No More Portraits!! --- Day 12/42

Walk: Legion of Honor (Sargent and Spain Exhibition*)

Distance: 2.5 miles

John Singer Sargent, Driving in Spain, ca 1903, watercolor over graphite

Late in his storied career as the foremost portraitist of Gilded Age personages, John Singer Sargent

announced "No More Portraits!"  There was much ado, begging and attempts at bribing from potential subjects, but Sargent stuck to his word.   As his subject matter expanded so did his audience including viewers today who delight in his paintings of clothing, ornament, flowers - and particularly his beloved Spain where he traveled often and extensively over 33 years.

And, Ciwt might add, arduously.  Travel in John Singer Sargent's day - by ship, rail, horse, mule, carriage or a combination - was not easy or reliable and speaks both to Sargent's fascination with Spain as well as his dedication to his craft.  In the watercolor above you get an immediate sense of how it might have felt riding beside him in a horse drawn omnibus as he arrived at one of the many Spanish 

towns he visited.

Today was the Press Preview of an exquisite, comprehensive, first ever (after its just finished run at  the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.) exhibition dedicated to Sargent in Spain.  Like most people Ciwt really only knew Sargent as a portrait painter and didn't know quite what to expect.  Well.......Stay tuned!

*Sargent and Spain, Legion of Honor Museum, February 11 - May 14, 2023.

Oh, Really? Yawn... --- Day 12/41

Walk: Hood Open Houses

Distance: 7 miles

Another CIWT uninspired day for Ciwt.  Busy checking out the For Sale opposition near her home. So boring, so expensive.

Nevermind --- Day 12/40

Walk: Monday Errands

Distance: 4 miles

Sometimes  monday errands can sap Ciwt's creativity.

Personally Missing the Skills --- Day 12/39

Walk: AMC Kabuki (Missing)

Distance: 2 miles

Ciwt was in a movie mood, and the only one that worked for her schedule was Missing.  Turned out to be a tech chase thriller that it was all done by an 18 year old girl with a cell phone.  And for Ciwt who still uses one finger to punch in her iphone numbers the teen's virtuoso tech display was positively chilling.  Different universes, hers and Ciwt's.

Where Are We? --- Day 12/38

Walk: SF Opera House

Distance: 4 miles

Remember when you used to get kind of lost watching a ballet?  Dancers all over the stage, but what were they trying to tell us?  Luckily there was a story to the ballet so you guess those ballerinas trying to wedge their big feet into small shoes were Cinderella's stepsisters, or the wildly spinning black swan was up to no good.  But that was then..

Now...the San Francisco Ballet is celebrating its 90th Season! with a festival of premieres by nine contemporary choreographers.  And there is rarely a storyline in sight.  Intentionally.  The 'new wave' it seems is unconcerned with stories and focused on non-stop, thrillingly precise, demandingly courageous (Ciwt needed to hold her breath during some mid-air catches) free form.  Solo performances are random throughout the ballet and short lived; no more nearly stopping the action so that an artist like Nureyev can leap again and again, round and round the stage.  

It is taking Ciwt a while to get 'with the program.' To her, some of the new dances go on a without particularly engaging her.  But then there was a new Bolero dance that will be impossible to forget whenever she hears that piece of music.  She assumed no dance could enhance Ravel's compellingly perfect score.  But, she was wrong.   So onward to who knows where with San Francisco Ballet.

The Mysterious Wild - and Man --- Day 12/37

Walk: Errands various

Distance: 2 miles 

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, 1830, oil on canvas

In the midst of all the city moving particulars that occupy Ciwt's life these days, she misses - maybe romanticizes -the grandeur of nature.  So her thoughts turn to one of the very first Romantic artists who did just that: turned to nature and away from the Enlightenment ideals of his time.  Reason, order, logic weren't for him. Nature -  wild, unbridled, vast. unknowable -  was.

What Ciwt finds most intrguing about Friedrich's works is, well, the intrigue.  Most painters in the German romantic landscape tradition concentrate exclusively on the overwhelming power and magnificence of Nature.  

Gustav Grunewald (German), Niagra Falls, @1830

Even standing right in front of Gustav Grunewald's enormous diptycht of Niagra Falls at the de Young Museum the viewer needs to look hard to find the teeny man standing on the cliff at upper right or the two figures on the hill lower right.  Same goes for the people trekking along the trail lower right in  Frederic Edwin Church's even more enormous and dramatic rainbow painting down the hall.  If one of that group wasn't dressed in red, the viewer might not notice them at all.   

Frederic Edwin Church, Rainy Season in the Tropics, 1866 

This is typical of most romantic paintings of the outdoors.  Man is portrayed as diminutive or even absent or just alluded to by a curl of smoke coming from a distance cabin compared with NATURE.

But not so with Friedrich's art.  As spectacularly grand and mood-setting as his nature is, Friedrich has made man a partner with it.  And the man is the painter himself.  It there the intrigue for Ciwt begins: Why is he there? What is on his mind? Who is he with?  What's going on with him?

Caspar David Friedrich (German), Two Men Contemplating the Moon, 1825-30, oil on canvas

Dreaded Jobs Come Last --- Day 12/36

Walk: Storeroom/Public Storage

Distance: 2 5 miles

As Ciwt gets deeper into the process of selling her home of 40+ years, today was storeroom clean out.......

Snow Monkeying Around --- Day 12/35

Walk: Curbside Cafe on Fillmore Street

Distance: 2 miles

Approximately 150 Japanese macaques live in the mountain valleys of the Jigokudani Yaen-koen monkey park in Yamanouchi, Nagano prefecture, Japan. Also called snow monkeys, the wild macaques are well known for spending their winter months keeping warm and relaxing in the waters of a natural hot spring. For years, the park has been a top destination for tourists, and its popularity is now rebounding as Japan has relaxed some of its COVID-19 restrictions.

"I didn't come to this hot spring to have my picture taken all the time."