Thursday, 14 July 2016

The reading stopped at the end of a stage direction: … and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering darkness.) (15.2153)

Catherine Meyer sends in her painting with these words:

We have entered the brothel now and the depiction of the brothel-room was the eyecatcher for my imagination. it so happens that I was looking through my old book about toulouse-lautrec searching for a picture with the title „chocolat“. the dancer and clown appear also in ulysses (you may remember) and were one of lautrec's models when he made sketches in the irish and american bar in paris. thanks to lautrec I immediately got the atmosphere of dim and filthy surroundings. Based on the long stage directions I tried to catch the intimate interior.

As in the text, “a shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the chandelier. ... The floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar rhomboids.” Kitty Ricketts sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantlepiece (15.2040 ff.). (my own painted mirror is handing on the table).

I was very entranced when I found the „chocolat picture“!!!

Catherine Meyer © Zürich, 2016