a man for all seasons: 1909

THE MUSIC IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE

John 14:2
Only a music of its own could come
from this dwelling place, formed
as the composition must be by the hallways
of larch and the black columns of lodgepole
pine lending as multiple corridors in all
directions through overlapping shadows
and into the chambers of others.

Entering this open sunroom with walls
of glass, three deer splash through the marshy
grasses, pause as one to look back
at the composers. those scribes who listen
to the measures of their passing.


Themes of osprey, loon, raven in flight,
a skein of ducks reflect off the mirrored
ceilings that ring with depth like bottomless
lakes, like the tolling bells steel-blue skies.

The stitching of the tapestries hanging
the wall: of the highest room is so exact
that the distant valleys in the scene depicted
become sensuous valleys. The threaded notes
of the rivers are heard as rivers, and the finely
sewn mountains are mountains that disappear
into the distance as departure and return,
a repeating transition in the score.

In the expanse of forests and fields
comprising this structure, what is not seen
is known by the steady beat and undertow
of its presence -- black bear, lion, root, glacier path
and its incantation, the dormant, the conceivable.

Those who are sequestered here
in this house write the music of themselves
conforming to the stone, the seed, the spacious
generation of these living mansions.

Pattiann Rogers

1909 is unique among the years in hoytema's calendars. it's all ducks. we've seen his ducks before. heck -- i love ducks. but what were ducks to him, as a human?


can we read a real quiet between the lines?, or is that silence? thoughtfulness? reflection, yes. sometimes. and repetition, so the whole year becomes like a song, with phrases which repeat, themes that are revisited, so identity becomes confused in its interchangeability.

or is there a sadness we see? we know that hoytema's last decade was not an easy one, illness and divorce, perhaps a touch of madness.
are ducks sad? pensive?

a new friend wally, who has offered to do dutch translations at some point, fills in some details from yesterday's post (a much better translation of which is here):

"The name of that first book Hoytema produced is How the Birds got a King. In brief the birds decided that the one who could fly the highest would be king. The golden eagle flew higher than all others but when he was at his maximum height and exhausted the wren who had been hiding on his back flew up beyond the eagles reach -- and hence was named the king. The dutch name for the wren is winterkoning, literally winter king. You can see the little bird on the back of the eagle on the cover of the book.

Hoytema had an uncanny ability to show the character and attitudes of birds in his images. From the elegance of the vain white herons, the squinting thoughtful owls and the nonchalance of his shrugging crows. They speak through him to become timeless.

There is one other artist who does a similar job and that is Jan Mankes. He is truly unknown outside the Netherlands. Poke around the website that shows almost all his works. Check out all the birds...."

a man for all seasons: 1905

what an adventure this is turning out to be!

first, from jalf flach, i received a bunch of months i (coincidentally) didn't have before and couldn't find! because they're numbered differently from the ones i had, i couldn't match up months by end/start dates, so i asked him if he knew the years for the ones he sent. he responded that for many years after hoytema's death, the calendars were continually re-printed, not always keeping the same months' images together as they had first appeared!

so please let me explicitly ask: if anyone out there has images from these calendars, i would love to hear from you. thanks.

coincidence as well, synchronicity. laura at her cool animalarium blog, being perhaps the only other person on the planet who owns the book that inspired me to start on this, did a post on it.

and, being italian, as is the book, was in the process of translating bits of it, which she will allow me to post here!

"The book from which these images are taken is Theodoor van Hoytema – Calendari by Ezio Godoli. it was published in 1989 by Cantini Editore, a Florentine publisher who in the 1980s–90s produced some really nice and well documented illustrated books about art, illustration, fashion and ephemera. Unfortunately, as far as I know Cantini is no longer active but some of these out of print books can be found at bargain prices in used bookstores around the city and on the web." 1

more from the book: "As an adolescent Theo van Hoytema loved animals, and was fascinated by illustrated books on entomology and natural history. Having noticed this, in 1888 his uncle A.P.M. van Oordt, a publisher and typographer, commissioned him to draw some illustrations for scientific publications on zoology. To accomplish the job, Theo went to study and sketch the animals at Leiden's Museum of Zoology and perfected his lithographic technique. This experience marked the beginning of his career as a serious artist, and in a few years' time, he became internationally known as one of the most original interpreters of the Nieuwe Kunst, the Dutch version of Art Nouveau." 1

laura has also offered to do more translation, and, as she did for her post on her blog (and you'll see some here), to provide us with scans!

a bit on my process. these images are collected from 1001 places; some i've had for years. others i've adapted from illustrations in the book. while laura can scan them beautifully, my photos of the pages really do not turn out very well. some that i find are abbreviated, showing only the main image, thus leaving out the madly delightful critters in the frames.

and now further truth -- sometimes i even have the images with the clever frames, but use a main image only because one i've downloaded and the other i'd have to photograph and then spend an amazing amount of time trying to make it look halfway decent.

i will continue to search for better images, to work with my photos, and to welcome any scans, and will replace old images for new in an ongoing way, if i can improve on them. the calendars are still being reprinted and sold, so more images might be out there somewhere.

the flip side is that if the close-up images are good enough, then they're lovely to have all in themselves, and i likely will run both, when i can.

so thanks for visiting here; only 15 years remaining!

a man for all seasons: 1902

well, i have decided to go about this differently. starting at beginning... theo van hoytema, in the early 1900s, made 17 calendars. each included a seasonal lithograph for each month, though the one for 1918 is sketchy as that was the year of hoytema's death.

of hoytema, ArtDaily says, "Theodoor van Hoytema, a Dutch painter, lithographer and designer, was born in The Hague. He made many watercolours and drawings of plants and animals, which clearly reveal his appreciation for Japanese prints: he often outlined the separate areas of flat color with ink, in imitation of such prints, and he could describe the characteristic attitudes of animals with a masterly economy of line. 1

i was going to wait until i had assembled every month for every year, but it's already taken me days and days, and will likely be multiples of that to come. I didn't want to wait that long before posting anything. plus, the entire run would have been a massive post.

so i'll do one year at a time. interestingly, the only one i have every month for is 1902, the first year they appeared, so i'll start with that. don't know yet if the rest will be in chronological order.

to my knowledge, this has never been done before; the complete set, or even anything like it, has certainly never before published online, and the only book i've found devoted to the subject is missing many months for nearly every year. additionally, i've had a very hard time digging up information on hoytema in english, so i've ordered a bunch of books from the library.* that way i can include more about the artist as i go on.

*complete bibliography to be included with the final entry

vamp 'til ready

i'm working on a project that is taking a looooooooong time,
so i thought i'd give you something to play with.

HODLER

ROBBE

HOYTEMA

CZESCHKA

POUND

YEATS

STEICHEN

PHILLIPS

YOSHITOSHI

CASSATT

i tried finding photos of artists who have been featured here, when they were fairly young. for these artists, this is the best i could do. i could find no photographs of a young mary cassatt, only this painting. but i read something interesting while i was looking:

Although Mary Cassatt was a member of and surrounded by an astounding Impressionist circle, she was drawn to one genius and artist in particular. Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt shared a very unique and intimate relationship. Both rejecting the conservative artistic directions, Cassatt and Degas' restless intelligence drew them together. Both Degas and Cassatt inspired and facilitated each other's artistic careers. Cassatt even proclaims “the first sight of Degas' pictures was the turning point in my artistic life.” In fact, it was the sight of Degas' pastel work that turned Cassatt onto pastel for the first time. Cassatt and Degas soon became quick supporters of each other's work. For instance, Cassatt bought one of Degas' pastels and brought it back to America, making it the first Impressionist artwork to come to America. 1

the far-sighted landscape painter: FERDINAND HODLER

three painters, actually, to be discussed sequentially, all three passionate, intense, and deeply spiritual men. the reason i've called him far- sighted is firstly because of his propensity, in landscapes, to sharpen most those distances far away. whether or not this idea fords a psychological meaning, i don't know, but it's an interesting thing to ponder.

but far-sighted too because in his work one might view more than what one sees. the extraordinaryness of these landscapes almost insists we look at these paintings not only with our eyes but with our hearts and minds as well, as they were painted.

"His philosophy imbued his art with a kind of mysticism... As related to landscapes, Sotheby's Swiss art expert Urs Lanter captures this almost Taoist feel when he says: 'Hodler didn't just paint Alpine landscapes, he captured the essence of mountains.'" 1

At one of the last Berlin exhibitions there was a room which was given up to the works of Klimt, and next to it another set apart for the Swiss, Ferdinand Hodler. In the Klimt room one breathed the close atmosphere of a Viennese salon, or, to me at least, of a harem pervaded by an intoxicating, sensuous odour of Oriental perfumes and bare shoulders. There spoke an artist, who from the treasure-houses of by-gone cultures chose out the most precious, the most unique forms he could find, in order to build up with these fragments, of a long-past age of beauty and refinement, a world of his own, artificial, Faded, falling into decay, but still a fascinating world.

Passing to the Hodler room, one inhaled the sharp, ice-cold air of the Alps. There one met a veritable child of nature in all his untamed, almost brutal strength. As we shall not have an opportunity elsewhere for an appreciation of Hodler, a few words here may not be out of place. In a work which deals with the history of art it is practically impossible to devote a separate chapter to the consideration of Switzerland, that tiny country that has opened its doors on all sides to foreign culture. 2

hodler's own words show his intent: "The physiognomy of landscape in painting depends on the emotional elements of the landscape, that is, the impressions it awakens within us... The landscape must have a character, express a passion or an emotion... The painter must have the will to be clear and the capacity of rendering frankly and without hesitation his own feelings. Only then will the painted landscape grip the spectator without fail and convey to him a deep and lasting impression. 3

around 1875, hodler wrote his 'painter's decalogue,' revealing, to my eyes, an early decon- struction of japonisme. it includes, among others, these obvious suggestions:

"The painter must practice seeing nature as a flat surface." and "The outline constitutes an expressive feature and an element of beauty in itself. It constitutes the foundation of all later work and therefore must be strong and accurate." 3

and yet a friend of the painter, louis duchosal, dedicated a poem to him, it told a different story:

If I had my life an hour,
but one hour, In which this heart, groaning at the lightest touch of breath,
Had enjoyed one pleasure, however fleeting,
For that furtive moment, for that brief joy,
I would go my way again, less sad and more spirited,
And, drawing hope from this pleasant recollection, I would say to my heart: "Be of good cheer, all will end! "
But I question in vain the horror of my memory.
At every page, in the bitter book of my history,
One word rises up like a red flower Misfortune! - And then Misfortune! - And again Misfortune! 4

three painters, i said..." perhaps a brief look at the other two, one -- a portraitist, and then two -- surrealist. interestingly, though he had written, "If the painter wants his picture to be moving and striking, he will not use figures," 3 the other two of hodler's artistic personnas were involved almost wholly with 'figures,' often to the total absence of anything else. and thereby revealed even more of himself than he revealed whom he painted.

in this piece of hodler's surrealist work, every muscle of this woman is carefully controlled so that upon viewing her, one can almost translate her as though she were pure language.

"artist Paul Klee, another Swiss painter, wrote in 1911 that Hodler 'can create the soul by painting the body, better than anybody'." 1 in this, hodler's purposeful revelations of the soul of landscape are clearly related.

Famous in Munich, Berlin, Vienna and Paris, Hodler was 55 when he met Valentine Gode-Darel, an independent woman unlike any of his acquaintance. He fell passionately in love with her, and in 1913, five years after they met, a daughter, Paulette, was born.

Tragically, Gode-Darel was diagnosed with cancer in 1914.

As she made her slow, agonising way towards death between December 1914 and January 1915, Hodler sat by her bedside and created some 200 works of his beloved. The result is known as the Valentine Cycle, a meditation on death that the Musee d'Orsay, in documentation accompanying its major Hodler retrospective, calls "unparalleled in the history of art." 5

far-sighted? yes. see him squint? far-sighted enough to not be stopped by surfaces. far-sighted enough to recognize clues in surfaces as well.


far-sighted enough to be, well, un-understood:

"If Hodler told in his easel pictures what he might have well said as a monumental painter, if he divested his easel picture of all refinement to show thereby that when placed before a mighty wall he knew how to work in the lapidary style of an al-fresco artist, that does not in the least alter the fact that his works in the exhibitions look crude and unsatisfactory. Hodler's mishandling of colour spoils even the composition of his pictures." 2

perhaps all far-seeing predicts two outcomes: seeing, and seeing through, two aspects of life that many seem to spend all of their time trying to avoid.

happy new year, y'all!

light years and light years

beginning to see the light