Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Sunday, April 20, 2014
The countryside comes alive with Stanley Spencer 1891-1959
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Cottages at Burghclere
Stanley Spencer allows reality to dominate in his silent landscapes & intimate portraits. My landscapes, he once wrote, are places waiting for their figures. "My landscapes compared with my other work are carried out with a hard relentless persistence and dogged determination to go through with it, which gives them a competent and finished but lifeless and hard look," he complained. Once Spencer injects figures into his landscapes, they become stories & reality gets distorted. "Distortion arrives from the effort to see something in a way that will enable [the painter] to love it." Stanley Spencer, out of Sermons by Artists (1934)
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Cookham Farm Gate 1950
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Old Tannery Mills, Gloucestershire 1939
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Chestnuts
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Rock Gardens, Cookham Dene
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Cows
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Buttercups in a Meadow
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Apple Gatherers 1912-13
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Landscape in North Wales
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Gardening
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Cockmarsh Hill Cookham 1935
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Saint Francis and the Birds
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Scarecrow, Cookham 1934
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Sunflower and Dog Worship 1937
Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891 – 1959) Cookham
Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Christmas with The Washingtons at Mount Vernon
The Washingtons preferred to spend the holiday with family & friends, & George & Martha frequently had guests over at Mount Vernon to celebrate Christmas. While at Mount Vernon guests were encouraged to make themselves at home & take part in typical seasonal activities. Hunting & foxhunting, for example, were particularly favored activities. Twice in 1768 & 3 times in both 1771 & 1773, George Washington went hunting with visiting friends between Christmas & Twelfth Night.
“The General and Mrs. Washington reached home Christmas Eve. His 'people from the various farms gathered at the gate and along the drive to give them welcome.
"They lighted the night with bonfires and made it noisy with fiddling and dancing in the quarters. At the great door of the mansion the home-comers were greeted by a troop of relatives, and next day the neighbors drove in from all directions to add their welcome."
"A letter has been preserved, written by a little girl of the Lewis family of Fredericksburg, describing this joyous Christmas-tide. “I must tell you what a charming day I spent at Mt. Vernon with Mama and Sally. The General and Madame came home on Christmas Eve, and such a racket as the servants made! They were glad of their coming. Three handsome young officers came with them. All Christmas afternoon people came to pay their respects and duty. Among these were stately dames and gay young women. The General seemed very happy and Mrs. Washington was up before daybreak making everything as agreeable as possible for everybody.”