Vintage Art Appreciation: Sunlit Conservatory with Parrots by Olga Wisinger-Florian

Sunlit Conservatory with Parrots
by Olga Wisinger-Florian (1844 - 1926)

Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through is now like something from the distant past. We’re so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about everyday, too many new things we have to learn. But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone.
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see.”
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

“But that's how memory works," Bitterblue said quietly. "Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission. And sometimes they came back incomplete and warped.”
Kristin Cashore, Bitterblue

Free Vintage Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Junk Journaling: Girl with Chrysanthemums

It's a good idea always to do something relaxing
prior to making an important decision in your life.
Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage

Vintage illustration showing a girl sitting at rest on an end table with a watering can and a planter pot of towering chrysanthemums. You can download this free high-res 6.75" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for card making, mixed media collage or junk journal projects here.

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From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if sharing or publishing.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Song in the Key of Autumn by Scudder Middleton

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

SONG IN THE KEY OF AUTUMN
by Scudder Middleton
(originally published in the November 1919 issue of Century magazine)

We are walking with the month
To a quiet place.
See, only here and there the gentians stand!
To-night the homing loon
Will fly across the moon,
Over the tired land.

We were the idlers and the sowers,
The watchers in the sun,
The harvesters who laid away the grain.
Now there's a sign in every vacant tree,
Now there's a hint in every stubble field,
Something we must not forget
When the blossoms fly again.

Give me your hand!
There were too many promises in June.
Human-tinted buds of spring
Told only half the truth.
The withering leaf beneath our feet,
That wrinkled apple overhead,
Say more than vital boughs have said
When we went walking
In this growing place.
There is something in this hour
More honest than a flower
Or laughter from a sunny face.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Celebrating Fall Colours with Franz Bischoff

Autumn Moods by Franz Arthur Bischoff (1864 - 1929)

Franz Bischoff was born in Austria but immigrated to the United States in 1882. Trained in ceramic decoration as a boy, he continued to further his career in porcelain painting in his new homeland. He became well-known as a leading teacher of the craft, founding the Bischoff School of Ceramic Art in Detroit and in New York City, and as a master ceramicist who manufactured many of his own glazes.

Vase decorated by Bischoff (acclaimed as "King of the Rose Painters")

He decided to settle in California in 1906, ultimately building and completing a landmark studio home at 320 Pasadena Avenue in 1908. A description of the home says: "The building was poured of solid concrete and was one-and-a half stories high. It was designed in the Renaissance style, with an imposing entry through massive oak doors with stained glass panels. The doorway was set beneath a classical pedimented portico, supported by two columns. The interior was divided between a large gallery, a studio and a complete ceramic workshop in the basement.

The gallery measured 36 feet by 40 feet. It had high, concave ceilings lighted by several half-circle skylights. The floors were of solid oak covered by old Turkish rugs and polar bear skins. All interior doors and paneling were of natural redwood in the Gothic style. The furniture was of massive oak in the Mission style. At the west end of the gallery was a huge tile-covered fireplace. The wall space throughout was covered with paintings of flowers and landscapes, and in one corner were several oak display cases containing examples of Bischoff's painted ceramics.

The painting studio had a large picture window that overlooked the Arroyo Seco, with a wide vista of the distant mountains. The studio furniture consisted of an easel, several easy chairs and low divans, all of Flemish oak."

The Arroyo Seco, Pasadena, c1918 by Franz Bischoff
- a possible view from his studio window?

In 1912, Bischoff went on an extended tour of Europe where he studied the works of the Old Masters and the Impressionists. On his return to California, Bischoff turned to landscape painting and gradually abandoned porcelain decoration (Source: The Irvine Museum).

Although I've categorized Bischoff's works under Impressionism, I think they may fall somewhere in between Impressionism and Fauvism, particularly his later works (c1920s) which show very strong, vivid colours. His background in design comes through his compositions - look how his landscapes follow clearly the rules of linear perspective, and he seems to have retained quite a bit of art nouveau graphical influence in his stylized renderings of landscape elements such as trees, rocks and mountains. This unique treatment, in addition to his use of jewel-like colour blocks, makes me feel like I'm looking st a Tiffany stained glass window.

Autumn landscape window from Tiffany Studios (1902 - 1932),
design attributed to Agnes F. Northrop (1857 - 1953) (Source: The Met)

Finally, I am closing the post with two Bischoff paintings of fall's most popular flowers - the quintessential chrysanthemums!

Chrysanthemums by Franz Bischoff

Spider Mums by Franz Bischoff

Aren't these warm colours lovely? I hope you have the opportunity of using these golden hues in your fall decorating to stave off the encroaching cooler temperatures. Pretty soon, possibly after Halloween, I'll be filling up the house and front yard with more blue-greens and reds as we head into the Christmas season but it is really nice to savour the yellows, oranges, and golds while summer is still fresh in our minds.

Originally published 2018. © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Free Garden-Themed Template for Cardmaking, Crafts or Journaling: Chivalry in the Garden from 1893

Defend the weak, protect both young and old, never desert your friends.
Give justice to all, be fearless in battle and always ready to defend the right.
Brian Jacques, Lord Brocktree

A garden scene with an elderly lady and several children, two of them looking on as a boy bends down on one knee to kiss the hand of a little girl in a sweet act of chivalry. You can download the free high-res 12" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here for use in cardmaking, crafts, journaling or storytelling projects.

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All pre-made templates by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Natural History Studio at RCA by Richard Bell


Natural History Studio at RCA
by Richard Bell (Image source: here)

Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
John Muir, Our National Parks

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein

The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need, if only we had the eyes to see.
Edward Abbey

Vintage Art Appreciation: Untitled Landscape by Richard Heintz

Untitled Landscape
by Richard Heintz (1871 – 1929)

Distance changes utterly when you take the world on foot. A mile becomes a long way, two miles literally considerable, ten miles whopping, fifty miles at the very limits of conception. The world, you realize, is enormous in a way that only you and a small community of fellow hikers know. Planetary scale is your little secret.

Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really.

You have no engagements, commitments, obligations, or duties; no special ambitions and only the smallest, least complicated of wants; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, “far removed from the seats of strife,” as the early explorer and botanist William Bartram put it. All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge.

There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you plod, you are always in the same place: in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. The woods is one boundless singularity. Every bend in the path presents a prospect indistinguishable from every other, every glimpse into the trees the same tangled mass. For all you know, your route could describe a very large, pointless circle. In a way, it would hardly matter.

At times, you become almost certain that you slabbed this hillside three days ago, crossed this stream yesterday, clambered over this fallen tree at least twice today already. But most of the time you don’t think. No point. Instead, you exist in a kind of mobile Zen mode, your brain like a balloon tethered with string, accompanying but not actually part of the body below. Walking for hours and miles becomes as automatic, as unremarkable, as breathing. At the end of the day you don’t think, “Hey, I did sixteen miles today,” any more than you think, “Hey, I took eight-thousand breaths today.” It’s just what you do.
Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

Free Garden-Themed Templates: Vintage Happy Garden Days Journal Cards

Growing apart doesn't change the fact that for a long time we grew side by side;
our roots will always be tangled. I'm glad for that.
Ally Condie, Matched

Two filler cards and two lined journaling cards featuring vintage illustrations of children and garden elements from c1900, set against a lightly patterned paper with subtle textures. Use all four together in a pre-made album or stitch into a handmade journal; you can also use these cards separately for personal or garden notes. You can download the high-res 4" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEGs without a watermark here.

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All pre-made templates by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Tag for Gift Giving, Journaling or Scrapbooking: Fantastic Phoenix with Pink Rose Blank Calling Card

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
Albert Einstein

This was originally a Victorian calling card from the 1880s. It shows an illustration of a fantastical bird with a bright orange tail (perhaps the legendary phoenix) flying towards a pink rose, and there is a blank scroll in the centre of the card for your own greeting or a personal message. I thought this would make a lovely gift tag but you can also use it as a place card or to embellish journaling and scrapbooking projects. You can download the high-res 3" x 5.25" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

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All pre-made templates by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: In Daisy Days by Mary Elizabeth Blake

The Flower Girl, 1897
byJules-Cyrille Cavé (1859 - 1949)

Below is a poem called "In Daisy Days," written by Mary Elizabeth Blake. Mrs. Blake's admirers included Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes, the latter of whom wrote of her: "You are one of the birds that must sing." "In Daisy Days" was published June 1902 and goes like this:

Suns that sparkle and birds that sing,
Brooks in the meadow rippling over,
Butterflies rising on golden wing
Through the blue air and deep-red clover,
Flower-bells full of sweet anthems rung
Out on the wind in lone woodland ways --
Oh, but the world is fair and young
In daisy days!

Lusty trumpets of burly bees
Full and clear on the sweet air blowing;
Gnarled boughs of the orchard trees
Hidden from sight by young leaves growing.
Scars of the winter hide their pain
Under the grasses' tangled maze,
And youth of the world springs fresh again
In daisy days.

Down in the valley and up the slope
Starry blooms in the wind are bending;
Glad eyes shine like the light of hope,
Comfort and cheer to the dark earth lending.
Buoyant with life they spring and soar
Like the lark that carols his matin lays,
Climbing to gates of heaven once more
In daisy days.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Garden Clipart for Cardmaking, Collage or Junk Journaling: Three Sisters with Plant, Rake, and a Watering Can

With rake and seeds and sower,
And hoe and line and reel,
When the meadows shrill with “peeping”
And the old world wakes from sleeping,
Who wouldn't be a grower
That has any heart to feel?
Frederick Frye Rockwell, “Invitation,” Around the Year in the Garden

Vintage illustration showing three sisters in the garden. The oldest is carrying a watering can, the middle one is holding a rake, and the youngest sister is cradling a small, potted plant in the crook of her arm. You can download this free high-res 12" x 12" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark for card making, mixed media collage or junk journal projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if sharing or publishing.

Free Vintage Nature Poem: In Garden-land by Augusta Hancock

A Victorian poem in celebration of nature, written by Augusta Hancock in 1893. Here is the poem in full:

IN GARDEN-LAND
In the garden-land of Nature
The smiling daisies blow,
With hearts kissed gold by sunshine,
And lips like winter snow;
The little winds play o'er them,
And dewdrops from above
Rest on them with the nightfall,
Like sparkling crowns of love.

On the misty slopes of sky-land
When sunlight ebbs away,
The daisy-stars of Heaven
Unfold as fades the day;
On sapphire banks they open,
Each set in radiant light --
The flowerets of the angels
That watch the livelong night.

In the world of busy workers,
'Mid turmoil and 'mid strife,
Are seen sweet girlish faces,
Like flowers that brighten life,
Their songs ring through our sadness,
Their laughter fills the air --
God's daisies fresh and heaven-sent
To blossom everywhere.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Flower Illustrations for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Blue Lily from 1800

Blue thou art, intensely blue;
Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?
James Montgomery

A digitally restored and enhanced antique illustration of a blue lily (African agapanthus or Agapanthus umbellatus) from an 1800 botanical magazine. You can download the free high-resolution 6" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Can be used in a mixed media collage project, as a greeting card or journal cover, or simply print and frame to enjoy as wall art.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Nature Poem for Kids: The Song of the Bee by Nancy Nelson Pendleton

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

THE SONG OF THE BEE
by Nancy Nelson Pendleton
(originally published September 1897)

Buzz, buzz, buzz
This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow,
A jolly good fellow,
And yet a good worker is he.

In days that are sunny,
He's getting his honey;
In days that are cloudy,
He's hoarding his wax;
On pinks and on lilacs,
And gay daffodillies,
And columbine blossoms
He levies a tax.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
The sweet-smelling clover
He humming hangs over;
The scent of the roses
Makes fragrant his wings;
He never gets lazy,
From thistle and daisy
And weeds of the meadow
Some treasure he brings.

Buzz, buzz, buzz!
From morning's first gray light
Till fading of day light,
He's singing and toiling
The summer day through,
Oh! we may get weary,
And think work is dreary;
'Tis harder by far
To have nothing to do.

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is from my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Bird Clipart: Caged Canary Longing to be Free


The caged bird sings with a fearful trill,
of things unknown, but longed for still,
and his tune is heard on the distant hill,
for the caged bird sings of freedom.
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.
Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free.
Paulo Coelho, Eleven Minutes

A Victorian trade card that shows a lone canary with a vibrant yellow plumage sitting by itself in a cage. In the background is a wild and beautiful forest. The bird appears to be singing - is it pining for its lost freedom? Free to use in your craft, mixed media collage or DIY wall art projects. You can download the high-res 6" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Young Lady in a Flower Garden by Tivadar Zemplényi

Young Lady in a Flower Garden
by Tivadar Zemplényi (1864 - 1917)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anaïs Nin

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
Jane Goodall

The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud.
In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud --- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ... Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one.
Goldie Hawn

Free Vintage Bird Clipart: Profiles of Birds in Finch and Sparrow Family

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
e.e. cummings

Ten antique illustrations from 1898 that show profiles of birds in the finch and sparrow family. Figure 150 shows a White-throated Sparrow, Figure 151 shows a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Figure 152 shows a White-crowned Sparrow, Figure 153 shows a Chewink, Figure 154 shows a Song Sparrow, Figure 155 is of a Cardinal, Figure 156 is of a Junco, Figure 157 is a Redpoll, Figure 158 is a Snowflake, and last but not least, Figure 159 shows a Dickcissel. You can download the high-res 12" x 9" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Tags for Cardmaking, Journaling or Scrapbooking: Victorian Girls in the Garden (Set #1)


A set of two Victorian trade cards originally published in the late 1880s.

The first (lower) card shows a girl in a summer orchard, reaching up to pluck a ripe peach as a colourful bird sings joyfully on a bough. Her image is surrounded by a border of garden roses. A little verse below her hand reads: "Thy name is music unto me, Thy voice the sweetest melody."

The second (upper) card shows another girl surrounded by fall leaves and an overarching tree branch covered with blue violet flowers, waving a handkerchief either in greeting or farewell. The verse that accompanies this card reads: "Smile on the flowers, they bring thee Love!"

Both have blank spaces where you can add your own personal message. You can use these templates in junk journals and scrapbooking or in other graphic design projects such as gift tags and greeting cards.

You can download the high-res 6" x 3.5" @ 300 ppi JPEGs without a watermark here and here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Animal Clipart for Crafts or Collage: Frolic, the White Squirrel


Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
George Eliot, Mr Gilfil's Love Story

This illustration originally appeared in the December 1904 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine. Drawn by Meredith Nugent, it shows Frolic, a young albino squirrel that became a much-loved family pet. "In June, he stained his paws with strawberries; in August he feasted on mushrooms; and during winter birch buds fresh from the snowy woods were always a great treat." You can download a 6" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG for crafts or mixed media collage projects here.

Creative Commons Licence
From my personal collection of ephemera. All digital scans by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Free Vintage Template with French Floral Embroidery Design for Cardmaking, Journaling or Scrapbooking

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this,
in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

A vintage flower embroidery border originally published in an antique 19th century ladies' magazine. I have incorporated it into a template that you can use for cardmaking, journaling or scrapbooking. You can download the free high-res 10" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Add your own words by opening up the file in Photoshop or importing into Microsoft Word. I recommend printing on high-quality heavyweight cardstock or hot-pressed watercolour paper.

Creative Commons Licence
All pre-made templates by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if you use or share this work.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Green Lattice by Charles Courtney Curran

Green Lattice, 1919
by Charles Courtney Curran (1861 - 1942)

I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.
Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by abscence?
Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

You felt a deep sorrow, the kind of melancholy you feel when you're in a beautiful place and the sun is going down.
Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us

Vintage Art Appreciation: Young Girl Carrying a Pumpkin by Fausto Zonaro

Young Girl Carrying a Pumpkin, 1889
by Fausto Zonaro (1854 – 1929)

Before the fruits of prosperity can come, the storms of life need to first bring the required rains of testing, which mixes with the seeds of wisdom to produce a mature harvest.
Lincoln Patz

We were put on this magical planet, not to dominate and consume her, but to care for her and love her. To harrow gently. To harvest gratefully. To build reasonably.
David Paul Kirkpatrick

In life, we plant seeds everywhere we go.
Some fall on fertile ground needing very little to grow.
Some fall on rocky soil requiring a tad bit more loving care.
While others fall in seemingly barren land and no matter what you do; it appears the seed is dead.

Nevertheless, every seed planted will have a ripple effect.
You could see it in the present or a time not seen yet.
So be wise about where you plant your seeds.
Be very mindful of your actions and deeds.
Negativity grows just as fast if not faster than positivity.
Plant seeds of kindness, love and peace
And your harvest will be abundant living.
Sanjo Jendayi

Vintage Art Appreciation: Rhubarb by Nikolai Astrup

Rhubarb, 1911
by Nikolai Astrup (1880 - 1928)

The master of the garden is the one who waters it, trims the branches, plants the seeds, and pulls the weeds. If you merely stroll through the garden, you are but an acolyte.
Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

It often happens to children - and sometimes to gardeners - that they are given gifts of value of which they do not perceive until much later.
Wayne Winterrowd

There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.
Elizabeth Lawrence