Printable Vintage Art: Rain Over Meadow by Fyodor Vasilyev

There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow and endless drizzle.

You will hear that she has left the country, that there was a gift she wanted you to have, but it is lost before it reaches you. Late one night the telephone will sign, and a voice that might be hers will say something that you cannot interpret before the connection crackles and is broken.

Several years later, from a taxi, you will see someone in a doorway who looks like her, but she will be gone by the time you persuade the driver to stop. You will never see her again.

Whenever it rains you will think of her.
― Neil Gaiman

Vintage landscape artwork by Fyodor Vasilyev (1850–1873) entitled “Rain over Meadow,” oiginally painted in 1872. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as a printable 13” 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 Saucer of Milk by Helen Allingham

The Saucer of Milk, 19th century
by Helen Allingham (1864–1919)
Do your little bit of good where you are;
it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
― Desmond Tutu

The thought manifests the word;
The word manifests the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let them spring forth from love
Born out of compassion for all beings.
As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.
― Dhammapada

Vintage art oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Don't you just love this gentle, idyllic cottage scene? You can download my digitally enhanced version of this utterly charming garden painting as an 8” 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.

Printable Vintage Art: The Brushwood Collector by Adolf Kaufmann

We all have forests in our minds. Forests unexplored, unending. Each one of us gets lost in the forest, every night, alone.
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind's Twelve Quarters

Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers. And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see.
― James Salter, Light Years

A vintage landscape painting by Adolf Kaufmann (1848–1916) entitled “The Brushwood Collector”; oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as a 5” 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.

Printable Vintage Art: From the Road on the Way to Stinson Beach from Mill Valley by D. Howard Hitchcock

Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.

How hard it is to tell what it was like,
this wood of wilderness, savage and stubborn
(the thought of it brings back all my old fears),

a bitter place! Death could scarce be bitterer.
But if I would show the good that came of it
I must talk about things other than the good.
― Dante Alighieri

Their life is mysterious, it is like a forest; from far off it seems a unity, it can be comprehended, described, but closer it begins to separate, to break into light and shadow, the density blinds one. Within there is no form, only prodigious detail that reaches everywhere: exotic sounds, spills of sunlight, foliage, fallen trees, small beasts that flee at the sound of a twig-snap, insects, silence, flowers.

And all of this, dependent, closely woven, all of it is deceiving. There are really two kinds of life. There is, as Viri says, the one people believe you are living, and there is the other. It is this other which causes the trouble, this other we long to see.
― James Salter, Light Years

A vintage landscape painting of trees in a forest by David Howard Hitchcock (1861–1943) from 1910 entitled “From the Road on the Way to Stinson Beach from Mill Valley”; oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as a 6” 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: Winter River Landscape by Adolf Kaufmann

There are such a lot of things that have no place in summer and autumn and spring. Everything that’s a little shy and a little rum. Some kinds of night animals and people that don’t fit in with others and that nobody really believes in. They keep out of the way all the year. And then when everything’s quiet and white and the nights are long and most people are asleep—then they appear.
― Tove Jansson, Moominland Midwinter

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

A vintage landscape painting by Adolf Kaufmann (1848–1916) entitled “Winter River Landscape”; oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded 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.

Printable Vintage Art: A Bed of Poppies by Maria Oakey Dewing

To hear never-heard sounds,
To see never-seen colors and shapes,
To try to understand the imperceptible
Power pervading the world;
To fly and find pure ethereal substances
That are not of matter
But of that invisible soul pervading reality.
To hear another soul and to whisper to another soul;
To be a lantern in the darkness
Or an umbrella in a stormy day;
To feel much more than know.
To be the eyes of an eagle, slope of a mountain;
To be a wave understanding the influence of the moon;
To be a tree and read the memory of the leaves;
To be an insignificant pedestrian on the streets
Of crazy cities watching, watching, and watching.
To be a smile on the face of a woman
And shine in her memory
As a moment saved without planning.
― Dejan Stojanovic
Masterful landscape artwork by Maria Oakey Dewing (1845–1927) titled “A Bed of Poppies,” which was painted in 1909. Oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version of the vintage artwork can be downloaded as a 15” x 12.5” @ 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: A Snowy Morning by F.F. Palmer

The snow was endless, a heavy blanket on the outdoors; it had a way about it. A beauty. But I knew that, like many things, beauty could be deceiving.
― Cambria Hebert, Whiteout

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that this delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it. I remember, in the winter of our first experiments, just seven years ago, looking on snow with new eyes. There the snow lay around my doorstep — great heaps of protons quietly precessing in the earth's magnetic field. To see the world for a moment as something rich and strange is the private reward of many a discovery.
― Edward M. Purcell

A vintage Currier & Ives lithograph of a painting by Fanny Palmer (1812-1876) entitled “A Snowy Morning”; oiginally found on Wikimedia here. Digitally enhanced version can be downloaded as a 17” 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: 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 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 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 flowers 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 JPEG 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 JPEG 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.