May bouquet, painted obviously in May, in the spring of 2020, that has changed so profoundly the world we know. Yet, no matter what, the spring does come each year.
Each year makes me particularly happy to see our old garden phyladelphus is starting to bloom. Sweet scent of hundreds white little stars wraps up the garden, sun is getting warmer and in a couple of days first purple iris-es open, usually accompanied by the roses.
I guess each gardener will recognize that feeling one gets just after picking the fresh flowers to make a bouquet. Bringing all those flowers inside, one needs to find a vase big enough to display all the colors just brought in. And as you put the bouquet on the table to watch the flowers closely, even, so to say, with an inner eye, then you can see the spring avakening, bursting and flowering after a long winter. Looking closer it seems almost like flowers are dancing, moving around each other, just to reach sky and to blossom into the spring. It is a sort of vertigo like feeling. Remembering when the last spring took part one gets almost absorbed into all the colors and patterns of nature bursting into spring again.
So here it is, my May bouquet. Please, have a close look at the flowers from my garden and feel the vertigo of all the colors of a new spring……
Visiting Ostia Antica, archeological site near Rome, I got stuck with the strong experience. Walking down the streets of the town extinct centuries ago I felt like the ruins were in a way still communicating with us, visitors from today. Tranquility of the noon was full of bright colors under the blue sky. Only crickets interrupted summer heat, singing the same old song since ancient times. And it almost seemed like some Roman inhabitants might come out from the old house, going to visit the neighbors.
Staying in isolation this spring, some of those memories from Rome have returned to me. I’ve kept asking myself , how fragile our lives, our civilization are….What is staying behind us when we are all gone one day?Would there be a visitor wandering ruins of our civilization? Having those thoughts I’ve got the certain feeling that the light, colors might even then be just the same as they are now and as they have been centuries ago…..And this assumption of at least light and colors not changing have brought me some sort of calm in the times of isolation….
My paintings collection made in the time of isolation:
Ostia Antica I. , Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020Ostia Antica II. , Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020Ostia Antica III., Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 2020
Update:
Happy to announce a painting from this series has been chosen for a juried international art show Social Distancing International Virtual Exhibition by Michael Rose Fine Art. Browse the exibition and check which artwork from the Ostia Antica series is participating 😉
Viburnum, more accurately the snow ball bush, is among the spring bloomers in the garden. Each year I can hardly wait for its round blossoms in form of small snow balls. Odorless, they would appear almost apple green at the beginning and day by day they turn more and more white. It can be the spring summer light, of their botanical properties, I don’t know, but the viburnum blossoms finally turn out crisp white, like snow, contrasting the blue April or May skies. Even the end of blossoming period is spectacular, milliards of small white patches cover the grass beneath the bush, appearing as fresh snow falling down from nowhere.
My Viburnum bouquet painting is just one more from the painting series “From my window”. For as new blossoms appear in the garden I have to pick them for a vase, just to take the bouquet to my painting studio. And later I always find myself painting them. Which I love doing, I have to admit. Especially as it turns out it is not just still life painting depicting nature morte per se. No, on the contrary, it always is much more. Basically it appears to be a sort of a visual diary, mirroring the feelings of the day. There are days when skies seem dark blue, there are days when sky appears almost greenish and there are days with small white cumulus-es over the almost turquoise painted sky. And always all those colors reflect to color the flowers on my table near the window. Which is rather interesting as it’s always been assumed blossoming flowers have their own colors. Yes, they do, to a certain extent, but majority of colors painting a bouquet would always come from the sky and from the sun and from the greenery of the hills seen from my window. Which all, consequently appear to be the colors of the mood of the day. So you can see all those colors in my painting Viburnum. Crisp white blossoms resembling snow balls are white, yes. But they are also extremely full of colors, colors of the sky, garden, hills. Just all the colors I love so much I have to paint them day after day. For the world is a miracle to see!
Wiburnum on my window Tamara Jare contemporary still life
White Roses on my Window, Tamara Jare, oil on canvas, 50 x 70cm
New painting, just finished still life painting, White Roses on my Window, oil on canvas, 50x70cm. Currently working hard on a special project, yet this crisp white roses bouquet was just too appealing painting motif to let it fade away…..now back to my project 😉
Snowdrops bouquet in red paper in crystal vase on green table Tamara Jare oil painting oval
Snowdrops are among the first flowers of spring in our country. No matter how cold the winter might be, they would find their way to show up, always. Each spring snowdrops paint whole white carpets under trees .What a view!
But there is much more diversity in these uniformly white galaxy as one could assume at a first glimpse.These white flowers may change shape,their pattern is far from uniform,mutations provide new shapes. But the sad truth is all these variants are mostly not stable in nature. So it actually is a hard work to cultivate a Galanthus nivalis cultivar of even a slight difference. And the good news? Once stable form will propagate with bulbs-by means of Fibonacci sequence which means:0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89 etc!
Anyhow, the first snowdrops bouquet each year brings the promise of warmer times to come. Tiny flowers themselves make just a small bouquet that doesn’t last much time, so flower shops usually don’t keep them. It was quite a surprise as I got a small white galanthus bouquet, nicely wrapped in red paper! I painted this still life immediately, presenting white flowers in red paper in crystal glass vase. Definitely aGalanthomaniaof my own!!!!
Vintage art book or ”what is one man’s crap is another man’s treasure”
Last week I ‘ve happened to get a wonderful vintage art book. I’ve passed by a bookshelf, in public space, with a note attached on it. It read: Take with you as many as you want 🙂 Bring some you don’t need any more:)
The bookshelf was rather full. It seems people are energetically following Ms. Condo and books obviously aren’t very sparkly possession for many. Anyhow, I’ve looked closely as one never knows what can be hidden in such a library full of thrown away books. It turned out I really absolutely had to save one book, the one sitting alone among many How to do manuals, Cookbooks, Crime novels and Love stories. It hasn’t appeared as something like a new book, with the cardboard envelope even a bit torn down. But then inside this envelope, there were six lovely notebook like booklets. As I’ve read the title I’ve decided it goes with mes. For as said before: ”what is one man’s crap is another man’s treasure” .
The book is actually first part of four books series by Schmiedeberg Blume. The first tome is titled Grundlagen der Technik und Komposition and it is basically a textbook for painters. Printed in Berlin in 1927!
I am extremely happy I’ve rescued this book, reading it now and enjoying it’s vintage illustrations. Noticing some things haven’t changed that much in the last 100 years.
Have a look at some illustrations, aren’t they just marvelous?
Tamara
Ps: This weekend picking some books from my library to put on that bookshelf, hope to make someone happy 🙂
Some illustrations to enjoy
Cardboard envelope a bit torn down, will mend itGerman textbook for painters, printed in Berlin, 1927vintage illustration of easels, photo Tamara Jare illustration of watercolor tubes, Pelikan, Hannover, Germany, photo Tamara Jare book illustration, different painting brushes, photo Tamara Jareartist textbook illustration, two palettes for oil painting, photo Tamara Jaresaved artist textbook illustration, Pelikan ink bottle, photo Tamara Jare Vintage artist textbook illustration, wooden box for oil painting, photo Tamara Jare
This double portrait was painted after a vintage photography from the family album. Two kids I’ve never known. From distant times almost no one remembers by now. But their appearance has settled in my subconsciousness. Merging with my childhood memories and distant pictures from times passed away many years ago. And it was this reminiscence of the distant childhood, so different yet so similar to the childhood today, that I was working on. Many things may change but childhood memories stay. They stay with the most beautiful light of the garden in spring, in the most beautiful colors, telling us the story of all the childhoods yet to come, remembering all the kids we once were, playing in the garden…..
In the garden Tamara Jare portrait painting, oil on canvas, 70 x 100 cm (27,5 x 39,4 inches)
Some quotes about childhood:
For me, however, that beloved, glowing little word happiness has become associated with everything I have felt since childhood upon hearing the sound of the word itself. Hermann Hesse
I think it’s a great tragedy of childhood that you only really appreciate it once it’s done: it’s very hard to feel appreciative of the gifts you have until you’re gone. Greta Gerwig
I always remember my childhood house with happy memories. There was a beautiful garden, and outside my bedroom window was a jasmine vine which would open in the evenings, giving off a divine scent. Carolina Herrera
“Childhood is the one story that stands by itself in every soul.” ― Ivan Doig, The Whistling Season
“I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer — and what trees and seasons smelled like — how people looked and walked and smelled even. The memory of odors is very rich.” ― John Steinbeck, East of Eden
From my studio Tamara Jare still life painting oil on canvas
From my studio is my first painting freshly finished in 2020. And I am happy with it. Mostly so as here I’ve painted all what I hope to be with me well on into New year. Window with a view. Colors. Art. Painting. Literature. Nature. And a cup of coffee.
Window with a view at the painting happens to be the actual window in my art studio. I am happy and grateful I have a place to work. View from this window has appeared in several paintings of mine, especially so as it is really a part of my world perception. How many times have I, from the childhood on, looked trough this window. With my gaze resting on near by hills, forest, gardens, sky. Thinking about my work. So this is the window I’ve painted here, together with the view, the nature and the blue sky I love so much. Yet I take window as a symbol , too. What would an artist be without a view, view in a symbolic, broader sense? Without broad sight no art is possible.
Colors have been part of mine since I do remember. My early memories are panopticum of colors. I’ve grown up in an art studio and there have always been colors in physical sense around me. And there has been a lot of conversation about colors all the time. I find color even in nuances of black or white, but couldn’t live without all the colors a sunny day brings. Or a rainy day. Absolutely does not mater as long as there are colors. For my perception of the world is trough the chromatic values of the visible spectre.
Art. Art as the highest and purest form of communication. Painting being the art I live for. Represented with the palette on this still life. .
Literature makes me happy since I’ve learn to read and write. Among the books on the pile is I Ching I’ve got from my parents, for my 20th birthday. One of the books that have shaped me and my life.
Nature helps me survive. Creating art or even life itself can get exhausting but a walk in the forest instantly gives me energy. Or an hour spent in the garden. Or painting flowers. And as it gets so interwoven I’ve painted the colors on the palette to resemble the nature. Equally the color of the drapery on the table is meant to bring greenery of the nature inside the studio. And to ask us: where all these colors came from, where the view leads us, what is reality and what is the painting?
A lot of sentences for a modest art blog like mine. Time for a cup of coffee served in vintage porcelain over the pile of books in the studio. What the 2020 will bring ? A broad view on art from my studio would just do it!
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