Rain in the City --- Day 4/10

Walk: Around Deck, scrubbing in the rain
Distance: small home yoga


Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877. 6.95' x 9.05', oil on canvas

On this rainy day in Paris's sister city (San Francisco), Ciwt's mind goes to her favorite urban rain painting by one of her favorite French artists.

Every Moment Instantly --- Day 4/9

Walk: Fillmore, Pet Express
Distance: 3 miles and home yoga



New, never seen photos of John Lennon and Yoko Ono in a new book.  $700. Kishin Shinoyama, the photographer 30 years ago and 3 months before Lennon's death, calls him .."so nice and sweet."  "I tried not to interfere and capture his tender and gentle personality naturally..."  According to the New York Times, Shinoyama has a photographer’s awareness of fleeting time. As he says in a video introducing the book, “Every moment ends instantly — it becomes past, you know.”

Short is Different --- Day 4/8

Walk: Opera Plaza Cinema  (Oscar Nominated Short Films: Animated and Live Action)
Distance: 1 mile



New movie first for Ciwt was spending this blustery afternoon watching 2015 Oscar nominated shorts (Animated and Live Action).  A different viewing experience - and recommended for movie buffs - from a long movie she can sink into.  Just home and still assimilating.

What Now? --- Day 4/7

Walk: Corte Madera, Fillmore Street
Distance: 2 miles


    Pablo Picasso, The Studio at La Californie, 1956, oil on canvas 

Like many artists, Pablo Picasso was not one to interpret his work for the world.  So, there are many speculative meanings projected on his The Studio at La Californie.  Ciwt is in the camp of those who see the painting as, at least partially, a homage to Matisse and a way for Picasso to process his loss. Other than his own internal muse, the artist who most energized and stimulated Picasso had been Matisse.  You see him there in the Moroccan brazier  and exterior palms that recall Matisse's studio scenes.  And you see him in the cut out shapes.  But you also see his absence.  There is no color in the black and grey Matisse-like shapes within the studio and the utterly blank canvas is heartbreaking. To Ciwt it represents the absence of Matisse in Picasso's artistic soul and the question Picasso may have been asking as he confronted Matisse's death: What now?*

*Picasso died in 1973 believing to the end, as he said, "All things considered, there is only Matisse."

Two Etchings, One Bird

Walk: Union Square
Distance: 1 mile and home yoga


      Pablo Picasso, Dove, 1949, lithograph on white Arches wove paper

A coda of sorts to CIWT's yesterday entry about the beloved and beautiful fancy pigeon (also called   dove) Picasso received from Matisse in 1941 after an operation for abdominal surgery from which he did not expect to recover:

The famous Peace Poster is the most well known image.  But arguably the most beautiful portrait Picasso made of the dove was done in a different style several years earlier, in Paris, January 1949.
The printmaker, Fernand Mourlot has called it 'one of the most beautiful lithographies ever achieved; the soft tones attained in the feathers...are absolutely remarkable.  This plate...conveys the maximum that can be obtained with lithographic ink used as wash.' ((Mourlot 1970, p. 123)

Two Artists and a Beautiful Bird --- Day 4/7

Walk: Mindful Body, Trader Joe's
Distance: 2 miles and teach yoga class



Much has been made of the rivalry between Matisse and Picasso whose lifestyles and aesthetics were markedly different.  In fact there was a bit of a faceoff shortly after the two were introduced by Gertrude Stein at one of her gatherings in 1906.  At that time the stocky, cocky Picasso was ruler of the turbulent Paris avant-garde art scene while Matisse was his usual more polished self constantly perfecting his art - already at a peak -  in private.

Stein who loved stirring things up encouraged sides to be taken between the Picassoites and the Matisse-ites.  Even after the low key rift between the artists healed, the Picassoites and Matisse-ites were at it; some still are.

Meanwhile Picasso and Matisse became in many sense muses for each other.  They eyed with respect the advances the other made.  As Picasso said "No one has ever looked at Matisse's paintings more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than he."
  

A beautiful testament of their friendship involves a bird.  Nearing the end of his day, Matisse gave Picasso, who loved birds and had canaries and pigeons, the last of his fancy pigeons - including his favorite of all birds.  A few years later, Picasso honored that gift by drawing its portrait on the famous Dove of Peace poster.

Coo --- Day 4/6

Walk: UC Berkeley (Charles Edel talk re: his new book on John Quincy Adams), Trader Joe's
Distance: 1 mile and home yoga



In later life, Matisse never lost his feeling for the native soil of his Northern French town of Bohain with its farmers and weavers. His work is replete with nature and animal life and the gardens near all his homes which he adored.  Even the fancy pigeons he kept in Nice (his final home) recalled the weavers' pigeon lofts lucked away behind even the humblest house in Bohain.

His passion for birds (especially doves) surfaced dramatically more than a half century after he had left Bohain during the summer of 1936 in Paris.  Strolling along the banks of the Seine, his attention was drawn to merchants selling a variety of caged song birds and doves.  And he began returning from Paris trips with five or six birds at a time.  He loved their shapes and colors, their plumage and singing. This was to last the rest of his life.

Too Much; All Good --- Day 4/5

Walk: Sundance Kabuki Cinema Club (Ballet 422)
Distance: 2 miles




Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych (center panel), 1503-04, 7' 3" x 12' 9", oil on oak

Cinema Club (Ballet 422), Indian lunch (Dosa), Super Bowl while texting and emailing, final decision on possible new art running around her brain, Callie meowing for dinner.  Ciwt is temporarily on overwhelm.