Wednesday, September 9, 2009

moving again


The oranges are wrapped and ready to go to their new home (click to visit). Hope to see you there.

(Pictured: Wrapped Oranges, William J. McCloskey, 1889 -- Amon Carter Museum)

Monday, August 31, 2009

painting of the month











Red Boat with Blue Sails
(1906-1907) -- Odilon Redon

Thursday, August 20, 2009

sara and georgia


Whenever I see Georgia O'Keeffe's 1927 painting The Radiator Building at Night (pictured here), I think of poet Sara Teasdale's "From the Woolworth Tower," because even though the works focus on different structures, they still give a sense of the glamour and scope of skyscrapers in the early 20th century. Teasdale isn't as well-known as the iconic O'Keeffe, but she was born in St. Louis in 1884, wrote a kind of penetratingly bittersweet poetry, and seems to be often overshadowed by her slightly younger contemporary Edna St. Vincent Millay. (And ironically, according to Wikipedia, novelist Thomas Hardy once noted that America's two major attributes were the skyscraper and the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay.)

Teasdale had a significant relationship with Vachel Lindsday, another poet with strong Midwestern ties, but she did not marry Lindsay and instead opted to make businessman Ernst Filsinger her husband instead. She divorced Filsinger in 1929; Lindsay committed suicide in 1931 and Teasdale herself took a fatal overdose of sleeping pills in 1933. All quite sad, but the eternal moments behind Teasdale's "From the Woolworth Tower" fortunately live on. Here's an excerpt, and click here to read the full text.

Over the edge of eternity we look
On all the lights,
A thousand times more numerous than the stars...

The strident noises of the city
Floating up to us
Are hallowed into whispers.
Ferries cross thru the darkness
Weaving a golden thread into the night....

Wednesday, August 5, 2009










"Someday they will know what I mean."

Tom Thomson -- August 5, 1877 - July, 1917

Painting: Thunder Cloud (1912) -- National Gallery of Canada

Friday, July 31, 2009

painting of the month


July -- Fairfield Porter, 1971 (Spencer Museum of Art)

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

almond trees and tragic lives



British artist John William Godward was one of the last great Neo-classicist painters and did not handle the advent of modernism well. In fact, it essentially led to serious depression and feelings of hopelessness, and to Godward's eventual suicide in 1922. Godward was a "beauty painter" and produced many lovely female visions during his career, and he was also considered part of the "marble school" like Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, known for their frequent use of Greco-Roman marble elements and backdrops. This painting (top image) by Godward of a blossoming red almond tree makes me wonder why he was so troubled by changing styles in art, because it almost has Impressionist tendencies. However, it may have been that he dreaded new artistic trends along with changes in social values and attitudes, as the structure and standards of the Victorian era gave way to the intensities of the 20th century.

The other almond blossom painting is by Vincent van Gogh, who was of course so ahead of the curve that he wasn't fully appreciated during his lifetime. Van Gogh too was a suicide and another prisoner of his own troubled thoughts. Neither man married and both experienced feelings of social awkwardness, although Godward was supposed to have been rather conventionally handsome in his day. ** According to the Van Gogh Museum website, this work was done in 1890 by Van Gogh in honor of his brother Theo and Theo's wife Johanna's newborn son, who was named Vincent after Van Gogh himself. Van Gogh wanted to give them a painting that reflected the hopeful beauty of spring and celebrated the birth of their baby boy. Unfortunately, 1890 was also the year when Van Gogh decided that he just could not stand to be in the world anymore, and by July 29th, he was gone.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

days at the beach




Above: Beach Scene -- Jane Peterson, 1935 (National Museum of Women in the Arts)

Below: Summer Sunlight -- Beatrice Whitney Van Ness, ca. 1936 (National Museum of Women in the Arts)

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

rage against the bastille


Today marks the 220th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, a vast prison in Paris which was attacked by a revolutionary mob on July 14, 1789. The Bastille had a history of holding -- among others -- anyone perceived to be a suspicious or seditious individual. Cardinal Richelieu was the initial main man behind these arrests, done via a lettres-de-cachet brought to the individual, who was then hauled off to the Bastille without benefit of a trial or appeal.

Once released, there could be no public objection to the arrest nor divulging of what had been experienced within the prison walls. Essentially, the Bastille loomed as a longstanding symbol of intimidation -- and it was also where huge stores of gunpowder were kept -- and eventually the outrage of the people broke through.

While only seven prisoners of dubious honor happened to be in the Bastille at the time of the revolt, the actions of the people quickly led to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and also resulted in a further striking-down of royal power tactics. The pictured Storming of the Bastille painting was done by Jean-Pierre Houel in 1789, and
this website offers more information on the incident and various other revolutions as well. Today is a national holiday in France, and the Paris Daily Photo blog's Le 14 juillet 2009 entry details the coinciding 120th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower and how to watch the Bastille Day fireworks on-line.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009


Venice (1887) --
Willard Leroy Metcalf,
b. July 1, 1858 -
d. March 9, 1925

Sunday, June 28, 2009

notes on floyd dell...written on a dell laptop


Floyd Dell (June 28, 1887 - 1969) was the author of many things, including critiques, essays, novels, short stories, poems and plays, with his greatest fame spanning the years 1912-1925.

Dell grew up in the Midwest, eventually heading to Chicago where he would become part of the city's boho scene and, despite his youth, a formidable literary critic. He
later moved to pre-WWI Greenwich Village and became part of that boho scene as well, enjoying various free-love affairs and joining the staff of the radical journal The Masses.

Although some of Floyd's works have not completely held up to the test of time, his fiction offers interesting glimpses into the issues and personalities of his day, and his non-fiction is actually pretty intriguing in terms of commentary on relationships between men and women, along with general equality, social trends, politics, education, psychoanalysis, and various other subjects -- because Floyd had many ideals and as many contradictions.

In the movie Reds, Dell is portrayed by Max Wright, who also played the father on the 1980s TV show ALF -- and no offense to Mr. Wright, but this just seemed like the not quite-Wright casting for Floyd Dell. Dell was slight and maybe a little affected at that time, well-spoken and often-speaking and with more of a pale, slender, disdainful look. Beyond this photo, Dell's portrait was painted in 1914 by Ashcan School and Eight artist John Sloan, who worked with Dell at The Masses along with Reds' hero John Reed.

Dell had a short but significant affair with the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, and this description of a visit to Millay's childhood home in Maine is Dell at his best and comes from his autobiography Homecoming:

"On the porch were baskets of apples, branches of pine, and there were bunches of herbs strung up to dry -- herbs of which I do not know the names, but which were a part of the earthly lore that Edna Millay learned from her mother as a child. The place was fragrant with the mingled odors of apples, pine woods and herbs. It smelled sweet and strange, like Edna Millay's poetry."

Thursday, June 25, 2009

painting of the month







Artists Sketching in The White Mountains -- (Winslow Homer, 1868)

Saturday, June 20, 2009

son of the sun


With the longest day of the year coming tomorrow, it seemed appropriate to note Henri Matisse’s love of the sun and beautiful use of light and color in so many of his paintings. This recollection by Georges Duthuit is from an interesting little book on Matissse by Anette Robinson and Isabelle Breda, published as part of the Key Art Works series from the Centre Georges Pompidou.

"During Matisse’s funeral the weather was cloudy and rather dull in Nice. But when, after the service, the cortege reformed to take his body to its last resting place…the sun’s rays suddenly split the grey canvas and blooded the sky with exactly the same radiance, the same welcoming glow that Matisse had struggled to catch and reflect throughout his whole life…."

Duthuit also described the sun’s sudden appearance on that November day in 1954 when Matisse was buried as being like the sun's own “tribute of sympathy to his most faithful servant….”

(Featured Painting: Interior with Phonograph -- Henri Matisse, 1924)

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

men in red


Top Image -- Dr. Pozzi at Home, John Singer Sargent - 1881

Bottom Image -- Portrait of Leonid Andreyev, Ilya Repin - 1905

Sunday, May 31, 2009

painting of the month











The Tangled Garden
-- J.E.H. MacDonald, 1916

Thursday, May 28, 2009

athena and athene










I wrote an article for Suite101.com on Modern Art & Mythology a few weeks ago and came across a pretty fascinating 1898 painting of the goddess Athena by Gustav Klimt (first image). Athena, the Greek counterpart of Minerva, presided over matters of war, intelligence and the arts, and in Klimt's case Athena had been named as the patron goddess of Klimt's Vienna Secession artistic movement. His Athena is all pale and glittering, with a beautiful golden sheen to her shield and helmet.

The other portrait here is from the William Blake Tarot, wherein Blake's artwork was adapted for a tarot deck and Athene -- not Athena -- represents the Woman of Painting card. (The William Blake Tarot has creative or mentally-inclined Suit cards, like Poetry for Wands, Music for Cups, Science for Swords and Painting for Pentacles.) Blake's Athene is bright and colorful and seems to be less at war and more focused on the arts in this particular scene. Draped in red, she's described in the deck as representing "elegance combined with usefulness," and she awards "her sacred olive wreaths to several artists for their industry, competence, and trustworthiness."

Blake's Athene always reminds me a little of Isabella Rossellini, who interestingly enough played Athena in Andrei Konchalovsky's version of The Odyssey. Konchalovsky's Odyssey was on TV back in the late 1990s and is worth investigating as a DVD rental -- if it's even on DVD -- with Isabella R. of course, and Armand Assante enduring all the wild travels and trials of Odysseus.

Monday, May 18, 2009

green glory















Top image -- The Green Sash,
Frederick Carl Frieseke (1904)
Bottom image -- Lady in a Green Jacket,
August Macke (1913)

American Impressionism (Frieseke), German Expressionism (Macke), and girls in green. It's hard to believe that the two paintings are only nine years apart chronologically.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

his vinegar prayer

Knopf's Borzoi Reader Poem-A-Day e-mails during National Poetry Month offer choice morsels of daily poetry, reintroducing us to great masters as well as opening the door to poets and poems we might not yet have heard of. One of my favorites so far has been Kevin Young's "Ode to Pepper Vinegar," (click on the title to read the actual poem) which transforms a simple Mason jar full of a family recipe into an epic entity. This ode is part of a food-related series of poems which Kevin Young wrote following the death of his father, with distinct tastes reflecting upon cultural and personal heritage. His latest collection is called Dear Darkness, and his other work is very much looking into.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

painting and poet of the month


Often described as "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" -- a phrase coined by spurned lover Lady Caroline Lamb -- the great poet and adventurer Lord Byron (1788-1824) was always a study in contrasts. Notably handsome and virile yet afflicted with a clubfoot, he was also a womanizer who wrote poetry of depth and beauty while managing to avoid heavy sentiment. There is further speculation that Byron was bisexual and even slept with his own half-sister Augusta, with some reported personal anxiety on Byron's part that he might be the father of Augusta's child. While certain people brought out a sarcastic cruelty in Byron, he could be quite caring toward animals, especially his beloved dog Boatswain. Boatswain contracted rabies and eventually died from the disease, but Lord Byron kept vigil by his side until Boatswain passed away, despite warnings that he might be endangering his own life in being so close to a fatally rabid dog.

Byron traveled often and died in Greece on April 19, 1824, while joining the Greeks in fighting their war of independence against the Ottoman Empire. This portrait of Byron in Albanian native costume was done by Thomas Phillips, and while it represents Byron as he looked circa 1813, the painting itself wasn't completed until 1835. Phillips' work can be found at the National Portrait Gallery, where Byron is very well-represented. And though he wrote verse of a much greater magnitude, this short self-reflective George Gordon Byron poem is one of my favorites:

Through life's road, so dim and dirty,
I have dragg'd to three and thirty.
What have these years left to me?
Nothing - except, thirty-three.


Sunday, April 12, 2009




Easter Morning or Easter Mystery -- Maurice Denis, 1891

Saturday, April 11, 2009

we are most amused


Though Queen Victoria was reportedly fond of the phrase "We are not amused" to express general displeasure, we here are quite amused and pleased to have received an Excessively Diverting Blog Award nomination from Royal Rendezvous' blogspot. The EDBA is described thusly:

The aim of the Excessively Diverting Blog Award is to acknowledge writing excellence in the spirit of Jane Austen’s genius in amusing and delighting readers with her irony, humor, wit, and talent for keen observation. Recipients will uphold the highest standards in the art of the sparkling banter, witty repartee, and gentle reprove. This award was created by the blogging team of Jane Austen Today to acknowledge superior writing over the Internet and promote Jane Austen’s brilliance.

Once nominated, you are supposed to choose seven of your own nominees, but being such an ersatz blogger and blog reader, I'm going to have to do more research before I come up with a full seven. In the meantime, however, I wanted to acknowledge the regal nod from Royal Rendezvous and say many thanks!

(Featured Painting: Queen Victoria in Her Coronation Robes, Sir George Hayter)

Sunday, April 5, 2009

amy's spring day


It's National Poetry Month again -- and it's spring -- which made me think of Amy Lowell's "Spring Day," a kind of Whitmanesque, morning-to-night flowing rush of verse. Amy could be a bit over the top sometimes, but I've always liked her enthusiasm for life and how her work is so full of vivid colors and impressions. Born February 9, 1874 into the prominent Lowell family of Massachusetts, Amy won the Pulitzer Prize shortly after her death in 1925. Most likely a lesbian, she was apparently disinclined toward convention and had a strong passion for poetry and the arts. This excerpt is from the Breakfast Table portion of "Spring Day," with an accompanying painting by Edouard Vuillard (The Breakfast, 1892). "Spring Day" in its entirety can be found by clicking here.

In the fresh-washed sunlight, the breakfast table is decked
and white.
It offers itself in flat surrender, tendering tastes, and smells,
and colours, and metals, and grains, and the white cloth falls over its side,
draped and wide. Wheels of white glitter in the silver coffee-pot,
hot and spinning like catherine-wheels, they whirl, and twirl -- and
my eyes
begin to smart, the little white, dazzling wheels prick them like darts.
Placid and peaceful, the rolls of bread spread themselves in the sun
to bask.
A stack of butter-pats, pyramidal, shout orange through the white,
scream,
flutter, call: "Yellow! Yellow! Yellow!" Coffee steam rises in a
stream,
clouds the silver tea-service with mist, and twists up into the sunlight,
revolved, involuted, suspiring higher and higher, fluting in a thin spiral
up the high blue sky....

Saturday, March 21, 2009

painting of the month


Cat Lying in Front of a Bouquet of Flowers -- Suzanne Valadon, 1919

Click here to read more about Suzanne, who apparently had such concern for her own cats that she gave them caviar on Fridays instead of meat, so that they could still be good and "Catholic."

Thursday, March 12, 2009

man(et)'s best friend


I've always liked artist Edouard Manet (1832-1883) and so do many other people, of course -- and so did the French Impressionists, whom he had a great influence on and associated with during their mutual careers. Manet is well-known for painting Luncheon on the Grass, which really is quite a fascinating composition, along with the scandalous Olympia and many other works, but his simpler views of life are my favorites. Like his flowers or peaches or asparagus, and like the pictured fluff of a dog here (specifically Head of a Dog, 'Bob') -- Manet was so wonderfully talented with thick, sure brushstrokes and the smaller-focus pieces really show that genius off.

"There are no lines in nature, only areas of colour, one against another." (Edouard Manet)

Sunday, March 1, 2009

old el dreams


"...where the flickering warning lamps burned, along the El's long boundaries, like vigil lamps guarding the constant boundaries of night...Till darkness brought her sleep again...switching her onto a nowhere train that curved and descended, softly and endlessly, out upon the vast roundhouse of old El dreams."

(Words) Nelson Algren -- The Man with The Golden Arm
(Art) John Sloan -- Six O'Clock, Winter

Monday, February 23, 2009

paintings of the month




Bronzeville at Night (1949)
&
Self Portrait (1933, detail)

Archibald Motley, Jr.







Sunday, February 22, 2009

strictly seymour


This photo of the great actor Seymour Cassel is from a Daily Nebraskan article detailing Mr. Cassel's appearance at Lincoln's Ross Media Arts Center last Saturday. Seymour was attending a screening of his new film, Reach for Me, directed by LeVar Burton, and beyond the movie preview he was just hanging out talking to the audience about life in Hollywood and beyond. I have a very dear friend who's a hip university librarian and she happened to be in town for the event. She and Mr. Cassel got along swimmingly, then she called me and handed him her cellphone, so I'm the person he's talking to in the photo! I was making tortellini for Valentine's Day dinner and was totally caught off-guard; I don't remember much of what I said but it was a thrill to hear Seymour's deep and distinctive voice in person and to be able to ask him questions about John Cassavetes and whatever else I could blather out in five minutes.

Click here for Seymour's imdb profile and all the films and television shows he's been in through the years, along with his 1968 Academy Award nomination for Faces. I know that the Daily Nebraskan interview noted Seymour's unhappiness with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but I'd still like to see him actually win one of those little golden Oscar guys. I'm sure the acceptance speech would be priceless!

(Daily Nebraskan photo by Andrew Lamberson)

Monday, February 9, 2009

a gist from the gist of art










"Don't be afraid to borrow. The great men, the most original, borrowed from everybody. Witness Shakespeare and Rembrandt. They borrowed from the technique of tradition and created new images by the power of their imagination and human understanding."
(John Sloan -- Gist of Art, 1939)

(pictured: John Sloan's 1912 A Window on the Street; Bowdoin College Museum of Art)

Saturday, January 31, 2009

lincoln, douglas, and the rivalry


I just posted a blog item at suite101 about the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency's 2009 calendar honoring what would have been Abraham Lincoln's Bicentennial birthday this February 12th. The calendar features 12 distinctive portraits of Lincoln by 12 different artists, and can be purchased for just $7. The portrait for February from the calendar pictured here was done by William Camm and was apparently reproduced and used as a banner for the famed Lincoln-Douglas debates.

The 1858 debates themselves were the focus of The Rivalry, a play by Norman Corwin restaged this past fall at the L.A. Theatre Works. Paul Giamatti who put such great energy into HBO's John Adams starred as Stephen Douglas, while David Strathairn played a Lincoln probably more classically handsome than the original, but then again he's managed to transform himself into all kinds of men -- Murrow, Oppenheimer, Kefauver -- so why not Abe. I liked this quote about Douglas and Lincoln size-wise by Giamatti in an NPR interview: "These two guys, they were physical freaks...Douglas was 5'4" and Lincoln was like 8 feet tall, and they both weighed like 90 pounds!"

Click here to read the full NPR interview and to hear an audio-clip from the play itself.

{1860 Portrait of Lincoln by William Camm from the
Illinois Historic Preservation Agency's 2009 Lincoln Calendar}

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

painting of the month


Magpie (detail) -- Claude Monet, 1868/9 (Musee d'Orsay)

Thursday, January 8, 2009




"I didn't have an identity. It was manufactured. My identity now? It was written on the wall by ancient forces."



Quote by Robert Downey, Jr. -- Rolling Stone Magazine, 8/21/08

Painting by Thomas Hovenden -- Self-Portrait of the Artist in His Studio, 1875 (Yale University Art Gallery)