November – December 2009
This month we don’t have a theme as such. Instead we each chose a work as a virtual ‘Christmas present’ to the rest of the group. So there’s nothing underlying the choices except that each one of us would like to share our chosen work with the others (my gift was Revolver by the Beatles, although I also championed David Copperfield, one of my favourite novels of all time).
Here’s the list:
- David Copperfield – Charles Dickens (novel)
- Selected Poems, edited by Jonathan Bate – John Clare (poems)
- Revolver – The Beatles (album)
- The Decalogue – Krzysztof Kieślowski (movie)
- The Fall of the Rebel Angels – Pieter Bruegel the Elder (painting)
2 responses to “Culture Club: Theme for November – December 2009”
The Fall of the Rebel Angels is one of my favorite paintings. I recommend looking at it while listening to Chopin’s Prelude No. 24 in D minor. One of the most striking things about this scene is the angels’ complete lack of emotion as they drive the suffering grotesqueries from paradise. We relate far more easily to the fallen, whose Dantean inability to dissemble produces the ghastly monsters that somehow manage to capture our sympathy. The good angels, meanwhile, are expressionless, faceless, lifeless. Spooky.
Thanks invittoaugusto I’m going to give that a go.