How Piet Mondrian Changed Modern Painting Forever

Who's on First? by Piet Mondrian. c. 1944. 

Every child starts out a genius. It is the responsibility of the adult world to crush their spirit of inquiry and extinguish every spark of genius before that spark helps them escape the inevitable banality of this world and gives them mad and unstoppable strength.

Such was the intended fate of Piet Mondrian, who was scheduled to become a Postal Inspector by his parents in Holland, but who instead made the daring leap from childhood prodigy to adult genius -- and never looked back. Although he always did have a fondness for rubber stamps.

Mondrian first came to the attention of the art world in 1912, when he unveiled his surrealist masterpiece "Kumquats Anonymous." It was so bizarre that it caused soccer riots in Argentina and minor flooding in the Grampian Hills. The interlocking pieces of cinnabar and darning needles clearly indicated a mind and spirit that were done with ordinary reality and ready to enter the Twinkie Zone (that's five miles past the Twilight Zone.)

The painting was destroyed during the First World War when German troops mistook it for a walrus and shot it for the ivory.

During the Twenties and Thirties Mondrian began his reductionist phase of painting -- eventually eliminating everything from his canvas but a few black lines and primary colors. Then he forged ahead and got rid of the lines and colors as well. His blank canvases sell for astronomical prices. 

He married Elizabeth Taylor in 1951, and they had 3 boys and 2 girls before they divorced in 1952.  (They both took vitamins.)

At his death in 1949 his widow had not yet been named. Most of his work is now housed in the Donnan Arena of Edmonton. Don't buy the hot dogs -- they stink. 

Sunday Diary. July 1, 2018.

I'm the middle photo, dressed for the angel gag. Ringling. 1976.

Got up at 5:30 a.m. Took my meds, washed down with the last of the Tang. I'm all out of juice now -- just 2 cans of Mountain Dew left. And a quart of milk. But rent is due, and once that's paid my food budget for July is just about nil until my Social Security kicks in on the 18th. I overspent these past 2 weeks on -- what else? -- books and exotic foods from the Asian Market. But at least the apartment now reeks of Thai basil and fresh dill weed -- very comforting odors. 

Oh, and I forgot to mention earlier that my Cannon ELPH 180 digital camera is broke -- when I turn it on it flashes the message "Name Error!" across the screen. So until I can afford another camera I'm going back to collage for my visual work, putting haiku on the back burner. What a loss for poetic literature! 

I heard back from several more reporters overnight about my NYT profile. Bob Davis from the Wall Street Journal. Joan Vennochi from the Boston Globe. And Alicia Caldwell of the Wall Street Journal. So I've added them to my daily timerick list. And taken off a few deadbeats who never respond to my poems anymore. 

As I'm writing this at 6:27 a.m. The Sunday Long Read posts on my email. I am the Senior Limerick Editor for them (as everyone and their dog must know by now) and so here is my column for this week, recorded for posterity here in my Sunday Diary:

TIM TORKILDSON'S SUNDAY LIMERICK

 

From Elite Daily:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: "Congress is too old . . . They don’t have a stake in the game.”

From Tim:
Our Congress has reached a ripe age.
They’re getting too old, and not sage.
I think the time right
To tell ‘em “Goodnight!”
And make ‘em retire offstage.

Tim Torkildson is a retired circus clown who fiddles with rhyme. All his verses can be found at Tim's Clown Alley.

I notice the cuffs on my pajama bottoms are filthy; they're too long for me and drag on the floor. Ugh. I'd better do a load of colors this morning. I have just six quarters left in my change jar. Enough for one load. 

But now it's time to turn my attention to the Book of Mormon. I've already said my prayers, on my knees. For a long time I said my prayers sitting in a chair with my head bowed, because of the osteoarthritis pain in my knees, but it just didn't seem right, so I started kneeling again. But now I'm beginning to associate personal prayer with pain, so I'm going to have to reevaluate my position. Literally. 

Sarah just FB messaged me that they want me over for dinner this coming Tuesday, and not today. I was hoping for today because Sunday really drags when I'm alone and I tend to let sad memories crowd my feelings as the sun sets and my energy and fortitude ebbs. 

(I keep getting pop-ups from ReImage for potential security breaches; one just came up now. I discontinued their program 2 years ago because both Madelaine and Adam told me I didn't need that kind of  expensive protection on my laptop -- but their damn cookies keep popping up from out of nowhere. There. Deleted.)

6:40 a.m. I emailed Bob Davis of the WSJ this morning that I needed to cancel my online subscription to their paper cuz of the rising cost of my meds -- gotta make budget cuts somewhere. So he just sent me this email:  

"Hey, we are going to get you a free subscription. We need such dedicated readers. Meet Suzi, cc:d here who can take care of you." 

Isn't that something? I'll think about THAT all evening, instead of mooning over past mistakes and sorrows. It means I can keep reading new stories in the WSJ and making poems about them. The WSJ doesn't let anyone read any of their stories w/o a subscription. Their paywall is fierce. 

Okay. 7 a.m. and time to pick a chapter at random from the Book of Mormon. Mosiah 20 looks good. I just love LDS.org for scripture study. I can make the print as large as I want and since I'm online I can stop and look stuff up as I go along. I read each chapter from the bottom to the top, just for a change of pace, so I'm starting with verse 26:  

"And when the Lamanites saw the people of Limhi, that they were without arms, they had compassion on them and were pacified towards them, and returned with their king in peace to their own land."

There's a concept unknown in the modern world -- national compassion and retreat from a weaker country. Would that we had practiced some of that in Vietnam fifty years ago. 

I think I'll make a poem to fit the verse:

Whenever there is strife among the nations, it is rare

to hear of armies that a drop of clemency will spare.

But even the most hardened troops may sometimes softly yearn

their murderous demeanor set aside and briefly spurn.

The light of Christ will work with ev'ry sinner who exists

to bring them gladly back from Satan's ever-blinding mists.

A warrior who robs and ruins in what he thinks his cause

may find the Prince of Peace has got a better set of laws. 

There. I timed myself and it took me exactly fifteen minutes to write that. It's facile, of course, with no depth. Like a watercolor. But all I care about is that it declares my allegiance. Artists, especially poets, are mostly incapable of being loyal to anyone or anything except themselves. I struggle with that weakness constantly.  Now I'll post it on the Ward Facebook page.

Okay. It is now 7:20 a.m. and I'm going to have some ramen noodles. It's Fast Sunday, I know, but if I take my meds and don't eat an hour or so later I get really sick. And I think I may start my laundry as well. It's nice that the laundry room is literally 20 feet from my front door.

8:00 a.m.  The noodles were good; I cut up some scallions into the bowl and added two eggs to the boiling water so I could poach them while the noodles cooked. 

I got 2 likes on my B of M poem on the Ward FB page while I was eating breakfast. 

I started a load of laundry, a bit reluctantly because I remember my mother would never do laundry on Sunday no matter what. It was considered the mark of a slovenly housekeeper to do laundry on Sunday. Monday was wash day -- everyone knew that. Of course, mom would slave away in the kitchen making huge Sunday dinners. I particularly remember her roast ham, studded with cloves and draped with canned pineapple rings, and her lemon meringue pie. Anyway, that reluctance to wash clothes on Sunday has stuck with me all through the years.

Well, better get back to my B of M study . . . 

Feeling flighty I instead read Elder Bednar's General Conference talk Meek and Lowly of Heart. Here's what sticks out to me from that talk:

"Meekness is a defining attribute of the Redeemer and is distinguished by righteous responsiveness, willing submissiveness, and strong self-restraint." 

I am very lacking in all 3 of these things. It makes me wonder if I can ever make it back Home worthy enough to see Heavenly Father as more than just my judge. I'll think about that while I floss and brush my teeth. I'm starting to feel tired again -- I always feel exhausted after a meal nowadays. So I may just take a little lay-down. Until the timer dings to put the laundry in the drier.

8:45 a.m.  I went to put my load in the dryer and found a box of Lipton Cold Brew Iced Tea bags at my doorstep. Now who could have done that -- and why? I only drink herbal tea, and that rarely. I think Sarah likes iced tea, so I'll save it for her when I go over for dinner on Tuesday. I'm still feeling very tired, but will start on my daily timerick for my reporter friends while I wait for the laundry to dry. You get 35 minutes for fifty cents.

8:55 a.m.  Found a story in the WaPo about a foiled robbery in a convenience store up in Canada. The tag line is "Chaplin would have been proud." That is an irresistible theme for me, so I'll send the reporter, Amy B. Wang, a timerick -- but won't share it with any other reporters on my list. Heck, I've got all the time in the world, so why not?  

a guy who attempted some stealing

in Canada got the weird feeling

he was in a flick

that featured slapstick

because a girl fell through the ceiling.

Hah! Not five minutes after emailing this to Wang she emailed me back:

Omg. I was just reading about you in the New York Times. I’m so honored to get a “Timerick.” Thanks!

Amy B Wang

Reporter | The Washington Post

amy.wang@washpost.com

Twitter: @amybwang

I immediately emailed her back:

Thanks. What caught my eye, of course, was your mentions of Charlie Chaplin. That's a hot-button phrase for an old circus clown like me. I was beginning to think that young people had never heard of Chaplin, or wouldn't dare use him as a reference anymore. Thanks for restoring my slapstick faith in journalism!  Tim T. 

Her response to my email came back in another five minutes:  

Ah, yes, of course the Chaplin reference would be a good prompt. Btw, is your Twitter handle @lefse911 or @torkythai911 (or both)?

Amy B Wang

Reporter | The Washington Post

amy.wang@washpost.com

Twitter: @amybwang

Now I'll add Amy B Wang to my daily timerick list. With her kind of adulation among reporters, I may get a write up in the WaPo before much longer!  (She tweeted my timerick on her twitter account just now, too -- I gotta start doing more with Twitter.)

Okay, now I better find a story I can write a good general purpose limerick about.

Oh phooey. I'm burnt out on rhyme. This is supposed to be a day of rest, right? So I'm gonna rework my daily timerick list -- the card I have it on is a mess and I can barely tell who I've scratched off and who I've added.

10:11 a.m.  Okay. So my new list has 24 names on it -- including 3 professors from BYU who are my personal friends: Gov Allen, Bruce Young, and Dana Bourgerie. Gov is the guy who took me out of a homeless shelter in Virginia to stay with him and his family five years ago. May God set a flower on his head.

Think I'll take a shower to see if that perks up my mental facilities a bit. Then maybe write a nonsense 'appreciation' of Picasso -- the nonsense pieces I've been doing on painters are getting more viewers than anything else. 

Amy just called. She's upstairs at Karen Allen's apartment and wants to bring down a box of Irvin mementos for me to look through. I said I'd like that. She said she'd call when she was ready to come down.

Better sort and fold the laundry.

10:53 a.m.  Another response from my massive emailing of my NYT profile. This one from Nausicaa Renner, of the Columbia Journalism Review:

Nausicaa Renner	10:40 AM (9 hours ago)
to me

Wow!! Honored to be one of the 22. Thanks for sharing.

Now what kind of a self-serving response should I send her? Heartfelt thanks, of course -- but what would serve my goal of more publicity as well? I think she's just a college student, and may never amount to much in the journalism world, so should I even worry about my response? I think I'll give her a bit of the 'old-timer remembers' routine:

Thanks.  

I always enjoy being interviewed. It used to happen four or five times a week when I worked as a clown for Ringling many long years ago. There were a lot more newspapers back then, and a lot more local reporters who came down to the show to get made up as guest clowns and then do a full page spread about it. I guess we'll never see that kind of frivolous journalism again, will we?

Tim T. 

12:22 p.m.  Amy just left my apartment. She dropped off a box of Irvin's things for me to look over and then give to Steve. She said she is trying to finally get past his death and so is sending away the last box of his memories she has.  She was very pleasant and soft-spoken and we talked mostly about her job up at Sun Valley, where she does accounts and lives in a company dorm for $200.00 a month. She said that everyone has to wear a red tag, which she showed me, on a lanyard -- otherwise there are snipers positioned throughout the Sun Valley Resort to take out interlopers w/o the red badge. She makes $15.00 an hour.  I gotta get ready to set up the Sacrament in the Community room here.

Oh, I did write up a screwy bio of Picasso and posted same on my blog. It's already had 23 views -- more than anything else in the past 2 days. It was only a few months ago when everything I posted got six or seven hundred views in the first hour. But those days are gone for good, I reckon. 

2:18 p.m.  Sacrament meeting in the Community room went off without a hitch. I walked over to Fresh Market for a baked chicken breast and mashed potatoes w/gravy from their deli. Plus I bought a can of stewed tomatoes to heat and go with it.  $5.29. 

Adam just called. They got out of church early and he's bringing the kids over to see me!  Think I'll just lay back and relax a little until they get here.

4:00 p.m. Adam and the kids just left. It was Katrina, Noah, and Diesel. I told Diesel as soon as Steve gets back from Colorado we'd make plans to go see the latest Jurassic Park movie. Diesel looked at my digital camera and thinks I just need a new SIM card for it to work again, so he's having his dad out in Virginia send me one. We played Uno -- Katrina and Noah cheated outrageously. I opened up a bottle of Moxie and gave them each a taste. It tasted okay to me, but then there was an unpleasant aftertaste. I'm suddeanly hungry for corn chips and salsa. Luckily, I've got some! Then I think I'll read some more of Joseph Lelyveld's book on Mahatma Gandhi, "Great Soul." When I tire of that I'll find some old movie on YouTube to stream for $2.99 -- and the day will be over with. 

7:00 p.m. Well, I fell asleep for a bit while reading, then putzed around on YouTube looking for a movie to stream tonight. I'm going with Bogart and Bacall in "To Have and To Have Not." After that, if I'm still not sleepy, I'll try something by Hitchcock. The Gandhi book is turning out to be a snoozer. 

Now I'm going to get on my knees to check in with Headquarters. I pronounce Sunday, July First, 2018, as officially Over.  Tomorrow is already here. 

The Life and Work of Pablo Picasso

Mother-in-Law. by Pablo Picasso. c. 1919. 

The concept of Pablo Picasso was born in Madrid in 1885. His real accouchement is unknown. As a child prodigy he began sketching while still at the breast. His father recognized the infant genius and sold the family olive oil crock to send young Pablo to an Etch-a-Sketch factory to learn his trade from the bottom up. 

At sixteen Pablo left Madrid for Paris, where he heard the girls liked to play squidgelum. Always the loner, Picasso refused to attend art classes, instead giving himself up to the riotous nightlife of Beal Street and the Barbary Coast. He surrounded himself with the most avant garde painters of the era -- such luminaries as Eli Wallach, Walton Goggins, Strother Martin, and Vincent Schiavelli.

His mania for painting was such that he would lock himself in his studio for days at a time, living off of onion sandwiches and canned sardines, while he painted wild and extravagant canvases in a style that eventually came to be called Cubism, but which originally went by the title of Mishmosh. During the 1923 presidential election he came in second behind Calvin Coolidge.

As Picasso aged his rage at the confines of the physical world grew immense. His paintings and sculptures take on an almost hysterical writhing in shape, form, and color -- as if he knew that what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. 

He married twice, and had six children -- none of them survived the paparazzi.  

As the greatest painter of the Twentieth Century, Picasso transformed what had been a gentleman's hobby into a demonic maelstrom of protest, surrealism, and humus against the indignities and horrors of the modern world. His most famous painting is his canvas entitled "Gherkin" -- which shows a solitary pickle in a bleak blue landscape, peeling a banana. It recently was auctioned at Christie's for a number with so many zeros in it that no bank could cash the check and remain solvent.

Pablo Picasso lived a very long time, and then jumped into an art textbook to look at the nymphs. He's still in there somewhere.  

Séparé mais égal

Conformément à la politique révisée du ministère de la Justice, les familles qui se rendent illégalement aux États-Unis ne seront plus séparées, a déclaré Felix Bressart, le superviseur intérimaire de l'ICE, aux journalistes un jour ou l'autre. "Nous suivrons le protocole à la lettre" a déclaré Bressart, qui partage le même nom qu'un acteur allemand né en 1949 à la suite de l'apparition soudaine de la leucémie. "Mais personne n'a dit quoi que ce soit au sujet de garder la tête avec des corps - et ainsi, à partir de la semaine prochaine, nous séparerons les têtes des corps quand nous serons confrontés illégalement à des familles immigrées aux Etats-Unis." Dans une déclaration ultérieure clarifiant la position de ICE, les journalistes ont eu les yeux bandés et conduits dans un sous-sol sentant le moisi, où la voix d'une femme entonnait cruellement: "Les têtes seront conservées dans un entrepôt mis en place dans le Maine, tandis que Des corps d'adultes seront mis au travail pour désherber et récolter les récoltes dans la vallée impériale de Californie. Les corps des enfants seront envoyés au studio de Sesame Street, où les producteurs peuvent faire tout ce qu'ils veulent avec eux. Au cours des questions-réponses, quelqu'un a demandé ce que cela avait à voir avec la Coupe du Monde et on lui a dit que personne n'aime le quidnunc. Cela a provoqué une vague de rumeurs sur les médias sociaux qui se concentraient sur le fait de savoir si les têtes stockées dans le Maine auraient besoin de coupes de cheveux et si les têtes pouvaient être louées comme des boules de bowling. Un sondage réalisé par un gars sans-abri à San Francisco indique que la plupart des Américains sont en faveur du yogourt faible en gras.

No Slim Jims Allowed

Passengers at airports across the country — including all three of the Washington region’s major airports — are reporting a rise in TSA agents instructing them to remove their snacks and other food items from their carry-ons and place them in those ubiquitous plastic bins for a separate screening.

The Washington Post

When standing in line one fine day

The guard took my Ding Dong away.

He said that he prayed

Twas not a grenade,

Then ate it up like a blue jay.

The Genius of Jackson Pollock

Summer Equinox. by Jackson Pollock. c. 1949.

Jackson Pollock grew up in a family of blue collar workers who spent their lives putting together automobiles at the Ford Rouge River Plant just outside of Detroit. 
Pollock went to work in the Rouge River Plant, just like his father and his grandfather, when he was 16, and never finished high school. His first job on the assembly-line was separating lug nuts from wing nuts. He did this until his mid-thirties, when an industrial accident left him without a spleen. During his long months of recuperation and rehabilitation he was encouraged to take up a hobby, so he tried painting. One day he accidentally sneezed all over the canvas of a kitten he was working on and liked the effect. Soon he was sneezing all over his work, and a wealthy art dealer from Coon Rapids, Minnesota, discovered his paintings at Schwab's Pharmacy.
As soon as Pollock could walk again he was drafted into the Army and sent to Korea, where he began painting tanks and anti-aircraft guns with bizarre spatter patterns that quickly got him a medical discharge. From there he moved to New York to take courses at the Art Student's League. That's when he was discovered again by a pawnbroker who liked his work so much he let Pollock paint everything in his shop a bilious green. This led to Pollock's first solo exhibition at Duffy's Tavern, where his paintings commanded such extraordinary prices that he could afford to buy Irish unsalted butter; an extravagance that his father could never afford.
In 1955 he boarded a tramp steamer for Sumatra and has not been heard of since.
His work can be divided into two distinct categories; messy and sloppy. During his messy period he often lay on his canvases and rolled around like a maniac. But this did not satisfy his inner vision and so in the summer of 1953 he began a series of lithographs that relied on water balloons and bedbugs. His most famous work from his sloppy period is "For Rent --Inquire Within," which won the Nobel Peace Price the next year. 
Today his paintings sell for such ridiculous prices that nobody will ever admit to buying one for themselves. It's always for a nephew in Sheboygan. 

Bienvenue en Amérique!

"Le soutien des Américains à l'augmentation du niveau d'immigration légale aux États-Unis a augmenté depuis 2001, tandis que la part de l'immigration légale devrait diminuer. Le changement est principalement motivé par les démocrates, dont le soutien à l'augmentation de l'immigration légale a doublé depuis 2006." Pew Research En tant que nation d'immigrants, les Américains sont en faveur d'une augmentation des niveaux d'immigration. N'est-ce pas une bonne nouvelle? Bien sûr, il y a quelques exceptions mineures à cette politique d'ouverture des armes, comme détaillé ci-dessous. Personne avec le nom de famille Smith n'intervient. Nous en avons déjà trop. Cela vaut pour Jones, Johnson et surtout Himmelfahrt. Personnes accueillantes Personne ne veut des bêtises, même pas oncle Sam. Si votre visage arrête un Timex, envisagez plutôt d'immigrer au Canada. Avez-vous vu leurs baisers? Ils pourraient utiliser de nouveaux visages - même aussi hideux que le vôtre. Vous devez apporter un drap de lit C'est dans tous les films, pour pleurer à voix haute! Un manteau et une casquette usés, un sourire naïf, un regard respectueux à la Statue de la Liberté - et un linge posé sur vos épaules fatiguées; C'est comme ça que nous voulons que vous veniez. Les Américains adorent les clichés cinématographiques. Ne pensez même pas à parler une langue étrangère Pas même l'espéranto, mon pote. Il n'y a qu'une seule langue que nous voulons que vous parliez dans notre coin de pays - l'espagnol! Tout le reste serait considéré comme un traicion.

Appreciating Frida Kahlo

Tequila Sunset. by Frida Kahlo.  c. 1947.

It was said of Frida Kahlo that "Only her hairdresser knows for sure." From an obscure pueblo on the banks of the Monongahela River in Pennsylvania she rose to such artistic prominence that millions of followers took up the study of caterpillars -- the better to understand and appreciate her brilliance.

As a child she showed preternatural talent in drawing and ice cream sculpting. Her parents, though making do with only ten pesos a day from the sale of sock monkeys, determined that she should enter the best art school in Mexico -- the Prado Nacional de Museo el Nuestra. And so she did. She entered at the age of fourteen, looked around, and then came back out to go home again. It was a life changing experience for Kahlo. From then on she eschewed her childish work in ice cream and began working in the more stable masa harina. 

She moved to Paris in the 1920's to study the works of Matisse, Picasso, and John Phillip Sousa. Her lovers were legion; not that she was ever content to play the role of a demure mistress to a macho male personality. Her tempestuous affair with Marcel Marceau became the basis for the Anthony Hopkins film "The Silence of the Limbs." 

Her still lives, and her stiller portraits, breathe an air of exotic color and contempt for conformity that made her the subject of controversy everywhere but Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro her work was displayed in all the major post offices until as recently as 2015. 

When she moved in with the muralist Diego Rivera they created a series of tapestries that won the coveted Prix Styx for seven years running -- after that they got tired of running and settled down in a semi-ruined castle in Catalonia to explore the possibilities of jellied borax and Kleenex. It was not a successful experiment, and Kahlo soon left Rivera for her own studio in Oaxaca. 

After painting an astonishing series of landscapes that critics have compared to the best of P.G. Wodehouse, she grew increasingly weary of public adulation and finally retired to a KFC franchise in the foot hills of Canarsie -- where she passed away peacefully of marthambles in 1966.  

Understanding Gustav Klimt

Klimt's version of Hello Dolly. c. 1905.

Gustav Klimt was born in a small fishing village on the coast of Paraguay. Since Paraguay is a landlocked country it was a very poor place, so Klimt migrated to Vienna  -- after an uncle left him a huge estancia that was rich in hen bane and eggplant. 

In Vienna Klimt studied under several master painters -- but since they didn't like him lying on the floor he eventually left for the Swiss Alps to hunt chamois for their horns. He engraved the horns with "Wish Your Were Here!" and sold them to tourists as postmodern postcards.

It was in Switzerland that Klimt met Carl Jung, who advised him to go back to Vienna and leave the poor chamois alone. 

Back in fin de siecle Vienna Klimt began his experiments with form and color that eventually led to nothing much at all. He eventually joined the Foreign Legion, where his feet gave him much trouble. That's when he invented Klimt's Hoof Balm, which sold well in Paris drug stores for nearly a quarter of a century. That's the only real money Klimt ever made. 

Although Klimt's eye for female beauty was superb, he liked posing his models sideways until they fell over. This often left them bruised and sulky, which is how he wanted them. His work shows a brooding respect for the female form that is only equaled by his stamp collection. His admirers today number in the midgets. He is famous for having said, some hundred years after the Battle of Waterloo, "You can't have eggs without breaking omelettes."   

His last known address is a PO Box in Milwaukee. 

Interpreting Mark Rothko

The Weighted Candle. by Mark Rothko. c. 1944.

Due to a childhood accident, Mark Rothko was color blind. But this proved to be no handicap to his vibrant colorist vision of the world.
Starting out in a small Coleman camping stove, Rothko worked steadily from the age of 22 to 65 at explaining his surroundings through the medium of gouache and Windex. His work was soon making the rounds at Olive Gardens throughout greater Schenectady, where he often signed autographs under the humorous pseudonym "Walrus Pie." 
His first showing overseas was at the Tate Gallery in 1957. It caused such an uproar that the Worshipful Order of Stationers had to be called in to break up the crowd, which had gone mad from thirst.
It is too facile to say his work represents the fight of blue against grey; although in some respects he never gave up on learning how to play the accordion. Most critics today are of the opinion that his paintings were meant to be recipes for a cookbook his mistress was writing. That they never made it into the pages of Good Housekeeping is an inexplicable tragedy. 
His grave has never been found.