Katherine Keenum

Well, I first added this image to my collection of paintings that give an idea of how much light was available at night before the advent of electricity. Now it seems like an emblem of how most of us are handling the election: withdrawing from the darkness into what little light we can find in reading and the company of friends. For more about the artist and the painting, see Hanna Hirsch-Pauli: Friendship Goals and Feminism in the 19th-Century Stockholm.

I have been felled by anaplasmosis, one of the tick-borne diseases. It's mean, people, but at least I've had John Nash: Artist & Countryman to read while I recuperate. The lithograph shown here is not at all typical of Nash's work (except for the very identifiable plants on the windowsill), but it fits my current situation. I've taken the image from Part 3 of Poul Webb's coverage of Nash's work. Its four parts are a splendid compilation of Nash's landscapes (watercolor and oils) and wood engravings.

An article in the Guardian, Discovered: a lost possible inspiration for Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, describes this painting by her sister, Vanessa Bell, which will viewed in public for the first time in sixty years when it goes on view at Sotheby's in London in November. Vanessa gave the picture to Virginia just as the writer was beginning to draft her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. It's tempting to some—and makes for good marketing—to assume that the painting helped Virginia visualize the party as she wrote. But there's no proof, and it certainly isn't necessary. Readers, moreover, are free to rely solely on Woolf's words and their own imaginations. Still, it will be an interesting experiment, don't you think, to read or reread the novel with this image in mind?

Website alert: Looking for illustrations of English and European villages by various artists in the 20th C? Have I got a link for you! Go to Villages in Art and Illustration at Slap Happy Larry—a site that looks worth exploring.

Blog post alert: This portrait by Hanna Hirsch-Pauli of sculptor, Jenni Lagerberg tickled me by its Japonisme, the mischievous look in the subject's eye, and those sleeves! The sleeves helped me date the picture to around 1895, thanks to a well-illustrated post, Sleeve Shifts of the 1890s at Historical Sewing.com. Its author, Jennifer Rosbrugh, makes the point that fashion ideas are sometimes taken to an extreme over a short period of time and then disappear—which is what happened with puffed sleeves.

A post on a pastel portrait by the Norwegian artist, Asta Nørregaard, led me to an article, Revisiting Asta Nørregaard in the Studio, by Carina Rech, which contains a great deal of information about the artist and provides examples of her work. Among them is this self-portrait, painted in Paris, when Nørregaard was working on a commissioned altarpiece. While working on that painting (just visible on the easel to the left), she had moved into a new studio and wrote a friend about having to adjust to the new lighting. You can see how much light was on her mind from the way it slants through the window and illuminates her palette and her own right side. The painting strikes me as very concrete, yet mystical; a picture of solitude and dedication, of self-assurance and of questioning. Although it can supply details to the historical novelist, it's too good to try to turn into a story.

There are authors whose new books you want to buy as soon as they are published. For me, Natasha Pulley is one, yet I waited on The Mars House. Hard science fiction is not really a genre I follow, and this one was billed as a queer romance set on Mars. Yes, but it has woolly mammoths! and a goofy dog! and a principal male ballet dancer for the central character! This past week, I finally read a library copy—and bought my own at a local bookstore. Definitely on the reread list.

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Of course, from the get-go, it's more like fiction than a news story: Estate sale, item from attic, auction set at $10,000–12,000, and, blooey! bidders take risk that a painting is no copy but a real Rembrandt. Final price: $1.4 million. Waaaaaay too pat (even if true), and, yet—what would you do with it? What story would you tell?

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I am reading Winters in the World by Eleanor Parker, an exploration of the year as it was seen in England during the Anglo-Saxons period. Early on, that culture divided the year into sumor and winter, which is why the solstices are called Midsummer's and Midwinter's Days. When the equinoxes became the start of two more divisions of the year, nomenclature was less fixed. I was delighted to learn that our term, fall, comes from something like "falling into winter." Autumn derives from the French automne, and another frequent name was Haerfast, i.e., Harvest. Whatever you want to call it, welcome in fall—and Happy Frodo and Bilbo Baggins Birthday!

Castle Crag licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons License.

Exhibition alert: I've just learned about Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939 from an article in the Autumn 2024 issue of American Scholar: Reborn in the City of Light. The show, which is up through February 23, 2025, is built around portraits of American women who found freedom to explore their art, beliefs, and sexuality in Paris in the early 20th C. They didn't necessarily know each other; but together they illustrate a time and place. Naturally, for this post, I chose a painting from my magic year of 1908. Ethel Mars, moreover, is new to me and I hope to explore her life and work in future—possibly in the exhibition catalogue if it becomes available in our library system!