The Uncommon Life

Due to an injury, I wasn’t able to go on a leaf-peeping trip this year, and I consoled myself by collecting autumnal art on Pinterest. It wasn’t the same, of course, but I found it hard to be unhappy while perched upon a comfy chair with a cat and a laptop and perusing fantastic art, like the great Hudson River School painter Frederic Edwin Church‘s “Autumn in North America,” above. As I surfed, “curated” and pinned, several major themes of autumn art emerged; all so obvious that a child could guess them.  And so the first theme, “Made of Leaves,” includes some children’s artsy/craftsy projects (see sources at the bottom of the page), along with one by British environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy, “Rowan Leaves with Hole,” made in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Bretton, England in 1987.

“Art of, but not made of, leaves” is my clunky title for Theme Two.  Russian painter Isaac Levitan‘s 1879 “Autumn Leaves,” Georgia O’Keeffe‘s 1924 “Autumn Leaves, Lake George, N.Y.,” British photographer Stuart Franklin‘s 1986 “Somerset county, Quantock Hills,” and this incredible leaf tattoo with silhouettes of a hawk diving after some rabbits that are hiding among the leaf veins, each satisfied several leaves’ worth of my forest of foliage cravings.

A Frenchman, an Austrian, a Canadian and a Chinese walk into a bar. “What’s shakin’?” asks the bartender. The Frenchman, Paul Gauguin (1885’s “By the Stream, Autumn“), the Austrian, Egon Schiele (1917’s “Four Trees“), the Canadian, Tom Thomsen (1915’s “Maple Saplings, October“) and the Chinese, Lin Fengmian (“Autumn in Jiangnan“; I couldn’t find a date but he lived from 1900 to 1991)  all answer, “The autumn leaves from the trees!”, but in paintings, not words. Which sums up Autumn Art Theme Three, “Trees,” and probably ends my writing career here and now.

Autumn Art Theme Four, “Golden Fields of Ripe Grain,” could easily have been subtitled “The Vincent Van Gogh Subsection,” because the man painted wheat field (“Wheat Fields with Sheaves, 1888) after wheat field (“Wheat Fields with Auvers in the Background,” 1890) , each more glorious than the next. But for contrast, I threw in Grant Wood’s slightly cartoonish “Iowa Cornfield” (1941) and Greek painter Nicolaos Lytras‘s more atmospheric “Fields with Haystacks” (I couldn’t find a date for it, but Lytras lived from 1832 to 1904). I like the way you can see the light reflecting off this painting; I’m so used to looking at computer images all day that it’s nice to be reminded of actual paint.

Autumn Art Theme Five is “The Glory and the Power(less) of the Harvest.” Pieter Bruegel the Elder‘s 1565 “The Harvesters” makes the whole wheat scything thing look pretty chill. Giuseppe Arcimboldo‘s 1573 “Autumn,” a comic take on the season’s vegetable riches, is a good vibes-er as well. But Jean-François Millet‘s sad 1857 “The Gleaners,” one of the most famous paintings of all time, shows poor women gathering what’s left on the ground after the more fortunate have finished their harvest. Gleaning is still practiced today (though not usually while wearing long skirts), and there are non-agricultural, year-round versions of gleaning as well, which you’ve probably heard referred to as “dumpster-diving.”

Autumn Art Theme Six, “Vistas,” may look a lot like Theme Three, “Trees,” but I swear it’s different. These paintings have bigger scenes. More of a view. Are not 100% tree-predominant. There are ponds (Charles Burchfield‘s 1938 “October in the Woods“), mountains (Canadian Franklin Carmichael‘s 1920 “Autumn Foliage against Grey Rock“), and people (Van Gogh’s 1889 “The Garden of Saint Paul’s Hospital (‘The Fall of the Leaves’).” Totally more vista-y than Theme Three!

I saved my favorite vista for last. This one reminds me of the northern lakes in the state where I (and Cassie) grew up, Minnesota. “Hasta la vista!” say the geese in Tom Thomson’s 1915 “Round Lake, Mud Bay,” and now I must say “Ciao” to this blog post as well. Quack, quack!  (You don’t have to say good-bye to beautiful autumn artworks, though. There are tons more in my Pinterest collection.)

Kids' fall foliage crafts sources: Leaf Rubbing Fairy,  Leaf Finger Puppets, and Leaf Deer