Katharine Cibulka (b.1975, Innsbruck, Austria) studied at the New York Film Academy (1999) and at the School of Artists Photography in Vienna (2000-01). She continued her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (2004-10) and received in 2010 her diploma in performance art.

Cibulka is a visual artist, film maker, and project developer for artistic and sustainable processes. She developed the project SOLANGE in 2016. The German work SOLANGE means “as long as.” The project was started to increase awareness of social injustice, gender injustice, racism, and other issues import to women. SOLANGE is a collaboration with Vivian Simburger and Tine Themel.  The purpose of placing SOLANGE art in public spaces was to generate discussion and dialogue toward overcoming prejudices.

AS LONG AS THE ART MARKET IS A BOYS’ CLUB, I WILL BE A FEMINIST (2018) was installed at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. The works are placed on the façades of buildings that are under construction or renovation. The pieces are created by weaving the cross-stitch message in bright pink tulle to cover the protective net on the scaffolding. Vienna’s world-famous Academy of Fine Arts was happy to fund the project since it had made gender equality a priority. Eva Blimlinger, Head of the Academy said, “It is the only university in Europe or the United States whose staff and student body is 50 percent female.” She continued, saying Cibulka’s project “helps raise awareness for the fact that the international art market itself is still pretty much dominated by men.” The sculpture that sits in front of the statement is of Frederick Schiller, who once stated that “art is a daughter of freedom.”

Cibulka reflected on her experience as a woman artist in an interview with Artnet: “As a woman in the art world, you still have a tougher job, especially when you become a mother like me…. As a middle-aged woman, you hardly stand a chance, especially if you have a family.” In 2018 Cibulka and her team created four other SOLANGE messages, two of which are AS LONG AS A GENDER EQUALITY STAYS A NEVER-ENDING BUILDING SITE, I WILL BE A FEMINIST (Innsbruck, Austria) and AS LONG AS POWER ENTICES MEN TO MISUSE WOMEN, I WILL A FEMINIST (Landek, Austria). 

 

AS LONG AS HE MAKES THE CASH WHILE I WORK FOR CHANGE, I WILL BE A FEMINIST (2020) is located in Tuchlauben, Golden Quarter, Vienna. On the web-site for Vienna Trip Advisor, the Golden Quarter is described as a “Luxury paradise in the heart of Vienna, Flagship stores of over 20 fine international brands.” The building under renovation sits between Louis Vuitton and Rolex.

AS LONG AS GENERATIONS CHANGE BUT OUR STRUGGLES STAY THE SAME, I WILL BE A FEMINIST (2022) (82’ X 82’) was installed on the north façade of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, on October 28, 2022, and it will remain on view until February 26, 2023. SOLANGE was commissioned by the members of the NMWA and the Share Fund.  It is Cibulka’s first work in the United States. SOLANGE messages are created from research of the local environment and community. For the NMWA message, an on-line survey was conducted asking women what was important to them. Cibulka was greatly influenced by the Dobb’s decision of the US Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, one of the considerations for the message.

Cibulka states that working on construction sites brings another set of challenges because workers at construction sites are traditionally male. “Our team of women insert ourselves into this sphere to work on equal footing with the guys. Together, we need to overcome every obstacle, a process that requires open communication, discussion, asserting ourselves, and a lot of compromise.” (NMWA website, 2022)

 

Throughout history, women have been responsible for spinning wool into thread, weaving thread into cloth, sewing cloth into clothes, and decorating the clothes. Cross-stitch is the oldest form of embroidery. Cibulka explains her choice of cross-stitch in in public spaces: “Playing with traditional roles and material is what makes the project so appealing to me.”

“We are a small team of women from a small country, and we have already achieved great things that we are very proud of. We have found a medium and language that speaks to a lot of people and hopefully makes them think with sensitivity, imagery, and a bit of ambiguity and wit that puts a smile on your face.” (NMWA website, 2022)  

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

English photographer Roger Fenton (1819-1869) was commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to photograph the Crimean War during 1855. Photography was in its infancy, but it had progressed beyond Daguerre’s first presentation of the Daguerreotype to the French Academy of Science on January 7, 1839.  His process produced only one direct positive, and it required up to 30 minutes of exposure. Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857) invented the wet collodion process in1848 to produce a negative that could made into several positive images, and it required only two to three seconds of exposure. Collodion was the newly discovered sticky substance of gun cotton in ether, used as a medical dressing. The wet collodion process was used for the next 30 years and allowed photographers to travel and photograph everywhere.

The immediate cause of the Crimean War was the years-long conflict over the rights of British and French Christians and Roman Catholics and the rights of the Russian Eastern Orthodox Church to have access to the Holy sites in Palestine (Ottoman Empire). A second cause was Russia’s desire to expand into the Ottoman Empire, particularly to take the sea port of Constantinople. In 1853, Russia invaded the Ottoman Turkish principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia (Romania), and Varna (Bulgaria). Britain and France declared war in 1854 and bombarded the city of Odessa.

Roger Fenton was a lawyer who became interested in the newly invented photography and founded the Photographic Society of London in 1853. His work for the British Museum and Royal family resulted in his commission to photograph the Crimean War. Fenton arrived in March 1855 as the official campaign photographer. “Cossack Bay, Balaklava” (1855) (now Ukraine) depicts ships of the British fleet and the dock holding pens for cattle. Horses, baskets with supplies, and tents can be seen on the dock. The ship labeled “69” is the Albatross, recently arrived from Constantinople. Aboard was Mary Seacole (1895-1881) who set up a store and hotel for the British with food, drink, and medical supplies. In a letter home, Fenton said the port was like “the emptying of Noah’s ark.”

Fenton and two assistants brought with them from England a traveling darkroom. The photo wagon was a converted wine merchant’s wagon. The wagon was supplied with 700 glass plates and 5 cameras stored in 36 chests, along with tools, water, a stove, and Fenton’s supply of tinned food, trays, and dishes. The wagon was divided into a cooking area, a living and sleeping section, and a darkroom. Large black letters on the van read “photographic van.” Despite the signage the light color of the van made it a target for Russian fire.

In a letter to a friend in England, Fenton wrote, “As soon as the van door was closed to commence the preparation of the plate, perspiration started from every pore, and the sense of relief was great when it was possible to open the door to breathe even the hot air outside.” The wet collodion process required the glass plates to be coated with an iodide solution mixed with collodion and applied to the glass plate. Moving the plate around to coat it could be done outside. In the darkroom, the wet plate was dipped into a solution of silver nitrate and put into a view camera the size of the glass plate.  Outside, the plate was exposed by removing the lens cap for 20 seconds to 5 minutes. Back in the darkroom, the plate was removed from the camera and a solution of the liquid fixer, iron sulfate and acetic acid, was used to wash the plate and to fix the image. Water then was used to remove the developer. The plate was dried and stored until ready to be printed. Fenton made a few test prints while in the Crimea, but most of the negatives were transported back to England, and Fenton printed them there.

Allied Encampment on the Plateau before Sevastopol” (1855) is a photograph of the port of Sevastopol in the distance. It was the capital city of the Crimea and the port that held the Tsar’s Black Sea fleet. Fenton’s wet collodion camera limited his ability to take pictures during battle. His mandate from the Crown and the Manchester publisher Agnew & Sons, who financed the venture, stated that Fenton was “intended to illustrate faithfully the scenery of the camps; to display prominent incidents of military life, as well as to perpetuate the portraits of those distinguished officers, English and French, who have taken part in the ever-memorable Siege of Sebastopol.” The Victorians at the time did not want to see the bloody side of war. 

Vivandieres or Cantonniere, usually wives of non-commissioned officers, provided soldiers food and drink in addition to their rations. The women were dressed in a female version of the uniform of the regiment in which they worked. The wounded Zouave soldier and the Zouave soldier helping him were part of a Light Infantry regiment of the French Army. A short open front jacket, baggy pants, sash, and fez hat were the unique uniform of Zouave soldiers. Originally from Algeria, they gained in the early 19th Century the reputation as superior soldiers when they fought for the Ottoman rulers. In a letter to his wife, Fenton wrote about the posed photograph: “She is giving assistance to a wounded soldier. It was great fun the soldiers enjoyed it so much & entered so completely into the spirit of the thing.” Florence Nightingale made her reputation as a nurse during the Crimean War. However, she resisted having her picture taken and does not appear in Fenton’s work. 

“Lord Balgonie” (1855) is a photograph of Captain Alexander Leslie-Melville, the eldest son of the 8th Earl of Leven, a Scottish peer. Balgonie is standing in front of a sheet Fenton used for a backdrop. Many of Fenton’s photographs were of high-ranking officers posing on their horses or in their tents. Balgonie’s photograph is unusual because he is unkempt, his hair and beard are disheveled, and his stare is unfixed. He returned to Britain and died a few years later, thought to be the result of the hardships he had faced in the war. More recently, this photograph is considered to be the first portrait of shell-shock.

The Battle of Balaclava took place on October 25, 1854. It is better known as the charge of the Light Brigade, a reference to Tennyson’s poem of the same name. Fenton photographed the scene of the famous battle. Under fire at the time, he managed to take photographs of the scene from different points of view. This print shows more cannon balls, suggesting he may have added a few more to the scene. However, the photograph of Marcus Spalding in the photography van probably was taken shorty before they entered the valley.  Fenton wrote in a letter that he decided to take a picture of the van before it was destroyed by fire in the valley of death to preserve it as a memory. The title “Valley of the Shadow of Death” is a reference to the 23rd Psalm: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death….”

The charge of the Light Brigade was mounted by 670 soldiers. Approximately 100 were killed and160 were wounded. Approximately 375 horses died. Fenton’s photograph, although absent soldiers or horses, was powerful.

 

lWhen Fenton’s photographs were shown in England, a concerned British public prompted the formation of a committee to look into the conduct of the officers.  When the soldiers returned home, the British also learned more about the horrible conditions their soldiers had suffered. Members of the General Staff were criticized for living in relative luxury while the soldiers were suffering. Some were accused of leaving the battle before the end of the campaign. “Major Hallewell, his day’s work done” (1855) was one of Fenton’s photographs that brought this fact to the public’s attention. Fenton’s title “his day’s work done” was perhaps intended to catch the attention of viewers. Major Hallewell, having shed his uniform and weapons, reclines on the ground in front of his large tent, a servant pouring him a drink.

Fenton contracted cholera in June 1855, and returned home. He was allowed to lie on a couch while showing his photographs to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He produced 350 images.  The photographs were exhibited to help raise funds for returning soldiers. The exhibition Shadows of War: Roger Fenton’s Photographs of the Crimean War, opened at Queen’s Gallery in Edinburgh Palace.  Fenton photographed architecture and landscapes until 1862, when he sold his equipment and returned to the practice of law. He died in 1869. 

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

 

 

 

Thomas Cole (1801-1848) is best known as founder of the Hudson River School of landscape painting. Members of the group included Frederick Edwin Church, Asher Durand, Albert Bierstadt, and John Kensett, who painted the wildness and beauty of the untouched American landscape. Cole also wanted to create a “higher style of landscape” with a moral message. His second series The Voyage of Life (1839) (National Gallery, Washington, DC.) included four paintings that traced the life of a man through birth, youth, middle age and old age. His first series The Course of Empire was painted between 1835 and 1836. Cole wanted to save America’s beautiful and wild natural landscape from encroaching industrialization. The Erie canal was completed, and the railroad was expanding during that time. 

The Course of Empire (1835-36) included five paintings. Cole convinced his patron Luman Reed (1785-1836) to commission the project. A successful merchant from Coxsackie, New York, Reed moved to New York and opened an art gallery. The series was to be displayed on the third floor of Reed’s mansion at 13 Greenwich Street, New York City. The inspiration for The Course of Empire was Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-1818), Canto IV: 

There is the moral of all human tales;

‘Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.

First freedom and then Glory—when that fails,

Wealth, vice, corruption—barbarianism at last.

And History, with all her volumes vast,

Hath but one page…

Cole placed a newspaper ad for the series that included Byron’s poem. 

Cole and Reed were not alone in their fears that America would follow the unfortunate course of empire.

 Cole had conceived of The Course of Empire in 1833, and he painted the series while he lived in the Catskill Mountains. “The Savage State” or “The Commencement of the Empire” (1834) (39.5”x 63.5”) begins the series. It depicts clouds that are clearing at the dawn of a new day, and a vast landscape including nearby stream, wild trees, a distant bay, and a tall mountain. The same landscape appears in all five paintings, but viewed from different locations on the river. The mountain peak with a boulder at its top is the constant in all the paintings. The paintings also proceed through the course of a day.

At the left of the painting, a man clothed in animal skin and with bow in hand runs after a fleeing deer he shot with an arrow. The deer crosses the stream in the lower center of the landscape. In the middle of the composition, a group of people with a dog chase a fleeing deer. At the right, canoes are paddled up a river, and above a village of tipis can be seen. Smoke rises from a campfire, and natives dance around it.

Although the images are unclear to viewers of this painting, Cole described this scene in detail: “In this picture, we have the first rudiments of society. Men are banded together for mutual aid in the chase, etc. The useful arts have commenced in the construction of canoes, huts, and weapons. Two of the fine arts, music and poetry, have their germs, as we may suppose, in the singing which usually accompanies the dance of savages. The empire is asserted, although to a limited degree, over sea, land, and the animal kingdom. The season represented is Spring.” Cole added extensive descriptions to each of the paintings in the series.

“The Arcadian or Pastoral State” (1834) (39.5”x 63.5”) has moved down the river and a second mountain peak can be seen at the center of the work. A Doric style Greek temple is placed below the two mountains, and smoke rises from a sacrificial fire. The land has been cultivated. In the middle left of the composition, a man drives an ox, and a field is being plowed. A shepherd tends his sheep in the center of scene. To the far right, a group of women dance while a flautist plays for them. In the right foreground, a woman in white stands on a small bridge and holds a distaff (spindle). In front of her, a young boy draws a picture. At the left, an elderly man wearing a toga uses a stick to draw a geometric design in the dirt. 

Cole spent time in Europe studying art and history. He commented upon this scene reminiscent of Archaic Greece: “The unracked and rude has been tamed and softened…It is evident that the useful arts, the fine arts, and the sciences, have made considerable progress.”

“The Consummation of Empire” (1826) is larger than the other four paintings (51”x 76”). Inspired by the Roman Empire at its height, the scene takes place where the river flows into the bay beyond. The simple bridge has become a massive marble structure with a triumphal arch at the end. A procession crosses the bridge. The victor in red rides on a vehicle drawn by elephants. A large group of soldiers and captives march in the procession. The triumphal arch is richly draped with gold cloth, and gold medallions adorn the top. Two gold military statues hold up a victor’s laurel wreath. 

An unusually shaped tall black fountain spurts water. Next to the fountain, at the right, a well-dressed woman and her entourage watch the proceedings. Above them, a statue of Minerva (Roman goddess of war and wisdom) stands upon a tall structure. She wears her traditional toga and helmet, holds a spear, and in her right hand is a small statue of Athena Nike (Winged Victory). The bay is filled with ships of war and merchant vessels. The entrance to the river is guarded by two phari (lighthouses). Cole explained this painting: “In this scene is depicted the summit of human glory. The architecture, the ornamental embellishments, etc., show that wealth, power, knowledge, and taste have worked together, and accomplished the highest need of human achievement and empire. As the triumphal fete would indicate, man has conquered man—nations have been subjugated.”

“Destruction or Desolation” (1836) (39.5”x 63.5”) is set in the late afternoon. Storm clouds swirl as the city falls to an invading enemy. The buildings crumble and fires rage. Half the parade bridge has collapsed, and the make-shift wooden bridge collapses under the weight of those trying to escape the invading soldiers. Warships battle in the river, one sinking and another set on fire. Citizens pour out of the buildings to escape the fires, only to be slaughtered. A gigantic marble statue of a charging warrior commands the right side of the composition. Although he still holds his bronze shield, his head lies on the ground below. Cole has given the figure the pose of the Hellenistic Greek statue, the “Borghese Warrior.” The painting references the fall of Rome to the Vandals in 455 CE.

Cole describes the view of the drama taking place in the right corner of the painting: “In the fore-ground are several dead and dying; some bodies have fallen in the basin of a fountain, tinging the waters with their blood. A female is seen sitting in mute despair over the dead body of her son, and a young woman is escaping from the ruffian grasp of a soldier, by leaping over the battlement; another soldier drags a woman by the hair down the steps that form part of the pedestal of a mutilated colossal statue, whose shattered head lies on the pavement below. A barbarous and destroying enemy conquers and sacks the city. Description of this picture is perhaps needless; carnage and destruction are its elements.”

Cole returns the viewer to the same landscape seen in the first painting of the series. Day is dying, and the moon rises in the same location on the horizon where the sun rose. Scattered ruins of columns, colonnades, bridges, and temples still appear above trees and ivy that reclaim the land. A tall column that once supported the bridge now is the home of a heron and her nest. No human life is shown. The mountain with the boulder at the top, visible in all of the paintings, remains.

Cole concludes his description of this painting: “But, though man and his works have perished, the steep promontory, with its insulated rock, still rears against the sky unmoved, unchanged. Violence and time have crumbled the works of man, and art is again resolving into elemental nature. The gorgeous pageant has passed—the roar of battle has ceased—the multitude has sunk in the dust—the empire is extinct.” 

The original agreement with Cole’s patron Luman Reed was to display the works in the Reed home. Unfortunately, Reed died in 1836. The series was acquired by the New York Historical Society in 1858, and hangs there today.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paola de la Calle (b.1992), a Columbian-American artist, grew up with her family in the Mission District of San Francisco. Her artistic talent was recognized early, and she entered the New York Foundation of the Arts Immigrant Artist Program: “We connect artists with services and resources to foster their creative careers, gain support and exposure for their work, and integrate into the cultural world of New York and beyond while upholding their distinct identities.” (IAP on-line) She graduated from IAP in 2019. In her multi disciplined work she explores themes of family, migration, childhood memories, borders, nostalgia, food, politics, and justice. She is now an artist in residence at the Galeria de la Raza, a non-profit organization in San Francisco that promotes Latinx art and culture.

Paola da le Calle is one of the promising new artists who is creating significant Latinx art. Through her residency at Galeria de la Raza, she became the lead artist in the 2021 Caravan for the Children Campaign. She contributed five quilts to bring recognition of former President Trump’s separation of children from their parents at the border. “How Many More” (2021) (9’x14’) depicts a mound of turquoise backpacks with bright pink straps, colors that children would pick. Popping out of the backpacks are teddy bears, stuffed elephants, monarch butterflies, and worry dolls. The presence of teddy bears and stuffed elephants represents the few precious things children can manage to bring with them from their homelands. 

The monarch butterflies and worry dolls appear in several of de la Calle’s quilts and other works of art. Monarch butterflies are the most recognizable and most tracked butterflies in the world. Millions of monarchs migrate 3,000 miles from northeast America, their fall breeding ground, to central Mexico where they hibernate for the winter. Their journey reflects in reverse the journey of Latin people across the southern border for refuge in the United States. Monarch butterflies represent strength, endurance, and freedom, all attributes required for their journey north.

Worry dolls (trouble dolls) originated in the legend of a Mayan princess who received the gift from the sun god to solve any problem a human can worry about. Worry dolls are hand-made and originate in Guatemala. Children place them under their pillows at night, and by morning they have received the knowledge necessary for dealing with their worries. Paola de la Calle also incorporates worry dolls into her works. Text in Spanish is embroidered on the quilt: “Justice and freedom run intertwined like roots, older than the borders, and more resistant than the weapon of the suppresser.”

“Uncage/Libera” (2021) (9’x14’) places the image against a blue sky.  Clasped hands support a cluster of white flowers; the centers are six small gold picture frames with children’s portraits inside. Olive branches extend from some of the frames. Above the flowers is a larger gold picture frame with a mother holding up her baby. Large butterfly wings complete this image.  A Spanish saying is woven around the bottom of this image: “That our branches of olive repair the cage of oppression and delay.”

 The lower half of the quilt is covered with the image of a barbed wire fence. Two silhouetted hands grab the wire, while two monarch butterflies fly above the hands. A second Spanish statement is included: “I know that here are people walking with children in their arms with their feet broken with degeneration and hope.”

“Reunify/Reunificar” (2021) (9’x14’) features an old blue suitcase with a plastic toy house on top. Beneath the suitcase are dozens of green poblano peppers, the most popular mild pepper that comes from Puebla, Mexico. Below the peppers are the clasped hands perhaps of a mother and her child who wears a blue sweater. A monarch butterfly sits upon the child’s arm. Between the clasped hands is a child’s drawing. Above the house a Luna moth spreads its wings. Rarely seen by humans because they fly at night, Luna moths symbolize new beginnings and heightened awareness as they see the light of a new day. On either side of the moth’s wings are embroidered words. Unfortunately, they are too small to translate.

Above the barbed wire at the bottom of the quilt is embroidered writing: “Remember that our beginnings are infinite, laughter, dark soft baby cheeks, sunrise over the horizon, and uncle’s smile as he shucks corn, to remember that beauty is a seed as well, and decomposing flesh fertilizes flowers after half-a-dozen days in the hot sun.” (punctuation added)

Healing was a subject de la Calle believed was missing from the mission of Uncage and Reunify: “I think art sometimes does what words can’t. And the call here is to take these children out of cages and reunite them with their families. I think there is a missing step here, and that is the step of healing. These children are facing a lot of trauma.” The “Heal/Senar” (2021) (9’x14’) quilt contains some of her usual symbolic messages: a cactus, a worry doll, and monarch butterflies. In addition, she has added soil, water, and a map of North and South America. The child’s hands reaching to the sky are presumably those of a little girl, this time identified by the open pink ballerina music box containing a few mementos. The cactus is balanced by a dark gray image of the raised hand of the Statue of Liberty, holding her torch to light the way to liberty. 

Three kites soar high into the sky, their tails containing additional embroidered messages too small to read in the picture. The statement at the right side of the quilt can be read: ‘If the arch of history bends towards justice, entonces, quero volar como una aquila, stitch a quilt full of colorful faces, affix it round my neck, wear it like a cape and swoop around batallando la injusticia, so I can fly like an aquila battling injustice.” An Aquila is a golden eagle.

“Victorius/Vencenermos” (2021) (9’x14’) depicts a hoped-for reunification of mothers and their children. At the center of the composition are two sets of clasped hands, a mother and child reach from the top and bottom, the north and south, and are reunited. Their hands are placed on top of a child’s drawing of the fence they were kept behind. Two very green, tall cacti call attention to the border of photographs of families walking together and hugging. Hopefully, they are being reunited. The large banner across the top announces the purpose of the Caravan for the Children Campaign.  At the bottom of the quilt is a pyramid of brightly colored children’s shoes.

The embroidered inscription is in both English and Spanish: “We will be the new covenant of this earth, wind harvest of tears and seeds, rain washing shame with mercy, fire inviting the promise of death, new life some and become victorious.” 

The Caravan for the Children Campaign began on January 1, 2021, with a caravan of cars through San Francisco. De la Calle organized several events that highlighted immigrant poets, storytellers, and advocates of the campaign. The quilts include the poems of ten Central American poets, who according to de la Calle “offer different perspectives on resistance, liberation, and home. Some of them imagine different futures, some of them imagine different gifts. It was important to me that these voices shined and informed the images that were created for the quilts because this isn’t something a single person can have a full perspective on. It’s about community, it’s about uniting people to work together to request the reunification and the healing of these children.”

The making of quilts was inspired by the AIDS Memorial Quilt that was placed in 1987 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Caravan went to San Diego where de la Calle and Caravan members hosted music and poetry events at the border. On May 1, 2021, the 100th day of the Biden Administration, the quilts were unveiled on the National Mall in Washington, DC, for the May Day Immigration Justice March.

October is Hispanic Heritage Month. Paolo de la Calle, a young Hispanic artist, is a strong voice for the Latinx community.     

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

 

 

 

Dutch painters of the 17th Century were the first European artists to start painting landscapes, because land was owned by commoners as well as by nobles. Throughout the history of art, the subject matter that was most depicted was an indication of what was most important at the time. The newly freed Dutch had no king, and the various new Protestant churches had no single religious authority as previously exercised by the Catholic church. The Dutch became the merchants and tradesmen of Europe, and most trading ships sailed into the port of Amsterdam, where goods were then distributed to the rest of Europe. The Dutch owned their land and their homes, and they looked for small works of art that would fit on the walls of their small homes. The people, rather than the church or state, became patrons of the arts, and a thriving art market developed as a result. Three new subjects were added to painters’ repertoire: genre (paintings of everyday life), still life, and landscapes. European artists frequently painted horses and dogs since they were commissioned by the wealthy owners. Even though the Dutch were responsible for initiating landscape painting, ordinary farm animals were painted by a very few artists, but those artists were masters. 

 “The Young Bull” (1647) (93” x 133”) by Paulus Potter (1625-1654) was considered to be one of the best Dutch landscapes; landscape painting including animals was Potter’s specialty. The bull was considered a symbol of prosperity by the Dutch, and it represented strength and confidence. This painting is an exceptionally large painting for the time. Potter added canvas to both sides and the top after it was finished in order to include other animals. Potter added a cow, the symbol of fertility, motherhood, and nurturing. Likewise, the ewe supplies milk for many Dutch cheeses. She protects her lamb, a symbol of innocence and gentleness, and reminded viewers of the lamb of God. The ram represents virility and is known for its determination and agility when climbing hills. These animals were as significant to the prosperous life of the Dutch as they are today. The landscape depicts the Dutch town of Rijswijk. A herd of cows graze peacefully on the green pasture. Potter also captures the flatness of the Dutch landscape and the cloudy sky that will bring rain to the land. 

 

Chickens, ducks, and other foul were valued for their eggs, feathers, and meat. “Seven Chicks” (1665-68) was painted by Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-1695), a Dutch painter who specialized in bird studies. The “Seven Chicks” includes several poses, colorings, and head studies of baby chicks. The artist captures the lopsided walk of one chick, two feeding chicks, a nesting chick, and baby chicken heads from various views. The sketch shows his exceptional observational skill and his devotion to his beloved subject matter.

 

 De Hondecoeter’s “Ducks” (1675) depicts several species of ducks and a white dove. Among the various birds represented by the artist were brent geese, Egyptian geese, red-breasted geese, fieldfares, partridges, pigeons, ducks, northern cardinals, magpies, peacocks, African grey crowned cranes, Asian sarus-cranes, Indonesian yellow-crested cockatoos, Indonesian purple-naped lory, and Madagasgar grey-headed lovebirds. The port of Amsterdam bought a wide variety of exotic plants, spices, and birds to Holland. It is easy to understand why this period is known as the “Dutch Golden Age.”

 

“Young Boy Looking into a Pigsty” (1749) was painted by English artist George Morland (1763-1804). Although his works include a variety of subjects, he was famous for his genre scenes, many including farming and hunting. He was inspired by “Dutch Golden Age” paintings. Three pigs rest in the straw in a sturdy pigsty. The standing pig enjoys a leafy green nibble, and the viewer can see a large carrot placed diagonally in the right corner. Although pigs are usually thought to be dirty animals who love to roll in the mud, these well-nourished pigs are clean and comfortable. They appear to be well cared for and will someday provide a nourishing dinner. Resting his arms on the gate, a little boy admires the pigs. All is well.

“Guinea Pigs” (1792), also by George Morland, depicts three pets nibbling on a large green leaf. Symbolic of friendship and community, the guinea pigs are comfortably grouped together. Guinea pigs were introduced into Europe in the 16th Century, and they became favorite pets from then on. They were frequently depicted in history, myth, and religious paintings to represent the importance of social connections. They are small and soft, like to be cuddled, make a whistling sound when they are happy, and purr like cats. Morland’s painting is the first known painting of guinea pigs, and it is generally considered one of the finest paintings of any animal.

 

There were not many master painters of Europe who specialized in animals, but those who did excelled. “Two Rabbits” (1841) by Rosa Bonheur is a charming painting. Bonheur is best known for her large-scale paintings of horses, plowing scenes, and other working animals. Her paintings brought her wealth enough to purchase the estate at By, where she kept a menagerie that included a lion. Her love of animals both large and small is apparent in this delightful painting of rabbits. Like other animals, rabbits have a symbolic meaning; they are known for their fertility and therefore represent abundance and prosperity.  The lucky rabbit’s foot has a long history in many cultures. Bonheur’s painting, like others in this article, simply lets the viewer appreciate and enjoy the scene.

This article is inspired by the exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Kent Clover Calf 4H Club, the oldest continuously chartered 4H club in Maryland. The exhibit is on display at the Bordley History Center (Kent County Historical Society) in Chestertown.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525/30-1569) became a member of the Antwerp Painters Guild in 1551. We know little of his life before that date except that he was an accomplished artist. On his return from a trip to Rome (1552-1553) to view the work of Italian Renaissance artists, the path that non-Italian artists took at the time, he began to create drawings for engravings by Quatre Vents, the most prestigious printer in Antwerp. During his career, Brueghel made over 80 drawings for prints.

Brueghel lived during volatile political and religious times in the Netherlands. Protestantism was growing, particularly in Antwerp, a cosmopolitan city, the center of north-south trade, and a major port. Calvinism was particularly strong in Antwerp. Charles V of Spain, ruler of the Netherlands, had established in 1552 a special court to prosecute non-Catholic heretics, and he declared in 1549 the Netherlands was a province of Spain. His son Philip II, an extremely devout Catholic, continued the rule of the Netherlands on his father’s death in 1556. Ultimately, Philip declared he would never rule over heretics and brought in the Duke of Alva in 1567 to put down the Protestant revolt. The Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648) split the Dutch Protestants in the north from the Belgian Catholics in the south. 

 

Brueghel’s paintings, many depicting Old Testament stories with subtle criticisms of Catholicism and the government, by necessity began to change. As the religious and political situation worsened in Antwerp in the 1560’s, and prisons filled with so-called heretics, and the Protestant resistance grew stronger, Brueghel turned to the less controversial subject matter of peasant dances and peasants at work during the seasons. In the last two years of his life, Brueghel painted popular myths and Netherlandish proverbs. 

“The Land of Cockayne” (1567) (20.4’’x30.7”) depicts a medieval myth that describes an imaginary land reached by eating one’s way through a rice pudding mountain. “All ye who are lazy and gluttonous be ye peasant, soldier, or scholar, get to the land of Cockayne and taste there all sorts of things without labor. The fences are sausages, the houses covered with cakes; capons and chickens fly around ready roasted.” Under a round table full of food, a scholar with his books and fur-lined robe, lies spread legged and sated. The peasant, flail under him, forms the second spoke of a wheel pattern. A soldier dressed in red, with a spear, forms the third spoke of the wheel. The fourth spoke is a duck, its head lying obligingly on a plate ready to be chopped off. Wheels are circles symbolic of the sun and rays of light, and they represent eternal life. The wheel of fortune, a tarot wheel, can bring either good or back luck. At the left, a soldier under a roof tiled with cakes, opens his mouth and waits for a cake to fall in.  At the far right, a pig walks by, a carving knife stuck in his hide. Behind the pig is the rice pudding mountain, and a figure holding a spoon is falling from the tunnel he has just eaten his way through. “The Land of Cockaigne” depicts a land very different from the economically stressed situation of the time. 

    “The Blind Leading the Blind” (1568) (33.8”x 60.6’’) depicts a verse from the Gospel of Matthew (15:14): “Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” Six blind men walk across the composition from left to right. The first blind man at the lower right has already fallen into the ditch, with the others not far behind. Ophthalmologists have been able to determine that one of the men suffers from corneal leukemia, another from atrophy of the globe, and a third has had his eyes removed. Brueghel’s ability to depict details is remarkable. The blind men clearly are dressed as members of the peasant class. Many of Brueghel’s paintings include images of the blind as well as cripples with crutches and people with deformities.  Such people were not unusual in his time. 

The church of St Anne, from the village of St Anne, Pede, is set in the background at the right. Whether the church is Catholic or Protestant is not certain. The Catholic church believed that good deeds and charitable acts were important for entry into heaven. However, the Protestant church believed that faith alone would serve as entrance to heaven. Thus, beggars and the infirm saw a deep decline in charitable donations.  

“The Misanthrope” (1568) includes the proverb written on the painting. “Because the world is so untrue, I go my way so full of rue.” Defined as a person who dislikes and mistrusts other people, the elderly misanthrope in the painting tries to shut himself off from the world. In a long black cape that hides all but his long nose, long white beard, and his clenched hands, he turns his back and seems to walk out of the painting. But he cannot remove himself from the world. Unknown to the misanthrope, a young man is about to cut his purse from his person, and he is about to step on three sharp snares on the ground ahead of him. The robber is encircled by a globe with a cross on top symbolizing the universal nature of the church, which he clearly does not embrace–or he represents. They both have passed by a pastoral landscape with a shepherd guarding his black and white sheep. In other words, they pay no attention to the good shepherd who protects his flock safe from harm.

 

Brueghel had many proverbs to choose from, as they were much in use in the Netherlands. Erasmus of Rotterdam published Adagia (1500) containing 800 collected proverbs. In his 1508 version there were over 3000 items, and his last edition in 1536 contained 4,151 entries. “The Birdnester” (1568) depicts the proverb: “He who knows where the nest is has the knowledge. He who robs the nest, has the nest.” The peasant smiles and points at the foolish peasant who is risking his life by climbing the tree to get the bird nest, unaware that he is about to walk into the river. The thief has lost his hat while he hangs precariously from the high tree. He has the nest in his hands, but can he safely get down from the tree? 

Influenced by 15th Century Netherlandish paintings, Brueghel has included several flowers at the left edge of the river. The most visible and identifiable is the single purple iris. Symbolism for the iris comes from the Greek goddess of the rainbow named Iris, and the iris appears in the Old and New Testaments. The first reference is from Genesis (9:13) in which God says to Noah, “I have set my bow in the cloud,” as a covenant between man and God that he will not destroy the Earth with a flood. The three petals of the iris represent the trinity, and the iris re-emerges each spring from the cold winter earth. The presence of the iris may indicate there is still hope for these two.

“The Merry Way to the Gallows” (1568) was one of Brueghel’s last paintings. In 1567, the Duke of Alva and the Spanish army arrived in the Netherlands to rid the land of all Protestants. The gallows were in full use. Executions were popular entertainment events; people of all ages attended. The gallows take center stage in the painting. It is a lopsided structure; the lower support legs almost appear to be walking. Two peasant men and a woman dance in a circle at the foot of the gallows. Behind the dancers, a man plays a bagpipe. Bagpipes were common in Netherlandish art, symbolic of rowdiness. Villagers come up the hill from the town to see the execution.

Two men at the lower left appear to look out at the vast panoramic landscape that forms more than half the painting. One gestures into the distance. In the lower left corner, a man in dark clothing squats on the ground and shits, mocking the state. All three ignore the gallows and the justice it should represent.

The painting has an alternative title: “The Magpie on the Gallows.” Magpies have a long symbolic history. In Europe the magpie was considered intelligent, but also represented deceit and opportunism. Magpies destroy farm crops and steal food from other birds’ nests. They also steal any shiny object they see. Two magpies are prominent in the painting. One sits on top of the gallows at the center of the composition. A second magpie sits at the base of the gallows on the branch of a dead tree. Magpies are associated with people who gossip, and in Brueghel’s time spiteful gossip often led to arrest and execution. The skull of a horse on the slope at the right of the gallows adds to the atmosphere of death. 

To the right of the gallows and lower on the hill is a wooden cross, the one symbol of the church present in the painting. In contrast to the gallows, the rest of the landscape includes green trees, a distant winding river, and mountains that are a reminder of the Alps. In the left middle ground is the grey stone of a hilltop castle. A mill with its water wheel is tucked into the lower left corner. The green pasture by the mill contains sheep, and a miller, clothed in white, can be seen in the doorway. Life goes on.

Brueghel was critical of the political and religious strife that were destroying the Netherlands, and in earlier paintings he included subtle, and not so subtle, references to his distain. One painting in particular, “The Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem” was retouched to make the babies into bags of wheat. Before he died, he had his wife burn some of his paintings that were too sarcastic or critical, fearing harm would come to her if she kept them. He told her to keep “The Magpie on the Gallows” for herself.

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

Fujiko Nakaya was born in Sapporo, Japan, in 1933. She was inspired by her father Ukichiro Nakaya, well-known physicist, researcher, and founder of Iwanami Productions (1950), maker of educational films and documentaries. He specialized in glacial studies, and he made the first artificial snowflake. Ukichiro also was a Sumi-e artist of Asian ink brush paintings.  He was dedicated to issues concerning the environment and art, interests he passed on to his daughter. Nakaya graduated from the High School of Japan Women’s University, Tokyo. She came to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to study painting. She received her BA in 1957, and then went to Paris and Madrid where she studied painting until 1959.

Nakaya soon would change from painting to fog sculpture: “I used to paint clouds. And at a certain point I wanted a more direct experience-oriented form of art that painting couldn’t provide. I felt unsatisfied with the painting as a medium and started thinking about working with temperature difference which is responsible for changes in a lot of forms of nature—in animals and in people and things. I made dry ice clouds on a plate with a heater underneath. So, I was experimenting with the change of form through temperature differences.”  

In 1966, Nakaya joined EAT (Experiments in Art and Technology), a non-profit established by engineers and artists, including the POP artist Robert Rauschenberg, to facilitate collaboration between the two. Nakaya’s “Fog Sculpture #47773” (1970) was chosen to represent EAT at EXPO ’70 in Osaka. The theme of the EXPO was “Progress and Harmony for Mankind.”  One of the exhibitors was the Pepsi Company that sponsored a Buckminster Fuller-type geodesic dome. As one of the EATS group of 75 artists and engineers from America and Japan, Nakaya was responsible for the outside of the PEPSI Pavilion.  

Collaborating with American physicist Thomas Mee, Nakaya helped develop a process for creating fog. Pressurized water was forced through a tiny nozzle and hit a pin that separated water into droplets about 20 microns wide. The droplets were so small they remained suspended in air for a long time, like fog. 

Nakaya succeeded in manufacturing artificial fog on a massive scale in order to cover the Pavilion.  Billions of droplets of water (fog) surrounded the Pavilion and spread out to visitors. “Fog Sculpture #47773” was considered the most spectacular exhibit at the EXPO. 

Since 1970, Nakaya has produced more than 80 fog gardens, falls, and geysers all over the world. Nakaya explained, “When you experience nature with your body, the quality of the experience really sticks…I want to create a situation where people can establish a physical relationship with nature…Through this relationship, we gain the instinctive wisdom to make decisions to preserve nature.”

Continuing her experiment to perfect the technique, Nakaya patented in 1989 a device for the purpose of making cloud/fog sculpture from water. The numbers included in the titles of her fog sculptures are the international code for the closest weather station.

 

“Foggy Wake in a Desert” (1982) (Canberra, Australia) was the result of Nakaya’s collaboration with scientist Dr. Yasushi Mitsuta of Kyoto University to investigate the impact that one square kilometer (3280.84 square feet) of fog would have on the desert. The project took place on a landscape Nakaya designed, near the National Gallery of Australia. Nine hundred nozzles pumped the foggy mist from 12:30 until 2:00 pm daily. The climate and ecological changes were recorded for ten years. Science and art came together, and “Foggy Wake in a Desert” was a success. In 1983, it became a permanent installation in the Sculpture Garden of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. 

 

Nakaya designed her first indoor fog project for the Trisha Brown Dance Company in New York City in 1980. At times the fog came down from above the dancers, and at other times it moved across the stage while dancers appeared and disappeared in the mist. The fog also rolled out into the audience, enveloping them in the environment of the performance. “Opal Loop, Cloud Installation” has been performed several times since. 

Nakaya has worked with artists all over the world to provide fog sculptures to accompany concerts. She participated in international sculpture conferences and exhibitions. One was in Washington, D.C. in 1980. She began making videos of her projects in 1979. She founded Video Gallery SCAN in Tokyo to promote video art in Japan. Nakaya participated in the First International Water Sculpture Competition (1983) organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art.

 

According to Nakaya, “Fog reacts to local meteorological conditions…landscape can appear to be largely static until fog is introduced.” She introduced fog into public parks, across bridges, in parking lots, and where ever she is invited to share her unique art. All the fog sculptures invite interaction with visitors. “Children’s Forest #47880” (1992) (Showa Kinen Park, Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan) provides an example of peoples’ playful response to fog sculptures.  

Nakaya created fog sculpture for number of museums including the Guggenheim Museum, Spain in 1993 and 1998/99, the Tate Modern in London, and the Pompidou Center in Paris 2017. Fog sculpture installations in the United States include the University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 2010. “Fog Bridge #72494” (2013) (Exploratorium, San Francisco), celebrated the 75th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. “Fog Bridge” was 150 feet long bridge that enshrouded visitors with fog for ten minutes every half hour. It was pre-programmed to interact with real-time weather. If the wind was coming from the east, the 800 small nozzles would make fog only on the east side of the bridge. “Fog Bridge” is a permanent installation at the Exploratorium. Nakaya states, “Fog makes visible things become invisible and invisible things – like wind – become visible”.

 For American architect Philip Johnson’s Glass house in New Canaan, Connecticut, Nakaya created “Veil” (2014). Fog shrouded the house for 10-15 minutes each hour, creating a unique experience for visitors of the transparency of the glass, the changing time of the day, and the surrounding landscape.

Durham Cathedral, England is one of the historical locations for Nakaya’s fog sculptures “Fogscape” (2015). Fog sculpture is one of several off-shoots of installation art, happenings, and performance art that began in the late 1950’s and has been continued by such artists as Christo. They open up the experience to numerous visitors and encourage participation. They last for a short time but are photographed extensively and are either recorded on video or published in books.

 

“Fog x Flo” (2018) was a series of five fog sculptures to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Boston’s Emerald Necklace Conservancy. It was established in 1998 as a private non-profit stewardship organization to restore and maintain Boston’s public parks designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Olmstead was the 19th Century landscape architect responsible for the design of over 100 public parks and recreation grounds in America. Boston’s Emerald Necklace Park had been neglected for over 50 years. Nakaya’s fog sculptures transformed the parks into another magical environment. As with all Nakaya’s fog sculptures, she insists the mechanics are visible and audible.

“Fog has a very democratic status. It’s constantly moving, and when two droplets collide, they each go off a little, making room for each other. It makes the world a little bigger—for everyone.”  (Nayaka, n.d.)

 

“If you have even one little experience with fog, you start to see things differently. Nature is so complex. We can’t understand its complexity. If you tap one spot it will open up so many things and enlarge imaginations.” (Nakaya, 2013)

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) was a founding member of the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers in Paris. The group of artists were students at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and all painted in “plein air” (outdoors) near Paris at the Forest of Fontainebleau. The original group of artists included Sisley, Monet, Renoir, and Bazille, and they quickly were joined by several others. The group held their first exhibition in Paris in1874. A critic, making fun of the title of Monet’s painting “Impression Sunrise,” wrote sarcastically how impressed he was. From that time on, the group has been known as the Impressionists. 

 

Alfred Sisley is one of the lesser-known Impressionists who became popular after his death. “The Bell Tower at Noisy-le-Roi, Autumn” (1874) (17” x 24”) illustrates Sisley’s style and his talent. The inspiration for the Impressionists was the scientific discovery that sunlight, which illuminates everything, was composed of the colors of the rainbow: purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red. All Impressionists began painting in plein air, but Sisley never stopped. He was not a painter of people or the bustling city life of Paris. He was the painter of landscapes and villages up and down the Seine near Paris. He and his family lived in several of these villages his entire life, and local landscapes never failed to inspire him. He painted the villages, fields, forests, and rivers that composed the beauty of the French countryside.

“The Bell Tower at Noisy-le-Roi, Autumn” presents the viewer with a field that has been harvested, a few town residents, and a black and white spotted cow in front of a wooden fence. The fence divides the fields from the town’s bright yellow-green lawn. The sunlight on the field is painted with bright yellow, green, and orange. The deeper furrows in the field are blue, green, and purple. In contrast, the shade under the autumn trees is painted in cool greens and blues. 

The orange tile roofs of village houses and the bell tower can be seen beyond the trees.  It is a beautiful fall day with a blue sky and scudding white clouds. The complementary colors of orange and blue, green and red, and yellow and purple are distributed throughout the peaceful village scene.  

Half the painting is of the sky, the white clouds shadowed underneath with light orange paint. Sisley once said to a critic, “…the sky cannot only be a background…I always begin by painting the sky.” He explained his approach in a letter to his friend Adolphe Tavernier: “The sky is not simply a background; its planes give depth (for the sky has planes, as well as solid ground), and the shapes of clouds give movement to a picture. What is more beautiful indeed than the summer sky, with its wispy clouds idly floating across the blue? What movement and grace! Don’t you agree? They are like waves on the sea; one is uplifted and carried away.”

 

“White Hoar Frost, St. Martin, Autumn, Indian Summer” (1874) (18’’x 21.5’’) depicts another scene of autumn, but it shows the unending variation Sisley found outside his own front door. Autumn is on full display, and the nearby tree has lost all its leaves. At the right, the plants in the field have gone gold and orange, and stacks of logs are ready for winter fires. The furrows are deep and depicted with dark blue and purple in contrast with the yellow and orange of the harvested crops. Sisley’s paintings include a small number of figures, letting the viewer know that the townsfolk are there and active. 

The nearer buildings are painted with wide brush strokes and more intense colors to emphasize the solid structures. As the buildings recede into the distance, they are painted with lighter, feathery brush strokes. Sisley employs the technique of aerial perspective: more distant objects are affected by the atmosphere and appear fainter and bluer.

During his lifetime Sisley painted two series of major floods of the Seine at Port Marly. His first-hand record of the floods was unique among the subjects painted by the Impressionists.  “The Flood at Port Marly” (1872) (18.25’’ x 24’’) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) is one of four paintings he made of the 1872 flood. He captures the swollen river as it rises to the door of the Restaurant a Saint Nicholas. Two women stand on a slip of land in front of the door while a boatman poles his boat in the water. Two others stand around the corner on a set of stairs that have not been submerged. Above them a wrought iron bracket displays the restaurant’s name. At the right a pilon and a few trees bring balance to the foreground of the composition. One figure stands among the trees on an outcropping that is surrounded by water. Another figure rows a boat in front of a shed.  More trees and houses recede into the distance. 

Sisley details the three-storied structure of the Restaurant: curtains at the windows, shutters both open closed, tall windows with stone cornices on the third floor, and sloped roofs of grey-blue slate and tiles, and multiple chimneys. The painting is composed mainly of the complementary colors blue and orange. Sisley artfully places several horizontal dark blue and purple dashes across the center of the composition, with small touches of the darker colors on the roof of the restaurant and on the foliage of the trees that recede into the background. Sisley was a master of composition, arranging everything to create harmony, balance, and calm even in a dire situation. 

Water was another of Sisley’s favorite subjects, and he frequently painted bridges over water and landscapes including rivers. His ability to observe sunlight, movement, and reflections on water was unique. Four years after the 1872 flood, Sisley painted seven pictures of the 1876 flood. At that time, he was able to chronicle the flood from the beginning to the end. As the flood increased, the village of Port Marly was submerged. “Flood at Port Marly” (1876) (19.5’’ x 24’’) depicts the waters of the Seine flowing across the street. Sisley set up his easel around the corner from the Restaurant a Saint Nicholas, the second building on the left. A coach drawn by white horses appears with luggage piled high. Rows of trees, rowers in a boat, and the dark roofed shed can be seen across the street.

Steven Mallarme, French poet and art critic, wrote an article on Impressionism for The Art Monthly review in London shortly after he saw Sisley’s 1876 paintings of the flood: “He captures the fleeing effects of light. He observes a passing cloud and seems to depict it in its flight. The crisp air goes through the canvas, the foliage stirs and shivers.”

Born in Paris to English parents, Sisley was therefore English. However, he lived and worked almost his entire life in France. He visited England only a few times. The last time, in 1897, he married his companion of 31 years, Marie-Louise Adelaide Eugenie Lescouezec. They had a son and a daughter. Sisley applied for French citizenship in1898, but he was refused. 

Sisley asked his longtime friend Monet to look after his children when he died. Marie-Louise died in 1899, Sisley three months later. That year, Monet asked George Petit, an art dealer and promoter of Impressionism, to hold an auction of Sisley’s paintings to help support the children. One of “The Flood at Port Marly” paintings sold for 43,000 francs to Count Isaac de Camondowho. Interest in Sisley’s art was thus established. 

The well-known art critic, painter, and art theorist Wynford Dewhurst (1864-1941) wrote in one of books on Impressionism: “Rare are the artists who distinguish themselves in every branch of art, lucky the man who excelled in one. An example of the latter is Sisley, ‘pausagiste’ [landscapist] pure and simple, who has left a legacy of some of the most fascinating landscapes ever painted.”

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.

 

Born in 1791 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Samuel Findley Breese Morse was raised by Jedidiah Morse, a well-known minister and supporter of Calvinism and Federalism. Samuel was an “eccentric” student, but he did graduate from Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and graduated (Phi Beta Kappa) from Yale in 1810. He studied religious philosophy, mathematics, and science. However, he began his career painting miniature portraits, and he worked as a clerk in a Boston book store. His interest in art was discouraged by his father, who finally relented and supported Samuel going to England (1811) to study with the American painter Washington Allston. He remained in England for three years, met the prominent American painter Benjamin West, and his artistic talent earned him admission to the Royal Academy in London in 1811. His “Self- Portrait” (1812) (10.75’’ x 8.85’’) evidences his skill as an artist. It is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

During his three-year stay in London, Morse produced several paintings in the popular Neo-Classical style based on Italian Renaissance realism and history and mythology.  “Dying Hercules” (1812) and “Judgment of Jupiter” (1814) were well received in London. However, Morse was well aware of the issues that caused the War of 1812, and felt the Federalists, who supported England in America “were cowards, a base set, [I] say they are traitors to their country and ought to be hanged like traitors.” During the presidency of Monroe, the Federalist party collapsed.

Morse returned to America in 1815, and he established residence in Greenwich Village in New York City. Americans were not interested in history or myth, and he began as an itinerant portrait painter. Notable early portraits were of president “John Adams” (1816) and “James Monroe” (1819). Adam’s portrait is in the Brooklyn Museum, and Monroe’s is in the White House.  Morse painted portraits of other famous Americans including Eli Whitney (1822), De Witt Clinton (1826), William Cullen Bryant (1829), and Noah Webster (n.d.). 

The Marquise de Lafayette was an American celebrity after his participation in helping to win the American Revolution. Morse’s “Marquise de Lafayette (1825-26) was commissioned by the City of New York. The two men discussed the Revolution, and their friendship strengthened Morse’s already significant embrace of America and democracy. George Washington and Lafayette were fast friends, and Lafayette’s pose is reminiscent of the 1780 portrait of Washington by Charles Willson Peale. 

Lafayette stands on the top step of a porch. A flourishing landscape and a dramatic blue sky with turbulent red, gold, and dark clouds provide the backdrop. Instead of creating a stormy effect, the rose glow of a sunset after a storm gives a sense of power and presence to the figure of Lafayette. 

The porch has an inlaid marble floor, with stone balcony railings and a large carved vase. The new shoots of a leafy vine growing from the vase perhaps represent the young Democracy. Three stone pedestals at the left hold busts of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.  A third pedestal, on which Lafayette rests his right hand, is empty. Likely, it was intended as a tribute to Lafayette, who someday would have his bust placed there to mark his accomplishments. 

 

Morse painted “The House of Representative” (1822) (7.5’ x 11’) (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). The commission for four panels for the Rotunda of the Capitol would pay the artist $10,000. Morse traveled to Washington to make an accurate drawing of the House architecture with 80 people in the chamber. Morse choose to set the scene at night to illustrate the dedication of the house members to their work. The painting was exhibited in 1823 in New York City, but it was not a success. John Adams questioned if an American artist was up to the task. Morse’s close friend James Fenimore Cooper wrote a letter, published in the New York Evening Post arguing the Capitol would be an “historic edifice” and must showcase American art. The painting was not chosen, and Morse blamed Daniel Webster and John Adams, a Federalist, who voted against it.

Morse married his first wife Lucretia in 1818. “Mrs. Morse and Two Children” (1824) depicts her with their two children Susan and Charles. Morse chose a classic triangular pose, with a dark column placed behind his wife. He encircles them with a dark red shawl and darker green in the left background, and the cushion and Lucretia’s skirt. However, he centers the tender interaction of the three figures in a soft, pastel palette of the Rococo. To match their rosy pink cheeks and light clothing, Morse paints a soft blue and pink sky. Lucretia tenderly embraces baby Charles, an active and delighted child. Susan happily plays with a bubble pipe.

The love of his wife and children is evident in this painting. Attached to the painting was a letter Morse wrote just before leaving for Washington in 1824: “A thousand affecting incidents of separation from my beloved family crowded upon my recollection. The unconscious gayety of my dear children as they frolicked in all their wonted playfulness, too young to sympathize in the pangs that agitated their distressed parents; their artless request to bring home some trifling toy; the parting kiss, not understood as meaning more than usual; the tears and sad fare wells of father, mother, wife, sister, family, friends; the desolateness of every room as the parting glance is thrown on each familiar object, and farewell, farewell seemed written on the very walls, — all these things bear upon my memory, and I realize the declaration that the places which now know us shall know us no more.” Unfortunately, Lucretia died in 1825, soon after the birth of their second son James.

Morse was a founder of the National Academy of Design in New York City, and he served as its first president from 1826 to 1845. The Academy became the center of the arts in Greenwich Village. Returning to Europe in1831, Morse decided to paint “Gallery of the Louvre” (1831-1833) (6 ft. x 9 ft.). The painting includes 38 miniatures of works by Renaissance and Baroque masters. He thought this painting would be an excellent teaching tool for his students and an introduction for Americans to the splendors of European art. The work took months, and Morse moved a scaffolding he invented around the Louvre in order to have a closer look at each painting. Masterpieces by da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Tintoretto, Caravaggio, Rubens, and Rembrandt are among the works included. The miniature of the “Mona Lisa” is placed in the center of the canvas on the lowest row of paintings. The fourth painting in the row is of Rubens’s beloved second wife Suzanne Fourment. Morse’s recent loss of his own wife might have influenced the placement of the Rubens portrait.

In the foreground of the canvas, Morse leans over the shoulder of his daughter Susan giving her advice concerning the drawing she is sketching. At the left, Richard Habersham, a young artist from Georgia and a roommate of Morse’s in Paris, is working on a landscape study. In the left corner are James Fenimore Cooper and his wife and daughter Susan, an art student seated in front of her easel and holding a palette. Cooper was a long-time friend, and spent many days with Morse in the Louvre. He described his time with Morse: “I sit and have sat so often and so long that my face is just as well-known as any Vandyke on the walls. Crowds get round the picture, for Morse has made quite a hit in the Louvre, and I believe that people think that half the merit is mine.”

In the arched doorway is the American sculptor Horatio Greenough and a women and child in traditional Briton costumes. Greenough, hat in hand, looks across the gallery to the ancient sculpture of “Diana and a Deer,” placed on a pedestal in the right corner. A young woman, wearing a gold gown, sits at a table painting a miniature. She may be Miss Jorester, a young woman who took lessons from Morse in the Louvre, or his deceased wife Lucretia. The figures were added to the canvas after Morse returned to New York. 

Morse exhibited “Gallery of the Louvre” in New York City on August 9,1833. The work received critical praise, but it sold for only $1300. Morse had hoped for $2500. When Morse did not receive a commission from the Government to paint one of the history panels in the Capitol building, he became depressed: “Painting has been a smiling mistress to many, but she has been a cruel jilt to me. I did not abandon her, she abandoned me.” “Gallery of the Louvre” sold in 1982 for $3.5 million to the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago.

The name of the artist Morse and the name of the inventor of the telegraph and code Morse are the same. Morse did abandon art, and he turned to science. A talk he had heard years earlier at Yale (1810) inspired him to use the wooden canvas stretcher bars from his studio to construct his earliest version of the telegraph. After a great deal of trial and tribulation, Congress funded wiring American from coast to coast, and Morse received a patent in 1844. Morse purchased in 1847 the estate Locust Grove on the Hudson River. In 1848 he married Sarah Elizabeth Griswold. They had four children.

On May 24, 1844, Morse sent his partner Alfred Vail the first telegraph message from Washington to Baltimore: “What hath God wrought.”

Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years.  Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.