The Sea View of Cliffs

Guy Rose, The Sea View of Cliffs

This just looks so refreshing to eye, ear, and soul. And it makes me think of summer travel somehow. Probably because I've never been to the ocean in winter. Growing up in the midwest and now living in Dallas, I've only traveled to the ocean on vacation.

Starry Night Over the Rhone

Van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone, 1888

This just feels like summer to me.

Jupiter's Great Red Spot

Jupiter's Great Red Spot, NASA

(March 1, 1979) As Voyager 1 flew by Jupiter, it captured this photo of the Great Red Spot. The Great Red Spot is an anti-cyclonic (high- pressure) storm on Jupiter that can be likened to the worst hurricanes on Earth. An ancient storm, it is so large that three Earths could fit inside it. This photo, and others of Jupiter, allowed scientists to see different colors in clouds around the Great Red Spot which imply that the clouds swirl around the spot (going counter-clockwise) at varying altitudes. The Great Red Spot had been observed from Earth for hundreds of years, yet never before with this clarity and closeness (objects as small as six hundred kilometers can be seen).

Evening in Marshlands

 

"Evening" ("Marshlands"), Józef Rapacki, 1891

Somehow this evokes summertime for me. I can almost hear the frogs croaking, the whine of insects, the night birds.

Peshawar

Peshawar by Charles W. Bartlett

The Golden Temple, Amritsar

The Golden Temple, Amritsar by Charles W. Bartlett

Taj Majal, Sunset

Taj Mahal, Sunset, woodblock by Charles W. Bartlett

More exotic beauty from Charles Bartlett!

Hanalei Fishermen, Hawaii

Hanalei Fishermen, Hawaii , hand colored etching by Charles W. Bartlett

Charles Bartlett had so many works featuring Hawaiian and Indian scenes that I wound up looking him up. Wikipedia says:

In 1913, with financial backing from his wife's well-to-do family, the Bartletts traveled to India, Ceylon, Indonesia, China, and Japan. He arrived in Japan in 1915, where he met woodblock print publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885–1962), who was a major force in early 20th-century Japanese art (shin-hanga). In 1916 Watanabe published 21 woodblocks from Bartlett's designs, including six prints of Japanese landscapes. In 1917, Bartlett and his second wife left Japan for England; however, they stopped off in Hawaii, where they remained—never returning to England. He did visit Japan in 1919, where he created sixteen shin-hanga prints for Watanabe.

We'll have his art for the rest of the week.

Hawaiian Fisherman

Hawaiian Fisherman by Charles William Bartlett,
color woodblock print, 1916. 

I don't usually like wood prints. However, this is in the style of several book covers that my grandparets had. They were my father's old childhood books and when I was a kid I didn't really read them — but I liked the covers. It takes me back to those days.

Lagniappe: I saw no one.

Source

 Holmes: I followed you.

Sterndale: I saw no one.

Holmes: That is what you may expect to see when I follow you.

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Devil's Foot

I tend to forget that the Sherlock Holmes stories can have these little bits of humor inserted.

A richness for a people without riches

Soul Food

There is a reason why many black Southerners — and some white ones, like my mother — still call this kind of cooking soul food, because it transcends the pain and struggle of the everyday, a richness for a people without riches.

Rick Bragg, The Best Cook in the World

Le Dejeuner

Le Dejeuner, Henri Le Sidaner

I want to go to there.

Baking Bread

Baking Bread, Helen Allingham

Snack with Fried Egg

Snack with Fried Eggs, Georg Flegel

Outrage on the Patio

Outrage on the Patio

 Pecan and Jeeves can't believe their eyes! The rabbit looks startled but actually was fairly blasé. It's an urban rabbit — of which we have a plethora this year.

Gorgeous Stained Glass

Domestic window by Dirck Crabeth for the house of Adriaen Dircxz. van Crimpen, of Leiden. (1543)
via Wikipedia

Van Crimpen was a member of the government. The scenes show seven scenes from the First Book of Samuel in the Old Testament and five scenes from the Acts of the Apostles. Though the house is still standing, the stained glass is now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

Light and Darkness in Hawaii

My brother is lucky enough to live where this is a commonplace sight. Click on the photo to see it enlarged. I'm including today's quote below because the two go together so wonderfully.

It's important to note that God does not obliterate the darkness; rather, God names it and limits it — puts boundaries on it. The boundary is the light.

Lisa Sharon Harper, The Very Good Gospel

Amen, amen.

Happy 250th Independence Day!

July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth. ...

In recent years, however, I’ve come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history.

Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people.

We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should.

Happy Fourth of July.

President Ronald Reagan, What July Fourth Means to Me, 1981

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State;
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace,
March of a strong land's swift increase:
Equal justice, right and law,
Stately honor and reverent awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong,
To ward her people from foreign wrong;
Pride and glory and honor, all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

(Henry Holcomb Bennett)

Childe Hassam, The Fourth of July, 1916

Cornflower, National flower of Estonia

Cornflower, National Flower of Estonia, taken by Remo Savisaar

Fairytale of the Tsar Saltan

Illustration for Alexander Pushkin's 'Fairytale of the Tsar Saltan,' Ivan Bilibin