I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ilonka Karasz (1896-1981) 1962 bayIsaak Grünewald (Swedish, 1889 – 1946) Summer Scene Saltsjöbaden, c.1942from Country Gentleman’s MagazineMaximilien Luce (France 1858-1941) Yonne, the Road to Vermenton (1906)William Bowyer was taught by both Ruskin Spear and Carel Weight at the Royal College of Art;, Time for Lunch, Darling (1960)Claude Monet, The Artist’s Garden at VétheuilBiôt in Provence in 1923, Wilfred de GlehnThe house from Ponyo. (My analysis of that Studio Ghibli film is here.)Charles Courtney Curran – May Morning 1902Wilmot Emerton Heitland 1928Carl Frieseke (American, 1874–1939) The Judas Tree, 1908Woman’s World Magazine Sept 1917Charlotte Wahlstrom (Swedish,1849-1924) – Northern Summer n.d.Spring Blossoms, Abbott Fuller Graves American 1859–1936Helene Funke (German painter) 1869 – 1957 Ansicht von Notre Dame aus Port Henry-IV in ParisAn der Seine, ca. 1908American artist Arthur Grover Rider spent nine summers in SpainAlbert Marquet 1956, Pyla in BordeauxClaude Monet The Boardwalk At Trouville (1870)Peter Krøyer’s ‘Summer Day at Skagen South Beach’ (1884)Sorolla 1908In the shallows Dorothea Sharp (British, 1874–1955)Arthur Grover Rider (American, 1886-1975) Spanish Fisherman not datedEarly Morning. (1928) Kenneth Macqueen, AustraliaGustave Loiseau (French, 1865-1935) Spring 1906Telemaco Signorini Strada alla Capponcina (1880-82)‘The Echo.’ (1891) a young girl shouts into the Finnish midsummer nightRhoda Holmes Nichols (1854-1930)Pretty Penny by Edward Hopper, 1939. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MassachusettsEmile Claus (Belgian painter) 1849-1924 Mother and child in a sunlit gardenEdward Emerson Simmons (American painter) 1852-1931 ‘Concarneau’English painter Spencer Gore’s middle name was Frederick. He was known as Freddy, because his father was also ‘Spencer Gore’, famous as a tennis player. Here’s another painting Freddy Gore. The residual heat of a summer’s day is evident. ‘The Icknield Way’ 1912
Freddy decided it was a good idea to call his son Frederick. (Surely they weren’t both called ‘Freddy’?) Anyway, like his father, young Frederick Gore (1913-2009) also became a (Post-Impressionist) painter. His style was similar to that of his father, also known for his bright landscapes.
Valley of the Calavon, Bonnieux by Frederick Gore (1913 – 2009), Post-Impressionist English painterFrederick Gore ‘Mausanne’ (1938).
Giovanni Giacometti (Swiss, 1868 – 1933) ‘Greva of the Water’ 1927Ilonka Karasz (1896-1981) The New Yorker 1960Frank Sherwin (1896 – 1986) c1935 travel poster illustration for Penzance, Cornwall and Great Western RailwaySouthern Switzerland Poster by Daniele Buzzi, 1943Miep de Feijter, 1930s‘Buttonwood Farm’, N.C. Wyeth, oil on canvas, 1920. See also: Painting The Haze Of Hot Summer Days.Kay, Country Gentleman MagazineIvan Bilibin (1876 1942) 1921 ‘A Street in Cairo’Gustave Caillebotte (French painter) “Rue Saint-Denis, Montmartre”, 1880Adrian Paul Allinson (British painter) 1890-1959 ‘Harvesting’, 1939Bobbsey Twins At The Seashore Whitman Edition 1954 full coverNATIONAL FARM JOURNAL OCTOBER 1931 cover art, illustrator not foundGabriele Münter (German, 1877 – 1962) Tutzing 1908In the Garden, Edvard Munch, 1902, an artist everyone will recognise from ‘The Scream‘. Nikolai Alexandrovich Tarkhov (Russian painter) 1871-1930, the artist’s son 1916-18. Pretty Munchian. George Henry (1858-1943), ‘Ladies by a Loch’. You can probably guess the nationality of the painter from ‘loch’. ‘A September Day’, also by George Henry.Peder Mørk Mønsted (Danish, 1859–1941). This painting was completed in 1897.Spring. A Young Couple in a Rowing Boat on Odense Å (1896) by Hans Andersen Brendekilde (Danish, 1857–1942)House & Garden Magazine July 1933. (The name of the artist can probably found in the colophon, if someone has access to it.) Homes and Gardens July 1938 magazine coverHouse and Garden cover art by A.E. Marty, November 1933. The elongated body of the mother is very Art Deco. Even the children have been stretched out a bit. (And so has the house.)A Coca Cola advertisement from 1957, with art by Al Moore. The Coca-Cola company has the funds to employ the most talented advertisers and artists. They’ve always been very good at making Coca-cola look happy, bright, healthy and fun.Maurice de Vlaminck (French, 1876-1958) Paul GauguinAgnes Cleve (1876-1951) View from GullholmenFarmer’s Wife Magazine September 1935Eleanor Vere Boyle,1825-1916 The cuckoo has come, 1879. This one’s not quite as yellow, but the colour scheme still suggests a bright, warm, sunny day. (Is that a massive cat or a very small girl?)Fritz Baumgarten (1883 – 1966) was a German illustrator who created warm, bright illustrations for a child audience, emphasising animal and insect life.Another scene by Fritz Baumgarten. A forest restaurant, well patronised by woodland creatures.A. Cucchi. The colours of this rock are amazing.The House of Therese Krones, 1912-1914 Oscar Moll (German fauvist, 1875-1947)Kenneth Steel (1906-1970) has made the Western Highlands look bright and warm. ‘See Britain By Train’.From a contemporary picture book called Flotsam by David Wiesner. Heat can also be conveyed via a more analogous palette.Joop Polder, born in 1939 in The Hague, creates Surreal landscapes and in this one the heat is evident.
Now I’m moving on to a technique which conveys brightness and heat: A darker foreground, creating a juxtaposition. It also creates depth, of course.
James Edwin Meadows – Sandhurst from Camp Hill, 1884.John Brett – Florence from BellosguardoWilliam Smithson Broadhead’s Scarborough railway poster illustration of the 1930sJohn Samuel Raven – Saint-foin in BloomJames Jacques Joseph Tissot – Croquet. The dog is sensible. I would also be enjoying the shade if the heat were that yellow.1936 Country Gentleman Magazine MARCH. Bright sunny days are sometimes snowy!Władysław JAROCKI (1879-1965) Winter in Polish village (Poronin)‘Morning in January’, Gerald Gardiner, oil on canvas, before 1959Cuno Amiet (Swiss 1868-1961) The Blue House (1949)Warm, sunny days aren’t always cosy and happy, either. This creepy image is by Balthus Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, a Polish-French artist (1908-2001). It’s called The Mediterranean Cat (1949).
Header illustration: Georges Dorival (1879-1968) 1914 travel poster illustration for Hyères, a French town on the Mediterranean Coast
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
