The Passionate Librarian

Breugel

Today an academic library. Searching for answers to university questions.

Across town on the bus. Walk through Chinatown, off toward the fish market. The library already.

Through the automatic doors. Swipe ID at the gates. Only those with a mission are allowed in here. Up the spiral stairs central to the building. Such beautiful proportion. Each step the perfect height for the rise of the foot - I might be walking across a wide flat plain - yet up I go. Stop at the doors to the 000's. Around the corner to the 025's. Guess the subject of my study? How does Dewey describe it....? Find the entry in DDC 21.

But not for long, will I study this. Soon I will immerse my brain , my blood, my senses whole, into a study of art long since past. The fine proportions of Renaissance Man, a twisted crush of Baroque, calm still structures of the classical, then on to a jarring smash of the contempory.

I exit the library. Answers in my backpack. Now early evening. I turn down the hill to the produce market. There, I will meet Pieter Bruegel and his brother 'Velvet'.

                                            Hush.

(left to right) By Bruegel:
Painter and Connoisseur,
Horse Trader,
Summertime,
Big Fish and Little Fish

'Velvet'

Stairs pitch down into the market. A Bruegel painting presents itself. 'The Fight Between Carnival and Lent', p.57 in a volume in by Stechow. Warm dark, gold, viridian, vermillion, rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. A serious type of humour. Just as serious as the produce sellers shouting velly sweet, veeelly sweet, CHEAPER, CHEAPER, one dollar, one dollar, one dollar, repeated so fast as to be one word. Moving away from Pieter the Elder toward the flower stall. It is the image of a book in Stack. Quiet descends. I step into the detail of Plate 2, V 'Bouquet in a Blue Vase ("Tulip, Bouquet"), p. 26. Blooms tremble with fragile light. A moth quivers, petals tiny, sheer. Each miniature brushstroke building the plush. The man behind the scene of flowers? 'Velvet' is his name. A lover's dream. A man of flowers at times called 'Flower'. In the Stack that book, 'Jan "Flower" Bruegel' you shall find floral delights and insects humming. See the detail of 'Sheaf of Flowers' in a Wooden Bucket ("Crown Imperial Bouquet")' p.11.
Which brother  to choose? Neither should be left behind. Both will be added to my collection today.

                Hush.

Reference
Title: Bruegel
Author: Stechow, Wolfgang
Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd. London, 1970
ISBN: 0 500 09074 2
Dewey No.: SQ 759.9493 BRU

Title: Jan "Flower" Bruegel
Author: Winkleman-Rhein, Gertrude
Publisher:Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York,1968
Dewey No. SQ 759.9493 BRU 

For the Love of Oskar

Thursday. The library celebrated my birthday. It was on Tuesday. On that day I was toasted by my friends at drawing class. Champagne to announce, good cheer, sentiments to move, arousement of thought. Thought that happens when watching Kokoschaka's Tigon, great, orange, golden, glowing - savage to the core forced outward from depths of blue and green. Like cake of gold. Striations of bitter marmalade oranges. The cake devoured in lip smacking silence. Cake made for my birthday. Tigon cake. Less savage than murdering a deer as Tigon did.

A book on Kokoschka, squeezed in on the shelf. A plain aqua cover. Library binding stout, strong. Clues to the contents, title and Dewey Q759.2 KOK. It speaks of nothing. Instant attraction. I know these covers. Open it up. Whole page reproductions fall out in your lap. Plate 25 'Portrait of Karl Kraus'. Read Kokoschaka's comments recorded by Olda, his wife. Discover the significance of the 'nocturnal butterfly' flipping about.

Wild brushstrokes of paintings that have taken three years to produce, others two hours.

A gauze of lace. Plate 5 'Portrait of the Marquise de Rohan-Montesquieu. A butterfly pinned to her breast. Is it the same as in Plate 25? This time to announce 'people at death's door' ?

Echoes of Schiele in long knotted hands, Plate 2 Portrait of Adolf Loos. Klimt walks through  too in long elongation, Plate 5 Portrait of the Marquise de Rohan-Montesquieu.

How is it loose brushstrokes become what they are? The beckoning hand of the Marabout of Temacine, Plate 32, fold upon fold of his African dress or the suit coat with kerchief of Marcel Von Nemes Plate 33 ?

For the love of Oskar, come to my library. Visit Kokoschka.

                                                        Hush.

Reference

Title: Kokoschka.

By: Ludwig Goldscheider in collaboration with the artist.

Publisher: Phaidon Press, London, 1963.

Dewey: SQ 759.2 KOK.

Bonnard Loves Marthe

Bonnard. Bonnard? Why was I looking at a book on Bonnard? The attraction and pleasure. What better excuse? There are others I know. Just now it detracts and relieves from the great lift and heave that is proper tidying the Quartos. The shelves do not suit the height or the weight of these oversized books. Books full of pictures tumble and slide, rocks down a cliff, unpredictable they bounce. Chunk, thunk painful they fall.

I caught the bright green and opened it's cover.

It's Marthe, his wife. All refractions, reflections, of light plays on water.

Bathwater slaps while 'doing' her legs.

'Pink Nude in the Bathtub' Plate 32 p. 94

Drying her toes 'Nude , Right Leg Raised' Plate 33 p.96 then a plunge in the temperature of 'Large Nude in Blue' Plate 34 p.98

'The Bath' Plate 35. Marthe lies in sweet contemplation, covered in water, soaking her thoughts. An elegant stretch right down to her toes and Marthe becomes 'Nude in the Bath' Plate 42 p.114. One thousand little tiles stuck fast to the floor. I feel my own toes push into the grooves. Roughness of grout, sharp corners of tiles.

Now three o'clock. An hour of tidying, has gone, in a ................splash.

to swim in this bath, ... see..

Reference

Title: Bonnard.

Author: Bell, Julian.

Publisher: Phaidon, London, 1994.

ISBN: 0 7148 3052 6

Dewey No.: Q 759.4 BON

Diego's Liliana

Stacked in wicker. Lillies squeak, within  the embrace.

Lily worship. A kneeling mat for prayer. Woven reeds do cut her knees. Still she holds them, inhails the waxy scent. Touching the heavy vynol heads with careful fingers, not to break or to bruise.

How long will she stay, naked , among the callas of strong, long stems?

Arms out stretched. Ache.

Folded legs. Cramp.

Tidy feet, tucked away, but not from pins and needles.

Warm skin glows.

Effort, trickles down her back.

'Nude with Calla Lilies' p.187.The most beautiful variegation. All are impressive gathered together on the opposite page.

Reference

Title:  Diego Rivera.

Author: Hamill, Pete.

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

ISBN: 0 8109 3234 2.

Dewey No. 759.972 RIV.

                                      Hush.

Fantin-Latour

Monday morning doing a regular tidy of the reference library. Doing a maintanence check. How many broken crowns? How many disintegrated covers? Books in wrong places. Dewey would frown. Stay away from the 759's. Tend to the travel section. Turkey in Nice, Boliva in Pakistan, Alaska on the floor, Russia shoved down the back, pinned against the wall!
On my repair list 423, The Oxford English Dictionary, Géricault's Medusa, Poussin..... Ah! Back at the art section, it's like a magnet. Such beautiful items out here on the Reference floor.

Wait a minute -  What's this? Yellowed bit of paper marking a place. Thoughtless person messing up in the library. No.....no, they are not. They are pointing the way.

'Fantin- Latour'.

A blue glass jug reflects in my memory. My grandmother's kitchen. Thick glass tumblers. Waratah's moulded, embossed with wattle. Sunlight streams. Window casement. Light catches on ledge and crevice pronounced in glass.
Cool, city tap water, stench of chlorine.
Press my mouth on the thick glass lip.
The same thick glass on Latour's blue glass jug. 
The same white washed walls.
The same reek of roses, brought in from outside.
Crushing, wilting, under their own weight......

Hush interuppted,

Reference
Title: Fantin-Latour.
Author: Lucie Smith, Edward.
Publisher: Phaidon, Oxford, 1977.
ISBN: 0 7148 1794 5
Dewey No.: R 795.4 FAN

Fantin continued

......again I return.
I am not meant to be here.
It draws irresistably.
What happens when it's discovered that I've gone from my post?
Deemed irresponsible, uncommitted.....but to what?
I want to go back to my grandmother's kitchen and compare Fantin to Chardin.
Still-life. Still. How can it be still? Humid roses are wilting in motion. I see them collapse into a gentle sweet heap.
I pass from the kitchen to the back of the garage.
Covered in flowers, bricks piled high.
Now I can climb them when last time I couldn't.
Growth must have happened since my last visit to Grandma. Plate 75 full of Nasturtiums.
Orange and yellow. White milky sap with that particular scent that sticks to those flowers.
My aunties and uncles say there are snakes. But no, not here, just burning hot bricks, under the sun, a couple of lizards, and nasturtiums to spare.

                                            Hush.

Reference
See previous entry for Fantin-Latour.

Rousseau

The story teller, he wore a tiger suit. Upon the seat beside him, a great whiskered mask, the head. Deadly glitter of blue glass eyes, turned up toward the sky.

Rousseau, he wore that tiger suit, it's head clamped tightly on. He told great tales striped with truth of a different ilk.

I sat absorbed in the stripey tale, recalling  the first time I saw the pictures made by Rousseau. Agog with the colour and images of Eden I fell into the dream of 'The Sleeping Gypsy', Plate XI, unaware of the lion kissing my shoulder. I puzzle over the 'Snake Charmer', Plate XX, so dark, lost to difinition, he played under the moon to the spoonbilled(?) flamingo, two tiny parrots, and a number of serpents. Great jungles bloomed, inaccurate of scale, shaken with violence as 'Tiger Attacking a Buffalo', Figure 61, sated his desire.

Next day at the library, high and low, I searched. Books on Rousseau, the catalogue told me were available... but where? On the shelf - not there. In the stack... elsewhere. Two in the reverence library of excellent  quality, but those, I should not take to consume and stare.

Return to the catalogue, it tells of more. Again,  in the Stack. This  is just a tall tale of Rousseau. I look and look. Guessing all possible miss-placings. With monkey grip I make it to the top shelf in Stack.... and... finally..... where it had run amok, a book on Rousseau. Out of place, and poor quality I know. Too many black and whites for such a genius of colour. But I can take it away and gloat for a few hours. Dream the dream the gypsy dreams, embrace the lion, drink the wine and play that lute.

                                            Hush.

Reference
Title: Henri Rousseau
Author: Keay, Carolyn.
Publisher: Academy Editions, London.
ISBN: 85670 168 8
Dewey No. : Q 759.4 ROU

The Unknown.....

There is a book, one particular book in my local library that stands out, all alone.

I borrow it again, again always again. It is hard to return it again and again. I say I don't need it but I want it, to look at for ever and ever and ever.

Drawing upon drawing, reveals passion and skill.

Each time I look, how the images change. They look out at me harder, their eloquence louder. Evermore beautiful than they were before.

The stare of the Amazon, page 88, is found to begin development from page 425- 431. Her gaze is captured then transformed in finality, on page 88. How handsome she is with that contemptuous air.

Single fluid lines struck down onto paper, accurate, sure.

Watch the model dance through her poses on page 142-149.

Then there is Harlequin as trapeze artist, Figure 100, p.186, looking out from behind his net. Unfaltering blue crayon traces his diamonds and tells of his mood.He beckons to me to come join his act. Refuse, I cannot.

This special book two inches thick sports a cover of soft paper. Though secured with stitching it would be better be bound inside hard covers. Then drawings from the collection of Paul Alexandere would never be lost.....whose drawings are those? Modigliani, no doubt.

                                                      Hush.

Reference

Title: The Unknown Modigliani

Author: Alexandre, Noel

Publisher: Royal Academy of Arts, London.

ISBN: 0 900 946 423

Dewey No. F 741.945/MOD

Portrait of Mme Dufy

What conversation is she engaged in? Leaning on her elbows, fingertips touched lightly to her face, poised ready to gesticulate. The silky rustle of her black and white dress contrasts to the noise of the cloth on the table. A spider leg fringe on the end of her sleeve, tickles the crease in the hook of her elbow. The intense blue background o mediterrnanean heat forces her image forward to us. Look in those eyes of flat, matt brown - liquid and large. Her mindis on other things not in the present while her hands chat with her partner out of the picture. Painted lips, pressed tightly together rest paitently over dimpled chin. Her husband must love her. She is beautiful and chic. But she left. Gone like the pages brutally cut from this. If I cannot repair it, it too will be gone. The collection diminished. To view Mme Dufy, turn to page 100 of the item referenced below. Reference Title: Dufy Author: Werner, Alfred Publisher:Thames and Hudson, 1973, London. ISBN:0 500 08026 7 Dewey: Q 759.4 DUF                                                        Hush.

Change

I push my trolley along  the isles on a regular shelving trip. I come the to the end of the non-fiction and stop, looking upward. Great orange sheets of plastic cascade. It is a grand descent from two stories high to the dust speckled carpet under my feet. What is this happening inside of my library? The wall is gone, and door has changed it's location. There is drilling and hammering and sawing and talking. Workmen muffle their voices, afterall, they are in a library you know. Planned change becoming reality. How wil it be this new, Young Adult area? Adult Lending and the Childrens Library as one. Later, the workmen gone and the library not open as yet, I go behind the plastic curtain and peer directly up to the sky.The lines of the ceiling have altered somehow, though this cannot be.I crunch through dried paint flakes and exit the scene. Now what do I see? A quarter of the Childrens Collection neatly crammed all carefully labelled, into it's Reference Room. Does the Childrens Librarian weep? Or will she find this new thing good? Change upon change. How will it be?                                                     Hush.

The Change

Well! What has been done to my library? Roadworks brought inside. Cyclone fencing, green mesh shade cloth and concrete blocks. A drill, a saw, a hammer. Shattered peace, bouncing from hard surfaces. Make shift circulation, readers advice crammed in, The Children's Library invaded and old people disorientated. And for what. An unfuctional desk combining all service delivery. Still - it is here now. We will make it work.                                            Hush.

Giorgione

Away, away from the madness and anger. I leave the others screeching about routine destruction. They are right. But I, away, away. To the stack I retreat. To a favorite I return. In the quiet I settle. I take down the Giorgione. A form almost square against other books there. On the cover a serene visage. One of 'The Three Philosophers', Plate 42. Gentle, deep and sublte thought. Gaze of abstract thought, unfocused, silent and intense. His stillness comes to me. Ah! this is what I seek. I turn the thick, pulpy pages. Their thick rough, texture satisfying under my fingers. They feel like the sun has been shining upon them. Stone coloured paper faded to tea stained edges. Each plate glued in leaving it free on three sides, to shrink and expand. The spine is breaking. I turn the page, Judith (Plate 29) has calmly killed. Such soft, subtle colours. An elegant leg exposed by crackling silk. A bare foot holds still, the severed head. Plate37, Portrait of a Girl with a laurel Branch:'Laura', is the picture I turn to again and again. She is well fed. Fur lined robes caress her skin. Wisping silk curls down from her head, over her shoulders, around her breast. A pink nipple disclosed. 'Laura' reveals her breast, loosening that soft, soft gown. She is a courtesan-poetess, laurel branches a symbol of her poetic art is the story I hear. What poem did she write there in the laurel grove? I think... it is whispered in silence, upon a gentle breeze.                                                    Hush. Title: Giorgione Author: Baldass, Ludwig Publisher: Thames and Hudson, London,1965 Dewey No.: Q 759.531 GIO

Maillol

Maillol. I thought there was only one sculptor - Rodin - but now, there is Maillol. The book cracks sharply upon opening, uu! The pages fell out!

Maillol

Maillol. I collected the pages and tapped them back in. Repair is required. Glue down the spine, a page at a time.  This  will fit neatly into my backpack. Looking through the pages my fingers rasp, brushed on rough terracotta. The dryness rings. The air is brittle, humidity gone. Intimate, small sculpture. The 'Squatting Bather' she examines her toes. I want to pick her up, turn her over in my hands, feel the hollow weight and the dryness of clay. There is tall brone 'Pomona', sixty three inches high with beautiful thick strong thighs. She stands in the Tuileries. So does the 'Mountain' with great thickness of limb, her hair waving away. Oh! and then there is 'Sorrow' with her hand to her cheek - I walk out of the Tuileries and into Repairs, back to earth and the business of work. Reference Title: Maillol Author: Chevalier, Denys Publisher: The Uffici Press, Lugano, 1970 Dewey No.: Q 730.944 Hush.

Charles Blackman

Oh my. Charles Blackman. Where have I been? I want to be with him to see 'Bellevue Hill at Night', plate 121 and watch 'Rainforest : The Cicada's Flight', plate200, spattering across the page To squeeze the struggling cat and take it from the bulging eyed 'Girl with a Black Cat',plate20, mingle with the 'Lurking Figures', plate22, in the long dark shadows cast by a light of night, touch the softness of 'Robin', plate 198, then slip, in a silent rush through a fall of water with a 'Water Sprit', plate 18, in another book. Reference Title: The Art of Charles Blackman Author: Thomas Shapcott Publisher: Andre Deutsh Limited, London, 1989 ISBN: 0 233 98 440 2 Dewey: R 759.994 BLA Another Book Title: Rainforest Charles Blackman Author: Al Alvarez Publisher: McMillian, South Melbourne,1988  ISBN: 0 333 47711 1 Dewey: R 759.994 BLA

Paris Dreaming

I found Paris Dreaming, slumbering beneath the skylight, in gentle soft, soft light. I looked for her before but nowhere was she found. Reference Folio Stack, at 9444.3 was where she was meant to be but when I went to that address, tha place did not exist.  I followed all the catalouge trails, looking upon the shelves in Reference and at odd though appropriate, addresses, everyone erroneous, deshaeartening, dark, darker and lonely - land of lost books. I gave up my quest and left you thinking all was wasted effort. Then one day as I was tidying, something caught my eye. That particular type face did not match the other out turned spines. It moved with life entirely own its own. Could it be and what did it matter anyway? Many books get lost, deleted, damaged. digarded and destroyed. Cultural value disregarded - it did not fit the shelf. My hand went to it all by itself. I thought I had lost my beautiful obsession. Its like magic this attraction I have. Blackman went to Paris and drew a poem of love People coffe cats and cups All reflected in 'The Charcuterie Window, (p.36) And swallowed in 'L'aperitif", (p.35) The 'After-dinner Cigarette', (p.37) and then held so close in 'The embrace', (p.81) Title:Charles Blackman Paris Dreaming: A Celebration of a City of the Imagination. Author: The Paris Drawings of Charles Blackman Written and Compiled by Nadine Amadio Dewey No.: RF 944.36 BLA Publisher: AH and AW Reed Pty. Ltd. Frenchs Forest NSW, 1982. ISBN: 0 589 50331 6

The Stair

I stood at the top of a marble staircase, disappearing into the darkness beyond a thick, gold braid. I listened to the hum of the airconditioner and wondered what lay down  in the dark. A particular odour, a museum scent, warmed by summer, yet cooled by a breeze ascending the stairs. I stood in the quiet wondering, subdued murmerings, creaking parquetry, and the sure, slow footfall of  museum keepers, clip clipping in their hard soled shoes. Brilliant sunlight shrieked across the clearstory. I never knew I would be back there again. How different it would be. How different I would be. I wandered away, called to the bus. I grew up into life not knowing what was there. I stand there again at the top of those stairs. Thrilling at what might lie before me, now I am permitted to  descend.

Where have I come?

With each step a new sensation of pleasure. Stepping on the hem of a velvet dress, marbled lace petticoat flicks out from each edge. Carpet held in place by brassy gold rods.
Silence more dense with descent into darkness.
My eyes won't adjst from the brillaince above.
Eyes wide and wider still.
The stairs turn into a vast red expanse. Re-blinded by spires of light from tall windows, in blindness they seem to go way past the ceiling.
Where have I come?
I look through a squint into a shadowy space. A table, a chair, a woman sits there, a pen in one hand, keyboard clutched by the other.
A receiver rests between her ear and her shoulder.
"Hello", she says, "Art Gallery of New South Wales, you have the Library here".

A Book in the Bin

A book in a bin, it was not fit for the shelves. Contaminated with mould to spread as contagion through out the collection, a pandemic of mildew.
I picked the out the book, I cannot help it you know, a book is a book and this one was repeating its long lonely call. Echo after echo as only Esher could do. Endless transformation of a single idea into something quite new each time it did turn.
How did he do it? Without a computer, fractal geomtry or Mandelbrot's ideas?
A piece of graph paper he took and divide it up, a swirling arcade truns into a town, turns into a harbour, turns into a painting on page 215 of Dewelden van MC Escher.
Full of mould in the library bin it goes out for the new year and leaves us to find a new transformation based on lasts year's idea.

There is no catalogue reference to this book, it went out in the bin, no cover, no Dewey, completely undressed.

Hush.