Last sanctuaries of originality

In the increasingly homoegenised world in which we sadly now exist, second-hand bookshops and private art galleries are the last sanctuaries of originality, discovery and ambience. 

My booklet on Bulgarian Realist painters lists 16 private galleries here in Sofia – focussing on those which sell the more classic painters of the last century. Almost by definition, there’s not much room to move around in such galleries – most of the paintings are in piles against the wall or in storerooms. They have a great atmosphere – compared with the more clinical aspect of some contemporary galleries. The Inter Nos Gallery – which I mentioned yesterday – is a perfect example of that atmosphere.

Valerie Filipov is an interesting example of a dealer who used to have such an Aladdin’s Cave but now operates in the more clinical setting of The Impression Art Gallery, 11 Vasil Levski Bvd which holds special exhibitions of contemporary artists. Trouble with this approach is that it takes less than 5 minutes to see the display! I vastly preferred the serendipity of his previous Cave!      

Last week I said hello to Biliana Djingova who opened the A and B gallery last year at 45, Tsar Assen St for special exhibitions of contemporaries - and was very taken with Maria Bogdanova, a few of whose works are showing (see above) - as are her husband’s. A wonderful balance of precision, colour and humour. Bulgaria is lucky at the moment in having a few artists (eg Angela Minkova, Natasha Atanassova, Nikolai Tiholov) who have this combination. This is a Tiholov of mine

And yesterday I visited the small Loran Gallery and discovered a painter from the early part of last century - Petko Zadgorski (1902-1974).

The Gallery had marked his birthday with a recent exhibition of his work. They also carried on their nice tradition of publishing a catalogue to go with the exhibition and have quite a few of his paintings for sale on their well-organised website.

Zadgorski was born in Sliven but spent most of his life at Burgas where he developed his love of the sea – as you can see from this example of his painting. And the Burgas Municipal Gallery (one of the few I have so far not been able to visit) has a nice little outline of his work

The Loran Gallery seems to be the best organised of all the private galleries I know – frequent special exhibitions, catalogues to promote the artists, a good reserve of paintings for sale, active website……Of course The Victoria Gallery, as Sofia’s only auction house, has a great website and catalogue for each of its auctions (there’s one on Thursday) when more than 200 artefacts are usually for sale.

Regular readers will know I am a great fan of Astry Gallery here in Sofia  whose owner Vihra Pesheva singlehandedly seeks out and promotes living artists – young and old – with frequent special exhibitions and materials. But the reason Astry Gallery scores is that so much is crammed into such a small space; that Vihra shares her enthusiasm so readily; and I never feel I am imposing….. This is what I said last year about the Gallery -

Astry Gallery (under Vihra's tutelage) is unique for me amongst the Sofia galleries in encouraging contemporary Bulgarian painting. Two things are unique - first the frequency of the special exhibitions; but mainly that Vihra follows her passion (not fashion). I am not an art professional - but Vihra has a real art of creating an atmosphere in which people like me can explore. I have been to a couple of other exhibition openings here and they were, sadly, full of what I call "pseuds" - people who talked loudly (mostly Embassy people) and had little interest in the paintings (except perhaps their investment value). Vihra and her Astry Gallery attract real people who share her passion and curiousity. It is always a joy to pop in there - and talk to her, visitors, artists, other collectors and her father.

And that is also the case with Yassen Gollevi of Konus Gallery who is in his own right a serious painter and teacher at the Art Academy.

New painters - and wine

I’m not the only one casting my mind back to the murderous behaviour from which this part of the world has suffered in the past century as Empires came unstuck and national fervour gripped men’s minds. Eastern Approaches and Open Education both have postings on the Balkan Wars of a hundred years ago.

These (and other) wars were, of course, an important focus for many Bulgarian painters some of whom were official war artists.

My booklet on Bulgarian Realist painters was very much a first draft – I felt if I waited for the missing information on various painters, nothing would ever be produced. And it’s only now that I’m back in Sofia that I can think properly about its distribution – so far it has been sent only to the Sofia galleries, to Regional municipal galleries and to EC Embassies in Sofia. With encouraging responses (apart from the Embassies!) It’s a useful calling card to show how serious I am! Now I need to approach the big Hotels – and the National Gallery who (amazingly) don’t really have anything for the foreign visitor.

And, slowly I can update the entries both on artists and galleries. Yesterday was a good example. The Inter Nos Gallery (sadly its website no longer seems active) is just at the junction of Bvds Levski and Ignatieff  (just round the corner from where Alexander Bozhinov built his house in Nikolai Pavlovich St) and has I think the best collection of the Bulgarian Realist painters in the country.
This wasn’t obvious to me on my first few visits – and I got to feeling guilty about visiting more since I haven’t so far bought anything.
But when Dr Stephanov saw my booklet, he opened up and I discovered some great paintings – and promises of more since (like many other Sofia galleryists) they have more stuff stored away in inaccessible places than on display.
So, for example, one painter whose name was known to me - Constantine Mikrenski (1921-1999) – suddenly started to look very interesting (eg the one at the top of this post). My entry about him in the book is no more than his date of birth and death.
Why is it that I want to know more about the (dead) painters I like? Technically, it adds little to my appreciation - perhaps its intimations of mortality?

There are a lot of articles (and books) predicting the disappearance of the book. New Criterion has published an article with a very elegant (and passionate) defence of the book (and elegy to the death of second-hand bookshops) which I thoroughly recommend   

Once, staying overnight at an airport hotel in Los Angeles, I found myself without a book. How this happened I can no longer recall; it was most unusual, for by far the most useful lesson that life has taught me, and one that I almost always heed, is never to go anywhere without a book. (In Africa, I have found that reading a book is an excellent way of overcoming officials’ obstructionism. They obstruct in order to extract a bribe to remove the obstruction; but once they see you settled down for the long term, as it were, with a fat book, Moby-Dick, say, they eventually recognize defeat. Indeed, I owe it to African officialdom that I have read Moby-Dick; I might otherwise never have got through it.)Reduced in my Los Angeles room to a choice between television and the yellow pages—no doubt now also on the verge of extinction—I chose the yellow pages, and there discovered just how unusual my obsession with books was. I looked up bookstores, and found no more than half a page. Teeth-whitening dentists, on the other hand, who promised a completely renewed existence to their clients, a confident smile being the secret of success, and success of happiness, took up more than twenty pages. Not poets, then, but teeth-whitening dentists, are now the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Now sipping a superb new Bulgarian Chardonnay - Ethno - produced in the village of Sungurlare inland from Burgas on the Black Sea.

Bucharest's English bookshop closes its doors - hopefully temporarily

Tens of thousands of demonstrators on the Bucharest street are still hoping to shame the new Romanian government into wholesale resignation and it therefore hardly seems an appropriate time to devote a post to the closing of an independent bookshop - but the Anthony Frost English Bookshop in central Bucharest is no ordinary bookshop. It has been called “one of Central Europe’s best” – has been delighting bibliophiles for almost a decade and belongs to a very small number of places to which I have dedicated the phrase “oases of civilisation” or sanctuaries of originality

They are generally galleries or bookshops whose owners have a real art of creating an atmosphere in which people can quietly explore - whether by flicking, viewing or chatting.

All is hopefully not lost, however. The catalyst to the decision seems to have been the rent – the Orthodox church which own the premises clearly doesn’t understand the spiritual value of culture – or, more precisely perhaps, all too well understands the threat of foreign ideas…..

So Vlad will be exploring other locations and premises and I, rashly, promised to send him some ideas for broadening the shop’s appeal. I well understand that the focus on English-language books rather limits its clientele…..presumably it is only the passing foreign journalist who will drop in - not your typical (British/Commonwealth) tourist! 

Oscar Wilde, of course, got it right when he said - "I always pass on good advice.....it's the only thing to do with it…!!" In that vein, let me repeat what I have written to Vlad - 

There was apparently quite an emotional reaction to the news of the closing - confirming just how much we value the “experience” we are offered when we enter….the friendship, the range of books on offer, the music, the conversation, coffee…..Only in private art galleries in Sofia do I have this “elevated” experience ….

People only notice such things when they are gone…..Now that your customers have realized their loss, they have the chance to do something to bring it back….so let’s ask what THEY can do.
Your customers deserve a note thanking them for their custom – with an indication that you are hoping to open up elsewhere and an invitation to help shape a strategy….Perhaps Survey Monkey could be used to design a simple questionnaire?  

Perhaps key academics in the various cities in the country might be visited who are in a position to recommend key English texts – whether in language or management courses – for their students to buy from you?And reading circles are another good way in which those wishing to improve their English could help you boost the sales of selected books…..Britain these days needs all the friends it can muster – perhaps the British Embassy can be persuaded to get involved in a new strategy (clearly you would have to prepare very carefully for such an approach)  

This blogger mentions his feelings – touching on some public events in your bookshop which I hadn’t been aware of – so obviously data bases and social media are important. I had always wanted to come to an event – even contribute…….I realize that any display of paintings takes wall space you otherwise need for book shelves – and well appreciate that you’re in a zero-sum situation here….But linking up with some vineyards could be another way of attracting custom. There are not so many wine shops in central Bucharest….(I speak as an expert!).

Our Irish friends have a nice saying for such an occasion - "May the wind be at your back"!!

One of the books which I pulled from my shelves as I was scribbling this was a little book which bore the Frost English bookshop sticker - it was "Stop what you're doing a Read This!" - a manifesto from 2011 from a dozen writers about the importance of "gateways to reading" physical books - such as libraries and bookshops. However difficult in these populist times, this is the argument we need conducted........

Romanian Painting - Encountering Romania part VI

There are two superb guidebooks on cultural Romania – The Pallas Guide to Romania (2009) edited by John Villiers who worked for the British Council here for 3 years; and Caroline Juler’s Blue Guide Romania  (2000) – curiously out of print already. (Her blogsite Carpathian Sheep Walk  gives a good sense of the life of one of the many sections of people still trying to life off the land here).

Villier’s book has chapters on the country’s history; the painted monasteries; the wooden churches and fortified churches of Transylvania; art and architecture; and Bucharest. But its section on art only lists about 10 painters in a couple of lines – very curious treatment for a book which purports to be about culture!

Having been so bowled over in recent years ago by Bulgarian realist painting of the first part of the 20th Century that I produced a booklet about it, events seemed to conspire against a similar appreciation of Romanian painters of the same period. Bulgarian galleries and books, somehow, were more evident and accessible in Sofia than their equivalents in Bucharest

I have, however, made some effort in the past year to track down the full beauty of the Romanian painting which were in such evidence a hundred years ago (it’s amazing how many superb Romanian painters were born around 1880!). Not easy since so many were secreted in private collections during the Communist period – some even before then eg the Zambaccian collection. 
And quite a few of the nouveaux riches after 1989 have developed their own private collections - which have been captured in a huge book in 2012 by painter Vasile Parizescu. One of the collectors is "businessman" Tiberiu Posteinica who was so brazen as to produce a sizeable book to glorify his ill-gotten collection. I was lucky enough to find a copy in a second-hand bookshop here.

The national art galleries here (and various publishing houses) have, of course, published various books on Romanian painters but making no concessions in recent years to those without the Romanian language and focussing on a favoured few such as Nicolae Grigorescu, Theodor Amman, Camil Ressu and Theodor Pallady. 

Things were actually better in the 1960s when the Meridian publishing house produced a great series of affordable booklets on Romanian painters (with attractive pasted prints). From the second-hand bookshops here I have slowly acquired many of these – eg Nicolae Darescu, StefanPopescu, JeanSteriadi and Josef Iser.

And last year I came across two great websites which have allowed me to access the Romanian painting tradition – a personal one ; and ArtIndex – a Romanian Art Review. So I now have a list of 75 classic Romanian painters (compares with a list of 150 Bulgarian for a country one quarter of Romania's size). 
My initial selections have been posted here 

Imagining a future

A space for books, paintings, wine and….ideas? A possible new concept for Sofia – European City of Culture?

As well as conducting my usual haunts of galleries and bookshops here in Sofia, I’m looking at property – and feel that any flat has to be large enough to take my present (let alone future) stock of books and paintings. 

I found a dream flat – on the edge of a forest a mere 20 minutes’ drive (or metro) from the centre – but it’s only 70 sq metres; and does not allow the flaneur life I love in the centre of town.

And the second-hand and remaindered books whose titles appealed to me in the last few days (and now lie around the flat) speak powerfully of the importance of serendipity and conversations - eg 

• JG Ballard’s dystopian novel Kingdom Come (2006); 
• Charles Bukowski's collection of despairing poetry - War all the time (1984)  
• a book about the Anglo-Scottish borderlands between the 14^th and 16^th centuries -The Reivers; 
• Desperately seeking Paradise – journeys of a sceptical muslim (2004) by Ziauddin Sardar;
• Dinner with Persephone; travels in Greece by Patricia Storace (1996); 
• Hungarian Antal Szerb’s 1937 masterpiece Journey by Moonlight ; 
• the final (third) part of Russe-born Nobel-prize winning Elias Cannetti’s auobiography The Play of the Eyes (1986);  
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; and
• The Language Wars; a History of Proper English (2011) by the improbably-named Henry Hitchings

So why not a small gallery space in the centre where I can hang the paintings, display books, offer wines and converse in whatever language......? Fine for experience - but what would I actually sell - apart from glasses of wine?? The books (eg my extensive collection of about Bulgarian painters) and paintings would not leave the shop but simply be a catalyst for conversation.....
Now that the British Council here has closed its library of books, perhaps there is a place for people to go who wish a taste of European (if not British) culture. I could add French and German books; link with the British butcher and the second-hand English bookshop here; and with cultural centres such as The Red House........Dream on.......

The politics of painting

Bucharest is a city I would normally avoid in high summer like the plague – but dental issues have forced me to divide what summer I’ve had since my return from Germany in early July between the place and my mountain retreat. And the cooler summer weather has actually made the city much more bearable.

Having bemoaned what I saw as the lugubrious state of Romanian painting with which I was being served up in Bucharest galleries and museums in the past decade, my eyes have been opened in the past 12 months.

The new Museum of (22 separate!) art collections; a website; various finds in antiquarian bookshops; and a small new private gallery have helped me at last to appreciate the beauty of Romanian realist painting of the past century!

New names for me are Bassarab Louis/Ludovic (1866-1933) whose reputation seems to have been unfairly eclipsed by Grigorescu and Andreescu; the exquisite works of Grant Nicolae 1868-1950; Artachino Constantin (1870-1954); Strambu Hippolytus (1871-1934); Baesu Aurel (1896-1928); Leon Bijou (1880-1970); Georgescu Marian (1892-1932); and Aurel Popp 

It is Grant and Popp who intrigue me the most – for the neglect each has suffered – for very different political reasons.
Grant (as his name would suggest) was of Scottish (and high bourgeois) origin – his father was UK consul in Romania and Nicolae came of age when Romanian impressionist painting was at its height  - being part of the great generation of Artachino, Baltazar, Biju, Bunescu, Dimitrescu, Darescu, Eder, Muntzner, Pallady, Popescu, Popea, Ressu, Schweitzer-Cumpana, Steriadi, Theodresci-Scion, Tonitza, Vermont and Verona – all, amazingly, born within ten years of one another!
Nicolae Grant, however, seems to have been air-brushed out of history – his name does not appear in the key 1971 text by Dragut et al of the Meridian publisher’s Romanian Painting in 1111 pictures whose German version I was lucky enough to find this week (for 5 euros!). And, at the moment, I can find no site with which to illustrate his work - but one example is at the side here.

Aurel Popp was born in Satu Mare in 1879 and was (not unlike many painters of the time) a passionate Socialist - which landed him in deep trouble with the Hungarian authorities of the time. Not least because, in 1918, he was elected to the Budapest Soviet. For that heinous offence he was imprisoned, escaped and was hounded in post-war Transylvania. Last week I was delighted to pick up a copy of the 1968 Meridian series (German version) on his work.
And it is one of his paintings which tops this post

Health and .....the pursuit of happiness

An article based on a new book invites us to identify what elements of city design might make a difference to resident happiness and then seems to suggest that bike lanes and pooling are the answer. 

That does seem a bit simplistic since, patently, the basic layout of a city is a crucial factor – things like densities, patterns of movement and physical structures - let alone the frequency (and price) of facilities such as public transport, parks, bookshops, galleries, theatres, swimming pools and restaurants....Not much use -trying to cycle if you are boxed in by dual carriageways and multi-stories!!

I blog quite a lot about Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, the structure of whose centre consists of narrow streets and tiny shops run by individuals - old and young. Walking around them (and the neighbouring parks) is a great joy - people carry their coffees or drink them on the doorstep, chatting over a cigarette to their neighbours; all key institutions are in walking distance and restaurants are cheap, healthy and tasty. People take care of the stray cats
It is a city like no other European one.
Mayor Yordanka Fandakova is doing a great job of clearing cars from the pavements and many of the streets. What a contrast with Bucharest whose power-mad Mayor Sorin Oprescu has new dual carriageways running through the city and is outdoing Attila the Hun in his (illegal) destruction of so many lovely old houses.

The article finishes with an important message -

By spending resources and designing cities in a way that values everyone's experience, we can make cities that help us all get stronger, more resilient, more connected, more active and more free. We just have to decide who our cities are for. And we have to believe that they can change.

I was once very active in the WHO Healthy Cities network which I see is still going strong.
Health….and happiness. Fundamental issues for us all. Honoured with so much rhetoric but increasingly displaced by Greed and Dishonesty…..I want to explore this disjunction in a bit more detail.
For 30 years, the WHO website tells us -

The primary goal of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network has been to put health high on the social, economic and political agenda of city governments. The Healthy Cities movement promotes comprehensive and systematic policy and planning for health and emphasizes:

• the need to address inequality in health and urban poverty

• the needs of vulnerable groups

• participatory governance

• the social, economic and environmental determinants of health.

About 90 cities are members of the WHO European Healthy Cities Network, and 30 national Healthy Cities networks across the WHO European Region have more than 1400 cities and towns as members.

Sadly, however, health and health inequalities have become much worse during this period – and I see little sign of the Healthy City literature recognising this – or exploring why this is so.

Indeed, as so often happens, a new vocabulary (expertise and bureaucracy) has taken over – that of the happiness minions of the OECD and UNDP , for example. This paper on the phenomenon of happiness research and indices is one particular (libertarian) slant on the past decade's work on happiness.

I get a bit impatient with those who tell us that happiness is about spending time with family and friends since that misses the political aspects - the nature and scale of the obstacles which those with power place on our enjoyment of public places and public goods. Equally, however, we need to be realistic about what can be achieved by political actions. Whatever, therefore, my sympathies with those who stress the importance of reducing social and economic inequalities, let us focus on the sorts of modest actions which can mobilise the support of large numbers of citizens - such as the removal of cars and cancelling of city motorways.....In that sense, I align with those who argue for more of a "nudge" approach to civic action - and also with those who argue for municipal (rather than government) initiatives.

What market for promiscuous web-books?

It’s a damp, dreich day – enough to drive a man to whisky, rakia or palinka….But ideal weather for completing the next draft of my little cultural guide on Romania – which currently bears the rather cumbersome title of Encountering Romania – some cultural links

The version which I've just uploaded is 60 pages – but my own text is pretty modest, with 40 pages consisting of 3 annexes….

Starting with a list of blogs may be unusual – but what easier way to get a sense of a country than seeing it through the eyes of people (whether ex-pat or local) who has been sufficiently enthused about a country that they themselves then try to catch and convey some impressions? I’ve identified 16 blogs in English - an equal number coming from Romanians and ex-pats – I know of no other such list…

Indeed think I can reasonably claim that there is no better guide in the English language to material about Romanian culture than this little guide - 20 travelogues from the last couple of decades (that’s one a year); links to lists of several hundred novels; and to sites which will give data, for example, on a couple of hundred Romanian painters! 
Indeed I wonder why there aren't more such efforts????? 

What I might call "promiscuous" webbooks with links and downloads - "promiscuous" in the sense of covering a variety of the subjects you should be interested in when visiting a country. They used to be called Reference books - but in even their traditional form they were generally available only in the local language ie not for foreigners......
A new business model perhaps...........??? 

One of the new blogs I found when compiling the update for that section– Bucharest lounge (its been going 2 years) - uses the superb word “karmalicious” to describe Bucharest!

At the start of guide, I listed 16 ways of getting to know a country and its people – but appeared to forget about an important way of entering a country’s soul – simply walking around and chatting to people (although I did include “conversations” as one of the 16 methods!). The best of our travel writers use this method but my focus on bookshops and art galleries tends to limit such encounters…..

And I love my house in the Carpathian mountains so much – with its library of books, music and amazing views – that I am not tempted even into medieval Brasov all that often to explore - which is very reprehensible given that I have glorious Transylvania right on my doorstep.

As one of my daughters is coming next month and likes exploring and hill-walking, I have to find a guide for her. I immediately found a walking tour which actually includes my own village – but it is one which leaves from London (!) and ties her down to schedules. 

This excerpt on my section of the googlebook “The Mountains of Romania” gives a good sense of the area – the Piatra Craiaului is a dramatic range which I view from my rear terrace. “The most dramatic ridge-walk of Romania and one of the most enjoyable of Europe” is praise indeed from a British mountaineer!

From my front balcony I view the Bucegi range….and it’s that which figures most often as my blog masthead….

On a stroll yesterday to see a new house being built in the traditional style, I was sad to see three "weeping" houses in the neighbourhood.....

And to see the more casual methods being used in contemporary constructions methods here. 
The second of my snaps shows the traditional cut for the external beams of a traditional village building. The next photo the cut for beams being used for the the new house beside it.

Passion and Dedication

I sometimes think that Newspeak has taken over. For years, for example, the journals have been full of talk of “innovation” and yet we live and breathe in ever more (globally) homogenised societies where “innovation” is, as often as not, simply what we used to call “product differentiation” – ie minute tinkering in design.

One of the reasons I am fond of Sofia is that I am constantly coming across here the quiet assertion of real (as distinct from pseudo) individuality and creativity…..Its art galleries and bookshops have been described in these posts as “the last sanctuaries of originality” – with the Astry Gallery as the leading example. It’s not just the way interesting (young and old) Bulgarian artists are cultivated and presented in her small gallery - it’s the friendly almost family atmosphere.

And the tastefully-designed bookmarks which mark every exhibition – real collectors’ items – are a simple gesture of that aesthetic commitment. They are produced by a young couple who have also become a great help to me eg in the production of my booklet on Bulgarian art (just about to go into a second edition) and in setting up my new website. Danail in particular has an exemplary “Can-Do” attitude as a result of which his little company has won more custom not only from me but from at least one other foreigner who found not only the quotes and deadlines unbeatable but the professionalism of the work deeply impressive. 

Let me give some other examples - last Saturday, returning from the tribute to the Paris dead at the nearby French Embassy, I stumbled across an incredible little pub (intriguingly named “Sterling Club”) just round the corner from my flat…It looks old but has in fact been operating for only three years….my next visit (with friends) I hope to get the story…..

Last year I was struck with two beautiful and highly original books about aspects of Bulgarian history and culture by two Bulgarians I now count as friends – Ivan Daraktchiev, with his amazing Bulgaria: Terra Europeansis Incognita; and Rumen Manov with his 700-page celebration of some 2000 cultural artefacts and photographs from his own personal collection - in A Fairy Tale about Bulgaria. Each was a labour of love – paid for by the author….  

And this Wednesday I shall be at a winetasting in a small shop at the Russian Monument which I have been cultivating almost since its start 4 years ago. Vinoorenda is run by a young man, Asen, and his father and, to judge by the cards and references at last weekend’s Annual Wine-tasting, has already built up an impressive reputation amongst particularly the smaller, craft vineyards in the country…. 

The blog has previously noted the proliferation in central Sofia of tiny shops run by both young and old……..a powerful expression of individuality which is repressed by the large stores which are the feature of most downtowns in European cities.

Is this just an accident of the narrow streets? ……I have a feeling it reflects something more cultural. Bulgarians, for example, don’t seem to have adopted the debt life-style of other nations……. They’re not taken in by fashions. They have a respect for healthy foods and vegetables (and for their country’s history and culture)…..

They are a small, relatively isolated country, surrounded by indifferent if not unfriendly neighbours – perhaps this has developed an awareness of being on their own and needing to work at something about which they’re passionate?

Coincidentally I’m reading one of Robert Greene’s recent books called Mastery. Guardian readers, as you will see from this review, turn their nose up at Greene but I confess I enjoy his books – not least for their layout and charming tales of emperors and great men.

Mastery is a celebration of the life of the “vocation” and the dedication which goes with it….In these times of shallow showmanship and deceit, we desperately need such celebrations…..Of course, those wanting a more serious read should go to Howard Gardner’s Creating Minds

Evoking Zeitgeist

One of the most difficult challenges for any writer is to try to evoke the spirit of a nation - in a balanced but insightful way. Chauvinism comes all too easily - be it of the American, English, French or even Scots variety.

But summoning up the soul of a country with appropriate text is a much greater challenge – and may well be best done by an outsider who knows the country well…Think Madame de Stael and Germany; de Tocqueville and the USA  

This train of thought is sparked off by my reading – almost in one go – a delightful book called “The Story of Scottish Art” – explored in this nice video. The author is himself a painter and uses a lot of examples (carvings as well as paintings) to illustrate the text - as well as his own water-colours. The book is based on a BBC series.

One of the things which endeared the book to me was the way he skilfully wove together aspects of the painters’ lives with developments in the nation. 

Painting is a good “handle” on a country – but it’s rarely used. Peter Robb’s Midnight in Sicily gives a “food and Mafia” take on that country; and Simon Winder’s “Germania” and Neil McGregor’s “Germany; memories of a nation” cultural takes on Germany – but skate over painting.

In 2007, I found myself leading a project in Sofia, Bulgaria and quickly became so taken with the paintings – particularly from the interwar period - I came across in its fascinating small galleries that I started to collect them. Naturally I wanted to know something about the artists – and found myself traipsing into antiquarian bookshops in search of information. The result was initially a small book of 50 pages – and, by 2015 or so, a larger one of 250 pages Bulgarian Realists – getting to know Bulgaria through its Art

This particular book started its life quite literally as a scribbled list on the back of an envelope - of painters whom a gallery friend thought I should know about in 2008 or thereabouts…..

It eventually became a list of 250 or so Bulgarian artists of the “realist” style which I developed to help me (and visitors) learn more about the richness of the work (and lives) of artists who are now, for the most part, long dead and often forgotten. 

But it also got me wondering about who is best placed to try to evoke the spirit of a nation….Social historians? Anthropologists? Artists? 

Some of you may know the author Nassim Nicholas Taleb whose book The Black Swan became a best-seller a few years ago. In it he makes a profound point about the process by which artistic “genius” is recognised (or not – the latter being more often the case). More than four centuries ago, the English essayist Francis Bacon had a very simple intuition….about a man who, upon being shown the pictures of those worshippers who paid their vows then subsequently escaped shipwreck, wondered where were the pictures of those who happened to drown after their vows. The lack of effectiveness of their prayers did not seem to be taken into account by the supporters of the handy rewards of religious practice. “And such is the way of all superstition, whether in astrology, dreams, omens, divine judgments, or the like”, he wrote in his Novum Organum, written in 1620.

This is a potent insight: the drowned worshippers, being dead, do not advertise their experiences. They are invisible and will be missed by the casual observer who will be led to believe in miracles.

Not just in miracles, as Taleb goes onto argue…..it is also the process which decides whether an artist is remembered. For every artist of genius, there have been many more with the same talent but whose profile, somehow, was submerged….

Art, of course, is the subject of high fashion – reputations ebb and flow…..we are vaguely aware of this…but it is money that speaks in the art “market” and it is the din of the cash register to which the ears of most art critics and dealers are attuned…… 

As I read Lachlan Goudie’s little vignettes of painters in “The Story of Scottish Art”, I realised that painters have always occupied an important position in social networks – often poor themselves, they rub shoulders with a wider range of people than most of us. In the early days, of course, they would focus on religious figures and then society people. But from the mid 19^th Century, artists such as David Wilkie were able to celebrate ordinary folk in their paintings.

Nowadays, of course, we rarely see faces any more in paintings – just blobs and abstractions. Perhaps our artists are telling us something?

But my question is, I think, a good one – who is best placed to gives us insights into a country’s soul? Poets? Writers? Painters? Anthropologists? Historians? Social historians? Travel writers? Sociologists? Or who? 

Further Reading

Watching the English by anthropologist Kate Fox is one of my favourites – for that country.

Theodor Zeldin is probably the best on the French.

Perry Anderson’s article A New Germany? offers a great intellectual and political history of contemporary Germany. But otherwise, it’s not easy to find a serious book about modern Germany (although many good -histories) Gordon Craig’s magnificent “The Germans” came out in 1982 and John Ardagh’s “Germany and the Germans” in 1987 – since then there has be no real update to their insights into the German soul - Gitty Sereny’s “The German Trauma – experiences and reflections 1938-2001 and Fritz Stern ‘s “Five Germanies I have known” (2007) notwithstanding

On Italy, people are spoiled for choice – not just Barzini’s classic “The Italians” (1964) but Foot, Gilmour, Ginsborg, Hooper, Jones and Parks all giving a sense of the modern Italians….You pays your money….

The background to social history is laid out in this article

7 social historians lay their claims here

A book on The anthropology of Ireland demonstrates its possibilities

And the others?