"These Fevered Days"

These Fevered Days -- to take them to the Forest
Where Waters cool around the mosses crawl --
And shade is all that devastates the stillness
Seems it sometimes this would be all --

Emily Dickinson


Deer in the Forest, Franz Marc, 1913


*The blogs are going on hiatus for a few days so I can take some time to work, walk and think. I'll be back this weekend with something suitably smutty for the Gallery.

"One must have a mind of winter"

Yesterday we woke up to an Arctic freeze, and today we're back to an ordinary Tennessee chill. When you live where the winters are mild it's easy to forget the special beauty that bitter cold creates...(more)

Loved

It's brutally cold here today--10 degrees Fahrenheit on my front porch this morning. I'd expect to be craving some hot and spicy scent, but instead I went looking for flowers and settled on Le Dix. This classic Balenciaga gets a lot of respect, and it should. I think it's the most beautifully composed of the Balenciaga fragrances. (Cialenga is a close second.) Of course, if you happen to despise violets and aldehydes, this pretty thing is not for you, especially in its present incarnation.

My little vintage bottle doesn't give much of a clue about its age, but I'd guess it to be about 30 years old. The juice is in reasonably good shape, good enough that the top notes survive more or less intact. Sampling it side by side with the current formula, I'm struck by how sharp and potent the violet note is in the new stuff. The vintage violet is very sweet, soft and rounded. It fades quickly into the heart of rose and ylang ylang, whereas its younger counterpart hangs on forever. (I assume these violet notes are all synthetic, so that must have been somebody's idea of a concession to modern tastes. Or were they using real violets 30 years ago?) The aldehydes are gentler in the vintage, though that may just be age. The vintage has a layer of powder over the flowers, which the newbie lacks. The base notes show the most similarity, but the vintage has a great luxurious-yet-light musk, while the new juice has that faint air of dryer sheet

Overall, the new formulation has a harsher, brighter character than the vintage. The rich floral personality of the original has been jettisoned in favor of more punch--so what else is new? This seems to be the story with all the tweaked versions of classic floral aldehydes. I'll risk making you doubt my taste by admitting that I think the new stuff, whatever its weaknesses, still deserves some love. Considered on its own merits it's a pretty, sparkling floral, certainly as nice as anything in its price range.

And while I'm talking about scents that deserve some love, I want to come clean about a guilty pleasure. Olfacta's post about Teatro alla Scala has inspired me to come out of the closet and declare my love for Krazy Krizia. (I know, I know--that name is awful.) Krazy Krizia is always dismissed as an Obsession clone, and I can't deny a certain resemblance. The notes are extremely similar. (See here and here.) But where Obsession has a cloying candied orange note in the top, KK's mandarin is smooth and subtle. The spices in the heart of Obsession are harsh and ruin the flowers. KK just has a touch of clove/carnation to sweeten and warm things up. The really crucial difference is in the base. Obsession is too heavy on the vanilla to suit my taste, and if there's any civet in there you couldn't prove it by me. KK is wonderfully woody and animalic, and does not in any way remind me of baked goods. Now if they would just do something about that name...


Violets, Henry Meynell Rheam, 1904

Enough of innocence

Lot and his Daughters, Joachim Wtewael, c.1600. Image from Web Gallery of Art.

Mother and child

One last sad child. Actually, the child doesn't look so sad--all the sorrow belongs to the mother. The child has a lovely expression of innocence and comfort. The painting is Mutter und Kind by Robert Noir (1864-1931), also known as Ernest Noir. I haven't seen many of his works, but most of them are supposed to be like this one: dark and grim, but very compelling. There's a lot of tenderness in it. It's an image that could only be created by someone who feels the suffering of the world very deeply. According to this bio, Noir committed suicide by hanging himself in the Bois de Boulogne. Somehow that is not surprising.

Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body.
Machine of the mother: white city inside her.

And before that: earth and water.
Moss between rocks, pieces of leaves and grass.

And before, cells in a great darkness.
And before that, the veiled world.

From "Mother and Child" by Louise Glück

Chapter 16 is back

The site took a break over the holidays, but has returned with a little something for everyone. Paul Griffith has a review of Baby, Let's Play House, Alanna Nash's book on the psychosexual peculiarities of Elvis. If contemplating the King's pajama games is a little too, uh, lowbrow for you, you might try Clay Risen's interview with Helen Tate, the widow of Fugitive poet Allen Tate. Faye Jones talks to Sara Evans about her new novel, and I review An Angle of Vision, a collection of essays by women writers on their working class roots. Click over to the front page for all manner of literary news, and do be sure to check out the poetry section if you haven't already done so.

La liseuse, Jean-Jacques Henner, c.1880

Romani child

Maybe I should have tagged this series Beautiful Sad Children, since my choices so far all seem to be pretty grim. Oh well--I like what I like, and this painting, Half-portrait of a Gypsy Boy by Franz von Defregger (1873), is one that I like very much. I'm not even sure it's especially good from a technical standpoint. There's something a little off about the line of the boy's jaw--but the eyes, the full lips, and the tousled hair are beautiful. His mournful expression is heartbreaking, as sad as this poem by Romani poet Bronislawa Wajs.

Luscious Jesus

This is a Caravaggio--as if you couldn't guess. It's called the Madonna of the Palafrenieri or Madonna with the Serpent, but the real subject of the painting is the naked Jesus. If you click on the image to enlarge it, I think you'll get a better idea of the sensuality of Caravaggio's Christ child. The boy's skin is as luscious as life, and you can just feel the snake squirming under the bare feet of mother and son. This painting was commissioned for St. Peter's but hung there only briefly. Supposedly the depiction of such a fleshly Jesus was considered disrespectful, though it has also been suggested that the problem was that Caravaggio made St. Anne (on the left) too ugly. I love this painting. It's sad to think that if it appeared today as a new work, the artist would probably be treated like Nan Goldin.

Beautiful children

That Bellini I posted for New Year’s Day has me thinking about paintings of children, so I’ve decided to do a little series of posts on the subject. This painting, A Fisher-Girl by Ilya Repin (1874), is one of my favorites. It captures the particular expression of innocent melancholy that you only see in children. Note her hands—you can almost feel how rough they must be, in contrast to her soft little face. It’s a very sad image to contemplate, this beautiful child already worn down by work and poverty. It’s also a troubling painting, in that her ragged clothes and her suffering are part of her beauty. I find myself a little suspicious of my own response to it. Do you think it fetishizes the poor?

Their guild is giving money to the poor.
The worthy poor. The very very worthy
And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy?
perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim
Nor—passionate. In truth, what they could wish
Is—something less than derelict or dull.
Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze!
God shield them sharply from the beggar-bold!
The noxious needy ones whose battle’s bald
Nonetheless for being voiceless, hits one down.

From "The Lovers of the Poor" by Gwendolyn Brooks. The complete poem is here.

"Read, sweet..."

Read, sweet, how others strove,
Till we are stouter;
What they renounced,
Till we are less afraid;
How many times they bore
The faithful witness,
Till we are helped,
As if a kingdom cared!


From The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson at Bartleby.com


Image from Historia del Arte Erotico