painting of the month

The Reverend Robert Walker
Skating on Duddingston Loch
a/k/a The Skating Minister --
Sir Henry Raeburn, circa 1790
(National Gallery of Scotland)

festive fezziwigs

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.

In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them.

When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, 'Well done,' and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a brand-new man resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish....

(A Christmas Carol, Mr. Dickens)

great blake things

Great things are done when Men & Mountains meet
This is not Done by Jostling in the Street.

William Blake

once upon a kandinsky birthday

The artist must train not only his eye, but his soul.

(Wassily Kandinsky, December 4, 1863* -- December 13, 1944)

*December 16 is also noted as Kandinsky's birthday, apparently depending on whether you use the Julian or Gregorian calendar.

Pictured: Yellow-Red-Blue -- W. Kandinsky, 1925 (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou)