Supporting Statement

The particular areas of Western art which fascinate me illuminate the workings of the imagination from the earliest times – from Egyptian art to the proto-Art Nouveau designs of pre-Hellenic Europe (Minoan, Celtic), to classical Roman grotesques.
Medieval religious art – fired by superstition, fanaticism and the occult – engages my interest, as does Romanticism (for instance John Martin, Piranesi, Delacroix), Symbolism and the Surrealists.
Elegant design intrigues me, hence my liking for such widely placed examples as Minoan frescoes, Tiepolo and Art Nouveau.
Mysticism and mythology are, of course, relevant here and can be represented by Alchemy, which combines both these with visual art. Here I may refer to the writings of Jung, Robert Graves and Antonin Artaud, which have influenced my thoughts in this area.
Serious music is almost exclusively limited to Claude Debussy and Franz Liszt who I find to be the two most extraordinary and significant musicians: Debussy for his dreamlike fantasies and Liszt for his orgiastic virtuosity – the most eminent musician of our time is Duke Ellington.
The cinema is the art of today – Eisenstein, Bunuel, Lang, Fellini and Franju.
All this has obviously involved an interest in history which brings me back to people and books and what concerns me in general; all the threats to civilisation, as we understand it in the West, stem from ignorance – ignorance and illiteracy go hand in hand…

from an official document, 1969