JULY 2008

25th ANNIVERSARY MEETING

The Farnham Decorative and Fine Arts Society celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a Recital by Peter Medhurst, Musician and Scholar, at the Performing Arts Centre at Frensham Heights School on 9 July 2008.

The Chairman, Frances Ashworth, thanked the members and volunteer groups for their continuing support of the Society and welcomed the President, Susan Filer, the outgoing and new South West Surrey Area Chairmen, Caryl Morley and Denise Topolski respectively and the Chief Executive of NADFAS, David Bell, who gave a short summary of the present state of NADFAS. 

Peter Medhurst took Summer as his theme for the recital from the perspective of love with a cheerful selection of songs, nicely laced with humorous stories.  He began with a song from the Elizabethan composer, Dowdland, and then treated the members to a variety of songs by a range of composers from Handel, Michael Arne, Mozart, Schubert, Ivor Gurney, and Thomas Dunhill.  His songs, while retaining his Summer theme, took us from the words of Goethe to the poetry of Tennyson and Yeats through to a north country song. 

He finished with the very resounding, tongue-twisting Gilbert & Sullivan song from the Pirates of Penzance “I am the very Model of a Modern Major General” and was persuaded to return to give an encore for which he chose a short love song from Scarlatti.

copy by Maralyn Sharpe

CAMBODIA: THE SACRED ART OF ANGKOR AND LIVING ARTS

At the July meeting of the FARNHAM DECORATIVE AND FINE ARTS SOCIETY, Frances Ashworth, the Chairman, welcomed members to her last lecture as Chairman.  She had the sad task to announce the death of Eve Fausset.  Eve had been a valued member of the committee as Study Day Secretary and the last study day she had set in train, A Day with the Dolmetsch Family, had been a great success earlier in the month.   

Bookings were being taken for the visit to Basildon Park and for theatre visits in November and members were reminded of the forthcoming tour to Istanbul.  The FDFAS 25th anniversary Recital had been a great success. 

As the outgoing Chairman, Frances Ashworth thanked the hard-working members of the Committee and confirmed the changes of personnel on the committee.  The new Chairman, Peter Duffy, thanked Frances Ashworth on the members’ behalf for the work she had put in and for the leadership qualities she had demonstrated in overseeing FDFAS during her term.

Denise Heywood, author and lecturer at the British Museum, gave a talk on Cambodia: the Sacred Art of Angkor and Living Arts.  Angkor is the greatest archaeological site in Asia, the largest religious monument in the world, and the biggest pre-industrial city on earth.  Through a series of slides and from her enthusiastic descriptions, the majesty and mystery of the site were revealed.

The temple of Angkor Wat is a shrine to Vishnu and the Hindu religion.  It was constructed over a period of 37 years in the 12th century by Suryavarman II.  It is a sacred domain, considered to be the realm of the gods, with the central sanctuary representing the soul.  Although most temples face east to greet the rising sun, Angkor Wat faces west, and is a mortuary temple to its founder, Suryavarman II.  Although the temple was originally a Hindu temple, as Buddhism became accepted as a philosophy in Cambodia, its influence was exhibited in the temple. 

The slides took a journey of the temple showing galleries with sculptures, geometrically-shaped structures, towers, balustrades in the form of serpents and beautifully carved walls depicting Hindu mythology.  There were exquisite carvings of beautiful females and celestial dancers of the temple.

Cambodia’s history and the nature of its people, the Khmers, were explained from its early days as a trading nation, through the influence of the French empire, with examples of French architecture in Phnom Penn, and the reign of Prince Sihanouk to the takeover of the Pol Pot regime.  It then came under the rule of Vietnam until its return via a transitional period to the democratic nation that exists now.  Today Cambodia is picking up its ancient traditions of silk weaving, jewellery making and a return of the temple dancers, who are at the heart of the Cambodian culture.  The dancers are seen as the symbol to rebuild the soul of Cambodia, as redemption for the people and heralding a new dawn for Cambodia.

copy by Maralyn Sharpe