Saturday, March 26, 2022

ONE MONTH OF WAR IN EUROPE...

By now it's been over one month since Russia's invasion of Ukraine started, and the fact that Europe now lives through its second biggest war since World War Two is no less real than on Day One. Here are some exerpts, courtesy The Washington Post, from an account by "Alex", a 38-year old volunteer with humanitarian aid in Chernihiv, a north Ukrainian town under siege by the Russian Army:


"From what I understand, they hit the water pipes and cut them off. Almost the whole city was without water for almost two days. Just this evening, the water began to flow slowly, at least in some areas. There is also no heating or electricity in most of the city. The Hotel Ukraine building was completely destroyed by an airstrike. Just last night, three Russian bomber planes hit the city and one was shot down. The humanitarian corridor is still not there. There is no passage via the Kyiv-Chernihiv highway. People who try to leave drive through a very strange and scary route on mud roads toward Anysiv. Many people do not have gas. In the courtyards of houses, people are gathering and lighting fires, cooking some kind of soup in large pots. Because there is no electricity, no gas, no heating. The grocery stores are running out of supplies. Finding meat or dairy is unrealistic. It’s a catastrophic situation with baby food. People bring some things into the city but it is in very small quantities and brought by desperate drivers under shelling along the road. So they bring medicine, baby food and diapers. But pharmacies are empty. The lines are so long, so even if you manage to get to the counter it doesn’t mean you’re going to get what you need there, because it may not just be there. The military still seems to think the city will not be taken. Multiple rocket launchers continue to shell the city. There are many unexploded shells — they are sticking out from the gardens, roofs and in the yards of houses. But on the positive side, since yesterday, our connection and the Internet are getting a little better..."



More troubling testimonies here, again per The Washington Post:





Possibly no Ukrainian city exemplifies wanton and senseless destruction more than Mariupol in the south:





But one month of a horrible, unnecessary war has brought us, apart from the upheaval, death and destruction also knowledge...


...it doesn't take professionally trained analysts to conclude that, as happened so often in the past, the mighty Russian War Machine is prone to serious flaws and gross inefficiency. Huge errors have been made, and massive flaws emerged, and this both on the strategic and tactival levels. Russia may still win this brutal contest on account of its superior numbers. But those in the Kremlin cannot fail to fear that the West will conclude that in a war with a peer adversary, the Russian Army would get its balls handed to it on a silver platter.



MFBB.

Sunday, March 20, 2022

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: JOHN LAVERY, CECIL OSBORNE.

Sir John Lavery RA RSA RHA (20 March 1856 – 10 January 1941) was an Irish painter from Belfast, best known for his portraits and wartime depictions.



The Bridge at Grès (1901)




Influenced by Whistler. In 1924 elected to the Royal Academy.



Cecil Osborne (1909–1996) was a self-taught natural painter from Poplar, East London.



Sunday Morning, Farringdon Road (1929)




An echo of Hopper here. Osborne studied in the evenings at John Cooper’s Bow and Bromley Evening Institute classes, and exhibited with the East London Group at Lefevre Gallery, also with NEAC, RA and Civil Defence Artists’ Association at Cooling’s Gallery.



Click on the images to get an unobstructed view please. Good night.



MFBB.