Vintage Art Appreciation: Garden View with a Dog by Tomás Yepes

Garden View with a Dog, 1660s
by Tomás Yepes (1595 – 1674)
All his life he tried to be a good person. Many times, however, he failed.
For after all, he was only human. He wasn't a dog.
― Charles M. Schulz

Such short little lives our pets have to spend with us, and they spend most of it waiting for us to come home each day.
It is amazing how much love and laughter they bring into our lives and even how much closer we become with each other because of them.
― John Grogan, Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

People leave imprints on our lives, shaping who we become in much the same way that a symbol is pressed into the page of a book to tell you who it comes from. Dogs, however, leave paw prints on our lives and our souls, which are as unique as fingerprints in every way.
― Ashly Lorenzana

Vintage Art Appreciation: Last Flowers by Jules Breton

Last Flowers, 1890
by Jules Breton (1827 – 1906)

The magic fades too fast
the scent of summer never lasts
the nights turn hollow and vast
but nothing remains...nothing lasts.
― Sanober Khan

If today is not your day,
then be happy
for this day shall never return.
And if today is your day,
then be happy now
for this day shall never return.
― Kamand Kojouri

Life is made up of a collection of moments that are not ours to keep. The pain we encounter throughout our days spent on this earth comes from the illusion that some moments can be held onto. Clinging to people and experiences that were never ours in the first place is what causes us to miss out on the beauty of the miracle that is the now. All of this is yours, yet none of it is. How could it be? Look around you. Everything is fleeting.

To love and let go, love and let go, love and let go...it's the single most important thing we can learn in this lifetime.
― Rachel Brathen

Vintage Art Appreciation: Moonlit Nigt by Ivan Kramskoi

Moonlit Nigt, 1880
by Ivan Kramskoi (1837 - 1887)
Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

For now she need not think of anybody. She could be herself, by herself. And that was what now she often felt the need of - to think; well not even to think. To be silent; to be alone. All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity, to being oneself, a wedge-shaped core of darkness, something invisible to others... and this self having shed its attachments was free for the strangest adventures.
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Vintage Art Appreciation: Wildflowers by Anna Stainer-Knittel

Wildflowers, 1889
by Anna Stainer-Knittel (1841 - 1915)

Promise Yourself

To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
― Christian D. Larson, Your Forces and How to Use Them

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

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.

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 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.

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: 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

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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Mixed Flowers by Margaret Rose Preston

Mixed Flowers by
Margaret Rose Preston (1875 - 1963)
Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.
― Andy Warhol

What keeps life fascinating is the constant creativity of the soul.
― Deepak Chopra, Life After Death: The Burden of Proof

But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint of clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career.
― Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

Vintage Art Appreciation: Hydrangeas by Louis Icart

Hydrangeas, 1929
by Louis Icart (1888 - 1950)
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
― Marcel Proust

Dare to Be
When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.
When there is darkness, dare to be the first to shine a light.
When there is injustice, dare to be the first to condemn it.
When something seems difficult, dare to do it anyway.
When life seems to beat you down, dare to fight back.
When there seems to be no hope, dare to find some.
When you’re feeling tired, dare to keep going.
When times are tough, dare to be tougher.
When love hurts you, dare to love again.
When someone is hurting, dare to help them heal.
When another is lost, dare to help them find the way.
When a friend falls, dare to be the first to extend a hand.
When you cross paths with another, dare to make them smile.
When you feel great, dare to help someone else feel great too.
When the day has ended, dare to feel as you’ve done your best.
Dare to be the best you can –
At all times, Dare to be!
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

Vintage Art Appreciation: Garden Scenes by Alfonse Van Besten

Ma femme (Mrs. A. Van Besten), 1913

Blossom and lady, ca. 1913

Young girl amidst marguerites, ca. 1912

Van Besten painting in his garden, 1909
A series of photographs from the early 20th century by Belgian artist Alfonse Van Besten (1865 - 1926). Van Besten was a painter and many of his autochromes were taken with a "painterly eye." You can find many more of his autochrome photographs on the Belgian Autochromists website here.

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A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in ― what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

What I've always found interesting in gardens is looking at what people choose to plant there. What they put in. What they leave out. One small choice and then another, and soon there is a mood, an atmosphere, a series of limitations, a world.
― Helen Humphreys, The Lost Garden

She wandered around Sally's garden, sipping coffee, stopping to admire the grevillea and talk to the chickens. As the warmth of the sun unknotted the tension in her spine, Alice noticed a lush alley of potted tropical plants alongside the house: monstera, bird of paradise, agave, staghorns and ferns. Alice was filled with a sense of wonder; it was a garden within a garden, so meticulous and well-tended in contrast to the wild beauty surrounding it. The sumptuous blends of greens. The varying, glossy foliage.
― Holly Ringland, The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart

Vintage Art Appreciation: Coffee in the Garden by Daniel Ridgway Knight

Coffee in the Garden
by Daniel Ridgway Knight (1839 - 1924)
For pleasure has no relish unless we share it.
― Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
― Khalil Gibran

Friends are those rare people who ask how we
are and then wait to hear the answer.
― Ed Cunningham

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. ― Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life

Vintage Art Appreciation: Still Life by José Gutiérrez Solana

Untitled, Still Life
by José Gutiérrez Solana (1886 - 1945)
Green is the prime color of the world, and that from which its loveliness arises.
― Pedro Calderon de la Barca

This plant represents what's happening inside of you. The world, like the soil, is cold and dark—layered with a history of destruction and death. You were planted in this world to rise above it. Do you not see? The very existence of this darkness gives you the opportunity to become a light to the world.
― Seth Adam Smith, Rip Van Winkle and the Pumpkin Lantern

Every living creature on this planet, has a conscious subjective perspective of the world. Even the plants may seem to us as standing indifferent to the human sufferings, but even they have their own unique mental universe. They have their own way of interacting with the environment.
― Abhijit Naskar, What is Mind?

Free Vintage Nature Poem: The Birds by Pierre-Jean de Béranger

The Bird Charmer, 1873
by Léon Bazille Perrault (1832 – 1908)

Happy who for a season may
Absent themselves on buoyant wing!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
They of our ills will mindful be,
And when at length the storm has passed,
They will return to this same tree
Which has so often felt the blast.
Then to our fertile vale will they
A more auspicious presage bring!
The birds that Winter drives away
Will surely come again with Spring.
― Pierre-Jean de Béranger, The Birds (translated from the French by Percy Reeve)