The gooseberries in this still life seem to leap off the canvas. It’s no wonder the artist, George Forster, was credited with making the gooseberry a popular still life subject. I was interested in Forster’s particular choice of fruit, too….
art
A Peach, Seville – A Poem
George Henry Hall decided to become an artist at the age of 16, and eight years later, proceeds from the sales of his paintings enabled him to go on the first of many trips to Europe. While he loved the…
The Baker’s Cart – A Poem
This painting was unusual for its time for several reasons. The painter, Jean Michelin, was most certainly not commissioned to paint this, as he would have been were the family wealthy, nor were there any guarantees he could sell a…
Distelfink – A Poem
The translation for “distelfink” is literally thistle finch. This stylized bird of Pennysylvania folk art is a symbol of good luck and happiness. The Public Domain Review has a good article here about Fraktur folk art and the distelfink’s role…
Watermelon 1597 – A Poem
The original phrases in the poem here date back to 1597 and John Gerard’s The Herball or, Generall historie of plantes. The Herball was revised in a later publication of 1633 which is my main source document. You can see…
Self-Taught Artist – A Poem
For women, professional art school was out of the reach until relatively recently. Painting and drawing, however, were considered basic accomplishments for the well-bred Victorian lady. If you had the money you took lessons or engaged a teacher. For a…
Cézanne’s Model – A Poem
My inspiration for this poem came from The Met description of Dish of Apples. The Met pointed out that the napkin in this painting is shaped like Mont Sante-Victorie near Aix-en-Provence in southern France. Cézanne’s father had a house in…
Homestead by the Sea – A Poem
Jean-Charles Cazin (1841-1901) was a major figure in French landscape painting. I was drawn to Homestead by the Sea not just because of the peachy, dreamy atmosphere, but because it was like a story – a glimpse into this other…
Lemons – A Poem
When I was growing up, a large and very prolific lemon tree was the centrepiece of our back yard. In fact, a lot of my childhood photos seem to have that lemon tree in them. Lemon juice was used in…
Vodka – A Poem
The artist Natalia Goncharova said: “Colours have an effect on one’s psychological makeup.” In this painting Goncharova used bold Fauvist colours and curved lines to show the peasants’ joyful movement, and borrowed stylized techniques from woodcuts and iconography for the…
Baked Pears in Duane Park – A Poem
This poem was inspired by The Met Museum’s description accompanying William P. Chappel’s Baked Pears in Duane Park. Writing in the 1880s, one New Yorker fondly reminisced about the black women who stood in the streets tempting passersby with a…
Man with a Hoe – A Poem
Georges Seurat (1851-1891) was famous for developing the technique of pointillism, using tiny dots of colour, and scientific theory about colour perception, to create his gorgeous post-Impressionist paintings. There is more about Seurat here and here: “In Seurat’s method, which…
