Pastoral Scene Research Articles

The Effects of Negative Emotional Stimuli on Alpha Blunting

Blunted alpha response at locations O1 and Cz has been found to be associated with exposure to severe emotional stressors. Subjects exposed to an emotionally negative photograph had alpha blunting, whereas controls shown a pastoral scene with similar color tones and those not shown any pictures did not have alpha blunting. Braindriving neurotherapeutic treatment procedures found effective for restoring the alpha response and correlated trauma “release” are discussed.

Dernier état des lieux by Pierre-Alain Tâche

TÂCHE, PIERRE-ALAIN. Dernier état des lieux. Chavannes-près-Renens: Empreintes, 2011. ISBN 978-2-940414-15-4. Pp. 113. 19,20 a. This third poetry collection in a series by Tâche shares modest explorations of place, many of which take on a haunting, elevating quality thanks to the calm voice of experience that characterizes the wandering self and the mostly balanced— at times exquisite—prosody that orients the reader. In the manner of L’état des lieux and Nouvel état des lieux, the poems’ appeal lies in Tâche’s receptivity and the literary voice that enables us to inhabit widely ranging scenes in north and southeastern France, Malta, Romania, Normandy, Switzerland’s Upper Engadine, and Paris. Aiming to grasp the real “dans sa profusion, dans son chatoiement” (back cover), the author resists foregrounding any one particular effect his surroundings might have on him and focuses instead on gracefully bearing witness to the passing of days, albeit with hints of elegy and regret at not ensuring attunement to “la beauté” (51, 75, 78, 97). An affirming, inquisitive urge makes itself felt structurally, through titled poems of about three to five elegantly measured stanzas that home in on specific settings, events, and emotions. Successive pages introduce tableaux whose words and sounds add light and shade to the pursuit of personal, local, historical, and spiritual knowledge. The opening poem, “Naviguer,” sets the tone for the volume ’s alertness to intense micro-environments that are then artisanally reconstructed through diction, consonance, and intermittent rhyme: in this pastoral scene, the speaker discovers a temporary ability to “naviguer sans bruit / dans la profonde nasse de verdure, / où dort le fin mot d’un secret,” within the purified atmosphere of “les cathédrales de sève, / où chants et vols ont convolé” (11). Unafraid to “lire avidement dans le fugace” (29), to suggest for instance the endless promise of a similar “présence rayonnante” offered to us “dans la paume des monts, / surpassant la respiration des forêts” (78), Tâche by no means contents himself with facile optimism. The diverse backdrops, in addition to subtle differences in line lengths, establish in compact form undercurrents of uncertainty and unpredictability that could be said to validate the search for meaning. “Avant Scey” portrays a car’s mad, fiery dash on land as contrasted with diligent, always renewed work on a ship (17); “Éléphants nains” emphasizes “le devenir foireux de l’espèce” (25); “Un rideau vénitien” depicts a museum object that has become “retranché du naos, / incomplet, vacant, désœuvré” (51); and several section endings convey the potential emptiness of the impulse to “ruer / dans le cadre obligé du poème” (106). Absorbing human portraits include a young girl pronouncing “gravement kau / (comme cause ou caution)” for “co-que-li-cots” (38); a provincial “cour, où les marchands des quatre vents / disputent tout le jour de petits riens” (53); and a street musician at the Louvre whose flute “incite [...] à la badinerie” while “[l]es gens, les marronniers, le ciel / tout bourgeonne et jubile” (84). The palpable ache can in some poems seem overly sonorous or elliptically expressed. Nonetheless, the overall coherence and conviction make for moments of stunning clarity and a movement toward collective wisdom: “La paix qui règne ici tient sa fraîcheur / d’une source profonde; et nous, / qui profanons la pulpe de l’énigme, / en pèlerins futiles, nous l’aimons” (45). With a master’s touch for subdued lyricism, Tâche extends a distinctly Swiss tradition—though one well informed by the broader poetic canon—of immersion in landscapes of all sorts. He echoes Ramuz and others in his gravitation around an observed center and attention to concrete details surfacing as part of a ceaseless “retour de l’élémen1006 FRENCH REVIEW 86.5 taire” (103). These are perceptive, evocative accounts of circulation in the outer world, as well as of the immediacy such encounters can achieve in sensitively modulated frameworks. Southwestern University (TX) Aaron Prevots ZALBERG, CAROLE. À défaut d’Amérique. Arles: Actes Sud, 2012. ISBN 978-2-330-002466 . Pp. 214. 18,50 a. Ce roman clôt la trilogie de Zalberg...

Turner inspired: in the light of Claude

The English Romantic artist Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) was hailed as the of light for his brilliantly colored landscapes and seascapes. He drew much influence from the French painter Claude Lorrain (c. 1604/5?-1682), who was a vital force in Turner's artistic practice from his formative years until the end of his working life. So great was Claude's influence that Turner stipulated in his will that his works hang alongside Claude's in the National Gallery, London. This book examines the ways in which Turner consistently strove to confront Claude's achievement and legacy. He had encountered Claude's works in salerooms and in the collections of his aristocratic patrons, and applied what he had learned to the British countryside, producing views of the Thames valley that transform it into an idyllic pastoral scene reminiscent of the Roman Campagna. For the balance of his career, Turner continued to pit himself against Claude, paying homage even as he continually sought to go beyond the accomplishments of his master.

Uncompromising Gaze: The Art of Albert Chiarandini O.S.A., F.I.I.A.L.

A close analysis of the paintings by Albert Chiarandini inscribed in several genres (portraiture, landscapes and compositions) and evaluated in light of the artist’s life experience, diary reflections, and personal interviews, reveals his fundamental concern for social justice. He chooses to portray the downtrodden with empathy, views important monuments from unusual angles that highlight their unpretentious side, and hints at the menacing conflict inherent in apparently pastoral scenes. His choice of political events and personages (Attila the Hun attacking Aquileia, the FLQ and Women’s Liberation movement in Quebec, the sacrifice of the outspoken Savonarola) underscores his condemnation of war and the suppression of personal freedoms. The artist’s numerous self-portraits and cameo appearances in other paintings are particularly indicative of the essence of Chiarandini’s works: his stance as a freedom fighter and his penetrating gaze into the heart of humankind.

Ekphrasis and the Feminine in Sannazaro's Arcadia

Ekphrasis and the Feminine in Sannazaro's Arcadia Melinda A. Cro In Chapter III of Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia (1504), the shepherds celebrate the feast of Pales, "veneranda dea di pastori." As the shepherds enter the temple, the narrator describes the murals on the walls, struck by a depiction of nymphs laughing at a little ram. While distracted by nature's tableau, a group of satyrs steals upon the nymphs and, realizing the peril they face, the nymphs take flight. The mural comes to life as the author describes the nymphs' rapid and panicked escape from the threat of physical violence as the satyrs give chase. This particular mural is one of a series of tableaux found on the walls in Pales' temple. The group of murals could be considered an example of collectionist ekphrases, a term described by Frederick A. de Armas as a set of descriptions of works of art that can be grouped together and thus constitute a museum or gallery within a text and whose purpose is to "foreground a major topic or question posited by the text" (23). The first of the tableaux painted above the doorway is a typical, humble pastoral scene of a verdant, lush meadow inhabited by dogs and shepherds with their flocks, some tending to the livestock, some playing the pipes. The next scene described is that of the nymphs to which the author draws the reader's attention by underlining the pleasure it affords the narrator upon viewing it. This tableau is followed by a depiction of Apollo guarding Admetus' herds and Mercury stealing one of the cows. This instance of ekphrasis stands out from what has preceded structurally in the novel — descriptions of shepherds, their loves, their singing competitions, the landscape of Arcadia itself; and poetic dialogues or monologues by the shepherds on similar themes. This departure from form leads the reader to consider the purpose for [End Page 71] the inclusion of this set of ekphrases and the motive behind the description of a scene as rife with menacing undertones as that of the flight of the nymphs. I propose that the ekphrasis serves a dual purpose, extending beyond the decorative. The mural personifies what Renato Poggioli might term the "normal erotic impulses" (61) inherent within pastoral where woman is identified as an object to be conquered and possessed. Further, the tableau foreshadows a second instance of ekphrasis later in the text that goes to the core of the genesis of the pastoral mode as conceived by Sannazaro. Pastoral happiness, for Poggioli, is defined in terms of fulfillment — the "fulfillment of the passion of love, the consummation of the man's erotic wishes" (42), lending a strikingly sexual element to the pastoral conception of love and aligning the notion of happiness with that of "erotic hedonism" (49). The pastoral relationship is conceived as occurring between a young female — a nymph or a shepherdess — and a male of any age. While the beauty of the woman hinges upon her youth, her springtime essence, her partner's age is of little consequence because pastoral, in particular Renaissance Italian pastoral, is not only a mode of retreat from society — it is man's retreat from society. The pastoral experience is often viewed from the man's perspective rather than the woman's, and thus the whole world is interpreted through what Poggioli considers to be a patriarchal lens although phallocentric lens might be a more accurate term given the emphasis on the sexual. Relying primarily on Tasso's Aminta (1573) as source, Poggioli argues that in pastoral it is the law of nature that reigns rather than the law of society. The law of nature champions free love (always from a phallocentric perspective that does not consider rejection on the part of the female to be acceptable) as opposed to the law of society that restricts the passion of love, dictating its proper expression which is in direct opposition to what Freud would label as natural erotic desires. Pastoral functions as a retreat from social convention where the male author and/or reader may take the liberty to act upon his erotic impulses and then persuade himself that such an action...

The Architecture of Arcadia: Quinault, Lully, and the Complicit Spectator of theTragédie en Musique

AbstractMost analyses of the Arcadia of the Ancien regime interpret pastoral politically as a place built in contrast to court life, a contrast that manifested itself iconographically as pastoral scenes built in the foreground of palatial backdrops, or Arcadian, garden-like courtyards. But, in the context of theatre, the scenography of pastoral was also constructed as a peaceful, verdant setting that opposed the dangers and marvels of mythological places and characters put into motion by machines. Even though Arcadia was a rather artificial version of a simple garden or forest, it was nevertheless part of a visual tradition that was understood as a possible world. For Philippe Quinault and Jean-Baptiste Lully, the pastoral space was key to harmonizing not only the singing, but also the ever-increasing use of machines and spectacular scene changes of early musical tragedy. Thanks to its familiar topoi, the pastoral setting (evident in didascalies, iconography, and within the verses of Quinault's libretti) ...

The prehistoric mind as a historical artefact

On 8 July 2010 the front page of The Guardian newspaper featured an attractive colour drawing by the artist John Sibbick. It was entitled ‘Meet the Norfolk relatives’ and it depicted a pastoral scene of farmers and hunters going about their daily routines ([figure 1][1]). However, the image

A Study on the Characteristics of the Designs on Coptic Textiles of Ancient Egypt

Textile and clothing in Ancient Egypt have carried long history and tradition. Especially, Egyptian textile culture, created mostly by the Copt, has the originality of weaving technology and the artistic beauty of the weaving motifs, making the textiles comparable to modern textiles. The purpose of this study is to research on the characteristics of Coptic textile designs of ancient Egypt and the tunic, a basic garment made of Coptic textiles, and offer materials for the development of the textiles and designs with artistic values which can be shared in the modern era, not just for the research of the relics of the past. Therefore, this study will follow the historical background of Coptic textiles and the process of the development, and look into the distinct features under the categories of material, colors and motifs. In addition, the tunic and its weaving technology will be explained and this will help understand the originality of Coptic textiles. The scope of this study is limited to the period of the 3rd to 12th centuries when the Egyptian weaving technologies advanced dramatically and many of the ancient Egyptian textiles discovered from the grave goods dates back, the research methode of the tunic as well as books published at home and abroad, research paper and photograph works. The textiles had developed along the Egyptian history which was influenced by different cultures such as Greek, Roman, pagan, Christian, and later, Islamic. For the textiles, they used a variety of pictorial motifs including Greek goddesses, pastoral scenes related to the Nile River and animals, human figures, geometrical figures and Christian icons. They are symbolic, natural, and mythological characters, and this explains that the world views and religions of the weavers influenced the development of specific motifs. Coptic textiles was used to make a tunic, a simple straight-sided gown without sleeves worn by men and women and was woven in a combination of linen plain weave and woolen tapestry weave for a tunic. Not only the excellence of the weaving technologies and the beauty of the colors used in the textiles, but also the diversity of the textures through weaving, embroidery, and knotting are detected in Coptic textiles.

Parlor Games: Italian Music and Italian Politics in the Parisian Salon

Abstract Among a community of Italian political leaders and artists who settled in Paris after the failed Italian revolutions of 1831 was Count Carlo Pepoli, author of the libretto for Bellini's I puritani. During his years in Paris, Pepoli also wrote the poetry for two song collections: Rossini's Soirées musicales and Mercadante's Soirées italiennes. Both collections are conceived as a series of picturesque images of Italian locales interspersed with pastoral scenes; they are also linked by allusions to a character named Elvira, perhaps a projection of the heroine of I puritani. This article explores the connections between the Rossini and Mercadante songs and their possible link to Bellini's opera, in relation to two distinct audiences: the Parisian salons of the 1830s, with their strong Italian expatriate presence, and the market of amateurs who purchased sheet music. In both contexts, the poetic content and musical style of the songs may have fostered favorable attitudes to Italy and to Unification, showing that even music composed for private and domestic uses could be politically influential.

A Finder's Magic (review)

Reviewed by: A Finder's Magic Kate McDowell Pearce, Philippa A Finder's Magic; illus. by Helen Craig. Candlewick, 2009121p ISBN 978-0-7636-4072-9$15.99 R Gr. 3-5 Young Till, devastated by the loss of his dog, Bess, is hopeful when a mysterious man who calls himself Finder ("one of the old Seekers Finders") appears and offers help. Searching for the dog leads them through the countryside on a duck, heron, mole, and cat chase, as Finder uses his strange powers to gather from the animals what they witnessed when the dog disappeared. Till must solve the animals' riddles, and he puts together the clues to learn that his dog was stolen, but will he ever see Bess again? This posthumous publication by classic author Pearce evinces her usual gift for blending reality and fantasy in plain and approachable style. Her supernaturally touched English countryside is homey but never cute; Finder may be a constant companion and a guide to Till on the journey but he's no indulgent guardian ("If you don't get it, you don't get it," he brusquely informs Till at one point), and the uncertain scope of his powers keeps the story suspenseful rather than precious. The pencil-and-watercolor illustrations allude to folkloric origins for Finder by dressing him in green and giving him pointed elfin ears, but the text is silent on the specifics of his nature, simply accepting him within the context. The illustrations, which gently evoke the warmth of the pastoral scenes, also provide clues; an extra vertical line in a neighbor's sketch, for instance, allows Till to decode the presence of the dog thief who was in the meadow the day before. Younger readers who crave gentle shivers without terrors will appreciate this cozy fantasy quest to find a lost pet. [End Page 377] Copyright © 2009 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

On the edge of Bantu expansions: mtDNA, Y chromosome and lactase persistence genetic variation in southwestern Angola

BackgroundCurrent information about the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples is hampered by the scarcity of genetic data from well identified populations from southern Africa. Here, we fill an important gap in the analysis of the western edge of the Bantu migrations by studying for the first time the patterns of Y-chromosome, mtDNA and lactase persistence genetic variation in four representative groups living around the Namib Desert in southwestern Angola (Ovimbundu, Ganguela, Nyaneka-Nkumbi and Kuvale). We assessed the differentiation between these populations and their levels of admixture with Khoe-San groups, and examined their relationship with other sub-Saharan populations. We further combined our dataset with previously published data on Y-chromosome and mtDNA variation to explore a general isolation with migration model and infer the demographic parameters underlying current genetic diversity in Bantu populations.ResultsCorrespondence analysis, lineage sharing patterns and admixture estimates indicate that the gene pool from southwestern Angola is predominantly derived from West-Central Africa. The pastoralist Herero-speaking Kuvale people were additionally characterized by relatively high frequencies of Y-chromosome (12%) and mtDNA (22%) Khoe-San lineages, as well as by the presence of the -14010C lactase persistence mutation (6%), which likely originated in non-Bantu pastoralists from East Africa. Inferred demographic parameters show that both male and female populations underwent significant size growth after the split between the western and eastern branches of Bantu expansions occurring 4000 years ago. However, males had lower population sizes and migration rates than females throughout the Bantu dispersals.ConclusionGenetic variation in southwestern Angola essentially results from the encounter of an offshoot of West-Central Africa with autochthonous Khoisan-speaking peoples from the south. Interactions between the Bantus and the Khoe-San likely involved cattle herders from the two groups sharing common aspects of their social organization. The presence of the -14010C mutation in southwestern Angola provides a link between the East and Southwest African pastoral scenes that might have been established indirectly, through migrations of Khoe herders across southern Africa. Differences in patterns of mtDNA and Y-chromosome intrapopulation diversity and interpopulation differentiation may be explained by contrasting demographic histories underlying the current female and male genetic variation.

Hours of Idleness

No person is exposed to ridicule till he has deserved it, and if the noble lord had not published his Hours of Idleness, no human being would have guessed the quantity of time he had spent doing nothing. (The Satirist, 1807) At first sight life would appear to have been very pleasant for middle- and upper-class young people around 1800 - so long as the proceeds from tenants, trade, investment and slavery kept flowing in.1 But boredom was an ever-present enemy, and the popularity with both sexes of the craze for decorating furniture, print rooms, albums and screens is hardly surprising. Printsellers such as Rudolph Ackermann were kept busy supplying everything from decorative borders to caricature prints. In Pride and Prejudice Mr Bingley exclaims: 'It is amazing to me [...] how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished [...]. They all paint tables, cover skreens, and net purses.'2 Beau Brummell whiled away his exile in France making a six-panel screen (now lost). His biographer, Captain Jesse, describes how the picture of Byron on the screen, surrounded by flowers, had a wasp at his throat. As Jesse comments, this 'was base ingratitude on the part of Brummell, for the noble lord spoke of and would have pasted him with more charitable feeling'.3 And Byron himself, of course, owned a four-panel screen celebrating pugilism and the theatre, which was rescued by John Murray when Byron's effects were being sold in 1816, and can now be seen at Newstead Abbey. For the past two years I have been studying a small, double-sided firescreen (in a private collection) displaying a collection of scraps, poems, songs and riddles. It was made by Elizabeth Pigot who, as Byronists will know, lived in Southwell, near Nottingham, with her three brothers and their widowed mother. The family was related to several comfortably-off neighbouring families including the Bechers, Lowes and Leacrofts. In 1803 the life of this small market town was suddenly enlivened by the arrival of new neighbours, renting the recently built Burgage Manor - Mrs Catherine Byron, the fifteen-year-old Byron and their pet dogs. Readers of this journal will recall that Byron's relations with his mother were so stormy that he often sought refuge across Burgage Green at the Pigot home. Although Elizabeth was six years older, there is evidence in Byron's letters of a blossoming friendship. In August 1804 he wrote to thank her for copying bookplates with his family coat of arms and urged her to knit a watch ribbon and purse for him. In 1805 John Pigot and Byron took leading parts in the Southwell amateur theatrical productions of Richard Cumberland's The Wheel of Fortune and John Allingham's The Weathercock. Byron wrote a witty prologue and flirted with Miss Pigot's cousin, Julia Leacroft. Elizabeth had quickly discovered Byron's talent for writing poetry. They exchanged verses. She made fair copies of his poems, correcting his spelling and punctuation and encouraged him to publish them during summer 1806 as Fugitive Pieces. Elizabeth was proud of this friendship and happy to share her memories in later life with Thomas Moore and John Murray. Megan Boyes, in her invaluable book Love Without Wings, says Elizabeth regretted having 'cut up original manuscripts in Byron's own handwriting' and sending off the fragments to collectors.4 She never married and stayed in Southwell until her death in 1866. The screen consists of two double-sided, glazed panels, each 24 inches square. It is in remarkably good condition, despite water and light damage. At first sight it presents a random collection of poetry, riddles, music manuscript, quirky caricatures and watercolour sketches. Hand-coloured shells, moths and butterflies are scattered around. In the centre of one panel there is a pastoral scene. The other three each feature a 'fancy' picture by Francis Wheatley: The Rustic Lovers, The Industrious Cottager Mending Cabbage Nets and an untitled one showing a boy stealing washing from a sleeping laundress. …

Eighteen Canzonets for Two and Three Voices (review)

John Travers. Eighteen Canzonets for Two and Three Voices. Edited by Emanuel Rubin. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 74.) Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, c2005. [Acknowledgments, p. vi; introd., p. vii-xvii; texts, p. xviii-xxi; 4 plates; score, 85 p.; crit. report, p. 87-89. ISBN 0-89579-567-1. $63.] Emanuel Rubin's claim that the Georgian part-song repertory will undoubtedly pleasure (p. ix) both singer and listener is rather hyperbolic in the context of notes for scholarly modern edition, but the assertion is nevertheless nearly sustainable. With this volume in Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, Rubin reintroduces John Travers's superb Eighteen Canzonets for Two and Three Voices (London: John Simpson, 1746), written for various combinations of two or three voice parts and continuo. Originally available by subscription purchase or through lending libraries, and sung for entertainment in private gatherings at homes or in public singing clubs, these pieces will bring pleasure in variety of present-day settings, from vocal studio, recital stage, participatory entertainment among amateurs. They would also enliven theater productions set in eighteenth- or early-nineteenth-century England. Certainly, they deserve be recorded, perhaps with number of selections from the enormous and underexplored repertory which they belong (secular genres known glees, fa-las, madrigals, Neapolitans, ayres, songs, and still other appellations), or perhaps in collection arranged by topic (mythical characters, love, pastoral scenes) or devoted texts of Matthew Prior (1664-1721). Listeners, singers, and continuo players alike will be attracted by these canzonets' varied textures, alternation of syllabic and exuberant melismatic passages, counterpoint (including some artful canons), lively changes of meter, witty texts (eleven by Prior), and vivid text painting. The edition will also bring pleasure scholars in musicology and other fields who seek recover and understand the widely overlooked role of music in the culture of Georgian England. (Further historical background, bibliography, and especially useful clarification regarding nomenclature may be found in Rubin's The English Glee in the Reign of George III: Participatory An Music for an Urban Society, Detroit Monographs in Musicology/Studies in Music, 38 [Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 2003].) In his introduction the edition, Rubin helpfully summarizes the collection's ancestry. In the sixteenth century, the part-song flourished alongside the madrigal. Distinction between the two genres, in fact, was blurry: the madrigal was understood be possibly more contrapuntal, while the part-song lute accompaniment-although when sufficient voices were available, the lute was dispensable, making the part-song more madrigalian. In the seventeenth century, proliferation of singing clubs mirrored increased class mobility. You would do well, Edward Ravenscroft's Citizen Turn'd Gentleman is advised, to have Musick Club at your house, and play and sing in consort, it will much benefit you (act 1, scene 1, quoted on p. ? of the introduction). Repertoire by John Blow, Henry Purcell, and others fed the voracious appetites of these clubs, and persisted in collections into the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, even while new clubs also demanded new part-songs as fresh their food and drink (p. ix). The tradition reached the apex of its popularity in the late eighteenth century. Rubin counts more than three thousand glees alone that were published during the reign of George III (1760-1820), a number that would quadruple if the canzonets, rounds, catches, and madrigals were included (p. xi). Not only did this repertory serve an impetus for the massive explosion in London's commercial music publishing, it also brought into contact singers from different walks of life. Rubin accepts conventional wisdom here, citing Percy M. …

Julie Dowling’s strange fruit

Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallan...

Bridges and Housman as Elegists: The Modern Threshold

Bridges and Housman as Elegists: The Modem Threshold John B. Vickery University of California, Riverside ROBERT BRIDGES AND A. E. HOUSMAN were centrally involved with the elegy as a poetic genre. Bridges lacks any sustained sign of the modern elegiac temper. By this I mean that he was not part of the modern change in the elegy from basically a confrontation with death to a dealing with all the forms of personal, intellectual, and cultural loss suffered by mankind. Housman, on the other hand, reveals clear signs of the modern temper in which loss is endemic, no compensatory resolution possible, and death without any afterlife the ultimate end of human beings. By looking at certain of their representative poems, I chart this seminal difference. ♦ ♦ ♦ While Robert Bridges's elegies do betray signs of unease with and fugitive efforts to modify the late-Victorian and Edwardian elegiac tradition and its conservative stance toward that tradition, in the main they adhere to it and the culture which enshrined it.1 Thus, in his elegy "Clear and gentle stream," he skillfully strikes the customary pastoral note of the genre. The theme of the return or retreat to a familiar country scene in order to reflect seriously on the speaker's life is as commonplace as it is frequent in the period. The speaker feels a nostalgic pleasure muted by a gentle intimation that such a past is irrecoverable. The rhythmic and musical balance of the poem's couplets concludes with a repetition of the three lines ending the first stanza. This device together with the general aura of tranquillity developed suggest the speaker's resolution of the problem that brought him back initially to the pastoral setting. The mood generated is premonitory of revelation, peacefully plangent, and reflective of habitual pleasures. 404 VICKERY : BRIDGES & HOUSMAN And yet apparently nothing is revealed, no fugitive sorrow or regret reconciled, and no decisive acceptance of loss made. The speaker's aim in returning to the countryside is to reenact an early prized, contemplative experience. But what the "old lament" and "idle dream" were about is never made explicit.2 Instead, the speaker enjoins only the stream, which is the focal point of the whole natural scene, to emulate him by remaining content with both lament and dream.3 To many readers today this may appear rather thin fare with which to bulk out the elegy's traditional reactions to major personal or communal losses. They may suspect that Bridges is simply playing with their emotions , arousing feelings that anticipate profound experiences, and then thwarting them by circling back around essentially vague generalities. Yet this view may incline us to under-read and so to miss his central achievement here. His gradual filling out of the pastoral scene draws the reader into the very tradition of the elegy itself.4 In effect, the scene calls up not so much a present reality as the past ideal iconic scene of the pastoral elegy per se. So too are the activities sought and celebrated by the speaker. Neither lament nor dream are immediate experiences of the poet so much as they are conventional images drawn from the elegiac tradition. What he does in this poem, as in others, is to sum up the established form and conventional attitudes of the gradually weakened elegy as it has come down to him through Milton, Shelley, Tennyson, and Arnold. He does so by reiterating the central elegiac foci of his age: the loss of a beloved, the celebration of death through a broken heart, the broadly philosophical contemplation of the impact of death on human affairs, and the pathos of premature death.5 In other elegies, such as "The wood is bare: a river mist is steeping," the same strategy is employed. The landscape functions as a mnemonic device reminding the speaker of the cyclical course of nature, human love, and life.6 Once again, Bridges is almost deliberately vague as to the nature and occasion of the speaker's loss. Whether it is due to a commonenough change of affections on the beloved's part or a result of her death is not determined: For on this path, at every turn...

De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst

De schilderijenverzameling van baron Willem Vincent van Wyttenhorst

English Engravings of Picturesque Views after Jean Pillement (1728-1808)

In 1754 when Jean Pillement, after a successful stay in Spain and Portugal, arrived in London at the age of twenty six, the English economy was enjoying a dynamic growth which had a direct repercussion on the art market. Thanks to the extraordinary public demand of the time for fine prints of desirable works of art, an artist's stature and fame was directly related to the number of his printed works circulated domestically and abroad. Pillement succeeded in taking full advantage of the opportunities which engravings offered in England; not only through his talent for draughtmanship but also through the renderings of his drawings by first class engravers and etchers, native and imported. It was in England that many of his ornamental designs were first engraved and published. It is also where Pillement began to turn his attention to landscape drawing and painting. His pastoral scenes, seascapes and picturesque views found an appreciative clientele in London. His stay of ten years in England opened to him as well the French market for engravings and established his reputation as a brilliant ornamentalist as well as a landscape artist.

Catalogus Van Nog Bestaande Schilderijen

Catalogus Van Nog Bestaande Schilderijen

Pictures of the Mind: Iron and Charcoal, "Ouzy" Tides and "Vagrant Dwellers" at Tintern, 1798

IT IS COMMON KNOWLEDGE AMONG THOSE INTERESTED IN THE COMPOSITION history of Wordsworth's written few above Tintern Abbey on Revisiting Banks of Wye during Tour that village of Tintern, site of Abbey featured in poet's title missing from his text, supported an ironworks. This industry consumed great deal of was produced from oak growing in surrounding hills and burned in furnaces on banks of Wye river. My purpose here is to add to our knowledge of this subject and to correct errors that have accrued in its transmission. By doing so, I hope to allay suspicions still entertained by many that Wordsworth deliberately excluded from his poem unmistakable signs of environmental and social degradation caused by iron industry at Tintern in 1798. According to Marjorie Levinson's influential account, Insight and Oversight: Reading 'Tintern Abbey,' (1) Wordsworth's Lines do not describe site upstream from Abbey, industrialized Tintern itself, transformed into reassuringly pastoral scene by acts of imaginative distortion and omission. Among ugly details transfigured to point of misrecognition by Wordsworth's text is presence of beggars in and around village. Levinson argues that charcoal used by ironworks was produced at time of Wordsworth's visit in July 1798 by homeless vagrants seeking shelter in Abbey ruins, and reduced to marginal livelihood of charcoal-burning by England's tottering economy and ... wartime displacement (29). These vagrants, she says, are otherwise unidentified vagrant in houseless woods mentioned in poet's opening verse paragraph (line 21). (2) Also according to Levinson's account, ironworks all deforested banks of Wye with its demand for charcoal (30) and filled river with noisy boat traffic (29) and an ouzy tide of pollution (32). So shocked was Wordsworth at 'urban' contamination (industry, poverty, crowds, noise, pollution) (36) at Tintern, argues Levinson, that he tried to suppress every trace of it from his Lines--with only partial success--while announcing in his title that he was describing scene a few miles away. Levinson's depiction of industrial and social despoliation (31) of Tintern in 1798 is probably best-known of several contributions on subject, beginning with John Bard McNulty's in 1945. (3) McNulty was first to suggest that Wordsworth's lofty cliffs, that ... connect / The landscape with quiet of sky (5-8) and wreathes of smoke / Sent up, in silence, from among trees (18-19) were partly inspired by William Gilpin's description of charcoal-burning in Observations on River Wye, records boat tour undertaken in 1770. Many of furnaces, on banks of river, consume charcoal, writes Gilpin, which is manufactured on spot; and smoke, issuing from sides of hills; and spreading its thin veil over part of them, beautifully breaks their fines, and unites them with sky (12). (4) Ever since appearance of McNulty's essay, Gilpin's Observations has been most often cited source of information on subject of natural and human environment at Tintern in year of Wordsworth's revisit. Mary Moorman, in 1957, cited Gilpin's description of charcoal smoke and added several other features he remarked upon: the grass in ruins was kept mown, she writes, but it was dwelling-place of beggars and wretchedly poor. The river was then full of shipping, carrying coal and timber from Forest of Dean. (5) Twenty-five years later, Kenneth Johnston also mentioned Gilpin's charcoal smoke, as well as the heavily commercial aspect of river at that point due to shipping traffic. To Gilpin's beggars in Abbey he added gipsies, and vagabonds. Publishing his essay in 1983, Johnston anticipated Levinson's identification of Wordsworth's vagrant dwellers with indigent charcoal burners and likewise suggested that these unattractive associations--industrial smoke and social outcasts--might very well account for Wordsworth's insistently placing his poem 'a few above Tintern Abbey' rather than at site of Abbey itself. …

Et in Arcadia Ego?: Thomas Amory, Mary Hamilton, and the (Re) Construction of Arcadia

Et in Arcadia Ego?: Thomas Amory, Mary Hamilton, and the (Re) Construction of Arcadia J. DAVID MACEY, JR. In the opening scene of Thomas Amory's idiosyncratic first novel, Memoirs: Containing the Lives of Several Ladies of Great Britain (1755), the anonymous narrator employs the esthetic vocabulary of the eighteenth-century landscape arts, including pastoral poetry, painting and landscape design, in order to describe the novel's heroine, Miss Marinda Bruce, and her rural estate, Hali-farm.1 The narrator assimilates Miss Bruce and her green retreat in his verbal portrait by representing the lovely heroine as a figure in—and for—the no less lovely landscape. In doing so, he repeats a characteristic gesture of eighteenth-century artists, whether novelists, poets, painters or landscape architects, by treating both women and the supposedly female "body" of nature as passive objects of esthetic pleasure and by evaluating them in terms of their ability "to titillate the imagination and satisfy the senses while at the same time remaining within carefully prescribed moral, aesthetic, and territorial limits."2 Amory (71691-1788) uses this scene to explore the power of culturally conditioned esthetic sensibilities to shape—and distort—our understanding of the relationship between human beings and their environment. The narrator's verbal portrait of Miss Bruce is, in fact, misleading; she is not the passive and inarticulate esthetic object that he imagines her to be but rather a landscape artist in her own right who is engaged in revising a well191 192 / MACEY known pastoral scene, Nicolas Poussin's Arcadian Shepherds II (c. 163840 ). Miss Bruce transforms Poussin's painting by depicting a Utopian community in which women, no longer ornamental figures in a landscape constructed by a male artist, act as teachers and spiritual guides to their male companions (22-25). Wer Arcadia corrects the narrator's verbal portrait of Hali-farm by demonstrating the full range of roles available to women as artists and as subjects of the landscape genre. Her revision of Poussin's painting, which requires her to work both within and against the conventions of an established genre, typifies the approach of eighteenth-century women writers to a literary tradition which provided them with a limited thematic and stylistic vocabulary in which to express their hopes, anxieties and lived experiences. Amory's fictional account of Miss Bruce and her painting offers a useful paradigm for interpreting the work of such writers as Eliza Fowler Haywood (71693-1756), Sarah Robinson Scott (1720-95) and Lady Mary (Walker) Hamilton (1739-1816) because it provides a richly symbolic (and exceptionally lucid) example of the way in which marginalized artists learn to speak in their own voices by entering into dialog with traditions that both shape and constrain their artistic development. Amory's Memoirs, now largely forgotten by critics and readers, may seem an unlikely point of departure for a discussion of intertextuality, artistic appropriation, and the social function of the landscape arts during the eighteenth century. Influenced by the oral narratives of Amory's native Ireland as well as by picaresque fiction and contemporary travel narratives, the digressive and episodic Memoirs resists generic classification.3 While Amory's Memoirs and his second, no less digressive novel, 77?e Life and Opinions of John Bunde, Esq. (1756-66) tend to puzzle (if not frustrate) twentieth-century readers, they delighted some of the most sophisticated readers of an earlier age, and these readers' assessments of Amory's work ought not to be taken lightly. Hazlitt, for example, enthusiastically proclaims Amory "the English Rabelais," while Charles Lamb finds in Amory's writing "an infinite fund of pleasantry."4 One recent critic has even suggested that Amory's diffuse and digressive narrative style, with its "blend of landscape description, tourism, and philosophical debate," may have served as one of Wordsworth's models for the design of The Excursion (1814).5 This diffuse and digressive style makes the Memoirs an ideal site at which to begin examining the role that artists played in shaping—and challenging— the social, political and sexual status quo in eighteenth-century England. Trained as a physician, Amory was also an amateur philosopher, theologian and antiquarian, a connoisseur of painting and an...