Poetry, stories, art, and music from the desk of Jezzie G, a writer without a label
Requiem, Op. 66
1892
Romantic
David Popper
Romantic
Born: 16 June 1843, Prague, Czechia
Nationality: Bohemian
Died: 7 August 1913, Baden bei Wien, Austria
Popper was a cellist and composer. Born in Prague he studied music at the Prague Conservatory under Julius Goltermann. Popper made his first tour in 1863 and in Germany, he was praised by Hans von Bülow, who recommended him as Chamber Virtuoso in the Court of Prince von Hohenzollern-Hechinger in Löwenberg
Oh! Mr. Best, You’re Very Bad
1806
Oh! Mr. Best, you’re very bad
And all the world shall know it;
Your base behaviour shall be sung
By me, a tunefull Poet.–
You used to go to Harrowgate
Each summer as it came,
And why I pray should you refuse
To go this year the same?–
The way’s as plain, the road’s as smooth,
The Posting not increased;
You’re scarcely stouter than you were,
Not younger Sir at least.–
If e’er the waters were of use
Why now their use forego?
You may not live another year,
All’s mortal here below.–
It is your duty Mr Best
To give your health repair.
Vain else your Richard’s pills will be,
And vain your Consort’s care.
But yet a nobler Duty calls
You now towards the North.
Arise ennobled–as Escort
Of Martha Lloyd stand forth.
She wants your aid–she honours you
With a distinguished call.
Stand forth to be the friend of her
Who is the friend of all.–
Take her, and wonder at your luck,
In having such a Trust.
Her converse sensible and sweet
Will banish heat and dust.–
So short she’ll make the journey seem
You’ll bid the Chaise stand still.
T’will be like driving at full speed
From Newb’ry to Speen hill.–
Convey her safe to Morton’s wife
And I’ll forget the past,
And write some verses in your praise
As finely and as fast.
But if you still refuse to go
I’ll never let your rest,
Buy haunt you with reproachful song
Oh! wicked Mr. Best!–
Jane Austen
Born: 16 December 1775, Hampshire, England
Nationality: English
Died: 18 July 1817, Hampshire, England
Austen was a novelist and poet best known for her six major novels, which interpret, comment upon, and critique the English landed gentry of the late 18th century. Austen’s plots explored the dependence of women on making a good marriage in the pursuit of social standing, respectability, and economic security. Austen’s use of irony, realism, and social commentary has earned acclaim among critics and scholars alike. Her books were published anonymously in her lifetime and Austen gained greater status after her death. Her novels have rarely been out of print
Pied Beauty
Glory be to God for dappled thing –
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim,
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings,
Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
Well swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him
Napoleon
‘What is the world, O soldiers?
It is I:
I, this incessant snow,
This northern sky;
Soldiers, this solitude
Through which we go
Is I.’
Walter de la Mare
Born: 25 April 1873, London, England
Nationality: English
Died: 22 June 1956, Twickenham, England
De la Mare was a poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and for his poem “The Listeners.” He also authored a subtle collection of psycho horror stories including “All Hallows” and “Seaton’s Aunt.” In 1921 he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel “Memoirs of a Midget” and in 1947 the Carnegie Medal for British Children’s Books
ee cummings
Born: 14 October 1894, Massachusetts, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 3 September 1962, New Hampshire, USA
ee cummings was a poet, painter, playwright, and author. With an oeuvre of 2900 poems, two autobiographical novels, several essays and four plays he is regarded as one of the most important American poets of the 20th century. Cummings is associated with modernist free-form poetry with much of his work composed of idiosyncratic syntax and lower-case spelling for poetic expression.
Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts to a well-known Unitarian couple. His father was a professor at Harvard University and later a well-known minister of South Congregational Church (Unitarian) in Boston. Cummings’ mother loved to spend time with her children, playing games with Cummings and his sister. From an early age, his creative gifts were supported by both his parents. He wrote poems and drew as a child as well as often playing out with the other children in the neighbourhood. Throughout his life, Cummings expressed transcendental leanings and his journals are replete with references to ‘le bon Dieu’ as well as prayers for inspiration for poetry and artwork.
Wanting to be a poet from childhood Cummings wrote poetry daily from the age of 8., exploring various forms. Graduating from Harvard University with a BA in 1915 Cummings received his MA from the university in 1916. Whilst studying at Harvard his interest in Modern poetry that ignored grammar and syntax evolved, and his aim was the use of dynamic language. After his graduation, Cummings took employment with a book dealer.
With the First World War in Europe, Cummings enlisted in the Norton-Harjes Ambulance Corps in 1917. He befriended William Slater Brown on the boat to France. Cummings and Brown didn’t receive an assignment for five weeks due to a clerical error so spent their time exploring Paris. Cummings fell in love with the city and would return there throughout his life. The two writers sent letters home during their service that attracted the attention of military censors. They preferred the company of French soldiers to that of fellow ambulance drivers and openly expressed anti-war opinions. Five months after Cummings started his assignment, he and William Slater Brown were arrested by the French military on suspicion of espionage and undesirable activities. For fourteen weeks the pair were held at Dépôt de Triage, a military detention centre in La Ferté-Macé, Orne, Normandy
Imprisoned with other detainees in a large room, Cummings’ father was unable to obtain his release through diplomatic channels. In December 1917 he wrote a letter to President Woodrow Wilson and was released on 19 December 1917, Brown was released two months later. Cummings used his prison experience as the basis for the novel “The Enormous Room” (1922). Cummings returned to the USA on New Year’s Day 1918. Later that year he was drafted into the army and served at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, until November 1918.
In 1921 Cummings returned to Paris and lived there for two years before returning to New York. He published his collection “Tulips and Chimneys” in 1923 and his particular use of grammar and syntax was evident. The book was heavily cut by the editor. In 1925 Cummings published “XLI Poems”. It is with these two collections that Cummings gained his reputation as an avant-garde poet. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Cummings returned to Paris several times and travelled throughout Europe. In 1931 he travelled to the Soviet Union and wrote of his experiences in “Eimi” (1933). Cummins also travelled to North Africa and Mexico. From 1924-1927 he worked as an essayist and portrait artist for Vanity Fair
Cummings’s parents were involved in a car crash in 1926; his mother survived but was severely injured. His father’s death profoundly affected Cummings who entered a new period in his creative life focussing on more important aspects of life in his poetry. He started this new stage of his writing career with “my father moved through dooms of love,” a tribute to his father.
Cummings spent the last years of his life travelling, undertaking speaking engagements, and spending time at his home, Joy Farm, in New Hampshire. He died of a stroke in 1962
Resources
E. E. Cummings: A Life by Susan Cheever
Dreams in the Mirror by RS Kennedy
my sweet old etcetera by ee cummings
my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent
war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting
for,
my sister
Isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds)of socks not to
mention fleaproof earwarmers
etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that
i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my
self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)
Landscape with River and Angler
1859
Realism
Oil on canvas
Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia
“Landscape with River and Angler” depicts the River Moskva near the village of Arkhangelsk where Savrasov lived and worked in the summer of 1859. It is considered a forebear of the development of Russian Landscape as a genre with its simultaneous authenticity as a depiction of nature and an expression of the artist’s own emotional experience.
Alexei Savrasov
Realism
Born: 24 May 1830, Moscow, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Died: 8 October 1897, Moscow, Russia
Savrasov was a landscape painter and is credited with being the creator of the lyrical landscape style
Landscape with Green Trees
1893
Les Nabis
Oil on canvas
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France
One of the best-known works by Denis, “Landscape with Green Trees” exemplifies the work of the Nabis whilst expressing the artist’s unique spirituality. A group of elegant tree trunks against a cloudy white sky with a low wall in a darker green counterbalances the verticality of the composition. Between the trees mysterious robed figures flit whilst a winged figure in white can be seen beyond the wall. Resonances of Breton Folklore and symbolism of the Virgin communicating with an angel demonstrate Denis’ ability to combine Christian and mythological iconography in his work
Maurice Denis
Symbolism, Les Nabis, Post-Impressionism, Japonism
Born: 25 November 1870, Granville, France
Nationality: French
Died: 13 November 1943, Paris, France
Unique amongst the avant-garde painters of the late 19th century, Denis combined their commitment to formal and stylistic innovation with an equally profound sense of tradition in art, culture, and religion. His bright and vibrant paintings express a commitment to abstraction and a reliance on the inner life of the soul. Unlike his peers, Denis had a soul shaped by his faith which would also lead to activities such as church renovation and altarpiece design
Martha
“Once…Once upon a time…”
Over and over again,
Martha would tell us her stories,
In the hazel glen.
Hers were those clear gray eyes
You watch, and the story seems
Told by their beautifulness
Tranquil as dreams.
She’d sit with her two slim hands
Clasped round her bended knees;
While we on our elbows lolled,
And stared at ease.
Her voice and her narrow chin,
Her grave small lovely head,
Seemed half the meaning
Of the words she said.
“Once…Once upon a time…”
Like a dream you dream in the night,
Fairies and gnomes stole out
In the leaf-green light.
And her beauty far away
Would fade, as her voice ran on,
Till hazel and summer sun
And all were gone:–
All fordone and forgot;
And like clouds in the height of the sky,
Our hearts stood still in the hush
Of an age gone by
Walter de la Mare
Born: 25 April 1873, London, England
Nationality: English
Died: 22 June 1956, Twickenham, England
De la Mare was a poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and for his poem “The Listeners.” He also authored a subtle collection of psycho horror stories including “All Hallows” and “Seaton’s Aunt.” In 1921 he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel “Memoirs of a Midget” and in 1947 the Carnegie Medal for British Children’s Books
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek’s fame,
With conquering limbs, astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome, her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me:
I life my lamp beside the golden door!’
Marcel Duchamp
Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, Conceptual Art, Kinetic Art
Born: 28 July 1887, Normandy, France
Nationality: French
Died: 2 October 1968, Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Duchamp was a painter, sculptor, writer, and chess player whose work is most often associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse; Duchamp is regarded as one of the three artists who defined the revolutionary development of the plastic arts in the first decades of the 20th century. Duchamp’s developments in painting and sculpture had an enormous impact on 20th-century art. By challenging the notion of what is art with his readymades, Duchamp is one of few artists that changed the course of art history. He sent shock waves across the art world that are still rippling today.
Duchamp challenged and changed art history in a way few artists did, by challenging the notion of what is art with his first readymades that sent shockwaves through the art world that are still felt today. Duchamp’s preoccupation with the mechanisms of human sexuality and desire and his fondness of wordplay aligns his work with Surrealism, although Duchamp refused to be affiliated with any specific art movement. His insistence art should be driven by ideas above all else earnt Duchamp recognition as the father of Conceptual Art. His refusal to follow art conventions and a deep fear of repetition led to Duchamp producing relatively few works in his short career, and ultimately, he retired from the art world to spend his later years playing chess
Duchamp coined the term ‘readymade’ to designate mass-produced everyday objects taken out of context and promoted to the status of a piece of art by the choice of the artist. A category of art that was a performative act as much as it was about style. ‘Readymade’ had far-reaching implications as to what can be considered an object of art.
Rejecting the purely visual and what he referred to as ‘retinal pleasure,’ Duchamp favoured an intellectual and concept-driven approach to art, artmaking, and art viewing. However, he remained committed to the study of perspective and optics that underpinned his experiments with kinetics and kinetic devices reflecting the representations of motion and machines common to both the Futurist and Surrealist artists of the time
Duchamp’s work is characterized by his tongue-in-cheek wit and subversive humour rife with innuendo. He formed puns out of everyday phrases and expressions that he conveyed visually. It is the linguistic dimension of his work that paved the way for Conceptual art.
Raised in Normandy in a family of artists, Duchamp’s father was mayor of Blainville and his mother raised the seven children and painted landscapes portraying the French countryside. Family time consisted of playing chess, painting, reading, and playing music. One of Duchamp’s earliest works, “Landscape at Blainville (1902) which he painted at aged 15, reflected his love of Claude Monet/ He was close to his two older brothers, and after they left home to become artists, Duchamp joined them in Paris to study painting at the Académie Julian. His brother, Jacques, supported him during his studies, and Duchamp’s earned an income as a cartoonist.
Early 1900s Paris was the ideal place for Duchamp to get acquainted with modern trends in art and painting. He studied Fauvism, Cubism, and Impressionism as well as the innovative approaches to structure and colour. He favoured the Cubist concept of reordering reality instead of simply representing it. Paintings such as “Nude Descending a Staircase” (1912) illustrated Duchamp’s ideas of machinery and its connection to the movement of the human body through space. Duchamp also subscribed to the avant-garde ideals of the artist as an anti-academic and felt an affinity to artists such as Odilon Redon. From the early stages of his career, Duchamp was drawn to the Symbolistic allure of mystery such as women as the elusive femme fatale, sexual identity, and desire which eventually led him towards Dad and Surrealism.
By 1911 Duchamp met Francis Picabia and the following year attended a theatre adaption of Raymond Roussel’s “Impressions d’Afrique” with Picabia and Guillaume Apollinaire. The experience made a deep impression on Duchamp and led to his interest in cross-genre pollination which influenced the artist to develop an eclectic approach to art creation.
Duchamp emigrated to New York in 1915 and created several readymades. By signing them, Duchamp laid claim to found objects such as a snow shovel, a bicycle wheel, or even a urinal. Objects tied loosely but symbolically to themes such as desire, childhood memories, and erotica all designed to show the absurdity of the practice of canonizing avant-garde art. During 1948 to 1923 Duchamp devoted his time to planning and creating one of his two major works “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even or The Large Glass.” An installation of machinery wedged between glass panels was his first rejection of the painterly obsession with pleasing the eye.
As the Surrealist movement became popular in France, Duchamp travelled between Paris and New York participating in printed textual projects, sculptural installations, and collaborative works in all mediums with the Surrealists. Duchamp always kept a distance from groups – and the politics they came with. As such he was never truly part of the Surrealist or Dada groups,
In 1920, Duchamp in an alternative female persona, Rose Selavy, in order to explore fully the ideas of sexual identity. He continued making his readymades and exhibited the famous “Bottle Rack” series in 1936. However, he secluded himself from the wider art world and kept to a tight-knit group of artists, including Man Ray, who photographed Duchamp throughout his life. For more than twenty years Duchamp worked in complete secrecy on his second masterwork, “Etant Donnes” a sexualized and elaborate diorama, Duchamp shunned the public eye, preferring to play chess with select guests until his death in 1968
Following his withdrawal from the art world, Duchamp remained an influential, if passive, presence in New York avant-garde circles until he was rediscovered by the Neo-Dadaists Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns in the 1950s. Duchamp welcomed an association with Dada, many years after the group’s demise, without conforming to the politics and issues of group dynamics.
Duchamp insisted that art is an expression of the mind rather than the eye or the hand which attracted Minimalists and Conceptual artists alike. It ushered in a new era where the seminal concept of the mass-produced readymade was seized upon not only by Andy Warhol and other Pop artists who claim Duchamp as their founding father but also by Fluxus, Arte Povera, and Performance artists due to its performative aspects.
Duchamp’s criticism of art institutions made him a cult figure for generations of artists refusing to go down the path of the conventional, commercial art career. The theoretical thrust of Duchamp’s eclectic and limited output accounts for his continuing impact on successive 20th and 21st-century avant-garde movements and individual artists alike.
Resources
The Duchamp Effect by Martha Buskirk and Mignon Nixon
Duchamp: A Biography by Calvin Tomkins
Kjerringa med Lykta
1895-99
Expressionism
Oil on trouser fabric
The Savings Bank Foundation DNB / KODE
Created by Astrup in his youth “Kjerringa med Lykta” (Old Woman with a Lantern) is painted on used trouser fabric suggesting the artist was struggling financially and unable to afford canvas. The painting depicts a hunched old woman dressed in black carrying a lantern between two dark brown log cabins. The setting is a winter scene during heavy snowfall. The painting exemplifies the neo-romantic use of landscape and weather conditions as a method of conveying strong memories and emotions as evoked by nature. Astrup, in his early works, depicted snow as a natural adversary to be endured and overcome.
Nikolai Astrup
Expressionism
Born: 30 August 1880, Bremanger, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Died: 21 January 1928, Førde, Norway
Astrup was a modernist painter with a distinctive and innovative style noted for its intense use of colour depicting the landscapes of Vestlandet and the traditional way of life in the region.
The Dead
The dead abide with us! though stark and cold
Earth seems to grip them; they are with us still:
They have forged our chains of being for good or ill
And their invisible hands these hands yet hold.
Our perishable bodies are the mould
In which their strong imperishable will,
Mortality’s deep yearning to fulfil,
Hath grown incorporate through dim time untold,
Vibrations infinite of life in death,
As a star’s travelling light survives its star!
So may we hold our lives, that when we are
The Fate of those who then will draw this breath,
They shall not drag us to their judgment bar,
And curse the heritage which we bequeath.
In the Loge
1878
Impressionism
Oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA
“In the Loge” depicts a stylish woman attending a matinée performance at the Comedie Françoise theatre in Paris. Cassatt sets off the woman’s profile against the red velvet a gilt décor of the box seats behind her as she raises her opera glasses to her eyes. A male figure several boxes down is observing her through his own glasses showing Cassatt’s perception of the fact that members of the well-dressed audience are putting on their own performances for one another.
Mary Cassatt
Impressionism, Proto-Feminist Artists
Born: 22 May 1844, Pennsylvania, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 14 June 1926, Oise, France
Cassatt was a painter and printmaker. Born in Pennsylvania, USA she lived most of her adult life in France where she exhibited with the Impressionists such as her close friend Degas. Cassatt is considered to be one of the three great ladies of Impressionism
Hercules and Lichas
1795-1815
Sculpture
Marble
Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy
“Hercules and Lichas” was a sculpture that was developed over an extended period due to its size – it stands at just under eleven feet tall – and the turbulent times in which it was made. Commissioned by Onorrato Gaetani, a Neapolitan nobleman, from Canova, Gaetani also proposed the subject be drawn from Greek mythology. Hercules sent his herald Lichas to fetch him a cloak. His wife had dipped it in a magical fluid with the intent of keeping Hercules faithful. Instead, it poisoned him, and driven mad by anger and pain he flung Lichas into the sea.
Antonio Canova
Neoclassicism, Romanticism
Born: 1 November 1757, Veneto, Italy
Nationality: Italian
Died: 13 October 1822, Venice, Italy
Canova was a Neoclassical sculptor, particularly known for his marble sculptures. His sculpture was inspired by the Baroque and the classical revival; however, he avoided the melodramatics of Baroque and the cold artificiality of the Classical revival
Julia Jackson
1867
Photography
Albumen Print
National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, Bradford, UK
In this portrait of Cameron’s niece and namesake, Julia Jackson is sitting staring into the camera with a determined look. Cameron’s use of soft focus effectively creates an ethereal portrait removed from the material world and any cultural framework. A minimal background gives the image little context, and Jackson’s intense gaze is highlighted by the lighting. With her face half in shadow and half lit there is a sense of conflict within the subject. Julia Jackson was the mother of artist Vanessa Bell and author Virginia Woolf.
Julia Margaret Cameron
The Pre-Raphaelites, Pictorialism
Born: 11 June 1815, Calcutta, British India
Nationality: British
Died: 26 January 1879, Kalutara, British Ceylon
Cameron was a photographer is one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is best known for her use of soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and women, illustrative pictures depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature, and sensitive portraits of both adults and children.
Remember Me
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad
In the Hall of the Mountain King
1875
Orchestral
Edvard Grieg
Romantic
Born: 15 June 1843, Bergen, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Died: 4 September 1907, Bergen, Norway
Grieg was a composer and pianist. He is considered one of the main composers of the Romantic era and his music remains the standard of the global classical repertoire. Grieg made use of Norwegian folk music in his compositions and brought fame to the music of Norway
Felix Randal
Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended,
Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome
Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some
Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended?
Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended
Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some
Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom
Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!
This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears,
My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears,
Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal;
How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,
When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,
Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!
I rose – because He sank
I rose – because he sank
I thought it would be opposite –
But when his power dropped –
My Soul grew straight.
I cheered my fainting Prince –
I sang firm – even – chants –
I helped his Film – with Hymn –
And when the Dews drew off
That held his Forehead stiff –
I met him –
Balm to Balm –
I told him Best – must pass –
Through this low Arch of Flesh –
No Casque so brave
It spurn the Grace –
I told him Worlds I knew
Where Emperors grew –
Who recollected us
If we were true –
And so with Thews of Hymn –
And Sinew from within –
And ways I knew not that I knew – till then –
I lifted Him –
Nuptial Sleep
At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart;
And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.
Their bosoms sundered, with the opening start
Of married flowers to either side outspread
From the knit stem; yet still their mouths, burnt red,
Fawned on each other where they lay apart.
Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams,
And their dreams watched them sink and slid away.
Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams
Of watered light and dull drowned waifs of day;
Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
He woke and wondered more; for there she lay
J.F.W Herschel; John Frederick William Herschel
1867
Photography
Albumen print from wet Collodion glass negative
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
This portrait is a depiction of the scientist and photo-chemist John Herschel. He and Cameron became acquainted in 1835 and their friendship matured into a life-long photographic mentorship. Herschel is portrayed in a three-quarter view gazing into the distance. Swathed in a dark cloak and wearing a cap the image created highlights Herschel’s intellect and plays on the idioms of the genius figure.
Julia Margaret Cameron
The Pre-Raphaelites, Pictorialism
Born: 11 June 1815, Calcutta, British India
Nationality: British
Died: 26 January 1879, Kalutara, British Ceylon
Cameron was a photographer is one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is best known for her use of soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and women, illustrative pictures depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature, and sensitive portraits of both adults and children.
Happy the Lab’rer
Happy the lab’rer in his Sunday clothes!
In light-drab coat, smart waistcoat, well-darn’d hose,
Andhat upon his head, to church he goes;
As oft, with conscious pride, he downward throws
A glance upon the ample cabbage rose
That, stuck in button-hole, regales his nose,
He envies not the gayest London beaux.
In church he takes his seat among the rows,
Pays to the place the reverence he owes,
Likes best the prayers whose meaning least he knows,
Lists to the sermon in a softening doze,
And rouses joyous at the welcome close
Jane Austen
Born: 16 December 1775, Hampshire, England
Nationality: English
Died: 18 July 1817, Hampshire, England
Austen was a novelist and poet best known for her six major novels, which interpret, comment upon, and critique the English landed gentry of the late 18th century. Austen’s plots explored the dependence of women on making a good marriage in the pursuit of social standing, respectability, and economic security. Austen’s use of irony, realism, and social commentary has earned acclaim among critics and scholars alike. Her books were published anonymously in her lifetime and Austen gained greater status after her death. Her novels have rarely been out of print
Good-bye
The last of last words spoken is, Good-bye –
The last dismantled flower in the weed-grown hedge,
The last thin rumour of a feeble bell far ringing,
The last blind rat to spurn the mildewed rye.
A hardening darkness glasses the haunted eye,
Shines into nothing the watcher’s burnt-out candle,
Wreathes into scentless nothing the wasting incense,
Faints in the outer silence the hunting-cry.
Love of its muted music breathes no sigh,
Thought in her ivory tower gropes in her spinning,
Toss on in vain the whispering trees of Eden,
Last of all last words spoken is, Good-bye.
Walter de la Mare
Born: 25 April 1873, London, England
Nationality: English
Died: 22 June 1956, Twickenham, England
De la Mare was a poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and for his poem “The Listeners.” He also authored a subtle collection of psycho horror stories including “All Hallows” and “Seaton’s Aunt.” In 1921 he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel “Memoirs of a Midget” and in 1947 the Carnegie Medal for British Children’s Books
Jewel Song
1859
Opera
Charles Gounod
Opera
Born: 17 June 1818, Paris, France
Nationality: French
Died: 18 October 1893, Saint-Cloud, France
Gounod was a composer and wrote twelve operas including “Faust” (1859) and “Romeo and Juliet” (1867), both of which remain in the international repertory. Gounod also composed church music, songs, and other shorter pieces. He was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France’s prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. A deeply religious man, Gounod considered the priesthood after his studies
In Autumn
1865
Romantic
Edvard Grieg
Romantic
Born: 15 June 1843, Bergen, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Died: 4 September 1907, Bergen, Norway
Grieg was a composer and pianist. He is considered one of the main composers of the Romantic era and his music remains the standard of the global classical repertoire. Grieg made use of Norwegian folk music in his compositions and brought fame to the music of Norway
More Poems VII
Stars, I have seen them fall,
But when they drop and die
No star is lost at all
From all the star-sown sky.
The toil of all that be
Helps not the primal fault;
It rains into the sea,
And still the sea is salt.
Holberg Suite
1884
Neoclassicism
Edvard Grieg
Romantic
Born: 15 June 1843, Bergen, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Died: 4 September 1907, Bergen, Norway
Grieg was a composer and pianist. He is considered one of the main composers of the Romantic era and his music remains the standard of the global classical repertoire. Grieg made use of Norwegian folk music in his compositions and brought fame to the music of Norway
Jeanne d’Arc
The land was broken in despair,
The princes quarrelled in the dark,
When clear and tranquil, through the troubled air
Of selfish minds and wills that did not dare,
Your star arose, Jeanne d’Arc.
O virgin breast with lilies white,
O sun-burned hand that bore the lance,
You taught the prayer that helps men to unite,
You brought the courage equal to the fight,
You gave a heart to France!
Your king was crowned, your country free,
At Rheims you had your soul’s desire:
And then, at Rouen, maid of Domremy,
The black-robed judges gave your victory
The martyr’s crown of fire.
And now again the times are ill,
And doubtful leaders miss the mark;
The people lack the single faith and will
To make them one, — your country needs you still, —
Come back again, Jeanne d’Arc!
O woman-star, arise once more
And shine to bid your land advance:
The old heroic trust in God restore,
Renew the brave, unselfish hopes of yore,
And give a heart to France!
Henry Van Dyke
Born: 10 November 1852, Pennsylvania, USA
Nationality: American
Died: 10 April 1933, New Jersey, USA
Van Dyke was an author, educator, diplomat, clergyman, and poet. Various religious themes are often expressed in his poetry, hymns, and essays. Van Dyke composed the lyrics of the hymn ‘Joyful, Joyful! We Adore Thee’
I wait
1872
Photography
Collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum
Sisters Rachel and Laura Gurney were frequently models for their Aunt Julia. The figure of the angel is one which Cameron returns to again and again. In “I Wait” the angel is symbolic of the yearning to fly yet sadness in the knowledge of being earthbound. It is the wish to unite the heavens and the earth.
Julia Margaret Cameron
The Pre-Raphaelites, Pictorialism
Born: 11 June 1815, Calcutta, British India
Nationality: British
Died: 26 January 1879, Kalutara, British Ceylon
Cameron was a photographer is one of the most important portraitists of the 19th century. She is best known for her use of soft-focus close-ups of famous Victorian men and women, illustrative pictures depicting characters from mythology, Christianity, and literature, and sensitive portraits of both adults and children
This was the woman
This was the woman; what now of the man?
But pass him. If he comes beneath a heel,
He shall be crushed until he cannot feel,
Or, being callous, haply till he can,
But he is nothing: – nothing? Only mark
The rich light striking out from her on him!
Ha! what a sense it is when her eyes swim
Across the man she singles, leaving dark
All else! Lord God, who madest the thing so fair,
So that I am drawn to her even now!
It cannot be such harm on her cool brow
To put a kiss? Yet if I meet him there!
But she is mine! Ah no! I know too well
I claim a star whose light is overcast;
I claim a phantom-woman in the past:
The hour has struck, though I heard not the bell
Night Thoughts
Star, you are unfortunate, I pity you,
Beautiful as you are, shining in your glory,
Who guide seafaring men through stress and peril
And have no recompense from gods or mortals,
Love you do not, nor do you know what love is
Hours that are aeons urgently conducting
Your figures in a dance through the vast heaven,
What journey have you ended in this moment,
Since lingering in the arms of my beloved
I lost memory of you and midnight.
Alone
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring –
Frome the same source I have not taken
My sorrow – I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I loved – I loved alone –
Then – in my childhood – in the dawn
Of a most stormy life – was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still –
From the torrent, or the fountain –
From the red cliff of the mountain –
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold –
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by –
From the thunder and the storm –
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view –
Haugtussa
1895
Classical
Edvard Grieg
Romantic
Born: 15 June 1843, Bergen, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Died: 4 September 1907, Bergen, Norway
Grieg was a composer and pianist. He is considered one of the main composers of the Romantic era and his music remains the standard of the global classical repertoire. Grieg made use of Norwegian folk music in his compositions and brought fame to the music of Norway.
Lights Out
I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.
Many a road and track
That, the dawn’s first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.
Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends;
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends is sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.
There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not tur from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how.
The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.
Rachel
Sprung from the blood of Israel’s scattered race,
At a mean inn in German Arrau born,
To forms from antique Greece and Rome uptorn,
Tricked out with a Parisian speech and face,
Imparting life renewed, old classic grace;
Then soothing with thy Christian strain forlorn,
A-Kempis, her departing soul outworn,
While by her bedside Hebrew rites have place –
Ah, not the radiant spirit of Greece alone
She had – one power, which made her breast its home!
In her, like us, there clashed (contending powers)
Germany, France, Christ, Moses, Athens, Rome.
The strife, the mixture in her soul, are ours:
Her genius and her glory are her own
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder – everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If though appear’st untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;
And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not
The Pilot
From the Past and Unavailing
Out of cloudland we are steering:
After groping, after fearing,
Into starlight we came trailing,
And we find the stars are true.
Still, O comrade, what of you?
You are gone, but we are sailing,
And the old ways are all new.
For the Lost and Unreturning
We have drifted, we have waited,
Uncommanded and unrated,
We have tossed and wandered, yearning
For a charm that comes no more
From the old lights by the shore:
We have shamed ourselves in learning
What you knew so long before.
From the Breed of the Far-going
Who are strangers, and all brothers,
May forget no more than others
Who look seaward with eyes flowing,
But are brothers to bewail
One who fought so foul a gale?
You have won beyond our knowing,
You are gone, but yet we sail.
Funeral Rites
1888
Symphony
Gustav Mahler
Romantic
Born: 7 July 1860, Bohemia
Nationality: Austro-Bohemian
Died: 18 May 1911, Vienna, Austria
Mahler was a Romantic composer and a leading conductor of his time. His compositions acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German traditions and the modernism of the 20th century. In his lifetime Mahler’s status as a conductor was established beyond question whilst his own music gained in popularity mainly after periods of neglect, including a ban on its being performed in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After WW2 his work was rediscovered by a new generation and Mahler became one of the most frequently performed and recorded composers
To thee, with whom my best affections dwell,
That I was harsh to thee, let no one know;
It were, O Heaven! a stranger tale to tell
Then if the vine had borne the bitter slow.
Though I was harsh, my nature is not so:
A momentary cloud upon me tell;
My coldness was mistimed like summer-snow;
Cold words I spoke, yet loved thee warm and well
Was I so harsh? Ah, dear, it could not be
Seemed I so cold? What madness moved my blood
To make me thus belie my constant heart
That watched with love thine earliest infancy,
Slow-ripening to the grace of womanhood,
Through every change that made thee what thou art
If I Were King
1852
Opera
Adolphe Adam
Opera, Ballet
Born: 24 July 1803, Paris, France
Nationality: French
Died: 3 May 1856, Paris, France
Pic
Adam was a composer, teacher, and music critic. He was a prolific composer for the theatre and is best known for his ballets “Giselle” (1841) and “La Corsaire” (1856), and his operas “Le Postillon de Lonjumeau” (1836) and “Si J’etais Roi” (1852)
When our two souls stand up erect and strong,
Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher,
Until the lengthening wings break into fire
At either curved point, what bitter wrong
Can the earth do to us, that we should not long
Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher,
The angels would press on us and aspire
To drop some golden orb of perfect song
Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay
Rather on earth. Beloved, where the unfit
Contrarious moods of men recoil away
And isolate pure spirits, and permit
A place to stand and love in for a day,
With darkness and the death-hour rounding it
Funeral March of a Marionette
1872
Classical
Charles Gounod
Opera
Born: 17 June 1818, Paris, France
Nationality: French
Died: 18 October 1893, Saint-Cloud, France
Gounod was a composer and wrote twelve operas including “Faust” (1859) and “Romeo and Juliet” (1867), both of which remain in the international repertory. Gounod also composed church music, songs, and other shorter pieces. He was a student at the Conservatoire de Paris and won France’s prestigious musical prize, the Prix de Rome. A deeply religious man, Gounod considered the priesthood after his studies
Habanera
1875
Opera
Georges Bizet
Opera
Born: 25 October 1838, Paris, France
Nationality: French
Died: 3 June 1875, Bougival, France
Bizet was a composer of the Romantic era, best known for his operas. He achieved little success before his final work “Carmen” which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the operatic repertoire. Bizet died of a heart attack 3 months after its premiere, unaware that it would prove a spectacular success
Giselle
1841
Ballet
Adolphe Adam
Opera, Ballet
Born: 24 July 1803, Paris, France
Nationality: French
Died: 3 May 1856, Paris, France
Adam was a composer, teacher, and music critic. He was a prolific composer for the theatre and is best known for his ballets “Giselle” (1841) and “La Corsaire” (1856), and his operas “Le Postillon de Lonjumeau” (1836) and “Si J’etais Roi” (1852).
If by dull rhymes our English must be chained,
And, like Andromeda, the sonnet sweet
Fettered, in spite of pained loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrained,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To fit the naked foot of poesy;
Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress
Of every chord, and see what may be gained
By ear industrious and attention meet;
Misers of sound and syllable, no less
Than Midas of his courage, let us be
Jealous of dead leaves in the bay-wreath crown.
So, if we may not let the Muse be free,
She will be bound by garlands of her own
Descent of Noah from Ararat
1889
Christian Art
Oil on Canvas
Aivazovsky was increasingly subject to criticism from advocates of a realist style throughout his career. This younger generation of Russian artists with Ilya Repin at its forefront represented a growing social conscience among some artists. A comparison of Repin’s “Barge Haulers” and “Descent of Noah from Ararat” revealed their temperamental differences and Aivazovsky’s conservatism. He creates an illusion around the Old Testament story of Noah and his family as they load the animals down from the postdiluvian resting place of the ark sustained by supposedly eternal truths and uncorrupted by radical human dissent from those truths. This implied message of reassurance would have been an anathema to artists like Repin who believed art should question and not reassure.
Ivan Aivazovsky
Romanticism
Born: 29 July 1817, Theodosia, Ukraine
Nationality: Ukrainian
Died: 20 May 1900, Theodosia, Ukraine
Aivazovsky was a Romantic painter. He is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art. Following his academic education at the Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, Aivazovsky travelled to Europe and briefly lived in Italy in the 1840s
The snow falls deep; the forest lies alone;
The boy goes hasty for his load of brakes,
Then thinks upon the fire and hurries back;
The gipsy knocks his hands and tucks them up,
And seeks his squalid camp, half hid in snow,
Beneath the oak which breaks away the wind,
And bushes close in snow like hovel warm;
There tainted mutton wastes upon the coals,
And the half-wasted dog squats close and rubs,
Then feels the heat too strong, and goes aloof;
He watches well, but none a bit can spare,
And vainly waits the morsel thrown away.
‘Tis thus they live – a picture to the place,
A quiet, pilfering, unprotected race
Finlandia
1899
Romantic
Johan Julius Christian Sibelius
Romantic
Born: 8 December 1865, Hämeenlinna, Finland
Nationality: Finnish
Died: 20 September 1957, Ainola, Finland
Sibelius was a composer of the late Romantic and early modern periods. He is considered to be Finland’s greatest composer and is frequently credited with helping Finland develop its national identity as it struggled for independence from Russia. Sibelius is perhaps best known for Finlandia, the Karelia Suite, Valse Triste, and the choral symphony Kullervo
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the sea:
Listen! the mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder – everlastingly.
Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year,
And worship’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not
Charms
She walks as lightly as the fly
Skates on the water in July.
To hear her moving petticoat
For me is music’s highest note.
Stones are not heard, when her feet pass,
No more than tumps of moss or grass.
When she sits still, she’s like the flower
To be a butterfly next hour.
The brook laughs not more sweet, when he
Trips over pebbles suddenly.
My Love, like him, can whisper low —
When he comes where green cresses grow.
She rises like the lark, that hour
He goes halfway to meet a shower.
A fresher drink is in her looks
Than Nature gives me, or old books.
When I in my Love’s shadow sit,
I do not miss the sun one bit.
When she is near, my arms can hold
All that’s worth having in this world.
And when I know not where she is,
Nothing can come but comes amiss
William Henry Davies
Born: 3 July 1871, Newport, Wales
Nationality: Welsh
Died: 26 September 1940, Gloucestershire, England
Davies was a poet and writer. He spent much of his life as a tramp or hobo in the UK and the USA yet became one of the most popular poets of his time. His themes included his observations on life’s hardships, the human condition reflected in nature his travels as a tramp, and the characters he met. Davies is classified as a Georgian Poet, however much of his writing is not typical of the group in style and theme
Jezzie G 