I am reflecting on how we spent last New Year's in the Swedish countryside in Dalarna. This year's Christmas card from my mother-in-law is pictured above in front of the traditional Swedish Christmas Goat, really more a pagan reminder of seasonal shifts. The card reproduces a painting by Sweden's greatest painter, Anders Zorn, whose home and studio are part of the world-class Zorn Museum in Mora (home to the world-famous Vasaloppet cross-country ski race that embodies the area's history of locals' land-owning bravery and solidarity) .
Many times I have heard of Zorn's fame through a tale about the staggering cost of a 19C portrait of Chicago's reigning Society Grande Dame after the 1871 fire, Bertha Palmer...surprisingly, the most interesting web link about her is Wikipedia's which details some of her progressive work on behalf of women & children and landscape. She had the Zorn portrait commissioned in 1893 to celebrate her position as head of the Columbian Exposition's Board of Lady Managers so vividly documented in The Devil and the White City (a must read for fans of the grandaddy of American landscaping: Frederick Law Olmsted). I finally saw Zorn's portrait of Bertha Palmer with its marvelous rendering of white on white at the Chicago History Museum's exhibiton of Mrs. Palmer's fashion. If you can get there this weekend before it closes on January 4, 2010: do so! Since photos are not allowed in the exhibit, the only place I could locate an illustration of the portrait on the web is this blog post (you will have to read nearly to the end) by a former Chicagoan who appears to move in the same social circles where Bertha held court.
And so now that I've cited 2010, here's a gesture to celebrating the New Year: a hyacinth with promise of (despite bad economy/war/partisan bickering) SPRING.
2 comments:
Oh my, until you got down to the costumes I felt like Blah Blah Blah myself. That hyacinth is an amazing color — I've never seen one so deep and jewel-toned.
I photographed in that low winter light that deepened the hyacinth's color. Then, started to get allergic so now it lives with our marvelous neighbor Lynn who helped welcome the New Year with a divine cassoulet.
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