Saturday 21 January 2012

7 people I would like to meet

A perennial blogging favourite that I have been prompted to think about by Arlee. I have chosen real people and to make life simpler they are all dead. I think it would be good to imagine them together round  table chewing the fat though when you read my selection you will see there might be some linguistic challenges!

William Morris
William Morris
William Morris was a nineteenth century English textile designer, writer and socialist associated with the Pre Raphaelites and he lived his life with such passion and with a vision of beauty and harmony. My house, like many, is full of his designs 120 years after his death.

Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft, a writer and philospher from the eighteenth century  is considered to be a founder of the feminism. Not sure how she would feel about how women have fared in the ensuing centuries.

Sophocles
Sophocles was the most famous playwright of his day ( 496-406 BC) and a rare long lived member of this list. He is best known for one of his Theban plays and his story about  Oedipus. He would be speaking in ancient Greek but let's imagine there is a translating device involved here!
Sophocles

Marie Curie
Marie Curie
As a nineteenth century Polish scientist Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize for her pioneering work  in the field of radiation. She went on to win another Nobel Prize in a different science and only one other person has ever achieved this. A driven woman with grit and determination for a whole lifetime.

 Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
Diego Rivera was a Mexican painter who became famous for his murals which portrayed the lives of working people. Wish I had known about him when I visited San Francisco 20 years ago where his some of his murals are now in a gallery. His political views and their inclusion in his art made his career a checkered one. If he came to a meeting it would be good to have Frida Kalho, his most famous wife along too [ he had others as he was somewhat of a womaniser]. Frida, also Mexican who was most known for her self portraits. A tortured woman, she was disabled first by Polio and then by a traffic accident. Their relationship was tempestuous and any event would be interesting with the two of them there.
Frida Kahlo

Diego Rivera


George Orwell

George Orwell 

Born at the turn of the century Eric Blair, using his pen name George Orwell is an inspiration because of his biting satire and dystopian novels like 1984. He lived a short but never dull life and he unwittingly left us several words that have entered our vocabulary especially "Big Brother," "Room 101," and  "thought police,"


Kathe Kollwitz


Kathe Kollwitz
I know this one is number eight but I sneaked Frida in under Rivera's cape. Kathe Kollwitz was another imaginative artist with an eye for the common man the lives of whom she depicted in sometimes harrowing misery and without the sentimental approach many of her fellow artists were adopting.  Another person ahead of her time with a feeling for her fellow man. I would like to show her one of my sculptures inspired by one of her charcoal drawings.

7 comments:

  1. Well done. Those are interesting choices with a couple of them with whom I am not familiar.

    I really enjoyed the film Frida. Seeing the portrait you've shown here makes me realize how perfectly the casting was done for the part of Rivera--Alfred Molina looks like Rivera.


    Lee
    Capturing a life on video
    Wrote By Rote

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  2. Gosh, Susan, they're a really interesting group of people but you've certainly packed your dining table with some deep thinkers. I hope you can manage to keep up with their conversations. I would be a tad intimidated by people like Marie Curie and Sophocles and... well all of them really. I'm not sure who I would choose to have sitting round my table. I'm going to go away and think about it.

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  3. Arlee - oh yes I love that film. Alfred Molina is also good in Enchanted April. Rivera was such a unlikely looking man to be such a womaniser!

    Rosalind - I might be a bit tense I grant you! Looking forward to your selection. I bet there will be an early children's writer amongst them!

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  4. Great concept and great post!
    The idea of meeting someone we have admired is tantalizing. I remember reading Van Loon's Lives (30+ years ago now) where the Dutch narrator has the good fortune to have the likes of Erasmus (first time I had heard of him), Emily Dickinson and many others over for dinner on successive Saturday nights. As well as planning the dinner conversation, he has to worry about his guests' eating particulars! It's out of print now, but well worth finding second hand.

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  5. I think there would be some great discussions at that table.

    I actually read something really interesting today which I will now randomly mention since you mentioned Mary Wollstonecraft. Her daughter is none other than Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein. :-D

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  6. Jane
    Welcome to my blog! I will have to search for that book - sounds interesting! Thanks for that...

    Misha
    Yes it is strange to think of that mother-daughter combination but she was writing in a man's world so she was clearly a chip off the block!

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  7. AWESOME CHOICES....GREAT blog....NEW FOLLOWER.

    Just stopping by to look around from Teresa Ashby's Blog.....A Likely Story.

    Elizabeth

    Silver's Reviews

    http://silversolara.blogspot.com

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