Oklahoma summers are not my cup o' tea by a long chalk. Why? The extreme heat, the insect bites, the allergies..... so excuse me if I don't celebrate with wild enthusiasm. To mark the day, though, I'll pull out half a dozen depictions of summer by a couple of favouite painters of mine. These two don't paint leafy glades and gardens filled with flowers, instead their summers are urbane in flavour rather than rural.....It comes as a surprise that I find a more evocative sense of summer in these works than from any rural or floral scene, even those painted by the best of the best. My two chosen painters: Edward Hopper and Jack Vettriano, the former is a well-loved American artist, the latter artist is sometimes - always even - derided by critics, but that only endears him to me the more!
There are archived posts on both artists with notes about their astrology HERE
and HERE.
Edward Hopper's summer ~~
Jack Vettriano's summer ~~
And a matching track: The Summer Knows - theme from the 1971 movie The Summer of '42. It was composed by multiple Oscar and Grammy Award winner, French composer Michel Legrand, with lyrics by Marilyn and Alan Bergman, sung here by Scott Walker, whose rendition has just the right "feel" to it to blend with these paintings.
Or...if a female vocalist is preferred, it'd be hard to top Ms Streisand's version -nice video with this one too:
Well, Twilight, only 90 more days until fall...at least that's probably true for you. In the deep south, probably 120 to 150 days! But the winters are fab here.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favorite summer songs is Sam Cooke's "Summertime":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc6k2NFXmEY
(don't cry, don't cry, don't cry no no no no
Don't cry, don't cry)
It's summertime and the living is easy
Fish are jumping and the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich and your mama's good-looking
Hush, little baby don't you cry
don't cry, don't cry, don't cry
no no no no
don't cry, don't cry
One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing
you spread your wings and take to the sky
But until that morning there is nothing can harm you
With your daddy and mommy standing by
They are standing by, I know, don't cry
Summertime, summertime, summertime
and the living is, living is easy
Fish are, I know the fish are jumping
and cotton is so high
You'r daddy is so, so rich and your mama good-
she had to be good-looking
so hush, little baby, don't you cry
don't you cry, no no, don't cry
no need to cry, don't cry, don't cry
summertime, summertime....
mike~ Yes, 90 days-ish to go. Shouldn't wish my time away, but can't help looking forward to Fall once again. :-)
ReplyDeleteNice gentle version of Summertime, hadn't heard that version before. Having listened to it I then just had to go take a listen to Sam Cooke's classic A Change is Gonna Come - always brings a lump to the throat, that one, never loses its poignancy.
Love the paintings; not so keen on the song. 'Summertime', noted by Mike, is more my style, though there's plenty of versions to choose from. For me, Billy Holiday's 1936 recording is hard to beat. AnyJazz probably has a copy, somewhere in the depths of his garage.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, it was a bit chilly here today. We lit the wood stove!
RJ Adams ~~ Oh yes - he has numerous versions of Summertime on LP and CD - I've heard several of 'em. I like the song well enough, but somehow it doesn't "grab" me, isn't evocative, in the way that the song I posted does.
ReplyDeleteWood stove???? June?? Oh my! I did land myself in the wrong area of the US didn't I? ;-)
Hopper was an artist, Vettriano isn't :)
ReplyDeleteJD ~ You're on the side of the art critics then - hmmmm - you ol' elitist you! ;-)
ReplyDelete