London, ides of November 2023
Nothing could be more ordinary than cold, grey, humid working days in the London rat race. I like to start my days with a warm, freshly baked banana bread, drowning it in a very long takeaway coffee from Caravan. I customise this ritual every day, before returning to being a monad among the tube lanes, the crowds of Piccadilly Circus, softened by the first glittering Christmas decorations. It is hard to resist the frenzy of the London of 2023, fast, dynamic, multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan, innovative, hyper-digital, first ‘stranded’ in the European Union, now in a second life, reinvented, post-Brexit. As in all great metropolises, it is fun to be able to have Thai lunch, Syrian dinner, and find the most remote Georgian restaurant in Islington, so just to experience living on several continents at once is perhaps even thrilling. While the iconic Fortnum and Mason Tea House building (1707) becomes a magnificent living advent calendar, and Mayfair’s exclusive clubs, Annabel’s in the lead, indulge in elaborate and exorbitant Christmas looks, to ensure members the coveted status symbol, Diwali is underway in Downing Street. Tory leader Rishi Sunak, of Indian descent, albeit a Brexiteer and staunch Conservative, is involving his family in the celebration of this important Hindu festivity, paying homage to the large community living in the motherland, as well as to the former British colony, which just this year overtook the UK’s GDP. Revanche? Who knows. All I know is that Waitrose and Marks&Spencer are taking the opportunity to sell limited edition diwali gadgets in the trinket corner near the cash machines. It wouldn’t be England if everything wasn’t monetised, mechanised, turned into profit. By the way, a few shelves over there are overflowing with copies of the Sun sneering at the news of the moment: Kate Middleton’s new interpreter in the last season of The Crown has ousted Megan Markle as testimonial for Dior. Not bad as breaking news. About a year ago I happened to be in town during the momentous mourning for Queen Elizabeth II. The city was jammed, the country in obsequious mourning, it was a truly touching moment. While today I live the England of King Charles III, the curious only wait to see how the scriptwriters will describe the death of Lady D or the liason with Dodi Al Fayed, in the distant but close 1997. An evergreen that has always sold very well. I think that always counts, at least here. Perhaps it sells a little less, but it’s just as much on everyone’s lips, David Cameron’s re-emergence as Foreign Minister, ousting Suella Braveman, who accuses Rishi Sunak of a slap in the face? Hey David, but weren’t you the one campaigning for remain before promising to retire from the political scene on the night of that searing debacle in the 2016 Brexit referendum? There is much confusion. Fortunately, it is politically easy to dissolve it in the drama of the reignited Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as right here in London a few days ago the largest pro-Palestinian demonstration in the country’s history was held. It seems to have been just the official justification for patching up some cracks in the governmental establishment.
Anyway, I was saying… it is hard not to be fascinated by the hothouse of ideas that characterises this city, by the feverishness with which it generates new trends, by the timing you are required to show up at each of the appointments, unless you don’t wanna fall behind. I have always been curious to look beyond, to know what comes next, hungry for the future. The future inspires the present, I think a U2 song sums it up perfectly, ‘we are the people we’ll be waiting for’. But when the future trivialises the present, emptying it of meaning, that’s when I can’t value it. I have never followed fashions, in fact I consider myself rather demodé, I used to wear hight waist trousers when the belly was raging at school, I liked the loose fit even when the skinny was the fancy, I am never in line with the colour palette of the season. I like garments, cities, things that are timeless. I don’t want to pose as a non-conformist, I’ve simply always loved things that stand, to the detriment of impromptu, impersonal things. I value the objects I choose, even ridiculous ones, and I wouldn’t part with them for anything in the world because of the meaning I attach to them. In London, I always have the feeling that the hunger for the future resolves itself into greed for suggestions, inputs, dematerialising the magic of the present, degrading its content, condemning it to dissatisfaction. But, even here, there is something that stands. That from the past, embellishes the present, enriching it with meaning, guiding it towards the future.
There is a group of Victorian houses, called Holland Park Circle, between the park of the same name and Melbury Road. I walked into Leighton House by chance while wandering around South Kensington on business, and ended up sneaking out into a hidden gem that could transport me imaginatively to the Levent.
From the second half of the 19th century, a community of nine artists moved into the area, creating a veritable workshop of architecture and interiors. One of the most eminent artists of the 19th century, Sir Frederic Leighton, turned his home into an art palace, combining domestic space with a large art studio, setting up exceptional rooms for the display of his collections. Fluent in five languages, he travelled extensively in Europe, making his first trip to North Africa, Algeria, at the age of 27. It was to be the first in a series of trips between the Maghreb and the Levant, which would lead him to realise the ecstatic ambience of the Arab Hall in 1877, whose gilded mosaics are largely reminiscent of the Zisa Palace in Palermo. Leighton said he wanted to make something for the sake of something beautiful to look at once in a while. He wanted to create an evocative atmosphere for his collection of emerald damask tiles, which Leighton bought in the Levantine city with the invaluable help of the local Presbyterian missionary Wright. A collection he continued to embellish with ceramics and carpets once he returned to South Kensington, through his friend, explorer and diplomat Richard Burton. The Arab Hall is a dazzling composition of precious mosaics, inlays of Egyptian, Persian and Syrian provenance.
There is no corner of this hall that is not designed to impress the visitor, who is greeted by a cast of the statue of Narcissus found during the first excavations at Pompeii. The young man, who fell in love with himself while being reflected for the first time in a stream of water, is reflected here in the gilded ceiling, immersing himself in the blue sea of Damascene tiles, the reminder of which is accentuated by the sound of the Ottoman fountain in the Arab Hall, which radiates throughout the house, up to the upper floor, where it filters through the cracks in the refined mashrabiya from Cairo. I go to admire it by climbing a massive wooden staircase, modelled on the 15th-century Venetian external staircases. The staircase itself is a space chosen by the artist to display various extracts from his collection: Italian Renaissance paintings, Turkish tiles, an exotic stuffed peacock, luxurious upholstery and furniture. As nothing comparable existed in Victorian London, the house contributed significantly to raising the prestige of the owner. This Sir became President of the Royal Academy in 1878. He had been able to synthesise the best of the artworks discovered, imported, from colonial Greater Britain, providing through meticulous study and brilliant insight a work of masterly Orientalist refinement, and timeless beauty. Something that, indeed, would have remained. Although, hardly anyone in cosmopolitan, sometimes Orientalist London, today knows of the existence of Leighton House.
(continues..)
