The Savoy

acrylic on canvas, 40×50 cm, €150, framed

This acrylic painting shows a Savoy cabbage leaf. It is a “pars pro toto”, i.e. the part represents the whole thing – the cabbage in this case. It is Latin.

I got a proficiency certificate  in Latin. I had to learn Latin at school for about 5 or 6 years, not that I could ever do anything decent with it. – Most of the lessons we nearly fell asleep it was so extremely boring. It was about Cesar and his men creeping through the forest, erecting and taking down forts. It wouldn’t exactly knock a bunch of teenage girls off their socks, would it? We were an all girls school.

Only the last year was great. We had a different teacher who actually used the school book for Latin. We even read poems then. One of them was called “Mea Lesbia” (My Lesbia). Lesbia was a girl’s name back then in ancient Rome. The poem was all about kissing boys and other people being jealous. So you just keep snogging until people get bored. Great advice! Easy to do if you fancy the pants off someone, isn’t it?

There was another poem or song text from the “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff. He was a classical music man. The song was titled “Totus Floreo” (Everything is Blossoming). The teacher showed us a film with all the songs and music from the “Carmina Burana”. I remember one scene where along with the “Totus Floreo” song, lots of young people climbed into a tree by a lake. Then bit by bit all the clothes came flying down and naked people were jumping into the water. You couldn’t really see anything but we were all wide awake. Paying full attention which is quite rare in school. Brilliant teacher!

So I painted this cabbage leaf. Everybody  knows straight away what it is. I tested it. No photo was required as I cooked the cabbage that day anyway and had a bad spare leaf. I prefer painting and drawing direcly from the object because you can take a closer look at things then.

I take commissions for all sorts of portraits like animal, flower or people portraits. If someone wants their pet painted just send me a nice photo of it.

For more pictures visit my website: arthenning.com