It's a Classical Life

  John William Waterhouse - Dolce Far Niente (The White Feather Fan) 1879 Source When I first made the move from teaching to working in a very small office two days a week, one of the hardest changes to make was to slow down my pace. I noticed this most during morning tea where we sit around the kitchen sipping coffee and chatting. Initially, I felt a strange pull to check my watch, get up and do something productive. I felt like I was being idle when I should have been working.  It took me a while to realise that the things that we were chatting about were important and productive. The coffee we sipped on was a break, sure, but we were together, office matters were discussed and it was like a lovely, relaxed staff meeting. Coming from a school environment where I was on the go from the minute I stepped in the building to the end of the day, I wasn't used to this slower pace of work. Everyone respected the fact that work would get done in a timely manner, no-one...

From The Burghers of Calais ~ A. Rodin Recently, my husband and I visited the National Gallery of Australia. There were some renovation works being done, but there was still a lot to see and enjoy. It's been a while since I had visited a gallery and I had forgotten how they make me feel. The creativity and scope of design on show is always inspiring and awesome. Viewing art really speaks to my desire to connect with other humans, past and present. To find connections with those who have come before us, and to realise that I am not alone in how I feel and my experience of life. I know a lot of people like to cling to a feeling of individualism; they like to think that no-one understands them and their feelings are unique and incomprehensible to others. I, on the other hand, love the feeling that the breadth of human experience and emotion is a collective experience, something we can share with others and find connection. This connection is only one joyful consequence of experie...

  It has been a while since we have done an artist spotlight here on It's a Classical Life , and as I was admiring the work of Grace Cossington Smith on several different occasions lately, I thought she would fit in perfectly here. Her biography and the quotes here come from the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ANU) and the photos are courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia .  Grace Smith was born in Sydney in 1892 into a large Anglican family, with ties to royalty (her uncle  was private chaplain to Queen Victoria at Osborne, Isle of Wight) and a love for art. She studied art in Sydney as a young woman, and when she was twenty she travelled to England for two years with her sister. Here she continued to sketch and study art, and even travelled to Germany where she was inspired by the paintings of Watteau. You can see how his use of colour has inspired Cossington's own paintings.   Smith returned to Sydney in 1915 and once more resumed her art classes....

  After seeing Van Gogh Alive last week, art has been on my mind. I studied philosophy briefly during university, and had the opportunity to teach it for a year to senior high school students. We had a lot of fun, delving into the history and different philosophical movements.   Schopenhauer is today's Bitesize Inspiration and I think that this quote is wonderful advice for people who are just starting out with art or any creative pursuit - literature, music, poetry and so on. I often ignore the introduction or forward in a piece of literature so that the person writing that forward does not impose their thoughts and ideas on me before I've even read the book! I also think this advice is timely for those who may be connoisseurs of the arts, or have a long experience with studying it. We don't want to go in thinking we know all about it, before we have fully experienced it. Schopenhauer's quote touches on so many important things: manners, reverence, the art of listening...

When we look at fine art, we are given a number of opportunities. We can simply appreciate the work, its lines and colours, the way it makes us feel. When I write an Artist Spotlight post, however I like to look for artists that inspire me and my values. How can I look at art and recreate the images, or the feelings, the actions, in my own life? What is it about a piece that inspires me, or that speaks to my soul?  Last week, I was looking through some of my favourite artists, wondering which one to use for this week's spotlight, but I decided to use French impressionist artist, Victor Gilbert - someone I don't actually know anything about. HIs paintings, though, were so appealing to me that I wanted to learn more. That's what I love about what I do here, I get to learn right along with you! The images have come from a variety of sources (listed at the end of this post).  Victor Gabriel Gilbert was a French painter belonging to the Impressionist movement. M...

  Have you heard of the Australian artist Margaret Olley? Don't worry if you haven't as we are going to be discussing her life and designs here on the blog today. Photos and biography details are courtesy of the Art Gallery of NSW. The reason that I chose Olley to be the first Artist in Spotlight here on It's a Classical Life  is because I have long admired her work and the beautiful and warm simplicity depicted in her paintings. Predominantly her work consists of still-life and interior paintings, from the late 1940s all the way to the early 2000s. And honestly, they remind me of my grandmother's place (and perhaps your grandmother's too!) They exude a feeling of welcome and love and are, to me, what home should be. She focuses on simple pleasures in her painting, flowers, fresh fruit and vegetables, well-worn furniture and china crockery that is treasured yet still used on an everyday basis.  Biography Born in 1923 in Lismore, New South Wales, Olley studied art a...