Thursday, February 14, 2008

Bosc Pears

Bosc Pears
2/13. Bosc Pears, oil on linen panel, 7x5 in. SOLD

From a post on everything2.com,

Before the Middle Ages, the pear had been considered a superior fruit to the apple. By the end of the Sung Dynasty (China, A.D. 1279), over one hundred varieties of pear existed while there was but one apple. This preference for the pear carried over to Greece and Rome as well. A discussion of fruit growth by the Greek writer Theophrastus included grafting and cross-pollination techniques for pears alone; in Rome, Pliny the Elder described 41 varieties of pear, while only three types of apple were noted.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Bosc Pear

Bosc Pear
2/10. Bosc Pear, oil on linen panel, 6x4 in. SOLD

I forgot to upload this after my Gary post. Interestingly, there is a Charleston connection in the story of horticulturist Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc, the pear's namesake. I found the following today on the
website of the Illinois Mycological Association, of all places:

Bosc grew up in France, and spent only a few years in the U.S., arriving in Charleston, South Carolina in 1796. As with many mycologists of his era, he was not only interested in fungi; he investigated and published on a wide variety of organisms. Mémoires sur quelques espèces de Champignons des parties méridionales de l'Amérique Septentrionale is his only work on American fungi.

In addition to his natural history works, Bosc also "edited" An appeal to impartial posterity: or, A collection of tracts written by her during her confinement in the prisons of the Abbey, and St. Pelagie, in Paris by Mme Roland (1754-1793), wife of the Minister of the Interior, who, as you can see from her dates, did not survive her imprisonment. The Appeal was directed at "her only daughter, deprived of the fortune of her parents by sequestration." I put the quotes around "edited," above, because I assume that Bosc did little besides smuggle the manuscript out and shepherd it through publication. N.S. Weber & A.H. Smith (1985) say that when Bosc came to this country, it was to put some distance between himself and "an unfortunate love affair." I certainly hope that it was not with Mme Roland; having your lover guillotined in the Red Terror is certainly one of the more awful ways to end a relationship.

And one of the messiest...

Monday, February 11, 2008

Gary Grier show, Charleston

Gary Grier

We decided sort of last minute to drive down to Charleston, SC, on Friday to catch the opening reception for my good friend Gary, who is showing alongside printmaker Lou Stovall (read a review here). The drive took much longer than anticipated with the baby, but luckily we made it in time and I got to catch up a little with him and a couple other old schoolmates, Sean and Shane, who each came from out of town as well for the big night. It was so surreal seeing these guys again after almost ten years – we were all noticeably more mature (at least on the outside), yet it felt like we had parted ways only months ago.

Gary Grier reception
Gary Grier reception
Gary Grier reception
Gary Grier

As Gary told me, much of the work in the current show was a result of his walks to and from his studio, just outside of Charleston’s elegant and prosperous downtown. With the feel of the pavement beneath his feet day after day came the realization that here were neighborhoods in decline which needed to be preserved or at least documented in paint. I'm always impressed by the sincerity of his paintings, and it was especially awesome to be able to stand in front of a large group of them for the first time. Maybe just experiencing an old friend’s brush marks in person again was inspiring enough, but I got a real kick out of all the rich ochres and neutral browns in his middle shadows, those great Old Master colors that inspired us so much during our days at school. On Saturday the two of us spent a long while in his studio talking about paint and reminiscing about those good old days, and I left on Sunday morning with a sense of renewal.

Overall our experience of downtown Charleston was a brief whirlwind tour, but we had enough time to do some strolling, get all messy at a little crab shack just beyond the fancier establishments on East Bay St., and visit the Gibbes Museum of Art where I surreptitiously photographed a couple of paintings that I found interesting:


The Green Fan (Girl of Toledo, Spain)Mme Pierre Gautreau
- a modern looking Robert Henri; and a portrait by Antonio de la Gandara of the infamous "Madame X," which the unfortunate lady commissioned in the hope of undoing the great scandal caused by Sargent's earlier painting. (See them better on the Web: 1, 2.) The Henri piece was part of a small, eclectic group that included a W.M. Chase portrait remarkable for a sketchy part done in Gary's same browns and ochres; a large and almost garishly loud Childe Hassam; as well as some magnificent Hokusai and Hiroshige prints.


On the drive home through the Carolinas there was an extremely strong wind, and we passed through dust clouds and the smoke of what we later learned were huge brush fires just before the Virginia border, which turned parts of the sky amazing shades of red and purple. It was a fantastic end to a pleasantly surreal weekend.