Marmoreal: Down the Rabbit Hole

Writing this blog post has been like an Alice adventure. It has led me down the cyberspace rabbit hole yet again. I first questioned the origins of the word marmoreal. Then my poet’s brain took off with marmoreal kind of sounding like memorial, marsupial, arboreal, armoury, marmoset, and marmite. This led to memories of marbling on paper in Turkey, followed by a spate of YouTubing sessions on how to paint to give the illusion of marble on architectural features including the Scagliola plaster technique. Finally I began comparing the cost differences between real marble columns versus wooden ones painted in faux marble. Here’s what I’ve discovered.

The word marmoreal means that something is made up of or looks similar to marble. There are differing opinions about this word’s roots, however let’s go with the Entymonline version*(1). The word marble came into use between the 12th and 14th century, dissimilated from marbra (mid-12th c); from the Latin marmor (marble) or a cognate with the Greek word marmaros meaning ‘marble gleaming stone’. The ‘al’ is an English suffix.

There is printed evidence that marmoreal, a marble derivative, has been in use since 1656*(2). Interestingly, other words that joined the English language in print that same year include: abysmal, anarchic, analyst, linear, spitfire, star-studded, handwrite, and recreational.

After exploring marmoreal as a word, I began thinking about marbly and faux marbly things. My mind jumped to the Turkish art form Ebru, an ancient paper marbling technique. The effect is created when coloured pigments are put into oily water by dropping, sprinkling or brushing then transferring the patterns onto paper.

Ebru technique, Emre Tan's studio, Konya, Turkiye

I had the privilege to learn Ebru from artist Emre Tan in Konya, Turkiye in 2011. I spent a day with Emre in his studio experimenting with pages from a 1950s Encyclopaedia, which produced lovely effects.

Ebru examples, Emre Tan's studio, Konya, Turkiye

When researching painting techniques to imitate marble, the Building Conservation*(3) website proved useful. The authors Francis Stacey and Jane Davies put forward that painting faux marble has been an ongoing activity for millennia with early examples in Pompei. Also, the technique was very popular in the 17th century decorating all sorts of architectural features i.e. columns. Tricking the eye into thinking painted wood was in fact real marble most likely developed when the proper stone was too expensive or moving it proved difficult.

Scagliola is another technique*(4) applied to various materials (i.e. wood) to imitate marble. It is plaster that has gypsum (Scagliola) as its primary ingredient. Part of the secret of its beautiful illusion is the addition of marble bits and dust. Silk strings with pigment are pulled through the wet mixture to achieve the appearance of veining.

With further research I became curious about the different faux marbling painting techniques and decided to do a bit of YouTubing instruction and hands on experimentation. It’s not easy and I deem my first attempts failures, but I’m certain it could be achievable with practice.

Faux marble painting experiment

I then researched the cost of stone columns. I found a nice pair of Italian Marble Columns (97cm x 36cm x 36cm) on the 1st Dibs website*(5) for £20,278.50 which doesn’t include shipping.

Pair of marble columns, Italy, late 19th century

I wondered what the cost would be to have wood columns made with the idea that I would paint them with a marble effect. I contacted Roger Marwood*(6), a woodturner, and requested a quote for creating two columns the same size and similar in style as the Italian marble columns pictured above. He gave me a quote of £1,700 + VAT in tulipwood - total £2,040.00 plus £150.00 for delivery.

If I were then to paint the columns myself, imagine the cost savings! If I had a professional decorator specialising in marbling effects do the painting, the cost savings I believe would still be considerable compared to purchasing real marble columns.

I could go on and on with my research, eat cake and grow big, but I’m done now. I did find it inspirational so here’s my creative contribution - a Villanelle with artistic license.

Marmoreal

Gypsum, marble bits, dust and heart
mixed with glue, coloured silk strings pulled
through plaster - veins - life’s blood is art.

Such trickery! Trompe l’oeil depart
from what is real, that has fooled.
Gypsum, marble bits, dust and heart

not cold as stone, but warm as tart
from oven, taste with eyes and pulled
through plaster - veins - life’s blood is art

that can be painted too, to start
with loving hand and brush, be fooled.
Gypsum, marble bits, dust and heart

applied, spread thin - not cheap Walmart
stuff, but a gold lump of soul pulled
through plaster - veins - life’s blood is art

that may upset the applecart
when found untruths and one’s been fooled.
Gypsum, marble bits, dust and heart
through plaster - veins - life’s blood is art.

So there you go. I’ve briefly taken you down the marmoreal rabbit hole. Such an adventure and just a stone’s throw away to another theme ready and waiting.

Thank you for reading.
Kate
😃

*1 https://www.etymonline.com/word/marmoreal
*2 https://www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/1656?src=defrecirc-timetraveler-etycard
*3 https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/marbling/marbling.htm
*4 https://johncanningco.com/blog/the-art-of-scagliola-plaster/
*5 https://www.1stdibs.com
*6 http://www.marwoodturner.co.uk

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La Belle Villanelle

Every so often, just to keep us on our poetic toes (so to speak), we like to blog about a specific verse form. It's a while since we did so - the ballad was the most recent, if I recall correctly. This week, then, we're giving a turn in the Dead Good spotlight to something called the villanelle.

You know you're going to get a bit of a back story from me, and here it is. This particular form of verse originated as a rustic peasant song with stylized calls and refrains (villanella) in medieval Italy. It was part of the continental oral tradition and its themes were routinely pastoral.

In its fixed and written form it dates back to France at the beginning of the 17th century when one Jean Passerat composed 'Villanelle - J'ay perdu ma Tourterelle' ...I've discarded my Turtle dove in the most careless fashion. Sorry, I couldn't resist messing around with the translation :-)

Thereafter, all villanelles followed the template of Passerat's verse: a 19 line poem consisting of five tercets and a quatrain, in which line 1 (the first refrain) repeats at lines 6, 12 and 18; line 3 (the second refrain) repeats at lines 9, 15 and 19; lines 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, and 17 share an end rhyme; and lines 4, 7, 10, 13 and 16 share another end rhyme.

Ah, the beautiful, tumbling symmetry of it - but it's a beggar of a task to compose one - and as Adele stated in her blog on this theme a couple of days ago, it's not just about rising to the technical and metrical challenge of the form; the intent is to use the structure creatively to reinforce the power of what the poet is writing about.

Although la belle villanelle as a formal composition originated in France, the majority of villanelles have in fact been written in English. Edmund Gosse first popularised it in late Victorian England and such luminaries as Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, William Empson, Dylan Thomas, W.H Auden and Sylvia Plath then picked up on it in succeeding decades.

More recently, the new formalists revived it and Elizabeth Bishop and Wendy Cope have written a series of well-received villanelles. This week it has been the turn of the Dead Good Poets.

The Dead Good Blog has hosted two excellent and powerful villanelles already this week (and a Kathanelle). Frankly, I think my own effort, freshly wrestled to the page (with a wry pun and a suitably pastoral metaphor), lacks the compelling power of those earlier poems - not that it's a mere contractual obligation - but I'll leave you to be the judge of that. Let me know what you think...

Helping Wendy Cope
In your mind, you are still twenty-nine,
a fledgling talent eager for the game,
a fruitful harvest budding on your vine,

though when I throw you out a line
you can't recall the poem's name;
in your mind, you are still twenty-nine.

Your early work, though anodyne,
suggested you'd learn how to frame
the fruitful harvest swelling on your vine.

We pruned your words. I helped you to define
the style to which your fame lays claim;
though in your mind, you are still twenty-nine

and have no recollection of the heady wine
we served, or the success that came
of fruitful harvest ripening on your vine.

My long-time friend, I've read the warning signs:
the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Forever in your mind, you will stay twenty-nine,
a random harvest budding on your vine.


Thanks for reading. Have a great week, S ;-)

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Oscar Wilde- a villain, hell!

I know relatively nothing of Oscar Wilde's work. Like most writers, I have an anthology and like most, I have flicked through it from time to time but to write something on the theme- you're having a laugh. 
What I do know about the man is that he was locked up for being a homosexual, the criminal! On account of him being a villain then, a villanelle. 

Heavyweight Themes

This week the blog post will be late
The gap between words and my mind is vast
I'm afraid, my friends, you'll have to wait.

We're discussing another literary great
Something I found out on Monday past
This week the blog post will be late.

Six days to research a heavyweight
A Dickens or Wilde is just too fast
I'm afraid, my friends, you'll have to wait.

Ideas- all the links- they vibrate, mutate
Though they gather up they just won't hold fast
This week the blog post will be late.

I cannot sit here until my pupils dilate
Sticking bad quotes together with Elastoplast
I'm afraid, my friends, you'll have to wait.

But reader, know I don't mean to aggravate
I just dare not to wrong the enthusiasts
This week the blog post will be late
So I'm afraid, my friends, you'll have to wait.



Thanks for reading,
S.

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Here Kitty, Kitty...

For me, the most wonderful thing about poetic form is the ability to abandon it.  To know that your words slip off the tongue but refuse to rhyme.  To know that they look like a poem on the page but that their metre is rebellious, out of sync.  To know that there's a thread tying the language together which doesn't have a name, which has been created specially for this poem, because it fits.  

Limericks work when you want to have fun with ideas:

There was an old woman whose cake

Was a hit at the Veganfest Bake

When they pressed for the key

To her sticky green treats

She revealed jars of 'jus de grass snake'.

Villanelles are inextricably linked to villains in my mind (due to an obvious lack of imagination).  The repetition is fab if you have a cracking line that you're really proud of and want to share again and again and again:

Richard III

Rude ragged nurse blurs inky star to smear

Numb, sobbing Liz disrupts conjecture’s thrust

Dick bores through swells of corpses clutching Lear.

Drunk Clarence sings of regal mutineers

Mad Margaret taints each act with bitter rust

Dick bores through swells of corpses clutching Lear.

Round bishop calls for berries, feigning cheer

A messy end awaits his fruitless lust

Rude ragged nurse blurs inky star to smear

York's setting sun yields to a frost-tipped spear

Brash, gnashing boar's impatient dash through dust

Rude ragged nurse blurs inky star to smear

Brave Billie frames Dread Dickie; motives clear

Spiced nest retains wet seal for lack of trust

Dick bores through swells of corpses clutching Lear.

No pony for the king who perseveres

Bloodline of John of Gaunt smeared with mistrust

Rude ragged nurse blurs inky star to smear

Dick bores through swells of corpses clutching Lear.

But these poems don't speak in the same way my free verse speaks.  They are tied down.  The ideas chase the shapes rather than the other way round.  Which is why I love to pervert form, to know it and then abandon it - with abandon:

Fat Cat Demands

Every day he must feast on the fishes, consume the cream,

or small corpses will be written on the doorstep:

a head, a limb

a baby, a foetus.

Veiled threats scribbled in net curtains with claws.

Damp stains in the corner that soap won’t shift.

pivotal puss

penned population

Selfish Kitty – too vital to die, too big to break:

Roll him down the steps of St Paul’s and he purrs,

The cat got the cream and came back for the herd.

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