Friday, June 17, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
17C Myths of Spring to Summer - Locus Amoenus Allegories by Jan Brueghel the Elder 1568-1625 & Hendrick van Balen 1575-1632
As in these paintings, allegorical characters in stories & in art of this period were often located in garden settings. The locus amoenus was one of the traditional locations of epic & chivalric literature. As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a type of prose & verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of Medieval & Early Modern Europe.
Locus amoenus (Latin for "pleasant place") is a literary term which generally referring to an idealized place of safety or comfort, usually a beautiful, shady parkland or open woods, sometimes with connotations of Eden. A locus amoenus usually has 3 basic elements: trees, grass, & water. In these 2 paintings, Spring is full of flowers & Summer is filled with the practical fruits from Spring's flowers
Often, the locus amoenus garden will be in a remote setting & with only components or suggestions of a more formal, geometric, walled garden, such as the flower pots seen above. The locus amoenus can also be used to highlight the differences between urban & rural life or be a place of refuge from the processes of time & mortality. In some works, such gardens also have overtones of the regenerative powers of human sexuality marked out by flowers, & goddesses of springtime, love, & fertility. Ernst Robert Curtius formulated the concept's definition in his European Literature & the Latin Middle Ages (1953).
Jan Brueghel the Elder 1568-1625 & Hendrick van Balen 1575-1632 Summer, 1616
Monday, June 13, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Sunday, June 12, 2022
1636 Myth & Spring & Cherubs by Jan Brueghel the Younger 1601-1678 & Frans Francken the Younger 1581-1642
Here 4 seated women representing water, air, earth, & fire are surrounded by a lush landscape. The fish flowing from the water jug & the cornucopia of abundance cradled in the arms of the figure on the right correspond to the tactile elements of water & earth. The birds in the sky & trees & the accoutrements of battle in the foreground correspond to the intangible elements of fire & air. The figures, the still life objects, & the landscape work together as a unified scene, yet two different artists worked to create this painting. Frequent collaborators, the skilled figure painter Frans Francken II painted the women & background figures, & Jan Brueghel the Younger described the landscape.
Jan Brueghel the Younger (Flemish, 1601-1678) Frans Francken the Younger (Flemish, 1581-1642) A remote Landscape Setting with an Allegory of Water and Earth
Such collaboration between artists was common in Antwerp during the 1600s, as artists often specialized in either landscape or figure painting. Flemish artists of the time repeatedly painted representations of the 4 elements, suggesting that it was a popular subject with buyers. Brueghel the Younger depicted the senses, the elements, or the seasons as allegories many times throughout his career, either together or individually.
1630s. A remote Landscape Setting with Ceres (Allegory of Earth). Landscape by Jan Brueghel the Younger figures after Hendrick van Balen.
Here, earth is represented by the goddess Ceres, who is surrounded with a satyr, putti, & a figure holding a sheaf of wheat. Ceres, whose name means "creator," was the goddess of agriculture, worshiped over a large part of ancient Italy.
Those winged toddlers over Ceres' head in the painting clutching her crown, are they religious cherubs or secular putti? A putto (pl. putti) is a figure of a human toddler, usually male, often naked with wings, depicted especially in Italian Renaissance & Baroque art. The Latin word "putus" means boy or child. During the early modern period, artist Donatello revived & popularized putti figures in Florence during the 1420s.
Neroccio De' Landi (1447-1500) Two Putti, 1490-1510
In the European culture of the 1400s & 1500s, Cherubs & Putti had distinctly different roles. Biblically, Cherubs & Seraphs (Cherubim & Seraphim) were sacred angels in heaven closest to God. Putti, arose from Greco-Roman classical myths, not the Christian tradition, and were associated with Eros or Cupid as well as with the Muse Erato of lyric & love poetry.
Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520), Sistine Cherubs
As in these paintings, allegorical characters in stories & in art of this period were often located in garden settings. The locus amoenus was one of the traditional locations of epic & chivalric literature. As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a type of prose & verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of Medieval & Early Modern Europe. Locus amoenus (Latin for "pleasant place") is a literary term which generally referring to an idealized place of safety or comfort, usually a beautiful, shady parkland or open woods, sometimes with connotations of Eden. A locus amoenus usually has 3 basic elements: trees, grass, & water.
Often, the locus amoenus garden will be in a remote setting & with only components or suggestions of a more formal, geometric, walled garden. These paintings employ this setting. The locus amoenus can also be used to highlight the differences between urban & rural life or be a place of refuge from the processes of time & mortality. In some works, such gardens also have overtones of the regenerative powers of human sexuality marked out by flowers, & goddesses of springtime, love, & fertility. Ernst Robert Curtius formulated the concept's definition in his European Literature & the Latin Middle Ages (1953).
About these confusing Breughels -
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) 1525-1569 was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter & printmaker known for his landscapes & peasant scenes (later called genre painting). From 1559, he dropped the 'h' from his name & signed his paintings as Bruegel.
Pieter the Elder had 2 sons: Pieter Brueghel the Younger 1564 -1636 & Jan Brueghel the Elder 1568-1625 (both changed their name to Brueghel). Their grandmother, Mayken Verhulst, trained the sons because "the Elder" died when both were very small children. The older brother, Pieter Brueghel, copied his father's style but without the same great talent. Jan was more successful, as he turned to the Baroque style & collaborated with many fine artists.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger or Pieter Bruegel the Younger (before 1616 he signed his name as 'Brueghel' & after 1616 as 'Breughel') 1564 -1636 was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elder's work as well as his original compositions. The large output of his studio, which produced for the local & export market, contributed to the international spread of his father's imagery.
Jan Brueghel the Elder 1568-1625 was a Flemish painter, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder & father of Jan Brueghel the Younger 1601-1678. Many of his paintings are collaborations in which figures by other painters were placed in landscapes painted by Jan Brueghel; in other works, Brueghel painted the figures into another artist's landscape or architectural interior. The most famous of his collaborators was Peter Paul Rubens who collaborated on about 25 paintings.
Jan Brueghel the Younger 1601-1678 was a Flemish Baroque painter. Jan the Younger's best works are his extensive landscapes, either under his own name or made for other artists such as Hendrick van Balen as backgrounds. He collaborated with a number of prominent artists including Rubens, Hendrick van Balen (1575–1632), Adriaen Stalbemt (1580–1682), Lucas Van Uden (1596–1672), David Teniers the Younger, and his father-in-law Abraham Janssens. His pupils were his older sons Abraham , 1631-1690, Philips, & Jan Peeter 1628-1664, his nephew Jan van Kessel, & his younger brother Ambrosius.
Saturday, June 11, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Thursday, June 9, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Monday, June 6, 2022
Sunday, June 5, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Friday, June 3, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Presenting a fragrant Spring Rose to a Lady Love by Jeremiasz Falck (active 1656 -1677) engraver
Monday, May 30, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Sunday, May 29, 2022
Friday, May 27, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Monday, May 23, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Sunday, May 22, 2022
1901 Spring Idyll by George Henry Boughton (1833–1905) - An American 20C Personification
Saturday, May 21, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Friday, May 20, 2022
18C Personification of Spring (with background gardens, of course!) from Robert Sayer London in 1750
Here Spring is once again depicted as a fashionably-dressed young woman with flowers in her hair, picking a rose from a bush on the right, holding others in her apron, She is resting her elbow on a parapet overlooking a garden. In the background, a man is leaning against a garden balustrade, and a couple stand in front of a domed garden temple.
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Spring 2022 at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
18C Personification of Spring in the Garden from Carrington Bowles 1766
Here Spring is a stylish young woman standing on garden terrace, adding a rose to flowers in her apron. Her elbow rests on the garden plinth of an urn covered in a trailing plant. A basket of flowers sits on the plinth.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Spring 2022 at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Monday, May 16, 2022
17C Spring on Earth by William Marshall (British printmaker, 1617-1649)
Sunday, May 15, 2022
Spring at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Saturday, May 14, 2022
17C Spring Woman by Jean Leblond 1605-1666
Friday, May 13, 2022
Spring 2022 at Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania
Thursday, May 12, 2022
Coptic Artisans: History of Egyptian Textiles
...The importance of Egypt's textile industry is reflected in medieval documents, the diversity of preserved textiles – some referencing Pharaonic motifs & classical legends...The country’s reputation as a textile producer probably dates back almost 2,000 years. All it takes is a look at some of the textiles from the third to the twelfth centuries to see why. Exquisitely woven, elaborately designed & beautifully coloured, textiles produced in Egypt were so prized that they were traded all over the Mediterranean & beyond.
Fourth/fifth-century Coptic textile fragment (linen, wool) original; provenance: Akhmim. The Metropolitan Museum of ArtTens of thousands of textiles survive from the period predating the Arab conquest of Egypt, a time when most Egyptians were Christian & funerary rites involved burying people in their best clothes – often very finely-woven tunics. The arid climate has preserved these in excellent condition, providing a real insight into the world of Egyptian textiles. Because Muslim tradition was to bury the dead in simple shrouds, far fewer decorated textiles survive from the tenth to the twelfth centuries. Fortunately, however, this is a period when documentary evidence is rich, thanks to sources like the Geniza of the synagogue in Old Cairo, where thousands of documents bearing God’s name were preserved, as per Jewish tradition. Among such documents are contracts, letters to & from merchants, bills, & receipts, all of which clarify the important place that textiles had in Egyptian society.
Goitein, the German Arabist scholar who spent a lifetime painstakingly reading through the Geniza documents, discovered that textile production was a well-developed field, with highly specialized craftsmen who dealt with different stages of the production process. Documents from the 10C-12C refer to extremely specific professions, some of which still survive in Egyptian family names like al-Naqqadi (the unraveller of silk), al-Qattan (the preparer of flax), & al-Qazzaz (the silk weaver), all reflections of the sophistication of the industry. Perhaps less well-known is that dyers were often specialized in the production of a certain colour, or in the use of certain types of dyes – probably reflecting specific techniques of extracting dyes & ensuring that the colours would not run or fade. Thus, there are documents referring to dyers as al-qirimisini (the dyer of crimson), al-zaafarani (the saffron-dyer), or al-sammaq (referring to the use of sumaq), for example...
Fifth-century fragment of garment: square tapestry panel in polychrome wool depicting bird and ankh-within-wreath. The British MuseumSurviving Coptic textiles, which usually date from between the 5C-8C, show an incredible variety of patterns & motifs. Most surviving examples are actually tapestries, meaning that the designs are woven as part of the fabric itself, not applied to an existing fabric later, as embroidery or printed designs are. It is said that tapestry is one of the hardest art forms, as one creates & decorates the ‘canvas’ at the same time...
The range of surviving textiles is broad – many are garments...but some are household textiles, such as curtains, or wall hangings. Many of these, especially the earlier ones, are classical in taste, & bear strong resemblance to Roman mosaics, often managing to create the idea of shading very effectively, despite the difficulty of the medium...
5–6C CE Egyptian TAPESTRY - Myth - Female Spring Goddess
This small tapestry panel comes from Egypt. That area had a major weaving (especially linen) industry throughout the ancient and medieval period, which brought the country a great deal of its trade and wealth. Unlike the textiles of other cultures, many of these pieces have been preserved by Egypt's hot, dry climate, which prevents rotting. Personifications of the seasons were thought to represent prosperity.
Historically in many cultures, a female personification or a Spring goddess celebrated the hope of new growth as the decay of winter gave way to Nature's renewal and rebirth. Spring begins with the first green shoots and explodes into a multitude of beautiful blossoms and promise of good harvest. In ancient times, communities often held festivals to celebrate Spring goddesses who were associated with flowering, growth and fertility of the land.