Memorial Day – The Fallen

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 28, 2018
Posted in: Music, Photography, Poetry. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .


The Fallen
 by Duncan Campbell Scott

Those we have loved the dearest,
The bravest and the best,
Are summoned from the battle
To their eternal rest;

There they endure the silence,
Here we endure the pain—
He that bestows the Valor
Valor resumes again.

O, Master of all Being,
Donor of Day and Night,
Of Passion and of Beauty,
Of Sorrow and Delight,

Thou gav’st them the full treasure
Of that heroic blend—
The Pride, the Faith, the Courage,
That holdeth to the end.

Thou gavest us the Knowledge
Wherein their memories stir—
Master of Life, we thank Thee
That they were what they were.

🕊

Mrs. Cecil Wade

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 27, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Mrs. Cecil Wade (1886)
John Singer Sargent
Oil on canvas 

John Singer Sargent's Mrs. Cecil Wade shows the 23-year-old wife of an English stockbroker occupying the spacious drawing room of her luxurious London townhome. Sitting stiffly on a settee, she projects a refined, austere presence. Her chiseled profile suggests reserve as well as elevated social status. Conditioned by contemporary French and 17th-century Spanish painting techniques, Sargent's talented brush impressively evokes a range of lighting effects and textures, including fine satin, polished wood and sheer curtains.

Mrs. Cecil Wade was among Sargent's first significant commissions upon relocating to London from Paris in 1886. His move was prompted by a scandal involving his sensuous Madame X (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), which had recently offended Parisian audiences and had temporarily undermined his market there.

Pueblo Tesuque, No. 2

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 26, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Pueblo Tesuque, No. 2 (1917)
George Wesley Bellows
Oil on canvas, mounted on plywood

George Bellows spent the summer of 1917 mainly in California on a break from his teaching at New York's Art Students League. Pueblo Tesuque, No. 2 was painted on his return trip, when he visited in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Tesuque Pueblo, near Santa Fe, offered Bellows the perfect opportunity to paint the Southwestern scenery and American Indian subjects that were increasingly popular around World War I. Bellows' composition depicts the daily life of the pueblo and includes its white adobe church on the left. A man dressed for the Green Corn dance, an annual rite of renewal prior to the corn harvest, adds an exotic air to the scene as does the highly keyed palette of purple, red-orange, green and blue.

🦂

Mexican Girl with Oriental Scarf 

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 25, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

Mexican Girl with Oriental Scarf 
(ca. 1916–22)
Robert Henri
Oil on canvas

Robert Henri painted sitters from many races, portraying them with his signature keen analysis of character and masterful brushwork. A 1914 trip inaugurated his long-standing fascination with the Southwest and the region’s ethnically diverse people.

This interest was further fostered by multiple visits to northern New Mexico where he found subjects who reflected a blend of cultures, notably Mexican and local Native and Hispanic Americans. Henri acknowledged: “I am looking at each individual with the eager hope of finding something of the dignity of life…the humanity…. I do not wish to explain these people…. I only want to find whatever of the great spirit there is in the Southwest. If I can hold it on my canvas, I am satisfied.”

🌕

WPC: Twisted

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 24, 2018
Posted in: Art, Inspiration, Photography, Weekly Photo Challenge. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

Love – Two hearts are intertwined, signifying eternal harmony and unity.

Wisdom – The intertwining represents working through, evaluating,
discerning and resolving — finding a pearl of wisdom in our center.

Release – Spiraling up and letting go, working through
and bringing to the surface things we need to release.

🐌

Weekly Photo Challenge: Twisted

White Lilacs in a Crystal Vase

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 23, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , .

White Lilacs in a Crystal Vase
1882 or 1883
Edouard Manet
Oil on canvas

In the last year of his life, while seriously ill and confined to his home, Edouard Manet painted at least 20 floral still-life paintings. From his bedside, he painted the bouquets brought by his closest friends. The restraint and simplicity of these compositions highlight their true subject: the artist’s masterful, seemingly effortless application of paint that defies the difficult circumstances in which they were made.

My Fate Is in Your Hand

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 22, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , .

My Fate Is in Your Hand (1950)
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
American, born Japan, 1889–1953
Oil on canvas

My Fate Is in Your Hand was painted five years after the end of World War II. Its jewel-like colors and geometric composition suggest joy and order. However, the caterpillar held in the palm of a hand and the grasshopper clinging to the painting’s vertical edge are reminders that forces beyond our control can affect our lives.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi immigrated to the United States in 1906. Throughout his life he faced anti-Asian bigotry. Although he evaded the Japanese internment camps during World War II, Kuniyoshi was designated an “enemy alien” by the American government. Despite discrimination, he worked for the U.S. cause during the war.

🔸

Still Life with Guelder Roses

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 21, 2018
Posted in: Art, Flowers, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , .

Still Life with Guelder Roses
1892, reworked 1929
Pierre Bonnard
Oil on canvas

Pierre Bonnard was a member of the Nabis, a group of young artists that emerged in the 1890s. They produced intimate paintings of domestic subjects in a flat, decorative style that was heavily influenced by Japanese art and the work of Paul Gauguin.

In 1892, when Bonnard started this still life, he emphasized surface patterns and simplified, flattened forms. Nearly 40 years later, when his style had become much more painterly, he added brushstrokes of pale yellow to the blossoms, creating a sense of three-dimensionality that was intentionally absent from the earlier composition.

🌹

Near ~

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 20, 2018
Posted in: Flowers, Music, Photography, Poetry. Tagged: , , , , , .

Near
by Carol Ann Duffy

Far, we are near, meet in the rain
which falls here; gathered by light, air;
falls there where you are, I am; lips
to those drops now on yours, nearer …

absence the space we yearn in, clouds
drift, cluster, east to west, north, south;
your breath in them; they pour, baptise;
same sun burning through to harvest
rainfall on skin, there, far; my mouth
opening to spell your near name.

🧡

The Willow Tree

Posted by Maverick ~ on May 19, 2018
Posted in: Art, Music, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , .


The Willow Tree, 1889
Paul Gauguin
Oil on canvas

Fleeing what he felt was the overly civilized and decadent environment of Paris, Paul Gauguin lived periodically in the remote and rugged Brittany region of northwestern France. In works such as this, he sought to convey traditional village life, which he considered an antidote to the ills of modern society.

Unlike the Impressionists, Gauguin did not aim to objectively reproduce the natural world. Rather, through a careful synthesis of exaggerated line, form, and color, he strove to capture the essence of his subjects as filtered through his own perceptions.

🔸