Holiday slides - New York

So much to see in a five day trip to New York.

But first stop every time - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 Chrysanthemums in the Garden at Petit-Grennevilliers 1893 -

Gustave Caillebotte 

a possible design for his dining room doors.

Want.

 Still Life with Flowers and Prickly Pears -

Auguste Renoir.

Bouquet of Chrysanthemums - 

Auguste Renoir.

A woman seated beside a Vase of Flowers - 

Edgar Degas.

She gazes, as the caption says, distractedly to the right.

I amuse myself by trying to guess what she is thinking about.

"Y aura-t-il assez de pommes de terres si Edgar vient dîner ce soir?"

"Cela prendra-t-il beaucoup de temps?"

"Je vais éternuer." *

And finally October in the Marshes -

John Frederick Kensett.

He was painting right up to his death in December 1872

and this series known as "Last Summer's Work"

is of meadows and salt marshes near Contentment Island Connecticut.

*"Will there be enough potatoes if Edgar comes to dine tonight?"

"Will this take much longer?"

"I'm going to sneeze."

My thanks, if it's correct, to Google translate for

helping out my schoolgirl French.

Magnolia days

There was once very little choice in paint colours.

I remember Brilliant White being heralded as a breakthrough,

previous whites tending towards the yellow.

You could also have Primrose yellow

and a peachy pink, eau de nil and a rather chilly blue,

but magnolia won hands down in the popularity stakes,

despite not resembling any magnolia I have ever seen.

A quick check around tells me pale grey is the new white,

(Elephant's Breath by Farrow and Ball if you're feeling flush). 

What fun it must be - choosing the names.

Wot! No haywain?*

Overheard one disgruntled visitor saying,

'Isn't there supposed to be a cart there?'.

This was an interesting programme about a possible lost Constable painting

 from the BBC1 Fake or Fortune series.

* See Mr Chad

All by ourselves

at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

Jim Lambie's Zobop zippy floor on the stairs up to the exhibition.

My senses are reeling already.

A last minute staff meeting.

Have they got used to the pink walls?

I want to come back to the picture on the left later.

Someone is ahead of me.

Two Sisters - William Bowyer

and to the left of them Afternoon Skaters - Bill Jacklin RA.

The Old House Dreams it is Still There-
Peter Messer.

London - The Streets - Kim Rugg.
Of course I checked.

A Humument 1966-2015 -Tom Phillips RA.

A Humument - Bourgeois Pictures.
We have been there;  we have seen bourgeois  pictures

Section model Feed the World Skyfarm - Lord Rogers of Riverside RA

Time Without Title - Andreea Albani.

Now back to Red Studio - Rose Hilton.

Rose Hilton is the wife of the artist Roger Hilton.
she talks about his work here :



As his wife she was actively discouraged to paint, 
despite attending the Royal College of Art,
winning the Life Drawing and Painting prize and the
Abbey Minor scholarship to Rome.
She painted a little if he went out but only
 took up her brushes again in earnest after he died in 1975.
This work was submitted in her 84th year.
Do read the article if you have time, but if not
perhaps listen to this.
I found it very moving in the circumstances.

Backward glance at blackberries

I can hardly bear to tear myself away from the warmth of the garden

but I fear I am getting behind, what with cleaning up post builders, 

redecorating the new window walls

and baby cuddling.

Blackberries must be recorded before it is too late

and we have all moved on to autumn leaves.

Baby bunting.

Cake. This Ottolenghi recipe Raspberry and Oat Bars,

somewhat like Nigella's Dream Bars, could have been made with

blackberry jam if I had made any.

I used the blackcurrant jam and some fresh raspberries instead.

Things not caught on camera

Sometimes it is just not appropriate or convenient

to carry a camera,

so lately not caught:

a lunch with old friends at the National Gallery

and a very targeted approach to the art -

The Wilton Diptych.

The delivery of fencing 

and five pleached Chanticleer pear trees

to replace the hedge and trees cut down by new neighbours.

A trip to Covent Garden to see

The Dream, Connectome and The Concert.

A glorious country wedding in full sunshine

despite the dire weather forecast.

A huge grass snake coiled beside us

while we ate lunch in the garden.

Eek. I've never seen a snake in the wild.

It slithered away as silently as it arrived.

A badger (also huge) galloping down the path

and leaping over a wall in front of me.

Another first. I only see dead ones on the roadside.

Coming soon, but this time with a camera in hand,

a short trip to Stockholm

inspired in part by this,

 this and this .

My new (old) table

It is supposed to be reminiscent of

those French grain sacks.

There's plenty of paint left.

What next?

The rainbows are back

Twice a year,

(as you may remember) 

the dusty prisms on the window sill

surprise me with their artistry.

Jane Arkwright's painting Two Blooms, remix.

The rake's progress

There was some lying in the long grass

but there was also an awful lot of

 raking.

The Retirement Home garden consists chiefly

of parched brown earth

and rocks and stones,

all of which have to be smoothed away

in time for the arrival of the turf.

Luckily there is always the chance that the rake will turn up 

a clay pipe, an old bottle, a button or some shards

of blue and white.

I find it quite therapeutic.

And when it gets too hot to be therapeutic

I go inside and eat cherries.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, raker,

rich man, poor man, beggar man,

thief.

Art therapy

 The Wilton Diptych, Turner's Helvoetsluys,

anything by Van Gogh, (I rather favoured 

Still Life with quinces and lemons

in order to tempt Sue), and Velasquez's Crucifixion,

have each had votes so far.
Further nominations are for
The Graham Children by Hogarth and 
The Madonna with the Iris by Dürer.

None of the downloadable images did justice to them

so I have scanned a postcard of my tentative choice.

Despite Clark's assertion that the public did not want to see

Dutch painting or any realistic paintings, 

I see that in June 1942 they exhibited Pieter de Hooch's

A Woman and her Maid in a Courtyard

sadly not now on display, but I am frequently drawn to this:

and I think that amid the chaos of bombed-out,
blacked-out London,

I would have been happier to contemplate sunlit order

 than to wilt under the stern gaze

of Margharetha de Geer.

The inscription above the door translates as:

This is in Saint Jerome's vale, 

if you wish to repair to patience and meekness.

For we must first descend if we wish to be raised.

Blitz spirit

Whilst pondering the lowering effect of 

this long winter on the nation's spirits,

I found myself wondering how much harder it must have  been

to stay cheerful during World War II,

and yet we are portrayed in newsreels as a resilient and 

cheerful bunch even during the Blitz.

This British Council film is fairly typical:

http://film.britishcouncil.org/london-1942

The National Gallery in London had been putting on 

morale boosting concerts by Myra Hess since 1939, 

and visitors couldn't help noticing

the bare walls where pictures had been 

evacuated for safety to Wales.

It was decided that the public should have access to 

great pictures even in the most difficult circumstances.

Kenneth Clark said that the difficulties, 

'must be weighed against the delight and refreshment 

which the sight of a great picture would give'.

One picture was to be displayed every three weeks.

The Met Office weather report for February 1942

notes that the month was,
'remarkable for its persistently cold character'.
In England and Wales,
'sunshine was considerably below average on the whole;
in eastern districts it was particularly scanty'.

What did they choose for the aesthetic refreshment of Londoners?

Letters sent in by members of the public had made it,

'perfectly clear that people do not want to see Dutch painting

or realistic painting of any kind;

no doubt at the present time they are anxious to contemplate 

a nobler order of humanity'.

They chose the newly acquired portrait of 
Margaretha de Geer by Rembrandt.

She was the wife of a wealthy merchant Jacob Trip

who had made his fortune from mining,

manufacturing iron and trading with armaments.

She was displayed each day between January and March 1942
and placed in secure storage each night.
On a persistently cold day in February 2013

I stood myself in front of her.

The gallery was quiet, it was near closing time

and most of the visitors had been 

gently herded towards the exits.

We contemplated one another.

I could not honestly say I felt delighted.

In February 1943 they showed Constable's The Hay Wain.

Next time I visit, I am going to have to make my own selection.
Which National Gallery painting would lift your spirits?

Way to go

As the ambulance on a blue light

hurtled towards me on my drive to Pilates this morning,

this was playing on the radio:

Well there are worse ways to go.

Jacob's Ladder by William Blake.