penwithlit

Pastels among the Nabis: Roussel, Ranson, Vuillard

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 15, 2022
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Lovely paintings these.

Several of the Nabis painted in pastels during their careers. Of the three I cover in this article, it was perhaps Ker-Xavier Roussel who was the most prolific in this medium, and created some of his finest works using it. All three benefitted from a relatively conventional training: Roussel, for instance, started as a pupil in the studio of Diogène Maillart, an academic history painter, and from there went on to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. All three were founding members of the Nabis when they were students at the Académie Julian under Tony Robert-Fleury.

Ker-Xavier Roussel (1867–1944), Women and Children by a Village (Let the little children come to me) (c 1893-95), pastel on grey paper, 37 x 52 cm, Private collection. The Athenaeum.

Roussel’s Women and Children by a Village, also known by the Biblical quotation of Let the little children come to me, from about 1893-95…

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On love and domestic life – Vikram Seth

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 14, 2022
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Very sweet!

my word in your ear

Prandial Plaint

My love, I love your breasts, I love your nose.
I love your accent and I love your toes.
I am your slave. One word, and I obey.
But please don't slurp your morning brew that way.

Vikram Seth (1952 -

From The Times of India …

Vikram Seth is one if India’s most renowned writers. He’s known for his fiction and poetry and has been awarded with several honours in both Britain and India for his contirbution towards literature. He’s recieved a Padma Shri, a Sahitya Academy Award, a Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, an Order of the British Empire(Officer) and several other prizes for individual works.

His poetry is known for it’s witty wordplay, it’s rhythm and rhyme scheme. With simple words and thoughtful phrasing he evokes rich imagery, and there’s always a clever message clear towards the end.

And this is clearly evident in the above poem!

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Paintings of Paul Signac 13: Watercolours to 1918

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 14, 2022
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These are really lovely- magical in fact.

The Eclectic Light Company

Over the last three months, I’ve shown many of the oil paintings of Paul Signac (1863-1935), but have omitted his watercolours. During his early career, he seems to have used these primarily as preparatory sketches made in front of his motif, then recomposed and adjusted them to form the basis of his studio oil paintings. Given the painstakingly slow pointillist technique, it’s hardly surprising that he found this preferable to alternatives such as oil sketching.

In time, he was persuaded to exhibit these sketches, and by the twentieth century they came to form a substantial part of his art that was seen by the public. In this and the next couple of articles I show a small selection from these. Sadly, most of his watercolours from before 1918 are no longer accessible, but here are a few from that period that reveal Signac’s other art, completely different from his oil…

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Autoportrait Day 195~ Trini Sotos

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 14, 2022
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The Misty Miss Christy

A random survey of self-portraits created by women through the centuries

Catalan painter and illustrator Trinidad Sotos Bayarri (1927-2019)

Self-portrait, 1946 / Oil on canvas / Sabadell Art Museum, Catalonia, Spain

[2 embedded links above]

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Following Boris to Hollywood

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 14, 2022
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I am not here following the caretaker Prime Minister who has resigned but not. He appears to live in some sort of borderland theatre which has become boring beyond belief; I am referring to Boris Drayluk’s collection of poems My Holywood published by Paul Dry Books. I have just finished Jonathan Coe’s Mr Wilder and Me and am currently reading Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist which seem to form a suitable background on which to project Drayluk’s moving collection.

His collection begins with a mixture of recollection and nostalgia-

This much is clear :the good old days have passed

Some giant fig trees, a few pygmy palms

deep broken shade on disenfranchised grass;

This magnificent collection by the Editor-in-Chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books has many lovely poems. Dralyuk has a stirring feeling for the dilapidated landscape of Los Angeles and a wide understanding of the hinterland of European Culture. He is a skilled translator and his poems have a deep moving quality appropriately relieved by wit and humour. Here is one short example-

OLD FLAME

Above the tongue-tip is an air so blue

I can compare it only to how you

who once consumed me in a yellow heat,

now scarcely singe me when we meet.

Dralyuk writes of loss and passing time and of memory under the condition of exile. I particularly enjoyed Stravinsky at the Farmer’s Market; here are two stanzas.

Christopher Isherwood is a disciple, slipping

off to the Viertals on the weekends far from Swami,

swimming naked. In Brentwood, Schoenburg lobs grapefruits

and insults at Feuchtwanger’s wife.

Herr Doktor Faustus, exile is no bargin.

You move von heute auf morgen.

Stravinsky lunches at the Farmer’s Market.

The Firebird is plucked, Petrushka’s henpecked.

Here there are layers of sorrow portrayed in a dream-like landscape. Here is a photograph of the poet and a YouTube interview on this collection.

Tags Boris Dralyuk, Dr Faustus, Feuchtwanger, Hollywood, Schoenburg, Stravinsky

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Verlust des Gesperrten

Texte von Wolfram Ette

Warum ist die gesperrte Schrift, wie man sie aus den Texten Nietzsches und Karl Kraus’, oder aus älteren, getippten Doktorarbeiten kennt, aus dem Schriftbild vollkommen verschwunden? Es ist ja nicht so, dass diese Zeitalter keine Kursive gekannt hätten. Wenn zum Beispiel in einer anderen Sprache zitiert wurde, kam sie zur Geltung. Verzichtet wurde in den letzten Jahrzehnten also auf eine bestimmte Form der schriftlichen Ausdrucks, wohl um eines einheitlichen Satzspiegels willen.

Daran, dass der Satzspiegel dadurch einheitlicher wurde, kann es auch keine Zweifel geben. Zu fragen ist also, was denn zuvor an der gesperrten Schrift so wichtig schien, dass man die Seite sich flecken ließ mit den hellen Stellen, an denen der Text fadenscheinig und gewissermaßen durchsichtig wurde auf das Blatt Papier, dass ihn trägt. Warum dieser offensichtlicher Verzicht auf die Schönheit der Seite?

Adorno hat einen schönen Text über Satzzeichen geschrieben. Seine Idee ist dabei, dass sie, die es…

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Sommerabend im Park

Sweet and lovely

Das poetische Zimmer

©Constanze

🌿~Rendezvous mit dem Sommer~ 🌿

Erwarte dich im Park zur Dämmerstunde,
wenn seidensamt dein Atem mich umweht
und aus dem Dickicht der Gezweige geht
ein sanftes Rauschen, Flüstern in die Runde.

Auf jeder Blüte, über allem Grün
hast zärtlich süß Aromen du gebettet
und warme Zunder in die Nacht gerettet
vom letzten Funken eines Tags voll Glühn.

Von Blatt zu Blatt bezeichne mir dein Herz,
schick Schmetterlinge tanzend himmelwärts,
lass Mücklein spielen, Vögel singen Lieder
und ewig auch in mir – du hast mich wieder!

©Constanze

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Seaside Passage, Rovjin, Croatia

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 13, 2022
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Steps down to the sea-reminds me of Bethesda Hill!!

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Irmgard Keun – Das kunstseidene Mädchen

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 12, 2022
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literaturweimar

Roman, Universitas Verlag, 1932

Was ist ein kunstseidenes Mädchen? Aus welcher Perspektive wird erzählt? Wie urteilte die Kritik?

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Telemann: Fliehet hin, ihr bösen Tage

Post author By penwithlit
Post date July 12, 2022
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At Sunnyside - Where Truth and Beauty Meet

“Melancholy”, by Odilon Redon, 1876, Various charcoals and gouache, with pastel and black chalk, and touches of stumping and erasing, on pale-pink wove paper with red and blue fibers altered to a golden tone, laid down on gray wove paper, Image Source: Art Institute of Chicago

Fliehet hin, ihr bösen Tage from the communion cantata Fliehet hin, ihr bösen Tage, TWV 4:19* by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767)

TRANSLATION:
Fly away, evil days
of my life, fly away!
Constant suffering has left me
less than half alive.
Bitters and affliction
have been my drink and daily bread.
My time has been spent in groans,
signs and wringing my hands.
Jeffrey Stivers

Thanks for Visiting 🙂

~Sunnyside

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