This reconstruction of a Viking house in Schleswig is from an article on Open Hearths, Ovens and Fireplaces. Among other topics, it reviews studies in how much wood it takes to heat reconstructed Viking dwellings. Conclusion? No one could have lived in the famous long houses during the winter. They required far too many tons of fuel for medieval woodcutting technology to meet. In contrast much smaller houses, like the one here, are bearable—for modern graduate students, at any rate.
Picturing a World
Bernhardt and Japonisme
May 8, 2023
Sarah Bernhardt made a cameo appearance in Where the Light Falls, so now that I'm using Japonisme as a hook for thinking about a later return to Paris by Jeanette, what fun to find this picture of the Divine Sarah herself painting a model in a kimono!
Dark and light
January 2, 2023
Blog post alert: For those of you who follow a traditional calendar, this is the ninth day of Christmas. You'll be pleased by a few last glimpses of a delicious interior from Amy Merrick at Dennis Severs' House. And for those of you who think about writing historical fiction, Lucinda Douglas Menzies' photographs of the house are lovely help to visualizing the chiaroscuro of a pre-20th C winter. No wonder ghost stories are a part of the season!
Studio and rooftops
May 23, 2022
Three things I love: pictures of 19th C artists' studios, landscapes out over rooftops, and glimpses of worlds through windows. All three are present in Dagnan-Bouveret's painting. Look at the Japanese parasol on the far wall, the Oriental rug used as a table cover, the blue-and-white jug—to hold paintbrushes, no less. Or out the window at golden light over Paris. I haven't been able to track down where the original hangs; but as a stimulus to imagination, it doesn't matter.
Diana Sperling’s wallpaper
October 5, 2021
One more image from Diana Sperling's Mrs. Hurst Dancing, just because I love it and it shows wallpaper (see tags!).
Clearing the Clutter (5) Mrs. Hurst Dancing
September 13, 2021
As a follow-up to our writer in the library, Mrs. Sperling at her. needlework is another glimpse of Regency life. It prompts fewer ideas for stories, but isn't it cheerful? I love the way you look through the open French doors into trees, for instance. And it leads to Mrs. Hurst Dancing & Other Scenes from Regency Life, 1812–1823, with with all the freshness of amateur-artist Diana Sperling's authentic delight in the life around her.
Clearing the Clutter (4): Writer in library
September 10, 2021
Oddly enough, I remembered this watercolor as "Lady Pole in Her Library." Nope, the artist was Thomas Pole, an American transplant to Bristol, England, a doctor and Quaker preacher—no titled lady involved. Still, you know me: it's all about using images to prompt story ideas. And quiet as it is, In the Library has some suggestive clues.
Hats, mirrors, frames
March 15, 2021
Blog post alert: Eye Candy for Today: Tarbell's Preparing for the Matinee caught my eye because it plays with cool interior spaces and a hat. You know the old joke: A lady from New York asks Bostonians where they get their hats and the answer is, "We have our hats!"
Walter Gay (5) The Gilded Age
February 25, 2021
Here is Walter Gay depicting the Gilded Age interior splendor for which he is best known. The word is luxe. (And, yea, the painting is shown in its ornate gilt frame.) I'll leave it to art historians to discuss Gay as an artist. For those of us who write fiction his pictures offer loads of period details for life among the rich in the latter part of the 19th C and into the 20th, especially in France.
Walter Gay interiors (4): Creative misprision
February 23, 2021
"Creative misprision" is a concept in literary criticism. Briefly put, an artist or a writer misinterprets someone else's work and takes off from there in a new direction. When I first saw this pastel drawing by Walter Gay, I thought the window looked out onto the brick wall of the next building. I saw the room as empty, dusty, and formerly grand but now hemmed in and down-at-heels. Maybe it could be the setting for a young protagonist who is thrilled to find a romantic apartment which is cheap because of the blocked view. Maybe it could illustrate a melancholy last view by someone moving out. The fact that the image is non-narrative in itself makes it more potent in a way for stimulating imagination.