The Lovers’ Chronicle 27 March – attest – verse by Statius – art by Jan van Beers & Albert Marquet – photography by Edward Steichen

Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag. Perhaps, the most meaningful, important TLC post. Certainly one of the palest. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle 

Dear Muse,

dream of fauvism…
come my love, another dream awaits, he calls to the beautiful redhead
-She arrives, he takes her hand and helps her into a waiting carriage;
le Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées dans l'année dix-neuf cent cinq, s’il vous plaît, he tells the driver
Back in Paris sounds great, she says, and back in time
yes, this is gonna be très intéressant, we are goin’ to the third annual Salon d'Automne, an art exhibition first held in 1903, the exhibitors in 1905 were Henri Matisse, André Derain, birthday boy Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Kees van Dongen, after viewing the boldly colored canvases an art critic disparaged the painters as "fauves" (French for wild beasts), thus givin’ their movement the name by which it became known, Fauvism
Ha, damn critics, shows again what they know
right, unbelievable, Matisse showed his painting, La femme au chapeau, a fabulous redhead by the way, which is gorgeous
I guess after this we can attest, that some things haven’t changed in a hundred plus years
and one more thing we can attest,
The bond we have growing stronger

© copyright 2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

surprised, i found a song that fits
”Really, I couldn’t think of one”
yes from the fabulous
Western swing band Asleep at the Wheel;
“Where I’m at is lost again
Well, I've been east and I've been west
And I can attest
You don't have to go to Memphis to get the Blues”
”That does fit where you were before us”
it does, it also reminds me
of when we we went to Memphis
”To hear some blues, the only kind we get”
absolutely, now i can write,
east or west, we can attest
wherever we go, we git better

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

i can vouch for the authenticity of the trail of words and feelin’s left behind, makin’ up for lost ground, the years of stifled emotions, withheld thoughts and words, perhaps a fine recipe for a writer; bottle up everything for fifty years, then turn her loose and ride the waves as the torrent flows without gittin’ pulled under, but i would not recommend it, not a miracle but perhaps somewhere in the neighborhood that i emerged ready to be with you

© copyright 2022.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

i know the way
to attest to existence
a matter of faith

a form of seduction
a prescribed future
never settle for ordinary
nor fade in obscurity

a chance to be a part
of all that matters,
time transients escapin’
the problems posed
by daily existence
speak the language

lovers

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

sometimes
i let sadness
overwhelm me

i have plumbed
the depths
of sorrow
and i should
always
swallow it
with ease

i have no want
aside from the want
of what is best for you
and i will do as you wish

the only thing i will not do
is stop creatin’ this vision
for you

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

somethin’ there is
that allows just enough
space for two abreast

can you hear
now, the music
from the beginnin’

the circle
of the past
has been broken

at last

chances traveled on,
voices in accord,
lead us here

the proof of what
and to what end
within our grasp

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

time runnin’ out
nothin’ new there
seems to help
though you might best
judge that

i know
keep comin’ back
to the same thing
but you tell me,
how can i not

when the only possible
thing that can ever matter
is becomin’ half of a whole

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

lost
do not know or cannot find
a way to attest to existence
a matter of faith
or the lack thereof

a form of seduction
a chosen solitude
rather than a prescribed future
eventually become ordinary
in time and fade in obscurity

if only…

lovers
a chance to be a part
of the only thing that matters,
time transients escapin’
the problems posed
by daily existence
speak the language
heroes

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Statius

Today is the traditional day to celebrate the birth of Publius Papinius Statius (Naples; c. 45 – c. 96 AD Naples); Roman poet of the 1st century AD (Silver Age of Latin literature). His surviving Latin poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the Thebaid; a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae; and an unfinished epic, the Achilleid. He is also known for his appearance as a guide in the Purgatory section of Dante’s epic poem The Divine Comedy.

Verse 

Exedere animum dolor iraque demens
et, qua non gravior mortalibus addita curis,
spes, ubi longa venit.

Statius

• Grief and mad wrath devoured his soul, and hope, heaviest of mortal cares when long deferred.

Nec frons triste rigens nimiusque in moribus horror
sed simplex hilarisque fides et mixta pudori
gratia.

Statius

• Yet no stiff and frowning face was hers, no undue austerity in her manners, but gay and simple loyalty, charm blended with modesty.

Today is the birthday of Jan van Beers (Jean Marie Constantin Joseph van Beers; Lier, Belgium 27 March 1852 – 17 November 1927 Fay-aux-Loges, France); painter and illustrator, the son of the poet Jan van Beers. They are sometimes referred to as Jan van Beers the elder and Jan van Beers the younger. In 1884, Jan Van Beers produced the pen-and-ink sketches for the edition de luxe of his father’s poetry.

In 1880 he moved to Paris and immediately abandoned historical pictures, producing instead genre and portrait works of the middle classes and developing a successful line in attractive draped young ladies reading a letter or a book or day-dreaming about a lover. Van Beers said that he wanted to paint what he saw and that the best and most interesting things that one saw in Paris were her women.

Gallery

An 1891 Vanity Fair caricature of Van Beers titled “The Modern Wiertz”

posing as Sir Anthony van Dyck

Today is the birthday of Albert Marquet (Bordeaux 27 March 1875 – 14 June 1947 La Frette-sur-Seine, Val-d’Oise, France); painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes, but also several portraits and, between 1910 and 1914, several female nude paintings.

1905 he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne where his paintings were put together with those of Henri Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain, Othon Friesz, Georges Rouault, Raoul Dufy, Henri Manguin, Georges Braque, Louis Valtat, Georges Dufrénoy and Jean Puy. 

Dismayed by the intense coloration in these paintings, critics reacted by naming the artists the “Fauves”, i.e. the wild beasts. Although Marquet painted with the fauves for years, he used less bright and violent colors than the others, and emphasized less intense tones made by mixing complementaries, thus always as colors and never as grays.

Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturalistic style, primarily landscapes.

Gallery

1906, Fécamp (The Beach at Sainte-Adresse), oil on canvas, 64.5 x 80 cm

1916, Port of Marseilles, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, Ohara Museum of Art

Edward Steichen

And today is the birthday of Edward Steichen (Edward Jean Steichen; Bivange/Béiweng, Luxembourg; March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973 West Redding, Connecticut); photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. Steichen was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz’ groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Together Stieglitz and Steichen opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which eventually became known as 291 after its address.

His photos of gowns for the magazine Art et Décoration in 1911 are regarded as the first modern fashion photograph. From 1923 to 1938, Steichen was a photographer for the Condé Nast magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair while also working for many advertising agencies including J. Walter Thompson. During these years, Steichen was regarded as the best known and highest paid photographer in the world. In 1944, he directed the war documentary The Fighting Lady, which won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

After World War II, Steichen was Director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art until 1962. While at MoMA, he curated and assembled the exhibit The Family of Man, which was seen by nine million people.

Steichen married Clara Smith in 1903. In 1914, Clara accused her husband of having an affair with artist Marion H. Beckett, who was staying with them in France. The Steichens left France just ahead of invading German troops. In 1915, Clara Steichen returned to France with her daughter, staying in their house in the Marne in spite of the war. Steichen returned to France with the Photography Division of the American Army Signal Corps in 1917, whereupon Clara returned to the United States. In 1919, Clara Steichen sued Marion Beckett for having an affair with her husband, but was unable to prove her claims. Clara and Steichen eventually divorced in 1922. Steichen married Dana Desboro Glover in 1923. She died of leukemia in 1957. In 1960, aged 80, Steichen married Joanna Taub and remained married to her until his death, which occurred two days before his 94th birthday. Joanna Steichen died on July 24, 2010, in Montauk, New York, aged 77.

Gallery

Henri Matisse and La Serpentine, fall 1909, Issy-les-Moulineaux, photograph by Edward Steichen

Young American Artists of the Modern School, L. to R. Jo Davidson, Edward Steichen, Arthur B. Carles, John Marin; back: Marsden Hartley, Laurence Fellows, c. 1911, Bates College Museum of Art

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

mac tag