Sunday, January 31, 2016

Housman manifesto

Odilon Redon
The Reader  Rodolphe Bresdin
1892
lithograph
British Museum

"Nor again will I pretend that, as Bacon asserts, `the pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning far surpasseth all other in nature'. This is too much the language of a salesman crying his own wares. The pleasures of the intellect are notoriously less vivid than either the pleasures of sense or the pleasures of the affections; and therefore, especially in the season of youth, the pursuit of knowledge is likely enough to be neglected and lightly esteemed in comparison with other pursuits offering much stronger immediate attractions. But the pleasure of learning and knowing, though not the keenest, is yet the least perishable of pleasures; the least subject to external things, and the play of chance, and the wear of time. And as a prudent man puts money by to serve as a provision for the material wants of his old age, so too he needs to lay up against the end of his days provision for the intellect. As the years go by, comparative values are found to alter: Time, says Sophocles, takes many things which once were pleasures and brings them nearer to pain. In the day when the strong men shall bow themselves, and desire shall fail, it will be a matter of yet more concern than now, whether one can say `my mind to me a kingdom is'; and whether the windows of the soul look out upon a broad and delightful landscape, or face nothing but a brick wall."

– A.E Housman, Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Latin, University College, London, 1892    

Anonymous painter
Unknown woman reading
ca. 1850
watercolor
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Gaetano Gandolfi
Young girl reading
18th century
drawing
British Museum


Egdon van der Neer
The Reader
17th century
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art


John Michael Wright
Sir Roger L'Estrange
ca. 1680
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Anonymous photographer
Georgina Elizabeth Moncreiffe Ward, Countess of Dudley
ca. 1891-95
albumen print
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Frederick Henry Evans
Harley Granville-Barker
1890s
platinum print
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


after Sir Joshua Reynolds
Giuseppe Baretti
1773
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Anonymous painter
Unknown man reading
early 19th century
watercolor
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


John Downman
Richmal Mangnall
1814
watercolor
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Joseph Severn
John Keats
ca. 1821-23
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Pieter Christoffel Wonder
Study for Patrons and Lovers of Art
ca. 1826
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Louisa Anne Beresford
Mrs Walter Alexander and Captain Ogle with a book
1888
watercolor
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Daniel Maclise
Winthrop Mackworth Praed
ca. 1830-35
drawing
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Daniel Maclise
John Gibson Lockhart
1830
drawing
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


Adolph de Meyer
Margot Asquith
ca. 1911
bromide print
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)


George Stuckey
William Barnes
ca. 1870
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery


Duncan Grant
Desmond MacCarthy
1944
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Dora Carrington
Lytton Strachey with a book
1916
oil
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Anonymous
Sir John Bowring
1854
drawing
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)



Simon Bussy
Sir Richard Strachey
1901
pastel
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

Ten Instant Photos, November 2015 through January 2016


My daughter has abandoned the five-year Polaroid project. Her hard-used Polaroid camera broke. Even dead stock Polaroid film has disappeared from the world and the new clone substitute lacks the essential  patina. She now has a new instant camera that issues crisp tiny vertical prints. And here  newest to oldest  are the first ten.










Saturday, January 30, 2016

Valentine Making 2016 Part 4


The fourth Valentine maker was Grandpa, much assisted by his table-neighbor Mabel. She was the happy one with the generous peace-sign stamp. But Mabel was properly this year more absorbed in her own work too. Grandpa improvised.














Valentine Making 2016 Part 3


This third set of Valentines from the Valentine-making party today are from the hand of Mabel's Grandma, the most meticulous craftsperson at the table.