25 January 1759 - Robert Burns born.

The famed Scottish poet whose birthday will be celebrated by Scots around the world tonight - Burns Night.

His best known poems are Auld Lang Syne (1788), Tam O'Shanter (1791) and To a Mouse (1785). His birthplace in Alloway, Ayrshire has been a museum since 1903.

Today I bought the collected poems of William McGonagall (1825-1902). I don't normally read poetry and I suspect no-one here does either, but try out McGonagall. He's acclaimed as the world's worst poet, I don't want to be unkind but it's a title well earned. They are so utterly dreadful that they're must read classics.

He wrote verses on many subjects the most common being historical events and especially contemporary events, I assume he would scour the newspapers for happenings and scribble out some lines, often with hilarious effect even though many of the incidents he wrote about were disasters.

Even American tragedies got the McGonagall treatment. the Johnstown Flood of June 1889 is immortalised in his epic The Pennsylvania Disaster. The first two verses give a taste of what's to come -

TWAS in the year of 1889, and in the month of June,
Ten thousand people met with a fearful doom,
By the bursting of a dam in Pennsylvania State,
And were burned, and drowned by the flood– oh! pity their fate!

The embankment of the dam was considered rather weak,
And by the swelled body of water the embankment did break,
And burst o’er the valley like a leaping river,
Which caused the spectators with fear to shiver.

He wrote dozens more such atrocities,

25 January 1759 - Robert Burns born.

The famed Scottish poet whose birthday will be celebrated by Scots around the world tonight - Burns Night.

His best known poems are Auld Lang Syne (1788), Tam O'Shanter (1791) and To a Mouse (1785). His birthplace in Alloway, Ayrshire has been a museum since 1903.

Apart from Auld Lang Syne, it's atrocious. 

Seems as if you are a "Poet who don't know it." 

26 January 1824 - (Jean-Louis André) Théodore Géricault died. 200 years ago today.

French painter who specialized in equestrian scenes, but is best known for an entirely different work the dramatic The Raft of the Medusa (1819) depicting the aftermath of the sinking of the frigate Méduse in 1816. In 1821 he was commissioned to paint a series of portraits in a lunatic asylum.

He died aged just 32 from tuberculosis and weakened ironically by a series of riding accidents.

No doubt he had something to say on Elvis' pelvic gyrations too. 

27 January 1756 - (Johannes Chrysostomus) Wolfgang (Theophilus) Mozart born.

Arguably the world's greatest composer. Better known as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, although Amadeus was never one of his baptismal names.

A child prodigy Mozart began writing and performing music from the age of six, from 1762 to 1771 he and his family toured Europe showing off the child genius. He composed over 800 pieces of music in his short life, he died aged 35, the most notable being the operas The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), Cosi fan tutti (1790), The Magic Flute (1791).

28 January 1912 - (Paul) Jackson Pollock born.

American artist, a leading exponent of abstract expressionism. Killed in a road accident aged 44.

Can't say I think much of this kind of "art".

Looks like an aerial shot of London taken by a German bomber c.1940; I'm stumped if it's anything else.

29 January 1860 - Anton Chekhov born.

Russian author of a series of short stories before concentrating on plays on which his fame mostly rests including The Seagull (1895) and The Cherry Orchard first performed six months before his death aged 44 in 1904.

28 January 1912 - (Paul) Jackson Pollock born.

American artist, a leading exponent of abstract expressionism. Killed in a road accident aged 44.

Can't say I think much of this kind of "art".

In the eye of the beholder, as they say. There are certain kinds of abstract art I do like, as we saw with Dali recently. I like stylised art, by which I mean a painting of a famous scene, say the Houses of Parliament in false colours. So called modern art like this finds its worshippers from the snobbish side of the art world or the trendy side who like to believe they are sophisticated because they 'understand' it, unlike we art peasants. Many years ago we had a programme on tele which played tricks on people and in one episode they got a few chimps to do some paintings and then had them mounted, the paintings, not the chimps and exhibited them and invited a group of prominent art critics to view them. They arrived and because they thought the paintings were the work of prominent artists they waxed on about them, what they saw, what the artists were trying to achieve etc and then they exposed the true artists to them and I think they wanted the earth to open up and swallow them. Modern art exposed I believe. 

2024-01-01 04:58:20

1 January 1944 - Sir Edwin Lutyens died.

English architect, designer of many country houses, public buildings and war memorials, most notably the Cenotaph in Whitehall (1920). He was the principal architect in the construction of New Delhi in the 1920s and 30s. Knighted in 1918.

I agree about modern art. I never bother with the Modern Art section in art galleries, I simply don't understand it. In my mind a painting should look like the object being painted. Not really keen on the watery paintings by Monet or Turner either.