Hospital From a Few Feet Away

So this is the hospital from a few feet away– one gets a tremendously good idea of exactly how it looked. (The geraniums are touching. If only life was organised so that men could always stay at home and grow flowers. Instead of sometimes living in trenches and every now and then going out to try and kill each other...) There is a good article by Ruth Guilding in this month's World of Interiors (the one where the Colefax and Fowler ad at the beginning has a Persephone book at the top of the pile on the footstool). She writes: 'In Tardieu's sketches the sun is high in the sky, lighting the tent with a dazzling glare, probing with long fingers through the apertures looped back to admit the restorative air and throwing the far recesses into indigo-shadowed contrast. He laid down his pictures quickly in thin oils on boards of about 20 x 25cm, standing at a little easel. Some patients lie prone and muffled under coverlets, stupefied by pain...the more able prop themselves up to talk or read or gaze steadfastly at Tardieu.