Claude

An Artist, Drawing
c. 1640

Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) was born in France but established himself at an early age among the foreign-born painters in Rome who made a specialty of landscape. Italian painters of the 17th century seldom chose landscape as a subject in its own right.

Aeneas Landing at Pallantium
1677

Acis & Galatea
1657

Apulian Shepherds
c. 1657

John the Baptist, Preaching
1640-60

Landscape with Dancing
1663

Landscape
1640-60

Roman Landscape
1640-60

Study of Trees
c. 1635-40

The Claude drawings seen here are among those that have remained together for the past 250 years within the stupendous archive of art from Italy maintained in England by the Royal Colleciton.

Flying

Andrea Sacchi
Study for Aurora 

Unknown Roman artist
Viictory of Godfrey de Bouillon (detail)

Guercino
Angel of the Annunciation

Sebastiano del Piombo
God the Father

Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Design for a Looking-glass for the Queen of Sweden

Perino del Vaga
Abduction of Oreithyia by Boreas

Michelangelo Anselmi
St. Anselm Appears to Abbott Helsin

Palma Giovane
Design for Altarpiece

Pietro da Cortona
Angels Surrounding Earth

Guido Reni
Phaethon

Parmigianino
Pegasus & Muse

Carlo Maratta
Lion of San Marco

Lions, horses, angels, saints and God the Father – all carrying on a life in the sky (some with wings, some without) and all with the same authoritative grace, like Balanchine dancers. These otherworldly pieces of paper with markings in charcoal and wash and ink are preserved (for the dim eyes of the present) among the accumulated Italian drawings in the Royal Collection.

Stones

The drawing at top in red chalk is inscribed along its lower right-hand edge – Stonehenge by Mr. Henry Gyles. It was created on the spot in Wiltshire about 1680 – according to the Tate, where it is reverently preserved (along with other works on paper seen here).

Above, another rendering (in watercolor) of a distant Stonehenge – from a sketchbook kept by J.M.W. Turner between 1799 and 1802. Below, ink and chalk on blue paper – a nearer view of the same subject from a Turner sketchbook dated 1827.

Later in 1827, back in his studio, Turner produced a more elaborate Stonehenge watercolor. This picture became the basis for an engraving by R. Wallis (below) published in 1829. Turner's Stonehenge – in all its versions – looks magical and beautiful but weightless.

A decade later the "young genius" William James Müller (English-born son of an immigrant father) made his own watercolor of Stonehenge (above). Critics of the day said that Müller "could suggest more, with fewer touches" than any of his older established colleagues (a group that would have included Turner). And Müller's Stonehenge is successfully heavy, that much is definite. He died in 1845, at the shocking age of 33.

In 1973 English artist Henry Moore (1898-1986) created a portfolio of intaglios/lithographs called Stonehenge. On the heaviness spectrum, Moore's interests appear nearer to Müller's than to Turner's.

Pharmaceutical Poetry

Ativan

That dream of a cricket
in the dark of the night
at the foot
of the gallows tree.

Virtuous
cricket. Little, hopeful
heart-
shaped face
lit up by the moon.

Little, hopeful, insistent
song
about the future
sung
to a hanged man's boots.

– Laura Kasischke (from Poetry, October 2012)

Sputnik Baby

I imagine the above as a propaganda photo of the early Space Age when the Russians had launched Sputnik and America rushed to overtake them. In reality it is Mabel in her bed dismantling her mobile.





After eating and washing, when it was time to get dressed, we chose the Friday outfit with great care to mark the final day of the many ten-hour days we have spent together over the past month and more.





And revisited many of our mutually favorite activities. Of course we will still be seeing each other often, but not with the same sustained intensity. It was a slightly sad day for that reason.

March Garden

A gardening afternoon in the East Bay under gray skies. Early spring flowers like the daffodils and grape hyacinths are fading out now here in Northern California and the primroses that lasted all winter in pots have suddenly decided to give up the ghost also.




In trying to replace them with fresh recruits from the local nursery I inattentively managed to break a couple of the terracotta pots and have conscientiously documented my clumsiness here because it would be wrong to imply that the world of gardening is one long trouble-free lark.






All the same, new plants did eventually find stable new homes (indifferent to the fate of their predecessors, dumped into the compost bin) while long-term residents of the borders submitted to rather severe cultivation and trimming.



My daughter's roses are in early leaf. There haven't been any really warm days yet to encourage them much but they are set to take off whenever those warm days arrive.