Wilhelm Hammershoi. 1864-1916.

Hammershoi: Painter of Northern Light, 2019

 Some have called him the Vermeer of the 20th century.

His most noted and memorialized works feature solitary women, deep in private moments. His color palette is subdued, whites, greys, browns, blacks. Working within an interior space that remains constant through his life work, he returns again and again to quiet themes, silent scenarios.

But as much as anything, his focus is the light.

No fewer than 60 of his lifetime production of 400 works were painted in his apartment in Copenhagen.

A quiet man with a small group of friends and a devoted wife willing to serve as his model and his assistant, he simply preferred subtle colors, a simple life, an appreciation for the beauty in small things. The inspirations he directly credited were Vermeer, Rembrandt, and his contemporary James McNeill Whistler.

Hammershoi ventured outside his world to travel to London, to Paris, to the Netherlands, and to Italy. Some of his works are of the landscape, the built world in his neighborhood, the countryside. But he repeatedly returned to his apartment, shifting his furniture around and painting the light.

In our times, his work inspired the visual style and production values of the Criterion Collection film Babette's Feast, helping to its acceptance as a classic.

Me being me, I especially appreciate and enjoy his vision in capturing the architectural world of Copenhagen and London.

St Peters Church.

Frederick H Evans.

York Minster, Cathedral Church of St Peter.

Miracle of Life: Plant and Human.

The mandala of the red human blood and green chlorophyll are identical except for their central atom.

Looking West.

Driving home late on a February afternoon, the sun lighting up the mist on Livermore Mountain captured me.

Stopping on a side road, I knew I was a small part of something much larger than myself.

3:30 on a January Afternoon

 

Romping with the dogs near our place in Larimer County, Colorado.

Winter Landscape.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

Though spoken by Winston Churchill in a different context--the rebuilding of London after the blitz of World War II--the words speak of an eternal truth.

Over the years now of living in the mountain country, watching the seasons come and go, I've become acutely aware of the power of the world I live in to influence my spirit and my energy. Last year we had significant snow on the ground for seven months.

I find I've been shaped into planting an increasingly winter-glorious space where I live. The possibilities are endless for making beauty outside my window, warming my heart inside and out.

Our Colorado cities are inspiring to me. Public places are full of surprises along roads and parkways. Corporate offices invite full displays of rich, complex plantings. The University campus finds more and more niches to hide secret surprises in, even in the dark of winter. 

The low sun of the dark season backlights stalks and seedheads, even brighter when a light frost welcomes our mornings.

Gardenista.com, part of my regular health regimen, offers an installment here.

 

Mary Sipp Green.

Midsummer Twilight.

Once again, the story is simplicity and quiet.

Mary Sipp Green works with a limited palette, gloriously omitting detail.

I've seen these places. In my heart.

Realism? Impressionism?

Boxed notecards.

Cosmic Cathedrals.

Frederico Scarchilli

After years of basking in images and fantasies of cathedral spaces, I've come in my studies to what I consider the archetype.

Romanesque cathedrals, with features of early Roman architecture, are simple and unadorned in their structures, coming from a tradition that considers darkness a feature that nourishes spiritual experience.

Gothic structures exploded with light, the engineering allowing for windows, thinner shells, vast open spaces. They also come with elaborate fancywork in sculpture and stained glass, full to overflowing with symbolism and content.

Bridging the developmental period from Romanesque to Gothic are the Cistercian cathedrals, based on the simplicity of life supported and encouraged by followers of St Benedict.

This Italian Cistercian Cathedral seems just right. Simple, and washed through and through with light.

I discovered this image in the architecture website ArchDaily.

Scarchilli's work is deserving of many hours of immersion.

Now I turn to the Cistercian tradition to see how this reflects the development of my deeper spiritual world. To my great surprise--or not--the abbey down the road from my small rural home is a Benedictine center. I've watched and supported its development for decades now. I'll be visiting again soon with a new and more appreciative openness.

Stickwork at the Denver Botanic Garden Farm.

Coming over a slight rise in the trail, I saw a large plant-animal nestled at the foot of a grove of cottonwood trees, perhaps sleeping on a snowy December morning.

As we approached, the willow branches became visible.The creature lay still. Strangely peaceful.

Fell Swoop, it's called. Created over several weeks by Patrick Dougherty and a team of volunteers, it's a permanent resident at the Chadwick site of the Denver Botanic Gardens. Except permanent is a relative term. Like Andy Goldsworthy's work, Fell Swoop is intended to age in place, slowly turning to compost as it returns to earth.

I came to this place as a surprise birthday gift from my family. Invited to go for a ride, we drove three hours from home in the high country near the Wyoming border. I tried to anticipate where we might be going, guessing to myself all along the distance, through the metropolitan Front Range.



My family knows of my near-obsession with land art, which I act out on our three-acre wetland / meadow / aspen and pine grove land in Larimer County. Just this summer I was invited to participate in the creation of a Peace Garden in the middle of our willow grove. This meant no fewer than seven utility trailers of dead willow branches being hauled to the slash pile.

So I speak from close experience when I recognize the work of assembling Fell Swoop.

Like all fine land art, the human hand and imagination enhances the world it inhabits, slowing me down to truly appreciate the beauty of Place.

Turner's Intention?

 

St Erasmus and Bishop Islip's Chapel, Westminster Abbey.

I look at prints of art works and see any number of variations of tonal quality in various reproductions of the same works.

Having spent a bit of time developing skills in accurate capture of colors in works of art, I wonder about the artist's intent.

Yet seeing so many variety, and with no access to the originals, I find myself projecting my own values into the works.

Predictably, that means a wider range of tones, and more emphasis on the dark.

Did JMW Turner truly intend this to be a high-key watercolor, as it is so often displayed online in today's world?

Or would he have preferred to see his darks more full of mystery?