Artz the Bastille

Sunday July 14 was Bastille Day.  The actual phrase is La Fête Nationale. It was a day to celebrate the happy conclusion to the French Revolution.  There was fireworks, feasting, wine drinking and people ran naked through the streets as a show of their new found freedom.

The Bastille Day Military Parade has taken place every July 14th morning since 1880. It is the longest and oldest regular military parade in Europe.

The Bastille was actually a medieval fortress that was called Bastille Saint-Antoine. It was built to protect the Eastern entrance in to Paris at a gate called Porte Saint-Antoine in 1357.  

Bastille map and location of the Porte Saint~Antoine

From Turqot's Paris 1739

In 1417 the Bastille Saint-Antoine became a state prison. 5,279 prisoners had passed behind its walls by 1789. On July 14 seeking gum powder and other ammunition local folk stormed the Bastille. There were only 7 prisoners being held in the tower.

         Fall of the Bastille July 14, 1789

Collection De Vinck / BnFs    

This week we will look at paintings of the Bastille. We will also share some interesting facts regarding the Bastille Saint-Antoine and the events of July 14 1789. 

American Pastel Artz

Henrietta de Beaulieu Dering widow of Robert Dering the fifth son of Sir Edward Dering, Baronet married the Reverend Gideon Johnston in Dublin Ireland in April of 1705. She was a single mother with two daughters when she married Reverend Johnston. 

                                 

                                                             PORTRAIT OF A GENTLEMAN, THOUGHT TO BE MR. GEEKIE

 By 1707 she was living in Charles Town, South Carolina surrounded by poverty and illness. To supplement the family income Henrietta started producing small portraits of members of the wealthier families from her husband’s congregation. She used pastels and produced many portraits between 1707 and even a few as late as 1729.

She had brought the pastels with her from Ireland where she had learned to use them from following the paths of Edward Luttrell and Edmund Ashfield as they introduced Dublin to this new medium.

                                           Marianne Fleur Du Gue 

Her female subjects are often shown in chemises while the men are wearing street clothes. She would sign and date the back of each portrait.

She is quite possibly the first identified female portrait painter in the American colonies as well as the first to use pastels.

Henrietta's pastel supply began to dwindle while she lived in Charles Town and you will be able to see the difference in what she created in Ireland, South Carolina and again in New York once she had taken a trip back to Ireland and made a stop in France to purchase more pastels. 

Join us this week as we look at America’s first pastels. 

Revolutionary Artz

This week we will honor Patience Lovell Wright.  

She was a sculptor but more importantly she was a spy during the Revolutionary War.

Let us back up a bit. She was born in 1725 in Oyster Bay New York later moving to New Jersey when she was 4. Now move forward a bit. To amuse her children patience would mold faces out of bread dough, putty and wax. She became very good at it.  After her husband died she started creating tinted wax sculptures on commission.  She made a good living for her and her children but after a fire destroyed her waxworks factory in New York in 1772 she decided to move to England and start a new life.

While in London she established a museum where the dignitaries of the times were celebrated and her wax sculptures of them were displayed. She was a success and soon King George III was her patron. This had her often at court sculpting King George and those he surrounded himself with.

As talk of war against her beloved America whispered through court Patience listened. She would write secretive notes about military plans and tuck them inside wax figures of patriots. Those wax figures, along with figures of loyalists would then be shipped back to America, where other American sympathizers would get the sculptures and their secret messages into the hands of the revolutionaries.

Patience Lovell Wright the first recognized American-born sculptor who also wrote poetry, painted and was an American spy in London.

Revolutionary Artz! 

Churchill Pastime Artz

I came across a photograph this morning of Winston Churchill painting. He is seated at the Surf Club, wearing a smock, smoking a huge cigar. It is 1946. I had no idea he painted. I of course became immediately curious and decided this was a subject for further investigation.

2015 marks the 50^th anniversary of Churchill’s death and there will be exhibits of his painting and writings and achievements. I have even come across a book he wrote Painting as a Pastime.

 It is out of print and has been since 1964. It was first published in 1950.  Mary Soames wrote a book titled Winston Churchill: His Life As a Painter published in 1990. Mary is a child of Winston and Clementine Churchill. 

Winston Churchill started painting when he was 40 and painted over the next 48 years leaving us over 500 paintings to enjoy. Painting became a retreat from the noisy world of politics and crowds and appointments.

Churchill’s advice to budding young artists was one word. “Audacity”.  The word comes from the Latin audāx meaning daring. Audacity is recklessly bold or daring; fearless with arrogant disregard for conventional thought. I like this word.

The wife of Sir John Lavery showed him that a brush was a weapon to subdue a blank, intimidating canvas by firing paint at it to dazzling effect. He would submit his paintings into shows under pseudonyms such as Mr. Winter, Charles Morin.

This week we will look at Churchill Pastime Artz.

June the Artz

It is here. I am not sure how it got here so quickly but June has arrived. Her name in Latin is Iunius, Old English Juyng, Old French Juing.

  Legend tells that the month of June was named in honor of Juno, goddess of marriage, the sister and wife of the mighty god Jupiter, daughter of Saturn, mother of Mars and Vulcan.

June is the 6^th month in the Julian and Georgian calendar. It is one of 4 months with 30 days.

 5 countries, the United States, Romania, Argentina, Denmark and Sweden all celebrate Flag Day during the month of June.

Allied Forces landed in Normandy on June 6 1944.

Trooping the Colors is held the second Saturday of every June. It has been a tradition since 1748 as marking the official birthday of the current British Sovereigns. The first sovereign to receive this military salute was King Edward VII.

Juneteenth also known as Freedom Day is celebrated on June 19.  It is a holiday in the United States. It commemorates the announcement of the abolishment of slavery in Texas in 1865.

Summer Solstice happens and Midsummer is celebrated in Finland and Sweden.

West Virginia became our 35^th state June 20 1863.

This week will take a look at June in art with June the Artz. 

Emerald Artz

Emerald is the birthstone for May and a relative of the mineral beryl.  Trace amounts of vanadium and chromium give emeralds their brilliant green coloring. From the Greek word smaragdos changing to esmaraldus in Latin, and becoming emeraude in old English we get to emerald.

Emeralds occur in hues ranging from blue-green to a yellow-green with green being the primary hue. Medium to dark gems are called emeralds with the light toned gems being classified as green beryl.

The Gachala Emerald is one of the most valuable uncut emeralds in the world. It was discovered in a mine in Columbia and donated to the Smithsonian by jeweler Harry Winston.

The Mogul Mughal Emerald is one of the largest emeralds and an inscription on the gem had a date of 1695. It is in a museum in Qatar.

The Incas regarded them as holy stones. 

“Cleopatra’s Mines” in Egypt were emerald mines.  The Vedas or Holy Scripture of the Indians claim that emeralds enhance well-being and bring good luck.

Emeralds were highly prized by Sultans, Maharajas and Maharanis.  An emerald is one of the stones dropped into Hansel’s hand in the story Hansel and Gretel. An Old Portuguese folktale tells of a rabbit who stole an emerald ring from a princess.  Koschei ( Lord Valdemort in the Harry Potter tales is based on a Koschei) is an evil antagonist in a DC comic and in one of the  tales, The Sandman, the  heart of the Koschei  which is an emerald is stolen first by a gypsy, second a werewolf and finally by a Baba Yaga, a superhuman being.

This week we will look at Emerald Artz.

Artz of Mothers

With Mother’s Day right around the corner I thought we could focus on Mothers.

In 1908 Anna Jarvis from Grafton, West Virginia celebrated her mother with a memorial and the idea of Mother’s Day was born. She took her campaign on tour and by 1912 her idea for this special day was accepted. U.S President Woodrow Wilson made the holiday the second Sunday in May known as Mother’s Day official by law.

The fourth Sunday during the season of lent is known as Laetare Sunday. It was during the sixteenth century on this Sunday that people would return to their “mother” church or the closest large church or Cathedral.  The term used to describe what these people did every year was a-mothering. As in “ Lord Myron has gone a-mothering today.” The Sunday became known as Mothering Sunday.

The Romans celebrated Hilaria a spring festival to honor Cybele the mother of all the gods.

                                           Cybele - a fountain in Madrid

In Ethiopia a feast is held as part of  Antrosht  a multi-day celebration honoring motherhood.

In Thailand Mother’s Day is celebrated on the same day as the birthday of the Queen.

Ancient Germanic and Cletic people celebrated Modraniht known as Mother’s Night.

This week join us in celebrating the Artz of Mothers.