Happy Birthday "Albert Chevallier Tayler"

A few minutes ago, I happen by chance to run into a picture.
This picture:


"What a nice picture", I thought.
I was making a survey about the river Thames since I read somewhere about the wonderfull landscapes along the entire run of the river Thames.
So, I was browsing through Wikipedia in german language.
In german "Thames" is "Themse".
All of a sudden, I was attracted by a picture.
The picture that you can see above, is a portrait of the river Thames and the sourrounding landscape in the countryside.
The painter is Mr Albert Chevallier Tayler.
I immediately start reading something about him since I like his style.
I discover the following:
Albert Chevallier Tayler, born in Leytonstone - Essex - on APRIL 5 1862.
Today, it would be his birthday.
Still: 2012 - 1862 = 150.
So, today, 150 years ago Albert Chevallier Tayler was born.
I saw others picture painted by him.
I like very much his style and the subjects that he represents.
These subjects are the England that I like very much.
Furthermore, it is the England of the Victorian Era (since he was born - as I said - in 1862 and died in 1925). The same England of Sherlock Holmes, as well.

 

Apart from the silly outfits, that England still exists if you look for it. There are some stunningly picturesque parts that so often get overlooked because for some reason, so many tourists (both foreign and domestic) seem to think its all about the cities.

When I think of Victorian England, I imagine (obviously never having experienced it) choking smog from all the coal fired power stations and steam engines, people so thin from hunger that they practically fade away, extreme poverty, illness and unimaginable hardship, then a tiny minority at the top of the food chain who live in luxury while kids do their bidding. A bit like in the film Mary Poppins really.

 

So this is what post industrial revolution romanticism has lead to then you sweetcakes.

 

Probably, something like this (by the same painter):


...and as a confirmation of that, by reading Sherlock Holmes, one reads about those urchins out in the streets of London.

 

Although that's not the kind of picture I personally would like to spend too much time looking at, I think its more 'art' than the previous picture, in that it captures much more information and feeling. Look at the woman in the foreground, the one holding the child's hand. The way she hangs her head, her face is despondent. She has given up all hope for herself and is now solely focused on trying to give the kid more than she's had. The old woman in the chair looks like she's just wait for her number to be called.

In many ways, thankfully, things have changed loads since Victorian times. Child labour has been outlawed, the work houses have closed, and its not as easy to starve to death now we have a state welfare system.

In other ways though nothing has changed. We still have a minority at the top that leach off everybody else with no regard for the 'peasants', and there is still contempt for the youth. The term 'urchin' has been replaced with 'chav' but the sentiment is the same.

 

Having said that, I add the following:
That's what they call: "Mankind's history".
It's a "book" made of pages and chapters.
Either we like one single page of it or we don't, it has been printed forever and forever it will stay printed over the eternity.
Our lives will pass by. Our history will stay forever and nothing will be able to rewind it or delete it.
One thing for sure: what we are at present it's because of what has been done over the past.
Depending on the point of view, we have to thank/complain with our ancestors.

 

History is written by the winners. It is not real. It was on the news a little while ago that kids in America are already being taught a rose tinted version of the Iraq war. By the time we're all dead and gone, the history of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be very different. They'll be glorious wars where at the request of the people, they were liberated from evil regimes.

When I was a kid I was taught at school about the glory of WW2 and how Britain had to do the riteous thing and without too much inconvenience, had to almost single handedly topple a nasty regime. Both my grandads were still alive then and they had a different version of events, speaking of bitter struggle and very nasty things happening on both sides. Like many of the folk who went through it, both my grandads are now dead, so that's two first hand witnesses gone. Many, many more grandads who served in the war will by now have passed, so as time passes, we lose more and more of those that actually saw it. Soon we will have only government vetted archives and second hand stories to tell us what happened, and over time even that information will become diluted and scarce.

So granted history is based on reality, but as a phrase in the English translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead puts it so well, 'Reality is merely the product of our imagination'.

 

Maksim i love this picture .. wonder if its poss to buy a print ? ..i go fishing on the Thames and would love to know where it was painted .. obviously the lower reaches maybe around the Oxford / Appleford area ..