Borges' Library

Birdwatching in Paintings

Image 1 (Detail from Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights in the Prado)

Bosch-garden-of-earthly-delights-detail

Image 2 (Raphael's Madonna del Cardellinoa, in the Uffizi)

Image 3 (Detail Above)

Image 4 (Carel Fabritius The Goldfinch, in the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague)

Image 5 (Bronzino's Portrait of Giovanni de' Medici as a Child /Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence)

Figures Six and Seven (Details from Bosch)

Figures 8 and 9 (Antonella's Saint Jerome/National Gallery)

Image 10 (Mantegna's Madonna della Vittoria/Louvre)

Images 11 & 12 Pups by Carpaccio

Image 13 Carpaccio's Hunting on the Lagoon (Getty)

Image 14 Detail
Image 15 Cormorant fishing Shuji Sugiyama descends from a long line of master cormorant fishermen—he's now one of only nine left in Japan. COURTESY OF GIFU CITY)

Image 16 Carpaccio's Two Venetian Ladies (Correr Museum)

Image 16 Carpaccio's Annunciation (Ca' D'Oro Franchetti Gallery)

Images 17, 18, 19 Details

Image 20 Vittore Carpaccio’s Narrative Cycle in the Scuola DalmataImage 21 detail

DC Carpaccio Show 2023

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Ciao, Carpaccio

Ciao, Carpaccio!: An Infatuation
by Jan Morris

The Annunciation of the Virgin at Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca' d'Oro

My Goodreads Review:

This is pretty much a "perfect book." A jewel. A book to be treasured! Charming, witty, and enlightening, it is a must-read for anyone who loves Venice, Carpaccio paintings or well, I think pretty much anyone in the world would fall in love with this small gem of a book. In fact, I am not sure I’ve read too many books by Jan Morris-- but I have to say, I am now very much committed to reading as many as I can! Carpaccio is one of my favorite painters, John Ruskin was also quite fond of him --though he would declare not one but two Carpaccio paintings to be "the most beautiful picture in the world."

Like Morris, while I don't think he is one of the greatest of the sublime artists of the Renaissance--not one of the "greats" perhaps (Gombrich didn't even include Carpaccio n his famous Story of Art!) Still as Morris rightly says, his paintings are unforgettable. They are gentle, with those glorious Venetian colors, and the bestiary of enchanted animals... Bellini pups! And those pheasants and rabbits; lions and deer... While Ruskin put the Ursula painting as "most beautiful" he later changed his mind and famous declared the Two Venetian Ladies in the Correr to be the finest picture in the world... I myself would probably agree, as for me, the upper part of that picture (in the Getty) of Hunting on the Lagoon, is a painting very, very dear to my heart. Morris, for her part loves St Augustine in his study (still in situ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Aug...

Her musings about this picture are just delightful.

The book begins and ends with her personal impressions of Carpaccio's paintings. Oh, if only I could write so beautifully about art.

And yes, I must read Calasso's Tiepolo Pink! (With its titled plucked from Proust).

And oh, that little white dog!

As Jim C says below: What she says of Carpaccio, I would say of her own work – that she is an artist of "that simple, universal and omnipotent virtue, the quality of Kindness."

Don't miss this one!

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Bird Books

Field Guides

How to differentiate between birding field guides? There is the Peterson Guide and Sibley's. The National Geographic Field Guide is the one recommended by the instructor of the Great Courses Birding class, while Audubon is one of the oldest (though I just read that Peterson's is older still). If you really want the oldest, you will have to track down a copy of Birds Through an Opera-Glass, written by Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey (1863 –1948), who was an American ornithologist and nature writer who organized early Audubon Society chapters and was an early activist for bird protection.

In the end, it seems, it really comes down to personal preference.

While my husband gravitated immediately toward the beautiful illustrations of the Sibley, with their focus on plumage; I liked the simplicity and feel of the Kaufman Guide, which was designed for beginners. I also love Alvarez's Guide to California Birds. This latter one is the only field guide I actually use. Both Alvarez and the Kaufman have better notes on bird calls and songs too.

My new favorite is Hansen's Field Guide to Birds of the Sierra Nevada: with its beautiful descriptions and fabulous pictures!

I also regularly consult the funny Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America, by Matt Kracht.

Art/Culture

The Book of the Bird: Birds in Art Birds in Art
Hyland, Angus, Laurence King Publishing

The Bird in Art
Bugler, Caroline, Merrell

An Unlikely Search for Meaning in the World's Most Magnificent Bird An Unlikely Search for Meaning in the World's Most Magnificent Bird
Flynn, Sean, Simon & Schuster

Birds and People
Mark Cocker, David Tipling

Birds: Myth, Lore and Legend
Rachel Warren Chadd, Marianne Taylor

Ciao, Carpaccio!: An Infatuation
by Jan Morris

Carpaccio: Major Pictorial Cycles
by Stefania Mason

Hieronymus Bosch: Garden of Earthly Delights
by Hans Belting

As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Birds & Books
by Alex Preston, Neil Gower

"Carpaccio's 'Hunting on the Lagoon': A New Perspective"
Yvonne Szafran

"A Late Fifteenth Century Venetian Painting of a Bird Hunt"
George Goldner

"Divine Judgment in Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights"
Author(s): Peter Glum
Source: The Art Bulletin

Memoirs/Journalism

To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession

Field Notes from an Unintentional Birder: A Memoir
by Julia Zarankin

Birds Art Life: A Year of Observation
by Kyo Maclear

How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Birding
by Ted Floyd

Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds
Gentile, Olivia

Kingbird Highway
Kenn Kaufman

Big Year, Biggest States
Lynn Barber

A Most Remarkable Creature: The Hidden Life and Epic Journey of the World's Smartest Birds of Prey
Meiburg, Jonathan

The Thing with Feathers: The Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human
Strycker, Noah

Pasta for Nightingales: A 17th-Century Handbook of Bird-Care and Folklore A 17th-Century Handbook of Bird-Care and Folklore
Olina, Giovanni Pietro, dal Pozzo, Cassiano, Clayton, Kate, Macdonald, Helen,

The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany An Avian Miscellany
Gibson, Graeme, Atwood, Margaret

The Charm of Birds
Grey, Sir Edward,

Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds Across the Hemisphere with Migratory Birds
Weidensaul, Scott

A World on the Wing: The Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds
by Scott Weidensau

Why Birds Sing: A Journey Into the Mystery of Bird Song by David Rothenberg (2005-04-12)
Rothenberg, David

Into the Heart of Borneo
by Redmond O'Hanlon

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Bruegel, Bosch and Company in the Kunsthistoriches

Dutch novelist Cees Notteboom writes about seeing Bosch's Garden of Heavenly Delight at 21 and then seeing it again at 82. He asks, How has the painting changed? How has the viewer changed? Am I even the same man now? Can we moderns access the picture in the way Philip II did? Have our eyes changed so much? While it hasn't been sixty years, still it has been a long time to be in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna. It was thirty years ago. I was nineteen. We stopped in Vienna on the way back from two months in India. My first time abroad. Vienna was so damn pretty.
I can vividly recall what a warm day it was and how overwhelmed I felt by the Grand museum exterior . It was not just royal but imperial and ascending that colossal double marble staircase with the statue by Canova situated in the first landing halfway up, I turned back to look at Alexis who was trailing behind me. He was staring up at the painted ceiling, called the Triumph of the Renaissance. He was as gobsmacked as I was.

At the top, the path forked: to the left, the Northern School and to the Right, the Italian School. The eternal fork in the road of European art history. Today, I definitely would take left. But being young Americans, we took right.

From that day thirty years ago, I remember that staircase. And I also remember one picture. It is as if that one picture blotted out all the others we saw that day. But what a picture it was. We stood in front of Raphael's Madonna del Prato for the longest time. I couldn't understand it. Why were there two boys? Where was John the Baptist's mother? And were those strawberry plants? Also known as the Madonna del Belvedere, the Queen of Heaven in her ultramarine robe was breathtakingly, unforgettably magnificent. Her carmine color dress the same color as the poppies signifying the Christ's sacrifice and death. It was the same azure blue and carmine red we had seen in the murals at Alchi.

"When do paintings free themselves/from the painter, when does the same substance/become a different thought?"Cees Notteboom wonders...

In the Uffizi there is the Madonna of the Goldfish.

It is so similar to the Madonna del Prato--but instead of a cross the children play with a tiny goldfinch.n Madonna Del Cardellino, the goldfinch represents Christ's crucifixion.

Like the story of the mountains at Montserrat in Spain that rose from the earth at the precise moment that the Christ was crucified, there was a legend that the goldfinch received its red spot at the time of the crucifixion. The bird " flew down over the head of Christ and was taking a thorn from His crown, when it was splashed with the drop of His blood."

Bruegel Room

Top painting by
Robert Raschka (1847–1908)
Medium Pencil, watercolor, heightened with opaque white on paper

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June is for Juncos

MY "SPANISH" PATIO

MOMMY AND DADDY GOING IN AND OUT A MILLION TIMES A DAY!

SCREAMING EVERY TIME WE BREACH THE NEST PERIMETER (IE OUR WHOLE BACKYARD!!(

THE PERFECT NEST & A PROTECTIVE MOMMA

BABIES! AND THE WORK BEGINS...

Leanne Ogasawara has worked as a translator from the Japanese for over twenty years. Her translation work has included academic translation, poetry, philosophy, documentary film, and poetry. Her creative writing has appeared in Gulf Coast Journal, the Kyoto Journal, River Teeth/Beautiful Things, Hedgehog Review, Entropy, the Dublin Review of Books, and forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine. She has a monthly column at the science and arts blog 3 Quarks Daily. Her short story “Bare Bones” won the 2020 Calvino Prize, judged by Joyce Carol Oates.

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The High Road to Taos

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From Santa Fe (Willa Cather)

Lamy of Santa Fe
by Paul Horgan

La Conquistadora, by Sue Houser

La Conquistadora: The Autobiography of an Ancient Statue
by Fray Angelico Chavez

La Conquistadora, Unveiling the History of a Six Hundred Year Old Religious Icon
by Jaima Chevalier

A Guide} Built of Earth and Song: Churches of Northern New Mexico, by Marie Romero Cash

Below is the Church of San Miguel. It is arguably the oldest continuous place of Christian worship in the United States. Built sometime around 1605, but destroyed during the Pueblo Revolt of 1680. The church has a lot of the post-revolt late 17th century santero art--altar screen perhaps by artist known as the Laguna Santeros. He worked in New Mexico from about 1796 to 1808. A statue of San Miguel (Saint Michael) dating back to 1700 takes pride of place on the reredos. Four oval paintings also adorn the screen: Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Colette of France and Saint Louis IX, King of France.

The old bell dates back to 1356. The story goes that Christians were losing their fight against the Moors, until they vowed to craft a bell dedicated to Saint Joseph. Everybody relinquished their gold and silver-plated jewelry, which was all melted down to make the three-inch thick bell. Writing in 1908, Reverend W.J. Howlett described the bell as embodying “the richness of gold and the sweetness of sacrifice.” The famous bell made a cameo in Willa Cather’s novel “Death Comes for the Archbishop.”

I love anything written by Fray Chavez. His statue stands in front of public library (historical registry) across from our hotel.

Because of its extraordinary altar screen paintings, the Shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe is my favorite church in Santa Fe

Altar paintings signed by Mexican artist Jose de Alcibar in 1783. The painting was transported to Santa Fe by burro.

And tequila at Sazon.

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On the Road with Willa Cather

Chimayó (Willa Cather)

El Santuario de Chimayo

el Pocito

Books:

The Healing Power of the Santuario de Chimayó: America’s Miraculous Church (Religion, Race, and Ethnicity)
by Brett Hendrickson

Historic New Mexico Churches
Annie Lux, Daniel Nadelbach

Historic Churches of New Mexico Today
by Frank Graziano

Georgia O’Keeffe, Black Cross with Stars and Blue
Jeffrey Richmond-Moll

To the End of the Earth: A History of the Crypto-Jews of New Mexico
Stanley Hordes

Remnants of Crypto-Jews among Hispanic Americans
Gloria Golden, Roberto Cabello-Argandona, Yasmeen Namazie

Pueblos, Spaniards, and the Kingdom of New Mexico
John L. Kessell

My Penitente Land, Reflections of Spanish New Mexico (Southwest Heritage) Paperback – April 25, 2012
by Fray Angelico Chavez

Alabados de Nuevo Mexico

Machado's Poem "The Arrow"

A Drizzle of Honey: The Life and Recipes of Spain's Secret Jews
by David M. Gitlitz, Linda Kay Davidson

And speaking of cookbooks, whatever you do, don't miss the best family restaurant you can find anywhere: Rancho de Chimayo Cookbook: The Traditional Cooking of New Mexico Cookbook.

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art on the moon--with Samuel Peralta

Consolidating The Peregrine Collection and The Nova Collection
THE LUNAR CODEX

The Lunar Codex is the first significant placement of art on the Moon in 50 years. It is a unified, documented collection of art and more, placed on the lunar surface through a series of landings by NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) partners under its Artemis program. While focused on art, the Lunar Codex also includes a substantial collection of books, stories, poetry, essays, and more.

"The Peregrine Collection" is our payload associated with Astrobotic's Peregrine mission, landing in Lacus Mortis on the Moon.

"The Nova Collection" is our payload associated with the Intuitive Machines Nova-C mission, landing in Vallis Schrasöteri, in the area of Oceanus Procellarum on the Moon.

The Lunar Codex is the most expansive, international, and diverse collection of contemporary art launched to the Moon. Significantly, it is the first project to launch the works of women artists to the lunar surface.

The Codex represent artwork from the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe, the U.K., Australia, the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, and more - firsts on the Moon for many of these countries.

As Dr. Samuel Peralta, payload coordinator and curator, notes: "Our hope is that future travelers who find these time capsules will discover some of the richness of our world today...

"It speaks to the idea that, despite wars and pandemics and climate upheaval, humankind found time to dream, time to create art.”

Press release
1500 CREATIVE ARTISTS (PLUS ONE A.I.)
ART, BOOKS, and MORE

Time capsules to be archived on the Moon
via the Peregrine and Nova-C Lunar Landers

Launching 4th quarter 2021
on ULA Vulcan Centaur and SpaceX Falcon 9

Reading Hall B

A MANIFEST FOR THE MOON
The Lunar Codex uses digital and analog technology to preserve art, books, music, and more, enclosed in time capsules and launched to the Moon. It is a message-in-a-bottle to the future.

Curatorial Notes

Readings showcases selected works from "The Peregrine Collection" and "The Nova Collecton" of the Codex, highlighting short-form works by poets and writers.

This is a selection of touchstone poems, some of my own favorites, bookmarks of discovery, favorite works composed by other writers, and poems I wish I'd written.

See:

AWAKENING ON WINTER MORNINGS
Translated by

Leanne Ogasawara (2010)

IM1

Original poem from Chieko's Sky by

Kotaro Takamura (1912)

Papercut illustration by

Chieko Takamura

Landing near Apollo 12 site, in the Ocean of storms

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Borges' Library

A blog that will interest almost no one...

Birdwatching in Paintings

Ciao, Carpaccio

Bird Books

Bruegel, Bosch and Company in the Kunsthistoriches

June is for Juncos

The High Road to Taos

From Santa Fe (Willa Cather)

On the Road with Willa Cather

Chimayó (Willa Cather)

art on the moon--with Samuel Peralta

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