Pre-Raphaelites

Tags

Ashmolean, Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, King Arthur, Millais, Oxford, Pre-Raphaelites, Ruskin

From the closing exhibition at The Ashmolean, Oxford

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Punts at Magdalen Bridge

Tags

Magdalen Bridge, Oxford, punts, Summer

Acrylics by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Impatient for Summer

Tags

croquet, Jesus College, Oxford, student life

Jesus College, Oxford, pre-pandemic

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Holy Trinity, Headington Quarry

Tags

charnel house, CSLewis, Headington, Heartsease, Holy Trinity church, Joy, metamorphosis, Oxford, Pharisees, Siamese cat, The Hound of Heaven, The Kilns

The Kilns

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Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

A gardener gave us brief directions

and we walked to Holy Trinity as

two believers in invisible cats

and curled up comfortably on its wall

was a very tangible companion.

Could this be a descendant of ‘step-cat‘

who ruled The Kilns; dominated the dog?

This was where Jack took his first Communion:

a mouse, finally captured by a cat –

or the quarry of The Hound of Heaven?

He didn’t metamorphose from a dog

immediately and other felines

did not recognise him as kin at first.

‘Cats,’ he said, ‘often don’t like each other;

they can be Pharisees who stare you out.’

‘Men must endure their going hence,’ proclaimed

the grave which nobody was visiting.

I placed two purloined Heartsease on the stone,

under unblinking, eye-slit surveillance

and thought about grey army blanket drapes;

those nicotine-stained ceilings; single beds;

Joy’s introduction of a Siamese.

That church cat was cool.  It was convinced that

its whiskers could pass through a needle’s eye.

Lying in rows, there were sheep and some goats.

Often we don’t have an inkling as to

which is which: we transform at different rates.

Could this have been the cat who comforted

souls in the charnel houses of old?  Or,

could it have been an erstwhile canine?

For this creature’s inscrutability

spoke of divine ineffability.

And all the while, it did not spring away,

but purred me towards an unseen lintel.

I expected gradual disappearance;

maybe some kind of cosmic benison.

But suddenly it was gone and a smile

seemed to hover over the whole graveyard.

I still believe in invisible cats.

Magdalen Bridge

Tags

acrylics, Cherwell, feeling blue, l'heure bleue, Magdalen Bridge, Oxford, punts

Lightbulb Moment – Shop Alone

Tags

lightbulb moment, monkey, Mowgli, Oxford, Westgate Centre

Photo by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Last Rembrandt Post for Now

Tags

Ashmolean, Good Samaritan, oman at the Well, Oxford, Rembrandt, self-portrait

From ‘The Young Rembrandt’ exhibition @ The Ashmolean, Oxford.

Young Rembrandt- even more wonders!

Tags

Ashmolean, Oxford, portraits, Potiphar's wife, Rembrandt

Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart

Young Rembrandt Exhibition, Ashmolean 2

Tags

Ashmolean, influences, Oxford, portraits, Young Rembrandt

For your delectation.  Photos by Candia

The Young Rembrandt, Ashmolean

Tags

Ashmolean, influences, Oxford, portraits, Rembrandt

                        Managed to see this before self-isolation.  So, will post all my

                       photos in groups of 6 or so, in order that you can all see the

                      delights that may not be available now for some time.