Beauty is everywhere throughout the Copley Square branch of the Boston Public Library. You just have to look up. š
Posts Tagged ‘painting’
decorative doorways, ceilings and more
Posted in Inspiration, tagged art, Boston Public Library, colors, Inspiration, interior decoration, painting on April 11, 2018| 1 Comment »
a new year in color
Posted in Inspiration, tagged coasters, colors, creativity, designs, geometry, GIMP, imagination, Inspiration, painting, Photography on January 3, 2018| Leave a Comment »
It is a new year and one of the things I intend to do is continue to tap into my inner child and play with shapes and colors. These images, produced with GIMP, begin with a tiny detail from the beautifully painted ceiling inside Trinity Church Boston.
donald langosy: the poet’s painter
Posted in Books I Love, Inspiration, tagged art, books, creativity, Donald Langosy, ekphrasis, Eric Sigler, Inspiration, muse, painting, poetry, poetry books on December 11, 2017| 1 Comment »
One year ago it was my pleasure to share, in his own words and images, a glimpse into the life of painter Donald Langosy. Through his 14-page Story of My Art, that I condensed into roughly six blog posts, Mr. Langosy shared his amazing creative journey that involved the likes of Ezra Pound, William Blake, his wifeĀ Elizabeth and of course there isĀ Shakespeare. His work is unique and quite inspiring as can be seen in the new book Donald Langosy: The Poet’s Painter.Ā This book of 99 poems by Eric Sigler illustrated with full-color reproductions of the 99 paintings by Mr. Langosy that inspired the poet.
Available online from a variety of vendors as listed below. If I have one criticism, after having seen firsthand the scale of some of these paintings, it is that I wish the book was physically bigger. Meanwhile I hope there will be an art opening one day so that more people can view his work up close and meet both painter and poet!
https://eyewearpublishing.glopal.com/en-US/p-8574461128/donald-langosy-poets-painter.html
girl with dog and jug, 1785
Posted in Inspiration, On the Road, tagged creativity, Gainsborough, Inspiration, ireland, National Gallery of Ireland, painting, Photography, portraits, travel photography on November 6, 2017| Leave a Comment »
To see the painting of the girl and her dog up close, a painting rather different than so many of Gainsborough’s other portraits … very moving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Gainsborough
the startled bird
Posted in Branches, Inspiration, Nature Notes, On the Road, tagged birds, colors, creativity, dublin, Inspiration, National Gallery of Ireland, Norah McGuinness, painting, Photography, travel on November 5, 2017| 1 Comment »
Detail from The Startled Bird (1961) by painter Norah McGuinness on view in Dublin at the National Gallery of Ireland. Many beautiful works in the building but the colors and textures of this painting especially caught my eyes.
in a church hallway
Posted in Inspiration, tagged Andrea del Sarto, art, art reproduction, beauty, Inspiration, Madonna of the Harpies, painting, Renaissance on April 20, 2017| 2 Comments »
The original Madonna of the Harpies (1517) currently resides in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. It was painted by Andrea del Sarto (1486 – 1530) during the High Renaissance. This likely 19th century reproduction, artist unknown, resides in the hallway of a local church. Like similar paintings I’ve found in churches as I photograph their stained glass windows, the history of their paintings, tucked oftentimes in out of the way places, has faded over time. The how and the why of their existence is hard to discern without deeper research. And then in the end, as I have been reminded, one must keep in mind that during the late 19th century as wealthy Americans made grand tours of Italy there was a great demand for reproductions of Renaissance art (assuming one couldn’t buy the art outright).
Andrea del Sarto self-portrait
Andrea del Sarto was a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo and Raphael. This painting is considered to be one of his finest works. Much has been written about this painting. I especially enjoyed reading David Franklin’s description of the artist’s creative process on page 136 of his bookĀ Painting in Renaissance Florence, 1500-1550. Ā I don’t know that I shall ever make it to Florence but it was a treat to learn of this powerful work of art by walking down a hallway.
Madonna of the Harpies by Andrea del Sarto (1517)
Sources & Additional Reading
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_of_the_Harpies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_del_Sarto
http://www.uffizi.com/painting-madonna-delle-arpie-uffizi-gallery.aspx
with bowed head
Posted in Inspiration, tagged angels, art, beauty, holy grail, Idylls of the King, Inspiration, murals, painting, Photography, poetry, Tennyson on March 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »
I have read too many headlines this morning. My head is full of thoughts. I think I shall take a break from the computer screen until I can sort them. Meanwhile, I share these last images from my recent visit to the Boston Public Library’s Abbey Room and painter Edwin Austin Abbey’s expression of Tennyson’s Idylls of the King.
Panel XIII. Sir Galahad crosses the sea in Solomon’s Ship
As for what’s happening in this scene, from the BPL website: “Sir Galahad crosses the seas to Sarras in Solomon’s Ship, guided by the Grail borne by an angel. Sir Bors and Sir Percival accompany him, while three spindles for the Tree of Life rest upon the stern of the ship.”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157647672175522/with/15074561737/
revisiting the abbey room
Posted in Inspiration, tagged art, Arthurian, beauty, Boston Public Library, Edwin Austin Abbey, holy grail, Inspiration, painting, Photography, poetry, storytelling, Tennyson on March 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »
detail from The Arthurian Round Table and the fable of the Seat Perilous
Between 1893 and 1902 fifteen panels were installed in the Boston Public Library in Copley Square depicting the story of The Quest for the Holy Grail. Conceived of by artist Edwin Austin Abbey (1852-1911) he based his work on Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Ā version of the Arthurian legend. In recent years the BPL has done a magnificent job of capturing the beauty of the full panels and sharing each panel’s story with the public through Flikr. That link is below. When I walk in with my camera I tend to focus in on the details and this is what I recently saw.
detail from King Amfortas and the Castle of the Grail lie under a spell
This time one of my favorite panels to focus on what the last in the sequence, The Golden Tree. According to the BPL summary, an adaptation from an outline by Henry James, “Sir Galahad, now the King of Sarras, builds a golden tree. When he is presented with the Grail, his spirit and the Grail ascend to heaven. Like other elements throughout the mural cycle, the golden tree and the Grail are depicted in gilded raised relief, a method that Abbey may have learned from his studio partner John Singer Sargent.”
Well worth a visit to see in person but until then you can see the full cycle of panels here:Ā https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157647672175522/with/15258034891/
And if you have a large cup of tea at hand, or something else, you can read Tennyson’s Holy Grail upon which the murals were based. They don’t write poems like this anymore. šĀ http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/tennyson-the-holy-grail
best wishes for the new year
Posted in Inspiration, tagged art, beauty, Inspiration, painting, Photography, stained glass windows on December 31, 2016| 5 Comments »
Happy New Year!Ā No doubt it will beĀ an interestingĀ one.
Best wishes for peace and prosperity and an awareness of the beauty in the world around us.
Strength and courage will be necessary I suspect. As for New Year goals …
… I’ve made none, not really, except perhaps a commitment to continue to pause and to pause without expectation. These photos I took while pausing inside Trinity Church.
It has been my pleasure to photograph there many times over the years.
Each time there is always something new to see in the tower, on the walls, in the windows and even on the doors.
We’ll see what 2017 holds. š
hope
Posted in Inspiration, tagged art, beauty, Edward Burne-Jones, Emily Dickinson, G.F. Watts, hope, Inspiration, Martin Luther King Jr, musings, painting on December 15, 2016| 1 Comment »
Hope by George Frederick Watts
In 1959, Martin Luther King Jr would open a sermon with theseĀ words about shattered dreams, “Our sermon today brings us face to faceĀ with one of the most agonizing problems of human experience. Very few, if any, of us are able to see all of our hopes fulfilled. So many of the hopes and promises of our mortal days are unrealized. Each of us, like Shubert, begins composing a symphony that is never finished. There is much truth in George Frederick Wattsā imaginative portrayal of Hope in his picture entitled Hope. He depicts Hope as seated atop our planet, but her head is sadly bowed and her fingers are plucking one unbroken harp string. Who has not had to face the agony of blasted hopes and shattered dreamsā?”
English painter George Frederick Watts (1817-1904) would paint the first of several versions of Hope in 1885. Its symbolism would prove very popular and over time it would be massively reproduced. I read that by the 1930s however his work fell out of fashion and major galleries like The Tate removed his work from permanent display. So I do wonder when, where and how Martin Luther King first saw Hope.Ā I do know when a young Barack Obama learned of the painting. It was in 1990. Pastor Jeremiah Wright would deliver a sermon, The Audacity to Hope. Wright’s words would move the young student who would eventually rouse a whole nation (mostly) with a notion that he would call, The Audacity of Hope.
So where is hope these days? In part its a personal question that we each have to grapple with on any given day depending on what’s happening in our lives.
Hope by Edward Burne-Jones, 1896
Watts and later his friend Edward Burne-Jones each painted variations of Hope during dark periods in their lives. For Watts that period included the death of his adopted daughter’s child. Burne-Jones had been commissioned by a wealthy American to paint a dancing figure but as he dealt with the death of his friend and colleague William Morris he asked if instead he might paint Hope. I think of hope as something you hold on to or reach out for. And sometimes it even settles around you like a warm blanket when you least expect it. Or, as Emily Dickinson wrote,
āHopeā is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
Iāve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
Sources & Additional Reading
http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/shattered-dreams
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/42889
