Pedestrianism

First of all, today's big news. As you all probably know by now, Coventry City FC were promoted to the Championship today, three months after they last played.  They were leading the league when the pandemic closed sport down and have been awarded promotion on the basis of their average points per game over the season. Much celebration!

As I walked along the canal towpath this afternoon, a podcast told me about the 19th century sport of "Pedestrianism" - an early form of competitive walking, funded by wagering. One of the most famous pedestrians was Captain Robert Barclay Allardice, whose most impressive feat (no pun intended) was to walk 1 mile every hour for 1000 successive hours, between 1 June and 12 July 1809.

History does not reveal whether he listened to music on his walks but I do. Today's first listen was to Eric Bibb's album Booker's Guitar on which my favourite track was With My Maker I Am One.

The term "Abstract Expressionism" was first used in 1945 of a group of artists who adopted the surrealists' idea of unconscious, automatic painting, depicting non-geomorphic objects that evoke living things. 

Its most famous exponent was Jackson Pollock, who moved all over his canvasses, often on the studio floor, creating swirls and drips of paint, generating wild images of colour and drama. One of his most pleasing pictures is Eyes in the Heat (1946) in which instead of using a brush he applied paint directly from the tube, pushing and smearing it with blunt objects.

On Autumn Rhythm (Number 30) (1950) he used enamel house paint in black, white, brown and grey over a canvas 5.25 metres long and 2.67 metres high. It creates an image of a continuous, swirling, detailed mass. 

Pollock's work causes much debate and cynicism. Two questions are often asked. One is "what's so special about that? I could do it easily." To which the obvious answer is "well, why didn't you then?" Another: "is it art?" My answer to that is that if the creator of a work calls it art, then that's what it is. It does not follow that it is any good but that's a different question. Actually, I like Pollock's work a great deal but not everyone does.  And that's absolutely fine.