Christmas in Germany

Because of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale associations, I think of Germany as the embodiment of Christmas. It seems to go with the gingerbread house of Hansel and Gretel. (Photo from flickr - I need to find the credit.)

A Christmas Carol

Okay, I've pretty much forgotten the story, but this is an adorable Victorian illustration for it.

'Tis the season...

For pretty Christmas pictures.

Kawase Hasui

Hasui was a brilliant artist, reaching his height (I think) in the 1920s and 30s. Traditional Japanese woodblock prints that are astonishing in their technical power and beauty.

Zojoji, Shiba (Snow) 1925

Kikyo, Gate of the Palace, 1929

Iten Pond, Shiba, 1929

http://collectionsonline.lacma.org (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

Ornamentation madness

Segaud, Armand -- Artist
Pluviôse : les poissons.
From Album de la Décoration. (Paris : Librairie des Arts Decoratifs,) Calavas, A., editor.

Art Nouveau door design
Kühnel, Richard -- Artist
Moderne Wanddekoration mit Kunstverglasungen (1889-1928)

Persian rug
From Das polychrome Ornament : hundert Tafeln, Gold-, Silber- und Farben-Druck . . . antike und orientalische Kunst : Mittelalter Renaissance, XVII und XVIII Jahrhundert : eine historische und praktische sammlung. (Stuttgart : Paul Neff, 1874.) Racinet, A. (Auguste) (1825-1893), author.

All at NYPL Digital gallery.

NYPL Digital again

Grüner, Ludwig, 1801-1882 -- Artist
Part of an ancient pilaster in the Villa Medici at Rome.
The French bean and the convolvolus from nature.
In: Specimens of ornamental art, selected from the best models of the classical epochs. (created 1850)

Studies in Design (1876)

More NYPL madness!

The NYPL Digital library continues to amaze. There are so many scans of ornamentation. This one looks absolutely three-dimensional.

Rockin

Just rediscovered this artist - "Let's go, let's go, let's go" (aka There's a Thrill on Hill), "Finger-Popping Time", "The Switcheroo", "Work With Me Annie."

Dick Tracy

There was an article about surreal 1930s comic strips...where was it? I have to find it.

French Illuminated Manuscript

Here's a more colorful one.

Beautiful French illuminated manuscript images, hi-res, are at this site: http://www.moyenageenlumiere.com/. Most are more colorful than this, I just liked this one.

Earlysound podcast

Just discovered this podcast on www.podcast.net. It's all early music, hosted by a genial British guy with what I think is a cockney accent. Check it out if you like music of the medieval, renaissance and early baroque.

The Age of Innocence

ntf
Originally uploaded by vidalia_11.

I'm listening to this as an audiobook read by Brenda Dayne. It is a wonderful book by Edith Wharton. Beautifully written, sad, moving, emotional. Highly recommended. The movie is also excellent.

This audiobook is available as a podcast and on this website: http://brendadayne.blogspot.com/.

Henry Morton Stanley

I listened to an audiobook, Into Africa by Martin Dugard. First time I ever heard the real story of Stanley finding David Livingstone in central Africa. Livingstone was searching for the source of the Nile. He wouldn't leave Africa and died there. Stanley later returned to Africa and did a lot of exploration. [okay, it's more complicated than that.] This opens up a new area of interest for me. The explorers of Africa, South America, and South Pacific faced incredible dangers and illnesses. What made them go to these places and then conquer them?

Magical Places - St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg Church Domes
Originally uploaded by Brenda M.

Church built where Czar Alexander II was assassinated, hence its name, "Church of the Savior on the Spilled Blood". from flickr

Labradoodle puppy

Cute!!

English Country Cottage

October bats

Aren't they cute? From site Bibliodyssey (in links list).

Colette Calascione

Swimmer (1998). Her paintings are surrealist riffs on classical and old-school surrealist art (e.g. Max Ernst). Very nice paintings.

http://calascione.com/index.htm

Neptune and Amphitrite

neptune and amphitrite
Originally uploaded by heavenuphere.

This beautiful mosaic is very large and decorated a wall at Herculaneum. (from flickr)

Theater Poster (c. 1894)

Image at NYPL Digital Gallery.

For Annie [1849]

FOR ANNIE
E.A. Poe

Thank Heaven! — the crisis —
The danger is past;
And the lingering illness
Is over at last —
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know, I am
Shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move,
As I lie at full length: —
But no matter! — I feel
I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead —
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.

The sickness — the nausea —
The pitiless pain —
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain —
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.

The moaning and groaning —
The sighing and sobbing —
Are quieted now; with,
The horrible throbbing
At heart: — oh, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!

And ah, of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated — the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the napthaline river
Of Glory accurst. —
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst: —

Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground —
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.

And ah! let it never be
foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed —
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit here
Blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting, its roses —
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses.

For now, while so quietly
Lying, I fancy
A holier odor about me,
of pansy —
A rosemary odor
Commingled with pansies —
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansy.

And so I lie happily
Bathing in many
A dream of the love
And the beauty of Annie —
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me —
She fondly caressed —
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast —
Deeply to sleep from the
Heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm —
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.

And I lie so composedly
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead —
And I rest so contentedly
Now in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead —
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead: —

But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars of the Heaven —
Sparkles with Annie —
It glows with the thought
Of the love of my Annie —
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.


------------------------

[Annie was Nancy Locke Heywood Richmond. Poe and her closest friends always called her Annie, a name she adopted legally after her husband's death in 1873. In a letter of March 23, 1849, Poe tells Annie Richmond, "I think the lines 'For Annie' (those I now send) much the best I have ever written."]

From E.A. Poe Society of Baltimore website: http://www.lfchosting.com/eapoe/works/index.htm

Liam's Images From Old Books

This person has scanned a lot of images from antique books, including their covers. Really great stuff.
http://www.fromoldbooks.org/

Autumn

Mountain Birches // Colour
Originally uploaded by laBolstad.

Beauty of fall.

It's October

A Dream Within A Dream
E.A. Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Holy Family

Muenster.
Originally uploaded by Marcel van Gunst.

Generate personalized notepaper

This is pretty neat. I love low-tech things like this.

Harvard instructor Simson Garfinkel offers a web service which creates custom lined notepaper PDF documents for download.

The PDF includes your name and an "if lost please return to" note, a place to record page number, a small monthly calendar, and an optional notes summary box. Choose the font family of the text and whether or not the paper should have punch holes for perfect binder filler. This is also a great way to recycle printer paper at the office - print out notepaper on the blank, unused side.

http://www.simson.net/notepaper/index.cgi

Alfonso Ossorio

This painting, Double Portrait (1944) immediately struck me as surrealistic without any pretensions. The artist was obviously disturbed.

This elegant, hallucinatory drawing combines grotesque anatomical fragments, realistic portraiture, and surrealistic fantasy. Ossorio's state of mind can only be described as tormented, induced by his experiences during World War II, a recent divorce, and his uneasy acknowledgment of homosexuality. Double Portrait is based specifically on his memories of Camp Ellis, Illinois, where he suffered a life threatening accident and also worked as a medical illustrator, documenting injured soldiers and prisoners of war. (from Smithsonian website)

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám - Elihu Vedder

From the moment of its publication, Elihu Vedder's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám achieved unparalleled success. The first edition appeared in Boston on 8 November 1884; six days later, it was sold out. Critics rushed to acclaim it as a masterwork of American art, and Vedder (1836 - 1923) as the master American artist. (from Smithsonian website)

American artists at Smithsonian

The top picture is Strasbourg, le Pont du Corbeau (1936) by Maurice Achener. The bottom painting is Toward Evening (1951) by Junius Allen. From the Smithsonian American Art Museum site: http://americanart.si.edu/index3.cfm

M.C. Escher

We all know that Escher is great. When I was a teenager, the Escher paperback came out and he was all the rage. I used to stare at his artworks while listening to George Harrison's "All Things Must Pass" album. These images are from the National Gallery of Art (Washington DC) website.

Alwyn Court Apartments

Photo by Berenice Abbott. This building built in 1909 is still there, an extravaganza of Victorian and Moorish elements. Alwyn Court, 174-182 West 58th Street and 911-917 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan (1938).

Berenice Abbott (II)

Abbott took this eerie photo of a Victorian mansion, probably about to be demolished. Wheelock Mansion, 661 West 158th Street, Manhattan (1937). At the NYPL Digital Gallery.

Berenice Abbott

There is a treasure trove of photos by Berenice Abbott in the NYPL Digital Gallery. This is Murray Hill Hotel, from Park Avenue and 40th Street, Manhattan (ca. 1935).

NYPL Digital Gallery

I just discovered this amazing gallery of illustrations. It's clearly worth many visits. This is an illustration of Mytilus stagnalis by James Sowerby. I guess that means mussels. http://digitalgallery.nypl.org

PocketMod

This is a cute idea. Very low tech. This website has presdesigned pages to create a little paper PDA, then you print it (1 page only) and follow folding instructions. Voila, you have a little organizer. http://pocketmod.com

Jan Ekels II

This charming painting is at the Rijksmuseum. Writer Trimming His Pen. www.rijksmuseum.nl