In 1874,
fifty-five artists held the first independent group show of Impressionist
art. Most of them - including Cézanne, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, and his sister-in-law Berthe Morisot ("a
bunch of lunatics and a woman," muttered one observer) - had been rejected
by the Salon,
the annual French state-sponsored exhibition that offered the only real
opportunity for artists to display and sell their work. At the Salon, paintings were stacked three
or four high, and crowded too closely together on the walls. At their independent exhibition, mounted in
what was formerly a photographer’s studio, the artists could hang their works
at eye level with space between them.
Although the artists didn’t call themselves "Impressionists"
at first, this occasion would be the first of eight such
"Impressionist" exhibits over the next twelve years. Louis
Leroy (1812-1885)
was a French 19th century engraver, painter, and successful playwright. He is remembered as the journalist and art critic for the French satirical newspaper Le
Charivari, who coined the term "impressionists"
to satirise the artists now known by the word.
Leroy's review was printed in Le Charivari on 25 April 1874 with the
title The Exhibition of the Impressionists. The term was taken from Claude
Monet's painting "Impression:
soleil levant". http://www.impressionism.org/teachimpress/browse/aboutimpress.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Leroy
Dec. 21, 2014 Salon des Refuses features some gems
among the 'also-rans' by Tahree Lane The best of
show winner at this year’s Salon des Refuses in the Parkwood Gallery is a
painting by a young innovator finishing a master’s degree in fine art. Across the street in the Toledo Museum of
Art, the top prize in the Toledo Area Artists’ exhibition also went to a young
innovator finishing a master’s degree in fine art. In the Parkwood, Ooga Booga is Aaron Pickens’
tiny oil painting. It’s a postcard-sized
colorplay of a yellow sardine can, behind which a goofy orange-beaked bird with
red horns, googly eyes, and purple stick-arms seems to pop up and chirp
“Ta-da!” “It made me laugh,” said
Pickens, a Toledoan attending Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. The curator of the TAA show selected 28
people from a pool of 462 based on what they put in their portfolios. Interestingly, many of the choices were
people who make very large art. The
also-ran Salon show is quite different.
It invites all the TAA rejects — 434 this year — to each display up to
three pieces, and what turns up is certain to run the gamut from very good to
not so much. But a mere 32 people took
pieces to the Salon. Despite the disappointing
turnout, “The Salon show never disappoints because there’s always some jewels,”
said Annette Jensen, founder and executive director of PRIZM Creative
Community, the nonprofit group that produced the Salon. Among them are gems such as Pickens.’ “How in the world would anybody think that a
can of sardines could be so elegant?” Adams said. http://www.toledoblade.com/Art/2014/12/21/Salon-des-Refuses-features-some-gems-among-the-also-rans.html
APOLOGY The meaning of apology has
evolved a good deal since its first appearance in the sixteenth century (the
first use recorded in the OED is in the title Apologie
of Syr Thomas More, Knyght; made by him, after he had geuen ouer the Office of
Lord Chancellor of Englande, dated 1533). In this Sir Thomas More was not regretting
his actions: he was seeking to justify
himself and to defend himself from accusations.
Another example is An
Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber (Comedian) in
1740 by the English actor-manager who was answering his critic Alexander Pope
with details of his life’s achievements; here the word is a pun on the older
sense and our modern one, it being a fake apology which is actually a
justification. This meaning comes
directly from the Greek apologia,
a derivative of a word meaning “to speak in one’s defence”, ultimately from the
prefix apo-, “away; off” together with logos, “speech”
From this Greek original, it entered English either through French or
Latin. It was quite soon after its first
appearance that the meaning of apology began
to shift away from self-justification towards implying regret. http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-apo1.htm
Apology: I'm sorry. Fake apology: If I have offended anyone, I'm sorry.
Spuyten Duyvil
is tucked into the corner of the Bronx at the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, first
stop beyond Marble Hill, that strange piece of Manhattan that resides on the
mainland. Spuyten has always been
loyally Bronx. It has been known as
Speight den Duyvil, Spike & Devil, Spitting Devil, Spilling Devil, Spiten
Debill and Spouting Devil, among other spellings. In Dutch, ‘spuyten duyvil,” the
mostly-accepted spelling these days, can be pronounced two ways; one
pronunciation means “devil’s whirlpool” and the other means “spite the
devil.” In Washington Irving’s Knickerbocker History, a Dutch trumpeter vows to swim
the turbulent waters of (then) Spuyten Duyvil Creek where it meets the Hudson
during the British attack on New Amsterdam in the 1660s “en spijt den Duyvil,”
or in “spite of the devil.” The Lenape
Indians inhabited the land for hundreds of years before Europeans arrived; they
called the banks of the creek “shorakapok” or “sitting-down place”. After a few hundred years, the name has been
pared down and exists as a street name:
Kappock (pronounced kay’ pock).
After 1916, old Spuyten Duyvil Creek was filled in, making Marble Hill
part of the mainland, though it was separated by a railroad and a steep hill
from the community of Spuyten Duyvil. See pictures
at http://forgotten-ny.com/2004/12/duyvilinthedetails/
Upper Manhattan and the Bronx were separated by only a narrow
tidal strait until the end of the 19th century. This narrow, meandering, but fast-flowing
strait was the Spuyten Duyvil Creek. New
York's waterfront sees about a five-foot variation between low tide and high
tide, and as the tide came in and out there was often a difference in water
level between the Hudson River and the East River, which is affected by the
slow and massive tidal movements of Long Island Sound. This differential created dangerous currents. In his (fictional) book The
Knickerbocker History of New York, Washington Irving tells an
apocryphal story of how the strait got its name, and how violent the water
could be. The normal way across Spuyten
Duyivil Creek during high tide was a ferry, operated until 1673 by Johannes
Verveelen. (During low tide it was often
possible to wade across, whether for travelers on foot or farmers bringing
livestock to the city—probably the origin of the name “Fordham” in the
Bronx). But in 1693, Manhattan got its
first bridge, a wooden toll-bridge structure run by the Philippse family, and
built over the old fording spot so that those crossing the Spuyten Duyvil were
forced to pay the toll. The charter
mandated that the king of England and his representatives, British soldiers,
could cross for free, and so it was known as the King’s Bridge. This humble stone-and-wood structure remains
the longest-lasting bridge that New York City has ever had. Spuyten Duyvil Creek was far too shallow for
larger boats or ships, and ship traffic between the
upper Hudson and Long Island Sound had to take a 25-mile detour around lower
Manhattan. In 1895, the Harlem River
Ship Canal was opened after nine years of work by the Army Corps of Engineers,
connecting the Hudson and Harlem Rivers with a navigable channel for ships
across the very northern end of Manhattan.
At the opening ceremonies, it was said that “the opening of the Harlem
Ship Canal was a greater event than the opening of the Erie Canal.” http://watercourses.typepad.com/watercourses/water-spuyten-duyvil-creek/
See also pictures and stories of the opening
of the Harlem Ship Canal that turned Manhattan into a true island at http://myinwood.net/the-harlem-ship-canal/
Dublin students fix bikes to
donate to others Dublin (Ohio) librarian
launches club that teaches students by Charlie Boss Dec.
13, 2014 If you ask 9-year-old Jordan
Starrett how she started her morning at Daniel Wright Elementary, she goes
right to the details. “We loosened the
things attached to the tire and the rim strip and took the tire off the rim,”
she said, describing the steps she took to remove and replace a bicycle
tire. “There’s a lot more (to bikes)
than the tires and pedals. There’s a
bunch of little buttons and knobs and bolts.”
Twice a week, Jordan and a handful of other students at the Dublin
school gather in the library before class to fix donated bikes that will be
given to kids who don’t have one. The
club — Wright’s Wheels — was started last month by school librarian Marisa
Saelzler, who received a $2,000 grant from the Dublin Education
Foundation. The money will pay for a
storage shed for bikes, bike parts and helmets for every child who gets a
bicycle. “For kids, riding a bike is
their freedom,” Saelzler said. “They can
go for a ride to explore a new area, go to a friend’s house, take a break from
homework or just ride for fun.” She came
up with the idea in the spring after visiting an apartment complex where two
Wright students she mentors live. The
girls and their neighbors were playing around an electrical box. There were no toys, no swing set. A bicycle, she thought, could be something
the students could use on their own or with their families. It would keep them active and would not cost
anything beyond the purchase of a bike.
Saelzler, her husband and two school custodians started fixing bikes that
were donated by staff members and were able to provide bikes for the girls, as
well as other kids she knew needed them.
As more donations came in, Saelzler decided to include students.
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1240
January 7, 2015 On this date in
1894, William Kennedy Dickson received a patent for motion picture film.
On this date in 1904, the distress
signal "CQD" was established
only to be replaced two years later by "SOS".
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