Maxfield Parrish | dual personalities

How does it feel?

by chuckofish

Well, it’s the last week of July and the summer continues to rush by in a blur.

If you want to feel really old, I’ll remind you that today is the 58th anniversary of the day Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. He was 24 years old. Dylan was said to have “electrified one half of his audience, and electrocuted the other”. He didn’t return to the festival for 37 years.

Dylan took exception with the people who called him a traitor. He later said: “These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you’ve been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equatable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil m-f-ckers can rot in hell.”

Today is also the birthday of the artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966) who lived a long, productive and successful life. He was married once and had four children. He was a Quaker. During his career, he produced almost 900 pieces of art.

He lived in New Hampshire where he belonged to the Cornish Art Colony…

His painting Daybreak became the most popular art print of the 20^th century. Supposedly one in four U.S. households owned a print of the neoclassical landscape with two nymphs in the foreground.

We also toast Walter Brennan (1894-1974) on his birthday. Brennan played more than 230 film and television roles during a career that spanned nearly five decades. He won three Academy Awards for best supporting actor and deserved several more for movies like To Have and Have Not (1944), Red River 1948)…

and My Darling Clementine (1946) which I recently watched again. He is the definitive Old Man Clanton, playing against type, menacing and scary.

So join me in toasting these three great American artists. Put down your phone. Listen to some Bob. Look at some art. Watch an old movie. You’ll be glad you did.

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January 25, 2017

The moon is mine

by chuckofish

George Sotter (1879-1953)

I have a compact to commune
A monthly midnight with the Moon;
Into its face I stare and stare,
And find sweet understanding there.

As quiet as a toad I sit
And tell my tale of days to it;
The tessellated yarn I’ve spun
In thirty spells of star and sun.

And the Moon listens pensively,
As placid as a lamb to me;
Until I think there’s just us two
In silver world of mist and dew.

In all of spangled space, but I
To stare moon-struck into the sky;
Of billion beings I alone
To praise the Moon as still as stone.

And seal a bond between us two,
Closer than mortal ever knew;
For as mute masses I intone
The Moon is mine and mine alone.

–Robert Service, from “Moon-Lover”

In case you have forgotten, a tessellation of a flat surface is the tiling of a plane using one or more geometric shapes, called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps. In mathematics, tessellations can be generalized to higher dimensions and a variety of geometries. A periodic tiling has a repeating pattern.

(I’ll admit, I had to look it up.)

The painting above (“Silent Night” c. 1923) is by George Sotter (1979-1952). The paintings that follow are by Maxfield Parrish, Bertha Lum and Albert Bierstadt.

All photos from Pinterest.

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October 28, 2014

“In silence the three of them looked at the sunset and thought about God.”*

by chuckofish

This is one of the trees in my front yard. These last few days of Indian Summer have really reminded me of Maxfield Parrish paintings–especially the light at the end of the day when the setting sun reflects so beautifully off of the orange leaves.

Know what I mean?

If you haven’t noticed, be sure to look this evening.

*Maude Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy and Tib

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January 31, 2014

No cloud above, no earth below,— A universe of sky and snow!”

by chuckofish

Yesterday’s post with the wonderful Hiroshige landscape got me thinking about my love of landscape paintings that include snow. I have always loved them. I don’t know why.

I have one in my kitchen which I love.