Jan and Cora Gordon

 In their book, Two Vagabonds in Albania, Jan and Cora Gordon described their progress from Tirana to Elbasan in 1925. 'UP, up, up the Krabe Pass we went slowly, labouringly, until midday, with the sun glowering into our eyes and the heat beating on our fore-heads, so that we were content to sink our heads and let the jogging hours pass by of themselves.' 'Well, you must be confirmed scenery-mongers if you want to stop and enjoy the beautiful in a bake-house oven. Yet once or twice we did halt and gasped out a few suspirations of desiccated appreciation. At sunset, very thirsty, we came down into Elbasan. Behind us old Mislim Haxji of Rodamir still plodded rhythmically along on his soft shoes as though the broiling march of eleven hours over the Krabe Pass had been little to his seventy odd years.' 'At first view Elbasan was one of those crouching towns. A low screen of trees was sufficient to hide quite from view all except the two white minarets which had survived...

In their book about their 1925 journey, Two Vagabonds in Albania, Jan and Cora Gordon were a little dismissive of what was then known as Durazzo, today Durrës.  They wrote, 'Don’t stay in Durazzo. There's nothing to stop for in Durazzo unless you want to sketch the old walls that the Venetians made and which have been a bit tumbled about since by miscellaneous earthquakes.' They described how 'the mountaineers during the last revolution themselves expressed their opinion of their lowland compatriots. On marching into Durazzo one of their first actions was to go to the school and make an auto-da-fé of the lesson books. "If this is what education makes of the sons of the Eagle," they said, "down with Education." Durrës is actually an interesting place to visit these days. The Venetian walls and tower are still there, but there is also now a Roman amphitheatre discovered by chance in 1966 and a variety of monuments reflecting the communist period and it...

 Having just travelled through Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia, I revisited the article published by Jan Gordon in the magazine Land and Water, December 23, 1915. It helps greatly to have seen the terrain. Jan Gordon's map of the area discussed in the article. During the past week, I visited the Ochrida, to Elbasan to Tirana to Durazzo and the Pristina, to Prizrend to Tirana areas shown. My copy (shown above) is not good quality, so I have transcribed the text below. 'WE spent most of the night of the 30th of October on the roof of a Serbian train, the other half in a telegraph office at Kralievo, which lies to the north of Nish, lulled by the sonorous sleep of two French surgeon-majors who were using the large table as a four-poster bed. In the station trains were being shunted almost continuously, and in the few intervals of silence one could hear the faint boom of the distant cannon. With the dawn of the next day the Serbian Headquarter Staff left Kralievo for Rashka. Ni...

On their journey in 1925 from Elbasan towards Lake Ochrid (Ohrid today) in Albania, Jan and Cora (Jo) Gordon stopped at Kjuks (today Qukës Skënderbej) for food and accommodation. Part of the map of their travels in Albania in 'Two Vagabonds in Albania' by Jan and Cora Gordon. To the east of Elbasan, you'll see 'Kjuks', the subject of this story. They tell the story in chapter 3 of 'Two Vagabonds in Albania'.  “ HELLO! " Jo cried, striding into the wretched inn at Kjuks, a good day’s mountain ride from Elbasan, and the half-way house on the pass to Pogradec. " Where is the hahngee? " " I " said a small boy of twelve looking perkily at her, " I am the hahngee. "  Cora Gordon's drawing of the Hahngee " What is there to eat ? " asked Jo; " we are hungry. "  “ There is anything your honour would like to demand ," replied the hahngee.  " Eggs? "  " Certainly. "  " Meat? ...

 Jan Gordon's WW1 involvement in the design of dazzle patterns for ships in WW1 has been discussed several times here (see references below, also https://pbase.com/hajar/jan_gordon_dazzle).  On a recent visit to the Manx Museum in Douglas, Isle of Man, I came across this dramatic painting featuring a dazzled 'King Orry' steam packet. The dazzle is in blues and black. The ship is leading the surrendered German ships into the Firth of Forth at the end of WW1. This was on the 21st November 1918. There's an airship and two aeroplanes in the sky above. The painting is  by Arthur James Wetherall Burgess R.I. and was completed in1919. The King Orry was the only merchant vessel selected to lead a flotilla of German ships that day. In WW2, she was bombed and sunk at Dunkirk. References Gordon, J.G. Lieut. R.N.V.R. 1918. The Art of Dazzle Painting. Land & Sea, December 1918 Smith, R.D.A., 2013.  Jan Gordon: Dazzle Camouflage in Nature and War.  February 01, 2013 ...

Many years ago, I bought a volume of ' The Apple of Beauty and Discord ", which contained a reproduction of a woodcut by Cora Gordon of Sennen Cove in Cornwall. Today, I looked again and read an article by Jan Gordon on ' The Future in Paris ', a discussion of the fading of Paris as a centre of invention in art after the end of WW1. I have transcribed the article here below.  ' Since 1800 Europe has looked to France for inspiration in Art. France emerging from the throes of the Revolution began the series of developments which in themselves constituted a revolution in Art. Even though the principal leaders in some of the later developments were not French, such as Picasso, a Spaniard, Boccioni and Severeni, Italians, the whole movement from A to Z was French in character, French in inspiration, and the foreign assistants were usually of Latin origin; though some impetus was given by the oriental element contributed by the younger Jewish painters.  The question uppe...

Jan Gordon left a rich legacy of art works , in oils, gouache, watercolour and etchings. He wrote about the practicalities of these techniques in his book ' A Stepladder to Painting ' and its American edition, ' Painting for Beginners '. One painting (a gift from my cousin Mags) is a mystery, showing an overcast scene in a location experiencing strong winds, with some swamp-like water bodies and two devices, one approximately square and the other a triangle, suggesting warning signs. There are traces of an earlier placement of the triangle with curved supporting pole to the left of the eventual representation of this feature. The colours, mainly greens and browns with patches of yellow and blue, are subdued, giving the appearance of an autumn or winter day. Small branches, bare of leaves, make reflections in the standing body of water. The painting is signed "Gordon" in blue paint, the last colour added to the picture, on the shadow side of the plants in the l...