The National Gallery of Art & Paul Mellon & Me

J.M.W. Turner:
British, 1775 - 1851
Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight, 1835
oil on canvas, 92.3 x 122.8 cm (36 3/8 x 48 3/8 in.)
Widener Collection
National Gallery of Art

Strange though it may sound, on this day alone in the Last House I managed to do a half decent job cleaning the kitchen while also viewing a film on my iPod. This wouldn't be possible with most movies, but this one was made last year under the auspices of the National Gallery of Art in tribute to Paul Mellon and it is mostly made up of still pictures. The pictures are of the life, times and masterpieces of art collected by the Mellon family, with narration of a text written by PM (though not read by him). That is to say, the pace is sufficiently leisurely that you don't need to look at the screen every second. You can clean a sink and watch a family photo or a masterpiece by Reynolds flit by. That isn't to say it was boring. Coming so close on my finishing listening to The House of Mirth, I seem to be continuing in the gilded age. I downloaded the film as part of my quest for free material for my iPod. It's amazing what the National Gallery has available at its website. I'll post a link. All the great museums of the word are doing the same and isn't that mindblowing in a fabulous way?

Anyway, back to Mellon. I am a little surprised to say that, although the film dwelled a bit too long on his race horsing career (buyer and breeder thereof), it was a moving sort of documentary. Mellon is dead (he died in 1999) and though I have been to the National Gallery a few times and knew his connection vaguely, I didn't know much of anything about him. His claim to fame was that he was the Son of a Very Rich Man. It was surprisingly interesting to hear from him what he made of this position.

He clearly recognized the strangeness of his place in the world and yet, made a good thing of it. He used his wealth to enjoy himself and indulge his passions, but the passions were informed and intelligent and (aside from the racing) did much to benefit his fellow Americans. He was also drawn to British art, sports, country life. I, as you few faithful readers know, have the same interest - although it plays itself out in a less fabulous fashion here at the last house. (No masterpieces or throughbreds anywhere in sight). So, though I am not a Mellon, I feel him to be a kind of kindred spirit if not, unfortunately, an actual blood relative.

Here's what the website says about this film:

This film celebrates the spirit and philosophy of Paul Mellon. The narration is comprised of his own words drawn from interviews, speeches and a variety of writings. He takes us on a gentle journey into his passions and interests in life including family, art, collecting, horses, and racing. The film captures the gentle nature and wisdom of an extraordinary man.

I take my hat off to the NGA for producing this, now that there is no point in sucking up to the benefactor.

Back down here on planet earth, the sun is shining beautifully today though it is very cold for March. I drove the kids to Morrisville this AM in the Camry (15 years old 216,000 miles and no snow tires - proof of the distance between the Mellon family and yours truly, if any were needed). The weather forecast yesterday had been for dry cold weather over night. Wrong. We spent the last 20 miles of the trip on roads on which one might have skated. Kids were 1/2 hour late to school. Almost time to go get them again. Yikes.

"The House of Mirth" & The Last House in March

Edith Wharton and her home in Lennox, Mass.

I have been listening to the Recorded Books version (unabridged) of Edith Wharton's famous novel, The House of Mirth. It is read, very well and in an appropriately restrained fashion, by an actress called Barbara Caruso.

I don't know how I got this far without having read The House of Mirth but I am glad I didn't land on it until I was 43. I don't think I would have been quite ready for it much before now. I can see why it would be an agony for a high school student, or even a bright undergraduate. It travels slowly. My audio version is 14 hours long. The incidents are small, the humor wry and quiet. (One of my favorite lines in the book comes as Wharton is describing a rich, dull young man who is a marriage prospect for Lily. He inherited a fortune from his father, who had invented "a patent device for excluding fresh air from hotel rooms." LOL as they say). This kind of writing demands an educated reader as well as an intelligent one. Maybe most of all, as it is so famously a novel of manners, the topic is one which would, I think, bewilder the masses. Reading some commentary about the book on the web yesterday I came across this summary of Wharton's work, "a guy meets a woman and can't sleep with her for five years." Here is the Publisher's Summary (from the audible.com website):

Lily Bart, a beautiful, intelligent, but penniless young woman, lives on the outskirts of New York's high society, craving the luxurious lifestyle of her wealthy contacts. But while Lily possesses the grace, taste, and morality of the ideal turn-of-the-century lady, her delicate innocence threatens her survival in that very world. As she fights to maintain her newfound place among the aristocracy, Lily struggles mightily against what lurks beneath all the glitter and gold - greed, vulgarity, and ruthless competition. In her brilliantly perceptive novel, The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, the peerless, Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of Old New York, provides yet another heartbreaking glimpse into the world of manners, privilege, betrayal, and shocking falls from grace.

Frankly, I think this summary is a little too generous to Lily. One of the things I love about the book is that Lily is a morally ambiguous character. She isn't good or bad - or, better,she is both good and bad, like most of us. She is false and dissembling, but she is also noble. She has chance after chance to simply marry a rich fool, which marriage would deliver her from her constant money problems (another way she is like us!) but doesn't take those chances. She has it in her power to destroy a social enemy when some compromising letters fall into her hands, but she doesn't use it. Still, she schemes unendingly, she evades, she feigns emotions she doesn't feel, she takes moral short cuts. Her inner life is so beautifully described and Wharton's powers to set a scene and to observe details are to me awe-inspiring.

About 10 years ago, I listened to the Recorded Books version of Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw." Wharton and James were friends, and anyone could see why. Both were bona fide literary geniuses whose time and place on earth happened to coincide. With Wharton, as with James, I have found myself enjoying the complexity of the language and the craft of the work. With the "Turn of the Screw", I remember thinking how no one writes like this now - with big words and long sentences - but everything so well bolted together and so carefully observed and plotted.

One other special thing about The House of Mirth for me was that I grew up in Upstate New York. The fragments, at least architecturally, of the world of Lily Bart live on in the Hudson and Mohawk Valley towns where I spent my childhood and early 20s. My mother remarried when I was 19 and she and her new husband bought a house in Schenectady, built in 1904 for the president of Schenectady Chemicals. It was a family home straight out of that gilded/industrial age (servants quarters, dressing rooms, 4 fireplaces). All over upstate, in all the rust-belt towns along the Erie Canal and the Hudson River are remains of the fancy neighborhoods of a hundred years ago. I loved that house and still think of that kind of place (big old house on the edge of an old city) as a kind ideal. As for the manners of those days, I saw them reflected in the petty bourgeois attitudes of my maternal grandmother. She grew up in the Catskills at the early part of the century. Her family never strived for an elite position of Lily Bart and her ilk but the moral code of those days, where rich people were expected to behave in an exemplary manner, was stamped on her as surely as it was on Wharton's characters. See my old post on "My Church Ladies and Me" for more on this topic.

I know that Wharton's home in the Berkshires is open to the public and I have been thinking that I would go visit this summer when I am back in Albany visting my family. (See the picture at the beginning of this post). I checked out the website for "the Mount" and saw that there is an imminent panic there that the place will be foreclosed upon and closed to the public. What a shame that would be. I, for one, would be disappointed to miss it, now that I have made Wharton's acquaintance. (Unfortunately Lily and I share a similar financial situation or I would write them a check). Anyone who wants to help out should check on the website. The link is posted here in the sidebar.

On a More Homely Note

March has been grinding away on us here on the Vermont/Quebec border. Yesterday (Saturday) it was a mix of rain and freezing rain all day long. At about 6 PM, the power went out. We had just daylight enough to light candles and lanterns. Kids and I took bets about when the power would come back on. Kid 2 won (a Canadian dollar). He guessed 8:30 PM(the latest guess). In fact, it was about 10:30 PM and we were all in bed and asleep by then. I only knew it had come back on because I was laying down in Kid 2's room and his lava lamp came on, waking me up.

After the power went out, the kids and I passed the time listening to Philip Pullman reading The Golden Compass on the laptop (another fabulous recorded book) til the laptop battery died. We then played two games of Clue by candlelight. Then kids and I piled into bed together with a lantern. I was just starting to read to them from Peter and Iona Opie's collection of classic fairy tales when the lantern sputtered and died. The timing was good. Kid 2 was already asleep and I told Kid 1 a story of my own making. Once she was asleep I migrated to Kid 2's empty bed (hence, the lava lamp). Kid 1 is downstairs now, still in her pajamas. She just said, "I hope the power goes out again tonight!" The way the wind is blowing and the the snow falling, it just might.

In Rolls March And Some More Gladys Peto Pictures

We were cozy in the dining room at the Last House on the first of March on the day after another walloping snow storm, having dinner in what felt a little like a Salon with our friends from England. (R and A, and R's daughter S with S's boyfriend T)It is always a lot of fun to see the couples from England who have bought places here in darkest Vermont. We met one set when we shared a babysitter a couple summers ago and they introduced us to their friends who first brought them here.

My family, and the husband's, really don't get why we would live here, in the cold middle of nowhere in an old house with one bathroom and substandard everything. They persist in sending us smoke alarms and fire escape ladders for presents. My mother often wonders what we would do if the whole place fell into the cellar, which she seems to believe is imminent (she may be right, too). My brothers-in-law have not darkened our doors in years - too cold, and one summer years ago, too many mosquitoes. Given this steady current of low-level disapproval it's nice to be with people who get the attraction of this area and who actually seem to think this old falling-down house is a great place. I don't think they're faking out of politeness either. Really, the fact that they are willing to travel across the wide ocean and drive from the nearest international airport to be here suggests a genuine enthusiasm. As for the house, the first time the male half of this couple was here last summer, he and his 30-something daughter - who was along on that trip - fairly gushed about how they loved the place. (She owns a children's bookshop in London - another must-see for the Great Woolfoot UK Expedition of April 2008). Of course, by virtue of having made such a choice and come such a long way they are bound to be interesting. Kid 1 and I will be visiting them in Oxford next month in the famous trip to England- he's a pediatrician with an international reputation in adolescent health, and she's something to do with the National Health Service. They couldn't be nicer.

Other than this spot of entertaining the Last House has been quiet this weekend. Kids are still home from school on what may be the worst-used school vacation in history. Today was a jewel of a day, blue skies and new snow, but we made little use of it. I did take them to Wendy's (again) and skating, but only briefly. Kid 2 refused to wear the mittens that one of Kid 1's friends had left behind and they were the only pair we had in the car for him. (He wouldn't wear a girl's mittens and not those belonging to someone else). So, we left. Home again to Harry Potter marathon on ABC family and microwav popcorn. See what I mean by worst-used vacation?

Peto Pics

There seems to have been an uptick in interest in my old friend the artist Gladys Emma Peto. I Googled her again tonight and found a reference on another blog (de minimus, but there) and Juliet Doyle has noted in her blog, "Musings from a Muddy Island", that her Peto posting has been one of the most landed-on that she has done. I see a London art dealer is selling the original of the cover of Peto's book "Summer Days" for 1,450 pounds. I remember when the last owner had that book cover. He contacted me about it to get some Peto info. (I think I still had the website then). He was a dealer of some sort and was taking it around to some book shows as I recall. Well, perhaps it has begun. (Her rediscovery by people whose opinion matters in these things). In looking through my scans I found some that I don't think I have posted.

A Bright Saturday - Close to Home

The sun came out mid-morning and it was a welcome sight after a stormy Friday (yesterday). Woolfoot Kid 1 and I had a white-knuckle bad drive home from school. (She had a BAD day because of something mean the gym teacher said and spent the whole trip crying with her face to the window. I could have throttled that gym teacher). Kid 2 had stayed home with Daddy since he spent the small hours throwing up. So, Friday was not good, but today was better. We went to Newport for Kid 1's piano lesson this noon time. From there to the Newport Library, the Goodrich Memorial Library, which may be the most beautiful public library of my acquaintance. See the pictures of the kids reading and browsing in its restored Victorian splendor. There was a young teenage girl who was so helpful - glasses and obviously just at the end of a growth spurt - it gave me faith in the cultural future of the Back-of-Beyond. Then we crossed the street to Gardner Park and the kids did some ice skating on the great rink there (free, too, and well managed by the local parks and rec dep't). Kid 1 was happier at the end of the day than she had been at the beginning.

Gladys Peto Follow Up

I recently connected with a fellow blogger who has posted a bunch of great pictures by Gladys Peto (about whom you may also read here in my archives). Juliet has a beautiful blog with wonderful pictures of Mersea Island, England and lots of interesting reading, q.v.. http://julietdoyle.blogspot.com/

I just left her a comment telling her that since my long ago last Peto posting, I have gotten a little new information. I also had a couple of Gladys Peto images that I hadn't previously posted. These are above. The bottom, (bad) picture is the one that started me learning about and collecting Gladys Peto. I think it captures something magic about childhood: a fleeting feeling we would get from time to time that really anything was possible - no laws of physics. I bought it at a Quebec antique store about 10 years ago. I was certain that its creator must have been "someone" given the charm of the picture. Of course, I was right! The little drawing is a book plate I bought some years ago on Ebay. I love it and it's framed on the wall in my house now. The color picture is an illustration from one of her children's stories - something almost a little spooky there...

I also wanted to make available to anyone who is interested the text of a letter GEP wrote to Sir Cecil Beaton back in 1974. How did I get this? I am glad you asked. A few months ago I wrote to the library at St. John's College, Cambridge where they have the archive of Beaton's papers. This letter was in the catalog. A College Librarian was kind enough to send me a copy. It's dated April 10, 1974 at Lake Limawady (sp?) County Derry, Northern Ireland.

To Sir Cecil Beaton

I have just read with great pleasure the article 'Fifty Years of Focus by a Master' in the Daily Mail (Apr. 9)

So I took from the shelves your book The Glass of Fashion (which we much cherish) and read it again. On page 31 there is a bit about me and my balloons [there is a shaky drawing of the trademark Peto "bubbles" in the text here] and I wondered if anyone ever says "What ever happened to Gladys Peto?" Well, I went on drawing balloons till 1946 when my husband retired from the army and I retired from commercial art in favor of gardening and landscape painting in water colour.

In 1970 I had a stroke. My right hand is still paralysed. I draw (and write) with my left hand and send you a little drawing. [There is a drawing of a bunch of flowers on one page on the letter]. I need hardly say how much we admire your photographs and the charming illustrations to the Glass of Fashion.

Yrs sincerely,
G.E. Emmerson
Gladys Peto

She would have been 84 years old when she wrote this. Three years later she was gone for good. Isn't this a poignant, almost heartbreaking letter? The early 70s were not the era for her kind of art, and her posture here (forgotten old woman seeking some attention from the great man who once mentioned here in a book) is almost pitiable. That isn't to say that it is undignified - I think it has great dignity; also intelligence and good manners - just sad that she had to wonder near the end if anyone in the beau monde remembered her. I also find it noteworthy that Cecil Beaton kept it - and miraculous that more than 30 years later we all have access to it. I have thought more than once that if there is a heaven, like the one in the common imagination, perhaps GEP is up there and having some subtle influence on this rediscovery made possible mostly by the internet.

Around the time I got this letter I got a copy of a biography of Cecil Beaton. It was quite interesting, although I didn't finish it, I'll admit. One thing that stuck with me, given my plans to visit England, were the many descriptions of his home, Ashcombe. He inhabited it as a renter for years and made it very beautiful. I thought I might be able to visit it. It took me about 10 seconds on Google to find out that I wouldn't be able to do any such thing since it is now owned by Madonna (the singer, not the Mother of God). She and her husband are, apparently, not welcoming.

I also managed to track down a copy of The Glass of Fashion at the library at the University of Vermont. I was tempted to buy a copy for myself but they are collectors items now and the first edition (1954) and a 1989 reprint are quite expensive. It was a great little book and I was surprised to find that Beaton was really a very good writer. Here are some links of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Beaton
http://julietdoyle.blogspot.com/

Jay Woods at Sunrise Yesterday

Well, it's Monday morning and raining - I think it's raining. Might be sleeting. O Joy. I am allowing the kids to sleep in before we haul down to school. Their school hasn't closed for the day but I see that all the schools around here have declared a two hour delay, so I am declaring a two-hour delay for the family. It's also President's Day which means I have a day off of work so no particular need to rush.

Yesterday morning we had an altogther different world outside. Saturday had been cold and blue. Sunday (yesterday) promised, at least in the morning, to be blue and not so cold. I was up very early and in the woods at Jay on the snow shoe trails by 6:30 AM. It was a perfect winter morning and here are some pictures by way of proof.

The Light in February

Kids and I just arrived back at the Last House after a day, or at least a long afternoon, in the Newport Metropolitan area. (That's a joke. Newport is the local shire town but it's a wee little place). The weather is clear and cold - it must be lurking at about zero. But, this time of year, we always get beautiful sunsets. Here are some pictures I ran out and took a few minutes ago so you can see what I mean.