Reading & Singing

Panel for Music Room, 1894
John White Alexander (1856 - 1915)
Athenaeum Gallery ~ Previously

New Posts
@ The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker

August 28 ~ Sing A Song About Singing ~ Abba,
Barry Manilow, The Carpenters, The Statler Brothers

September 14 ~ Read A Book About Reading
Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club
Stefan Bollmann, Women Who Read Are Dangerous

Dreams, 1896
Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1859 - 1933)
“So this is for us.
This is for us who sing, write, dance, act, study, run and love
and this is for doing it even if no one will ever know
because the beauty is in the act of doing it.
Not what it can lead to.
This is for the times I lose myself while writing, singing, playing
and no one is around and they will never know
but I will forever remember
and that shines brighter than any praise or fame or glory I will ever have,
and this is for you who write or play or read or sing
by yourself with the light off and door closed
when the world is asleep and the stars are aligned
and maybe no one will ever hear it
or read your words
or know your thoughts
but it doesn’t make it less glorious.
It makes it ethereal. Mysterious.
Infinite.
For it belongs to you and whatever God or spirit you believe in
and only you can decide how much it meant
and means
and will forever mean
and other people will experience it too
through you.
Through your spirit. Through the way you talk.
Through the way you walk and love and laugh and care
and I never meant to write this long
but what I want to say is:
Don’t try to present your art by making other people read or hear or see or touch it; make them feel it. Wear your art like your heart on your sleeve and keep it alive by making people feel a little better. Feel a little lighter. Create art in order for yourself to become yourself
and let your very existence be your song, your poem, your story.
Let your very identity be your book.
Let the way people say your name sound like the sweetest melody.

So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountain
where no one will ever hear
and your very existence will be the most hypnotising scar.
Make your life be your art
and you will never be forgotten.”

~ Charlotte Eriksson, Singer, Writer, Reader

P.S.
"Start Here" by Brian Andreas
The StoryPeople Story of the Day for September 18, 2017

Isabella and the Pot of Basil

CURRENT POST ON
THE FORTNIGHTLY KITTI CARRIKER:
LITERARY BLOG OF CONNECTION & COINCIDENCE
"SWEET BASIL EVERMORE"

A FEW HIGHLIGHTS:
Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1846
by English Pre-Raphaelite, William Holman Hunt (1827 - 1910)
"Isabella, or the Pot of Basil" is a long narrative poem by John Keats, adapted from a tale in Boccaccio's Decameron about a young woman whose family plans for her to marry a local wealthy landowner. Isabella, however, is in love with Lorenzo, who works as a clerk for her family. When her two controlling brothers learn of Isabella's inappropriate love interest, they murder Lorenzo in the woods. Isabella is at a loss until Lorenzo's ghost appears in a dream to inform her of his whereabouts. She proceeds to exhume the body, bury the head in a pot of basil, and go a little crazy.

Keats' poem was popular with the nostalgic sentimental Pre-Raphaelite painters, who illustrated it from several perspectives. First came William Holman Hunt's version (above) which in turn influenced several later artists:

Lorenzo and Isabella, 1849
by English Pre-Raphaelite, John Everett Millais (1829 - 1896)
Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1879
by English Pre-Raphaelite, John Melhuish Strudwick (1849 - 1937)
Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1907
by English Pre-Raphaelite, John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917)
In contrast to these lush Pre-Raphaelite renditions, an additional painting, by John White Alexander, conveys a portrait-like figure of Isabella in neutral tones:

Isabella and the Pot of Basil, 1897
by American Painter and Illustrator, John White Alexander
(1856 – 1915)

CLICK TO READ / SEE MORE DETAILS:
"SWEET BASIL EVERMORE"