painting of the month

Sailboats at Sunset --

Ferdinand du Puigaudeau, 1864-1930

(from www.the-athenaeum.org)

barnes on bloomsday

Today is Bloomsday, or the literary holiday honoring the June 16th, 1904 novelscape of James Joyce's masterwork Ulysses and its main character Leopold Bloom.  June 16th, 1904 was also the day of Joyce's first significant romantic encounter with Nora Barnacle, who would eventually become his lover, muse, mother of his children and wife -- all pretty much in that order.

Author Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) did some interesting and adventurous interview work -- aside from writing her own fiction -- in the earlier decades of her career, and many of these interviews featured illustrations by Barnes as well.  This portrait of James Joyce is a wonderful example of her artistic talent and accompanied Barnes' Vanity Fair interview of Joyce from 1922. 


(image from wikimedia commons)

transit of venus and birth of venus

The Birth of Venus -- Odilon Redon, 1912 (from www.the-athenaeum.org)