Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding father.

Lee Kuan Yew.

Singaporean public lament over the death of their founding patriarch is understandable. Lee was a leader of remarkable talent in taking Singapore from an important British colonial transport hub to a first world identity in one generation.

Given Australia’s current floundering government with no inspiring leader of any political persuasion in sight, any thoughtful person would be forgiven for thinking that perhaps authoritarian government has many advantages in advancing ordinary peoples living standards.

There will be many who throw their hands up in the air in dismay at the very suggestion that dictatorial authority is compatible with democratic rule, but in Singapore’s case the result is only too plain to see. I’m old enough to remember Singapore in the early 1950s when I first visited the island. Admittedly south-east Asia was still in recovery mode after the defeat of Japan in World War Two, but even then Singapore was nowhere as economically deprived as its closest neighbours Indonesia and Malay. It’s fortunate geographical location always ensured a certain degree of prosperity in terms of world trade, but still it was a long way from first world.

Despite the multi-ethnic composition of the population where each group to some extent was always anxious to advance their own tribal interests, Lee was able to unite them into a cohesive whole no mean feat when compared to the history of its neighbours. The Chinese cleansing in Indonesia and several years of armed conflict in Malay. This most ability to unite was probably  Lee's greatest achievement, the ability to unite people in a complementary vision of their future without which progress in any field is neigh impossible. Admittedly harsh measure were from time to time employed, but there is no doubt the majority of Singaporeans enjoyed eventually a higher standard of living that made the policy worthwhile.  

Strangely in the fifties Lee was considered in conservative circles to be a communist, while today the left of politics consider him to be a right wing dictator, both sides perusing their own political agendas neither  seeming able to see real benefits in Lee’s  rule, each focusing instead on some restrictive aspect of his government. Many western governments historically have over the years   discredited their political adversaries in similar manner, while they no longer jail them as in the pas they are often fairly loose with the truth, freely discrediting their personalities.

Despite some of Lee’s questionable policies, his achievement have been remarkable taking Singapore’s GDP to levels not obtain in Australia or many other western first world countries. Turning the island state into a powerhouse of Asian affairs. Singapore will surely miss his guiding hand.

Tan Dun. Contrabass Concerto. 'Wolf Totem'

Tan Dun’s ‘Wolf Totem’.

Tan Dun’s Wolf Totem stands as one of the highlights of this year’s Hobart Ten Days Festival. Commissioned by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra with four other orchestras from around the world, its Hobart performance was greeted with much delight and enthusiasm.

Based on the Chinese novel Wolf Totem the concerto for double bass is packed with musical surprises. The composition entwines the ancient Mongolian culture with the suggestive western intrusion via the Silk Road. The shrinking grasslands and native animal population are integrated into the musical score of  Eastern and Western musical traditions.

In exploring this culture, Tan Dun introduces the current crises of possible destruction of the grassland’s population of wild horses and wolves. He explores the fingering techniques of ancient Mongolian Horse Fiddle playing with modern musical instruments resulting in some extraordinary musical sounds. The Hobart Festival was very fortunate to have the opportunity to hear this work from one of the world’s finest contemporary orchestrators.   

Life's Doors

Doors come in many different shades and colours, golden or bright red for happiness, sometimes black or grey, or possibly no colour at all that leave the on looker in two minds. It is important to make the right choices if you use doors to move from A to B.

No matter what the colour it is necessary to pass through doors throughout life if for no other reason than it is impossible to stand still.

Golden doors attract with their ever beckoning allure of success and advancement, whether in love or material advancement.

Black is really the opposite with its psychological suggestion of death or evil, although some cultures express grief with white. Black is a bye product of the colour’s inability to reflect light, that all important ingredient that leads to insight and hopefully happiness.

Doors have practical use for adventure and advancement throughout life too,   keeping out drafts and snow, they embrace soft breezes during overly humid weather.

Doors I like best are of a personal nature, the ones that lead to love, companionship and security. Despite all human excitement for the great outdoors, tents always have a certain lack of comfort and security. Will it hold up in the storms that continually sweep across our life journy. Its entrance offers little protection against outside intrusion.

Often it is felt that to meet out of doors suggests a healthy, refreshing experience. A picnic perhaps or a lovers’ walk to some magic location beyond the preying eyes of the world. Years ago I was once asked who I knew, who could supply a reference, such things opened doors when applying for employment. The interviewer suggested this was important in order to succeed in life. Whether this is desirable remains debatable. It is hoped personal ability and skill would be the most important, not how many doors you have been able pass through.  

The world of Dreams.

The World of Dreams.

The world we actually live in is one of confusion and disorder. In many ways the world of dreams offers far more possibilities.

We create in our subconscious a world of no contractions, no one to dispute our version of events, that are free to spin in and out focus in any random manner they may wish to make.

In our dreams it is possible to be rich or poor, successful or fail or both at the same time, without the judgment of others. It is possible to imagine the unimaginable, to stand in the shadows watching life unfold in the most unlikely manner.

Anything and everything is possible, the hardest task is to retain the memory of these experiences into the conscious world, a world that is always locked unfortunately in the present.

Where to Eat?

Selecting a restaurant.

Most people, unless they are sufficiently wealthy do not have to worry about this, but still have at times during their lives searched for good and affordable places to eat. This is particularly important during your student days or when on holidays and money is getting low. I still remember a piece of advice given to me in my youth, always follow the parish priest to find the best dining. Generally you will either keep visiting the place you know and love, or will be brave and try somewhere new. Generally you don’t do this by walking down the street and taking a chance; you may be lucky, but the odds aren’t good. The true fine-dining experience is usually booked out weeks or months in advance.

Recently, a tourist book on what to look for in French restaurants arrived at my house with what purported to offer the best advice when eating out in Paris. I must say many of eating houses reviewed were Michelin, so there was no confusion about the likely cost. The advice struck me as a little over the top so I decided to pass it on.

Naturally the first thing you notice are the table cloths, perfectly ironed without creases, napkins linen and cutlery silver. This advised removed quite a lot of my eating establishments. Further each setting should have purpose when vacant with stemmed or styled water glasses. A table should have a centre piece, anything from a piece of driftwood with the chief’s name engraved on it or a tasteful piece of sculpture. Look around and make sure the tables are spaced appropriately, no more than 10 to 20 should be satisfactory. All staff appropriately dressed and their roles identifiable, apparently at least one staff member for every two guests.

Then we come to the most important item the wine list. This should have a minimum 450 different bins/labels and should be managed by a team of fully qualified sommeliers. Make sure the appropriate glassware is available for different wine varieties including aperitifs.

My guide book assures me if all this is correct it is safe to venture further. In all top-class restaurants everything is made on the premises, no buying in as once  food is brought in it becomes generic, however puff pastry and bread is another matter, but should be a freshly baked artisan product that reflects  the personality of the restaurant and its proprietor not of some commercial baker. Naturally there should be a choice of several breads. If the chef does not want bread, then there must be something similar to start the meal and clean the pallet. Butter the highest quality served at room temperature with a choice of salted and unsalted.

Every dish should use the finest ingredients and be carefully crafted by a team of highly trained chefs, a minimum of ten would be required. All the ingredients used should not be the sort of thing found in supermarkets or food stores. Truffles, caviar, line-caught fish and organic free range meats should be the order of the day. All pastries and deserts must have the Wow factor. There should be nothing an average home cook could make as well as the restaurant it could not describe itself as a fine dining establishment.

Judgement about dishes should be made with care, as a dish may seem simple but require great effort behind the scenes, many great chefs strive to produce dishes that are served modestly but cooked to perfection. Last but not least , coffee and tea should always be served with handmade chocolates and/or petit four. When you find such an establishment let me know for there are non where I live, but perhaps there are in Paris.   

George Davis, master draftsman.

Essie Davis actress.
Charcoal drawing & pastel 1990.

Tasmanian artist George Davis’ exhibition currently showing at TMAG in Hobart covers a vast field of human visual experience. It covers sixty-five years of drawing from his early twenties the present. The survey of George’s drawings coincides with the release of Hendrik Kolenberg’s book on his work that may be purchases at TMAG.  This survey includes a number of portraits and landscape paintings as well as the drawings. The drawings reinforce Davis reputation as one of Australia’s finest draughtsman. Self-portraits of twenty year old George hang alongside a number of portraits of family and friends executed over a lifetime. Beautiful anatomical correct figure drawings from life class to atmospherically tonal rending of London houses and landscapes demonstrate his years of observation. In the 1950s George spent a few years studying on a Tasmanian scholarship at the Royal Academy in London. Davis learnt to draw in the now unfashionable manner of learning to see accurately, to work from plaster casts, seeing the world around you enables development of hand eye co-ordination so essential to fine art. I first meet George Davis some thirty to forty years ago, we have over the years spent many hours discussing different approaches to art practice, and at times despairing at the current direction of art training in this country. Too much old fashion discipline has been discarded and lost in the haste to incorporate new fashionable technology.

 

George Davis is more than simply an artist, but a scientist and collector of a vast array natural insects, shell fish and native wildlife as well, all of which he painstakingly draws in great detail. These drawings however are not the lifeless illustrations often found in science books, but images that at times live on the page. Over the years George has spent considerable time drawing and painting the bird life on the many islands off the Tasmanian coast once travelling to Macquarie Island on the Antarctic ship Nella Dam to draw albatross and other nesting sea birds, never willing to rely on  observations of others. Included in this exhibition are working drawings for the sixty foot mosaic mural adorning Hobart Conservatorium of Music, constructed with over 123,000 Italian glass tiles, the work took over two years to create.

Nella Dam, south wharf Melbourne
pencil 1978.

 

Among the detailed scientific drawings of shells, bones and animal parts are many delightful drawings of nesting seabirds, penguins that live in the present. These are not casual observations, but drawings that have a life of their own as they fight their way off the page into the living world of the viewer. Davis has the ability to take his work to a new level. It is not hard to understand that here is an artist who has learnt to see by accurate observation, an artist who looks carefully and then able to capture the essence of things with a few rapid strokes. Seeing is the key, a discipline that has almost become extinct from art schools. A particularly lovely drawing of newly hatcher Albatross chicks seem to dance before your eyes, truly a wonderful experience.

Gentoo penguins disturbed.
pencil 1987

Gentoo penguins at Bauer Bay, Macquarie Island.
pencil 1978

There are a number of paintings, some bordering on abstraction without losing the essence of the landscape. George has spent months on end on unhabituated islands off Tasmanian north coast, painting rookeries at times having to lash himself to the rock face in order to paint his subject. These paintings express more than the rocky outcrops of steep slopes that plunge into the sea below, but also express the abstract form and tone of nature herself. You feel the wind as it whistles off the surface into the face of the viewer. At times the colour borders on impressionistic, but contained within structured form. This is an exhibition well worth the effort to view it.

Pam, London. Reed pen & ink 1954

Tasmanian freshwater crayfish. Pencil 1984

Weddel seal pup. pencil 1983.

Forocactus peninsulae . pencil 1976..

First World War, Begining of the Modern World.

Reflections on World War One:

 

As 2014 draws to a close, the centenary year that saw the beginning of that blood bath World War 1, it seems opportune to look back and consider those macabre events. To evaluate and analyse, whether the world has learnt anything from those experiences over the last one hundred years. Apart from the trauma many combatants experienced for the remainder of their lives, the senseless killings of thousands by long range artillery, death by injury and disease, the war saw the recreation of modern day Europe and the Near East. Empires fell, Russian, German, Austrian/Hungarian and Ottoman existed no more. The map of Europe was redrawn; Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine and other smaller states once more appeared on the world map. The seeds of the current conflict in the near east were created with arbitrary borders showing little concern for the ethnic and religious beliefs of the inhabitants. Armenia despite all the good intentions of the Allies was driven from its historic homeland.

Reading through the diaries, soldiers’ letters, political slogans and speeches of the major players leave any impartial enquirer with a sense of the futile nature of war. Looking back, it seems the great hope of that age still remain unfulfilled today. History teaches us that greed and the pursuit of national self- interest always win. Reading a letter written by Valentine Fleming [ Grandfather of Ian Fleming, author of ‘James Bond’ novels.], who at the time was serving on the Western Front, the letter was written to Winston Churchill who later experience firsthand the hardship of trench warfare. Reading the letter it is impossible not to visualise the reality of a technical conflict. Fleming informed Winston of ‘the absolutely indescribable ravages of modern artillery fire, not only upon all men, animals and buildings within its zone, but upon the very face of nature itself. Imagine, he wrote ‘a broad belt, ten miles or so wide, stretching from the Channel to the German frontier near Basle, which is positively littered with bodies of men and scarified with their rude graves; in which farms, villages and cottages are shapeless heaps of blackened masonry; in which fields, roads and trees are pitted and torn and twisted by shells and disfigured by dead horses, cattle, sheep and goats, scattered in every attitude of repulsive distortion and dismemberment.’ A zone continually made ‘more hideous by the incessant crash and whistle and roar of every sort of projectile, by sinister columns of smoke and flame, by the cries of wounded men, by the piteous calls of animals of all sorts, abandoned, starved, wounded’.

Without being judgemental is it possible consider this new technology of conflict heroic? Firing an artillery shell from distances of up to 75 miles to kill combatants and civilians alike is not heroic. This is not to suggest that there were not many heroic acts carried out during the war, simply that such acts should be acts of personal valour and courage not impersonal killing.

It is hard to believe that any thinking person with knowledge of the carnage of this war, ten million soldiers dead would not understand the urgency for a better mechanism to resolve national political ambition .President Wilson’s fourteen points outlined in his January speech to the United State Congress in 1918 seems a good starting point many of these ideas were incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles,  but unbelievably the Senate failed to vote for the USA to become a member of the  League of Nations. Not that other political and military leaders on all sides had seemed to have  been in any hurry to advance the cause of peace through the war. As the Treaty was formed on the assumption that the US would be a  member its absents ensured to a great extent that the League would not be the success many hoped.

Wilson’s fourteen points outlined in his speech, suggest Diplomacy and treaty making should be ‘frank and in public view’. That freedom to navigate the high seas assured for all. Economic barriers removed and equality of trading conditions established among all nations. That the interests of all people whether colonial or not given equal weight in terms of sovereignty. Military armament to be reduced, all nationalities within the Ottoman Empire assured of a secure sovereignty and autonomous development. All nations guaranteed political independence, no matter how large or small. All fine ideas, but how many have been implemented over the last 100 years. It is a sad comment on humanity’s priorities that many of Wilson’s ideals are still just that, ideals. Would the current chaos in the Near East still exist if it had not been for national greed? Unfortunately the First World War resolved very little in how to build a better world. Hopefully as we remember the sacrifices made one hundred years ago over the next four years, serious thought will be given to all these outstanding issues or was it all only a dream.