Color studies IV
Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I fall in love with a new man or woman. This is one of the great pleasurable freedoms of seeking an education in art history. Unfortunately, they’re all dead; this is one of the drawbacks. In the past six months, my amours have included Gilbert Stuart, John Kensett, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, and John Singer Sargent. Along the way, I’ve developed serious crushes on Childe Hassam and Julian Alden Weir, although we haven’t studied them yet. But today I’m the love slave of George Inness. He was a nervous and tempermental little fellow, plagued by epilepsy and debilitating ill health, and he seems to have been convinced that he was a reincarnation of Titian. Okay, so he was a little eccentric. But he painted these:
I’m writing a term paper on him, and my professor gave me an extra copy he had of the catalog from a major Inness show in Los Angeles. I opened it up coming home on the bus, wandered into my local coffee shop with my nose still between the pages, and wallowed in the glorious color prints for an hour and a half. I emerged with my perception of color and light effects still heightened, and all along the four blocks home I was arrested by the red-tipped new growth on trees, the chartreuse buds on the rhododendrons, soft grey and mauve bark, a blaze of magenta heather, a spangling of snowdrops.
When I look at paintings now, there’s a part of my brain that catalogs possibilities for knitting colorwork. I itch to work fair isle in those yellows and russets and whale-skin blues. Absorbed in color as I am right now, it was appropriate that this arrived:
Mmmm…nine hundred yards of wool/camel blend Caravan from Just Our Yarn. Do I really need another sweater’s worth of yarn? Let’s not answer that. I’m weak. I couldn’t resist. Let’s focus on the deliciousness:
Mingus gives it the cheek-rub of approval.
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Ah, the wool is gorgeous. And so in Mingus. 🙂
Unfortunately my great loves are all dead too (Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi… etc. etc…) And most of their great “practitioners” that I love are too… or are no longer actively performing. Isn’t it just sad? Eventually maybe you will fall in love with some live ones – after all, the past must eventually meet the present, right?
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Ah, yes… the joys of a long duree of a humanities education…
I am familiar with John Singer Sargent as the executor of a very famous, very large portrait of M. Carey Thomas, the founder and second president of Bryn Mawr College, where I am attending grad school. It is quite imposing, and very impressive.
Your new hank of yarn is splendid, as well.
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 5:46 pm
That wool is beautiful, but look at your smart hat!
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 5:53 pm
That Mingus sure does know his stuff! I want to cheek rub that yarn, too! 😉
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
That yarn looks positively edible! Mingus has excellent taste.
I hadn’t heard of the artist whose works you shared, and it was nice to meet someone new, even if that someone happens to be dead. I’m particularly impressed with his skies. One of the challenges I found when I was a painter was that skies that are beautiful in life often look bloated and sickly when pinned down with oils. Mr. Inness seems able to make his skies look light and real at once, which is a very rare skill.
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 8:03 pm
ooooooooooooooooo. me in my cold-induced haze can do nothing but admire. so pretty.
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Your post makes me want to head straight for the MoMA or the Met and lose myself in the paintings. What am I saying – I’ve never been big on museums. Ok, I want to run to the library/bookstore and lose myself in a large art history book now. 🙂
The yarn looks lovely – glad ‘Gus approves.
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
The yarn is pretty, but I got totally distracted by your fabulous hat! I really do need to move to Portland.
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
See, now I’m with Karma. I love the hat!
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Sometimes I really miss being in school and studying and learning like you. Enjoy it! That yarn is so nice. Can’t wait to see what you make.
Posted: February 9th, 2007 at 6:02 am
beautiful yarn – I love the little splashes of color….the paintings are amazing. I have often times, those rare occasions I get to go to see them, stepped up close to paintings to see how they used their brushstrokes – was there more brown on that stroke and more yellow on that one? the minute details that make up the big picture..
Posted: February 9th, 2007 at 7:15 am
look at you, outside without a coat on!! it’s been so cold here that i’ve forgotten what that’s like! 🙂 what beautiful yarn and paintings. it’s always a great feeling when one form of art inspires another.
Posted: February 9th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Where to start here… cute hat at the bottom? Amazing paintings at the top? Okay, all of the above and… the cardigan you’re wearing–did you knit that? I always want vintage-looking cardi patterns. Yours is very nice.
Posted: February 9th, 2007 at 11:00 am
And here I thought I liked color! Such descriptions….no wonder color is so yummy!
Posted: February 9th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
I love those skies. Just breathtaking. When I go to the Met in NYC, there is a room with paintings that always leave me speechless. I’m sorry I can’t remember the name of the artist, but the skies are orange and white and pink and pull you right in to the painting. Oh, to have command of a brush like that!
Mingus has to put his scent on the yarn, and leave a few pieces of fur. Otherwise, it’s not officially your yarn! 🙂
Posted: February 9th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Did you make that sweater? Where is the pattern?? 🙂
Posted: February 10th, 2007 at 5:13 am
You and Mingus look so cute playing outside with your yarn! Mmm, outside….
Ah, isn’t art history such an inspirational subject? Oh John Singer Sargent, be still my heart! Beautiful Inness paintings. 🙂
Posted: February 10th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
That wool looks yummy!
Yay for Gilbert Stuart! He’s from my town in Rhode Island!!!
Posted: February 18th, 2008 at 9:53 am
Like everyone else, I LOVE the sweater in these pictures! Did you make it? If so, can you tell me what the pattern is? It’s beautiful! Also, sorry for perusing your website obsessively; I came across this entry yesterday and was trying to find it again. I’m a huge fan of your work… wonderful wool by the way!!!