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The Lovers’ Chronicle 13 April – memories, reprise – verse by Thomas Percy – art by James Ensor – birth of Samuel Beckett, Eudora Welty & Seamus Heaney

13 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

a theme so compellin’
it had to come back
“In misty watercolors”
ha, well played my dear
“Thank you”
we talked about
the ones we have created
“Now we can turn towards
the ones to come”
absolutely
wherever they take us
one constant
runs through it
the way we will be

the trail behind,

or the memories

thereof, said

do not hope

but then the longed for

wave of pent up desire

rose up and now hope

and memories rhyme

belief that what was thought

denied, has only been delayed

that what was unattainable,

is now reachable from here,

with you

over it all,

no matter what,

it will find a way

i learned quickly enough

when to act, but i was slow

becomin’ aware

how to confront experiences

and resolve them artistically,

and that what really mattered

was to wait, to reach for,

the moments when beauty

reveals itself

as in you

who may tell the tale
of all gone wrong,
weigh the loss,
and mete want

assess woe
in verse enclose

bid sigh on sigh,
and wish and wish
till nothin’ness has flown,
and we have come

silent
at the doorway
facin’ need
only our eyes

is it time

five hundred mile
road trip tomorrow
goin’ back in time
about forty years
back to a place
full of memories
some, best left
undisturbed

ipercyt001p1

Today is the birthday of Thomas Percy (Bridgnorth, Shropshire, England, 13 April 1729 – 30 September 1811 Staffordshire, England); poet, Bishop of Dromore, County Down, Ireland. Before being made bishop, he was chaplain to George III. Perhaps best remembered for his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765), the first of the great ballad collections; possibly the one work most responsible for the ballad revival in English poetry that was a significant part of the Romantic movement.

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) excerpt

Over the mountains,
And over the waves,
Over the fountains,
And under the graves;
Over the floods that are deepest,
Which do Neptune obey;
Over the rocks that are steepest,
Love will find out the way.
- “Love Will Find Out the Way”; in its published form this is suspected to have been extensively written by Percy himself; it was later used by Pierre de Beaumarchais in Act III of The Marriage of Figaro (1778).

Today is the birthday of James Ensor (James Sidney Edouard, Baron Ensor; Ostend, Belgium; 13 April 1860 – 19 November 1949 Ostend); painter and printmaker, an important influence on expressionism and surrealism who lived in Ostend for almost his entire life. He was associated with the artistic group Les XX.

During the late 19th century, much of Ensor’s work was rejected as scandalous, particularly his painting Christ’s Entry Into Brussels in 1889 (1888–89). The Belgian art critic Octave Maus famously summed up the response from contemporaneous art critics to Ensor’s innovative (and often scathingly political) work: “Ensor is the leader of a clan. Ensor is the limelight. Ensor sums up and concentrates certain principles which are considered to be anarchistic. In short, Ensor is a dangerous person who has great changes. … He is consequently marked for blows. It is at him that all the harquebuses are aimed. It is on his head that are dumped the most aromatic containers of the so-called serious critics.”[citation needed] Some of Ensor’s contemporaneous work reveals his defiant response to this criticism. For example, the 1887 etching “Le Pisseur” depicts the artist urinating on a graffitied wall declaring (in the voice of an art critic) “Ensor est un fou” or “Ensor is a Madman.”

Ensor’s paintings continued to be exhibited and he gradually won acceptance and acclaim. In 1895 his painting The Lamp Boy (1880) was acquired by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, and he had his first solo exhibition in Brussels. By 1920 he was the subject of major exhibitions; in 1929 he was named a Baron by King Albert, and was the subject of the Belgian composer Flor Alpaerts’s James Ensor Suite; and in 1933 he was awarded the band of the Légion d’honneur. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the founding director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, after considering Ensor’s 1887 painting Tribulations of Saint Anthony (now in MoMA’s collection), declared Ensor the boldest painter working at that time.

As Ensor’s production of new works was diminishing, he increasingly concentrated on music—although he had no musical training, he was a gifted improviser on the harmonium, and spent much time performing for visitors. Against the advice of friends, he remained in Ostend during World War II despite the risk of bombardment. In his old age, he was an honored figure among Belgians, and his daily walk made him a familiar sight in Ostend. He died there following a short illness, on 19 November 1949 at the age of 89.

Gallery

Naissance de Vénus

Skeletons Warming Themselves (1889) oil on canvas, 74.8 x 60 cm., Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

The Wait

Death and the Masks

Today is the birthday of Samuel Beckett (Samuel Barclay Beckett, Dublin, 3 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 Paris); avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet, who lived in Paris for most of his adult life and wrote in both English and French. In my opinion, one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Beckett’s work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human existence, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour, and became increasingly minimalist in his later career. He is considered one of the last modernist writers, and one of the key figures in what has been called the “Theatre of the Absurd”. Beckett was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his writing, which—in new forms for the novel and drama—in the destitution of modern man acquires its elevation.”

The 1960s were a time of change for Beckett, both on a personal level and as a writer. In 1961, he married Suzanne Dechevaux-Dumesnil in a secret civil ceremony in England (its secrecy due to reasons relating to French inheritance law). The success of his plays led to invitations to attend rehearsals and productions around the world, leading eventually to a new career as a theatre director. In 1957, he had his first commission from the BBC Third Programme for a radio play, All That Fall. He continued writing sporadically for radio and extended his scope to include cinema and television. He began to write in English again, although he also wrote in French until the end of his life. He bought some land in 1953 near a hamlet about 60 kilometres (40 mi) northeast of Paris and built a cottage for himself with the help of some locals.

From the late 1950s until his death, Beckett had a relationship with Barbara Bray, a widow who worked as a script editor for the BBC. Knowlson wrote of them: “She was small and attractive, but, above all, keenly intelligent and well-read. Beckett seems to have been immediately attracted by her and she to him. Their encounter was highly significant for them both, for it represented the beginning of a relationship that was to last, in parallel with that with Suzanne, for the rest of his life.” Barbara Bray died in Edinburgh on 25 February 2010.

In 1969 the avant-garde filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim shot an experimental short film portrait about Beckett, which he named after the writer.

In October 1969 while on holiday in Tunis with Suzanne, Beckett heard that he had won the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature. Anticipating that her intensely private husband would be saddled with fame from that moment on, Suzanne called the award a “catastrophe”. While Beckett did not devote much time to interviews, he sometimes met the artists, scholars, and admirers who sought him out in the anonymous lobby of the Hotel PLM Saint-Jacques in Paris – where he gave his appointments and took frequently his lunches – near his Montparnasse home. Although Beckett was an intensely private man, a review of the second volume of his letters by Roy Foster on 15 December 2011 issue of The New Republic reveals Beckett to be not only unexpectedly amiable but frequently prepared to talk about his work and the process behind it.

Suzanne died on 17 July 1989. Confined to a nursing home and suffering from emphysema and possibly Parkinson’s disease, Beckett died on 22 December. The two were interred together in the cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris and share a simple granite gravestone that follows Beckett’s directive that it should be “any colour, so long as it’s grey”.

Beckett wrote:

“Where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”

“My mistakes are my life.”

“We are all born mad. Some remain so.”

“Dance first. Think later. It’s the natural order.”

who may tell the tale
of the old man?
weigh absence in a scale?
mete want with a span?
the sum assess
of the world’s woes?
nothingness
in words enclose?

From Watt (1953)

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish and wish the soul away,
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone.

Watt, Addenda, p. 248

time she stopped
sitting at her window
quiet at her window
only window
facing other windows
other only windows
all eyes
all sides
high and low
time she stopped

From Rockaby (1980)

Yes, in my life, since we must call it so, there were three things, the inability to speak, the inability to be silent, and solitude, that’s what I’ve had to make the best of.
- The Unnameable (1954)

Today is the birthday of Eudora Welty (Eudora Alice Welty, Jackson, Mississippi April 13, 1909 – July 23, 2001 Jackson, Mississippi); short story writer and novelist who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist’s Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, among numerous awards including the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.

She continued to live in her family house in Jackson until her death from natural causes on July 23, 2001. She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson. Her headstone has a quote from The Optimist’s Daughter: “For her life, any life, she had to believe, was nothing but the continuity of its love.”

“I learned quickly enough when to click the shutter, but what I was becoming aware of more slowly was a story-writer’s truth: The thing to wait on, to reach for, is the moment in which people reveal themselves…”

“Wherever you go, you meet part of your story.”

“I like the feeling of being able to confront an experience and resolve it as art.”

Today is the birthday of Seamus Heaney (Seamus Justin Heaney; Tamniaran, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013 Blackrock, Dublin); poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is Death of a Naturalist (1966), his first major published volume.

He became a lecturer at St. Joseph’s College in Belfast in the early 1960s, after attending Queen’s University and began to publish poetry.

Heaney was a professor at Harvard from 1981 to 1997, and its Poet in Residence from 1988 to 2006. From 1989 to 1994, he was also the Professor of Poetry at Oxford. In 1996, was made a Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and in 1998 was bestowed the title Saoi of the Aosdána. Other awards that he received include the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (1968), the E. M. Forster Award (1975), the PEN Translation Prize (1985), the Golden Wreath of Poetry(2001), the T. S. Eliot Prize (2006) and two Whitbread Prizes (1996 and 1999). In 2011, he was awarded the Griffin Poetry Prize and in 2012, a Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust. His literary papers are held by the National Library of Ireland.

Heaney met Marie Devlin, a native of Ardboe, County Tyrone, while at St Joseph’s in 1962; they married in August 1965. A school teacher and writer, Devlin published Over Nine Waves (1994), a collection of traditional Irish myths and legends. Heaney’s first book, Eleven Poems, was published in November 1965 for the Queen’s University Festival.

His body is buried at the Cemetery of St. Mary’s Church, Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. The headstone bears the epitaph “Walk on air against your better judgement”, from one of his poems, “The Gravel Walks”.

In order that human beings bring about the most radiant conditions for themselves to inhabit, it is essential that the vision of reality which poetry offers should be transformative, more than just a printout of the given circumstances of its time and place. The poet who would be most the poet has to attempt an act of writing that outstrips the conditions even as it observes them.

—from “Joy Or Night: Last Things in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats and Philip Larkin“

The Cure at Troy

Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted or endured.
- “Doubletake” from The Cure at Troy (1990) – The Cure at Troy excerpts

History says don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
- “Doubletake”, from The Cure at Troy (1990)

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
- “Doubletake”, from The Cure at Troy (1990)

Mac Tag

eudora welty, james ensor, samuel beckett, seamus heaney, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle, thomas percy

The Lovers’ Chronicle 12 April – turned on – Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – photography by Imogen Cunningham – art by Robert Delaunay

12 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

today’s theme had to be
about desire as tribute
to Madame Bovary
“Knowing you,
I would’ve been
disappointed otherwise”
could have been about
the recurrin’ theme,
c’est la faute de la fatalité
“Interesting, and how
that applies to us”
somethin’ brought us here
lets give thanks for the “fault”

by you askin’ me

to read my verse

by your smile,

the light

in your eyes,

the curve

in your hips

by our shared

unbound curiosity

and imagination

by the anticipation

of the journey

we care not where

it leads as long as

we are together

by anything

and everything

with you

the need still inspires,

continuously launches

onto fresh paths

rays of light, waves

of operatic sounds,

color contrasts

creatin’ visions

cannot get free

nor do i desire to

simultaneous measures

continue, movin’ along

the only possible purpose

that could ever matter

by the best part
the ante

the words rollin’
lengthenin’ feelin’s

comin’ on, a song,
each note carryin’
us closer

by the best part,
afterwards,
so intense
it is difficult
to understand
the nothin’ness
that came before
and we cannot help
but resign ourselves
to believe it

by unbound
imagination
and curiosity

by smiles,
eyes full of light,
and graceful hands

by desire for livin’
beyond ordinary

she turned me on
to absinthe, opera,
and French poetry
i turned her on
to wide open spaces,
campfires, and first light
we turned each other on
to unbound desire
and crushin’ heartache

Illustration by Charles Léandre Madame Bovary, engraved by Eugène Decisy (fr). (Illustration without text on page 322: Emma as a transvestite at the ball)

It was on this day in 1857 that Gustave Flaubert’s first novel Madame Bovary was published. The book was almost an instant sensation, in part because of Flaubert’s new painstaking style of Realism, but also due to the sensational trial the book had already starred in. When the novel was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert’s acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller when it was published as a single volume. The novel is now considered Flaubert’s masterpiece, as well as a seminal work of literary realism. The story focuses on a doctor’s wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life.

Selected Quotes:

C’est la faute de la fatalité !

Phrase récurrente

Madame Bovary (1857), Gustave Flaubert, éd. Editions Garnier Frères, coll. Classiques Garnier, 1955, partie 3, chap. XI, p. 323

[…], la parole est un laminoir qui allonge toujours les sentiments.

Madame Bovary (1857), Gustave Flaubert, éd. Editions Garnier Frères, coll. Classiques Garnier, 1955, partie 3, chap. I, p. 218

Le plus médiocre libertin a rêvé des sultanes, chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d’un poète.

Madame Bovary (1857), Gustave Flaubert, éd. Eugène Fasquelle, 1905, p. 264

Cette lâche docilité qui est pour bien des femmes comme le châtiment tout à la fois la rançon de l’adultère

Madame Bovary (1857), Gustave Flaubert, éd. Eugène Fasquelle, 1905, p. 314

Il y a toujours après la mort de quelqu’un comme une stupéfaction qui se dégage, tant il est difficile de comprendre cette survenue du néant et de se résigner à y croire.

Madame Bovary (1857), Gustave Flaubert, éd. Eugène Fasquelle, 1905, p. 379

Il ne faut pas toucher aux idoles, la dorure en reste aux mains.

Madame Bovary (1857), Gustave Flaubert, éd. Editions Garnier Frères, coll. Classiques Garnier, 1955, partie 3, chap. VI, p. 263

Imogen_Cunningham_self_portrait_1909 Today is the birthday of Imogen Cunningham (Portland April 12, 1883 – June 23, 1976 San Francisco); photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to the sharp-focus rendition of simple subjects.

On February 11, 1915, Cunningham married etching artist, printmaker and teacher Roi Partridge. The couple divorced in 1934.

Cunningham continued to take photographs until shortly before her death. She was named Imogen after the heroine of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline.

Gallery

Martha graham

20220412_201549

Dream 1910
Eve Repentant 1910
Cunnigham in cap and gown
Boy with Incense, 1912
Cunningham by Clare Shepard
In Moonlight, 1911
Morning Mist and Sunshine

And today is the birthday of Robert Delaunay (Paris 12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941 Montpellier); artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee. His key influence related to bold use of colour and a clear love of experimentation with both depth and tone.

In 1908, after a term in the military working as a regimental librarian, he met Sonia Terk; at the time she was married to a German art dealer whom she would soon divorce. In 1909, Delaunay began to paint a series of studies of the city of Paris and the Eiffel Tower, the Eiffel Tower series. The following year, he married Terk, and the couple settled in a studio apartment.

When World War II erupted, the Delaunays moved to the Auvergne, in an effort to avoid the invading German forces. Suffering from cancer, Delaunay was unable to endure being moved around, and his health deteriorated. He died from cancer on 25 October 1941 in Montpellier at the age of 56. His body was reburied in 1952 in Gambais.

Gallery

“Portrait of Madame Heim”

Femme portugaise (1915), Columbus Museum of Art

Nu à la toilette (Nu à la coiffeuse)

20220412_201916


Simultaneous Windows on the City, 1912,

Portrait de Jean Metzinger, 1906, oil on canvas, 55 x 43 cm

Paysage au disque, 1906–07, oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm, Musée national d’art moderne (MNAM), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Champs de Mars, La Tour rouge, 1911, Art Institute of Chicago.

Simultaneous Contrasts: Sun and Moon, 1912–13, oil on canvas, Museum of Modern Art

Le Premier Disque, 1912-1913, oil on canvas, 134 x 52.7 inches, Private collection

c.1907, Nature morte au vase de fleurs, oil on canvas, 46.4 x 55 cm
1906, Jean Metzinger, oil on paper, 43.2 x 54.9 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1905–06, Autoportrait, oil on canvas, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris
1906, Carousel of Pigs, oil on canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1906, L’homme à la tulipe (Portrait de M. Jean Metzinger), oil on canvas, 72.4 x 48.5 cm (28 1/2 by 19 1/8 in).
1907, Portrait of Wilhelm Uhde. Delaunay and Sonia Terk met through the German collector/dealer Wilhelm Uhde, with whom Sonia had been married as she said for “convenience”
1909-10, Saint-Séverin No. 3, oil on canvas, 114.1 × 88.6 cm, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1911-12, Window on the City No. 3, oil on canvas, 113.7 × 130.8 cm (44.8 × 51.5 in), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1912, Windows Open Simultaneously 1st Part, 3rd Motif, oil on canvas, 57 × 123 cm (22.4 × 48.4 in), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
1913, L’Équipe de Cardiff, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
1913, L’Équipe de Cardiff, oil on canvas, 326 × 208 cm, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1915, Nu à la toilette (Nu à la coiffeuse), oil on canvas, 140 × 142 cm, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1916, Portuguese Woman, oil on canvas, 135.9 × 161 cm, Columbus Museum of Art
1926-28, Eiffel Tower, Conté crayon on paper, 62.3 × 47.5 cm (24.5 × 18.7 in), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Hilla Rebay Collection
1926, Tour Eiffel, oil on canvas, 169 × 86 cm, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
1930, Circular Forms, oil on canvas, 67.3 × 109.8 cm (26.5 × 43.2 in), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift by Andrew Powie Fuller and Geraldine Spreckels Fuller Collection, 1999
1938, Rythme n°1, Decoration for the Salon des Tuileries, oil on canvas, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Mac Tag

gustave flaubert, imogen cunningham, madame bovary, robert delaunay, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

The Lovers’ Chronicle 11 April – dawnin’ – premiere of Dido and Aeneas – art by Jean-Baptiste Isabey

11 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

“I’m guessing not the age of”
ha, no but we could write a song
of a new era that began
when we saw each other
on Ponce for the first time
“Little did we know what
we were walking towards”
the accouchement, the sun risin’
as we had never seen or known
the dawnin’ of the age of us

a song of could be
and comin’ true

this sentiment holds
through the nights

to have seen
to have been
to the edge
and back

such a task to find

blessed here and now
as the sun rises
on these days
together

we have endured
and kept ourselves
for days long delayed

and so we beat on…

far up the dim twilight flutters

dancin’ over the high plains,

stars comin’ on, grow thicker

for silent and still we are,

our thoughts, now together

when first discovered

how near the mystery

told in tears, imaginin’

myself into moods

held by thee

a song of want
and what could be

this sentiment holds
through the nights

such a task to find

blessed here
and there
to have seen,
to have been
to the edge
and back

someday perhaps
rememberin’ this
as the beginnin’

have we
endured and kept
ourselves for days
long delayed

well She did of course
but who cares,
who needs Her
strictly
for candy-asses
and those who lack
imagination

this in front of
blue on white
nothin’ else
of consequence

the trick will be
holdin’ on
tellin’ temptation
to go to hell

as the sun rises
on this as meant to be

before sleep,
watchin’ the light
from the moon
move across the floor
though there is no
love’s even breathin’
lullaby for me,
there is much
to be grateful for

the muses and the verse they bring
the wind outside bringin’ music
for the night, the dawnin’ promise
of solitude, and the possibility
that hope did not go to hell

didoaneasAffresco_romano_-_Enea_e_di On this day in 1689, perhaps; the premiere performance of Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas” in Chelsea at Josias Priest’s School for Young Ladies. The exact date and circumstance of this work, in my opinion the first great British opera and Purcell’s masterwork, remains uncertain. April 30th is also cited as a possibility for its premiere, being the date of Queen Mary’s birthday. The premiere occurred sometime that year, as the libretto by Nahum Tate was published in London that December.

Three years earlier Tate had written a poem that compared the deposed Catholic King James II to Aeneas, and constructed an allegory implying that James had been led astray by witches, the result being that he abandoned the British people, just as the legendary Trojan Prince Aeneas had abandoned Queen Dido of Carthage in order to found a new empire in Rome. Since the Catholic King James II had also fled to Rome, some have speculated that Purcell’s opera was a political allegory, commissioned by Mr. Priest’s School for Young Ladies to celebrate either the coronation or birthday of the new Protestant Queen.

The story is based on Book IV of Virgil’s Aeneid. It recounts the love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, for the Trojan hero Aeneas, and her despair when he abandons her.

And today is the birthday of Jean-Baptiste Isabey (Nancy, France 11 April 1767 – 18 April 1855); painter. He was a successful artist, both under the First Empire and to the diplomats of the Congress of Vienna.

At the age of nineteen, after some lessons from Dumont, miniature painter to Marie Antoinette, he became a pupil of Jacques-Louis David. Employed at Versailles on portraits of the dukes of Angoulême and Berry, he was given a commission by the queen, which opens the long list of those he received from successive French rulers until his death.

Patronized by Josephine and Napoleon Bonaparte, he arranged the ceremonies of their coronation and prepared drawings for the publication intended as its official commemoration, a work for which he was paid by Louis XVIII, whose portrait (engraved by Debucourt) he executed in 1814. Although Isabey did homage to Napoleon on his return from Elba, he continued to enjoy the favour of the Restoration, and took part in arrangements for the coronation of Charles X.

The July Monarchy conferred on him an important post in connection with the royal collections, and Napoleon III granted him a pension, and the cross of commander of the Legion of Honor.

A biography of Isabey was published by Edmond Taigny in 1859, and Charles Lenormant’s article, written for Michaud’s Biog. Univ., is founded on facts furnished by Isabey’s family.

Gallery

Portrait of a woman

20230411_183423

Eugénie Moreau

Mac Tag

dido and aeneas, henry purcell, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

The Lovers’ Chronicle 10 April – pictures – art & verse by Æ – art by Alfred Kubin – The Great Gatsby

10 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

that is yet another way
of lookin’ at all this verse
“Every one tells a story don’t it”
yes they do
from the High Plains
to Avondale and Peachtree
“From Beverly Beach to Nashville”
from the High to the Brooklyn
“From your daily chronicles”
but most important,
the pictures of us
tellin’ our story

oh so may come to mind
from the past to the present

the past ruled by the High Plains
and many missteps, some worse
than others, the worst the ones
repeated because i chased
what could not be caught

the present all about us
the places we have been

and to the future
of what will be

that worth havin’

as the tale is told

all the morn within me

a rhyme, in and out

of time, the vision lights

round the sanctuary sought,

whispers visit, in dreams

we are one and just findin’

for beauty follows along

seek thee for a song

i to lose myself in thee

how much do you ask

look around

there just within’ reach

believe in a future

e’en though

it has always eluded

because tomorrow

we will create more,

stretch our dreams farther

and one fine mornin’…

so, carry on,

against the odds,

ceaselessly

into what may come

when you make
a wish tonight…

far up the sunset
the last light dances
over the high plains

light grows faint, silent
and still we are, unheeded
star on star it comes

our communion
completes
the view
only our eyes can see

see…
twilight spreads
over the high plains
stars begin their dance
across the big open sky
nothin’ but the wind
and the coyotes howl
for company

hard to imagine out here
a higher beauty
except of course
the pictures of you
that play out
in this wanderers dreams

Pale Love, Pale Rider

pictures
beginnin’
to break up
blown away
the wind is pullin’
ever so gently

the idea
of without
as the end
somewhat harder
than before
wonder why

beyond all that
amazin’ and marvelous
yes, but only if you have it
and i do not have it
the pictures are fadin’

George_William_Russell_-_Project_Gutenberg_eText_19028 Today is the birthday of George William Russell (County Armagh 10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935 Bournemouth, England) who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (sometimes written AE or A.E.); writer, editor, critic, poet, artistic painter and Irish nationalist. He was also a writer on mysticism, and a central personage in the group of devotees of theosophy which met in Dublin for many years.

In 1898, he married Violet North. Frank O’Connor, who was a close friend of Russell in their later years, remarked that his family life was something of a mystery even to those who knew him best: O’Connor noticed that he never spoke about his wife and seemed to be at odds with his sons. While his marriage was rumoured to be unhappy, all his friends agreed that Violet’s death in 1932 was a great blow to Russell.

Gallery

Bathers

20220410_144958

Figures by a Moonlit Sea

Verse

Far up the dim twilight fluttered
Moth-wings of vapour and flame:
The lights danced over the mountains,
Star after star they came.

The lights grew thicker unheeded,
For silent and still were we;
Our hearts were drunk with a beauty
Our eyes could never see.

“The Unknown God” (1913)

Let thy young wanderer dream on:
Call him not home.
A door opens, a breath a voice
From the ancient room,
Speaks to him now. Be it dark or bright
He is knit with his doom.

“Germinal” in Vale and Other Poems (1931)

I thought, beloved, to have brought to you
A gift of quietness and ease and peace,
Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew
Dropping from twilight trees.
Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;
Not mine the voice to still with peace divine:
From the first fount the stream of quiet flows
Through other hearts than mine.
Yet of my night I give to you the stars,
And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,
And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,
My scorn of all its pains.

The great deep thrills for through it everywhere
The breath of beauty blows.

A Vision of Beauty

Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the wondrous vision: through the star-mists overhead
Flare and flaunt the monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night
Fall the ghostly froth and fringes of the ocean of the light.

We and it and all together flashing through the starry spaces
In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places.
Half our eyes behold the glory: half within the spirit’s glow
Echoes of the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go.
By a hand of fire uplifted—to her star-strewn palace brought,
To the mystic heart of beauty and the secret of her thought:

Here the wild will woke within her lighting up her flying dreams,
Round and round the planets whirling break in woods and flowers and streams,
And the winds are shaken from them as the leaves from off the rose,
And the feet of earth go dancing in the way that beauty goes,
And the souls of earth are kindled by the incense of her breath
As her light alternate lures them through the gates of birth and death.

O’er the fields of space together following her flying traces,
In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and myriad races
Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the day
When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away
Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold
Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told,
Lost within the mother’s being. So the vision flamed and fled,
And before the glory fallen every other dream lay dead.

Alter Ego

All the morn a spirit gay
Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
‘Tis but hide and seek we play
In and out the courts of Time.

Where the ring of twilight gleams
Round the sanctuary wrought,
Whispers haunt me — in my dreams
We are one yet know it not.
Some for beauty follow long
Flying traces; some there be
Seek thee only for a song:
I to lose myself in thee.

A Woman’s Voice

When the lips I breathed upon
Asked for such love as equals claim
I looked where all the stars were gone
Burned in the day’s immortal flame.
“Come thou like yon great dawn to me
From darkness vanquished, battles done:
Flame unto flame shall flow and be
Within thy heart and mine as one.“

Today is the birthday of Alfred Kubin (Alfred Leopold Isidor Kubin; 10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959 Zwickledt near Wernstein am Inn, Austria); printmaker, illustrator, and occasional writer. Kubin is considered an important representative of Symbolism and Expressionism.

Kubin is noted for dark, spectral, symbolic fantasies, often assembled into thematic series of drawings. Like Oskar Kokoschka and Albert Paris Gütersloh, Kubin had both artistic and literary talent. He illustrated works of Edgar Allan Poe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Fyodor Dostoevsky, among others. Kubin also illustrated the German fantasy magazine Der Orchideengarten.

From 1906 until his death, he lived a withdrawn life in a Manor-House on a 12th-century estate in Zwickledt, Upper Austria. In 1938, at the Anschluss of Austria and Nazi Germany, his work was declared entartete Kunst or “degenerate art,” but he managed to continue working during World War II.

Gallery

20230410_195859

20230410_194422

Tod und madchen

A Dream Visits us Every Night (1900)

And it was on this day in 1925: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic The Great Gatsby was published.

“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.”
“Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!”
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
“I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before,” he said, nodding determinedly. “She’ll see.”

Nick and Gatsby, on Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning —
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Mac Tag

AE, f scott fitzgerald, george william russell, the great gatsby, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

The Lovers’ Chronicle 9 April – last time – verse by Baudelaire – photography by Eadweard Muybridge

09 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

on this day of all,

please pardon

a dance with darkness

not much written

in the past

a dauntin’ task

so much pain

and time

eatin’ away at life

at least now

i know

i am just visitin’

no longer

tempted to stay

thanks to you

but i cannot promise

i will not be back in verse

oh you are quite so,

even better than dreams

and i have been made

to awaken in verse, feelin’s

long thought left for gone

you, silhouette against

the High Plains night

there, all is beauty only,

splendor, peace, pleasure

unbeknownst, my heart

moved, displacin’ the past

and ever do i weep and laugh

each time
after the crash and burn
someone would ask,
“Will you try again?”
and the reply
was always,
why would i not

till the last time

steppin’ back
to look at the banal
canvas of the past
understandin’ of place
at last dawns

here with you
creatin’ visions
of have and have not

Today is the birthday of Charles Baudelaire (Charles Pierre Baudelaire; Paris April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867 Paris); poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe.

His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. Baudelaire’s original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé among many others. He is credited with coining the term “modernity” (modernité) to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.

Baudelaire became known in artistic circles as a dandy and free-spender, going through much of his inheritance and allowance in a short period of time. During this time, Jeanne Duval became his mistress. She was rejected by his family. His mother thought Duval a “Black Venus” who “tortured him in every way” and drained him of money at every opportunity. Baudelaire made a suicide attempt during this period.

The principal themes of sex and death were considered scandalous for the period. He also touched on lesbianism, sacred and profane love, metamorphosis, melancholy, the corruption of the city, lost innocence, the oppressiveness of living, and wine. Notable in some poems is Baudelaire’s use of imagery of the sense of smell and of fragrances, which is used to evoke feelings of nostalgia and past intimacy.

By 1859, his illnesses, his long-term use of laudanum, his life of stress, and his poverty had taken a toll and Baudelaire had aged noticeably. But at last, his mother relented and agreed to let him live with her for a while at Honfleur. Baudelaire was productive and at peace in the seaside town, his poem Le Voyage being one example of his efforts during that time.

His financial difficulties increased again, however, particularly after his publisher Poulet Malassis went bankrupt in 1861. In 1864, he left Paris for Belgium, partly in the hope of selling the rights to his works and to give lectures. His long-standing relationship with Duval continued on-and-off, and he helped her to the end of his life. Baudelaire’s relationships with actress Marie Daubrun and with courtesan Apollonie Sabatier, though the source of much inspiration, never produced any lasting satisfaction. He smoked opium, and in Brussels he began to drink to excess. Baudelaire suffered a massive stroke in 1866 and paralysis followed. After more than a year of aphasia, he received the last rites of the Catholic Church. The last two years of his life were spent in a semi-paralyzed state in various “maisons de santé” in Brussels and in Paris, where he died on 31 August 1867. Baudelaire is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.

Many of Baudelaire’s works were published posthumously. After his death, his mother paid off his substantial debts, and she found some comfort in Baudelaire’s emerging fame. “I see that my son, for all his faults, has his place in literature.” She lived another four years.

Baudelaire by Étienne Carjat, 1863

Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

Drawing of Jeanne Duval by Baudelaire

Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!
- Hypocrite reader — my likeness — my brother!
  - “Au Lecteur” [To the Reader]

Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l’incendie,
N’ont pas encor brodé de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C’est que notre âme, hélas! n’est pas assez hardie.

If rape, poison, daggers, arson
Have not yet embroidered with their pleasing designs
The banal canvas of our pitiable lives,
It is because our souls have not enough boldness.

“Au Lecteur” [To the Reader]

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l’archer ;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher.
- The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds
  Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;
  But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
  He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.
  - “L’Albatros” [The Albatross] (translated by James McGowan, Oxford University Press, 1993)

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.
- Nature is a temple where living columns
  Let slip from time to time uncertain words;
  Man finds his way through forests of symbols
  Which regard him with familiar gazes.
  - “Correspondances” [Correspondences]

Ô douleur! ô douleur! Le Temps mange la vie.
- Oh pain! Oh pain! Time eats life.
  - “L’Ennemi” [The Enemy]
- Variant translations:
  - Oh pain! Oh pain! Time eats our lives.
  - Oh pain! Oh pain! Time is eating away my life.

Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer.
- Free man, you will always cherish the sea.
  - “L’Homme et la Mer” [Man and the Sea]

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s’est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.Je trône dans l’azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J’unis un cœur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;
Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.
- I am lovely, O mortals, like a dream of stone;
  And my breast, where everyone is bruised in his turn,
  Has been made to awaken in poets a love
  That is eternal and as silent as matter.
- I am throned in blue sky like a sphinx unbeknown;
  My heart of snow is wed to the whiteness of swans;
  I detest any movement displacing still lines,
  And never do I weep and never laugh.
  - “La Beauté” [Beauty]

Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté,
Luxe, calme et volupté.
- There, all is order and beauty only,
  Splendor, peace, and pleasure.
  - “L’Invitation au Voyage” [Invitation to the Voyage]

Ne cherchez plus mon cœur; des monstres l’ont mangé.
- Do not look for my heart any more; the beasts have eaten it.
  - “Causerie” [Conversation]

Bientôt nous plongerons dans les froides ténèbres;
Adieu, vive clarté de nos étés trop courts!
- Soon we will plunge into the cold darkness;
  Farewell, vivid brightness of our too-short summers!
  - “Chant d’Automne” [Song of Autumn]

Je suis un cimetière abhorré de la lune.
- I am a cemetery loathed by the moon.
  - “Spleen (II)”

Fourmillante cité, cité pleine de rêves,
Où le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant!
- Ant-swarming city, city abounding in dreams,
  Where ghosts in broad daylight accost the passerby!
  - “Les Sept Vieillards” [The Seven Old Men]

C’était l’heure où l’essaim des rêves malfaisants
Tord sur leurs oreillers les bruns adolescents.
- It is the hour when the swarm of malevolent dreams
  Makes sun-browned adolescents writhe upon their pillows.
  - “Le Crépuscule du Matin” [Morning Twilight]

Un soir, l’âme du vin chantait dans les bouteilles:
“Homme, vers toi je pousse, ô cher déshérité,
Sous ma prison de verre et mes cires vermeilles.”
- One night, the soul of wine was singing in the flask:
  “O man, dear disinherited! to you I sing
  This song full of light and of brotherhood
  From my prison of glass with its scarlet wax seals.”
  - “L’Âme du Vin” [The Soul of Wine]

“En toi je tomberai, végétale ambroisie,
Grain précieux jeté par l’éternel Semeur,
Pour que de notre amour naisse la poésie
Qui jaillira vers Dieu comme une rare fleur!”
- “Vegetal ambrosia, precious grain scattered
  By the eternal Sower, I shall descend in you
  So that from our love there will be born poetry,
  Which will spring up toward God like a rare flower!”
  - “L’Âme du Vin” [The Soul of Wine]

José de Charmoy, Cenotaph of Baudelaire (detail), Cimetière de Montparnasse, Paris

Ô toi, le plus savant et le plus beau des Anges,
Dieu trahi par le sort et privé de louanges,
Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!Ô Prince de l’exil, à qui l’on a fait tort
Et qui, vaincu, toujours te redresses plus fort,Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!Toi qui sais tout, grand roi des choses souterraines,
Guérisseur familier des angoisses humaines,Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!Toi qui, même aux lépreux, aux parias maudits,
Enseignes par l’amour le goût du Paradis,Ô Satan, prends pitié de ma longue misère!
- O wise among all Angels ordinate,
  God foiled of glory, god betrayed by fate,
  Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!
  O Prince of Exile doomed to heinous wrong,
  Who, vanquished, riseth ever stark and strong,
  Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!
  Thou knowest all, proud king of occult things,
  Familiar healer of man’s sufferings,
  Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!
  Thy love wakes thirst for Heaven in one and all:
  Leper, pimp, outcast, fool and criminal,
  Satan, O pity my long wretchedness!
  - “Les Litanies de Satan” [Litanies of Satan]

Gloire et louange à toi, Satan, dans les hauteurs
Du Ciel, où tu régnas, et dans les profondeurs
de l’Enfer, où, vaincu, tu rêves en silence!
Fais que mon âme un jour, sous l’Arbre de Science,
Près de toi se repose, à l’heure où sur ton front
Comme un Temple nouveau ses rameaux s’épandront!
- Satan be praised! Glory to you on High
  where once you reigned in Heaven, and in the
  Pit where now you dream in taciturn defeat!
  Grant that my soul, one day, beneath the Tree
  of Knowledge, meet you when above your brow
  its branches, like a second Temple, spread!
  - “Les Litanies de Satan” [Litanies of Satan]

Quelle est cette île triste et noire? — C’est Cythère,
Nous dit-on, un pays fameux dans les chansons
Eldorado banal de tous les vieux garçons.
Regardez, après tout, c’est une pauvre terre.
- What is that sad, black island like a pall?
  Why, Cytherea, famed in many a book,
  The Eldorado of old-stagers. Look:
  It’s but a damned poor country after all!
  - “Un Voyage à Cythère” [A Voyage to Cythera], lines 5-8, trans.

And today is the birthday of Eadweard Muybridge (born Edward James Muggeridge; Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904 Kingston upon Thames); photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first name “Eadweard” as the original Anglo-Saxon form of “Edward”, and the surname “Muybridge”, believing it to be similarly archaic.

At the age of 20 he emigrated to the United States as a bookseller, first to New York City, and eventually to San Francisco. In 1860, he planned a return trip to Europe, and suffered serious head injuries in a stagecoach crash in Texas en route. He spent the next few years recuperating in Kingston upon Thames, where he took up professional photography, learned the wet-plate collodion process, and secured at least two British patents for his inventions. He returned to San Francisco in 1867, a man with a markedly changed personality. In 1868, he exhibited large photographs of Yosemite Valley, and began selling popular stereographs of his work.

In 1874, Muybridge shot and killed Major Harry Larkyns, his wife’s lover, but was acquitted in a controversial jury trial, on the grounds of justifiable homicide. In 1875, he travelled for more than a year in Central America on a photographic expedition.

Today, Muybridge is best known for his pioneering chronophotography of animal locomotion between 1878 and 1886, which used multiple cameras to capture the different positions in a stride, and for his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting painted motion pictures from glass discs that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip used in cinematography. From 1883 to 1886, he entered a very productive period at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, producing over 100,000 images of animals and humans in motion, occasionally capturing what the human eye could not distinguish as separate moments in time.

During his later years, Muybridge gave many public lectures and demonstrations of his photography and early motion picture sequences, travelling frequently in England and Europe to publicise his work in cities such as London and Paris. He also edited and published compilations of his work, some of which are still in print today, which greatly influenced visual artists and the developing fields of scientific and industrial photography. He retired to his native England permanently in 1894. In 1904, the year of his death, the Kingston Museum was opened in his hometown, and it continues to house a substantial collection of his works in a dedicated gallery.

Gallery

Mac Tag

baudelaire, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

The Lovers’ Chronicle 8 April – feelin’s – art by Allen Butler Talcott – photography by Clarence Hudson White & Alfred Cheney Johnston

08 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

they were irrelevant
when i was sad,
alone, blah, blah,
whatever

and while creatin’
still defines each day,
it is not all that matters

but wait,
irrelevant
is not right
more like
non-existent

so no one was more
surprised than i
when they bloomed
in time with you

oh yes,

a favorite topic

my colors come from here

and i make abundant use

of them in my verse

the circular rhythmic movement

of the dance, light and ambiance

act simultaneously on the forms

in the movement where two

form but one unity, rhythmically

balanced, this alone preserves

awake early

havin’ chicory coffee

with beignets

in a sunny chair,

and music, opera,

mingles to enhance

the sanctity created

part of a procession

windin’ across the porch

the day stilled for the passin’

of dreams over the plains

to allow this, dominion

over the shadowed shores

feelin’s, c’mon
they are irrelevant
sad, lonely, blah,
blah, whatever
all that matters,
creatin’ or not
that defines
how i am doin’

Self-Portrait, 1894

Today is the birthday of Allen Butler Talcott (Hartford, Connecticut; April 8, 1867 – June 1, 1908 Old Lyme, Connecticut); landscape painter. After studying art in Paris for three years at Académie Julian, he returned to the United States, becoming one of the first members of the Old Lyme Art Colony in Connecticut. His paintings, usually landscapes depicting the local scenery and often executed en plein air, were generally Barbizon and Tonalist, sometimes incorporating elements of Impressionism. He was especially known and respected for his paintings of trees. After eight summers at Old Lyme, he died at the age of 41.

In 1905, Allen married Katherine Nash Agnew.

Gallery

The French garden

Back Street in France

Lyme Meadow

Return of the Redwing

The Great Oak

River Island

Evening
Oak Tree and Marshland, left panel detail
Oak Tree and Marshland, right panel detail
Path Through the Woods
Spreading Oak
The Bright Light of Autumn

Today is the birthday of Clarence Hudson White (Newark, Ohio; April 8, 1871 – July 7, 1925 Mexico City); photographer, teacher and a founding member of the Photo-Secession movement. He grew up in small towns in Ohio, where his primary influences were his family and the social life of rural America. After visiting the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, he took up photography. Although he was completely self-taught in the medium, within a few years he was internationally known for his pictorial photographs that captured the spirit and sentimentality of America in the early twentieth century. He became friends with Alfred Stieglitz and helped advance the cause of photography as a true art form. In 1906 White and his family moved to New York City in order to be closer to Stieglitz and his circle and to further promote his own work. While there he became interested in teaching photography and in 1914 he established the Clarence H. White School of Photography, the first educational institution in America to teach photography as art. In 1925 he suffered a heart attack and died while teaching students in Mexico City.


c1910. Portrait by Gertrude Käsebier

Gallery

Telegraph Poles 1898

Spring – A Triptych 1898

“The Watcher”, 1906

“Torso”, 1907, jointly created by White and Stieglitz

The Ring Toss, 1899
Letitia Felix, 1901
The Orchard, 1902
The Kiss, 1905
Pipes of Pans, 1905
Experiment #27 – Jointely created by White and Alfred Stieglitz
Nude, 1908
Rose Pastor Stokes, 1909

Johnston

And today is the birthday of Alfred Cheney Johnston (New York; April 8, 1885 – April 17, 1971 Connecticut); New York City-based photographer known for his portraits of Ziegfeld Follies showgirls as well as of actors and actresses from the worlds of stage and film.

The only book known to have been published by Alfred Cheney Johnston during his lifetime devoted to his nudes/glamour photography is the 1937 spiral-bound softcover “Enchanting Beauty”, which contains 94 black-and-white photos (mostly about 7×9 inches, centered on a 9×12-inch page, although a number are cropped circular or in other designs). Unusually (compared to virtually all other examples of his work seen today on the Web or other sources, which were shot in an indoor studio in front of a flat-black or illustrated tapestry background cloth), 37 of these photos were taken outdoors along a stream or in flower-dappled fields, etc. All the shots in the book are “airbrushed” in the pubic area, to keep them legal with respect to the publishing standards of the day.

In 1960, Johnston donated a set of 245 large prints of his work to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. (largely nude and semi-nude Follies showgirls, performers from various Ziegfeld shows including Fanny Brice, Billie Burke, Ruby Keeler, the Dolly Sisters, Ina Claire, Helen Morgan, Marilyn Miller, Grace Moore, Ann Pennington, Belle Baker and Ruth Etting, some well-known actors and actresses of the 1920s/1930s including Mary Pickford, Gloria Swanson, Tyrone Power, John Barrymore, Pearl White, Barbara La Marr, Orson Welles, Clara Bow, Ethel Barrymore, Claudette Colbert, Corinne Griffith, Clara Kimball Young, Theda Bara, Mabel Normand, Helen Hayes, Norma Shearer, Anita Stewart, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Marie Prevost, Tallulah Bankhead, Mary Miles Minter, Hope Hampton, and a number of product-advertisement photos).

Gallery

Gloria Swanson

Lilian Bond

Drucilla Strain

Mac Tag

allen butler talcott, clarence hudson white, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

The Lovers’ Chronicle 7 April – fair to middlin’ – verse by William Wordsworth & Gabriela Mistral – art by Frederick Carl Frieseke & Gino Severini

07 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

one of the ones born
of tradin’ words with Bret
“Y’all used to do that a lot”
back when we did not have lives
the phrase fairly describes where
i was compared to where i had been
“And now look where you are”
where we are, we both took
the circuitous route to where we can say we are doin’
considerably better than fair to middlin’

slightly above or far below
i have been and this constant
blue on white holds together
you, words from the past,
visions seen or heard
or imagined, still
gratefulness paces
ahead of expectations
and you listen and belief comes
a two-step left behind now glidin’
effortlessly sweepin’ all else away

better than that these days
as we continue towards us

no longer, hopeless nights
from the depths to the horizon
this here, the way this becomes,
no room for despair

the next day and the next, the only dream, the only one in which we face whatever happens with desire and grace

well, better than that

since i saw you last night

a mere mirage, true

but it was good to see you

i surprised you while

you were cleanin’

you said somethin’

about not havin’

any makeup on

and i said,

you never looked prettier

we sat and talked

and we were content

another night
left with wakefulness
helpless against
what has and has not
been done

turn to
most faithful
memories
to chase away

the bad dreams,
the ones
which dwell
in deep retreats

veils removed
till in concord

and come
to all that remains

you and i
beloved

grew up dreamin’
of bein’ a cowboy
raised by a son
of a son of one
two hundred miles
from nowhere

hired vaqueros
were my first,
best friends
taught me Spanish
and how to ride

learned all
there is to know
about hard work
and hard weather

grew up dreamin’
and readin’
and knowin’
that someday
i would find
ever after

wonderin’ how that worked out;
to make a heart-broke story short,
never even had
a fair to middlin’ chance

hey thanks for askin’
been a long dang time
some 40 years… i god
where did it go
gone to waste,
gone to chasin’
what could not be caught
gone to hell if i know

but this ain’t gonna be
no tear in my beer song
not lookin’ for pity
for shitty decisions

no, i did my best
to steer my life
between the bar ditches
and my far flung wishes

i took my chances
i danced with faith
and hope and grace
but they were not
havin’ any

turns out, i was good at fallin’,
but not worth a damn at stayin’
and i got really good at runnin’
and hidin’ from feelin’s,
hidin’ from myself,
hidin’ from life

then livin’ became
readin’, writin’,
and dreamin’

sure you could ask
what kinda livin’ is that
well, better than not

so how ‘m i doin’… well
i may not be great
i may not be good
but fair to middlin’,
by god, ain’t that bad

considerin’ it all,
you may say i am settlin’
but i say when the forecast
calls for no chance,
fair to middlin’ ain’t that bad

Today is the birthday of William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850); Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads (1798). Wordsworth’s magnum opus is generally considered to be The Prelude, a semiautobiographical poem of his early years that he revised and expanded a number of times. It was posthumously titled and published, before which it was generally known as “the poem to Coleridge”. Wordsworth was Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.

True beauty dwells in deep retreats,
Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats,
And the lover is beloved.

A Poet’s Epitaph (1799)

A fingering slave,
One that would peep and botanize
Upon his mother’s grave.
- Stanza 5.

A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,
An intellectual All-in-all!
- Stanza 8.

He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.
- Stanza 10.

And you must love him, ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love.
- Stanza 11.

The harvest of a quiet eye,
That broods and sleeps on his own heart.
- Stanza 13.

Today is the birthday of Frederick Carl Frieseke (Michigan April 7, 1874 – August 24, 1939 Normandy); Impressionist painter who spent most of his life as an expatriate in France. An influential member of the Giverny art colony, his paintings often concentrated on various effects of dappled sunlight. He is especially known for painting female subjects, both indoors and out.


Self-Portrait, 1901

Gallery

Holland 1898

Mrs. Frieseke at the Kitchen Window, 1912

The House in Giverny, ca. 1912

Cherry Blossoms, ca. 1913

Summer, 1914

Sunbath 1908/1918

Girl in Blue Arranging Flowers

1911 garden in June

Reflections (Marcelle), by 1909
Nude Seated at Her Dressing Table, 1909
Afternoon – Yellow Room, 1910
The Garden Parasol, ca. 1910
Woman with a Mirror, 1911
Breakfast in the Garden, ca. 1911
Lilies, by 1911
Lady in a Garden, by 1912
Hollyhocks, ca. 1912–1913
In the Boudoir, 1914
Woman Seated in a Garden, 1914
Nude in Dappled Sunlight, 1915
The Robe, 1915
Unraveling Silk, ca. 1915
The Window, ca. 1915
Seated Nude, 1920

Today is the birthday of Gino Severini (Cortona 7 April 1883 – 26 February 1966 Paris); painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the “return to order” in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of media, including mosaic and fresco. He showed his work at major exhibitions, including the Rome Quadrennial, and won art prizes from major institutions.


aged 30, at the opening of his solo exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery, London

Gallery

Dancers at Monicos

1910–11, La Modiste (The Milliner), oil on canvas, 64.8 x 48.3 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art

1911, Souvenirs de Voyage (Memories of a Journey, Ricordi di viaggio), oil on canvas, 47 x 75 cm, private collection

1912, Dynamic Hieroglyphic of the Bal Tabarin, oil on canvas with sequins, 161.6 x 156.2 cm (63.6 x 61.5 in.), Museum of Modern Art, New York

1912, Dancer at Pigalle, oil and sequins on sculpted gesso on artist’s canvasboard, 69.2 x 49.8 cm, Baltimore Museum of Art

1911, La Danseuse Obsedante (The Haunting Dancer, Ruhelose Tanzerin), oil on canvas, 73.5 x 54 cm, private collection
1911, Le Boulevard, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 91.5 cm, Estorick Collection, London
1911, The Pan Pan Dance (The Pan Pan Dance). This 1911 version was destroyed. Gino Severini made a new version in 1959-60, now at Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris
1912, Dynamism of a Dancer (Dinamismo di una danzatrice, Ballerina di chahut), oil on canvas, 60 x 45 cm, Jucker Collection, Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan
1913, Tango Argentino, work on paper (published on the cover of Der Sturm, Volume 4, Number 192-193, 1 January 1914)
c.1915-16, dimensions and whereabouts unknown, photo Léonce Rosenberg, published in Action: Cahiers Individualistes de Philosophie et d’art, Volume 1, Number 2, March 1920
1919, Nature Morte (still life)
1919, Nature morte à la guitare. Private collection
1919, Bohémien Jouant de L’Accordéon (The Accordion Player), Museo del Novecento, Milan
January 1920, Nature morte (Still-life)
Mosaic decorating the Church of St. Mark in Cortona, Italy

Gabriela Mistral

Today is the birthday of Gabriela Mistral (Vicuña, Chile; 7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957 Hempstead, New York); the pseudonym of Lucila Godoy y Alcayaga; poet-diplomat, educator and humanist. In 1945 she became the first Latin American author to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature, “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world”. Some central themes in her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother’s love, sorrow and recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture of Native American and European influences. Her portrait also appears on the 5,000 Chilean peso bank note.

Poesia

Me voy de ti con vigilia y con sueño, y en tu recuerdo más fiel ya me borro.

Es la noche desamparo
de las sierras hasta el mar.
Pero yo, la que te mece,
¡yo no tengo soledad!

Al otro día o al siguiente, el único sueño malo, el único en que su rostro tenía descompostura y daño.

Mac Tag

frederick carl frieseke, gabriela mistral, gino severini, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle, william wordsworth

The Lovers’ Chronicle 6 April – memories – Petrarch & Laura – art by Gustave Moreau, Arthur Wesley Dow, & Jeanne Hébuterne

06 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

no not from Streisand
and it is not the way
we were but rather
the way we are
“That’s right baby”
today is the day Haggard died
and i wrote song lyrics in 2013
inspired by his music
“A rich mine for you”
indeed, one of my favorite moments on our trip
to Nashville was goin’ to Layla’s and them playin’
Hag’s songs between bands
“Speaking of favorite moments”
we seem to be wrackin’ up
some wonderful memories
“Like right now”

the only rear view gazin’
goin’ on now is to give
thanks for the twists
and turns in the trail
for had they not been
we would not be here

indeed appears

that the verse
has been pointin’
in this direction

a certain wish
bein’ fulfilled
pourin’ memories
of together

always one for

rear view gazin’…

personally,

misery and gin

mixed quite well

for me

and there were days

where i often thought,

oh hell, i will just stay

here and drink

but it appears

that the verse

has been pointin’

in this direction

a certain wish

bein’ fulfilled

a different view

of the rear view…

comes down to choices

pickup a pen

and let the words out

courtin’ forgiveness,

but not settlin’,

settin’ grievin’ aside,

cowboy up,

pourin’ memories

of this creation

no longer strugglin’

do memories

come true

and faith in this

Pale Love, Pale Rider

back to the rear view again…

comes down to choices
tried sleep but ain’t no use
booze cannot quiet regret

pickup a pen
and let the words out

demand so
descend
memories
were that i were able
to allow forgiveness
to settle in

but cannot or will not
does not matter
grievin’ insists,
so cowboy up,
pourin’ memories
and whiskey

learned well
how not to forgive
and not to forget
how to move
on down the line
from one heart
to the next

of course,
that only mixes well
with memories
and whiskey

seekin’ shelter
doin’ right
doin’ wrong
not carin’
carin’
holdin’ on

keep pourin’
these words and mixin’
and stirrin’ regret
and orderin’ up more
memories and whiskey

gazin’ in the rear view again
stirin’ and pourin’

struggled constantly
with a consumin’ desire
for hell if i knew what
well, at the time
it was known

s’pose the struggle
would still be goin’ on
had not the flames
finally cooled

a certain wish
that i could say
i am entirely free
from all of that
but that would be a lie
because i cannot
forget

Lyrics inspired by the incomparable music of Merle Haggard, who was born and died on this day, and the Dark Muse. Tonight I am mixin’……

Memories and Whiskey

Comes down to a matter of choice

Tried to sleep but it ain’t no use
Booze cannot quiet regret
Grabbed my pen and these words came out…

Dark Muse demands so
Descend swiftly
Swarmin’ memories
Were that I were able
To allow forgiveness
To settle in

But cannot or will not
Does not matter
Grievin’ insists,
So cowboy up,
And keep on mixin’
Memories and whiskey

Seekin’ shelter
In the wrong places
Holdin’ what I’ve got,
Though it don’t mix well
Keep on pourin’
Memories and whiskey

Could start doin’ right
And quit doin’ wrong
But she don’t care
So it don’t matter
Keep on stirin’
Memories and whiskey

She taught me good
How not to forgive
And not to forget
So I’ll keep movin
On down the line
From one heart to the next

And I’ll keep pourin’
These words and mixin’
Misery with tears
And stirrin’ regret
And order up more
Memories and whiskey

The Songs of the Day are “Misery and Gin” and “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here And Drink” by Merle Haggard. We do not own the rights to these songs. All rights reserved by the rightful owner. No copyright infringement intended.

On this day in 1327, the poet Petrarch saw Laura for the first time. It was on Good Friday, in the church of Saint Claire in Avignon. Her identity has never been confirmed, but she was probably Laure de Noves, a noblewoman living in Avignon with her husband Hugues de Sade. Petrarch was 22 years old, and she was a teenager, maybe 17. He fell instantly in love. Of Laura he wrote:

“In my younger days, I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair – my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did.”

Today is the birthday of Gustave Moreau (Paris 6 April 1826 – 18 April 1898 Paris); Symbolist painter whose main emphasis was the illustration of biblical and mythological figures. The female characters from the bible and mythology that he so frequently depicted came to be regarded by many as the archetypical symbolist woman. He appealed to the imaginations of some Symbolist writers and artists.

Gustave Moreau
Self-portrait of Gustave Moreau, 1850

Moreau never married and very little information is known about his personal and romantic relationships. In the past some biographers speculated that he was gay, largely inferred from the fact that he was a bachelor, a lack of information regarding women in his life, and the sometimes effeminate or androgynous appearance of male figures in some of his paintings. However, more recent research and documents revealed a relationship with Adelaide-Alexandrine Dureux (b. Guise, 8 November 1835 – d. Paris, March 1890) that lasted over 30 years. Moreau apparently met Alexandrine soon after his return from Italy and in following years he produced many drawings and watercolors of her, as well as romantic caricatures of the two of them walking on clouds together. He subsidized an apartment for her on Rue Norte-Dame de Lorette, just a few blocks from the townhome where he lived with his parents. Their relationship was very discreet and known by only a few in his closest circle. His mother was aware of their relationship and apparently fond of her, as indicated by a stipulation in her will that provided an annuity for Alexandrine should Gustave die before her. He designed her tombstone, engraved with their interlaced initials, A and G, which is located near his family plot where he was interned with his parents.

Gallery

Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864)
Jason and Medea (1865)
Orpheus (1865)
Venus Rising from the Sea (1866)
Europa and the Bull (1869)
La chimère (1876)
Salomé (1876)
The Apparition (1876)

Galatée (1880)
The Sacred Elephant (Péri) (1885)
Eve by Gustave Moreau (1885)
The Toilette (1885-90)
Hesiod and the Muse (1891)

Today is the birthday of Arthur Wesley Dow (April 6, 1857 – December 13, 1922); painter, printmaker, photographer and influential arts educator.

Dow died on December 13, 1922, in his home in New York City. He was interred in the Old North Burying Ground in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He was survived by his wife Eleanor Pearson, whom he married in 1893.

Gallery

Moonrise

Crater Lake, oil on canvas, 1919

View of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, 1919

Today is the birthday of Jeanne Hébuterne (Meaux 6 April 1898 – 25 January 1920 Paris); artist, best known as the frequent subject and common-law wife of the artist Amedeo Modigliani. She took her own life the day after Modigliani died, and is now buried beside him.

Jeanne Hébuterne was born in Meaux, Seine-et-Marne, the second child to Achille Casimir Hébuterne (born 1857), who worked at Le Bon Marché, a department store, and Eudoxie Anaïs Tellier Hébuterne (born 1860). The family was Roman Catholic.A beautiful girl, she was introduced to the artistic community in Montparnasse by her brother André Hébuterne, who wanted to become a painter. She met several of the then-starving artists and modeled for Tsuguharu Foujita.Wanting to pursue a career in the arts, and with a talent for drawing, she chose to study at the Académie Colarossi, where in the spring of 1917 Hébuterne was introduced to Modigliani by the sculptress Chana Orloff, who came with many other artists to take advantage of the Academy’s live models.Jeanne began an affair with the charismatic artist, and the two fell deeply in love. She soon moved in with him, despite strong objection from her parents.Described by the writer Charles-Albert Cingria [fr] (1883–1954) as gentle, shy, quiet, and delicate, Jeanne Hébuterne became a principal subject for Modigliani’s art.In the spring of 1918, the couple moved to the warmer climate of Nice on the French Riviera where Modigliani’s agent hoped he might raise his profile by selling some of his works to the wealthy art connoisseurs who wintered there. While they were in Nice, their daughter, Jeanne Modigliani, was born on 29 November.The following spring, they returned to Paris and Jeanne became pregnant again. By this time, Modigliani was suffering from tuberculous meningitis and his health, made worse by complications brought on by substance abuse, was deteriorating badly.On 24 January 1920 Modigliani died. Hébuterne’s family brought her to their home, but she threw herself out of the fifth-floor apartment window the day after Modigliani’s death, killing herself and her unborn child.Her family, who blamed her demise on Modigliani, interred her in the Cimetière de Bagneux. Nearly ten years later, at the request of Modigliani’s brother, Emanuele, the Hébuterne family agreed to have her remains transferred to Père Lachaise Cemetery to rest beside Modigliani.Her epitaph reads: “Devoted companion to the extreme sacrifice.”

Gallery

Self portrait

Hébuterne by Modigliani, 1918

Natura morta
Self portrait, 1916
Death, 1919
Portrait of Modigliani, 1919

Mac Tag

arthur wesley dow, gustave moreau, jeanne hebuterne, laura, merle haggard, petrarch, raphael, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

The Lovers’ Chronicle 5 April – comin’ slowly – art by Jean-Honoré Fragonard & Jules Dupré – photography by Nadar – verse by Algernon Charles Swinburne

05 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

the line was first used in my 2018 poem,
inspired by somethin’ Swinburne wrote no doubt
“He was a drama queen”
had to be, he reveled
in shockin’ his
Victorian audiences

“With his hair or poetry”

ha, both
maybe that explains
my early dramatic poems
i am not that, so i became that
“Could be”
anyhow i came slowly
to believe less is more
in writin’ and perhaps
to know this is what i want

another for you, how could i refuse; save is a word thrown around too much, but it is a certainty that you were the highlight of those days; wait, readin’ that now feels inadequate; you were those days; your laugh, your eyes, you tried to tell me there was hope and i said not but there it was, everyday in you

“Wish you were here

to calm my fears.”

before there came

to the makin’,

before the vision

time with despair,

pleasure with pain

comin’

remembrance fallen

and sadness risen

then strength born

belief that endures

from you

do you know,

comin’ slowly,

you saved me

and i miss you

been keepin’ busy

with work and writin’

how long has it been

and i wonder…

how many different

ways can i tell you

nothin’ matters more

literature

and libretti

help me hold on

as does the sweet

sound of solitude

come what may

i am ready

for whatever

i can do

we cannot forget

“Wish you were here
to calm my fears.”

i cannot imagine,
higher purpose

hey, an idea
beautiful night
on the High Plains
come, let us put
the world on hold
get a bottle of wine
and drive out
to a secluded spot
and watch the sun set

and stay
till the stars
fill the sky

then later,
back home,
we can open
all the windows
and lay in bed
and know
we cannot forget

before there came
to the makin’,
before the vision
time with tears,
grief, self inflicted
pleasure with pain
comin’ slowly
remembrance fallen
and madness risen
a strength born
belief that endures
from you

do you know,
comin’ slowly,
you saved me
and i miss you

been keepin’ busy since then
with work and writin’
but i realize how long it has been
and i wonder…
if i could have told you,
would it have mattered

literature
and libretti
abound with tales
of those who die for love
or the lack thereof

whether it comes
or not,
i am ready

Today is the birthday of Jean-Honoré Fragonard (Grasse, France 5 April 1732 – 22 August 1806 Paris); painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings (not counting drawings and etchings), of which only five are dated. Among his most popular works are genre paintings conveying an atmosphere of intimacy and veiled eroticism.

Gallery

Les Baigneuses (1765)

L’Instant désiré 1770

Les Hasards heureux de l’escarpolette

Today is the birthday of Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon; Paris 5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910 Paris); photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloonist, and proponent of heavier-than-air flight. In 1858, he became the first person to take aerial photographs.

Photographic portraits by Nadar are held by many of the great national collections of photographs. His son, Paul Nadar (1856–1939), continued the studio after his death. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Gallery

Charles Baudelaire

Jeanne Duval

Sarah Bernhardt

Balliol College Portraits: 139 Oil on canvas, 18x13, 1860. Poole number 74

Today is the birthday of Algernon Charles Swinburne (London 5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909 London); poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as Poems and Ballads, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. His family was part of the aristocracy so he never had to work for a living. Instead, he worked on cultivating an outrageous image. He was small of stature, with vibrant and untamed red hair, and he drank to excess, and sometimes screamed his poetry aloud. He wrote poems calculated to shock Victorian audiences: verses about sex and sadomasochism and vampires. For many years, he was trapped in a cycle of overindulgence, collapse, and recovery.

Swinburne was an alcoholic and algolagniac and highly excitable. He liked to be flogged. His health suffered, and in 1879 at the age of 42, he was taken into care by his friend, Theodore Watts-Dunton, who looked after him for the rest of his life at The Pines, 11 Putney Hill, Putney. Watts-Dunton took him to the lost town of Dunwich, on the Suffolk coast, on several occasions in the 1870s.

In Watts-Dunton’s care Swinburne lost his youthful rebelliousness and developed into a figure of social respectability. It was said of Watts-Dunton that he saved the man and killed the poet. Swinburne died at the Pines on 10 April 1909, at the age of 72, and was buried at St. Boniface Church, Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight.

Atalanta in Calydon (1865)

Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears,
Grief with a glass that ran,
Pleasure with pain for leaven,
Summer with flowers that fell,
Remembrance fallen from heaven,
And Madness risen from hell,
Strength without hands to smite,
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.

- Second chorus, lines 1-12.

Forget that I remember
And dream that I forget.

Time found our tired love sleeping,
And kissed away his breath;
But what should we do weeping,
Though light love sleep to death?
We have drained his lips at leisure,
Till there’s not left to drain
A single sob of pleasure,
A single pulse of pain.

Dream that the lips once breathless
Might quicken if they would;
Say that the soul is deathless;
Dream that the gods are good;
Say March may wed September,
And time divorce regret;
But not that you remember,
And not that I forget.

“Rococo”, lines 15-32.

We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved
As the moon moves, loving the world; and seen
Grief collapse as a thing disproved,
Death consume as a thing unclean.
Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast
Soul to soul while the years fell past;
Had you loved me once, as you have not loved;
Had the chance been with us that has not been.

I have put my days and dreams out of mind,
Days that are over, dreams that are done.
Though we seek life through, we shall surely find
There is none of them clear to us now, not one.

I remember the way we parted,
The day and the way we met;
You hoped we were both broken-hearted
And knew we should both forget.
- An Interlude.
And the best and the worst of this is
That neither is most to blame,
If you have forgotten my kisses
And I have forgotten your name.
- An Interlude.

Jules Dupré
Self-portrait painted in 1853

Today is the birthday of Jules Dupré (Nantes, France; April 5, 1811 – October 6, 1889); painter, one of the chief members of the Barbizon school of landscape painters. If Corot stands for the lyric and Rousseau for the epic aspect of the poetry of nature, Dupré is the exponent of his tragic and dramatic aspects.

Dupré exhibited first at the Salon in 1831, and three years later was awarded a second-class medal. In the same year he came to England. From then on he learned how to express movement in nature; and the districts around Southampton and Plymouth, with its wide, unbroken expanses of water, sky and ground, gave him good opportunities for studying the tempestuous motion of storm-clouds and the movement of foliage driven by the wind. He was named an Officer of the French Légion d’honneur in 1848.

Dupré’s colour is sonorous and resonant. He showed preference for using dramatic sunset effects and stormy skies and seas as the subjects of his paintings. Late in life he changed his style and gained appreciably in largeness of handling and arrived at greater simplicity in his colour harmonies. Among his chief works are the Morning and Evening at the Louvre, and the early Crossing the Bridgein the Wallace Collection.

Gallery

Paysage au clair de lune

Coucher du soleil
Le calme avant la tempête
Livraison dans une brise
Mer agitée (c.1870)
Une brise raide
Barges fuyant devant la tempête
At Sea
Le cap
Paysage marin (1870)
Sunset on the Coast

Mac Tag

algernon charles swinburne, jules dupre, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

The Lovers’ Chronicle 4 April – paintin’ – art by Maurice de Vlaminck – verse by Maya Angelou

04 April 2024 By Rhett 0 In Random

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag.

Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

not sure of the origin
it began as a fictional
story in 2016
“You like telling stories”
i do, one of the reasons
i enjoy poetry is because
every poem is a micro-story
“Even the ones that appear
to be random words tossed
in a bowl and poured on the page”
ha, yes even those
“So tell me a story”
come lay in my arms
and i will paint for you
with words a place
where we can flourish
and nothin’ else matters

came here
to recover
to seek

you ask if i will write
and i agree because
it is somethin’
i can do
for you

when it gets darker,
the words seem to float
through the gloamin’

i am not thinkin’ at all
just movin’ the pen,
grabbin’, releasin’ words

continuin’ to heal

need to sleep

but i want to write

one more for you

on this canvas,

two comin’ together

in the night creatin’

somethin’ neither

had before

a vague understandin’

comin’ clear only now

of wantin’, bein’ more

the way it feels

i know you know

it can only be this

do you tire

of me goin’ on like this

of paintin’ these pictures

of all that you mean

either shinin’, or strugglin’

your way through your day

verse, all that matters

and this brave,

startlin’ truth

it costs all we are

and will ever be

yet it is only this

which sets us free

need sleep
but i want to write
one more for you
you have that
and more comin’

to what purpose
to return, when
it was effortless
the strokes sure
confident
when capturin’
color and light
were all that mattered

the way it felt
i know you know

come, shall we go

an affair of the mind
to be real, it must be
paint as you feel
as you think

instinct, need
so opportunely
purifies

curious, complex
paint, as a way
to understand

feel and it suffices
to inspire
there is but one way
of understandin’
entirely
in the present
an absinthe
whose strength
only the sensual
can stand

been here a week
this time
came home
to change
to get back

she asks if i will paint
and i agree because
it is somethin’
i can do

she watches,
without speakin’
as i try to capture
the light

when it gets darker,
the paint seems to float
through the gloamin’
i am not thinkin’ at all
just movin’ the brush,
grabbin’ and releasin’ color,
slowly beginnin’ to heal

Self portrait

Today is the birthday of Maurice de Vlaminck (Paris 4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958 Rueil-la-Gadelière); painter. He is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense colour.

In 1894 he married Suzanne Berly. The turning point in his life was a chance meeting on the train to Paris towards the end of his stint in the army. Vlaminck, then 23, met an aspiring artist, André Derain, with whom he struck up a lifelong friendship. When Vlaminck completed his army service in 1900, the two rented a studio together, the Maison Levanneur, which now houses the Cneai, for a year before Derain left to do his own military service. In 1902 and 1903 he wrote several mildly pornographic novels illustrated by Derain. He painted during the day and earned his livelihood by giving violin lessons and performing with musical bands at night.

He married his second wife, Berthe Combes, with whom he had two daughters.

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Au bar

The Seine at Chatou, 1906 The Met

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Barges on the Seine (Bateaux sur la Seine), 1905-06, oil on canvas, 81 x 100 cm, Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Le bassin à Chatou (White Sailboat at Chatou), 1907, oil on canvas, 60.2 x 73.7 cm, private collection

Town on the Bank of a Lake, c.1909, oil on canvas, 81.3 x 100.3 cm, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg

Le pont de Poissy, c.1910, oil on canvas, 46.4 x 54.9 cm

Village, c.1912, oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm (29 x 36 1/4 in.), Art Institute of Chicago

Today is the birthday of Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Annie Johnson; St. Louis April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014 Winston-Salem); poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist.

You were a precious pearl
How I loved to see you shine,
You were the perfect girl.
And you were mine.
For a time.
For a time.
Just for a time.

“Just for a Time”

I have need of a friend.

There is one and only one
who will give the air
from his failing lungs
for my body’s mend.

And that one is my love.

“Many and More”

Love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.
A Brave and Startling Truth.

Mac Tag

maurice de vlaminck, maya angelou, the lovers almanac, the lovers chronicle

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Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) excerpt

The Cure at Troy

The Lovers’ Chronicle 12 April – turned on – Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert – photography by Imogen Cunningham – art by Robert Delaunay

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The Lovers’ Chronicle 11 April – dawnin’ – premiere of Dido and Aeneas – art by Jean-Baptiste Isabey

The Lovers’ Chronicle 10 April – pictures – art & verse by Æ – art by Alfred Kubin – The Great Gatsby

The Lovers’ Chronicle 9 April – last time – verse by Baudelaire – photography by Eadweard Muybridge

Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857)

The Lovers’ Chronicle 8 April – feelin’s – art by Allen Butler Talcott – photography by Clarence Hudson White & Alfred Cheney Johnston

The Lovers’ Chronicle

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The Lovers’ Chronicle 7 April – fair to middlin’ – verse by William Wordsworth & Gabriela Mistral – art by Frederick Carl Frieseke & Gino Severini

A Poet’s Epitaph (1799)

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Poesia

The Lovers’ Chronicle 6 April – memories – Petrarch & Laura – art by Gustave Moreau, Arthur Wesley Dow, & Jeanne Hébuterne

Memories and Whiskey

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The Lovers’ Chronicle 5 April – comin’ slowly – art by Jean-Honoré Fragonard & Jules Dupré – photography by Nadar – verse by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Atalanta in Calydon (1865)

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The Lovers’ Chronicle 4 April – paintin’ – art by Maurice de Vlaminck – verse by Maya Angelou

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