Looking down at Aeschylus

Posted on March 16, 2019 by Richard Bowker

I was here last week:

The Acropolis is stunning. But I also spent a good bit of time looking down from the Acropolis at this place:

This is the Theater of Dionysus. (Wikipedia gives you a better view of it.) It’s where Western drama began, where the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes were first performed in the fifth century BCE. And if that doesn’t make you shiver, what will?

(By the way, Mary Renault’s The Mask of Apollo gives a vivid depiction of what it was like to be an actor in the ancient Greek theater.)

Botticelli: Madonna and Child and Young St. John the Baptist

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Richard Bowker

I forgot to mention this strange, haunting masterpiece from late in Botticelli’s life (now leaving the Museum of Fine Arts):

Note a great photo, sorry. The writer of this article noticed what I noticed: the Virgin and Child have the same face, almost–certainly the same expression. And they seem to be pushing their way off the canvas. What’s going on?

Botticelli, Matisse, Big Papi

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Richard Bowker

We went to the Museum of Fine Arts to see its exhibitions on Matisse and Botticelli. (Sorry you missed them.) Here is my favorite Matisse: (“Red Interior: Still Life on a Blue Table”, from 1947):

My wife’s favorite was “The Burning Bush” from 1951:

And here is my favorite Botticelli: “Saint Augustine in His Study”, a fresco from 1480:

It’s also the summer of David Ortiz at the MFA. Here’s a display of Big Papi’s three World Series rings and his World Series MVP ring from 2013:

Did Botticelli or Matisse ever accomplish anything comparable to what Big Papi accomplished in 2013? Of course not. Will Big Papi still be remembered half a millennium after his death, like Botticelli? Of course he will. Why are you even asking these questions?

My favorite object at the Harvard Art Museums

Posted on May 1, 2016 by Richard Bowker

An ancient Greek grave stele of a young girl:

The description reads:

Melisto, daughter of Ktesikrates, holds a doll in her left hand and a bird in the right, and looks down toward the furry little dog springing up at her from the right. She wears a simple girt chiton, like a nightgown.

A girl with a doll and her pets. So much more interesting than busts of Roman emperors.

Hokusai and Picasso

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Richard Bowker

Returning to Hokusai:

I liked his painting of Japanese warriors:

For some reason (the verticality of the construction, I guess) it reminded me of Picasso’s “Rape of the Sabines”, which was one floor up from the Hokusai at the Museum of Fine Arts:

Compare and contrast.

Several views of Mount Fuji

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Richard Bowker

The spectacular Hosukai exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts ended today, and I finally managed to get there. I took bunches of photos, none of which do justice to the originals. I’ll post just a few of them today.

Hokusai’s greatest hit was the series of landscape prints called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. Here’s the greatest hit of that greatest hit, “The Great Wave of Kanagawa”:

And here’s “Umezawa in Sagami Province“:

And “Tsukuda Island in Musashi Province“:

And “South Wind, Clear Sky”:

As a special bonus, here is an MFA favorite, Monet’s portrait of his wife in Japanese costume, “La Japonaise”:

Butterfly Garden

Posted on July 9, 2015 by Richard Bowker

To celebrate summer, my company installed a butterfly garden, because that’s the way it rolls. So here are some photos of butterflies.

They even had a poster about Nabokov and butterflies, which I thought was very impressive.

Spring, the sweet spring

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Richard Bowker

Here’s what Thomas Nashe has to say about spring:

Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king,
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring,
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!

The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a-sunning sit,
In every street these tunes our ears do greet:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to witta-woo!

Presumably he wasn’t looking out my front door when he wrote the poem:

Here’s a view of spring from my son in the north of Jordan today. Maybe this is what Nashe was thinking of:

The weather is bound to get better. Isn’t it?

The winter of our discontent needs some flowers

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Richard Bowker

The commuter boat from my little town got stuck in the ice in Boston harbor yesterday morning.

Later, parts of the roof collapsed at the grammar school that our kids attended.

Last night, a couple of guys we hired spent two hours in near-zero weather clearing our roof to prevent it from collapsing after the snow and freezing rain that’s coming tonight.

We need to see some flowers from Tom Whelan. Like a New England aster:

And a bouganvillea:

We will ignore all his very fine photos of ice crystals.

Birches at sunrise

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Richard Bowker

Let’s give thanks for birches!

While we’re at it, let’s also give thanks for poetry:

. . . Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Frost wrote the poem “Birches” just about a century ago. How time flies!

Happy Thanksgiving!