The Good Shepherds: The Planners That Lead from the Back

Gustav Klimt, ‘Beech Forest’

Over the long summer holidays Martin and I had an appetite for adventure.

We played cricket in the back garden, made a den in the shed and caught grasshoppers in jam jars. We clambered across the patient branches of the old lilac tree and leapt over the high wire fence into the council-owned sports fields beyond - to join the Chergwins and Richards for makeshift Olympics: jumping in the sandpit, boxing without gloves, running against a cyclist. Technically we were not allowed to play in the council fields, and when occasionally a light aeroplane flew overhead with its lights blinking, we all dived face down onto the grass so as not to be identified in the photographs. 

Sometimes Granddad Carroll would take us for long walks in Epping Forest with Chips, his faithful bull terrier. Before we set foot into the vast ancient woodland, he told us to make arrows from twigs and place them periodically along the route – that way we could retrace our steps later, back to the safety of the car park and a hot sweet tea from the tartan Thermos. 

And so we set off, scampering past majestic oaks and tall lean silver birch trees, weaving in and out of pathways, diving into ditches, sprinting into clearings. The leaves and moss were soft underfoot, the light dappled from the canopy above. The forest seemed wild and infinite. There were no people, just us.

And every now and then Martin and I carefully placed our twig arrows on the ground to mark the way. We took this responsibility very seriously. The fate of us all depended on it.

Of course, Epping Forest was not quite so immense and treacherous as we imagined. And the twig arrows were surplus to requirement. Granddad knew exactly where we were and how to get back to the car. He just wanted to heighten our sense of adventure.

Granddad was the Good Shepherd, gently guiding us along the right path, steering us through the wild wood to safety – empowering and yet in control, without impressing the fact upon us.

I was reminded of our Epping Forest exploits when I was judging the APG Planning Awards last year.

Many of the case studies broke with convention. They didn’t relate the story of a brilliant analysis or blinding insight. These were not simple linear narratives of before and after. Rather they were tales of Planners quietly, conscientiously coaxing a concept through to fruition; or carefully, cautiously evolving a campaign so that it retained its freshness.

How do you navigate a bold new creative idea through an institution as bureaucratic and conservative as the United Nations? How do you convince a serious-minded enterprise like Greenpeace to adopt a light-hearted communication initiative? How do you maintain consumers’, and indeed Clients’, interest in long-running campaigns like Marmite, IKEA, Change4Life and Audi?

The job of the modern Planner requires that we focus on sustaining and developing an idea as much as having one in the first place. Planners must facilitate and negotiate, illustrate and substantiate. The role has evolved to embrace a wide range of functions: brand design and co-creation, arbitration and diplomacy, codifying and ‘show-running’. 

Nowadays Planners must learn to lead, not just from the front, but from the back. It is perhaps a less celebrated, more subtle duty. And one that requires a sensitive hand and an agile mind.

Like the knack for steering unruly children through the depths of the vast forest to safety.

'I hear her voice
Calling my name.
The sound is deep
In the dark.
I hear her voice
And start to run,
Into the trees,
Into the trees.

Suddenly I stop.
But I know it's too late.
I'm lost in a forest,
All alone.
The girl was never there.
It's always the same.
I'm running towards nothing
Again and again and again and again.

The Cure, ‘A Forest’ (R Smith / L Tolhurst / M Hartley / S Gallup)

No. 282

‘The Bad and the Beautiful’: Leaving It for the Audience to Imagine

‘She doesn’t speak. We move the camera in close on her. She opens her mouth to talk, but she can’t. And what she’s feeling we’ll leave for the audience to imagine. Believe me, Jim, they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’
Jonathan Shields, 'The Bad and the Beautiful' 

'The Bad and the Beautiful' is a 1952 melodrama that tells the tale of a fictional Hollywood film producer.

Kirk Douglas plays Jonathan Shields, the son of a successful but now despised movie mogul, as he sets out to restore his family name. Shields is visionary, charismatic and passionate about film. But he also suffers some of his father’s shortcomings. He is ‘the man who’ll do anything to get what he wants.’

We are given a perspective on Shields from three of his former collaborators: a director, a leading lady and a screenwriter. All recognise his formidable talent and boundless energy, but all have been burnt by his ruthless ambition.

‘He shouldn’t have shot the picture. He should have shot himself.’

The film, directed by Vincente Minnelli and written by George Bradshaw and Charles Schnee, gives an insight into how Hollywood viewed itself back in the Golden Age.

The movie industry is depicted as fundamentally conservative and financially driven.

'I've told you a hundred times. I don't want to win awards. Give me pictures that end with a kiss and black ink on the books.’

It’s an industry that has an ambivalent attitude towards creative people. On the one hand, it seeks out the best writers. On the other, it treats them like an expendable commodity.

‘I’m flattered you want me and bitter you’ve got me. Where do I start?’

Hollywood throws together diverse talent from all walks of life and is comfortable with a certain amount of creative conflict. 

'Don't worry. Some of the best movies are made by people working together who hate each other's guts.’

Above all it celebrates that precious and enigmatic commodity, ‘star quality.’

‘When you're on the screen, no matter who you're with, what you're doing, the audience is looking at you. That's star quality.’

'The Bad and the Beautiful' gives a good many film-making tips along the way. 

‘A picture all climaxes is like a necklace without a string. It falls apart. You must build to your big moments and sometimes you must build slowly.’

I was particularly taken with a sequence covering Shields’ early career when he was commissioned to produce a low budget horror movie, ‘The Doom of the Cat Men’. He and his director make a dispiriting visit to the costume department to review the potential outfits for the cat men.

'Look. Put five men dressed like cats on the screen, what do they look like?'
'Like five men dressed like cats.’

 They arrive at a lateral solution.

'When an audience pays to see a picture like this, what are they paying for?'
'To get the pants scared off of ‘em.'
'And what scares the human race more than any other single thing?'
'The dark!'
'Of course. And why? Because the dark has a life of its own. In the dark, all sorts of things come alive.'
'Suppose... suppose we never do show the cat men. Is that what you're thinking?'
‘Exactly.'
'No cat men!'

They resolve to communicate the terrifying beasts by association and allusion; by being implicit, not explicit; by showing the effects of their actions rather than the actions themselves.

'Two eyes shining in the dark.'
'A dog frightened, growling, showing its fangs.’
'A bird, its neck broken, feathers torn from its throat.'
'A little girl screaming, claw marks down her cheeks.' 

This is an age-old lesson, but it’s one worth repeating. We tend to imagine that the route to more effective messaging is direct and literal. We think that the responsible course of action is to show and tell… and tell again for good measure.

Often the opposite is true. We can create more compelling communication by intimation and implication; by suggesting and prompting. If we put less in, they can take more out.

Because, as Shields observed, if you leave it for the audience to imagine…’they’ll imagine it better than any words you and I could ever write.’

'Each day through my window I watch her as she passes by.
I say to myself you're such a lucky guy,
To have a girl like her is truly a dream come true.
Out of all the fellows in the world she belongs to me.
But it was just my imagination,
Once again runnin' away with me.
It was just my imagination runnin' away with me.'

The Temptations, 'Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)’ (B Strong, N Whitfield)

No. 281

Aubrey Beardsley: A Race Against Time

Aubrey Beardsley The Climax 1893 (published 1907)

‘Last summer I struck for myself an entirely new method of drawing and composition… The subjects were quite mad and a little indecent. Strange hermaphroditic creatures wandering about in Pierrot costumes or modern dress; quite a new world of my own creation.’ 
Aubrey Beardsley, letter to an old school friend, 1893

Like its subject, the recent exhibition of the work of illustrator Aubrey Beardsley at the Tate Britain was cut short. However, you can still buy the splendid accompanying catalogue, and there was a fine documentary on BBC4 (‘Scandal and Beauty: Mark Gatiss on Aubrey Beardsley’).

Working almost exclusively in pen and ink, Beardsley created a magical world of biblical and mythical figures; of chivalrous knights and damsels in distress; of fauns and satyrs, Pierrots and Harlequins. It was a world inhabited by masked women with cruel smiles and demonic stares; by fat ladies and femmes fatales; by cheeky cherubs and angry foetuses. There were flamboyant dresses, flowing locks and fashionable hats; malevolent serpents, exotic flowers and phallic candles. It was a world of fantasy and nightmare, both sinister and sensual. 

Beardsley helped define his times - an age of romance, style and decadence.

Beardsley was born into an impoverished middle class family in Brighton in 1872. When he was 7 he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, or consumption as it was then commonly called. There was no known cure and he was condemned to a short life of coughing, weight loss and periodic haemorrhages.

The Black Cape, 1893, ink on paper. The British Museum

Too frail for sport, Beardsley immersed himself in art and literature, and his first poems and drawings appeared in his school magazine. He left education at 16 and took a job as a clerk at Guardian Life Assurance in London. 

When he was 18 Beardsley met the Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones, an artist he greatly admired. Beardsley had a portfolio of his sketches with him, and Burne-Jones was impressed.

‘Nature has given you every gift which is necessary to become a great artist. I seldom or never advise anyone to take up art as a profession, but in your case I can do nothing else.’ 

Beardsley’s early work was clearly inspired by Burne-Jones’ Pre-Raphaelite style. But he was also influenced by the Japanese woodblock prints that were popular all over Europe at the time: delicately drawn figures set against abstract backgrounds; fine lines and intricate details contrasted with flat blocks of negative space.

On Burne-Jones' recommendation, Beardsley attended classes at Westminster School of Art. And in 1892 he received his first commission: to illustrate Malory’s ‘Le Morte Darthur.’ This required him to produce some 350 drawings when he got home from work in the evening. It was a massive undertaking. Despite the medieval subject matter, he introduced mermaids, satyrs and Pan figures to his work. He was naturally subversive.

The £250 Beardsley received for ‘Le Morte Darthur’ enabled him to leave his job. Ever aware of the illness hanging over him, he was a man in a hurry. In 1893 he supplied illustrations for the first issue of the new art magazine, The Studio, and he was himself the subject of the leading article.

‘The drawings here printed show decisively the presence among us of an artist, of an artist whose work is quite as remarkable in its execution as in its invention: a very rare combination.' 

Next Beardsley caught the eye of the great dramatist Oscar Wilde. He was commissioned to illustrate the English translation of Wilde’s play ‘Salome’.  Again Beardsley delighted in hiding provocative images in his illustrations. This time he even included teasing satirical caricatures of Wilde himself. His publisher had to be alert to Beardsley’s mischief.

‘One had, so to speak, to place his drawings under a microscope, and look at them upside down.’   

The Yellow Book Vol I, 1894

In 1894 Beardsley was appointed art editor of a new magazine, The Yellow Book. Yellow was a fashionable and somewhat risqué colour since it suggested the yellow covers of erotic French novels. In a radical move, text and image were independent of each other. The first edition of The Yellow Book was an instant and controversial success, and an elated Beardsley wrote to Henry James:

‘Have you heard of the storm that raged over No. 1? Most of the thunderbolts fell on my head. However I enjoyed the excitement immensely.’

Beardsley was now famous and fashionable. And he revelled in his transgressive reputation. 

'Of course, I have one aim, the grotesque. If I am not grotesque I am nothing.’

Beardsley cut a dash on the London literary scene. He was long limbed and thin boned, with an aquiline nose and a bold centre parting. And he dressed like a dandy, in dove-grey suits, with bow tie, hat, gloves and cane. 

Ever the modern man, Beardsley was alert to new outlets for his work. On a visit to Paris he was impressed at the creative use made of commercial posters, and back in London he became an enthusiastic exponent of the medium. In an essay in The New Review he wrote:

'Advertisement is an absolute necessity of modern life, and if it can be made beautiful as well as obvious, so much the better for the makers of soap and the public who are likely to wash…The poster first of all justified its existence on the grounds of utility, and should it further aspire to beauty of line and colour, may not our hoardings claim kinship with the galleries?... London will soon be resplendent with advertisements… Beauty has laid siege to the city.'

But everything was about to change.

In 1895, Wilde was prosecuted for ‘gross indecency.’ At his arrest he was seen carrying a yellow book, and the public assumed it was a copy of the infamous magazine.  (In fact it was a French novel.) A mob pelted the windows of Beardsley’s publishing house and his spooked employer sacked the young artist.

Beardsley sold his home and retreated to Dieppe. There he embarked on a new magazine, The Savoy, for Leonard Smithers, an entrepreneur who published ‘what all the others are afraid to touch.’ Beardsley proposed that the cover of the first issue should feature a putto urinating on The Yellow Book. This was too much even for Smithers. Beardsley was now so notorious that some booksellers, including WH Smith, refused to display his work in their windows. After only eight issues, and within a year of its launch, The Savoy folded. 

Portrait of Beardsley by Frederick Evans

Beardsley’s health was failing fast, and yet he pressed on. While recuperating in Epsom in 1896, he created a set of designs for Aristophanes’ ‘Lysistrata’: a comedy about a sex strike by women frustrated with their warring husbands. Inspired by the huge phalluses he had seen on Ancient Greek vases, these were his most provocative images yet.

Later that same year Beardsley suffered a severe haemorrhage of the lung. He moved to the French Riviera in search of healthier air, and it was here that he died, in Menton in 1898. He was 25 years old.

Beardsley’s artistic career barely spanned seven years. Conscious of his illness, he was in a race to make the most of his life - an urgent, precipitous sprint to experience the world, to express himself, to make an impression. It was a race against time.

Beardsley teaches us to treat time as a precious commodity; to make every hour of every day count. He urges us to be ambitious for our talents despite the cards life has dealt us; to be vigorous in our quest for achievement, honest in our self-expression, unafraid of transgression or censure. He courted scandal because it accelerated his progress and because he didn’t have time for courtesies. Sometimes it’s best just not to care what other people think.

Beardsley’s friend the poet Arthur Symons summed him up thus:

‘He had the fatal speed of those who are to die young; that disquieting completeness and extent of knowledge, that absorption of a lifetime in an hour, which we find in those who hasten to have done their work before, knowing that they will not see the evening.’

''Cause we were never being boring.
We had too much time to find for ourselves,
and we were never being boring.
We dressed up and fought, then thought "make amends."
And we were never holding back or worried that
time would come to an end.
We were always hoping that, looking back
you could always rely on a friend.’

The Pet Shop Boys, ‘Being Boring’ (Lowe C, Tennant N)

No. 280

Complaining v Moaning: An Uncomfortable Experience at Downtown Records



Picture by Nikki A. Rae at Record Store Day 2016

On most Saturdays of my youth I would take the bus into Romford Town Centre. I’d look around WH Smith and check out the stationery, books and board games; perhaps inspect the latest fashion at Mr Byrites; pause for a while by the concrete cubist fountain at the centre of the precinct; take in the bustle of the fruit and veg market. And I’d always pop into Downtown Records. 

Downtown provided the only suggestion of counter-culture in Romford’s bland and boring consumerist world. It was a timeless melting pot of punk and soul, rock and prog. It was a magnet for outsiders. It was here that I learned to stand at the racks flicking through the plastic-wrapped sleeves in quick tempo. It was here that I mastered how to decode a record’s content by means of art direction, typography, session players and song titles. It was here that I plotted my own particular path through popular music.

Of course, I never felt entirely comfortable. I was too much of an awkward geek for that. And however essential the album I handed over to the biker-jacketed assistant - ‘Hot Buttered Soul’, ‘After the Goldrush,’ ‘Crocodiles’ - he always remained aloof, impassive, indifferent. 

But still I felt at the centre of the world.

A common concern in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s was warped or scratched LPs. It was like corked wine, and became even more of an issue when they started importing cheaper, thinner vinyl from Portugal. I particularly recall my disappointment when my new copy of the Shalamar ‘Friends’ album fell foul of this problem: the needle could barely stay in the grooves as it rode the topsy-turvy disc. ‘Gonna make this a night to remem…ber!’

The following Saturday I returned to the store with the offending LP still in its red and white Downtown plastic bag – just to reinforce the fact that I’d purchased it from them. (The bag had a graphic of a woman with permed hair, which even then seemed anachronistic.) I marched uneasily to the desk at the back, without pausing to check out the latest releases - heart pumping, nerves jangling. I handed over the disc to the hirsute assistant. 

‘I bought this record from you last week and I’m afraid it’s warped.’

He was singularly unimpressed and stared me straight in the eye.

‘Really?’

He nonchalantly slipped the vinyl out of its sleeve to see if I was telling the truth. I felt small minded, rude, petty and ungrateful; a time waster, an irritating annoyance, an ersatz music fan. I realised the crushing truth: it’s so uncool to complain.

Of course, I left with a new record. But it took me the whole of the bus-ride home to get over the experience, and I waited a couple of weeks before I returned to Downtown.

I have never been comfortable complaining. Complaining is awkward and confrontational. It conflicts with my natural instinct to make the most of things, to look on the bright side, to be optimistic. 

And yet I’m well aware that complaining is an important cog in the wheels of capitalism. It holds businesses to account, it encourages improvement, it serves the interests of other customers. Sometimes complaining is just the right thing to do.

I recently came across this quote from John Lanchester, writing in The New Yorker.

'Visitors to Britain are rarely able to grasp – sometimes after decades of residency – the vital distinction its inhabitants make between complaining and moaning. The two activities seem similar, but there is a profound philosophical and practical difference. To complain about something is to express dissatisfaction to someone whom you hold responsible for an unsatisfactory state of affairs; to moan is to express the same thing to someone other than the person responsible. The British are powerfully embarrassed by complaining, and experience an almost physical recoil from people who do it in public. They do love to moan though.'

It’s true. Despite my deeply felt aversion to complaining, I am partial to a bit of moaning: about people that eat on the tube or rustle in the theatre; about entitled posh folk who push into queues and say ‘guys’; about autotune and cursing; about the music in the restaurant being too loud and the voices on the telly being too quiet; about minted peas and over-strong artisanal ales; about masculine hugs and imprecise stapling practice.

I know I’m not alone in this.

The thing about moaning is that it comes without conflict or embarrassment. No one challenges you or answers you back. And it can be curiously cathartic.

Nonetheless I have come to appreciate that my moaning gets me nowhere. It’s pointless, self-defeating, time consuming and ultimately pretty boring. To tell the truth, my moaning gets me down.

I have resolved to moan a little less and complain a little more. Henceforth my negativity will be channelled towards positive ends.

And yet I read that a number of retailers have recently removed the option to complain by email from their website, or have stopped responding to email complaints altogether (7 March, The Times). And customers who want to register an issue are increasingly encouraged to have a conversation with an automated chatbot.

Perhaps I’ll only properly appreciate the right to complain when they’ve finally taken it away from me. Ain’t that always the way.

'Raindrops keep falling on my head.
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turning red.
Crying's not for me.
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining.
Because I'm free.
Nothing's worrying me.’

BJ Thomas (B Bacharach / H David)

No. 279

42nd Street: The Galvanising Power of a Motivational Speech

'Remember, my contract makes me boss with a capital B. And what I say goes.’
Julian Marsh, '42nd Street’.

I recently watched the grandmother of all ‘backstage’ musicals, the 1933 film '42nd Street.’

'42nd Street’ features a tough but talented director, an angel investor with eyes for the leading lady, an ingenue who dreams of stardom, and a chorus line of sharp talking, hard working hoofers. It has a romance in peril and a stage production teetering on the edge; beautifully written comedic dialogue and splendidly kaleidoscopic Busby Berkeley choreography. It’s a magnificent movie.

Ruby Keeler plays Peggy Sawyer who arrives in New York from small town Pennsylvania intent on a stage career. At an audition for a production of ‘Pretty Lady’ she encounters fierce competition and caustic humour from her fellow dancers.

'It seems that little Loraine's hit the bottle again.'
'Yah, the peroxide bottle.’

'It must have been hard on your mother, not having any children.’

Sawyer is taken under the wings of two of the more considerate performers.

'Stick with us, girl, and you'll come in on the tide.'

The director of ‘Pretty Lady’ is Julian Marsh (played by Warner Baxter). 

'Julian Marsh, the greatest musical comedy director in America today.'
'What do you mean, today?'
'All right, tomorrow too.’

Marsh has recently lost his investments in the Wall Street Crash and his doctor tells him that his health is failing. He really must make ‘Pretty Lady’ a success. Once auditions are over, the cast and chorus are assembled for the first time. Marsh gives them a rousing address.

'All right, now, everybody... Quiet, and listen to me. Tomorrow morning, we're gonna start a show. We're gonna rehearse for five weeks, and we're gonna open on scheduled time, and I mean scheduled time. You're gonna work and sweat, and work some more. You're gonna work days, and you're gonna work nights, and you're gonna work between time when I think you need it. You're gonna dance until your feet fall off, till you're not able to stand up any longer, but five weeks from now, we're going to have a show. Now, some of you people have been with me before. You know it's gonna be a tough grind. It's gonna be the toughest five weeks that you ever lived through! Do you all get that? Now, anybody who doesn't think he's gonna like it had better quit right now. What do I hear? Nobody? Good... Then that's settled. We start tomorrow morning.'

There follow five weeks of gruelling rehearsals. Five weeks of barked instructions and tired limbs; of navigating complex steps and predatory men; of money worries and blossoming romances; of temper tantrums and nervous exhaustion.

The night before the show's opening, Marsh has a loss of confidence and his angel investor contemplates withdrawing. To cap it all, the leading lady breaks her ankle. 

It’s down to the inexperienced Sawyer to step up and save the show. Marsh rehearses her mercilessly until an hour before the premiere.

'All right, I'll give you a chance - because I've got to... I'll either have a live leading lady - or a dead chorus girl.’

Just before she takes to the stage, Sawyer is visited in her dressing room by the injured star.

'You're nervous, aren't you? Well, don't be. The customers out there want to like you. Always remember that, kid. I've learned it from experience. And you've got so much to give them. Youth and beauty and freshness. Do you know your lines? And your songs? And your dance routine? Well, you're a cinch… Now go out there and be so swell that you'll make me hate you!'

Of course, the plot of ‘42nd Street’ may now seem somewhat commonplace and the characters rather familiar. Critic Pauline Kael famously observed that it was the movie that 'gave life to the clichés that have kept parodists happy.' But ‘42nd Street’ was there first, and it presents its story with such gusto, conviction and good humour that it can still put a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye. At the end you’re willing sweet Sawyer to succeed.

As a former adman I can’t help being reminded of the drama of the pitch process. That spirit of camaraderie as a team embarks on an intense period of toil and trouble; that sense of urgency and consequence regardless of the Client or the task.

One of the marks of a great leader is the ability to unite a disparate group of people in a common endeavour; to instil the belief that this particular challenge really matters, and that each individual can make a difference.

I often watched my great friend and long-time colleague Gwyn Jones motivate a pitch winning team. He would inspire commitment with passionate oratory and one-to-one encouragement. He would give youth the opportunity to shine. He would summon industry and endurance, and yet be sympathetic when morale was flagging. And he would always demand excellence in the finished product.

It’s the night before the pitch, and the team is assembled in Gwyn’s office with the finished deck awaiting final adjustments and sign-off. All is expectation. Gwyn pages through the document in silence. At long last he looks up:

‘Now I know we’re going to have a great pitch tomorrow and you’re all going to be brilliant… But I want all of us here to understand one thing: right now we are nowhere!’

He would then pick them up off the floor and help them piece together the winning argument.

There’s nothing quite like the galvanising power of a timely, well articulated motivational speech - to revive drooping spirits, to summon last reserves of energy, to focus the eye on the prize.

‘The Bridge of Thighs’

Before Sawyer steps out on stage for her make-or-break performance Marsh gives her one last pep talk.

'Sawyer, you listen to me, and you listen hard. Two hundred people, two hundred jobs, two hundred thousand dollars, five weeks of grind and blood and sweat depend upon you. It's the lives of all these people who've worked with you. You've got to go on, and you've got to give and give and give. They've got to like you. Got to. Do you understand? You can't fall down. You can't because your future's in it, my future and everything all of us have is staked on you. All right, now I'm through, but you keep your feet on the ground and your head on those shoulders of yours and go out. And Sawyer, you're going out a youngster, but you've got to come back a star!’

'Every kiss, every hug
Seems to act just like a drug.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
Let me stay in your arms.
I'm addicted to your charms.
You're getting to be a habit with me.
I used to think your love was something
That I could take or leave alone.
But now I couldn't do without my supply.
I need you for my own.'

Bebe Daniels ‘You’re Getting to Be a Habit With Me’ (H Warren, A Dubin)

No. 278

The Miracle of Motown: Ten Commercial Lessons from the Hit Factory

Berry Gordy Photo: Tony Spina/Detroit Free Press

‘Hitsville: The Making of Motown’ is a fine documentary telling the story of the legendary pop-soul record label, from its birth in Detroit in 1958 to its relocation to Los Angeles in the early 1970s.

Motown took the raw sound of gospel, rhythm and blues and polished it to a dazzling shine. Motown was big tuneful bass-lines and foot-tapping drum patterns. It was simple song structures and sophisticated melodies. It was call-and-response singing, jangling tambourines and exuberant hand-claps; handsome orchestration, swinging horns and swooning strings. 

Motown was an intoxicating cocktail of talent, charisma and style. It was the Four Tops, the Temptations, the Supremes and the Jackson 5. It was Diana, Smokey, Marvin and Stevie. It was the youthful yearning of ‘My Guy’ and ‘My Girl’; the human drama of ‘Grapevine’ and ‘Superstition’. It was the earnest exhortation of ‘I’ll Be There’ and ‘I Want You Back.’ It was ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ blaring from the car radio.

Motown was the sound of Detroit, the thriving Motor City; ‘the sound of young America.’  It was the soundtrack to our lives.

‘Hitsville’ tells the Motown story from the particular perspective of its founder, Berry Gordy. Gordy’s Motown adventure is compelling. And it provides an education for anyone working in a business that has talent at its core. 

Born into a middle-class Detroit family in 1929, Gordy was the seventh of eight children. As a youngster he sold the Michican Chronicle on the street. Thinking laterally, he took this black newspaper to a white neighbourhood and sold more than ever. The next week he invited his brother to join him at his downtown paper stand. They sold nothing. Gordy had learnt his first lesson:

‘One black kid is cute. Two were a threat to the neighbourhood.’

Gordy was charming and smart, a natural entrepreneur and a persuasive communicator. And he had a will of iron.

‘I was always a hustler trying to make money, trying to better myself.’

Gordy dropped out of high school, became a professional boxer and served in the Korean War. He wrote songs and opened a jazz record store. Though 3-D Record Mart failed, the experience set him on the road to success.

1. Don’t Sell Jazz When Your Customers Want Blues

It’s natural that people working in music should want to pursue their own personal passions. But Gordy learned that you have to respect popular taste; to understand what working people really want from their music; to appreciate the value of simplicity.

‘I had this record store. I didn’t realise the customer was always right. They’d come in and say ‘You got something by Muddy Waters or BB King?’ and I was trying to sell them jazz… It’s only 12 bar blues, and they all say the same thing: ‘I love my baby, but my baby don’t love me.’ I mean, how many times can you say that in how many different ways? But the people in Detroit that worked in the factories, they wanted the blues. And so I realised that it was that simplicity in the music that people understood and people felt good about.’

The Supremes © Art Shay, 1965

2. Build an Assembly Line for Your Talent 

After the demise of 3-D Record Mart, Gordy found work at Ford’s Lincoln-Mercury plant. It was here that he had his breakthrough idea.

‘The factory had this assembly line and I would see the cars start out a bare metal frame and go round a circle. And different stations would put things on there, and they would go out another door a brand new car. I said, my goodness, I could do this with people.’

Gordy conceived of a record company that worked like an assembly line – a factory of talent that housed under one roof writers, producers, musicians, quality control, artist development, sales and marketing.

In 1959 he bought a two-storey property at 2648 West Grand Boulevard and set about hiring. 

3. Recruit the Best People Regardless of Where They Come From

From the churches, clubs and street-corners of Detroit Gordy drafted raw young singers and performers. From the field of classical music he hired Paul Riser to arrange the songs. From the local city jazz bars he pulled together the legendary house band, The Funk Brothers, who would provide the bedrock of the Motown sound. 

Gordy recruited the best talent regardless of musical background, ethnicity or gender. He appointed women to executive positions at a time when this was not the norm. 

‘He had black, white and Jews working at Motown…The colour of business is green.’
Otis Williams

Gordy hired Italian American businessman Barney Ales to head up Motown’s sales and promotion department after an incident at a new Detroit chop-house. When Gordy, Ales and their partners arrived at the restaurant, the maitre d’ challenged Ales.

‘I’m sorry. We don’t serve black people here.’
‘Well, that’s fantastic, because I don’t eat ‘em.’

4. Always Apply Positive Pressure

‘Sometimes you have it perfect. And you want to just get better.’

Gordy was never satisfied. He was driven by a relentless desire to improve. And he kept applying positive pressure on his artists.

In 1960 the Miracles’ ‘Shop Around’ was selling pretty well, but Gordy was frustrated. He summoned lead singer Smokey Robinson back to the studio in the middle of the night to change the beat, the sound and the feeling. The adjusted record was immediately released and became Motown’s first million seller.

‘The sky is not the limit. The sky is the first stop.’

David Ruffin, Melvin Franklin, Paul Williams, Otis Williams and Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations, 1965.
Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

5. Unlock Your People’s Potential

Gordy was himself a gifted songwriter. (He wrote 'Lonely Teardrops', 'Shop Around' and 'Reet Petite.') But he had a very particular skill in recognising and encouraging the talent of others.

‘Berry Gordy’s great ability was to be able to sense the talent that one had… Berry could sense what needed to happen to make it pop…to make it have that thing.’
Stevie Wonder

Marvin Gaye thought of himself as a jazz singer and initially struggled to find success. In 1962 Gordy stripped ‘Stubborn Kind of Fellow’ of its jazz inflections, added some big chords, some ‘Yeah, yeah, yeahs’ and ‘Do, do, do, pow!’ And Gaye had his first smash.

When Gordy didn’t have musical roles for talented musicians, he hired them for office positions. Martha Reeves was working as a secretary in the A&R Department when she was first invited to record a voice track. Norman Whitfield was employed in the quality control department before he was given the chance to join the in-house song-writing staff.

6. Create a Unique Culture

Once Motown had had its initial success, inevitably competitors flew into Detroit to determine what the secret was. They returned home empty-handed as the label’s unique difference lay in its culture: its special combination of talent, camaraderie, location, and values.

‘No one could duplicate our sound… They couldn’t get our sound because the echo chamber was the bathroom upstairs.’

There were great musicians just hanging out at Motown at all hours of the day or night. When Smokey Robinson wanted a ‘live party’ sound on 1963’s  ‘Micky’s Monkey’, he popped outside the recording studio and came back with the Marvelettes, the Miracles, Martha and the Vandellas, Mary Wilson and two Temptations.

7. Competition Breeds Champions

Having pulled together such a rich array of talent, Gordy encouraged a competitive spirit throughout the business. 

‘As the company grew, so did the challenges of managing a team… So I created competition: beat me if you can - have a better record than I have… Competition breeds champions.’

Smokey was competing with Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield to write the next Temptations song. The Supremes were contending with Martha and the Vandellas to record the next Holland, Dozier and Holland song. Everyone was vying to create the next hit. And as solo artists developed and grew in confidence, they sought to demonstrate to Gordy that their own ideas could sell too.

‘The challenge obviously is him proving himself right or us proving him wrong. But at the end of the day we all win.’
Stevie Wonder

8. Maintain Rigorous Quality Control

With so much talent competing for limited release slots and marketing support, Gordy was determined that objective quality standards be maintained. 

‘Quality control was something that I picked up from the Ford Motor Company. After the assembly line was done, they still had to go to quality control to make sure the quality was there.’

Gordy convened a regular meeting of senior executives to vote on different records’ hit potential.

‘If you don’t get them in the first 4-8 bars, you gotta go back to the drawing board.’

Such sessions could of course be the source of arguments and resentment. So it was critical that a spirit of openness and honesty was observed.

‘You’re free in here. Whatever you say, it will never be held against you.’

9. Deliver Style as Well as Substance

Gordy didn’t just produce a polished sound. He also calculated that, for his performers to achieve a broad popular appeal, they needed a polished look. Two days a week they had to visit the artist development department. At the Motown ‘charm school’ Cholly Atkins taught them choreography, and Maxine Powell instructed them on etiquette, how to walk and talk gracefully.

‘It isn’t where you come from, it’s where you’re going… We start with body language. Body language tells so much about you. You do not protrude the buttocks!’
Maxine Powell

Stevie Wonder

10. Manage a Cycle of Success

‘I always had the feeling that if you don’t keep up with the times - if you don’t innovate - you stagnate.’

Gordy knew that he had to keep moving Motown forward. And this led to hard choices.

‘It’s very hard to go through the cycle of success. People treat you differently. You treat people differently. My problem as their manager was I had to tell them the truth. And that was not always easy.’

And so in 1967 the Supremes became Diana Ross and the Supremes to give the glamorous lead singer more of the spotlight. In 1968 the Temptations evolved a psychedelic soul sound in tune with changing musical tastes. In 1969 Motown launched the Jackson 5 to bring in a new more youthful audience and to extend the company’s activities in TV. And in the early ‘70s Stevie Wonder was given more creative freedom so that he could deliver a phenomenal series of solo albums: ‘Music of My Mind’, ‘Talking Book’ and ‘Innervisions.’

However, Gordy was not as comfortable with the shifting culture of the 1970s. The golden age of Motown had been built on a spirit of optimism and bringing people together. But the US was increasingly fragmented by inequality and the Vietnam War. When in 1971 Marvin Gaye presented Gordy with the ‘What’s Going On?’ album, he balked at the overt political themes.

Although Gordy did go on to release ‘What’s Going On?’, ultimately his instincts let him down. In 1972 he moved all of Motown’s operations to LA with a view to developing its movie interests. Many of the original songwriters and musicians drifted away, and, though the label continued to be successful, something of its soul was lost. 

‘You have the greatest assembly line in the world. But people are not cars, and eventually they are going to express themselves outside the system.’

As an authorised documentary ‘Hitsville’ naturally glosses over some of Gordy’s shortcomings. But there’s still a huge amount we can learn from Motown’s founding genius - his was a phenomenal cultural achievement. And maybe that gloss is just in keeping with what was after all a fundamentally positive, life-enhancing enterprise.

‘Motown is different. Born at a time of so much struggle, so much strife, it taught us that what unites us will always be stronger than what divides us.’
President Barack Obama

'Remember the day I set you free,
I told you you could always count on me, darling.
From that day on, I made a vow
I'll be there when you want me.
Some way, some how.
'Cause baby there ain't no mountain high enough,
Ain't no valley low enough,
Ain't no river wide enough,
To keep me from getting to you.’

Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough’ (Simpson / Ashford)

No. 277

Lunch at the Spaghetti House, Holborn: Making Friends with Failure

New York Resturant - Edward Hopper, 1922

'If you want to win at life every time, do not step in the ring.’
Anthony Joshua, on regaining the World Heavyweight Boxing Title

One day in the Autumn of 1991 I took my mother to the British Museum. We wandered around the galleries reflecting on Samurai armour and the Sutton Hoo helmet; pausing in front of Ramesses, reliquaries and the Rosetta Stone. Devout and Irish, she was particularly interested in the Celtic crosses and medieval church statues. I was drawn to anything Classical, and the bearded Assyrian man-beasts. I bought her a few postcards from the shop for the collection she kept in scrapbooks back at Heath Park Road.

Afterwards we adjourned to the Spaghetti House in Holborn. I ordered spaghetti bolognaise and told Mum that it wasn’t as good as the one she made at home – with Heinz tomato soup and mince from the local butchers. We chatted affectionately about Dad, her school and my siblings.

I had decided that this was the beginning of a new chapter in our relationship. I would no longer be the sullen, introverted, taciturn youth. I would be solicitous, attentive, considerate. I would take Mum out to lunch, ask her how she felt. I would be an adult.

The day went very well and, as we parted, I told Mum that next time we could visit the National Gallery together. She was surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

A few months later she was dead.

I had made a mistake. I had left my initiative too late. I would forever be in her debt, unable to pay back all the love and affection of my childhood. And grief and guilt would cast their long shadows.

According to a recent survey of 2,000 people in the UK (Mortar/ KP), we spend 110 hours a year regretting what might have been - the equivalent of 500 waking days over a lifetime. Eight in ten people believe their lives would be better if they had taken more risks. 57% wish they had taken another job. 23% pine for past loves. 

We all walk hand-in-hand with failure and loss, with regret and remorse. And with every passing year our errors add up and accrue. They become life-companions, ghosts that are ready at any moment to tap us on the shoulder and darken the mood.

'Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.'
Salvador Dali

I was nonetheless heartened to read about another recent study, this time from the journal, Nature Communications (November 2019). Scientists at Brown University, the University of Arizona, UCLA and Princeton conducted a series of machine-learning experiments in which they taught computers simple tasks. 

The computers learned fastest when the difficulty of the problem they were addressing was such that they responded with 85% accuracy. The scientists concluded that we learn best when we are challenged to grasp something just beyond our existing knowledge. When a task is too simple, we don't learn anything new; when a task is too difficult, we fail entirely or just give up.

So learning is optimized when we fail 15% of the time. 

This has a ring of truth about it. In the creative arts practitioners have long been familiar with the concept of learning through misstep and misadventure. Failure illuminates the terrain, suggests new opportunities, and points us on the right path. It confirms that we are pioneering something new. It strengthens our resolve.

'An artist's failures are as valuable as his successes: by misjudging one thing he conforms something else, even if at the time he does not know what that something else is.'
Bridget Riley

'I love my rejection slips. They show me I try.'
Sylvia Plath

Similarly in the world of commerce, entrepreneurs and titans of industry have often celebrated the proving ground of trial and error. 

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.’
Thomas Edison

'The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.'
Henry Ford

Indeed the more ambitious a business is to pioneer new categories and sectors, the more it must be prepared to countenance defeat and disappointment. Alphabet’s innovation lab, X, seeks 'radical solutions to huge problems using breakthrough technology.’ X doesn’t just acknowledge the risk of failure; it exalts it:

'If you’re not failing constantly and even foolishly, you’re not pushing hard enough.'

The truth is that failure and how we deal with it define our character. We all look over our shoulders and see a landscape of rash decisions, missed opportunities and wasted time. But, for better or worse, this is our homeland, our mother country. It makes us who we are. 

'Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.'
Truman Capote

I have resolved to be more forgiving of myself and others; to be more comfortable with my past errors of judgement. I plan to make friends with failure. 

So from now on I’m aiming to be wrong 15% of the time. That still gives me a lot to work on. I think Mum would have understood. She’d have been surprised and amused. In her own quiet way.

 'I can't eat, I can't sleep anymore.
Waiting for love to walk through the door.
I wish I didn't miss you anymore.’
Angie Stone, ‘Wish I Didn’t Miss You’ (A Martin / G Mcfadden / J Whitehead / L Huff / I Matias)

No. 276

Bright Sun, Dark Shadows: Tullio Crali’s Futurist Vision

The Forces of the Bend

‘Every generation must build its own city.’
Antonio Sant’ Elia, Architect

I recently visited an exhibition of the work of Futurist painter Tullio Crali (The Estorick Collection, London - now closed, but you can still buy the excellent catalogue).

Futurism was a movement founded by the writer FT Marinetti. It began with his 1909 publication of a Manifesto in which he argued that Italy’s great artistic heritage was holding it back; that all its museums and libraries should be destroyed; and it should embrace a more vibrant, modern, innovative culture - one that articulated the dynamism of the city and the speed of the machine age.

‘There can be no modern painting without the starting point of an absolutely modern sensation.’

Born in 1910, Crali grew up in Croatia and north-east Italy. From an early age he loved to draw, and he was inspired when at 15 he came across an article about Futurism in his local paper. He began experimenting with Futurist techniques and themes, employing sharp angles, confident curves and bright colours to convey the vigour of the modern world; cubism and abstraction to express its vital energy.
Crali painted skyscrapers ascending magisterially into the clouds; sailors busying themselves beneath the bridge of a high-tech battleship; cranes and dredgers creating their own bustling rhythms; a bold red racing car taking a corner at full tilt.

Broken Engine

The Futurists were particularly fascinated by aviation and they dedicated a new genre of art to it: ‘aeropainting.’ Flight was for them a supreme achievement of the industrial age. It represented speed and technology, progress and liberation. It intensified the gaze, created fresh perspectives on the familiar, and offered breathtaking new vistas.

‘The sleek flight of planes whose propellers chatter in the wind like banners and seem to cheer like an enthusiastic crowd.’
FT Marinetti, ‘Manifesto of Futurism’

Crali was himself caught up in this enthusiasm when in 1928 he flew in an aeroplane for the first time.

‘Everything was wondrous, and when I found myself back on the ground I felt as if I had been robbed.'

Crali created many images that captured the elation of his experience in the air. Flying above the metropolis, floating above the clouds. The elegant curves of the propeller. The thundering roar of the engines. The bracing view from the cockpit as a pilot nose-dives into the city.

Nose Dive on the City

‘He who has to be a creator also has to destroy.’
Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’

Crali’s work was thrilling, forceful, energetic and optimistic. But there was a shadow looming over the Futurist movement. From the very beginning their passion came wrapped in a nationalist flag, and they believed that wholesale destruction was necessary to make room for worthwhile creation. Increasingly through the ‘30s their work addressed military themes, and the movement became closely aligned with Mussolini’s Fascist regime.

Crali was something of an exception. Though he created some official war art, he often clashed with the occupying Nazi authorities who considered him a subversive. 

Nonetheless Futurism ran out of road with Marinetti’s death in 1944 and the end of World War II. Crali, now sceptical about political dogma and disillusioned with the evolving Italian art scene, for a while took to painting mournful still lifes.

'My art changes form, but not substance. A lack of faith in mankind leads me to turn my attention to nature.’

Yet Crali remained a solitary enthusiast for Futurist ideals. And whilst over the coming years he found new forms of artistic expression, he kept returning to pictures of open skies, aerobatic display teams and supersonic flight. He always had his head in the clouds.

Crali died in 2000 in Milan, aged 90.

The Futurist story resonates today. On the one hand, there is something thrilling about their enthusiastic embrace of the modern world. Today, when the possibilities of technology seem boundless, we should retain something of the Futurists’ zeal, their optimism and their evangelism for change.

On the other hand, we need to be cautious. We may hear troubling echoes of Futurism’s transgressions in Silicon Valley’s obsession with creative destruction; with its corporate philosophy of ‘move fast and break things;’ with its clear eyed confidence in its own self worth and manifest destiny. 

A bright sun casts dark shadows. 


'My poor heart just flew away,
When it realized one day
The dreams that we planned
Would only end in shadowland.’

k.d. lang, ‘Shadowland'

No. 275

‘Town Bloody Hall’: Let’s Have an Argument

Norman Mailer and Germaine Greer: Photograph courtesy Pennebaker Hegedus Films

‘The topic for discussion this evening is a dialogue on women’s liberation.’

I recently watched ‘Town Bloody Hall’, a documentary film of a 1971 panel debate between four feminist intellectuals: Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston and Diana Trilling. The event is chaired by the writer Norman Mailer. 

‘Norman, I will define accuracy for myself. I don’t need you.’

It’s an unruly, combative affair. The speakers are articulate, funny, thoughtful and committed. And Mailer is not a neutral chairman. He is opinionated and outspoken, and likes to hog the microphone. Emotions run high. Audience members cheer and applaud, heckle and harangue, shout and storm out. Film-maker DA Pennebaker necessarily pursues a loose ‘run-and-gun’ style, and editor Chris Hegedus lets the material flow naturally, without commentary or explanation. It all makes for compelling viewing.

‘Just so I can defend myself against hecklers in the Town bloody Hall.’

Earlier in 1971 Harper’s Bazaar published Mailer’s essay ‘The Prisoner of Sex,’ a polemic aimed at the women’s movement. In introducing the event, Mailer anticipates that we’ll be in for both cerebral discourse and passionate protest.

‘Two enormous intellectual currents that have been going on in New York for many years are finally reaching their flood waters. One of them is that peculiar spirit of revolution which enquires further and further and further into the nature of men, women and society; and the other is of course that blessed spirit of nihilism which will rip everything apart, including free speech and assembly. I suspect we will have elements of both before the night is out.’

Mailer invites each of the panellists to speak for 10 minutes. 

First up is Jacqueline Ceballos, the President of the New York chapter of the National Organisation for Women. She argues that women are ‘underpaid and overworked with no chance of advancement anywhere.’ Her organisation helps women fight discriminatory work practices and campaigns for paid housework.

‘As far as the image of women is concerned we’re attacking the advertising industry. You know that the woman as portrayed on television, all over in the media, is a stupid senile creature. She gets an orgasm when gets a shiny floor.’

Next is Australian writer and academic Germaine Greer. Her theme is the patriarchal nature of the art establishment through history.

‘For me the significance of this moment is that I’m having to confront one of the most powerful figures in my imagination, the being I think most privileged in male elitist society, namely the masculine artist, the pinnacle of the masculine elite… I am caught in a basic conflict between inculcated cultural values and my own deep conception of an injustice.’

Greer cuts a striking figure in long black dress, fox fur and weighty Venus-symbol necklace. Her argument is lucid and articulate.

‘We broke our hearts trying to keep our aprons clean.’

Jill Johnston

Now columnist Jill Johnston takes the podium. Long-haired, laughing and clad in patched denim, she removes her shades and delivers a radical free-flowing poem that is both funny and challenging.

‘All women are lesbians except those who don’t know it, naturally.’

‘This is the body that Jill built.’

‘We should invite one of them to dinner.’
‘One of what, dear?’

Some way into her poem, Johnston is joined on-stage by her girlfriend and another woman. They embrace and roll about on the floor together. Now losing control, an irate Mailer complains that Johnston has exceeded her time-limit.

‘C’mon, either play with the team or pick up your marbles and get lost… C’mon Jill, be a lady.’

Johnston and her friends exit stage left, not to be seen again.

Mailer is an irascible figure throughout. He insists on referring to all the panellists as ‘ladies.’ He frowns and fidgets, sulks and swears. He revels in his muscular masculinity and enjoys picking fights.

‘We’ll take a vote, but I’m going to do the counting.’

‘You’re asking for a dialogue. Here it is. This is my half of the dialogue. You can counter.’

‘As usual you don’t understand what I’m talking about.’

‘You are all singularly without wit.’

Finally the literary critic Diana Trilling takes the stand. She argues for diversity of thought and action.

‘I can’t let all women be spokesmen for me. Because I’m not for their programmes necessarily. I have a great deal of loyalty to my sex and I’ve had it for a very long time. But that doesn’t mean I can be indiscriminate about the positions that I subscribe to just because they’re put forward by other women. That would seem to me to be an abdication of intelligence.’

Trilling provokes Greer by criticising her quotation of Sigmund Freud. Greer will have none of it. 

‘One of the characteristics of oppressed people is that they always fight among themselves.’

Greer revels in the sparring. She sighs, scowls, laughs and looks at the ceiling. She is a magnetic presence.

‘Town Bloody Hall’ is a time capsule. It captures a particularly vibrant period of feminism, when there were radically different perspectives on the movement and how it should proceed. It’s noticeable that wealth inequality and gay rights are dealt with at the margins. And racial discrimination doesn’t get a look in. 

The documentary stands as a testament to the power of spirited dialogue and vigorous discussion. This was a time when writers and public intellectuals were respected, when free speech and open debate were cherished. It’s bracing stuff: provocative, funny, confusing, inspiring, exasperating. And infinitely preferable to an era of cancelling and no-platforming.

The final questioner asks Greer to imagine the world for women after liberation. When she refuses to deal in hypotheticals, he persists:

‘I tried to make my question non-polemical.’
‘Balls you did.’
‘I really don’t know what women are asking for. Now suppose I wanted to give it to them.’
Greer leans into the microphone:
‘Listen. You may as well relax, because whatever it is they’re asking for, honey, it’s not for you!’

 (The American documentary filmmaker DA Pennebaker passed away last year, aged 94. His work included ‘Don’t Look Back’, ‘Monterey Pop’, ‘Primary’ and ‘Ziggy Stardust.’)

'Typical girls get upset too quickly.
Typical girls can't control themselves.
Typical girls are so confusing.
Typical girls - you can always tell.
Typical girls don't think too clearly.
Typical girls are unpredictable (predictable).
Who invented the typical girl?
Who's bringing out the new improved model?
And there's another marketing ploy.
Typical girl gets the typical boy.’

The Slits, ’Typical Girls’ (A Forster / P McLardy / T Pollitt / V Albertine)

No. 274

Nocturnal Animals: The Waking Dreams of Leon Spilliaert

Léon Spilliaert,Woman at the Shoreline, 1910

‘I am no good at interpreting other people’s dreams; I have too many of my own.’
Leon Spilliaert

I recently visited a fine exhibition of the art of Leon Spilliaert (The Royal Academy, London - now closed but you can still go on a virtual tour).

Spilliaert was born in 1881 in Ostend on the Belgian coast. He grew up above the family perfume shop, a sickly, reclusive child obsessed with drawing. At 18 he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bruges, but, after just a few months, ill health forced him to abandon his studies. He worked as an illustrator for a Brussels publisher and spent some time in Paris. However, he soon returned to Ostend where he felt more at home.

‘My head seems to be sort of filled with mists.’

Spilliaert was frustrated by his lack of recognition. He suffered chronic stomach ache and insomnia. He endeavoured to cope by taking long twilit walks through the empty streets of Ostend. He wandered down gloomy Hofstraat, past the Royal Galleries, to the wide-beached seafront. He watched the fog rolling in over the deserted promenade; the clouds looming over lonely beach huts.

'The darker the night, the brighter the stars,
The deeper the grief, the closer is God!'
Fyodor Dostoevsky, 'Crime and Punishment’

Léon Spilliaert, Hofstraat, Ostend, 1908

In infinite shades of grey, with just the occasional dash of colour, Spilliaert created images of the solitary signal pole at the end of the pier, the desolate breakwater looking out onto the North Sea. In Indian ink, watercolour, pastel and charcoal, he painted the lighthouse in a storm; the Royal Palace Hotel haunting the far-off skyline. He depicted slender trees reaching for the nightsky, moonlight falling on the mountaintop, the cemetery at dusk. 

'The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.'
John Milton, ‘Paradise Lost’

There’s a man hailing someone in the distance, a lady in a wide-brimmed hat with her back to us on the shoreline. There are young women paddling in the shallows; long robed women waiting - by the clock, by the window, on the jetty. A girl, caught in a gust of wind, holds on for dear life.

Spilliaert paints his bedroom - empty and unadorned. In his glass-roofed studio, amongst the pot plants, he studies his blue sketchbook; scrutinizes his drawing board. He examines himself in the mirror: smartly attired, but with dishevelled hair standing upright in an alarming quiff. There are dark rings around his eyes. 

'Night is the other half of life, and the better half.’
Goethe

Léon Spilliaert, Self-portrait, 3 November, 1908.

Spilliaert was an artist of unease and melancholy, of solitude and silence. He recognised that the night is a time for reflection - when, liberated from the urgent bustle of the day, a settled peace descends, and the world looks and feels different; when profound truths reveal themselves. At night we stand on the threshold between rationality and fantasy, between dreams and reality. It is a time for invention and resolution.

'I love the silent hour of night,
For blissful dreams may then arise,
Revealing to my charmed sight
What may not bless my waking eyes.'
Anne Brontë, ‘Night’

We should all respect and value ‘the wee small hours of the morning.’  We should treasure their creative potential. At night the mind is free to explore untravelled paths, to make uncommon connections. We can come to terms with the problems that we can’t quite solve in the light.

'Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.'
Samuel Johnson

I confess I have for the most part been early to bed and a sound sleeper. I have been robustly conformist. Nonetheless, I have always kept a pen and paper by my bed, so that I can record the random thoughts and recollections that sometimes interrupt my slumber. In the morning I have discovered both lateral insights and meaningless drivel. 

The difficulty is telling one from the other.

'Sunday is gloomy.
My hours are slumberless.
Dearest the shadows
I live with are numberless.'

The Associates, ‘Gloomy Sunday’ (Rezső Seress)

No. 273