In the Bleak Midwinter

These Cello Advent dailies you may follow on your own at You Tube, from Kjell Magne Robak, who is a Norwegian Cellist. I post this one because it's traditional here at The Colorist to post In the Bleak Midwinter at Christmastime.

Enjoy.

Merry Christmas (Cello)

Intermezzo

Embed from Getty Images

Henri Matisse with Model Henriette Darricarrère, in Nice. 1927.

From Hilary Spurling, Smithsonian Magazine, 2005. Matisse and His Models. 

The same seems to have been true of the models for his odalisque paintings of the 1920s. The first of these odalisques—sprawling in “harem costumes” on improvised divans—was Antoinette Arnoud’s successor, Henriette Darricarrère, who was working as an extra when Matisse spotted her in the film studios in Nice. He liked her natural dignity, the graceful way her head sat on her neck and, above all, the fact that her body caught the light like a sculpture. A ballet dancer and musician, Henriette became part of the family in the seven years she worked for Matisse. His wife grew especially fond of her, and he himself taught her to paint.
Matisse said it was essential to start by finding the pose that made any new model feel most comfortable. Henriette’s specialty was discovered by accident after a carnival party attended by Matisse and his daughter, dressed respectively as an Arab potentate and a beauty from the harem. Marguerite Matisse, Lorette, even Antoinette Arnoud, all tried on turbans and embroidered Moroccan tops, but it was Henriette, always modest, even prim, in her street clothes, who wore the filmy blouses and low-slung pants without inhibition, becoming at once luxuriant, sensual and calmly authoritative.
The pictorial possibilities she opened up for Matisse were enhanced by her exceptional sensitivity and stamina. He saw the work they produced together as an increasingly complex orchestration of colored light and mass, culminating in his Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Ground, which was almost as incomprehensible in 1926 as the Blue Nude had been nearly 20 years earlier. The painting is a riot of exuberant trompe l’oeil wallpaper, flowers, fruit and patterned textiles, all pinned firmly in place by the pale upright figure of Henriette. She looked as impersonal and unyielding as a side of packaged butcher’s meat to Matisse’s friend, the painter Jules Flandrin, who was baffled and exhilarated in equal measure: “I can’t begin to convey the brilliantly successful contrast between the wallpaper flowers and the woman so skillfully mishandled,” he wrote to a friend. Soon after the completion of Decorative Figure, Henriette left to get married.

Decorative Figure on an Ornamental Background. 1925.

Matisse Month 

Portraits Are What I Do Now

Vincent in Rejection. 2015. Pastel. 12.5" x 10." Casey Klahn.

Without overthinking it, my art has become about faces and figures. Expressionist and (forgive this phrase) Matissian is what I wish to do. By Matissian I mean decorative, which was Henri Matisse's way of describing the abstract elements of artwork. 

The struggle is between the narrative and decorative styles. They are in opposition to one another. It turns out that if I can avoid the narrative in these portraits, then they become more powerful.

I have made several attempts to render Vincent van Gogh without looking at his paintings. This is the first time I liked one.

Why not post the Don McLean tune? Please enjoy.

Getting on the Airplane

Please allow me these moments of glee as I get ready to board the plane for Europe. The brief is that I will be teaching a workshop above the Arctic Circle, in Lapland. I'm afraid I couldn't find any hip Beatles songs about that experience, but since I will be adding a side trip to Russia, Back will do just fine.

Stay tuned here for photos and updates about the workshop in Kemijärvi , Finland, and I'll be creating and posting some pastels as well. I have an affinity for places in the north, and am really looking forward to seeing this delightful and remote corner of Europe. 

Back in the, er.., Russia, I just clued-in that St. Petersburg is known as the Venice of the North. I want to see the big Matisse paintings held there, and maybe I'll get to play Sargent as best I'm able, and paint some canal scenes, too. 

For the more playful, here is the Beatles illustrated trip to Russia. Couldn't help myself.

Blue Era

A Blue Room in the Forest. 2014.

@ 10" x 13"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

I love seeing young musicians doing well and being hip. Enjoy this live ensemble performing Erik Satie's Gn no.1.

Erik Satie - Gnossienne No.1 - Seth Ford-Young

Entr'acte Friday

Blue Cloud Sky. 2104

@8" x 12" 

Pastel 

Casey Klahn

Pianist: 

Alessio Nanni

Sound Painting by Helen Davey

Musician Helen Davey, Switzerland. Helen originates from Australia, but makes her home now outside of Zurich. Her newest song, Waterpath to the Ocean, celebrates to mood of the river in a pastel work that I have done.

Helen Davey writes abstract and lyrical sound paintings. They are pieces responsive to another form of art, such as a painting. In this instance, Helen has created the water as sound, in it's progress from the river's source, to the ocean. Her inspiration is my pastel work, The Rain, the Light, and The River.

Here are 2 links for Helen's tracks.


Bandcamp.
Soundcloud. Listen to it here.

The Rain, the Light & the River

11.75" x 18.25"

Pastel

Casey Klahn

Helen blogs at Helen Davey: 52 Sound Paintings, where she is creating 1 new musical piece a week. 

Last Chance in Open Country

Bald Ridge at Dusk

12.75" x 10" 

Pastel

Casey Klahn

I live in the country.  Because I do, I like country music.  Probably you do, too, and if you don't think you do, I can prove you're a liar soon enough.  You like Bob Dylan, and Willie Nelson, and you like songs by Stephen Foster.  That was easy.

This really big, formatted for the iMac screen, picture of my pastel, Bald Ridge at Dusk, is paired with the song Last Chance in Open Country, because I wanted the message to get across that this is open country and it is big.  Western big.

Willie and Kid Rock are singing in this video about last chances, last dances, last stands, and western movies.  Big ideas and big vistas.  Remember the movies John Ford made in the Monument Valley of Utah?  Breathtaking scenery was the foil for Ford's story lines about cavalrymen and Indians last-standing, galavanting, and grandstanding around the west.  Big people doing big things in big ways, and in big places.  Big, big, big, I tell ya.  Bigger'n big's got any right to be.  

You like western movies.  Don't make me prove that, too.  

Boy Drummer

OOO

White Christmas!

I get nostalgic, here.  It's snowing today.

We love Christmas movies at my house, and the wartime and post war movie White Christmas is no exception.  As a matter of fact, it's one of my favorites.  Those who know me best, know I have a soft spot in my heart for WW II G.I.s and everyone from that generation.  My father's army division, the TenthMountain Division, returned home and founded the American ski industry almost from scratch.  Rope tow and T-Bar hills became ski lift-served resorts.  Those were the salad days for the ski industry, but it came on the heels of K ration days at the battlefront.

You see the parallel to my father's experiences in the movie White Christmas.  It is a vehicle, really, for Bing Crosby's wartime hit song by the same name.  I read this year about how Bing was visiting a UK airbase during the war, but was too emotional to go on stage after witnessing the bombing deaths of children.  You think he was an elite Hollywood star, but he saw some things.  The movie is sappy to some, but there was a reason for spreading some peace and harmony for my parent's cohort.  

Plus, my dad was overseas at Christmas in 1944.  Reason enough to remember the season and to cherish the good times we live in now.  If you dig the Olive Drab version, like me, these first 2 short videos have that.  I added the glorious version from the end of the movie, because that's the way the old timers wanted to experience it.  The clip dialogue is dubbed auf Deutsch, and the song remains as recorded - it is wonderful to watch at high resolution.

Little Town

The Census at Bethlehem, 1566

Peter Bruegel The Elder, 152?-1569

Color on Panel

Link

This post was first published in 2011.

It's Now The Mash!

Covered It Before - Music is Art

This post was first published in December, 2012.  

Music is art.  This statement needs no explanation, except I came to it late in life!  Of course music is art, and those who teach and play instruments are my brothers and sisters.  I stumbled (or is it youtubed?) onto Nadia Boulanger and was taken instantly by her genius as an instructor and by her authority.  Anyone animated by art will learn from her.

Mademoiselle Boulanger quotes Paul Valéry:
 "The gods kindly offer us the first verse. What is difficult is to write the next ones, which will be worthy of their supernatural brother."


Although I am the world's worst music patron, I find Mlle. Boulanger's stature and teaching style to be a very cool drink of water. I am listening to the longer video posted below as I type this, and although I am also the dimmest bulb at French, I am learning. 

"It's always necessary to be yourself – that is a mark of genius in itself,"  Nadia Boulanger.

Nadia Boulanger

My friend at Art and Music, Katherine van Schoonhoven, well understands the bridge between these two arts. Another friend and blogger is Rosemarie Kowalski, who blogs at Peaceful Ones, and she also celebrates the connection between the two.

This longer video, in French with subtitles, I recommend to you.

Nadia Boulanger.

Intermedio - Wiener Symphoniker

Thanks, Karin Goeppert.

Herbert von Karajan rehearsing Schumann's 4th with the Wiener Symphoniker.

Intermedio - Michelangeli plays Debussy

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Modigliani - Love, Nonsense & Life (Updated)

Modigliani, not looking well, 1919.

Here is The Modigliani Suite:


Amedeo Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) has been the subject of a couple of feature movies.  Mostly, they cover his love life, which lacked no drama.  I take that back - the more recent flick, Modigliani, 2004, by Director Mick Davis, is also very much about the artistic process.  Critics and the public hated it, but I loved it.  The metaphor of his grand premier compared to a bloody mugging in the snow is rich, and I liked the way he consulted his boyhood self from time to time.  

Watching the 1958 film, Les Amants de Montparnasse, in French, is a nonsensical treat for me, since I don't understand the language.  I had a couple scenes posted before, but they have vanished from YT. Try to find it sometime and enjoy. Tragically, both the first director and the star died during and shortly after the making of this movie. 

Here is a You Tube of his paintings streamed to some music with an Italian title about love's consequences.  I like to watch these with the digital projector on the big screen.  Maybe some of his great style and visual grace will rub off on me.

As Dewe in Aprille

I Sing of a Maiden

Degas With Keyboard Backup

***

Chopin and Degas.

Hopper, with Mood Music

The work of the American artist Edward Hopper is so moody and evocative, that more than a few amateur videographers have tried to distill his images with a track.  Which one of the following works best for you?

Yes, a sublime waste of time.  But, you get to soak up some great Hopper while doing it.

Edward Hopper to Claude Debussy

or Benny Goodman

(and Edward Hirsch)

try Eric Satie

and finally, Mr. Tom Waits at Closing Time.

Video attributions embedded in videos.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967).

Hopper was so tied into his subjects that when he outlived them, his output died, too.  Don't be sad about that - stand up and cheer for what he gave us when he did.

Artchive/Hopper  

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