Looking at Fra Angelica - Virgin, Child and Pomegranate

Looking at Fra Angelica - Virgin, Child and Pomegranate

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Looking at Fra Angelica -  Virgin, Child and Pomegranate Image
The cherubic babe in Fra Angelica's lovely portrait is worth studying, for the coloration of the cheeks and the fine shadows of the infants curly hair. For me  the best way to look closely is to try to depict it in Prussian Blue.  The result here is nothing at all like the original, and so wide of the

Love at First Sight - Taj + Mahal

Love at First Sight - Taj + Mahal

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Love at First Sight - Taj + Mahal  Image
There is a monochronic virtue to the Taj Mahal,  which I first saw here at end of day from across the river, its towers tilted out just enough to ensure their fall and so  imperil the central dome, its ancillary underpinning arches.  While the photograph reduces it a poor 2-D reproduction,  in reality it  so beautiful I cried when

April in Cuba in a Blue Sports Car

April in Cuba in a Blue Sports Car

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It was not until I went to Cuba, to walk Havana's edgy streets, replete with 1950's gorgeously chromed and lux coloured auto's that I started to wonder about that line about the  April sun in Cuba. Now it is April in Cuba and an afternoon touring in a blue as blue sports car seems like a world away.

Granny Egg’s Gelatinising Isolation -

Granny Egg’s Gelatinising Isolation -

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Thoughts like jelly-blubbering, Granny Egg dreams of diving off her jetty, into the pond - it’s brackish, slimy with a skin of peepers, and silt aside, somewhere between knee and shoulder deep, if one is sitting down, but here we see it’s deep enough to submerge a dream persona. Thoughts like jelly-blubbering, Granny Egg dreams of diving off

Old Photographs of Florence

Old Photographs of Florence

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Old Photographs of Florence  Image
There is something heroic about this courtyard, the lovely eveningness of the light, the grand scale of the columns,  each unique and over everything  that shadowy mood.  The photo dates from decades back, yes- it's those clothes - and  now I think it was the inner courtyard of the Uffizi but I may be  wrong about that. What

Mrs Woo-Star’s : Spooked Too Soon?

Mrs Woo-Star’s : Spooked Too Soon?

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Mrs Woo-Star’s : Spooked Too Soon? Image
Mrs Woo-Star ‘s great flexibility gives her the ability to see behind her back, which she has availed of of late,  as she has the feeling that she is being pursued. Is the past catching up to Mrs Woo-Star, and in particular  adverse possession of Brass Acre’s?  Here  she is seen visiting her local library, whether to look

Violas bear Him Away - New Jersey Gothic

Violas bear Him Away - New Jersey Gothic

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Violas bear Him Away - New Jersey Gothic  Image
Sadly, Bart Brassica has not been seen in these parts for years. This post revisits an old photograph of Bart, bucket-handed and embedded in violas, the New Jersey Gothic gorgeousness of the black ground and all those violas, has Mavis Eggwhistle wondering. If she is not exactly hopeful, she is stalwart and does not subscribe to despair about

Scythed Sealed Delivered - Mr Farmhand's Anti-Covid Cocoon

Scythed Sealed Delivered - Mr Farmhand's Anti-Covid Cocoon

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Scythed Sealed Delivered - Mr Farmhand's Anti-Covid Cocoon Image
In the current pandemic Mr Farmhand, conscious of the need to stay safe while out walking, is seen   here putting the finishing scythe-wise sealant on his Walking Cocoon. Once inside he will, hamster-esque, merely need to keep his  compass steady and a steady pace to roll to his destination in cocooned isolation. In the current pandemic Mr Farmhand,

Dirt in deed and done dirt chic!

Dirt in deed and done dirt chic!

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Dirt in deed and done dirt chic! Image
It will not come a surprise to anyone who lives within a curcubit of Mr Farmhand that he his favourite band is still AC/DC, and he is still of the view that the lyrics Dirty Deeds is actually Dirt in Deed, and a reference to the virtues of soil cultivation.  Now that Mr Farmhand has traded in his

Russians in Prussian

Russians in Prussian

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Russians in Prussian  Image
Usually with  these redo's of photo's in Prussian Blue I note who photographed whom. But here while I'm thinking Rasputin, those dark eyes, the cyanotic mouth, I've no notes just that unlovely and  overly large date.  Usually with  these redo's  of photo's  in Prussian Blue I note who photographed whom. But here while I'm thinking Rasputin, t... Usually with  these

The Consolations of Lists in Isolation or a Pint of Pins

The Consolations of Lists in Isolation or a Pint of Pins

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Having noticed this box of pins on my desk, the impulse to list a Varieties of Pins commenced: Tie, map, dress,  fibula, safety, nappy, kilt, cross-headed steel, dental, rolling,  insular, gregarious, nafores, money, point, famous, donkey-tail,  drawing,  -it-down. So, while not exhaustive, and let's face it, we have enough of that of late, lists console. Having noticed this

In Two Minds - and Two Hats

In Two Minds - and Two Hats

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In Two Minds - and Two Hats Image
If you cannot decide to wear  a chapeau, a topper, a top hat or a bandeau, you can be in two minds with two moustaches, so get ahead of yourself and double your chances. If you cannot decide to wear  a chapeau, a topper, a top hat or a bandeau, you can be in two minds with two

Kawabata: Beauty and Sadness - A recommendation for days of isolation

Kawabata: Beauty and Sadness - A recommendation for days of isolation

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 Yasunari Kawabata's slim novel  'Beauty and Sadness'  is both of these things, from the opening scene in a near empty  first class train carriage with its swivel seats idly turning, expensive luggage left unattended, the feeling of being a passenger in an elegant and profound tragedy grows. The sense of  transitory beauty, haunted and fatalistic is established through

Lichens to a Soft Shoe Shovel

Lichens to a Soft Shoe Shovel

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Lichens to a Soft Shoe Shovel  Image
These are strange times indeed and for a moment I thought Mr Farmhand had come down with a case of Existential Crises driven by erosion of his trusty  implement - the head or shovel part of the shovel, to call a spade a shovel, but now I see he has adapted his ex-shovel into a cane and is

Study in White

Study in White

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Study in White  Image
Whitewashed wall, white vase by Dinosaur Design, and contemporary Japanese porcelain bowl that is practically perfect in its balance and geometry and morning light. Whitewashed wall, white vase by Dinosaur Design, and contemporary Japanese porcelain bowl that is practically perfect in its balance and g... Whitewashed wall, white vase by Dinosaur Design, and contemporary Japanese porcelain bowl that

The Brothers Bunraku Pianola - or the uses of Campari and Soda

The Brothers Bunraku Pianola - or the uses of Campari and Soda

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The Brothers  Bunraku Pianola - or the uses of Campari and Soda Image
 The Brothers Bunraku -Pianola are keeping an eye on things, patient observers of the everyday, of who comes in and who goes out.  This last months, being in days of Covid 19, the traffic is confined to two yours trulies.  Still they are optimists, and having waited five years in a drawer in my house before I constructed

Swimming in Heavy Weather in the Empty Egg City Pool

Swimming in Heavy Weather in the Empty Egg City Pool

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Swimming in Heavy Weather in the Empty Egg City Pool Image
It has been too long since we have checked in on Mavis Eggwhistle, Florista extraordinaire and plucky first adopter of stem cell therapy (See Rearmament - Mavis regains her arms) .  Always one for the pond, Mavis has recently taken up ocean swimming, although this presents challenges in landlocked Hunterdon County.   Ever adaptable she swims in Egg

Con Fuschia

Con Fuschia

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Autumn, the fuschia is that handy thing, a constant bloom.  A run of hanging, balletic particles,  unfashionable like witch;s britches or hats without a race course.  These suggest a chord that might ring with bell like clarity, though not in this dimension.  Autumn, the fuschia is that handy thing, a constant bloom.  A run of hanging, balletic particles,

Granny Eggwhistle in Splendid Isolation

Granny Eggwhistle in Splendid Isolation

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Granny Eggwhistle has, until now, been loquacious but unseen personage in the intermittent reports from Hunterdon County that have come to be known as the Episodes from the Mr Farmhand Series.  She has, as she says of herself, cow-alessed here, in the April Sunday sun in Splendid Isolation. Splendid Isolation is her small farmlet, or as the novelists

Dark Star or No Dearth of Darth Orchids

Dark Star or No Dearth of Darth Orchids

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Dark Star  or No Dearth of Darth Orchids Image
Some years this dark orchid puts out twenty flower spikes, last year there was none.  This year’s set is not profuse but still abundant and being largely in a state of stasis in the house, and in need of flowers, this, with its heady scent, its intensity and steady blooming, is what the epidemiologist calls for : a