FOOD FRIDAY - QUINOA TABOULI

“No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.” - Samuel Johnson

Quinoa is a superfood that is very healthful and contains a large variety of nutrients. It looks and cooks like grain, but quinoa is actually a seed with high levels of antioxidant phytonutrients. It’s higher in fat than grains like wheat, and provides heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, in the form of oleic acid. It’s also much higher in protein than most grains.

Quinoa is a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), which is a crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudo-cereal rather than a true cereal, as it is not a member of the true grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beetroots, spinach and tumbleweeds. After harvest, the seeds must be processed to remove the coating containing the bitter-tasting saponins. The seeds should always be rinsed very well to remove any traces of the bitterness remaining.

Quinoa seeds are in general cooked the same way as rice and can be used in a wide range of dishes. Also, unlike many grains, quinoa is quick and easy to cook, and quite tasty. It cooks faster than rice and has lots more nutrients (essential amino acids like lysine, fibre and acceptable quantities of calcium, phosphorus, and iron, as well as being gluten-free). Mild-flavoured, it complements well any vegetable, cheese, meat or seafood that you can cook with. It comes in a variety of colours including white, red and black and can be served hot or cold. Quinoa leaves are also eaten as a leaf vegetable, much like amaranth, but the commercial availability of quinoa greens is limited.

QUINOA TABOULI
Ingredients
1 and 3/4 cups vegetable stock
1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 cup coarsely chopped seeded tomato
1 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup chopped seeded cucumber
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped green onions
2 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons minced fresh onion
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method
Combine stock and quinoa in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat; fluff with a fork. Stir in tomato and remaining ingredients. Cover; let stand 1 hour. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

A GREEK ISLAND

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back whence we came.” - John F. Kennedy

The island of Poros is situated off the East coast of the Peloponnesus, a stone’s throw away from the little coastal town of Galatas.  Less than an hour’s journey from Athens' port, Piraeus, on the Flying Dolphin hovercraft, it is a magical place to visit, exemplifying in many ways the picture of a Greek island most people have in their imagination.

It is a small place, in reality two islands that are joined together by a short isthmus. The smaller of the two, Sphaeria, and the larger Calavria. Ancient settlements on both islands are known from references in ancient authors, but little now remains in the form of ruins. A few slabs of marble from a temple of Poseidon on a wind-blown hill surrounded by pine trees, schinum bushes and yellow stubbly summer-dried grass is enough to evoke ancient mysteries while one gazes at the deepest azure of the sea stretching out to the horizon.

What a magical place those few ruins become in the searing shimmering heat of Greek midsummer!  The drone of the cicadas is made more intense by the heat and the sparkle of the sea while the far-off susurration of the waves breaking gently on the shore is enough to transport one to another age.  How easy it is to imagine the centuries past crumble into insignificance while one is watching the crystal waters of the Aegean lap the embroidered scalloped shores...

Bathing in those same waters while the heat is at its most intense is easily accomplished at any of a hundred or more suitable places all around the coast.  A little to the North of the Neorion bay about 100 meters from the main road joining the two islands is an enchanting little cove, “Love Bay”.  The water is an aqueous greenish blue, crystal clear, reflecting the overhanging pine boughs from the trees that grow almost to the water’s edge.

Look on the smooth rocks that dot the shore on either side of the rocky beach and you will see the black spiny sea urchins that threaten your naked feet.  Limpets hold tightly fast on those same rocks and through the magnifying lenses of the clear sea a hundred little fishes dart around in packed shoals.  The common black urchin of the Mediterranean is easily that day’s lunch by the same shore that invites you back from your swim.

The way that these sea urchins are prepared is simplicity itself, provided one takes care to wear sturdy gloves as the spines are sharp and very pointy. A sharp knife is used to cut open the urchins so that the middle cavity is exposed.  The orange roe is the only edible tasty part.  Wash the roe with sea-water and squeeze ample fresh lemon juice onto the roe.  Eat from the shells with freshly baked crusty bread.

POETRY JAM - THE OWL

“The wailing owl screams solitary to the mournful moon.” - David Mallet

Poetry Jam this week is devoted to owls. We are enjoined to: “So this week think and write about this mysterious of birds. This wonderful, beautiful free spirit of the night sky.”

Here is my contribution:

The Owl and the Moon

Tu-whit tu-whoo...
The owl cries and the crickets chirp
As full moon rises,
Tonight.

Who calls? Who walks?
When all would sleep,
As clouds part,
Tonight?

Tu-whit tu-whoo,
With eyes wide-open,
Mirroring owl-moon,
Tonight!

A ghost? A sprite?
Unquiet graves haunting,
As moon spellbinds,
Tonight…

Tu-whit tu-whoo -
Fear not, walk slow,
True wisdom’s always silent,
Stay calm, and banish demons
Tonight and every night.

My hand is cold,
My heart beats quick,
As owl hoots, tu-whoo,
And nightjar warbles,
Tonight.

An owlet screeches,
A nighthawk cries:
My love wanes cold,
My bed lies empty
Tonight and every night…

APOLLO AND DAPHNE

“Force may subdue, but love gains, and he that forgives first wins the laurel.” - William Penn

Apollo was the ancient Greek god of the sun, light, music, medicine and art. He was the twin brother of Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt and nature. Daphne was Apollo’s first love and this was not brought about by accident, but by the malice of Eros (Cupid), the mischievous son of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Apollo saw the boy Eros playing with his bow and arrows, and being proud of his recent victory over Python, the evil snake that had pursued his pregnant mother, he said to Eros: “Why do you play with warlike weapons, boy?  Leave them for hands worthy of them. Look at my worthy bow and arrows with which I won my battle with Python, who stretched his poisonous body over acres of the plain!”

Aphrodite’s son heard these words, and replied: “Your arrows may strike all things and kill without error, Apollo, but mine shall strike you, and make you regret your words!” He stood on a rock of Mount Parnassus, and drew from his quiver two arrows of different effect, one to excite love, the other to repel it.  The former was of gold and sharp-pointed, the latter blunt and tipped with lead. With the lead shaft he struck the nymph Daphne, the daughter of the river god Peneus, and with the golden one Apollo, through the heart. Immediately, the god passionately fell in love with Daphne, and at the same time, she abhorred even the thought of loving. She delighted in woodland sports and the hunt. When her father asked her to relent and marry to give him a grandson, she said: “Dearest father, grant me this favour, that I may always remain unmarried, like Artemis.”  He consented.

Apollo loved Daphne, and longed to make her his own. He followed her; she fled, swifter than the wind, and would not be swayed by his sweet words.  “Don’t run,” he said, “I am not an enemy, but someone who loves you. I am the god of song and the lyre.  My arrows fly true to the mark; but an arrow more fatal than mine has pierced my heart!  I am the god of medicine, and know the virtues of all healing plants.  But, now I suffer an illness that no balm can cure!”

The nymph continued to run, and would not hear of his entreaties. The god grew impatient to find his wooing rejected, and, sped by Eros, was about to reach her. As her strength failed and saw that she was about to be caught, she called upon her father, the river god: “Help me, my father, Peneus!  Open the earth to swallow me up, or change my form so that I may not be caught and raped!”

Her father heard her and he granted her request. A stiffness seized Daphne’s limbs; her bosom began to be enclosed in a bark; her hair became leaves; her arms became branches; her feet drove in the ground, as roots; her face became a tree-top, retaining nothing of its former self but its beauty.  Apollo stood amazed.  He touched the stem, and felt the flesh tremble under the new bark. He embraced the branches, and lavished kisses on the wood.  The branches shrank from his lips. “Since you cannot be my wife,” he said, “you shall assuredly be my tree.  I will wear you for my crown.  With you I will decorate my harp and my quiver; and when the great Roman conquerors lead up the triumphal pomp to the Capitol, you shall be woven into wreaths for their brows.  And, as eternal youth is mine, you also shall be evergreen, and your leaf know no decay.”  The nymph, now changed into a laurel tree, bowed its head in grateful acknowledgment and the god since then wore a garland of laurel.

The painting above is Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s “Apollo Pursuing Daphne”, c. 1755.

MOVIE MONDAY - AL OTRO LADO

“It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a real father.” - PopeJohn XXIII

A very good Mexican film for Movie Monday today. It is Gustavo Loza’s 2004 film “Al OtroLado” starring Carmen Maura, Héctor Suárez, Vanessa Bauche. Loza also wrote the screenplay for this movie, and it was selected by the Mexican Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as the Official Entry for Mexico in the 78th Annual Academy Awards in the Foreign Language Film category. Although the film did not win an Oscar, it was awarded the prize of the Jury at the 4th Latin America Film Festival in Bremen in 2006. The film also won awards at the Lleida Latin-American Film Festival 2006 and the Newport Beach Film Festival 2006.

The film is a drama featuring three stories on a similar theme about the bonds between children and absent fathers. A Mexican boy, Prisciliano, experiences the absence of his father who decides to go and work in USA as an illegal immigrant. A Cuban boy, Ángel, who lives in poverty with his mother and grandfather, longs to visit his father who lives in USA. A Moroccan girl, Fatima, attempts to reunite with her father, who is working in Spain. The stories are interwoven and the themes are explored in each case with the dangers facing the children who seek their fathers highlighted as the film progresses.

The Mexican story is the most extensively covered and is strengthened by the quasi-fantasy inset of an ill-fated Pre-Columbian princess who haunts a lagoon. The Cuban story was quite tragic and the Moroccan tale had us squirming with its realism, and we were very concerned about poor little Fatima’s fate. As the tales mingle, the pathos of the three children who all wish to be reunited with their absent fathers makes for compelling viewing.

The acting was extremely good and the three children played admirably. After all it is their film, with the adults having supporting roles. The cinematography was very good and the music outstanding – sympathetic to the action, appropriate and never intrusive, but always noticeable. I guess that is what good film music is all about.

“Al Otro Lado” is a modest movie, 90 minutes long, but nevertheless contains great storytelling and avoids cheap sentimentalism, which it could easily have descended into. Telling the story from the viewpoint of the children, reduces it to its most essential and human component, with emigration seen as terrible thing that separates families. The stories are told sincerely, with some funny moments and some poignant ones.  We enjoyed it very much and recommend it most highly.

ART SUNDAY - WILLIAM GLACKENS

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” - Jonathan Swift

William James Glackens (born March 13, 1870, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died May 22, 1938, Westport, Conn.), was an American artist whose paintings of street scenes and middle-class urban life rejected the dictates of 19th-century academic art and introduced a matter-of-fact realism into the art of the United States. He was a member of the artists group, The Eight, who favoured cheerful subjects of leisure activities over the dark manner and social realism of others in that circle.

Born in Philadelphia, Glackens attended Central High School along with John Sloan and the collector Albert C. Barnes. In 1891 he began a career as an artist-reporter for various Philadelphia newspapers and in the evenings, attended classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. That same year Sloan introduced him to Robert Henri, with whom Glackens shared a studio for a year and a half. After travelling to France and The Netherlands in 1895, Glackens moved to New York, where he continued working as an artist-reporter, magazine illustrator, and painter. In 1898 he accompanied the U.S. Army to Cuba to record the Spanish-American War for McClure’s magazine.

In 1904, Glackens gave up illustration in order to devote himself to painting. He made a second trip to Europe in 1906, returning to New York to prepare for an exhibition of paintings by The Eight held in 1908. In the same year, one of Glackens’s paintings was shown at the National Academy of Design, where the New York public was surprised at the change in the artist’s palette. After nearly a decade and a half of producing paintings that reflected the influence of Robert Henri in their muted colours and gestural brushstrokes, Glackens, inspired by his visits to France and the Netherlands, had turned to depicting outdoor scenes, using bright, lively colours.

His change in style was reinforced by frequent trips to France, including a 1912 journey sponsored by his friend Albert Barnes, who sent Glackens to France as his agent to purchase contemporary French paintings, including works by Cézanne, Matisse, and Renoir. Glackens served as chairman of the committee that selected American art for the Armory Show in 1913, and later, in 1917, was first president of the Society of Independent Artists.

Glackens’s mature style suggests Monet’s paintings of the 1860s in the broad and direct treatment of colour, quick touch, and jewel-like dashes of colour that denote foliage and the sun’s shimmering reflections on the water. Glackens distinguished himself from impressionism, however, by not allowing light to dissolve the contour of his forms. From about 1925 to 1932 he divided his time between New York and France, but he continued his involvement in the New York art world and his friendship with other artists associated with The Eight until his death in 1938.

Glackens is sometimes criticised for his similarity to Renoir. The critics branded him as an imitator. The charge was made that during the 1920s and 1930s “his once vigorous artistic personality had been blunted by too close an imitation of Renoir’s late style.” Glackens himself seems not to have been affected by any doubts about his own purpose and originality. His art did not reflect the social crises of the day, such as the Great Depression; rather, it offered a refuge from that darkness.

Collector Albert C. Barnes bought many of Glackens’ best paintings, some of which are exhibited by the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and Juliana Force were admirers and purchased works for the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Duncan Phillips purchased a Glackens oil for the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The largest collection of Glackens’ art has been housed since 2001 at the Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale, where an entire wing is dedicated to his work; the museum holds approximately 500 Glackens paintings in its permanent collection.

The painting from ca 1905 above, “Central Park in Winter” (63.5 x 76.2 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) is a favourite of mine. Glackens often favoured the almost square format shown here and this particular painting shows his style well. A nicely composed canvas, with rich colours, despite the wintry scene and fluid lines with strategically placed figures that show him to be a master of observation.

MUSIC SATURDAY - RACHMANINOFF

“Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.” - Tom Lehrer

For Music Saturday, Sergei Rachmaninoff playing his own Concerto No 2 for Piano and Orchestra.  The Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, is a concerto for piano and orchestra composed between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901. The second and third movements were first performed with the composer as soloist on 2 December 1900. The complete work was premiered, again with the composer as soloist, on 9 November 1901, with his cousin Alexander Siloti conducting. This piece is one of Rachmaninoff's most enduringly popular pieces, and established his fame as a concerto composer.

The work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B flat(I mov.) and A (II & III mov.), 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in B flat, 3 trombones (2 tenor, 1 bass), tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, solo piano and strings. It is written in three-movement concerto form.

FOOD FRIDAY - PASTELI

“It is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all.” - Laura Ingalls Wilder

For Food Friday today, a Byzantine recipe. The Byzantine Empire was the Greek-speaking continuation of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), originally known as Byzantium. Initially it was the Greek-speaking eastern half of the Roman Empire (often called the Eastern Roman Empire in this context), and it survived the 5th century fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire, continuing to exist for an additional thousand years until Byzantium fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe.

We know the Byzantines ate three meals a day - breakfast, midday meal and supper. They had many fast days, corresponding with the Greek Orthodox Christian tradition. While the lower classes made do with what they could get, the upper classes were served three courses at their midday and supper meals consisting of hors d’oeuvres, a main course of fish or meat and a sweet course.

They ate all kinds of meats including pork, and numerous types of fowl. Large amounts of fresh fish and seafood were very popular given the proximity of the sea. There were many types of soups and stews and salads were popular. They liked a variety of cheeses and fruits, the latter being eaten both fresh and cooked. Fruits included apples, melons, dates, figs, grapes and pomegranates. Almonds, walnuts, and pistachios were used in many dishes as well as being eaten by themselves. Sugar was not known in Europe at the time, so the sweetening agent used was honey.

PASTÉLI (Sesame-Honey Diamonds)

Ingredients
Honey
Toasted sesame seeds (put into the oven and roast until golden – do not over-cook!)
Orange flower water

Method

Use equal weights of honey and sesame seeds. In a heavy skillet bring the honey to a very firm ball stage (120° to 125° C). Stir in the sesame seeds and continue cooking until the mixture comes to a bubbling boil. Spread the mixture 1 cm thick on a marble slab or tray moistened with orange flower water. Cool and cut into small diamonds. Garnish each diamond with a blanched, toasted almond if desired.

This post is part of the Food Friday meme,

and also part fo the Food Trip Friday meme.

APHRODITE AND ADONIS

“Love is powerful. It can bring the gods to their knees.” ― Rick Riordan

Aphrodite (Venus) was the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty and her son was Eros (Cupid). Eros was a playful and mischievous child who had a toy bow and arrow, whose points however, were sharp and dangerous. When he shot his arrows into the breast of both mortals and gods, they fell in love with whomever they saw first. When Aphrodite was playing with her son one day, she inadvertently wounded her bosom with one of his arrows.  She pushed the child away in pain, and saw that the wound was deeper than she thought. 

Before the goddess’s wound healed she saw a handsome mortal youth, Adonis, and instantly fell in love with him. She no longer took any interest in her favourite resorts, Paphos, and Cnidos, and Amathos. She even kept away from Olympus and the company of other gods, as Adonis was dearer to her than heaven. She followed him everywhere and kept him company. She who used to lie in the shade, with no care but to cultivate her charms, now rambled through the woods and over the hills, dressed like the huntress Artemis, accompanying the young Adonis while he hunted.  She called her dogs, and chased hares and stags, or other game that it is safe to hunt, but kept clear of the wolves and bears, reeking with the slaughter of the herd.

She told Adonis to beware of dangerous animals in the hunt. “Take care how you expose yourself to danger, and put my happiness to risk. Don’t attack the beasts that Nature has armed with weapons. Think of the terrible claws and strength of lions and bears and boars!  I hate the whole race of them.” She said. Having given him this warning, she mounted her chariot drawn by swans, and drove away through the air.

Adonis was too noble and brave to heed Aphrodite’s warnings. The dogs had roused a wild boar from his lair, and the youth threw his spear and wounded the animal with a sidelong stroke.  The beast drew out the weapon with his jaws, and rushed after Adonis, who turned and ran; but the boar overtook him, and buried his tusks in his side, and he stretched out, dying on the plain.

Aphrodite, in her chariot, had not yet reached Cyprus, when she heard coming up through midair the dying groans of her beloved, and turned her chariot back to earth. As she drew near and saw from on high his lifeless body bathed in blood, she alighted, and bending over it beat her breast and tore her hair.  Reproaching the Fates, she said, “Yet you shall have but a partial triumph; memorials of my grief shall endure, and the spectacle of your death, my Adonis, and of my lamentation shall be annually renewed.  Your blood shall be changed into a flower; that consolation none can envy me.”

She sprinkled nectar, the drink of the gods, on Adonis’s blood; and as the two mingled, bubbles rose, and forthwith there sprang up a flower of bloody hue like that of pomegranate seeds.  But it is short-lived.  It is called Adonis flower (Adonis annua), or Pheasant’s Eye, and it blooms in Autumn in North Africa, Western Asia, the Mediterranean, and Europe.

POETRY JAM - SAVOUR THE FOOD

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” - T. S. Eliot
 
Poetry Jam this week has asked participants to: “Write a culinary poem. Write about your favorite food, a special meal you remember, a family recipe that has been passed over the years. Your poem can be literal or metaphorical, simple or complex…”
Here is my offering:
 

Drinking Bitter Coffee at the Café of Broken Promises
 
Quite by chance, I went by the Café
Where once – a lifetime ago – we had sought
Shelter from Autumn rain.
I wandered in, half expecting to see you smiling,
Beckoning me from that same booth
That we had shared, while grey afternoon wore on,
And rain, thankfully, kept falling...
 

We shook the rain off our hair – I remember –
And how we laughed, as the tabletop was spread
With hundreds of diamonds: Raindrops that caught
The pale yellow light of the bare bulb above,
Shattering its puny glow into a million sunrays
That illumined richly for that moment
The deepest cellars of our souls.
 

We sipped the steaming coffee and it was sweet nectar,
Although we clean forgot to sugar it.
Our legs brushed under the table
And your eyes promised me a hundred happinesses;
“Tomorrow...” you had whispered and I only smiled,
My silence more eloquent than a thousand pictures...
 

I order coffee yet again this Spring morning
And though the sun shines brightly outside,
I am sure I can hear the drumming of rain on the tin roof.
I lose count of the lumps of sugar
I am drowning in my cup, but each sip of coffee
Is more bitter than the one before it.
 

I stretch my legs beneath the table
Encountering a bottomless abyss,
While from the neighbouring booth, someone laughs,
And says quite loudly: “It was yesterday!”
 

By chance, I find myself once again
Drinking bitter coffee in some city Café;
A tawdry, cheap, noisy, smoky place,
Where one would never go to more than once...

JOHNNY APPLESEED IN LITHUANIA

“Every solution of a problem is a new problem.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
 

Today is the National Day of Lithuania (Day of Restoration of Independence of Lithuania - from the Soviet Union in 1990); and Johnny Appleseed Day in the USA. The Orthodox Church today celebrates the Venerable Theodora of Arta, Queen of Arta, wife of Despot Michael II of Epirus (ca 1275) and Saint Sophronius of Jerusalem, Patriarch of Jerusalem (638). The Catholic Church celebrates Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Gobnait.
 

In 1858 the immaculate Virgin Mary appeared to Bernadette Soubirous, near Lourdes in France, in the cavern called “de Massabielle.” Through this poor, fourteen-year-old girl, Mary calls on sinners to change their lives. She has inspired in the Church a great love of prayer and good works, especially in the service of the poor and the sick.
 

St Gobnait is a fifth-century Irish saint. Although there are many legends and traditions associated with her, there are few if any historical facts. This commonly happens to people whose memory is kept alive by tradition rather than written records, and it casts no doubt on her existence or her merits.
 

Today is also the anniversary of the birth of:
Torquato Tasso, Italian poet (1544);
Urbain Le Verrier, astronomer (1811);
Henry Tate, Tate gallery founder (1819?);
Marius Petipa, choreographer (1822);
Raoul Walsh, actor/film-maker (1887);
Henry Dixon Cowell, composer (1897);
Dorothy Gish (Dorothy de Guiche), actress (1898);
Frederick IX, king of Denmark (1899);
Lawrence Welk, US bandleader (1903);
Harold Wilson, UK politician (1916);
Nicolaas Bloembergen, Nobel Laureate (1981) physicist (1920);
Althea Louise Brough, tennis player (1928);
David Gentleman, painter (1930);
(Keith) Rupert Murdoch, media magnate (1931);
Douglas Noel Adams, author (1952).
 

The bee orchid, Ophrys apifera, is the birthday flower for this day.  The generic name is derived from the Greek word for eyebrow, ophrys, according to Pliny in reference to the use of the plant for darkening ladies’ eyebrows.  Apifera in Latin signifies bee-bearing reflecting the flower’s resemblance to a bee.  The flower symbolises error.
 

Dying on this day: In 1602, Emilio de’ Cavalieri, Italian composer of one of the first operas; 1820, Benjamin West, US painter who became President of the Royal Academy in London; in 1820, Sir Alexander McKenzie, Scottish explorer of Canada; in 1955, Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish bacteriologist and discoverer of penicillin; in 1957, Earle Stanley Gardner, US lawyer and crime writer who created Perry Mason; in 1957, Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, US aviator and explorer.
 

John Chapman (September 26, 1774 – March 11, 1845), often called Johnny Appleseed, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sights such as the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio and the Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center in between Lucas, Ohio and Mifflin, Ohio.
 

The popular image is of Johnny Appleseed spreading apple seeds randomly, everywhere he went. In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbour who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. Although apples grown from seed are rarely sweet or tasty, apple orchards with sour apples were popular among the American settlers because apples were mainly used for producing hard cider and apple jack. In some periods of the settlement of the Midwest, settlers were required by law to plant orchards of apples and pears in order to uphold the right to the claimed land. So Johnny Appleseed planted orchards that made for popular real estate on the frontier.

MOVIE MONDAY - THE MASTER

“Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.” - Aldous Huxley
 
We watched a curious film recently, one which I can’t really say whether I liked or not. It was a little tedious, but at the same time one wanted to see what was going to happen, if anything. It reminded of many other films and novels and one could see the inspiration for it must have come from a range of other pieces. It was Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2012 film, “The Master” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, and Amy Adams. At 144 minutes it was a very long, long film – or so it seemed. The film was written and directed by Anderson.
 
Anderson has several successful movies under his belt, and I have seen and enjoyed some of them: “Magnolia” (perhaps my favourite), “Punch-Drunk Love”, and “There Will Be Blood” (another very good film). So this film of his rather disappointed us. I suspect that in a few weeks time, I shall have quite forgotten it. Don’t take me wrong, it is a highly polished piece of film-making, with good acting, great cinematography (70 mm print), good music, great period sets, but it lacked a certain something and failed to fully engage me. On reflection, the most serious defect was the weakness of the script.
 
In a nutshell, the plot concerns Freddie Quell (Phoenix) who is a troubled alcoholic and self-destructive drifter. Quell unwittingly becomes the right-hand man of Lancaster Dodd (Seymour Hoffman), ‘The Master’ of a cult named ‘The Cause’ in post-WWII USA. Their curious relationship is the centrepiece of the film. The film explores cult fanaticism and exposes the lies that are peddled as religion. It is a thinly veiled swipe at Scientology, and it did cause ripples amongst Scientologists even before its release. Anderson has not mentioned Scientology, of course, and has thus broadened the scope of his film.
 
Hoffman was an accomplished actor and plays this role with great gusto, with almost caricature vehemence, and Amy Adams is highly effective as the Master’s wife. This is Joaquin Phoenix’s film and he gives a great performance, even though it was difficult for him to do more with the material given the weakness of the story line.
 
The film fails because it ignores simple story-telling rules. The script provides no opportunity for crisis, resolution and strong dénouement. It undulates weakly over two hours about a straight line. Although the actors perform very well and the scenes are constructed well, the movie just continues to plod along, seemingly going nowhere - there is no strong development. Is the film about an alcoholic misfit who has been scarred by war? Is it about a cult leader who has psychological issues? Is it about the development of characters so that they become better/worse? No, to all of these. It is a film made of random interactions between the characters, scenes that don’t add to a good story.
 
We really wanted to like this film but ultimately when it finished, we thought: “Oh, is that it?” and probably felt relief. Perhaps another of its weak points was the lack of any character that was truly likeable, I don’t know… One may hope that Anderson’s next film “Inherent Vice”, now in post-production, is a much better one.

ART SUNDAY - WINSTON CHURCHILL

“Experiments with a child’s paint-box led me the next morning to produce a complete outfit in oils.” – Winston Churchill
 

For Art Sunday today, art by a non-artist. Rather, art by a man better known for his achievements as a writer, statesman and politician. Sir Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) was one of the great world leaders of the 20th century. His leadership helped Britain to stand strong against Hitler and the Nazis, even when they were the last country left fighting. He is also famous for his inspiring speeches and quotes.
 

Churchill was born on November 30th, 1874 in Oxfordshire, England. He was actually born in a room in Blenheim Palace. His parents were wealthy aristocrats. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a politician who held many high offices in the British government. Young Winston attended the Royal Military College and joined the British cavalry upon graduation. He travelled to many places while with the military and worked as a newspaper correspondent, writing stories about battles and being a soldier. While in South Africa during the Second Boer War, Winston Churchill was captured and became a prisoner of war. He managed to escape from prison and traveled 300 miles to be rescued. As a result, he became something of a hero in Britain for a while.
 

In 1900 Churchill was elected to Parliament. Over the next 30 years he would hold a number of different offices in the government including a cabinet post in 1908. Churchill married Clementine Hozier in 1908. They had five children including four daughters and one son. His career had many ups and downs during this time, but he also became famous for many of his writings. At the outbreak of World War II, Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty in command of the Royal Navy. At the same time the current Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, wanted to appease Germany and Hitler. Churchill knew this would not work and warned the government that they needed to help fight Hitler or Hitler would soon take over all of Europe. As Germany continued to advance, the country lost confidence in Chamberlain. Finally, Chamberlain resigned and Winston Churchill was chosen to be his successor as Prime Minister on May 10, 1940.
 

Soon after Churchill became Prime Minister, Germany invaded France and Britain was alone in Europe fighting Hitler. Churchill inspired his country to keep fighting despite the bad circumstances. He also helped to forge an alliance of Allied Powers with the Soviet Union and the United States. Even though he did not like Joseph Stalin and the communists of the Soviet Union, he knew the Allies needed their help to fight Germany. With the Allies help, and Churchill’s leadership, the British were able to hold off Hitler. After a long and brutal war they were able to defeat Hitler and the Germans.
 

After the war, Churchill’s party lost the election and he was no longer Prime Minister. He was still a major leader in the government, however. He was again elected Prime Minister in 1951. He served his country for many years and then retired. He died on January 24, 1965. Churchill was concerned about the Soviet Union and the Red Army. He felt they were just as dangerous as Hitler now that the Germans were defeated. He was right as soon after World War II ended, the Cold War between the Western nations of NATO (such as Britain, France, USA) and communist Soviet Union began.
 

Some interesting facts about Churchill:

• He wrote a number of historical books and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953.
• He was named an honorary citizen of the United States.
• Winston did not do well in school as a child. He also had trouble getting into the Royal Military College. Although, once in, he finished near the top of his class.
• He was not healthy during World War II. He had a heart attack in 1941 and pneumonia in 1943.

Churchill was forty before he discovered the pleasures of painting. The compositional challenge of depicting a landscape gave the heroic rebel in him temporary repose. He possessed the heightened perception of the genuine artist to whom no scene is commonplace. Over a period of forty-eight years his creativity yielded more than 500 pictures. His art quickly became half passion, half philosophy. He enjoyed holding forth in speech and print on the aesthetic rewards for amateur devotees. To him it was the greatest of hobbies. He had found his other world: A respite from crowding events and pulsating politics.
 

Winston Churchill took great pleasure in painting, especially after his resignation as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1915. He found a haven in art to overcome the spells of depression which he suffered throughout his life. Churchill was persuaded and taught to paint by his artist friend, Paul Maze, whom he met during the First World War. Maze was a great influence on Churchill’s painting and became a lifelong painting companion.
 

Churchill is best known for his impressionist scenes of landscape, many of which were painted while on holiday in the South of France, Egypt or Morocco. Using the pseudonym “Charles Morin” he continued his hobby throughout his life and painted hundreds of paintings, many of which are on show in the studio at Chartwell as well as private collections.
 

Most of his paintings are oil-based and feature landscapes, but he also did a number of interior scenes and portraits. In 1925 Lord Duveen, Kenneth Clark, and Oswald Birley selected his Winter Sunshine as the prize winner in a contest for anonymous amateur artists. Due to obvious time constraints, Churchill attempted only one painting during the Second World War. He completed the painting from the tower of the Villa Taylor in Marrakesh.
 

Some of his paintings can today be seen in the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection at the Dallas Museum of Art. Emery Reves was Churchill’s American publisher, as well as a close friend and Churchill often visited Emery and his wife at their villa, ‘La Pausa’, in the South of France, which had originally been built in 1927 for Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel by her lover Bendor, 2nd Duke of Westminster. The villa was rebuilt within the museum in 1985 with a gallery of Churchill paintings and memorabilia.
 

The painting above is “The Harbour at St. Jean Cap Ferrat” (1921). Here you can find a site where many of Churchill’s paintings may be accessed and admired.

MUSIC SATURDAY - A COMPOSING WOMAN

“A woman is like a tea bag - you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
 
Happy International Women’s Day! March 8 is International Women's Day as commemorated by the United Nations and celebrated in many countries around the world. Women on all continents, who are often divided by nationality, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, and they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.
 
This commemorative day celebrates ordinary women as makers of history and as the foundation stone on which family is built. The idea of an International Women’s Day first arose at the turn of the 20^th century, which in the then industrialised world was a period of expansion and turbulence, social and economic changes, booming population growth and radical ideologies.
 
For Music Saturday, music by an Australian woman, Peggy Winsome Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990). Glanville-Hicks was born in St Kilda, Melbourne in 1912. At age 15 she began studying composition with Fritz Hart in Melbourne. She also studied the piano under Waldemar Seidel. She spent the years from 1931 to 1936 as a student at the Royal College of Music in London, where she studied piano with Arthur Benjamin, conducting with Constant Lambert and Malcolm Sargent, and composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams (she later asserted that the idea that opens Vaughan Williams’ 4th Symphony was taken from her, and it reappears in her 1950s opera “The Transposed Heads”). Her teachers also included Egon Wellesz.
 
From 1949 to 1958 she served as a critic for the New York Herald Tribune and took out U.S. citizenship. After leaving America, she lived in Greece from 1957 to 1976. In the United States she asked George Antheil to revise his “Ballet Mécanique” for a modern percussion ensemble for a concert she helped to organise before returning to Australia in the late 1970s. She lost her sight in the last years of living in the U.S. as a result of a brain tumour. She had this tumour successfully removed in a marathon operation and regained her sight. However, a result of this operation was her loss of a sense of smell.
 
She died in Sydney in 1990. Her will established the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers’ House in her home in Paddington, Sydney, as a residency for Australian and overseas composers. Major works in her output include the “Sinfonia da Pacifica”, “Etruscan Concerto”, “Concerto Romantico”, and her “Harp Sonata” which was premiered by Nicanor Zabaleta in 1953, as well as several operas. Her best known operas are “The Transposed Heads” and “Nausicaa”. “The Transposed Heads” is in six scenes with a libretto by the composer after Thomas Mann and premiered in Louisville, Kentucky on 27 March 1954.
 
“Nausicaa” was composed in 1959-60 and premiered in Athens in 1961. The libretto was prepared together with Robert Graves in Majorca in 1956, based on his novel “Homer’s Daughter.” Her last opera, “Sappho”, was composed in 1963 for the San Francisco Opera, with hopes that Maria Callas would sing the title role. However, the company rejected the work and it has never been produced. This opera was recorded in 2012 by Jennifer Condon conducting the Orquestra Gulbenkian and Coro Gulbenkian with Deborah Polaski in the title role.
 
She was married to British composer Stanley Bate, who was gay, from 1938 to 1949, when they divorced. She married journalist Rafael da Costa in 1952; the couple divorced the following year. She was also involved with Mario Monteforte Toledo and Theodore Thomson Flynn. Like Bate, many of the men with whom Glanville-Hicks was close were gay; she had few intimate female friends, and often dressed in male attire. She was an intimate friend of the expatriate U.S. writer and composer Paul Bowles, and they remained very close all their lives.
 
Here is her “Etruscan Concerto” for Piano. Glanville-Hicks wrote the “Etruscan Concerto” in 1954 for the then 32-year-old Italian virtuoso pianist Carlo Bussotti. The Etruscan was the first of three concerto-like works composed by her in the mid 1950s, followed by the “Concertino Antico” (1955) for harp and string quartet, and the “Concerto Romantico” (1956) for viola and chamber orchestra. The commission forms part of a cluster of successful works written during this decade, which was to be the most productive period of her composing career. Lester Trimble said of this work: “[It is]...riotously rhythmic in its speedy movements ...all very delicately exotic, and yet quite clear and Anglo-Saxon in its means.”

FOOD FRIDAY - PASTA AL PESTO

“Pasta doesn’t make you fat. How much pasta you eat makes you fat.” - Giada De Laurentiis
 
The basil in our back yard is in full growth spurt phase at the moment and the first few flowers have started appearing. What better to use it up gainfully than a classic Italian dish for Food Friday:
 
Pasta al Pesto
Ingredients
1 garlic clove, crushed
50 g chopped fresh basil
3 tablespoonfuls chopped pine nuts
2 teaspoonful salt
Freshly ground pepper
250 mL olive oil
50 g grated Parmesan cheese
2 servings of your favourite cooked pasta (we make it with spaghettini – it cooks in only 8 minutes, and that is a touch past al dente, as we favour our pasta softer!)
 
Method
Crush the basil, garlic and pine nuts in a mortar until the mixture forms a smooth paste.  Add the salt and pepper.  Gradually pound in the oil, then the cheese until the sauce is smooth and thick. Pour over the spaghetti and toss until the pasta is thoroughly coated. Garnish with freshly grated cheese and basil or other herb leaves, and serve immediately.
 
This post is part of the Food Friday meme,
and also part of the Food Trip Friday meme.

EUROPEAN DAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS

“Do you have the right to be silent in the face of evil, do you have the right not to stand witness; do you the right to let your fear speak for you?” – Esad Kocan
 

March 6 is the European day of the Righteous, a celebration established in 2012 by the European Parliament to commemorate those who have stood up against crimes against humanity and totalitarianism with their own moral responsibility. By this celebration the concept of Righteous as worked out by Yad Vashem is broadened to all genocide cases and forms of totalitarianism thanks to the commitment of Moshe Bejski. The European day of the Righteous is celebrated every year on 6 March, the anniversary of Moshe Bejski’s death.
 

Moshe Bejski (Dzialoszyce, 29 December 1921 – Tel Aviv, 6 March 2007) was an Israeli judge, President of “Yad Vashem” Righteous Commission. Moshe Bejski’s quest for the Righteous demonstrates that it is possible to act against evil with a simple act of good, and not necessarily having to become a martyr. As long as one has the moral inclination to do so one may make a big difference. There are no barriers, neither ethnic, nor religious; neither ideological nor sociological, when one puts human beings at the centre of one’s world of values.
 

The call for the European Union and the Council of Europe to set up a European day in the memory of the Righteous came from a hundred prominent Italian and European personalities of the world of culture under the aegis of non-profit association Gariwo, the forest of the Righteous. It soon received the support of important institutions such as the Presidency of the Republic of Poland, the Václav Havel foundatioon, the association run by father Luigi Ciotti “Libera, numeri e nomi contro le mafie” and many other influent entities from all over Europe. The most famous signatories include Umberto Eco, Dario Fo, Daniel Goldhagen.
 

The educational charity Gariwo is part of the network Gardens of the Righteous Worldwide (www.gariwo.net) and was registered in Sarajevo in 2001. The organisation campaigns to develop civil courage among young people in the Balkans to stand up against ethnic and religious antagonism, bigotry, intolerance of diversity, all kinds of group prejudice, corruption, intimidation, bullying, physical abuse and violence.
 

Specific Aims of the Programme Education for Civil Courage are:
To raise public awareness of moral and social issues and their chief purpose
To encourage citizens to think in terms of their whole society rather than identify mainly with ethnic groups
To persuade citizens to take responsibility for changing their society
To inspire self-confidence that individual and collective action can succeed
To train particularly young people in the practical skills for constructive opposition.

POETRY JAM - BOTTLES

“Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.” - Diane Ackerman
 

Poetry Jam this week bottles the good stuff with a challenge based on bottles of all kinds. “Whatever you decide, put bottle in your poetry this week”, was the suggestion. Here is my poem:
 

The Scent Bottle
 

A mislaid, forgotten bottle of your scent
I found today and opened to inhale;
A flood of memories spun a rich tale,
With costly perfumes from Tashkent,
Souvenirs of glances hidden by a veil.
 

Your pale demeanour, golden hair
Enveloped in a cloud of fragrance,
Enhancing so your silky elegance;
Reminding me, through scent so rare,
Our parting – making me despair.
 

The citrus, civet and the earthy musk
Are mixed with the delights of rose;
The smells waft, delicately to caress the nose.
The summery afternoon, the violet dusk
What marvels does a scent bottle enclose!
 

My wandering fingers on your skin
I recollect, absorbing with each touch
An aromatic kiss – in love so much!
Warm ambergris like sounds of violin,
Fading recall, as snowflake, to clutch.
 

A perfume bottle and your memory I seek,
In billows of vetiver, nard and myrrh.
My loss, the scent I smell, will now aver
Times past, of happiness gone, to speak,
As echoes of long-lost love I stir…

MARDI GRAS & ASH WEDNESDAY 2014

“Everything being a constant carnival, there is no carnival left.” - Victor Hugo
 
Mardi Gras, or “Fat Tuesday”, or “Pancake Tuesday” are alternative names for Shrove Tuesday, which this year falls on March 4. In most Western churches this is the last day of the pre-Lenten non-fasting period.  It was a day during which all remaining eggs, milk, butter and cheese in the house had to be consumed, hence the custom of making pancakes. It is also the last day before Lent for making merry, hence the Mardi Gras parades and fancy dress.
 
PANCAKES 
Ingredients
1          pint (≈ 470 mL) cream
6          fresh eggs
1/4        pound  (≈ 114 g) sugar
1          nutmeg, grated
            flour to make a thin batter 
            some butter for frying
 
Method 
Beat well the cream and eggs together and add the sugar and nutmeg.  Add as much flour as will make a thin pancake batter. Be careful as not to add much flour.  Grease the hot pan with a little butter and wipe lightly with a cloth.  Spoon the batter so that the bottom of the pan is covered evenly and thinly. Fry the pancake well on one side and then toss quickly so that the other side is also a golden brown colour.  Serve with savoury or sweet fillings.
 
Ash Wednesday is the first day of the Lenten fasting period in most Western churches, which this year falls on March 5. In the past, people who had sinned gravely were not allowed to take communion during Lent and had to prepare themselves all during Lent. They did this by wearing sackcloth and being sprinkled with ashes in the 40 days of Lent.  In the 9th century this practice began to die out, but priests retained the custom Ash Wednesday as a reminder of the need of penitence and repentance during Lent.  On Ash Wednesday, the priest takes some ashes and makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of the faithful.  The ashes are those of the palms that were used on Palm Sunday the previous year.  The ashes should remind the faithful that “they are but dust, and to dust they shall return.”
 
Beginning on Ash Wednesday and lasting until Easter, the atmosphere in churches is very subdued, with minimal lighting being used. The statues and ikons are draped in purple and the priests also wear purple vestments. This is a colour symbolising penitence and sorrow, thus being in keeping with the Lenten period which reminds people of Christ’s sacrifice for them.
            Is this a Fast, to keep
            The larder lean and clean
            From fat of veals and sheeps?
 
            Is it to quit the dish
            Of flesh, yet still to fill
            The platter high with fish?
 
            No; ‘tis a Fast to dole
            Thy sheaf of wheat and meat
            Unto the hungry soul.
 
            It is to fast from strife
            From old debate and hate 
            To circumcise thy life.
 
Noble Numbers (1647); Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

MOVIE MONDAY - 2014 OSCARS

“A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad.” - Samuel Goldwyn
 
Well, the 86th Academy Awards winners have been announced with:
Best Picture – “12 Years a Slave”
Best Actor in a Leading Role – Matthew McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”)
Best Actress in a Leading Role – Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Jared Leto (“Dallas Buyers Club”)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”)
Best Animated Feature – “Frozen” (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, Peter Del Vecho)
Best Cinematography – “Gravity” (Emmanuel Lubezki)
Best Costume Design – “The Great Gatsby” (Catherine Martin)
Best Directing – “Gravity” (Alfonso Cuarón)
Best Foreign Language Film – “The Great Beauty” (Italy)
 
I was rather glad to see that “The Wolf of Wall St” was shunned by the Academy, as was “American Hustle”. It was not unexpected that the Academy’s sympathies would lean towards “12 Years a Slave”, a non-fiction story, based on a memoir written in 1853, which was also the source for the 1984 made-for-TV movie, American Playhouse: “Solomon Northup’s Odyssey” (1984). I look forward to watching this movie, and in particular Lupita Nyong’o’s performance, which was Oscar material.
 
It seems that there were many things in common with the Golden Globe awards, which were handed out in mid-January earlier this year.
 
Our own Cate Blanchett won an Oscar under the direction of Woody Allen in “Blue Jasmine” and this another movie we would like to put on list of films to watch. It’s interesting that in an online interview, Woody Allen said that Cate Blanchett was his first choice for the actress he was considering to play Jasmine. He stated he’d first seen her in the movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and asked ‘who is this woman?’ He later said he’d heard her performances were like the hydrogen bomb. When the interviewer asked who he would have chosen if Cate Blanchett was not available, Allen said he had a couple of other actresses in mind but did not name them.
 
It’s interesting that “Philomena” did not pick up any awards, even though it was nominated for four: Aside from Best Picture, Dench was nominated for Best Actress, Alexandre Desplat was nominated for Best Original Score, while Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope earned a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. This sounds like an interesting film and with wins in the Toronto and Venice film festivals, it is another movie that is on “to watch” list.
 
Ellen DeGeneres hosting the Oscars this year provided many opportunities for mayhem and lots of mildly amusing moments, taking the edge of many a disappointment, I think. Her wisecracks like: “Jonah Hill is nominated for ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’. Jonah, you showed us something in that film that I have not seen for a very, very long time… get it?”, were on the edge of good taste and the pizza ordering left something to be desired taste-wise too.
 
Every time an actor is interviewed about the Oscars, they always say that: “It’s an honour just to be nominated…” Surely it must be, but the $50,000 worth of goodies they get in a luxury swag bag is quite a consolation prize. The most prolific nominees (i.e. the actors and directors - writers, producers and technicians are ruled out) each receive a bag of treats for showing up to the awards ceremony. The appropriately titled “Distinctive Assets Everybody Wins” goodie bag’s contents change evey year, but the theme is usually around luxury pampering gifts and charitable items. What was in the 2014 Oscars goodie bag? Here are some of the items in the packages that 25 nominees received:
 
Polar Loop Activity Tracker ($109.95)
Narrative Clip Camera ($279)
Jitseu Handbags ($279)
Jan Lewis Designs Bracelet ($400)
Max Martin Shoes ($750)
Huntley Drive Fitness Training Sessions ($850)
Gizara Arts Print ($1,000)
Epic Pet Health Therapy ($1,571.98)
Koala Landing Resort Stay in Kauai ($2,000)
Steamist Home Spa System ($2,560)
Imanta Mexico Resort Stay ($3,300)
Rocky Mountaineer Train Trip ($4,078)
Halo Natural Pet Food ($6,142.89)
Best of Vegas Tour Package ($9,000)
Walk Japan Tour of Japan ($15,000)…

ART SUNDAY - RENOIR

“The pain passes, but the beauty remains.” - Auguste Renoir
 
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (born February 25, 1841, Limoges, France—died December 3, 1919, Cagnes) was a French painter originally associated with the Impressionist movement. His early works were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colour and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women.
 
Renoir’s father was a tailor, and the young man took up an apprenticeship with a porcelain painter, as his artistic talent was obvious. He then had the opportunity to study at the École des Beaux Arts. It was here that he joined Charles Gleyre’s studio and met many other young French impressionist artists. His art was noted for its vibrant combination of colours. In classic impressionist style, he avoided rigid lines, and merged objects giving a sense of dream-like consciousness. He also painted many portraits of women - often in the nude. However, they focus not on the sexual aspect but often on everyday experiences, femininity and grace taking precedence over overt sexuality.
 
Initially, the art establishment was unimpressed by the new breed of painters and the impressionists struggled to have any exhibitions. Renoir, supplemented his income with his commissions for more conventional portraits. In 1881 he visited Algeria and then Italy. In Italy, he was deeply impressed by the Italian masters. After meeting Cezanne near Marseilles, Renoir sought to break away from Impressionism by developing a new structural style of his own.

Yet, he never abandoned his techniques of colour that he learnt during his impressionist period and he developed a combination of classical styles of applying paint with an impressionist perspective of colour. Towards the end of the nineteenth century he gained increasing fame and respect. In 1892, the French state bought one of his paintings “At the Piano”.
 
As ill-fortune would have it, his fame and greater renown also coincided with the onset of arthritis which made painting difficult and painful. But, he struggled on and continued to paint some great masterpieces.
 
Acknowledging modern criticism of Renoir’s sensuality, Lawrence Gowing wrote: “Is there another respected modern painter whose work is so full of charming people and attractive sentiment? Yet what lingers is not cloying sweetness but a freshness that is not entirely explicable... One feels the surface of his paint itself as living skin: Renoir’s aesthetic was wholly physical and sensuous, and it was unclouded...These interactions of real people fulfilling natural drives with well-adjusted enjoyment remain the popular masterpieces of modern art (as it used to be called), and the fact that they are not fraught and tragic, without the slightest social unrest in view, or even much sign of the spatial and communal disjunction which some persist in seeking, is far from removing their interests.”
 
Albert Aurier, an art critic and early essayist on the impressionists, wrote in 1892: “With such ideas, with such a vision of the world and of femininity, one might have feared that Renoir would create a work which was merely pretty and merely superficial. Superficial it was not; in fact it was profound, for if, indeed, the artist has almost completely done away with the intellectuality of his models in his paintings, he has, in compensation, been prodigal with his own. As to the pretty, it is undeniable in his work, but how different from the intolerable prettiness of fashionable painters.”
 
In a preview to the exhibition ‘Renoir Landscapes 1865-1883’ at the National Gallery, London in spring 2007, The Guardian wrote that: “Even Degas laughed at his friend's style, calling it as puffy as cotton wool,” but that “if we’re going to love him, we need to love his chocolate box qualities, too.”
 
Here is his “By the Water (Near the Lake)”, completed in 1880 (oil on canvas; 46.2 x 55.4 cm; Gallery: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA) and illustrating his wispy, colourful style full of light and lightness of touch.