Fireworks: the missing Whistler picture

I went to the James McNeill Whistler exhibition at Tate Britain in London, hoping to see his famous (notorious?) Nocturne in Gold and Black: the Falling Rocket (1875) (above) but it had obviously decided not to make the journey from its home in Detroit.

The picture, showing a firework display at the Cremorne Pleasure Gardens near Whistler's fashionable Chelsea home, became the centre of a celebrated court case. The distinguished critic, John Ruskin, hated it and accused Whistler of 'throwing a pot of paint in the public's face' when he put a price of 200 guineas (£210) on the work. Whistler sued for libel.

Perhaps the most famous exchange came when the painter was asked how long it had taken him to paint the picture, and he replied a couple of days. The Attorney-General was incensed and said; 'The labour of two days is that for which you ask 200 guineas?' Whistler replied: 'No. I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.'

The good news for Whistler was that he won the case. The bad news was that he was awarded the deliberately insulting damages of one farthing (c 0.1p). The legal fees broke him and he had to leave his Chelsea home.

The exhibition does feature another fireworks picture Nocturne: Black and Gold. The Fire Wheel, which is well worth a look. If you want to know more about fireworks in art and the arts, there's a chapter in my book A History of Fireworks from Their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion Books).

My Fireworks History: a talk and a quote

Great fun to give a talk to the CSNA, Camden Square Neighbourhood Association, in London last night about my book 'A History of Fireworks' (Reaktion). Told the story of their origins, the ambivalent attitude to the authorities in the UK to Bonfire Night, and in the USA to 4 July, how the technology changed, and their place in art, literature and music, their effect on animals, and much more. Good audience with interesting questions.

Meanwhile, the book's also been quoted in this Encyclopaedia Britannica article https://www.britannica.com/procon/fireworks-debate

Fireworks: illuminating their mysterious history

Looking forward to talking online about my book A History of Fireworks. From their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion Books) to the Boundless organisation for civil servants past and present on 11 November. 

I'm going to be talking about their mysterious origins in ancient China and the possibility that they were a by-product of the search for eternal life, how warfare played an important part in their development, how the pope became a major sponsor of displays in Europe, and how their first known appearance in Britain was at an event designed to put an end to the enmities of a 30 years civil war. 

Then there will be the story of how 5 November, Bonfire Night, became a focus for disorder and anti-government protests, how British fireworks conquered the world in Queen Victoria's time, and how they featured at the centre of one of Britain's most famous libel cases involving one of Britain's most celebrated artists.

I will reveal the technological breakthroughs that have transformed fireworks and displays, describe how they have inspired music and literature, reminisce over the rise and fall of famous British manufacturers, and examine the challenges fireworks now face from worries about the environment and the effect they have on animals.

Scroll down this web page to find out more https://www.boundless.co.uk/news-competitions/lifestyle/meet-the-online-storytellers

Japanese artist Hiroshige and fireworks in art

The great Japanese artist Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) is currently featured in an exhibition at the British Museum entitled 'Artist of the Open Road', which includes one of the pictures I used in my book A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion Books) in the chapter on fireworks in the arts.

Entitled Fireworks over Ryogoku Bridge (1858), it is a woodblock print showing a display at the famous bridge built in the seventeenth century over the Sumida River in Tokyo. The area remains a popular venue for pyrotechnics to this day, and there is also a fireworks museum. 

Not featured in the exhibition, but included in my book is another of Hiroshige's prints Enjoying the Fireworks and the Cool of the Evening at Ryogoku Bridge (c. 1847). This work concentrates on the audience rather than the fireworks.

Although there are many fine pictures of fireworks from famous painters such as Turner, Whistler and Joseph Wright, quite a few artists have found the audience as interesting as the spectacle. As early as 1579, Giovanni Ambrogio Brambilla’s depiction of the celebrated Castel Sant’Angelo display in Rome shows a rather blasé crowd. Although they are so small in the frame to be almost a detail, on close examination they seem to be chatting among themselves rather than taking in the great events in the sky.

While in Fire-Works on the Night of the Fourth of July (1868) by the American artist Winslow Homer, the fireworks are incidental and our eye is drawn to the toff in the foreground, whose hat is being hit by a falling rocket

This is the link for the exhibition - https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/hiroshige-artist-open-road?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=22446594171&gbraid=0AAAAADPXika-SUY2YYg-fnS52S2BwTZU-&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIj92kspndjgMViplQBh187xnjEAAYASAAEgJp0vD_BwE

A History of Fireworks: my interview on New Books Network

Great fun to be interviewed on New Books Network by Miranda Melcher about MY new book 'A History of Fireworks from their Origins to the Present Day' (Reaktion Books). We talked about their mysterious origins, and how they might have been a by-product of the search for eternal life, how they came to England, how Bonfire Night became both compulsory to celebrate by law and a focus for political disorder and hooliganism, the dramatic breakthroughs that got us to the sophisticated displays of today, how fireworks have been portrayed in the arts, their practical uses, for example, in rescuing shipwrecked mariners or trying to change the weather, and the challenges they now face because of noise and pollution. You can hear it all here:

 newbooksnetwork.com/history-of-fireworks-from-their-origins-to-the-present-day

Free talk on storms TONIGHT, North London

What were the deadliest storms ever? Which storms changed the course of history?  How have storms been portrayed in literature, art and films? What impact have they had on religions?And are they going to get even stronger?

These are some of the topics I will be tackling in my free talk at Highgate Library Civic and Cultural Centre, Croftdown Road, London NW5 1HB at 1930 tonight.

The talk is based on my book, Storm: Nature and Culture (Reaktion).

Free talk on storms - a week today, North London

What were the deadliest storms ever? Which storms changed the course of history? What impact have storms had on religions? How have they been portrayed in literature, art and films? And are they going to get even stronger?

These are some of the topics I will be tackling in my free talk at Highgate Library Civic and Cultural Centre, Croftdown Road, London NW5 1HB at 1930 on Thursday 11 May.

The talk is based on my book, Storm: Nature and Culture (Reaktion).

'Storm: Nature and Culture': new reviews

Here's another review of Storm. This time from the Church Times.

I've also had this review from an Indian environmental website:- http://www.downtoearth.org.in/reviews/storm-front-57277?platform=hootsuite

Storms in art

The only seascape painted by the great Rembrandt is Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633). It shows Christ being calmness itself while his disciples panic, and one throws up over the side. Or perhaps that should be ‘showed’ as the painting was stolen from Boston in 1990 and has not been seen since.

At about the time Rembrandt was at work, landscape painting was emerging for the first time as a respected genre, The great French master Nicolas Poussin quickly latched on to the spectacle provided by a storm in his Landscape During a Thunderstorm with Pyramus and Thisbe (1651) with its trees bending in the fierce wind and its sky riven by lightning.

Poussin took a story from ancient Babylon, but during the seventeenth century, Dutch painters such as Ludolf Bakhuizen began to create naturalistic contemporary storm scenes, often with a hint of blue sky to demonstrate the wild weather was a temporary phenomenon and that order would soon be restored.

But by the end of the eighteenth century, a darker mood was emerging with painters such as the Frenchman Claude-Joseph Vernet painting tiny human figures striking anguished poses as a tempest rages around them. Like the great British depicter of storms, Turner, Vernet was said to have once had himself lashed to the mast of a ship in a tempest in the interests of research.

For more on storms in art, films, literature and religion, the worst storms of all time, and how storms have changed the course of history, see my new book, Storm: Nature and Culture (Reaktion). 

Storm: sightings of my new book!

The first hints about my new book Storm: Nature and Culture are beginning to appear on the internet. Published by Reaktion Books, it is due to be published in September.

Storms are one of the most awesome expressions of the power of nature that all of us will experience in some form - hurricanes, gales, thunderstorms, hail, monsoon rain, sand and dust storms, tornadoes. Storm will be the first book to examine all aspects of tempests - 

the stories of the fiercest we have experienced
how they have changed the course of history
how important storms and storm gods have been in religion
how they have influenced art, cinema, and literature
how humanity has tried to control them through religion, superstition and science
whether they are going to get fiercer in the future
etc, etc

Storm, like my last book Flood: Nature and Culture appears in Reaktion's Earth series.

Here is a selection of internet pieces about Storm:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/storm/john-withington/9781780236612
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Storm-Nature-Culture-John-Withington/dp/1780236611?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
http://www.bibliovault.org/BV.book.epl?ISBN=9781780236612

Floods in art

Floods are the natural disaster most commonly suffered by humanity, so it is not surprising that they have so often proved an inspiration for painters. Noah’s flood, for example, was one of the first subjects in Christian art, portrayed on the walls of the catacombs beneath Rome from as early as the third century (above).

It has been depicted by artists as diverse as Michelangelo, Raphael, Breughel, Poussin, Turner, Géricault, Millais, Dali, Chagall, and David LaChapelle. Other flood myths, such as the ancient Greek story of Deucalion also attracted artists like Tintoretto.

What attracted the Impressionists to floods was how the changed landscape gave them a new opportunity to investigate the fleeting effects of light. When Port-Marly on the Seine was inundated in the spring of 1876, Sisley painted it seven times, and Monet and Camille Pissarro also executed multiple takes on real floods.

Worries about global warming have stimulated the imaginations of modern artists, with illustrators Robert Graves and Didier Madoc-Jones composing London as Venice in which Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament have become islands in a lake, while the British graffiti artist Banksy painted the slogan: ‘I don’t believe in global warming’ on a wall above a London canal in such a way that the letters seemed to be disappearing beneath the water.

*The full story appears in my new book, Flood: Nature and Culture (Reaktion Books ISBN 978 1 78023 196 9) which also includes chapters on how floods have been portrayed in literature and films, on the flood myths that appear in dozens of religions, on history’s deadliest floods, on how some of the most ambitious structures ever built have been erected in an effort to combat flooding, and on the impact that climate change may have on humanity’s attempts to fight floods in the future.

** Here I am being interviewed about floods by BBC Radio Humberside - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDrkPEVsz2o