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This postcard is part of Tichnor Bros.’ ten card Victory Series, a compact suite of patriotic designs issued during the tense pre-war months of 1941. Although the United States would not formally enter the conflict until December, after Pearl Harbor, the imagery here reflects the nation’s accelerating military buildup and the growing cultural embrace of the “V for Victory” symbol, which had already spread across Europe and into American media by mid year.
Postcard V3 is one of the series’ boldest designs: a monumental red “V” anchors the foreground, while infantry, armor, and naval forces advance in coordinated formation behind it. The scene is not tied to any specific battle or theater; instead, it functions as a symbolic image of American readiness, unity, and industrial strength. It’s a snapshot of American morale in the final months before the nation’s full mobilization. Like many Tichnor designs of this period, the artwork blends idealized military forms with the soft, textured characteristic of linen finish postcards.
The 1941 copyright date underscores Tichnor’s role in the broader pre-war preparedness culture. The company’s in house artists and high volume lithographic operation allowed them to respond quickly to shifting national sentiment, producing patriotic material months before Pearl Harbor. As a result, the Victory Series captures a rare moment—when the United States was not yet at war, but the emotional and visual language of wartime was already taking shape.
Eli Pariser, TED Talks
As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview.
www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubble...
Kitayama Brothers, Inc. Facilities Manager Stuart Kitayama talks about this family business that was founded by his father Ray Kitayama and uncles in 1970, and how the 40 acres of green houses plus outdoor fields in Watsonville, CA have benefited from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), on Thursday, August 27, 2015.
Agriculture has been a part of the Kitayama family for three generations, since before WWII, when his grandfather Takeshi Kitayama began growing flowers and vegetables on Bainbridge Island in the Pungent Sound of Washington. In 1945, after internment at the Manzanar camp in California, his grandfather’s sons Tom and (Stuart’s father) Ray Kitayama, started a nursery; and the business grew. They became leaders in the wholesale flower industry. As the business grew, more family members joined and formed Kitayama Brothers, Inc. in the mid-90’s. Today, the business produces a variety of lisianthus, lily, Gerbera, snapdragon and others, additionally; land is leased to other growers for strawberries and a variety of other crops. Located ¼ mile from the Pacific Ocean (Monterey Bay) Kitayama Brothers, Inc., employs 100 - 300 people depending on the time of year. To water all the flowers, the business uses a combination of irrigation water sources that include ground water wells; sterile reclaimed and recharge water from Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency (PVWMA), a rainwater collection system, hydroponics, and micro irrigation systems. Over the past 15 years, the amount of water from PVWMA has been reduced by 2/3s, making onsite ground water wells ever more important, and a factor in groundwater deletion. Today, there is a high demand on well; this has been a factor in (seawater) salt intrusion in all of their wells, one having to be shutdown, because of the salty water harms plants. There must to be enough fresh water in aquifers to fill the underground basin to resist the inland migration of coastal seawater through the land in between.
About this time, during 2007-2008, he turned to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and talks began about a green house roof drainage system that harvests rainwater. Through a system of pipes, water collects in a plastic lined pond for immediate indoor micro irrigation. KBI were active members of the agricultural community and sought water supply development and filtration solutions to improve efficiency and lower operating costs years before the current drought conditions.
Financial incentive cost shares from the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) and technical support from an USDA NRCS engineer to help design and plan the pond lining and other system improvements and additions.
The system has been in operation for one and a half years and has captured 12 acre/feet of water in its first year. It not only captures the water from the greenhouse roofs, it also allows water to be blended with water from well systems and/or reclaimed water from the PVWMA. The pond also allows the business to save money by running electrical pumps during low demand periods of the power grid, when electricity costs are lower. As refinements are made, greater levels of efficiency and cost savings are expected.
An additional system captures water from their hydroponic nursery systems that uses filters and UV light to clean and sterilize the water for in-ground plants. Water used in those fields; percolate down through the soil, helping to recharge the subsurface water basin; help resist salt intrusion, and return as a water resource for their irrigation wells.
Through discussions with the local Community Water Dialogue (CWD,) and equipment loan from the Resource Conservation Districts (RCD), he learned about the use and potential benefits of wireless soil tensiometer and completed a trial use. As they learn to use the recorded data, they see a possible 10-15% reduction in water use by eliminating overwatering on the sandy soil in this area.
Kitayama Brothers, Inc. strives for quality and efficiency and report that the clean water sources they are harvesting and using provides better quality and yields. USDA photo by Lance Cheung.
A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower. You didn’t have to struggle to make your face different than anyone else’s on earth. It just is.
~Marianne Williamson~
Taken and edited with iPhone 6.
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Images may not be copied or used in any way without my written permission.
Here over 130 5th Grade students and their teachers from the Davis School in New Rochelle are participating in "Striving for Freedom" at the Jay Heritage Center in Rye. The play was performed in the multi-purpose Carriage House on the property. Hands were up to ask and answer questions about slavery in New York and the early abolition efforts of John Jay. The Jay Property in Rye is a historic site where enslaved men and women are known to have lived and worked and where some were also emancipated and buried.
The children asked very thoughtful questions about who decided what job you would have back then and made poignant observations that being enslaved would make a person feel "angry" or "ashamed." One boy remarked how hard it must be for descendants of enslaved people today to trace their roots since so many families, especially children were separated.
The JHC is dedicated to programs that examine the evolution of our American government and system of beliefs. "The struggle to maintain a democratic society is one of our greatest challenges we face as a people. One important function of the Jay Heritage Center [is] to remind Americans of the struggles of the framers of the constitution and the courts and to connect those struggles with present day concerns about civil rights and civil liberties. The Center thus becomes a forum for creative problem solving and the exploration of difficult issues that effect each of our lives." Gretchen Sullivan Sorin.
Come see our next performance of "Striving for Freedom" at the Jay Heritage Center. Call (914) 698-9275 for further information.
Learn more on youtube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASv83-Iecsk&feature=related
"It is much to be wished that slavery may be abolished. The honour of the States, as well as justice and humanity, in my opinion, loudly call upon them to emancipate these unhappy people. To contend for our own liberty, and to deny that blessing to others, involves an inconsistency not to be excused." John Jay 1786
JHC programs examine the prevalence of slavery in New York and the role of John Jay and his family in abolishing it. It has been estimated that ironically in 1776 as of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, there were over half a million slaves in the United States, throughout all 13 colonies, including 15,000 in New York.
Among its goals, the JHC hopes to be "a national focal point for a continuing conversation about the two greatest pieces of unfinished American business--race and land; meaning how we treat each other and how we treat the rest of God's creation." Tony Hiss
www.westchestergov.com/pdfs/AfricanAmerican_HeritageTrail...
Jay Heritage Center
210 Boston Post Road
Rye, NY 10580
(914) 698-9275
Email: jayheritagecenter@gmail.com
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A National Historic Landmark since 1993
Member of the African American Heritage Trail of Westchester County since 2004
Member of the Hudson River Valley National Heritage Area since 2009
On NY State's Path Through History (2013)
Goethe's Secret Revelation PART TWO THE RIDDLE IN FAUST Esoteric Two Addresses given 11nth and 12th March, 1909, at Berlin . It was in August, 1831, that Goethe sealed up a packet and handed it to his faithful secretary Eckermann and prepared his testamentary directions for the editing of this sealed-up treasure. This packet contained in a comprehensive way the whole striving of Goethe's life. It contained the second part of Goethe's Faust; which was not to be published until after Goethe's death. Goethe was aware that in this work he had given the contents of his rich, many-sided, far-reaching and deeply-penetrating life to human existence, and the importance of this moment for him may be gathered from the words he uttered at the time, ‘I am now finished my life's true work, anything I do further and whether I do it or not, is all the same!’ If we permit a fact such as this to work on the soul we can say: It would not be easy for a human life to become fruitful for the rest of humanity in a more beautiful, harmonious way, or indeed to become fruitful in a more conscious manner. There is something deeply affecting in the thought of Goethe's life at this point of time — for he lived barely one year longer — in that he should have visited Ilmenau once more and there re-read the beautiful verse he had written on the 7th of September, 1783, when he was still a comparatively young man.‘Above all heights Is rest, In the tree tops Thou feelest Scarce a breath,The birds are silent in the woods, Only wait, soon Thou too shalt rest.’One may well ask whether these lines may not have signified at that time a frame of mind regulating Goethe's ideas in a new way as he re-read them in the evening of his life with affecting tears.Goethe's Faust is truly a testament of the very first order when considered with reference to its literary and intellectual standpoint.In 1831 Goethe finished the work which had occupied him from his earliest youth, having worked energetically from the year 1824 at the second part of Faust. We find that Goethe knew from the beginning of 1770 that he had what may be called the Faust disposition and that he began in 1774 to write down the first part of Faust, returning again and again to this poem in the most important moments of his life.Notably he took the first part of Faust with him when he went to Weimar and owing to his position there entered the great world. Certainly it was not produced there. But because one of the Weimar Court ladies, Fräulein von Göchhausen, preserved a copy of the Faust which Goethe took with him to Weimar, we to-day possess the form in which it was when he took it there. We therefore know the form in which Faust was printed for the first time and published in 1790, and further we know the setting in which the whole of Goethe's works appeared in 1808 in the first edition. All that we have of Faust, including that very important document which Goethe left as his testament, shows us the different stages of Goethe's growth. It is endlessly interesting to observe how these four stages of Goethe's Faust-creation appear to us in different ways, according to its inner nature, and how they represent a crescendo in the whole of Goethe's life-endeavour. What Goethe took with him to Weimar is a literary work of a quite personal character into which he had poured the feelings, the degrees of knowledge and also the despair of knowledge, as they went with him through the Frankfort time into the Strassburg time and also into the first Weimar period. It is the work of a man hotly striving after knowledge, striving to feel himself into life, experiencing every despair that an upright honourable man can go through, and all this he had poured into this work. All this is in the first part of Faust. But when Faust appeared in 1790 as a fragment, it was recognized that Goethe had worked at it and transformed it out of a longing lying deep in his soul and inner life which had become enlightened through his contemplation of Italian nature and of Italian works of Art. Out of this personal work of one who had been tossed to and fro in life's storms there emerged the work of one, who to a certain degree, had become unshackled and who had a very clear view of life before his soul.Then came the time of Goethe's friendship with Schiller. The time when in his inner being he learned to know and experience a world which had long become rooted within him. A world of which one can say that he who experiences it has had his spiritual eyes opened, so that he can see into the surrounding spiritual world. And now Faust's personality becomes a being placed between two worlds, between the spiritual world to which man can raise himself through purification, through the ennobling of himself and that world which drags him down. Faust becomes a being placed between the world of good and the world of evil. And while previously we saw in Faust the life of the single striving personality, now we see before us a great conflict carried on between the good and evil powers around man. Man is thus placed in the centre as the worthiest object for which the good and evil beings fight in the world. Though in the very beginning Faust is seen as a man doubting all knowledge, he now comes before us as one placed between heaven and hell. Thus the poem reaches an essentially higher stage and a higher existence.In the form in which Faust appears in 1808 it seems as if thousands of years of human development resound. We are reminded of the great dramatic representation of man's life produced in ancient times in the Book of Job, where the evil spirit went among men and stood up before God, and God said to him: ‘Thou hast been to and fro on the earth, hast thou considered my servant Job?’ What is here said we find in the poem, ‘The Prologue in Heaven’ where God speaks with Mephistopheles, the messenger of the evil spirituality: ‘The self in them expands to a spiritual universe.’ At that time at Frankfort he had the feeling, ‘Away from the mere striving after ideas! Away from the merely perceptive sense observation! There must be a path to the sources of existence!’ and he came into touch with what one can call alchemistic, mystical and theosophical literature. He himself attempted the practice of alchemy. He relates how he came to know of a work through which many sought for similar knowledge at that time, Welling's ‘Opus Mago-Cabalisticum et Theosophicum.’ This book was much thought of then as giving a knowledge of the sources of existence. Goethe studied by degrees Paracelsus, Valentinus and above all a work which from its whole method must have produced a deep impression on all those who strove after such knowledge, ‘Aurea Catena Homeri.’ This was a representation of nature the Mystics in the Middle Ages believed to see. The study of these mystical, alchemistic, theosophical books must have had a similar effect on Goethe to that which a man striving to-day after the same things would experience if he took up the books of Eliphas Levy or any other thinker on the same lines. Indeed at that time these things must have had an even more bewildering effect upon Goethe because these different writers no longer really understood the magic, theosophy, etc., of which they wrote. It was impossible to speak in direct way of the real grandeur and meaning of these things, proceeding from an ancient wisdom which had lived in human souls, for the meaning was hidden under an outer garb which included all kinds of physical and chemical forms. For those who merely saw what appeared outwardly in these books it was the greatest nonsense, and at that time it was most difficult to penetrate behind these secrets and arrive at the real meaning. But we must not forget that Goethe from his deep striving for knowledge had developed an intuitive mind. He must have been greatly pleased when on opening the ‘Aurea Catena Homeri’ he saw on the first page a symbol which had a deep effect on his soul; two triangles interlaced; in the corners the signs of the planets, drawn in a wonderful way, a flying dragon wound round in a circle, beneath which another dragon had fixed stiffening itself, and when he read the words on the first page, saying that the flying dragon symbolizes the stream which sends those forces which stream down from out of the Cosmos to the stiffened dragon, showing how heaven and earth hang together, or as it is expressed there: ‘How the spiritual forces of heaven pour into the earth's centre.’These mysterious signs and words must have made a great impression upon Goethe. For instance, those which depict the whole growth of the earth: ‘From chaos to that which is called the universal quintessence’ — a remarkable sentence, curiously mixed up with signs of a chaotic nature, still undifferentiated right through the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, right up to man and to that perspective to which man is developing in ever greater refinement. But it was not easy to find a way of penetrating to the deeper meaning. So Goethe left Frankfort in a frame of mind which can be described in the following words: I have found nothing. These seekers into nature can only give me dry, empty ideas; anything that can be squeezed out of them is but life's water. I have busied myself with much that has come down to us from the past from those who declare that they saw into the secrets of life. But the way, the way drives one to despair!This was sometimes the mood in Goethe's soul. He was not to be bewitched by easy speculations or philosophizing, or by confused symbols and explanations from those old books, which worked so wonderfully and forebodingly on him. They looked at him with their mysteries as something to which he could find no way. But anyone who knew Goethe's soul, knew the seed was already sown in his soul which was to germinate later. But he felt himself as one who was rejected and unworthy to unravel the secrets of life. Then he went to Strassburg.There he met people who must have interested him in one way or the other. He got to know Jung-Stilling with his deeply mystical soul, who owing to the development of peculiar forces generally found sleeping in men, had looked deeply into the hidden side of existence. He met Herder at Strassburg, who had gone through similar moods and who in times of desperation had often been at the point of a denial of future life. In Herder he learnt to know a man who suffered from a surfeit of life and who said, I have studied much, discerning sundry things connected with men's works and men's strivings on the earth. But he was unable to say to himself, I have had one moment when my longing after the sources of life has been satisfied. This was when he was ill and inclined to deny everything with bitter irony. Yet it was Herder who pointed out many depths in the riddles of life, and Goethe found in him a truly human Faust. But that side of negation which is not the outcome of mockery and scorn Goethe learnt to know later through his friend Merck. Goethe's mother who disliked criticism of people and all moralizing said of Merck, he can never leave Mephistopheles at home, in him we are quite used to it. In Merck Goethe found a disclaimer of much that is worth striving for in life. Over against all these impressions which Goethe received from the Strassburg people, it was through Nature and his observation of Nature that many of life's puzzles were cleared up for him.At the same time we must think of Goethe as a man possessed of a sharp, penetrating mind; he was not an unpractical man. He was an advocate, but only practised for a short time. Those who knew Goethe's work as an advocate and later as a Minister, were acquainted with his eminently practical mind. As advocate he knew little more than what he had learnt by heart from law books. But he was a man able to decide very quickly on any point laid before him; such a man can also map out clearly life's course.Let us consider Goethe when during his Italian journey, he gradually arrived at the discovery of the primeval plant, he collected stones, prepared himself diligently to take up the work of research, and did not seek to know immediately ‘how one thing strives to enter another’ but said to himself: ‘If you would gain a premonition’ of ‘how one thing works and lives in another’ as heavenly powers rise and fall, offering each the ‘golden urn,’ examine the vertebras of the spinal column and the way in which one bone is connected with the next; and how one faculty helps another. Seek in the smallest thing the picture of the greatest.Goethe became a very diligent student during his travels in Italy, examining everything. He formed the opinion that if an artist acted ‘according to the laws which are followed by nature herself’ and understood by the Greeks, the divine will be present in his works even as it is in the works of creation. For Goethe, art is a ‘manifestation of the secret laws of nature.’ The creations of the artists are works of nature on a higher stage of perfection. Art is man's continuation and conclusion of nature. ‘For since man is the head of nature so he regards himself as a complete nature, but also as one which can call forth a further rise. He strives for this through the acquisition of all accomplishments and virtues which call for choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and at last rises to the production of the work of art.’
We can say that during the Italian journey everything that came before Goethe took on definite forms and through inner soul experiences appeared clearly before him. So once again he took up ‘Faust,’ and we perceive how he endeavoured to bring the separate parts into union. But we also perceive how he interested himself in an objective manner in what Faust could become for the people of the North. In Italy he became particularly conscious of the great difference between people who had been brought up amid classical surroundings and those who had not. He found it strange that so little should be heard in Rome of ghost stories such as were common in the North. In the Villa Borghese he wrote at this time the ‘Witches Kitchen’ scene, as one who had lost touch with all such things, but also as one who recalled to memory the spirit of the earth. When he had previously written about the earth spirit, he represented it in such a way that Faust turned away from it, as from a ‘hideous worm.’ But the fact of turning away from it, even without understanding why, remains in the soul and works on further, as it did in Goethe. But those who become impatient and refuse to wait until after long years the seed grows, are unable to see the way clearly. And when in Italy Goethe knew that a turning away from the terrible countenance would have its effect upon his soul, and now these words arise:‘Sublime Spirit, thou gavest me, gavest me all For which I begged. It was not without reason That thou didst turn thy face in fire to me And for a kingdom gavest me the glorious nature With strength to feel it and to enjoy it. Not A coldly astonished gaze didst thou grant to me But didst permit me to look into her profound bosom As into that of a friend. Past me didst thou lead the ranks of the living And didst teach me to know, in the quiet bushes, In air, and in water, my brother. And when the storm roared and rattled in the woods And there fell the neighbouring branches of the giant fir Squashing the undergrowth and in their fall Sounding like thunder in the hollow of the hills, Thou didst lead me to a safe Grotto, where Thou didst show me myself and opened my heart To deep and secret wonders.’Before Goethe, there stands the possibility of the human soul, through its own development expanding to a spiritual universe. Through a patient sacrificial resigned search, the fruits stand before his soul which as germs were planted when he came into touch with the earth spirit. We can see through this monologue in ‘Wald und Höhle’ (wood and grotto) what a forward jerk this was towards the ripening of the fruits in his soul, for it shows us that the seed already sown was not sown in vain. And as a warning to have patience, to wait until such seeds had ripened in his soul, that fragment of ‘Faust’ meets us which appeared with this setting in 1790. And now we see how Goethe finds the way step by step after being led to his ‘safe grotto where the secret deep wonders of his own heart were opened to him,’ he obtains that comprehensive survey which bids him no longer abide with his own sorrow, but teaches him to rise above his sorrow, to send his foreseeing spirit out into the Macrocosmos, watch the fighting of the good and evil spirits and see men on their battle ground. And in ‘Faust’ in 1808 he sent out beforehand the ‘Prologue in Heaven:’Raphael: ‘The sun-orb sings, in emulation, 'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round: His path predestined through Creation He ends with step of thunder-sound.’We next see how the macrocosmic Mights oppose the forces of the great world. We see too from out the experiences of Goethe's soul, what a remarkable light falls on the two dragons with which at one time in his youth he came in touch.‘Faust’ is such a universal poem because it contains so many warnings. It also gives us that golden saying: ‘Wait in confidence for the development of thy inner forces, even if that means waiting a very long time!’ These words also sound as a warning which stand as an attribute before Faust, when Goethe looks back to those ‘fluctuating figures which in early days had once shown a troubled countenance’ but which now are flooded with light. Now he had waited so long that the friends who had taken such a vivid interest in Faust as he had appeared to them in the first form, had died, and those who had not died were very far away. Goethe had been obliged to wait for the development of the seed already sown in him.Now these striking words meet us:‘My sorrow speaks to an unknown crowd, Their applause e'en makes my heart feel heavy, And those who once delighted in my song If they still live, in other lands are scattered.’No longer did it matter to those who in youth had felt with him. He had had to wait, as the last lines of this dedication so beautifully express it — ‘What was once a reality to me, has gone into the unreal: but what has remained for me and appears to outer vision as unreal, that to me is now true, and it is only now that I can give it as truth.’ So we see how this poem, even if only looked at in such an external manner as we have to-day, leads us into the depths of the human soul.‘Faust’ was begun in a desultory manner, some parts being pushed in between others, and therefore Goethe was unable to show in a continuous way what he had experienced in his soul. But something else led to the fact that Goethe expressed his deepest experiences in ‘Faust.’The ‘Helena scene’ also belongs to the first part of ‘Faust’ written by Goethe. But we find it was not included even in the ‘Faust’ of 1808. Why not? Because the manner in which Goethe had finished ‘Faust’ at that time would not allow it. What Goethe wished to say through the Helena scene was the expression of such a deep premonition of the deepest riddle of existence, that the first part was not sufficiently prepared to allow of this. Only when Goethe had reached an advanced age, was he able to give a true form to what really was the inner work of his life.We see how his mind had expanded so that he was able to grasp the worlds of the macrocosm, as expressed in the ‘Prologue in Heaven.’ We shall also see the way in which Goethe represents the stages of the soul's experience, leading men from the first stage up to that of imaginative vision, where the soul penetrating ever deeper and deeper, bursts at last the doors of the spiritual world, which Mephistopheles would close. Goethe also represents these inner experiences. For he places in the second part of ‘Faust’ the experiences of a soul through secret scientific study, and we see here one of the deepest riddles of existence, which if recognized, would be found to be an announcement of Western spiritual science given in imposing language. One is tempted to place such a poem as the ‘Bhagavad Gita’ and the second part of ‘Faust’ side by side. For great and powerful wisdom speaks out of such Eastern writings. It seems as if the gods themselves desired in them to speak with men to express the wisdom out of which the world was formed. Indeed it is so.Now let us look at the second part of ‘Faust.’ Here we see a striving human soul which has raised itself to spiritual vision from outer physical perception; we see how it has worked its way up to true clairvoyance when Faust enters the spiritual world and finds the spiritual choir around him ...‘Hearken! Hark! — The Hours careering Sounding loud to spirit-hearing. See the new-born day appearing! Rocky portals jarring shatter, Phœbus' wheels in rolling clatter, With a crash the Light draws near! Pealing rays and trumpet-blazes — Eye is blinded, ear amazes: The Unheard can no one hear!’Faust II, Act I.to that passage where Faust is outwardly dazzled, so that the outer world is lost to his perception and he says to himself: ‘Only within shines clear light! ...’ up to that passage in which the soul works itself up to the spheres of world existence, where the spiritual worlds are to be seen in all their purity, and the riddle of the world discloses itself to the soul. This is a way which we must designate as an esoteric one.The way in which we can penetrate from the outer to the inner life of Goethe's world enigma, we shall see to-morrow, and we shall also see from out of what depths Goethe spoke the word which at last gave him the certainty he needed with reference to all the longings, all the sorrows, pains and strivings for knowledge in his life.‘Whoever zealously strives We can redeem him; And if love from above Feels an interest in him, The blest choir will be there With a friendly greeting.’We shall consider to-morrow how Goethe solved this riddle of existence, and how that which lives in the soul can rise up to its true home. It will give us the answer to what Goethe placed as the riddle of his existence and about which he gives us such a hopeful answer at the end of the second part of ‘Faust:’‘For the spiritual world, That noble member, Is saved from evil. Whoever strives zealously We can redeem him! ...’This tells us Faust can be saved and those spirits will not conquer who by bringing men into the material bring them also to destruction.
© Ben Heine || Facebook || Twitter || www.benheine.com
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For more information about my art: info@benheine.com
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Envious Rivalry
A poem by Samuel Nze
I told them they would destroy my world
They would make it a hell;
They cannot say I did not tell them,
As I looked upon them from celestial heights
The country is full of mediocre ill
Of a lack of understanding;
The land is full of hate,
No one cares at all.
This old man is barking at his daughter
Saying this and that;
He is refusing to reason,
No gentlemanliness about him.
They struggle with one another
Increase the need to strive;
They complain about everything,
There is no respite.
Bickering the livelong day
These ones do not care for the truth;
They love delusion,
They give it heated chase.
It is envious rivalry they prefer
Envious rivalry they choose;
It is envious rivalry that will,
As it were satisfy them.
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The poem appeared on poetryagainstpoverty.vox.com
There are numerous prominent Suzi Toasts Manufacturers and Suppliers who strive hard to make their products of the best quality and safely supplying them to their customers in commendable condition.
Read More: poojanamkeen.wordpress.com/2017/10/17/prominent-suzi-toas...
I strive to take images that are a little different , they may not be commercial , or to every body's taste , but behavior is what really interests me.
Here a Snipe having a preen in front of the East Marsh at Brandon, again its a reach for the equipment on a small wader , so my experimental approach with the 2.0x plus 500mm continues. It leads to a lot of failures , but then to some captures that would be other wise not possible.
My advice is to push the equipment you have to the limit, when you have to , you may sometimes be pleasantly surprised by the results.
Camera Canon EOS-1D Mark IV
Exposure 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture f/10.0
Focal Length 1000 mm
ISO Speed 1600
Exposure Bias +1/3 EV
Designer: Li Li (李立)
1978, September
Striving to modernize national defence
Wei guofang xiandaihua er fendou (为国防现代化而奋斗)
Call nr.: BG E15/631 (Landsberger collection)
More? See: chineseposters.net
King Model Houses
Renaissance Revival Row Houses (1891–93)
Architect: James Brown Lord
2350–52 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. (Seventh Ave.)
Strivers Row
Harlem, New York
In 1890, builder and real estate developer David H. King Jr. (1849–1916) purchased land along 138th and 139th streets in Harlem on which he would construct his King Model Houses. King had recently constructed the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty and would soon build the Washington Memorial Arch in Washington Square Park. Describing his housing project for the middle class, King declared, “the homes of New Yorkers [should] be sunny, tasteful, convenient, and commodious even if their occupants are not millionaires.”
To vary the look of each block, King hired three different architectural firms to construct 146 row houses and three apartment buildings. Unusual for New York, King included service alleys behind the rows of houses as well as cross alleys to break the monotony of the house fronts.
The architects retained by King were prominent in their day. James Brown Lord (1858–1902), who designed the houses on the south side of 138th St., also designed the old Delmonico’s Restaurant (1891) at Beaver and Williams streets in the Financial District and the Appellate Court on Madison Square (1902). Bruce Price (1845–1903) and Clarence S. Luce (1852–1924) designed the houses on the north side of 138th St and the south side of 139th St. Price would later design the Chateau Frontenac Hotel (1893) in Quebec City. The most famous architect associated with the project was Stanford White (1853–1906), who designed the houses on the north side of 139th St. White designed the Villard Houses (1884) on Madison Ave., the Cable Building at Broadway and Houston St. (1892), and the Washington Memorial Arch (1895).
Construction commenced in 1891, and the houses were completed in time for the Depression of 1893. The unexpected economic downturn led to only nine houses being sold by 1895. The mortgagee, the Equitable Life Assurance Co., took over the properties, selling thirty-one additional houses by 1905. The unsold houses were rented out.
From the 1890s to the 1910s, white middle-class professional and business people occupied the King Model Houses. Typically, five to ten people lived in each house with one or two servants. Acknowledging the changing demographics of the neighborhood, Equitable sold its remaining properties to black middle-class buyers in 1919 and 1920.
In the 1920s, most houses were occupied by a single family. Some eventually took in lodgers to defray costs, especially in the 1930s. By the 1930s, the two blocks had been dubbed “Strivers’ Row”. Originally meant as a insult, the name was embraced by residents in recognition of the fact that those who lived here were striving to better themselves. Today, the houses on these blocks are among the most desirable in Harlem.
© Matthew X. Kiernan
NYBAI13-5217
"The St. Nicholas Historic District, known colloquially as "Striver's Row", is a historic district located on both sides of West 138th and West 139th Streets between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It is both a national and a New York City district, and consists of row houses and associated buildings designed by three architectural firms and built in 1891–93 by developer David H. King Jr. These are collectively recognized as gems of New York City architecture, and "an outstanding example of late 19th-century urban design":
There are three sets of buildings: The red brick and brownstone buildings on the south (even-numbered) side of West 138th Street and at 2350–2354 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard were designed by James Brown Lord in the Georgian Revival style; the yellow brick and white limestone with terra cotta trim buildings on the north (odd-numbered) side of 138th and on the south (even-numbered) side of 139th Street and at 2360–2378 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard were designed in the Colonial Revival style by Bruce Price and Clarence S. Luce; the dark brick, brownstone and terra cotta buildings on the north (odd-numbered) side of 139th Street and at 2380 Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard were designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by Stanford White of the firm McKim, Mead & White.
The district was designated by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1967, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The district's name reflects the nearby St. Nicholas Park.
David H. King Jr., the developer of what came to be called "Striver's Row", had previously been responsible for building the 1870 Equitable Building, the 1889 New York Times Building, the version of Madison Square Garden designed by Stanford White, and the Statue of Liberty's base. The townhouses in his new project, which were originally called the "King Model Houses", were intended for upper-middle-class whites, and featured modern amenities, dark woodwork, and views of City College. King's idea was that the project would be "on such a large scale and with such ample resources as to 'Create a Neighborhood' independent of surrounding influences."
The houses sit back-to-back, which allowed King to specify that they would share rear courtyards. The alleyways between them – a rarity in Manhattan – are gated off; some entrance gates still have signs that read "Walk Your Horses". At one time, these alleys allowed discreet stabling of horses and delivery of supplies without disrupting activities in the main houses. Today, the back areas are used almost exclusively for parking.
King sold very few houses and the development failed, with Equitable Life Assurance Society, which had financed the project, foreclosing on almost all the units in 1895, during an economic depression. By this time, Harlem was being abandoned by white New Yorkers, yet the company would not sell the King houses to blacks, and so they sat empty until 1919–20, when they were finally made available to African Americans for $8,000 each. Some of the units were turned into rooming houses, but generally they attracted both leaders of the black community and upwardly-mobile professionals, or "strivers", who gave the district its colloquial name.
Between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, is 139th Street, known among Harlemites as 'strivers' row.' It is the most aristocratic street in Harlem. Stanford White designed the houses for a wealthy white clientele. Moneyed African-Americans now own and inhabit them. When one lives on 'strivers' row' one has supposedly arrived. Harry Rills resides there, as do a number of the leading Babbitts and professional folk of Harlem.
By the 1940s, many of the houses had decayed and were converted to single room occupancies (SROs). Much of the original decorative detail inside the houses was lost at this time, though the exteriors generally remained unaltered. With the post-1995 real-estate boom in Harlem, many of these buildings are being restored to something resembling their original condition.
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and East 96th Street.
Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle. Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish and Italian Americans in the 19th century, but African-American residents began to arrive in large numbers during the Great Migration in the 20th century. In the 1920s and 1930s, Central and West Harlem were the center of the Harlem Renaissance, a major African-American cultural movement. With job losses during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the deindustrialization of New York City after World War II, rates of crime and poverty increased significantly. In the 21st century, crime rates decreased significantly, and Harlem started to gentrify.
The area is served by the New York City Subway and local bus routes. It contains several public elementary, middle, and high schools, and is close to several colleges, including Columbia University, Manhattan School of Music, and the City College of New York. Central Harlem is part of Manhattan Community District 10. It is patrolled by the 28th and 32nd Precincts of the New York City Police Department. The greater Harlem area also includes Manhattan Community Districts 9 and 11 and several police precincts, while fire services are provided by four New York City Fire Department companies.
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over 300.46 square miles (778.2 km2), New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. The city is within the southern tip of New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area – the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous megacities, and over 58 million people live within 250 mi (400 km) of the city. New York City is a global cultural, financial, and media center with a significant influence on commerce, health care and life sciences, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, dining, art, fashion, and sports. New York is the most photographed city in the world. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy, an established safe haven for global investors, and is sometimes described as the capital of the world." - info from Wikipedia.
The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.
Now on Instagram.
Not a macro, this ship chain was HUGE. Found in the Rivertown section of detroit while out with my buddy Sccot, we came across a parking lot filled with buoys. You don't realize how large they are until you stand next to one.
Strive for good deeds, even the small ones—you never know which one will get you into Jannah.
Dr. Bilal Philips
I'm in love with it, period. This is a picture I took of my grandma. For those of you who don't know what's going on, she's celebrating. Next month, on October 20, she will be 90 years old. This is quite a feat for her. A few years ago she broke her hip and the survival rate for people over 70 who break a hip is about 50%. Not only did she beat that statistic, but she overcame all odds and exceeded doctors' expectations for how well she would be doing at this point.
My grandma is a driving force in my life and I am a better person for knowing her. I know the following passage gets lengthy but it's a speech I wrote about a person I admire and, of course, it's about my grandmother. I invite you to read it if you have time and get a better glimpse of this amazing woman that I love.
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“There’s the wind-up, and the pitch. It’s a hit! It’s going back...back. It’s outta here, Folks!” Don’t be deceived, this is no ordinary baseball game. The stadium is my backyard, I’m the pitcher. The announcer is my little brother. And the batter, you ask? The batter is none other than my then 83-year-old grandmother. My grandma was always the cool grandma. She has been a driving force in my life and my words could never explain my love and gratitude for her. However, I will attempt to give you a glimpse of an amazing woman who is not only a baseball player, but also a caretaker, storyteller, chef, teacher, and all around trouble-maker. I am here to give you a glimpse at the woman I call “Grandmommy”.
My mom worked when I was little so she left me with my grandma. This was convenient for everyone since my grandma lived in the finished lower level of our split level ranch. I’d always get so excited to hear her footsteps coming up the stairs, knowing that soon she’d be in to wake me up for a breakfast of pancakes or waffles. She’d make them just the way I liked with butter and extra syrup. She would then serve them to me in the living room while I watched Sesame Street. My mornings were always an enjoyable experience.
After breakfast, my grandma became my teacher and storyteller. She would read to me for hours, thus instilling in me my passion for reading. She read everything to me from and the comics in the newspaper to children's books. She still fuels my love of reading today by sending newspaper articles and her old books my way. Unfortunately, with age her sight is not as good as it used to be and she has difficulty reading.
We loved to watch TV together. We would watch Lamb Chop together in the mornings and even on my mom’s days off I’d go down to watch it with my grandma. Despite our avid Lamb Chop watching, our favorite thing to watch was ice skating. During commercials I would mimic the moves I saw the skaters doing. No matter how poorly executed those moves were, (and believe me, they were poorly executed) my grandma would clap and cheer and urge me to go on. On occasion she’d get up and jump around with me which I always thought was cool.
She loved to decorate for every holiday, even the offbeat ones like Columbus Day and President’s Day. She’d dress up for Halloween every year, even if there was no one to see her costume but the family. She turned her space into a Halloween haven and called it her “Spook House.” The Christmas tree always went up the day after Thanksgiving and was always decorated within the week. She played a game with me at Christmas time, telling me that one of Santa’s elves talked to her at night. I’d write letters to him and magically the next day, he’d written me back and left me a toy. I never caught on that the elf’s handwriting somehow looked exactly like my grandmother’s or that she was the only one who ever saw him.
One of my favorite memories of my grandmother are the summers we spent out on her patio. Often, we’d sit and listen to the baseball game (she was an avid baseball lover) and sip peach soda in the sun. When we weren’t doing that, I’d listen to her tell me stories of her days as a child when they didn’t have TV. I was fascinated by that fact and she’d tell me the story over and over again. Sometimes, I’d play bug catcher and save my grandmother from the pesky bugs on the patio. She’d reward me with a big hug and a cookie. Those were the days.
A few years ago my grandma broke her hip. Now, many people chalk that up to old age. However, this is not the case. My grandma broke her hip because she lost her footing in her high heels. Yes, you heard me correctly, her high heels. She never went anywhere without her heels, even at 85. After she broke her hip, the doctor told her she could never wear them again. He also told her that she would have to use a walker or a four-pronged cane for the rest of her life. That didn’t go over too well with Grandma and she told the doctor exactly where he could take his advice. She let him know that she would never be caught dead with a walker and would be using a regular cane within the year. And that’s exactly what she did.
I once heard a statistic that many women her age who break a hip don’t survive. That just proves to me how strong of a woman my grandmother is. Not only did she survive but she’s back to her old tricks…almost. For the first few months with her new cane, we’d have to watch her like a hawk. She’s a stubborn woman (I come by it naturally I found out) and insisted that she didn’t need her cane. We’d catch her downstairs wandering around, cane-less, and we’d have to scold her like a child. She refuses to use her wheelchair in public and no matter how tired it makes her; she persists to walk around the mall or grocery store with just her cane. She always has to be the strong one.
Since getting her cane, her holiday decorating has become a little more difficult. She doesn’t put up as many decorations and putting up the Christmas tree can take a month instead of a week. However, her stubborn streak still lives on. Upon going downstairs one day, I found the cane by the couch and, as usual, grandma was nowhere to be found. After further investigation I found my grandmother standing on a chair hanging things from the ceiling. She never stops.
My grandma is the most amazing woman I know. She turns 90 on October 20th and this is no easy feat! She has slowed down since breaking her hip which is difficult to watch. She’s still the strong, amazing woman I knew growing up, but now she seems trapped in an old woman’s body. She still causes trouble, especially at my graduation party when she announced she wants male strippers at her 90th birthday during my graduation party. She’s still an amazing cook, making savory meatloaf and potatoes every now and then. She’s still a teacher, I learn something new from her everyday. And I still strive to be the best person I can be to make her proud. In my eyes she truly is a superb human being.
Strive to enter in at the strait gate - Luke 13:24.
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Here's my take on it: it's very helpful to have the key to the wide gate instead (or, as one burglar who hit my shed a few years ago managed to prove, sometimes a screwdriver and some attention to the hinges might suffice. A couple of helpless Police officers and a couple of new bikes later, that's not the case any more!).
Some say placing the plane of focus with a TS lens is hard. Well, it might be, unless you use a tripod and LiveView. If you do, it's actually easy; it's just a matter of iteratively using the focus ring to focus on a foreground point on the intended plane of focus, then the tilt angle to focus on a background point on the same plane* - then repeat. It only takes 2-3 iterations to get both points in critical focus, with the aperture fully open. Once the focus is taken care of, you're free to close down the aperture to the value giving you the very best IQ, and shoot.
That's a comfortably wide gate, as far as I'm concerned. I found the interactive focusing much more precise than estimating the hinge distance and setting the tilt angle by the lookup tables or formulas. I see no virtue in doing this the hard way**. It of course depends on one having a good tripod and magnified LiveView. Let me also remind of the usefulness of strong reading glasses or of a magnifying LCD hood (if you cringe at Hoodman's prices, Ebay alternatives are as cheap as £8.50 delivered).
This doesn't mean one can simply ignore the theory - one still needs to know which way to tilt the lens and understand the wedge-shaped DoF!
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* So, it's Foreground-Focus, Background-Bend - a useful mnemonic by Darwin Wiggett. The other way around seems much harder, if at all possible - please chime in if you found otherwise!
** Alas, sometimes you have to shoot handheld, so you can't slide back and forth the magnified window in LiveView. When shooting landscapes with the camera at eye level, setting the tilt angle by the Scheimpflug formula could well be the easy way (check David Summerhayes's tutorial). If you can't find a tilt angles lookup table for your lens, with a scientific calculator you can build your own (if your calculator of choice - say, the Windows app - doesn't do arcsin, then check "Inv" and click "sin"):
tilt angle = arcsin (lens focal / distance to plane of focus).
The Voyage of Life: Childhood
West Building, Main Floor—Gallery 60
•Date: 1842
•Medium: Oil on Canvas
•Dimensions
oOverall: 134.3 × 195.3 cm (52⅞ × 76⅞ in.)
oFramed: 162.9 × 224.8 × 17.8 cm (64⅛ × 88½ × 7 in.)
•Credit Line: Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
•Accession Number: 1971.16.1
•Artists/Makers:
oArtist: Thomas Cole, American, 1801-1848
Overview
Cole’s renowned four-part series traces the journey of an archetypal hero along the “River of Life.” Confidently assuming control of his destiny and oblivious to the dangers that await him, the voyager boldly strives to reach an aerial castle, emblematic of the daydreams of “Youth” and its aspirations for glory and fame. As the traveler approaches his goal, the ever-more-turbulent stream deviates from its course and relentlessly carries him toward the next picture in the series, where nature’s fury, evil demons, and self-doubt will threaten his very existence. Only prayer, Cole suggests, can save the voyager from a dark and tragic fate.
From the innocence of childhood, to the flush of youthful overconfidence, through the trials and tribulations of middle age, to the hero’s triumphant salvation, The Voyage of Life seems intrinsically linked to the Christian doctrine of death and resurrection. Cole’s intrepid voyager also may be read as a personification of America, itself at an adolescent stage of development. The artist may have been issuing a dire warning to those caught up in the feverish quest for Manifest Destiny: that unbridled westward expansion and industrialization would have tragic consequences for both man and nature.
Inscription
•Lower Left: 1842 / T. Cole / Rome
Provenance
Sold by the artist to George K. Shoenberger [1809-1892], Cincinnati, perhaps as early as 1845 and no later than May 1846;[1] Shoenberger heirs, after 20 January 1892;[2] purchased 1908 by Ernst H. Huenefeld, Cincinnati;[3] gift 1908 to Bethesda Hospital and Deaconess Association of Methodist Church of Cincinnati;[4] sold 17 May 1971 through (Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York) to NGA.
[1]For a discussion of a possible 1845 date, see Thomas Cole, Exh. cat. Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, 1969: 35. Other sources place the acquisition a bit later than 1845; see Paul D. Schweizer, “The Voyage of Life: A Chronology,” in The Voyage of Life by Thomas Cole, Paintings, Drawings, and Prints, Exh. cat. Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, 1985: 45 (“December 1846?”), and Ellwood C. Parry III, The Art of Thomas Cole: Ambition and Imagination, Newark, Delaware, 1988: 332 (“sometime late in 1846 or, more likely, early in 1847”); however in a Boston Transcript article entitled “The Voyage of Life,” which appeared 21 May 1846, the pictures are mentioned as then belonging to “a wealthy gentleman of Cincinnati.”
[2]A letter of April 1979 from Mrs. Robert Heuck (in NGA curatorial files) specifies: “Mr. Shoenberger died in 1892, at which time many of the belongings of the home were given to heirs.” Shoenberger died 20 January 1892; for additional information, see The Biographical Cyclopaedia and Portrait Gallery with an Historical Sketch of the State of Ohio, 6 vols., Cincinnati, 1895: 6:1457-1458.
[3]Mrs. Robert Heuck, letter of April 1979 (in NGA curatorial files) states: “In 1908 Mr. and Mrs. Ernest W. [sic] Huenefeld purchased the land [and the house and contents].”
[4]Edward H. Dwight and Richard J. Boyle, “Rediscovery: Thomas Cole’s ‘Voyage of Life’,” Art in America 55 (May 1967): 62.
Associated Names
•Bethesda Hospital and Deaconess Association
•Hirschl & Adler Galleries
•Huenefeld, Ernst H.
•Shoenberger, George K.
Exhibition History
•1842—Annual Exhibition of Modern Artists, Piazza del Popolo, Rome, 1842, no cat.
•1842—Private Exhibition, Luther Terry’s studio, Orto di Napoli, Rome, 1842.
•1843—Pictures by Thomas Cole N.A. … The Voyage of Life! A Series of Allegorical Pictures, National Academy of Design, New York, 1843-1844, no. 1.
•1843—Second Exhibition, Boston Artists’ Association, 1843, no. 1.
•1844—Paintings Exhibited…, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1844, no. 1.
•1848—Western Art Union, Cincinnati, 1848, no cat.
•1854—Pictures at the Ladies’ Gallery, Cincinnati, 1854, 2 and 5, no. 20, as Infancy.
•1983—A New World: Masterpieces of American Painting 1760-1910, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Grand Palais, Paris, 1983-1984, no. 25, repro.
•1985—The Voyage of Life by Thomas Cole, Paintings, Drawings, and Prints, Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, 1985, 4, 5, 28, 30-32, 34-36, 38-40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 53, 66-69, no. 33.
•1994—Thomas Cole: Landscape into History, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; The Brooklyn Museum, 1994-1995, fig. 115.
•1995—Loan for display with permanent collection, The Detroit Institute of Arts, 1995-1996.
•2000—Explorar el Edén: Paisaje Americano del Siglo XIX, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2000-2001, no. 2, repro.
Technical Summary
Secondary ground layers include red under the top left corner; yellow under the boat and angel; red under the center in the light area of mountain; red under top right corner in the light area of sky; red under the water around the boat. Infrared reflectography reveals some underdrawing of mountain contours in the right middle and far distance. There are scattered small losses along the edges, a small loss below the boat, and craquelure throughout.
All four paintings in The Voyage of Life series were executed on herringbone twill fabric with moderately fine threads and a moderately rough surface. The paintings were lined (apparently for the first time) and the original panel-back stretchers were replaced during treatment in 1970-1971. The presence of unused tack holes and the pattern of wear on the canvas edges suggest that the paintings were originally stretched and painted on slightly larger stretchers, and then restretched by the artist on the panel-backed stretchers. All four paintings have white ground layers; in specific areas of each painting (see individual comments, below) secondary ground layers of different colors were applied. Infrared reflectography reveals only minimal underdrawing. Paint was applied moderately thinly and with low and broad brushstrokes in some areas such as the skies, and more thickly and with some high impasto in details such as the figures and foliage. In general, the paintings are in excellent condition, with only scattered small losses, some craquelure, and minor abrasion. In 1970-1971, discolored varnish was removed and the paintings were restored.
Bibliography
•1843—“Cole’s Pictures at the National Academy of Design.” Anglo American (30 December 1843): 239.
•1843—“Dottings on Art and Artists. No. II.” New World 6 (25 February 1843): 246.
•1843—“Mr. Cole’s Paintings.” New-York Daily Tribune (26 December 1843): 2.
•1843—New-York Daily Tribune (18 February 1843): 3.
•1844—“A Few Words About Mr. Cole’s Paintings.” New World 8 (17 February 1844): 217.
•1844—“Cole’s Paintings.” New-York Daily Tribune (9 January 1844): 2.
•1844—“Editor’s Table.” The Knickerbocker 23 (January/February 1844): 97, 196.
•1844—P., S.H.J. “To Thomas Cole.” New Mirror 2 (27 January 1844): 269.
•1847—Transactions of the Western Art Union for the Year 1847. Cincinnati, 1847: 25.
•1848—Bryant, William Cullen. A Funeral Oration, occasioned by the death of Thomas Cole delivered before the National Academy of Design, New York, May 4, 1848. Philadelphia and New York, 1848: 30.
•1848—Whitley, Thomas W. Reflections on the Government of the Western Art Union and a Review of the Works of Art on Its Walls. [Originally published in the Herald of Truth] Cincinnati, 1848: 17-18.
•1849—Lanman, Charles. “The Epic Paintings of Thomas Cole.” Southern Library Messenger 15 (June 1849): 353.
•1849—Transactions of the Western Art Union for the Year 1848. Cincinnati, 1849: 10.
•1853—Noble, Louis Legrand. The Course of Empire, Voyage of Life, and other Pictures of Thomas Cole, N.A.. New York, 1853: 295-298, 301, 309, 312-314, 317, 320-322, 353, 359.
•1854—“Thomas Cole.” National Magazine 4 (April 1854): 318-321.
•1855—“Sketchings.” The Crayon 1 (7 February 1855): 92.
•1858—“Notes and Gleanings—Cole’s Pictures of Life.” National Magazine 13 (September 1858): 284-285.
•1860—Green, George W. Biographical Sketches. New York, 1860: 101, 105, 110-112.
•1860—“The Artists of America—Taken from New American Cyclopaedia.” The Crayon 7 (February 1860): 46.
•1865—Cummings, Thomas S. Historic Annals of the National Academy of Design (1825-1863). Philadelphia, 1865. Reprint, New York, 1965: 170, 176, 201.
•1932—Mayer, Frank Blackwell. With Pen and Pencil on the Frontier in 1851: The Diary and Sketches of Frank Blackwell Mayer. Edited by Bertha L. Heilbron. Reprint, Saint Paul, 1932: 41.
•1954—La Budde, Kenneth James. “The Mind of Thomas Cole.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1954: 171, 212.
•1962—Devane, James. “Sightseers Have Visited Scarlet Oaks for 95 Years.” Cincinnati Enquirer (20 May 1962): 6A.
•1964—Noble, Louis Legrand. The Life and Works of Thomas Cole (1853). Edited by Elliot S. Vesell. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1964: 220-224, 231, 233-235, 237, 239-240, 264.
•1967—Dwight, Edward H., and Richard J. Boyle. “Rediscovery: Thomas Cole’s ‘Voyage of Life’.” L’Art et les Artistes 55 (May 1967): 60-63, repro. 62.
•1967—Merritt, Howard S. “Thomas Cole’s List, ‘Subjects for Pictures.’” In Baltimore Museum of Art, Annual II: Studies on Thomas Cole, an American Romanticist. Baltimore, 1967: 84, 90.
•1970—Riordan, John. “Thomas Cole: A Case Study of the Painter-Poet Theory ofArt in American Painting from 1825-1850.” 2 vols. Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University, 1970: 1:99-100; 2:345, 455-497.
•1973—Wallach, Alan Peter. “The Ideal American Artist and the Dissenting Tradition: A Study of Thomas Cole’s Popular Reputation.” Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1973: 70-72, 106.
•1976—Kurland, Sydney. “The Aesthetic Quest of Thomas Cole and Edgar Allan Poe: Correspondence in their Thought and Practice in Relation to their Time.” Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio University, Athens, 1976: 105-109, 172, repro. 227.
•1977—Wallach, Alan. “The Voyage of Life as Popular Art.” The Art Bulletin 59 (1957): 234.
•1980—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 133, repro.
•1980—Coen, Rena N. “Cole, Coleridge and Kubla Khan.” Art History 3 (June 1980): 218, 227, pl. 31.
•1980—Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 11, 14, 88, repro. 88.
•1981—Virdis, Caterina Limentani. “Paesaggio e racconto in Edgar Allan Poe.” Artibus et Historiae 4 (1981): 90, 94, repro. 89.
•1981—Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 96, 112-113.
•1983—Schweizer, Paul D. “Another Possible Literary Source for Thomas Cole’s Voyage of Life.” In “New Discoveries in American Art.” Edited by Jayne A. Kuchina. The American Art Journal 15 (1983): 74-75.
•1985—The Voyage of Life by Thomas Cole, Paintings, Drawings, and Prints. Exh. cat. Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, Utica, New York, 1985: 66-69.
•1987—Sarnoff, Charles A. “The Voyage of Life Had a Life of Its Own.” Paper presented to the NGA, January 1987.
•1987—Wilmerding, John. American Marine Painting. Rev. ed. of A History of American Marine Painting, 1968. New York, 1987: 44, 46, 47, color repro. 42.
•1988—Parry, Ellwood C., III. The Art of Thomas Cole: Ambition and Imagination. Newark, London, and Toronto, 1988: 218, 228, 265-268, 270-272, 275, 277, 280, 284-285, 291-298, 301-303, 332, 338, 378.
•1988—Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 11, 17, 102, 103, repro. 102.
•1990—Powell, Earl A., III. Thomas Cole. New York, 1990: 103.
•1991—Kopper, Philip. America’s National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 261, 263, color repro.
•1991—Wilmerding, John. American Views: Essays on American Art. Princeton, 1991: 56, 67, repro. 57.
•1992—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 145, repro.
•1994—Truettner, William H., and Alan Wallach. Thomas Cole: Landscape into History. Exh. cat. Natl. Mus. of Am. Art, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Brooklyn Museum. Washington,1994: 42,46-47,79,82,84,98-101,113,130-133,138,144,149-150,152,154,182, no. 115.
•1995—Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th-Century American Art. Atlanta, 1995: 137-148, fig. 26.
•1996—Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 95-108, color repro.
•1998—Boeckl, Christine M. “Path/Road/Crossroads.” In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art. Edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:692.
•2004—Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 308-310, no. 247, color repros.
•2012—“Rethinking ‘Luminism’: Taste, Class, and Aestheticizing Tendencies in Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Landscape Painting.” In The Cultured Canvas: New Perspectives on American Landscape Painting edited by Nancy Siegel. Lebanon, N.H., 2012: 133-134.
•2013—Corbett, David Peters. “Painting American Frontiers: ‘Encounter’ and the Borders of American Identity in Nineteenth-Century Art.” Perspective 2013, no. 1: 140, 141, color fig. 9.
From American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I:
1971.16.1 (2550)
The Voyage of Life: Childhood
•1842
•Oil on Canvas, 134.3 × 195.3 (52⅞ × 76⅞)
•Ails a Mellon Bruce Fund
•Inscriptions:
oAt Lower Left: 1842 / T. Cole / Rome
Technical Notes
All four paintings were executed on herringbone twill fabric with moderately fine threads and a moderately rough surface. The paintings were lined (apparently for the first time) and the original panel-back stretchers were replaced during treatment in 1970—1971. The presence of unused tack holes and the pattern of wear on the canvas edges suggest that the paintings were originally stretched and painted on slightly larger stretchers, and then restretched by the artist on the panel-backed stretchers. All four paintings have white ground layers; in specific areas of each painting (see individual comments, below) secondary ground layers of different colors were applied. Infrared reflectography reveals only minimal underdrawing. Paint was applied moderately thinly and with low and broad brushstrokes in some areas such as the skies, and more thickly and with some high impasto in details such as the figures and foliage. In general, the paintings are in excellent condition, with only scattered small losses, some craquelure, and minor abrasion. In 1970-1971, discolored varnish was removed and the paintings were restored.
1971.16.1 (Childhood): Secondary ground layers include red under the top left corner; yellow under the boat and angel; red under the center in the light area of mountain; red under top right corner in the light area of sky; red under the water around the boat. Infrared reflectography reveals some underdrawing of mountain contours in the right middle and far distance. There are scattered small losses along the edges, a small loss below the boat, and craquelure throughout.
Description by the Artist:
First Picture: Childhood
A stream is seen issuing from a deep cavern, in the side of a craggy and precipitous mountain, whose summit is hidden in clouds. From out the cave glides a Boat, whose golden prow and sides are sculptured into figures of the Hours: steered by an Angelic Form, and laden with buds and flowers, it bears a laughing Infant, the Voyager whose varied course the artist has attempted to delineate. On either hand the banks of the stream are clothed in luxuriant herbage and flowers. The rising sun bathes the mountains and the flowery banks in rosy light.
The dark cavern is emblematic of our earthly origin, and the mysterious Past. The Boat, composed of Figures of the Hours, images the thought, that we are borne on the hours down the Stream of Life. The Boat identifies the subject in each picture. The rosy light of the morning, the luxuriant flowers and plants, are emblems of the joyousness of early life. The close banks, and the limited scope of the scene, indicate the narrow experience of Childhood, and the nature of its pleasures and desires. The Egyptian Lotus in the foreground of the picture is symbolical of Human Life. Joyousness and wonder are the characteristic emotions of childhood.
The first thing I wanted to get on my return to Edgbaston was the Nature Centre - what I mean is the old Museum building from Pershore Road (wasn't planning on going inside - is it open in winter?)
I found a path to the left of it heading towards Cannon Hill Park.
The museum building of the Nature Centre.
It looked open, despite it being winter.
The centre opened in 1975 on the site of the original Pebble Mill.
Situated on the Pershore Road, the Nature Centre has a six acre site in Edgbaston with over 130 species of animals. This is not a zoo but is a wonderful little oasis for the animal lover and children right near the heart of the city. There is also a Lilliput Village for the younger children. Whilst they do charge an entrance fee for adults, children are admitted free of charge.
The Birmingham Nature Centre can be found situated on the Pershore Road not far from BBC Pebble Mill. Set back off the road it is easily missed. An oasis of calm adjoining Cannon Hill Park, this is a delightful inner city animal kingdom on your doorstep. It's only 2 miles from the city centre.
The centre strives to retain the original habitat of the animals and it expresses the importance of conservation. A place for young children to find out about animals, the Nature Centre is perched right along aside the River Lea. Six and a half acres and with a wide selection of domestic and wild animals.
Advertising itself as having 134 species of British and European wildlife, the centre allows free admission to children.
The Nature centre is home to otters, foxes, deer, owls, sheep, goats, wallaby, donkeys, pigs, polecats, chickens, rabbits, rodents, beavers, reptiles, porcupine, cats, waterfowl, lynx, and has a selection of wild flowers and birds.
Was above freezing so the paths was icy. Managed to avoid falling over, even though I may have slipped a bit before regaining my balance.
Now on Wikipedia here Birmingham Nature Centre
Before the Nature Centre, this was the Birmingham Natural History Museum.
On this site was the original Pebble Mill (not the TV studio that was on Pebble Mill Road).