Fine Feathers and Mr Lear

Many would agree that Edward Lear (1812-1888) is best known for his delightful poem The Owl and the Pussycat. What many do not know is that he was an incredibly skilled self-taught artist producing thousands of diverse images including exquisite ornithological drawings, paintings and prints. Sir David Attenborough is a great admirer and collector of Lear’s Ornithological work and has said “he did it as well as anybody, and some say he did it better than anybody.” (1)

Orange-winged Lorikeet (detail) - Edward Lear (1835-1836)
Graphite and Watercolour, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The Victorians were fascinated with the natural world and Lear’s interest and talent in this realm was apparent early on. At age 20 to showcase his work, the ambitious young artist produced a collection of 175 A2 hand-coloured lithographs to be sold to subscribers and later bound into a book.(2) This large folio of natural sized images, Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots was printed between 1830 and 1832. It was one of the first folios ever produced of this large size. Audubon, another naturalist artist was working on his Birds of America around the same time.(3)

As inspiration for the folio Lear “sketched live specimens and bird skins.” (4)  He particularly spent an enormous amount of time at the London Zoo whereby he caught the eye of John Gould, the principal curator and taxidermist. After two years, Lear’s entrepreneurial folio endeavour was a financial failure and it was Gould who took control of the work and sold the remainder of Lear’s lithographic ornithological stock.

Red and Yellow Maccaw (detail) - Edward Lear (1830-1832)
Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots
Hand-coloured Lithographic Print, Houghton Library, Harvard

It was during his time drawing, painting and communing with parrots in the cages at the London Zoo that Lear’s work came to the attention of Edward Smith-Stanley, who later became the 13th Earl of Derby of Knowsley Hall (1834). Lord Stanley at the time was president of the Linnean Society (1828 – 1834) and the Zoological Society of London (1831-1851); he was very well connected within scientific circles and extremely influential. On his own estate he also had a private menagerie and an aviary larger and of greater importance than the London Zoo. (5)

Lord Stanley, commissioned the artist to produce illustrations of his menagerie (possibly the finest in the country) which included 318 species of birds, 94 species of mammals, fishes, reptiles and eggs. Lear worked on the Knowsley estate for many years. (6)

Tocu Toucan (Ramphostos Toco)
as collected by the Earl of Derby (7)
Edward Lear (1836) Watercolour

It was at Knowsley Hall that Lear’s nonsensical works began to develop as entertainment for the Lord Stanley’s (later Lord Derby’s) grandchildren and their cousins along with aristocratic guests’ children and sometimes the guests themselves as this quote attests:                    

                        One visitor attributed Lear’s invitation to the family dinner table not a
                        nervous, kindly gesture of Lord Derby, but to his grandsons’ insistence
                        on speeding away from the dining room because it was ‘so much more
                        amusing downstairs’. Why? ‘Oh, because that young fellow in the
                        steward’s room who is drawing the birds for you is such good company
                        and we like to go and hear him talk’ So Lear, allegedly, was summoned
                        upstairs, to make the adults laugh too. (8)

Eventually a collection of nonsense poems and drawings were produced and coming to light in 1846 as A Book of Nonsense. The Owl and the Pussy-cat poem came later and was first published in a subsequent book in Lear’s Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany and Alphabets (1871). Between 1846 and 1871 and beyond, Lear was also traveling, painting, writing and illustrating other books including several travel journals such as Journal of a Landscape Painter in Southern Calabria (1852) and Journal of a Landscape Painter in Corsica (1870). (9)

Lear had extraordinary creative talent. I’ll take leave with a return to Mr Lear’s feathered friends in a form one may be more familiar with, three limericks from A Book of Nonsense:

Thank you for reading,

Kate J

(1) Higgins, C, 2012. Attenborough’s Treasured Lear bird prints reproduced for Folio Society, The Guardian, 24 October, https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/oct/24/attenborough-lear-bird-prints-book (Accessed 17 June 2023).
(2) Antiques Boutique, 2023. Edward Lear. https://www.antiquesboutique.com/antique-drawings/edward-lear---superb-set-of-six-hand-coloured-lithographs-of-parrots-/itm113658 (Accessed 19 June).
(3) & (7) Hyman S, 1980. Edward Lear’s Birds, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London.
(4) Metropolitan Museum, 2023. Eclectus Roratus, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/363843 (Accessed 17 June 2023).
(5) Peck, R M, 2016. The Natural History of Edward Lear, David R. Godine, Boston.
(6) Prescot Museum. Edward Lear and Knowsley Hall. https://www.prescotmuseum.org.uk/information/ (Accessed 17 June 2023).
(8) Uglow, J., 2017. Mr Lear A Life of Art and Nonsense, Faber and Faber, London.
Noakes, V., 1991. The Painter Edward Lear, David & Charles, London.

For further information...
Abbott Hall has several watercolours and drawings by Edward Lear created during his tour of Cumberland in 1836.
https://www.mutualart.com/Exhibition/Display---Around-the-Lakes-with-Edward-L/71499EFC72DA084C

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has 164 Lear letters, drawings and paintings. You can book an appointment in the print room to get up close and personal. I’ve done this. A very special experience.
https://collections.ashmolean.org/collection/search

The Harvard Houghton Library has thousands of Lear’s original creative works. There are around two hundred natural history sketches, studies and finished paintings with around one hundred bird sketches, watercolours and prints of birds relating to Illustrations of the family of Psittacidae, or parrots (1832).
https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/24/resources/3385/digital_only#

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The Language Of Yellow

There are many types of languages. These structured communications can be visual, written or spoken.  Language conveys meaning, and in some cases, feeling.  Colour is one element artists and poets have readily on hand. Amazingly, there are millions of colours that the human eye can detect including variations of yellow. Yellow is one of three primary colours sitting somewhere between orange and green.

Colour Wheel

The Theory and Practice of Color - Bonnie E. Snow, Hugo B. Froehlich

(Laidlaw Brothers, 1920)

The word yellow is derived from the Old English geolu meaning … yellow. However, my idea of yellow may not be exactly your idea of yellow. To clarify, we need further description and thus, there is sunny, lemon, mustard, dandelion, corn, flaxen, marigold – the list goes on.  Different kinds of yellow conjure up different types of imagery.

Throughout the ages, this bright and often bold colour varying in hue and intensity has grabbed attention, indicated danger and soothed the soul. It has warmed our hearts and homes. It has given atmosphere to paintings along with making serious fashion statements. Sir Herbert James Gunn’s Pauline in the Yellow Dress is a good example.

Here the artist has used the yellow dress to give focus to the subject and also to show that the sitter, his wife, is a self-assured woman. It takes confidence to wear such a dress, she is meant to be seen. No wallflower is she.

Pauline in the Yellow Dress
Herbert James Gunn, 1944, oil on canvas
Harris Museum, Art Gallery & Library Collection

Van Gogh also had an affinity for the colour yellow. He even lived for a time in a yellow house. He created five artworks focusing on sunflowers. These works hang on walls but hardly sink into a background. According to the Van Gogh Museum website, all of these canvases were painted in only three shades of yellow in order to demonstrate ‘that it was possible to create an image with numerous variations of a single colour without any loss of eloquence.’

Sunflowers
Vincent Van Gogh, 1889, oil on canvas
Van Gogh Museum Collection

The Yellow House
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888, oil on canvas
Van Gogh Museum Collection

For those who paint with words as poets do, yellow also provides eye-catching imagery that in one’s mind can be sweetly tasted, make mouths pucker or feel warmth of light  i.e. ‘banana’, ‘lemon’ and ‘sun’. Here is a delightful mixture of poetry with references to yellow and other colours.

XXXI

Nature rarer uses yellow
    Than another hue;
Saves she all of that for sunsets,--
    Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,
    Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
    Like a lover's words.

Emily Dickinson


Symphony in Yellow

An omnibus across the bridge
Crawls like a yellow butterfly
And, here and there, a passer-by
Shows like a little restless midge.

Big barges full of yellow hay
Are moored against the shadowy wharf,
And, like a yellow silken scarf,
The thick fog hangs along the quay.

The yellow leaves begin to fade
And flutter from the Temple elms,
And at my feet the pale green Thames
Lies like a rod of rippled jade.

Oscar Wilde


Pelican Chorus (An Excerpt)
King and Queen of the Pelicans we;
No other Birds so grand we see!
None but we have feet like fins!
With lovely leathery throats and chins!

Ploffskin, Pluffskin, Pelican jee!
We think no Birds so happy as we!
Plumpskin, Ploshkin, Pelican jill!
We think so then, and we thought so still!

We live on the Nile. The Nile we love.
By night we sleep on the cliffs above;
By day we fish, and at eve we stand
On long bare islands of yellow sand.

And when the sun sinks slowly down
And the great rock walls grow dark and brown,
Where the purple river rolls fast and dim
And the Ivory Ibis starlike skim

Edward Lear

And here’s a bit of my own drawing and writing this week…

Yellow
Kate Eggleston-Wirtz, 2021
Pen and Ohuhu marker on Paper

Colour Wheel
Cheery is the colour yellow
Warm and glowing - pleasant fellow
Brush with death the colour blue
A sad and melancholy hue

The colour yellow is the one
So full of life - so full of fun
Playful, happy then we have
The colour blue whose face is grave

Now blue upon the other hand
Could be the sea upon the sand
Where blue and yellow like to meet
In calm or stormy tidal beat

Dance together - intermingle
Back and forth amongst the shingle

Till sun says to rest into the night
Artist waking, turns on the light

Meet again on painter’s palette
Mixed emotions brushed beget
Envy – hope - blooming buds in spring
The sky, the earth and everything

Kate Eggleston-Wirtz


Thank you for taking the time to read, Kate 🌞 

https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/pauline-in-the-yellow-dress-152128 accessed 16 January 2021

 https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0031V1962  accessed 13 Jan 2021 

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What Nonsense! The Extraordinary Mr Lear.

Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and Dr Seuss are synonymous with the word ‘Nonsense’. They were the masters at turning the world on its head. However, my ultimate hero dubbed the Father of Nonsense by many, is Edward Lear. He has provided me with a lifetime of enjoyment and inspiration. Like a myriad of other children, I grew up with his delightful nonsensical rhymes like the Owl and the Pussycat that took me on imaginative journeys to surreal and faraway lands with conversing animals, anthropomorphic objects, funny people and other imaginary beings. My absolute favourite is the Table and the Chair. This poem has taken on new meaning as I read with fresh eyes whilst in isolation, banned from going to other people’s houses, restricted in movement and distancing whilst ‘taking the air’.

Table and the Chair Drawing - by Edward Lear

From A Book of Nonsense, Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics 

I

Said the Table to the Chair,

'You can hardly be aware,

'How I suffer from the heat,

'And from chilblains on my feet!

'If we took a little walk,

'We might have a little talk!

'Pray let us take the air!'

Said the Table to the Chair.

II

Said the Chair unto the Table,

'Now you know we are not able!

'How foolishly you talk,

'When you know we cannot walk!'

Said the Table, with a sigh,

'It can do no harm to try,

'I've as many legs as you,

Why can't we walk on two?'

III

So they both went slowly down,

And walked about the town

With a cheerful bumpy sound,

As they toddled round and round.

And everybody cried,

As they hastened to their side,

'See! the Table and the Chair

'Have come out to take the air!'
 

IV

But in going down an alley,

To a castle in a valley,

They completely lost their way,

And wandered all the day,

Till, to see them safely back,

They paid a Ducky-quack,

And a Beetle, and a Mouse,

Who took them to their house.

V

Then they whispered to each other,

'O delightful little brother!

'What a lovely walk we've taken!

'Let us dine on Beans and Bacon!'

So the Ducky, and the leetle

Browny-Mousy and the Beetle

Dined, and danced upon their heads

Till they toddled to their beds.

Table and the Chair and Animals Drawing - by Edward Lear

From A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear, Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics

Lear however was not only a master of nonsense poetry. This extraordinary man was a gifted writer/journalist, an illustrator, musician and art teacher (he taught Queen Victoria). He was a fine landscape painter well adept in oil painting and watercolour. Poetry inspired many of his paintings, particularly works penned by his good friend Mr Tennyson. Lear and Tennyson exchanged letters and verse for many years.

Venice 13 & 16 November 1865 - by Edward Lear

Pencil, Sepia Ink, Watercolour

From The Painter Edward Lear by Vivien Noakes, David & Charles

    Mr Lear was certainly clued into Victorian reality. He travelled the world and his keen observational skills and understanding of what he saw and experienced fed his imagination. He could be found sitting and drawing within the enclosures at the London Zoo and Knowsley Hall communing with parrots or riding a camel in Albania.

 

Red and Yellow Macaw, 1830

by Edward Lear

Hand-coloured lithograph. Plate 7 in Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, Or Parrots, 1831.

From The Painter Edward Lear by Vivien Noakes, David & Charles

 

    He took what he saw and transformed reality juxtaposing elements in text and visuals. His amusing and humorous creations initially were intended to entertain the children and grandchildren of his patron, Edward Smith-Stanley, 13^th Earl of Derby, President of the Zoological Society and later for a world-wide public fan base of children and adults alike.

Pen and Ink Drawing - by Edward Lear

 From A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear, Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics

There Was An Old Man - by Edward Lear

Pen and Ink

From A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear, Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics

   The worlds created by people like Lear, Lewis Carroll and Dr Seuss may make no sense to some, but they make perfect sense to me. Fictional nonsense is a gift – it is entertaining.  These texts have hints of our world askew with lots of ridiculous thrown in, perhaps not quite understood, but that’s okay – it’s another world, not our own.

    These alternate universes however strange they seem, are a bit of fun, they inspire me to construct my own alternative universes that welcomed relief from the often relentless, nonsensical and craziness of the outside world – and that world at the minute I’m really struggling to make sense of.

    A sampling of my own nonsensical world written 2^nd May 2020

Gwinnipeg

Gwinnipeg from Winnipeg

a perfect penguin with

an extra leg

stuck out of

her head

between

the eyes

a submarine in disguise

in water the foot like a periscope

that can balance balls and bars of soap

or do clever moves like arabesque                                                      

pointing straight up – she likes it best

when swimming the leg like a handsome horn

of the most magnificent unicorn

and when on land she flips and flops

from feet to foot she hops and hops

an acrobat – she’s hard to stop

flipping flopping flipping flopping

flipping flopping

SPLASH!

 

Credits:

Lear, E. (1846). A Book of Nonsense. Everyman’s Library A Book Of Classics. Random House. Germany.
Noakes, V. (1991). The Painter Edward Lear. David & Charles. London.
https://farringford.co.uk/news-events/tennyson-poems-blog/edward-lear-and-tennyson
http://www.prescotmuseum.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Edward-Lear.pdf

Kate Eggleston-Wirtz

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Nonsense but great fun

I have always loved nonsense poetry. One of the first books that I ever read on my own was The Cat in The Hat. Attracted by the black, white, red and blue colours on the cover, I soon discovered the joys of rhyme and nonsense.

My favourite poem was The Owl and Pussy Cat by Edward Lear. I was fascinated by the strange, mis-matched couple setting out on a voyage with a little money. Precarious craft seem to be a theme close to Lear's heart: The Jumblies went to sea in a sieve. What a wonderfully reckless thing to do - must have been like a white-knuckle ride.  Oh I know that their heads were green and their hands were blue but surely that is no prerequisite to idiocy. I have friends with brightly coloured hair who would never take such risks.

One of the pleasures of being the parent of two young children was passing on my love of literature to formative minds. My son was no great reader. It just didn't take, despite my best effort and futile attempts at bribery. My daughter was far more receptive. We would share a bath each evening and as I washed her hair, I would teach her a few lines of The Owl and The Pussy Cat. Finally she was competent enough to recite the poem in it's entirety. When she finished, I praise and applauded, then she turned to me and stated "But Mummy, pee isn't green!"  I couldn't knock her for not realising the nuances of a homonym.

Of course, Lewis Carroll's stories are peppered with nonsense rhyme. Who could forget The Walrus and the Carpenter. Even TS Eliot employed the nonsense genre in his wonderful Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Remember Magical Mr Mistopheles, Rum Tum Tugger and McCafferty - incredible character and fuel for a growing child's vivid imagination.

Like I said, I have always loved nonsense poetry. Now where on earth did I put the Quangle -Wangles Hat?

Edward Lear was also a prolific writer of limericks, here is my tribute.

Nonsense Limerick

Mabel the witch of Montrose,
had a terrible itch on her nose.
When she started to scratch it,
it set off her magic
and transformed it into a rose.

Thanks for reading. Stay safe.  Adele

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O lovely Pussy!

"...all of a sudden I knew what they were; I heard them in my head, they metamorphosed from black lines and white spaces into a solid, sonorous, meaningful reality.  I had done this all by myself.  No one had performed the magic for me.  I and the shapes were alone together, revealing ourselves in a silently respectful dialogue.  Since I could turn bare lines into living reality, I was all-powerful.  I could read."
Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading (1996:p6)

As Standard pointed out yesterday, the experience of learning to read, or discovering books, creates powerful memories.  As I pointed out last week, mothers are never more annoying than when they are right.  It is therefore with some disgruntlement that I point once more to the heroic endeavours of my mum. 

For me books will always be associated with sound.  My mum read stories to me in bed every night.  Sometimes they came from books but on many nights she would make a story up for me on the spot.  I remember clearly the first time I corrected her when she decided to ad lib and I knew she wasn't reading the right words.  The confidence I gained from reading along was invaluable.

The sound of my mum's voice. Being coddled beneath the blankets.  The sense that I was being taken on an adventure while being completely safe.  These elements explain my lifelong love affair with the spoken word. 

So much entertainment relies on the visual realm now.  There are very few activities which rely solely on listening.  When I was young my Uncle Gerrard would come to visit occasionally.  When he was staying with us he would insist that we didn't watch television.  Instead he would listen to the radio and we could join him if we were quiet.  Of course we couldn't understand this rule and resented his visits.  Why would you use only your ears when you could use your eyes too?  But there's a part of your mind that snoozes when it's spoon-fed images isn't there?  It's your imagination.  And isn't that something we should be exercising to let it know we care?

Having stories told to me continues to be, paradoxically, both a relaxing and exciting activity.  I consider myself to be incredibly lucky in that I have a loving partner who enjoys reading stories to me at bedtime occasionally.  On the days that he isn't there to read me to sleep I often enjoy listening to an audio book.  Librivox is a terrific resource for free recordings if you're a cheap-skate like me.  Alternatively, if it's poetry you crave, The Poetry Foundation has many recordings of poets reading their work.  Be careful what you listen to last thing at night, however.  Edward Lear is terrific but do you want to be stuck in a pea-green boat with a bird and a feline in your dreams?  Yann Martel tried that and look where it got him.

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They danced by the light of the moon

Back in March I posted a few lines of poetic prose on Facebook.  Nikki Magennis and Davina Geraghty helped me to make small changes to the language, to tighten it up.  I rather enjoyed the process of the communal edit.  Here's what we did:

Version 1

Evening soaking into the trees like broth into torn bread. Thickened air, like warm breath on a cool mirror. Magpie and Crow stream from the rushes, to the scandalized cries of the corvid community.

Version 2

Evening soaks into the trees like broth into torn bread. Thickened air, like warm breath on a cool mirror. Magpie and Crow rip from the rushes to the scandalized squalls of the corvid congregation.


So, this week I would like the help of you, Lear readers, to edit a new poem I'm working on.  All suggestions considered.  I am happy with the intentions behind the poem, it's the structure, rhythm, rhyme etc that I would like your help with please.  Ideally I would like to perform this at Lancaster on Friday. And so...


Poke Lear's Monster

Joy scribbles writhe in liminal puddles
Brutal and messy; compulsory corpses
Owl succumbs to Pussy Cat's splashes

Joy scribbles menace old watermills,
Harbours, cracked runcibles;
Metamorbid with their baggage of
Comments on Neo-Conservatives, loss
Or a childish compulsion:
Scab scoffing
Sand snacking
Glue grazing


Pica.  They call it pica.
Magpie.  Mudpie.
Picah-ah-ah-
Chew.

Bless You.

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