Love and His Counterfeits

For your romantic enjoyment on Valentine's day, here are some rather wonderful paintings by the "last of the pre-Raphaelites," and one of the most popular artists of the Edwardian era, Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872-1945) on the subject of LOVE. [click to enlarge]:

Love and His Counterfeits (1904)

This picture needs quite a bit of explanation!

"When a girl's soul awakens and she opens the door of her Heart's Castle to receive Love, at first she will not recognise him.

First, she will see Fear and think him to be Love. Fear, in craven armour of black, with no coat of arms or badge to mark his family. But by Fear, Love may come.

Then she will see Romance, being now in love with 'being in love' - Romance, the Boy on a Bubble with a Castle of Dreams in his hand, and Birds and Roses about him. He leads Ambition, who shall stir the girl to think he is Love himself - Ambition, very hot and eager, riding upon Pegasus, the winged Horse.

After them is Position, whom she may take for Love; but truly she is in love with Appearance, Prestige, Importance, Riches, Place, all his Train, and this is borne by a Cupid.

Now she is stirred by Pity, thinking whom she pities she loves - Pity with the Cup of tears with three handles, that many may drink.

Then she perceives Arts, a brave fellow who is but words and emptiness and a mask for love. Arts paints a wound upon him and sings that it is real. To Love he is not henchman, nor cousin, but enemy.

Behind him goes Flattery with a mirror, so she is wooed by vain words. Then Gratitude comes with the smoke of memory, and she will think she is faithless if she does not love one who has been kind.

Now, at last, after her emotion, her assault by gifts, mirrors, riches, tears, dreams, phrases, memories, comes True Love, empty-handed, to take and win her Heart's Castle."

Perhaps Brickdale's most famous painting is The Uninvited Guest (1906) which depicts Cupid hanging out disconsolately at the fringes of a wedding that is all about wealth, appearance and position. Love is not invited here.

Can't get enough of that ol' Symbolism? Here's Chivalry Dying of Love for the Goddess:

(Note the knights all swooning about somewhat over-dramatically, which has entertained Venus enough to give her pause in the procession of olympians.)


Here's much simpler picture, but still full of drama:

The Secret

And my absolute fave, Love and Adversity (1900) in which the protagonist is kept company by Love while (one assumes) his Beloved goes off to marry some rich dude.

Add caption

I means, it's got a hairy dude in bondage at the castle gate - What's not to adore? There's definitely a story waiting to be written for that one!

The Parrish in winter

White Birches

Since the weather's so cold, let's enjoy some of Maxfield Parrish's luminous winter landscapes...

Moonlit Night: Winter

Parrish (1870-1966) spent most of his life as a commercial illustrator - magazines, advertisments, calendars, children's books etc. - before ending his career as a landscape artist. He was immensely prolific and made an absolute fortune from his work, which was incredibly popular with the general public: the most popular art print of the 20th Century is his Daybreak of 1922.

He achieved his rich effects through careful layering of paints and varnishes. His snowscapes are just psychedelic!

Dusk

Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

Deep Snow

Lull Brook: Winter

At Close of Day

White Birches: Winter

Winter Sunrise

Spring, with boobs

A month late, Spring has finally arrived here with a brazen heatwave and an embarrassed rush of flowers.

And you know what Spring means to artists? Yes, pretty goddesses with their boobies out! Botticelli's Primavera is the most famous of these depictions, partly because it is layered with slightly obscure allegory:

c. 1470

But Flora the Roman goddess of flowers and springtide pops up (and out) in art throughout the ages. In this one her flesh is literally made out of flowers:

Arcimboldo: Flora Meretrix (c1590)

Her story is the usual Greek offhand misogyny: she starts off as the nymph Chloris ("green") but is transformed into Flora the goddess of spring after being abducted/raped/married by the West Wind.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau: Flora and Zephyrus (1875)

John William Waterhouse: Flora and the Zephyr (1898)

However, she certainly seems to have made the best of the situation:

Triumph Of Flora, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1743)

She's long been a popular subject for the classically inclined patron...

Portrait of a Courtesan as Flora by Bartolomeo Veneto, c. 1520

Romaine Brooks: Spring (1912)

George Wilson: The Spring Witch (1880)

Clearly, for artistic types, Spring is definitely when the sap starts rising!

I've been on the road this week, visiting family among other things, so I've had nothing to offer my blog except this small moment of domestic goddessness: I've been collecting windfalls and have made fresh apple juice (that's cider for you Americans, lol) for the first time:

It tastes like nectar - and nothing like cartoned apple juice!

The foam must be full of natural pectin because it sets so solid it can be eaten with a spoon:

Sun Dome

The O2 Dome, London - pic used under Creative Commons license

In Greenwich, London, on the Thames bank and right next to the international date line, is a bloody big tent that used to be called The Millennium Dome and is now officially the O2. I was there last Saturday, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, to see Iron Maiden in concert.

But before rocking out we climbed across the roof!



We hadn't planned it, but we grabbed the opportunity to join a tour:

You walk on a springy rubber mat that bounces like a trampoline (you are not supposed to bounce), and you're clipped to a safety line for the ascent and descent, which are actually pretty steep.

At the apex you can unclip and take photos and admire the panorama of London's docklands:

The structure is an exercise in sacred geometry, btw. The canvas dome has 12 supporting struts (one for each month of the year), is 365m across (for the days of the year) and 52m high (for the weeks). And Up At the O2 are celebrating their 5th anniversary on the 21st June (Summer Solstice) although the first public event within the canopy was actually staged on 24th June 2007 ... which is St John's Day, the traditional Midsummer.

No pagan conspiracy to see around here folks, no ...  😉

Upcoming Reading at Leodis Pagan Circle

I have been asked to be the Storytime reader this equinox for Leodis, the Leeds Pagan Circle!

It's an open moot at the Bhat'ap pub, in the city centre, so visitors are very welcome.

Merry meet, folks!

A year in my wood

In December 2015 we bought a wood. I tried to take a photo every month at the same spot - I seem to have lost some of them, but this might give you an idea of the seasonal changes:

February

March

May

June

August

September

November

December

January

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year - may 2017 bring us all peace and hope and success.
XXX

Winter Solstice

Roman Bratkowski: Winter Landscape, 'Emptiness' (1901)

Shortest day of the year; longest night.

If you've made it this far then things will get brighter from now on, I promise ... :-)

Magic mushrooms

Actually I have very little idea of the identity of any of these fungi except the obvious Fly Agarics above. But I've never see so many or such a variety in one walk as I did this week!

Slugs love those trippy mushrooms

Some look utterly disgusting...

and some more appealing:

Is it a fungus or a pancake?

Some were HUGE

(Bad pic showing pores not gills on the underside)

and some were weeeeeeny:

And they came in a variety of colours:

Pink

Orange

Pale yellow

Brown

different Brown

WHITE

I do love autumn!