Christmas with Grandma Moses

Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860-1961) began painting at age 78. Her paintings of bygone American life were discovered in 1938, and her popularity continues to this day.

The Time Magazine cover on December 28, 1953, featured a portrait of Grandma Moses painted by Boris Chaliapin, along with the text “Christmas is not just one day.”  Her smiling face was set in front of a snowy winter landscape with a church in the background. Moses painted all the seasons of the year and hundreds of scenes of farm life in rural America where she grew up. Among her 2000 paintings are celebrations of Christmas. She once wrote, “I forget everything, everything except how things used to be.” 

Winter snow scenes were among Moses’s favorites, especially at Christmas. “Let Me Help” is a depiction of the community gathering to help cut Christmas trees for the nearby church, and perhaps for the farm house up the road. There are at least three trees down. In the left corner a horse and rider pull a cut tree into the scene. In the center foreground, two figures cut down a second tree. A third tree already has been cut and roped to a horse for transport. The scene includes gaily dressed villagers, some talking, a pair with a sled and a dog, and a pair with an axe. In the distance, a barn, snow-covered trees, an evergreen forest, and the cold winter sky complete the scene. As always, Moses painted a joyful and peaceful memory of days gone by.

Waiting for Christmas” (1960) is an unusual painting for Moses. It is a close-up view of a bedroom in which four children are all nestled together in the heavy wood bed. They are covered with a “charm” quilt made with random shapes and no pattern. These quilts were popular in the 1870s and often contained fabric from other items used in the household. Fabrics were traded among quilt makers to obtain as many different designs as possible. Three of the children are asleep, but the child with dark hair and eyes is awake, waiting for Christmas. The head board is decorated with greens. A rumpled round woven rug is on the floor.  Two red stockings are hung on the small wicker chair. A spinning wheel is set in the lower left corner of the scene. 

Moses typically painted landscapes, and she used bright colors everywhere. The landscape in this painting is in a frame and hangs on the wall. 

Moses’s Christmas images became so popular they were used on Christmas cards, other greeting cards, jam jars, curtains, and postage stamps. Hallmark sold 16 million Moses Christmas cards in 1947.  “Here Comes Santa Claus” (1948) (15”x23”) is one of several paintings on this theme. The full moon lights up the snowy scene. Bright stars fill the deep blue sky. Moses painted from the sky down. Tall snow-covered trees link earth and sky. Down from the sky to the cozy house comes Santa Claus in his sleigh drawn by eight reindeer. Delightful.

 

 

The same sky, stars, and trees are present. Moses features the roof top of the house on which Santa has parked his decorated yellow sleigh filled with packages. Some spill onto the roof. She manages to get all eight reindeer on the roof. Looking closer, the viewer can see a small section of Santa’s red suit sticking out the left chimney. 

Grandma Moses was 100 years old on September 7, 1960. Governor Nelson Rockefeller declared her birthday, Grandma Moses Day. Life magazine published a photograph of her on its cover on September 19, 1960, with wishes for a happy 100th birthday.   

“So Long till Next Year” (1960) is a depiction of the end of the story as Santa waves to the viewer from his sleigh as he and his reindeer fly back to the North Pole. The landscape, including the trees, the house, and the sky, is repeated. This painting is one of the 25 Moses completed during the last year of her life. She would paint for five hours, and without an easel, in the kitchen or bedroom. She said, “I’ll get an inspiration and start painting: then I forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live.”

 

Wishing everyone the very best of holidays.

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Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Patroness of the Americas. The celebration of her feast day on December 12 dates back to the 16th century. Her story can be found in several chronicles of the time. She is particularly important in Mexico, where her story originated. 

 

On Saturday morning December 9, 1531, on Tepeyac Hill, 28 miles from Mexico City, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego, a 57-year-old widower of Aztec ancestry.  She spoke in Nahuatl, his native tongue. She told Diago to ask the bishop of Mexico, Juan de Zumarraga, to build a chapel in her honor on the place where they stood. He told the bishop of his vision, and the bishop asked for a sign from the Virgin. She appeared again to Diego and told him to gather roses, even though it was winter. He gathered the roses in his cloak (tilma) and returned with them to the bishop. When the roses tumbled from his cloak, the image of the Virgin miraculously appeared on the garment. The ‘’Image of Virgin of Guadalupe” (1531) on the cloak hangs today above the high altar of the new Basilica of Guadalupe on Tepeyac Hill. The cloak was a catalyst for the conversion of many indigenous people to Catholicism. She is the patroness of the Americas and a symbol of Mexican identity. The Basilica is one of the most visited Marian sites in the world, and the most visited Catholic church except for St Peter’s in Rome.

The crown above the cloak was placed there on October 12, 1895, during the Canonical Coronation of the Virgin of Guadalupe. The Mexican flag hangs below the cloak.

“Virgin of Guadalupe” (1691) (72”x49’’) (Los Angeles County Museum) was painted by Manuel de Arellano (1662-1722), a well-known artist in 17th Century Mexico. The many paintings of the Virgin of Guadalupe were intentional copies of the painting on the cloak.  As a result, the image was not altered from the original, but in almost all, four scenes of Juan’s interaction with the Virgin were added to the four corners. Later artists also added elaborate borders of flowers, particularly roses, and birds. Arellano painted in the Spanish Baroque style of chiaroscuro, using a rich color palette in the border.

In the fourth and final part of the story, Diego holds his cloak with the roses, and kneels in the presence of the Virgin. Mexico City can be seen beneath her image, and the image of the Virgin can be seen on the edge of the cloak.

“Virgin of Guadalupe” (1698) (84”x37’’) was created by Miguel Gonzales. The medium is mother-of-pearl on wood, called enconchado, popular at the time. A variety of shells are placed on the painting like mosaic tiles and then covered with a glaze. Gonzales’s work repeats the traditional images, but the medium makes the work glow. 

Angels hold the four corner scenes, a dove flies above Mary’s head, a unique shield sits at the Virgin’s feet, all surrounded by an elaborate floral border that includes red and gold flowers and small scenes of a ladder, palm tree, ship, lily, and fountain from Bible references. For example, Mary was believed to be the ship of salvation, as was Noah’s ark. The white lily is a symbol of Mary’s virginity. Marion iconography was abundant in Baroque paintings.

At the top left corner, angels guide Diego to the Virgin. At the top right, Mary appears to Diego. At the lower left, Diego goes away with a cloak full of roses. At the lower right, Diego shows the roses and the image on his cloak to the bishop.

 

The shield beneath the figure of the Virgin had both religious and political significance. The creoles of Mexico sought a symbol that would distinguish them from old Spain. The eagle and cactus became popular.  Mexican myths told about the founding of the ancient Aztec capital city Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. The solar god Huitzilopochtli told the people they would find the destination of their new home when they found an eagle on a cactus. The current Mexican flag design was adopted on September 16, 1968, but the central image is a version of the original 1821 design, and it also is found in Gonzales’s shell inlay work. Famous explorer and conquistador Hernando Cortez (1485-1547) carried a banner with the image of the Virgin when he brought down the Aztec empire in 1521.

“Virgin of Guadalupe” (1824) (23’’x15’’) was painted by Isidro Escamilla after the 1821 Act of Independence that formally ended Spanish reign in America. Always a popular image, the Virgin of Guadalupe became even more important as a figure whose divine help was a factor in freeing the people from Spanish rule. The part in Mary’s hair is a symbol of her virginity. She wears a cross, her hands are folded in prayer, and she wears a dark ribbon around her waist, over her womb. She is expecting a child. The Spanish word for pregnancy, encinta, means adorned with a ribbon. Her blue-green cloak represents Heaven; the reddish robe represents Earth. The stars on her robe are arranged in their position in the sky on December 12, 1531.

Her reddish gown is decorated with four-petaled jasmine flowers, a sign of the divine to the Aztecs and a symbol that the age of peace has come. A jasmine flower is placed over Mary’s womb. Mary is surrounded by the rays of the Sun. The crescent Moon under her feet is a Christian symbol of her perpetual virginity as well as of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent of the Moon. An angel supports both the Moon and the Virgin. At the bottom, the two angels hold a rose and a palm branch, and at the top, one plays a violin while the other plays a guitar. Red and blue roses adorn the sides. Escamilla used gold paint to depict the rays of the sun, to cover Mary’s gown with jasmine flowers, and to accent the roses. Her crown also is gold.

The Virgin of Guadalupe who appeared to Diego was Aztec; therefore, her complexion was traditionally painted with a greyish tint. Her connection with Aztec culture and Roman Catholicism continues to be strong. Twenty-five popes have honored her, and Pope John Paul II visited her shrine four times. On his third visit in 1999, he declared December 12 the Liturgical Holy Day for the whole continent. Juan Diego was canonized by John Paul II on July 31, 2002.

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Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.

Anna Mary Robertson Moses was born on September 7, 1860, in Greenwich, New York.  Her family worked on farms, and she described herself as a life-long farm woman. She attended a one- room school where she began to learn to draw. Her father encouraged all his children to draw. When she was 27, she married the “hired man” Thomas Salmon Moses, and they worked on local farms from Virginia to Eagle Bridge, New York. They had ten children; five survived into adulthood. In each location, Moses decorated the family’s home with her embroidery. When Thomas died in 1927, their son Forrest helped her on the farm. In 1936, at the age of 76, Moses developed arthritis, and she turned to painting because it was easier work. She told reporters that she turned to painting to make a Christmas gift for the postman, because it “was easier to make than to bake a cake over a hot stove.” At 92 she wrote, “I was quite small, my father would get me and my brother’s white paper by the sheet. He liked to see us draw pictures. It was a penny a sheet and lasted longer than candy.”

 

“Catching the Thanksgiving Turkey” (1943) (15”x19”) is a depiction of a subject Moses returned to several times. Thanksgiving was declared a holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, but the day of celebration was left up to each President. It was not until 1941 that Congress declared the fourth Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving Day.

Moses painted “Catching the Thanksgiving Turkey” with four colors: red, white, black, and blue. The ground is covered with snow, and it is still snowing. Moses did not study perspective or anatomy, but she had a keen eye for details. The two-story white farm house is detailed with a light grey-blue paint. She used red and black blocks of paint to depict the brick chimney. Three figures stand outside the open front door. The one in red seems to be waving. Another with the white hair and wearing the black coat, stands next to the well. In front of the blue barn, others in red jackets and black pants try to catch the turkeys. Some head out in a horse drawn sleigh, and a hunter stands at the center and looks on. A figure stands in front of the open barn door. Beyond the barn, a man drives two horses by the fence. Two other men stand under a tree. 

The scene is a panoramic landscape. The fence draws the viewer’s eye from the lower left, past another farm structure and some trees, and beyond the barn into the distance. It is November, but all the leaves have not fallen from the trees. A forested hill stands out against the white snow in the middle distance. Another farm, more fences and houses can be seen in the distance. The blue mountains are covered in snow. The scene is dotted with large, white snowflakes. 

Moses began by selling paintings for three or five dollars. The Museum of Modern Art in New York included her work in its 1939 exhibit “Contemporary Unknown American Painters.” Her painting caught the attention of several influential people. One was Otto Kallir, founder of Galerie St Etienne in New York. He organized in 1940 an exhibition of Moses paintings that was titled “What a Farm Wife Painted.” The New York Herald nicknamed her Grandma Moses. She spoke at a Gimbels Department store, and she was an instant success. 

“Sugaring Off” (1943) (36”x45’’) is a depiction of another November activity and a theme Moses returned to 35 times. She described her process: “First the sky, then the mountain, then the hills, then trees, then the houses, then the cattle and then the people.”  Native Americans taught the process of sugaring off to the colonists. The painting includes the entire process of making maple syrup and candy from the sap. The leafless maple trees are tapped and the sap is caught in buckets. The sap is placed in large iron kettles over a fire, and it is boiled down to form a dark syrup that is put into molds and containers. Some of the syrup is poured onto the snow to make sugar candy.  Adults work or watch, while the children play. Horse drawn sleighs, groups of cattle, and snow-covered houses and barns are included in the composition, with a church and villages in the distance. The snow in the foreground has been trampled by the people and animals, but in the distance it is pristine. Moses painted hills, trees, and distant mountains to create the panoramic view. She shaded the entire scene with blue to create the impression of a cold November day. 

“Sugaring Off” (1943) sold at Christie’s New York for $1.36 million in 2006, setting a record for a Moses painting. 

In 1939 the Museum of Modern Art called the paintings by Grandma Moses “modern primitive.” Primitive artists lack formal training, generally use simple shapes, bright colors, and the work often appears childlike.  The piece often is a depiction of everyday activities, and it is intended to connect to nature and something that is culturally and spiritually significant. All of these things were true of her work. She avoided modern things like tractors and telephone poles. Contemporary art in the 1940s and after WWII in the 1950s was largely Abstract Expressionism, to many viewers confusing and morbid. Moses said, “I’ll not paint something we know nothing about, might just as well paint something that will happen a thousand years hence.”

Her paintings were and continue to be tremendously popular. Exhibitions of her paintings broke attendance records. President Truman gave her The Women’s National Press Club Trophy Award for outstanding accomplishments in art in 1949.  She was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1953. Her autobiography My Life’s History was published in 1952. A documentary about her was nominated for an Oscar in 1950. Exhibitions of her work were held throughout America and Europe. She was awarded two honorary doctoral degrees, in 1949 by Russell Sage College in Troy, New York, and in 1951 by Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia. When Moses turned 88 in 1948, Mademoiselle magazine named her “Young Woman of the Year.” Norman Rockwell and Moses lived near each other and were close friends.  

When she painted “Turkeys” (1958) (16’’x24’’) (SAAM), Moses said, “The very first Thanksgiving I remember was about the year of 1864,” and she never stopped remembering the holiday and making paintings of it to viewers’ delight.  The setting of “Turkeys” is viewed from a different angle. The road and house are closer, the village and church are just down the road, and the landscape is covered with snow. A man runs down the road with an axe, and another figure in the field has caught the turkey by its tail feathers. The turkeys at the lower right are painted in a new variety of feather colors. Moses commented, “Poor turkey. He has but one life to give for his country.”

The writer of her obituary in 1961 in the New York Times noted that the “simple realism, nostalgic atmosphere and luminous color with which Grandma Moses portrayed simple farm life and rural countryside won her wide following.”

President John Kennedy spoke of her: “The death of Grandma Moses removed a beloved figure from American life. The directness and vividness of her paintings restore a primitive freshness to our perception of the American scene…All America mourns her loss.”

“I look back on my life like a good day’s work. It was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented. I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” (Anna Mary Robertson Moses)

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Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.

Christi Belcourt, a Metis and First Nations of Canada artist, was born in 1968 in Scarborough, Ontario. She now lives in Lac Ste Anne, Alberta. 

Belcourt depicts traditional designs of the Metis people. They are of mixed race whose progenitors were First Nations women and European men, fur traders from France, England, and Scotland. They developed a language, government, and culture distinct from that of other indigenous people. The Manitoba Act of 1870 made the land of the Metis part of Canada. Belcourt’s paintings capture the Metis people’s appreciation of the beauty of the natural world and their deep concern for its preservation.

The Metis people were known as the Flower Bead People. “Water Song” (2010-11) (80’’x231”) (acrylic) was inspired by one of their crafts.  The canvas is covered with approximately 250,000 dots, applied with the tip of the paint brush. Clusters of roots in the water surround the lower edge of the composition. Burdock root flowers, their green leaves and small red berries are in the lowest and central section of the work. They are used for cleansing and women’s medicine.  Plants included are the wild rose, trillium, blueberry, plantain, sundew, clubmoss, Indian pipe, shrink cabbage, lady’s slipper, yarrow, thistle, chokecherry, tamarack, maple, clover, nettles, red clover, maples, oak, pinecones, and strawberries, the first fruit of spring. Birds included are the downy woodpecker, barn owl, nuthatch, and northern flicker. Two warblers sing at the top of the painting.  The small white flowers of a milkweed plant are placed at the center, with monarch butterflies at either side. Milkweed is a major food source for monarch butterflies, now an endangered species.

This detail of the right side of the composition includes a yellow warbler singing. Beneath are pine cones and needles, and a barn owl.  At the far left are the white dots of the milkweed and the monarch butterfly. 

The painting attracted the attention of Dior designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli. With Belcourt’s permission, some of the 2016 Resort Collection featured designs from the painting. Belcourt explained that “A lot of the beadwork tradition and imagery that I work with was originally put on items that were for use of some sort, including clothing.  And then in my painting practice, I took that imagery and practice of beadwork and transferred it into paint and put it onto canvas. So then to take this artwork that was done in paint and put it back onto clothing was almost like it had come full circle. That was exciting.”

“Giniigaaniimenaaning (Looking Ahead) (stain glass window) (2012), located in the Centre Block of the Parliament Building of Canada, represents the 2008 apology of the Canadian government to the indigenous people of Canada for the policy of placing children in Indian residential schools. The top panel includes the date 2008 and a female shape that integrates the Canadian maple leaf and feathers. The left panel includes the image in white of Phil Fontaine, the Grande Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, holding a drum and drum stick. In 1990, he was the first to speak out about his life in the residential school. Others began to speak out, and reconciliation began, represented by the white dove holding the olive branch. The shattered glass represents the lives that were shattered. The middle section, largely created in black and white glass, represents life in the schools. The top right side of the window commemorations the Apology to former students offered by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on June 11, 2008: “I am filled with optimism… a new day has dawned, a new day heralded by a commitment to reconciliation and building a new relationship with Inuit, Métis and First Nations.”  The lines represent rays of sunshine.  Doves and an eagle fly upward as if toward the future. A tribal elder wearing a “jingle dress” represents healing. The colors yellow, black, white, red, green, and blue are the colors used in medicine wheels, the sun dance, and lodges. The grandfather sings a traditional song to signify the restoration of the songs, dances, ceremonies, and languages of the people. The mother and child illustrate the return to traditional child rearing. At the bottom of both panels, the circle has been connected and is complete. Grandmothers sit in their lodges and smoke peacefully as traditions are restored. The strawberries hold a significant place in Metis culture as they are the first fruits of a new spring and represent a new beginning.

Belcourt received the Ontario Arts Council Aboriginal Arts Award in 2014. “Wisdom of the Universe” (2014) (67×111’’) represents plants and animals that are on the endangered species list: Dwarf Lake Iris, Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid, Karner Blue Butterfly, West Virginia White Butterfly, Spring Blue-eyed Mary, Cerulean Warbler, and Acadian Flycatcher. Belcourt writes stories or comments to go with many of the works. She wrote about this piece: “Globally, we live in a time of great upheaval. The state of the world is in crisis. We are witness to the unbearable suffering of species, including humans. Much of this we do to ourselves. It is possible for the planet to return to a state of well-being, but it requires a radical change in our thinking. It requires a willingness to be open to the idea that perhaps human beings have got it all wrong. All species, the lands, the waters are one beating organism that pulses like a heart. We are all a part of a whole. The animals and plants, lands and waters, are our relatives each with as much right to exist as we have…Perhaps it’s time to place the rights of Mother Earth ahead of the rights to Mother Earth.”  

Belcourt is an advocate for other social and environmental causes. She initiated in 2011 the Walking with Our Sisters project, inspired by seeing too many posters about missing indigenous women: “One day, I saw one that hit me harder than usual, because the girl on the poster looked like my daughter.” In response to her Facebook appeal for 600 beaded moccasin tops for an exhibition to represent these women, 1,723 pairs were sent from all over the world, and 65 beading circle projects sprung up in Canada, United States, and Europe. The moccasin tops, called vamps, tongues, or uppers, were not sewn onto the moccasins to represent the unfinished lives of the missing women. The project toured in 30 Canadian and US locations from 2012 until 2019. Each exhibition was created specifically for each location. 

From 2010 until 2013, Belcourt organized with Jon and Kerry Butler and Sophie Edwards an art project to protect Willisville Mountain, where several famous Canadian artists had made art history with their paintings. The Mountain, owned by a mining company, was under threat of being quarried, thus the destruction of the beauty of the famous area. The pressure of 45 artists caused the cancellation of the development, and the beauty of the mountain was preserved. She co-founded the Onaman Collective in 2014 to preserve traditional knowledge and language and to teach it to the young. The Collective raises awareness of the need to protect the Great Lakes and other bodies of water. Since 2017, proceeds from her works and awards have been donated to Nimkii Aazhibikong, a year-round camp to revitalize the Anishinaabemowin language among indigenous people. She is the author of at least four books, one on native medicines and another on Beadwork. She received in 2016 the Premier Arts Award and a Governor General’s Award for Innovation. 

Belcourt continues to paint in her unique style, and she continues to add text for the viewer. In “Offerings to Save the World” (2017) (72’’x55’’) her focus once again is on water, and this time the painting takes on a mystical theme. Water spouts arise from the bottom of the canvas to reach the sky. Interwoven with the blue sky and water are stars, fish, and frogs. Two spiritual indigenous figures are placed on either side of the water. They bring offerings and pray.  They sit and stand upon an abundance of flowers. A dark female figure appears to rise from the water. 

The accompanying text: ‘’Quick! Drop everything. The future will look as the past. The Elders have foretold. Quick! Give everything. For every baby to be born. Of every species forever to come. Born into water. Born onto an earth of water. Quick! Go to the River. Bring your shaker. Sing to save the world. Quick! Go to the Water’s edge. Bring feast food. Give offerings to save the world. Mother Earth is the almighty.’’

“The Earth is My Government” (2017) (51’’x72’’) expresses another of Belcourt’s responses to the world in which she finds herself. The deep blue of the water and sky contain stars, birds, and fish. The spirit of the buffalo that had provided for many of the needs of indigenous people over hundreds of years also resides in this blue world. The buffalo shape contains the flower beading of the Metis. The Metis people were not recognized by Canada as indigenous peoples until 1982 in Section 35 of the Constitution Act. They finally obtained the right to self-government in 2019. Belcourt’s saying that the earth is my government can be understood better in these circumstances.

Remaining true to her strong beliefs, she protested that her name should be removed from the Metis Nation of Ontario registry because she disagreed with the deals that were being made with Energy East, Nuclear Waste Management Organization, and others. She was involved in establishing the 150 Acts of Resistance to counter the government’s “Canada 150” to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Canada in 2017. She said they were “ignoring basically all of the First Nations, Métis Nations and Inuit people that have been here for 15,000 years…The other thing is that we wanted to be able to showcase the good things that are happening in our nations that we should really be celebrating. We wanted to feature examples of history, of resistance, resilience and resurgence. All the restoration work being done on the grassroots level is really inspiring.” In 2023 she received an Honorary Doctorates in Visual Arts from Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and Doctor of Letters from Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario.

“I Envy Their Freedom” (2020) (31”x31’’) reminds viewers how important water is to the world. The title is understandable in light of Belcourt’s continued battle to save the future of Earth. Rest is needed to continue the fight. Her process is a type of meditation. Each painting is meticulously executed with tiny dots, requiring an extraordinary amount of time and concentration, resulting in calm. 

“I want all human beings to feel connected to the earth, because ultimately, we are all of this earth, and in becoming connected to the earth and to the waters, we are more likely to want to protect those for future generations. It is a form of expression of who I am that also, at its fundamental core, relates to all of us as human beings, who are living on this planet, with other beings who deserve to have a clean environment.” (Christi Belcourt)

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Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.

Edgar Allen Poe was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, and died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849. He was educated in Scotland, England, and then at the University of Virginia. Lacking funds, he left the University and moved back to Boston. He joined the army, but he was court marshalled. He then moved to Baltimore. There, he shifted from writing poetry to short stories. He published a series of them in a book titled MS. Found in a Bottle (1833). In 1835, while working as an editor of Southern Living Magazine in Richmond, Virginia, he published his first horror story “Metsengerstein.” In 1838 in Philadelphia, he published some of his best-known stories: “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” and more. Poe’s work became popular internationally, largely through the French poets Charles Baudelaire and Stephane Mallarme. 

“The Pit and the Pendulum” was published in 1842 in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year’s Present in 1843. Published annually for Christmas, it was a collection of short stories, poems, and essays with Christmas themes varying from families to the supernatural. Popular during the Victorian era, it is a beloved tradition today. 

“I saw them fashion the syllables of my name.” (1919) is an illustration from “The Pit and the Pendulum” in Tales of Mystery and Imagination. It was published in London by George G. Harrap and Co. and illustrated by Irish artist Henry Patrick Clarke (1889-1931), known best as a book illustrator and stained-glass artist. He created 24 images for the story. The publisher commented that “there could be little doubt but that Poe’s bizarre and gruesome fancies would offer ideal inspiration to an artist of Clarke’s particular bent.” The story takes place during the Spanish Inquisition and is told by an anonymous narrator. The crime is never disclosed, but the sentence and torture are described by Poe in excruciating detail: ”I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ear.”

“I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white—whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words—and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness—of immovable resolution—of stern contempt of human torture…I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded.” 

“And then my vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white slender angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fiber in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became meaningless specters, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help.”

The monologue goes on to describe his confinement in a circular room. He is fed and he sleeps. When he awakens, he finds himself strapped to a board, and then notices something else: “In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum such as we see on antique clocks. There was something, however, in the appearance of this machine which caused me to regard it more attentively. While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.” Rats were everywhere. “They swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps.”

Henry Patrick Clarke embraced the then popular Art Nouveau style of strong sinuous curves, asymmetrical design, stylized flowers and vines, and rejection of rigid geometry. He illustrated stories by Hans Christian Anderson and poems by John Keats, among others. Commissions were plentiful for his work in stained-glass.  

William Thomas Horton (1864-1919) was a Belgian-English writer and artist who studied at the Royal Academy in London. He illustrated the combined book of Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” that was published by Leonard Smithers in 1899. Horton was an occultist who studied the supernatural world through magic, alchemy, astronomy, and the reading of tarot cards. His drawings were left mostly unpublished during his lifetime. Horton’s illustration of Poe’s story emphasizes the darkness of the cell, the watchful and frightened look on the prisoner’s face, the menacing pendulum, and the small basket of food.

The narrator continues: “The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a natural consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what mainly disturbed me was the idea that it had perceptibly descended. I now observed—with what horror it is needless to say– the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor…it seemed massy and heavy…it was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.”

Poe’s Selected Tales of Mystery was published by Sidgwick & Jackson in London, and it was illustrated by John Byum Shaw (1872-1919). Shaw was a British painter, illustrator, designer, and teacher. He was encouraged by the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais to study art at King’s College London. Shaw illustrates in some detail Poe’s description of the rats, the stone floor, and on the upper wall of the cell he painted demons of hell torturing the damned. Later the prisoner will see “for the first time, the origin of the sulphureous light which illumined the cell. It proceeded from a fissure, about half an inch in width, extending entirely around the prison at the base of the walls, which thus appeared, and were, completely separated from the floor. I endeavored, but of course in vain, to look through the aperture.”

The narrator continues: “Inch by inch—line by line—with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed ages—down and still down it came!  Days passed—it might have been that many days passed—ere it swept so closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath…I wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I felt suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble.” 

Many artists have illustrated Poe’s stories and poems. One of the most famous and prolific was British illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). Among the many books are Gulliver’s Travels, Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, Peter Pan, Wagner’s The Ring, and Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination (1935) that included 12 color and 17 black and white plates.  In this illustration the judges of the Inquisition pronounce the sentence.  The narrator: “The sentence—the dread sentence of death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ear.”

The plight of the prisoner tied down is the subject that every illustrator of the story chooses. Rackham’s version illustrates the pit and the hordes of rats coming out of it to eat the food.  The narrator continues the story: “With the particles of the oily and spicy viand which now remained, I thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I could reach it; then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay breathlessly still.”

“At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the change—at the cessation of movement. They shrank alarmedly back; many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not counted in vain upon their voracity. Observing that I remained without motion, one or two of the boldest leaped upon the frame-work, and smelt at the surcingle. This seemed the signal for a general rush. Forth from the well they hurried in fresh troops. They clung to the wood—they overran it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person. The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at all. Avoiding its strokes they busied themselves with the anointed bandage. They pressed—they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps. They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name, swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy clamminess, my heart. Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle would be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I knew that in more than one place it must be already severed. With a more than human resolution I lay still.”

‘’But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave of my hand my deliverers hurried tumultuously away. With a steady movement—cautious, sidelong, shrinking, and slow—I slid from the embrace of the bandage and beyond the reach of the scimitar. For the moment, at least, I was free.”  

Well, maybe.

Poe and Rackham take both reader and viewer to what seems to be the very end. The narrator continues: “At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison…Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils the breath of the vapor of heated iron! A suffocating odor pervaded the prison!…A richer tint of crimson diffused itself over the pictured horrors of blood…“Death,” I said, “any death but that of the pit!” Fool! Could I resist its glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its pressure?…I shrank back—but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no more, but the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream of despair. I felt that I tottered upon the brink—I averted my eyes—”

“There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.” 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Note: Quotations of Poe’s writing were taken from several on-line sources.

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Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring to Chestertown with her husband Kurt in 2014, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and the Institute of Adult Learning, Centreville. An artist, she sometimes exhibits work at River Arts. She also paints sets for the Garfield Theater in Chestertown.