Are you smelling the flowers?

It’s been up to three weeks since I’ve arrived in the States and we had some really crazy but wonderful days in the same time! Amidst a funeral, 2 weddings (one being ours, happening at the end of this week), 2 job interviews, my fiance’s last exams, graduation and the start of a new job, plus all the other things in between, I honestly think that we redefined the term “busy”! :)

Even so, I tried to sneak peek here and there and take some time to just enjoy the new sights and smells around me…everything is so green and bursting with life in Virginia! the birds are singing like crazy next to our window! and the smell of the grass, and the earth….we are definitely getting ready for summer!

No photos yet though but I remembered Waterhouse’s lyrical and ethereal paintings…this comes pretty close because that’s how I feel every time I walk in the park or near a bush of flowers, or a tree… :)

John William Waterhouse, “My sweet rose”, 1908

More about him and his art, here!

Are you guys enjoying the approaching of summer? and what are your favorite flowers? :) Leaving Austria, everything was in bloom there too but the lilac was EVERYWHERE and the smell….you just couldn’t get enough!

End of Summer…

No, summer is not over yet, but I need to be reminded that it will be, quite soon.

Summers have this elusive quality. No matter what you do, how hard you try and enjoy them, they escape way too soon and in the end, you feel that you haven’t had enough. Not the same with winters, who always have their way in driving me mad with the cold and the darkness, especially when the spring is near,  in late March/April when the snow and the cold are still present. That’s when I feel that I am about to lose it.

This summer has been no different. Hectic, terribly hot, full of traveling, people, changes, not a moment to breathe (except now) and just like all the others before, it is almost gone. It can be too much, it can be too good, but I’d rather have this any day now.

And because it is still too hot, I dream of haystacks to jump on, of soft breezes, generous trees in offering rest and shadow, quietness, solitude and nature close at hand…at least from inside my city room.

Claude Monet, “Wheatstacks, end of summer”, 1890-91. Found at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Rothko

Mark Rothko, “No. 14″, 1960. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA.

I wish I could be in a museum right now and just stare at one of Rothko‘s paintings. For hours.

Just to be there and stare. No thoughts, no judgment. His paintings have this marvelous quality:  they are very liberating. They are what they are, their simplicity is strikingly obvious, at least on the surface, the colors strong and wild and mostly, they do not pretend to be anything other than what they are. Surely, things are never that easy or that simple, not even in his paintings. But they offer the perfect antidote to an already overly crowded mind, to a sordid day, to the overwhelming nature of details, stimuli and external influences.

Here’s some descriptions of his work and two of his paintings, that can be found at Guggenheim Museum in New York:

Dreamy

Claude Monet, “Monet’s Garden at Argenteuil”, 1873, oil on canvas. Private collection.

Resemblance

Central Park. Gherla, Cluj County, Romania. Late October 2010

I took this photo during my last trip to Romania because the colors of the leaves and the shades on the trees reminded  me so much of one of Klimt’s paintings. Here it is:

Gustav Klimt, “Beech Forest”, 1902. Dresden, Germany, Museum of Modern Art.

I am wondering if in painting it, his purpose was to forever capture the stillness and solitude that sometime exudes  from an autumn forest, beautiful in its decaying glory, restless as it grasps for the last rays of sun, tormented at the idea of the cold and unwelcoming winter…

On another note though, this New Year will also bring me the opportunity to see the largest collection of his works, gathered at Belvedere Museum/Palace in Vienna :) I am so excited!

I

I wanted something beautiful, and pure and just simple, for today’s post. Something that would bring me back to my roots and my self. Easily and quietly…

And, I found this photo I took of a painting exhibited at the Modern Art Museum in Lisbon. I took it whilst visiting the  museum and traveling around Europe in the summer of 2007, backpacking and mainly by train, with one of my best friends. It was a trip we took after graduation, much expected, planned and needed.

I don’t remember the name of the painter, or that of the painting for that matter but…it speaks for itself. If you know anything about it though, please share :)

Artsy snow

“Snow at Argenteuil”, Claude Monet, 1875. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, London, UK.

Showers

Frderick Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935). April Showers, Champs Elysees, Paris, 1888. Oil on canvas. Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.

More like November Showers here in Sankt Pölten. Yep, it’s raining and been raining for a while now…The snow, I feel, is not too far away. The clouds are heavier, the air colder and thicker and the Christmas spirit unavoidable with all the preparations going on in the city plus the multitude of things and gifts on display. Soon we’ll have even more lights and sparkly things to keep us company and make the long, cold winter months more bearable :)

Seascape

Gerhard Richter, Seascape, 1998. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Fran, Cali, USA.

Do check this amazing artist here! :)

Painting near the seaside…

Mangalia, Romania. July, 2010.

This woman was painting the transformation over time of the ways and means in which people have sought to travel over the sea, to discover different lands, people, and assuage their need for  it. She would sit there daily, for hours, completing her work in silence and under the hot summer sun.