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

Free Vintage Flower Illustration for Collage Art, Graphic Design, Papercrafts or Scrapbooking: Distressed Red Rose with Bronze Stem

"There is no pretending," Jace said with absolute clarity.
"I love you, and I will love you until I die,
and if there is life after that, I'll love you then.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass

I heard what you said. I’m not the silly romantic you think.
I don’t want the heavens or the shooting stars. I don’t want gemstones or gold.
I have those things already. I want…a steady hand. A kind soul.
I want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe. I want to love, and be loved.
― Shana Abe
Illustration of a red and bronze rose from a 1909 vintage postcard. I have left most of the distressed paper elements intact on this one as I feel it gives the image an aged quality perfect for vintage-style crafts or scrapbooking projects. To download the high-res 9" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark, please click here.


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: Apple-Tree Hall by Elizabeth Roberts Macdonald

Here is an antique children's poem of nature and imagination by Elizabeth Roberts Macdonald, published in the October 1910 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine.

APPLE-TREE HALL

There's an old spreading apple-tree, gnarly and wide,
In an orchard (I can't tell you where),
Where Dora and I can curl up side by side,
And nobody know we are there.
We go there on Saturdays, -- that's if it's fine,
And Mother is willing, and all, --
Take our dolls and our dishes, and there we keep house
Till tea-time, in Apple-Tree Hall.

There's the loveliest carpet, all wood-brown and gray,
And the walls have a pattern of green;
The windows are curtained the coziest way
That ever was thought of or seen;
And as for the ceiling, it's blue as the sky;
And we've crimson globe-lamps in the fall --
In the spring we have pink, and in summer use none
(Such a saving!), in Apple-Tree Hall.

All the neighbors are charming, -- so musical, too!
Madam Thrush has a voice like a bird,
And the love-songs she sings (in Italian, I think)
Are the sweetest we ever have heard.
Then the dryads and wood-nymphs dwell close to us, too,
Though they are too bashful to call.
The society really is quite the best
When we're living at Apple-Tree Hall.

Oh, I wish I could tell you one half of our plays,
And the fine things we plan when we're there,
Of the books that we'll write and the deeds that we'll do
In the years that wait, shining and fair.
My mother says, sometimes, -- and so does Aunt Kate, --
That these are the best days of all;
But we think it's just the beginning of fun,
Keeping house here in Apple-Tree Hall!

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 Nature Poem: Who Taught the Birds? by Caris Brooke

British Birds: Cock Skylark; Hen Beam Bird; Hen White Wagtail; Hen Blackcap; Cock Nightingale; Hen Nightingale; Cock and hen house Martin; Cock Marsh Titmouse; Hen Titlark and a Hen Grass Hopper, painted 1736
by Charles Collins (1680 - 1744)

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WHO TAUGHT THE BIRDS?
by Caris Brooke
(originally published June 17, 1893)

To and fro, to and fro,
From the chestnut tree to the meadow grass,
Day after day I watched her pass;
Where did the little birdie go?
With drooping wing and ruffled breast,
Hopping along with a broken leg,
She came to my window, as if to beg
Crumbs for the little ones up in her nest.

Far and high, touching the sky
Where the chestnut flowers are pink and white,
Every morning and every night
She carried worms, or grubs, or fly,
To a nest that was woven of moss and feather,
Where the little bird-babies chirrup and cheep,
And over the nest-edge try to peep --
Five little yellow bills open together.

Slowly, in pain, in sunshine and rain,
The mother-bird went on her weary way;
But the little ones waited that summer day,
And chirruped and called for her -- all in vain.
I opened my window, and found her lain
Just where the sunlight touches the sill --
Not waiting for crumbs, but cold and still --
Never to fly to her nest again.

Little mouths to be fed, and their mother dead --
Must the poor wee birdies with hunger die?
Watching, I saw another bird fly
Straight to the nest with a crumb of bread.
To and fro, without staying to rest,
She carried them morsels of dainty food,
Till she satisfied all the hungry brood;
Then gathered them warmly under her breast.

* * * * *

Now tell me, Who had whispered to the little birdies's heart
To fly to those forsaken ones, and take their mother's part?

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: 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)

Free Vintage Nature Poem: Primrose Sweet by Samuel S. McCurry

Photo credit: Ella8 from Pixabay
Here is a public domain Victorian poem by Samuel S. McCurry entitled "Primrose Sweet," originally published in March of 1893. This is how it goes:

O Primrose Sweet! Of sun and shower
The offspring fair. Of glade and bower
We watch thy dainty leaves unfold
In fairy clouds of clustered gold,
When wintry skies no longer lower.

The earnest, thou, of Spring's bright dower;
For thee we longed the dreary hour,
When wailed the winds across the world,
O Primrose Sweet!

We hail thy coming, gentle flower!
And, yielding to the majestic power,
Love, Love, that erst was doubting, cold,
Shall pipe to thee a paean bold,
And Faith revived shall cease to cower,
Primrose Sweet!


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 Nature Poem: My Love by M. Hedderwick Browne

A Victorian poem titled "My Love," written by M. (Marie) Hedderwick Browne, and published in 1893. Here, the author compares the hardy personality of love to various flowers and finds them wanting until she comes to the resilient and low-maintenance heather which she holds in high esteem. Here is how the poem goes:

I
My love is not like the rose,
Nor the languid lady-lily,
Nor the pansy, pensive-faced,
Nor the drooping "daffy-dilly."

II
She's not like the pale snowdrop,
Fears of frailty in us waking,
Nor the shrinking violet,
For the shade the sun forsaking.

III
I can only liken her
To the brave and bonnie heather --
Hardy, wholesome, and not made
For a hothouse or fine weather.

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.