Carl Krenek – Sleeping Beauty: I’d Sleep Another Hundred Years, O love, for Such Another kiss!

“I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss;”
“O wake forever, love,” she hears,
“O love, ’t was such as this and this.”

…..

“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!”
“O happy sleep that lightly fled!”
“O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!”
“O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!”

(Lord Tennyson, The Day-Dream)

Carl Krenek (1880-1948), A Fairy Tale Scene – Sleeping Beauty, n.d.

“In the topmost bedchamber of the house he found her. He had stepped over sleeping chambermaids and valets, and, breathing the dust and damp of the place, he finally stood in the door of her sanctuary. Her flaxen hair lay long and straight over the deep green velvet of her bed, and her dress in loose folds revealed the rounded breasts and limbs of a young woman. He opened the shuttered windows. The sunlight flooded down on her. And approaching her, he gave a soft gasp as he touched her cheek, and her teeth through her parted lips, and then her tender rounded eyelids. Her face was perfect to him…”
(Anne Rice, Sleeping Beauty)

French Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé said that “To define is to kill. To suggest is to create”, and even before him, the seventeenth century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho wrote that “a poem that suggests 70-80 percent of its subject may be good, but a poem that only suggests 50-60 percent of the subject will always retain its intrigue”. This way of looking at things stuck with me and, suddenly, while looking at this painting by Carl Krenek and wondering why is it that I love it so much, it dawned on me… The reason for my immense appreciation of Carl Krenek’s painting “A Fairy Tale Scene – Sleeping Beauty” is because of its deliberate vagueness.

I have seen many nineteenth and early twentieth century illustrations of this famous fairy tale, but this one strikes me as the most original and perhaps also the most vibrant and flowery one as well. Instead of boring us with architectural details of the chamber where the Sleeping Beauty is sleeping in her bed, and painting all her entourage and all the sleeping courtiers and what not, Krenek focuses on the bare essentials; the slumbering princess and the roses that have grown over her bed, which are the two main motives of the fairy tale and the most recognisable to our eyes. This instantly brings freshness and our eye is excited. This is not to say that Krenek wasn’t detailed in his approach, far from it. The scene is very detailed, but in areas where it matters. Just look at the meticulous way he had painted all the flowers and thorns and branches, how they fill the space beautifully and naturally.

Krenek certainly wasn’t vague when it came to depicting the roses; here is one roses, now you, my dear viewers, imagine the others. No, it seems he really put his heart into all these flowers and they look ever so cheerful and vibrant, from the delicate pink ones above the princess and the more richly coloured red, orange and yellow ones that are growing around her bed. There is little to be seen of the actual Sleeping Beauty; only her pale face with the peacefully closed eyes and her white dress. It seems the roses are more of a main character than she is. Otherwise, I may have preferred to see the princess painted in more details, her beauty more enchanced, but in this painting I find the whole vagueness just delightful and I don’t regret there not being more of a focus on the princess. In fact, our eye may be even more drawn to the princess precisely because we cannot see her clearly. They mystery is alluring.

Sleeping Beauty is perhaps my favourite fairy tale and there are so many ways to look at this story on a symbolic level. Is she really just a princess who fell asleep because of the evil witch, waiting for a kiss to awake her? The theme of awakening can be interpreted in many ways; these days the nature, kissed by spring, is waking up from a long slumber of winter, but also, it can symbolise the girl’s awakening and ripening into womanhood, after that fateful kiss, just as the main character Faustine in the French 1972 film “Faustine and the Beautiful Summer” says, after being kissed by a man for the first time, “With this kiss my life begins!”. Is it the kiss of the Prince which awakens the Sleeping Beauty’s dormant soul, or is a love arrow shot by Cupid from above?

And now, to end the post, here are some beautiful verses from Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Day-Dream”:

“And on her lover’s arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold;
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old.
Across the hills, and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
The happy princess followed him.
“I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss!”

Sleeping Beauty by the Brothers Grimm, illustrated by Heinrich Lefler. Part of a fairy tale calender published by Berger & Wirth, Leipzig, 1905

Botticelli – Primavera: The Rose Is Full Blown, The Riches of Flora Are Lavishly Strown

“O come! (…) The rose is full blown,
The riches of Flora are lavishly strown…”

Sandro Botticelli, Primavera, tempera on panel, c.1482

These days I was really enjoying Botticelli’s painting “Primavera”; and I took great delight in gazing at all the details and especially gazing at the figures of Flora and the nymph Chloris caught in the wicked embrace of the God Zephyr. This painting needs no introduction because it is so famous in the Western world, but I still felt the need to share its beauty here and to show my appreciation, or rather, adoration. Sandro Botticelli was one of the Medici family’s favourite painters at the time and this painting was probably painted for the occassion of the marriage of Lorenzo Medici’s cousin which took place in 1482 and that is the date usually asigned to the painting. The painting’s themes of love and new beginnings, tied with the arrival of spring, as personified by the Roman Goddess Flora, are fitting for such a happy occassion indeed.

The court poet of the Medici family, Angelo Poliziano, described the garden of Venus as a place of eternal spring and peace, and his descriptions may have served as an inspiration to Botticellli for this painting. As the title “Primavera” suggests, the painting shows the arrival of spring and the celebrations surrounding the event. The arrival of spring is the most joyous time of the year for me! Who would not wish to celebrate it!? For long winter months I yearn to see the flowers blooming, the weeping willows coming alive with many little leaves, the birds singing… It is natural then, that the arrival of spring and the entire season of spring is also tied with the season of love. The central figure in Botticelli’s painting is Venus, the Goddess of Love, in the company of of her son Amor who is flying above her with his love arrows, and the Three Graces, dressed in flimsy white dresses that reveal more than they conceal. Venus is in the centre of the composition but, compared to the other figures, she is standing more in the background, as if she is allowing the spring to come before her. In the far right corner is the God Mercury who is holding off a rainy cloud with his stick; nothing is allowed to disturb the idyll of the beautiful garden where orange trees are ripe with fruit and a sweet fragranace of flowers colours the air. The Roman poet Lucretius’ poetic work “De Rerum Natura” may have also served as an inspiration to Botticelli and indeed in some of the verses we find similarities:

“Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus’ boy,
The winged harbinger, steps on before…
Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all
With colours and with odours excellent…”

It is as if Botticelli is describing these verses because most of the characters from the painting are here in the poem; the Venus and her ‘boy’, Zephyr and Flora. My favourite part of the painting is the right corner where we have an interesting motif of metamorphosis presented all in one painting, although it doesn’t happen at the same time. Zephyr, the God of Wind, is seen forcefully embracing the beautiful yet frightened nymph Chloris who then transforms into the Goddess Flora who is represented by the woman dressed in a long white gown decorated with little flowers, for she is the Goddess of spring. A woman touched by love becomes all flowery and spring-like; what a beautiful analogy! Here are more verses from Lucretius’s “De Rerum Natura”:

“For thee waters of the unvexed deep
Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky
Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day,
And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred,
First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee,
Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine,
And leap the wild herds round the happy fields
Or swim the bounding torrents. Thus amain,
Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee
Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead,
And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams,
Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains,
Kindling the lure of love in every breast,
Thou bringest the eternal generations forth…”

This “transformation by love” that has happened between Zephyir and Flora is the most beautiful element of the painting for me. Also, I am really enjoying Flora’s fashion choice; the long white gown and flowers. Flora as imagined by Botticelli made me think of a few fashion pictures from the sixties and seventies, and also of the costume worn by the sweet Jane Birkin.

Jane Birkin in “Wonderwall” (dir. Joe Massot – 1968)

Detail

ELLE Magazine – July 7th 1975 Yves Saint Laurent and Liberty of London Photographed by Barry Lategan

Toni Frissell – Vogue (June 1967)

My Inspiration for April 2023

This has been the most romantic April I have ever had! I would have drowned in its dreaminess were it possible. Days flew like a river, one melting into the other, each one more dreamy, more beautiful, bringing me new gifts in various forms; a flower, a loving word, a golden sunset… I have had a major Nick Cave obsession and have been listening to his albums “Let Love In” and “The Boatman’s Call” non-stop, and have been reading his Red Hand Files and also “Faith, Hope, Carnage”, and here is something beautiful from it: “The luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism and disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days.” Lilac, magnolia, iris, hydrangea; the favourites of this month. I’ve enjoyed the paintings of Ophelia, nymphs; Waterhouse’s and other, Aubrey Beardsley’s illustrations, Delmira Agustini and Tagore’s poetry, Tinderstick’s album “Curtains”, Anglada-Camarasa’s paintings, Anais Nin’s journals, paintings of gardens, long gowns and flowers crowns as you’ve seen in my fashion inspiration post, water lilies and weeping willows, William Morris’s prints and his Briar Rose series…

“Ah! When you are far away my whole life cries
And to the murmur of your steps even in dreams I smile.
I know you will return, that another dawn will shine…”

(Delmira Agustini, From Far Away)

“Art is much, but love is more.
O Art, my Art, thou’rt much, but Love is more!
Art symbolises heaven, but Love is God
And makes heaven.”
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh, Book IX.)

“I think of you in motion
And just how close you are getting
And how every little thing anticipates you
All down my veins my heart-strings call
Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for?”
(Nick Cave, Are you the one that I’ve been waiting for)

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By Marianna Rothen

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Hydrangea (@lovecats92 on Instagram)

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Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale: With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied (A Nymph)

“There, in a meadow, by the river’s side,
A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied…”

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, ‘With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied’, 1915, pencil and watercolour

April is a green month. Whereas in March the blossoming trees coloured the horizon, in April nature is all clad in green, at last. On cloudy days especially the verdant landscape is ever so vibrant. I think my enthusiasm for spring is quite obvious from my recent posts, and indeed I take delight every day in the awakening of nature and the lushness and sensuality that accompany it. I seek the same sensations in the world of art and this watercolour by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale known under the titled “With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied” perfectly encapsulated the April vibes that I am feeling at the moment. This is April in a painting, for me. A beautiful month, a beautiful painting. I am thoroughly enjoying all the Pre-Raphaelitesque details in each and every leaf, the nymph’s green-blueish hair, the reflections in the water… it is beyond praise. Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale was not a Pre-Raphaelite artist in the strict sense of the word, but her style of painting, vibrant and detailed, and her choice of motifs is very much Pre-Raphaelite. The natural setting in this watercolour, painted with such admirable attention to all the details, to every flower, every leaf, every branch, every blade of grass, is very reminiscent of John Everett Millais’ painting “Ophelia”. We might assume the same natural setting was used for the portraits of Ophelia and this lovely nymph.

The watercolour shows a naked nymph by the river, holding flowers in both of her hands. She seems surprised, caught off guard and gazing at something, or someone, that we cannot see. Despite being portrayed as naked, which is usual for a nymph, she doesn’t seem to be flaunting her nakedness in a sensual or inviting manner, as perhaps Waterhouse’s nymphs are doing, but rather she seems innocent to the point of unawareness, untroubled by society’s norms and demands, she is a free nature’s child and her heart is pure. Her long dark hair, tinged with shades of blue and green, and adorned with flowers, is elegantly covering her body and the blades of grass bellow are doing the same thing.

This watercolour is found in the “The Book of Old English Songs and Ballads” (printed in Edinburgh in 1915) and is an illustration for Edmund Spenser’s poem “Prothalamion” written in 1596 on the ocassion of a double wedding of Ladie Elizabeth and Ladie Katherine Somerset. The poem meditates on marriage, beauty of the brides and their wedding day, and dwells on the beauty of the natural world as opposed to the restrictive world of court and politics. In the poem, on a calm day when the sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play, the poet goes for a walk by the river Thames and sees nymphs, “the lovely daughters of the flood”, as he calls them, who are gathering flowers, lilies, daisies and primroses, and putting them in their little baskets.

Details

Here are the opening lines of the poem from where the title of the watercolour was taken:

“CALM was the day, and through the trembling air
Sweet breathing Zephyrus did softly play,
A gentle spirit, that lightly did delay
Hot Titan’s beams, which then did glister fair;
When I (…)
Walked forth to ease my pain
Along the shore of silver streaming Thames,
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
Was painted all with variable flowers,
And all the meads adorned with dainty gems,
Fit to deck maidens’ bowers,
And crown their paramours,
Against the bridal day, which is not long:
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.

There, in a meadow, by the river’s side,
A flock of nymphs I chanced to espy,
All lovely daughters of the flood thereby,
With goodly greenish locks, all loose untied,
As each had been a bride;
And each one had a little wicker basket,
Made of fine twigs, entrailed curiously,
In which they gathered flowers to fill their flasket,
And with fine fingers cropt full featously
The tender stalks on high.
Of every sort, which in that meadow grew,
They gathered some; the violet pallid blue,
The little daisy, that at evening closes,
The virgin lily, and the primrose true…“

Fashion Inspiration: Long Gowns and Flower Crowns

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My Inspiration for March 2023

What an incredible March I have had! With the excitement of a murmuring brook I have awaited each new day, nervously, in wild anticipation of spring that has finally sprung, to see which joys of soft blossoms and fresh leaves it will bring me. The purple hyacinth whose fragrance has been colouring my daydreams and lulling me to sleep this past week has closed its petals, but the fragrant flowers in my heart have only started opening theirs, blooming and thriving, more vibrant and fragrant than ever before. A month of love – a month of blossoms and vast blue skies! The nature’s awakening. Lying in the warm rays of the afternoon sun like the cat, delighting in the warm shade of green on the newly sprung leaves of a weeping willow, picking daffodils and cherry blossoms and enjoying every delicate transient moment that their beauty offers. This month I was obsessed with the art of Konstantin Somov and even more with the Kangra paintings on love, especially those which show the mischievous and tender love adventures of Radha and Krishna, Japanese ceramics and their philosophy of wabi-sabi especially in relation to poetry and art, ikebana or the Japanese way of flower arrangements, colours of the month: baby blue, baby pink and red, paintings of Sleeping Beauties, lanterns and cherry blossoms, blooming trees in art as well as in nature around me. Perhaps the faithful bamboo had been with me all throughout the winter, but – at long last – the music of the birds has returned to me and I am grateful for that. Very happy to see what April has to offer!

“Lovers are always waiting. They hate to wait; they love to wait. Wedged between these two feelings, lovers come to think a great deal about time, and to understand it very well, in their perverse way.”

(Anne Carson, from “Now then,” Eros the Bittersweet)

“I love all that thou lovest,
Spirit of Delight!
The fresh Earth in new leaves dress’d,
And the starry night…
I love waves, and winds, and storms,
Everything almost
Which is Nature‘s, and may be
Untainted by man’s misery.”

(Percy Bysshe Shelley, Rarely, rarely comest thou)

“I want to sleep beneath
Peaceful skies in my lover’s bed
With a wide open country in my eyes
And these romantic dreams in my head
‘Cause once we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender…”
(Bruce Springsteen, No Surrender)

David Hamilton – Suzanne Farrell (1971)

Alex Chatelain – Jean-Marc Maniatis Ad (Vogue Paris 1970)

Willie Christie – Uschi Obermaier Wearing a Top from Forbidden Fruit & Skirt from Vern Lambert (The Sunday Times Magazine 1974)

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Picture by Thomas Geppi.

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photo by maoyeamh.tumblr.com

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Vincent van Gogh – Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass, March 1888

“(…) the truth of real beauty did not lie so much in the beauty of a field of flowers but in the contemplation of the life of just one. By focusing on just one flower one might be able to break the perceptual gap that lies between the flower and oneself and to realize that the flower and oneself are not after all existentially separate.”

Vincent van Gogh, Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass, March 1888

Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh was born on the 30th March 1853. Since his birthday is coming up in a few days, I decided to write a little something to commemorate the happy occasion.

Van Gogh loved to paint flowers, sunflowers and irises most notably, but in early spring days he loved to capture the fleeting beauty of blooming orchards and sometimes, as you can see above in the painting “Sprig of Flowering Almond in a Glass”, even just one sprig of an almond blossom was a motif worthy of being captured on canvas. He painted this in March of 1888 in Arles where he had moved because of the warm climate, but he was instead welcomed by snow. Still, nature allowed this almond to bloom just in time for Vincent to paint it. Not a whole blooming tree, but a single sprig was beautiful enough to Vincent to capture it on canvas. This “portrait” of a flower is very different from most flower paintings of the time; it is simple and unpretentious, only a little branch with blossoms as young as the dawn of the day.

Those still lives with dozens and dozens of different flowers, all vibrant and beautiful without a doubt, can be overwhelming to the eye, but in this humble portrait of an almond branch we are allowed to focus on the details; on the delicate whiteness of the petals, on the crooked branch that delights the eyes with its perfect imperfection, on the tiny green leaves, even on the transparency of the glass vase and on the yellow lines on the table which bring to mind the play of the sunlight. This departure from the formal, the usual and the customary paintings of flowers and the insistance on simplicity brings to mind the spirit of wabi-sabi; it is an intuitive appreciation of the transient beauties of this material world, it is the understated beauty of the modest and imperfect things such as this small branch.

Shōka arrangement by the 40th headmaster Ikenobō Senjō, drawing from the Sōka Hyakki by the Shijō school, 1820

“The rhythm of blooming”, by watara_ikebana.

Shirō Kasamatsu, Springtime Ikebana, n.d.

The more I gazed at Van Gogh’s arrangement of a sprig of flowering almond in a glass, the more it reminded me of ikebana; the Japanese art of arranging flowers. This simple almond sprig, taken from nature, broken off from the tree branch, is suddenly transformed from something ‘natural’ to something ‘artistic’ in the very act of being put in the vase. Van Gogh was doubly artistic in a sense, for he arranged and then painted the almond blossoms. Moreover, he chose to portray a flower of humble, fragile, transient beauty. Ikebana literally means “living flowers” in Japanese and the roots of this art of arranging flowers can be traced back to the seventh century in the flower offerings to Buddha. Then, in the Muromachi period (1333–1568) a more sophisticated way of arranging flowers known as ‘rikka’ emerged and today the term is synonymous with the word ‘ikebana’. Every flower or plant carries a symbolism in this art and there are many strict rules when it comes to the arrangements. At times the rules seemed to matter more than the final aesthetic, but not to people like the sixteenth tea master and aesthetic-revolutionary Sen no Rikyu who embraced the wabi sabi aesthetic when it came to tea ceremonies, garden deisign and flower arrangement:

“Sen no Rikyu, with his dislike for rules and con-trived forms of beauty, felt that the real beauty and aesthetic value of flowers lay not in there adherence to rules but to the way in which they were sympathetically displayed.

It was Sen no Rikyu who started the nagaire movement, which means to “throw into,” and it is here where the spirit of wabi sabi can be found. Doing away with all formalism and again refraining fromusing opulent vases from mainland China, Rikyu remained true to his overall aesthetic scheme and chose the simplest of vases for the flower displays in his tea ceremonies, known as chabana (tea flowers). In place of more impressive flowers Rikyu insisted on the use of smaller wildflowers picked in the fields. He is said to have been the first to introduce the bamboo vase as a serious artistic expression, and the first vase used, called the Onjoji vase, has been treasured ever since. Even when the vase started to leak, the small pool of water that gathered around the bottom was appreciated as a natural flaw, beautiful and expressive in its own right.

On one occasion Rikyu had heard of Hideyoshi’s desire to see the beautiful morning glories that were in flower in the tea garden. Following protocol Hideyoshi was invited, but on his arrival he was surprised to see that all the morning glories had been cut. However, on entering the tearoom, Hideyoshi noticed an exquisite flower arrangement that consisted of just one beautiful morning glory. Rikyu was showing his master that the truth of real beauty did not lie so much in the beauty of a field of flowers but in the contemplation of the life of just one. By focusing on just one flower one might be able to break the perceptual gap that lies between the flower and oneself and to realize that the flower and oneself are not after all existentially separate.” (Andrew Juniper, Wabi-Sabi)

As passionate, crude and impetuous Van Gogh had been, at times, the fact that he painted these gentle blossoms, with such delicacy and tenderness, with such affection and attention, shows that indeed, as he once wrote, there was “calmness, pure harmony and music” inside of him. The practice of ikebana was suppose to be a way of calming one’s mind, and I can’t help but wonder, did it calm Vincent to gaze at these almond blossoms and paint them? Was it a visual meditation? And how long did they sit in that vase on his table and what sweet songs did they sing to him to soothe him? Flowers are soothing creatures, their beauty colours the life. One cannot be in the company of the flowers and remain angry, or want for anything more. A single flower is enough to make one smile and warm one’s heart.

Edgar Degas – Rest – Waiting for the Kiss of Spring

“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!”
“O happy sleep that lightly fled!”
“O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!”

Edgar Degas, Rest, 1893, pastel

Edgar Degas has many lovely pastels which I enjoy gazing at from time to time, mostly of ballerinas – a motif which he was famous for – but for months now this beautiful pastel with a simple title, “Rest”, from 1893, has been on my mind. The pastel shows Degas’ favourite subject; a woman. This time a half-nude woman sleeping on a pile of fabrics, she is covered only partly with a bright blue blanket. While her auburn hair is cascading down her back, her face is, thank you Degas, turned towards us. Perhaps she was folding her laundry and started daydreaming of sparrows and blossoming orchards and baby blue skies in the middle of her task and eventually fell asleep; been there, done that. The thing that immediately drew me to the painting was the bright blue blanket. That colour! Ah! Is it really a man-made fabric or a meadow of cornflowers? Even though it is long and covers a lot, Degas left plenty of skin-coloured areas to tempt us; a leg coyly peeking out of that sea of blue, the face, the arm and the bosom. How delightful is the contrast between her delicate porcelain skin and that blue colour? Another pop of colour here comes from the bright blue wall behind her, and that same blue is repeated in dashes on the floor. Truly that blueness is irresistible.

The forgotten castle (Château de la Mothe-Chandeniers).

The colours and the mood of the painting make me think of this forgotten castle in a picture above. Degas’ slumbering maiden was probably just a Parisian working class girl, but in my imagination she is the Sleeping Beauty and she is sleeping in one of the chambers of this castle, waiting in vain for a kiss of spring… The maiden is in a sweet slumber; the long, frosty and icy slumber of winter that is about to be awoken by a sweet, fragrant and warm kiss of spring. I imagine the Spring to be a personified as a wickedly handsome man, fragrant and long-haired, with a slightly mischievous yet disarming smile, dressed in green robes or perhaps nothing at all, the Zephyr from Botticelli’s painting “The Birth of Venus” comes to my mind. And then the woman will open her eyes and whisper:

“I’d sleep another hundred years,
O love, for such another kiss;”
“O wake forever, love,” she hears,
“O love, ’t was such as this and this.”

….“O eyes long laid in happy sleep!”
“O happy sleep that lightly fled!”
“O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!”
“O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!“

(Lord Tennyson, The Day-Dream)

When she stands up, the blue blanket of winter will fall down and in a second be replaced by a dress of dandelions and a corsette of dandelions that the man-Spring had been weaving and making for her in all those long wintery afternoons. And then the two will dance and play till their hearts’ delights in flowery meadows.

My Inspiration for April 2022

“I am still ashamed of myself, afraid to let myself go, to let things pour out of me; I am dreadfully inhibited, and that is because I have not yet learned to accept myself as I am.”

“Etty Hillesum, from a diary entry featured in An Interrupted Life: the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerbork (translated from the Dutch by Arnold J. Pomerans)

Jamie Beck (@jamiebeck.co)

Instagram: elise.buch

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Reylia Slaby, Ophelia – Tales from Japan series – Nara, Japan – 2013

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Kasamatsu Shiro – Tenjin Shrine in Spring Rain and The Ginza on a Spring Night

“That is one good thing about this world…there are always sure to be more springs.”

(L.M.Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea)

Kasamatsu Shiro, Yushima Tenjin Shrine in Spring Rain, 1935

These two woodblock prints by the Japanese print maker and engraver Kasatasu Shiro (1898-1991), “Yushima Tenjin Shrine in Spring Rain” and “The Ginza on a Spring Night” are very similar and contrasting at the same time. Both prints portray the scene of a spring rain and night; motives that seem to be recurring in the art of Kasamatsu Shiro, and both prints show a scene with architecture and people. Still, the moods of these prints are very different. In “Yushim Tenjin Shrine in Spring Rain” the scene of the Tenjin shrine in spring rain is seen through a greyish-blue mist. We, the viewers, are observing the scene from a porch, safely hidden under a roof while the rain is drizzling. The pigeons have also found their safe haven under that same roof. The figures in the distance are all holding umbrellas. The bare tree branches, a pigeon in its flight, the puddles of rain on the ground; little details such as these help to convey the mood of tranquility and perhaps even a touch of melancholy. Here and there we can see the warm yellow light of the lanterns. The horizontal shape of the print adds to the calm, serene mood of the scene and the visual space is nicely broken up into different parts with the wooden columns on the porch; this is a detail typical for Japanese art. In contrast, the print “The Ginza on a Spring Night” shows a scene from a bustling city of Tokyo. Shiro depicts a busy street scene and the vertical format of the print really fits the mood, in the same way the horizontal format fits the meditative mood of the previous print. Women wearing kimono and dresses, men in their suits, everyone is walking down the street on a spring night. Where are they all going, I can’t help but wonder? The blueness of the night is mingling with the yellow light of the streelamps. A thin tree with blossoming branches is stretching itself towards the sky, as if it is thirsty to soak in the silvery light of the moon. It is interesting how the passersby in the foreground are drawn more in detail while the ones in the background are drawn merely as dark shadows. These two prints both depict the motif of a spring night and rain but they are full of contrasts; spiritual versus secular (one print showing the shrine and the other a city scene), tranquility versus liveliness, nature versus city, meditation versus frivolity and fun.

Kasamatsu Shiro, The Ginza on a Spring Night (Haru no yo, Ginza), 1934