Marly Youmans's Blog, page 36

Hysteron proteron

Mother Nature: "Let us have spring, and then a good winter's snow!"

Small imp: "Let us have first colors, and then freeze them into crystal."

Smaller imp: "Spring magic and then tricksy snow magic! Snowflakes as big as quarters, and close together, so that nothing can be seen but the crows on the white roofs and a few black branches!"

Me, 8:00 a.m., thinking: What a starry, thickly-falling

Wishing for Randall Jarrell

I've been thinking about Randall Jarrell, one of the poets I knew well as a child--I had a copy of The Complete Poems in high school (soon after it appeared--thank you, mother-librarian!) and knew them well at that time. He wrote in many different genres, and so I trailed after him into novel, children's books, and criticism. I believe his was the first criticism I enjoyed. I've been thinking

Spring sale at Phoenicia

Now through April 15, with a special gift for the first five who order.
Phoenicia Publishing (Montreal)



"Mystery is in the morning, and mystery in the night,
and the beauty of mystery is everywhere." 

–Melville's The Confidence-Man, published today in 1857

Dreaming the revolt of the Muses--

Gustave Moreau, Hesiod and the Muse, 1891.
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Wikipedia gallery / public domain


The world is a Silk Road--we have been adopting and adapting bits of other people's culture from the start. Culture is no more a static thing than is language. It's a living, growing thing, and we should hope that it is in good health for all our sakes. What many froth over--cultural influence-

The Fool in his fish-skin cloak

Today is a rainy ferrywoman day, so I leave you with a snip from The Book of the Red King, as I will be working on it when I return, and also a bit of the pleasantly obsessed fairy painter, John Anster Fitzgerald (courtesy of Wikimedia Commons), in honor of the brave snowdrops and crocuses in the yard. Perhaps it would be sweet to be so obsessed with fairies as John Anster Fitzgerald was, to

Fra Angelico at Easter

I'm too tired to think in words, so here's a little more Fra Angelico to admire--a detail from a fresco, "Resurrection of Christ and the Women at the Tomb" at the Convento di San Marco, Florence, 1440-1441. Public domain image. Here are some more beautiful San Marco images from Fra Angelico.

Here is how Giorgio Vasari describes Fra Angelico in his Lives of the Most Excellent Artists,

500-year art for Good Friday

A few years back, I was startled by a face looking out of the marvelous Fra Angelico show at the Met. It is a common enough compliment to say that images are arresting, even when they are not. I can say from experience that this one is.  ‪It's right for the day, right for a week that reminds us of murdered innocence and grief for the world.




The image also reminds me of painter Makoto

Playing with the Red King and the Fool

The Ranworth Antiphonal, circa 1460-1480.
An interesting initial letter decoration
illustrating Psalm 51. 




I promised to read and scour The Book of the Red King three times by the end of Lent, and I just might make that finish line. But I have also decided to read it another time afterward, as I've made more changes than foreseen. Well, that's not so surprising, nothing ever being perfect.

"Love one another."

Brussels.
Tintin and Milou / Snowyby Georges Remi / Hergé.

I ask, I ask, I ask--

Found on Pinterest.
Could it be Lucas Cranach the Elder?
Or is that insane? Thought of "Princess of Saxony" hands.

Enough of the You Asked series for the nonce. It's time for I Ask.

What was the last thing you read (and the last thing you read and liked), and what are you reading now (or what is in the line-up for next)? 

New acquisitions this week: the late Christopher Logue's full version