Andrew Cranston
The Baron in the trees, 2021
oil and varnish on hardback book cover
18.3 x 12.3 cm
7 1/4 x 4 7/8 in
(Sold)
7 1/4 x 4 7/8 in
(Sold)
Good teaching is planting a seed. Years ago - 1996 actually - my tutor at the RCA, Jim Mooney, used to talk to me about painting and history and books,...
Good teaching is planting a seed.
Years ago - 1996 actually - my tutor at the RCA, Jim Mooney, used to talk to me about painting and history and books, and bring the ideas in them alive, make them relevant and exciting. One of the best teachers I had.
I had made a large painting of a boy standing up a tree and when he came into my studio space Jim exploded with a positive reaction and engagement I had hardly ever seen before.
“If you haven’t You must read Italo Calvino’s the Baron in the trees” Jim said. “read it in the Italian best of all”. A fable of a boy who in a huff climbs a tree and decides never to come back down. No amount of tempting him with delicious food can entice him down and he stubbornly and then happily spends the rest of his life in the tree tops.
Well Jim I still haven’t read it and my Italian remains crap. It has sat on my shelf gathering dust for 20 odd years.
I will get round to it. But I do wonder if it will live up to my idea of it, the idea you gave me of it back then. I’m nervous it will disappoint, like a place you have in your mind as a thrilling ideal, but you just know will be underwhelming if you actually went.
I get so much from a glimpse of things, my imagination is fired by the slightest whiff of something, that can give me a (visual) hunger; when I am allowed a longer look, to gaze, my interest often wanes, my appetite sated. Not knowing or knowing just a little can be so much better than exhaustively knowing everything.
My dad once told me that when he was a boy, men climbed trees, that it wasn’t seen as preserve of children and his grandad would often be found high up a tree in the park where he lived, getting some peace, getting away from everybody.
Years ago - 1996 actually - my tutor at the RCA, Jim Mooney, used to talk to me about painting and history and books, and bring the ideas in them alive, make them relevant and exciting. One of the best teachers I had.
I had made a large painting of a boy standing up a tree and when he came into my studio space Jim exploded with a positive reaction and engagement I had hardly ever seen before.
“If you haven’t You must read Italo Calvino’s the Baron in the trees” Jim said. “read it in the Italian best of all”. A fable of a boy who in a huff climbs a tree and decides never to come back down. No amount of tempting him with delicious food can entice him down and he stubbornly and then happily spends the rest of his life in the tree tops.
Well Jim I still haven’t read it and my Italian remains crap. It has sat on my shelf gathering dust for 20 odd years.
I will get round to it. But I do wonder if it will live up to my idea of it, the idea you gave me of it back then. I’m nervous it will disappoint, like a place you have in your mind as a thrilling ideal, but you just know will be underwhelming if you actually went.
I get so much from a glimpse of things, my imagination is fired by the slightest whiff of something, that can give me a (visual) hunger; when I am allowed a longer look, to gaze, my interest often wanes, my appetite sated. Not knowing or knowing just a little can be so much better than exhaustively knowing everything.
My dad once told me that when he was a boy, men climbed trees, that it wasn’t seen as preserve of children and his grandad would often be found high up a tree in the park where he lived, getting some peace, getting away from everybody.