TRAVEL TUESDAY #123 - PERTH AUSTRALIA

“A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams.” - Herb Caen 

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us. Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.

Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.   

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia (WA). It is the fourth most populous city in Australia, with an estimated population of 1.97 million (on 30 June 2013) living in Greater Perth. Part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, the majority of the metropolitan area of Perth is located on the Swan Coastal Plain, a narrow strip between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp, a low coastal escarpment. The first areas settled were on the Swan River, with the city’s central business district and port (Fremantle) both located on its shores.

Perth is formally divided into a number of local government areas, which themselves consist of a large number of suburbs, extending from Two Rocks in the north to Rockingham in the south, and east inland to The Lakes. Perth was originally founded by Captain James Stirling in 1829 as the administrative centre of the Swan River Colony, and gained city status in 1856 (currently vested in the smaller City of Perth). The city is named for Perth, Scotland, by influence of Sir George Murray, then British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.

The city’s population increased substantially as a result of the Western Australian gold rushes in the late 19th century, largely as a result of emigration from the eastern colonies of Australia. During Australia's involvement in World War II, Fremantle served as a base for submarines operating in the Pacific Theatre, and a US Navy Catalina flying boat fleet was based at Matilda Bay. An influx of immigrants after the war, predominantly from Britain, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia, led to rapid population growth. This was followed by a surge in economic activity flowing from several mining booms in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that saw Perth become the regional headquarters for a number of large mining operations located around the state.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

BOOKS ON MONDAY

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! - When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” – Jane Austen

I have been working rather hard lately proof-reading a major technical work of which I am co-editor-in-chief. This takes up a great deal of time and it is very demanding as it is an activity that requires a great deal of concentration and attention to detail. One must remain focussed and not be distracted. When fatigue sets in, I like to go out for a walk, watch a movie or read something that is completely different and not related to work.

So here are a few of the things I have been reading lately:

“The Book Of Eels” by Tom Fort (Published August 18th 2003 by HarperCollins Publishers).
The humble eel (about which most of us feel squeamish about nowadays) once was the food of kings and the nobility, a delectable delicacy and a mysterious creature about which not much was known, given its strange life cycle and curious migratory habits. Fort examines everything to do with eels in great detail, yet writes in a lucid, at times chatty style, with engrossing detail and subtle humour. There is also sympathy for a creature that is losing its habitat and its once high place in the gastronomic ladder, one that seems to be disappearing not only from our plates, but also from its former environmental niche. 

“Romantic Composers” by Wendy Thompson (Published 2003, Anness Publishing).
This is a large format book designed for the layperson who is interested in music of the Romantic Era and wishes to find out a little more about the life, times, works and historical interactions of these composers. A wealth of colour photographs show where these composers lived and worked as well as scenes from their ballets or operas, or historical events that influenced them. An easy to read book, but also one that can quite easily browse in now and then. Good one for introducing Romantic Era music to younger listeners. 

“Tea: A Miscellany Steeped with Trivia, History andRecipes” by Emily Kearns (Published 1st May 2015, Summersdale Publishers Ltd).
If you drink tea and enjoy it, a perfect little book to delve into, as the title says, it’s a miscellany of all things tea-related. Another book that is good to read when one is chilling out and doesn’t want to think about things work-related!

ART SUNDAY - MAURICE STERNE

“Our influences are who we are. It’s rare that anything is an absolutely pure vision.” - Eddie Vedder 

Maurice Sterne (August 18, 1878 in Latvia – July 23, 1957 in USA), was an American sculptor and painter remembered today for his association with philanthropist Mabel Dodge Luhan, to whom he was married from 1916 to 1923. He began his career as a draughtsman and painter, and critics noted the similarity of his work, in its volume and weight, to sculpture.

In the late 1890s, Sterne studied under Alfred Maurer and Thomas Eakins at the National Academy of Design, and then travelled widely in Europe and the Far East. A trip to Greece in 1908 introduced him to archaic Greek statues, inspiring him to experiment with the form himself in stone. Between 1911-1914 he and his friend Karli Sohn-Rethel, a German painter, travelled together to India, the Far East and settled in Bali to paint and sketch, which further informed his later work.

Sterne came to New Mexico in 1916 at the suggestion of his friend, Paul Burlin, and settled in Taos until 1918. His reputation was established by a show at the Scott and Fowles Gallery in 1926 and furthered by a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1933. In the mid-1930s, Sterne lived in San Francisco and taught at the California School of Fine Arts. He returned to the East Coast in 1945 and established a studio in Mount Kisco, New York. He was named to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1938.

From 1945 to 1950, he served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts. In addition to his murals in the library of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., Sterne’s works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Phillips Collection. Sterne was one of a dozen sculptors invited to compete in the Pioneer Woman statue competition in 1927, which he failed to win. Sterne died in 1957.

Sterne’s painting is quite varied and shows his many influences, with a lot of his canvases being derivative of his artistic interests at the time he painted them. Above is “New Mexico Still Life” c.1919. Cezanne still life painting has influenced this work, but there are also some some elements of the more expressionistic, freer work of pre-cubist Picasso. Quite different to Sterne’s painting of “Entrance of the Ballet” that reminds one of Degas, or some of his portraits reminiscent of very early Modigliani, or some of the early Soviet portraiture. His sculpture is sometimes reminiscent of Art Nouveau, at other times pseudoheroic fascist propaganda.

An interesting artist whose work needs a more in-depth exploration.