Ciceronian Review

Malevich

London is hosting a large show of Malevich works.  I saw a version of the exhibition last year in Amsterdam.  There is an interesting review of the show at the Tate Modern in the August 21 LRB.  As the review makes clear, there is an impressive range of works, not so much in the sense that there are a large number of works in a large number of media, but in the sense that the range of Malevich's different approaches over time are well-represented.  The show provides yet another confirmation that seeing the works is quite different from seeing slides and other reproductions.  (It is an obvious point I can't quite get set into my mind.)  For example, White Cross is a good deal more interesting than any of the reproductions convey.  The self-portraits are shocking, but that is not an effect in any of the reproductions.  

I am most of the way through The Land Where Lemons Grow. It is a book about gardens, a genre I have never read in before. The gardens all grow lemons and oranges, and are In Italy. I can't say that I expect to investigate the genre, but the book has proven as good as the reviews suggested. More than once I found myself thinking about making a trip to taste some the lemons, and test the claims about the blood oranges. Can't grow either where I live, unless one has a house for the trees and I don't.