Hieronymus Bosch - chronicle of life and death at the end of the times

Paintings of the late medieval and early modern period are often suffused with symbolism that have increasingly become a barrier to understanding or even simple enjoyment. The works of most painters of that period are populated with biblical references that few of us are still able to decipher. What remains is a feeling of awe in the face of artistic skill, which is nothing short of a decapitation of meaning. That we still visit exhibitions may be testament to our hunger to be entertained and, at times our desire to be tickled by curiosity.

Hieronymus Bosch's painting has never been on top of my list of things to see (Vermeer occupies this place), but curiosity got the better of me recently and I made the journey to Bosch's birthplace which has just curated an extraordinary exhibition of most of his paintings. This is an incredible feat as his paintings are as prized as they are scattered all over the world and most museums are very reluctant to lend fragile pieces that are now about 500 years old. In addition, bringing the paintings of only one single painter together in a kind of retrospective removes his work of the vital historical, artistic and creative context, so these projects can be difficult to pull off. 

Bosch's works however are of enormous radiance and power to overcome any of these difficulties and  his paintings have clearly stood the test of time. In fact, they shine (in part because of the incredible restoration efforts of modern museums) as never before in the recent exhibition of the Noordbrabants Museum in his birthplace s'Hertogenbosch (NL). Seeing them all together in one exhibition is a real joy. Bosch's skills shows up most, however, when contrasted with paintings from his 'workshop' which retains some of the religious themes yet few of the artistic skills. Where his paintings tell stories and show multiple perspectives, depths and spaces, the paintings of some of his students look two dimensional and flat in comparison. 

Wayfarer or Prodigal Son?
Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1500-1510

Much has been made of his phantasmagorical paintings, the depictions of purgatory and hell, yet the exhibition also contains some of Bosch's more secular and mundane work (if that's the word for a world thoroughly defined by religion). That we still know very little and often cannot even agree on what his paintings show is demonstrated by the painting 'The Wayfarer' to the frame of which a previous owner has nailed the title: 'The lost son'. In truth, we have no idea what the painting depicts and some of the titles we give to Bosch's works are not much more than a good guess. 

If the exhibition is a magnificent achievement for the local museum and its curator, it does not steer clear of some grandiose claims, such as celebrating Bosch as a draughtsman in his own right. Whilst his sketches are interesting to see as part of the process of preparing paintings, they are nothing like the works of skilled draughtsmen like Albrecht Duerer, an example of whose work the curators (unhelpfully) included. 

Zaha Hadid - the tabula rasa architect

So she has finally made it. Recently Zaha Hadid was awarded the most important accolade of the architecture establishment, the RIBA Gold Medal. She is the first woman to get this prize in her own right. Whilst this marks the well deserved culmination of a long and distinguished career, her rise to architectural stardom has had its hiccups.

Zaha Hadid

An early stumbling bloc was the Cardiff Opera house. She won the competition twice, but locals just simply did not warm to her hypermodern design and, in the end it was rejected. The house now standing on the site was designed by Jonathan Adams, whose design is said to be incorporating Welsh elements and reflect Welsh national culture. As a former resident of Cardiff and frequent visitor to the Welsh Millenium Centre, I am actually glad that her design was never built. Whilst the current house certainly has its flaws, its gentle, non-threatening nature is probably right for the city. There is a pedestrian-ness about it, without ever being dull, and it may just be the best design for the Welsh capital.

Hadid's design for the Cardiff Opera House

And therein lies part of the problem with Hadid. Her indisputable genius often appears to be outside of time and context. And so her designs sometimes struggle to latch on to local environments. Her work seems to work best where she can start with a blank sheet of paper. Her most recent work, the Olympic Swimming Pool in the London Olympic Village is a courageous piece of breathtaking curves. Beautiful as it is, its design would simply refuse to relate meaningfully to any other building in the locale. Luckily for Hadid, the building was practically built on wasteland with no context other than its own.

London Aquatics Centre

In a recent interview she mentioned her work for BMW as one of the most gratifying pieces in her portfolio. She may just be one of those architects who thrive on the tabula rasa. As blank spaces are rare in this country, she may come to build even less than previously, which is our loss.

BMW Headquarters in Leipzig

A sovereign Britain?

Although the details are still a bit vague, the Prime Minister has given the starting signal for the referendum campaign for Britain in Europe. Some Cabinet ministers have already declared the unwavering allegiance whilst others see the chance of a generation to say good bye to the European Union. One big beast, Boris Johnson, is still sitting on the fence, no doubt carefully calculating how his political fortunes may fall if he campaigns for in or out.

Although I should declare an interest (I am not British and would surely like Britain to stay in the UK for matters of convenience), I have interrogated my own views recently in moments of quiet contemplation and found that I have little feeling either way. Similar to the Scottish independence campaign, I am firmly of the view that Britain would do well outside the EU, just as it will do well inside it. Sure, there are transitional arrangements and uncertainty to be faced if Britain would leave, but Her Majesty's politicians will clearly be in a good position to negotiate favourable trade terms with the EU.

The gripe I have with both campaigns is of a different nature. It is the vision of an independent, sovereign Britain that both sides appear to advance. Leave the EU and we will be free of onerous supervision from a bureaucratic class of pencil pushers in Brussels, or stay and the new terms of engagement gives Britain a special relationship approximating total national sovereignty.

Unencumbered Sovereignty - Do Cameron and Farage pursue the same pipe dream?
 Foto: Getty/LNP

What is so wrong with this ideal of unencumbered national power is how little it reflects the reality of nation states trading and dealing with other nation states in an interdependent, highly connected global arena. The animating vision underpinning both campaigns is one of total control, control over borders, trade and immigration.

This is a cartoonish picture of what modern government has been ever since the Westphalian Treaty was signed in 1648. Modern governments, of large or small states, have always had to recognise the interests of others and to negotiate compromises with adversaries or friends alike. We even gave a name to the art of negotiating (diplomacy) and reared a class of people with special skills in this field (diplomats). The vision of segregated, clearly demarcated political units, enjoying unmitigated sovereignty is little more than a pipe dream drawing its inspiration from a caricature of monarchical absolutism. Only, instead of the all powerful monarch we are now thinking of a unified people expressing their political will in Westminster. Nothing however could be further from the truth.

There is practically no issue of any importance to the British people, be it trade, business, war and peace, education, or health, that hasn't got some implications for our neighbours and vice versa. No matter whether we are in or out of the EU, we will have to deal with people and governments around us who think differently to ourselves. And it is this harsh reality of life that both campaigns neglect at their peril.

The Trident trap

In his book The Conservative Heart, Arthur Brooks writes that those politicians win who 'scramble the categories'. What he meant is that political parties are perceived to be strong or weak in certain policy areas. To set out to reiterate their strengths is unlikely to add any new converts to their cause.

Conservatives are thought to be competent in running the economy and reducing a budget deficit. Labour politicians may be seen to be compassionate and concerned with social justice. The trick to win elections is not to focus on your strengths, Brooks argues, but to stray onto your opponent's field and steal their arguments.

The Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is moving further from this advice by the day. Whilst under Blair the party consciously placed their tanks on the lawn of the Conservative Party, under the present leader the party is withdrawing rapidly into its comfort zone. Part of this started under Miliband already. But Corbyn and his comrades are going even further. They are not just deliberately negating any policy aspirations in traditional Conservative areas such as the economy, but Corbyn also pushes issues that are of little importance to the wider public.

Political scientists call this the low salience trap. Members of all political parties are animated by certain issues that have symbolic significance for them and sustain their mobilisation strategies as the elections get close. The Conservatives have Europe, the left wing of Labour has Trident and NATO membership. The problem is that none of these issues have much currency amongst the wider public. Whilst they agitate a small minority of party members, the issues have so-called low salience amongst the electorate as a whole. Winning elections is predicated on reaching out from their own narrow party membership base to non-typical supporters and rehearsing topics that fail to captivate the wider electorate's imagination is unlikely to achieve that.

In essence, effective party leaders do not cultivate issues that have totemic meaning within the narrow membership base but actively seek out to neutralise these topics. Corbyn may currently enjoy the support of most of this members. But staying within the comfort zone of left wing activism is unlikely to produce electoral success.

Jeremy Corbyn - no thinker, no debater, no organiser

In any free society, politics is about formulating choices for the electorate. Those choices are critical in informing a public debate. To have choices, however, opposition politicians need to articulate policies that offer clear alternatives to social and economic decisions put forward by the government. Thus, opposition parties require strong leaders with particular skills in public debate. At the end of the day, politics is about shaping and influencing a public discussion about the things that matter to people. Ed Miliband failed to convince the British electorate of the cogency of his narrative. Yet, whilst he often looked awkward in interviews, he had in fact launched a whole raft of policy reviews which fed into his party's manifesto in 2015.

Jeremy Corbyn's leadership has been nothing short of disastrous so far, but his supporters have been very vocal (if not always exhibiting the required civility on social media) and he is clearly settling into his role as leader of the opposition. Regardless of what people say about his strange beliefs in socialism (flashback: that's the thing that was wholeheartedly rejected by the people in Eastern Europe in 1989 after a thorough 40 year plus first hand experience of it), the main stumbling bloc for Labour is not Corbyn's whacky beliefs, sometimes bordering on conspiracy theories, but his lack of skills that are necessary to be effective in the public debate of any free society. In fact, his debating skills are so poor that he appears to have decided not to engage in any public debates with opponents anymore. His response mode in television interviews is wooden and gaff prone. Even friends of Corbyn say that they have never seen him discussing anything, even in private. The recent debate on airstrikes in Syria showed why he is wary of engaging in public discussions. His response to the Prime Minister at the dispatch box was so poor that news programmes struggled to find any section for their evening news bulletins worthy of broadcast. Most TV programmes focused instead on the passionate and articulate reply of the Caroline Lucas, the only Green Party member of parliament.

The second domain of critical importance to any opposition party is to develop a list of policy choices that speak to the country's priorities and shape the public's choices and preferences. So far, under Corbyn's leadership, the country has drawn a blank in this category as well. There has been a stunning silence from the Corbyn team on issues such as economic policy, transport policy, devolution or even gender equality. I only mention devolution because it is shaping up to be of key importance in England with the devolution of powers to Manchester, Cornwall and Sheffield (including their NHS and social care budget) and the upcoming elections in Wales and Scotland in May 2016. It seems that the Corbyn team is still trapped in a London bubble dominated by issues that matter to an urban well-to-do elite, whilst digging up some random ideas about state ownership and the evil character of bankers. All this does not appear to add up to a coherent policy programme that may improve people's lives.

The last aspect in which Corbyn scores poorly is building cross-party alliances for practical campaigns. His largely ineffective backbench existence of more than 30 years contrasts badly with the extraordinary activism of MPs such as Stella Creasy who, when coming to parliament in 2010, started instantly to build a strong cross-party campaign against loan sharks. Creasy reached out to the media and, ultimately, forced the issue onto the government agenda. In contrast, for more than three decades of sitting on the green benches, Corbyn has not once managed to organise a campaign that captured anybody's imagination. He appears to have been busy nurturing his prejudices about 'the capitalist system' whilst cultivating an image of a 'man of principle'. It is his ineffectiveness as a politician to create alliances that should worry Labour Party members.

And if Corbyn fails to either effectively influence the public debate or develop policies relevant to practical issues, Labour will find itself increasingly marginalised and without any answer to the Conservative transformation of British society.

The pacifist's error

In a world where we are confronted on a daily basis with horrific images of war or the consequences of military conflict, it seems plausible to adopt a pacifist stance. Wouldn't it be better if we refrained from any confrontation with our foes? Perhaps we could prevent further bloodshed by declaring our unwillingness to use arms? 

Pacifism has a long and distinguished history, featuring amongst other proponents people like Jesus Christ and Gandhi. Its heyday in modern times probably occurred around the 1970s and 1980s when two superpowers confronted each other in Central Europe with enormous arsenals of weaponry which made any potential military conflict non-sensical. 

Jeremy Corbyn's pacifism originates in that period. His pacifism is rooted in the belief that conflict only generates more conflict, which will ultimately prove futile and destructive of the human race. He has recently confirmed his position when he said that he would not give the military the permission to use a key mechanism in the defence architecture of the country, nuclear weapons. 

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn - 'Personal principles over confronting evil'
Foto WENN

There has been some debate as to whether Corbyn would make a reliable commander in chief if he was ever elected as a prime minister given his reluctance to allow the military to defend the country with all means necessary. Yet, the actual issue lies elsewhere, and it goes to the heart of the pacifist doctrine he espouses. 

Pacifism draws its strength from the idea that the willingness to fight only leads to more conflict and more bloodshed. We can all think of some scenarios where this is undoubtedly true. Some fights we don't want to pick. Sometimes it is better to walk away. Yet, this is largely true only for very simplistic situations, not for complex ones as they now present themselves in world politics with increasing frequency. Corbyn's error appears to be the error of many pacifists before him: extrapolating from an easily intuitive example and thinking it applies to everything else. The paradigmatic case is that Chamberlain's policy of appeasement towards Hitler. The then British prime minister has been much maligned by his decision to negotiate with who we now know was a man poised to destroy European civilisation. But Chamberlain was probably motivated by the conviction that everyone was animated by a desire for peace. 

The fundamental error at the heart of Chamberlain's calculations was therefore a misunderstanding of Hitler's worldview. In contrast, the fundamental error at the heart of pacifists today cannot be a misunderstanding of the murderous intentions of ISIS or any other terrorist organisation. Today, we have a hard-earned comprehension of the horrifying life-denying and destructive ideology of ISIS terrorists. 

So, Corbyn's pacifism is not a miscalculation of the destructive aspirations of our foes. What motivates him is his desire not to have to make the difficult call to fight murder with force. At the core of this desire lies an ambition to remain pure, not to be associated with acts that may lead to suffering. And as such it is a wish that is both noble and horrifyingly naive. As ISIS terrorists attacked innocent civilians in Paris and murdered them one by one in the Bataclan concert hall, brave police officers had to move into the venue and confront them. There was no time for negotiations or to prevaricate in the face of the terrorists' determination to kill at random. The officers did not have the privilege to indulge in pacifist principles.

For Corbyn, who recently regretted that the killer Jihadi John was killed by a drone strike, killing can never be justified, not even to protect innocent civilians. With murderous terrorists striking at the heart of Europe, Corbyn's unwillingness to defend innocent civilians to protect his principles makes him a liability for the security of the country. His pacifism reveals itself as a fundamentally selfish desire to remain unsullied by decisions for which there are no cleancut options, for which there are only losses and no wins, which, in a sense is the core business of grown up politics. 

The Spectre of lazy acting

I would say that the new James Bond movie is a bit of a guilty pleasure but sadly, it's the type of guilt you feel when you wasted 2 hours of your life. The movie is certainly a slick production with stunning and impressive graphics (aren't they all these days with CGI?). Bond's love interest is also certainly one to watch, not just for her beautiful looks but also for her ability to deliver the silliest lines with a cheekiness that makes you wonder what she thought when doing this movie.

Theatrical Release Poster - Spectre (Eon Productions)

Yet, the rest of the movie falls flat which is mainly Daniel Craig's fault. I would call his acting 'stiff' but that would imply he does act in the first place. The strange thing is that he is probably the most un-British James Bond for a long time. Craig lacks the ironic distance to the role with which Pierce Brosnan treated the franchise so successfully. Craig also does not have much in the way of the English style (ironic, again, as Irishman Brosnan did this so well). Instead Craig replaced 'Englishness' with some sort of indistinct swagger. In one early sequence he wears a costume with a skeleton printed on his back and we see him walking next to a beautiful woman. For a second, I thought Craig was a woman in men's clothing on account of the heavy way he rolls his hips. This contrasts with his intention to pass off the role as hyper-masculine but somehow he gets it all wrong. While Sean Connery and Brosnan had their feminine moments which were used to re-inforce their masculinity, Craig only manages to look strangely neutered, and ultimately tired of acting.

Perhaps this is slightly unfair but one of his previous roles have stuck in my mind. In 'Road to Perdition' he plays the son of a Mafia boss (Paul Newman) who causes havoc by equating business with the ability to kill at the earliest convenience. The hapless character suited Craig well but his acting was equally so wooden that his final scene is shot without us actually seeing him (Tom Hanks shoots him in the bathtub). The logical step would have been to give Craig the scene simply as a brilliant chance to act out the cowardice and viciousness at the heart of the character. Yet, presumably, the director did not have much confidence that Craig could deliver, so in the end, Hanks simply pulls a shower curtain across to conceal Craig as he is finally dispatched.

I was reminded of this scene (and Craig's absence in it) when watching Spectre. The more we see of Craig, the less he looks interested in the role of James Bond. Whilst Lea Seydoux pulls out all stops to put some fire into this soul (and his loins) he appears to have little enthusiasm for a love affair. I have rarely seen a screen kiss with less chemistry between the main protagonists, and I don't think it was Seydoux who held back.

All in all, whilst the James Bond format is still strong, Craig's delivery is as flat as a pancake. In one of the last scenes, his nemesis Blofeld is drilling into Bond's brain and announcing that he will soon have no memories. Craig's acting has had the same effect, I have already forgotten all about it.