Andrea Kowch – I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers

October is nearing its end. One more beautiful October leaving us slowly, leaf by leaf, sunset by sunset, until November replaces it in the calendar. November will turn the dazzling October’s glowing leaf carpets of orange and gold in parks and woods into a gloomy mass of rotting brown leaves, and even the pink sunsets will turn an ominous shade. But while the wonderful October – a time of witches, ghosts, pumpkins, ravens, haunted castles is still here, I will be so self-indulgent and take a moment to celebrate it with a few beautiful magic realism paintings by a contemporary artist Andrea Kowch.

Andrea Kowch, Soiree, 2019

Love of the countryside is something that connects the paintings of Andrea Kowch and the literary character of Anne Shirley Cutberth, the chatty red-haired freckled orphan heroine of L. M. Montgomery’s novel “Anne of Green Gables”; the first of the series of novels about Anne. There’s a slight difference though; Anne’s idyllic sunny Avonlea is transformed, through Anne’s vivid imagination, to an almost fairy tale place, whimsical, innocent and full of wonders to be discovered, with weeping willows, a shining lake, dreamy ethereal apple blossoms white as the bride’s attire on her wedding day, golden birches, meadows and woods, whereas the countryside world in Kowch’s paintings is always tinged with mystery and eerie foreboding, there are secrets and tales yet to unravel hidden behind the static frozen moments captured in her paintings. Imagination is what connected these different visions of the countryside life and scenery. Kowch’s paintings are painted realistically, but have a dreamlike quality and that’s something I adore. Space and figures in her artworks are painted in a detailed, precise way and every motif is carefully planned to symbolise something and combined all together the story is woven. In the artists own words: “There’s a subtle tension that I like to create in my work, that leaves things open to interpretation, for viewers to attribute their own unique experiences to it. (…) Each image is a story that I just want people to delve into.“(*)

My appreciation of Kowch’s paintings definitely doesn’t stop at their aesthetically pleasing nature, their physical beauty which comes from colours and compositions that appeal to my eyes, no, the appreciation goes way deeper when it comes to her art. There is definitely a sense of mystery, a subtle tension as she calls it, and there is plenty of room for interpretation. Since the artist herself allows interpretation, I will gleefully accept this opportunity. Kowch’s recent work “Soiree” caught my attention a few weeks ago. A pale, auburn haired girl dressed in old-fashioned vintage clothes is sitting on a blanket on a meadow and having a picnic by herself… well, she isn’t all alone, though she has no human company, there are crows and a little dog to share the moment and the delicious food with her. cookies, grapes, a pie. Porcelain dishes clanking. Clouds are thick and heavy, getting darker as they float the sky slowly. The trees and the dark house in the background look unwelcoming.

Crows are such mischievous wild things! They have no sense of decorum, is this the way one behaves at a picnic? It seems like the girl is in her element, for the strangeness hasn’t written the look of surprise on her calm face. She is holding a cup and looking ever so slightly reproachfully at the crow standing at the cherry pie. This could be Anne Shirley, not at her real picnic, but at the imaginary one. I can see her; baking the pie, in the kitchen, apron tied around her dull grey dress without puffed sleeves and she is looking at the dark and rolling skies in the distance, above the chicken coop and the cheery tree and this is what she is daydreaming about; a picnic with crows. Oh, the stories she could tell them! And how they would laugh, and how they would understand all the big, pompous words that adults around her do not.

Andrea Kowch, In the Hollow

Here is a beautiful and fun passage from “Anne of Green Gables” which shows Anne’s love of nature in autumn and her enthusiasm for nature and everything around her in general, from chapter sixteen:

OCTOBER was a beautiful month at Green Gables, when the birches in the hollow turned as golden as sunshine and the maples behind the orchard were royal crimson and the wild cherry trees along the lane put on the loveliest shades of dark red and bronzy green, while the fields sunned themselves in aftermaths.

Anne reveled in the world of color about her.

“Oh, Marilla,” she exclaimed one Saturday morning, coming dancing in with her arms full of gorgeous boughs” ‘I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it? Look at these maple branches. Don’t they give you a thrill—several thrills? I’m going to decorate my room with them.”

“Messy things,” said Marilla, whose aesthetic sense was not noticeably developed. “You clutter up your room entirely too much with out-of-doors stuff, Anne. Bedrooms were made to sleep in.”

“Oh, and dream in too, Marilla. And you know one can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things. I’m going to put these boughs in the old blue jug and set them on my table.”

Andrea Kowch, On the Point, 2010

And to continue the Anne-theme, here is another passage from the Chapter five where Anne speaks ecstatically about seagulls which are also on Andrea Kowch’s painting above:

“Isn’t the sea wonderful?” said Anne, rousing from a long, wide-eyed silence. “Once, when I lived in Marysville, Mr. Thomas hired an express wagon and took us all to spend the day at the shore ten miles away. I enjoyed every moment of that day… I lived it over in happy dreams for years. (…) Aren’t those gulls splendid? Would you like to be a gull? I think I would–that is, if I couldn’t be a human girl. Don’t you think it would be nice to wake up at sunrise and swoop down over the water and away out over that lovely blue all day; and then at night to fly back to one’s nest? Oh, I can just imagine myself doing it.“

Jacob Maris – Girls Blowing Bubbles

Jacob Maris, Two Girls, Daughters of the Artist, Blowing Bubbles, 1880, watercolour and black chalk

I recently discovered some watercolours by a Dutch painter Jacob Maris which instantly captivated me, and looking at Moris’s more representative paintings just further assured me in the opinion that these simple and delicate watercolours are the most beautiful works that Maris ever painted. Maris (1837-1899) is mainly remembered as a landscape painter, thus continuing the centuries long tradition of gloomy and atmospheric Dutch landscapes and seascapes with dark dramatic clouds looming over seaside villages and solitary windmills, reminiscent of the seventeenth century landscapes by Dutch masters such as Jacob van Ruisdael and Jan van Goyen. Along with his two younger brothers Matthijs and Willem, he belonged to the Hague School of painters which was inspired by the Realist tendencies of French art and the Barbizon School. Maris studied in Hague and Antwerp where he was a roommate with Lawrence Alma-Tadema for a brief time, lived in many different places in Europe and died in Karlovy Vary which is in modern Czechia, and of course he had a taste of Paris as well and lived there from 1866 to 1871, and married Catharina Hendrika Horn in 1867.

But these watercolours here are something completely different; firstly, a different medium. Watercolours make every motif, no matter how mundane, appear poetic, gentle and tinged with a bit of sweet melancholy. Being so watery and changeable, watercolours remind of me tears, of the moon’s unpredictability and quickly changing emotions. These playful and intimate genre scenes painted on small scale canvases are a stark contrast to Maris’s darker and larger scaled landscapes. In the painting “Two Girls Blowing Bubbles” we see Maris’s two daughters, probably Tine and Henriette, enjoying themselves. The older girl is blowing a bubble while the younger one is sitting and gazing in awe at her sister’s triumphant large bubble. Look how the bubble was painted, almost transparent, with just a few touches of pink and blue. A spontaneous moment from Maris’s home life captured in a scale of white and grey tones, perhaps similar to Whistler’s Harmonies and Symphonies. A colourful ceramic bowl in the centre of the painting is a little relief from all the greyness, and yet, even with these sombre colours Maris achieved liveliness and spontaneity, it doesn’t look dull and serious at all. But these were painting made for sale, despite their seemingly more intimate character. They weren’t painted just to portray his cozy family life. The thing that connects these genre scenes with the landscapes that he painted is that despite the difference in motifs, his aim was the same; to capture the atmosphere, the mood, which interest him more than the portrait itself. Perhaps that is why Maris often painted his figures seen from the back or from the profile, because he wasn’t that interested in the individual characteristics of the face. That also gives his shadowy figures of girls in white a mysterious vibe.

Jacob Maris, Two Girls, Daughters of the Artist at the Piano, 1880, watercolour

“Daughters of the Artist at the Piano” also shows an intimate moment from his family life. Again, his two daughters are shown enjoying a proper past time for a respectable young lady; piano playing. Well, we can assume they are playing it because in this watercolour they are just standing next to it. I love the contrast between the left side of the painting which is darker and the right side which is way lighter because the two girls are standing here, with their backs turned back to us they are showing off their soft feathery hair and matching blue ribbons. The older girl is touching a few piano keys while the younger one watches. Can you not hear music in the air? Do you not feel as if you are standing right behind them and observing them. For those of you who are not convinced in the superior beauty of watercolours, let me show you a similar motif by Maris but painted in the traditional oil on canvas technique. How much more delicate the watercolour looks? Like a poem on paper.

Jacob Maris, Girl at the Piano, 1879, oil on canvas

Jacob Maris, Daughter of Jacob Maris with Flowers in the Grass, 1878, watercolour and black chalk

The third and the last watercolour I’ve chosen for this post shows an idyll of a beautiful spring day; Maris’s daughter is sitting in the grass dressed in a pretty white dress and holding a little flower bouquet in her hands. Blue colour of her ribbon is echoed in the details of the bouquet, her little boots, and it’s also present here and there in the lush green grass. This watercolour truly brings the atmosphere of a lovely spring day; warm but not too warm like in the height of summer, mingled scent of many flowers hanging in the air, soft breeze which makes music in the treetops, bees buzzing somewhere in the distance, birds singing in trees. You can imagine stepping through that same grass and seeing the girl yourself, noticing the play of shadows on her dress, feeling the grass as it tickles your ankles, hearing the girl’s soft singing or rambling about her flowers. It’s more sketchy and shows the influence of Impressionism and the plein air technique on Maris, and it’s a very different approach to portraying landscape than he usually did. This painting makes it so easy to fall into a reverie, and it being spring, makes it even easier, and just look at this detail of her dress. I just love how the thin blades of grass and tiny yellow flowers are painted over her dress, and I love the stroke of lighter blue on her shoes. The scene is so airy and delicate and, to me, it brings to mind Debussy’s music.

Detail

Faustine and the Beautiful Summer (1972) – A Review

A few days ago I watched a brilliant film called “Faustine and the beautiful summer” (original title: Faustine et le bel été) directed by Nina Companeez whose mood of dreams, romance, indolence and love for nature really struck a chord with me and I found a lot of things highly relatable, particularly the character of Faustine: her reveries, her carefree nature. Also, I wish I could just take her gorgeous outfits from the screen and have them in my wardrobe.

The plot is simple: a pretty sixteen year old girl called Faustine (played by Muriel Catala) is about to spent her summer holidays with her grandparents in the countryside. While there, she spends time wandering the woods and the meadows, discovering the secrets of nature as well as spying on her neighbours who are also there on holiday. She is ocassionally flirting with a fellow teenage boy from that family called Joachim, but mostly takes delight in rejecting him because she develops an interest in his uncle. She eventually befriends the entire family and visits them often, and spends time with Joachim’s female cousins who find her fascinating.

Everything is seen trough her eyes and it is almost like reading her diary, her memories of that summer. And through her eyes everything is magical and whimsical. There isn’t much that goes on in the film and it isn’t long either, only around an hour and a half, but the slow and sensuous mood that reminds me of David Hamilton’s photography from roughly the same years makes it a delight for me. Still, there is more depth to the film than it appears on the surface. For sure it is not a sugary and naive teenage romantic drama. Many conflicts linger throughout the film and surface one by one; conflicts between sensuality and innocence, real life vs dreams, observing life vs participating in it. Those are some things that anyone could relate to, but a girl of Faustine’s age and inexperience would particularly understand it, and that is another reason I loved the film. Not only do I love the aesthetic but the themes as well. And, Chopin’s music is played throughout the film as well.

There is a sweet sensuality lingering throughout the scenes; Faustine walking through the fields of poppies and pressing the golden wheat to her soft cheek, kissing the bark of a tree, the trace of milk left on Faustine’s lips as she puts down her mug, Faustine indolently lying on the bed wrapped in nothing but white lace and eating cherries and strawberries, Faustine talking to a delicate newborn poppy flower… and an ultimate feeling of being immersed in nature when she goes skinny dipping in a nearby lake while the rain is falling romantically and announcing the arrival of autumn. I adored one scene where she is running through fields of wheat and poppies, dressed in a white gown and wearing her straw hat with a long pink ribbon, running playfully as if she were a little girl and shouting “Summer isn’t over”, then throwing herself into the grass and gazing at the play of sunlight coming through the treetops and whispering: “Sunshine fills the air. Flowers of all colours. I drink you in, you make me dizzy.”

I love the coming of age theme and I can relate to Faustine feeling that everything is possible, seeing beauty all around her, and feeling rain of sadness falling on her sun-kissed skin from time to time, which are not the dark rains of autumn but the warm and transient summer showers that stir the soul but leave no scars. Throughout the film Faustine is constantly walking the tightrope between her daydreams and the real life around her. The last scene ends the film beautifully; she is dressed in a long gown, so elegant and grown-up, in an embrace with Joachim’s uncle and says: “And finally Faustine will enter the world through the blue door. Today my first kiss and in seventy years, at best, I’ll be dead.” It sounds as if she is narrating her own life, and it is unclear whether she is talking to him, herself or the trees all around them. From the world of daydreams, through a kiss, Faustine at last enters the real world and tastes its sweetness.

And now a few verses from Derek Walcott’s poem “Bleecker Street, Summer” which I discovered by serendipity last summer:

Summer for prose and lemons, for nakedness and languor,
for the eternal idleness of the imagined return,
for rare flutes and bare feet, and the August bedroom
of tangled sheets and the Sunday salt, ah violin!

When I press summer dusks together, it is
a month of street accordions and sprinklers
laying the dust, small shadows running from me.

These beautiful verses from John Keats’s “Endymion” which I loved last summer came to mind while I was watching the film:

…Now a soft kiss –
Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss,
An immortality of passion’s thine:
Ere long I will exalt thee to the shine
Of heaven ambrosial; and we will shade
Ourselves whole summers by a river glade;
And I will tell thee stories of the sky,
And breathe thee whispers of its minstrelsy,
My happy love will overwing all bounds!
O let me melt into thee! let the sounds
Of our close voices marry at their birth;
Let us entwine hoveringly!

I hope you enjoyed this review and that you decide to watch the film. I am glad I watched it now, in May, because I can look forward to another summer and hope that it is as sweet as the last one’s was, instead of pining for it once it passes.

Edwardian Daydreams of the 1970s – Lace, Pastel Colours, Countryside Idyll

Today we’ll take a look at the Edwardian influence on the fashion of the 1970s and the dreamy world it created where white lace, straw hats, floral prints and pastel colours rule.

Photo by David Hamilton, 1970s

Fashion-wise, the 1970s were an eclectic decade, a trend-driven one, especially compared to the previous ones, like the 1950s which were homogeneous. Fashions ranged from Hollywood-inspired Biba glamour, Glam rock, Yves Saint Lauren’s gypsy exoticism to disco, Studio 54 extravagances, Punk and New wave. There was also one trend that I absolutely adore at the moment – the Edwardian revival which brought a gentle, girly and romantic touch to one’s wardrobe. It is in stark contrast to the bold patterns and bright colours of sixties mini dresses.

I already wrote about the influence of the late Victorian and Edwardian era along with Art Nouveau on sixties psychedelia, both in visual art and in fashion here, but this influence is a tad different. Forget the vibrant colours and shapes of Mucha’s paintings that go perfectly with groovy sixties posters. Open your mind for something whiter, gentler, dreamier….

Jane Birkin (1970) and Edwardian lady (1900)

Photo by David Hamilton, 1970s

Left: Bette Davis, Right: Jerry Hall by David Hamilton

Wearing certain clothes can transport you to a different place in imagination, don’t you agree? Well, the mood of this Edwardian revival fantasy is that of an idealised countryside haven where a maiden in white spends her days in romantic pursuits such as pressing flowers, strolling in the meadows, picking apples, lounging on dozens of soft cushions with floral patterns and daydreaming while the gold rays of sun and gentle breeze peek through the flimsy white curtains, reading long nineteenth century novels by Turgenev or Flaubert in forest glades, Beatrix Potter’s witty innocent world of animals, illustrations by Sarah Key, all the while being dressed in beautiful pastel colours that evoke the softness of Edwardian lace, Lilian Gish and Mary Pickford’s flouncy girlish dresses, long flowing dresses with floral prints and delicate embroidery, straw hats decorated with flowers and ribbons, lace gloves, pretty stockings, and hair in a soft bun with a few locks elegantly framing the face, or all in big rag curls with a large white or blue bow, resembling a hairstyle of a Victorian little schoolgirl.

Brooke Shields in “Pretty Baby” (1978)

Left: Lillian Gish, Right: Mary Pickford, c. 1910s

As you know, films have an influence over fashion. I myself often watch a film and caught myself mentally going through my wardrobe and looking for similar outfits that a heroine is wearing. It’s beyond me. Many films from the seventies have the same romantic Edwardian revival aesthetic, such as Pretty Baby (1978) set in a New Orleans brothel at the turn of the century, women are lounging around in white undergarments and black stockings which is so typically fin de siecle, and Shield Brooks in a white dress holding a doll, adorable.

In Australian drama mystery film Picnic at the Hanging Rock (1975) set in 1900 girls from a boarding school go out in nature for an excursion and are dressed in long white gowns, have straw hats or parasols and white ribbons in their hair, Polanski’s Tess (1979) brought an emphasis on the delicate beauty of floral prints on cotton and that also inspired the designer Laura Ashley, even the film Virgin Suicides (1999) which is set in the seventies has a wardrobe of pastels and florals and all the girls wear such dresses to a school dance.

Left: Brigitte Bardot and Right: Nastassja Kinski

ELLE France, 1978, Gilles Bensimon

Left: dreamy hairstyle, Valentino Haute Couture Spring 2015, Right: photo from 1910

Virgin Suicides (1999)

Left: Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), Right: two Edwardian ladies, 1900s

Models of the era are also seen wearing the fashion, such as Twiggy with her straw hat with cherries and Jerry Hall in white dress. Many photos by David Hamilton also capture the mood of this Edwardian revival; there’s something dreamy and ethereal about them, a frozen moment with girls in a reverie, either lounging on bed half-naked or surrounded by trees and flower fields wearing long floral dresses and hats, looking so serene as if they belong to another world. The first picture in this post is my favourite at the moment, a girl with a straw hat with ribbons, and stocking, and those warm Pre-Raphaelite colours… mmm…

Edna May photographed by Alexander Bassano, 1907

Jane Birkin looking so Edwardian and adorable!

Even Brigitte Bardot couldn’t resist elegance in white.

Tess (1979)

Seventeen magazine, February 1974

Twiggy in Valentino by Justin de Villeneuve for Vogue Italy, June 1969

Brigitte Bardot

Wedding dress ‘Faye Dunaway’ by Thea Porter, 1970, England – All that lace!!!

Left: Abbey Lee Kershaw by Marcin Tyszka, Vogue Portugal (2008), Right: Alexis Bledel in Tuck Everlasting (2002)

As you can see in the pictures above, the Edwardian revival has found its place in contemporary fashion and cinematography as well. If you like this style, look for things that capture the mood, regardless of the decade.So, do you want to be a pretty and dreamy Edwardian lady too? Well, it is simple, you can wear a white dress, have a cup of tea, read Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary” or Forster’s “A Room With a View”, stroll around wearing a straw hat, pick flowers, press flowers, chase butterflies, surround yourself with white lace and indulge in reveries!