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Bright is the Ring of Words: English Art Song

May 17, 2026 / terry / No comments

During the 19^th Century, composers began to set poems to music. In these “art songs” or Lieder, the piano accompaniment accentuated the emotions and complemented the meaning of the poem. Although Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (1816) was the first cycle of art songs, Schubert was the composer who definitively established the genre. He was followed by Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and Mahler. In the British Isles, a golden age of art song occurred in the first 20 years of the 20^th Century. Young composers, many trained in the German tradition, set to music both the lines they had learned in school and the poems of their contemporaries. The illustration is a wood cut from 1903 by Wassily Kandinsky.

Category: Art, Language, Literature, Music, Painting, Poetry / Tags: Battle of the Somme, Butterworth, de la Mare, Denis Browne, Gallipoli, Gurney, Kelly, Lieder, Masefield, Schubert, Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, Stevenson, Tennyson, Vaughan Williams, W.B. Yeats

Caravaggio: The Contarelli Chapel

May 8, 2026 / terry / No comments

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) was born in small community called Caravaggio just east of Milan. He first became recognized as a painter of genius in 1602 when he completed a set of three paintings on the life of Saint Matthew for the Contarelli Chapel in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Caravaggio had a ferocious temper and in 1606 he killed a man in a brawl and was banished from Rome. After a period of exile in Malta, Sicily and Naples, he negotiated a pardon. However, in Naples in 1609 he was violently assaulted by his enemies. He died in Porte Ercole as he tried to return to Rome. The portrait by Ottavio Leoni derives from the time when Caravaggio was in Rome at the height of his powers, though it was likely completed later.

Category: Art, History, Painting, Poetry, Religion, Sculpture / Tags: Calling, Creation of Adam, Giuseppi Cesari, Inspiration, Jacques Cobaert, Karen Fish, Martyrdom, Matthieu Cointreau, Michelangelo, Saint Matthew, San Luigi Dei Francesi, Tenebrism

Bai Juyi: Pearls Falling on Jade

Apr 27, 2026 / terry / No comments

Bai Juyi (白居易, pinyin Bǎi Jūyì, or Po Chü-i in Wade-Gilles transliteration, 772-846 CE) was a Chinese poet. In 815, after inappropriately advising the emperor, he was exiled from the capital Chang’an to JiuJiang on the Yangtze River. One night, at a farewell party on the river for a friend, he heard a musician playing the pipa. Entranced by her music, he found out that she had once been a sought-after courtesan in the capital. After her beauty had faded away, she had retired to the provinces, where she played her music and lamented her lost youth. Moved by her plight, Bai Juyi composed his Pipa Xing (琵琶行, “Ballad of the Pipa”). The illustration shows a drawing of the poet and the pipa player from a scroll by Guo Xu (1456–1532).

Category: Art, History, Literature, Music, Painting, Poetry / Tags: Calligraphy, Chang'an, Jiujiang, Li Bai, Liu Dehai, Orient Pearl Tower, Pipa, Tang dynasty, Wu Man, Xunyang, Yangtze River

Silk Roads: Paths for the Faithful

Apr 12, 2026 / terry / No comments

The Silk Roads were overland routes connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea, which allowed the trading of silk, paper, gold, jewels, horses, and other goods. These began during the 2^nd Century BCE at the time of the Roman Empire in the West and the Han Dynasty in the East. The Silk Roads remained active until the 15^th Century CE, when they were largely replaced by maritime trading routes. At present they are mainly used for archeological research and tourism. The illustration shows a modern camel caravan in the desert near Dunhuang. As well as trade goods, the Silk Roads facilitated the movement of religious ideas. Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Manichaeism, Christianity, and Islam followed the Silk Roads into China. Mithraism, Manichaeism and Islam spread into Europe.

Category: Architecture, Art, History, Painting, Poetry, Religion, Sculpture / Tags: Abbasid Caliphate, Buddhism, Central Asia, Church of the East, Dunhuang, Gandhara, Han Dynasty, James Elroy Flecker, Judaism, Manichaeism, Mithraism, Roman Empire, Samarkand, Sogdians, Tang dynasty, Tauroctony, Zoroastrianism

The Letter of Lord Chandos: Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Jan 16, 2026 / terry / No comments

In 1901, Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) wrote an essay on the inadequacy of language in the form of a letter (Ein Brief) from the fictional Philip Lord Chandos to the actual Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a famous English philosopher of science, essayist and statesman. The letter is a response to Bacon’s inquiry about the two years of unexpected silence that following Chandos’ early success as a poet. Chandos replies that he has “completely lost the ability to think or to speak of anything coherently.” He feels a deep sympathy with the world, but finds no words whereby to express this experience. He seeks but has not yet, found a language “in which inanimate things speak to me and wherein I may one day have to justify myself before an unknown judge.” The illustration shows a 1916 portrait of von Hofmannsthal by Karl Bauer.

Category: Language, Literature, Music, Poetry, Religion / Tags: Der Rosenkavalier, Elizabeth Costello, Francis Bacon, Fritz Mauthner, J. M. Coetzee, Language Crisis, Ludwig Wittgentsein, Mysticism, Richard Strauss, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

T. S. Eliot: The Cocktail Party

Dec 21, 2025 / terry / No comments

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) wrote The Cocktail Party in 1948. The play begins with people making foolish conversation at a cocktail party but soon proceeds to a discussion of what it means to be married to another person, and what is required to become a saint. It was initially performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949 with Alec Guiness as the Unidentified Guest and Irene Worth as Celia, the prospective saint, and then moved to Broadway in 1950, where it received a Tony Award for Best Play. Critical reviews were mixed, but audiences were more enthusiastic. The play was revived briefly in 1968 with Guinness as both director and actor.

Category: Art, Ethics, Literature, Painting, Poetry, Religion / Tags: Albert Camus, Alcestis, An Inspector Calls, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Euripides, Heraclitus, It's a Wonderful Life, J.-P. Sartre, Leonora Carrington, Marttyrdom, Mother Teresa, Prometheus Unbound, Sainthood, Shelley, Spirituality, Theatre of the Absurd, Zoroaster

Laozi: the Nature of the Dao

Nov 23, 2025 / terry / 2 comments

Laozi (老子, lǎozǐ, “the old master”) was a legendary character from the 6^th Century BCE who put together a collection of philosophical and ethical sayings that has come to be known as the Dàodéjing (道德經 simplified:道德经; or Tao Te Ching in the Wade-Giles romanization, “The Book of the Way and of Virtue”) or Laozi after the name of the author. The illustration shows a depiction of Laozi from a scroll by Sheng Mao. Following the discovery of early versions of the text written on silk and bamboo slips dating to the 2^nd Century BCE (Chan, 2016, 2025), several new translations and annotated editions have been published. This essay presents a close reading of the first chapter.

Category: Art, History, Language, Painting, Philosophy, Poetry, Religion / Tags: Alan Watts, being, Coleridge, Daodejing, Daoism, desire, LaoTzu, Naming, pantheism, Spinoza, Tao Te Ching, Wordsworth, Zhuangzi

A Way of Writing: The Art of Chinese Calligraphy

Nov 6, 2025 / terry / No comments

Chinese calligraphy (書法, simplified 书法, shūfǎ, literally ‘way of writing’) is the art of writing Chinese characters (漢字, simplified 汉字, hànzì) with a brush. Together with poetry and painting, calligraphy is considered one of the “Three Perfections” (三絕 sānjué) of Chinese art. This essay reviews the development of calligraphy and provides some examples of its beauty. The illustration shows the calligraphy of the characters of shūfǎ in regular and semi-cursive styles.

Category: Art, History, Language, Painting, Poetry / Tags: Bada Shanren, Cangjie, Clerical Script, Cursive Script, Deng Shiru, Lotus Sutra, Ni Zan, Oracle Script, Regular Script, Seal Script, Shufa, Six Gentlemen, Thousand Character Classic, Wang Jiqian, Xu Chu, Zhang Xu, Zhao Mengfu

Wang Wei: the Wheel River Poems

Oct 20, 2025 / terry / No comments

Wang Wei (王维; traditional 王維; pinyin, Wáng Wéi; 699–761) was a Chinese musician, painter, and poet during the Tang Dynasty (618 to 907). He was a devout Buddhist and used the courtesy name Wang Weimojie in homage to the early Buddhist teacher and boddhisattva Vimalakirti (Chinese name 維摩詰 Wéimójí). Vimalakirti taught the practice of sunyata (Sanskrit, emptiness; Chinese 空性 Kōng xìng), a meditative state wherein the mind is emptied of the self and becomes one with the universe. After a tumultuous life, Wang Wei retired to his villa on the Wang River about 40 km southeast of the imperial capital Chang’an (present day Xi’an). There he composed the Wǎngchuān jí (辋川集 The Wheel River Collection): a set of twenty quatrains describing various locations near his villa. Each quatrain was accompanied by a reply from his protégé Pei Di (裴迪 pinyin, Péi Dí, 714-?).

Category: Art, History, Language, Painting, Poetry, Religion, Uncategorized / Tags: An Lushan Rebellion, Calligraphy, Chan Buddhism, Chinese Poetry, Confucianism, Deer Park, Du Fu, High Tang Poetry, Li Bai, Pei Di, Sunyata, Taoism, Wangchuan Ji

W. H. Auden: September 1, 1939

Jul 21, 2025 / terry / No comments

Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) and Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986) arrived in the United States of America on January 26, 1939. The ostensible reason for their visit was to write a book on the United States, to be published by the Hogarth Press with the title Address Not Known. The two writers had just completed a book on China, Journey to a War, which was to come out in March. However, other reasons played a larger role in their decision to emigrate. Both writers were tired of the hypocrisy, complacency and insularity of British literary life. Auden claimed, “An artist ought either to live where he has live roots or where he has no roots at all.” (Davenport-Hines, 1995, p 180). In New York City they took lodging in the George Washington Hotel at Lexington and 23^rd St., had their photographs taken by Carl van Vechten, visited with Thomas Mann and his family in Princeton, wrote reviews for American magazines, and gave readings of their work. At one of these readings in April, Auden met the 18-year-old Chester Kallman (1921-1975), and fell deeply in love. The two were to remain together for the rest of Auden’s life. In June, Auden and Kallman departed on a two-month trip by Greyhound Bus across the United States, that served as their honeymoon. They visited New Orleans, stayed for a while with Frieda Lawrence in Taos, and ended up in Laguna Beach in California. On August 28, 1939, they arrived back in Manhattan.

Category: History, Literature, Poetry, Politics, Religion / Tags: 1930s, Chester Kallman, Christopher Isherwood, Fifty-Second Street, Great Depression, Louis MacNeice, Sergei Diaghilev, Skyscrapers, Spanish Civil War, Vaslav Nijinsky, World War II

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