Victoria Hinshaw – Page 22 – Number One London

London 2012: Olympic Equestrians

Victoria here, writing about two of my favorite subjects: London (or, rather, make that Greenwich) and horses.

I’m hoping that, like 2008, I will be able to watch some of the Olympic Equestrian events between July 27 and August 12. Six sets of medals will be awarded, for individual and team accomplishments in three categories: Eventing, Dressage, and Show Jumping. All three call for the very highest talents, training, and cooperation among horses and riders, and with the Pentathlon, they are the only Olympic sports that involves human-animal collaboration.

The venue for the Equestrian events is Greenwich Park

on the grounds between the Queen’s House and the Greenwich Observatory, a spectacular setting just downriver from London. This newly laid out — and temporary — facility was home to an Olympic Test Event last summer.

2011

An even better view (below) shows rider Karin Donckers of Belgium in the dressage competition in 2011. Does it get any more spectacular than this, London lovers? There were some protesters, but the powers-that-be promise to return the site to its usual lawn and tree-studded parkland.

In 2008, the Olympic Equestrian events were held far from Beijing in Hong Kong, so the competitors are pleased to be more centrally located this year. In 2012, as in 2008, medals will be awarded in six categories, as below, listing the winners in 2008:

In Eventing, Germany won gold, Australia won silver and Great Britain bronze. For the individual medals in Eventing, riders from Germany, the USA, and Great Britain won the gold, silver and bronze medals respectively.

Zara Phillips, 2012 Team GB in Eventing

In Dressage, the team winners were Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, while the winning individual riders were from the Netherlands, Germany for both silver and bronze.

Nicola Wilson, 2012 Team GB in Dressage

The 2008 winners in Show (or Stadium) Jumping were USA, Canada, and Norway; in the individual events, winning riders were from Canada, Sweden, and the USA. Below, Team USA with their 2008 gold medals.

2008 Beijing (Hong Kong venue) Olympics

The Equestrian events are clustered as follows:

Eventing: Saturday 28 – Tuesday 31 July
Dressage: Thursday 2 – Thursday 9 August
Jumping: Saturday 4 – Wednesday 8 August

Eventing competitions — often called Horse Trials — are three-day series of activities which include dressage, stadium jumping and a 5.7 kilometre cross-country course. All three phases with the same horse and rider require a very high level of training and partnership. 2012 Team GB members in Eventing are: William Fox-Pitt, Nicola Wilson, Mary King, Zara Phillips, and Kristina Cook. Cook won the 2008 individual bronze medal in Eventing.

Tina Cook 2012 Team GB in Eventing

William Fox-Pitt, 2012 Team GB in Eventing

Dressage movements are based on refined versions of abilities needed by war horses in combat situations. Like the preliminary rounds of figure ska
ting or gymnastic competitions, a series of prescribed movements are performed and scored, followed by a free-style, though formal, sequence choreographed carefully and set to music. Such refined natural movements as the piaffe, passage and pirouette must be executed. Both horse and rider need intense concentration, intimate control, and perfect harmony.

Carl Hester, 2012 Team GB in Dressage

Laura Bechtolsheimer, 2012 Team GB in Dressage

Charlotte Dujardin, 2012 Team GB in Dressage

Olympic Factoid: At the 2012 Olympics, watch for the dressage appearance of Japan’s team member Hiroshi Hoketsu who is competing at age 71, oldest team member in the London games. This is, however, not the all-time oldest of Olympic competitors. Several competitors in the past in shooting competitions have been older.

Hiroshi Hoketsu, 2012 Team Japan in Dressage

Olympic Factoid: In the long-term medal race in Equestrian events, Germany leads with 28 gold medals, Sweden has 17 golds, France 12, USA 11, and Great Britain 6.

Olympic Factoid: Ian Millar of Team Canada is expected to compete in a record 10th Olympics in Show Jumping. In 2008, when he won the silver medal in Show Jumping, at 61, he was the oldest medal winner of the Beijing Olympics.

Alan Millar, 2012 Team Canada in Show Jumping

Olympic Factoid: Elizabeth “Beezie” Madden of Team USA was born in Milwaukee, WI, where I live. You needed to know that, right??? Beezie won a bronze medal in individual Show Jumping in 2008 and was a member of both gold-medal Teams USA in 2004 and 2008.

The main website for the 2012 Olympics in London is:

http://www.london2012.com/

For more information on the Equestrian Team GB:

http://www.equestrianteamgbr.co.uk/london-equestrian-2012/

NBC claims that all 32 sports, all 302 events will be shown on line and most on television, via NBC and its associated networks: MSNBC, CNBC and more.

Full details at:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/index.html

Specific Equestrian coverage at:

http://www.nbcolympics.com/equestrian/index.html

England in Song

A few weeks ago, on May 30, 2012, we posted a story The Milwaukee Symphony Goes British in a concert Victoria attended. Here’s another musical blog (though without a note) about British song.

“There’ll Always Be an England” is the title of an article in Opera News magazine, a publication of the Metropolitan Opera Guild. Hilary Finch, Music Critic of The Times of London writes about the enduring delights of British song. The article is here.

Janet Baker, acclaimed British mezzo

Ms. Finch asks, “So what is it about the English soul, as expressed in English song, that has such a powerful pull worldwide, and generation after generation?” For her answers, I direct you to the article, which I guarantee you will enjoy.

Music is always synonymous with Britain to me, whether it be the folk songs or the country dances we learned in school, many of which were transferred across the Atlantic almost unchanged, or the modern classics of Benjamin Britten or Ralph Vaughan Williams. Jane Austen lovers know the music well, from the copies of songs Jane herself wrote out, now to be seen at the Jane Austen Museum at Chawton Cottage…

…to the lively soundtracks of the many versions of her stories. There are also many CDs of music from her time for the fortepiano and other instruments.

For a selection of Austen-related books on and CDs of her music, try the JaneAusten Books website, here.

The Sunday New York Times Arts Section on July 8, 2012, carried an article (here) about the centennial of the birth of Kathleen Ferrier, an acclaimed contralto from Lancashire, who died in 1953 at the early age of 41, but left an enduring legacy in her recordings. There are several YouTube versions of Ferrier singing. She often sang English folk music as well as Bach, Handel, and Mahler.

Kathleen Ferrier (1912-1953)

One amusing tidbit from the Hilary Finch article is her nod to the British penchant for nonsense verse. I could not agree more. The lines of Edward Lear (The Owl and the Pussycat) and Lewis Carroll (Alice’s Adventures) are every bit as deserving of a tune as the dialect-laden lines of Robert Burns or the elegant works of Shakespeare or Byron.

Piano on Display at Jane Austen House Museum

(not hers, but very similar)

And dare I write of English music without mentioning everyone’s favorites, the Boys from Liverpool? British pop music is famous worldwide.

And starting this month in London, another season of The Proms; their website is here.

So, sing out, everyone!

Keep Calm and Carry On: Words for Posterity

This famous poster, put out by the British government in 1939 to encourage the traditional stuff upper lip of the British people in the face of Nazi aggression, has had multiple second lives as the inspiration for many new designs. Regular readers of this blog know we sometimes post versions in the sidebars. And if you follow either of us on Pinterest — or just about anybody else there — you will see many versions. Here are a few of our favorites.

Many of the signs reflect a real philosophy of life — or not! There are many collages of the images too.

And lots of products carry a version of the logo.

And finally a few “farther-out” faves”:

Napoleon Invades Russia, June 24, 1812

Napoleon in His Study, 1812

Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Another bicentenary is here, though its connection to Britain is not quite direct. However, the failure of Napoleon’s Russian invasion and the destruction of a large part of his army contributed to his ultimate defeat(s) by the allied nations led by Great Britain.

With the benefit of hindsight, historians have spent two hundred years pointing out the deficiencies in Napoleon’s goals, strategies and execution. I have to admit most of my knowledge about Napoleon’s Russian campaign was learned in Tolstoy’s War and Peace, published in 1869.

And since it is incredibly long (though also brilliant), I skimmed (or skipped) large sections. So my limited knowledge is, perhaps, more attributible to the 1956 film of War and Peace. I love that movie, starring Audrey Hepburn as Natasha, Mel Ferrar as Prince Andrei, and Henry Fonda as Count Pierre Bezukhov.

War and Peace, directed by King Vidor

There have been other non-novel versions of Tolstoy’s sprawling masterpiece, including an opera by Sergei Prokofiev, composed during World War II. I remember the 1956 film with great affection. In order to cover most of the story, however, it lasts about three and a half hours.

War and Peace, Metropolitan Opera production 2002

As everyone knows, Napoleon’s campaign in Russia was a total disaster. Numbers vary but about half a million soldiers of the Grand Armee marched into Russia and only a fraction returned by the end of 1812. Well before the Russian campaign, Arthur Wellesley, later named first Duke of Wellington, began to turn the tide in the Peninsular War, invading Spain from Portugal in January, 1812. Wellington and the allies won the Battle of Salamanca, June 17-22, 1812. French Marshall Soult and his defeated troops fought on but slowly withdrew into France.

Battle of Salamanca, June 17-22, 1812

On June 24th, having heard nothing about the British and Allied victory in Spain, Napoleon’s troops crossed the river Niemen into what is now Lithuania, then Russian Poland. The Russians, greatly outnumbered, usually retreated or conducted brief skirmishes instead of standing and fighting as Napoleon’s enemies usually did. In doing so, the Russians drew the French deeper and deeper into their sparsely populated regions, completely fouling up supply lines for the rapidly moving French. By mid-October, the French encircled Moscow, the capital. The Russians evacuated the city — and it burned, whether set afire by the fleeing citizens or by the invading troops no one can know. Probably both.

Napoleon’s Retreat from Russia

by Alfred Northen (1828-1876)

On the long retreat in the frigid weather through land already stripped of all provisions, constantly harrassed by Russian troops and Cossack raiders, the French troops simply starved or froze. Supplies and artillery were abandoned. The horses also died or were consumed. By mid-December, when the last of the French left Russia, up to 380,000 men had been lost with almost 100,000 captured. It had been a national disaster for France and a personal catastrophe for Napoleon.

Visiting the Birmingham Museum of Art

Now that the fabulous exhibition The Look of Love has closed in at the Birmingham Museum of Art in the largest city in Alabama, I want to encourage a visit to see the permanent collections. You will find many fascinating objects and stories. The website is here.

Because I found the exhibition of Lover’s Eyes so exciting, I admit I skipped some of the Museum’s excellent collections of Asisan, African, Native American, and pre-Colombian art — which is really a shame. However, I lingered in the American and British galleries as long as I could.

In the American galleries, you will find outstanding works from many familiar artists and movements. One of my favorite groups is the Hudson River School, usually sweeping and dramatic views of the American landscape.

Looking Down the Yosemite Valley, California, 1865

Alfred Bierstadt, German-American, 1830-1902

Portraits are always popular, especially those of heroes — and beautiful women.

Portrait of Oliver Hazard Perry, Hero of Lake Erie

by Jane Stuart (1812-1888)

Jane Stuart was the daughter of that renowned painter of early Americans such as George Washington, Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828). Jane assisted her father in his work and after his death carried on his portraiture and promoted his legacy.

In the Galleries

John Singer Sargent was well known in Europe and the U.S. for his outstanding portraiture, continuing the magnificent tradition of Lawrence, Gainsborough and Van Dyke. Lush colors, rich fabrics, flattering facial and body characteristics, and an overall impression of aristocracy were a few of the characteristics these artists shared.

Lady Helen Vincent, Viscountess d’Abernon

John Singer Sargent, American, 1856-1925

I notice that many museums have trouble deciding whether to put the work of Thomas Sully and Benjamin West in the British or American galleries. It seems to depend upon which side of the Atlantic the institution rests.

Thomas Sully, American, born England (1783-1872)

Prison Scene from James Fenimore Cooper’s The Pilot 1841

“Cecilia Howard and Katherine Plowden arousing the prisoner Edward Griffiths from his slumber.”

Erasistratus the Physician Discovers the Love of Antiochus for Stratonica, 1772
Benjamin West, b. U.S., d. Great Britain 1738-1820

Benjamin West was born in Pennsylvania and early in life showed artistic promise. He moved to London in 1863 and within a few years was named historical painter to George III. West served as second president of the Royal Academy of Art. The painting above is typical of the very popular style of large historical paintings in the third quarter of the 18th century. There are many fine portraits it he British Gallery by an array of excellent 18th and early 19th century artists.

Unknown Sitter, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, British (1769-1830)

ca. 1800

Wilson Gale-Braddyll (1756-1818) 1776

by George Romney, English 1734-1802

Captain Arthur Blake 1769

Sir Joshua Reynolds, English (1723-1792)

1st President of the Royal Academy of Art

E. Finley, Esq.

Sir Henry Raeburn, Scottish 1756-1823

Mrs. William Monck 1760-65

Thomas Gainsborough, English 1727-1788

The Birmingham Museum of Art has wonderful collections of Decorative Arts, below a scene in the British Gallery.

The chair, ca. 1775, originated in the workshop of Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779), mahogany, with modern upholstery.

Sewing Box on Stand, 1790, attributed to Matthew Boulton, English (1728-1809)

Rosewood with stoneware (jasperware), silver and cut steel

Below: Wedgwood, Britannia Triumphant, jasper; holding a portrait medallion of George III. Thought to have been made to commemorate the victory of British Naval forces over the French in 1798.

The figure itself, attributed to John Flaxman Jr., English, 175501826

The collection of Wedgwood is stupendous, totalling almost 10,000 pieces from 1759 to the mid-20th century. Below of wall of medallions, mostly Jasper.

Below, a selection of vases from various Wedgwood periods.

Mantelpiece

Wedgwood, designed by Halsey Ricardo, England 1854-1928

Originally made for Buckminster Park, Leicestershire

house demolished 1952

Obviously, I could go on for ages telling you about the glories of the museum. But I will leave that to you, as you investigate their very fine website. I close with a final piece, a charming cherub head that caught my eye.