title quotes from it. THAT'S HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN - Haydn Dickenson 2023 “Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything - That's how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

I'm going to be honest. I've just discovered a 'new' artist, courtesy of my Windows 10 Lock Screen. It will never do to be pretentious about art, so I'm not going to expound on this artist, pretending that I have been familiar with his work for years. No, I discovered him yesterday by going to log into my PC. “Hang on”, I hear you say, “You are an abstract artist, and this is a blog about abstraction, so what is this highly traditional painter doing on your page? I'm confused”. Well, you have clearly not been paying attention! The title of this blog site gives away my chief preoccupation, but have you read the byline? “The Unbridled Thoughts and Opinions of Artist Haydn Dickenson. Art, Abstract and Otherwise.” It is the 'otherwise' with which we are concerned today. There is a plethora of non-abstract art that I find profoundly moving; as an abstractionist I am well aware, and deeply respectful, of what went before me. Consider me today then, 'unbridled'. The artist who piqued my curiosity yesterday morning is Frederic Edwin Church (1826-1900), an American artist and a representative of the Hudson River School, and the picture that I saw is the one below. THE HEART OF THE ANDES - Frederic Edwin Church The painting is very large – nearly two metres high and three metres wide, and is a composite creation based on Frederic Church's travels in Ecuador and Colombia. On first impression, the scene could be a verdant slice of bucolic Europe and, to an extent, it does not matter where the scene is set, the vista is so compelling and fantastical. Human presence and activity exist there – the two figures, the cross, the village, distant smoke on the mountainside, but it is Nature that presides, in all its magnificence and wonder. When I look at this canvas, the immense technical brilliance becomes subservient to the dreamlike vision that Church delivers. Most spellbinding to me is that the 'reality' presented to us is one that is entirely within the painting. The actual scene, one 'invented' by the artist based on an assembly or recollections, does not, and did not, exist. I am transported into a realm of 'super-reality' that I can only, naively, describe as magical. I imagine how it would feel to walk to that little village, to touch the stonework of the tiny, ancient chapel, to hear the sound of the crystal waters, to smell the woodsmoke as it plumes softly into the air. I am reminded of two things. The first is Emile Zola's lengthy, intoxicating descriptions of the Paradou Park in his novel, 'La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret'. The second throws me back to my childhood when I was fascinated by pre-history, and by life before the dinosaurs. As a boy, I had some books, sadly long-since lost, depicting imagined scenes of a primeval earth covered in green, humid swamps and lush rainforests, with far horizons above which a huge setting sun was sliced through by silent, sulphurous clouds. If I were to see these illustrations today, they would probably appear crude and poorly-executed but, as a child, I was transfixed, and they became a reality in which I found myself immersed and with which I became one. To this day, there is a certain light which, when I am in wide open spaces, surrounded by nature, transports me to the dawn of life on earth. I cannot say why; I know only the power of the sensation. Frederic Church's painting has a similarly persuasive effect on me. It conveys me on a heady trip to a higher reality. In the painting below, Church offers us another fantastical distillation of light, scent and stillness. In this world, too, I want to lose myself; its higher realm is irresistibly seductive and comforting. TROPICAL SCENERY - Frederic Edwin Church I began working on this article yesterday evening, discovering, picture by incredible picture, a to-me undiscovered and magnificent artist. Finished for the night, I saved the first draft and went to check my Instagram, where I had earlier posted some images of a new painting on which I am working. I caught sight of the Instagram 'story' of an old friend of mine. I opened my friend's story and was stunned by what I saw; a phenomenal painting by another Hudson River artist, Thomas Moran (1837-1926) and, yes, another new name to me. Here, we look down on a vast mountain range (apparently the Rocky Mountains) which is bathed in other-worldly pinks and blues, utterly breathtaking and, again, holding the power to transport the viewer into a seemingly parallel dimension. I cannot find the painting in question to use as illustration, but here are two more of Moran's canvases which demonstrate unequivocally his astonishing mastery in the harnessing of light through paint. The term 'Luminism' was later coined for the style of the Hudson River artists; an apt one indeed. A MOUNTAIN OF LOADSTONE - Thomas Moran THE GOLDEN HOUR - Thomas Moran STOP PRESS! For the first time ever, I am adding material to an article after publishing! My friend, who unwittingly introduced me to the work of Thomas Moran, has sent the image that I couldn't locate earlier on, so here it is. Is it not utterly splendid? GRAND CANYON OF ARIZONA AT SUNSET - Thomas Moran I wrote, above, of the 'reality' which I perceive in these stupendous landscape paintings. In an earlier blog post, I explored the complex relationship between abstract art and reality. https://www.artfullyabstractedblog.com/post/abstract-art-and-reality To me today, though the worlds of the Hudson River school and Abstraction could hardly be more different, the mission of the two types of practitioners and, perhaps, of all artists, appears remarkably similar. Through art we discover experiences that transport us away from the mundane, towards a higher reality. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

Today I am delighted to welcome to my column the second of my Guest Writers, Petra Teršlová, from Kladno, in the Czech Republic. I first met Petra around eight years ago, and was immediately struck by her paintings of industrial locations. I saw paintings representing other themes, for sure, but it was the industrial paintings that made the biggest impression on me. Readers of this column and collectors of my work know that my energy in painting chiefly derives from the natural world – I am a 'country-boy' at heart! Less-known is that urban structures also fascinate me. As a hobby I collect vintage analogue (especially Russian and pre-1990 Eastern Bloc) cameras, mostly shooting on expired film; in my photography I feel strongly drawn to urban subjects, including areas of deprivation and structural degradation. To me, these apparent wastelands, tattooed with graffiti and barren but for the wild shrubs that sprout up there, hold a stark, majestic, even lyrical beauty. I find a great lyricism in Petra's paintings of similar locations to those to which I am so attracted. In these monoliths and unloved places, Petra uncovers a gentle tranquillity; she also revels in the play of light, and I find poetry in her quietly observant treatment of the urban subjects that she chooses. I hope you will find Petra's article below as interesting as I do. Thank you, Petra, for your contribution. BALANCING TWO CAREERS – FROM LIFE OF AN ARTIST AND LAWYER. By Petra Teršlová. When Haydn, my long-term friend whom I met in London, approached me with an offer to contribute to his blog, I couldn't help but feel excited about this opportunity. I was absolutely thrilled by his suggestion and couldn't contain my enthusiasm at the opportunity to choose what to write about. After all, readers of this blog may not be familiar with my work or my unique perspective, so an introduction to who I am and what I do seems fitting. Petra Teršlová in her Studio Summer Evening, oil on canvas, © 2023 Petra Teršlová Allow me to delve a little deeper into my dual careers as a painter and a lawyer. Throughout my life, I have nurtured a profound passion for both the arts and the legal field. On one hand, there is the realm of colours, brushstrokes, and endless creative possibilities. Painting allows me to express my emotions, tell stories, and capture the beauty that I see in the world around me. On the other hand, there is the realm of laws, regulations, and the complexities of the human experience. Balancing these two seemingly disparate careers is no small feat. It requires discipline, time- management, and an unwavering dedication to both crafts. Some days, I find myself immersed in the vibrant palette of a canvas, letting my creativity flow freely and unrestricted. Other days, I am engrossed in the intricacies of legal documents and crafting compelling arguments. Switching between these two worlds can be challenging, yet it is a challenge I willingly embrace. At this point in my life I see myself as someone with two careers that both allow me a personal growth in different ways. On top of that, having a “day job” if you will, gives me a financial freedom and allows me to create art without the pressure of having to sell. I believe this leads to more authentic art (rather than just art I hope will sell). Another Day, oil on canvas, © 2023 Petra Teršlová House at a Crossroads, oil on canvas, © 2021 Petra Teršlová I have been painting for almost ten years now. I am currently living and working in the Czech Republic. I took up painting during my law studies at the Charles University in Prague. After graduation from Charles University in 2014 I decided to travel to London to refine my artistic skills at The Art Academy London, where I studied painting and drawing for two years. I also met Haydn and joined the famous Bayswater Road Exhibition back in 2014 with him. I spent two wonderful years in London, created new friendships and enjoyed plenty of unforgettable experiences. As for my work, I am mostly interested in rendering the overlooked beauty of the everyday world around us. Through painting I hope to inspire the viewer to reconsider their often unnoticed surroundings and awake interest and appreciation for the mundane around them. For me, painting has the potential to make ordinary environments visible as well as to reveal some of the aesthetic potential embedded therein. Vojtěch Steelworks II, oil on canvas,© 2023 Petra Teršlová Vojtěch Steelworks I, oil on canvas,© 2020 Petra Teršlová In August, oil on canvas,© 2020 Petra Teršlová Dead End, oil on canvas, © 2023 Petra Teršlová I often draw inspiration from my home town of Kladno – a post-socialist and post-industrial city in Central Bohemia - and its surroundings. I held my first solo exhibition titled “NON-PLACES” in Prague in October last year. The concept behind the exhibition stemmed from my fascination with spaces that often go unnoticed or underappreciated in our daily lives. Looking back, my solo exhibition was a gratifying experience. It allowed me to share my artistic vision with the world and shed light on the unnoticed corners of our surroundings. I am grateful for the support and enthusiasm of everyone who attended and contributed to the success of the exhibition. Together, we celebrated the beauty and significance of these often-overlooked non-places. Spirit of Housing Estate I, oil on canvas, © 2021 Petra Teršlová Spirit of Housing Estate II,oil on canvas, © 2022 Petra Teršlová This year I am excited to take part in the Open ART Festival in Prague - the biggest art event in the Czech Republic where more than 200 national and international artists join together to exhibit and sell their paintings, drawings and sculptures. The Open ART Fest will be held from 28th – 29th October this year. Thus, let me invite readers of this blog and anyone interested in original art to this wonderful event. You can read more about the Open ART Fest here https://www.openartfest.cz/ Because We Are Here, oil on canvas,© 2020 Petra Teršlová Witness, oil on canvas, © 2022 Petra Teršlová Studio of Petra Teršlová Please feel free to view my work or contact me via any of the links below. http://www.petraterslova.com/ https://www.instagram.com/petraterslova/ petra@petraterslova.com Copyright Petra Teršlová 2023 (main text body and images) Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023 (introductory five paragraphs)

As some of you know, I consider the Languedoc in Southern France to be my spiritual home. The Languedoc is, for me, about primeval outcrops of rock, craggy garrigue slopes covered with tough wild herbs, chestnut trees and and stringy broom bushes, streams of pure water cascading past ruined stone-built dwellings which stand alone and invincible, and a climate that is seductive, fearful and hostile in equal measure. Though I am now unable to visit as often as in the past, the region still infuses my paintings with a searing energy. In years gone by, when I spent many months of the year in the Languedoc mountains, I used to socialise a lot with an extraordinary lady named Sandra Lummis, formerly one of the foremost UK dealers in art by the Bloomsbury group, who had moved to the region to retire with her equally fascinating husband, Trevor Lummis, a leading historian. The wonderful painting below shows Sandra exactly as I remember her. SANDRA LUMMIS - David Atack, 1990 (copyright David Atack) Dinners and parties at the Lummis home, with spectacular views across a valley towards the Grandes Causses of the Aveyron, were regular occurrences, when one would walk into a simple, ancient stone-built house with an open fireplace, filled with priceless paintings by the likes of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell. OMEGA DESIGN FOR A BEDHEAD - Duncan Grant, c 1917 The Bloomsbury 'set' was a group of artists, writers and intellectuals in general, who were active in the first half of the twentieth century, predominantly in the Bloomsbury area of London. The group is not without its critics – some regard them as pretentious dabblers, as somehow complacent, elitist and unoriginal, a little too obsessed with their own perceived bohemianism. Many of the attitudes and beliefs of the Bloomsbury set were, however, forward-thinking for their time; these included views on pacifism, sexuality and feminism, together with more specifically intellectual notions. Vanessa Bell's forays into abstraction and semi-abstraction please me a great deal. I particularly like the painting illustrated below in which the slightly peculiar composition works quite delightfully, its isolated pink and rust-coloured shapes standing apart from the huddled forms on the left of the picture. ABSTRACT PAINTING - Vanessa Bell, c 1914 Bell's work seems to me to have strongly influenced the likes of Ben Nicholson and his wife Winifred Nicholson, both purveyors of some exceptional examples of British abstraction. Muted tones, and precise though softly poetic geometry abound. MOONLIGHT AND LAMPLIGHT - Winifred Nicholson, 1937 FIRST ABSTRACT PAINTING, CHELSEA - Ben Nicholson, 1924 Vanessa Bell, along with her artist husband Clive and their colleague Roger Fry, were among the first British artists to explore Abstraction. The Bloomsbury group's reputation extended abroad too, with Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso and Erik Satie taking an interest in the movement. Through the Friday Club, the Grafton Group and the London Artists' Association as well as by personal patronage, The Bloomsbury painters actively and energetically supported the work of young artists for many years to come. This direct support, and its lineage, surely confirms the importance of the Bloomsbury Group in the development of twentieth and twenty-first century art. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

I opened my Instagram this morning, expecting to find the usual ridiculous plethora of bot comments inviting me to sell my work as NFT. My worst expectations were confirmed. Something else popped up on my feed however, ushering in a little welcome positivity. It was a post from Artsy, the online Art Marketing platform which states that: “Abstract Art is the most important genre for today's collectors.” Further into the post, data is published, deriving from a poll in which people were asked which genres or themes of art are most important to them. 50% responded with Abstraction as their favourite genre, and 94% of collectors said that they prefer to purchase paintings. Artsy's own 2023 Art Industry Trends report states that gallerists cited abstract art as the type most most important to their sales. I must remember these statistics when, as sometimes happens, gallery owners express diffidence about taking on abstract work! And it gets better: When collectors were questioned as to whether they purchased more or less art during the past 12 months, nearly 80% said they bought more; not bad for the current uncertain times through which we are living. Artsy further states that “Most art buyers are looking to build a collection – but investment is on the rise.” Bring it on! My regular readers will know that one of my missions in this column is to demystify the world of Abstract Art, to render it less intimidating, to dispel the myth that it is somehow elitist, and the falsity that it must be 'understood', as if it were some kind of conundrum or riddle, intended to confound the poor uneducated onlooker. Nothing could be further from the truth. Abstraction, like any other art, is made to be enjoyed and, free as it is of anything overtly representational, it lends itself especially readily to being used as home décor; and what is more, home décor that will increase in value. Good art never depreciates, so the investment factor is real. Christmas is coming, and what better Christmas present to give (even to oneself!) than one that will increase in value as well as beautify the home? Very soon, my entire corpus of original abstract artwork will be available for sale via an exciting new website, together with fine art prints and limited edition prints, including prints of paintings already sold. Watch this space for news of imminent publication! AMID THE BLAZE OF NOON - Haydn Dickenson, 2023 Quotations and statistics copyright www.artsy.net 2023 General copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

The great English abstractionist Howard Hodgkin passed away in 2017. Had he lived, he would have been 91 on 6th August this year. Apart from leaving us an exceptional corpus of highly individual work, he also uttered a beautifully damning indictment on his art-school experience as “ like being squeezed out of the wrong end of a tube of toothpaste”. Hodgkin occupies a similar place in my gamut of inspirational luminaries to Patrick Heron. (I am still proud to know that both I and my friend and colleague Helen Long – do read Helen's wonderful 'guest' article here https://www.artfullyabstractedblog.com/post/beginnings - went to the same school as Patrick Heron, albeit somewhat later!) Both Heron and Hodgkin produced work that was typically exuberant, joyous and unpretentious, abundant with strong, often fierce colour, and which demonstrated a bold, swashbuckling, painterly quality. GOING FOR A WALK WITH ANDREW - Howard Hodgkin Howard Hodgkin liked to paint on materials other than canvas; board of course, but also objects or parts of objects gleaned from outside the serious, even pretentious 'archival' sphere with which art materials are so often associated – doors, reclaimed pieces of wood, and so on. He also liked to offer the support up to the frame before painting, thus incorporating the frame into the support itself and painting on it (see image above). Before I encountered Howard Hodgkin's work, I had already experimented with painting on the frame myself. The image immediately below was loathed by one prominent art dealer (though that did not prevent its subsequent sale!) who thought it 'hideous, like some awful barge ware'! They were probably right! UNTITLED - Haydn Dickenson, 2010 In the painting below, I utilised fragments of discarded nude drawings from my studio floor, pasting them onto the board, and then gouging into the frame with a knife and painting on it. DECONSTRUCT - Haydn Dickenson, 2010 I have remarked before in this column of my intense interest in the frames which surround many of my favourite paintings. It is far from unusual to find me sorely challenging the alarmed 'trip-wires' that enclose works of art in galleries, as I strain forward to inspect in detail the mode of framing as much as the mode of painting. The writer GK Chesterton opined that “The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame”, a questionable statement, but one that takes on an entirely new significance when considered in relation to the work of Howard Hodgkin and others who painted 'on the frame'. Perhaps I might explore a few of these, in a future post. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

I frequently find myself bracing, inwardly, for the question “What does it mean?” “Haydn”, they ask, “what were you thinking about while you were painting it?” An abstract artist colleague of mine used to respond to the first question with “Nothing, thank God”. I tend to be neither so blunt nor so unimaginative in my reactions, but the situation arises regularly enough that to offer a reasoned explanation on every occasion becomes wearisome, and impatience can intrude https://www.artfullyabstractedblog.com/ seems to be a fitting place to confront the elephant in this notional room, and to explore why an outright or defined meaning is undesirable, limiting and often downright lazy when applied to abstract art. I am well known for the cryptic titles that I attach to paintings. I choose them carefully; not to be pretentious, but to encourage people to think. I want the painting and its title to instigate mental journeys. Art, whether painting, sculpture, film, music, drama or beyond, must never regress towards the anodyne, freefalling into a cul-de-sac of wordy flim-flam, musical tootling, or painterly 'wallpaper' (literally). Too often, these days, all these things happen. In THE FRAILTY OF APPEARANCES, I invite you to ponder on perceived meaning, on organic and integrated matters as distinct from surface appearances; on whether articulated or absolute meanings are necessary at all. Putting subjective reactions to the picture aside, perhaps my title will ignite cogitations about the nature of what we see, against what exists, and how that which exists may change from day to day. Let us look beneath the surface, and deeply so. It is really not necessary to identify things or to give them labels. As I have often repeated, you either like a painting or you do not. THE FRAILTY OF APPEARANCES - Haydn Dickenson 2023 Let us consider for a moment our reaction to a well-known figurative painting; I choose, for no particular reason than that it is magnificent, Van Gogh's THE RED VINEYARD. THE RED VINEYARD - Vincent Van Gogh 1888 Again, we either like Van Gogh or we do not – I know many who are in the second camp. Assuming that we do like the painting, I postulate that we are more likely to admire it for its mood, its atmosphere, its bold though supremely sensitive and sensual handling of paint and colour, and its exceptionally marvellous composition, than for its subject matter. The billionaires among us would, I suggest, be unlikely to fall for the painting in one of the great international auction houses because we 'just really dig paintings of vineyards', or we 'just totally collect pictures of country people at work in the fields'. We would buy it because we are moved by it in a far more comprehensively encompassing way. The painting speaks to us sensually, and spiritually, through the emotional tools that Van Gogh employs in presenting the painting's story, rather than the story itself. Why then, do we search for handles on an abstract painting, for a story, when the sensual and the spiritual lie plainly before us, unencumbered by representation? I can't get away from this idea that abstract art intimidates some observers; people think they need to understand it on an intellectual level or to know what it means, in order to appreciate it. We do not need to be intimately acquainted with Post-Impressionism and Fauvism in Art-History terms to love the Van Gogh above; nor are we required to be familiar with the development of Abstract Art through the past hundred years or so to enjoy, say, a Joan Mitchell, a De Kooning, or one of my own paintings, for that matter.. All we need to do is to love paintings for what they are. I do not mean to reduce things to a shallow 'nice or nasty; but to delight in essential truths that are, on occasion, indescribable. I have been reading Harold C Schonberg's magnificent book THE GREAT PIANISTS (Simon and Schuster, 1963, 1987, 2006). From Mr Schonberg's erudite and fascinating writing, it appears that the addiction to attaching meaning to art is not an exclusively modern malaise. As Romanticism flourished in the nineteenth century, so, it seems, did a desire to attach programmatic significance to music where it almost certainly had not been planted there by the composer. I quote from Schonberg's book, chapter eight: “Music to the Romantics was not the not-to-be-tampered force it is today. It was part of the Mystery, and it had a Meaning or Meanings, an Idea or Ideas, that were bound up with Nature, the Soul, Life. Music expressed states of mind and feelings, and it had to have a programme, explicit or implicit...Carl Tausig, Liszt's favourite pupil, had a ready explanation for the Chopin Barcarolle. 'This tells of two persons, of a love-scene in a secret gondola' ”. Tausig rattles pantingly on, to identify the C-sharp-major point at which he believes a kiss is tremblingly achieved. We can only speculate at the horror of Chopin (who blenched at Lisztian excesses in performances of his compositions, and was rooted in Baroque and Classical models for his points of reference) in the face of such perfumed nonsense, but horrified he certainly would have been. He would have been still more aghast at the asinine nicknames attached by modern piano amateurs to most of his Etudes – viz. 'Torrent', 'Waterfall', 'The Bees' and so on. Once again, we must ask, why? The prize for arguably the most extravagant and unnecessary reading of a relatively lightweight, short piano piece must go to the romantically ardent Victorian, Rev. H.R Haweis in his book, MY MUSICAL LIFE. The excited priest embarks on a three-page analysis of of one of Felix Mendelssohn's 'Songs Without Words' for piano, squirming a little too orgiastically in that time-honoured manner of mingling the secular with the divine, lavishing the reader with verbiage such as “soul”, “spirit”, “Paradise”, “joy”, “triumph” and “glory”. What Mendelssohn would have thought of these whimsies in relation to his piano-miniature, we can only surmise. He may not have minded too much, being preoccupied with chopping-up and redacting bits of Bach's St Matthew Passion, to render it “more practical for the abilities of the performers” - yet another bygone example of 'dumbing-down'. Piet Mondrian, one of the early abstractionists, espoused the Theosophical belief that what we see around us is only an illusion. By this token, he considered a purely abstract painting to be truer to the actual reality that lies behind everything than one that attempts to capture an illusion of something that is already illusory. When we look at an abstract painting, the picture is reality itself. The 'meaning' is in what it presents to us, through colour, texture, tone, composition and so on. I must emphasise the word 'through'. These elements do not hold 'meaning' in themselves, but are the messengers; and the meaning need have no name. Last night I was reading the sublime poetry of Sylvia Plath. Floating gloriously among imagery that is searingly lucid in its evocative lyrical truth, lie metaphors that make us wonder again and again, “what does she mean?” Precise meaning, though, does not matter here; what is crucial is the mood, the melody of the words in their intrinsic beauty, the elusive wafting scent of 'rightness', confirming to us that what we have just read is a transmission of something utterly authentic. It is good that it is so. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

For many years, I have been naggingly interested in the artistic idea of creation through destruction. In my painting EMERGENT INTIMACY, I explored the theme of a fleeting connection with another human being by employing a technique known as 'scratching back', in which I scraped at the dense impasto surface of a developing oil painting, in order to unearth secrets beneath; it was not by any means for the first time I had used this technique but, in this instance, the action seemed to be a very numinous one. EMERGENT INTIMACY - Haydn Dickenson 2022 Fifteen years ago, when my artistic bent surged towards abstraction, I discovered the work of the phenomenal Japanese artist Shozo Shimamoto (1928-2013), in particular his oil painting HOLES, and the activities of the Gutai Group to which Shimamoto belonged. HOLES - Shozo Shimamoto 1954 I made a pilgrimage this afternoon to view HOLES once again, at the Tate Modern Gallery in London. Shimamoto created this delicately majestic painting using layers of newspaper, applying white and grey oil paint to the surface and later piercing it to reveal layers, and a void, underneath. Those of you who are familiar with my work will know that I am preoccupied with 'what lies beneath or beyond', both in terms of physically scratching away the surface paint, and in creating portal-like shapes that draw the viewer deep into the picture, towards alternate realms. HOLES vibrates on a congruent frequency with my own, because of what the artist 'removed' in order to 'create', and because of the enticing grey tones that flow, lava-like, over the picture's surface. In my painting below, GREY MATTER, the apparent (though illusive) neutrality of the surface is forcefully and substantially pared away to reveal turbulent colour which has been suffocated, suppressed and subverted. GREY MATTER - Haydn Dickenson 2020 To this day I find working in grey to be metaphysically expressive, positive and celebratory, and I have little patience with those whose knee-jerk reactions to any of my predominantly monochrome pieces is that they are depressive. SANS TITRE - Haydn Dickenson 2011 Shozo Shimamoto was a member of the Japanese Gutai Group, founded in 1954 by Yoshihara Jiro, to whom he was close. 'Gutai' means 'the physical embodiment of an idea', from 'Gu' meaning 'a way' and 'Tai' meaning 'a body'. The group espoused artistic and conceptual freedom, and their output was notable for its integration of everyday or household materials into artworks. From the Gutai group I inherited my love of collage within my paintings, using newspaper, music scores and other personally significant items or found objects as part of the physical composition. FROM THE THIRD - Haydn Dickenson 2012 MOTHERHOOD, MATHEMATICS AND GLASS CEILINGS - Haydn Dickenson 2016 In ALWAYS START WITH SILENCE, I incorporated fragments of ancient piano music scores, annotated by an unknown teacher in bygone times, an ancient receipt for a book purchased by my father more than three-quarters of a century ago, and sprocket-hole impressions in plaster of 35 mm film used in my father's PhD thesis. My father's influence on my life was predominantly wicked and malign; the inclusion of such discovered and retained objects serves a cathartic purpose. ALWAYS START WITH SILENCE - Haydn Dickenson 2021 Before leaving the subject of 'holes' for today, I would like to refer to another very different twentieth-century artist, the Argentine-Italian Lucio Fontana (1899-1968). Fontana founded a movement known as 'Spatialism' which involved either piercing or slashing the surface of monochrome paintings, often revealing a an imagination-piquing void behind the violently breached canvas. Behind the canvas often lay a black gauze which aimed to heighten the sense of mystery. In the Tate Modern hangs Fontana's SPATIAL CONCEPT 'WAITING'. Elegantly mesmerising, this beautiful canvas commands the viewer's attention in a voice of dangerously murmured seduction. SPATIAL CONCEPT: 'WAITING' Lucio Fontana 1960 Fontana reminds us once again how absorbing and enlightening it is to ponder on statements in painting finding kinship with those of the sculptor, who often creates by removing rather than by adding. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

Regular and long-standing readers may remember earlier articles in which I have spoken of my creative process; of the very first fizzing sparks of that fire which is the genesis of a painting. https://www.artfullyabstractedblog.com/post/in-the-beginning You will read, by following the above link, that I liken beginning a painting to opening a door; behind that door, I know not what will appear. It is a little like opening the wardrobe door and being transported into Narnia. Under the best conditions, that is. My artistic fingerprint has evolved over many years of painting. I love looking back at my very first forays into abstraction, around 2008 (I won't give you the blog-links to mentions of those – you'll have to search the list of posts, and do a bit of reading!) The results of these early missions (though naïve) thrill me – I remember so well the sensation of those steps into the unknown, and the impetus and energy of one person in particular who impelled me to embark on the rocky road towards abstraction. Alright, I give in – here are two images, of very early paintings. Be kind! IMPROMPTU - Haydn Dickenson 2008 UNTITLED - Haydn Dickenson 2008 Since those days, I have followed a path that has taken me through gestural, abstract-expressionist creation, dreamlike and metaphysical compositions, structural and urban influences, paintings that are deeply inspired by the natural world, spatial utterances (my most recent output), and much more. Always, they have been free of representational intent; they have been, and are, pure abstraction. BRILLANTE - Haydn Dickenson 2019 THE LIES THAT CLOCKS TELL - Haydn Dickenson 2019 HER COLOURS LINGER IN THE CITY MIST (REMEMBRANCE) -Haydn Dickenson 2015 AFRODISIA - Haydn Dickenson 2015 It has been suggested by some that such a wide gamut of emotional, psychological and compositional elements indicates a lack of consistency in my work. I strongly disagree and urge viewers to look deeply into my paintings to uncover a fervently consistent and searching path. Portal-like shapes have always appeared in my pictures, leading the eye inwards to something beyond. Horizontal tiers or terraces conveying a sensation of ascension also abound. All the various approaches, though executed and expressed differently, share a common psychological direction. FACE UP TO THE FACTS - Haydn Dickenson 2019 PROPULSION - Haydn Dickenson 2022 Warm colours, and the colours of the earth, flood many of my pictures; these derive from my love of nature. I may make forays into cooler tones from time to time, but woe betide anyone who opines that I am entering a 'blue phase' when I do so! In a similar way, red in my paintings rarely denotes 'anger'. Art is never so obvious. I feel, artistically, that I want to be like a cow in a field – that I am able to graze, to move around with no constraints, to do what I want, when I want, to amble in peace while subject to neither instructions nor expectations; in fact, not only artistically do I wish to be that way, but in life itself. During the times in the studio when I do truly experience this feeling (and now is not particularly one of them), an creative zenith is achieved. Some days I want to fling that metaphorical door open and embark on wild expressive mark-making, sometimes on mirage-like vistas of paint, and at other times, on structural, spatial compositions. I feel frustrated when I am asked to remain within some perceived 'style'. Some years ago, I was interviewed by the gallery curator Beata Piechocka; you can read the interview on my website. https://www.haydndickenson.com/interviews During her questioning, Beata observed the following: that my work is “balanced and logically constructed”, that there are “elements of both lyrical and geometric abstraction, sometimes intertwining” within them, and that they are “often economical in terms of artistic means, but expressive in outcome”. I feel that Beata caught the essence of my work very well. Art should reside triumphantly in a state of flux, not one of lazy, complacent immobility. Beautiful places can be revisited, discovered anew, explored more deeply, new ones can be chanced upon; but to stand still – I never want to do that. COLLISION COURSE - Haydn Dickenson 2023 Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

Something a little irreverent (though not intentionally irrelevant) for today – I'm allowed to, for today's post marks this blog's Fiftieth 'Birthday'! My representatives, Iologies Fine Art, wanted fifty posts by June – I'm only a month late. Thank you so much to you all who have supported me through the past 49 posts. I hope you won't leave now! From messages, and comments both verbal and virtual, it seems that at least some of my offerings have provided food for thought. This is what I want to do – not make pronouncements, not overtly to push my own artistic output, but to stimulate thought about, and reaction to Art – especially Abstract of course. Today I want to look at walls, floors and tables, those enticing and un-thanked surfaces upon which artists spill paint, media and other fluids, or use them to rehearse gestures and to try out colours. My own studio walls bear some gestures so beautifully minimal and fresh that I wish they had occurred on canvas. I have, on occasion, attempted to crib them and incorporate them into paintings; not surprisingly, a terrible idea, for they were fresh no more. Francis Bacon used to mix his paint on his walls. Francis Bacon with his vertical palette The surfaces in our studios become ever-shifting diaries that record what went on, peripherally, at a certain time in the creative process. I like to look through the transparent dust-canister wall of my vacuum cleaner and see the patterns of what I have just sucked up; strange behaviour, I freely admit. Studio surfaces become a bit like that, repositories for waste that assume a tranquil beauty in their effortlessness. A wall in my studio Table surfaces in my studio My studio floor Here is The Krasner-Pollock studio floor. I'm rather proud that it looks a bit like mine! I wonder which marks are Lee's, and which were made by Jackson. The studio floor of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner Right, I'm off to think of some proper subjects to write about now! Happy Fiftieth, everyone! Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023

On May 1st, my guest writer, the outstanding ceramicist Helen Long wrote powerfully about influences and revelations that coloured the flowering of her artistic career. https://www.artfullyabstractedblog.com/post/beginnings Such influences – the kind that smack one in the face - are crucial in their impact on one's creativity, and naturally I have experienced my own. One of these was encountering for the first time the paintings of Francis Bacon at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich in the early 1980's. Another, some twenty-five years later, was my visit to explore an artist hitherto unknown to me, the great Cy Twombly at his 2008 Tate Modern retrospective in London. AUTUNNO, from QUATRO STAGGIONI (A Painting In Four Parts) - Cy Twombly, 1993-5 Cy Twombly (1928-2011) was a painter and sculptor of commanding individuality and puissant influence. His mostly enormous canvases are instantly recognisable, not least for their use of graffiti-like scribbles executed in a spidery yet ethereal style, their somewhat diffuse composition and the artist's frequent inclusion of quotations from poetry and classical myths. DUTCH INTERIOR - Cy Twombly, 1962 I suspect that my fascination with Twombly's work stems in part from the profoundly dysfunctional childhood that I endured. My young years were tainted in complex ways, meaning that happy memories of the time are minimal; recollections are in fact diffuse altogether. My father was a silent and profoundly disturbed tyrant, resulting in a married life of perpetual abuse and hardship for my mother and a deeply scarred childhood for my sister and me. Much of what occurred, I blanked out. What we are used to however, we tend to cling to, even when it is unhealthy to do so; such outwardly toxic retentive behaviour can, perversely, end up giving us succour and comfort through its familiarity. How does this relate to Cy Twombly's pictures? I grew up (until my early thirties when I broke free) in a home where no paint or wallpaper was present on any walls. This was not for lack of money, but because of parental dysfunctionality. All interior walls were bare pink plaster (finding an echo in the pink hues to which I frequently return in my work) or they retained partially scraped-off wallpaper remnants from previous inhabitants of the house stretching back many decades. I went through a protracted period during which my paintings actively explored the theme of old walls, that have both seen and withstood a great deal. These works directly reference the imprisoning walls of my home. UNTITLED - Haydn Dickenson 2012 No carpet existed in my childhood home. The floors were bare boards in terrible condition (which I believe has given rise to compositional elements in some of my paintings) or, in some cases, had raw hardboard pinned to the old wood beneath. The latter, I feel, is reflected in my interest in pinning hardboard to rough wooden stretchers before painting on the board, and leaving as much bare hardboard as possible in the picture, in the form of negative space. Childhood scribbles made by my sister and me as children remained on the interior walls, as did pencilled measurements of our growth on the bare plaster next to where my father sat at mealtimes in silent seething wrath. It follows that Twombly's sensual graffiti-like style of mark-making became and still appears, to me, a transfiguration of those joyless memories; in this way, hardship and dysfunctionality breed positivity and creativity. Twombly's work, like much of the very best art, still divides critical opinion. I have seen his paintings described as 'violently daubed', while I perceive Twombly as a passionate, often delicate lyricist. I keep two newspaper clippings about Cy Twombly pinned to my studio wall, as I like his energy to be near me. In 2011, when Cy Twombly died, I painted a picture in his memory. REMEMBERING CY - Haydn Dickenson 2011 (private collection) We abstract artists need our loins to be girded at all times in anticipation of misunderstanding (at best) and vitriol (at worst) from some sectors of the public and, indeed, from some critics. In my very first blog post, nearly one year ago, I wrote of some of the varied trolling that I have received over the years, all of which seems as amusing now as it was enervating at the time. https://www.artfullyabstractedblog.com/post/the-mental-state-of-abstraction I am also reminded of the comment written in my visitor-book at one exhibition where the anonymous scribe invoked the words of the artist Dasha Balashova who has so generously written of the “inner 'nerve', expressive energy, and live creative impulse” in my work. The phantom critic hijacked Dasha's words, exclaiming that “Haydn does indeed 'have a nerve' exhibiting this rubbish”! Back to the cryptic title of this article and to Cy Twombly who, after his1979 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York exclaimed that it "went over about as well as a turd in a punch bowl." As turds go, Cy's must indeed have been a stonker, as he joins the ranks of multiple artists across all avenues of creativity – music, poetry, drama et al – in continuing to raise the hackles of thousands! Greatness usually provokes tempests of controversy; only the anodyne and the mundane go uncontested. Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2023