Lyndhurst Mansion and Gardens

 Last week I went to Irvington, New York, and toured Lyndhurst.  

Lyndhurst was built in 1838 by General William Paulding, a former New York City mayor who had grown up in Tarrytown and wanted to go home.  He bought 180 acres of farmland for $20,000 and turned it into land for a manor.  Lyndhurst was designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, a prominent architect at that time.

Paulding's furnishings are relatively spare.

The second owner was George Merritt, a merchant and inventor, who re-engaged Davis.  Merritt and Davis doubled the size of the manor and turned it into the Romantic Gothic Revival showpiece it is today.  Busts of George Washington (above) and Lafayette line the formal entrance.

In 1880 Jay Gould bought the property.  Gould was a railroad magnate and one of the wealthiest people in the country.  He did not modify the structure, but he added opulent art and furnishings.  

Gould's art gallery is impressive.  One end is a huge glass window by Gould's friend, Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Regrettably my photograph of the wall didn't do it justice, so I don't show it here.

Lyndhurst has a broad view of the Hudson River.

Gould died in 1892, but his daughters owned and seasonally occupied the property until 1961.  In that year Gould's daughter, Anna Gould, donated the estate to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns it today and opens it for tours.

Mark Twain House

Samuel Clemens -- known to most by his pen name Mark Twain -- lived in Hartford for 17 years, from 1874 to 1891.  He wrote his best known books here -- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

His house was designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter and built in the America High Gothic style. Clemens biographer Justin Kaplan called it "part steamboat, part medieval fortress and part cuckoo clock."

Clemens bought land for the house in a neighborhood called Nook Farm, a small writers' colony in which the best known author in today's world was his next door neighbor Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Louis Comfort Tiffany decorated several of the 25 rooms in the days before he shifted to concentrate exclusively on his glass works.

The Foundation that operates the Mark Twain House conducts several tours a day, seven days a week.  My family took a tour led by a woman who assumed the role of Clemens' wife Olivia.  Photographs are not permitted inside the house.

A Tall Hartford Mural

This is Reach, an eight story tall mural by ARCY, behind the TheaterWorks building in downtown Hartford.  

 

ARCY describes the meaning of the mural as follows:  "the low bearing fruit may be easy to attain, but to reach beyond demonstrates the will to persevere, to never settle for less than your potential, and to always follow your dreams, no matter how high they are."

ARCY is New Haven-based artist Ryan Christenson, who has been painting murals worldwide over 20 years.  (ARCY is a play on his initials RC.)  ARCY was supported in this project by the Greater Hartford Arts Council, Theater Works and CT Murals.

This post is linked to Monday Murals.

Some gems at Wadsworth Atheneum

 Here are some of the amazing paintings at Wadsworth Atheneum.

A special surrealist painting by Salvador Dali.  The central image is either a chalice or a face.  

Vincent Van Gogh was fascinated with painting himself.  He did it numerous times over his brief career.

John Singleton Copley was a superb portrait artist.  This portrait of Bridget Forrester Foot always catches my eye because it shows us a not overly attractive woman just the way she must have looked.

Gilbert Stuart is famous because of his portraits of George Washington.  I liked seeing his painting of a different man, in this case James Heath.

Marsden Hartley painted this image of Military a year before the start of World War I.  As the nearby label wrote, "Here, numbers, bold shapes, and vivid colors evoke the sights and sounds of military music and parades. You don't just see the rhythm; you can hear it.  Military turns paint into music, line into movement."

This isn't a work by an artist famous today, but it is the kind of painting one can spend time admiring.  Giovanni Paolo Panini was a Roman artist who painted The Picture Gallery of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga, a huge work, in the middle of the 16th century.

Charter Oak at Wadsworth Atheneum

The Charter Oak was an exceptionally large oak tree growing in Hartford from around the 12th or 13th century until it fell during a storm in 1856.  Connecticut colonists hid Connecticut's Royal Charter of 1662 within the tree's hollow to thwart its confiscation by Sir Edmund Andros.  

After the Charter Oak fell, pieces of it were gathered and turned into a variety of pieces.  This chair at Wadsworth Atheneum is said to be constructed from the Charter Oak.  A painting of the Charter Oak is visible behind the chair.  The painting's frame is also said to be from pieces of the fallen tree.

The gunmaker Samuel Colt was a wealthy Hartford businessman when the Charter Oak fell.  He had a bassinet crafted from the Charter Oak.  (See the colts atop the supports?)  It is said that Colt's three children swung in this bassinet when they were babies.

Batey Boricua at Wadsworth Atheneum

 

Hartford has the largest Puerto Rican population of any city in the continental United States.  This month the Wadsworth Atheneum is showing works by local Puerto Rican artists in Avery Court as part of the museum's America 250 celebrations.

Sol LeWitt at Wadsworth Athenum

Sol LeWitt was a Connecticut-born artist known for "conceptual art."  He believed that it is the idea that is important, not the execution.  In many cases he developed a plan and had assistants do the painting.

In 2004 the Wadsworth commissioned LeWitt for a wall drawing for the entrance to Great Hall.  The colorful Whirls and Twirls is the result.  LeWitt imagined patterns of circles and squares created in the rainbow’s colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Whirls and Twirls is a striking contrast to the pale classical forms in Morgan Hall where it is painted.  At the base of the monumental staircase leading to second story display areas, Hartford-born financier J. P. Morgan commissioned an inscription with brass letters announcing the dedication of the memorial to his father and his family’s ties to Hartford.

The museum's entrance has an earlier wall drawing by LeWitt.  This view is from a floor above the front doors, looking through the entrance hall toward the Wadsworth 1 gallery.  It also shows a sign for "Rebel, Revolt, Resist," an America 250 theme reflected in many galleries.

Amazing Art at Wadsworth Atheneum

 The quality of the art at Wadsworth Atheneum dazzles.  Everywhere I turned there was a work by a master.  As an example, I walked through a narrow passageway where two life-size portraits hung.  Checking the labels, they were by John Singer Sargent.  In an out-of-the-way passageway!

A docent talked about Saint Francis in Ecstasy, a painting by Caravaggio.

On a nearby easel, the chief curator's copy of the Caravaggio was on an easel.  When it is finished it will be offered for sale in a fundraiser for the museum.

Wadsworth Atheneum

 

I visited Wadsworth Atheneum with my family last Sunday.  Opened in 1844, it is the oldest continuously operating public art museum in the United States.  The collection is terrific.  Some of the art will be here in the coming days.

Nathan Hale

 On September 22, 1776 -- 250 years ago today --  the British hanged Nathan Hale for spying on behalf of the Patriots.  He is reputed to have said “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”  

Hale was born and raised in Coventry, Connecticut.  He was educated at Yale, where he graduated with honors before starting a career as a teacher.  His room at Yale is in Connecticut Hall, this brick building in Yale's Old Campus.  The statue by Bela Lyon Pratt was placed here in 1914.

Nathan Hale's strong Connecticut ties and the brave last words attributed to him have given rise to several Connecticut statues in Hale's honor.  This 1889 statue by Enoch Smith Woods is in front of 

the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford.

And, Hale has a position of honor in the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford.  This 1886 statue by Karl Gerhart is in the east entrance of the Capitol lobby.  On October 1, 1985, by an act of the General Assembly and the efforts of the Nathan Hale Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, Nathan Hale officially became Connecticut's State Hero. 

A Hartford Mural

 

Hartford muralist Corey Pane painted this mural two years ago on a blank wall behind Hartford's main sports venue, now called the Peoples Bank Arena.

When I lived in West Hartford I shared tickets to the Hartford Whalers games.  The Whalers left Hartford and moved to Carolina after the 1997 season.  Even though they have been gone nearly three decades, their jerseys are still very popular.

Linked to Monday Murals.

Grace Episcopal Church

A beautiful church in White Plains, New York.

 

Bathers

 

Some people celebrate Halloween in September.

Lenny

 I met Lenny on Main Street in Danbury a few days ago.  Her mother lived in a nearby senior housing complex.  Lenny moved to New York City but then changed her mind and moved back to Danbury.  She now works in that housing complex.

A Curious Display

 Someone on Umpawaug Road in West Redding had a good time adding things near the driveway.  

There are several cairns, a face carved into a tree trunk and an old American flag.

Black Barn

 

An appealing black barn on Umpawaug Road in Redding, Connecticut.

Just Love Everybody

 A fun building on Umpawaug Road in West Redding, Connecticut.

Marilyn Monroe

Ben Keller painted a great mural of Marilyn Monroe at Elicit Brewing Company, a new brewery, beer hall, cocktail bar, lounge, arcade and restaurant in Danbury.  

Linked to Monday Murals.

September 11 Memorial

Danbury has an impressive glass memorial to those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center destruction on September 11, 2001. 

The memorial is in Elmwood Park on Main Street in Danbury.

Lake Naraneka

 Lake Naraneka in Ridgefield is often called Lake Pierrepont.  It was created in the 1930s by Seth Low Pierrepont, a wealthy politician and diplomat, who had a swamp cleared and filled by building a dam.  Pierrepont named the lake after Naraneka, one of the chiefs who signed the deed to the town of Ridgefield.

The south side of Lake Naraneka is now Pierrepont State Park, a 305 acre public recreation area donated to the State of Connecticut in Mr. Pierrepont's will.  I photographed the lake from the edge of the park.  The sky and the lake are rich blue.