The Hammock Papers: Bouguereau

Showing posts with label Bouguereau. Show all posts

25 December 2024

Peace.

Bouguereau, Song of the Angels, 1881

Luke 2:8-20

8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”

16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

21 June 2023

Summer.

Bouguereau, Summer, 1880

14 April 2023

Celebratory.

Bouguereau, La Jeunesse de Bacchus, 1884

Life is so short you want to remember all of it, bad and good. It has occurred to me that I’m drawn to wine for the same reason that fishing and bird hunting have been lifelong obsessions. The pleasure is in the path, the search for something good; finding and drinking a fine, reasonably priced wine is similar to catching a trout in an unlikely eddy of a river, or a two grouse in the bag on a cold, rainy October morning -- it is celebratory rather than sedating, a nod to the realities of existence rather than an erasure.

Jim Harrison

25 December 2022

Gloria.

Bouguereau, Song of the Angels, 1881

Grim was the world and grey last night:

The moon and stars fled,

The hall was dark without song or light,

The fires were fallen dead.

The wind in the trees was like to the sea,

And over the mountains’ teeth

It whistled bitter-cold and free,

As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows up-reared his head;

His mantle long and pale

Upon the bitter blast and spread

And hung o’er hill and dale.

The world was blind, the boughs were bent,

All the ways and paths were wild:

Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,

And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer

Was pricked with distant light;

A star came shining white and clear

Alone above the night.

In the dale of dark in that hour of birth

One voice on a sudden sang:

Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth

Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:

They heard her song arise

O’er mist and over mountain snow

To the walls of Paradise,

And the tongue of many bells was stirred

In Heaven’s towers to ring

When the voice of mortal maid was heard,

That was the mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night

With stars about its head,

And the hall is filled with laughter and light,

And fires are burning red.

The bells of Paradise now ring

With bells of Christendom,

And Gloria, Gloria we will sing

That God on earth is come.

J.R.R. Tolkien

04 December 2022

Gaudia.

Bouguereau, Song of the Angels, 1881

In dulci jubilo

Nun singet und seid froh!

Unsers Herzens Wonne liegt

In praesepio

Und leuchtet als die Sonne

Matris in gremio

Alpha es et O!

O Jesu parvule

Nach dir ist mir so weh!

Tröst' mir mein Gemüte

O puer optime

Durch alle deine Güte

O princeps gloriae!

Trahe me post te!

O patris charitas

O nati lenitas!

Wir all' wär'n verdorben

Per nostra crimina;

So hat er uns erworben

Coelorum gaudia!

Eya, wär'n wir da!

Ubi sunt gaudia?

Nirgend mehr als allda

Da die Engel singen wohl

Nova cantica

Und da die Schellen klingen

In regist curia

Eya, wär'n wir da!

Heinrich Suso

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL