HAPPY 2017

The Art of Chabana: November and December

Material: Euonymus alatus compactus
Vase: Swedish ceramic vase

Winter is here. It becomes dark earlier every day but it is still not so ruthlessly cold. 
Wandering in the silent garden looking for flowers for the tea ceremony is a pleasant and relaxing occupation even if there are no flowers, too late for camelia and too early for narcissus, snowdrops and cyclamen. The group of Helleborus niger, whose snowy flowers are the stars of all florists shops this year, is just a mass of glossy green leaves, but elsewhere in the garden there are promising buds, such as a young shrub of Edgeworthia papyfera or the imposing Chimonanthus praecox. 
Tree and shrub branches are the best choice for the chabana in winter. In his book "The Art of Chabana", Henry Mittwer suggests those of Euonymous sieboldianus, Corylus Thunbergii, Pahrabenzoin praecox and Alnus japonica, recommending to choose branches with buds. 

For November, I chose three branches of Euonymus alatus compactus, whose unusual winged branches are often forgotten after the intense autumn colours. 

The white ceramic vase, which seems a branch itself, is the same for the chabana of December with hazel and Chimonanthus praeocox branches. The branch of Chimonanthus was in bud two weeks ago, its scent is probably considered too strong for chabana, but now it's in full bloom and perfumes the kitchen of winter.

Material: Corylus avelana, Chimonanthus praecox
Vase: Swedish ceramic vase


Photos:
TravelinaGarden, November and December 2016

Further reading:

Henry Mittwer, The Art of Chabana: Flowers for the Tea Ceremony, Charles E. Tuttle Company Inc., Tokyo, 1974.

Links to the previous posts:

The Art of Chabana: April

The Art of Chabana: May

The Art of Chabana: June

The Art of Chabana: July

The Art of Chabana: September

The Art of Chabana: October

"Marc Chagall, Ottavio Missoni. Dream and Colour." Sesto Calende, Italy.

The exhibition "Marc Chagall, Ottavio Missoni. Dream and Colour." celebrates the work of Ottavio Missoni (1921-2013), fashion designer, and Marc Chagall (1887-1985), painter, at the Archeological Museum in Sesto Calende, a town northwest of Milan on the banks of the Ticino river near  Lake Maggiore, not far from Missoni's headquarter in Sumirago.

In 1958, Ottavio Missoni and his wife Rosita presented their first small collection of dresses in Milan, surprising the audience with their use of knitted fabrics and colours. Along the years, they developed their unmistakable combinations of shades, enhanced by the careful choice of yarns, knit stitches and patterns, from the famous zigzags to stripes. 


Colours have an immediate, irresistible appeal in the patchwork tapestries on display. They invite to get closer and discover details, textures and depth. Geometric shapes create fascinating complex structures free from subject and story, pure forms.

Tapestries are surrounded by 24 lithographs of "The Story of the Exodus" and by some of the drawings for the "Bible Series" by Marc Chagall. The Russian born painter began his illustration of the Bible in 1931 and, working at different times, completed his work with 105 black and white drawings in 1956. Instead, colour lithographs of the Exodus are dated 1966. The choice to return after ten years to this religious subject was due, in part, to the possibility of using new printing colour techniques. 





Chagall used vivid and intense colours to give shape to his memories, dreams and emotions, to his Russian life and Jewish traditions.

Marc Chagall was one of the artists who inspired Ottavio Missoni. Colour is a distinctive element in their works and their dreams are a gift.

Photos:
TravelinaGarden, November 2016,
Sesto Calende (VA), Italy







Link:
Marc Chagall, Ottavio Missoni.  Dream and Colour. Sesto Calende, Italy

http://www.comune.sesto-calende

Auguste Rodin and the Garden at the Musée Rodin in Paris.

Suggestions evoked by the statues on display in the elegant rooms of the Rodin Museum in Paris slowly dissolve as you walk in the garden that surrounds it. Trees and flowers delay the impact with the frantic city, giving you time to linger on the life and work of Auguste Rodin a little longer. 

In October 1908, the French sculptor rented two rooms at the first floor of this mansion and four rooms at the ground floor to be used as studio. In his last years, he used to leave Paris in the evening reaching by train the nearby village of Meudon, in the peaceful Seine valley. Here, he lived with Rose Beuret, his partner, and several animals, at Villa des Brillants, a redbrick and stone building in Louis XIII style. He was nearly seventy years old, with a long white beard and increasing health problems, a controversial artist of international fame and an avid collector of ancient sculptures and paintings. 

He loved old houses, and the lyric description of this Parisian building made by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, his friend and secretary for a short period, prompted a first visit in September. Rodin was fascinated by the garden. After years of neglect, its original shape was lost under a thick carpet of ivy, brambles climbed the fruit trees, moss invaded uncertain paths where rabbits stopped for a while, and hidden birds filled the air with their songs. He put simple furniture and some of his own sculptures and drawings in the rooms, and scattered antique statues in the garden. 

"Does it not seem to you," Rodin asked, "that verdure is the most appropriate setting for antique sculpture?’ This little drowsy Eros — would you not say that he is the god of the garden? His dimpled flesh is brother to this transparent and luxuriant foliage..."(1) 

Nature framed sculptures in its ever changing light giving them life. Nature was his inspiration and master, especially in this overgrown and quiet garden, whose wild charm and melancholic atmosphere made it easier to indulge in dreams and meditation. 
"Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit by which Nature herself is animated. … Art is the most sublime mission of man, since it is the expression of thought seeking to understand the world and to make it understood." (1)

In 1911, when the State purchased the property, Rodin took the first steps to donate his works and collections to the nation and transform the building into a museum. This opened in 1919, two years after Rodin’s death, while a new garden was inaugurated in 1927.

The garden that Rodin knew no longer exists. Today, it is a well defined space designed by conical shaped yews and trimmed linden trees, divided into long rectangular lawns, crossed by white gravelled paths and filled with trees, roses, many roses, and generous groups of shrubs and clumps of grasses. Water and rocks create secret thematic circuits and an elegant hornbeam amphitheatre, embracing a large pool, closes the view at the end of the lawn.

Today, the garden is the smell of roses, the foamy flowers of hydrangeas, the sound of water and Rodin's imposing and vibrant bronze sculptures, telling never ending stories of sorrow, love and courage in the shade of the golden dome of Les Invalides.

(1) from Art by Auguste Rodin, Boston: Small, Maynard & Co., 1912

Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Paris, September 2016

Further reading:
Vincent Brocvielle, Rodin Museum Guide to the Garden, Editions du Musée Rodin, Paris, 2006.

Link:
Musée Rodin, 79 Rue de Varenne, Paris
http://www.musee-rodin.fr/e

The Art of Chabana: October.

Material: Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, Camellia sasanqua, Acer palmatum.
Vase: white ceramic vase.

Rain has come at last and in a few days all the fiery autumn colours will be  scattered in the lawn or in indistinct wet piles at the side of the road. I'm using the small dried branches of the hydrangeas that I pruned in early spring to light the fireplace, and large logs to keep it on.

In his book 'The Art of Chabana: Flowers for the Tea Ceremony', Mittwer suggests 'tree and shrub branches' for the Chabana in the colder months. He lists the winged spindle, for example, to be used just when 'the leaves have started to turn crimson'. He adds useful information: 'to select a branch with a nice line', to avoid baskets, and to use a white camellia or wild flowers for nejime, that is for the base of the flower arrangement.  

I walked in the garden and ignoring the Schiapparelli pink of the Euonymus alatus, I chose a combination of colours and the last flowers of the season. 

Photos:

TravelinaGarden, October 2016

Further reading:

Henry Mittwer, The Art of Chabana: Flowers for the Tea Ceremony, Charles E. Tuttle Company Inc., Tokyo, 1974.

Links to the previous posts:

The Art of Chabana: April

The Art of Chabana: May

The Art of Chabana: June
The Art of Chabana: July
The Art of Chabana: September

菊まつり, Chrysanthemum Festivals in Tokyo, Japan.

Chrysanthemums Festivals have already begun in Japan. In Tokyo, they are held in parks and shrines between October and November. 

This tradition started a long time ago, when Tokyo was called Edo and the passion for ornamental flowers spread from nobles to common people. During the Edo period (1603-1868), an increasing range of new hybrids not only enriched the large gardens of the noble families in Edo, but also the small plant collections cultivated in beautiful pots of the inhabitants with no gardens. Small shrubs and herbaceous plants were favoured and special attention was given to form in new flowers. Camellias, peonies, lotus, primulas, Iris ensata, Adonis ramosa, Ipomoea and Dianthus superbus are just few of the flowers that, over the years, gained the title of the most fashionable and sought after. There were also chrysanthemums, of course, not the native species, with little, simple flowers, but varieties introduced from China in the late eight century, mainly for their medicinal properties. Their beauty and prestige, which came from the power to provide Eternal Youth, soon conquered all, and the craze for chrysanthemums exploded between 1764 and 1772. In Edo, the best chrysanthemums were sold in the village of Somei, today Komagone area. In autumn, new varieties with poetic names and unusual forms were presented by nurserymen following strictly codified styles of cultivation and arrangement. The same styles that, last year, I saw at several Kiku (Japanese for chrysanthemum) Festivals in Tokyo. 

The Ninth Month (Kikuzuki) from the series annual Events for Young Murasaki
 Utagawa, Kunisada (1786-1864), 1853

I did not find stalls with the blue and white checkered roof that, in old prints, seems peculiar to flower exhibitions but the beauty and variety of flowers was amazing. Flowers are divided according to their size in large, medium and small. There are countless varieties for each group and many different styles to cultivate them. Large chrysanthemums of the 'astumono' variety, for example, can be cultivated in a three-branch plant, with a flower at the top of  each stem. The three branches represent the sky, the earth and the man. Small flower chrysanthemums are preferred for more artistic arrangements, such as bonsai or dolls. 'Saga-giku', 'Ise-giku', 'Higo-giku' and 'Edo-giku' are the names of the main varieties of medium flower chrysanthemums. Their names recall their areas of origin and their shape and arrangement are even more special ...  
For those travelling to Tokyo in these weeks, there is still time to discover them. Don't miss them and please let us have your photos!

Large flower chrysanthemum: 'astumono'  grown in three-branch plants

'kudamono'

'ichimonji', a disc of paper supports the petals

Large flower chrysanthemum but small plants: Darumazukuri

Small flower chrysanthemum: Kengai bed

Small flower chrysanthemum: Bonsai form

Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Hibiya Park, Tokyo, November 2015.

The Ninth Month (Kikuzuki) from the series annual Events for Young Murasaki Utagawa, Kunisada (1786-1864), 1853, woodblock print
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
https://ukiyo-e.org/

Further reading:
Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, Haruo Shirane, Columbia University Press, 2012

Mutations, Heidi Bedenknecht-De Felice, Orticolario, Como, Italy.

Fantastic creatures, flowers, leaves and vines, climb the trunk of an old tree and sway in the air. Their bright colours and imaginary shapes are eye-catching. Changing light reveals their mysterious nature: mutations.

Heidi Bedenknecht-De Felice, German-born artist living in Como, created this installation made of fluorescent polycarbonate for Orticolario, the Flower Show held in late September at Villa Erba in Como. She interpreted the theme of this year, the Sixth Sense, inviting the busy visitors to look beyond reality with this representation of how human activities affect the environment and profoundly alter nature.

New species among anemones and camellias. 

   Installation and Details

Performance

Photos:

Heidi Bedenknecht-De Felice, Orticolario, Como (Italy), October 2016.

Link:

Orticolario, 

http://orticolario.it/heidi-bedenknecht-de-felice/

Giovane con canestra di frutta, 'Boy with a Basket of Fruit', Caravaggio 1593-94/ Ravo 2016.

Michelangelo Merisi (1571-1610), the Italian painter known as Caravaggio, painted 'Boy with a Basket of Fruit' towards the end of the sixteenth-century, probably in Rome. The portrait of the melancholic boy holding a basket is exquisitely expressive and detailed. Autumn fruits, in particular, are tempting with an abundance of fresh grape, peaches and figs. Medlars, apples, small pears and a pomegranate half hidden by the leaves add to the richness of the season. 

Today, this beautiful oil on canvas is on display at the museum at the Galleria Borghese in Rome AND on the external wall of a private house in Angera, a town on the shores of Lake Maggiore. 

In September, Andrea Ravo Mattoni transformed the painting in a huge mural, working  hard with spray cans for one week. 

With artistic studies at the Academy of Brera in Milan, Ravo has shift his spray cans from trains to walls, interpreting with his murals the works of the most famous Italian painters. He has a special interest in Caravaggio, and a special talent for his paintings. 

 

Photos:TravelinaGarden, Angera, October 2016

Carlo Scarpa and The Querini Stampalia Garden, Venice.

Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) changed his mind.

When in 1959, Giuseppe Mazzariol, Director of the Querini Stampalia Foundation in Venice, asked him to renovate part of the headquarter of the Foundation and its small and neglected garden, the architect created a raised lawn with rills, sculptures and few trees instead of the paved court with labyrinth and central pool that he had designed for it ten years before.

The original design was, in fact, dated 1949 and was part of the project to restore the antique palace with its art collections and precious library, legacy of the generous Count Giovanni Querini to the Venetians in 1869. The garden had never enjoyed much favour. The Count himself considered it a nuisance, a useless expense and a waste of time. Along the years, it had become a sort of outdoor deposit, after being used as vegetable garden. Financial problems delayed the beginning of the works that started just in 1959 and were completed with the inauguration in 1963.

Scarpa's approach returned the garden its dignity and a well defined role for the Foundation. He did not try to conceal its small size, rectangular shape, and incumbent boundary walls but exploited these aspects creating different volumes and walks. Shapes are clean and linear, simple parallelepipeds that form steps, planters, little canals and pools. He used concrete, marble and glass. The thin wall that separates one side of the garden from the cafe is made of concrete. Its monotonous and rough surface is broken by openings and brightened by a mosaic created by Mario De Luigi with Murano glass tiles, shaded from gold to grey and black. Elsewhere, this ribbon of glass becomes a stone path or a short channel fed by an alabaster sculpture. The water flows along the channel, beyond a small stone lion, into a small spiral pool and disappears in a ‘vera da pozzo’, the ancient wellhead. Water is enclosed in a square copper pool, surrounded by a larger concrete one decorated with a glass tile mosaic.

The use of these materials creates continuity with the ground floor rooms of which the garden becomes an extension: just a glass wall and four columns divide them. The lawn is reflected in the glass and through it you can see the canal on the other side of the palace. Water enters it. Scarpa solved the problem of the 'aqua alta' allowing the water to enter the ground floor from the nearby canal but following a set course, using water to light up and mirror patterns and surfaces. Effects that continue in the garden amplified by the changing natural light and the vegetation. A papyrus, a pomegranate and some flowering trees bring the seasons in the garden. Giuseppe Mazzariol added flowers and mediterranean plants but more recent restorations had simplified the plantations.

The garden is an essential and elegant space intended for rest and reading. When Scarpa eventually began the works, he was ten years older and more experienced, able to create a perfect harmony between nature and human intervention.

Photos:
TravelinaGarden, Venice, December 2014.

Link:
Fondazione Querini Stampalia
Castello 5252 - 30122 Venezia
http://www.querinistampalia.org/

Further reading:
Carlo Scarpa alla Querini Stampalia, text by Maura Manzelle, Venezia, Fondazione Querini Stampalia, 2012 (2003).