The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26641.
I filled in the left half of the puzzle fairly quickly, but the right half was harder work, with 7D/24A SILENT FILM the last, and the most devious use of the artist theme.
| Across | ||
| 8 | FEMINIST |
Free-thinking woman artist in defiant gesture (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of EMIN (Tracey, ‘artist’) in FIST (‘defiant gesture’), |
| 9 | PRECIS |
Outrageous prices for abstracts (6)
An anagram (‘outrageous’) of ‘prices’. |
| 10 | LINE |
Painter, perhaps, leaves ship unfinished (4)
LINE[r] (‘ship’) without its last letter (‘leaves … unfinished’). ‘Painter’ is to be taken in the nautical sense of a rope. |
| 11 | IMAGE-MAKER |
PR guru, source of ideas, high priest and god? (5-5)
A charade of I (‘source of Ideas’) plus MAGE (‘high priest’) plus MAKER (‘god’). |
| 12 | DORIAN |
Literary portrait by Mondrian, roughly trimmed (6)
An anagram (‘roughly’) of ‘[m]ondria[n]’ without its exterior letters (‘trimmed’). The definition references Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. |
| 14 | TOURISTY |
Catering for travellers to Burundi, going back: a poor place to live (8)
A charade of ‘to’ plus UR, a reversal (‘going back’) of RU (‘Burundi’ IVR) plus I (‘a’) plus STY (‘poor place to live’). |
| 15 | MENTION |
Allusion in Monet composition (7)
An anagram (‘composition’) of ‘in Monet’. |
| 17 | PERTAIN |
Belong to painter’s movement? (7)
An anagram (‘movement’) of ‘painter’. |
| 20 | ALOE VERA |
A little love, eternally a soothing thing (4,4)
A charade of ‘a’ plus LO (‘little LOve’) plus EVER (‘eternally’) plus ‘a’. |
| 22 | HOCKEY |
Artist rejecting “name of the game” (6)
HOCK[n]EY (David, ‘artist’) without the N (‘rejecting name’). |
| 23 | RATTLETRAP |
Shaky contrivance of abstract art: model allowed to speak freely? (10)
A charade of RAT, an anagram (‘abstract’) of ‘art’ plus T (‘model’) plus LET (‘allowed’) plus RAP (‘to speak freely’). |
| 24 |
See 7
|
|
| 25 | SEURAT |
One who would use art innovatively (6)
An anagram (‘innovatively’) of ‘use art’, with an extended definition. |
| 26 | CHARTIST |
Church painter, one who follows trends (8)
A charade of CH (‘church’) plus ARTIST (‘painter’). |
| Down | ||
| 1 | SEMITONE |
Tiny interval in opera: company gets schedules back to front (8)
A charade of ENO (English National Opera, ‘company’ or possibly ‘opera company’ if you ignore the colon) plus TIMES (‘schedules’) all reversed (‘back to front’). |
| 2,4 | DIRE STRAITS |
Clue to artists’ financial troubles (4,7)
A wordplay-in-the=answer: STRAITS is an anagram (DIRE) of ‘artists’. |
| 3 | TITIAN |
Boatman’s enthralled by giant of an artist (6)
An envelope (‘enthralled by’) of I (‘Boatman’) in TITAN (‘giant’). |
| 4 |
See 2
|
|
| 5 | SPHERULE |
It’s small round small Latin country with secret hot Latin Quarter (8)
A charade of S (‘small’, the second one) plus PHERU an envelope (‘with secret’) of H (‘hot’) in PERU (‘Latin country’) plus L (‘Latin’) plus E (‘quarter’). |
| 6 | LEGALISTIC |
Slavishly rule-following, like at first, say, a novice, is a nervous thing (10)
A charade of L (‘Like at first’) plus EG (‘say’) plus ‘a’ plus L (‘novice’) plus ‘is’ plus TIC (‘nervous thing’). |
| 7,24across | SILENT FILM |
Perhaps the artist is an avant-garde 8, taking in two students (6,4)
An anagram (‘avant-garde’) of FEMINIST (the answer to clue ‘8’) including LL(‘two students’, separately). The definition by example (‘perhaps’) references the 2011 Oscar-winning silent film The Artist, and does not obey Truth in Capitalisation |
| 13 | IN THE STARS |
Boatman in old ship going below? Then I disguised where my destiny lies (2,3,5)
A charade of INTHE, an anagram (‘disguised’) of ‘then I’ plus STARS, an envelope (‘in’) of TAR (‘boatman’) in SS (whether Sailing Ship or Steam Ship, ‘old ship’). |
| 16 | OMELETTE |
A dish? Who, me? Let Telemachus be revealed! (8)
A hidden answer in ‘whO ME LET TElemachus’ |
| 18 | IDEALIST |
A drug-taking artist: one revered as a visionary (8)
A charade of I (‘one’) plus DEALI, an envelope (‘-taking’) of E (‘drug’) in DALI (Salvador, ‘artist’) plus ST (saint’ ‘one revered’). |
| 19 | RAT RACE |
Pressure to compete causes artist to copy (3,4)
A charade of RA (‘artist’) plus TRACE (‘copy’). |
| 21 | LOADED |
Not even Leonardo ends well off (6)
Odd letters (‘not even’) of ‘LeOnArDo EnDs’. |
| 22 | HEPCAT |
Get hot about Constable — he’s cool (6)
An envelope (‘about’) of PC (‘Constable’) in HEAT (‘get hot’). |
| 24 | FATE |
Initiator of Fauvism? Munch historically was, a lot (4)
A charade of F (‘initiator of Fauvism’) plus ATE (‘munch historically’). |
Thanks, PeterO. I enjoyed this, although I can imagine that some may find the usual Boatman “stretches” a bit much to swallow.
RU for Burundi needed checking! I thought the “little love” was probably L(ittle) O (the usual tennis allusion).
What did setters do before Ms Emin, I wonder…
Thanks to PeterO for an informative, early posted blog and Boatman for a devious and most enjoyable puzzle that looked impassable at first sight, but after the SW corner went in relatively easily, the rest gave way slowly but surely. Failed on 11a.
Peru is hardly a small Latin country, ranking 4th in area after Brazil, Mexico and Argentina(5th in population), nor is it foreshortened, as small might indicate otherwise.
The printed version gave a different, simpler 7d,24a: “Perhaps the artist appeared bizarrely slim in felt,” an obvious anagram without the cross-reference.
Seurat was indeed an innovator (thanks to the recently aired “Impressionists’ with Waldemar Januszczak) with his theory of complementary colour.
Thanks Peter. Not too hard though I didn’t know about ENO in 1D and failed to parse the Burundi thing, ending up with ‘tourists’. No trouble with 7,24D in the online version, as Freddy notes – simple anagram.
All good–but as a male feminist, I object to the definition of FEMINIST as “free-thinking woman.” You’re a feminist if you believe that women and men should be treated equally. Also, I could object to that clue in that I’ve never heard of EMIN–but of course that’s my fault.
I also object that a SEMITONE is hardly tiny, and it’s not like that word is necessary to the clue. But that’s more of a quibble.
SEURAT’s pointillist masterpiece Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is hanging here in Chicago, incidentally (part of the Art Institute’s superb post-impressionist collection). It inspired Sondheim’s rather esoteric musical “Sunday in the Park With George.”
This was a real struggle for me. I felt like giving up after solving only 12 clues in what seemed to be quite a considerable amount of time, but I kept going and finally gave up on only 3 clues: 10a, 17a and 5d. Spent way too much time on this puzzle!
My favourites were DIRE STRAITS and HOCKEY.
I was unable to parse 7/24, 14a, 21d, the STARS in 13d and ENO in 1d.
I wondered why ‘munch’ = ATE. Doesn’t munch = eat?
*Freddy@2 – I don’t think that Boatman was implying that Peru is a small Latin country. I read the clue as small + latin country + etc etc
Thanks PeterO and Boatman
You can have a quarter tone but not in any operas that I know- more likely to be in Indian music.So semitone smallest esp with opera mentioned.
But Peter O has covered all this pretty well.
Great puzzle and very fine blog.
Thanks Boatman and PeterO
The SW went in quickly, but for some time only the easy 9a, 12a and 2d were to be seen outside this area. I was convinced that “belong to” in 17a meant “be a”, so spent some time trying to justify “beatnik”. Apart from this, my other favourites were ALOE VERA and IN THE STARS.
CHARTIST means something different to me. While studying O level history, I wrote the essay “Why the Anti-Corn-Law League succeeded and the Chartists failed” three times. Fortunately the third was in the exam itself, so I passed.
More inventive DIRE STRAITS clue than any in a recent crossword!
Thanks, all. Entertaining to see the “slim in felt” formulation making it into print. My original clue was “Perhaps the artist limns? I felt unsure”, but Hugh was concerned that too many people (not 225 contributors, obviously) would never have seen the word “limn” and suggested the slim alternative. The wheels of the Guardian’s print machinery clearly moved too slowly for my final version to make it onto paper.
Mr P – You’re right, of course, but remember that the early feminists were very much concerned with liberation and were, therefore, thinkers of freedom!
Michelle – You need “historically” to make sense of the clue: “munch historically” = past tense of “munch”
Fun and clever crossword, with highly creative use of the theme from the king of the extended charade!
Enjoyed that a lot – thanks Boatman, and PeterO for a very clear blog.
Thanks, Boatman and Peter.
I tuned in for help parsing TOURISTY, but I’m afraid it’s still not clear, though I gather RU is an abbreviation for Burundi. I have no idea what “‘Burundi’ IVR” means, and Google is not much help.
International Vehicle Registration?
Ah, so not Interactive Voice Response or Institute of Vehicle Recovery then. Thanks, muffin.
A really tough but fair and enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Boatman (and for popping by), and to PeterO for a great blog. I think there are three elements to 2,4d. The clue to ‘artists, and the ‘financial troubles’, as you have mentioned, but the clue as a whole also works. Least favourite was ALOE VERA, simply because I’m on an aloe vera-based diet at the moment and it is ghastly!
Great puzzle – couldn’t parse IMAGE-MAKER but I liked the use of the theme and there was some clever clueing. Favourites were ALOE VERA, DIRE STRAITS, and SPHERULE. Many thanks to Boatman and PeterO.
Thanks Boatman for a super crossword and PeterO for a most helpful blog.
I found this puzzle very hard but struggled through making use of the check button. We had Tracey EMIN somewhere recently, but ENO got me, all I could think of was the fruit salts (checking on the web I see they are no longer being made).
I did like SILENT FILM and am glad we got the cross-reference version. LINE, IMAGE-MAKER, DORIAN, HOCKEY, RATTLETRAP and so many others were also good.
I found this a tough workout but got there in the end with SEMITONE my LOI after SPHERULE. As ever some of Boatman’s cluing pushed the envelope, but I don’t mind seeing a puzzle like this once in a while. I’m sure there are one or two other regular contributors who would disagree.
Thanks both. I’m beginning to get on Boatman ‘s wavelength, but the URI in 14a evaded me. Not sure about I=A, but at least UR=ancient city had a rest for once!
[Shirl, if you, or anyone else, has time for the FT, there is one of scchua’s quizzes.]
[thanks Cookie]
Thanks to Boatman and to PeterO for the very helpful parsing. I too paused at CHARTIST (thinking in terms of the movement, not the trend-following), did not know RU for Burundi or the term SPHERULE, and struggled with the parsing of the (very clever) SILENT FILM
Enjoyed that – not difficult by Boatman’s exacting standards, but still tricky in places. Last in was SPHERULE. Liked FEMINIST, DIRE STRAITS, SILENT FILM, OMELETTE and LOADED
Thanks to Boatman and PeterO
Incidentally when I say I liked SILENT FILM, I meant the printed version!
Thanks PeterO Needed your parse of LINE. Always disappointed with myself when I fail to consider an alternative meaning of a word.
Found this tough but excellent, the grid filling reluctantly outwards from the SW corner.
Slightly tangential, but last night I saw a film featuring the artist Seurat entitled The Art Of The Steal. It’s a wonderful art heist with a nice spoof to keep one guessing.
Thank you Boatman, why did the “slim in felt” clue get changed? (7/24)
Thanks Boatman and PeterO
Liked this a lot – I thought that the theme was well structured throughout the clues, solutions and with variations of the use of ARTISTs and PAINTERs. Came out at around mid-range on the Boatman scale of difficulty for me – some quite easy clues with others that had the parsing out of my ken.
Like others, I made my start down in the SW corner and was able to complete the bottom half apart from FILM before moving up to where the real fun began. Finished up with FEMINIST, SEMITONE and LINE as the last three in.
Was unable to parse the URI at 14a (even though had gone looking for international rego letters for Burundi !), didn’t know the ENO Opera company (had ONE as a written version of a – all reversed), the clever L O for little love and the anagram of ‘artists’ to get DIRE STRAITS (lazily thought that it was a sort of double definition alluding to the ‘artists’, DIRE STRAITS).
Eventually got it finished with all of the right letters in the grid … and had a lot of fun doing it!
Hello Copmus@6: lots of opera by composers who use microtones – Donatoni, Sciarrino and Francesconi just to stick with the Italian tradition! So,I’m with Mrpenney@4. Perhaps I should change my ID to pedanticprofessionalmusician….
Fun crossword, with the theme not too much of a strait jacket. I enjoyed Hockney being reduced to hockey! Thanks to Boatman.
Thanks to Boatman and PeterO. Enjoyed the puzzle. SPHERULE was new word for me. Needed help
with TOURISTY parsing. As a former HEPCAT, I did enjoy 22d.
Cheers…
I really enjoyed this. Like Paul’s on Saturday, gradually fell into place in an entirely satisfying way. Many thanks to Boatman and to PeterO for the blog.
“Ian SW3 says:
August 4th, 2015 at 9:29 am
Thanks, Boatman and Peter.I tuned in for help parsing TOURISTY, but I’m afraid it’s still not clear, though I gather RU is an abbreviation for Burundi. I have no idea what “‘Burundi’ IVR” means, and Google is not much help.”
I googled all this too and I still don’t know what IVR means. Is it International Vehicle Registration? What’s that then? Does this mean that vehicles in Burundi have RU on the registration plate?
Thanks Boatman, most diverting.
Wlizabeth Parsons @28
Not quite: a vehicle registered in Burundi when travelling outside the country should carry an International Vehicle Registration sticker RU to identify its origin. I take it that the RY dates back to when the region was administered as Ruanda-Urundi.
I rattled through the SW corner but the rest was something of a struggle. I admire Boatman’s puzzles even if I don’t always enjoy them. I always end up having to admit that the cluing is perfectly fair and this was the case with this one. I liked DORIAN, HOCKEY and CHARTIST especially the latter. I don’t think HEPCAT is “cool” anymore- the term was being mocked when I was still at school and the world was still young.
Anyway, thanks Boatman.
PeterA @31: Your assessment of HEPCAT is true in my case. I haven’t been cool since the 50’s.
Later…
completed this but couldn’t work out the parsing for the Burundi one.
I had a quibble about “financial troubles” for “dire straits” – surely the idiom is used more generally than that? but a bit of googling revealed that the phrase was first used by FD Roosevelt in 1933, presumably to describe people whose livelihoods had been destroyed by the Great Depression. so arguably “financial troubles” is accurate.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=348&dat=20000920&id=e2NSAAAAIBAJ&sjid=WEUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2495,6877554&hl=en
Thanks PeterO. Unlike you I finished right half early probably because I had the print version for 7,24a.
Was stuck at NW corner. Had dire straits without parsing and guessed line without knowing the nautical reference. Saw your post, didn’t read it; decided to give myself more time.
Got dorian and feminist in second sitting. Surrendered without getting semitone. Never heard of ENO. Tried hard to shove in (a)rot ..and gave up.
My deficiencies , entirely! Thanks Boatman, for a tough fun.
Thanks muffin
Sorry that I gave offence, Tramp – and that your Dire Straits puzzle didn’t entertain me. My fault, I expect.
[………I should add that, contrary to other nay-sayers, I did like Dire Straits, and was in awe of Mark Knopfler’s guitar playing. One of my regrets was that the only time I saw them live (in Lewisham) it was at the end of a long tour, and Knopfler wasn’t bothering to play the fiddly bits.]
An altogether nice puzzle and not too difficult (for a Boatman).
The clue referred to in 2,4 (‘Dire Straits? (7)’) wouldn’t have been out of place in last week’s Tramp crossword – although, I guess, it might have been done before.
One or two posts above have doubt about A = I (used in 14ac and also in 18d).
It’s, in my opinion, not the most elegant of crossword identities but thereare at least two ways to justify the use of it. Both can mean ‘(the) first’ (I as a Roman numeral).
Or one can think of ‘not a word’ = ‘not one (single) word’. This time I represents 1, the number.
We’ve seen all this before, so no quibbles.
We’ve also seen before L = little but there I have my doubts (and the dictionaries, too).
But it surely is ‘L+O’ in 20ac as NeilW suggests @1.
LO seen as LO[ve] is not really ‘little love’ – it’s half of it!
While the solution of 12ac (DORIAN) fits the definition only half, it’s probably OK in the end.
In this clue he wants us to take an anagram of [m]ONDRIA[n] but it’s not what the clue tells me: the anagram should be taken first.
Which can lead (not necessarily in a unique way) to the right solution: (MONDRIAN)* = MDORIANN or NDORIANM which then must be ‘trimmed’ to get DORIAN.
I just wonder why Boatman didn’t opt for ‘trimmed roughly’?
And in 24d Boatman was a bit naughty defining FATE by ‘a lot’ (article included, one that cannot be ignored here).
The false decapitalisation in an otherwise nice clue with an obvious solution, wouldn’t have stood the test in The Independent nor in The Times.
The Guardian editor apparently does not object, although Boatman clearly bends ‘the rules’ here more than I or the average setter would do. But the clue as it stands needs lower case, true.
Finally, I wondered about the reversal indicator in 1d (‘back to front’). Does it fully work in a Down clue?
All in all, an enjoyable mental excercise.
Ta to Tar.
Many thanks to PeterO for the blog.
@38
What is being falsely decapitalised in 24d? Which word would otherwise be capitalised, and why?
Herb, as PeterO in his blog said there is something here that ‘… does not obey Truth in Capitalisation’.
It is more than a convention that words that absolutely need a capital (because they have one) should stay capitalised in a clue.
The film in 7,24ac is ‘The Artist’ and not ‘the artist’.
It is not about 24d!
Sorry if it looks like that, mea culpa.
Line 1 in that paragraph is about 24d, the others are not.
I apologise for the confusion.
And now for the simplest of sums: one – …. = 0 🙂
Thanks all
I took a while to finish the NW corner.Favourite was Dorian.
Excellent puzzle.
@Sil – As ever, before quoting “the rules” it pays to make sure you have the correct rulebook.
Before the ximenean terror the first “rule” a solver learned was to ignore all punctuation, capitalisation and word-spacing – it may be there to deceive.
The leading setters (Araucaria, Bunthorne etc) ignored the arbitrary restrictions of Ximenes. Boatman (thankfully) continues that tradition whilst also providing logically precise cluing. If the clues can be justified from first principles there is no need to resort to convention. Surely that’s a corollary of Afrit’s injunction.
Why do they (the nitpickers) do it? Do they seriously think they are highlighting something the rest of us missed.
@40
Thanks. That makes a lot more sense.
@42
Well spotted. Thanks for the ruling. I’d missed that.
I don’t know any arbitrary restrictions of Ximenes. There are not any in the Art of Crossword book, which is all we have to go on as far as I know. Let’s list them, hey, Jolly Swagman.
If you could write clues in the most unhelpful and weird way possible you would be Boatyman.
@42
Punctuation is often deceptive, but if the deceptive punctuation makes it impossible to logically arrive at the answer or part o the answer I don’t think much of it. ‘Opera:company’ does not yield ENO. The question-mark followed by a capital letter in 13d doesn’t just mask the juxtaposition of elements – it destroys the intended juxtaposition.
I’m less bothered about the lack of capitalisation in ‘the artist’. The convention that false capitalisation is acceptble but false de-capitalisation isn’t, does seem an arbitrary convention.
“Why do they (the nitpickers) do it? Do they seriously think they are highlighting something the rest of us missed.’
Perhaps they do it because they feel entitled to criticise a clue they regard as faulty, or at least stretching the limits of language and logic Obviously some regard criticism on this forum as taboo.
But such people are the worst offenders. They claim defence of the compilers while really pushing their own agendas, but not backing anything up. It’s a shame.
hh, JS – this argument will never end, and you will never convince each other. Just let it go!!
Well BH – if they would let it go I would – but they won’t.
Pre-Ximenes it was more or less universally accepted that surface punctuation and capitalisation could be ignored. A logical justification for that would be that the answer that gets entered into the light is a string of capital letters stripped of all punctuation. So the (typically) last step in preparing an answer is to strip what you’ve got of punctuation and make it all upper-case.
To do that as a first step instead, and then re-interpret what you’ve got, is simply a change in the order of evaluation – which Afrit’s injunction would surely permit.
Mother’s milk to anyone with a reasonable education in mathematics.
Competitors in Ximenes’s clue-writing competitions (Slips) understood that; when he complained they submitted clues written in all upper-case. So then he ruled that out as well.
Of course some people confuse the conventions of a particular a paradigm with universal truth. A common source of confusion and misunderstanding.
After enjoying the site for some time, this is my first post. Boatman’so puzzle is very clever but for me it is lacking in one respect. The cleverest puzzles are the ones where ‘difficult’ letters are crossed and one can admire the ingenuity of the setter. This puzzle had 29 vowel crosses and 20 consonant crosses, the most unusual of which was probably P.