painting of the month

Still Life with Tahitian Oranges -- Paul Gauguin, 1892

the bridge

"Over the great bridge...with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world." (The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Image: The Bridge: Nocturne -- Julian Alden Weir, 1910 (Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden)

last day of summer feast

Figs, Pomegranates, Grapes and Brass Plate -- George Henry Hall (1825-1913)

dr. williams

Today would have been the birthday of William Carlos Williams (1883-1963), the doctor and poet who lived and practiced medicine in Rutherford, New Jersey for most of his days, when he wasn’t sneaking over to Manhattan or points thereabout to consort with other creative minds. Williams gave us the rain-glazed red wheelbarrow and the white chickens, and the great opening line of “To Elsie” -- The pure products of America go crazy....

Williams has always been one of my favorites among the dead poets' society, and if you ever have a chance to read his autobiography, it offers an interesting glimpse of what it was like to attend medical school in the early 20th century. And these Renoir plums are in honor of Williams' so-sweet, so-cold icebox ones from "This is Just to Say."

the self-made man

Image -- Portrait of Whistler with Hat (James McNeill Whistler, 1858)

"Whistler had become The Artist: dressing differently from ordinary mortals, speaking differently, his every word and gesture as much a critique of philistia as his clothes...He was famous, gifted, notorious, charming and impossible by turns. If you wanted to be an artist, that was the way you behaved." (Text from Robert M. Crunden's American Salons, Oxford University Press)

Mauve is just pink trying to be purple. -- James McNeill Whistler

repin's russia

Looking at the works of artist Ilya Repin (1844-1930) is a great way to learn about Russian history and culture, ranging from Repin's depictions of the Volga Boatmen to scenes from Eugene Onegin to portraits of major literary, artistic and political figures of his time. Repin also had a true gift for capturing the essence of his portrait subject, such as his wonderful impressions of author Leo Tolstoy and his appealingly lost-in-thought painting of composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Even if you don't initially recognize the person in one of Repin's portraits, you're likely to be intrigued enough by the visual image to want to know more. This painting of Vsevolod Garshin seems really striking, and further research revealed that Garshin was a writer whose father and brother had committed suicide, and that Garshin eventually committed suicide himself in 1888 at the age 33. He showed considerable literary promise in his short life, and he also posed for Repin's Czar Ivan the Terrible With the Body of His Son (State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow) as Ivan's son. In that particular painting, we learn how Czar Ivan unintentionally murdered his own son Ivan in 1581 during an argument by beating him with his staff. Ivan's son was reportedly upset because Czar Ivan had argued earlier with the son's pregnant wife, and in defending her the final fight between father and son came to pass. They were an intense pair of Ivans, so it seems like some kind of tragedy was inevitable. It's eerie and sad to see Garshin in that pose as the dead son, however; Garshin's portrait by the way is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

be yourself...with effort

Quoting Camille Pissarro: "Don't forget only to be yourself. However this cannot be achieved without efforts."

(Pictured: Lordship Lane Station, Dulwich -- Camille Pissarro, 1871)