‘And what is so rare as a day in June….’
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;From The Vision of Sir Launfal by James Russell Lowell
This is a happy, even joyous poem, for a decidedly not joyous time. Yet it may be a worthy consolation.
Yesterday, when I stepped outside to retrieve the paper, I was greeted by a day of almost unearthly beauty: shining sun; cool, still air; intense blue sky…perfect. And yet, of course, it was very much of this earth, this very earth, which at this moment is so torn by grief and pain.
[O have mercy on us, Great Creator….]
Meanwhile, I attempted to capture the sound of the neighborhood woodpecker plying his trade. You have to strain most awfully to hear him:
Of course, I have never seen one. I would be the world’s worst birdwatcher. Neither of the following photos were taken by me. They are ‘possibles’ for woodpeckers here in the Free State:
Downy woodpecker
Red-bellied woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker
(At times, these feathered creatures may be heard rat-a-tat-tatting on the house. In those moments, we refer to them as Aluminum-siding peckers, or just Siding peckers. When they choose to engage in this activity when one is trying to nap, they are called Clueless peckers, or possibly Annoying peckers.)
Anyway, one is eternally grateful for clear, dry mornings, rare as they are in these parts. Just a few mornings ago, I was greeted by this, on our west-facing windows:
Has anyone written a poem about humidity? Probably, but I don’t know it. Music has certainly been written about spring and summer:
Adventures in Abstract Art at the Baltimore Museum of Art – and some other places as well
by Jack Whitten December 5, 1939-January 20, 2018
by Julie Mehretu
These works, and many more, are featured in an exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art entitled “Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art.”
What an exuberant display of talent and inventiveness! I enjoyed it so much that I went twice.
One of the explanatory signs at the beginning of the exhibit stated this:
Racism put black artists in a double bind: both under pressure to make positive representations of black people and seen by many as less creative and therefore less capable of making original abstract paintings.
It might be partly because I’m Jewish – and am currently reading an extremely depressing book about antisemitism and the notorious blood libel accusation leveled at Jews, even in this country – dismissive generalizations like the one quoted above really make me angry.
At any rate, Generations is a wildly successful refutation of that sentiment. Here are a few more examples:
by Martin Puryear
by Alma Thomas
I was powerfully drawn to this painting. This man, barely discernible, yet fully alive. He seems to struggle out of the darkness – rather not to struggle, but to emerge without effort – and with such a wonderful smile!
by Norman Lewis July 23, 1909-August 27, 1979
Lewis’s painting is called Autumn Flight. With its stirring depiction of flight, it put me in mind of one of the first works of sculpture I came to know as a child: Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space:
This work, entitled Eastern Star, reminded me of I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold by Charles Demuth:
I made these two visits to the BMA with my dear friend Robbie, a ‘Roberta’ like myself. Having been at Goucher College together in 1960s, we’ve know each other forever! A sweeter, more steadfast companion one could never ask for.
Robbie and I wondered why certain works appealed to us more than others. One obvious reason is the presence of a veritable explosion of color. Who doesn’t love and crave bright colors? Just about everyone, I think, from childhood on. (This is especially true of those of us who have to live through ‘the bleak midwinter’ every year.)The first painting on top is a good example of intense coloration, as is Shinique Smith’s delightful fabric creation precisely entitled Black, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Red, Pink; here’s yet another, somewhat more subtle, Afternoon by Norman Lewis:
I found the following passage on the site artsy.net aided my understanding of the appeal of certain works of abstract art:
The divide between abstraction and figuration is a false, but helpful, dichotomy. Painters who are primarily concerned with the interactions between color, line, and form also make marks and shapes that may suggest body parts, landscapes, and objects traditionally relegated to still lifes. Even monochrome paintings can conjure familiar settings: A gray canvas might evoke a rock face, while a blue one may suggest the sea.
The BMA made this very informative and nicely illustrated little booklet available free of charge to museum goers. I’m grateful to them for this generous act: 
Once again, I can’t emphasize enough that there are quite a few more artists represented in this exhibit than I have highlighted here. Generations runs through this Sunday the 19th. It would be very worth your while to see it.
‘It’s a fascinating subject, the study of this venerable civilization….’ – Queens of Egypt at the National Geographic
Yes, there she is, in all her beauty and mystery: Nefertiti, Queen of Egypt, wife of Akhenaton, the iconoclast Pharoah who instituted worship if the sun as the sole deity of the kingdom. But this exhibit at the National Geographic is not about him. Rather, it is about her, and the other notable queens whose reigns span this remote and exotic era. 
The bust pictured above is a copy of the original, which was found in Amarna by a team of German archaeologists led by Ludwig Borchardt. It currently resides in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin, much to the annoyance of its country of origin, which has been trying to get it repatriated since 1924. Museum officials claim that the bust is too fragile to travel.
Meanwhile, it is listed on Time Magazine’s list of Top Ten Plundered Items.
I digress. But it’s hard not to, when dealing with so vast a subject.
Six queens are highlighted in this exhibit. The first is Ahmose-Nefertari; her dates are 1539 BCE to 1514 BCE.
I quote from the exhibition guidebook:
Ahmose-Nefertari was the first queen of the 18th dynasty and of the New Kingdom. She was a powerful and influential queen who enjoyed widespread acclaim. After her death, she and her son were deified in Deir-el-Medina, where she was worshiped as a goddess of resurrection.
Ahmose-Nefertari 1539-1514 BCE
Hatshepsut (1479-1425 BCE), rather singular and remarkable, reigned as Pharoah for some twenty years in the mid-fifteenth century BCE. (The exact dates are disputed.) To emphasize her masculine qualities, she was sometimes depicted as bearded:
Hatshepsut with beard
Hatshepsut, clean shaven, as it were
The third queen was Tiye (1390-1340 BCE):
Tiye is found at the nexus of powerful rulers, being the Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III, mother of Amenhotep IV, who became known as Akhenaton, and grandmother of Tutankhamun. Still, she held her own in the game of power.
Queen Tiye 1390-1340 BCE
Tiye’s mummified remains were discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1898: 
Then, there was Nefertiti, wife of AmenhotepIV/Akgenaton (see above).
Nefertari was the Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II. At a time when life expectancy was all too brief, Ramesses II reigned for an astonishing sixty-six years. He ascended the throne in 1279 BCE, ruling until his death in 1213 BCE. 
Ramesses lived to be ninety-six years old, had over 200 wives and concubines, ninety-six sons and sixty daughters, most of whom he outlived. So long was his reign that all of his subjects, when he died, had been born knowing Ramesses as pharaoh and there was widespread panic that the world would end with the death of their king. He had his name and accomplishments inscribed from one end of Egypt to the other and there is virtually no ancient site in Egypt which does not make mention of Ramesses the Great.
Here is the beautiful Nefertari:
Nefertari 1279-1255 BCE
As the passage above indicates, Ramesses was plentifully supplied with wives and concubines. But Nefertari was his great love. On the wall of her tomb enclosure he caused the following to be inscribed:
“My love is unique — no one can rival her, for she is the most beautiful woman alive. Just by passing, she has stolen away my heart.”
Just by passing, she has stolen my heart….
As well as being a loving helpmate, Nefertari was apparently an accomplished woman in her own right:
She was highly educated and able to both read and write hieroglyphs, a very rare skill at the time. She used these skills in her diplomatic work, corresponding with other prominent royals of the time.
In 1904,
Nefertari’s tomb in the Valley of Queens was unearthed by a team of Italian archaeologists. It is an exceptionally gorgeous burial place.
This picture depicts Nefertari playing an Egyptian board game called Senet. According to Wikipedia, the rules of this game are not precisely known, yet a site called Discovering Egypt provides a fairly complete description of how the it is played.
The Geographic exhibit had two stations set up side by side, and folks were trying their hand at it. 
Finally, Cleopatra, the last Queen of Egypt(51-30 BCE). What can one say about this storied woman? Perhaps we had best leave it to Shakespeare:
‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety: other women cloy
The appetites they feed: but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies;’……
‘The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O’erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.’Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene 2
What did Cleopatra look like? The exhibit featured this sculpture, purportedly of her:
Yet it’s my understanding that no one is certain of the answer to this question and that the most reliable likeness is to be found on a coin:
For a more in depth look at the life of Cleopatra, see this article from the Smithsonian Magazine. This piece features a number of striking images, including, inevitably, that of Elizabeth Taylor.
I also recommend Stacy Schiff’s biography. What I remember best from this book is the author’s description of the city of Alexandria. It sounded so glorious, I wanted to go there immediately. Alas, a period of some two thousand years separates us from that magnificent ancient city.
The Geographic exhibit was about more than just the queens. For instance, there was a set-up whereby people could inscribe their own names and see what they would look like in hieroglyphic script. I found a site online where you can do the same thing, courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Here’s what my name looks like: 
You can try it with your own name by clicking here.
One of the most fascinating components of the exhibit concerned Deir el-Medina. This was a village composed of artisans whose brief it was to help build the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It was located on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. There was a recreation of the place being shown on a large screen in a dimly lit room. I kept circling around and coming back to it. I’d just sit on the bench and stare. In short, I was mesmerized.
Our docent – a wonderfully knowledgeable young woman – passed around two items of great interest. One was a swatch of linen of the type that would have been used in the mummification process. The other was a piece of actual papyrus. This last was thrilling to me. It felt like a kind of nubby parchment. It was strange to hold it in my hand and rub it gently between my fingers.. I was reluctant to give it up.
Numerous archaeologists won fame in the course of their explorations in Egypt. The exhibit featured one, a woman – two, actually – of particular interest, whom I’d never heard of: Margaret Benson (1865-1916) and her friend Janet Gourlay (1863-1912). There’s a detailed recounting of the life and professional accomplishments of Margaret Benson on the site of Egyptologist William H. Peck.
Janet Gourlay, left, and Margaret Benson
In 2013, an historical novel came out about ancient Egypt. Written by Kerry Greenwood, it was called Out of the Black Land. Once I got it, I could do nothing but read it. It brought the era of the rebel Pharoah Akhenaton so vividly to life that I was seeing it in my dreams. I particularly remember the description of Queen Tiye, Akhenaton’s mother, struggling to give birth, her women grouped around her providing help and support.
An amazing book. 
“It is a fascinating subject, the study of this venerable civilization, extending back to the childhood of the human race, preserved for ever for our instruction in its own unchanging monuments like a fly in a block of amber. Everything connected with Egypt is full of an impressive solemnity. A feeling of permanence, of stability, defying time and change, pervades it. The place, the people, and the monuments alike breathe of eternity.”
R. Austin Freeman, The Eye of Osiris: A Detective Romance, 1913
Book Bash: Important Addendum
In my post covering the AAUW Book Bash last month, I inadvertently failed to mention a book that is extremely germane to AAUW’s mission: Grace and Grit: My Fight for Equal Pay and Fairness at Goodyear and Beyond, by Lily Ledbetter.
It started with an anonymous note in 1998. Ledbetter had been working at Goodyear for nineteen difficult years when a mysterious missive informed her that she was being paid forty percent less than her male counterparts.
How did it end? From the Publishers Weekly review:
After discovering the anonymous note, she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, leading to her landmark discrimination lawsuit under Title VII and the Equal Pay Act. While Ledbetter lost the case on appeal (a decision upheld by the Supreme Court), the experience prompted her to become a spokesperson for equal pay. In January 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, a satisfying coda to this inspiring tale.
The book jacket states that Ledbetter’s determination resulted in “a victory for the nation.”
Barb C., activist member of the Howard County Branch of AAUW, adds:
The bill is not really about equal pay itself but gives the employee the right to sue about equal pay using the last paycheck rather than the first one. She maintained civility through out the challenges. I have met her at the AAUW conventions. She is a strong supporter of AAUW.
Barb C., Lilly L, and Lisa Maatz, former AAUW Public Policy
Best of 2018, Eight: Crime fiction, part one – and one other important item
Before I do a deep dive into this one, I want to mention with praise and gratitude Tom Nolan’s list of best crime fiction of 2018. Why do I like this list so much? Because I’ve already read and enjoyed four out of ten of the titles he selected. They are: 
Here’s a link to the article. Tom Nolan writes for the Wall Street Journal, which tends to keep its content behind a pay wall. That content can, however, be accessed via the local library’s database HCLS Now! Research. Other library systems probably have a similar service.
Speaking of which, I’d like to commend the Howard County Library System for its generous gesture of suspending fees and fines during the current government shutdown. This has been done in recognition of the large number of federal workers living in this area. Several other measures have been taken to ease the impact of the shutdown. This action has been initiated by our new County Executive Calvin Ball (whom I encountered this morning at the League of Women Voters annual Legislative Luncheon).
Well done, Sir.
We weep for you, Historic Ellicott City!
It is truly heartbreaking that this should have happened again. We were just there last Thursday, having dinner at our favorite restaurant, Tersiguel’s.
We pray for the missing man, Eddison “Eddie” Hermond, who was trying to assist a stranded woman when he was wept away by the raging waters.
And they were raging. The power of a swift current is incredible, and incredibly dangerous.
Information is available, including information on how to help the once again besieged residents and business owners, at The Community Foundation of Howard County.
The eclipse at our house, with a poetical digression
We were forewarned that in central Maryland, the eclipse would not be total. We weren’t expecting much, and frankly we didn’t get much. That’s not to say we didn’t try. And the sun was, in fact, shining – a happenstance not at all dependable here in the Old Line State.
We didn’t have the special glasses and so did not gaze directly at the phenomenon. We were able to see this indicator, though, as the light penetrating through the leaves of the tree in our front yard provided a sort of pin hole camera effect:
You will no doubt be impressed by the delicately calibrated scientific instrument that we also made use of:
At any rate, here was the sun once again, yesterday morning, being normal in our backyard:
Being of a literary turn of mind (and an incorrigible English major from way back),, I wish to cite three poetical allusions. The first is famous:
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Oh, thanks to thee, Shakespeare, for having words of beauty and meaning for every occasion.
And then there’s John Donne, who in his poem “The Sun Rising”, is not praising the sun but chastising it. (Imagine scolding the sun! But then, lovers can be a pretty cheeky lot):
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why dost thou thus,
Through windows, and through curtains call on us?
Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?
Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide
Late school boys and sour prentices,
Go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices,
Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime,
Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.Thy beams, so reverend and strong
Why shouldst thou think?
I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink,
But that I would not lose her sight so long;
If her eyes have not blinded thine,
Look, and tomorrow late, tell me,
Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine
Be where thou leftst them, or lie here with me.
Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,
And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.She’s all states, and all princes, I,
Nothing else is.
Princes do but play us; compared to this,
All honor’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.
Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,
In that the world’s contracted thus.
Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be
To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.
Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;
This bed thy center is, these walls, thy sphere.
Finally there is W.H. Auden’s meditation on the sad fate of the too-audacious Icarus (and by implication the rest of us, sooner or later). This poem, titled “Musee des Beaux Arts,” was inspired by Auden’s viewing of Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c.1555 (oil on canvas) by Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (c.1525-69) [Click to enlarge]
St Michaels, on Maryland’s Easter Shore
I rise early.
I go out on the deck, to survey what for a few precious moments seems like my own kingdom.
Meanwhile Ron sleeps peacefully. My own husband and the kindest man I have ever known, or will know. More and more, as the years pass, I’ve learned from him that thoughtfulness and consideration and selflessness are the true hallmarks of deep, real love.
As I write this, he snores away peacefully in the adjoining room. (If he heard me say this, he would exclaim, with a grin, “Snore? Me? Never!!) O that I could hear that sound forever! (Perhaps I will.)
In this second marriage for both of us, how lucky we have been.
Back to the deck. A couple strolls by. He turns to me, smiles, and wishes me good morning. I return his greeting. They walk on, seemingly content, despite the heat.
I long to see the ducks and rabbits that frequent this place. In the course of the morning, I see both, albeit fleetingly. And of course, numerous squirrels.
The heat is rising. The water glitters. The sun is blazing; the sky is white with heat.
I can sum up in a word why we come here and what we find each time we do: peace.
Adventures in art history: Seductive Paris, Part Two
French naturalism was a direct outgrowth of the realist movement in art. The distinction between the two is rather subtle; ergo, I’ll direct you to the relevant entry in the Visual Arts Encyclopedia.
Ms Billman cited Jules Bastien-Lepage as one of the main exponents of naturalism. I was thrilled to hear that name, as I knew what was about to appear on the screen. And sure enough:
Joan of Arc, 1875
I first saw this painting on my initial visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I was eight years old. I already knew the extraordinary story of the Maid of Orleans. Seeing her brought to life in this way before my eyes – I was stunned.
It turns out that this work is somewhat of an anomaly in Bastien-Lepage’s oeuvre. As an artist in the realist/naturalist mode, he produced relatively little in the way of “history painting” or religious subjects. Here are several of his other paintings:
Pas Meche (Nothing Doing) 1882
October 1878
I’ve always wondered why Bastien-Lepage’s works were so rarely encountered elsewhere. I now know that this was due to the sad fact of his early death. According to the French language site “LES SECONDES AU TEMPS DES PEINTRES XIXEME” he died of stomach cancer at the age of 36.
Ms Billman provided a fascinating detail concerning the Joan of Arc painting. It seems that Joan never claimed to have actually seen the saints who spoke to her – only to have heard them. Hence their appearance behind her as she gazes, transfixed, into the middle distance.
I’ve never ceased to be fascinated by Joan’s story. Books about her appear fairly regularly. I can recommend Joan of Arc: A Life Transfigured by Kathryn Harrison (2014). 
Adventures in Art History, Part One: ‘Seductive Paris’
View of Ornans, Gustave Courbet
In which your intrepid faithful blogger and Jean, her equally intrepid friend and fellow art lover, commence their journey toward a Certification in World Art History, to be bestowed by the Smithsonian Associates, the educational arm of Washington’s illustrious Smithsonian Institution.
Alas, the day did not start out well. Our train, scheduled to leave at 7:59 AM, did not arrive until almost 9:30. Coincidentally, this was the exact time that our class – our very first one in the program – was scheduled to begin. As the train finally appeared in the distance, I could not help exclaiming, “Oh look! There comes a chugging giant, traveling on these tracks at which we’ve been staring in frustration for an hour and a half! I believe it is a…Can it be..Yes!”
The MARC train at the Odenton stop, where we caught it – finally
And so it went…
We arrived, panting but barely an hour late, at the Ripley Center, an odd little edifice on the Smithsonian campus where the class was being held. 
At least, it seemed little, until we journeyed down two floors and found ourselves in an unexpectedly vast underground space.
But this was no time to stand gaping! We made for the Lecture Hall and were directed to the balcony, where we settled ourselves, whipped out our notebooks, and as the lecturer held forth about Realism in art history, started scribbling madly. (Everyone around us was doing the same.)
My immediate first thought: I love this!
The program was called Seductive Paris. Our lecturer was Bonita Billman, who teaches art history at Georgetown University’s School of Summer and Continuing Studies. Ms Billman was knowledgeable, discursive, and witty. She possessed a large fund of anecdotes which greatly enhanced her presentation, which consisted of four lectures. They were as follows: French Teachers and American Students; Summers in the Country: American Painters in Brittany and Normandy; Domestic Bliss: Painters of Genre Scenes; and Impressionism in America. All the while Ms Billman was sharing her expertise with us, one gorgeous slide after another appeared on the screen beside and above the podium where she stood. Some of the art work was known to me; most was not. I wrote at frantic speed (and in very low light), trying to get down the names of paintings and artists that I particularly wanted to remember.
There is simply no way I can reproduce here the vast content that constituted these talks. It was akin to condensing an entire semester of art history into one day’s proceedings. So what follows is a partial recapitulation of what was covered in the morning.
When Jean and I got to the lecture, Ms Billman was discussing Gustav Courbet, an artist of out sized genius with an ego to match. This pleased me, as I recalled the stunning exhibit of his works that I’d seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art eight years ago.
The Desperate Man (Self-Portrait) ca. 1845
Ms Billman highlighted The Stone Breakers (1850), which was destroyed during World War Two:
Courbet was in the vanguard of realist painters. These artists turned away from portraits of the aristocracy and royalty, and of historical and mythological subjects. Instead, they sought to depict people one might encounter in the ordinary course of life, laborers and peasants being chief among these. Jean-Francois Millet was also in this group:
The Gleaners, 1857
The Angelus, ca 1859
Jean-Francois Millet Self-portrait ca 1841
Our lecturer spoke about the Barbizon School and the artists associated with it. These artists were drawn to natural surroundings, and to their depiction on canvas.The Forest of Fontainebleau was their chief inspiration:
Despite differing in age, technique, training, and lifestyle, the artists of the Barbizon School collectively embraced their native landscape, particularly the rich terrain of the Forest of Fontainebleau. They shared a recognition of landscape as an independent subject, a determination to exhibit such paintings at the conservative Salon, and a mutually reinforcing pleasure in nature.
From “The Barbizon School: French Painters of Nature,” by Dita Amory
Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot: Forest of Fontainebleau, 1830
Narcisse Virgilio Diaz Forest of Fontainebleau, 1868
This group of artists had its counterpart in what is sometimes referred to as the American Barbizon School. Ms Billman emphasized three painters associated with this movement: William Morris Hunt, Winslow Homer, and Theodore Robinson.
For a time, William Morris Hunt and his brother Richard Morris Hunt shared an apartment in Paris, hard by the Ecole Des Beaux Arts. Writes David McCullough: “From the training and inspiration each of the brothers was to experience in the next several years in France would come great strides for each in his work.” (This quote comes from The Greater Journey: American in Paris, a book I highly recommend.)
Dinan, Brittany, by William Morris Hunt
Landscape, by William Morris Hunt
***************************
Late in 1866, motivated probably by the chance to see two of his Civil War paintings at the Exposition Universelle, [Winslow] Homer had begun a ten-month sojourn in Paris and the French countryside. While there is little likelihood of influence from members of the French avant-garde, Homer shared their subject interests, their fascination with serial imagery, and their desire to incorporate into their works outdoor light, flat and simple forms (reinforced by their appreciation of Japanese design principles), and free brushwork.
From an essay on Winslow Homer by H. Barbara Weinberg, Department of American Paintings and Sculpture, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Weinberg opens this essay with the following statement: “Winslow Homer (1836–1910) is regarded by many as the greatest American painter of the nineteenth century.” It’s not hard to see why.
The Milkmaid 1878
Artists sketching in the White Mountains
Snap the Whip
The Four Leaf Clover
Boys in a Pasture
****************************
Like William Morris Hunt, Theodore Robinson was born in Vermont. He traveled to Paris, Venice, and Bologna, returning to America in 1879. Five years later, he returned to France, where he became part of the artists’ colony that had formed around Monet at his house and garden in Giverny.
Robinson returned to America in 1892. He had intended to go back to France once again. Instead, in 1896, while in New York City, he succumbed to an acute asthma attack. He was 43 years old.
Le Cortège Nuptial (The Wedding Procession), 1891
Nantucket 1882
The Old Bridge 1890
There’s more to come on ‘Seductive Paris.’
Books to the Ceiling 