Blog post alert: Eye Candy for Today: Easter Matins by Ukrainian artist Mykola Pymonenko introduced me to this artist. Heartbreaking to be turning our attention to Ukrainian artists now, but bittersweet for me to find a flower-seller, one of the topics I look for, painted in my magic year of 1908. And how our own world intrudes on how we see art! The lamplight in the background on the right looks too much like fire.
Picturing a World
Gilbert’s Market Day
February 3, 2018
Besides the great central food market, Les Halles, there were, of course, lots of neighborhood street markets throughout Paris in the 19th C. While poking around after finding yesterday’s painting by Béraud of Les Halles, I came across this picture by Victor-Gabriel Gilbert, Read More
Florist’s interior
November 6, 2017
It was partly paintings of outdoor markets and street-corner flower-sellers that inspired me to have Jeanette buy flowers from time to time in Where the Light Falls, but I sent Edward into an upscale Parisian florist’s shop. Although I knew they existed, I had never found a painting of one until Read More
Telling, little details
October 30, 2017
When Jeanette goes into her first bakery in France, she notices the white cards with prices written in a Continental hand. Those price cards and their style of numbering had stuck in my mind ever since my student days in France, so it’s not surprising that I smiled this morning when I saw Read More
Flower sellers and models
September 20, 2017
The characters in Where the Light Falls buy flowers variously from street peddlers, at stalls in big outdoor markets, and in an upscale florist’s shop. I have posted some of the beautiful depictions of the motif in the blog. Doré’s painting brought me up short, however, with its reminder of Read More
Marie-François Firmin-Girard
July 5, 2017
Blog post alert:> Thanks to a post at Line and Colors for introducing me to Marie-François Firmin-Girard. I love finding pictures that I might have used for Where the Light Falls had I come upon them in time. Read More
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Flower Market
October 9, 2014
The flower markets and sellers of Paris pop up now and again in Where the Light Falls; but what really makes me want to include a post about one today is my recent discovery of a beautifully illustrated blog that features clips of the sounds if Paris. In a story Read More
Flower Seller
January 2, 2014
During the summer of 1879, Jeanette not only draws a clump irises at the Cluny (see previous post), but also buys flowers on her way home for watercolor studies in her free time. Buying them makes her feel Parisian—and Gilbert’s painting shows why. Read More
At the Florist
April 29, 2013
Before I saw Béraud’s Promenade, featured in the last post, I had seen Hassam’s Florist, which illustrates the custom of being accompanied by a uniformed maid when out and about in Paris (very handy for having someone to carry purchases as well as to announce respectability). Countess Marie Bashkirtseff and other privileged students at the Académie Julian were escorted to class by a maid. For Jeanette and other foreign students, however, such close chaperonage was unnecessary. The streets of Paris were safe and American girls were notable to Europeans for their independence. Read More