Welcome to the weekend,
Here are five things I thought worth sharing this week.
This was a lovely overview of the work of Rachel Ruysch, the Dutch woman who perfected flower still-lifes.
Ted Gioia published a piece this week which I tend to somewhat agree with the conclusion of, but have some concerns about the premise. The Internet does tend toward the new and shiny “eternal now,” but I don’t think the Internet is the final word on culture. I would even argue culture continues to be what happens away from the Internet. Gioia makes the claim that mid-century art is disappearing, mostly citing Netflix and Amazon’s book charts. To be fair, I do not see much discussion or interest online about art from the 1930s through the 1970s either. I think the closest one could come would be Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, so far as names still in the cultural ether. Obviously films from marquee directors like Hitchcock and Coppola remain in the zeitgeist, but these names have crossed over into ‘classic’ territory, which seems to be slightly different from what Gioia is referencing. He is largely concerned with media which was popular or respected during those decades, but is not necessarily considered classic, and which, he claims, is difficult to find and therefore ‘disappearing’.
There are plenty of market reasons why Citizen Kane is not on Netflix and Saul Bellow isn’t burning up Amazon’s bestseller lists, but none of them are a conspiratorial “disappearing” of mid-century culture. I also think the era simply hasn’t gotten far enough into the past to actually spark interest in today’s younger cohort. For the past year, for example, I’ve been checking in on books from a century ago, reading old authors and rediscovering their works via bestseller and awards lists. I’ve read several Pulitzer winners from the 1920s at this point. More widely, there is discussion every year about the new works entering public domain. If I had to guess, the authors and artists of the mid-century will be rediscovered when they have a bit more age on them.
What motivates us to continue reading Jane Austen’s work?
The story of how a specific ballpoint pen has come to symbolize French modernity.
A dispatch from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
Currently reading: “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Have a great weekend.
Image: A Still Life With Grapes And Peaches In A Basket, An Open Pomegranate, Plums, Black Grapes And More Peaches, All On A Marble Ledge. van Dael, Jan Frans. 1809.
