Thursday, 17 May 2012
Canberra and Velasquez
Overnight, a tree dropped all its leaves in Ainslie:
Or almost all - there's a couple of recalcitrants in every crowd (usually I'm among them, to be honest):
It was a striking sight and, as I looked at the bright carpet, I remembered being in the Metropolitan Museum in New York a month or two ago:
looking at a painting of some poor benighted infanta (Maria Theresa, actually, who didn't have, all things considered, too bad a time of it - only having to marry a first cousin, for instance, rather than an uncle):
whose 'butterfly ribbons' mirrored, it seemed to me, the shape of the fallen leaves in Ainslie:
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its a ginko tree - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_biloba
ReplyDeletemaria theresa aka the gingko girl
ReplyDeleteI really love the first, third and fifth images
ReplyDeleteI just love seeing how the paint was applied by Velasquez to create his beautiful illusions
DeleteI'd be pretty confident ZMKC that this as ever excellent piece is the first written with the title 'Canberra and Velasquez'. I wondered whether this was Maria Theresa of Austria but of course she was much later than Velasquez and I see this was Maria Theresa of Spain who became the Queen of the Sun King, Louis XIV. When she died, Louis said 'this is the first trouble which she has given me' which I suppose was a compliment, albeit an odd one.
ReplyDeleteI think they got on quite well until she got a bit tubby.
DeleteOh that's a gingko tree ... love, love, love them. There's a lovely one (at least) at the Oaks Brasserie outside Yarralumla nursery. They live for a long time and symbolise fortune and longevity (as I recollect) in Japan (and probably China from whence they first come).
ReplyDeleteIn fact I'm rather astonished at how many Chinese trees we seem to have. In my own garden we have Manchurian Pears, Chinese (which we planted), Chinese pistachios (one of which we planted), a Chinese Elm, and a Sapium or Chinese Tallow Tree. It only struck me recently and made me wonder if the world was telling me something.
Oh, and I love your link to the painting. Cleverly done!
The very mention of a Chinese elm makes me shudder - we planted one that became a sinister monster that spread out over the entire back garden, casting a chilly shade and stunting everything in its radius. We had to get a man in to remove it eventually so that everything else could thrive. I've never encountered a malevolent tree before, but that one seemed to be. Ugh.
Delete