if you stay awake
for an entire night
watch out for a treasure
trying to arrive
you can keep warm
by the secret sun of the night
keeping your eyes open
for the softness of dawn
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
day is to make a living
night is only for love
commoners sleep fast
lovers whisper to God all night
Excerpts from “Rumi, Fountain of Fire”
Deauville Racetrack (1929)
Raoul Dufy
French, 1877–1953
Oil on canvas
In cheerful colors and quickly sketched figures, Raoul Dufy captured the lively spirit of the Deauville Racetrack. Jockeys atop sleek horses meander through the crowd of fashionably dressed men and women enjoying a perfect day in the park behind the track. Located in Normandy, on the northwest coast of France, the delightful beachside Deauville attracted wealthy visitors. Easy train travel from Paris made it a readily accessed destination.
Pergusa Three Double (1984)
Frank Stella
linocut, woodcut, engravomg. screen print, edition 14 of 30
"Frank Stella was twenty-three when his Black Paintings were displayed in exhibition 16 Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in New York alongside work by Louise Nevelson and their contemporaries: Frank Stella, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. These acclaimed works were created when Stella applied commercial black enamel paint with a house painter's brush to create a geometric pattern of thin, unpainted lines. By the mid -- 1980's, however, Stella was working in a more exuberant--and colorful--mode. Pergusa Three Double (1984), for example, is much less contained to geometric lines and forms than his earlier works; it is named for a race track in Italy and depicts an aerial view of this subject."
The Power of a Word
There is a story told that once a Sufi was healing a child that was ill.
He was repeating a few words, and then gave the child to the parents saying,
“Now he will be well.”
Someone who was antagonistic to this said to him,
“How can it be possible that by a few words spoken, anyone can be healed?”
From a mild Sufi an angry answer is never expected,
but this time he turned to the man and said,
“You understand nothing about it. You are a fool.”
The man was very much offended. His face was red. He was hot.
The Sufi said, “when a word has the power to make you hot and angry,
why should not a word have the power to heal?”
Still Life with Oleander and Fruit (1911)
Albert André
French, 1869–1954
Oil on paper mounted on canvas
A sprawling bouquet of pink oleander spills from a rustic French Provençal ceramic vase in this casual and asymmetrically balanced still life. Yellow and green pears cluster at left, and a lone yellow pear rests on the tabletop at right. A brilliant flood of light illuminates the upper left side of all objects while casting shadows to the right. Together, the vitality of colors and composition suggest the pleasant comforts of home. Albert André began his artistic career as a fabric designer in Lyon. Later, living in Paris, he counted fellow artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir among his closest friends and mentors.
Rue Saint-Honoré, Sun Effect, Afternoon (1898)
Camille Pissarro
French, 1830–1903
Oil on canvas
This vertically oriented canvas depicts an urban street scene, specifically a large square at the intersection of two avenues, painted from an elevated viewpoint. The long avenue on the left side of the composition recedes sharply into the distance, framed on either side by tall, multistoried buildings with street level storefronts. In the right foreground, a fountain is positioned in the middle of the square on a paved circular base planted with tall trees; a tall streetlamp on a smaller circular base is positioned just in front of the fountain. In the right middle ground, a band of Haussmann-style Parisian buildings stretches horizontally across the composition. The trajectory of the second avenue is suggested by the angle of the building at the far right. Numerous clusters of sparsely painted figures and horse-drawn carriages populate the streets and paved islands. The palette is a harmony of muted pastel tones punctuated by the dark brown and black forms of people, horses, and carriages. The brushwork is a mixture of short and long strokes rapidly applied in a loose, sketch-like manner.
Because of Our Wisdom
“In many parts of this world water is
Scarce and precious.
People sometimes have to walk
A great distance
Then carry heavy jugs upon their
Heads.
Because of our wisdom, we will travel
Far for love.
All movement is a sign of
Thirst.
Most speaking really says
“I am hungry to know you.”
Every desire of your body is holy;
Every desire of your body is
Holy.
Dear one,
Why wait until you are dying
To discover that divine
Truth?”
― Hafiz, The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz
Le Goûter (1725-1730)
Jean-Baptiste Pater
French, 1695-1736
Les Baigneuses, 18th century
Oil on canvas
Pater was one of the principal painters of the Rococo, specializing in depictions of the leisured lifestyle of the French aristocracy. In Le Goûter (Afternoon Tea) a group of elegantly dressed young people converse and flirt in a lush park setting. Pater's Les Baigneuses (The Bathers), also exhibited here, introduces a note of sensuality only hinted at in the first picture. The theme of the bathing party was immensely popular with Pater's patrons, and nearly 30 of his variations on this subject are known today. His paintings, in general, betray the influence of Rubens (1577-1640) in their rich color and relatively free brushwork.
Trouville, Beach Scene (1874)
Eugène Boudin
French, 1824–1898
Oil on wood panel
A group of elegantly dressed tourists relax on the beach at Trouville on the Normandy coast. Beach scenes such as this were commercially successful for Eugène Boudin. His attitude toward his subjects, however, appears to have been ambivalent. On one occasion, he even described such gatherings of tourists as a “frightful masquerade.” Boudin chose to paint his outdoor scenes on small wood panels, which were more suited to the windy conditions of the beach. Lighter canvases tended to bend with the strong breeze.
On Spring
From the pleasure, joy, and rapture of this hour,
In its frame to hold its soul earth scarce hath power.
Rent its collar, like the dawning, hath the rose;
From its heart the nightingale sighs forth its woes.
Dance the juniper and cypress like the sphere;
Filled with melody through joy all lands appear.
Gently sing the running brooks in murmurs soft;
While the birds with tuneful voices soar aloft.
Play the green and tender branches with delight,
And they shed with one accord gold, silver, bright.
Like to couriers feet, the zephyrs speed away,
Resting ne’er a moment either night or day.
In that raid the rosebud filled with gold its hoard,
And the tulip with fresh musk its casket stored.
There the moon a purse of silver coin did seize;
Filled with ambergris its skirt the morning breeze;
Won the sun a golden disk of ruby dye,
And with glistening pearls its pocket filled the sky:
Those who poor were fruit and foliage attained;
All the people of the land some trophy gained.
— Lami’i
Maverick Mist 