Making a Compleat Gentleman

West Wycombe Manor was set in a beautiful Park and the perfect setting for a man of means who also enjoyed the good life. Its colonaded west front is highly unusual, for a climate like England recalling perhaps many happy times spent lazing in the loggia of an Italian Palazzo. While smaller than most of his friends country houses today it is a perfect film set for eighteenth century period films because it encapsulates and reflects in architecture the society of a time when young men of privilege went in passionate pursuit of civilised life. Is it the perfect Temple to Taste of a Compleat Gentleman?

Evolution of Art, Design and Style – Antiquity to Avatar

‘Just as a palate can be educated to appreciate fine wine so too can both the eye and the ear be educated to distinguish the rare from the ordinary, the exquisite from the mundane’. Pare Keiha, Associate Professor, Dean – Tumuaki AUT, Auckland NZ

THE EVOLUTION ART, DESIGN & STYLE
ARTISTIC TASTE – ANTIQUITY – AVATAR
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Introduction to Collecting Antiques – FREE online video presentation

Collecting aesthetically pleasing items is quite normal and fulfills a deep emotional need within us all. You can become “hooked” on the search for that special piece, forgotten, unappreciated and unloved.
If you would like to become a collector, potential purchaser or, a dealer in antiques we offer FREE, An Introduction to Collecting Antiques sharing some [...]

Portraiture – Egypt to Enlightenment

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever…Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)
author Carolyn McDowall
What is a portrait? Is it an actual likeness of someone? If we know the person portrayed is a General, King or Queen will it change our viewpoint? What is a portrait’s function?  Is it meant to show the sitter at their most characteristic ?
The [...]

An affair of state…wise men needed now!

Perhaps the getting of wisdom is when we realize, despite eons of learning, that in the grand scheme of things we really know very little at all.  Carolyn McDowall

January 6 is the climax of the twelve days of Christmas known as The Epiphany.
For early ‘followers of the way’ gathering in the catacombs, the underground burial [...]

That which we are we are…new year’s eve reflection

We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson was a controversial figure in his own time. His poem Ulysses,  [...]

Having a life like other people…pass it on!

It seems to me that it is always a perfect time of year for an Alan Bennett celebration. England’s local hero highly acclaimed author and playwright Alan Bennett will celebrate fifty years as a writer and performer in 2010.
His incredible wit and stylish writing first surfaced with his 1960 satirical stage revue Beyond the Fringe.  [...]

Bunny in Sydney – Art or Artifice…

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) The Critic as Artist, 1891
This exhibition many would say is long overdue. In the landscape of Australian painting history Rupert Bunny is a significant figure who inserted himself effortlessly into French Parisian life during the so-called ‘Belle Epoque’ or beautiful era, demonstrating through [...]

Women of Influence – Marquise de Pompadour, pleasure is a serious business

The pleasure of love is in loving.  Francois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-80)
Author Carolyn McDowall
French painter François Boucher (1703-1770) produced many of the images that we have of the enigmatic Jeanne Antoinette, Marquise de Pompadour, Maîtresse-en-titre, or the official Mistress of Louis XV of France.
The daughter of a local beauty, Louise-Madeleine de la Motte and [...]

Love Jewellery – Regency to Revival

England’s Prince Regent George, Prince of Wales, later George IV (1762 – 1830) scandalised the nation with his reckless and lavish living habits. He gave an impressive love gift a diamond riviére (a necklace of precious stones, generally set in one strand) to his mistress Elizabeth, Lady Conyngham, who reputedly received gifts of jewels valued at the time in the region of 80,000 pounds.