Good news from Aix....

Last tango in Aachen

History does not record whether Charlemagne (aka Karl der Große, Karel de Grote, Carolus magnus rex, et al) was a Hoofer, nor whether he spent his weekends Jack Palancing, but, 1212 years after his death (at the age of 66), his capital city is alive with the shuffle of kicking and prancing.....

As you can see, I am a little clunky....

But after a few partners, I begin to get the hang of it, and almost only one of my feet is left....

But that's a digression.... Here I was in Aachen, whose name, according to Wiki, is a modern descendant, like southern German Ach(e), German: Aach, meaning river or stream, from Old High German ahha, [Pace, Alan Partridge - Ed.] meaning water or stream, which directly translates (and etymologically corresponds) to Latin Aquae, referring to the local mineral springs, which figures in Aachen's Roman name Aquae granni, which meant waters of Grannus, referring to the Celtic god of healing who was worshipped at the springs. This word became Åxhe in Walloon and Aix in French, and subsequently Aix-la-Chapelle to distinguish it from Aix-en-Provence after Charlemagne had his palatine chapel built there in the late 8th century and then made the city his empire's capital.

[So now you know - Ed.]

Robert Browning had a thing or two to say (about this and that....):

How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

But, like the decorations in the Palatine Chapel, all this is phoney.  

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.....

Robert Browning

He made it all up..... There was no news - there were no riders - and the mosaics and decorations are 19th and early 20th century (the stained glass is post WWII). Pshaw! 

Aachen Cathedral is Germany's first UNESCO World Heritage site and received about 1.25 million visitors in 2025, with over 5,300 guided tours.

And so why the flocking hordes of foreign bodies? Is it the cult of the man?

Or his legacy?

Europe - Cornerstone of Peace

Don't get me started.  As Tony Hancock once said, Did Magna Carta die in vain?

Forgive me whilst I slake my Wurst.....

So.  What is Aachen, and why was I here?

Aachen was Charlemagne's capital and subsequently the coronation site for 30 Holy Roman Emperors.  It is a city with a population of about 250,000 (roughly the same as Southampton or Derby), the 27th largest city in Germany, but it is the westernmost, near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands.  It was the first city to fall to Western Allies in 1944, but was very badly damaged - though the Cathedral and the Rathaus were not destroyed.

It is a busy, friendly place.  I found that almost everyone spoke better English than me (my Deutsch is dastardly) and the atmosphere was calm and disciplined - for example, everyone waits for the green man when crossing roads, even if there is no traffic at all.....  It is also noticeable that cyclists, perhaps misguidedly eschewing helmets and lycra, adhere religiously to cycle paths instead of careering along footpaths and jumping red lights..... What is wrong with these people?

 

The Sunday morning flea market in the Katschof is a popular teeming event, though I notice a distinct absence of dogs....  Again, what are these people thinking?  

It's the same in restaurants: nowhere are their bowls of water on the floor to trip over, pots of biscuits on the counter, nor paw prints on the seats..... How can folk live like this?

Even outside the restaurants.....  Is there some kind of extreme regulation (draconian law) that has taken over the minds of ordinary citizens?  Is this what the AfD really stands for?

We are, after all, only 61 kms from Cologne, where the Odour is strictly Colonial:

Anyway, you may construdel this in your own way.....

To be honest [?? Ed.] I am here for two things.  One is arrrrt....  And in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum the only thing that disappoints is that the top floor is currently off limits, so I am deprived of Otto Dix and Max Liebermann et al. But alongside pictures by Cranach, Rembrandt and Zurbarán.... 

There is a wonderful collection of medieval sculpture.....

Most extraordinary, in a way, is that, while the Germans may not be best known for their sense of humour, I cannot help but be arrested by certain works on display in this otherwise sedate (and under-visited) collection. Here is Michael Triegel (born Erfurt, 1968)'s 2008 painting, Verkündigung (Annunciation)....

Perhaps I should not suggest that there is humour here, but then consider this:

The picture on the left, Portrait of a Man, 1660, by Johann Wilhelm Pottgießer:

Is a serious, traditional portrait, whereas the one on the right....

Is a 2024 photo collage, one of a series of Hidden Portraits, in which Volker Hermes (born 1972) reinterprets historical paintings through a modern lens. Using only elements from the original work, Volker visually manipulates famous Old Masters portraits, exploring expression when the face is obscured. The “Hidden Portraits” series examines the context of art as a means of representation and the relationship between image and individual.

Across town, in the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, light streams in through the windows of what was once an umbrella factory, built in 1928:

It is a marvellous space, and it houses a collection of some 3,000 artworks from the last sixty years or so, including pieces by Jeff Koons:

Jean-Michel Basquiat

And Andy Warhol and Duane Hanson:

But for me a second major attraction to Aachen lies within the Carolus Thermen complex:

Where you can swim in warm mineral waters, or relax in any of fifteen saunas and steam baths, literally stripping away all the trappings of daily life, enjoying the well-being of typical German nudity.... [No photos please....Ed.]

And then, suitably purified, I walk back through the Stadtgarten,

Sprinkle myself with Cologne:

And get back on the dance floor in the Neo-classical Elisenbrunnen pavilion (originally built in 1827 but reconstructed after WWII) where I now feel completely at home.....

There is no doubt, this is a civilised and attractive place, and I have barely scratched the surface in my furtive weekend.

The news is good here, and I shall, quite possibly, be back....

How I Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent (or Vice Versa)

I sprang to the rollocks and Jorrocks and me,

And I galloped, you galloped, he galloped, we galloped all three…

Not a word to each other; we kept changing place,

Neck to neck, back to front, ear to ear, face to face;

And we yelled once or twice, when we heard a clock chime,

“Would you kindly oblige us, Is that the right time?”

As I galloped, you galloped, he galloped, we galloped, ye galloped, they two shall have galloped; let us trot......

ENVOI

So I sprang to a taxi and shouted “To Aix!”

And he blew on his horn and he threw off his brakes,

And all the way back till my money was spent

We rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled

And rattled and rattled—

And eventually sent a telegram.

W C Sellar and R J Yeatman

All we need is music, sweet music (sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet music)

There'll be music everywhere (everywhere)

There'll be swinging, swaying (swaying)

And records playing (playing)

Dancing in the street, oh

Marvin Gaye, William Stevenson 

and Ivy Jo Hunter

Dancing in the Street

A Wandering Eye

 Picture this......

All pictures are in the past. Even what you think you saw just now, for example Anthony Michael Gordon's 55th minute goal against Argentina happened fractionally before you could experience it, with the light travelling through your lenses to your retina then crowding down your optic nerve to be processed by your brain.....  Nothing is what you think you saw.

And so it is with art.....  Hockney has gone the same way that T S Eliot took.  Words and pictures still with us, but the light has gone.....

I am in London again, roaming the interstices of  life and love, wandering partially for the sake of it, partially because to stay still is also an illusion.....

Although I think I prefer my rustication [sic] in far flung Norfolk there is a vibrant stimulus in the hectic miasma that is London.  Almost an aversion therapy......

So I prowl about, a camera, or an iPhone, at the ready, snapping images that later may help me remember where I have been or what I saw. Pictures which, along with the estimated 5 billion to 5.3 billion photos that human beings currently take every day worldwide, will mean less than nothing to no one. 

This figure equates to over 61,400 photos snapped every single second, resulting in roughly 50 petabytes of new image data captured daily, which average leads to more than 2 trillion photos taken annually across the globe, of which around 90% are now captured using smartphones, leaving conventional cameras and film to account for less than 10% of daily images.

So, there we aren't.  Here I am.  

Yes, here I am.  Competing with the rest of the world, remembering that the essence of competition is that there are always losers.......

But.....  WTF?  Other people breathe. That doesn't mean I shouldn't.

And, as Hiromix says:

Though what she doesn't say is that every image, whether it is a painting or a photograph or (perhaps) a sculpture, is a selfie.....  It's not a new thing.  The first artist ever was expressing something of his or her self.  The last artist ever will still be trying to say something that emanates from the self.....

Here is David Hockney telling us about his house in France, wanting us to appreciate his life, possibly subconsciously wanting us to share his life, without - obviously - intruding......

And here is Andy Warhol vicariously extending his world to tantalise us with fame and luxury:

And here is Christo wrapping the desirable away so we can only dream of what lies beneath:

While Bob Dylan entices us to follow his lines into the distant imagination of an evanescent world:

Of course, you cry, [Who are you to patronise?  Ed] there are images that involve no artistry, such as those of the Camera Obscura..........

But this device is only designed to monitor or assist imagery. It doesn't happen by itself.....

So what about nature?  The circle of life?  Why are flowers so attractive?

Aren't they just saying, Come, look at me?  Come, smell me?

Come on, come on, come on, come on

Now, touch me, babe

Can't you see that I am not afraid?

What was that promise that you made?

Why won't you tell me what she said?

What was that promise that you made?

Touch Me

The Doors

Anyway, this, by a circuitous route, brings me to Kew Gardens, a somewhat pricey outskirt of the metropolis.  Here, where foxes and badgers rule supreme and hedgehogs are no longer happy residents, a series of sinuous sculptures punctuates the park, courtesy of the late Henry Spencer Moore (not knighted, by the way, in 1951).....

Having recently visited Barbara Hepworth in St Ives, (and having previously written about Henry Moore at Perry Green in https://www.richardpgibbs.org/2013/05/feeling-henry-moore-ish.html) I am shy of opining about the abstract.  There is something grand, something liberating, however, about being next to a substantial three-dimensional art work in an open, natural environment.  

As Moore wished, the work expresses itself from all angles.  You wander around it and it presents differing ideas/thoughts/possibilities as the lights changes as the shapes interact.....

As Moore himself said, in Unit One, edited by Herbert Read in 1934, All art is an abstraction to some degree (in sculpture the material alone forces one away from pure representation and towards abstraction).....

Or, as he wrote in The Listener in 1937, Each particular carving I make takes on in my mind a human or occasionally animal character and personality, and this personality controls its design and formal qualities, and makes me satisfied or dissatisfied with the work as it develops......

Makes me satisfied or dissatisfied...... Art as an expression of satisfaction. Art is an expression of the self.  Not to deny anattā - the Buddhist concept that there is no permanent, unchanging, soul or 'self' but that there is a flowing collection of consciousness, sensation and perception that allows a more sensitive and imaginative connection with the world.....

That may be a hazy view of the life outside the window.....

But a two-dimensional swimming pool is just as elusive......

I must wrap my car......

But I will let Raye say her piece:

And I don′t really like my body

But knowing it′s my only body

I should probably call somebody

I should really show you how I'm feeling inside

Matter fact, I′m glad you called me

I been hiding, I been high and I been sleeping hungry

Body Dysmorphia 

Rachel Agatha Keen, Michael Harris Sabath

Now I'm gonna love you

Till the heavens stop the rain

I'm gonna love you

Till the stars fall from the sky

For you and I

Touch Me