Few.

Volterra, Michelangelo, 1545

Painters are not in any way unsociable through pride, but either because they find few pursuits equal to painting, or in order not to corrupt themselves with the useless conversation of idle people, and debase the intellect from the lofty imaginations in which they are always absorbed.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, from the "First Dialogue" of Francisco de Holanda’s Da Pintura Antiga

Thank you, Kurt.

Read it and weep, blogosphere.

Happy Birthday, Samuel Adams

Copley, Samuel Adams, 1772

The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.

Samuel Adams, born on this day in 1722, submitted as "Candita" to the Boston Globe, 14 October 1771

Record.

Volkov, The Old Divide, n/d

SONG of the STONE WALL

Come walk with me, and I will tell

What I have read in this scroll of stone;

I will spell out this writing on hill and meadow.

This is New England's entablature of rock,

Leagues upon leagues of sealed history awaiting an interpreter.

It is a chronicle wrought by praying workmen,

The forefathers of our nation.

The walls have many things to tell me,

And the days are long. I come and listen;

My hand is upon the stones, and the tale I fain would hear

Is of the men who built the walls,

And of the God who made the stones and the workers.

With searching feet I walk beside the wall;

I plunge and stumble over the fallen stones;

I follow the windings of the wall

Over the heaving hill, down by the meadow-brook,

Beyond the scented fields, by the marsh where rushes grow.

On I trudge through pine woods fragrant and cool,

And emerge amid clustered pools and by rolling acres of rye.

The wall is built of field stones great and small,

Tumbled about by frost and storm,

Shaped and polished by ice and rain and sun;

Some flattened, grooved, and chiseled

By the inscrutable sculpture of the weather;

Some with clefts and rough edges harsh to the touch.

Gracious Time has glorified the wall

And covered the historian stones with a mantle of green;

The sunbeams flit and waver in the rifts,

Vanish and reappear, linger and sleep,

Conquer with radiance the obdurate angles,

Filter between the naked rents and wind-bleached jags.

I understand the triumph and the truth

Wrought into these walls of rugged stone.

They are a miracle of patient hands,

They are a victory of suffering, a paean of pain.

All pangs of death, all cries of birth,

Are in the mute, moss-covered stones;

They are eloquent to my hands.

O beautiful, blind stones, inarticulate and dumb!

In the deep gloom of their hearts there is a gleam

Of the primeval sun which looked upon them

When they were begotten.

So in the heart of man shines forever

A beam from the everlasting sun of God.

Unresponsive, rude are the stones;

Yet in them divine things lie concealed.

I hear their imprisoned chant:

"We are fragments of the universe,

Chips of the rock whereon God laid the foundation of the world;

Out of immemorial chaos He wrought us.

Out of the sun, out of the tempest, out of the travail of the earth, we grew.

We are wonderfully mingled of life and death;

We serve as crypts for innumerable, unnoticed, tiny forms.

We are manifestations of the Might

That rears the granite hills unto the clouds

And sows the tropic seas with coral isles.

We are shot through and through with hidden color;

A thousand hues are blended in our gray substance.

Sapphire, turquoise, ruby, opal,

Emerald, diamond, amethyst, are our sisters from the beginning;

And our brothers are iron, lead, zinc,

Copper, and silver, and gold.

We are the dust of continents past and to come,

We are a deathless frieze carved with man's destiny;

In us is the record sibylline of far events.

Helen Keller, from "Song of the Stone Wall"

Companionship.

Namuth, Rothko in His Studio, 1964

A picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same cause. It is therefore risky to work out into the world. It is often impaired by the eyes of the unfeeling and the cruelty of the careless.

Mark Rothko

Happy Birthday, Mark Rothko

Rothko, Untitled (Green on Maroon), 1961

When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing; no galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet it was a golden time, for then we had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, and consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I will not venture to discuss. But I do know that many who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where they can root and grow. We must all hope that they find them.

Mark Rothko, born on this day in 1903, from his remarks upon accepting an honorary doctorate from Yale in 1969 (a reminder to the blogosphere)

Real.

Chatham, River at Twilight, 1991

It would be easy to consider that the penciled sketch underneath, and the wash below, are the dream, blueprint, and path of a painting, but that is like saying a dry riverbed is a river. The water is the real river. The color is the painting. The palette is the real dream.  You can’t just do it for an hour a day, or on Saturday.  It’s not going to work.

Russell Chatham

Liberty.

Gardner, "The Last Photograph Taken of Lincoln from Life," 1865

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty.  With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name—liberty.

Abraham Lincoln, from his address at Sanitary Fair in Baltimore April 18, 1864

Happy Birthday, Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette

Sully, Life Study of The Marquis de Lafayette, 1825

Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights.

Marquis de Lafayette, born on this day in 1757, from the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen"

Happy Birthday, Johann Christian Bach

Gainsborough, Portrait of Johann Christian Bach, 1776

Johann Christian Bach was born on this day in 1735.

Sophia Schambeck performs the Allegro con spirito from the Sonata for Harpsichord and Flute op. 16, No. 5, accompanied by the unfortunate clanger racket of Alexander von Heißen ...

Happy Birthday, Tommaso Campanella

Cozza, Portrait of Campanella, 1650

The world's the book where the eternal sense

Wrote his own thoughts; the living temple where, 

Painting his very self, with figures fair

He filled the whole immense circumference.

Tommaso Campanella, born on this day in 1568

Happy Birthday, François-René de Chateaubriand

Guérin, François-René de Chateaubriand, n/d

Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved; and it is to this world that he returns, incessantly, though he may pass through and seem to inhabit a world quite foreign to it.

François-René de Chateaubriand, born on this day in 1768 

Tinge.

Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender: September, 1579

The SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR: SEPTEMBER

Harvest awakes the morning still

And toils rude groups the valleys fill

Deserted is each cottage hearth

To all life save the crickets mirth

Each burring wheel their sabbath meets

Nor walks a gossip in the streets

The bench beneath its eldern bough

Lined oer with grass is empty now

Where blackbirds caged from out the sun

Could whistle while their mistress spun.

All haunt the thronged fields still to share

The harvests lingering bounty there

As yet no meddling boys resort

About the streets in idle sport

The butterflye enjoys his hour

And flirts unchaced from flower to flower

And humming bees that morning calls

From out the low huts mortar walls

Which passing boy no more controuls

Flye undisturbed about their holes

And sparrows in glad chirpings meet

Unpelted in the quiet street

None but imprison'd childern now

Are seen where dames with angry brow

Threaten each younker to his seat

That thro' the school door eyes the street

Or from his horn book turns away

To mourn for liberty and play

Loud are the mornings early sounds

That farm and cottage yard surrounds

The creaking noise of opening gate

And clanking pumps where boys await

With idle motion to supply

The thirst of cattle crowding bye

The low of cows and bark of dogs

And cackling hens and wineing hogs

Swell high-while at the noise awoke

Old goody seeks her milking cloak

And hastens out to milk the cow

And fill the troughs to feed the sow

Or seeking old hens laid astray

Or from young chickens drives away

The circling kite that round them flyes

Waiting the chance to seize the prize

Hogs trye thro gates the street to gain

And steal into the fields of grain

From nights dull prison comes the duck

Waddling eager thro the muck

Squeezing thro the orchard pales

Where mornings bounty rarely fails

Eager gobbling as they pass

Dew worms thro the padded grass

Where blushing apples round and red

Load down the boughs and pat the head

Of longing maid that hither goes

To hang on lines the drying cloaths

Who views them oft with tempted eye

And steals one as she passes bye

Where the holly oak so tall

Far oer tops the garden wall

That latest blooms for bees provide

Hived on stone benches close beside

The bees their teazing music hum

And threaten war to all that come

Save the old dame whose jealous care

Places a trapping bottle there

Filled with mock sweets in whose disguise

The honey loving hornet dies

Upon the dovecoats mossy slates

The piegons coo around their mates

Where morns sunbeams early fall

By the barn or stable wall

Basking hens in playfull rout

Flap the smoaking dust about

In the barn hole sits the cat

Watching within the thirsty rat

Who oft at morn its dwelling leaves

To drink the moisture from the eves

The redbreast with his nimble eye

Dare scarcely stop to catch the flye

That tangled in the spiders snare

Mourns in vain for freedom there

The dog beside the threshold lyes

Mocking sleep with half shut eyes

With head crouched down upon his feet

Till strangers pass his sunny seat

Then quick he pricks his ears to hark

And bustles up to growl and bark

While boys in fear stop short their song

And sneak on hurrys fears along

And beggar creeping like a snail

To make his hungry hopes prevail

Oer the warm heart of charity

Leaves his lame halt and hastens bye

The maid afield now leaves the farm

With brimming bottles on her arm

Loitering unseen in narrow lane

To be oertook by following swain

Who happy thus her truth to prove

Carrys the load and talks of love

Full soon the harvest waggons sound

Rumbling like thunder all around

In ceasless speed the corn to load

Hurrying down the dusty road

While driving boy with eager eye

Watches the church clock passing bye

Whose gilt hands glitter in the sun

To see how far the hours have run

Right happly in the breathless day

To see it wearing fast away

Yet now and then a sudden shower

Will bring to toil a resting hour

When under sheltering shocks a crowd

Of merry voices mingle loud

Wearing the short lived boon along

With vulgar tale and merry song

Draining with leisures laughing eye

Each welcome bubbling bottle drye

Till peeping suns dry up the rain

Then off they start to toil again

Anon the fields are wearing clear

And glad sounds hum in labours ear

When childern halo 'here they come

And run to meet the harvest home

Stuck thick with boughs and thronged with boys

Who mingle loud a merry noise

Glad that the harvests end is nigh

And weary labour nearly bye

Where when they meet the stack thronged yard

Cross bunns or pence their shouts reward

Then comes the harvest supper night

Which rustics welcome with delight

When merry game and tiresome tale

And songs increasing with the ale

Their mingled uproar interpose

To crown the harvests happy close

While rural mirth that there abides

Laughs till she almost cracks her sides

Now harvests busy hum declines

And labour half its help resigns

Boys glad at heart to play return

The shepherds to their peace sojourn

Rush-bosomed solitudes among

Which busy toil disturbed so long

The gossip happy all is oer

Visits again her neighbours door

For scandals idle tales to dwell

Which harvest had no time to tell

And on each bench at even tide

Which trailing vine leaves nearly hide

And free from all its sultry strife

Enjoy once more their idle life

A few whom waning toil reprieves

Thread the forests sea of leaves

Where the pheasant loves to hide

And the darkest glooms abide

Beneath the old oaks mossd and grey

Whose shadows seem as old as they

Where time hath many seasons won

Since aught beneath them saw the sun.

Within these brambly solitudes

The ragged noisy boy intrudes

To gather nuts that ripe and brown

As soon as shook will patter down

Thus harvest ends its busy reign

And leaves the fields their peace again

Where autumns shadows idly muse

And tinge the trees with many hues

Amid whose scenes I'm feign to dwell

And sing of what I love so well

But hollow winds and tumbling floods

And humming showers and moaning woods

All startle into sudden strife

And wake a mighty lay to life

Making amid their strains divine

All songs in vain so mean as mine

John Clare

Happy Birthday, Jacques-Louis David

David, Self-Portrait, 1794

In the arts the way in which an idea is rendered, and the manner in which it is expressed, is much more important than the idea itself. The artist must be a philosopher. Socrates the skilled sculptor, Jean-Jacques the good musician, and the immortal Poussin, tracing on the canvas the sublime lessons of philosophy, are so many proofs that an artistic genius should have no other guide except the torch of reason.

Jacques-Louis David, born on this day in 1748

Will.

In the days before machinery men and women who wanted to amuse themselves were compelled, in their humble way, to be artists. Now they sit still and permit professionals to entertain them by the aid of machinery. It is difficult to believe that artistic culture can flourish in this atmosphere of passivity.

Aldous Huxley, from The Doors of Perception

... but it will.

Gods.

Heyn & Matzen, Clear, Lakota, 1900

These were not Methodist Indians but warriors with a lineage that owed nothing to the white man. We did not live upon the same earth that they did and we flatter ourselves when we think we understand them. To pity these men is to pity the gods.

Jim Harrison, from The Road Home

My Great-Grandpa Firchau was sixteen years old when this photograph was made.

Ever.

Kramer, Summer Swells, n/d

No one wants to row who has ever sailed.

Arthur Ransome, from Swallows and Amazons

Happy Birthday, Izaak Walton

Huysmans, Walton, 1672

Oh the gallant Fisher's life,

It is the best of any,

'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife,

And 'tis belov'd of many:

Other joyes

are but toyes,

only this

lawful is,

for our skill

breeds no ill,

but content and pleasure.

In a morning up we rise,

Ere Aurora's peeping,

Drink a cup to wash our eyes,

Leave the sluggard sleeping:

Then we go

to and fro,

with our knacks

at our backs,

to such streams

as the Thames,

if we have the leasure.

When we pleas to walk abroad

For our recreation,

In the fields is our abode,

Full of delectation.

Where in a brook

with a book,

or a Lake,

fish we take;

there we sit,

for a bit,

till we fish intangle.

Izaak Walton, born on this day in 1593

Pensive.

Firchau, Amsterdam, 2007

’Twas on a lofty vase’s side,

Where China’s gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;

Demurest of the tabby kind,

The pensive Selima, reclined,

Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;

The fair round face, the snowy beard,

The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,

Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but ’midst the tide

Two angel forms were seen to glide,

The genii of the stream;

Their scaly armour’s Tyrian hue

Through richest purple to the view

Betrayed a golden gleam ...

Thomas Gray, from "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes"

Thanks, Buff.

Hand-Crafted.

St. George's Hall in Liverpool hides one of the finest Victorian floors in the world, over 30,000 hand-crafted Minton tiles, usually kept covered and only uncovered for a few weeks each year ...

Triggers.

Stackhouse, Witch of Endor Raising the Prophet Samuel, 1733

Andrea Immel at the Cotsen Children’s Library has triggers for wonderous dreams ...

Between the ages of four and eight, the young Charles Lamb became “extremely inquisitive about witches and witch-stories” after he went into his father’s “book-closet” and wrestled the two folio volumes of Thomas Stackhouse’s New History of the Bible down from the upper shelf. The physical exertion was repaid by the pleasure of studying the splendid engravings, except for the one which provided the container of his night terrors, which he regretted having ever seen. The plate of the witch of Endor was a trigger: the actual source of the terrors were “archetypes” deep within the mind which “afford some probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a peep at least into the shadow-land of pre-existence.”  Samuel was depicted in Stackhouse as a terrible old man wrapped in a mantle, and every night this spectre sent a hag that perched on Charles’ pillow.  He was so frightened that he avoided going into his room even in broad daylight.

Lamb’s memories offer evidence that children did indeed examine large books like Stackhouse which were not specifically intended for children, but neither excluded them because of the wealth of illustrations on subjects they would have learned about elsewhere.  But they are also the earliest of which I am aware which describe accurately and vividly a book illustration that made an indelible impression on a child reader accompanied by a penetrating analysis of its meaning.  

Execupundit with two of the all-time masters.