art digest 03 / we are all living in turn of the 20th Century Danish paintings

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916): ”Interiør fra Strandgade 30”

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) Interior with a Young Man Reading

Peter Vilhelm Ilsted, Girl Reading a Letter in an Interior, 1908

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (1863-1935) A mother and child at a window

Interior of Courtyard, Strandgade 30, 1899, Vilhelm Hammershøi

Interior with Potted Plant on Card Table, 1910-11, Malmö Konstmuseum Vilhelm Hammershøi

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864 - 1916) Bedroom, 1890

Interior, No. 30 Strandgade, 1906, by Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916)

“I call for you cultivation of strength in the dark.
Dark gardening
in the vertigo cold.
in the hot paralysis.
Under the wolves and coyotes of particular silences.”

— Gwendolyn Brooks, “To Prisoners,” in To Disembark

Vilhelm Hammershøi (Danish, 1864-1916), Den Hvide Dør [The White Door], 1888.

White Doors, Strandgade 30 Vilhelm Hammershøi

Woman in an Interior with a Mirror Carl Vilhelm Holsøe - 1898

Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) A Writing Table and a Young Woman in an Interior (1900)

An Interior with a Young Girl Serving Tea Framed art print by Peter Vilhelm Ilsted

Vilhelm Hammershøi - Sunshine in the Living Room III, 1903

Vilhelm Hammershøi

Interior, Strandgade 30 by Vilhelm Hammershøi

Vilhelm Hammershøi, Interior with Young Woman from Behind, 1904

Vilhelm Hammershøi

Interior with Artificial Light, 1909, Vilhelm Hammershøi

Carl Holsøe Interior Light (1863-1935)

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe, Girl in an interior

Mother and Child at the Table by Carl Holsøe (1863-1935)

Carl Holsøe, Interior With a Woman Reading.

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (1863-1935) Interior with a Reading Lady

Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (1863-1935), danish painter.

Peter Ilsted (1861 - 1933) “Girl With a Tray”, 1915

Interior with Two Girls - Peter Ilsted

Peter Ilsted (1861 - 1933) Interior from Ilsted’s home with his daughter knitting, pieces of Empire furniture and a silhouette on the wall, 1904

Interior with a Lady at Her Spinet, Evening Light (1904). Peter Ilsted (Danish (1861-1933).

Peter Ilsted (Danish, 1861-1933), Interior with a Woman before a Mirror, Liselund, 1916

Looking Out The Window - Peter Ilsted - 1908

At Breakfast Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898

Laurits Andersen Ring - Young Girl Looking out a Window - 1885

Laurits Andersen Ring (Danish, 1854-1933) At the window. Ole Ring looks at Roskilde, 1925.

Laurits Andersen Ring - The Artist’s Wife (1897)

"Surely he will come?" Painting by Christen Dalsgaard

Turn of the century 1900s to 1920s Danish painting reflecting our lives in the Covid-19 self-isolation.

The banal, the quiet, the still, the poetic, the muted, the beauty of quarantine in the time of coronavirus. The quietude of home life in 2020 whilst we peer out at the world, and wait, and wonder, and reacquaint ourselves with our lives, our fears, our small joys, our follies, and our graces.

art digest 02 / “A man is a god in ruins.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Squall - Andrew Wyeth, 20th century

Trodden Weed (1951) Andrew Wyeth

Stephen Seymour Thomas - The Violin Student

Parmigianino, Portrait of a Man with a Book. 1524, oil on canvas. Private collection.

Jan Van Huysum, Nature Morte avec des Fruits 1722

Mercury about to Behead Argus Ubaldo Gandolfi, c. 1770-1775

A Sleeping Legionary in a Helmet, Ubaldo Gandolfi

Sala degli imperatori, Galleria Borghese, Rome. Photographed by Max Hutzel, c.1960.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) Study of a Young Man (c. 1760)

Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825) Patroclus 1780 oil on canvas

(Nordic Summer Evening) Sven Bergh Richard, ca. 1899/90

St. Matthew and the Angel by Guido Reni, 1635–40

Still Life with Goblet and Fruit by Jan Jansz. van de Velde (1656)

Vanitas Still-Life (1659-60). Pieter Claesz. (Dutch, c.1597-1661). Oil on canvas.

Vanitas Still Life with the Spinario, 1628, Pieter Claesz

Attributed to Valentin de Boulogne (1591-1623) A Young Shephard Circa 1620-1625

Portrait of a boy, Albert Anker

A Roman Marble Sarcophagus Relief Torso of a Young Warrior, Eastern Mediterranean, 1st half of the 3rd Century AD.

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1818

Giorgio da Castelfranco (1478-1510) Double Portrait (attributed to Giorgione)

Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton

Andrew Wyeth (American, 1917-2009), Marriage, 1993. Tempera on panel prepared with gesso

Portrait of a man 1881 Léon-Augustin Lhermitte (1844-1925)

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) The Village Lovers 1882

Emile Friant (1863-1932) Ombres portées 1891

Anne-Louis Girodet De Roussy-Trioson (1767-1824)

Alexandre Boucher (detail)

1819

Isidore Pils (1813-1875)

Two head studies

1840-1845

Christen Købke (1810-1848) Portrait of Frederik Sødring 1832

Charles-Marie Bouton (1781-1853) The Drawing Lesson 1826

Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691) Portret van een jonge man (detail) ca. 1640-1660

Nicolaes van Helt Stockade (1614-1669) Portret van Georg Pfründt ca. 1640

Pietro Canonica (1869-1959)

The artist in his studio, Charles Willson Peale. 1822, Pennsylvania academy of fine arts.

Silenus cradling the infant Dionysus.
Roman copy of A.D. 1st-2nd century after a bronze Greek original of ca 300 B.C. presumably by Lysippos.
Medium: Marble

Mars Vigilant (Man in Armor Holding a Pike), Jan van Bijlert, ca. 1630

Bo Bartlett - The Box, 2002 Oil on Linen

Details, part II: “Arabesque” series, contemporary, by Daniel Abel.

Elliott Erwitt, Acropolis Museum, Athens, 1976

Male acephalic body Inspired by Greek statues. Marble. Roman period. after J. C.

Head of Jupiter. 1st.century AD. Roman. bronze.

Luis Veldrof, aposentador mayor y conserje del Real Palacio - portrait by Vicente López y Portaña, 1823 detail

A Vanitas Still Life with an Hourglass, a Skull, a Violin, a Snuffed Candle, Coins, Books, Musical Scores, Cards, a Sword, a Helmet and a Woolen Cloth on a Table draped with a Persian Carpet, North Italian School, second half of the 17th Century

The Open Window, Carl Vilhelm Holsøe

Still Life with a Lute and a Guitar, Nicolas-Henry Jeaurat de Bertry

what I miss / what I love

analog cameras

film rolls and slides

proper old film photo booths with four strips

phone booths and pay phones

train stations sans billboards

subway tokens

tear away cinema tickets

records

books

May 9, 2014

sleeping right on the edge of a cliff next to Augustan ruins, 2014

yesterday I wrote about love in the morning, the power of the sea in the afternoon, I lingered in death & longing at sunset, perused ancient erotica in the early evening, pictured volcanoes destroying at midnight under the stars & mourned the end of passion into the small desperate hours of a black morning. September 30, 2014

regard this lightly, but always

"I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins."

— Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

a cup of tea / Ireland / 2013

I love the sound of tea cups rattling lightly on their saucers. I love the sound of the water boiling. I love the scent and plume of smoke in the steam as it rises from my cup. I love the plop of a sugar cube or three into the water, followed by the velvety swirl of cream, and the darkening of my brew with loose leaf strained tea, done up the Irish way, strong and a touch smoky. I love the fall of a tiny tea spoon as it rings like a bell when I turn it. I love tasting the edge of the bone china as it cooly pauses at my lips before the first sip. I love tasting the tea as I breathe in its scent. Dublin. 2013.

vogue 1994 Roman Holiday

“Roman Holiday”

Vogue, December 1994

photographer: Arthur Elgort

model: Claudia Schiffer

Sunset 2000s

The flickering out, then the flaming up, arising, dividing.

Want to be hidden as dusk invades and the sun is diminished? As stars burst forth, as the moon departs, as skies vanish into a cold silence?

Nights are loud lately. Nights are frozen in place, they are static, they are endless.

The day’s warmth still felt even in the absence of light or touch or sound.

Fly into the sun as color and shapes recede, lose yourself in the line between cityscape and sky. The shadows are all we keep.

softness & moonlight, rome, spring, 2010

Very hot bubble bath with a good book (hardcover Secrets Of Rome) & exceedingly chilled Italian champagne. The taste of fruit is still in my mouth. Annihilated after a hot day in the Italian sun walking through grand palazzos and the ruins of the past. The air chokes me. I hide in the room, a tiny, lovely oasis. He reads about Caesar, I read about the ancients & a 1960s murder on Via Puccini. I can smell the sweet magnolia trees through the balcony windows wafting in from the Borghese gardens, a few paces from where I sit, writing to you. (Marzo, 2010, Roma, Italia)

invisible circus, rome, 2001

Have you always listened to the tick tock fever pitch of your heart when walking in the Roman alleyways? Have eyes followed you around every corner?

I want to go down this alley with you. I want to see where we end up. Sooner or later we’ll part, for we all do, but let’s turn and twist awhile, let’s follow the invisible circus’ insistent rhythms.

The Strong Man, the Bearded Lady, the Dwarves, the Painted Horses, The Fire Eaters, the Trapeze Artists, the Freaks, the Carnivale Women, the Caramel Apple Man, the Sad Faced Clowns, the Elephants, the Monkeys, the Musician with eyes that undress us, the Knife Thrower and his Assistant, the Man with the Tophat, the Liontamer, the Lion, the Ostrich, the Peacock, the Double-Jointed Sitar Player, the Fortune Tellar, the Travellers… Let’s dance with them! To their intangible beats, to the long since passed echoes.

I still feel life in these rocks bleeding out for us. Giving it another go. Entertain us! Entertain us!

I still feel his eyes on us, undressing us, calling to us; I see the tarot cards laid out, I see different paths diverging at opposite sides of the table for us, I hear the clang of her silver earings, I hear the bells chime in a hundred church towers all at once. I smell the animal’s fur, I hear the smoldering, purring growl breaking into night. I hear the clowns laughter clogged with tears. Pancake makeup streaked grey, red and black. Forming rivers of impatient color around our feet.

I only need to hear your voice singing ancient songs we cannot translate and you’ll save me from going off into this invisble circus for good.

But the music rises, the memories crowd me into a corner, I need to move, to get out, to keep going, to keep moving, to rise to the occasion and be someone else. One self does not satisfy me. I don’t satisfy me. (2001)

(I took this photograph in Rome in 2008, Nikon Film 100, Englishman’s Cemetery, Aventine)

I know what it means to miss New Orleans

I love New Orleans because of a hundred many splendid things… I love the music. I love the artists. I love the cocktails. I love the iron lattices. I love the iron fences. I love the courtyards. I love the secret gardens. I love the lush tropical trees. I love the spooky beautiful oaks and the spanish moss that hangs off of them. I love the art. I love the jazz wafting out of windows. I love the frozen cafe au laits. I love impromptu second lines. I love random brass bands. I love the cobble stoned streets. I love the quiet of Ursuline. I love the boho fun of Frenchman and gin and tonics at The Spotted Cat. I love any city that loves to play 1920s and 1930s standards. I love the feathers. I love the angels. I love the catherdrals. I love creole architecture. I love spanish villas. I love italiante houses in the garden district. I love lil dizzy’s trout baquet and candied yams. i love sweet potato french fried po boys. I love strawberries arnaud. i love pimms cupps and breakfast at napoleon house. i love brunch at commanders with 25 cent martinis. I love st louis no. 1. i love noma. i love dinner at pere antoines when they open the windows up. i love exploring the Louisiana countryside. I love the food. i love how new orleans feels like paris meets the caribbean. July 8, 2011

NoLa at night (the French Quarter) shot on black and white film