MAGRITTE AT THE MUSEUM

René François Ghislain Magritte (21 November 1898 – 15 August 1967) was a Belgian Surrealist artist. He became well known for creating a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Often depicting ordinary objects in an unusual context, his work is known for challenging observers' preconditioned perceptions of reality. His imagery has influenced pop art, minimalist art and conceptual art.

The Musée Magritte Museum, located in the heart of Brussels, brings together the world's largest collection of art by René Magritte: 230 works and archives are displayed. The multidisciplinary space houses paintings, gouaches, drawings, sculptures and painted objects, as well as advertising posters, musical scores, photographs and films. The Museum also has the most important collection from the artist’s "vache" period.

The first image is "La saveur des larmes" (1948), which is exhibited in the Magritte Museum in Brussels. The artist's tongue-in-cheek photo mimics several of his canvases where men in bowler hats appear.

In the second image there are two works housed in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. "L'Éloge de la dialectique" (1937) and "Rose and pear" (colour etching and aquatint, printed 1968).

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

BY NIGHT

Colourful reflections of city lights on the Yarra River, by night.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

INTERIOR

A digital collage of an interior scene, produced in Photoshop.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme.

BY THE POND

By the pond the reeds are seeding and the fresh new green of Spring is making its appearance. The sky turns from grey to blue and the sun appears and disappears behind rolling clouds. The water birds are just grateful that the rains have filled the pond.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme,

and also part of the Weekend Reflections meme.

WINGED VISITOR

We have several birds that visit our garden and this spotted dove is a frequent one. Last week it decided to come into the fernery and got trapped there. Some crumbs on the concrete floor got it to fly low and find the door out into the garden again.

The spotted dove (Spilopelia chinensis) is a small and somewhat long-tailed pigeon which is a common resident breeding bird across its native range on the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. The species has been introduced into many parts of the world and feral populations have become established. This species was formerly included in the genus Streptopelia with other turtle-doves, but studies suggest that they differ from typical members of that genus.

This dove is long tailed buff brown with a white-spotted black collar patch on the back and sides of the neck. The tail tips are white and the wing coverts have light buff spots. There are considerable plumage variations across populations within its wide range. The species is found in light forests and gardens as well as in urban areas. They fly from the ground with an explosive flutter and will sometimes glide down to a perch. It is sometimes also called the mountain dove, pearl-necked dove or lace-necked dove.

This post is part of the Saturday Critters meme,

as well as part of the Camera Critters meme.

SUNRISE

Sunrise from my window with the guest appearance of some birds. The days are getting longer!

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

BUDDLEJA

Buddleja commonly known as the butterfly bush is a genus comprising over 100 species of flowering plants endemic to Asia, Africa, and the Americas, within the Buddlejaceae family. The generic name bestowed by Linnaeus posthumously honoured the Reverend Adam Buddle (1662–1715), a botanist and rector in Essex, England, at the suggestion of Dr. William Houstoun. Houstoun sent the first plants to become known to science as buddleja (B. americana) to England from the Caribbean about 15 years after Buddle's death.

As garden shrubs Buddleja is essentially a 20th-century plant, with the exception of B. globosa which was introduced to Britain from southern Chile in 1774 and disseminated from the nursery of Lee and Kennedy, Hammersmith. Several species are popular garden plants, the species are commonly known as 'butterfly bushes' owing to their attractiveness to butterflies, and have become staples of the modern butterfly garden; they are also attractive to bees and moths. The most popular cultivated species is Buddleja davidii from central China, named for the French Basque missionary and naturalist Père Armand David.

Other common garden species include the aforementioned B. globosa, grown for its strongly honey-scented orange globular inflorescences, and the weeping Buddleja alternifolia. Several interspecific hybrids have been made. Some species commonly escape from the garden. B. davidii in particular is a great coloniser of dry open ground; in urban areas in the United Kingdom, it often self-sows on waste ground or old masonry, where it grows into a dense thicket, and is listed as an invasive species in many areas.

Popular garden cultivars include 'Royal Red' (reddish-purple flowers), 'Black Knight' (very dark purple), 'Sungold' (golden yellow), and 'Pink Delight' (pure pink). In recent years, much breeding work has been undertaken to create small, more compact buddlejas, such as 'Blue Chip' which reach no more than 0.6–0.9 m tall, and which are also seed sterile, an important consideration in the USA where B. davidii and its cultivars are banned from many states owing to their invasiveness.

This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.

LANDSCAPE & LORRAIN

Landscape painting is the depiction of landscapes in art—natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent composition, in a celebration of nature. In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition. Detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects.

The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going back well over a thousand years in both cases. The recognition of a spiritual element in landscape art is present from its beginnings in East Asian art, drawing on Daoism and other philosophical traditions, but in the West only becomes explicit with Romanticism. Landscape views in art may be entirely imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy.

If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, it is called a topographical view. Such views, extremely common as prints in the West, are often seen as inferior to fine art landscapes, although the distinction is not always meaningful; similar prejudices existed in Chinese art, where literati painting usually depicted imaginary views, while professional artists painted real views.

Claude Lorrain (born Claude Gellée, called le Lorrain in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in Italy, and is one of the earliest important artists, apart from his contemporaries in Dutch Golden Age painting, to concentrate on landscape painting. His landscapes are usually turned into the more prestigious genre of history paintings by the addition of a few small figures, typically representing a scene from the Bible or classical mythology.

The first painting below is "David Anointed King by the Prophet Samuel." by Lorrain (1647). Oil on canvas. Collection of the French king Louis XVIII (purchase 1682). Louvre museum (Paris, France).

The second painting is also by Lorrain, "River landscape with Tiburtine Temple at Tivoli" (c. 1635), at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1967.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme,

and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

WILLIAMSTOWN

Williamstown is an inner suburb of Melbourne, 8 km south-west from the central business district. At the 2006 Census, Williamstown had a population of 12,733. Williamstown is approximately 15 minutes by car from Melbourne via the West Gate Freeway or a 30-minute train journey from Flinders Street Station. Ferries from Melbourne's Southgate Arts & Leisure Precinct take approximately 1 hour. Representative of Williamstown’s maritime history, large scale maritime industry dominates Williamstown's piers precinct and a maritime theme characterises the Nelson Place tourism precinct.

BAE Systems Australia's Marine division (formerly Tenix) has operated out of Williamstown dockyards for nearly 20 years, during which time it has built ANZAC-class frigates for the Royal Australian Navy, and will also conduct completion of the Canberra class Landing Helicopter Dock vessels. The Nelson Place tourism precinct offers some of Melbourne's best waterfront eateries, many catering for al fresco dining and some with spectacular views of Melbourne's city skyline through the masts of bobbing boats on the foreshore. Also located on Nelson Place is a diverse range of arts, crafts and other speciality shops.

HMAS Castlemaine, berthed at Williamstown (and seen in the first photo) is open for public inspection and allows visitors to explore an original World War 2 warship. She is one of the 60 Australian-built Bathurst class corvettes to serve throughout World War Two and the last such vessel still afloat, having been restored by volunteers over three decades. Castlemaine is open to the public on weekends and public holidays.Today visitors can see how crews lived and worked during the war years, witness the original engines turning over and view a wide range of artefacts documenting Australian maritime history.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

VERNAL EQUINOX

The Vernal Equinox in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia was on Monday, 23 September 2019 at 5:50 pm AEST. On the two equinoxes every year the Sun shines directly on the Equator and the length of day and night is nearly equal – but not exactly. The Vernal Equinox marks the moment the Sun crosses the celestial equator – the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s equator – from North to South in September (in the Southern Hemisphere), marking the beginning of astronomical Spring.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,

and also part of the Seasons meme,

and also part of the Blue Monday meme.