On our first day we walked to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, pushing through a grey morning in a city that wore it like an old jumper as the rain flickered happily in the air.
“Old Tom Morris” by S. J. Peploe
I’d never heard of the Glasgow Boys– a group of anti-establishment painters, active in the late 1800s– but an exhibition of their work provided me with a whistle stop tour. Many of the pieces felt tailor made for a sentimental softie such as myself, with sensitive evocations of impossible rural scenes, whispered on to the canvases. They made me think of Thomas Hardy, another favourite of mine who conjured up an imagined past and set about defending it from corruption with vigour.
But the painting that struck me the most was not an idyllic landscape but a portrait. Emerging from a dark sea of paint, that barely hints at a room, is the bright face of Old Tom Morris, who leans on a wooden table and raises a dainty glass to us. The placard tells us that Tom Morris is a ‘local character’ who the artist, S.J. Peploe, painted multiple times. I think the term local character is brilliantly provocative– it animates the mischief and vitality that Peploe had encased in Tom’s frozen expression.
I think the incredible lightness of his portrayal is not only an attempt to reflect his nature but also a philosophical point being made by the artist. Tom represents the veracity of (then-) modern life that fascinated and inspired many of the Glasgow Boys and he is presented as the antidote to the artifice of academic painting of the time. In the wake of his smile, we feel the warmth of chatter down the local and the joy of our friends’ idiosyncrasies. It is a memorial not only to Old Tom Morris, but to the weightlessness afforded by sincerity and the sharp crunch of gravel on the walk home.
With this in mind, as I walked away from Tom’s radiance, I was reminded of a more recent phenomenon that seeks out an unfiltered reality. On TikTok and YouTube and Instagram there are thousands of videos of people featuring ‘ordinary’, often vulnerable, individuals as the basis of their content. Most recently, I have seen videos of street photographers approaching homeless people to take their portrait.
On the one hand, it can seem fairly harmless, or even positive. We can cut through the sanctimonious, hateful bullshit of the media and the widespread ignorance of the social internet and be placed face-(to-screen)-to-face with a person, rather than a contrived and deliberately divisive caricature. They are made real for those who might otherwise dismiss them as an inconvenient and distant artefact. Their humanity is insisted upon and their dehumanisation made much harder– though some people, no doubt, continue to try their best.
But they also become an object for the creator and a tool that ultimately tells a story that they have no control over; a convenience, a fable. A lot of the time accompanying captions and comments show just how easily the individual can sink below the surface of platitudes and life lessons like ‘never judge a book…’ and ‘we are all one human race’. Is it really imbuing someone with dignity to broadcast their life for another’s gain, even if it is under the guise of ‘art’ or ‘creation’? Sometime the artists themselves can see their intended narrative spiral out of control.
An even more contentious version of the same phenomenon is the filming of homeless people being given money or food by the creator. Again, it can be useful to highlight good deeds and humanise a marginalised group, but can we truly be comfortable as an unsuspecting bystander is immortalised, and consumed into a memorial to the harsh realities of our society.
Granted, the question of how Old Tom Morris would feel about being painted if he had know he would be hanging on the walls of the Kelvingrove as a kind of zany embodiment of provincial life seems a bit inconsequential. But for the modern subjects, who are captured in the much more immediate mediums of photography and video, it seems like a very pertinent consideration to make.
The next day we went to see some more literal memorials. The Glasgow Necropolis is a strange place, if I’m honest. The paths wind breathlessly up a hill, lined with dull stones in a multitude of greys. This is the antithesis of Old Tom Morris saluting the passing museum guests. This is a performance, a most silent and still song and dance.
See the tallest column and largest name and think of me, not as I was or ever could be.
There is no truth to discover, really, because we’re forced to accept their story as it is carved before us. The cloud of sorrow barely dampens the shrill ring of wealth that echoes around the extravagant tombs and statues. But the artifice is also fragile. Another group walks a few feet behind us and laughs at some apparent contradiction chiseled into the stone. Like our painting in reverse, the humanity seeps through the facade. Suddenly the desperation is all around, the human tragedy of monuments built to assert the agency of the dead makes the faces of statues cry.
Memorials are for the living, and those who once lived. More is revealed in the way we react to them than to the things themselves or, obviously, by the people and things they memorialise. Each sacred thing takes a piece of each person who spends a while with it, and that is it’s power.
As we left and headed down toward the cathedral, we walked past a headstone torn in half down the middle like Styrofoam. I felt the sting of sadness and shook my head, as though for them but really for me.
Ultimately, we end up as the interpretations of those we surround ourselves with and those who choose to surround us. It is empowering and debilitating all at once but the contradiction persists at a kind of equilibrium. We should give care to our interpretations, and be sceptical of the lenses through which others are portrayed.
In my second year at university I wrote an essay for a Gothic Literature module where I discussed the use of what I called ‘personal mythologies’ within two texts. Rereading it again today, the argument is convoluted to say the least (and the marks it received certainly reflects the content) but I found myself thinking again about the idea of personal mythologies over the past few weeks and thought I’d give it another go.
Mysterious Statue with Symbolic Resonances
A few weekends ago I was presented with the extremely generous gift of a trip to Dublin to watch a band called ‘The High Kings’ who play traditional Irish folk songs, mixed in with some original material, and who’s music I have been slightly obsessed with for a few years.* We filled the time around the show with some sightseeing; taking a walking tour around the city and visiting Dublin Castle as well as spending a fair few hours in the local Wetherspoons. Dublin has the familiar murmur of a European capital, with towering statues with stony faces, but on a bitter but clear day we were most enamoured with its parks. We walked along criss-crossing paths and past still, cropped grass to find a reclining statue of and tribute to Oscar Wilde. In another garden, next door to Dublin Castle, we found a bright pink statue of a hero with a decapitated head at his feet. But, rather than classical dress, he was dressed in shorts, boots and a baseball cap. I couldn’t find any information on it online and there was no plaque to tell me its origin but, looking back, it was the perfect symbol of the appropriated and personalised mythologies that would occupy my thoughts in the coming weeks.
Our time exploring the city actually provided some pretty vital context for the songs I was going to hear from The High Kings. The songs are a performance of a national story; of a troubled history and a celebration of independence, often to used to punctuate a particular moment in time. But as they raced through their repertoire, they told the crowd their own stories about the first time they played a song or the musical traditions of their families.
Best £15 Ever Spent
During these stories it occurred to me that, separate from their wider context, the songs had become intertwined with the personal narratives of the band. Not only would the songs be a form of national mourning or nostalgia but footnotes in their own mythology; a soundtrack of firsts, lasts and defining moments. It was Paul O’Brien’s first time on tour with the band and maybe, amongst the performance of a long tradition, a moment in a particular show and particular song solidified itself within his personal mythology. Maybe his worst nerves, his strongest solo, the response of a crowd– something which will shape his life in minute but meaningful ways and which will be recalled, even if only inwardly, forever.
Only a few hours earlier I was sat in a pub called O’Connell’s and, sitting down with my cider (scared of Guinness), I saw the table was littered with fresh paper coasters. Instinctively, I placed one at the edge of the table and began flipping it, then catching it in midair– stacking another coaster on top with each attempt. I first saw this little trick many years ago, shown to me by a friend, and whom now I remember every time I am compelled to replicate it. I uploaded it to my Instagram and soon a second friend responded to the video, reminiscing about our time spent practising together. The origin stories of those quirks, manifesting in our daily lives, really fascinates me, especially when they are shared with a friendship group to become a common language and the foundation of how we think of and define ourselves.
Fastforward a week and I was catching a flight to Kyiv for a trip with a altogether different pace. A group of eight, patiently led by a friend of mine who I lived with at University and whose family is from Ukraine. In a way, he was my Ukrainian ‘High King’, proud of the country and very vocal about its, often turbulent, national story (although he is yet to start a Ukrainian folk band, as far as I’m aware).** I think a lot of us are guilty of shit-talking our hometowns and failing to ever un-ironically praise them– especially Lutonians– but spending time with someone who has a sincere and unashamed enthusiasm for a place that is important to them is really refreshing. The cityscape of Kyiv is beautifully eclectic; with the blunt grey leviathans of brutalism interspersed with glittering monuments and intricate exteriors coloured with pastel blues and pinks. As a train station nerd, the stretches of tunnel lit warmly with a row of chandeliers and the delightfully retro rolling stock made me happy.
Statue of a young, starving girl commemorating the Holodomor
We had gone to Kyiv for my friend’s birthday and the party consisted mostly of his school friends whom he had known, and who had known each other, for many years. While the evolving story of this new city sharpened into view, it was so fascinating to me hearing them delve into the depths of their own shared mythology; being able to evoke meaning and nostalgia with the recalling of a name or place. And, when asked, they would generously offer up the genesis of long standing jokes that are so engrained in the fabric of their friendship. Even the UoB alumni partook in some of our own folk traditions, sharing our own origins, with stories of short-lived friendships and habitual clubbing. As the second annual pilgrimage to Ukraine in celebration of a friend, more sprouts of a common language, borne out of shared experience, began to emerge.
We were in our own bubble as the bells chimed for Brexit back home. And perhaps it is in this seemingly eternal saga that the more insidious manifestations of these ‘shared mythologies’ rear their ugly heads. These stories we wrap ourselves are exclusionary by nature, they make us prone to outrage with those whose thoughts divert from ours and distract from the need to acknowledge the lived experience of others.
Brutalist Architecture
Surprisingly, I don’t have the answers to how we ‘unify’ or ‘come together’ (as we are so often told we must do) but I thought I would end on a slightly less controversial topic. On our final night, the conversation arrived at the topic of astrology. Now, I suspect there were varying degrees of ‘belief’ in the room but I found myself thinking how a younger, more insufferable, version of myself may have reacted. In my mid-teens I was a boring, smart arse contrarian that watched Christian take-down videos and posted trite societal observations on Facebook (somethings never change) and astrology would have no doubt been another victim of my distain. But thinking of the way we consume these structures and we become reliant on them as truths not only about the world but about ourselves, I’m glad I tried to understand and defend the validity of belief in that moment. Often, we want the same thing; security, control, happiness, love. As we shoot across no mans land, with different uniforms but the same anxieties and fears and the same locket with a picture of your sweetheart back home.
As I attempt to keep this straining metaphor alive, if there is a lesson I think I’ve learnt (or, added to my anthology of origin stories) it’s to try to see the reasons people have built the mythology upon which they stand. See that it can give meaning, bring solace and find space for new footnotes or chapters in your own story.
* My personal recommendations on where to start with The High Kings are ‘Grace’, ‘Red Is The Rose’, ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’ and ‘Marie’s Wedding’
** He does, however, have a blog that follows Ukrainian football so, if that interests you, you can find him at Zorya Londonsk.
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