painterly dreams at dries van noten with commentary by Hamish Bowles & poem by Alexandrer Pope

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when painting,
think a palette of black, navy, and white touched with teal, magenta, and cinnamon.(HM)
think not of spatters.

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.


Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield shade,
In winter, fire.


Blest, who can unconcern'dly find
Hours, days, and years, slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day.


Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.


Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

when painting,
look to hand-colored seventeenth-century studies of butterfly wings, eighteenth-century Arcadian land- and seascapes, the exquisite early-nineteenth-century rose studies of Pierre-Joseph Redouté, and ... of a Victorian jungle (HM)

& when dreaming,
look to the exaggerated volumes of mid-century haute couture: the mushrooming opera coats of Cristóbal Balenciaga, and the extreme ruffles, peplums, and structure of lesser known but adventurous Spanish and Italian couturiers of that period  (HM)

all images from VOGUE.com and Hamish Bowles from VOGUE.com
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