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Bluebird
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
Lesbia Harford
(1891-1927)
Bluebird
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Feminism, Harford, Lesbia, Workers of the World
My window pane is broken
My window pane is broken
Just a bit
Where the small curtain doesn’t
Cover it.
And in the afternoon
I like to lie
And watch the pepper tree
Against the sky.
Pink berries and blue sky
And leaves and sun
Are very fair to rest
One’s eyes upon.
And my tired feet are resting
On the bed
And there’s a pillow under
My tired head.
Parties and balls and books
I know are best
But when I’ve finished work
I like to rest.
Lesbia Harford
(1891-1927)
My window pane is broken
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More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Feminism, Harford, Lesbia, Workers of the World
Be blown away by Van Gogh’s most spectacular paintings in a once-in-a-century exhibition.
Walk with a pair of lovers beneath a starry night. Look up at swirling clouds and cypress trees swaying in the wind. Stay a little while in Van Gogh’s favourite park, the ‘Poet’s Garden’, or under a shady tree in Saint-Rémy.
The National Gallery is bringing together the most loved of Van Gogh’s paintings from across the globe, some of which are rarely seen in public. They will be paired together with his extraordinary drawings.
Over just two years in the south of France, Vincent van Gogh revolutionised his style in a symphony of poetic colour and texture. He was inspired by poets, writers and artists. We look at this time in Arles and Saint-Rémy as a decisive period in his career. His desire to tell stories produced a landscape of poetic imagination and romantic love on an ambitious scale.
See up-close his ‘Starry Night over the Rhône’ (1888, Musée d’Orsay) and ‘The Yellow House’ (1888, Van Gogh Museum), as well as our own ‘Sunflowers’ (1888) and ‘Van Gogh’s Chair’ (1889), among many others and celebrate the 200th birthday of Van Gogh’s ‘Poets and Lovers’.
Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers
14 September 2024 – 19 January 2025
The National Gallery London
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
London
WC2N 5DN
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More in: Archive G-H, Exhibition Archive, FDM in London, Vincent van Gogh, Vincent van Gogh
Machinist’s Song
The foot of my machine
Sails up and down
Upon the blue of this
fine lady’s gown.
Sail quickly, little boat,
With gifts for me,
Night and the goldy
streets and liberty.
Lesbia Harford
(1891-1927)
Machinist’s Song
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More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Harford, Lesbia, Workers of the World
Maak dit najaar kennis met de iconische Colombiaanse kunstenaar Beatriz González (1932).
Vanaf 5 oktober 2024 presenteert De Pont haar eerste solotentoonstelling in Nederland. González is de grande dame van de hedendaagse Latijns-Amerikaanse kunst en ze wordt vaak de schilder van het Colombiaanse geheugen genoemd. Ze staat bekend als de meest toonaangevende schilder van de afgelopen vijftig jaar in deze regio en heeft generaties kunstenaars beïnvloed. Met haar krachtige, kleurrijke en poëtische schilderkunst is ze een scherpzinnige chroniqueur van de veelal gewelddadige Colombiaanse geschiedenis.
Tegelijkertijd wordt haar werk gekenmerkt door een sterke universele zeggingskracht. War and Peace: A Poetics of Gesture geeft een overzicht van González’ indrukwekkende, decennia omspannende oeuvre waarin thema’s als verdriet, verlies en de ‘condition humaine’ een grote rol spelen. Daarnaast biedt de tentoonstelling een nieuw perspectief op González’ benadering van lichamen en gebaren als dragers van emotie.
González houdt herinneringen levend aan gebeurtenissen die de officiële geschiedschrijving verzwijgt. Met haar schilderijen die zich vastzetten in je verbeelding brengt ze ervaringen over van generaties Colombianen die gedurende hun leven in de greep zijn gehouden door oorlog. Vanaf het begin van haar carrière zijn González’ werken verweven met de realiteit van Colombia, een land dat wordt gekenmerkt door instabiliteit, corruptie en geweld. Voortdurende gewapende conflicten, waaronder de tien jaar durende burgeroorlog La Violencia (1948 – 1958), de strijd tussen de Colombiaanse staat en guerrillabeweging FARC (1964 – 2016) en het narcogeweld hebben een blijvende impact gehad op haar perceptie van de Colombiaanse samenleving.
Sinds 1962 eigent González zich bestaande beelden uit de westerse schilderkunst, populaire cultuur en fotojournalistiek toe. Ze is hierdoor vaak geduid als het Latijns-Amerikaanse antwoord op popart, een positie waar ze zichzelf altijd tegen heeft verzet. Liever stelt González zich, met de nodige zelfspot en humor, op als een ‘een schilder uit de provincie’. Ze werkt met een levendig palet dat aan de kleuren van haar land verwant is. Naast het canvas onderzoekt ze verschillende dragers voor haar schilderijen, zoals voor de massa geproduceerde meubels, gordijnen en behang.
“Art says things that history cannot”
BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ
in De Pont Museum Tilburg
War and Peace:
A Poetics of Gesture
5 oktober 2024 – 9 maart 2025
Museum De Pont
Wilhelminapark 1
5041 EA Tilburg
013 – 543 8300
info@depont.nl
www.depont.nl
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
* Photo: Beatriz González in 2015
* Beatriz González una decada 1980 – 1990
More in: Archive G-H, Art & Literature News, Art Criticism, Beatriz González, Exhibition Archive, FDM Art Gallery, Pop Art
I was sad
I was sad
Having signed up in a rebel band,
Having signed up to rid the land
Of a plague it had.
For I knew
That I would suffer, I would be lost,
Be bitter and foolish and tempest tost
And a failure too.
I was sad;
Though far in the future our light would shine
For the present the dark was ours, was mine,
I couldn’t be glad.
Lesbia Harford
(1891-1927)
I was sad
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Feminism, Harford, Lesbia, Workers of the World
The story of art as it’s never been told before, from the Renaissance to the present day, with more than 300 works of art.
How many women artists do you know? Who makes art history? Did women even work as artists before the twentieth century? And what is the Baroque anyway?
Guided by Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of @thegreatwomenartists, discover the glittering paintings by Sofonisba Anguissola of the Renaissance, the radical work of Harriet Powers in the nineteenth-century United States and the artist who really invented the “readymade.”
Explore the Dutch Golden Age, the astonishing work of postwar artists in Latin America, and the women defining art in the 2020s.
Have your sense of art history overturned and your eyes opened to many artforms often ignored or dismissed. From the Cornish coast to Manhattan, Nigeria to Japan, this is the history of art as it’s never been told before.
Katy Hessel is an art historian, broadcaster and curator dedicated to celebrating women artists from all over the world. She runs @thegreatwomenartists Instagram and The Great Women Artists Podcast, where she has interviewed the likes of Tracey Emin, Marina Abramovic and authors Ali Smith and Deborah Levy. Katy has lectured at Tate and National Gallery, presented films for the BBC, and is a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University. She is a columnist for the Guardian, and the author of The Story of Art without Men – a Sunday Times Bestseller and winner of Waterstones Book of the Year 2022.
Katy Hessel:
The Story of Art without Men
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
May 2, 2023
Language: English
Hardcover: 512 pages
ISBN-10: 0393881865
ISBN-13: 978-0393881868
26,28 euro – hardcover
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More in: #Non-fiction: Archive, - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive G-H, Art & Literature News, FDM Art Gallery, Feminism, The Ideal Woman
All Alone
Alas! they have left me all alone
By the receding tide;
But oh! the countless multitudes
Upon the other side!
The loved, the lost, the cherished ones,
Who dwelt with us awhile,
To scatter sunbeams on our path,
And make the desert smile.
The other side! how fair it is!
Its loveliness untold,
Its “every several gate a pearl,”
Its streets are paved with gold.
Its sun shall never more go down,
For there is no night there!
And oh! what heavenly melodies
Are floating through the air!
How sweet to join the ransomed ones
On the other side the flood,
And sing a song of praise to Him
Who washed us in His blood.
Ten thousand times ten thousand
Are hymning the new song!
O Father, join Thy weary child
To that triumphant throng!
But oh! I would be patient,
“My times are in Thy hand,”
“And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.”
Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
(1801 – 1888)
All Alone
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More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive G-H, Archive G-H
The child is father to the man
‘The child is father to the man.’
How can he be? The words are wild.
Suck any sense from that who can:
‘The child is father to the man.’
No; what the poet did write ran,
‘The man is father to the child.’
‘The child is father to the man!’
How can he be? The words are wild!
Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844-1889)
‘The child is father to the man.’
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More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Hopkins, Gerard Manley
The Evening Star
Hail, pensile gem, that thus can softly gild
The starry coronal of quiet eve!
What frost-work fabrics man shall vainly build
Ere thou art doomed thy heavenly post to leave!
Bright star! thou seem’st to me a blest retreat,
The wearied pilgrim’s paradise of rest;
I love to think long-parted friends shall meet,
Blissful reunion! in thy tranquil breast.
I saw thee shine when life with me was young,
And fresh as fleet-winged time’s infantile hour,
When Hope her treacherous chaplet ’round me flung,
And daily twined a new-created flower.
I saw thee shine while yet the sacred smile
Of home and kindred round my path would play,
But Time, who loves our fairest joys to spoil,
Destined this hour of bloom to swift decay.
The buds, that then were wreathed around my heart,
Now breathe their hallowed sweetness there no more;
‘Twas thine to see them one by one depart,
And yet thou shinest brightly as before.
So, when this bosom, that ‘mid all its woes
Has longed thy little port of rest to win,
In the calm grave shall find at last repose,
Thou’lt beam as fair as though I ne’er had been.
Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
(1801 – 1888)
The Evening Star
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More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive G-H, Archive G-H
Farewell
Fare thee well, we’ve no wish to detain thee,
For the loved ones are bidding thee come,
And, we know, a bright welcome awaits thee
In the smiles and the sunshine of home,
Thou art safe on the crest of the billow,
And safe in the depths of the sea;
For the God we have worshipped together
Is Almighty, and careth for thee.
And when, in the home of thy fathers,
Thy fervent petition shall rise
For the loved who are circling around thee,
The joy and delight of thine eyes,
Oh, then, for the weak and the faltering,
Should a prayer, as sweet incense, ascend
To the God we have worshipped together,
Remember thy far-distant friend.
We miss the calm light of thy spirit,
We miss thy encouraging smile;
But we bless the unslumbering Shepherd
Who sent thee to cheer us awhile.
The light, which burned brightly among us,
We rejoiced for a season to see,
For the God we have worshipped together
Gave a halo of glory to thee.
But didst thou not point to another,
A brighter, an unsetting sun?
For thou preached not thyself to us, brother,
But Jesus, the Crucified One.
May He be thy rock and thy refuge,
In Him thy “strong confidence” be;
For the God we have worshipped together
Still loveth and careth for thee.
Oh! mayst thou abide ‘neath the shadow
Of Immanuel’s sheltering wing,
And continue proclaiming the goodness
Of Zion’s all-glorious King,
Till the sun shall be turned into darkness,
The moon in obscurity be;
And the God we have worshipped together,
Be a “light everlasting” to thee.
Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
(1801 – 1888)
Farewell
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More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive G-H, Archive G-H
Cupid Drowned
T’other day as I was twining
Roses, for a crown to dine in,
What, of all things, ‘mid the heap,
Should I light on, fast asleep,
But the little desperate elf,
The tiny traitor, Love, himself!
By the wings I picked him up
Like a bee, and in a cup
Of my wine I plunged and sank him,
Then what d’ye think I did?—I drank him.
Faith, I thought him dead. Not he!
There he lives with tenfold glee;
And now this moment with his wings
I feel him tickling my heart-strings.
James Henry Leigh Hunt
(1784 – 1859)
Cupid Drowned
From: Poems That Every Child Should Know
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More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Hunt, Leigh
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