Marguerite Alexandre

A medieval illustration of a hedgehog with grapes skewered on its spines

It was believed in medieval times that hedgehogs had spikes so they could roll over fruit to carry home to their children, which is not true but is a really cute idea

Andrea della Robbia,
The Adoration of the Child, after 1477

(National Gallery of Art, Washington)

Wings of Desire (1987)
dir: Wim Wenders

Harvani was born in historical Sarab, Iran. After graduating in Graphic Design, she was awarded the National Art Prize and the art award from the Ministry of Science Research. Her work is inspired by the Iranian Golo Morgh (Flower and Bird) paintings, a traditional Persian way of painting in which the flower is the beloved and the bird is the lover.

Maryam Lamei Harvani (Iran) : Redemption, n.d.

Acrylic & watercolor on cardboard
97x 67 cm

More info in the alt text 👇

Van Gogh painted shoes, clogs and old boots as if they were portals to paradise. A pilgrim who painted, he liked walking; and a pilgrim needs sturdy boots to progress. Don’t take them for granted, van Gogh decided. Observe them. Attend to them. Let them be an aid to prayer. Van Gogh had read — and repeatedly referred to — the Scottish Calvinist author Thomas Carlyle, who argued that what marked the poet, painter or man of genius was the ability to see spiritual loveliness in the most ordinary, workaday objects. Hence, these beat-up boots, which are on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Van Gogh painted them in 1887, during his final months in Paris, just before his momentous move to the South of France. According to one acquaintance, he would buy pairs of old work shoes at flea markets and walk them through the mud. Only then did he consider them interesting enough to paint. We are a long way here from the color explosion of Arles and the South, where van Gogh moved in 1888, with tremendous repercussions for his art. But already in this picture, you can feel his palette beginning to brighten. Notice especially the touches of green on the exposed sole (as if stained by grass) and the rich, brushy blue of the cloth on which he carefully arranged the boots, like a priest placing the chalice on the altar. The stiff laces that corkscrew across the foreground create the sensation that we could reach out and yank them toward us. And the flaps of leather for the upright shoe’s tongue and shaft exude deep character. Most conspicuous of all are the glinting hobnails in the sole of the boot on the left. (A few also protrude, like the teeth of a fox cub, from the tip of the upright boot.) Hobnails hold a shoe together. They also provide grip. Grip is what we need — all of us — to stop the world sliding out from under our feet. It’s what van Gogh sought with all his heart. ~ WAPO, article by Sebastian Smee Oct. 31, 2019, (edited for length)

Vincent van Gogh :
A Pair of Boots, 1887

Oil on canvas
73 x 45.1 cm l 28.7 x 17.7 in

Baltimore Museum of Art

"The swans are gone. Still the river remembers how white they were. It strives after them with its lights. It finds their shapes in a cloud."
•Sylvia Plath
Josephine Grundy - Snowy River

Hedgehog wearing a knitted hat

To break up your tl here's a little hedgehog wearing a wee toque.

A huge bright full moon in an inky sky fading to pale blue at the horizon and then to a green field.

'Moon at Musashino' - Tonouchi Misho, ca. 1937. From the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art collection.
#FullMoon #JapaneseArt

🌿👑🌿In Herefordshire, a crown of blackthorn woven on New Year's morning, would be scorched and hung up with the mistletoe for luck. In Worcestershire the crown was made before sunrise, then burnt and scattered over the fields to ensure a good harvest.
#HappyNewYear #Folklore

A lone priest is walking through the snow towards a temple building. The path is lined with snow-laden trees and snow is falling.

'Hall of the Golden Hue at Hiraizumi' - Kawase Hasui, 1957. This was Hasui's final work before his death later the same year.
#JapaneseArt #shinhanga

Blessings, peace and love to us all ♥️

Moonlight, cloudy night sky, silhouettes of trees, painting.

‘We all have forests in our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.’ ~ Ursula K. Le Guin. #BookWormSat
🖼️ Moonlight in the Forest,
Joséphine Bowes.

The image displays a vibrant, detailed pattern featuring a peacock amidst lush floral elements, likely a design for wallpaper or fabric. The artwork is characterized by a soft, painterly style with visible brushstrokes, giving it a somewhat vintage or hand-painted feel.

The "Royal Peacock" wallpaper, which features the design seen in the image, was designed by Catherine Martin for Mokum by James Dunlop Textiles.

The Rainbow (1892), by Nikolay Dubovskoy

An oak tree that appears to be dancing

Dancing Sessile Oak with no name, or a name only known to other dancing oaks - Caronia, Sicily

Photo: Saro Sciuto

The Indian Church (1929)
by Emily Carr

Tossed by the Wind
Emily Carr
1939

#forestFriday
#ArtChallengesAug

Emily Carr
Canadian Artist

A painting of thin, wispy, colorful trees, blowing in the wind, with shades of greens and blues.

#forestFriday
##ArtChallengesAug

@meritadocta.bsky.social
Emily Carr
Canadiens Artist, 1871- 1945

Andrew Wyeth, Walking Stick

A boat on the Sumida River (in Tokyo) in Moonlight (1910-20)
by Arai Yoshimune

There’s no emergency here.

Chicago Jazz Festival x
Esperanza Spalding!

🎨: @smnta___

An illustration from "Simeon's Gift," a book by Julie Andrews Edwards and Emma Walton Hamilton, illustrated by Gennady Spirin. The central figure is a young man, Simeon, lying on the ground, holding a lute, and looking upwards towards the night sky and a full moon. In the upper left, small, winged cherubic figures appear to be floating or flying, emanating from the area near a tree.

Goodnight.
🖼️ Gennady Spirin

🎨: Hacchi.stainedglass

I truly believe that the normalization of nighttime bookstores would change the world.

Forty-four annular turquoise blue glass beads strung on modern thread. Found when a farmer ploughed up a cremation urn at Kongehøj in Denmark in 1885. The urn broke and was found to contain burnt bones, the 44 blue glass beads and two gold spiral rings. Research shows the beads were made in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), indicating far-reaching trade in luxury goods some 3,000 years ago

Something lovely for your timeline!

Beautiful blue glass beads from the late Bronze Age.

Ploughed up by a farmer in Denmark in 1885, analysis shows the beads were made in Mesopotamia, pointing to long-distance trade in luxury goods some 3,000 years ago.

📷 National Museum of Denmark

#Archaeology

Cosby Creek at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The water was running high with all the crazy rainstorms! (Photo by me)

The defining feature of Japanese artist Saburōsuke Okada's (岡田三郎助) style is, above all, his graceful and elegant female figures, which integrate influences from his European and Japanese training in which he gradually established his own style based on delicate brushstrokes and elegant colors. "Kimono with Iris Pattern" (aka "Iris Robe") is a perfect embodiment of Okada's refined decorativeness and the detailed, soft skin tone characteristic of how he depicts women, as seen in works such as 紫の調 (Portrait of a Certain Woman) from 1907 and 萩 (Bush Clover) from 1908. The main feature of this work is the beautiful kimono robe, in which a white iris pattern stands out against the light indigo background that resembles water in a pond, and the vermilion stripes that beautifully harmonize with them. The young Japanese woman wearing the robes is painted in oil paint, with her back visible, against a golden-yellow background in the style of a lacquer dye. Traditional Japanese aesthetics and techniques are clearly visible in this "Western-style" oil painting, reflecting Okada's tireless research. At the age of six, Okada moved to Tokyo and stayed in the residence of Nabeshima Naohiro (鍋島直大), the former lord of the Saga domain. There, he saw the oil paintings of his fellow Saga native, Hyakutake Kaneyuki (百武兼行), and developed an interest in Western painting. After studying at the private school of Soyama Sachihiko (曽山幸彦), he entered the Tenshin Dojo, taught by Kuroda Seiki (黒田清輝) and Kume Keiichiro (久米桂一郎), who had returned from France. In 1896, he participated in the founding of the Hakuba-kai, and was appointed assistant professor in the newly established Western painting department at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (東京美術学校). The following year, he traveled to France as the first student studying Western painting funded by the Ministry of Education, studying under Kuroda's teacher, Raphaël Collin.

あやめの衣 (Kimono with Iris Pattern) by 岡田三郎助 / Saburōsuke Okada (Japanese) - Oil on cardboard mounted on canvas / 1927 - Pola Museum of Art (Hakone, Japan) #WomenInArt #art #JapaneseArt #日本絵画 #ポーラ美術館 #岡田三郎助 #PolaMuseumofArt #着物 #OkadaSaburōsuke #OkadaSaburosuke #womensart #OilPainting #JapanesesArtist

It's a gorgeous cover! It was wonderful to attend your reading at Politics & Prose in Washington DC. I'm savoring the beautiful, poetic prose slowly!