BITTS AND BYTES FOR JULY 17, 2011

July 17, 2011

"People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."

The Montana wildflower season is over for me. Below are the best of my 5-petaled blazingstar photos.


SUMMERTIME
Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. In both his urban and rural scenes, his spare and finely calculated renderings reflected his personal vision of modern American life.
Hopper was born in upper Nyack, New York, a yacht-building center on the Hudson River north of New York City. He was one of two children of a comfortably well-off, middle-class family. His parents, of mostly Dutch ancestry, were Garret Henry Hopper, a dry-goods merchant, and his wife Elizabeth Griffiths Smith. Though not as successful as his forebears, Garrett provided well for his two children with considerable help from his wife's inheritance. He retired at age forty-nine. Edward and his only sister Marion attended both private and public schools. They were raised in a strict Baptist home. His father had a mild nature, and the household was dominated by women: Hopper's mother, grandmother, sister, and maid. His birthplace and boyhood home was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. Today the house is the Edward Hopper House Art Center. It serves as a non-profit community cultural center featuring exhibitions, workshops, lectures, performances and special events.

This cottontail has been feasting on my tomatoes. You can see the juice and seeds on the masonry block.


SAILBOATS ON THE HUDSON AT IRVINGTON

THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN--SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA

The March Begins -- In preparing for the long march before him, Sherman left behind all disabled or weak men, and made up a fine army of 60,000 seasoned veterans, of whom 5,000 were cavalry.  The army was to feed itself on the country.

Each brigade had a party of foragers, called "bummers."  These men were instructed to take all necessary provisions, horses and mules, but were ordered not to enter dwellings, nor insult the people, and were told to leave a part of their property to every family, so that none would be destitute.  Where the army was not opposed, Sherman ordered that mills, cotton gins and houses should not be destroyed; but they were to be burned, if resistance were made.

All these orders were very badly obeyed, no effort seemingly having been made to enforce the instructions.

Atlanta to Milledgeville -- The march was directed toward the capital, Milledgeville.  Sherman divided his army into two divisions, the right wing under General O. O. Howard following the railroad by Jonesboro and McDonough, with orders to stop at Gordon, on the Central of Georgia Railroad; the left wing, under General H. W. Slocum, marching by way of Decatur and Covington to Madison; and thence to Milledgeville.

General Sherman was with the left wing.  The army spread out, visiting the important towns in that section of the state.

The movement from Atlanta began on November 15th, and by the 23rd Sherman and the left wing reached Milledgeville, and the right wing had stopped at Gordon.  Sherman did not destroy the capitol buildings at Milledgeville.

Milledgeville's Civil War history falls into two categories--the political activities which occurred here when it was Georgia's Civil War capital, and the occupation Nov. 22-25, 1864 by Gen. W.T. Sherman's split Left Wing, which came together here briefly from Eatonton and Shady Dale to cross the Oconee River.

Milledgeville, a planned town inspired by Savannah and Washington, D.C., was the state capital from 1803-68. When the capital was moved to Atlanta in 1868 during Reconstruction, the town experienced economic decline but later rebounded in the early 20th century.

This Greek Revival mansion, built in 1838, was home to the governors of Georgia from 1838 to 1868. When Sherman occupied the town, he slept in his bedroll on the floor of this historic home, from which the furnishings had been evacuated to Macon along with Gov. Joe Brown. Brown was later arrested at this site in May 1865.

Milledgeville to Savannah -- On November 24th the march was resumed, now in the direction of Savannah.

Sherman's army visited in this section Sandersville, Tennille, Louisville, Millen and other towns. In Louisville, Sherman's men piled all deed books in front of the courthouse and burned them. The logic was that the big plantations would not be able to prove land ownership. These actions are the bane of Georgia and South Carolina genealogists.

The cavalry, under Kilpatrick, passed through many places not visited by the army, such as Waynesboro. In this part of Georgia Sherman was opposed by small bodies of cavalry and infantry under various generals. These small forces did not expect to stop Sherman's army, but hoped to keep it in a narrow path, so as to limit the amount of destruction.

SAVANNAH AND SURROUNDING TERRITORY

On December 9th the Federal army reached the neighborhood of Savannah. The city was defended by General Hardee with 10,000 men, and was well protected by forts and by the rice swamps which had been flooded. Though cannonading was kept up for a number of days between attackers and defenders, the city was not hurt. After cooperation had been established between Sherman and the Federal gunboats on the coast and in the mouths of the rivers, Hardee saw that it would be impossible to hold Savannah, and in order to save his army he withdrew across the Savannah River into South Carolina on December 21st.

Sherman entered Savannah and sent this telegram to President Lincoln: "I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton."

HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL

ONE HUNDRED FAMOUS VIEWS OF EDO (TOKYO)

NUMBER SIXTY-NINE

HALL OF THIRTY-THREE BAYS, FUKAGAWA

The origin of the Hall of Thirty-Three Bays is a revealing commentary on Edo culture. The structure was built in 1642 as a replica of a famous building of the same name in Kyoto, which had been constructed in the twelfth century to house a spectacular array of 1,001 images of Kannon, a testament to the piety of the Helan aristocracy.



THE NARROWS FROM STATEN ISLAND

THE NARROWS FROM STATEN ISLAND (DETAIL)

THE LIGHTHOUSE AT TWO LIGHTS

Edward Hopper

In "The Lighthouse at Two Lights" Hopper isolated the dramatic silhouette of the 120-foot-high lighthouse tower and adjoining Coast Guard station against the open expanse of blue sky.

Set on a rocky promontory in Cape Elizabeth, Maine--though no water is visible in the painting--the architecture is bathed in bright sunlight offset by dark shadows.

Since 1914 Hopper had regularly summered in Maine, and this picture is one of three oils and several watercolors that he did of this site during summer 1929.

To Hopper, the lighthouse at Two Lights symbolized the solitary individual stoically facing the onslaught of change in an industrial society. The integrity and clarity of his work made Hopper a quiet force in American art for forty years and one of America's most popular artists.

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