Monday, June 16, 2025

This is Winter --- Day 14/175

Walk: Monday errands

Distance: 3.5


Julian Fałat (Polish, 1853-1929) Winter Landscape with River and Bird, 1913, oil on canvas, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.

Ciwt is so steeped in the art and artists she is steeped in she forgets she has never encountered great artists and works from other countries.  Until she more or less stumbles on them in her travels.  Like this incredible painting that utterly captures the clear, cold, silent solitude of winter.

Winter in rugged, river filled Poland to be exact.  It was painted by one of Poland's foremost landscapists and champion of his beloved Poland and Polish art, Julian Falat.  After literally traveling around the world from his homeland (even briefly to San Francisco) and accepting an invitation from future German emperor Wilhelm II to serve as court painter in Berlin (1886-1895), he returned wholeheartedly to Poland.  There he became director of the Krakow School of Fine Arts where he had studied, and painted prolifically, concentrating on hunting scenes, portraits, travel observations, and most especially Polish landscapes.

Fałat declared: "Polish art ought to convey our history and beliefs, our good qualities and our defects; it must be the quintessence of our soil, our sky, our ideals."[1]


Julian Falat, Salf Portrail, 1896, o/c


Fałat died in Bystra Śląska on 9 July 1929. A Polish museum, the Fałatówka, is devoted to him.


Sunday, June 15, 2025

El Indominable --- Days 14/172, 173, 174

Walk: AMC Kabuki (The Phoenician Scheme), Sunday Hood

Distance: 3.5 miles, 3 miles

Domenikos Theotokopoulos, called El Greco (crete, active in Spain), 1541-1614, Saint John the Baptist, ca 1600, oil on canvas

Ciwt has no doubt the tabloids would be replete with stories of his exploits if the painter El Greco was alive today.  

Born Domenikos Theotokopoulos in Crete in 1541, and trained as an icon painter, he could have had a satisfactory artististic life in that sought after speciality.  But his youthful ambitions were larger, so he set off for Venice and from there the thriving and competive artistic hub of Rome.  In Rome he worked and learned in the studios of the great Renasissance masters (Tintoretto even Michelangelo) eventually becoming a disciple of Titian.  But here again in Italy his ambitions were thwarted, this time by a lack of important commissions.  So, in his mid 30's he departed for Spain to seek work at the court of Philip II, then the most powerful monarch and patron in Europe.

Philip II though turned out to be at odds with the stylistic techniques the artist had developed and insisted on - the clashing colors, disquieting emotions, elongated figures.  These offended Philip's aesthetic and religious views so he refused patronage.  

The ambitious artist's response to Philip's rejection was to become the iconic and controvesial artist, intellectual and flamboyant businessman, popularly dubbed El Greco.  The very techniques and personal religious views that alienated Philip were embraced by the clerical elite and intellectuals of Toledo. They clamored for his company, commissions for his work abounded and El Greco became El Greco.

With such reliably powerful patronage he was free to work from his own philosophical, technically masterful, personally expressive and some say "arrogant" genius. In other words El Greco was free to flourish. And flourish he did, establishing a large workshop and living in a 26 room mansion often with a full orchestra playing as he dined.  And with incessant lawsuits.  Learning that artists in Spain were paid the wages of ordinary tradesmen like brick layers and carpenters, El Greco would have none of it and began setting and demanding his own prices.  Those who were unwilling or slow to pay - and there were many - were dragged to court and sued for all the monies owed him.  Ciwt can only guess at El Greco's other behaviors and the level of his notoriety throughout Spain.

El Greco's famed highly idiosyncratic style is on full display in the above painting of John the Baptist commissioned by the Descalaced (Barefoot) Carmelites in Malagon, Spain..  Perhaps the cousin of Jesus, John is a central figure of Christianity and a worthy and oft-painted subjecr of El Greco - with this one in the Legion of Honor arguably the greatest.  An Old Testament messianic preacher/prophet/zealot, John is said to have wandered the wild landscapes of the hill country around the Dead Sea heralding fire and brimstone messages.  He is best known for baptizing penitents, declaring Jesus the Lamb of God and baptising him and then for his infamous beheading by King Herod at Salome's (Herod's stepdaughter's) entreaty.

With or without knowing Saint John's story, viewers of the painting easily perceive a man who lived an emotionally agitated, vulnerable, sorrowful but spiritually driven life.  El Greco's deliberate elongation of Saint John, his freewheeling, daring perspective, distortions, audacious use of flickering colors,  the entire canvas really, emphasizes John's austere, aesthetic, religious nature. The agitated sky, broken brushstrokes convey John's fervor and nervous, spiritual energy. El Greco has created an entirely personal, original and enduring artistic shorthand.  

And, to Ciwt, this painting and much of the collective works of El Greco are some of - perhaps the - first works of modern art, 400 years ahead of their time.






Thursday, June 12, 2025

Summer Labor --- Day 14/172

Walk: Simon Imaging

Distance: 6.4 miles

Vincent van Gogh, The Harvest, 1888, oil on canvas

Blue isn't usually such a warm color.  Or is it?  Ciwt has been living in San Francisco's grey windy summer soup for so many years she's out of touch with summer.  So she finds herself coming back to van Gogh's painting of a summer's day in the wheat fields of Arles.  

And to a shift in her understanding of van Gogh's painting regime.  Until now she has thought of him as a sort of early (and Immensely talented!) precursor of the Abstract Expressionist style that dominated New York in the 1950's.  "From my soul to the canvas" was their motto as they stroked animated thick black lines onto huge white canvases (Franz Kline).  Or let thinned paint color stain the canvas into enormous color fields (Helen Frankenthaler).  Or, placed his canvas on the the floor and danced around it with open cans of paint dripping layer upon layer upon layer (Jackson Pollack of course).

But, no, live and learn, Ciwt.   This "just let it rip" technique was not van Gogh's at all.  Before applying costly oil paint to canvas, he reworked and revised all of his paintings extensively with numerous sketches and painted studies like these:   


Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Ah, Summer --- Days 14/169, 170, 171

Walks: Hood 

Distances: 3.75 miles daily


Vincent van Gogh, The Harvest, 1888, oil on canvas

This gorgeous capturing of a summer's day in the south of France by Vincent van Gogh may have been his favorite landscape of all.  He worked in the burning hot wheatfields for as the harvest season was coming to an end.  It was an immensely productive time in which he completed ten paintings.  A heavy storm brought the harvest to an end, but, mercifully, not before this painting was complete.  When he finished it, he wrote his brother Theo "..the canvas absolutely kills all the rest."



Sunday, June 8, 2025

317.4 Minutes of Awesome --- Day 14/168

Walk: Short hood, after watching French Open finals and Sunday chores

Distance: 2 miles


This morning Ciwt turned on her TV to spend a little while watching the French Open Men's Final.  Now, hours later, here she goes again on her awe of elite athletes (or anybody at any endeavor) who can focus 100% on winning and apparently block out any inkling of losing until the very last bell, buzzer or, today, forehand down the line.* 

Both Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz played in this mindset for 5.29 hours to decide who would be this year's Roland Garros Men's champion.  The French tournament is 125 years old, and their match in Paris is now among the most memorable ever been - or perhaps ever will be - played on any court.  The two competitors took no breaks, every point was superbly played, neither looked markedly tired as the seesaw match marched on, both were perfect gentlemen throughout - even correcting judge's line calls to give their opponent the point. (Not to mention their graciousness in the post-game TV interviews)**.  And neither showed the slightest sign of surrendering.  This for Alcaraz who played at the brink of defeat from the third set on. He was down two sets and up against match point - not just once, but three times.  And for Sinner who went ahead with confidence and heart even after failing to capitalize on those points.

Don't just take Ciwt's word.  The resolve, gamesmanship, play everybody was witnessing was incomprehensible even to commentator John McEnroe.  As a reminder, McEnroe was world #1 for five years, still maintains the best single-season win rate of the Open Era and played Roland Garros four times in his career.  He of anyone knows when a match has turned and is over.  He knows a player's mindset, the time the player knows he's either going to win or has lost. He knows physical exhaustion and when you've run out of strategic ideas or heart.  And, yesterday, he was wrong again and again.  This play was at a level even he had never experienced.

As he said or implied repeatedly, "You can't make this up."  Alcaraz continued to play with poise like there was no score, hitting impossibly perfect shots.  Those were immediately countered by Sinner with unreachable shots of his own.  On and on.  With McEnroe occasionally saying things like "At this point, Sinner has it.  They'll be going to the locker room soon." Followed by "On my gosh, no; I was wrong."  And then again and again something like, "You can't make this up." And, finally at the end: "I've been a tennis commentator for over thirty years, and this is far and away the most amazing match I have ever witnessed." (This is quite a statement from McEnroe whose 1980 Wimbledon final against Bjorn Borg was so epic it is the subject of a feature movie and numerous youtube videos).***

Then there's the Wall Street Journal's master sports writer, Jason Gay: "I still can't believe what I saw." 

Ditto..


* See CIWT 14/134

** "It is amazing the level you (play) at," Alcaraz told Sinner. "Honestly, I know how hard you're taking this tournament. I'm pretty sure you'll be champion not once, but many, many times. It's a privilege to share the court with you. I'm really happy to be able to make history with you. Thank you for being a great inspiration and good luck for what's to come..."    Sinner was equally gracious and complimentary to Alcaraz in defeat.

*** Born vs McEnroe 2017; see YouTube for videos



Saturday, June 7, 2025

When You Care Enough ... Days 14/165, 166 & 167

Walks: Hood and Presidio

Distances: 4.5 miles average

Sometimes only artificial flowers will do.



Florists at Et Hem London preparing fake arrangements

And don't worry about being unfashionable.  Subscription services with artificial flower firms have recently been snapped up by the Royal Opera House, Kensington and Buckingham Palace.


Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Enter Bouquets to Art 2025 If You Dare --- Day 14/164

Walk: Civic Center

Distance: 3 miles


Floral Designer Rual Duenias's Visionary and Fiery "Gate" to Bouquets to Art 2025 and Personal Bouquet to Auguste Rodin's The Gates of Hell 






Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Bouquet to Bouquets to Art --- Days14/161, 162 & 163

Walk: Hood, Presidio, Legion of Honor and deYoung Museum

Distance: 4.5, 4, 6.5 miles

So yesterday Ciwt was one of the first into the opening of our Fine Arts Museums' Annual Fund Raising Event: Bouquets to Art.  Like the many others who came into the flower and paintings galleries with her, she remembered to bring her manners. Happily for the museums all six days of the event are always very well attended so there's need for many "Excuse me's; So sorry's" or other apologies when bumping into others or blocking their view.

The 'bouquets' are usually individual floral arrangements that exquisitely echo the look and feeling of the artwork the florist has chosen to honor.  And there were many outstanding ones of those this year.



Of course Ciwt was particularly drawn to the bouquests to Matisse's Jazz book portfolio like this one:



But this year there were several completely unexpected and extraordinary bouqets at the Legion of Honor Museum.  Bouquests to Art was held there for decades since its beginning in 1984.  When the event was moved to the de Young Museum several years ago, it was still beloved but the Legion was missed.   So, this year, in honor of the Legion's 100th! anniversary, Bouquets was held at both museums for the first time ever.  

The return to the Legion was clearly welcomed by many of the floral artists with celebratory, exuberantly huge and imaginative bouquets unique unlike any in the past 41 years of Bouquets to Art.






And especially the  Entry Way "bouquet" to Rodin's The Gates of Hell which is so astounding it deserves its very own CIWT entry.  Stay tuned tomorrow!