Easter Morning or Easter Mystery -- Maurice Denis, 1891

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)

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....

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."

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)

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

paintings of the month

Bronzeville at Night (1949)

&

Self Portrait (1933, detail)

Archibald Motley, Jr.