THE BASKET CASE

Still Life with a Basket of Fruit, Vegetables and Flowers

James Aponovich

Oil on canvas, 28" x 26"

WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND

Some things just never go away. Take the basket. The first decorations on pots from the Ancient Levant were reed baskets pressed onto the clay. It was if to say, "I know this pot is new technology, but it's function is the same as the basket,...to hold things." Now, you can buy plastic woven baskets pressed out in China.

Once a year or so, I feel compelled to paint a bowl or basket of fruit and I owe a debt to a painter I probably would not have gotten along with....

MICHELANGELO MERSI

aka.

CARAVAGGIO

Boy with Basket of Fruit

Caravaggio

oil on canvas, 1593

Caravaggio was the genius boy painter as thug, but that's another story for another time. Let's just say, we would call him 'troubled'. The hand that paints the painting doesn't always belong to the body that walks and talks.

Caravaggio began his career painting two things, portraits and still lives. He is reported ( although most of his 'reports' are through police records) to have said,"Good still life painting requires as much of his artistry as good figure painting." Good painting is good painting regardless of subject matter, a bold statement in the 16th Century when most artists were trying to procure large religious commissions.

THE MASTERPIECE AS STILL LIFE

Still Life with Basket of Fruit

Caravaggio

oil on canvas, 1601

His is only known painting that is exclusively still life. It was probably a commission from Cardinal Borromeo. To the Cardinal, these were not just pieces of fruit they celebrated God's creation in their fidelity to nature. Also, in true vanitas tradition the blemished apple and shriveled leaves are reminders ( as if we need them) of mortality and the ultimate vanity of earthly things. So, my debt to Caravaggio is that he was in fact, the first Italian painter since the Romans, to pay serious artistic attention to the still life. Later today, I will raise a glass of wine to him......he would have liked that.

{week 30}

Copyright 2015 James Aponovich

APPLEDORE, Isles of Shoals ( week 5 )

APPLEDORE,  ISLES OF SHOALS

"It must be so nice to be able to paint on an island off the coast of New England...."

"Appledore ain't exactly Martha's Vineyard, lady."

West Wind, Isles of Shoals, 1904

Childe Hassam

The Isles of Shoals are a group of islands lying ten miles off the coast of New England and are divided between Maine and New Hampshire. Appledore, Smuttynose and Duck belong to Maine, Star and White to New Hampshire. It is not easy to go ashore on Appledore. Both Cornell and the University of New Hampshire have research facilities on the Island. Beth and I managed to hitch a ride on a supply boat out of Portsmouth, NH.

BLACK BACKS AND MUSKRATS

Appledore Basket

James Aponovich

oil on canvas, 18" x 24"

In many ways Appledore is not a comfortable place. Hundreds of Black Backed gulls fill the air with their screams. Don't go there when they are fledging, they will attack you. Their white droppings are matched by the brown of the muskrats that roam the island, fearless and nearly blind. Poison Ivy rambles everywhere. Rogue waves have been known to sweep people off the rocks. Great Whites feed on the seals off Duck Island. Yes, the wild is still here.

AN ISLAND GARDEN

Poppies, 1891

Childe Hassam

" Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the true lover of flowers is born, not made."

                                                                                             Celia Thaxter

I had heard of Appledore as the summer home of Celia Thaxter, the Nineteenth Century poet and celebrated gardener who would host artists and intellectuals in her home. The American Impressionist painter, Childe Hassam was one of the more noteworthy and spent some twenty summers on the island.

DEATH BY WATER

Little Pond, Appledore

James Aponovich

oil on canvas

The Little Pond, Appledore,  1890

Childe Hassam

Thaxter had a charming summer cottage near her father's large hotel on the island. Many people from Boston would travel to the island to take in the therapeutic "airs". The Boston painter, William Morris Hunt, suffering from depression came to Thaxter's cottage on advice from his doctor. One morning she found his body floating in a pond behind her house, an apparent suicide. Eventually fire swept through both her father's hotel and later her cottage, leaving only foundation rubble. Her garden survived and is currently being restored. Appledore has a melancholy side.

ON THE OTHER HAND

Appledore in Fog

James Aponovich

oil on canvas, 20" x 22"

Beth and I came to see the garden and to paint it. It was a brilliant, sunny day and as I painted, I struggled with the buildings that survived the fire, as well as

 the large watchtower, a remnant of World War II.

Earlier, as we were approaching the island, I had noticed something on the horizon. I knew all too well, having once lived on the coast of Maine.....fog. The fog banks that roll in from the Gulf of Maine are thick and dangerous. Mariners say, "the ceiling has dropped," and so it had.......

But it erased the watchtower and softened the buildings, I loved it. It reminded me of a painter from Prouts Neck, Maine

The Artist's Studio in an Afternoon Fog, 1894

Winslow Homer

They will close Appledore soon for the winter. The ice and snow are too harsh, but come next season I will return whenever I need to wash my vision with sea, rock and gulls. Just watch where you step.

Agapanthus, Appledore

James Aponovich

oil on canvas