Author: Mark Hannam

She sits, surrounded by an array of discarded objects, her head resting against her fist, her arm resting on her knee, her gaze resting on something, or someone, or maybe nothing in the far distance.  If she lived in the modern world, we might think that she was a bored student impatient for her studies to conclude so that her real life might begin; or a young traveller waiting for a much-delayed flight to a holiday destination; or, possibly, a refugee held in a temporary camp until the outcome of her appeal for permission to remain has been determined.  The young woman in question is, however, clearly not from our world.  Unlike most of us she has wings, and she shares her space with an undernourished dog and a dozing putto.  She sits – immobile – in a picture that was made in 1514. 

Albrecht Dürer’s engraving, Melencolia I, is on show at the National Gallery in London, as part of an exhibition that examines several major journeys the artist made during his working life.  I spent some time at the exhibition last weekend, my first visit to an art gallery this calendar year, and I enjoyed the chance to study the wide range of paintings, engravings, woodcuts, and drawings that have been assembled.  Central to the exhibition are a group of Dürer’s works that was either made or shown during his lengthy visit to what is now Belgium and the Netherlands, during 1520-21.  Antwerp competed with Venice (another city that Dürer visited) to be the preeminent port in Europe, and for a man with ambitions to sell his work to collectors all over the continent, it was an ideal place for him to showcase his skills as a draughtsman.  As well as painting works on commission, he was one of the first artists to seek commercial success through the distribution of multiple copies of woodblock prints and engravings, which were cheaper and easier to transport.  Melencolia I is one such work, and perhaps his best. The image is overly crowded for modern taste, but despite all the objects on view nothing much seems to be going on.  The picture is highly symbolic, but its meanings remain obscure.

Continue reading “Unpetrified”

From the beginning of the Western philosophical tradition, discovering how to distinguish what is true from what is false, what is good from what is bad and, therefore, learning how best to live, has regularly been described in terms of improved vision.  Ignorance, wickedness, and wrongdoing are associated with darkness, whereas truth, goodness and justice are associated with light.  If I combine this long-standing metaphor – knowing as seeing – with the metaphor I referred to in my previous text – life as a journey – then we might say that the passage from a state of blindness to a state of clear-sightedness, that is, life as a voyage towards ever greater enlightenment, is something that is desirable in-itself.

Perhaps the most famous example of these entwined metaphors is found in Book VII of Plato’s Republic, where Socrates describes the myth of the cave.   This myth expresses an underlying assumption found in almost all Western philosophical thought, that the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom is an uphill struggle, but one that is worth undertaking despite the effort involved.  It should be remembered that the context for this myth is Socrates’s argument that the ideal state would be justified in requiring those who had become enlightened to give up their time and energy to serve others in the community, by devoting themselves to good governance and education.  Enlightenment, Socrates suggests, brings to its beneficiaries duties as well as pleasures.  Access to truth is not just for the few, but for all.

Continue reading “Ignorance, part III”

Last year, I gave a friend a jigsaw puzzle as a present.  The image printed on the puzzle was taken from an Andy Warhol print made in 1970, from his Flowers series, and comprised four hibiscus blooms – coloured yellow, orange, and red – each with a pink shadow and set against a blue background.  Warhol took the image from a photograph, which he edited to create a flat, two-dimensional visual field, and then he printed it using a silkscreen to create a smooth inked surface on the paper.  Consequently, the five-hundred-pieces of the jigsaw are mostly pure colour, with no visible structure or depth, and the only clues to assist in piecing them together are the colour borders.   Completing the puzzle took some time.

My friend took appropriate revenge, insisting that I undertake the challenge of a four-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, in this case the image was a map of the world.  Although the information on the map is contemporary – it includes Bosnia & Herzegovina and East Timor as independent nations, for example – the design and lettering are old-fashioned, as if the map had been drawn by hand.  Much of the image, naturally, is taken up by large expanses of ocean in varying shades of sea green.   It took me some time to complete the edges, the outlines of the continents, and the map legend; filling in the interior of the continents was quicker, because of the multitude of city names; but the final stage, piecing together the southern oceans and especially the spaces between the Micronesian islands and Pacific atolls, required considerable patience and concentration.

Continue reading “Ignorance, part II”

Twenty years ago, I went out for lunch with a work colleague, whom I will call A.   She had grown up in a working-class family, had done well at school and university, and was building a career for herself in the financial services industry.  Despite her successes, she told me that she felt unsure about her place in the world because when she left home to go to college aged eighteen, her parents had told her that she had been adopted when she was a baby.  They had never met, nor did they know the names of her biological parents.  Around the time we had lunch, recently introduced legislative changes offered adults who had been given up for adoption the right to initiate contact with their biological parents, and A told me that she had decided to do this.  She loved the people who had brought her up and said that she would always think of them as her mum and dad, but she was curious about the story behind her adoption and wanted to know the identities of her biological parents.  She had decided to take the risk that comes with moving from ignorance to knowledge.

Continue reading “Ignorance, part I”

As the earth’s atmosphere continues to warm up, so political leaders from around the world head to Glasgow for the 26^th Conference of Parties.  There will be no shortage of hot air, but unfortunately there is unlikely to be an immediate step-change in public policy, which is what we need.

By coincidence the UK’s annual budget for the next financial year was announced last week, which included a measure to lower the rate of tax on domestic air travel and another to defer a planned rise in the rate of tax on petrol.  These measures were both aimed at pleasing the travelling public, lowering the cost of short-haul flights between, say, London and Cardiff or Edinburgh and Belfast, and avoiding additional costs for drivers at a time when oil prices have risen steeply.  Given the choice between long-term virtue and short-term popularity, it is perhaps no surprise that the politicians choose the latter.  But it is important to recognise that they do so because they understand that many of us share their preference for instant gratification.  We might not have the politicians we say we want, but we mostly get the politicians we deserve.

Continue reading “Hot air”