Monday, July 23, 2001
DIY guide to American architecture
LOOKING BACK by Wally Dobelis
This explanation is by popular demand (ok, limited popular demand), although the eager may hate me for omitting illustrations and trying to describe features verbally. It concentrates on what you see in New York and upstate. Style elements described are typical, and may be omitted and mixed.
First, look at rooflines. Residential and also business buildings with overhanging eaves or cornices sporting good-sized brackets are Italianate . If the windows diminish in height on 2nd and 3rd floors; if they have round crowns (lintels), that’s further proof. The crowns often have symbolic center keystones, a borrowed element from basic vault construction.Some are crowned by the classical pediments, slightly flattened isosceles triangles (the essential truss-like structure basic to roof construction, in Greek temples as well as in snowy countries).
You are likely to be looking at a Colonial or Georgian Renewal (to 1850, the genuine article dated 1700 to 1830 is scarce, since the Great Fires of 1835 and 1845), if the edge below the eaves is like an abbreviated miniature entablature (the roof-column junction in classic orders) with a course of delicate small blocks, dentils, or thin long brackets, modillions. [The classic entablature elements are: a cornice, as described above but bracketless, then a flat band, or frieze (in home constrution it is called fascia, and the flat underside of the eaves is known as the soffit) which in Greek temples was, decorated with a series of triglyphs (rectangular boxes, each with three or more vertical slots) or metopes (a continuous angular line that twists itself in and out of a string of boxes) then followed below by another flat band, called architrave. Some of these elements appear in several of the described styles, particularly over doorways.] To see the original buildings in most of the styles described here, you have to visit small upstate vacation towns, where you should be spending your money anyway, while tanking up on our history.
Georgians have center dorways and balanced ranks (stacks) of windows on each side; later revivals are often unbalanced. Georgian doors are crowned by flattened-triangular or oval pediments, and framed by pilasters (flat reliefs of columns) on both sides, and may have small entry porches supported by columns. Edges of buildings have quoins, rough stones set in a zigzag pattern. Roofs are hipped (corners sheared off) and there’s either a center chimney or two end chimneys. If the porch is building-high (particularly if building-wide), it’s a Greek Revival; if two stories high, a Classic Revival (like Georgeans, to 1850).
Not all Greek Revivals (1840-80) look like temples of the Classic Antiquity, their most commonly seen design feature is a pediment-like gable facing the street, predominantly a discontinuous pediment (center of the triangle’s bottom is missing), just bent under the eaves, as though to constitute the capitals of the column-like vertical wooden corner posts of the buildings. We have lots ‘em in the City (government buildings, Friends Meeting on Stuyvesant Square). Other Greek Revivals look like Colonials, broadside to the street, but with a center pedimented gable, like a huge dormer, facing the street.
.
Back to the Georgian Revivals. Their windows are distinctly framed, with straight crowns (lintels), some with a center keystone Standard windows are double-hung, with tiny panes, 9/9 or 12/12. A later important variation are the Adams (1780-1840; he also influenced the Hepplewhite furniture style) or Federal style structures, distinguished by a narrow window (sidelight) on each side of the door, and a semi-circular or elliptic fanlight, with a sunburst pattern, above the door, all inside the pilaster surrounds. The door is sometimes topped by a flat entablature or a pediment (full or discontinuous; the "broken" pediment, with. a piece artfully removed in each slanted top line, is common in the late revivals). Decorative elements between windows - garlands, swags, cartouches (like the spaces for the legend in ancient maps) - abound. Federal structures have a three-part or Palladian window (named after the Roman architect) in the 2nd floor, above the door, with a circular band crowning the larger center window, and under the eaves they also may have decorative dentils or modillions.
If the roof of a building, broadside, is broken, consising of a steep bottom, then a flatter top part, you’re looking at an 1600-1700s Dutch-style gambrel-roofed structure. Not found in the city, they also have the ends of beams stick out in the steeple-end facade, decorated with metal, as though they were holding the building from exploding outwards. If the steeper bottom is concave, you’re at a French mansard-roofed building (1855-85, see the former Guardian Life, now W hotel; the old Arnold Constable and the Gorham, 19th and Broadway) The latter is known as the Second Empire style
If the roof of a dwelling is steep and the gable end has peaks-and-valleys or wave-pattern boards hanging down (verge boards), this is a Gothic Revival (1840-80), most popular in churches and government buildings. The windows may end with pointed arches , ditto their crowns; finials at the roof-ends; the building may bee cross-gabled (four gables).NYC schools built in the popular Greek Revival sstyle may have corner towers, crenelated parapets (railings above the eaves), and roofs studded with pinnacles or finials.
Coming to Victorian times, Stick Style 1860-90) links the Greek and Gothic Revival to the subsequent Queen Anne style. The street-side gabled fronts of residences have truss-like outside timber showing in the top half of the pediment. Vertical and horizontal wood siding, sometimes x-ed over by decorative timber, x-balusters in porch railings, and crossed decorative elements throughout identify this style. Porch supports have tops like flatttened-out tripods..
A more long-lived Victorian variety is the Queen Anne style (1880-1920), with houses of many gables. Flat surfaces are avoided at any cost. The roofs slant and join every-which way, there are long porches, sometimes with classical columns, more often with supports topped by what look like spread-out decorated trident pitchforks (called spindlework, present also in balusters and vertical ornaments below the eawes of porches). Gable end pediments are filled with half-timbering (like the Tudor houses of the last half-century), turrets with round cupolas abound , as do dormers, with hipped, or pedimented, arched or double-arched roofs, boggling the mind.
The Shingle Style (1880-1920), equally eclectic, may have shingled walls (above the first floor, which may be of rusticated stone), multi-level roofs cutting into each other. Lots more porches with brick, heavy stone or thick, classic column supports, many sporting Romanesque stone vaulting above the stone posts. There are good-sized gables in the roof, with big windows in the tympanum (center of the pediment), to make the living space in the garret more useful.
Richardsonian Romanesque (1880-1900) influenced the Shingle style (note the stone-vaulted porches). Although Henry Hobson Richardson died at 48, in 1886, his rough stone-faced elevations, round stone-vaulted entrances and windows and round cone-topped towers were perpetrated by his followers. Boston’s Trinity Church and Cambridge’s City Hall are prime examples. The several buildings around Union Square and Park Avenue South do not look quite like there should be a moat around each one, but you can get the taste of it.
More to come, on cast-iron, Tudor, Beaux-Arts, Prairie, Craftsman, curtain-wall structures. Thanks to V. & L. McAlesters and many other authors. Time and money permitting, I may do a layman’ architectural style booklet, with illustrations, for New Yorkers. NP
This explanation is by popular demand (ok, limited popular demand), although the eager may hate me for omitting illustrations and trying to describe features verbally. It concentrates on what you see in New York and upstate. Style elements described are typical, and may be omitted and mixed.
First, look at rooflines. Residential and also business buildings with overhanging eaves or cornices sporting good-sized brackets are Italianate . If the windows diminish in height on 2nd and 3rd floors; if they have round crowns (lintels), that’s further proof. The crowns often have symbolic center keystones, a borrowed element from basic vault construction.Some are crowned by the classical pediments, slightly flattened isosceles triangles (the essential truss-like structure basic to roof construction, in Greek temples as well as in snowy countries).
You are likely to be looking at a Colonial or Georgian Renewal (to 1850, the genuine article dated 1700 to 1830 is scarce, since the Great Fires of 1835 and 1845), if the edge below the eaves is like an abbreviated miniature entablature (the roof-column junction in classic orders) with a course of delicate small blocks, dentils, or thin long brackets, modillions. [The classic entablature elements are: a cornice, as described above but bracketless, then a flat band, or frieze (in home constrution it is called fascia, and the flat underside of the eaves is known as the soffit) which in Greek temples was, decorated with a series of triglyphs (rectangular boxes, each with three or more vertical slots) or metopes (a continuous angular line that twists itself in and out of a string of boxes) then followed below by another flat band, called architrave. Some of these elements appear in several of the described styles, particularly over doorways.] To see the original buildings in most of the styles described here, you have to visit small upstate vacation towns, where you should be spending your money anyway, while tanking up on our history.
Georgians have center dorways and balanced ranks (stacks) of windows on each side; later revivals are often unbalanced. Georgian doors are crowned by flattened-triangular or oval pediments, and framed by pilasters (flat reliefs of columns) on both sides, and may have small entry porches supported by columns. Edges of buildings have quoins, rough stones set in a zigzag pattern. Roofs are hipped (corners sheared off) and there’s either a center chimney or two end chimneys. If the porch is building-high (particularly if building-wide), it’s a Greek Revival; if two stories high, a Classic Revival (like Georgeans, to 1850).
Not all Greek Revivals (1840-80) look like temples of the Classic Antiquity, their most commonly seen design feature is a pediment-like gable facing the street, predominantly a discontinuous pediment (center of the triangle’s bottom is missing), just bent under the eaves, as though to constitute the capitals of the column-like vertical wooden corner posts of the buildings. We have lots ‘em in the City (government buildings, Friends Meeting on Stuyvesant Square). Other Greek Revivals look like Colonials, broadside to the street, but with a center pedimented gable, like a huge dormer, facing the street.
.
Back to the Georgian Revivals. Their windows are distinctly framed, with straight crowns (lintels), some with a center keystone Standard windows are double-hung, with tiny panes, 9/9 or 12/12. A later important variation are the Adams (1780-1840; he also influenced the Hepplewhite furniture style) or Federal style structures, distinguished by a narrow window (sidelight) on each side of the door, and a semi-circular or elliptic fanlight, with a sunburst pattern, above the door, all inside the pilaster surrounds. The door is sometimes topped by a flat entablature or a pediment (full or discontinuous; the "broken" pediment, with. a piece artfully removed in each slanted top line, is common in the late revivals). Decorative elements between windows - garlands, swags, cartouches (like the spaces for the legend in ancient maps) - abound. Federal structures have a three-part or Palladian window (named after the Roman architect) in the 2nd floor, above the door, with a circular band crowning the larger center window, and under the eaves they also may have decorative dentils or modillions.
If the roof of a building, broadside, is broken, consising of a steep bottom, then a flatter top part, you’re looking at an 1600-1700s Dutch-style gambrel-roofed structure. Not found in the city, they also have the ends of beams stick out in the steeple-end facade, decorated with metal, as though they were holding the building from exploding outwards. If the steeper bottom is concave, you’re at a French mansard-roofed building (1855-85, see the former Guardian Life, now W hotel; the old Arnold Constable and the Gorham, 19th and Broadway) The latter is known as the Second Empire style
If the roof of a dwelling is steep and the gable end has peaks-and-valleys or wave-pattern boards hanging down (verge boards), this is a Gothic Revival (1840-80), most popular in churches and government buildings. The windows may end with pointed arches , ditto their crowns; finials at the roof-ends; the building may bee cross-gabled (four gables).NYC schools built in the popular Greek Revival sstyle may have corner towers, crenelated parapets (railings above the eaves), and roofs studded with pinnacles or finials.
Coming to Victorian times, Stick Style 1860-90) links the Greek and Gothic Revival to the subsequent Queen Anne style. The street-side gabled fronts of residences have truss-like outside timber showing in the top half of the pediment. Vertical and horizontal wood siding, sometimes x-ed over by decorative timber, x-balusters in porch railings, and crossed decorative elements throughout identify this style. Porch supports have tops like flatttened-out tripods..
A more long-lived Victorian variety is the Queen Anne style (1880-1920), with houses of many gables. Flat surfaces are avoided at any cost. The roofs slant and join every-which way, there are long porches, sometimes with classical columns, more often with supports topped by what look like spread-out decorated trident pitchforks (called spindlework, present also in balusters and vertical ornaments below the eawes of porches). Gable end pediments are filled with half-timbering (like the Tudor houses of the last half-century), turrets with round cupolas abound , as do dormers, with hipped, or pedimented, arched or double-arched roofs, boggling the mind.
The Shingle Style (1880-1920), equally eclectic, may have shingled walls (above the first floor, which may be of rusticated stone), multi-level roofs cutting into each other. Lots more porches with brick, heavy stone or thick, classic column supports, many sporting Romanesque stone vaulting above the stone posts. There are good-sized gables in the roof, with big windows in the tympanum (center of the pediment), to make the living space in the garret more useful.
Richardsonian Romanesque (1880-1900) influenced the Shingle style (note the stone-vaulted porches). Although Henry Hobson Richardson died at 48, in 1886, his rough stone-faced elevations, round stone-vaulted entrances and windows and round cone-topped towers were perpetrated by his followers. Boston’s Trinity Church and Cambridge’s City Hall are prime examples. The several buildings around Union Square and Park Avenue South do not look quite like there should be a moat around each one, but you can get the taste of it.
More to come, on cast-iron, Tudor, Beaux-Arts, Prairie, Craftsman, curtain-wall structures. Thanks to V. & L. McAlesters and many other authors. Time and money permitting, I may do a layman’ architectural style booklet, with illustrations, for New Yorkers. NP
Preventing the brownout in New York
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The lit-up New York skyline has always been a charming and reassuring sight. Today, though, in view of the energy crises that have affected California and may also affect us in the Northeast, it becomes a witness to the huge wastage of energy resources and the atmospheric pollution that we, citizens of the richest country in the world, have indulged in since the energy crises of the 1970s. Even President Bush has proudly spoken of the American privilege of being wasteful.
We are about to get our comeuppance, although the gasoline prices have temporarily gone down and California feels triumphant, for now. We will get hurt short-term, for not building more energy plants and electric lines, to cope with increasing population and technology needs, and in the long-term, when the earth’s oil resources run out in 38 years (my conclusion based on US government statistics), and we will have not developed alternative sources and will have to rush into building atomic energy plants.
First, though, about those lit-up buildings, store windows, 24/7 climate control HVACs in business environments, and such. Huge waste, controllable by simple flick of the switch. An architect friend tells me that many commercial buildings turn off the lights at 11 PM, and put them back on at 6 AM or thereabouts, with the same schedule on weekends. To save money, many buildings are directly tied to breakers (panels) with 277 volt 3-phase lines, and cannot be interrupted with ease. Another concern causing waste is security, ease of access for the periodic night visits by guards A more justified security concern is lighting the streets, very necessary, controlled by timers or "electric eyes.". Government agencies do energy audits and provide some tax benefits for energy savings. There is no code, though, that punishes abuse of electric current.
Federal government encourages employment of alternate sources of clean energy. What are they? Well, first of all, photovoltaic (PV) panels, that convert solar energy into electricity, heat or air conditioning. Fuel cells or batteries save some of this perishable stuff. Fox and Fowle, a "green architecture" proponent firm, built the Conde Nast 48-story tower at 4 Times Square with PV panels in the walls, two fuel cells (batteries), gas-fired absorption panels, and, to top it, a network of recycling chutes throughout the building. Imagine, if all the future tall buildings could have PV panels in their walls? A small F&F structure, the 9,000 sq ft Black Rock Forest consortium office, by use of the above, plus a heat pump system (Pres. Bush and VP Cheney both use them) projects 45 percent less energy costs than a traditional building. These features exemplify a new standard..
This standard is being legislated. In Massachusetts. The use of glass walls may be history, if they seriously enforce certain existing building codes. Glass surfaces, even with double panes, are wasteful of energy, since they provide very limited insulation. Pre-cast PV panels may become the wall standard for curtain-wall buildings .They are lightweight, energy-generating and good insulant. Note well that energy considerations may create a complete revolution in architecture.
The US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency is promoting a Million Solar Roofs, with the expectation that such roofs by the year 2010 will reduce emissions equivalent to those of 850,000 cars, not to speak of energy savings. Installing PV cells, solar hot water and related systems will also generate 70,000 new jobs. Tax incentives exist already, 10 percent for home installations, 35 percent for businesses.
With all these efforts on hand in curbing energy waste in the business world, let us not forget the things that we the individuals can do. If President Johnson could walk through the White House turning off lights, we could easily do the same in our smaller home environments. We can also install certain less electricity consuming light fixtures, such as fluorescent light bulbs. We can turn off our computers when not in use. We can lower thermostats and wear sweaters in cool periods - the Brits have been doing it for centuries. As to all those little blinkers in ranges, coffee makers and every which electric household device that eases our life, the energy waste that these trillion points of light represent boggles the mind.
Where does that leave us? According to a NYS Public Service Commission spokesman, this state has 35,000 megawatts online, with 18 percent excess capacity. But, energy use in NYC grows at 5 percent a year. Conservatively, NYS needs to add 2,000 MW capacity annually . Most NYS utilities have sold their generating plants to independents, to lower costs through competition, with some success. But, most of our plants are nearing the age of 30, requiring construction of new facilities. Further, NYS has not built new transmission lines for 11 yea rs, the old ones are overloaded and shifting energy around is a very roundabout and difficult task. The claim is that siting new plants and lines runs not only into the familiar NIMBY but also NOPE (not on planet Earth) opposition.
With the best intentions to save energy, consumers do not always succeed. The Columbia County Independent reports of a farmer who installed $15,000 worth of solar panels and a DC to AC converter, only to fail in getting interconnected with the NYSEG "net-metering" gear, required by the 1997 deregulation law. This method connects the home and the utility energy sources, and the meter runs backwards when the sun panels generate electricity.. Utilities are known to erect these barriers, according to Solar Works, a partner with NYS in helping consumers install clean energy systems. You can imagine their reasons .Further, across the border there’s Hydro Quebec, with 49 clean energy generators good for 37,000 MW that we political fools do not want to buy from. Yech!.
But there is progress. Distributed power generating business, such as Plug Power of Latham, NY now can build inexpensive power generators hooked to the public power grid, using proton exchange membrane cells for storage. It is presumably a clean process, splitting hydrogen atoms into protons and neutrons. The former, reacting with oxygen in the air, create a source of DC electricity, stored for buildings, light duty vehicles and cameras. This process was used by NASA for the Gemini and Apollo projects. The cost of the platinum catalyst, $9,000 for a 7 kilowatt source in 1980, is down to $50 . The byproduct heat can now be recaptured, .increasing the effectiveness of the process. For what it is worth, Pete Seeger uses this or a similar process for powering his home and vehicles.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Independent for the use of its material.
The lit-up New York skyline has always been a charming and reassuring sight. Today, though, in view of the energy crises that have affected California and may also affect us in the Northeast, it becomes a witness to the huge wastage of energy resources and the atmospheric pollution that we, citizens of the richest country in the world, have indulged in since the energy crises of the 1970s. Even President Bush has proudly spoken of the American privilege of being wasteful.
We are about to get our comeuppance, although the gasoline prices have temporarily gone down and California feels triumphant, for now. We will get hurt short-term, for not building more energy plants and electric lines, to cope with increasing population and technology needs, and in the long-term, when the earth’s oil resources run out in 38 years (my conclusion based on US government statistics), and we will have not developed alternative sources and will have to rush into building atomic energy plants.
First, though, about those lit-up buildings, store windows, 24/7 climate control HVACs in business environments, and such. Huge waste, controllable by simple flick of the switch. An architect friend tells me that many commercial buildings turn off the lights at 11 PM, and put them back on at 6 AM or thereabouts, with the same schedule on weekends. To save money, many buildings are directly tied to breakers (panels) with 277 volt 3-phase lines, and cannot be interrupted with ease. Another concern causing waste is security, ease of access for the periodic night visits by guards A more justified security concern is lighting the streets, very necessary, controlled by timers or "electric eyes.". Government agencies do energy audits and provide some tax benefits for energy savings. There is no code, though, that punishes abuse of electric current.
Federal government encourages employment of alternate sources of clean energy. What are they? Well, first of all, photovoltaic (PV) panels, that convert solar energy into electricity, heat or air conditioning. Fuel cells or batteries save some of this perishable stuff. Fox and Fowle, a "green architecture" proponent firm, built the Conde Nast 48-story tower at 4 Times Square with PV panels in the walls, two fuel cells (batteries), gas-fired absorption panels, and, to top it, a network of recycling chutes throughout the building. Imagine, if all the future tall buildings could have PV panels in their walls? A small F&F structure, the 9,000 sq ft Black Rock Forest consortium office, by use of the above, plus a heat pump system (Pres. Bush and VP Cheney both use them) projects 45 percent less energy costs than a traditional building. These features exemplify a new standard..
This standard is being legislated. In Massachusetts. The use of glass walls may be history, if they seriously enforce certain existing building codes. Glass surfaces, even with double panes, are wasteful of energy, since they provide very limited insulation. Pre-cast PV panels may become the wall standard for curtain-wall buildings .They are lightweight, energy-generating and good insulant. Note well that energy considerations may create a complete revolution in architecture.
The US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency is promoting a Million Solar Roofs, with the expectation that such roofs by the year 2010 will reduce emissions equivalent to those of 850,000 cars, not to speak of energy savings. Installing PV cells, solar hot water and related systems will also generate 70,000 new jobs. Tax incentives exist already, 10 percent for home installations, 35 percent for businesses.
With all these efforts on hand in curbing energy waste in the business world, let us not forget the things that we the individuals can do. If President Johnson could walk through the White House turning off lights, we could easily do the same in our smaller home environments. We can also install certain less electricity consuming light fixtures, such as fluorescent light bulbs. We can turn off our computers when not in use. We can lower thermostats and wear sweaters in cool periods - the Brits have been doing it for centuries. As to all those little blinkers in ranges, coffee makers and every which electric household device that eases our life, the energy waste that these trillion points of light represent boggles the mind.
Where does that leave us? According to a NYS Public Service Commission spokesman, this state has 35,000 megawatts online, with 18 percent excess capacity. But, energy use in NYC grows at 5 percent a year. Conservatively, NYS needs to add 2,000 MW capacity annually . Most NYS utilities have sold their generating plants to independents, to lower costs through competition, with some success. But, most of our plants are nearing the age of 30, requiring construction of new facilities. Further, NYS has not built new transmission lines for 11 yea rs, the old ones are overloaded and shifting energy around is a very roundabout and difficult task. The claim is that siting new plants and lines runs not only into the familiar NIMBY but also NOPE (not on planet Earth) opposition.
With the best intentions to save energy, consumers do not always succeed. The Columbia County Independent reports of a farmer who installed $15,000 worth of solar panels and a DC to AC converter, only to fail in getting interconnected with the NYSEG "net-metering" gear, required by the 1997 deregulation law. This method connects the home and the utility energy sources, and the meter runs backwards when the sun panels generate electricity.. Utilities are known to erect these barriers, according to Solar Works, a partner with NYS in helping consumers install clean energy systems. You can imagine their reasons .Further, across the border there’s Hydro Quebec, with 49 clean energy generators good for 37,000 MW that we political fools do not want to buy from. Yech!.
But there is progress. Distributed power generating business, such as Plug Power of Latham, NY now can build inexpensive power generators hooked to the public power grid, using proton exchange membrane cells for storage. It is presumably a clean process, splitting hydrogen atoms into protons and neutrons. The former, reacting with oxygen in the air, create a source of DC electricity, stored for buildings, light duty vehicles and cameras. This process was used by NASA for the Gemini and Apollo projects. The cost of the platinum catalyst, $9,000 for a 7 kilowatt source in 1980, is down to $50 . The byproduct heat can now be recaptured, .increasing the effectiveness of the process. For what it is worth, Pete Seeger uses this or a similar process for powering his home and vehicles.
Wally Dobelis thanks the Independent for the use of its material.
Thursday, July 19, 2001
Gramercy history - the Fields brothers and Henriette Desportes
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
There is an interesting historical connection between Gramercy Park and Stockbridge, the elegant little vacation town in the Berkshires, popular with the Tanglewood crowd. Although best known as Norman Rockwell's residence from 1953 to his death in 1978 (he was there mostly because his wife was receiving treatment at the Austen Riggs Institute, a closely guarded local secret), and the home of Arlo Guthrie's Alice’s Restaurant (until recently Naji’s, now Teresa's; Arlo is still a neighbor, in nearby Washington, and has created a Huntington's Chorea research foundation and community center in an old church on the Housatonic), it was founded as a cottage colony of the rich and famous, not unlike Jekyll Island, GA, and Portsmouth, RI. Its 1884 St. Paul’s Episcopal Church has a Stanford White baptistery and Tiffany windows.
The Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards came in 1751, as the second minister in the Mission Church, 15 years after it was founded by John Sergeant, to serve the Mahican Indians. (Edwards's hexagonal slanted Lazy Susan writing desk is in on exhibit the Stockbridge Library; he was able to work simultaneously on six sermons 250 years before Steve Jobs and Bill Gates came up with the methodologies of swapping pages)
Stockbridge was the home town of the illustrious Field brothers. Their father, the Rev. David Dudley Field, came to Stockbridge in 1819, as the fourth minister of the Congregational Church. He had seven sons and two daughters. Stephen Johnson Field (1816-99) was appointed to the US Supreme Court in 1863 and served for 34 years. Jonathan Edwards Field (1813-680 was a NY lawyer, a MA State Senator and President of the Senate.. Our story mostly deals with three other brothers. Two of them owned connected houses at 49 and 50 Gramercy Park North, where now No. 1 Lexington Avenue stands.
David Dudley Field, Jr (1805-94), a successful NY lawyer, defended such rascals as Jay Gould, James Fisk and "Boss" Tweed. His world-wide fame in the history of law stems from the codification of NYS law, which he prompted in 1847. Within the next three years, he succeeded in codifying court procedure and civil procedure that became part of the law throughout the US, and of the 1870s English Judicature laws, adopted by many British colonies. He also prompted reform of the criminal procedure. An important reform was the abolishment of the distinction between law and
equity proceedings. Eventually he also reformed the NYS penal code (1881).
Cyrus West Field (1819-92) had a more dramatic impact on the world. He eschewed law and became a successful wholesale paper merchant, retiring in 1853, but a year later the idea of laying a communications cable across the Atlantic aroused his interest. He raised American and British
capital, obtained te loan of two naval vessels to lay the cable and successfully transmitted the first message in 1856 - but the cable died three weeks later. Undaunted, he went back to gathering more funds, and in 1866 the paddle-wheeler Great Eastern, a converted giant passenger ship, laid a cable that lasted. Fields continued, creating more communications lines, between Hawaii, Asia and Australia. In 1877 he built the 3rd Avenue Elevated line. Neighbors Peter Cooper and Samuel F. B. .Morse were Cyrus‘s unfailing supporters of his efforts.
Rev. Henry Martyn Field (1822-1907), who as a child had to wear the cast-off clothes of all of his siblings (country clergy are poor), followed his father's choice and became a minister. In 1851 he married the notorious Henriette Desportes (1813-75), teacher of French at Miss Haines School for Girls at 10 Gramercy Park East. She had been the governess of the children of Fanny Sebastiani, the Duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin, for six years. The latter was found, brutally murdered in her boudoir, on August 18, 1847, a few months after she fired Henriette. While on trial for the murder, her husband the Duke, Theobald de Praslin, killed himself by swallowing strychnine, a horribly painful death that burns out the insides of the victim. Some form of coverup was suspected.
The popular disgust with the French aristocracy fed by this event contributed to the causes that led to the Revolution of 1848, abolishing the monarchy of Louis Philippe..Henriette was rumored to have been the mistress and accomplice of the Duke. Acquitted but living under a cloud of suspicion, in 1849 she came to New York to teach. Stories of her daily march of young girls around Gramercy Park may have inspired Ludwig Bemelmans to write about Madeleine, the littlest of twelve girls "who lived in a house covered by vines and walked two-by-two in straight lines."
New York was difficult for the newlyweds, Mrs Cyrus Field refused to receive her sister-in law "the murderess," and the couple moved to West Springfield MA where Henry was installed as the minister in 1851.In 1854 Henry accepted the editorship of The Evangelist, and they moved back, to an apartment at 102 East 18th Street (now 215 Park Avenue South). . Although Henriette had to tutor French, teach art at Cooper Union (she was a painter) and accept boarders to make ends meet, the house became a literary salon, frequently visited by such luminaries as William Cullen Bryant, Richard Watson Gilder and both Harriet Beecher Stowe and her brother Henry Ward Beecher . In 1855 the Fields moved back to Stockbridge, with Henry commuting to New York every other week. Henrietta died at 62, in 1875. Henry outlived her by 32 years, wrote some dozen books on travel and Irish, Mideast and Far Eastern politics, a history of the Atlantic Cable. and a biography of his father. His library was auctioned in NYC in 1912.. Henrietta’s writings, Home Sketches of France and Other Papers, were published posthumously. A perky Judy Garland type in an early picture, the late portrait by Eastman Johnson shows a mature calm face. This was not a Mrs Siddons as portrayed by Joshua Reynolds, nor a Maya by Goya, that would launch violent passions.
Henriette’s life has been much romanticized. Rachel Fields Pedersen (1894-1942), grand-daughter of Matthew Dickinson Field, the least-known brother, wrote All This And Heaven Too (1940, Lippincott), a biography that defends Henrietta. Rachel's friendship with Bette Davis prompted a
1940 film of the book, with Charles Boyer portraying the handsome Duc de Praslin, and Jeffrey Lynd as Henry. Though long and deemed tedious, it was nominated for Academy Awards. Another book, A Crime of Passion, by Stanley Loomis (I have no copy), indicates its thrust by the title.. A 1942 article in the New England Quarterly by Nathalia Wright associates Henriette with the character of Miriam in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun (1860), with some justification. Contemporary writings variously defending and attacking Henriette abound - Victor Hugo was a partisan.
Wally Dobelis thanks Barbara Allen, Curator of the Stockbridge Library, for assistance and the use of their material.
There is an interesting historical connection between Gramercy Park and Stockbridge, the elegant little vacation town in the Berkshires, popular with the Tanglewood crowd. Although best known as Norman Rockwell's residence from 1953 to his death in 1978 (he was there mostly because his wife was receiving treatment at the Austen Riggs Institute, a closely guarded local secret), and the home of Arlo Guthrie's Alice’s Restaurant (until recently Naji’s, now Teresa's; Arlo is still a neighbor, in nearby Washington, and has created a Huntington's Chorea research foundation and community center in an old church on the Housatonic), it was founded as a cottage colony of the rich and famous, not unlike Jekyll Island, GA, and Portsmouth, RI. Its 1884 St. Paul’s Episcopal Church has a Stanford White baptistery and Tiffany windows.
The Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards came in 1751, as the second minister in the Mission Church, 15 years after it was founded by John Sergeant, to serve the Mahican Indians. (Edwards's hexagonal slanted Lazy Susan writing desk is in on exhibit the Stockbridge Library; he was able to work simultaneously on six sermons 250 years before Steve Jobs and Bill Gates came up with the methodologies of swapping pages)
Stockbridge was the home town of the illustrious Field brothers. Their father, the Rev. David Dudley Field, came to Stockbridge in 1819, as the fourth minister of the Congregational Church. He had seven sons and two daughters. Stephen Johnson Field (1816-99) was appointed to the US Supreme Court in 1863 and served for 34 years. Jonathan Edwards Field (1813-680 was a NY lawyer, a MA State Senator and President of the Senate.. Our story mostly deals with three other brothers. Two of them owned connected houses at 49 and 50 Gramercy Park North, where now No. 1 Lexington Avenue stands.
David Dudley Field, Jr (1805-94), a successful NY lawyer, defended such rascals as Jay Gould, James Fisk and "Boss" Tweed. His world-wide fame in the history of law stems from the codification of NYS law, which he prompted in 1847. Within the next three years, he succeeded in codifying court procedure and civil procedure that became part of the law throughout the US, and of the 1870s English Judicature laws, adopted by many British colonies. He also prompted reform of the criminal procedure. An important reform was the abolishment of the distinction between law and
equity proceedings. Eventually he also reformed the NYS penal code (1881).
Cyrus West Field (1819-92) had a more dramatic impact on the world. He eschewed law and became a successful wholesale paper merchant, retiring in 1853, but a year later the idea of laying a communications cable across the Atlantic aroused his interest. He raised American and British
capital, obtained te loan of two naval vessels to lay the cable and successfully transmitted the first message in 1856 - but the cable died three weeks later. Undaunted, he went back to gathering more funds, and in 1866 the paddle-wheeler Great Eastern, a converted giant passenger ship, laid a cable that lasted. Fields continued, creating more communications lines, between Hawaii, Asia and Australia. In 1877 he built the 3rd Avenue Elevated line. Neighbors Peter Cooper and Samuel F. B. .Morse were Cyrus‘s unfailing supporters of his efforts.
Rev. Henry Martyn Field (1822-1907), who as a child had to wear the cast-off clothes of all of his siblings (country clergy are poor), followed his father's choice and became a minister. In 1851 he married the notorious Henriette Desportes (1813-75), teacher of French at Miss Haines School for Girls at 10 Gramercy Park East. She had been the governess of the children of Fanny Sebastiani, the Duchesse de Choiseul-Praslin, for six years. The latter was found, brutally murdered in her boudoir, on August 18, 1847, a few months after she fired Henriette. While on trial for the murder, her husband the Duke, Theobald de Praslin, killed himself by swallowing strychnine, a horribly painful death that burns out the insides of the victim. Some form of coverup was suspected.
The popular disgust with the French aristocracy fed by this event contributed to the causes that led to the Revolution of 1848, abolishing the monarchy of Louis Philippe..Henriette was rumored to have been the mistress and accomplice of the Duke. Acquitted but living under a cloud of suspicion, in 1849 she came to New York to teach. Stories of her daily march of young girls around Gramercy Park may have inspired Ludwig Bemelmans to write about Madeleine, the littlest of twelve girls "who lived in a house covered by vines and walked two-by-two in straight lines."
New York was difficult for the newlyweds, Mrs Cyrus Field refused to receive her sister-in law "the murderess," and the couple moved to West Springfield MA where Henry was installed as the minister in 1851.In 1854 Henry accepted the editorship of The Evangelist, and they moved back, to an apartment at 102 East 18th Street (now 215 Park Avenue South). . Although Henriette had to tutor French, teach art at Cooper Union (she was a painter) and accept boarders to make ends meet, the house became a literary salon, frequently visited by such luminaries as William Cullen Bryant, Richard Watson Gilder and both Harriet Beecher Stowe and her brother Henry Ward Beecher . In 1855 the Fields moved back to Stockbridge, with Henry commuting to New York every other week. Henrietta died at 62, in 1875. Henry outlived her by 32 years, wrote some dozen books on travel and Irish, Mideast and Far Eastern politics, a history of the Atlantic Cable. and a biography of his father. His library was auctioned in NYC in 1912.. Henrietta’s writings, Home Sketches of France and Other Papers, were published posthumously. A perky Judy Garland type in an early picture, the late portrait by Eastman Johnson shows a mature calm face. This was not a Mrs Siddons as portrayed by Joshua Reynolds, nor a Maya by Goya, that would launch violent passions.
Henriette’s life has been much romanticized. Rachel Fields Pedersen (1894-1942), grand-daughter of Matthew Dickinson Field, the least-known brother, wrote All This And Heaven Too (1940, Lippincott), a biography that defends Henrietta. Rachel's friendship with Bette Davis prompted a
1940 film of the book, with Charles Boyer portraying the handsome Duc de Praslin, and Jeffrey Lynd as Henry. Though long and deemed tedious, it was nominated for Academy Awards. Another book, A Crime of Passion, by Stanley Loomis (I have no copy), indicates its thrust by the title.. A 1942 article in the New England Quarterly by Nathalia Wright associates Henriette with the character of Miriam in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Marble Faun (1860), with some justification. Contemporary writings variously defending and attacking Henriette abound - Victor Hugo was a partisan.
Wally Dobelis thanks Barbara Allen, Curator of the Stockbridge Library, for assistance and the use of their material.
Friday, July 13, 2001
Impressionists at the Clark Institute
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The 216-year old Williams College resides in a picturesque valley, surrounded by the green mountains of Northern Berkshires, in Williamstown, MA. It is there that Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956) in the 1950s moved his collection of fine art, for fear of its destruction in an atomic war. He built a marble structure to house the assemblage, which by the year 2001 has grown to 500 paintings, 700 drawings, 3000 prints and thousands of silver and porcelain rarities, collected in 50 years of persistent effort, funded by fine taste and the Singer sewing machine fortune. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, now expanded to a second exhibits building, is the home of one of the finest collections of 19th Century French and American paintings, in a class with those of J.P. Morgan, nasty Henry Clay Frick, the Cone sisters (Baltimore, Matisse), Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner (Boston, Renaissance, Berenson) and the famous Dr Albert Barnes of Merion, PA. .The permanent exhibit is a sunny collection, a "feel good" assemblage that will turn around a foul temper, always a valuable characteristic.
It is particularly fitting that the loan exhibition "Impression; Painting Quickly in France 1860-1890," organized jointly by the Clark with National Gallery in London and the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, has come here for the Summer, June 15 to September 9. Not a show of Impressionist high spots, its theme matches the Clark’s permanent collection, and it is best seen after a tour of the latter. These are not huge shows, and can be seen in three hours, easily.
The Clark’s docents lead you through the pre-history of Impressionism, with academician William Bouguereau’s gorgeous Nymphs and Satyr (1873) exemplifying all the academic principles of painting that the Impressionists revolted against. The traditionalists permitted portraits and themes from history, myths and religion, with. emphasis on the naked body. There were to be no visible brush strokes, no clear outlines, no painting directly from nature, and the canvas was primed to a muddy brown as the undertone for an outdoors subject. Some young rebellious artists, who wanted life and nature represented as it is - five of them, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Morisot and Bazille had their paintings rejected at the annual government-sponsored Salon of 1873 - formed an exhibition group, Societe anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, etc, better known as the Refusees. In 1874 they hired a hall and showed 165 works by 30 artists.. Monet’s Impression: Sunrise (1872) gave them their name. There were eight shows of the Refusees, until 1886, when the artists had gained some acceptance, and their dealer, Durand-Ruel, could sell them (Clark bought from D-R)
The academicians’ landscape rules date back to the Dutch, Ruisdael and Hobbema, and the Frenchman, Lorrain, of the 17th Century, who painted foliage brown, and Constable in England.. His contemporary, J .M. W. Turner, rebelled. Turner’s view of a storm at sea, Rockets and Blue Lights ...(1840) violates rules. The impasto was so thick that paint fell off the surface, and a curator generations ago ironed the picture, from the back, compressing the color into the canvas (this painting is so fragile that it cannot leave the Clark Museum). The earlier 1800s Barbizon artists painted from nature though not in true colors, notably Theodore Rousseau, Daubigny and Millet. The latter even dared to paint rough peasants at work. Corot of the silvery willows was a master of the direct or plein-air sketch (there is an amazing number of his paintings at the Clark).It may have been Edouard Manet, painter of the nude Olympia, an Academy sensation in 1865, whose quick paintings in 1870 (he was busy serving in the National Guard during the Franco -Prussian War) inspired the rebels, though he never exhibited with them. Some of his works show the quick master stroke that Monet and Renoir practiced at the shores and seaside towns now legendary in Impressionist hagiography.
The Impression exhibit is a masterwork in itself. The theme refers to quick painting, producing art in mere hours,. to capture the colors of nature of each moment. Some of the paintings appear unfinished even today; one can imagine how they offended the 19th Century critics. The effect is somewhat that of color photography, capturing the instant. Thus, Monet’s Cathedral of Rouen, which he painted in 30 versions (likewise the Haystacks) to truly represent the colors of nature at various times of the day. He would paint the 9 AM view for an hour, then switch to the 10 AM canvas and so on. Next morning he would continue with the 9 AM; unless it rained, when he would whip out the 9 AM in the rain version. It’s all there in the loan exhibit, or in the permanent collection. Not attempting to show just the great paintings of the Impressionists, the loan exhibit concentrates on how well each featured painter developed his or her precepts of art. A room is devoted to each of them.
Appropriately, after a viewing of some of the predecessors of Impressionism, the show starts with Edouard Manet, whose Surprised Nymph (1860) supplied the starting date for the theme of the show. Several of his typical recasts of classical themes executed in a rapid stroke lead up to the 1870 pieces, culminating in a masterful 1878 Woman Reading. It appears on the cover of the exhibition’s fine catalogue, by its curator, Richard R. Brettell of Clark (Yale, 2001, $19.95 pb).
Of Claude Monet’s room, the captivating Regatta at Argenteuil, with yellow sails and red houses reflecting in light blue water (1872), La Grenouilliere, a near twin of the one in the Met (1869), and Harbor of La Havre at Night were my personal top attractions, enough to make me want to make the long return trip. Cheerful Berthe Morisot, with much blue water and white high spots (ladies’ dresses, hats and parasols), in a marvelous, small handwriting, held up well, with her individuality and intimacy. Pierre Renoir, after a start in fast painting with Monet in 1869-80, became an artist of dreamy women, both dressed and nude. He is represented by his own Grenouilliere, with a much bluer tonality (also 1869), and a number of early street and intimate interior scenes. The Degas pictures, although of a snapshot thematic quality, show his fine execution. As a painter Degas was notorious for borrowing back sold paintings and tinkering with them until they had to be repossessed. He qualified as a Refusee by temper, participation in seven of the eight shows, and rapidly executed graphics.. Alfred Sisley’s .river and harbor views are, as all of his work, finely composed and balanced, despite being rapidly executed. Pissarro’s landscapes of Pontoise are object lessons in Impressionist technique, capturing the moods of the time of day and the weather. Vincent van Gogh is included in the show, as a successor to the group, although he was not "just an eye," (as Monet was tagged), and expressed himself in a totally personal manner.
The "Impression" show (65 paintings) is a joyful one, informative without being overwhelming, and, if seen in combination with a tour of the permanent collection, it provides a quick seminar in art history. Take this long day’s excursion to the Berkshires.(four hours from New York, an hour from Tanglewood). The museum is open 10 to 5 (two hours later on weekends), closed Mondays. Reservations are recommended, 1-866-THE CLARK, $10. It will be an uplifting experience.
The comprehensive Clark colletion, which has representative examples of painting dating back to the 14th Century Siennese, is also known for its fine Remingtons, Winslow Homers and Sargents. And there are neat verbal legends of the pieces. The Piero della Francesca may have been part-painted by Michelangelo, star pupil of the artist. The Bouguereau Nymphs and Satyr was once owned by notorious "Ned" Stokes, who killed the financier "Diamond Jim" Fisk in 1872 over the favors of actress Josie Mansfield. After a four-year jail term Stokes bought an interest in Hoffman House, where the painting was its chief barroom attraction. After Stokes’s death in 1901 the painting went into storage,and was discovered by Clark in 1930. It graced the family’s dining table for years. The four delectable nymphs pulling Pan into water were posed for by the same model. The god Pan, who could not swim, was in pursuit of another nymph who had hidden herself in the lake.
A large and fleshy Madonna and Child by Rubens was recently graded down to a "by studio of Rubens" status. One reason: it shows the backside of a sheep in the foreground, a lack of refinement that Rubens would not have permitted.. A woman and daughter portrait by Renoir named At the Concert (1880) started in life as the triple portrait of the French undersecretary of Arts Eugene Turquet and family. He refused to pay, and Renoir painted him out. Part of Turquet’s profile is discernible in the upper right.. Hang around with docents, and you learn a lot of stuff.
The 216-year old Williams College resides in a picturesque valley, surrounded by the green mountains of Northern Berkshires, in Williamstown, MA. It is there that Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956) in the 1950s moved his collection of fine art, for fear of its destruction in an atomic war. He built a marble structure to house the assemblage, which by the year 2001 has grown to 500 paintings, 700 drawings, 3000 prints and thousands of silver and porcelain rarities, collected in 50 years of persistent effort, funded by fine taste and the Singer sewing machine fortune. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, now expanded to a second exhibits building, is the home of one of the finest collections of 19th Century French and American paintings, in a class with those of J.P. Morgan, nasty Henry Clay Frick, the Cone sisters (Baltimore, Matisse), Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner (Boston, Renaissance, Berenson) and the famous Dr Albert Barnes of Merion, PA. .The permanent exhibit is a sunny collection, a "feel good" assemblage that will turn around a foul temper, always a valuable characteristic.
It is particularly fitting that the loan exhibition "Impression; Painting Quickly in France 1860-1890," organized jointly by the Clark with National Gallery in London and the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, has come here for the Summer, June 15 to September 9. Not a show of Impressionist high spots, its theme matches the Clark’s permanent collection, and it is best seen after a tour of the latter. These are not huge shows, and can be seen in three hours, easily.
The Clark’s docents lead you through the pre-history of Impressionism, with academician William Bouguereau’s gorgeous Nymphs and Satyr (1873) exemplifying all the academic principles of painting that the Impressionists revolted against. The traditionalists permitted portraits and themes from history, myths and religion, with. emphasis on the naked body. There were to be no visible brush strokes, no clear outlines, no painting directly from nature, and the canvas was primed to a muddy brown as the undertone for an outdoors subject. Some young rebellious artists, who wanted life and nature represented as it is - five of them, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Morisot and Bazille had their paintings rejected at the annual government-sponsored Salon of 1873 - formed an exhibition group, Societe anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, etc, better known as the Refusees. In 1874 they hired a hall and showed 165 works by 30 artists.. Monet’s Impression: Sunrise (1872) gave them their name. There were eight shows of the Refusees, until 1886, when the artists had gained some acceptance, and their dealer, Durand-Ruel, could sell them (Clark bought from D-R)
The academicians’ landscape rules date back to the Dutch, Ruisdael and Hobbema, and the Frenchman, Lorrain, of the 17th Century, who painted foliage brown, and Constable in England.. His contemporary, J .M. W. Turner, rebelled. Turner’s view of a storm at sea, Rockets and Blue Lights ...(1840) violates rules. The impasto was so thick that paint fell off the surface, and a curator generations ago ironed the picture, from the back, compressing the color into the canvas (this painting is so fragile that it cannot leave the Clark Museum). The earlier 1800s Barbizon artists painted from nature though not in true colors, notably Theodore Rousseau, Daubigny and Millet. The latter even dared to paint rough peasants at work. Corot of the silvery willows was a master of the direct or plein-air sketch (there is an amazing number of his paintings at the Clark).It may have been Edouard Manet, painter of the nude Olympia, an Academy sensation in 1865, whose quick paintings in 1870 (he was busy serving in the National Guard during the Franco -Prussian War) inspired the rebels, though he never exhibited with them. Some of his works show the quick master stroke that Monet and Renoir practiced at the shores and seaside towns now legendary in Impressionist hagiography.
The Impression exhibit is a masterwork in itself. The theme refers to quick painting, producing art in mere hours,. to capture the colors of nature of each moment. Some of the paintings appear unfinished even today; one can imagine how they offended the 19th Century critics. The effect is somewhat that of color photography, capturing the instant. Thus, Monet’s Cathedral of Rouen, which he painted in 30 versions (likewise the Haystacks) to truly represent the colors of nature at various times of the day. He would paint the 9 AM view for an hour, then switch to the 10 AM canvas and so on. Next morning he would continue with the 9 AM; unless it rained, when he would whip out the 9 AM in the rain version. It’s all there in the loan exhibit, or in the permanent collection. Not attempting to show just the great paintings of the Impressionists, the loan exhibit concentrates on how well each featured painter developed his or her precepts of art. A room is devoted to each of them.
Appropriately, after a viewing of some of the predecessors of Impressionism, the show starts with Edouard Manet, whose Surprised Nymph (1860) supplied the starting date for the theme of the show. Several of his typical recasts of classical themes executed in a rapid stroke lead up to the 1870 pieces, culminating in a masterful 1878 Woman Reading. It appears on the cover of the exhibition’s fine catalogue, by its curator, Richard R. Brettell of Clark (Yale, 2001, $19.95 pb).
Of Claude Monet’s room, the captivating Regatta at Argenteuil, with yellow sails and red houses reflecting in light blue water (1872), La Grenouilliere, a near twin of the one in the Met (1869), and Harbor of La Havre at Night were my personal top attractions, enough to make me want to make the long return trip. Cheerful Berthe Morisot, with much blue water and white high spots (ladies’ dresses, hats and parasols), in a marvelous, small handwriting, held up well, with her individuality and intimacy. Pierre Renoir, after a start in fast painting with Monet in 1869-80, became an artist of dreamy women, both dressed and nude. He is represented by his own Grenouilliere, with a much bluer tonality (also 1869), and a number of early street and intimate interior scenes. The Degas pictures, although of a snapshot thematic quality, show his fine execution. As a painter Degas was notorious for borrowing back sold paintings and tinkering with them until they had to be repossessed. He qualified as a Refusee by temper, participation in seven of the eight shows, and rapidly executed graphics.. Alfred Sisley’s .river and harbor views are, as all of his work, finely composed and balanced, despite being rapidly executed. Pissarro’s landscapes of Pontoise are object lessons in Impressionist technique, capturing the moods of the time of day and the weather. Vincent van Gogh is included in the show, as a successor to the group, although he was not "just an eye," (as Monet was tagged), and expressed himself in a totally personal manner.
The "Impression" show (65 paintings) is a joyful one, informative without being overwhelming, and, if seen in combination with a tour of the permanent collection, it provides a quick seminar in art history. Take this long day’s excursion to the Berkshires.(four hours from New York, an hour from Tanglewood). The museum is open 10 to 5 (two hours later on weekends), closed Mondays. Reservations are recommended, 1-866-THE CLARK, $10. It will be an uplifting experience.
The comprehensive Clark colletion, which has representative examples of painting dating back to the 14th Century Siennese, is also known for its fine Remingtons, Winslow Homers and Sargents. And there are neat verbal legends of the pieces. The Piero della Francesca may have been part-painted by Michelangelo, star pupil of the artist. The Bouguereau Nymphs and Satyr was once owned by notorious "Ned" Stokes, who killed the financier "Diamond Jim" Fisk in 1872 over the favors of actress Josie Mansfield. After a four-year jail term Stokes bought an interest in Hoffman House, where the painting was its chief barroom attraction. After Stokes’s death in 1901 the painting went into storage,and was discovered by Clark in 1930. It graced the family’s dining table for years. The four delectable nymphs pulling Pan into water were posed for by the same model. The god Pan, who could not swim, was in pursuit of another nymph who had hidden herself in the lake.
A large and fleshy Madonna and Child by Rubens was recently graded down to a "by studio of Rubens" status. One reason: it shows the backside of a sheep in the foreground, a lack of refinement that Rubens would not have permitted.. A woman and daughter portrait by Renoir named At the Concert (1880) started in life as the triple portrait of the French undersecretary of Arts Eugene Turquet and family. He refused to pay, and Renoir painted him out. Part of Turquet’s profile is discernible in the upper right.. Hang around with docents, and you learn a lot of stuff.
Tuesday, July 03, 2001
Lyme Disease, West Nile Fever, poison ivy - Spring pleasures
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
This message comes to you from the Lyme disease capital of New York, Columbia County, which has the highest incidence in the state, and from the township of Taghkanic, whose twenty-four hundred souls had the highest infection rate, 2 ½ percent in 2000, a big jump compared to one percent in 1999. If you consider that our fair state has the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the nation, and that means the world, you might say that we live in the eye of the global storm.
.
My most important Lyme disease control tool is the lawnmower. Keeping the lawn
closely cropped discourages the field mice, main carriers of the poppy-seed sized larval state of the deer tick. They can be transferred to our two mousers, who in turn can bring them into the house and deposit them on the beds, the chairs and rugs Ugh!. The ticks, in both adult and larval states, sit on top of the tallest blades of grass, waiting for passers by to brush against them and pick them up - deer, humans, dogs and cats.
The deer are the FedEx, the long distance carriers, bringing the adult Lyme disease ticks from far away. Unfortunately, this family has been targeted by deer as their benefactors, growers of tasty evergreens and trees, part of the deer nutrition cycle in the hard winter.
This is my fourth annual deer report. Four years ago I tried to keep the Bambis away by spraying our young evergreen trees, not too successfully. The following year, we wrapped the spruces, hemlocks and pines with plastic netting, ditto. Feeling that drastic measures were needs, two seasons ago I invested in a load of two-by-twos. We surrounded each tree with five such tall posts and stapled five-foot wide burlap all around, with good success. But that winter was mild. This last winter the deer were starving, tore off the burlap, ate some of it and chewed the needles off the tree branches to the height of five feet. Our trees look like bottle brushes,
Next winter, if we decide to try and let the damaged trees recover, I’ll be wrapping them with five-foot fencing wire, maybe even barbed wire. No more Mr. Nice Guy! Stay away Bambis, and keep your mites off my grass!
Many of our neighbors keep guns and hunt. But the licensing for "harvesting" deer is limited, and their population growth exceeds ours. The state authorities, fearing the wrath of animal lovers, limit deer licenses severely. Some locals, such as our nursery people, have year-round licenses, to protect their forest of fine varieties of trees, and they eat venison regularly. Luckily, they like venison.
Being essentially non-violent and a firm believer in negotiated settlements, I had another venue in mind. If Diane Fossey could communicate with the gorillas in the mists of Africa, a bunch of foreigners, why shouldn’t I be able to do the same with my native animal neighbors, the Bambis?
Having studied up on communications theory, I clambered through the 50 or so feet of pine brambles that separate our two acres from the hayfield North of us, a frequent feeding grounds for deer. My garb was non-threatening khaki, and my companion was Daisy, the male of our two cats, although he faded fast, on errands of his own choosing. The time was right, just about dusk. And indeed, some two hundred feet away from my post at the edge of the woods a family of eight head, young deer and older does, was feeding in the field..
My arrival did not disturb them, until I made what I thought was a friendly noise, a mooing kind of call. The deer stopped feeding and watched me. The head doe, after a half minute of processing information, moved the herd towards me, quite a bit closer, stopped and snorted.. Expelled her breath in a longish passage quite loudly, she did, watching this human presence all the while.
To an experienced doe, humans should not be totally strange. There are these encounters, mostly with cars, but I and others have had individual events, where man and beast shave some interaction before the beast departs.
I was determined to lengthen the encounter, and snorted back. Not quite as imperiously, my snort was a bit humble but with a friendly tone. It seemed to have worked, because the deer advanced once more, and the big spokes-doe snorted again. I was slow in formulating my response, and tried the same low-key expelling of breath, with a long and two short tones, without moving.
Whatever I had done was wrong,, because the doe turned around and galloped off, slowly but determinedly, followed by the her gang, to continue feeding uphill, totally ignoring me.
I’m sure Diane Fossey has had days like that, but the cats and I are determined. Next time I’ll bring Benny the girl cat and let her try to do the talking. Meanwhile I’m looking for a sale of fencing at the Agway. They just finished refurbishing our lawn tractor while we were away in New York, and I have cut the grass and invested in calf length tube socks, easily examined for ticks. Next battle station, poison ivy control; I have several latex gloves, pilfered from my doctors’ offices. And mosquito control, clearing of their breeding grounds, standing water puddles, to limit the exposure to the West Nile fever (an infected dead crow has been found in the county).Let the hot summer begin!
This message comes to you from the Lyme disease capital of New York, Columbia County, which has the highest incidence in the state, and from the township of Taghkanic, whose twenty-four hundred souls had the highest infection rate, 2 ½ percent in 2000, a big jump compared to one percent in 1999. If you consider that our fair state has the highest incidence of Lyme disease in the nation, and that means the world, you might say that we live in the eye of the global storm.
.
My most important Lyme disease control tool is the lawnmower. Keeping the lawn
closely cropped discourages the field mice, main carriers of the poppy-seed sized larval state of the deer tick. They can be transferred to our two mousers, who in turn can bring them into the house and deposit them on the beds, the chairs and rugs Ugh!. The ticks, in both adult and larval states, sit on top of the tallest blades of grass, waiting for passers by to brush against them and pick them up - deer, humans, dogs and cats.
The deer are the FedEx, the long distance carriers, bringing the adult Lyme disease ticks from far away. Unfortunately, this family has been targeted by deer as their benefactors, growers of tasty evergreens and trees, part of the deer nutrition cycle in the hard winter.
This is my fourth annual deer report. Four years ago I tried to keep the Bambis away by spraying our young evergreen trees, not too successfully. The following year, we wrapped the spruces, hemlocks and pines with plastic netting, ditto. Feeling that drastic measures were needs, two seasons ago I invested in a load of two-by-twos. We surrounded each tree with five such tall posts and stapled five-foot wide burlap all around, with good success. But that winter was mild. This last winter the deer were starving, tore off the burlap, ate some of it and chewed the needles off the tree branches to the height of five feet. Our trees look like bottle brushes,
Next winter, if we decide to try and let the damaged trees recover, I’ll be wrapping them with five-foot fencing wire, maybe even barbed wire. No more Mr. Nice Guy! Stay away Bambis, and keep your mites off my grass!
Many of our neighbors keep guns and hunt. But the licensing for "harvesting" deer is limited, and their population growth exceeds ours. The state authorities, fearing the wrath of animal lovers, limit deer licenses severely. Some locals, such as our nursery people, have year-round licenses, to protect their forest of fine varieties of trees, and they eat venison regularly. Luckily, they like venison.
Being essentially non-violent and a firm believer in negotiated settlements, I had another venue in mind. If Diane Fossey could communicate with the gorillas in the mists of Africa, a bunch of foreigners, why shouldn’t I be able to do the same with my native animal neighbors, the Bambis?
Having studied up on communications theory, I clambered through the 50 or so feet of pine brambles that separate our two acres from the hayfield North of us, a frequent feeding grounds for deer. My garb was non-threatening khaki, and my companion was Daisy, the male of our two cats, although he faded fast, on errands of his own choosing. The time was right, just about dusk. And indeed, some two hundred feet away from my post at the edge of the woods a family of eight head, young deer and older does, was feeding in the field..
My arrival did not disturb them, until I made what I thought was a friendly noise, a mooing kind of call. The deer stopped feeding and watched me. The head doe, after a half minute of processing information, moved the herd towards me, quite a bit closer, stopped and snorted.. Expelled her breath in a longish passage quite loudly, she did, watching this human presence all the while.
To an experienced doe, humans should not be totally strange. There are these encounters, mostly with cars, but I and others have had individual events, where man and beast shave some interaction before the beast departs.
I was determined to lengthen the encounter, and snorted back. Not quite as imperiously, my snort was a bit humble but with a friendly tone. It seemed to have worked, because the deer advanced once more, and the big spokes-doe snorted again. I was slow in formulating my response, and tried the same low-key expelling of breath, with a long and two short tones, without moving.
Whatever I had done was wrong,, because the doe turned around and galloped off, slowly but determinedly, followed by the her gang, to continue feeding uphill, totally ignoring me.
I’m sure Diane Fossey has had days like that, but the cats and I are determined. Next time I’ll bring Benny the girl cat and let her try to do the talking. Meanwhile I’m looking for a sale of fencing at the Agway. They just finished refurbishing our lawn tractor while we were away in New York, and I have cut the grass and invested in calf length tube socks, easily examined for ticks. Next battle station, poison ivy control; I have several latex gloves, pilfered from my doctors’ offices. And mosquito control, clearing of their breeding grounds, standing water puddles, to limit the exposure to the West Nile fever (an infected dead crow has been found in the county).Let the hot summer begin!
