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Medici Politics, Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi, and Christmas Wines.

The Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli, 1475. Wikimedia Commons Free Media Repository

French art historian, Daniel Arasse, wrote a book called On n’y voit rien (We Don’t See Anything) in which he pointed out all of the things in paintings that float past our eyes without leaving a blip on the screen of our awareness. So take a look at this masterpiece by Sandro Botticelli and tell me what you see. Yes, go ahead, talk. I know what you are going to say. “Well, there are Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.” Okay, go on. “Uh, they are sitting in some old ruined building.” Good, what else? “There are a lot of people standing around who don’t look like shepherds.” Very good. Anything else? “Looks like the people are from the middle ages or something.” Well, the Renaissance. Does that seem strange to you? “Sure, these folks were not actually at the birth of Jesus, and what is that bird (is it a peacock?) sitting up on the building?” Ah, now we are getting somewhere. You are beginning to really observe. Very good. Any questions? “Yeah, what the heck is this all about?”

Let’s start with this guy who looks out from the lower right corner. He wears a yellowish colored robe, and we can muse on the many things that his facial expression might be saying to us.

This is a self-portrait of Sandro Botticelli, the man who was commissioned to paint this Adoration of the Magi. He was one of the favorite painters of the Medici family when they ruled Florence in the 15th century. Painters were normally considered to be just a type of servant class, workmen hired to do a job like a bricklayer or a carpenter. However, in the 15th century the royal courts of Europe began to realize the individual value of their artists. Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, for instance, used painter Jan Van Eyck as a diplomat. Though Florence was a republic, it was lead by the Medici family, who were merchant bankers as rich and powerful as any royalty, and like the royals knew the value of art to enhance their prestige. Botticelli shows us here that he is well within the bosom of the Medici family and looks out at us as if to say, “You see me here. I’m in with the In-Crowd.”

The man facing out here is Gaspare del Lama, and he is even closer into the action of the painting, as would be appropriate for him as the man who commissioned this work. But why, you might ask, is he not right before the Holy Family? He’s paying for this painting, isn’t he? Well yes, but the painting has another purpose.

This is 15th century Florence after all and strategic thinking was of paramount importance. Gaspare del Lama was the son of a barber, who through the patronage of the Medici family rose in status as a banker himself and a financial agent for the Medici bank. As with all the wealthy of Florence, his family was able to have a chapel for itself inside of one of the city’s fine churches, Santa Maria Novella. This painting was to go inside the chapel and was designed to reflect del Lama’s appreciation for the Medici family, as well as showing in the crowd a number of other important Florentines whom the populace would have recognized. In other words, Gaspare del Lama was showing off his wealth, status, and good connections. So who are some of these other people, the real players in the life of that city-state.

This stately, gray-haired, richly dressed gentleman is Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464), known as Cosimo the Elder so as not to confuse him with his 16th century relative, Cosimo I, Duke of Tuscany. This Cosimo is the son of Giovanni de Bicci de Medici, the founder of the Medici Bank and merchant empire. Cosimo the Elder learned from his father two important things: keep your appearance low-key (Giovanni, though wealthy, rode a mule instead of a fine horse) and don’t give advice unless you are asked for it. These words of wisdom seem quite sound even in our day, though I don’t know about riding a mule.

Cosimo is seen here in the role of the oldest of the Wise Men (Magi) sometimes known as Gaspare in Italy (Balthazar in northern Europe – see my post on this name confusion at vernellestudio.com). As the eldest of the Magi, it was his duty to be front and center. In some paintings of that day, this elder man seems to be looking between the legs of the child as if to inspect to see if he is really a human baby boy. Botticelli treats that subtly here but certainly gives Cosimo pride of place. Note that at the time of this painting, Cosimo the Elder had passed on some years before, but would live on forever in this painting commissioned by someone showing his appreciation for Cosimo and his family.

Detail of Adoration of the Magi, with Piero and Giovanni de Medici, 1475 by Sandro Botticelli.

The two men pictured here are the sons of Cosimo the Elder. On the left in red is the heir apparent, Piero de Medici, known as Piero the Gouty because of his health condition. He, too, would be a patron of the arts, known in particular for commissioning Benozzo Gozzoli to paint the Medici Chapel’s famous Procession of the Magi (see The Medici Palace’s Procession of the Magi, ofartandwine.com).

Giuliano de Medici as seen in the Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli

This young man who bears something of a resemblance to Giovanni de Medici as shown above is actually one of two sons of Piero de Medici. More handsome than his brother Lorenzo, who is known as the Magnificent, because of his appreciation of culture and his patronage of the arts, Giuliano seems to have had a fascination with Simonetta Vespucci, whom he had his friend Botticelli paint a portrait of as Pallas Athena on a banner for a joust that he took part in. However, Giuliano met a tragic end on Easter Sunday in 1478 when the Pazzi Conspirators attacked the Medici brothers in church, wounding Lorenzo and killing Giuliano.

That leaves us with the last important figure in this painting, the young and rather arrogant looking Lorenzo de Medici (1449-1492) with a young friend or relative hanging on his shoulder. He and his chums seem more interested in something other than the Holy Family. Lorenzo looks in the direction of his father and uncle, while the friend on the far right actually has his hand extended, pointing in the direction of those members of Lorenzo’s family. The head of the white horse may be a reference to the Procession of the Magi by Gozzoli in which near Lorenzo is a magnificent white horse, a symbol of the power and grace of the coming generation of Medici rulers.

Lorenzo was certainly the greatest patron of the arts from the Medici family. He also took his duties as the leader of the Florentine republic seriously, including making deals with the Pope to not lay siege to the city and of course, dealing harshly with Pazzi conspirators after the attack on him and the murder of his brother in 1478. Botticelli was already a great friend of the Medici family, but it was Lorenzo who took the 13-year-old Michelangelo into his household to live and be educated along with his own children. Lorenzo’s love of the arts may have made him take his eye off the family banking business, for by the end of his life in 1492, the business was not doing well, with many of its branch banks closed across Europe. However, he will forever be known as a great patron of the arts, and his name and image are on the special prize given to artists who win in their categories the Lorenzo il Magnifico International Award in the Florence Biennale.

So Gaspare del Lama surrounded himself with the best, intending to perpetuate his fame and fortune into eternity. That is where the peacock comes in. It is a symbol of immortality. Unfortunately for Gaspare del Lama, the very next year, 1476, he was condemned for dubious financial dealings and fell into disgrace. However, he and his pride live on in this version of Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi.

For more on the Medici, the arts, and Renaissance Florence go to the first two parts of the series, The Medici, Godfathers of the Renaissance youtube.com. For more on how the Medici built their fortune, read Tim Parks Medici Money, and there are also the two blog posts mentioned earlier in this article.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor ,and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com

Christmas Wines and Holiday Cheer!

Photo from Bon Coeur Fine Wines “Cracking Christmas Wine Pairings” bcfw.co.uk

The first question is “Are there really Christmas wines?” The answer is well, yes, sort of. We know about the special mulled wine recipes which add spices to heated wine. (For more on that see “Let It Snow: Snow Paintings and Mulled Wines” ofartandwine.com) However, when dealing with major holiday meals, the basic idea is to focus on what you are serving at what stage of the meal (or the festivities). Gathering that information beforehand can lead you to arrange a pairing of wines that work well with holiday foods and thus could be called Christmas Wines.

Never let us forget that Christmas is a great celebration, and nothing is more celebratory than a glass of bubbly. Not only is it perfect for toasting the season and one another, but it also goes well with little finger foods. Prosecco works wonderfully with tiny cubes of roasted tomato bruschetta. Champagne and a plate of Brie cheese is perfection itself.

Roast Beef Tenderloin with Red Wine Sauce from onceuponachef.com

For those not wanting to do the traditional bird (turkey, goose, etc), Jenn Segal of Once Upon a Chef provides a recipe for roast beef tenderloin with red wine sauce. She uses the year’s Beaujolais Nouveau for her sauce. As for what to drink while eating this hearty beef dish, she proposes any number of red wines from Merlot to Cabernet Sauvignon to Pinot Noir. I’d say a good Cabernet Sauvignon would work well, as it is a bit lighter than the Merlot but heavier than Pinot Noir.

Now that I mention Pinot Noir, what comes to mind are two of the other favorite dishes for the holidays: turkey and ham. Pinot Noir, often called the most drinkable of the red wines, goes very nicely with these two traditional holiday favorites. The wine often adds hints of fruit like cherries which go well with turkey or ham and with vegetarian dishes. Should you not want to do a Champagne toast, rest assured that a nice Pinot Noir makes for good pre-dinner sipping as well.

Orange Marmelade Roast Turkey from Clean Eating Magazine cleaneatingmag.com

Pamela Salzman of Clean Eating gives the recipe that resulted in this wonderful culinary creation. As well, she lists all you need to know about the nutritional content of this meal. While she does not talk at all about wines to go with this dish, when one thinks of turkey, a variety of white wines come to mind, but the king of them all would be Sauvignon Blanc. The Spruce Eats website (thespruceeats.com) recommends one in particular but also gives a rundown of appropriate holiday wines in its article, “10 Bottles of Christmas Wine Under $25,” by Wallace Levy McKeel.

For those in the group who really go non-traditional (like me), one can always head for the seafood counter and select snow crab or king crab to feast upon. Then one has a choice to ponder: Sancerre or Muscadet. Here in the U.S. in most of our local wine shops, it will be easier to find Sancerre, and it is a wonderful choice. (See this article for more information vinepair.com) However, if your wine shop carries more specialty items, you might be able to get Muscadet, a wine created in the Loire-Atlantic. It is perfection with seafood.

So there it is, a bit of a roundup of what one might call Christmas Wines. As I said at the outset, it really is about pairing the wines with each dish and each moment in time during your holiday celebrations. Should you want more ideas and commentary, look at this piece from The Wine Show youtube.com.

One of the things that might go nicely as a Christmas gift is a membership to a wine club. Cellars Wine Club has a club for every level of wine enthusiasm and budget. With free shipping, a “no bad bottle” return policy, and tasting notes on each wine. Being in a wine club is a great way to end one year and ring in the new one. CellarsWineClub.com

Note: Of Art and Wine is an affiliate of  Bluehost.com  and  CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming Soon: The Bad Boy Monk, and Holiday Dessert Wines.

Madonna and Child with Two Angels, by Fra Filippo Lippi, c.1457.

So what happens when you are a talented orphan who is taken to a monastery to be cared for. You might just grow up to be a great painter, fall in love with a nun, and have a family (Oops!). The tale of Fra Filippo Lippi, his talent, and his many misdeeds is the stuff of legend. Of Art and Wine takes a look at this marvelous painter of the Italian Renaissance and prepares for you (Happy Holidays!) a little primer on dessert wines.

Bonampak’s Temple of the Murals and Mayan Drinks.

The Procession of Musicians in Room 1 of the Temple of the Murals in Bonampak as they appear on the walls some 1200 years after they were initially painted.

When we think of murals, especially frescoes (paintings done in wet plaster), our minds go immediately to a place like Italy, where in the Renaissance great masters like Botticelli, Leonardo, and Michelangelo painted marvelous stories on the walls of the great cathedrals, monasteries, and public buildings. Yet in 790 AD in the rain forests of Chiapas, King Chan Muan, himself both a vassel of the more powerful king of Yaxchilan and married to a princess from that city-state, inaugurated this temple of murals with great ceremony and celebration. The question remains as to why the extraordinary quality and craftsmanship of these paintings were done in fresco and what exactly they mean to tell us. Regardless, they remain the finest example of painting in the pre-Columbian New World.

Maya civilization, Mexico, 9th century A.D. Reconstruction of Bonampak frescoes. Room 1: procession of musicians. Detail. britannica.com Click image to magnify.

The contrast is quite stark between the reconstructed versions of the murals and the way they look in situ on the walls of their temple in the forests of southern Mexico. Somehow the reconstructed ones don’t let the viewer fill in the richness of their ceremonial dress, imagine the sounds coming from the oversized rattles, or feel the slow rhythm of their movement. Yes, the rhythm of the movement, for this was a procession of time. Archeologists have noted that each of the five musicians with those rattles hold them in a position that represents one part of a complete movement of the ratttle. It is almost like a serialized version of a cartoon flip book, which if flipped rapidly, gives the impression of fluid movement. mayagodsoftime.com

Reconstruction of the Procession of the Gods of Time from Britannica.com Click image to magnify.

The temple, which consists of three rooms, each showing a different phase of a great celebration and the presentation of a royal dynasty, was re-discovered by archeologist Giles Healey in 1946. I say re-discovered because the local Lacondon tribes people used the buildings in the vacinity of the temple as a special place of worship. They showed him the temple, which was shrouded in lots of vegetal overgrowth. Healey had that vegetation removed, which allowed the variations in climate to enter the temple which had been protected from such for centuries. Fortunately, he also hired local artists to paint copies of the scenes on the walls, and it is from those copies that there is a record of how vibrant the original colors were. What we have now are the faded versions that have reacted to the elements of the rotating rainy and dry seasons that make up the climate of the region.

Of the three great Mexican muralists, both Diego Rivera (seen here) and José Clemente Orozco claimed that mural painting was a key part of the ancient Mexican past. However, it was Rivera who insisted that his rather heavy-set figures were actually a truly authentic Mexican style of painting.

In the 1920s and 30s when the muralist movement was most active, there was nothing to prove that his assertion was true. However, once the news came of Bonampak’s Temple of the Murals, with its heavy-set figures, Rivera’s claims were vindicated. It is said that he was flown to the site by the Mexican government, and upon seeing the murals, he wept.

SO WHAT DO THE MURALS SHOW, AND WHAT DID WE LEARN FROM THEM?

From what archeologists know of the local history, Bonampak, the original name of which, Usiij Witz means Vulture Hill, was a fourth-level power under the sway of Yaxchilan and allied to it by marriage. This temple celebrates that alliance by presenting in Room 1, the royal succession, with three of King Chan Muan’s sons dancing. There is a baby girl being presented as well, perhaps a princess whose later function would be to secure other alliances through marriage. Healey noticed that the Mayan Blue used as the background in the procession had a sparkle to it. It came to light that the paint was made of azurite, a stone that contains crystalline forms, hence the sparkle. Azurite comes from Arizona, so its use in these murals indicated not only that the Maya trade routes stretched far north, but also that this temple was very special as it used this expensive material from so far away.

Room 2 in the Temple of the Murals, Bonampak, Mexico.

One of the long-held myths about the Maya was that they were a peaceful people who spent their time studying the stars and creating extremely accurate calendars. The scenes in Room 2 certainly help disprove that theory, as they show both bloody battles and what happened to prisoners. The man with the long spear is Chan Muan, and he is deciding the fate of an already tortured captive. It has been noted that he holds the spear in his right hand, and that many of the captives are shown with two left hands. The left hand was considered a sign of weakness by the Maya, so obviously anyone captured in battle would be depicted as weak.

Room 3 upper panel of royal family members performing acts of auto-sacrifice. Click image to magnify.

Room 3 shows scenes of celebration after the victory over a rival group. Since Bonampak was a vassel state of Yaxchilan, and the ruler of Yaxchilan sent artists to Bonampak to paint this mural, Bonampak’s Chan Muan obviously had a victory over some group that was important to the king of Yaxchilan. The scenes in this room show ritual auto-sacrifice, as well as lots of dancing. The whole set of murals seems to have been designed to show the success of Chan Muan, the solidity of his line of succession (three sons and maybe a daughter who could later be married for diplomatic purposes), and that this was all an extension of Yaxchilan’s power in the region. It was a fine November day in 790 when this great celebratory temple was opened for viewing, its walls filled with what was intended to last for centuries.

Well, the building did last for centuries; however, Bonampak and the mightier Yaxchilan both disappeared within 30 years or so in what is known as The Great Maya Collapse. There are hints of later conflict on the walls of Bonampak in areas where eyes have been gouged out or the images of the three dancing sons of Chan Muan have been effaced. Was the collapse the result of constant warring? Was it an overuse of resources, like deforestation that brough less rain to the area affecting crop growth? To this day, there is speculation but no firmly proven theory about exactly what happened. What we are left with, though, are these wonderful murals that show us an insider’s view of the Maya and the great artistry with which they shared this great event in the local history of that time and that culture.

Recommendations: In terms of websites mayagodsoftime.com gives detailed information not only on Bonampak, but on other archeological sites in Mexico. Paul Cooper’s Fall of Civilizations: The Maya Collapse, Ruins Among the Trees is a more detailed view done in filmed documentary format. youtube.com

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

What no wine! What ever did they drink?

Of course, it is the premise of Of Art and Wine that all human cultures produce two things: art and alcoholic drinks. Generally we look at two distinct manifestations of that theory, painting and wine. However, there was no wine in ancient Mexico, though when the Spaniards came the very first vineyards planted in North America were in fact in Mexico (more on that later). At this point, we might shake our heads and utter remarks of pity for this deprivation. Oh, ney ney! The Maya loved nothing more than having wonderful things to drink with their foods, and their foods were plentiful and varied.

Corn was the main source of plant starch and a fundamental element in the local diet. It would only be natural to use corn to make something to drink. Here we have saka, which is made from the fluid of corn boiled in lime water mixed with honey. rivieramayablog.com

Then there was balche, which was made from the bark and roots of the Balché tree. Once fermented it supposedly gave one magical powers. The large prickly extensions of the agave plant produce juices that have given us Tequila. Though named for a town in northern Mexico, the Maya knew of its powers. Of course, should one really want to feel “the magic,” it would be necessary to step up to Mezcal. Mezcal foregoes the gentleness of the blue agave and works with the maguey agave. Its authenticity marked by the presence of the maguey worm in the bottom of the bottle.

Fresh roselle with juice from the hibiscus flower mixed with honey. Photo credit historyplex.com

The Maya were a sophisticated people and thus appreciated subtlety. What could be a more delicate and refreshing way to keep the summer’s heat from overwhelming one than to sip a cool juice mixed with honey and perfumed by hibiscus flowers? It’s current name is Jamaica, but it was a drink of Mayan origins. Coconut milk was also readily available and used as a digestive aid. Another native drink, this from the Yucatan, home of the Post-Classical period in Mayan history, is horchata. It became known as the drink of kings when after the conquest, it was used by King Carlos IV to help his digestion.

Last but not least is that wonder for the taste buds, Xocolatl, Subject of book and film (Like Water for Chocolate and Chocolat) we know it as chocolate! Forget kings, this was known by the Mayans as the “Food of the Gods.” Admittedly don’t we all feel divine when we have a hot chocolate? Chocolate was so venerated that its beans were used as money and is often depicted in Mayan glyphs. Its worth was such that one chocolate bean could buy you a tamale. That’s real value. For more on this, go to Xocolotl on historydaily.org.

However, when the Spaniards arrived, they brought with them that product of the ancient Greeks and Romans, wine. Certainly the dense forests of the Maya lands did not lend themselves well to cultivation of vineyards. However, Mexico has a varied topography, and as it turns out Baja California is just right for the cultivation of grapes. That region has become Mexico’s Napa Valley and produces 90% of the wines made in Mexico. Bearing the iconic name Valle de Guadalupe, it’s proximity to the U.S. makes it an reasonably easy destination. One of the wineries, El Cielo Winery and Resort, even offers shuttle pick-up from San Diego International Airport for the drive some 75 miles into Baja along the Pacific Coast.

“Skip Napa and Visit Mexico’s Wine Country Instead” an article from vogue.com Click to magnify.

The wine producing area in the Baja region benefits from the dry climate and from the altitude of its mountains to provide cooler days and cold nights. A wide variety of grapes are grown there, making what Madeline Puckett of Wine Folly refers to as blends that do not always follow European traditions winefolly.com. While the wine industry in Mexico is in the fledgling stage, I have no doubt that it will progress nicely, giving Mexico yet another taste treat to accompany those drinks that have come from its ancient past.

Wine is a wonderful way to travel the world and its cultures, and since we are all staying more at home for the next little while because of COVID 19, a wine club can come in handy as a way to travel with our tastebuds. Cellars Wine Club offers a variety of wine clubs that work with every level of enthusiasm and budget. There is a “no bad bottle” return policy, free shipping, and the possibility of donating part of the purchase to one of a number of vetted charities, a good thing to do in the spirit of the season. Look at the Cellars Wine Club page for all the clubs or click here,  CellarsWineClub.com

Give Back is a way to make your wine purchase count for even more than just great wine.

OfArtandWine.com is an affiliate of Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com  and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming Soon: Medici Politics, Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi, and Christmas Wines.

The Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli, 1475. Free media repository, Wikimedia Commons

The Medici family ruled Florence for a lot of the 15th and 16th centuries. It was very important during those times to remain in their good graces, which is what the man who commissioned this painting wished to do. Of course, to really please the Medici, one hired their favorite artist, Sandro Botticelli. Ah, politics. Come see how to “work” things in the times of the Medici.

Beyond Black, the Paintings of Norman Lewis, and the Wines of New York State.

Untitled (March on Washington), Norman Lewis, 1977. Click on image to magnify.

I am sure we have all gone on to an Internet news site only to have our attention stray away from the headlines to something interesting in a sidebar. So it was with me one day, when my attention was captured by an interesting figure in a photo. A man, African-American, sat on what looked like a small sofa made of reddish-brown lacquered wood. One of his long-fingered hands dropped casually from an arm positioned on the sofa’s curved wood armrest, while the other hand propped itself up on the red sofa cushion. He wore what our mothers always told us never to wear together, plaids and stripes. Somehow, the plaid pants in navy blue with subtle red-violet touches and the striped shirt in horizontal bars of navy and white struck me as being oddly elegant. His eyes looked directly at the camera; the deep brown of his eyes held a warm glow. Behind him on the wall was a joyful abstract painting in pinks and blues. The caption gave this information: Normal Lewis, painter and abstract expressionist, subject of a retrospective at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts – Procession, the Art of Norman Lewis.

Photos of Norman Lewis from Huffington Post announcement of Procession, the Art of Norman Lewis.

Procession, hmmm…I immediately thought of Jacob Lawrence and his famous Migration Series, a visual recitation of the movement of African-Americans from the rural South to the industrialized North, done in modernist style with angular figures and primary colors. I had met Mr. Lawrence and his wife, Gwendolyn Knight, many years before at the Bellevue Art Museum, in Bellevue, Washington, just outside Seattle. I was honored to have had those precious moments with one of the greats of American art and one of the few well-known African-American painters. However, Norman Lewis, I knew nothing of. Looking at this man of unusual elegance sitting on the lacquered wood sofa in front of a painting of dancing pinks, I felt ashamed of my ignorance.

In fact my ignorance of him was not completely my fault, as I found out when I read a comment by Lowery Stokes Sims, the first African-American curator at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, “There was a joke for a long time that if you went to a museum, you’d think there were only two black artists, Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, and even then, you wouldn’t see very much.” (See link to NY Times article below). Well, I was not going to be anywhere near Pennsylvania for that retrospective, so I ordered the catalog, which opened up a world for me both historically and artistically. Lewis’ life in art truly was a procession from figurative works and works of social commentary, to finally his great leap into abstract expressionism.

The Yellow Hat (sometimes The Girl in the Yellow Hat) by Norman Lewis, 1936

The Yellow Hat (1936) is a fine representation of Lewis’ figurative work, especially in contrast to Lawrence. Here we see a nod to Cubism in the blocks in the background and a certain angularity in the pose, one leg crossing at a diagonal, with the yellow hat tilted in the opposite diagonal. The colors are not just primaries, but mottled mixtures of red-orange, green, gray, brown and white. And there is the mystery of what the girl is thinking. What problem does she seek to solve? What dream for the future is she constructing? Who else might she be thinking of? Or is she just tired?The pose and the hat covering her face, leave us a lot to guess about. This kind of expression with black characters center stage was almost a type of genre. They had a certain look, a certain subject matter, almost a codified style influenced greatly by Jacob Lawrence (my opinion, of course). Obviously Lewis could express himself well within those restrictions and make subtle differences as well.

Lewis, however, broke free of those confines and headed like a heat-seeking missile for freedom – abstract expressionism – where he was largely a black man alone. Though in his career he was in 150 group exhibitions, many with the likes of Jackson Pollack and Wilhem de Kooning, it was too much for the mindset of the times to accept him as an accomplished abstract expressionist. Sadly, his own prophetic statements seem to have come true. Speaking shortly before his death in 1979, he predicted that in 30 to 40 years his work would be seen for itself. He said at one point,”I wanted to be above criticism, so that my work didn’t have to be discussed in terms of my being black” (Artnet Artists). Now his work is being re-positioned in the history of modern American art, and yes, it is 40 years later.

On a personal level, I focused on some of his pieces that are more enigmatic and done in the last years of his life. Perhaps it is because of his love of the sea and nature, which I share, my favorites of his work are mysterious, fluid, and indecipherable like the two just below. My mind creates all kinds of stories in an attempt to figure out what they really are, but in the end I am just navigating the ethers, floating about marveling at the wonders.

Untitled painting by Norman Lewis, 1977.

Part Vision by Norman Lewis, 1971.

In my own painted world, based on a Chinese concept of laying in colors and “finding” the painting, I see maybe a trace of Lewis.

Enigma # 1 and Enigma #2 by Marjorie Vernelle

My meanderings are hardly brave, but when I see how Lewis forged ahead despite conditions so different from my own, I am heartened and enlightened by now knowing who he was. I only wish I could talk to him.

Note: The Norman Lewis paintings are used in accordance with Fair Use Policy for the purposes of critique and review.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

What? Vineyards in New York?

Vineyards in New York State Photo credit newyorkwineevents.com

Looks familiar, doesn’t it? The same long rows of neatly tethered vines run in military parade formation down a hill leading to distant vistas, which look like they might be in the Napa or Sonoma Valleys. But no. These vines are in New York. Yes, read it and weep California, Oregon and Washington, New York State is the third largest wine producing area in the United States, and it is growing.

Wine production began in New York in the 17th century when the Hudson River Valley was settled by Dutch and Huguenot immigrants. Admittedly they grew the local variety of grape, the Concord grape, and even today 70% of the grapes produced in New York go into the production of fruit juices not wine. That being said, the state boasts 240 wineries and cultivates a variety of different grapes.

This is an aerial view of New York’s Finger Lakes. It’s cool micro-climate great for Riesling and Gerwurstraminer grapes.

The secret to New York’s being able to grow so many varieties from Riesling to Bordeaux varietals has to do with its micro-climates. Laura Burgess’ article, “What the Heck is a Micro-Climate?” vinepair.com goes into detail. However, simply put it is the smallest element in the world of climate descriptions, covering the rainfall, temperatures, altitude, and soil variations, sometimes over something as small as one field or even part of a field. New York seems to be blessed with enough of these climate variations to be able to grow grapes from the more northern Finger Lakes Region right on down to Long Island, a borough of New York City. Yes, Long Island, the eastern end of which is good for growing Merlot and Cabernet Franc grapes because of its warmer climate. An abundance of lakes keeps its climate balanced making it warmer in winter and cooler in summer.

The Brotherhood Winery in New Photo Credit to hvwinemag.com

The oldest winery in America happens to be in New York State. It is the Brotherhood Winery, founded in 1839. Started as a small, family-run operation producing sacramental and “medicinal” wines, it has proudly survived three wars and Prohibition. The winery itself has expanded its operations over the years to include fine dining facilities in the wonderful stone structure of the winery, a boutique, a wine museum, and of course, a tasting hall.

New York is also the home of America’s biggest company specializing in the production and sale of wine, beer and spirits, Constellation Brands (crbrands.com). Constellation owns a number of famous California wineries like Robert Mondavi and Franciscan Winery.

So from small things, like Dutch and Huguenot growers of Concord grapes, many great things have come. For more on the history of New York Wines see this article, “A Brief History of New York Wines” by Benjamin Mitrofan-Norris at learn.winecoolerdirect.com. And for a cool look at the wine producing region of New York’s Finger Lakes area, see this video youtube.com. Should you want to make a quick visit to a winery in New York, try the North Fork area of Long Island. Known for its red wines, this area is just two hours from New York City, youtube.com.

Now, a great way to get a well-rounded tasting experience is to join a wine club. Cellars Wine Club has clubs that fit every level of wine enthusiasm and budget. One exceptional value is the Premium Wines Club, which offers 12 bottles of wine, all reds, all whites, or a mix of the two for $99.00. Click on the Cellars Wine Club page in the right hand column or go to CellarsWineClub.com

OfArtandWine.com is an affiliate of Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming Soon: The Painted Walls of Bonampak and Mayan Drinks.

A procession of musicians on the walls of the Temple of the Murals, Bonampak, Mexico.

When we think of paintings on walls, we most frequently go to the murals of the Italian Renaissance, but mural painting appears in a variety of different cultures. Modern Mexico has a penchant for the mural. One thinks immediately of Diego Rivera, who always claimed his painting was truly ethnically Mexican, even when there was no proof. Then came the discovery of Bonampak, which proved Rivera’s artist’s instinct to have been correct. While the ancient Mayans did not drink wine, they did have a fascinating variety of drinks. Come along on this adventure and maybe enjoy a nice glass of Cabernet Sauvignon while reading about these murals.

The Lost Blue of the Ancient Egyptians and the Wines of the Pharaohs.

The famous Ancient Egyptian blue in powdered form and on the pharaoh’s blue war helmet and his necklace and upper arm bands. ancient-origins.net

Not unlike the “discovery” of America (I say it was by those prehistoric folk who crossed the landbridge from Asia to become known as Native Americans – but I digress), the brilliant blue of the Ancient Egyptians has been discovered (rediscovered?) many times. Vitruvius takes credit for writing down the recipe for this wonderous blue, though I imagine that somewhere among the millions of hieroglyphs in Egypt, the formula was well recorded. The Romans hated it, so the color fell out of favor (except it seems in Pompeii), and the recipe lost. Of course, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the recipe for concrete was lost, too.

This left the medieval Europeans without both concrete and a brilliant blue. They had to grind expensive lapis lazuli to create the robes on those paintings of the Virgin Mary. In about 1844, that blue was “discovered” in paintings in the ruins of Pompeii. In the U.S. around 1930, scientist, George Washington Carver, he of the peanut and crop rotation techniques, “discovered” Egyptian blue and set about trying to find an Egyptian purple. Recently, it has been “discovered” that Raphael, the great painter of the Renaissance, “discovered” Egyptian Blue, and scientists have “discovered” that it can be used for forensic dusting powder and security strips used in printed money. Let’s get all this discovery sorted out.

Detail of the throne of Tutankhamen showing the pharaoh and his wife, Ankhesanamen

Here is what we know for sure. Egyptian blue comes from Ancient Egypt. To the Ancient Egyptians, blue, as the color of the sky, meant it was heavenly, associated with the gods and the universe. It was also the color of the Nile, which was their source of life. Blue was precious. Around 2600 B.C. the ancients found that a combination of sand (which contains calcium silicate), copper, and natron if heated properly would produce this startling blue. It was then ground into little bits to be mixed with binders of various types to produce the blue used to color many objects and to paint the walls of their temples and tombs (see the Tomb of Horemheb below).

KV57 Tomb of Horemheb, last pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. Photo credit: Wikipedia.org “Horemheb.”

Blue is the rarest occuring color in nature, but it was one that meant a lot to the Ancient Egyptians as they associated it with Amun-Ra, a principle god. The affection that the Egyptians had for blue meant that they had to find a economical way to produce the color. Grinding up lapis lazuli, turquoise and azurite was expensive. Hence some experimentation that created a way to make the color artificially. It is claimed to be the oldest known artificial color.

Vitruvius, the 1st century B.C. Roman writer, famous for his work De architectura, was fascinated by how the color was made and wrote down the recipe for it. His works were lost in the chaos of the fall of Rome and only found again at the beginning of the Renaissance, but no one seems to have paid attention to the recipe for blue. In case you want to know what the process is, here is a video from the SciShow on youtube.com. I’d say, don’t try this at home.

However, despite the interest of Vitruvius, the Romans overall seemed to have had a different attitude about blue. It was seen as a color of dishonor, sometimes even associated with death. The Romans favored reds, yellows, oranges, and so on, though with the discovery of the ruins of Pompeii, blue was found to have been still used. However, during the Roman era the demand for this blue color dropped significantly, leading to the functional loss of how to make it.

Vyrsehrad Madonna and Child from the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Prague. theguardian.com Click to magnify.

Come the Middle Ages and what were people to do when it seemed that the most fitting color for the Virgin Mary’s robes was brilliant blue? They were left often to grind up that expensive lapis lazuli, something that has had a detrimental effect on a number of paintings from those times. It seems that when times were financially tough, many of these paintings were striped of this valuable blue, leaving posterity with blank spaces where the Virgin’s robes had been.

Recently it came to light that in the Renaissance, the great painter Raphael (seen here his self-portrait, 1506) used Egyptian blue in his painting, The Triump of Galatea, 1514. It is used in the sky and the sea and even in the whites of the eyes of some of the figures in the painting. Raphael created the painting for a loggia in the Villa Farnesina, which was owned by Pope Julius’ treasurer. It seems that none of the other paintings Raphael did used this Egyptian Blue. (See thehistoryblog.com.)

The Triumph of Galatea by Raphael, 1514. Click on photo to magnify.

In the 19th century, a chemist named Humphrey Davy found pieces of it in the Baths of Titus in Rome, and later when the ruins of Pompeii were found, it was seen that this blue had been used there as well.

Here the story shifts to America, where another scientist, this one involved with agriculture and the properties of plants, recreated Egyptian blue. Dr George Washington Carver was famous for experimenting in biology and chemistry. In 1930, he found a formula for recreating the blue seen in the artifacts from King Tutankhamen’s tomb. That tomb had just been found (1922) by archeologist, Howard Carter and Tut-mania had taken hold of the world.

See Elements for Nature Blog 4elements-ewaf.com

From there we come to our current interest in this particular blue, which has certain properties of fluorescence that make it work nicely for forensic dusting powders, security strips in paper money, biomedical analysis, telecomunications, and lasers. Philip McCouat has an article on the modern usages for this color, “Egyptian Blue: The Colour of Technology,” artinsociety.com, which shows how this ancient creation fits into our modern world. So when we look at our money, or see an old episode of C.S.I., we can remember those ancient people who dwelled on the Nile and thank them for their expertise.

Sources used for this essay are linked above. One special source used is the book, Blue, History of a Color by Michel Pastoureau, the French historian who is a foremost scholar in the history of color. The works of art are all in public domain.

The Wines of the Pharaohs.

Well, it is certain that this fellow had all the wine he wanted. This is one of the many statues of Amenhotep III who reigned in Ancient Egypt’s golden age during the 18th Dynasty/New Kingdom. (Cute, isn’t he?) But he is not the first of the Pharaohs to have wine. Oh no, that started almost 2000 years before Amenhotep III with a man who really was known as King Scorpion. He reigned around 3320 B.C. His burial at Abydos has 700 wine vessels, all labeled with the types of wine they once held.

It is said that he got his wine from the Levant (modern Jordan, Israel, Lebanon). It wasn’t until around 2600 B.C. that the Ancient Egyptians began to grow their own grapes and make wine.

They cultivated grapes in the Nile Delta near Medjen, where the first mention of wine making in Egypt is found. The word for wine, symbolized by this hieroglyph, is irep, which sounds a bit like what happens when you drink too much.

It is known that the wines were mixed with spices, like mint and coriander, with sometimes a fig added for flavor. Wine jars have been found with labels that were made by pressing images into wet clay. These labels sometimes indicated the purposes for the wine, such as wine for taxes (interesting way to pay your bill), for merrymaking, and for offerings. This video shows a collection of statues from across the ages in Ancient Egypt in which figures hold offerings of wine in small jugs or jars youtube.com

One of the types of offerings was for the beginning of a pharaoh’s reign when a wine would be made to celebrate the new pharaoh. Similarly a wine would be made at the end of the pharaoh’s reign and called the funerary wine of that pharaoh. One of the Amarna period’s most enigmatic figures is a pharaoh named Smenkhkare, who may have been a brother to King Tut. One thing that marked his actual existence was the discovery of wine jars labeled “The Wine of the House of Smenkhkare” done in the first year of his reign and later that same year, “The Funerary Wine of Smenkhkare,” meaning that such a king did reign though only for a short time. Then, of course, came Tutankhamen.

Speaking of King Tutankhamen, one of the reasons Howard Carter stayed for years in the vacinity where he ultimately found the tomb of the boy king was that Carter had found remains of the funerary feast 0f Tutankhamen in that area in 1908. Carter did not find the actual tomb until 1922.

The funerary rites in Ancient Egypt involved final ceremonies of purification and offerings of food and wines to the departed pharaoh, after which the participants had a feast before sealing the pharaoh into his tomb for his eternal rest. It was the remains of items bearing the king’s name that were left behind in the sands after that feast, which Carter found 3300 years later. For more on funerals in Ancient Egypt, see this article from the Australian Museum australian.museum.

Painting of a feast from the Tomb of Nebamun The British Museum britishmuseum.org click to magnify.

All this talk of pharaohs might lead you to think they were the only ones drinking wine. Well, rather like today other people drank wine, too, but generally they were rather well off like Nebamun. He was a wealthy official who also wanted his grand life to be remembered, hence some of the most elaborate paintings of Ancient Egyptian life left to us today. In the banquet scene above, we see guests being served drink while many of the beautiful ladies sniff the blue lotus, which supposedly enhanced feelings of well being and sensuality. Probably was a good party.

The common people, though their normal drink was beer, got to have some wine on the occasion of certain festivals, like that of Hathor, the goddess of beauty, love, and fertility, who was often represented in her daytime form as a cow. However, she had another side, represented by the lioness. It was that form that once went on a rampage of killing, which only stopped when the god Ra tricked her into drinking a large quantity of wine, the red color of which she mistook for blood. So to commemorate Ra’s saving humanity, on the Ancient Egyptian New Year (the 20th day of Thoth, the first month of the year), there was the Festival of Hathor, also known as the Festival of Drunkeness, which was all out party-hardy. Interesting how these ancient people seem so similar to us.

Well, wine is still with us and fortunately humankind has expanded its types and varieties a great deal. To get to know more about wine, it is necessary to experience the taste of it. One great way to do that is to join a wine club. Cellars Wine Club offers a variety of clubs that work with every level of taste and budget. There is a “no bad bottle” return policy, and free shipping. The Premium Case Club is a particularly attractive club as it contains 12 bottles, tasting notes on each wine, and your preference (all reds, all whites, or a mix of both) for $99.00. You can go to the Cellars page here under Of Art and Wine Pages or click here cellarswineclub.com.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

OfArtandWine.com is an affiliate of Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

Coming Soon: Beyond Black, the Paintings of Norman Lewis, plus Wines of New York State.

Part Vision by Norman Lewis, 1971. (Lewis seems to have liked the same blue as the Pharaohs.)

Norman Lewis was a rarity, an African American abstract expressionist painter. Though he exhibited his paintings with the best of his white colleagues, during his lifetime his work was not fully appreciated. That was remedied in 2015 by a comprehensive retrospective held at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Come take a look at his paintings and find out about America’s third largest wine producing area, New York State.

The Fine Art of Drawing, and Wine for After Dinner, Marsala.

The Grand Staircase at the Seattle Art Museum designed by Robert Venturi and one of his napkin sketches, though not of the ones seen at SAM, as mentioned below. archiscapes.wordpress.com

Britist art historian, Andrew Graham Dixon, in his BBC documentary series, The Secret of Drawing (youtube.com), points out that almost everything begins with a sketch, the most rudimentary form of drawing. Whether a building, the layout of our city streets, the cars we drive, the design of our cell phones, or the design of our clothes, they all come to life with a few expressive lines. Architect Robert Venturi first jotted down his ideas for Seattle’s downtown museum in black pen on a napkin as he talked about the project. Those “sketches” are proudly displayed on a freize around the upper walls in the First Street entrance to SAM, as the museum is known, with the building as the living testament to what those spots, dots, and lines would become.

Graham Dixon in his first episode of The Secret of Drawing, shows the sketches of a heart surgeon who studied the anatomical drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci. Dr. Francis Wells makes drawings of what he will do in upcoming surgeries. Dr. Wells is known to have developed from those drawings a life-saving surgical procedure known as “The Leonardo Cut.” Another example of an unusual use of the drawing is that of Fineman Diagrams, devised by the late physicist, Dr. Richard Fineman, who led the team that hand calculated the math that created the atomic bomb. He studied art with an artist neighbor, teaching the artist physics while the artist taught him how to draw. He scientifically drew diagrams to visually show the interaction of particles. They are supposedly also “easy and fun” to use. The Fineman Diagrams helped him win the Nobel Prize in Science, 1965.

Prehistoric paintings from Lascaux, France. en.wikipedia.org Click on picture to magnify.

Humans have always liked images. We have only to look about us to see them everywhere or think back to prehistoric cave drawings and paintings. Our ancient ancestors sketched out their thoughts and experiences in the caves of Lascaux and Alta Mira in what some social scientists feel was a precursor to the development of human language. However, normally when we think of drawing, we automatically skip right to the Renaissance of Leonardo and Botticelli.

From the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci Click to magnify.

It does not take a long look to recognize the figures and the layout of the above drawing to be one of the ones done by Da Vinci for The Last Supper (1498). The final painting is well known for the way the artist grouped the Disciples into small clusters of three as they reacted to Jesus’ startling statement that one among them would betray him. In this sketch, one sees the different characters interacting with one another. The details of some of the features and the way their clothing drapes appear in this sketch as Da Vinci drew in some of the more important items that concerned him. It is far from a finished piece, but one can see a sketch moving toward being a drawing that ultimately became a painting.

Here we have one of Sandro Botticelli’s lovely ladies from one of his sketch notebooks. We can see by the marks on the paper that other items shared the space with this figure which emerges out of the subtle beige of the paper. Finely drawn lines indicate the folds of the clothing, a bit of her hair, and the features of her “Botticelli-style” face, one that appears in various versions in his paintings. Always lovely and beautifully drawn, they haunt us even today.

From those days in Renaissance Florence, we have learned to revere what those artists worked on in terms of capturing a visual reality. In fact, one of the things that upset the Florentines, with their strict adherence to drawing, was how the Venetians threw around the use of beautiful color. Titian in particular horrified them because he drew very little, and when he did, the final product seemed to have nothing to do with any of his meager preliminary sketches. Titian worked directly in paint and to wonderous effect. Tintoretto on the other hand held an idea that was more inclusive. A sign in his studio presented this saying as a constant reminder, “The drawing of Michelangelo and the color of Venice.” It seems that drawing had at least some impact even in that most fluid of places, Venice.

However, the move away from classical drawing continued. Before the arrival of the camera and photographic images, Turner moved from sketching in pencil to sketching (drawing?) in watercolor. Below, one sees the barest of indications of people and boats. The emphasis is on the subtlety of the color of the sky, and the way the color white indicates distant buildings, clouds, and the action of the waves.

Figures by the Shore of Margate by J.M.W. Turner christies.com

Turner, however, could be ever more brief in his color sketches, all meant to capture just what he saw. Below is A Rainbow Over A Landscape (1824) which gives only the essentials of the scene – truly a sketch in watercolor.

A Rainbow Over A Landscape by J.M.W. Turner Art Gallery of Ontario ago.ca Click to magnify.

One of the most influential proponents of drawing in the 20th century was Pablo Picasso. Picasso who had highly skilled abilities to render what he saw from the young age of nine sought to upend the training of the academicians and learn to draw like a five-year-old child. The drawn line is a key element in his work, including his most famous piece, Guernica (1937), done in protest against war in the aftermath of the bombing of the town during the Spansh Civil War.

Guernica by Pablo Picasso, 1937.

In 1949 Picasso got involved with technology that allowed him to draw with light, in works sometimes called Light Drawings or Light Graffiti. The article from Life Magazine in the link below shows the artist in action in a fascinating series of photos that demonstrate the power of the line drawn with the action of his whole body.

Light Drawing by Pablo Picasso, 1949 “Behind the Picture: Picasso Draws With Light,” life.com. Click to magnify.

These days we have in some ways moved beyond drawing or at least we think we have. Of course our computers and cameras allow us to create all kinds of images that have nothing to do with drawing. Yet, as Andrew Graham Dixon points out in the introduction to his series on drawing, almost every creation starts with the sketching of lines that get further developed into drawn images.

The Fine Art of Drawing Lives On

Pioneer by Mark Dixon. Click to magnify.

Sometimes drawn images come to us in forms that relate to the classical drawing skills, yet carry messages to us that come from times closer to us than the Renaissance. Mark Dixon is an artist who always strives to increase his already considerable skills. When asked what makes something a piece of art, Dixon says, “The art should move the viewer. The subject, if not a completely abstract work, is something that one can relate to on a positive and emotional level.” Dixon cut his teeth in the art world first as a designer/illustrator for Hallmark Cards and later on for Current Inc., another producer of cards. Not unlike Wayne Thiebaud, who praised the commercial artists with whom he first worked, Dixon credits his interaction with other fine artists in those companies for many of the things he has learned about composition, colors, shapes and values.

The drawing above shows Dixon’s well-developed skill in handling the gray-scale values in the drawing, while capturing the essence of this pioneer woman. She looks straight at the viewer with a calm gaze, her head held high, and her strong hands folded neatly before her. Her quiet beauty is as striking as her clothes are plain. The handling of the dark pencil lines simultaneously form a contrasting background, as well as enveloping her as they also across the figure itself. The effect of this is like that of a cloud from which the young woman emerges as though stepping into our time from the past.

Dixon says of working with the human figure, “When you look at a person, something catches your eye…it could be the character or the pose…” Certainly what caught his eye here comes across to us as beauty, strength, and quiet determination. Dixon’s skill at working simply with pencil provides a great example of the fine art of drawing. For more of Dixon’s work see the article, “Mark Dixon: When Design Turns to Art” at vernellestudio.com.

Note: Paintings used for this article are either in public domain, live-linked to specific articles, or used with permission of the artist.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.comor her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

What to drink after dinner while looking at a book of sketches? Marsala, of course.

Drawing of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, 1621

Yes, this engraving is the only portrait of Caravaggio (1571-1610) done by another artist, painter and printmaker, Ottavio Leoni. It is a fine example of the printmaker’s skill in drawing, as it captures the sense of instability and potential violence in the eyes of the artist, who not unlike the 19th century’s Lord Byron, was “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” One of Caravaggio’s misadventures seems to have been an affair with a married woman, whose husband challenged the artist to a duel. Caravaggio killed the man and had to flee Rome. The man’s wife soon married another man shortly after her husband’s death (see Andrew Graham Dixon’s video “Who Killed Caravaggio?” youtube.com). Caravaggio ran off to Sicily to avoid the death pentaly, leaving his mark there as well and certainly drinking plenty of the region’s wonderful wines, which must have included Marsala.

A glass of Marsala. Photo credit to thebacklabel.com

You will notice the small glass that looks like a wine glass without a stem. The narrow opening at the top lets the aroma gather so that the full power of it will strike the nose. Strike is the correct term, as Marsala is a fortified wine, 20% alcohol as opposed to most wine with just 13%. The most common phrase that comes with Marsala is don’t buy it in the supermarket. That might appear to you as strange at first, but then you must remember one of Sicily’s most famous dishes, Chicken Marsala. Yes, it is a favorite chicken and mushroom dish that requires this local Sicilian specialty touch, and being a necessary ingredient put Marsala among the cooking wines, rather than the drinkable ones. This gave the notion that Marsala was not of good enough quality to be enjoyed except as an enhancement to the making of a main course. This is not true at all.

Creamy Chicken Marsala with an easy recipe delish.com

Marsala is a wine local to the town of Marsala in Sicily and comes in both dry and sweet versions. The wine is fortified by the addition of distilled alcohol similar to what happens in the creation of Port or Sherry, hence making it a perfect drink for after dinner. However, you can use it as part of a cocktail to tune your tastebuds up for the coming treat of that chicken and mushroom dish. One infusion mentioned by Allison Russo in The Back Label article above involves vanilla-infused bourbon and passion fruit, so you can do mixology experiments with Marsala, but be careful with the alcohol content. I’d say to enjoy it after dinner and a bite of tiramiso (Marsala adds a nice touch of toasted hazelnut to that sweet treat). Marsala makes for a nip of warmth for the tummy as you digest and while you look at some of Botticelli’s sketches.

Now, if you want to experiment with tasting wines like this, Cellars Wine Club has a club dedicated to sweet wines, just click here cellarswineclub.com Remember that Cellars has free delivery and a “no bad bottle” return policy.

Note: I affiliate with Bluehost.com and cellarswineclub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

Coming Soon: The Lost Blue of the Ancient Egyptians and the Wines of the Pharaohs.

Egyptian Blue, the Oldest Known Artificial Pigment. ancient-origins.net

This blue has a history of being lost and found. Like the secret of how the pyramids were build, there are multiple theories of how it was made. As well, its rediscovery has been credited to both scientists like George Washington Carver and artists like Raphael. Come along for this adventure and also get a look at the role of wine in those ancient times. Pharaoh will be delighted.

Degas Makes Pastel Landscapes Dance, plus Pouilly Fuissé Wine.

Houses by the Sea by Edgar Degas, 1869 normandythenandnow.com Click on picture to magnify.

Edgar Degas (1833-1917), according to many of his own words, was decidedly not one of those “plein air landscape painters.” You know the ones, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, who ran about outside to capture the changing moods of the light on the river or the ocean (possibly being nearly swept away as Monet once was) or standing about in the snow to look at the colored reflections on the ice. Well, they were just not in Degas’ mode of thinking. As he once firmly put it, “Painting is not a sport!” Degas and his close colleague, Edouard Manet, were studio painters. Staying inside where they could adjust the light, have all their equipment about them and be undisturbed by blowing winds, crashing waves, and the occasional insect, was just more civilized. Of course, this does not mention the fact that it was so much easier to go off to that favorite haunt of Manet’s crowd, the Café Guerbois, have a smoke, some wine, and talk about what they were creating. And yet, Degas created some of the most beautiful landscapes of the Impressionist period. So what happened and how?

Probably the best place to start is with a comment made about the artist by one of his longest lasting friends (and he did not have too many), Camille Pissarro, who said of Degas, “He is an anarchist, but in art.” Impressionism was all about a certain type of art anarchy. It was a break with the old school’s classically formatted, huge paintings of notable figures and stories from history, ancient mythology, and the Bible. Degas strove to take it a step further. He refused to let nature dictate what was represented in his paintings, saying, “A painting is first of all the product of the imagination of the artist.” That statement allows the viewer to understand the difference in the conception of color and the artificial quality seen in Degas’ landscapes when compared to those of his Impressionist contemporaries.

For instance, in the painting below, Field of Flax (1891-1892), it is rather unlikely that such a neat, lovely, violet and pink square of flax, would appear laid out like a carpet amid the other dull patches of perhaps cultivated fields in this hilly forest-like landscape. Except for the bright spots of yellow in the foreground, the field of flax is the superstar in this painting, almost inviting the viewer to go lie down on this colorful natural blanket.

Field of Flax by Edgar Degas, 1891-92 Private Collection. Photo from wikiart.org

While Field of Flax seems to be just one of Degas imagined scenes of nature, perhaps based on a memory or a dream(?), he was also able to capture in his painting one of the concerns of the day, the rapid encrouchment of industrialization.

Landscape with Smokestacks by Edgar Degas, 1890. Art Institute of Chicaco artic.edu Click on picture to magnify.

The smokestacks in the distance of Landscape with Smokestacks, where the black smoke is a counterpoint to the natural loveliness of the scene, the nature itself is a bit fantasized, with even some of the trees in the field being represented with the fuzzy, smoke-like quality of smokestacks. The landscape seems to be a comment on nature versus industry, with those smoky trees indicating the invasion of industrialization into what had been pristine loveliness. The cluster of flowers in the foreground add wonderful color that fades into distinct violets and greens as the land stretches out before us. However, there are large barren areas in that land, begging the visual question of what has blighted the area.

It has been said that Degas’ landscapes are made from imagination and memory. Memories, as we all know, are rather fuzzy, partially faded, not exact, and prone to imaginative flourishes. Degas was able to add to this quality of the not-quite-real by using rather unusual methods to create his landscapes. Degas was a master of painting with pastels, as can be seen in his early landscapes of the Normandy coast done around 1869, as well as his famous ballerinas, bathers, and horses. However, in the mid-1870s, he was introduced to monotype printing, a format that allows the artist to draw with inks on a metal plate, then press one print to create a completely unique work of art. Degas took the process a step further by pressing yet another print from the ink left over. This degraded version of the print was then worked again with pastels to create another distinct piece of art. It is that process that one sees in his landscapes from the 1880s forward. The process is described and visually shown in this short video, Edgar Degas: A Strange New Beauty youtube.com

As a young man, Degas was very much influenced by the art of Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, a Neoclassical painter. Ingres told the young Degas to “focus on the line.” Degas took this tip to heart, as line was the key to one of the things that attracted him the most: movement. His famous work of the dancers, horses, etc. were all about the study of movement. However, his landscapes are also influenced by this attention to line, and sometimes the lines found in the human body. In the painting below one can make out the representation of a shoulder. Degas said when viewing a block of granite, “What a beautiful line, beautiful like a shoulder. I will make a steep embankment, with a view of the sea.”

Coastal Landscape by Edgar Degas, c. 1890 Pastel over monotype print. Click on picture to magnify.

Et voilà! There it is. It is rugged and rough, but one can make out the general shape of a well-muscled shoulder with an arm descending at its side. Degas makes this outcrop overlooking the sea into a hillside of rock and flowering plants, using tonal harmonies in yellows and oranges with a counterpoint of green, though the inspiration was from his figure drawing.

Degas pushed the envelop as only he could, preferring to experiment in his studio with line, movement, and the effects of imagination and memory to move the landscape into new territory. We plein air painters can forgive him for being as unique as his pastel-treated monotypes.

For a slide show of Degas’ wonderful landscapes in pastels and pastel over monotype, see this Edgar Degas video (in three languages) youtube.com .

Degas’ Influence on a Painter of the Southwest.

Warm Sunset by Sandra Pérez. Click on picture to magnify.

Sandra Pérez is a native of California, who spent long years in the northwestern city of Seattle before being completely captivated by the wonders of the southwestern landscape in and around Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she now lives. She works in pastels, and Edgar Degas’ pastel landscapes are among her favored inspirations. Unlike Degas, she is a plein air painter, even always carrying a small assortment of soft pastels and a little notebook with her in order to capture quick sketches of views that inspire her as she moves about her daily activities. The places sketched are often returned to for further plein air work.

Her handling of the different shades of yellows and oranges is reminiscent of Degas’ color combinations for his Coastal Landscape. Little bits of distinction can be noted in the field of yellowed grasses, just as we see similar variation among the plants on Degas’ seacliff. Likewise the color that is the counterbalance to the yellow and orange is green. In various shades from light spring green highlighted by sunlight to the deep brownish greens with purple shadows, it makes for a cool contrast to those sunny colors, as strongly massed together as is Degas’ “shoulder-like” cliff overlooking the sea.

Pérez does do finishing touches on her work in her studio. (Ah ha! says Degas.) However, whether in the studio or out in the field, the role that Degas established for creating a certain feeling in the use of pastels is honored, amplified, and continued here far from France in the wilds of the southwestern U.S.A.

For more on the work of Sandra Pérez, go to “Sandra Pérez: Poetry in Pastel” vernellestudio.com/blog

The paintings used in this article are in public domain or used with the permission of the artist. Reference source on Degas is Degas by Bernd Crowe, Taschen Publications (2005).

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

Oh, those wines of Burgundy! Pouilly Fuissé

Vineyards of Burgundy. Photo Credit to Liz Palmer liz-palmer.com

Well, there you see it. Burgundy, that fabled area of France that as a duchy once was a real rival for power to the kingdom of France (think Joan of Arc days). While Joan did not fare so well, Burgundy, though finally integrated into France, still remains an area with its own culture and cultural contributions. One of those is a special wine made of Chardonnay grapes that takes the name of a southern Burgundian wine growing region known as Pouilly. From there come white wines like Pouilly Vinzelle and Pouilly Loche, but the most famous is Pouilly Fuissé.

At this point, we must practice our French. The pronunciation is like this: Pooh- yee Fwee-say (I beg the pardon of my linguistics profs for not using proper transcription, but pop culture wins here). Now that we know how to do that, the next thing is not to mix it up with Pouilly Fumé, which is another French wine but from the western side of France in the Loire Valley. It is made of Sauvignon Blanc grapes and is the subject of another Of Art and Wine post “The Hazy Light of Corot and the Light Smoke of Pouilly Fumé” Fumé by the way means smoked, a taste that comes into the wine from the flint in the limestone that underlies the northern Loire Valley.

Glasses of Chardonnay wine Photo credit: townandcountrymagazine.com

Pouilly Fuissé comes by its rich flavor, described as a taste of pears and apples, with a bit of lemon and a buttery finish, by going through a distinct process, called “split oaking.” During fermentation 2/3s of the grapes are fermented in stainless steel containers, while 1/3 is fermented in oak barrels. What this does is tame the sometimes too buttery taste that Chardonnay is sometimes known for, especially when one recalls the Chardonnays of the 1980s when oaking went overboard. In the split-oaking process, the fruity notes are allowed to emerge, accented by that tang of lemon before one’s palate is warmed by a mild taste of butter.

Seafood platter, a perfect pair for Pouilly Fuissé.

Well, I will tell you my hands-down favorite thing to have with this wine. It’s freshed picked crab (king, snow or Dungeness) with fresh lemon and a mild garlic touch in some hot melted butter for dipping. However, if you wish to enjoy this wine with more everyday foods, you can enjoy it with smoked salmon, artichokes with Hollandaise sauce, roast chicken or just a plain old quiche. Serve the wine chilled at about 46 degrees, and you are good to go for some fine dining.

So whatever your choice of meals, if it includes fish, seafood or simple, lightly roasted chicken, Pouilly Fuissé is a wonderful wine to pair with it. Should you decide you want a full bodied red for your winter meat dishes, Burgundy has those, too. You really can’t lose if you go Burgundian.

While we can’t travel much these days, we can still have our fine wine experience by joining a wine club. Cellars Wine Club of International Wines is a excellent way to experience wines from around the world and decide by wine where you will be traveling in future. Cellars has a number of wine clubs, one for every level of taste and budget, a “no bad bottle” return policy, and free shipping. See the page under Of Art and Wine Pages.

Photos used in this section are free stock photos from iStock.com and dreamstime.com.

Of Art and Wine affiliates with Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming Soon: The Fine Art of Drawing, and Wine for After Dinner, Marsala.

Drawing of the Portrait of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni, National Gallery of London

Drawing is hard, even drawing from a portrait, let alone from real life. However, drawing is one of humankind’s oldest art forms, and well worth a good look. Since Caravaggio here spent time in southern Italy, we will get acquainted with Marsala, a bracing after dinner wine, straight out of Sicily.

One Model, Two Artists, Great Art, and Wine in Franche-Comte.

Jo, la belle irlandaise, by Gustave Courbet. 1865-1866 National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden. Click picture to magnify.

The woman above, Jo Hifferman, was one of the most famous artist’s models ever. She appears in several celebrated paintings by James McNeill Whistler (obviously, she is not his mother), as well as a series of portraits done by Gustave Courbet, among them the one above and three others of a similar pose. The role of the artist’s model is essential to the art, yet is largely unsung. One of the most harrowing stories is of the model for John Edward Millais’ Ophelia (1851-1852), which shows a young woman floating in a small stream where she has supposedly drowned as that character did in Hamlet. The apocryphal tale is that the model spent hours floating in a tub of cold water to capture the appropriate look of poor, dead, Ophelia. Whether true or not, it captures the way that the models often “suffer for art,” holding interminable poses until the body decides, dead or alive, that rigor mortis must set in.

Then there’s seeing what the artist has created. A friend of mine used to model for her artist husband until, as she says, “I got tired of posing long hours only to see my beautiful body turned into some kind of futuristic chair.” Oops! Let me just say right now, as an artist, that we love all artist’s models, whoever you are and wherever you are. You are truly appreciated. However, only a few artist’s models go down in history by name. Yes, there is Victorine Meurent who posed for Manet’s Olympia, and Andrew Wyeth’s Helga, but basically not many are known by name. Jo Hifferman, however, is known by two names, Joanna Hifferman and Jo, la belle irlandaise (Jo, the beautiful Irish woman).

Symphony in White #1 or The White Girl #1 (1862) and Symphony in White #2 or The White Girl #2 (1864) both by James McNeill Whistler.

Her career started with James McNeill Whistler, an American who was living in London at the time. For Whistler the first painting was an experiment in painting white on white. Whistler, who was a great lover of music, originally titled the paintings Symphony in White 1 and 2, just as his later paintings of evenings on the Thames were called Nocturnes, another musical reference. Whistler had not yet gotten involved with the Pre-Raphaelites, but they later lauded these paintings as precursors to their own movement, which sought to emphasize the purity and simplicity of art as it was before Raphael. Jo Hifferman was all of 20 and 22 when she posed for these charming, rather virginal paintings.

Then they went to France. Whistler took Jo with him as she had become his mistress, despite the warnings of his family that she was “a loose woman.” Obviously from those paintings, he perhaps did not wish to see her that way. Whistler, himself, had a reputation for being rather contrarian and combative. He often signed his paintings with a butterfly that had a stinger in its tail. While these paintings were looked upon as illustrations in England, in France they were seen as poetic, and in what was to become the spirit of contrarianism of that day, they were exhibited in the 1863 Salon des Refusés, an exhibition of works that had been rejected by the formal Salon.

It was around this time that Whistler began his “frienemy” relationship with French artist, Gustave Courbet, known for promoting realism in art. In fact in the late summer/early autumn of 1864, Whistler and Jo met up with Courbet in the resort town of Trouville on the northern coast of Normandy, where the two artists did seascape painting. It was at this time that Courbet took advantage of having such a lovely model present and began painting a series of portraits of Jo, with her red hair loose, staring into a mirror (see image above). There are four in all, three in museums and one in a private collection. Innocent enough. Jo and Whistler returned to England, but memories of France obviously lingered. In 1866 when Whistler went off on a tour of South America, Jo managed to go back to France and modeled for Courbet. One of the results is below.

Woman with a Parrot by Gustave Courbet, 1866. Metropolitain Museum, New York City. Click picture to magnify.

This painting, unlike the lovely image in the white dress, caused quite a sensation for different reasons, though it was also Courbet’s first to be shown at the Salon. It was criticized for being provocative, the pose too suggestive, and the disheveled hair was shocking. Just the thing to capture the attention of the public and of the artists of the time who were looking to break the mold of the past. Courbet went on to paint another couple of sensational paintings of Jo. One is called Sommeil or the Sleepers (1866), which shows two naked women sleeping in a bed. One of the sleepers is clearly Jo.

However, even more sensational is a painting done originally for a private client, Khalil-Bey, an Turkish-Egyptian diplomat, which became “the most famous painting that was rarely ever seen,” until it was acquired by the Musée D’orsay, where it now is on display. I shall leave you the link to the Musée’s English-Language information on that painting, so that you can discover it for yourselves. It is Origin of the World (1866). www.musee-orsay.fr And yes, Jo was the model.

The Happy Lovers by Gustave Courbet, 1844. Click on picture to magnify

The painting above was done long before Courbet’s affair with Jo. However, it conveys the general idea of what happened. Whistler became known in France as the cuckhold lover, and Courbet? Well, he was Courbet, flamboyant, controversial, and just plain French.

Gustave Courbet was as much of a rabble-rouser as Whistler was an art world disrupter. In fact, Courbet’s ultimate downfall was stiring up a crowd of communards during a period called The Commune just after the Franco-Prussian War, 1871. The crowd went to the Place Vendome and tore down the pillar celebrating Napolean’s victories. Once the government was re-established, Courbet was dealt with severely. He was forbidden to ever show his work in France again; he could never return to his home in the Franche-Comté; and he was fined some 360,000 French Francs, monies that were meant to restore the famous column. (The restored version stands today in the Place Vendome, where one finds the Ritz Hotel.) Since he could not pay, nor return to his beloved home, Courbet fled to Switzerland where he lived for a few years more, dying there in 1877.

Whistler had his own problems. Of course, his romantic relationship with Jo came to an end, though the two of them seemed to hold each other in good regard even to the end of their lives. Whistler moved on to paint his famous Nocturnes in the 1870s and ran afoul of British art critic, John Ruskin, who verbally smeared the paintings so badly that Whistler sued for defamation. Whistler won, but the judgement was one farthing, and the court costs bankrupted him. For a while thereafter, Ruskin’s invectives so tarnished the reputation of the paintings that they were not saleable. Now, of course, they are greatly prized, as well they should be. For more on the Nocturnes see this post on ofartandwine.com.

As for Jo, after her romantic relationships with these artists, she still maintained contact with Whistler, befriended his next mistress, and helped to raise a son he had had with a parlor maid. After the 1880s, she was known to have lived in Nice, France, where she sold antiques and brocantes. She came to London for Whistler’s funeral in 1903, revealing herself by lifting her veil to show her red hair then streaked with some gray. She stood by his coffin for over an hour.

So to end this piece on the strange fame of an artist’s model, I send a personal shout out to the most famous artist’s model of the early 2000’s in my old hometown of Avignon, France. Her name is Sylvette. One of the best galleries there even did a show of artists’ sketches of her – 20 Artists and One Model, Sylvette. The invitation had a wonderful photo of her in a customary pose, and we all knew it was her from the curve of her lovely derriere. So here’s to Sylvette and to all the artist’s models, without whom art would be so much duller.

Paintings used are all in public domain.

Information gathered from Taschen publication, Courbet, written by Fabrice Masanés, 2006.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

Wines of the Franche-Comté.

This is the famous Vin Jaune or yellow wine of the Franche-Comté served here along with Comté cheese. Photo credit to Arnaud 25.

Let’s not fool ourselves, the Franche-Comté region, home of the very proud Gustave Courbet, produces many of the finest wines in France. Red, white, or rosé, they are among the best. However, they also produce a regional specialty, Vin Jaune. It is made from a Sauvignin grape, though other regions have tried to replicate the wine with Chardonnay grapes. The Sauvignin is a relative of the Gewurtztraminer, and since the Franche-Comté is right on the Swiss border, the influence of the German wines is felt more strongly. The process of making Vin Jaune is one of long duration, taking six years and a few months to mature in oak barrels that give it a lingering taste of almonds. It even comes in a specific type of bottle, shown in the photo above, called a Clavelin, which according to Regions of France – Franche-Comté (regions-of-france.com) is almost as rare as the wine.

  • Aerial view on the old city and tower of the citadel of Besancon in Bourgogne Franche Comte region in France.

Vin Jaune, however, is not the only yellow wine produced in this region. Vin de Paille, or “straw wine” combines Chardonnay, Sauvignin and Poulsard grapes, which are dried for about two months on open-air racks until they reach 80% dehydration. Then they are pressed and aged in oak casques for two to three years. This labor-intensive process produces a wine with an alcohol content of 15-17%. It is to be served chilled and pairs very well with foie gras. The writer for the article containing information on this wine, as well as several other wines from the Franche-Comte, seems to feel it has “medicinal” properties as well, interfrance.com.

While on the subject of unique alcoholic products made in this mountainous region, I shall digress for a moment to present a special drink. It is not a wine, but a gentian liqueur made from the roots of a mountain flower. One version of it is served in the Hautes Alpes region and is known as génépy. This green liqueur was developed in the middle ages to help people with what they called “le mal des ardents” or a burning sickness. The burning was felt in the extremities, a sensation like having a foot that falls asleep. Normally one can shake off the burning if one gets up and walks around. However, with this sickness, the burning did not stop, because the circulation to the hands and feet was indeed being cut off. It lead to amputations, which were quite common until the mountain people learned from the importation of bread made from wheat that their problem came from eating rye bread. The rye bread had a parasite in it that infected the body and slowly caused circulation problems leading to those amputations. The one thing that they did figure out before learning about the parasite in the rye was that they needed something to keep the blood circulating. They invented a strong liqueur, génépy, to enliven the blood flow. To this day, if you want to give your system a good blast of energy on a cold winter’s night, génépy will do nicely.

Here are pictures of two other mountain liqueurs. The one on the left is a pine liqueur made from pine needles harvested in June. It comes in a wooden bottle and as you can see, it has little stubs of branches that have been cut off of the limb that makes the bottle. The green liqueur is a gentian liqueur made like génépy from the roots of mountain plants.

As has been stated, there are many fine red, white. and rosé wines made in the Franche-Comté. The reds normally are a mixture of grapes with, of course, Pinot Noir as one of the main elements since it is noted for giving a smooth finish. The whites are made from Chardonnay and Sauvignin grapes. The rosés are made from the Poulsard grapes and done in a way that allows it to pair well with charcuterie (cold cut meats). Once again, I refer you to the Interfrance link above for futher information on the food pairings for each of these wines.

Vin de Paille (straw wine) and Vin Jaune in its distinctive bottle, and the vineyards of the Franche-Comté in the background. Photos from interfrance.com

Remember that the wine-growing regions of France hold many unusual products with some of the most unusual histories. If you ever visit these areas, including Haute Savoie, and Hautes Alpes, enjoy all the wines, but when the chilly winds blow, go for the génépy.

Since we travel in vicarious ways these days during the pandemic, don’t forget to try out traveling through wine tasting. One great way to do that is to join a wine club. Cellars Wine Club is a fine way to experience the wines of the world and those from here in the U.S. Just click to go directly to cellarswineclub.com

Of Art and Wine affiliates with Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming soon: Degas Makes Pastel Landscapes Dance, plus Pouilly Fuissé Wine.

Landscape with Rocks by Edgar Degas, 1892.

We all know about Degas’ great pastels of ballerinas and dancers of various types. What is less well known is that he also did wonderful pastel landscapes, using a variety of techniques, including doing monotypes that were finished with pastels. Come explore these lesser known but equally beautiful works and see how a modern artist follows in that tradition.

The Painted Allure of the Beach and Cool Summer Wines.

Cliffs at Etretat by Claude Monet, 1883. Click picture to magnify.

It’s summer, the dog days of, and what could be nicer and more refreshing than a stroll along the beach in the cool of the late afternoon or early evening? Monet takes us there in this painting of limestone crags, cousins of the White Cliffs of Dover, but these along the Normandy coast of France. It was somewhere along these cliffs, as Monet wrote to his second wife, Alice Hochede, that he lost a painting and nearly his life when a big wave came ashore and washed almost everything away with it. The perils of the beach should never be forgotten. Yet we love it truly, and especially when we see it as it is here, with dappled pink clouds against pale blue sky above the mirror of the sea. Monet even tints the sands of the beach a bit pink. What’s not to love about this scene? Shall we go there?

But wait! There are other beaches to explore. One does not often think of the rough, cockney-accented, J.M.W. Turner as someone who was particularly romantic, and certainly not as presented in Mike Leigh’s 2014 film, Mr Turner. However, there was something about the Kent Coast near Margate that captured his fancy, and it wasn’t just his lady friend, Mrs Booth.

The New Moon by J.M.W. Turner, 1890 The Tate Britain tate.org.uk Click picture to magnify.

Something about the sea and the setting sun must have made the old man go soft, for here we have children playing on the beach, dogs running in the surf, and grown-ups wading in the water. Even one of the names of the painting shows some of the action, as this painting is also called “I’ve lost My Boat; You shan’t have Your Hoop,” presumably the cries of the children. Golden days on a golden beach, as Turner transformed the sea and the sands into sparkles of golden light which reflect the magic of the setting sun’s last rays. However, not to be forgotten is the new moon, which shares the sky with that sunset.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Winslow Homer, America’s 19th century master of oils and watercolors, takes us to a potentially ominous stretch of water off the New England coast.

On the Beach by Winslow Homer, 1869. Click picture to magnify.

Homer lived most of his life in Maine, in and around Prouts Neck. Though this painting is from 1869, Homer really took to painting the sea after a stay in Britain in 1881-1882. He wound up living the last 25 years of his life in a cottage on a cliff overlooking the sea on a property owned by his family in Prouts Neck. That life long experience of the waters of the northern Atlantic shows up in this early seascape, where the waters have turned blackish-blue, and the pink from the sun’s rays are being overtaken by the gray fury of an oncoming storm. Those on the beach take cautious steps into the shallows, but may very well have to run from the wave that is about to break or suffer a severe smack-down.

This attraction to the waters was enhanced by Homer’s assignment for Century Magazine in 1884 when he was sent to capture the beauty of the Bahamas and Bermuda in winter. His task was to paint the lovely waters of the islands as promoters were beginning to see these islands as a winter getaway for those who wanted to escape the harsh northern cold. Certainly when compared to the beautiful but threatening waves in On the Beach, the lovely scene of Salt Kettle, Bermuda, invites one to relax in paradise.

Salt Kettle House, Bermuda by Winslow Homer, 1899 National Gallery of Art, Washington nga.gov

Of course, the Mediterranean is another wonderful place to frollick in the waves. This master of capturing that summer-by-the-sea feeling is Joaquin Sorolla. Elegant women dressed all in pristine white, carrying umbrellas, and wearing big hats with wispy veils stroll along the beaches of Sorolla’s paintings (See “The Paintings of Joaquin Sorolla…” ofartandwine.com). Below we have children strolling the shore hand-in-hand, creating idyllic memories that will warm their hearts in the years to come even into old age.

Two Little Girls on a Beach by Joaquin Sorolla, 1904. Click picture to magnify.

Sorolla’s deft touch makes us feel the breeze just by looking at how the wind moves the cloth of the girl’s dress, while the freshness of the water comes forth from the shine on the naked child’s feet and legs. The waves roll in gently enough for other youngsters to play among them. Sorolla even captures that thin band of pearly white seafoam that is the last of a wave before it melts into the sands.

But what is a person to do when trapped far from the beach on the sweltering streets of the big city? Well, former mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, looked out one hot day in 2002 from the windows of the Hotel de Ville, Paris’ city hall, and decided that Paris needed its own beach. After all though France has three seacoasts, none of them front Paris. Nature’s insult had to be remedied. Et voilà, Paris Plage (Paris Beach)!

Paris Plage (Paris Beach) in front of the city hall, le Hotel de Ville. Notice the impromptu volleyball game and the striped cabana.

Leave it to the French not to be outdone by nature. Paris Beach has taken on a number of iterations over the years and has extended down to the quai just above the river Seine. I can tell you that there is always a breeze flowing down the river.

However, as we all know, sadly going to the beach in great numbers, even to a faux beach in the city, is not adviseable during the COVID 19 pandemic. Though we can still enjoy the photos of Paris’ special tribute to beach culture (2019), we shall have to put aside for now our dreams of having our own cities make us a downtown beach. Cool idea, though.

Here the George Pompidou Walkway (2019). Photo credit and copyright Marc Bertrand, with thanks to the Paris Tourist Office.

For one more chance to have an artful summer beach experience, Sarah Herring, a curator at London’s National Gallery, has put together some wonderful paintings by Degas, Constable, Monet, and others to help one have a virtual summer vacation. It is called Beach Scenes; see it on youtube.com.

Paintings used are in public domain.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

Chilled Wines for a Pandemic Picnic

A basket of basics that are easy to prepare, carry, and consume. Don’t forget a beach blanket, beach umbrella and your swimsuit even if you are only going to your backyard. (It’s all about imagination.)

One thing that the pandemic does not change is what to eat and drink when you are having a beach picnic. Now I don’t say you have to fill the backyard, patio, or deck with sand, though a potted palm might create the atmosphere. Once the scene is set then you must focus on what to munch on. I say munch on because beach picnics are not to be confused with a backyard cook-out. (Some even make distinctions between a cook-out, normally a barbeque, and fish-fry, but we won’t get that complicated here.) The main thing about a picnic, even on an imaginary beach, is to keep it simple. We want to have good, tasty things, but ones that are easy to fix, easy to carry, and easy to consume. That means cold cuts, cold chicken, cheeses and crackers, stuffed olives, cornichons (those little fermented pickles), baquettes of bread, fresh fruits, and wine, of course.

Now for the wine, we are not having roasted meats or meats with spicy sauces. In fact, we are not cooking at the beach (nor in our patio or backyard for this); we are just eating light. That means we want light wines. Needless to say, almost any rosé would work well, but those made from Pinot Noir grapes are especially nice. If you feel like celebrating, a sparkling rosé is a wonderful choice, and some very nice ones are made from Syrah grapes. Of course they must be kept chilled, so don’t forget the cooler (unless you want to keep running to the fridge). Best temperature for a high quality sparkling rosé is about 45 degrees; ordinary less-expensive rosé is 41 degrees; and for inexpensive champagne, 37 degrees.

La vie en rose

However, one must not forget the wonderful freshness of white wines like Sauvignon Blanc or Chenin Blanc. Sauvignon Blanc wines are either very dry or rather sweet, so be careful with selecting. The dry ones would go well with our cheeses and the cold chicken. Of course, since our picnic is at our homemade beach, you could always run to your favorite Japanese restaurant for some take- out sushi – yummy with Sauvignon Blanc. Chenin Blanc is more versatile overall, but for our picnic, it is best suited to the cold cuts, cold chicken, and cheeses.

For those who like red wines in summer, they go perfectly with our picnic’s cheeses and cold cuts. Photo credit to winetours.mk Check out this link for lots of tasting and food pairing information.

Yes, summer makes us think of chilled rosé or Chenin Blanc, but there are red wines that really fill the bill in summer. Beaujolais or any of the wines from Gamay grapes are a bit lighter in taste. You could also experiment with a Loire Valley Cabernet Franc or an Italian Valpolicella. Red wines are normally drunk at room temperature or around 65 degrees. However, this is summertime, and with lighter reds, so it is okay to let your light Pinot Noir, or Beaujolais sit in an ice bucket of half ice and half water for about 15-20 minutes before serving. The temprature would be about 50 degrees. The heavier reds, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, should just be room temperature, and certainly no lower than 60 degrees, otherwise their flavors change and bring out unpleasant qualities attached to tannin levels.

While we don’t have to the luxury of going off to Canada for a tasting experience in an igloo (see the video in a post on ofartandwine.com), Ice Wines are also quite nice in summer to finish off a meal with a touch of sweet. They work well with soft cheeses and with cheesecake, perhaps with a berry topping.

So pandemic not withstanding, we can still have our summer picnic fun. It just takes bit a creativity and care. Bon appetit!

One more thing, when wanting to travel via wine tasting, one can join a wine club. The CellarsWineClub.com offerings on this site (see Pages) present a wide selection for every budget and level of taste, a “no bad bottle” return policy, and free shipping. Check it out. They also have a Give Back program that allows you to give part of the purchase to one of a number of vetted charities. You can feel good and do good.

Note: I affiliate with Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming Soon: One Model, Two Artists, Great Art, and Wine in France-Comté

James McNeill Whistler came to visit fellow painter, Gustave Courbet, bringing along with him his new mistress, Jo, “la belle Irlandaise.” It was only a matter of time before this:

The Lovers by Gustave Courbet, c.1844

Admittedly the woman here is not Jo, as this is an earlier painting, but it is – uh humm – the most polite expression I can find for what happened. I shall spill the tea in the next article.

Scandal! Sargent and Madame X. Was it the Sparkling Rosé?

Madame X by John Singer Sargent, 1884. Metropolitan Museum, New York.

There are three actors in this drama. She was Virginie Amélie, Madame Pierre Gautreau, born in the U.S., a daughter of French planters who had returned to France from Louisiana during the American Civil War. Her marriage to Gautreau, a wealthy Parisian banker, combined with her beauty and style to boost her to the top of French high society in 1880s Paris. He was John Singer Sargent, another American, who was born in Florence, Italy, to American parents and raised mostly in Europe. Sargent, a young man in his 20s and a very talented artist, had come to Paris to make his name as a painter. And the third actor? Well Paris, of course, the City of Light, as it was known at that time. It was full of the fresh energy of the Impressionism of Monet, Renoir, Degas, and others. DeBussy presented his music that floated along with the light airy ambiance of those new paintings. This new energy even had its own poète du jour, Stéphane Mallarmé, a great friend to this revolutionary new art and its artists. All was bright, light, elegant, foie gras and champagne, Paris, Paris, Paris, and French, French, French.

To this Paris came John Singer Sargent, a talented young painter already gaining favor as a portrait artist (see here his self-portrait), and a young man bent on establishing himself and his career as the man to go to for portraits of the rich and famous who populated Parisian high society. His parents had moved to Europe to help his mother recover from a breakdown. They wandered Europe for years as well-off nomads, though they did keep an apartment in Paris.

Sargent was a man with a plan. Yes, one could spend years painting various and sundry rich clients. Profitable, yes, of course, it would be profitable, but why not just go for the top? The top was Virginie Amélie Gautreau, known as Amélie, the most beautiful woman in Paris at the time, and one who knew how to show it off. With a splendid figure (note the painting at the top of this page), she was known for having extremely pale skin, and dark hair with a touch of red to it. To highlight that dash of color, she would tint the tops of her ears with a rose pink powder. Being the wife of an extremely wealthy man, she was always finely dressed and made her appearance at all the most celebrated locales. However, most important of all in this story, she was American (of sorts) and so was Sargent (of sorts).

THE PLOT THICKENS

Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast by John Singer Sargent, 1882-1883. isabella Stuart Gardener Museum, Boston, MA. Click painting to magnify.

Well, how better to highlight your skills as a painter and flatter the woman most sought after by the portrait painters of that day than by showing off a beautiful painting of her, here, drinking a toast. It took Sargent two years to persuade her, but at last, where others had failed, Sargent gained her permission to paint a portrait of her. He proposed a painting that is tall and narrow (82″ x 40″), meaning that within that large space he could paint her life-size. She even let him come choose the dress that she would wear. He choose the black gown with the glimmering straps. Now, none of us were present as this painting was being planned, but it is speculated that for both of them, this was to be la piece de resistance, a showpiece to wow the whole of Paris.

In those days, the proper society portrait was quite restrained. See these examples below. The figure on the left is Mrs. Henry White, obviously a wealthy, elegant lady, who could afford to dress well and have Sargent show it off. Next to her is a picture of a Young Lady by Edouard Manet. The parrot is important here, as this was Manet’s finger wagging “tut, tut” response to Gustave Courbet’s sumptuous nude painting, Woman with a Parrot. Manet, of course, also painted nudes (see his Olympia). However, the women he and Courbet were representing in those nude paintings were not high society ladies, like Sargent’s Madame Gautreau.

Mrs. Henry White, by John Singer Sargent, 1883 and Young Lady by Edouard Manet, 1866

As anyone can imagine given the proper portraits of the time, Sargent’s depiction of Madame Gautreau was seen as a bit too much. The feeling of scandal was heightened by the fact that in the original, the right strap of the dress had fallen off her shoulder. The sensuality implied by this seemed to indicate a rather risqué sexuality, as though her clothes were about to fall off. The shock of the boldness of this painting caused Sargent to quickly modify it by painting the strap in its proper position, but the damage had been done.

The public reaction had been quick and vicious. This painting, which was meant to be a homage to her great beauty, made her the laughingstock of Paris, as she was seen to be “ghastly pale,” flagrantly sexual, exaggerated in pose, and thoroughly inappropriate. Sargent’s commissions dried up immediately. At one point he considered stopping painting and taking up a career in music. Madame Gautreau’s celebrity crashed, and she literally withdrew from society, her days as the glamorous queen of beauty over.

Certainly it seems odd, that in Paris, where one would expect a more open attitude toward the sensual, that this fallen strap would cause such a furor, especially as the French are very proud of their reputation as lovers. Having lived in France for a number of years (which were among the happiest in my life), I am going to speculate here. The French love an elegant gesture, that little touch that captures the eye, titillates the senses, and elicits a cheeky smile, but they like it when they are the ones doing it. My feeling is that these two Americans, for as European as they were (one having French parents and the other growing up in Europe), were still considered a bit autre, other and outside. How dare they try to out-French, the French! For that attempt, they must pay.

While Madame Gautreau assumed a more sheltered life, having fallen from the heights, Sargent decided not to give up painting, thankfully. He, like the characters in Tale of Two Cities, just hopped across the Channel to London, where he began a prosperous career with this sensational painting – appropriately sensational this time.

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent. 1885-86 Now in the Tate Britain, London.

As for the painting of Madame Gautreau, well, Sargent had to protect it from her family. Her mother wanted it destroyed. Sargent was concerned about Gautreau’s reputation, so he refused to show the painting again. When he sold it to the Metropolitan Museum in 1916, he did it under the condition that it would be named Madame X, to conceal the name of the woman whose portrait it was. However, the scandal never died. Sadly, Sargent said of the painting that he thought it was his best work.

For more on the scandalous Madame Gautreau, try “15 Salacious Facts About John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame X” www.mentalfloss.com For a short video history of the painting, try Art Attack – John Singer Sargent Madame X. youtube.com.

The paintings discussed in this article are all in Public Domain.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler who loves art and wine. For more see Pages, ofartandwine.com or her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

Summer’s Here! Time for Sparkling Rosé

Glass of rose sparkling wine Photo from Freepik.com

Yes, I know that rosé can be consumed even in the depths of winter, but somehow that delicious pink color, the dry light flavor with its hint of strawberries, and those bubbles, all seem like a celebration of summer to me. Forgive me. It was last August when I first brought up the subject of rosé wine. (See “Straight Out of Provence” ofartandwine.com). From there you can learn the basics about it, for instance, that it is not just White Zinfandel or Blush wine or wine made from just blending red and white wines (though some rosé champagnes made that way are). For a quick visual primer, take a look at this short video to check out this Rosé Wine Guide, youtube.com.

These tiny beauties are champagne grapes of the kind one sees growing in Champagne in France. The types of grapes that go into champagne are limited to Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier. The method for making the wine is called la méthode champenoise. The method is also used to make sparkling wines, the only difference being that the sparkling wines not made in Champagne, France cannot use the name Champagne. (The U.S. did not sign that treaty, hence our use of the name champagne.)

Now, back to this seasonal business, of rosé being for spring and summer. Well, there is a certain logic to it, because the wine should be drunk within the first 18 months after harvest. In the northern hemisphere, that means that since the harvest is in August-September, the wines come to market in the spring, just in time for long days and balmy, even hot summer weather. The heat of those days does play rather well into serving a sparkling rosé or rosé champagne since it should be chilled to about 47-50 degrees. Be careful, though, not to get it too cold for that can change the taste by chilling your taste buds.

Then there is the matter of the proper glass. If you are a fan of the classic Hollywood movies of yesteryear, then you have seen those champagne glasses with the wide bowl. Lovely and elegant as they are, they allow too many of the bubbles to escape. Remember what Dom Perignon said when he first tasted sparkling wine, “I am tasting the stars!” That is exactly what you want to do, so you must have those bubbles well-encased in a tall narrow glass like the one at the beginning of this article. The other thing to be sure to do is open the bottle correctly. Yes, indeed there is a correct way, and not following it can waste a lot of the carbon dioxide that is responsible for the bubbles, not to mention how much can be wasted if the bottle overflows. However, I have just the thing, a primer of sorts on how to open champagne or sparkling wine the right way. See “You’re Doing It All Wrong” on youtube.com

SO WHAT DO YOU EAT WITH THIS STUFF?

This covers a host of options, including various other wines. See “How to Host an Impromptu Wine and Cheese Party at cottercrunch.com.

One of the nicest things about rosé wines is that they are very food-friendly. That means they go with just about everything. The dry quality of rosé complements spicy food, fried dishes, even barbeque, and hot buttered popcorn. If one is presenting a toast to start off the evening along with soft cheeses, olives, thin slices of prosciutto, smoked salmon, and even a few berries (see above), then a toast made with a sparkling rosé is just what you need. Rosé has rather high acidity which makes it work well with every thing from heavy sauces to salads and seafood. When time comes for dessert, a sparkling rosé works especially well with fruit tarts or fresh berries covered in chocolate.

So in the grand style of Madame Gautreau, who in the final analysis is forever chic. at least as painted by Sargent, lift high your glass of that beautiful pink bubbly and toast to whatever pleases you the most, perhaps a plate of oysters, a spicy barbeque, or even hot buttered popcorn. The choice is yours. Chin-chin! A votre sante!

One way to get involved in the world of wines is to join a wine club. Cellars Wine Club offers a selection of wine clubs to fit every budget and every level of expertise. The “no bad bottle” return policy is a feature as is free shipping. As well they have a Give Back program that lets members have 15% of the purchase donated to one of the vetted charities offered. With Cellars you can drink good wine, feel good, and do good.

See the Cellars Wine Club selections under Pages ofartandwine.com
Note: I affiliate with Bluehost.com and CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming Soon: The Painted Allure of the Beach and Cool Summer Wines.

Joaquin Sorolla, Valencia Two Little Girls on the Beach. Click picture to magnify.

So it is summer and beach or no beach, it’s hot. One way to cool off, especially if there is no beach near, is to look at paintings that show a love of the sea and the beach. Whether sail boats in the Mediterranean or sunsets off the coast of California, paintings can take you on a mini-vacation. And of course, what goes better with a day at the beach than a picnic complemented by a cooler filled with wonderfully chilled wine.

Caravaggio’s Chiaroscuro, and Lazio, the Roman Wine Region.


Boy Bitten by a Lizard by Michelangelo da Caravaggio, 1594-1596 National Gallery in London, U.K.

This is a young Caravaggio painting. The model may not be Caravaggio as once suspected but supposedly a certain Mario Minniti. Either way, one can see the artist’s ability to do the face with emotion and the still life elements with detail, which shows he gained a lot working in the studios of other artists in Rome. However, he never had a studio himself. Obviously, in whatever rooms he lived in, he would set up a model, sometimes himself, gather a few objects, and paint. While Caravaggio became famous for his Baroque style religious paintings which hang in a number of churches in Italy, these early paintings of pretty boys in hard circumstances show a lot about the life he led and the development of the painting technique he is most famous for, Chiaroscuro.

Chiaroscuro literally means light and dark. It actually seems to have been developed first by Leonardo da Vinci and can be seen in his drawings of drapery with ink washes done on colored paper. However, the sharp contrasts used by Caravaggio, and the way he uses light and dark to tell stories in his paintings has forever attached the term chiaroscuro to his name. In the painting above, we see the young man in a less that white garment, a coquettish flower in his tousled unkempt hair, getting a surprise bite from a lizard hidden in the assembled greenery of the still life. The sharp contrast of the light on his shoulder and part of his face, seem to go along with the pretense of elegance the flower in his hair suggests. Yet it also shows his dirt-rimmed fingernails. The lizard is rather obscured by the darkness of the leaves and the heavy shadow on the table. Its bite is a little reminder of the ever presence of mortality that lurked in the Roman environment, where life was short and not always sweet.

Duality is everywhere here and indicated by the sharp contrast in dark and light. Even the lovely vase that reflects some light seems to have slightly grayish water and a fading flower with leaves turned black. The young man is shocked by the bite, which Caravaggio paints with all the emotion that Baroque art loves. The viewer of the painting is shocked, too, by the griminess and the wretched sadness of the circumstances in contrast to the beauty of the painting and the expression. It is in some respects a bi-polar representation of perhaps a bi-polar life.

Boy with a Basket of Fruit and Young Sick Bacchus, both by Caravaggio, 1593.

Michelangelo Merisi had a hard scrabble life, exacerbated by his rough and ready personality and the harsh times he lived in. He was born in Milan in 1571, but raised in the town of Caravaggio (hence the name he is known by) because of an outbreak of plague in Milan. At the age of six, he lost his father. He spent his teens working in artists’ workshops in Milan, where there is no record of any notable achievement. At 20 he went off to Rome to seek his fortune. During the eight years it took before he found a wealthy patron, he sold his work as he could (see the Boy Bitten by a Lizard, above). He apprenticed in the studios of two different artists, but with no works pointing notably to him. In one studio he painted faces, and in the other he painted fruits, flowers, and other still life elements. He lived as he could, often used friends or people from the streets as models, and in a pinch, he posed himself (Young Sick Bacchus, 1593). He had a few good years when he had the protection of patrons, but he killed a man and had to flee Rome under penalty of death in 1606. From there it was off to Naples and then to Malta, painting magnificent paintings, becoming a Knight of Malta and then their most wanted criminal, as he went. Finally in 1610 he died, either of fever, or being murdered, or having lead poisoning from his paints.

So what accounts for paintings like the one below? It is hard to find a sweeter, more lovely representation of a Bible story. The mother and child are asleep with the mother’s chin resting gently on the child’s head. Joseph, ever the guardian, sits by the light of a campfire that must be just out of our view. Before him stands an exquisite angel, playing sweet music to bring them a moment of respite.

Rest on the Flight to Egypt, by Michelangelo da Caravaggio, 1597. Click to magnify.

Here as usual with Caravaggio, the way the light falls helps to tell the story. The faces of Mary and the baby are in bright light. There are no halos as there would have been in medieval times, but the light upon those figures is quite bright. Joseph is once again a type of secondary character, as he often is in nativity scenes where he is off to the side, holding perhaps a candle or a lamp. His face is in shadow here, and once again he serves by holding the sheet music for the angel. Finally we have the angel who is the brightest figure present. His robe is quite white as it swirls about him, indicating his perfect body in quite a sensuous way. Of his face we only see the profile with his eyes downcast in the direction of the sheet music that Joseph holds at an angle. The nighttime gloom that surrounds these fugitives is brighten by this presence, and that little campfire just out of our sight, which flushes the face of the angel.

The painting below depicts St. Anne, the mother of Mary, the Madonna, herself, and Jesus. It is often called the Madonna of the Serpent and was one of Caravaggio’s last paintings done in Rome. It was commissioned by the Confraternity of Sant’ Anna dei Palafrenerie, or the Grooms of the Vatican Palace. It was done in 1605-1606 just as Caravaggio’s life was about to spin out of control. That may explain the overly heavy, almost solid black background. The painting was rejected after hanging for just two days. The Virgin Mary was deemed to be too voluptuous.

Click on picture to magnify.

The interesting thing here is how he uses a light that comes from somewhere outside of the picture to strongly highlight the Madonna, the child, and the pale undersides of the snake. St. Anne herself is a bit in the shadow, a secondary player, though she must be there since it is a confraternity dedicated to her that commissioned the painting. Her white scarf catches the light which also highlights her dark clothing, but her face which is looking down at the scene, very calmly I must admit, is in shadow. Mary, without alarm, places her foot on the serpent’s head, but her force is added to by the foot of her son. That force makes the snake’s body writhe and twist, which is dramatically emphasized by the use of light color that traces the movement of its body. In the symbolism of the time, this Baroque painting was about stamping out heresy, which is what the Catholic Church thought of Protestantism. What we see once again is Caravaggio’s take on religion where angels and Jesus are pure beautiful boys, and women, including the Madonna, show themselves as rather full-bodied. It was his way of telling those stories with a kind of earthy reality that the viewers of the time could relate to, even if some of his patrons did not.

For a bit more information on the life and work of Caravaggio, British art historian, Andrew Graham Dixon has done a reprise of an earlier investigation he did on Caravaggio, titled, Who Killed Caravaggio? He takes a C.S.I. approach to ferreting out the details of the painter’s life which expose some startling discoveries (spoiler: Caravaggio may have killed a man over a woman!) Find it here on youtube.com. Should you want to see the effects of chiaroscuro lighting, there is a little video that shows it with simple, clear examples: youtube.com

The paintings of Caravaggio are in Public Domain.

Marjorie Vernelle is an artist, writer, college professor, and traveler. For more see the Pages at ofartandwine.comor her author page at amazon.com and her art at Vernelle Art Boutique vernellestudio.com.

The Wines of Roma

Ancient Roman wine amphorae found off the coast of Mallorca. Photo credit SportDiver.com

While the Ancient Egyptians created lovely paintings of bowers of growing grape vines, and the Greeks spread the cultivation of wine to the island of Sicily, nothing spread the creation and consumption of wine like the Roman Empire. Roma, the great and powerful, spread wine far and wide, even growing wine grapes in Britain, though the recurring mini ice-ages always brought the process to a halt. Their wine amphorae are often found on ancient ship wrecks in the Mediterranean, proving that Roman wine was a much sought after commodity.

Of course the Romans came by their wine indulgence from their northern forebearers, the Etruscans, who were cultivating grapes and making wine in the 6th century B.C. Since the Etruscans were also great believers in commerce, they sold their wines all over, including to the inhabitants of southern France, which started a fledgling wine industry there. Naturally as with so many other things, the Romans learned about wine and took to it very well. However, don’t think they spent their days in an inebriated haze. Oh no, too much to conquer and administer for that. Romans drank their wine diluted with water (2 parts water to one part wine), and a good thing too, since those ancient wines had ABV of 15 -20%! Drinking the undiluted wine was considered to be rather low class. Class was also indicated by the type of wine consumed, with the wealthy and upper class drinking white wines, while the lower classes drank red.

A Banquet, The Feast of Velthur Velch, from the Etruscan town of Tarquinia

Italy, as we know is full of wine-growing regions, and the citizens of the capital city, Rome itself, had fertile valleys of volcanic soil on their doorstep in a region known as Latium, now called Lazio. One would think that being so close to the center of power that Lazio would be one of Italy’s key wine-growing regions, but alas like the luster of the Roman Empire, it has come down in the world. It became known for rather uninteresting sweet white wines. However, things are beginning to look up. This summer the wonderful confluence of Italian culture, books, wine, and food that is Eataly is celebrating Roma by making their stores into an homage to the ancient capital of the western world. Naturally they focus on wines from the Roma region, Lazio, telling visitors to “Drink like the Romans do.” They focus on “an aromatic” white wine called Est! Est! Est! and a “silky” red called Mata Matuta. eataly.com

While Lazio suffered from over production of cheap wines, which ruined its reputation, vintners are now looking at combining new technology, the rich contents of that volcanic soil, and a wide variety of grapes to produce wines of note. Frascati, made from two white grapes, Trebbiano and Malvasia, has become quite popular. Jacopo Mazzeo, writes that Frascati has “refreshing acidity and beautiful scents of candy fruits, Mediterranean herbs, blossom and apricot.” He also tells the story of how that other emerging wine from the Montefiascone DOC, Est! Est! Est!, supposedly got its name. See the article at greatitalianchefs.com

It seems that while other areas were claiming all the glory, many vintners in Lazio took the time to experiment with different types of grapes to see which ones were well suited to their volcanic soil. They began growing a number of grapes more common to France, such as Chardonnay, Viognier, and Sauvignon Blanc. With an eye to history, there is a wine from the combination of Viognier and Chardonnay named Antinoo, after a statue of Emperor Hadrian’s favorite youthful companion, Antinous. Unlike the Emperor’s favorite, this wine seems to age well, making it particularly exceptional. For a more complete guide to the wines of Lazio, with tasting notes, see “Really Good Wines from Lazio” at wineloverspage.com

Sandy’s Chicken Saltimbocca from allrecipes.com

What’s wine without food? Well, it’s good, but certainly everything is better with a bite to eat. Frascati is great with white fish, light pasta and salads. The chicken saltimbocca works well with the Antinoo or the Frascati. For a meat dish like oven-roasted lamb cutlet, a Roman favorite, try a Petit Verdot red. Casale del Giglio makes a very good one. So when in Rome or at your favorite Eataly, experience the wines of Roma, from Lazio, and look around for a book on Caravaggio.

Since travel is a bit restricted at the moment, you can always travel the world of wine through a wine club. Cellars Wine Club offers a variety of choices including an International Wine Club (cellarswineclub.com). Take a look at all of the clubs by clicking on Cellars Wine Club under Of Art and Wine Pages. They all offer free shipping, a “no bad bottle” return policy, and Cellars will donate 15% of the sale to one of the vetted charities that you choose. While you enjoy the wine, you can feel good and do good – a perfect pairing.

Of Art and Wine affiliates with Bluehost.com and  CellarsWineClub.com and may earn from qualifying purchases.

©marjorie vernelle 2020

Coming Soon: Scandal! Sargent and Madame X. Was it the Sparkling Rosé?

Madame X by John Singer Sargent, 1884

Well, nothing like a good scandal. That is exactly what happened when these two American-born members of French society became perhaps a bit too French for the French. They say it was all about the strap of the gown being shown having slipped off her shoulder, but was it?