Stir it up

by chuckofish

O God our Father, let us find grace in thy sight so as to have grace to serve thee acceptably with reverence and godly fear; and further grace not to receive thy grace in vain, nor to neglect it and fall from it, but to stir it up and grow in it, and to persevere in it unto the end of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Lancelot Andrewes

We have had rain, rain and more rain this week. June was the rainiest on record. I am not complaining, but I hope we see some sunshine this weekend. Here are some paintings by Oscar Edmund Berninghaus (2 October 1874 – 27 April 1952), who was an American artist and a founding member of the Taos Society of Artists, to help us imagine some drier, warmer air.

Oscar Berninghaus

berninghausen Taos PO

berninghaus-in-the-village-lavacita

He is best known for his paintings of Native Americans, New Mexico and the American Southwest.

And furthermore, Oscar Berninghaus, you will recall, was born in in St. Louis, Missouri. His father ran a lithography business, which stimulated an interest in watercolor painting in Oscar. Reading about Berninghaus, I found out that at sixteen he quit school and took a job with Compton and Sons, a local lithography company. 

This made me remember that I had heard about a fantastic new exhibit titled “A Walk in 1875 St. Louis” at the Missouri History Museum. One of the most amazing maps of a city ever created was Compton & Dry’s “Pictorial St. Louis,” drawn in 1875 and published in 1876.

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plate 77

Using this incredibly detailed cartographic masterpiece as its backdrop, the Missouri History Museum developed a 6,000 square-foot exhibition that explores the collective life of 1875 St. Louis through photographs, artifacts, news, writings and first hand accounts of the day.

I guess I’ll see if the OM would like to check it out this weekend. A museum, after all, is a good place to go on a rainy day.

This is how my mind works.

Have a good weekend!