Pied Beauty, Poem & Paintings

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art, artists, beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins, inspiration, music, Nature, Paintings, Pied Beauty, poetry

Wassily Kandinsky, Waterfall II

Pied Beauty
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

What is it about “dappled” things that so dazzles us?

I ran across this poem, a favorite of mine, not long ago, and was reminded once again of how much nature inspires and excites us. Painters as well as poets have been praising that pied beauty through their artwork down the ages.

A few of my favorite paintings praising dappled things follows.

Vincent Van Gogh

John Singer Sargeant

John Singer Sargeant

John Singer Sargeant

John Singer Sargeant

Gertrude Fiske

Anne Redpath

Rick Stevens, Immersed

Gustav Klimt

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New Paintings, the Folding Hills of California

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art, California, inspiration, Nature, oil pastel, painting, watercolor

I’ve long loved the way the rolling hills along the coast of California fold together and overlap, the sensuality of that “hot rise and cool dip.”  I’ve tried to capture a bit of that fascination in some of my poetry: Hot Hills in Summer Heat, and Playing with Light, loving the way the light falls upon those folds so that “the hills unwind, one at a time, to dance before us all.”

Lately I’ve been trying to capture some of that in a few paintings, some inspired by the work of other artists and some from my own photographs. I’m not wholly satisfied with any of them, but something of what I’m trying to capture comes through.

This first is watercolor and oil pastel, and even a brush of soft chalk pastel in the sea and highlighting the closest hill. This was inspired by a Dale Laitinen painting of the coastline along Highway 1 near our home called.

The one above and below were inspired by a local and much-loved artist Erin Hanson who works mostly in oil. My painting above is again oil pastel and watercolor on Arches cold press paper, which has much more texture than the smoother hot press Fabriano paper used in the other oil pastel paintings in this post.

This one was also inspired by Hanson which I painted some time ago in acrylic. I’ve only created three works in acrylic so far, but for some reason I feel intimidated by it. I’m not sure why.  The three I painted out came out well enough. Of course, none of these inspired by other artists come even close to the quality of the original works. But I learn so much each time I try.

This one and the one below are from my own photographs taken of the hillsides on my walks around our neighborhood. They come closer to those “folding hills” I wrote about earlier, “the hot rise and cool dip” in my poems. Both are oil pastel and watercolor on hot press paper.

In this last one I wanted to see what the hills would look like stripped down and closer. I’m not sure which version I like best. The mattings help a lot to set off the works. Someday I will learn to photograph my paintings better. That might help too (smile.)

Thank you for bearing with me as I try to learn this craft and share my efforts. It’s a fascinating pastime.

[Note: I created this post before the latest round of fires set these hills ablaze north and south of where we live. My heart goes out to all who have lost their lives and homes, and seen their communities destroyed, including the wildlife that inhabits these hills and forests.]

 

 

New Paintings, Trees and More Trees

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art, creative process, Mixed Media, oil pastel, painting, trees, watercolor

Three new paintings, part of my forest series, I suppose, but really just playing with styles and possibilities. All three were inspired by paintings from artists I admire. All using watercolor and oil pastel on hot pressed paper.

The first two are both very dense, but the style quite distinct. My husband wasn’t too fond of these. He wants a place to let the eye in, or at least a place to rest away from all that color. The one above has a lighter, feathery feel. I enjoyed painting this and I felt quite light and feathery painting it.  It was done quickly. The one below has a heavier, slicker feel.

It took more time. It feels more surreal, more fauvist (an orgy of color), and I think that’s what I was aiming for. I say “I think” because I’m drawn toward the fauvists, the unruly works of Derain, Matisse, Manguin, etc, during that early period, and I was painting more by feel than thought.

This last didn’t turn out at all like I had planned. It was supposed to be more abstract, and the background filled with forest, not sky. But I think I was unconsciously influenced by my husband’s remarks about the first two, and so I let the sky in. A place to dip into and out of the scene.

I hope readers of this blog understand that I am just playing with paint, trying to learn a craft for my own enjoyment and amusement.

But as an art lover, I also see this past-time as art exploration. I’m teaching myself to see as an artist might, to explore what different mediums can do, to get a feel for different styles, different ways to compose a scene, to improvise on nature, to abstract from reality a sense of its feel or flavor.

But mostly I do this just to immerse myself in pure color, and to get lost in “no words.”

“Something in This Sleeping Earth” – Two by Whyte, One by Fiske

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art, Blogging, David Whyte, Earth, Gertrude Fiske, inspiration, Nature, poem, poetry, spirituality

Gertrude Fiske, American Impressionist

All My Body Calls

All my body calls
for something in this sleeping
earth
we call the spirit.

But how
from lifted arms
where stars run through fingers
and the night is like sand
do I breathe a fragrance of its wisdom
do I call its name
or listen to the drops
that trickle down to earth
and hear
life being given
not only through the moving hands of the forest
but through the hand that reaches in
the dark unmoving regions of the chest
and uncovers slowly
the enormous
indistinct
shape of the ocean.

by David Whyte

Fallen in Love

That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages in a great book
waiting to be read.

It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.

It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.

by David Whyte

What struck me in the poems and the painting is that “something in this sleeping earth” that we are only half-awake to, what Whyte calls “spirit.” I see that spirit clearly in the painting by Friske, the two women immersed in the forest, in that yellow-green light, in those parting branches, those “moving hands.”

And in the second poem, that sense that there’s nothing to wait for, it’s all out here in the open, “speaking out loud in the clear air,”  as solid and humble and astonishing as the ground beneath our bare feet.

In another poem, Whyte writes:

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.

What are we waiting for? Especially in these trying times.

All times are trying. All lives are trying. We have to grasp, right here, right now, despite all that, what’s waiting half-hidden all around us this very moment.

Many thanks to The Beauty We Love where I found these poems, and to The Uncarved Blog who shared two wondrous poems by Stephen Levine and pointed me toward this site. It’s one of the things I love about blogging, finding these hidden treasures that speak so eloquently to things I feel and cannot say. 

Inside the Holy Grove of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia

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Antonio Gaudi, architecture, art, cathedral, church, inspiration, La Sagrada Familia, travel

Stepping inside La Sagrada Familia cathedral is like walking into an enchanted forest. Your gaze goes and up and up, following the trunks of  trees toward light-filled branches.

The forest is made up of several kinds of stone, so each tree trunk has its own subtle shade, some leaning red, others green. They branch out at the top into smaller and smaller columns, like fingers stretching out to hold up an impossibly ornate ceiling.

Only it’s not a ceiling at all, but a canopy of leaves and stars woven tightly together, as you would find in any forest grove.

Toward the right of the main entrance is the heart of the cathedral with two massive organs and rows of pews for worship. There floating  beneath an umbrella of lights is the upward-gazing figure of the Christ.

Along the sides of the main chamber are spiraling staircases moving up the towers, to what and where, I do not know.

Colored light floods the cathedral, streaming through the stained glass windows, or projected along the walls and columns, flowing from blue to green, and gold to scarlet,

Glimpses of the crypts below can be seen through artful cut-outs in the stone.

 

Toward the exit is a large loggia featuring some of the furnishings Gaudi created for the cathedral, and a single simple painting, capturing the tenderness and grief at the fallen Son.

Below are two virtual tours of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. The first video is very short and gives you a 360 degree view of the interior main chamber. The second video, which takes around five minutes, shows both the exterior and interior, with some lovely aerial shots outside, while inside the church is full of worshipers during its consecration mass.

 

All the still photos in this post are my own except for the ceiling shot which came from Wikipedia.

My last blog post features the exterior of La Sagrada Familia and tells more about its creation.

 

“A Terrifying & Edible Beauty,” Gaudi’s La Sagrada Familia

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Antoni Gaudi, architecture, art, Barcelona, beauty, cathedral, church, inspiration, La Segrada Familia, travel

This stunning cathedral, a tribute to Antonio Gaudi’s genius and imagination, his love of God and Nature, was begun in 1882 and is still a work in progress. It’s hoped to be completed by the centennial of Gaudi’s death in 2026, but many believe it will stretch well beyond that date.

“There is no reason to regret that I cannot finish the church,” Gaudi wrote. “I will grow old but others will come after me. What must always be conserved is the spirit of the work, but its life has to depend on the generations it is handed down to and with whom it lives and is incarnated.”

“La Sagrada Família is made by the people and is mirrored in them. It is a work that is in the hands of God and the will of the people.”

On it’s completion, it will tower 560 feet, slightly less than the the highest natural landmark in the vicinity, Montjuïc hill . Gaudi believed that nothing should rise higher than the hand of God, and he revered Nature, not only as God’s handiwork, but as the inspiration for all that can be called art. “Nothing is art if it does not come from nature,” he once famously said. Therefore his buildings have no straight lines or sharp corners because “there are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature.”

Already his structure dominates the surrounding city of Barcelona, and it is only one-half of its envisioned height.

The model below shows what the completed structure is meant to look like, but only the brown parts are currently built.

Salvadore Dali referred to La Sagrada’s “terrifying and edible beauty.” Art historian Nikolaus Pevsner likened its growth to “sugar loaves and anthills.” Time Magazine found it “sensual, spiritual, whimsical, exuberant!” While George Orwell called it “one of the most hideous buildings in the world.”

I have to admit when I first saw it from the street its hugeness combined with its extremely ornate facade topped by construction cranes made the whole affair seem monstrous and grotesque. But upon closer inspection I found it fascinating and inspiring. Like Gaudi’s Casa Bottla, which I wrote about recently, around every corner, from every new angle, wherever my eye rested I discovered some new surprising detail to delight me.

The facade at front entrance to the cathedral, which celebrates the birth of Christ, is sumptuously ornate, as you see in the photos above. But as you pass through the building to the back entrance, commemorating Christ’s death, the style becomes more stark, with sharper lines, giving it a modern feel, as you see below.

Some of the most interesting and intricate parts of the exterior were the huge portals, the doors through which you pass from the exterior into the heart of the cathedral..

And here at the portal of Gaudi’s masterpiece I will leave you, saving the equally fascinating interior for my next post.

Painting Again, Forest Series

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abstract, art, forest, Mixed Media, Nature, oil pastel, painting, Paintings, trees, watercolor

I’ve started painting again, keeping toward the abstract, still experimenting with water-color and oil pastel, letting them show me how well they play together.

I’d been inspired by some of Rick Steven’s paintings, his intense close-ups of trees and barks. I love the colors, the texture, the shapes.

The painting above was my initial attempt. At first it seemed too vertical, too placid, so I began to build up the horizontal elements, the “foliage,” and finally came to the place where it seemed “done.”

Next I wanted to do a close-up of a shapely tree trunk, and again I was dissatisfied. Too vertical, no clear focus. So I began to add areas of “lichen,” I suppose you could call it, at the lower right and upper left. Something to attract the eye and allow it to move up or down the trunk. At some point it too seemed “complete.” This one may be my favorite of the three. I like the richness of the colors, the texture.

I’m not sure where the last one came from. I wanted to add a human element into the natural, something partially hidden, peeking out, more figurative than figure. The blue sprite appeared. But further down the tree trunk another face emerged, unbidden. With that addition, the painting took on a more ominous than playful feel. Not what I had intended at all. I’m not sure I like this one.  But it haunts me.

 

A Mermaid’s Dream House, Casa Battlo

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Antoni Gaudi, architecture, art, Art Noueau, Barcelona, Casa Battlo, travel

When I stepped inside Antoni Gaudi’s Casa Batllo in Barcelona, I felt like I was back on La Gitana, swimming through the coral beds and sea caves. Mesmerized by the mysterious and fantastic shapes I found at every turn, and dazzled by the kaleidoscopic colors that surrounded me, as if refracted through streams of light.

There are no straight lines in this house that floats upward four floors on spiral stairs. The rooms have no corners, only softly rounded contours, detailed by wisps, curls, and bubbles, as if sculpted by waves and etched with sea-foam. Light streams through every window and down stair shafts and through stained glass.

Follow me from ground floor to roof to see more of Gaudi’s masterpiece. All the photos are my own except where otherwise noted. More photos can be found at the link below.

Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was a Spanish architect from Catalonia. His most famous works, Casa Battlo and the Sagrada Familia cathedral, are located in Barcelona. While he was part of the Modernisme or Art Nouveau movements, his work was highly distinctive, elemental and organic, influenced by nature.  He took particular pleasure in detailing his creations, working in ceramics, stained glass, woodwork, and often created the furnishings in his homes.

I’ll have more of his work in another post on his Sagrada Familia.

Wikipedia Photo by Sara Terrones – Viajar lo cura todo

CC photo by Mstyslav Chernov on Wikipedia

Photo by Chongming 76 from Wikipedia

CC Photo by Sara Torones on Wikipedia

CC Photo by Sara Torones on Wikipedia

All photographs are mine except where otherwise noted.

 

Down the Rabbit Hole with Salvador Dali

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Alice in Wonderland, art, books, Bruges, illustrations, Paintings, Salvador Dali, sculpture, surrealism, travel

One highlight from my trip to Bruges this summer was visiting the Salvador Dali Museum. Dali is celebrated for his surrealistic paintings, his “art of exaggeration” and love of the bizarre. Less well known, but just as fantastic, are his book illustrations and sculpture.

My favorite was his Alice in Wonderland illustrations. An image of Alice skipping rope is hidden in nearly all the illustrations. See if you can find them.

 

Other drawings and book illustrations follow, among them from Don Quixote, Aladdin and His Lamp, MacBeth, and the Bible.

 

His sculptures are just as wild and wonderful.

 

And all this set in a corner below the famous Bell Tower featured in the equally bizarre and fantastic film In Bruges. No wonder my whole visit there felt surreal.

“There are some days I think I’m going to die from an overdosis of satisfaction.”                      – Salvador Dali

Read more about Dali’s Alice in Wonderland illustrations from Brain Pickings

Musee d’Orsay, Eye-Candy for Art Lovers

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art, art museum, artists, Impressionism, Musee d'Orsay, painting, sculpture, travel

I could have spent weeks savoring up all this museum has to offer, instead I had five hours. Still I was in heaven. The structure itself is a masterpiece, a renovated train station with a magnificent clock tower set on the Left Bank of the Seine River across from the Louvre.

This was the most visitor-friendly art museum I visited in Europe. An enormous hall was surrounded by various rooms on several floors all flowing into one another. I was forever lost in the Louvre and the Prado, but here I always felt gently guided as I roamed from one room to another in my exploration of all the artwork.

While the Louvre features art created before 1850, d’Orsay picks up from there, featuring an impressive array of Impressionists, both pre and post, including Van Gogh and Gauguin, Monet and Manet, Derain and Degas, Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Cezanne, among others, along with a powerful selection of sculpture, and artwork less familiar to me.

Below is a random sampling of some of the work I loved seeing.

What I loved too was being able to get so close I could see the individual brush strokes. See if you can guess whose paintings these came from.

These are just a fraction of the photos I took, which are a small fraction of all the wonderful artwork on display at the d’Orsay.

I leave you with a painting by only American I can remember seeing, although there may have been others. I was bewitched by this Winslow Homer I’d never seen before. It captures something of the enchantment I felt dancing in the arms of the masters on that magical day.