Printable Vintage Art: The Terrace, Gwydyr by Ernest Arthur Rowe

The Terrace, Gwydyr
by Ernest Arthur Rowe (1863–1922)

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.
― Leo Tolstoy

In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart.
― Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Belles on Their Toes

Vintage painting of a serene and quiet garden scene ; oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as a 11” x 8” @ 300 ppi JPEGs here.


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

Printable Vintage Art: Garden with Flowers by Eliseo Meifrén y Roig

I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure.
― Roman Payne, Rooftop Soliloquy

What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.
― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live In

Vintage painting of a lush garden filled with an abundantly fruiting peach tree and beautiful flowersn by Eliseo Meifrén y Roig (1857–1940); oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as a 12” x 10” @ 300 ppi JPEGs here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Garden in the Wachau by Hugo Charlemont

As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.
― Laura Ingalls Wilder

She was like the sun,
She knew her place in the world
- She would shine again regardless
of all the storms and changeable weather
She wouldn't adjust her purpose
for things that pass.
― Nikki Rowe

Artwork is titled “Garden in the Wachau” by Hugo Charlemont (1850–1939). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 9” x 12” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Printable Vintage Art: Dahlias by Carl Moll

I found an inner strength to fight for myself. It was clear that nobody else would.
― Tehmina Durrani, My Feudal Lord

“Run towards the roar,” the old people used to tell the young ones. When faced with great danger and when people panic and seek a false sense of safety, run towards the roaring and go where you fear to go. For only in facing your fears can you find some safety and a way through. When the world rattles and the end seems near, go towards the roar.
― Michael Meade, Why the World Doesn't End: Tales of Renewal in Times of Loss

Don’t dwell too much on the past. The lessons are useful for the present and a preparation for the future. Move on!
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great Mind

Vintage painting of dahlias in a garden by Carl Moll (1861–1945); oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as 7” x 7” @ 300 ppi JPEGs here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: 1910 Poster for Biological Exhibition by Theodorus van Hoytema

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The above illustration was in a poster advertising a biological exhibition at the zoo in The Hague from June 11-21, 1910. It was produced by printamaker Theodorus van Hoytema (1863–1917), and was originally found on Wikimedia. My digitally enhanced version of the painting can be downloaded as an 11” x 7” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias by Claude Monet

“I'm in love with you,” he said quietly.

“Augustus,” I said.

“I am,” he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.
― Bob Marley

Artwork is titled “The Artist's Garden in Argenteuil” or (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias) and was painted in 1873 by Claude Monet (1840–1926). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as an 12” 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.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Rain in May by Arthur Wesley Dow

The rain to the wind said,
You push and I'll pelt.
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
― Robert Frost

But he calls down a blessing on the blossom of the may,
Because it comes in beauty, and in beauty blows away.
― W.B. Yeats, Stories of Red Hanrahan

Artwork is titled “Rain in May” and was painted c1907 by Arthur Wesley Dow (1857–1922). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as an 11” x 14” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Printable Vintage Art: Crow on a Roundpole Fence by Bruno Liljefors

Crow on a Roundpole Fence, 1887
by Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939)

☀ ☁ ☀ ☁ ☀
Roads Go Ever On

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on,
Under cloud and under star.
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen,
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green,
And trees and hills they long have known.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone.
Let others follow, if they can!
Let them a journey new begin.
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

Painting originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as an 11" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Printable Vintage Art: Garden Idyll by Hugo Charlemont

I am an optimist! What a wonderful time it is to be alive, here at the turn of a milestone century! With that frame of reference, my plea is that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I am suggesting that as we go through life, we “accentuate the positive.” I am asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment and endorse virtue and effort.
― Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something: 10 Neglected Virtues That Will Heal Our Hearts and Homes

Painting is titled "Garden Idyll" by Hugo Charlemont (1850–1939). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as an 8" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Printable Vintage Art: Swans by Bruno Liljefors

Swans, 1918
by Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939)

There was something in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life.
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

He thought that she looked like Winter; meaning both the girl he had once known and the season. He had always believed that winter's beauty deepened further into the season, when the memory of fall and the promise of spring were stripped away and there was nothing to do but accept the day-in, day-out reality of what winter entailed. This was what he thought when he looked at her: that the embattled woman before him was a wonder to behold, and, as much as he wished he might have spared her the pain of the last eleven years, it contributed to her spellbinding presence.
― Ben Spencer, Many Savage Moons

Painting originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 10" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: The Little Gardener by Gustav Gaupp

A wise parent humors the desire for independent action,
so as to become the friend and advisor when his absolute rule shall cease.
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,
if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring
that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass,
the same hips and haws on the autumn hedgerows,
the same redbreasts that we used to call ‘God’s birds’
because they did no harm to the precious crops.
What novelty is worth that sweet monotony
where everything is known and loved because it is known?
― George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss

Painting is titled "The Little Gardener". Painted c1918 by Gustav Gaupp (1844–1918). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 10” x 15” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Winter Landscape with River and Bird by Julian Fałat

Winter Landscape with River and Bird, 1913
by Julian Fałat (1853–1929)
But now she loved winter. Winter was beautiful "up back" - almost intolerably beautiful. Days of clear brilliance. Evenings that were like cups of glamour - the purest vintage of winter's wine. Nights with their fire of stars. Cold, exquisite winter sunrises. Lovely ferns of ice all over the windows of the Blue Castle. Moonlight on birches in a silver thaw. Ragged shadows on windy evenings - torn, twisted, fantastic shadows. Great silences, austere and searching. Jewelled, barbaric hills. The sun suddenly breaking through grey clouds over long, white Mistawis. Ice-grey twilights, broken by snow-squalls, when their cosy living-room, with its goblins of firelight and inscrutable cats, seemed cosier than ever. Every hour brought a new revalation and wonder.
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

December is an old friend; it reminds you of the past, together you share some laughs and tears, you feel warm-hearted though it’s freezing outside. But, the goodbye is inevitable. May the memories we share with this friend next year be filled with comfort, peace and Love.
― Mohamed Atef

Following dark winter's strife, a warm air rises, teemed with life. Birth, rebirth, as the waiting die. Old love, new love sprouts wings to fly.
― Phar West Nagle

Vintage Art Appreciation: In the Rose Garden by Jules Scalbert

I think if I've learned anything about friendship,
it's to hang in, stay connected, fight for them, and let them fight for you.
Don't walk away, don't be distracted, don't be too busy or tired,
don't take them for granted.
Friends are part of the glue that holds life and faith together. Powerful stuff.
― Jon Katz
Painting is titled "In the Rose Garden" by Jules Scalbert (1851–1928). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 7.5" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Lawn Billiards, 17th Century

Gentlemen playing troco or lawn billiards while ladies and gentleman dine in an ivy-covered pergola near a formal garden, early 17th century. Artist unknown.

Leisure is only possible when we are at one with ourselves. We tend to overwork as a means of self-escape, as a way of trying to justify our existence.
― Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture

My father taught me to work, but not to love it. I never did like to work, and I don't deny it. I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh -- anything but work.
― Abraham Lincoln

Certainly work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
― George Mac Donald, Wilfrid Cumbermede

I do not particularly like the word 'work.' Human beings are the only animals who have to work, and I think that is the most ridiculous thing in the world. Other animals make their livings by living, but people work like crazy, thinking that they have to in order to stay alive. The bigger the job, the greater the challenge, the more wonderful they think it is. It would be good to give up that way of thinking and live an easy, comfortable life with plenty of free time. I think that the way animals live in the tropics, stepping outside in the morning and evening to see if there is something to eat, and taking a long nap in the afternoon, must be a wonderful life. For human beings, a life of such simplicity would be possible if one worked to produce directly his daily necessities. In such a life, work is not work as people generally think of it, but simply doing what needs to be done.
― Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution

Vintage Art Appreciation: Path from Loschwitz to Rochwitz by Gustav Otto Müller

Path from Loschwitz to Rochwitz, 1896
by Gustav Otto Müller (1827-1922)

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.
― Eve Ensler

Solitude is independence. It had been my wish and with the years I had attained it. It was cold. Oh, cold enough! But it was also still, wonderfully still and vast like the cold stillness of space in which the stars revolve.
― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.
― Albert Camus, Notebooks 1951-1959

Vintage Art Appreciation: In the Garden by Jindřich Tomec

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something.
Don’t wait for good things to happen to you.
If you go out and make some good things happen,
you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.
― Barack Obama

This is the real secret of life --
to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now.
And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
― Alan Watts
Painting is titled "In the Garden," (?) c1920s by Jindřich Tomec (1863–1928). Originally found on Wikimedia. Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 11" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Girl with Cats in a Summer Landscape

"Girl with Cats in a Summer Landscape"
painted in 1892 by Elin Danielson-Gambogi (1861–1919).

Originally found on Wikimedia.
Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 14" x 11" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Three Girls in the Garden by Eliseu Visconti

"Três meninas no jardim" (Three Girls in the Garden),
painted in 1935 by Eliseu Visconti (1866–1944).

Originally found on Wikimedia.
Digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 12" x 15" @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Children in the Garden by Władysław Podkowiński

No matter the state of the world,
or how dark the shadow that has fallen on our city,
I find it curiously comforting to know that if you plant a seed
and give it sunlight and water, it will grow.
― Sarah Jio, All the Flowers in Paris

Altered vintage painting titled "Children in the Garden," originally painted in 1892 by Władysław Podkowiński (1866–1895). You can find the image of the original painting on Wikimedia or you can download my digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 8" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Simply print and frame for tabletop or wall artI but could also be used as a cover for a journal or scrapbooking project.


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

Vintage Art Appreciation: Fernanda Gioli and Her Friends by Francesco Gioli

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand,
not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship;
it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one
when you discover that someone else believes in you
and is willing to trust you with a friendship.
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love people who make me laugh.
I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh.
It cures a multitude of ills.
It's probably the most important thing in a person.
― Audrey Hepburn

Altered version of a painting titled "Fernanda Gioli and Her Friends," originally painted circa 1885 by Francesco Gioli (1846–1922). You can find the image of the original painting on Wikimedia or you can download my digitally enhanced version of the painting as a 9" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG here. Simply print and frame for tabletop or wall artI but could also be used as a cover for a journal or scrapbooking project.


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