Introduction and Welcome

Welcome to All Things Bright and Beautiful. If you are new to this site, I would recommend that you read my very first entry - which is an introduction and welcome to this blog. You can view it here

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Albert Bierstadt-Harbor Scene, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Turkish March, John Greenleaf Whittier - Storm on Lake Asquam

Albert Bierstadt was a Hudson River School painter like Thomas Cole.  His paintings are wonderfully detailed scenes of early America in a realistic style. 

 Two sites with background biographies follow:  Wikipedia - Albert Bierstadt or Albert Bierstadt The second site has many of his paintings that you can view.  

Harbor Scene - Albert Bierstadt - www.albertbierstadt.org

Our music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart today is a light energetic piano piece called Turkish March.

 Wonderful descriptive words follow in this week's poem by
 John Greenleaf Whittier -

                     Storm on Lake Asquam
A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw
On Carmel prophesying rain, began
To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan,
Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw

Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat
Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and woke
The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke
Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' feet.

Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined darkness swept
Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam range;
A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange,
From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.

One moment, as if challenging the storm,
Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel
Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow fell,
And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.

And over all the still unhidden sun,
Weaving its light through slant-blown veils of rain,
Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain;
And, when the tumult and the strife were done,

With one foot on the lake and one on land,
Framing within his crescent's tinted streak
A far-off picture of the Melvin peak,
Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.


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