days at the beach

Artists Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923) and Illinois-born Jane Peterson (1876-1965) did not share the same style of painting, but the Spanish Sorolla was one of Peterson's instructors and they both seemed to love their beach scenes. Sorolla offers a beautiful use of white here and a fine sense of rippling breezes and rushing tides in his work, but Peterson's beach bunch looks more relaxed and sun-splashed -- and much less encumbered by unnecessary clothing.

Pictured: Walk on the Beach -- Joaquin Sorolla, 1909 and Beach Scene -- Jane Peterson, 1935

painting of the month

Vegetable Garden and Donkey -- Joan Miró, 1918

art and the house of mirth

More Suite101 blog reposting....

I’ve always loved the chapter from Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel The House of Mirth, where ladies of New York society take part in an evening of "living pictures" or tableaux vivants. For the entertainment of their guests, and for the presumed showcasing of themselves, the costumed women pose within sets designed to resemble classic paintings. These illusions depend "not only on the happy disposal of lights and the delusive-interposition of layers of gauze, but on a corresponding adjustment of the mental vision. To unfurnished minds they remain, in spite of every enhancement of art, only a superior kind of wax-works; but to the responsive fancy they may give magic glimpses of the boundary world between fact and imagination."

By this point in the novel, we’ve become familiar with the female characters and to link some of them with art is aesthetically fun — and a nice fictional device by Edith Wharton. We know about the translucent-skinned "frailer Dutch type" of old New York money, perfect for bringing a van Dyck to life. We also know about the resourceful and resilient Carry Fisher, who despite being a divorcee when divorce was still questioned has managed to keep herself within society circles. With her earthy dark looks she becomes one of Goya’s women for the night, from the "exaggerated glow of her eyes" to the "provocation of her frankly-painted smile."

Then there’s Lily Bart, The House of Mirth’s heroine — beautiful, capricious, determined to find a rich husband yet not quite calculating and manipulative enough to pull that feat off. Lily chooses Sir Joshua Reynolds’ Mrs. Lloyd as her tableau, knowing that its simpler lines and similarity to her own loveliness will be a show-stopper. Which it is, and Lily is a true vision — with some of the men of course wondering privately about whether she’s got any underwear on beneath those "pale draperies" that outline "dryad-like curves."

The tableaux evening is a high point in Lily’s otherwise troubled quest to become one of New York's truly powerful society women — and to no doubt eventually have her own beautiful, slightly haughty portrait painted by John Singer Sargent.

Pictured: La Maja Vestida (Francisco de Goya, ca. 1800) & Mrs. Richard Bennett Lloyd (Sir Joshua Reynolds, ca. 1775) -- click on each painting to get a closer look

unconsciously brilliant

"The unconscious should not be thought of as a limbo where vague, cloudy, and amorphous notions swim hastily about. There is every reason to believe, on the contrary, that it is the great home of form; that it is quicker to see types, patterns, purposes, than our intellect can ever be...[I]f you are to write well, you must come to terms with the enormous and powerful part of your nature which lies behind the threshold of immediate knowledge."

Words: Becoming a Writer -- Dorothea Brande, 1934
Image: Dream Vision -- Albrecht Dürer, 1525 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

that lunatic impressionist gang

(More Suite101 blog reposts....)

The French Impressionists initially had to organize their own exhibits because the official Paris Salon wouldn’t consistently accept their works. When those indie shows were reviewed by certain art critics of the day, the feedback could be downright nasty. While some admired their new perspective, others sniped how:

“Here five or six lunatics deranged by ambition -- one of them a woman -- have put together an exhibition…They take canvas, paint and brushes, splash on a few daubs of color here and there at random, then sign the result. The inmates of the Ville-Evrard Asylum behave in much the same way…Try telling M Pissarro that trees are not purple, or the sky the colour of butter…Try to explain to M Renoir that a woman’s torso is not a rotting mass of flesh, with violet-toned green spots all over it...There is also, as in all famous gangs, a woman. Her name is Berthe Morisot, and she is a curiosity. She manages to convey a certain degree of feminine grace in spite of her outbursts of delirium.”

That was critic Albert Wolff behind that 1876 rampage, and as a result of it, Berthe Morisot‘s husband Eugene (also painter Edouard Manet‘s brother) challenged Wolff to a duel, though I don’t think any swords were ever drawn or pistols fired. Clearly, Mr. Wolff would be horrified by the crowds who still flock to museums to view French Impressionist paintings, and by all the Monet tote bags and Degas and Renoir calendars for sale in the gift shops.

Wolff’s tirade is included in Sue Roe’s very interesting and smoothly flowing The Private Lives of The Impressionists (HarperCollins). The book gives factual and biographical information, but it also heightens the personalities and friendships of the artists so that it reads more like a novel. Definitely worth checking out.

(Pictured: Buttery sky by Camille Pissarro -- Apple Pickers at Eragny, 1888 -- Dallas Museum of Art)

painting of the month

White Shoes -- Eva Gonzales, ca. 1879

the mystery guest

Born May 11, 1904 (d. 1989), Surrealist Salvador Dalí knew how to market himself and his work and was never too reticent or aloof to miss a worthwhile opportunity to get his wild eyes and curious mustache out there. He seemed to really love the spectacle and drama part of being an artist, and if he were still with us he’d no doubt be delighted to learn that you can find his 1950s What's My Line? appearance on YouTube, along with a few other interesting Dalí TV moments. You can see in the What’s My Line? clip how Dalí easily maintains his somewhat perplexed poise throughout the questioning, then how he’s sure to suavely kiss the hands of all the women on the panel as he goes over to introduce himself.