Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy the peace of "The Watermill," composed by Ronald Binge (1910-1979):

Art Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

Enjoy these works of American landscape artist George Inness (1825-1894), with background music:

[about George Inness and his art]

Time For Beauty

(For politics, please scroll down)

One of my Facebook finds:

Roman mosaic, Garden scene, fountain wall (detail), 1st century BCE. Pompeii, Italy. Massa Lubrense. National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy.

Blog Break

Comment moderation intermittently enabled.

Real life, this time, pleasurable real life, supersedes virtual life!

Warren is coming for a visit — his second visit to Washington, D.C.!

There's too much going on here to work on publishing blog posts.

Then, once Warren arrives, he and Mr. AOW and I are off to the National Museum of American History, the National Gallery of Art, the Holocaust Museum, Mount Vernon, the National Museum of Health and Medicine, and whatever other attractions we can manage to squeeze into our schedule.  We're also having a shed sale here.  Tools, tools, tools!  A real Toolapalooza!

During this blog's hiatus, enjoy Impressionism: Ravel & Debussy...


About Impressionism in music:

Impressionism in music was a movement among various composers in Western classical music (mainly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries) whose music focuses on suggestion and atmosphere, "conveying the moods and emotions aroused by the subject rather than a detailed tone‐picture". "Impressionism" is a philosophical and aesthetic term borrowed from late 19th century French painting after Monet's Impression, Sunrise. Composers were labeled impressionists by analogy to the impressionist painters who use starkly contrasting colors, effect of light on an object, blurry foreground and background, flattening perspective, etc. to make the observer focus his attention on the overall impression.

The most prominent in musical impressionism is the use of "color", or in musical term, timbre, which can be achieved through orchestration, harmonic usage, texture, etc. Other elements of music impressionism also involve new chord combinations, ambiguous tonality, extended harmonies, use of modes and exotic scales, parallel motions, extra-musicality, and evocative titles.

Index to selections on the video:

Suda The Elephant

(For politics, please scroll down)

One of my Facebook finds:

More "elephant art" HERE.

Related reading: Can jumbo elephants really paint? Intrigued by stories, naturalist Desmond Morris set out to find the truth.

Another kind of elephant video:

Art vs. Cell Phones

(For politics, please scroll down)

What are the odds that they're looking at information about Rembrandt's 1642 painting The Night Watch as opposed to checking their Facebook or Twitter status?

Larger version of The Nightwatch below the fold.

Break From Politics

(For politics, please scroll down)

Watch Van Gogh's works come to life on water:

About the above:

2016 Is Here

Worth remembering and resolving to do — even as we, willingly or unwillingly, become more and more immersed in election-year politics:

From Arteide

More of Artists Gives Old Books a Second Life @ this Facebook page.

Break From Politics

(For politics, please scroll down)

How Mr. AOW and I spent the day on Friday, September 18, 2015:

Gustave Caillebotte's Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877)

Read the brochure HERE.

The exhibit Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye opened on June 28, 2015, at the National Gallery of Art.

One of the highlights of the day was the security guard at the entrance-exit door for the exhibit.  This older black gentleman, with an elegant demeanor, greeted everyone who was entering the exhibit and offered a brochure to any of us who didn't already have a brochure. He also spoke to everyone who was leaving the exhibit and ended his brief goodbye exchange with a wide smile, a steadfast gaze, and these words: "I hope you have a wonderful life!"  Capra-esque.

Musical Interlude

Although I'm mainly a traditionalist when it comes to art appreciation, I do like some abstract art.

Enjoy this video set to "Sonata in A Minor for Arpeggione and Piano, D. 821: I. Allegro moderato" by Mstislav Rostropovich and Benjamin Britten, Benjamin Britten (hat tip to Farmers Letters):


[about the artist Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944]

Again!

(Two posts today.  Please scroll down)

Snowing here in the D.C. area — once again, more than the weathermen forecast!

This is the Year of the Snow Dragon (with thanks to FreeThinke for emailing me the image below):

SNOW DRAGON

Anniversary (Updated)

(Please scroll down for politics)

Today, Mr. AOW and I are celebrating 42 years of marriage.

And, yes, we are still each other's best friend.

Update below the fold:

Sunday Break From Politics

The Most Beautiful Buildings in the World:

Objectionable Windows?

The Washington National Cathedral's stained class windows incorporate many different themes and subjects.

Upon the recent death of Nelson Mandela, objections have now arisen to two of the stained glass windows — two separate windows depicting General Stonewall Jackson and General Robert E. Lee, both of them officers in the Confederate Army:

Musical Interlude

For this first Sunday of Advent 2013, Of the Father's Love Begotten, a poem paired with the medieval plainchant melody Divinum mysterium:



Another arrangement of the same Christmas carol:


Please take a few moments to consider this meditation for today.

Windows Of Cheer

If the video refuses to play, CLICK HERE.

Article: "Colorful murals keep a daughter’s memory alive."

Madonna And Child

(If you must have politics, please scroll down)

A lovely Madonna and Child: