Vintage Art Appreciation: A Walk in the Woods by Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse

A Walk in the Woods, 1873
by Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse (4 July 1848 – 14 June 1913)

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir

All forests have their own personality. I don't just mean the obvious differences, like how an English woodland is different from a Central American rain forest, or comparing tracts of West Coast redwoods to the saguaro forests of the American Southwest... they each have their own gossip, their own sound, their own rustling whispers and smells. A voice speaks up when you enter their acres that can't be mistaken for one you'd hear anyplace else, a voice true to those particular tress, individual rather than of their species.
Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

The forest has shrunk
And fear has expanded,
The forests have dwindled,
There are less animals now,
less courage and less lightning,
less beauty
and the moon lies bare,
deflowered by force and
then abandoned.
Visar Zhiti, The Condemned Apple: Selected Poetry

In the beginning I gave you paper for books, fruits for food, roots, bark and leaves for medicine, and I gave you shelter from the scorching sun and fierce rainfall, but now you cut me down for parts and set me on fire without remorse.
Paul Bamikole

Free Vintage Landscape for Cardmaking, Journaling or Scrapbooking: Moonlight Stroll Across Snowy Fields

We feel cold, but we don't mind it, because we will not come to harm.
And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn't feel other things,
like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the aurora,
or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It's worth being cold for that.
Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass

This illustration from a vintage postcard dated c1910 shows a couple walking under moonlight in a winter landscape. They seem to be making their way towards a warmly lit house. A stately tree looms large beside the house, its naked branches stretching its long shadows across the winter snow for a mysterious effect.

You can download the free high-res 9" x 6" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Lovely as a background for a winter greeting card but can also be used in walk journals or a scrapbooking project.

Creative Commons Licence
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.

Vintage Art Appreciation: A January Evening in the Haagse Bosch by Louis Apol

A January Evening in the Haagse Bosch, 1875
by Louis Apol (1850 - 1936)

Inhale and hold the evening in your lungs.
Sebastian Faulks, Engleby

To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life.
John Burroughs

I love to watch the fine mist of the night come on,
The windows and the stars illumined, one by one,
The rivers of dark smoke pour upward lazily,
And the moon rise and turn them silver. I shall see
The springs, the summers, and the autumns slowly pass;
And when old Winter puts his blank face to the glass,
I shall close all my shutters, pull the curtains tight,
And build me stately palaces by candlelight.
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal

Vintage Art Appreciation: Camelias, Amaryllis, Hyacinth and Violets in Ornamental Pots by Johan Laurentz Jensen


Camelias, Amaryllis, Hyacinth and Violets in Ornamental Pots on a Marble Ledge, 1836
by Johan Laurentz Jensen (1800 - 1856)

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

Hope
Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering 'it will be happier...'
Alfred Tennyson

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do It.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
Neil Gaiman