Wednesday, December 27, 2017

British and Continental Portraits (1900 to 1910)

Ambrose McEvoy
Euphemia
1909
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

I SAY I'LL SEEK HER

I say, "I'll seek her side
                    Ere hindrance interposes;"
                    But eve in midnight closes,
And here I still abide.

When darkness wears I see
                    Her sad eyes in a vision;
                    They ask, "What indecision
Detains you, Love, from me? –

"The creaking hinge is oiled,
                    I have unbarred the backway,
                    But you tread not the trackway;
And shall the thing be spoiled?

"Far cockcrows echo shrill,
                    The shadows are abating,
                    And I am waiting, waiting;
But O, you tarry still!"

– Thomas Hardy (1909)

Augustus John
Woman Smiling
1908-09
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

William Rothenstein
The Princess Badroulbadour
1908
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

William Orpen
Anita
1905
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

SONG OF A DREAM

Once in the dream of night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood,
Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang;
And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang,
And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed,
And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

Lone in the light of that magical grove,
I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
Gather and gleam round my delicate youth,
And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth;
To quench my longing I bent me low
By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow
In that magical wood in the land of sleep.

– Sarojini Naidu (1905)

André Derain
Portrait of Henri Matisse
1905
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Jacques-Emile Blanche
Portrait of Charles Conder
1904
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Camille Pissarro
Self Portrait
1903
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

from ADAM'S CURSE

We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
We saw the last embers of daylight die,
And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
About the stars and broke in days and years.

I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
That you were beautiful, and that I strove
To love you in the old high way of love;
That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

– William Butler Yeats (1903)

William Strang
Portrait of Mrs James MacLehose
1903
drawing
Tate Gallery

Gwen John
Dorelia in a Black Dress
ca. 1903-1904
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Gwen John
Self Portrait
1902
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery

Charles Conder
Portrait Study
ca. 1901-1906
oil on panel
Tate Gallery

from THE GARDEN OF KAMA

You never loved me, and yet to save me,
One unforgettable night you gave me
Such chill embraces as the snow-covered heights
Receive from clouds, in northern, Auroral nights.
Such keen communion as the frozen mere
Has with immaculate moonlight, cold and clear.
And all desire,
Like failing fire,
Died slowly, faded surely, and sank to rest
Against the delicate chillness of your breast.

– Adela Florence Nicolson, published under the pseudonym Laurence Hope (1901)

Charles Conder
Portrait Study
ca. 1901-1906
oil on panel
Tate Gallery

Henry Tonks
Rosamund and the Purple Jar
ca. 1900
oil on panel
Tate Gallery

Philip Wilson Steer
Seated Nude (The Black Hat)
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Tate Gallery