The Clever Pup's Guide to Making Christmas Work - Enjoy.... A Real Tree.

copyright Hazel Smith

Ten days to go and if you haven't already bought your tree, make sure to get  a real one.  I always enjoy a real tree. It makes Christmas work for me and the preparations just make me a little more mindful. Oh, and the smell when you come down to breakfast the next day! Sure, you have to water it and you get needles all over the place but it's worth the fuss. 

I always want to purchase the tree a little earlier, but I think we will wait until my son gets home form university. Because we are lucky urbanites we are used to having a tree-seller on the next block.  After dinner, (it always happens at night) the three of us put on our worst coats - because there's always sap - and  visit the hatchet-faced Polish twins who set up around the corner. They've seen us for fifteen years but now they are missing. This year we will have to visit the Chinese grocery on the next block or the chic florists on the way.   I get to pick and it seems we always come home with a balsam, about 7 feet tall. The fellows carry it home lengthwise between them.

We let it settle for a bit and then I have a freak-out about how fast time is racing by. Didn't I just do this? Seriously, I just did this 3 months ago? Didn't I?

Lights go on first. Then Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas goes on the turntable And, then, let the decorating begin.

Undone

An intimate warmth predominates James Tissot’s The Shop Girl (1883-1885). The shaded interior makes the viewer feel like an elite insider. The black-clad girl opening the shop’s door onto a lively Paris street is the focus of the work. Inside, a hushed serenity is achieved through the muted light and the gentle shadows on the girl’s face. The world outside the shop is hustling and bustling and is depicted as such through Tissot’s slapdash brush strokes, whereas his work on the young lady is barely decipherable.

The viewer’s eye first alights to the central shop girl and the pink package she holds and is then drawn to the recurring black figure on the left. This repetitive design element bounces us back from the edge of the frame to the busyness in the window and the pile of ribbon on the counter. The open door seems less important than what has just transpired in the shop.

This nineteenth century slice of life is as accurately detailed as a photograph. However, Tissot used a palette of oil paints to subtly blend colours necessary for warm skin and ribbons. Slow-drying oil paint was a necessity for Tissot, who took two years to complete this work. Unlike a photo, the painting is large, about 1x1.5 metres. From the perspective of a gallery goer standing about a metre away,  Tissot’s  shop girl seems almost life-sized.

Tissot places the viewer into the shoes of a male who has just purchased something for a woman.  Men are gazing at the shop girls through the window, as if they too were commodities or confections. A woman from a higher place in society passes with her eyes demurely averted. There is a lot of masculine attention going on. The central girl has met the male gaze of the viewer and is intensely maintaining it. She’s about to hand the gentleman shopper his package as he joins his chauffeur and horses outside. 

The somberly-clad shop girl contrasts with the tumble of pink ribbons on the countertop revealing, perhaps, that the high-buttoned girl could just as easily become “undone” as the pink mess left on the counter. Tissot’s painting contains other elements that could allude to hidden pleasures: the cupped “V” of the rosy package pointing to the girl’s lap where there lays a barely decipherable pocket; the wooden gargoyle lasciviously pointing his tongue; and the ribbon artfully fallen into a heart shape on the floor. 

To me, The Shop Girl is reminiscent of Manet’s A Bar at the Folies Bergere (1882). In both, a black clad server with something to offer locks eyes with the viewer. Each contains a disconcerting back view of another in black: in Tissot’s, an identically-dressed assistant; in Manet’s, a skewed reflection. These strange dopplegangers may be alluding to the fact that even though these working girls give the illusion that they are of the same class as the men they are serving, in reality, they are removed from it. Here the similarity with Manet’s Impressionistic style ends as Tissot’s small, mannered brush strokes realistically portray the shop girl’s face and the shop’s interior. Although completed at the height of Impressionism, Tissot’s work does not reflect the style of the day.

Copyright Hazel Smith, 2011

Proviso -FAH 245 should probably not copy this.

François Boucher, The Chinese Fishing Party [1742]

Boucher's painting, The Chinese Fishing Party, represents the exotic East and the luxury objects that were associated with it. In the 18th century Chinese silk, porcelain, spices and tea were objects of desire. They were an indication of one's social standing. 

François Boucher had a limited, superficial knowledge of Chinese culture. He has applied his ideals of Chinese iconography to a pre-existing mode of painting. 

François Boucher, Toilet of Venus [1751]

I've got to memorize 50 paintings for my Art History mid-term. I may as well kill two birds with one stone and feature my study notes here. 

François Boucher was the epitome of Rococo painters.  Rococo was the ornate style of courtly decoration in 18th Century France. Paintings like Boucher's would have been displayed as one among many. The court considered  paintings as part of the luxury trade and were regarded as an artisanal product along with luxurious furnishings and decorative artifacts  Not segregated away in a gallery; Rococo paintings were displayed in the luxurious rooms found in 18th century chateaus.

Here François Boucher's Toilet of Venus depicts the standard mythological scene of Venus. Boucher was fond of paiting erotic pastoral scenes with rosy female nudes. In this painting, jewels, silks and ornaments tumble over the edge of the stage and into our visual space as if they are being offered or on display. These objects bursting forth also represent the luxury which the patron or member of the court could afford.

This painting was commissioned by King Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour. She once had  fun playing the title role of Venus at Versailles. Madame de Pompadour was Boucher's patroness and he painted under her wing. Boucher painted the Madame de Pompadour several times. Their names were synonymous with the Rococo style.

Rococo died out by the time of the French Revolution. The frippery of the Rococo era was replaced with the order and the seriousness of Neo-Classicism whose subjects began to reflect the republican values of the masses.

Go - Stephen Bulger Gallery

Ruth Orkin

“I’m totally contained. I’m self-assured. I own the street. I’m walking in total confidence. I’m not in the least flustered or bothered or apprehensive.” That's what Ninalee Craig says. Although most would say her eyes betray a fear. But Ninalee Craig should know - 60 years ago she was known as Jinx Allen, the subject for Ruth Orkin's An American Girl in Italy.

Fernando Morales for the Globe and Mail

Ninalee Allen now lives in Toronto. In a recent Globe and Mail article she relays her feelings about Italy and her feelings towards the picture.

The Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto is presenting an exhibition of Ruth Orkin's work. Visitors can study Orkin's contact sheets and she how the Jinx Allen image fits in with other images of the celebrated American girl shopping, haggling, laughing about her oversized lira, and riding side-saddle on a scooter. Jinx Allen ran the gauntlet twice past the 15 mostly unemployed Italian men on August 22, 1951 to achieve the picture.

The exhibition, Ruth Orkin, American Girl in Italy- 60th Anniversary is at the Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen Street W., Toronto, until Saturday at 6 pm, August 26th.  I'd better hop on my scooter and get going!


with files from John Allemang/The Globe and Mail.

Wow Meow!

Toronto has an incredible street-style photographer and blogger named Nigel Hamid. His blog TorontoVerve features fashionable people on the streets of Toronto and he makes Toronto look gooood.

Although from Vancouver here's a couple of photos of Sam channeling her inner Cat Woman.The scale of prints and the monochrome of the leopard upon leopard upon leopard makes this ensemble work. She's mature and dresses with confidence and a sense of humour. I love this and I'm threatening to get my vintage 50s leopard coat from out of the cupboard.

Photos: Nigel Hamid/TorontoVerve

Courage My Love - Men's Style

I’m a big proponent of men dressing better, with more creativity, more flair and more colour. Jimi Hendrix’ drum major’s coat fills me with delight. Bob Dylan’s polka-dotted shirts are spot-on.

Casual Friday doesn’t have to mean “dress” pants and golf shirts. That’s just gruesome. So when I read that portraits of Mick Jagger from the 1960s would be on display at London’s National Gallery, I just had to get on my bandwagon again.

The exhibition will include portraits of Jagger by Gered Mankowitz, which will highlight the effect of pop art and psychedelia on Jagger’s clothes. Gered Mankowitz (who was just 18 when he became the Rolling Stone’s official photographer) is also responsible for an iconic photo of Jimi Hendrix wearing the military jacket he bought at the boutique I Was Lord Kitchener’s Valet, in London’s mod Carnaby Street. The store specialized in movie costumes and military gear. The designer of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album cover was inspired while walking past the shop.

Again the Beatles circa 1968 demonstrate a male style of dressing that exhibits originality, a sense of confidence and above all, a sense of humour. Known as The Mad Day Out, Don McCullin’s photo session of July 68 show the Beatles as colourful as the flowers surrounding them. Love it!

I see a profound lack of confidence and of humour in clothes both male and female now that I’m back at school. The thousands of university students I pass everyday are as colourless and uniform as a swarm of black ants.

So turn off your mind, relax and flow downstream. Add a little velvet to your life. Dress like the Beatles, not beetles. Start with striped socks, or a bow tie. You’ll feel better too.

Courage My Love, refers to a vintage shop in Toronto’s Kensington Market. Maybe one could pick up a nice striped waistcoat there.

Mick Jagger: Young in the 60s will be at London’s National Portrait Gallery starting May 3. npg.org.uk.


Photo 1 and 3: Gered Mankowitz
Photo 2: Colin Jones
Photo 4 and 5: Don McCullin

Yo! Mama!

500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art by Philip Scott Johnson

The Lady with the Ermine

Art conservators Janusz Czop, left, and Janusz Walek open a box containing the Leonardo da Vinci painting Lady with an Ermine during a press presentation at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Poland, Tuesday, April 12, 2011.

AP Photo/Alik Keplicz.

I find Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine more beautiful and much more interesting than his Mona Lisa. The lady is  Cecilia Gallerani, (1473-1536) a  young woman who entered the court of Milan around 1490. She became the mistress of Duke Ludovico Sforza and bore him a son.  Ludovico Sforza was one of the wealthiest and most powerful princes of Renaissance Italy. He commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint The Last Supper. Sforza also commissioned Leonardo to paint the portrait of his mistress. At the time of the portrait, Cecilia was about seventeen. She was born into a large family and her father served for a time at the Duke's court. Cecilia was renowned for her beauty, her intellect and her poetry-wrting. At around ten she was promised to a young nobleman of the house of Visconti but the marriage was called off. Cecilia then became the mistress of the Duke but, alas, Ludovico chose to marry a girl from a nobler family, Beatrice d’Este. Duke Ludovico received the insignia of the chivalric Order of the Ermine from the King of Naples in 1488, and was nicknamed Italico Morel bianco ermellino ("Italian Moor, white ermine") because he was sort of swarthy.  The ermine became the heraldic animal of the Sforzo clan. The ermine in Cecilia’s arms represents the couple’s relationship. It is written of him that he was an “unscrupulous intriguer” Was he a weasel as well?

Here's a painting of Sforza from his family's altarpiece at the time of the relationhip.

Cecilia Gallerani lives on in posterity in the painting exhibited in the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow. The Polish Culture Ministry and a board of conservators will soon be deciding whether Leonardo da Vinci’s painting is fit to be out on a prolonged tour of Europe’s galleries. The Czartoryski Foundation, which owns the work, wants to show it at three major exhibitions – in Madrid, Berlin and London. But the plans for the painting  to leave Poland have sparked anxiety among art conservationists According to the chief conservator of the National Museum in Kraków, the Lady with an Ermine should undergo further research studies and should not travel to foreign exhibitions. Art conservationists warn that plans to transport the painting might cause damage to Poland's most precious picture.

With files from the Associated Press and www.thenews.pl

Desperately Seeking Mona - Some Mysteries Should Remain Mysteries.

Yesterday, Tuesday, April 5, 2011, Italian researchers unveiled a plan to dig up bones in a Florence convent in hopes of identifying the remains of a Renaissance woman believed to be the model for the Mona Lisa. The researchers, led by art historian Silvano Vinceti, hope that the project can answer the mysteries surrounding Leonardo da Vinci's painting, including whether the Florentine woman Lisa Gherardini, was the model. The excavations in the Convent of St. Ursula, in central Florence are scheduled to begin at the end of April.

Lisa Gherardini was the wife of a rich silk merchant named Francesco del Giocondo. Tradition has linked Gherardini to the painting, which is known in Italian as "La Gioconda" and in French as "La Joconde." Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century biographer of Leonardo, wrote that da Vinci had painted a portrait of del Giocondo's wife.

Historian Silvano Vinceti cited documents showing that the Giocondo family made generous donations to the convent, and said the merchant’s will arranged for his wife's remains to be kept in the convent. Lisa's birthdate is known to be June 15, 1479. A few years ago, an amateur Italian historian apparently found a death certificate showing that Lisa Gherardini died on July 15, 1542, with her final resting place being the Convent of St. Ursula in central Florence.

Okay, enough said. It seems we know who the model for the Mona Lisa is and who paid for it. We know when she was born, when she died and where she’s buried. Vasari seals the connection. I’m content. But that’s not enough for Silvano Vincenti, the media-savvy art researcher is known as a bit of a showboater and he wants to take the research futher, much further.

Vinceti uses forensic methods in his art history. His group has already identified the bones of Italian poets Dante and Petrarch and those of Caravaggio, discovering a possible cause of death for the painter.

With poor old Mona Lisa, the researchers will first use ground-penetration radar to search for hidden tombs inside the convent. Then, they’ll  search the bones to identify ones that are compatible with Signora Gherardini's; bones of a woman about 60.

If such bones are identified, up they come. Researchers will conduct carbon dating and try to extract DNA, to compare it with the  bones of Gherardini's children, some of whom are buried in a basilica also in Florence ( I guess that means more exhumations). Finally, if well-preserved skull fragments are found, the researchers might attempt a facial reconstruction. Apparently this step will be crucial to ascertain whether Gherardini was the model for the Mona Lisa and thus the owner of that “famous smile.” Oh Mona Lisa, you cold and lonely, lovely work of art, it was your teeth, wasn’t it?  My dentist believes Mona is keeping her lip buttoned because of decaying, yellow teeth. Everyone had decaying, yellow teeth back then. No Renaissance portrait shows a full set of choppers.  Mona Lisa does have that enigmatic smile, but then again very many of Leo’s subjects have that cute little moue and we’re not busy surmising what secrets they’re keeping.

Vinceti contradicts himself. In January of this year he announced the theory that Gian Giacomo Caprotti, Da Vinci’s male apprentice and ambigious long-time companion was the main influence and the model for the Mona Lisa. (Please check out Caprotti as the model for John the Baptiste, and Angel Incarnate). Vinceti goes on to say that “The Mona Lisa must be read at various levels, not just as a portrait," and he has also said the artwork is likely not the physical portrait of one single model, but the result of several influences. So what is it that he’s trying to prove? And there is the theory that the Mona Lisa is really a secret self portrait of Leonardo himself.

If successful, Vinceti’s research may help ascertain the identity of the woman depicted in Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece but so what? I say this has little to add to my appreciation of the art. Leave her alone.


With files from AP
top photo AP/Francois Mori

Parisian Flat Remained Untouched for 70 years

The rent faithfully paid, a Parisian apartment was recently unshuttered and unlocked after 70 years of being uninhabited. A treasure house was found inside.

Getty

This is the sort of thing I actually have night-time dreams about. Secret rooms. Secret treasures. The kind of dream that leaves me invigorated. Read on.

The 9th arrondissement apartment belonged to a young woman who had left for the south of France at the onset of Word War II never to return. Experts said entering the untouched, cobwebby place was like stumbling upon the castle of Sleeping Beauty where time had stood still.

The place was a trove of 19th Century furniture; a time capsule of the Belle Epoque.  There was a stuffed ostrich and a pre-war Mickey Mouse. Carpets, books, vases and paintings.

Getty

I'm guessing that the young lady who abandoned the apartment who was only 21 at the time, may have inherited the apartment and not known what to do with it. The furniture and fittings all seem decidedly Fin de siècle.  Because of the war, the task of dealing with the property went onto the back burner. She obviously had the luxury of enough money not to care. She died in June of 2010.

The heart of Olivier Choppin-Janvry, the auctioneer charged with divvying up the property, skipped a beat when his eyes fell on an exquisite painting of a woman in pink. Thinking that is was most probably the work of Giovanni Boldini, he knew he had struck gold when he found a visiting card with a scribbled love note from Boldini.

The muse of the painting was the recently-deceased owner's grandmother, Marthe de Florian, an actress and demi-mondaine with a long list of admirers including Georges Clemenceau.

Choppin-Janvry auctioned off the painting at his own auction house. The starting bid for the painting was €300,000 but the price rocketed as ten bidders vied for the Boldini. Under the hammer for €2.1 million, it was a world record for the artist.

Boldini was also the friend (lover?) of one of my favourite bad girls, Marchesa Casati. Boldini painted her at least twice. Please click here to read my post on the Marchesa Casati.

This discovery is also strongly reminding me of a little gem of a book I have called In The Heart of Paris: The Fabulous Adventures of an Antique Dealer by Yvonne De Bremond D'Ars The gorgeous little thing published by Gollancz in 1960 is illustrated by Foujita! Here's part of the blurb.

An irresistible old French gentleman presents himself one day in the Antique shop of Mademoiselle Yvonne De Bremond D'Ars in the Faubourg St. Honore and begs for her aid. He is to administer  the estate of his late brother, who has left him with a wealth of treasures which his inexperienced eye can never value. This fortune he is to distribute to his five orphan nieces, long since scattered and out of touch, each absorbed by a different milieu into which the chances of life and personality have carried her. Each niece must be traced and her character assessed, for the riches, the old collector has instructed, are to be divided equally, not by material value, but in relation to the pleasure they bring to the legatees.

If you stumble upon this book at a used book sale, which is where I found my copy for $4.00, I would recommend it.

The Clever Pup's Paris Notebook - Day One, My First Morning

I started writing this in the sunshine at Crêpes à Gogo, just a few short steps from my hotel. I dropped off my luggage at the Hôtel du Panthéon at 11:00. I can check in for real at 2pm.

I ordered a Cafe Noisette and a Crêpe La Bretonne; a coffee with a dash of cream and a crêpe with real French vanilla ice cream, chantilly cream and salted butter caramel sauce. It was truly delicious, but I found an ant (dead) on the side of my plate. I gave the waiter 1€ for a tip anyway.

From here I started on my walk of Montparnasse. I've long been a fan of Paris in the 20s and Montparnasse is where it's at. (Or was). Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Stein, Foujita, Kiki de Montparnasse, Many Ray - they all hung out here.

On my way I passed the Jardin Luxembourg. I took a picture of this lovely sign, The Puppet Theatre of Luxembourg - Fun small and big - performing arts. "Email" in this case, means enamel.

Then walking down Boulevard Saint-Michel I came upon an elaborate fountain in the Jardin Marco Polo. I could only capture a bit of it. Around the corner was the La Closerie Lilas where the black-jacketed waiters were busy seating patrons. Far too posh for me, this restaurant was once they haunt of Hemingway, Sartre, Rimbaud, Man Ray, Dali to name only a few.

Then onto 29 rue Campagne-Première, and the Hotel Istria where Picabia, Duchamp, Man Ray and Kiki, Satie and Rilke all once had quarters. Next door at number 31 is a fantasic example of Art Nouveau architecture. Once artists studios, this building was designed by architect Alexandre Bigot and ceramist André Arfvidson.

I found the watering-holes of the denizens of Montparnasse, Le Dome, La Rotonde, Le Select.

I found Kiki's house and the apartment where Foujita lived.

On my way to 27 Rue Fleurus, once Gertrude Stein's house, a middle-aged French woman caught up to me on the street thinking I was I friend of hers. I guess I fit in alright if I can be mistaken for an inhabitant.

From there I sat and rested on a bench in the Jardin Luxembourg, the chestnuts and their leaves crinkly and crunchy under foot. I made a full-circle taking almost 2 hours. And I haven't even checked into my room yet!

La Dee Dah, La Dee Dah...

Is it time to try this again, I wonder. I carried it off very successfully in 1982. Could it translate today? Am I too plump and old? Annie's outfit in this scene always jumps out at me; it always impresses. I love it.

Annie Hall is on my  list of all-time-favourite movies. Jr Teen Pup loves it too. We got it for him for Christmas. I catch him watching it alone sometimes. He's a big softie at heart.

Thora Dardel

Thora Dardel nee Klinkowstrom was born in Sweden in 1899. In 1919 she moved to Paris to live with her art-student brother who was studying in Montparnasse. What fun. Count me in! She was to study art under the tutelage of sculptor Antoine Bourdelle. On the way over from Sweden, Thora became friendly with a shipmate named Nils Dardel, also an artist.  Through Nils Dardel, Thora was drawn into the circle of artists who frequented the Cafe de la Rotonde where Modigliani was a regular.

In Thora's memoirs she recounts her first meeting with Modigliani

"Modigliani ...drew me piece by piece on several sheets of paper which he then spread out edge to edge. All his figures had such long necks and bodies that he usually needed two or three sheets of paper for each person that he drew when he drew on the Rotonde's small stationery. Then he wrote Italian verse on the drawings and gave them to me. I thought he was extraordinarily fascinating. Then one day some time later Modigliani asked Nils Dardel if he was allowed to paint my portrait. The question was of course relayed to me, who of course was happy and overwhelmed."

Later she goes on the describe the modelling session.

"Modigliani's studio was on the top floor of a house on rue de la Grande Chaumiere. His floor was covered with a carpet of trod on charcoal and matches. He almost fainted when I asked him to sweep the floor. I think he had worked several years to make it look like that. A large table with his painting stuff, a glass, a bottle of rum was the whole environment, plus two chairs, some canvases and an easel. He drank often and easily - against the cough, he declared and he really did cough a lot. It was cold and miserable outside but in his studio corner there was a charcoal stove that he did up well. Modigliani put a large canvas on the easel and drew me. I got the same El Greco-like lines and the same figure as all the women in his art had. The likeness of me was therefore not very good. I returned on several occasions and sat for the portrait and liked Modigliani more and more."

Thora married Nils Dardel. During the 20s she worked as a photographer and journalist for a Swedish magazine.

Years ago I came across the top photograph of Thora Dardel in my "Desert Island" book, Kiki's Paris. The photo inspired me to paint another Montparnasse lady.

I had forgotten that I'd ever seen this picture, when just the other day I stumbled across Dora's photo again and recognized her hat. Because I was just inspired by her hat, my humble painting is not at all a true likeness.  But is it closer than Modigliani, I wonder? Anyway, I call her Marianne, not Thora, because she reminds the rest of my family of my step-mother-in-law.

with notes from the Dictionary of Artists Models ed. Jill Berk Jimenez, Thora Dardel, Billy Klüver and Julie Martin.

Dora

Here's a photo of the terrace outside the Cafe du Dome taken by André Kertész in 1925.

Identified in Kiki's Paris, Artists and Lovers 1900-1930 are, from left to right are Marie Vassilieff, Cubist painter; Erno Goldfinger, Hungarian architect (the inspiration for Auric, maybe? "Auric Goldfinger - sounds like a French nail varnish"); an unknown woman: Lajos Tihanyi, the deaf Hungarian painter; and Dora, friend of photographer Berenice Abbott.

Could this Dora be a very young Dora Maar? I do see a resemblance.

Whether she was Picasso's muse or not, I liked the look of Dora very much and with green and yellow paint in hand she became the first of my Montparnasse ladies. She is still the favourite of my husband and son.

Kiki

This painting of mine is based on the Man Ray photo of Kiki de Montparnasse, Parisian muse, model and general gal about town. She helped define the liberated culture of Paris in the 20's.

A fixture of Montparnasse's social scene, Kiki was a popular artists' model posing for Soutine, Foujita, Francis Picabia, Jean Cocteau and Alexander Calder to name a few. She was the companion of Man Ray who created many well-known images of her. (think "cello")

The book Kiki's Paris, Artists and Lovers 1900-1930 is my "Desert Island" book. The book is a bible; a veritable encylopedia of who was active in Montparnasse in the 20's. Picasso, the Steins, Matisse, Modigliani and Hemingway were all within Kiki's orbit. Published in 1989, biographers Billy Klüver and Julie Martin called Kiki "one of the century's first truly independent women."

In my rendition of Kiki I simplied the details and of course added some colours. I could imagine her in burgundies and golds. I corrected her wardrobe malfunction.