Art of the cruel sea
QUESTION Which picture is Regina Spektor singing about in her song All The Rowboats?
Regina SPeKTOR is a Russian-born new York singer and pianist, whose style of music is similar to that of Kate Bush and Tori amos.
in the single all The Rowboats, from her album What We Saw From The Cheap Seats, she takes on the role of an art museum tour guide describing the works of art on the walls:
All the rowboats in the paintings They keep trying to row away And the captains’ worried faces Stay contorted and staring at the waves.
She is referring to the paintings of the american artist Winslow Homer (1836–1910). Boston-born Homer was apprenticed at 19 to a commercial lithographer, a specialist type of art printer, and became a prolific illustrator.
He made his name recording scenes from the american Civil War battlefields.
Homer moved from oil paintings to watercolours, the medium for which he is best known.
in 1881, he came to Britain. at Cullercoats, a windswept coastal town in northumberland, he was inspired by the heroism of the fishermen and women of the village and their daily battle with the forces of nature.
He depicted his subjects isolated against the sea, cliffs, rocks and mountains.
in 1883, Homer returned to the U.S. and settled in Prout’s neck, on the coast of Maine. This gave him the isolation that he craved. With views of the rocks and churning atlantic waters, he continued to capture the ferocity of nature and the fisherman’s struggle against the sea.
it was here that he painted his famous series of rowboat paintings, the most well-known being The Fog Warning and The Herring net, both painted in 1885.
Sonia Ferguson, Tiverton, Devon.
QUESTION In the Bible, why did God bless Jacob, who was shown to be a liar?
THe account of Jacob’s deception is found in the book of genesis. Rebekah is pregnant with twin boys and receives a message from god in which he tells her that, unusually, the first-born child, esau, will serve his younger brother, Jacob.
it is a Jewish tradition that the eldest son has special rights and privileges.
Jacob, his mother’s favourite, takes advantage of esau, who sells him his birthright as first-born for a single meal.
it is this willingness to forfeit his position so readily that shows him to be unworthy of it.
Rebekah hears that her husband isaac is about to give his formal blessing to esau, recognising him as his heir. Though she has already been told by god that Jacob will be the dominant brother, she decides, Lady Macbeth style, to take matters into her own hands.
Between them, Rebekah and Jacob decide to deceive isaac and cheat esau. Taking advantage of his father’s failing eyesight, Jacob impersonates his older brother and receives the blessing.
in this way, the purposes of god are worked out, but Rebekah and Jacob have done wrong.
They do not go unpunished. Due to esau’s anger, Jacob has to flee and we do not read that he met his mother again. Jacob, in turn, is the victim of his uncle Laban’s deception. He lives in fear of esau for years until they are reconciled.
There is a commentary on this story in the new Testament, in Romans 9. This explains that god is sovereign and that he chose Jacob over esau before their birth. Here we see the doctrine of election, that god can bless who he chooses and has the sovereign right to do so, and that he can use people to carry out his purposes in spite of their faults. The good news is that god can forgive sin and give his blessing to anyone who turns to Him in faith and repentance.
Jacob met with god (genesis 32), who blessed and changed him. We do not read of any more deceitful behaviour after this. as in apostle Paul’s Damascus Road experience, Jacob was a changed man. He committed his life to god and changed his ways. Stephen Kerry, Colchester, Essex.
QUESTION Were leaves on the line a problem during the age of steam?
FURTHeR to the earlier answer, there are other points to consider about leaves on the line and locomotive adhesion.
Steam locos carried sand boxes mounted near or on the boiler, with pipes angled to put sand on the rails either side of the wheels to improve traction when there was anything that would decrease wheel grip, such as leaves.
The sand could be discharged from the engine cab. But problems could arise if the sand was wet and did not flow to the track. This could mean the train might stall, which sometimes happened in a wet tunnel.
in this case, there was a real possibility of asphyxiation and crews would have to lie on the cab floor with their mouths covered with wet handkerchiefs and hope the train would make it through.
if the driver thought the engine would stall, the fireman would have to take the water bucket, fill it with coal dust, crawl along the engine side and do his best to drop the coal dust on the rails between the wheels.
no easy task in a dark tunnel or at night in bad weather.
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