Printable Vintage Art: Dahlias by Clara Maria Pope

Flowers, you who end in close affinity to the arrangers’ hands
(Hands of girls then, hands of girls now),
You who cover the garden table from end to end,
Grown weak, gently injured,

Waiting for water which revives you once more
From a death already commenced - and now
Again taken up between the opposing, sorting
Fingers and their feeling of you, and which can so well

Show you favour, give ease more than you had imagined,
As you recover yourselves in a jug,
Cooling slowly, and the ardour of the girls like confessions

Given up by you, seeping forth like muddy and tiresome sins
You committed by being plucked, - these are another tie between you,
So joined in alliance by both your blossomings.
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

Artwork is titled “Dahlias,” painted in 1818 by Clara Maria Pope, née Leigh (1767–1838). Daughter of artistic dilettante Jarred Leigh, Clara Maria Pope began her career as a model. Under the direction of her first husband, painter Francis Wheatley (1747–1801), she turned her attention to art and later in life became a successful painting instructor to young aristocratic ladies. Her talent as a botanical artist was recognized by Samuel Curtis (1779–1860), the publisher of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, who commissioned Pope to design illustrations for his two books, A Monograph on the Genus Camellia (1819) and The Beauties of Flora (1820). [Source: Dumbarton Oaks.]

My digitally enhanced version of the above painting can be downloaded as a high-res 11” x 14” @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In my garden, “Copper Boy” ball dahlias are still thriving despite the slightly cooler autumn we are experiencing. I was hoping that my “Tropical Lightning” rose would be flowering alongside these beauties but alas, no such luck. I plan to dig up the tubers once they go dormant and hope they will come back for me next year.

Flower photography © 2026 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

My Photo Journal: Bird Watching over Late Summer in Durham Region, Ontario

As the sunlit verdancy of summer artfully transforms into the gilded shades of autumn, a gentle symphony seems to envelop the natural world. A brief pause for a quiet listen to the air reveals that between the beautiful changes, the rustling leaves, and crawling breezes, small yet profoundly stirring moments are gracefully sprinkled everywhere.
― Marie Helen Abramyan

End of Summer
We've been tramping around
long enough
now the sun
falls in a faint
it's done in

The trees quit
the wave stops rolling
how ordinary things have become
how ordinary

I placed my bet
on this summer lasting
― Elisabeth Borchers, Fish Magic: Selected Poems

Gleaming rays gently shine upon nature. Summer has passed the seasonal baton onto Autumn’s cooling hands. But swirling lightly, between the changing leaves, hints of warm summer breezes softly linger in the air. Tender whispers of days under the blazing sunlight, when bees and butterflies danced for the sweet scent of ripened berries, and verdant leaves flourished on the Mulberry.
― Marie Helen Abramyan

Here are the three Ontario parks I visited to take the above photos:
(1) Pair of lovelorn swans were photographed at Kiwanis Heydenshore Park in Whitby, Ontario.
(2) Lone seagull who posed quite charmingly for me at Lakeview Park in Oshawa,Ontario.
(3) Solitary Canada goose paddling calmly was photographed through the foliage at Lynde Shores Conservation Area in Whitby, Ontario.
We are truly blessed with an overabundance of beautiful beaches, parks, trails and wildlife here in Durham Region!

Bird photography © 2026 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

Printable Vintage Art: Landscape Study from Barbizon by Carl Larsson

Landscape Study from Barbizon, 1878
by Carl Larsson (1853–1919)

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes.
Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality.
Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.
― Lao Tzu

I wouldn't need to be so very different for sun to seem to be about sun,
for green to be about green,
for joy and boredom and anguish and terror and death to all be themselves,
beyond the need for any killing clarity,
and then this--this, the growing rings of light and water and stone--
would take up all of me, and be all the words I need.
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

You can download a digitally enhanced version of the vintage painting (as seen above) as a high-res 11” x 9” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain fine art are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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When there is no peace in your soul there is no peace in your heart,
when there is no peace in your heart there is no peace in your mind,
when there is no peace in your mind there is no peace in your life,
and when there is no peace in your life there is no peace in your world.
― Matshona Dhliwayo

Photo of Guildwood © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.