the days of gray Nattier

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Jean Marc Nattier,  Portrait of Mademoiselle Chamisot

Jean Marc Nattier, Madame Henriette de France as a Vestal Virgin

On occasion the topic comes up here.
Often- more often it comes up there.
On  my head.  
Yes, I am going gray-and wish for the day when grey was Nattier. Nattier had the knack. He could make the Ladies of Court quite the beauties-yet maintain a striking likeness. They after centuries still are beautiful, ethereal, mythological & their hair is gray.

 Jean-Marc Nattier, Comtesse de Tillieres

You see where I'm going with this-don't you?
Women are berated- No, not too strong, they do. 
Berated for not caring about themselves, not keeping themselves "up"- giving up.
Gray hair does not mean a woman doesn't care.
It means she is going gray-part of the natural aging process remember-and hey- may I add- it is not an easy trip. Women that take that road will suffer through the process.
At some point it will become obvious that more than one appointment with COLOUR has been missed.
Passers by and friends- "You're doing that on purpose?"

Jean-Marc Nattier Madame Marsollier and her Daughter

Men start balding-and contrary to what might be said-they're not all Yul Brenners- Patrick Stewarts-Vin Diesels. So-take it easy on the graying. 
Yes- men do have the "distinguishing" gray temples-no arguments.
Their gray distinguishes them.
They go gray gracefully.
They still care.


Enter Kristen McMenamy-a 45 year old model, mother that has let it go gray & wouldn't she have been glorious as a Nattier?

Editor Franca Sozzani has embraced gray & McMenamy featuring her on two recent covers and countless editorials.  The gray is natural, long,

She gives gray a much needed redemption-it can't be too soon. Is it becoming desirable even? It takes time to go gray. trust me-I'm going there. Fortunately- I've been given a secret boost to set me off to "grayer" heights from friend-she is a good one- and a wonderful COLOURIST. My grandmother was gray-a white- pretty grey- really -at an early age & my father's was the same.
Both were striking -will I be?
I don't know if I've got their roots-I hope so, I only know there's a lot- a lot of gray up there.

Jean-Marc Nattier, Madame de Maison Rouge as Diana

Nattier's sitters were actually desirous of  gray or even a touch of violet-a blue-a pink- a yellow.
Most often used were powders. The powder was made from finely ground starch, scented with orange flower, lavender, or orris root and colour was added. 
Delicious!

Jean Marc Nattier, Victoire de France

Wigs were an option, but many of Nattier's grays were loving their own hair and powdering it.
Wigs-they come later, but the powdering would stay light for a time. Though light, powdering became de rigueur for "dressing" til the end of the 18th century.
For the most part men were the wanton wig wearers.

Most admired of the age-most of Madame Pompadour's portraits depict her with a simple braid originating at the neck & locks at the forehead & powder to get that touch of gray.

all portraits of Madame Pompadour as Diana

1746

1748

 1748

1752

Gray? Are you-going?
Think Nattier-Madame Pompadour & the natural aging process.





again with the GRAY here- graying with grace?




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the charms of a lovely lady

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"Beauty is whatever gives Joy." 

ESVM

Yumiko Utsu photograph

about Yumiko Utsu here

Utsu's site here

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a Pound's Worth

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Beauty should never be presented explained. It is MARVEL & WONDER, & in Art we should find first these doors- Marvel & Wonder- and, coming thorough them, a slow understanding (slow even though it be a succession of lighting understandings & perceptions) as of a figure in mist, that still & ever gives to each one his own right of believing, each after his own creed & fashion. Always the desire to know & to understand more deeply must precede any reception of Beauty. Without holy curiosity & awe none find her, & woe to that artist whose work wears its "heart on its sleeve."
                                                                                  Weston St Llewmys* (1908)

Alvin Langdon Coburn

Votograph ,1917

 

*Ezra Pound's alter ego introduced A Quinzaine for this Yule with this credo- his mother was a Weston, and paternal grandmother a Loomis.

 

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the world is too much with us

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"the decadent material cynicism of the time."  ~ WW

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. …

William Wordsworth

The world in 1806? Wordsworth wrote this sonnet from Grasmere, a Lake District village, but was Life Simple? Not in the eyes of Wordsworth. The onslaught of the Industrial Revolution colored Wordworth's bucolic view. Doesn't each generation faces these "wastes to our powers ?"  

My mother started reciting this poem today- the year she memorized it might have been 1944- a Simpler time?  Pearl Harbor was in the past, a brother was at war, a father died suddenly, a nation of women stepped out of their traditional roles- not so simple.  

More than 200 years have past and the words resonate, reverberate to a "sorid boon." The sonnet may seem horribly outdated, I think it beautiful. I hear it today in the dissonant  heavy Rap-despised by aesthetes- expressing hostility to Capitalism, the industrial complex. It is all in conflict with the search for Our Beautiful Life-that which defines You.

What defines You? How do you reconcile the quest for the material beauties of man with the quest for the beauties of nature? Do you?

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la infanta i

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Velasquez's Infanta don Margarita de Austria

Hans Silvester.

bal masque

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the aching Beauty of Hans Silvester from his book, Natural Fashion:Tribal Decoration from Africa

remains of the day: Iris

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THE TEMPEST ACT IV,SCENEI

 Enter the Godess IRIS

IRIS

    Ceres, most bounteous lady, thy rich leas
    Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches, oats and pease;
    Thy turfy mountains, where live nibbling sheep,
    And flat meads thatch'd with stover, them to keep;
    Thy banks with pioned and twilled brims,
    Which spongy April at thy hest betrims,
    To make cold nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom -groves,
    Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves,
    Being lass-lorn: thy pole-clipt vineyard;
    And thy sea-marge, sterile and rocky-hard,
    Where thou thyself dost air;--the queen o' the sky,
    Whose watery arch and messenger am I,
    Bids thee leave these, and with her sovereign grace,
    Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,
    To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain:
    Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.

    (Enter CERES)

CERES

    Hail, many-colour'd messenger, that ne'er
    Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter;
    Who with thy saffron wings upon my flowers
    Diffusest honey-drops, refreshing showers,
    And with each end of thy blue bow dost crown
    My bosky acres and my unshrubb'd down,
    Rich scarf to my proud earth; why hath thy queen
    Summon'd me hither, to this short-grass'd green?

IRIS

    A contract of true love to celebrate;
    And some donation freely to estate
    On the blest lovers.

CERES

    Tell me, heavenly bow,
    If Venus or her son, as thou dost know,
    Do now attend the queen? Since they did plot
    The means that dusky Dis my daughter got,
    Her and her blind boy's scandal'd company
    I have forsworn.

IRIS

    Of her society
    Be not afraid: I met her deity
    Cutting the clouds towards Paphos and her son
    Dove-drawn with her. Here thought they to have done
    Some wanton charm upon this man and maid,
    Whose vows are, that no bed-right shall be paid
    Till Hymen's torch be lighted: but vain;
    Mars's hot minion is returned again;
    Her waspish-headed son has broke his arrows,
    Swears he will shoot no more but play with sparrows
    And be a boy right out.

CERES

    High'st queen of state,
    Great Juno, comes; I know her by her gait.

   ( Enter JUNO)

JUNO

    How does my bounteous sister? Go with me
    To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be
    And honour'd in their issue.

   ( They sing: )

JUNO

    Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
    Long continuance, and increasing,
    Hourly joys be still upon you!
    Juno sings her blessings upon you.

CERES

    Earth's increase, foison plenty,
    Barns and garners never empty,
    Vines and clustering bunches growing,
    Plants with goodly burthen bowing;
    Spring come to you at the farthest
    In the very end of harvest!
    Scarcity and want shall shun you;
    Ceres' blessing so is on you.

FERDINAND

    This is a most majestic vision, and
    Harmoniously charmingly. May I be bold
    To think these spirits?

PROSPERO

    Spirits, which by mine art
    I have from their confines call'd to enact
    My present fancies.

FERDINAND

    Let me live here ever;
    So rare a wonder'd father and a wife
    Makes this place Paradise.

    Juno and Ceres whisper, and send Iris on employment

PROSPERO

    Sweet, now, silence!
    Juno and Ceres whisper seriously;
    There's something else to do: hush, and be mute,
    Or else our spell is marr'd.

IRIS

    You nymphs, call'd Naiads, of the windring brooks,
    With your sedged crowns and ever-harmless looks,
    Leave your crisp channels and on this green land
    Answer your summons; Juno does command:
    Come, temperate nymphs, and help to celebrate
    A contract of true love; be not too late.

fleeting, but oh so beautiful.
the iris

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personality contest

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of course ultimately, I think that the ideal critic should not, in any way, be prejudiced-either favorably or unfavorably-by personal idiosyncrasies of the man whose work he judges. This is a condition which I think should be aspired to-and I have long tried to make it apply to my own judgments, and I know that in some cases, at least, I like the work of certain artists whom I did not like as persons. It is too bad-and in some cases unjust-that people will allow habits of the artist which seem personally unpleasant to them-to imbalance their judgments about the work-because in the end, the artist, and his work, are two entirely distinct things.
(Clarence John Laughlin, photographer to Minor White, photographer, editor of Aperture)

farewell to the past
Clarence John Laughlin
1946

Hallowmas

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& soon forgotten
Eallra Hālgena ǣfen

All Hallows' Even ~e'en

Beauty is but of the Skin

Where Ugly's to the bone
Beauty will but fade away
While Ugly holds its own.

image from the incomparable BibliOdyssey.
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beauty of the spirit

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Ann Atwater is a beauty. She is an older woman-a commanding presence, extremely spiritual & religious, a love and lovely- a beauty. She radiates all the positive attributes of anyone years younger-her body is failing her a bit-but she rolls with it-As she says she has done with her life and her chosen life's work. Ann is a civil rights activist-a noted name in the racially charged city of Durham North Carolina in the 1970's. In fact-Ann Atwater is still a force, a name to be feared- she got things done, and gets things done still. She says she could weild an umbrella, barracade a committee room-saying all she had to do was sit just inside the door because she was a big woman.

Ann is black-her best friend was C.P. Ellis-once Exalted Cyclops of the Ku Klux Klan-now deceased. Ann spoke at Ellis' funeral and sat with the Ellis family. A ten day immersion about segregation and the lid it was blowing off the Durham community- brought these two unlikely people together.

A 2005 film and a book explore the friendship of the pair and Ann shared the film and her words with a group of 30 people- on Monday evening in a room at the Senior Center in my small town in Person County. She sees beauty in the faces of black and white when they come together. She believes in faith-this is her overriding message-It will take you anywhere. She believes in family-she has raised her own and has mothered much of Durham. Ann began her activism because she believed. She believed in the promise of food and shelter for her own when she was at her lowest- this was her motivation for becoming an activist- family first. This message resonates in everything Ann speaks of.

Ann was the daughter of a sharecropper, entering the back door of the white family's home to take leftovers home. They had the first bites-she the leftovers. They had the first word-she didn't have a voice. This was Ann's world. Pregnant at 14-her father insisted the man marry his little girl and she married and began cleaning houses for $3.00 a day after moving to Durham North Carolina. In the parallel universe of Durham-C.P. Ellis was struggling as an attendant and then gas station owner. He had financial problems. They were both in the same boat- so to speak-& they swam out in different directions. C.P. Ellis was seduced by, embraced by and indoctrinated by the Klan-KKK. Ann became a voice for the poor-and she spoke truth to power-She was one of them.

C.P. Ellis was already aware of Ann Atwater-according to him- She was everywhere-they (the Klan) were talking and she was on the move-getting things done-showing up at city and county meetings, doing whatever it took to get her message out there. When the 1971 segregation issue reached it's peak in Durham- a 10 day meeting with Atwater and Ellis co-chairing changed the course of their lives. The goal of the meeting was to bring the whole community together to try to solve the problem. In the film, Ann admits she hated Ellis & the feeling was mutual. Neither wanted to co chair-but neither could refuse-less they would look bad, & they would.
They argued. They argued. During the 10 day "charrette" the two realized their children were suffering and the two were afraid for them. Both wanted the same-a better life for their children. They had argued out of fear. Both were poor-the were really in the same boat- they began to unite, to steer a boat together. They wept. The last night of the 10 day session- Ellis held up his Klan membership card and denounced the Klan-saying if schools would be better by tearing up his card- He would do so. In the 2005 film, Ellis said those one time friends never spoke to him again.

Ellis went on to organize labor for black and white. Ann Atwater continues to do her work and shine her light. Ann believes that Barack Obama is the man for the times. She believes he is called.

Ironically- tomorrow in a neighboring county, elections of the school board members will perhaps determine the future of racial diversity in schools-in other words-the policy of segregation may return.

Ann Atwater's words of wisdom-

Parents should take back their children. Discipline them."Spare the rod and spoil the child."

Always get up earlier than the competition. Stay ahead of the game.

Start at the top of the heap-take your concerns and complaints to the Boss, the Mayor,-whoever that may be.

Love and Faith bring people together. Meeting one on one about any greivance is the beginning of resolving the problem.

Our Fears are likely the Fears of Our foes.

Put your Faith in God.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you-Her life's philosophy.

The KKK lives on in North Carolina. But so do many C.P. Ellises and Ann Atwaters- and that is why there is so much HOPE.


about Ann Atwater here

about the film here "an unlikely friendship"

an interview with C.P. Ellis here
order the book here
PERSON COUNTY FOR CHANGE FORMED IN 2008 AS A GRASSROOTS VOLUNTEER GROUP OF PERSON COUNTY CITIZENS. OUR EFFORTS INCLUDE, ASSISTING WITH VOTER REGISTRATION, CREATING AWARENESS ABOUT EARLY VOTING OPPORTUNITIES FOR PERSON COUNTY CITIZENS, EDUCATING AND SUPPORTING COMMUNITY ISSUES FOR GROWTH IN PERSON COUNTY. OUR FALL PROJECT IS PROVIDING A THANKSGIVING MEAL FOR THOSE IN NEED.
Do Listen



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is it Avedon?

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The inevitable likenesses are made to the beautiful Jean Shrimpton- Though she is most closely tied to photographer-David Bailey-these are my favorite shots of the model-photographed by Richard Avedon.
I have the Vogue April 15 1968 issue with Shrimpton on the cover -again- photographed by Avedon & it is absolutely gorgeous. "Heroines All- A romantic Charade Starring Jean Shrimpton" by Avedon features 8 pages of Shrimpton evoking great 18th century beauties like Lady Hamilton(as Nature), Princess Mary(as Diana), The Duchess of Cleveland(as Minerva), striking poses of these goddesses as painted by the likes of Romney, Lely, Reynolds & Cosway. The model, the subject both beautiful- but the photographer is the magician. Every aspect of this forty year old Vogue spread could insert itself right into a current issue and all the better I might add.

Shrimpton as Nike by Richard Avedon*

... ethereal, au courant.


so when I saw this- I immediately thought, This is Avedon. What do you think? The lighting, the strong resemblance to Jean Shrimpton.



It is in fact-actress Kasia Smutniak. Is the photographer Richard Burbridge? I couldn't discover- and that is unfortunate because the photograph is breathtaking. I haven't sampled the fragrance-but the photograph will no doubt sell many bottles. The photographs here by Burbridge in 2008 again capture a beauty that I see in Avedon's photography. Whoever- the photographer is certainly influenced by Richard Avedon.

I just saw a wonderful quote by Avedon at the Errant Aesthete's site (here)

“The ideal of beauty then

was the opposite of what it is now.

It stood for an extension

of the aristocratic view of women as ideals,

of women as dreams,

of women as almost surreal objects."

-AVEDON

It seems Giorgio Armani agrees-

“I have always carried with me an ideal of femininity – an irresistible combination of grace, beauty and independent spirit. IDOLE d’ARMANI is my tribute to this ideal, and to women everywhere.”

Whether right or wrong- It still seems to be this IDEAL Beauty Avedon describes that makes us think-

Ah Ha-"This is Beauty."

*from the 1968 Vogue April 15 issue
Read more about IDOLE here

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