On Growing Old...Really Old

. Pierre Auguste Renoir (French artist, 1841-1919) Old Woman, Madame le Coeur


Eighty-Five
by Betty Lockwood

As I grow older, I feel younger
more eager, more full of love.
More alive the closer I move to death.
More whole the closer I move into blight.
The sweeter life grows as fervent
clamors of youth pass.
Passions of old age take deeper
flavor, ripened, more nuanced.
More easily words and affections
flow when the self-conscious gaucherie
of youth has passed.

Wholeness suddenly is mine;
ragged edges of fear hemmed.

Mirrors say Look. Do not
be afraid. You are what you are.

by Betty Lockwood from A Matriach's Song  Peter Randall Publisher, Portsmouth, NH 2001


George Wesley Bellows (American artist, 1882-1925) Aunt Fanny 1920


Christian Seybold (German artist, 1697-1768) Old Woman

Christian von Schneidau (American artist, 1893–1976) Woman Reading

Henry-Jules-Jean Geoffroy (French genre painter 1853-1924) Old Woman’s Head

Women in veils 1880s-1930s

Pierre Auguste Renoir (French painter, 1841-1919) Madame Darras as a Horsewoman


Women have been wearing veils since at least the 13th century B.C. in Assyria. Classical Greek & Hellenistic statues sometimes depict Greek women with both their head & face covered by a veil.  Statues of Persian elite women from Persepolis show examples of some women wearing veils & some without.  Here are a few from the 19th & early 20th century, which I find fascinating.

 Emily Eastman (Loudon New Hampshire 1804-c 1841) Woman in Veil c 1825

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Woman on the Champs-Elysees by Night 1890

Anders Leonard Zorn (Swedish artist, 1860-1920) In mourning, 1880

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Two Woman 1892

Alice Pike Barney (American artist, 1857-1931) Self Portrait

Jozsef Rippl-Ronai (Hungarian artist, 1861-1927) Mme Mazet 1896

Mary Cassatt (American-born artist, 1844-1926) Woman Arranging Her Veil 1886

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French painter, 1841-1919), Jeune femme à la voilette

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Woman with a Veil 1890

Edmund Tarbell (American painter, 1862-1938) The Blue Veil 1899

Joseph DeCamp (American artist, 1858-1923) Pink Feather Brown Veil 1908

Gustav Klimt (Austrian Symbolist painter, 1862-1918) Girl With Blue Veil, 1902

Edmund Tarbell (American painter, 1862-1938) Summer Breeze 1904

Gustave Van de Woestijne (Belgian artist, 1881-1947) Les deux printemps

Pierre Bonnard (French painter, 1867-1947) Woman in a Veil c 1917

Henri Matisse (French artist, 1919-1942)  The Spaniard 1928

Rudolf Wacker (Austrian painter, 1893 -1939) Ilse Wacker with Mask, 1925

Francis John Clarence Westenra Plantagenet Hastings (British artist 1901-1990) Untitled, 1934

 Thomas William Roberts (English-born Australian artist, 1856-1931) Portrait of Florence, 1898

Jean-Louis Forain (French artist, 1852-1931) Head of a Woman with a Veil

Henri Matisse (French artist, 1919-1942) Woman with a Veil

Alice Pike Barney (American artist, 1857–1931) Dream Book

Tamara de Lempicka (Polish Art Deco artist, Russia 1898–1980 Mexico) (Tamara Rosalia Gurwik-Gorska) La Couronne de Fleurs II, 1932

My favorite landscape from Jean Édouard Vuillard 1868-1940

Jean Édouard Vuillard (French artist, 1868-1940) Breton Landscape, Saint-Jacut

Swiss artist Félix Edouard Vallotton 1865-1925 paints traditional Portraits

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1884 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) The Artist's Mother

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1886 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Juliette Lacour

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1886 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) The Artist's Parents

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1892 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) The Invalid

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1902 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Workshop with my Wife

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1904 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) womn Reading at the Window

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1906 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Melot Martha wife of Alfred Natanson

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1907 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Gertrude Stein

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1908 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Gabrielle Valloton

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1908 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Mrs Hasen

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1909 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) At the Cafe

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1911 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Coquettery

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1911 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Seated Black Woman

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1911 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Young Woman with Yellow Scarf

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1912 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Children of Hans and Lisa Hanloser

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1913 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) The Yellow Sheet

Swiss artist Félix Edouard Vallotton 1865-1925 paints rather non-traditional andscapes

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1913 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) The Rising Tide

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1895 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Moonlight

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1915 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) the sheaves

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1921 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) View of Cagne from Horseback

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1922 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Part of the Town of Pont-Audemer

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1917 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Verdun

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1920 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Alyscamps morning sun

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1923 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) A Vallon Landscape

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1922 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) The Family of Trees

Félix Edouard Vallotton 1925 (Swiss artist, 1865-1925) Landscape Rocamadour