Okay, So What Do You Think Is Going On Here?

Painting by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale - "Gather Ye Rosebuds"

By Franz Dvorak - Painting the Birds

These two paintings, while oddly compelling and beautiful in their execution (especially the feather-work on the large flying figure carrying off the child) are still, to my mind, rather strange. The top one certainly is a bit unsettling.

I sat and tried to figure out what was what and even though there is some sort of explanation in their titles and available on line. I'm still not quite sure I get them.

Allegories, I suppose.

But still, they do tend to stop you in your tracks. They did, me.

Take a look. What do you think?

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The top painting - by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale - is based on a poem by Robert Herrick.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

I'm having trouble reconciling this with the Brickdale's interpretation. But I suppose the baby represents youth fleeting with the help of this winged creature - Father Time. I've just noticed he's carrying a sickle over his left shoulder.

Saturday Salon: A Favorite Painting or Two or Three...

The Deceitfulness of Riches

The Pale Complexion of True Love

The British artist Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale (1872 -1945), though born a bit late, was a  Pre-Raphaelite painter known for her luscious use of color. She was also, as you can see a brilliant designer. Her paintings tended towards the allegorical and the medieval in subject matter. Later in her life she also turned to working in stained glass.

Primarily I'm drawn to these paintings by the way Brickdale uses color. It's interesting to me that she manages to use such a bright spectrum yet her work though hardly subtle, somehow, remains fairly soft-spoken.

I'm fond of Victorian painting with all its rich detail, especially when it's this colorful and full of story telling.

To read more about Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale please go these other blogs and pages:

Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood and Victorian/Edwardian Paintings.

Image by Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale from The Book of Old Songs and Ballads. The knight's armor looks like some strange carapace, doesn't it? The painting is an odd mix of the ominous and the innocent.