At the Lowry Exhibition ...

Last Saturday, I visited the Lowry Exhibition at Tate Britain with Sophie and Paul - I love looking at paintings, and Lowry was a painter who'd long fascinated me -

I met Sophie on the river terrace of the Royal Festival Hall - there was a Festival of Neighbourhood in full swing - a temporary orchard graced the walkways - slender trees swayed in the warm wind - there were profound quotations by Octavia Hill for the passing creatives to consider -

A homeless man lay disregarded, opposite a row of Boris Bikes - Sophie and I had cappuccinos in heavy china bowls in Le pain quotidien - I felt uneasy going there, given Wilf Self's disdain -

We took a few moments to look at Dorothea Tanning's Eine Klein Nachtmusik in the Tate Modern - I marvelled at the strange beautiful horror of the yellow flower - what would it be like to climb those stairs, to see those terrible shapes?

We got a boat to Tate Britain - the river was furious and turbid between the piers of Blackfriars Bridge -

We met up with Paul in Tate Britain - there was a big photograph of Lowry, wearing a crumpled raincoat - he looked like a hard boiled Chicago cop -

There were five rooms full of Lowry's paintings - the skies over the seething dark figures were a smokey, glaring, white - smoke issued from towers touching heaven - factories were like vast prisons - there were rows of mean houses, like barracks, stretching over ash strewn wastelands -

I thought of Aue's recurring dream in The Kindly Ones - the scurrying figures in a cruel city - the remorseless, heartless, activity - there were similarities, I thought -