Long Live Bat Art

A podcast that's a very slow tour through an art gallery with an art lover with no training. You can listen to the podcast on Spotify, Podcast Index, iHeart Radio, Podcast Addict, Podchaser, Pocket Casts, Deezer, Listen Notes, and Player FM!

[longlivebatart]

Van Vliet's Interor of the Oude Kerk, Delft

Wow. 15 episodes and eight months. This episode is the season finale. I hope you’ve had as much fun listening as I’ve had talking to you. I really appreciate you spending your time with me and taking this tour. 

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft by Hendrick van Vliet. I hope you enjoy. 

Hendrick Corneliszoon van Vliet was born in either 1611 or 1612 in Delft. He studied under his uncle Willem van der Vliet, and was admitted to the Painter’s Guild in Delft in 1632. That painter’s guild, as I’m sure you’ve been able to guess by now, was known as the St. Luke’s Guild. Van Vliet was adept at perspectives in his interiors, mainly of churches, and later started portrait painting with Michiel Jansz van Mierevelt. 

Van Vliet married Cornelia van der Plaat in 1643. They had three children, two sons and a daughter. The sons’ names were Marinus and Cornelis, and they became painters. I couldn’t find the daughter’s name, but she apparently took care of her parents when they got older. 

Van Vliet died in 1675 in apparent poverty, and ended up being buried in the same church he painted that features in today’s episode, Oude Kerk or Old Church. Twenty-three of his works survive. 

On to the painting.

The painting is of the interior of a high-ceilinged building, most likely a church. The building is mostly white- columns, walls, and doorways. There is brown wood in the image, almost rosy in color. On the right of the image, in the foreground, is a wood object. It looks almost like a pew. The back, which is what the viewer can see, has what may be a place to kneel, but it isn’t cushioned like any of the churches I’ve ever been in. The top of the possible-pew is angled, stretching into the space of the painting and then dropping into the front of the pew. You can see what looks like a footrest for whoever would sit in the pew. In front of the pew are two columns, spaced a little farther apart than the length of the pew. 

The columns are white stone with no other color in the material. The base of the columns are octagonal in shape- the sides are white and angled around the bottom. The very base of the columns are black. Above the base is a rounded band with two slimmer, flatter bands above it, each bringing the column in and making it slimmer. Above those is a shorter octagonal part, with the same bands capping it. These bands are casting shadows on the angled stones below it. The column continues upward smoothly, and is topped by an elaborately-carved capital. The carving broadens the column until it’s the same width of the base once more. The top is angled the same way as the lower part, as well. The carving is graceful and almost leaf-like or floral, with curved lines. The carving is gently split in half horizontally, with the lower half the same width as the column and the top the same width as the base. The carving’s transition is smooth, then it takes a sharp angle to the bands that top it.

Above the bands, the stones continue into a tall arch. You can see on other columns that the arch is slightly pointed, but you can’t see the top of this arch or the one to the left of the painting. 

At the top of the wall, just before it curves to form the arch, is a wooden support beam. You can barely see the bottom, but you can see more of one on the support of the archway to the right. It extends up, probably to the ceiling or near to it, but it’s unclear because the painting cuts off before the end. Just before the very top of the painting, you can see the wood extends at an angle from the main part and the ceiling is wooden. You can’t actually tell that from the ceiling in the foreground are supporting, but in the midground there’s an opening that has the same columns and wooden supports. The ceiling is ribbed to provide further support.

Against the first column is a broom. Between the columns bracketing the pew are wooden boards and a pie of dirt that the cleaner had swept together. On the closest column, there’s a diamond design on the left side, angled so the viewer can see it. The outside is possibly a dark wood. The strip is wide and comes into the design. The inner part is deep red with gold details. It almost looks like it could be a representation of one of the Stations of the Cross, though I can’t tell which one it depicts if that’s even what it is. There’s a similar diamond design or sign on the column in the midground at an angle to the first one, and another one on the column behind that one.

The column to the right of the pew has a metal bracket on the shorter octagonal part above the base octagon. The bracket is swirled, almost like an ‘S’ if the letter had more swirls on either end before it ended. On the right of that column is a short wooden barrier with posts, almost like a wide ladder with unusually-close rungs. The barrier is around a column, but it takes a sharp turn deeper into the space of the painting and joins a wooden structure. 

The structure is large, wider than the columns. It’s attached to the column the barrier is also protecting. The wooden structure is split almost halfway up the column. The top part isn’t connected to the base. The top part starts with a wide-bottomed angled shape. I can see at least seven sides, but it’s connected to the column so there’s room for another side if it was free standing. Set into and on top of the brim of the top part is a dome supported by arches. The dome has a tower in the center, with thin supports. Above the supports is a smaller part of the structure, more thin supports, then a similar part. These parts look like, since I promised myself I would be honest with you, cartoon hamburgers. The bottom is flat, the middle has a slightly wider part where the burger would go, then the top is rounded. Above the smaller ‘hamburger’ are two ovals, the top one smaller than the one below it. The very top of the design is a disk topped by a small, thin protrusion. Think a toy top.

In the center of the room is another dark wood structure. This one is short, only about two people high. The base is solid, then there’s an empty space, then it continues to a flat top. It looks like a ticket booth for parking lots or carnivals. In front of that is a man. He’s in profile and his face isn’t discernible. He’s wearing a long tan coat, the color of a classic trench coat. You can barely see a strip of white above it where his shirt shows. He’s wearing a flat black hat, almost a beret. His pants are also black. Above the ticket booth is a brass chandelier, with two levels of arms for candles. The arms are curved- extending out from the center, coming down, then swooping up half the dropped distance into the resting area for the candle.

Further into the background and at the left of the painting, the room opens up into a brighter area. It’s similar to the closer room, with the same columns and a chandelier. There are two men talking, one swearing a brown coat and the other a black. Both are wearing hats that match their coats. Further into the room is another figure you can barely see. He’s walking towards a doorway.

In the midground on the right of the image is an open wooden gate. The gate doesn’t extend to the ceiling. There are two men past the gate, and a woman and child walking towards the foreground. The men are almost identically dressed with brown coats, white shirts, and dark hats. Makes me wonder if they’re debating who should go home and change. The woman is wearing a deep red skirt with a blue shirt. She has a white bonnet on her head. The child barely comes up to her hip and is wearing a brown coat. 

Beyond the gate is a similar structure as the one in the midground- the one topped with hamburgers, not the ticket booth. This one doesn’t have the spindle, however. 

The area above the columns look like walls. The walls form a right angle with the left side being further into the painting. The right side comes closer to the viewer and is then hidden by the columns in the midground. The wall continues between the columns into the background. Above the walls are what look like stone barriers as if there’s a second floor. But the barriers are below windows- there’s no space between them for a balcony. The floor is dark gray square tiles, probably of stone.

Now for my thoughts.

The details in the painting- the white striand of shirts, the hats, the color of the faces even though features can’t be made out. It’s all so recognizable for exactly what it is. Van Vliet executed his vision. I chose this piece, which was right next to a similar painting of the same church from a slightly different angle. The other one seemed a bit more…dull, for lack of a better word. Not in subject matter, but muted in colors. It was just as detailed, and just as realistic, but I liked van Vliet’s better. It’s brighter and it’s more interesting to me. I don’t know why I was drawn to this painting, like most of the ones I chose. 

I thought it was interesting that the people in this painting are off in the distance. The focus is on the space, and there isn’t even a ceremony or celebration or other event going on. It’s just the interior of a church. It’s beautiful, but when I was in the exhibit people walked by this painting or only stopped for a moment or two. There were other pieces in the exhibit, of course, but this one just…captured me. Maybe it’s because of the almost-emptiness of the space. It’s peaceful and light, and you can almost miss seeing the people entirely. It seems like a good place to pray or gather your thoughts. 

The paintings I tend to like have a certain presence to them. It doesn’t have to be large in size or fantastic in terms of subject matter or even how famous the artist is- I actually chose The Milkmaid before I realized it was a Vermeer, after all. The painting can be simple, but I think there has to be an emotion I connect with. I don’t always know what emotion it is, but I think I need to see myself reflected back for me to enjoy a piece. It could be an experience I’ve never had, or in a place I’ve never been to, but there’s a common humanity that I can see. Some human experience or emotion- talking, doing chores, or longing, loneliness, pleasure. Just something I can easily see and identify. It often takes some time for me to realize why I chose a particular painting for you all. Sometimes I still don’t know after thinking for some time, and as I said in episode thirteen, that’s alright. You can’t dissect enjoyment, otherwise you can overthink it to death. You’re allowed to just be. 

My final challenge for you this season is this: create. I don’t care if it’s a painting, or a poem, or a short story, or a clay bowl. Just create. Creation is both human and divine, but sharing that creation in uniquely human. Creating and sharing is something that we all do, something that no matter what we intend we show our hand of whoever we are. Everything is a statement, and everything you do shows another facet of yourself. And every facet of yours is beautiful. 

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this whole season it’s that people have always been people. They had fun and laughed and mourned and prepared food and did chores and played music and slept and worked and made mistakes just like people do today. Like I said- there’s a common humanity threaded throughout time and space. I’ve never been to any country where these artists came from. But they saw the same things I do today, and they decided to memorialize it. And the fact that they did means that they’re still reaching across time, showing me what they saw and what they loved. And I don’t know about you, but I’ll gladly take that guiding hand. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in July. 

[longlivebatart]

Wtewael's Kitchen Scene

If descriptions of animal death- specifically butchery- bothers you, I recommend listening to another episode.  

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Kitchen Scene by Peter Wtewael. I hope you enjoy. 

This episode’s history will be extremely brief because I couldn’t find very many sources for Wtewael. And I apologize for most likely butchering that name. He was born in Utrecht in 1596 to Joachim Wtewael, an engraver and painter. He had a younger brother named Johan, who was also a painter. Peter never registered with any painter’s guild. He died in 1660. 

On to the painting.

This painting is a close up of a pair of people- a man and a woman- preparing some meal. It must be for a lot of people- there's a lot of meat around, most of it unbutchered. The man is seen in profile on the right of the image and he’s looking towards the left of the painting. He has a gray wooly hat on his head and light brown hair. His skin is rosy and he’s smiling a little at the woman as if he just told a joke and is happy she laughed. You can see the shadow on his face his cheekbone casts. He’s wearing a white shirt and a ruffled collar, also white. He’s also wearing a brown-gray long-sleeved light coat. You can see the seam on the top of his shoulder facing the viewer- his left. There’s another seam encircling his arm. He has a white wicker basket on that arm, resting on a wooden table you just see the corner of. There’s enough space seen that the basket can rest on it with barely any room to spare. In the basket are eggs, protected by straw and a white cloth. In his left hand, the man is holding a gray metal handled jug that’s covered by a leather sleeve. The sleeve has visible stitching on the neck. The bottom of the rounded part of the jug has a line around the belly and lines curved down to its base. The very base of the jug and the very top are showing outside the leather. He’s holding the jug loosely so it rests on his thigh. The jug has a flip top, not a cork. The top must have a lever for your thumb to open it because it’s currently open like the man is playing with it. 

He’s holding a dead bird by its feet in his other hand. The bird is probably a duck, but I don’t know because I don’t recognize the species. It’s gray with a lighter almost-white stomach. Its beak is orange.

The woman also has rosy skin and is smiling broadly. She has light brown hair, slightly darker than the man’s, that is mostly covered by a white bonnet with a scalloped edge. The back of the bonnet is circular, almost like a braid would be if it was twisted around the back of her head. The main part of the bonnet has floral designs on it, just barely darker than the bonnet itself. Her head is slightly turned towards the man and there are creases in her neck. 

She’s wearing a white shirt. Her sleeves are loose and have been pushed to just above her elbows. She’s also wearing an underbust corset that has a beige body and orange lacing and straps that go over her shoulders in a sheer material. The straps are wide. The white collar is held closed by an orange ribbon and has several points made of lace. Think a jester’s collar, just more and smaller points. The right side of the collar is folded up, like she should smooth it down and fix it so it lays the same as the other side. Her skirt is red. Her shirt must be two toned with a white top and a green bottom, unless the green is an apron. It’s unclear because of what she’s holding. 

She’s holding a metal spoke that has the skinned and cleaned rib section of an animal, maybe a goat. The carcass’ meat is still on the bone and is being held steady on the spoke by a metal protrusion threaded through a hole in the bone at the bottom. The protrusion has a hole at the end like the bottom of a wrench. There’s another protrusion halfway up the carcass, this one pointed. It’s not through the meat because it’s on the curved side of the meat, where the organs and belly are on a live animal. The point is dull and discolored- the spike is black and the point is lighter, almost like it would have a dull shine to it. She’s putting the head of an animal, maybe a goat or a large fish on the very top of the spike, threaded through its mouth. The protrusions near the base of the head could either be ears or large gills, which is why I’m unsure.

On the left of the image is a table loaded with dead animals in various stages of being prepared. There’s what I believe is a goat head that’s skinned. Its face is towards the viewer. There are two smaller brown birds with white spots yet to be skinned and cleaned, maybe pheasants. Two gray rabbits are also not skinned or cleaned, and a large section of ribs that appears to be cooked. There are also two drumsticks near the ribs, also cooked. On the closest corner of the table is a thin knife with a black handle next to a small ball of twine. There’s also a spoon with a deep scoop with medium holes in it. The scoop appears to be made of brass or copper. There’s also a mortar and pestle, also brass. Further back on the table is a ridged container. I think it’s a basket. It’s holding something black, but since the light is focused on the figures I can’t tell what it is.

There’s a dead rooster hanging by its feet on the ceiling over the table. Just above the rooster’s spurs you can see a shelf with a brass container on it. The background is almost entirely black. The right side of the background is slightly lighter with a row of gray metal cups hanging by their handles on a rod and dark gray metal plates above them on a shelf. Behind the man’s head is a box on the wall with a red stripe on the bottom and black the rest of the way. It looks like it opens to store something. 

Now for my thoughts. 

It’s a fascinating painting. It shows what’s behind the scenes of a feast- dead animals to be cleaned and then cooked. The dirty work. It’s a necessary job if you eat meat, but definitely not for the squeamish. And the people preparing, probably only two of a much-larger staff, look like they’re talking as they work and making each other laugh. That’s something lost nowadays in the interest of being quote ‘professional’ unquote. I think that being friends with your coworkers is a must because you spend so much time together. I’ve worked in places where I was friends with people I worked with, and the time passed so much quicker and more enjoyably than when we weren’t allowed to talk much. And my friends have said the same thing. Being able to talk with others is the only way to build connections, and connections are crucial. Your connections with others are what lays the foundation for your experience in life, as much as you shouldn’t depend wholly on others. There should always be yourself at the end of everything- some part that no one can touch, that no one can change. You need to have that core self to build around, something that’s solely yours. Without that, you can disappear into others. 

Being in the kitchen, specifically, should be fun in my opinion. It’s a place where food is prepared, sure, by family or people who are close. At least nowadays when you don’t have servants. The kitchen is a place for jokes, stories, and often music. There’s a reason there’s an expression about whistling while you work. Passing the time with song is a time-honored tradition, from sailors to miners to modern day people playing music from speakers. This painting depicts something not many people have the skills to do, and they’re lightening the task with company and laughter. 

Here’s my challenge for you this time- the next meal you prepare, try to do it with at least one other person. If that’s not possible, put on some music. Dance and sing along, especially if you quote ‘don’t know how’ unquote. Singing and dancing are human experiences, not just for the so-called talented and professional. There doesn’t have to be talent for there to be joy. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That's Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks. 

[longlivebatart]

Jordaens' The Holy Family with Shepherds

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about The Holy Family with Shepherds by Jacob Jordaens. I hope you enjoy.

Jacob Jordaens was born in May of 1593 in Antwerp. He was the son of a linen merchant and firstborn of eleven. His father was wealthy, so Jordaens likely received the benefit of exceedingly thorough schooling. He was fluent in French and knew mythology and the Bible. 

Jordaens didn’t make a studious trip to Italy, but he did study Italian painters such as Caravaggio and Titian, and he also drew from his own country via Peter Brugel the Elder. You might recognize that name from episode three. 

Jordaens was an artist of many mediums, including painting and tapestry making. His main patrons were churches and wealthy people, but late in his career he got some royal commissions. 

He was taught by the same man who taught Rubens, Adam van Noort. Jordaens was admitted as a master to the St. Luke’s Guild in his home town in 1616, and married van Noort’s daughter Catharina in that same year. 

Jordaens was known for his scenes with crowds of boisterous and healthy people in them and warm, glowing colors. He also painted more allegorical pieces based on Flemish sayings, such as “As the old sing, so pipe the young,” which more or less means that bad influence from the older generations leads to bad decisions in the younger. Later on in his life, as Jordaens’ health deteriorated, his paintings lost their vitality as well, defaulting to cooler and duller colors. 

Jordaens also assisted Rubens on a few occasions, including on a project for Cardinal Infante Ferdinande and one for Philip the fourth’s hunting cabin. Jordaens even completed some artworks Rubens left unfinished before his death. After Rubens and Anthony van Dyck died, Jordaens was largely considered the best Flemish Baroque painter of that time. Jordaens’ way of representing peasantry influenced Jan Steen, who we covered in the second episode. 

Jordaens died in October 1678. One hundred ninety seven of his paintings survive. 

On to the painting.

The painting depicts the Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, and three men. Strangely, the three men are most likely the shepherds who brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Joseph is nowhere to be found.

The Virgin Mary is depicted like no other depiction of her I’ve ever seen- she has her usual blue veil and pale pink under veil and white clothes, yes. But she has one breast exposed. It’s to feed her child. I’ve never seen any depiction that shows Mary as not the Mother of God, but just a mother. She’s holding her exposed left breast between her fingers to steady her nipple for Jesus. Jesus Himself is leaning towards the offered breast, his hands clasped in front of him in a prayer position. Jesus is also depicted in a very human way. He’s a chubby baby with fat rolls on his stomach and chunky legs. He has either very fine hair or no hair at all. The shadows on his legs and the deeper shadow along his back are blue-toned.

The shepherd on the right of the image is holding a short, lit candle and a bowl of what looks like porridge or a similar food. The candle’s glow is much stronger than what an actual candle’s would be. Even though it’s level with Mary’s breast and Jesus’ head, its light reaches Mary’s face and down to her lap. Jesus is fully illuminated and his mother almost-fully. That shepherd is wearing a blue robe, his much darker and less vibrant than Mary’s signature veil. He’s looking at Jesus fondly and reverently. He has a wiry long brown beard and bushy mustache connected to it. 

The second shepherd is behind Mary and is either starting a small fire or just warming his hands over the glowing coals. He looks to be the youngest of the shepherds- he still has roundness in his face. His clothes are difficult to make out because the background is so dark. But he, too, is looking at Jesus and Mary. His expression is almost eager and definitely happy.

The third and final shepherd is seen in profile. He’s holding his crook and has a hat of what looks like straw. He has soft light brown or even blond hair and is looking at Jesus with his head tilted. He has a gentle expression on his face that looks like a combination of awe and fondness. He’s wearing a deep red robe. 

The skin of all the figures, with the exception of the second shepherd because he is illuminated by the light thrown by the red-hot coals, is pale and rosy in the cheeks. Mary and Jesus even have rosiness in their chins.

Now for my thoughts. 

The painting is gorgeous, but leaving Joseph out is an odd statement. He’s as important to Jesus as Mary is- Joseph is his human father. But I choose to believe he just got off a shift of baby watching and is taking a much-needed and well-deserved nap on some hay. 

The candle must be super-powered because of its reach, and I know most of that is just practical. Most artists like to have a strong light source, though not many use a candle or other visible one. It’s like the Lord of the Rings joke from the director- where’s the light coming from in the night scenes? The same place as the sound track. 

The skin, especially Jesus’, is fascinating to me. Jesus is shown like any other baby, with the fat and rolls and lack of hair. His skin is so life-like. 

It’s also refreshing to see a depiction of the shepherds after they gave their gifts. They didn’t just give them and peace out. They stayed, helping the couple who was probably exhausted and scared out of their minds. All first parents are, even without the whole ‘Son of God’ responsibility. They now have a completely helpless new human being that is dependent on them for everything, even holding up his head when he’s held. 

The approachability in the scene is what most likely drew me in. It just reminds me of something that’s something hard to remember- that Jesus was human, as well as divine. This very human moment, before he eats, is as approachable as I’ve ever seen Jesus. He isn’t an adult with followers, he’s a baby with his mother. 

As a Roman Catholic, it’s always been something hard to wrap my brain around- that Jesus was both completely human and completely divine. Nothing can be 200% of anything. But it’s what the Church teaches. Maybe it’s just something people say without believing, or even understanding. But that’s kind of the point of religion, isn’t it? To try to understand the mysterious, to try to know the unknowable. At least that’s what it means to me. Whenever there’s an aspect to my faith- or even my life- I don’t understand, I tell myself a simple truth: it’s ok.

It’s ok for me to not understand the entirety of the human experience. It’s ok for me to not understand a single part of my schooling or a tough math problem. But you know what’s not ok? To dismiss that experience as being unimportant or even wrong. Just because it’s not relevant to you doesn’t mean that it’s not relevant. There are people who depend on something you’ve never heard of. And pretending that thing doesn’t exist or saying that you don’t understand so why bother trying is a slippery slope to believing that only your experience and life is right. And that’s not a good position to have in life.

Other people exist, and especially people who you won’t understand. But unless they’re actively hurting someone or believing they should die, that’s ok. Not understanding isn’t wrong. Actively denying the existence of someone or something, however, is wrong. 

My challenge to you is this- try to find one fact about something you’ve never heard of. You can click around on the internet or open a random book in the library. When you do that, try to apply that fact to your everyday life. It could be a cool fact about geckos, so you share it with your loved ones. It could be a belief in a religion you’ve never experienced. So try to embody that belief, as long as it’s not hurting someone. When you broaden your horizons, you start to see that there's more to life than your experiences. That there’s a whole world full of things to learn, places to explore, people to meet, and experiences to try. So learn, explore, meet, and try. The world is waiting for you. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

de Gheyn’s Vanitas Still Life

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Vanitas Still Life by Jacques de Gheyn the second. I hope you enjoy.

Jacques de Gheyn the second is also known by the first name Jacob, but I’ll continue to call him Jacques because that’s what the placard at the museum called him. 

Jacques de Gheyn the second was born in Antwerp in around 1565. His father, Jacques Gheyn the first, trained him. Jacques the first was a glass painter, engraver, miniaturist, and draftsman. The draftsman part means that he produced very technical drawings, almost like an architect does. I couldn’t find what Jacques the first drafted specifically, because most of the sources I found are on Jacques the second. 

In 1585, after his father died, Jacques the second went to Haarlem in the Netherlands to study under Hendrick Goltzius- who was a painter and engraver- for five years. In the mid 1590s, Jacques the second moved to Leiden. His work was so extraordinary that his very first commission was for then-Prince of Orange, Maurice of Nassau, of the Siege of Geertruidenberg. The siege was actually more of a power move than an actual war, and the engraving was more or less propaganda to show Maurice as a capable general. 

Unlike many of the artists we’ve covered this season, Jacques the Second never took a trip to Italy and didn’t seem very interested in that style besides an interest in Pisanello who was an Italian Renaissance painter. Jacques the Second was apparently a forerunner of Dutch Naturalism, which is an interest in the natural and scientific world. A few engravings of this aspect of his interest survive, including one that details constellations published in 1600. He also did an engraving of Tycho Brache, an astronomer, chemist, and astrologer. He also portrayed Carolus Clusius- who was a botanist- and the mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen. Karel van Mander, who Jacques the second later drew on his deathbed, detailed his work as a naturalist that also worked from imagination. Van Mander said that he quote ‘did much from nature and also from his own imagination, in order to discover all available sources of art’ unquote. 

Around 1600, Jacques the second left engraving behind to focus on painting and etching. He moved to The Hague in 1605 and was often hired by Dutch royalty. He designed a garden for his old patron Prince Maurice that included the first grottoes implemented in the Netherlands. After Prince Maurice died, Jacques worked for the prince’s brother, Prince Frederick Henry, who you might recognize from episode eleven on Paulus Bor. He also registered with a painters guild while in The Hague called- you guessed it- the Painter’s Guild of St. Luke.

Jacques the second married Eva Stalpaert van der Wiele in 1595. They had a son bearing Jacques’ name in 1596, and Jacques the third became an engraver in his own right. Jacques the third was also a subject of a Rembrandt painting later.

Jacques the second was one of the first Dutch artists to paint the nude female figure, floral still lifes, and vanitas. I’m not sure if he was actually one of the earliest or just created the earliest surviving works. And a vanitas, one of which is the subject of today’s episode, is a term that means an artwork that depicts, using symbolism, the fleetingness of life. It also, apparently, is supposed to symbolize the futility of pleasure and certainty of death. The name comes from Latin and means vanity. A little dark, but the painting is still beautiful.

Jacques the second is said to have created over fifteen hundred drawings. He also did one hundred seventeen engravings purely for a military manual whose translated name is The Exercise of Arms and it helped soldiers learn techniques they used to win their independence from Spain. He painted only rarely, and I couldn’t find an estimated number for his original works.

Jacques the second created art in the transition between Mannerism and Naturalism in Dutch art. Mannerism is a High Renaissance art style, focused heavily on ideal beauty, proportion, and balance. Naturalism is just what is sounds like- a shift of focus to how things look in reality. It’s also called realism. His engravings especially showed the shift- one source I found called them quote “outstanding documents” unquote to show the change because of quote “their spontaneity and informality” unquote.

Jacques the second died on March 29, 1629 in the Hague. About twenty oil paintings but hundreds of his drawings survive.

On to the painting. 

The painting’s focal point is a human skull in the center, directly facing the viewer of the painting. The top and bottom two frontal teeth are missing. The eye sockets of the skull are shadowed in a dark color, maybe a brown and not black. The skull is painted in neutral tones- shades of beige. The jaw is squared and you can see the slight shadows that the roots of the teeth still in the skull cast. There’s a small nick or discoloration on the right side of the space just below the nose and teeth. The protrusions where the cheek is are visible on the left side, but not the right. The right is in complete shadow. The light source is hard to pin down, but I think it’s coming from the viewer’s left and into the painting.

The skull is resting in an alcove made of brown wood, the right side of which is a more rosy wood and the left side more dull. The top of the alcove comes to an arch with a soft point. Also in the alcove, above the skull, is a large sphere that looks like a soap bubble. In the upper left of the bubble, a couple of inches from the top, is a reflection. The reflection shows a slightly distorted reflection of a space that could be a window with two vertical bars in it. Something shadowed is resting on the edge. It could be the top view of the skull. The bubble has another reflection on the bottom right, this one showing what looks like a simple wooden chandelier- almost a wheel- on the ceiling. 

Behind the bubble, splitting it in half horizontally, is a squared ledge in the alcove. The ledge is decorative, it’s not nearly wide enough for anything to rest on. The ledge has two sections with a slim lower part that’s maybe a quarter of the size of the upper part. The lower part is more set into the alcove. The top arch of the alcove is sectioned into seven brick-like rectangles with the part framing the alcove slightly shorter than the top part. On either side of the arch are two figures carved into the wood. They’re both pointing in the general direction of the skull. Both figures are two bricks high and leaning to further frame the alcove.

The left carving has a garment billowing behind it that’s tight against the front. It’s pointing past the skull with its right hand and its left is higher up and also pointing, this one more subtly and towards the top of the bubble. The figure’s left foot is flat on the ledge and its right is on the wall. There’s a lighter section of wood in a circle behind the figure’s head, almost like a saint’s halo. It’s facing the center of the alcove and down. 

The second carving has its right arm resting on the arch and that hand in a fist that it’s resting its cheek on. This figure is also facing towards the alcove and down. It has a long beard. Its garment is more static, not billowing. 

On the top brick in the arch is a carving of Latin words- HVMANA on one line and VANA on the second. So it could read Humana Vana, which could mean human vanity, but I'm not entirely sure. 

In front of the alcove on either side are two silver vases that look almost like chalices with a short stem, a rounded band just below the cup, and a body that looks a little like an egg standing on its narrow edge. The right one has what looks like a small curl of smoke coming from the shadowed opening. That one has a point of reflected light on its left side maybe an inch from the top. There’s no reflection. 

The left vase has a tall tulip in it, the flower ending just above the skull. The flower is odd- it’s a fiery orange with almost-gold highlights. It’s almost like someone gently brushed it with gold powder on the edges and tips of the petals. Its stem is dark green and it has three long, wavy, gently cupped leaves on it. Two on the right and one on the left. Beneath the tulip and in front of it is a much smaller white flower with four petals and a yellow center. On either side of the white flower are either very dark flowers or leaves that almost blend into the wood. Beneath the vase is a single heart-shaped petal from the smaller flower, its point towards the left of the painting. The petal is on the left side of the stem. This vase has the same reflected light as the other one, only a little more to the right of the place where the reflection is on the first. 

Beneath the vases, on the front of the shelf they’re resting on, are two large tarnished gold or light bronze coins or seals, maybe Greek or Roman in origin. They both have lettering around the outside in some language I can’t read. The left coin or seal features two crowned figures facing each other, one male and one female. The female figure is on the left. The female figure is also wearing a veil, obscuring her hair. Her crown has gentle points, connected to its neighbors halfway up. The male figure is slightly shorter than the female, but he has a more pointed crown, with more spread apart points. The right seal or coin has what looks like a squared string instrument, like a lyre, and a banner underneath with more writing. It could be the other side of the coin, if they are indeed coins. The lyre decoration can also be a shield with five slim vertical bands. The top is flat, as are the sides, and the bottom is pointed. 

Also on the shelf with the vases are things more easily identifiable as coins. The coins are stacked at some parts and laid out at others. The four silver coins on the left of the shelf are an inch wide and stacked, two in each stack. They’re almost exactly lined up, but not quite. Both stacks’ top coin is slightly to the right, exposing the left edge of the coin underneath. The right stack has a silver coin of a similar size leaned up against the right side and a copper coin of the same size leaning on that one.

Further back on the shelf are two larger copper coins, an inch and a half or two inches wide. They’re stacked as well, this time with the top coin slightly skewed to the left side. There are four copper coins piled closer to the edge of the shelf in front of them, these ones the size of an American penny. The two on the bottom are touching sides, the left top coin has slid almost completely off to the left, and the top right coin is resting on the bottom coins, covering half of both. The final pile of coins is comprised mainly of the large silver coins- there are seven of those. The three top silver coins are laid out, almost as if they had been stacked at one point but had slid to the left. The leftmost coin is on top. Under those three are four more large silver coins, these in stacks two apiece like the first ones. The left stack is not quite as neat as the right one. It has been skewed to the left. The right stack is almost perfectly stacked, so much so that I had to really look to make sure there were two instead of one thicker one. The final four coins are copper- two large and two small. The top left copper coin is large and resting half on the near-perfect silver stack. It’s also resting on top of another large copper coin, but the top one is slightly to the left. The final two coins are smaller, but larger than the penny-sized ones. One is resting on top of the large coin and one is on the bottom of the pile. Both are jutting out to the right side, the bottom one more so than the top.

Now for my thoughts.

I didn’t know anything before I actually sat in front of the painting and started to write down its description. I don’t know one hundred percent of the story behind any painting, as I’m sure it’s clear by now. I rarely know which artist painted which work. But you don’t have to be a scholar to get into art. You can get into art for the simple fact that you think it’s beautiful. 

I don’t even know why I was drawn to this painting. I mean, it has a skull so it’s awesome, but I’ve described another piece with a skull this season- episode seven's Youth With A Skull. Maybe it was the bubble, but I’m not entirely sure. And that’s fine; you don’t have to know why you like everything you do. You can just like it. You don’t have to write a dissertation defending it. 

But I like the fact that I don’t entirely know why I like this. Sure, it’s as incredibly lifelike as the rest of the paintings I have covered and will cover this season, but I suspect that’s not all. If I try to dissect it entirely, I’m afraid I’ll overthink it. You can like, or even love, something and not know why. Enjoyment often finds you when you least expect it, and you should just welcome it when you notice it standing at the threshold. Invite enjoyment in.

What I can do is pinpoint a few aspects of the painting I really enjoy, and I'll share those with you. I love the tulip especially. It looks like its edges have been brushed with gold as I mentioned. It’s a beautiful detail in an otherwise rather depressing piece. The coins on the ledge, paired with the skull, remind me of the old tradition of leaving coins with a body to pay the ferryman to bring you via boat to the afterlife. 

The carved figures at the top are really interesting, too. They frame the alcove without intruding, and they’re both looking at the scene. The carvings are almost reacting to the art, rather than being purely decorative. The museum’s website, when I looked at it later to get a full picture to check my work, said that their names were quote ‘Democritus and Heraclitus, the laughing and weeping philosophers of ancient Greece’ unquote. So that brought to mind the symbol most people associate with dramatic theater- the masks with the laughing and crying faces. The website also informed me that what I took to be a round wooden chandelier is actually a wheel of torture. I guess I look on the bright side a lot. 

Speaking of the reflections in the surface of the bubble, I like them. They're distorted incredibly realistically. And the artistic choice to have a bubble present at all is odd enough- who puts a bubble in the same art piece as a skull? But it’s almost a fun choice. You all know how much I like fun choices in art. 

I also like the shine of the metal, how the vases are almost identical but not quite. I also like the brightness of the coins on the shelf compared to the tarnished look of the coins or seals on the front of it. It brings a mix of new and old, fresh and antique. And the way the Roman letters are barely seen unless you look really closely is interesting. It’s almost a subtle nod to whoever has the presence of mind to look. It also gives the painting a classic feeling. Like it’s rooted firmly in history. 

You may see different things to like in the painting, or you may not enjoy it at all. Art may not always be fun to make, view, or both- the quote about how art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed by Dr. César Cruz showcases that- but there’s always a feeling behind it. You may not feel the same emotion the artist felt when they made it, but that’s not the point. You always bring your own life experiences when you look at any piece of art, just like you do with everything else. 

Here’s my challenge for you this time- try to list at least three things you like and don’t know why. It could be a TV show that no one else seems to have heard of, or a piece of clothing that you enjoy wearing even if it doesn’t match your outfit, or a tchotchke you got on a whim. Just three things. Don’t think too hard about it. And once you’ve found those three things, accept that you’ll probably never understand why you like them. Say- out loud if necessary- ‘I am allowed to like things for no reason, I don’t have to defend myself to anyone, and I will not apologize for it.’

Also, make me a promise- never apologize for love. Because when you start downplaying what you like, you’ll start to diminish who you are. Be you, loudly. Anyone who doesn’t like that doesn’t deserve you. And everyone should surround themselves with people who make them feel like they can be themselves. Because when you’re really yourself, you shine. Being happy isn’t futile, unlike what vanitas used to promote. Ignore the depressing fact that death is inevitable, and remember that any joy you can get when you’re alive is a gift.

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

ter Borch the Younger's A Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about A Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute and a Cavalier by Gerard ter Borch the Younger. I hope you enjoy. 

Gerard ter Borch the Younger was born in December 1617 in Zwolle. As you might expect, his father is Gerard ter Borch the Elder, and he was also an artist. Gerard the Elder gave his son a fine education, including sending him to Amsterdam at the tender age of 15 to study under an artist. The exact artist is unknown, but scholars have speculated it could be Willem Cornelisz Duyster or Pieter Codde, who were both painters. In 1634, he studied under Pieter de Molijn in Haarlem. De Molijn was both a painter and engraver, though if ter Borch ever made any engravings none survive. Ter Borch completed his training and registered with Haarlem’s Guild of St. Luke in 1635. You’d think painters’ guilds would get more creative with their names, rather than use the same saint. It gets predictable after three cities.

In 1635, ter Borch was in London, England with his uncle via his step-mother, Geesken van Voerst. Her brother was the engraver Robert van Voerst. 

Ter Borch did some country-hopping- to Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. It’s documented he was in Rome in 1641 when he painted Jan Six, A Young Lady, and The Portrait of A Gentleman. He was in Münster, Germany in 1648 during the ratification of peace between Spain and Holland. He painted the signing of that treaty, along with Man Standing, a painting also known as Portrait of A Young Man. 

ter Borch was invited to Madrid, Spain to work under King Philip the fourth. He also received knighthood from the man. After some unknown ‘intrigue’- which I assume is a nice way of saying ‘scandal’- in 1650, he returned to his home country, first to Kampen, then Delft precisely on April 22, 1653. We know the exact date because he and Vermeer were witnesses together to the signing of some document. Ter Borch then went to Deventer in 1655 with his newly wedded wife, Geertruyt Matthij. He married Geertruyt on Valentine’s Day in 1654. Ter Borch also became a councilman in Deventer in 1666. Documents and portraits put him in Amsterdam in 1674 and The Hague and Haarlem in 1675. But he always returned to Deventer, where he died on December 8th 1681. After his death, at his request, his body was transported to his home town so he could rest in peace next to his father. 

Ter Borch influenced other Dutch painters, such as Gabriel Metsu and Johannes Vermeer. You may recognize the first name from a brief mention in the third episode and the second name as being the focus of the first episode. 

Ter Borch had a pupil, Casper the Friendly Ghost. Just kidding. Casper Netscher. Netscher studied with ter Borch during the mid 1650s. 

Less than a hundred of ter Borch’s works have survived and are attributed to him. He was a genre painter, which you know means he painted scenes from everyday life. 

On to the painting.

On the left of the painting, as promised, there’s a young woman playing a theorbo-lute, which is somewhat like a guitar with a long body that’s more rounded than the other instrument. The neck of the instrument near the body is thick, then it comes in a sharp angle and the rest of the neck is thinner and long, with the metal knobs on the side that you use to tune a guitar. Nine tuners in all, or maybe eight. The woman is wearing a satin dress that’s mostly covered by her overcoat and the instrument. The dress only shows from her lap down to her shins. The overcoat is a deep blue, heavy fabric that looks like it’s made of a velvet material. There’s some shine to the fabric, but not as much as the dress. The coat is trimmed with white fur. The woman has a black necklace made of rounded beads. It’s short, only coming a small distance down her chest. Her skin is pale. She has a small smile on her face as she looks at the cavalier. Her brown hair is almost wiry, but it could just need a good brushing. It’s also fairly short- it barely comes past the tops of her shoulders. She has a red flower in it above her right ear. The light is coming from the middle left edge of the painting, just above the woman’s head.

Her right hand is resting on the body of the theorbo-lute with her thumbs poised to strum. Her left is holding the neck of the instrument, wrapped around the bottom of it. Her fingers are slightly spaced apart with her ring finger slightly lower than the others. Her thumb is behind the neck. The overcoat’s sleeves stop a little past her elbows. Her left elbow is resting on the table the young cavalier is sitting on. You can see inside the sleeve. The lining stops above the fur and is white. 

In front of the woman, on the table, is an open soft-cover book. It’s on the edge of the table, the other side of its cover draped over the side closer to the viewer. It’s probably a music book because you can faintly see the bars where notes go. The tablecloth looks heavy, slightly more like a carpet. It’s brown with lighter brown-yellow designs on it. The designs are almost plus-sign shaped, but wide. The vertical part is thicker than the horizontal part. There are blue-gray designs at the corners of the cloth, at least the two corners we can see. The exact nature of the designs are indistinguishable. The table itself is slightly diagonal. Along the bottom edge of the cloth are more blue designs, these ones small diamonds on top of each other. The bottom diamond is only the top half of it, so it’s more of a triangle. It’s wider than the top design. The diamonds are in a band of light beige that runs all along the edge of the cloth. 

On top of the tablecloth is a thinner cloth that just curls over the top edge of the table. This covering is a lighter brown than the main tablecloth. It too, has designs on it, but the angle makes it nearly impossible to see what they are. The colors are a faint red and blue, with another beige band along the outside. 

The cavalier is sitting on the table, his back towards the right of the painting. His right hand is resting on the table and he’s facing the woman at an angle. Near his right hand is a silver pocketwatch with a medium-shade blue ribbon. The cavalier is wearing a loose white shirt tucked into loose gray pants. His legs are on the far side of the table from the viewer. His shirt is covered by a similarly-colored gray over garment that almost looks like it’s made of leather. The shirt shows at his lower back and at his wrists. The arms of the possibly-leather over garment are ribbed and colored a light brown with gray tones. His hair is also brown and has a similar texture as the woman’s. His hair is longer than hers- it’s draped over the front of the shoulders and is at least down to his collarbone. I’m unsure of its exact length because the ends are obscured by his body. He’s looking at the woman and looks almost sad. His left hand is resting in his lap. Under him is a thin silver something. It could be the hilt of a sword, but I’m not sure. 

The background of the painting is a cool gray stone wall. Not bricks, large blocks. On the left, behind the woman, is an entryway. It’s at an angle, and you’re only able to see the columns on either side and the dark doorway. The columns are fixed to the wall, so they’re flat at the back. The columns are fluted and their tops are carved, as well. They almost look like the ionic style of Greek columns, the middle order where they have the curls at the top. The columns are holding up a light brown stone mantle. The wall the columns are fixed to is a lighter color than the back wall. Its a cross between light brown and light gray. Between the figures is a dark shadow. It could be thrown from either figure, but the shadow itself looks odd. It’s not a detailed outline- it’s like the head and shoulders of a black paper doll, the ones you make in chains holding hands.

Now for my thoughts.

The painting is smaller than I expected, but then most people say that about the Mona Lisa. It’s interesting that the woman is the focus of the painting and even the name. Ter Borch could easily have called it “A Cavalier Listening to a Woman Playing the Theorbo-Lute.” But the woman is not only more brightly-dressed, shes also lit. The cavalier might be dully-dressed, but his clothes are more interesting from a texture standpoint. He’s wearing leather, or a near equivalent, with banded sleeves. 

I’d never seen a theorbo-lute before this painting, and I don’t know if anyone still plays one. Most likely there is- nearly anyone can learn anything due to the internet. I don’t play the guitar, but I wish I did. And I promise, if I did I would learn more than one song, and especially more than Wonderwall. 

The hair on both figures is also interesting- it’s the same rough, wiry texture. I’ve raved about how you can see textures in the paintings we’ve already covered, but the hair in this one is different somehow. I don’t know why I like it.

But that’s the fun part about art- you’ll be drawn to different things in every painting than everyone else. I’m drawn to both the rough hair and smooth satin- you might like the blue fabric of her coat or the tablecloth. Each piece of art speaks to each person, and each element speaks at a different volume. Some scream, some are barely a whisper. You just have to listen. 

That’s my challenge for you- pick a single artwork. You can even use a computer if you like. Look at it for at least five minutes, if you can. Notice the details you like and don’t like. I guarantee that you’ll be surprised by them. I’m surprised by what I’m drawn to every time I sit in front of a new painting. When you see what you like, make a physical or mental note. Try to see those things- colors, textures, feelings- in life. And when you find more things you like, you’ll get a better experience out of the life you lead because you’ll start to see the best version of yourself reflected in it. So look for that reflection. You tend to find what you look for.

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

Kalf’s Still Life with Ginger Pot and Porcelain Bowl

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Still Life with Ginger Pot and Porcelain Bowl by Willem Kalf. I hope you enjoy. 

Willem Kalf was born in 1619 in Rotterdam. His father died when he was six and he left Rotterdam in 1638 shortly after his mother died, leaving him an orphan at around 18. No one knows who he apprenticed under because any documents that might have alluded to or outright told people who he was trained by haven’t survived to today. He moved to Paris in around 1641 until late fall five years later. As you might expect, the paintings Kalf produced during his time there were said to be part of his French or Parisian period. 

Kalf lived in a house with several other Dutch painters in a house called La Chasse. His early paintings were mainly of exteriors, especially of farms. That was apparently very popular as a subject and his paintings were copied quite a few times. But he didn’t just paint exteriors- he was one of the pioneers of the still life genre later on.

Kalf returned to Rotterdam in October 1646 and he didn’t crop up in the records for another five years, when he resurfaces in Hoorn in a marriage record to Cornelia Pluvier. He and his wife moved to Amsterdam, which is where Kalf stayed. In 1654, he is a member of the Saint Luke’s Guild in that city. 

Kalf wasn’t solely a painter doing his own work, however- he was an art authenticator and dealer as well. He authenticated in Amsterdam in 1653, and the documents he provided to authenticate an artwork by Paulus Bril are part of the reason historians know he was in the city at that time. And it’s through his art dealing that he most likely gathered all the interesting, exotic, and exorbitantly expensive items he later used in his still lifes. Oddly enough, he painted very few paintings during his mature period where he created most of his still lifes for which he is now known. Art historians in the Netherlands call his still lifes a term that means “ostentatious still life” in English.

Kalf died on July 31, 1693. 23 of his works survive.

On to the painting.

The still life’s background is dark brown, so deep it’s actually hard to make out some details. The table the items are on is polished granite with a beveled edge. The granite is brown with gray and black veins running through it, mostly seen on the front left corner of the table, the only corner visible to the viewer. There’s an open faceted brass pocket watch on the corner of the table. Or maybe it’s a handheld compass or even a locket. It has a black ribbon threaded through the loop. The ribbon is draped over the corner of the table, and it’s dangling down. There’s a small brass key or something similar on the ribbon. It’s bent- the hole is threaded through the ribbon, and the body of the key is almost at a ninety degree angle. There’s a small piece of brass extending from the item, which is why I think it's a key.

Next to the pocket watch, there’s a silver tray. The edge of it is detailed and ornate, though you only see it in profile so you can’t tell what the details actually are. There’s a depression in the middle of the tray where items can sit. On the tray is a glass tube with a small orange and yellow swirl on one side. It looks like it’s connected to a small metal cup on the other side. It could be a snuffer for candles. Cocked on the tray is a white porcelain bowl with delicate blue designs on it. One design you see in full is the solid profile of a bird on a branch. The rest of the design in the concave side of the bowl is obscured by an eaten slice of melon. The green rind and a few pieces of the orange melon remain in the bowl. Also in the bowl is a hammered metal disc with holes in it, but I’m not quite sure what function that item serves. It looks almost like a loose-leaf tea steeper, but without a chain to pull it out of the water.

Behind the bowl and to the left is a large wine glass. The stem of the glass is very thick and it looks like it has those glass decorative pebbles on it, the ones with a flat back and a domed front. The glass is dark green, but the color is probably influenced by the dark background. The glass itself is half full with a colorless liquid, with a half-peeled lemon in it. The lemon’s rind has been peeled in a spiral, and most of the rind is dangling over the rim of the glass and hanging over the left side. 

Underneath the dangling lemon rind is an apple-like fruit with a stem with leaves coming out of the top and a much smaller fruit off to the left, still on the stem. The main fruit has a crack on the left side of it, in the middle of the lighter area. The right side and most of the bottom has a gentle shadow thrown on it by the objects next to it. 

To the right of the porcelain bowl is the green melon that the slice in the bowl was cut out of. It has a crackled rind and the inside is a yellow-orange. Close to the center of the melon you can see the slightly-green seeds running along the length of the exposed slice. Behind the melon is a large blue vase, which is the ginger pot the title references. The pot has white designs on it, but you can only clearly see one. That one is a floral-like design. The top of the pot has a horizontal single diamond design on it, like an elongated simple compass rose on a map. Behind the pot and to the left is another drinking glass. This one is a narrow triangle shape, with the point of the triangle at the bottom. It’s filled with a red liquid. To the right of the ginger pot, hardly able to be seen against the background, is a third drinking glass. You can only see the top part of the glass, where liquid would sit, and not its stem. The glass is wide and almost-floral in shape. The edges are wide flutes and the rim is also fluted. It looks like the cup of a flower seen in profile. 

Bunched around the right of the ginger pot and melon is a thick cloth. It’s mostly orange, with dark brown and white designs on it. The design closest to the viewer and the most distinct is shaped like a maple leaf. A fold in the fabric from how it’s laying splits the design in half. The cloth is also resting under the silver tray and has a fringed edge. 

Now for my thoughts.

I like the lived-in feel of the painting. It looks like the melon was freshly eaten and the person these items belong to just walked away and will be back to clear up later. I know Kalf likely staged the table himself to practice drawing and painting from real life, but it still has that human touch to it. It isn’t just a fruit bowl- Kalf chose these items for a reason. Maybe that reason is that he had it nearby, but I like to think that he chose them because they were challenging. And the design of the cloth and the ginger pot, even the marble table, are incredibly detailed and life-like. The liquids in the glasses are clear and the viewer can easily tell what they are. What I think is a loose leaf tea steeper is metal and reflects the design of the  bowl it’s resting in, albeit in a distorted way. The light coming through the vase with the glass pebble design on it reflecting off the ginger pot and the fact you can hardly see the glass on the right are such small details in reality but huge in theory.

Kalf might also have chosen the items in his still lifes as not-so-humble brags- his art dealing brought him a lot of spending money that he used to acquire items that the vast majority of his fellow Dutch couldn’t afford. It would be somewhat like an artist of today painting stacks of gold bars and cash, along with highly expensive items like Ming vases and designer clothing and accessories. Kalf’s paintings were incredibly popular with the elite in the Netherlands of that time, mostly because of a status symbol. But the pieces are still gorgeous. 

The hours this painting must have taken- hours sitting in one spot and painstakingly rendering every detail so that it was as good as Kalf was capable of making it must have been intense. It’s amazing that this is one of the works Kalf made that survived- I mentioned that there were 23. It’s a still life. And this is just one of the several by him that exist to this day, but still lifes don’t tend to survive because they’re seen as boring by most people who don’t have a background or at least a passing interest in art. They think- as I used to and still often do- why someone would paint a bunch of random things on a table. But they were more than just practice pieces for techniques and colors. They trained the artist’s eye. To see more than a first glance, to look deeper into the world and truly experience it. And yes, still lifes often trained the artist’s patience as well- the ability to sit still and stare at one scene for hours is a skill that must be practiced as much or even more so than any brushwork technique. 

Here’s my challenge for you, and don’t get scared that it’s to create your own still life. No, it’s to look around you, wherever you’re listening to this podcast. Whether you’re on your commute, in your room, or doing chores, there’s probably something you’ve seen a million times and passed by without looking at it.

So I challenge you to take a close look at that thing safely. In my experience, you can usually find something brand-new to see. Whether it’s a new kind of tree, an interesting shadow on the wall, or the pattern on a dish, everything can stand to be appreciated just a little more. And if you’re moved to do so, maybe take a picture of that thing. Your life deserves to be documented. It’s incredible what you see as ordinary now will turn out to be extraordinary later. You never know when the last time will be, so soak in your experiences. You never know when your experience will turn into a treasured memory. And memories are what make life so much better.

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

Since my friend was kind enough to feature me as their first podcast recommendation, I figured I might as well help pad out their brand-new blog!

Disclaimer: I'm still in my first season, with ten episodes under my belt, but I feel like my experience will help any others who haven't started a podcast yet! This is going to be a monster of a post, so the rest will be under the cut.

So you want to start a podcast. Great! It’s a fantastic way to get your (literal) voice out there. Podcasts are one of the last few truly individual and democratic ways of media- there are no massive corporations trying to get a stranglehold. Anyone with the technology can make one, so  there’s no barrier to entry.

Whether you want to do a fiction or nonfiction podcast, I’m sure you have an idea (or twenty) that you want to do. But you’re nervous because there are so many guides and advice out there. Fear not, I did a lot of research before I started this podcast, so I can share some tips, tricks, and general advice.

Step 1: Get over yourself

This may sound harsh, but it needs to be said. No one will care about your podcast more than you do. That’s just the reality. But as bad as that sounds, there’s a good part too- it means no one will be listening to it as closely as you do. So if you miss an ‘um’ or a click or a whatever during editing, chances are no one will notice. 

You also have to go into podcasting for the right reasons. If your reason is ‘to make a bunch of money,’ then you’re going to be disappointed. Monetization is years down the line and probably won’t be a lot anyway. 

But if your reason to go into podcasting is to have fun or to just share what's unique about you with the world, you'll have a good time.

And I'll be honest, I had a hard time doing this step too. It was me being arrogant but at the same time insecure. I have a speech impediment plus a very thick regional accent and I thought that would hinder me. It didn't. 

Podcasting actually helped me get more confident in myself and remember that what I say matters. So if that's something you're looking for, go for it. 

Step 2: Research

So you have an idea. Or, rather, you think you have an idea. Chances are, your podcast idea is way too broad to appeal to anyone because you’re trying to appeal to everyone. I know, that seems counterintuitive- why would you exclude people from your potential audience when you don't even have one yet? But the more specific you can be, the better. It’s called a niche. So say you want to start a fitness podcast. You don’t want to do body building one episode and then yoga the next. That will just put your listener off because they will think that not every episode is applicable to them. And that’s what you want to do- find a niche so every single episode appeals to your audience. Narrow yourself down, and don’t worry if you think you’re being too specific. I’ll help with that later on. 

You want to ask yourself a few questions- what is the podcast about, why are you making this podcast, who are you making this podcast for, etc. There’s a great article that covers these questions- and more- right here. So answer those questions and you’ll have a great starting point. 

Step 3: Topic

Take that broad idea you have and figure out what exactly you have experience in or just have a lot to say about. Sticking with our fitness example, maybe think of yoga exclusively. And if you can get more specific than that, maybe yoga you can do in 10 minutes, that’s even better. Once you have the idea you want, it’s time to start looking to see who did it before you. Because no idea is completely original, and that’s fine! You will bring something completely individual to the table because there isn’t anyone exactly like you anywhere. So listen to those 10-minute yoga podcasts and see what they did and you can do different. Say you can think of yoga positions you can do in 10 minutes while in a chair. Fantastic, that’s a great niche to fit in. 

For myself, I did a lot of research into art podcasts and didn't find one that was like my idea. That doesn't mean there aren't any out there, it just meant that there were very few. That means a) there's limited competition and b) there's a gap in media catering to that subgroup. And it's ok if your audience is different than what you expect!

Also, be sure you have enough topic to cover multiple episodes. Some guides say 10 episodes, but I say go longer. A lot longer. Try 35 episodes. If that seems daunting, then this isn’t the topic for you. If you can’t make at least that many episodes, you’ll stall out and eventually drop off. And nothing is worse than podcasts that just end without wrapping up. So it’s good to know that before you start. 

This is a good time to plan out episodes- you have a bunch of ideas already! There’s this thing that people in the industry call ‘podfade’ where most podcasts fizzle and may even die after 7-10 episodes. I don’t want to happen to you. So make a bunch of ideas, structure them in a way that makes sense, and move from there. 

Step 4: Name

Next up is the name. Now, there are three general camps for names: the branded, the creative, and the descriptive. 

The branded is using your name or the name of your brand. Unless you have a really recognizable brand or you use your real name a lot and it’s easily recognizable, I wouldn’t go this route. Say someone who doesn’t know you finds your podcast, Mike Smith Fitness. Why would they click if they don’t know who Mike Smith is? If I used my name, it would be something like Sydney’s Art Podcast or An Art Gallery Tour with Sydney. Not as grabbing. 

The creative is what I chose. Creative names have to walk a fine line, though. You don’t want to go too obscure, otherwise it will be confusing. Take my podcast. It’s an art podcast with pure descriptions of artworks. So I started thinking of names that would be clever with that. I landed on the idea that bats use sound to ‘see’ the world. And people say ‘long live bad art’. So Long Live Bat Art was born. 

And the descriptive is describing what the podcast is about. Say I went with this option for my own podcast. I would have titled it something like Art Description Podcast. That's good for SEO- search engine optimization- and for letting people know right away what the podcast is about, but I'm not good at that. 

But you will have to go through a lot of iterations to find the best name for your podcast. For Long Live Bat Art I had a lot of ideas, most of them bad. And bad ideas are good, as long as you recognize they’re bad. Because bad ideas spark good ideas. So just don’t filter yourself, write all those ideas down. For example, I had ‘Negative Space,’ ‘Blocking In,’ ‘Illusion of Space,’ ‘A Different Perspective,’ ‘Visionless,’ ‘Echolocation,’ ‘SONAR[T],’ ‘Artistic Vision,’ and a more vague one that was considering using a pun on the term for a total lack of sight- amaurosis. Now, ‘SONAR[T]’ was pretty good, but I looked it up. It was similar to a podcast in French, [SON]ART.

You don’t want anything close to what you’re planning. Best case scenario, you’ll confuse listeners, worst you’ll direct traffic to the other podcast and not yours. And then you have to worry about intellectual theft suits. So just steer clear. 

And if you really want to protect your name, trademark it! Look up trademarking laws in your state and country and follow them. 

Step 5: Social Media

You want to get the names/handles/whatever for the social media sites you plan on using. My suggestion is a website, twitter, and instagram. Unless you think your audience will use other sites, then by all means, use those! 

You also might want to use a community part of a website/app. Start a Facebook group, or use a Discord server. This can be a place for you to interact directly with your audience, and for them to interact with you! 

For a website, you do want to buy a domain. It just makes it easier to give it out to people verbally, which is what you’ll be doing most of the time. So you don’t want a domain with lots of random numbers, or another company’s name in it, you want just a plain domain. And then once you have a domain, most code-free website builders have an option to click that you already have a domain. So put that in and get building! I won’t go into detail of how to do that here, but there are tons of videos and tutorials out there. But just play with it, see what you like. 

Step 6: Format

So you have your topic and name. Great! Now is the time for what form your podcast will take. Will it be an interview style? Will you have a co-host or multiple co-hosts? Will you fly solo?

This is also where you can start to think about if your podcast will be seasonal. And don’t feel like because you don’t have a fiction podcast, you can’t do seasonal. Long Live Bat Art is. 16 episodes a season, posted every other Friday starting from the first Friday in July. That’s 8 months of content. And then the rest of the active time can be spent promoting the podcast. But the most important part of season-based podcast is to RELAX. You give yourself a break. I won’t work for the 4 months off at all. If you’re scared people will forget about your podcast, put those doubts aside. Yeah, maybe a few people will. But if your show is good, most people won’t. Plus, there’s a handy-dandy thing called ‘subscribing’ that means that episodes will be delivered right to your listener’s feed without them doing a thing- they won’t have to remember, they’ll just get the episode.

This is also the time to decide how long your episodes will be. Don’t go searching the web for the ‘ideal’ length because spoiler alert: there isn’t one. Some podcasts are under ten minutes, some are over two hours. The answer for ‘how long should an episode be’ is kinda weird but at the same time super simple- ‘as long as it has to be and as short as you can get it.’ That means cutting all the fat and making sure every second is good content. If you have 45 minutes of great content, then your episode will be 45 minutes. Don’t try to cram 15 extra minutes of nothing to make it an even hour. 

Step 7: Write

Now it’s time to plan your episode. There are some people who like to write a word-for-word script- like I do- there are some that use bullet points, and some use a combination. There are reasons for all of them, and all of them suit different kinds of podcasts and people. 

Scripts are good for people who want to keep everything really tight in their show. They’re also pretty much necessary for fiction podcasts. But there are cons- if you’re not used to reading from a script and it’s a non-fiction podcast, you can sound really flat. And that’s not good listening. So try to write like you talk. Shove your inner English teacher into a closet and lock the door for a little bit. Don’t worry about not starting sentences with ‘and,’ ‘but,’ or ‘so.’ Don’t worry about sentence structure or past participle tense. This isn’t an essay, it’s a podcast script. I didn’t have to worry about that because I’m a former theater kid who got used to reading scripts. But if you don’t have that background, it can sound different. 

When you write a script, I recommend doing a few trial runs BEFORE you ever hit record. You’ll catch a lot of ways you want to change sentences to better suit how you talk. Because how you think you talk and how you actually talk is often a lot different. And don’t be afraid to go off-script! If you think of something you didn’t add, you can go and change it in the trial runs. That’s a lot harder to do later on, but not necessarily impossible. 

Bullet points are the loosest way you can prepare. They’re good for interview podcasts, for example. You want to have things you remember to touch on during the interview without having them word-for-word. But they’re not just for interviews! Do you like having the freedom to explore the conversation with your co-host(s) naturally? Bullet points might be the way to prepare for you. 

Any way you choose, there should be some preparation. You don’t want to sit down to record with just a topic in mind because then editing will be a nightmare. You’ll go off on tangents, you won’t complete thoughts, you’ll meander. Just do yourself the favor of putting some work on the front end so you have less on the back end. 

If possible, read your finished script to someone not on the podcast and see what they think! Ask them questions. Did they get bored or confused? 

And don’t think the episode content, or the meat, of the episode as the only thing you have to write. There are also things called ‘intros,’ ‘outros,’ ‘show notes,’ ‘episode descriptions,’ and ‘podcast descriptions.’ Don’t leave these for the last minute! They’re just as important, and most of the time more so, than your actual podcast recording. 

Intros are the introduction to the podcast. Every episode will be the first time someone listens to your show, and not everyone will start at the beginning. So be sure to hook the listener right away. Think of how long you yourself give podcasts to get you to listen, and be honest with yourself. My guess is most of you said ‘less than a minute’ or even ‘less than 30 seconds.’ And that’s fine! Your time is valuable. And so is your listeners’.

There are a few things most people include in their intros. The most important ones are the podcast name, the host’s name and credentials, the tagline, and a short description of what the episode will entail. Your podcast’s name is important because maybe someone has your podcast in a queue of all the podcasts they want to listen to. Most people listen to podcasts while doing other things, so they can’t stop and click to see what they’re listening to. So be sure to include that. Your name is just as important- listeners want to know a name to attach to the voice. And if you have any expertise in the field, definitely include that! You want to show the listener that you know your stuff and they should trust you. Even if you don’t have credentials, that can be equally as important. I don’t have a background in art, and I make sure to mention that at the beginning of every show. It tells the listener that I’m a beginner, just like they are. That can really put the listener at ease, knowing they won’t have a ton of technical jargon thrown at them. The tagline of your show is important, too. Think of it like a pitch, but slightly different. Say your podcast is about yoga you can do in 10 minutes in a chair. You want to say that! Let people know in one sentence what they need to know. And the episode description is a short summary or a teaser of what’s to come. It’s also helpful to put a little wish at the end. Here’s the intro for all of my podcast episodes: “Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about [ARTWORK by artist]. I hope you enjoy.”

See what I did? I named the podcast- Long Live Bat Art; I gave the tagline, ‘the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to;’ I introduced myself and my (lack of) credentials, ‘My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover;’ and I gave a short description that will change from episode to episode, which is what artwork I’ll be talking about and by what artist; and my wish that the listener enjoys. 

Keep. The. Intro. Short. Keep in mind that minute or half a minute time frame. You don’t want the intro to last ten minutes. Potential listeners will skip your episode and possibly your podcast entirely and regular listeners will fast-forward. When you write the intro’s first draft feel free to jam it full of information, but remember to pare it down! Read it out loud and TIME YOURSELF. Keep it lean. 

Outros are just as important as intros. They’re what ease your listener out of the episode and entice them to listen to the next episode. Don’t leave it as an after-thought. Thank the listener for listening, make a call to action or two, and let them know when to expect the next episode. If you don’t know what a ‘call to action’ is, they’re pretty simple. They’re what you want your listeners to do. Tell a friend about the show. Follow you on social media. Leave a review. Subscribe to your newsletter. All calls to action, or CTAs. But don’t shove ten of them in one episode. If you ask too much, then your listener won’t do any. Keep them easy to do- you’re doing this for free, and it’s not a lot to ask your listeners to do something to help out. But keep them friendly! This is my outro: “If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. You can also follow me on social media. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.” Sometimes, I even leave off the 'follow me on social media.'

My outro anatomy is basic- two or three calls to action, a thanks, and a reminder of when the next episode is. You don’t have to go crazy. In fact, it’s better if you don’t. Try to keep the outro as lean as the intro. And don’t feel like you’re tied to your CTA- when you grow, you’ll find the need for different ones and you can always change it down the line.

Show notes are a little tricky. Some people swear by them, some people leave them for their own website. If you leave them on the podcast-listening site, think of them like an interesting bibliography. If you don’t remember what that is, it was the annoying last page you had to include in school essays listing where you got the information. But don’t think that if you don’t do research on your show, you can skip this part. Show notes, along with the episode description, show up under your episode on the podcast listening site, so make them interesting. Especially the first sentence, because that’s often the only thing people can see before hitting ‘see more.’ You want people to listen to your episode, and this is a good way to grab them. When they hit ‘see more,’ you want to make sure that the rest of the show notes are interesting and entice the listener to, well, listen. 

If you used sources, link them in the show notes. If you have social media, link them here. If you have a website, definitely link that here. If you use music, link the credit. If you do transcripts, link that here. And you can even time stamp the episode here. I generally have four or five in Long Live Bat Art- artist bio, story about the scene depicted (if included), the description of the art, my thoughts, and the challenge I pose at the end of every episode. They’re not necessary, but it is nice for repeat listeners to be able to skip to the part they want to hear. But you only get so many characters for show notes- 4,000 to be precise. If you have more than that, don’t fret. Leave a message- something like ‘the show notes for this episode are too long to be put here, so instead read them at’- and then put wherever you have them. 

Episode descriptions are NOT show notes. They’re the summary to the episode. Think of it like the episode blurb of your favorite TV show. Something that entices without giving away the plot. You don’t want to put the twist here. My episode notes end up something like “Sydney has stopped at [ARTWORK] for today’s episode. This artwork was [MEDIUM] by [ARTIST] and shows [SUBJECT]. [INTERESTING FACT ABOUT EPISODE/WHAT I LEARNED/FUNNY THING I TALKED ABOUT].” As you can see, they tend to change a lot, though, so don’t worry if a script doesn’t work. Be sure to under promise and over deliver here. It’s never good to have a description where you promise something exciting will happen and it either doesn’t or appears for a second. If you have a guest, put their name and credentials here! And give listeners who might not know who they are context.

And your podcast description is NOT your episode description. If episode descriptions are like episode blurbs of TV shows, the podcast description is the blurb for the whole series. You want to keep it broad so it encompasses what the podcast is about as a whole, and you want to make it specific enough to cater to your niche. Introduce yourself and your credentials here again so people know before ever clicking any episode. If your podcast is seasonal, write that so listeners don’t get confused if they discover you during the offseason and there’s no new episode. If you’re an interview podcast, put that too. Also put your pitch, what makes you unique here, and maybe even what you want your listener to walk away with or describe the listener to the listener. But be sure to under promise and over deliver again. My podcast description is: “So you want to see art more often than you do, or maybe you just want a fresh perspective on art you’ve seen before. Join your host, Sydney, on a slow tour through an art gallery. Every season will have a theme and each episode will be dedicated to one artwork. You’ll get a brief history of the artist before the description of the work and then you’ll get to hear Sydney’s thoughts on it. Because Sydney is a casual art fan you won’t hear overly complicated technical terms, or if you do then you’ll get an explanation of what the term means in plain English. Long Live Bat Art is seasonal, with 16 episodes a season posted every other Friday from the first Friday in July to 32 weeks later. The rest of the calendar year is the offseason.”

My description might seem long, but it really isn't. The max character limit is also 4,000, but you don’t want to come even close to that. No one likes a wall of text. But my description hits everything I mentioned- describe the listener to them, ‘so you want to see art more often than you do, or maybe you just want a fresh perspective on art you’ve seen before;’ I introduce myself and my (lack of) credentials, ‘because Sydney is a casual art fan you won’t hear overly complicated technical terms, or if you do then you’ll get an explanation of what the term means in plain English;’ my pitch, ‘a slow tour through an art gallery;’ I describe what the listener can expect from the podcast’s format, ‘every season will have a theme and each episode will be dedicated to one artwork’ and ‘Long Live Bat Art is seasonal, with 16 episodes a season posted every other Friday from the first Friday in July to 32 weeks later. The rest of the calendar year is the offseason;’ and what they can expect from each episode, ‘you’ll get a brief history of the artist before the description of the work and then you’ll get to hear Sydney’s thoughts on it.’ Every carefully-crafted sentence in the description has a purpose, which is what you should do. 

Step 7: Music

Music is optional but nice to have. They can help make even the most newbie podcaster seem more professional. Music to start, end, and transition between segments in the episode is fantastic. Music for under your voice is amazing. But don’t think you can choose any music without a problem. Even if you edit or change the music, you can still get nailed with a lawsuit. So keep it to royalty free music sites like purple planet. 

Think of what the vibe or content of your podcast is and pick music to match. Nothing is more jarring than pleasing ambient music before a heavy metal music podcast. You’ll do nothing but confuse and alienate listeners. The heavy metal fans will think the intro music isn’t their scene and click out, and the ones who enjoy the light music will be shocked at the content of the episode and click out. 

Here’s a tip, though. Keep your music softer than what you think it should be. You don’t want the music to overpower your voice. I keep mine at half the volume of my voice.

Step 8: Artwork

Now this step, like the music, isn’t technically mandatory. But I do suggest putting something in the podcast artwork, even if it’s just text on a colored background. 

Since I’m artistic, I drew my podcast artwork myself. But not everyone has that level of artistic skill built up yet, so don’t worry if you can’t do that. The text on a colored background is a great placeholder until you find someone to do your art. 

If you do decide to draw or otherwise create your own artwork, there are some things you should do, as well as some to not. Let’s start with the ‘do.’ Whatever you do, keep it simple. Simple colors, simple text, simple image. My art for Long Live Bat Art is as simple as I could get it- a bat looking at a colored line drawing of The Scream by Edvard Munch and the name of the podcast on the side. 

Second ‘do’- make it interesting. Podcast artwork stands out more than the name because sometimes people stop scrolling when they see colors. So use that opportunity to grab listeners, intrigue them. If possible, make them ask a question. My art makes people think ‘what on Earth kind of podcast would feature a bat looking at art?’ Hopefully, that makes people click and see what that’s all about. 

Third ‘do’- put your name in the art. Keep the text simple and BOLD. You can see my text clearly. 

Now for the don’ts. 

Don’t include images of microphones, headphones, or other podcast equipment. Think of it like a simplified movie poster- they don’t put imagery of TVs or cameras or those black and white striped director clapper things. People know it’s a podcast, you don’t have to remind them. In fact, you want to make people forget that. 

Step 9: Software

You’re going to need something to capture your voice. You can use equipment- like an audio recorder- but you will need software to edit. There are tons of free software out there- GarageBand for Mac, or Audacity. Then there’s paid software, like Hindenberg, Adobe Audition, or Reaper. It all depends on your budget and how comfortable you are with doing it yourself. You can pay someone to edit your podcast, but I do it myself. It was hard at first, but I got better. There’s a learning curve to everything, and you’ll learn as you go.

Step 10: Equipment

Next up is the equipment. I recommend using a microphone other than the one on your phone or computer. There are some really affordable options if you don’t have a huge budget. The microphone is probably the most important part of the technical part of making a podcast. 

There are also some ‘nice to have’ add-ons. A pop filter, a device you fit to your microphone to cut down on ‘plosives’ like harsh ‘b’ and ‘p’ sounds, would be good. I use what's called a 'windscreen' that came with the mic. It's basically a foam cover that does the same job as a pop filter. 

Make sure everything is plugged in or charged, turn on the mic, hit ‘record,’ and start!

Step 11: Record

So now it’s time to record. Awesome, this is the moment you’ve been waiting for. But before you start, I’d recommend doing some thinking first. 

Think about the room you’re going to record in. Does it have a lot of hard surfaces sound can bounce off of, or does it have carpet and pillows and furniture that the sound won’t bounce off of? If you’re strapped for cash, use a closet. I know, it seems weird. But the clothes do wonders for keeping your audio good. If you want something with a little more room, try building a pillow fort like NPR suggests for its youth podcast contest. Or use a mover’s blanket. Whatever you do, try to surround yourself with fabric and other soft things. 

Second of all, learn to talk into a microphone. This may sound weird, but it took me some time to figure out. Don’t talk too close, don’t talk too far. Spread your hand in front of your face- your thumb should be at your lips and your pinkie should be at your mic. That’s a decent distance. Also, talk past your mic, not at it. This helps cut down on the not-word noises your mouth makes- the sharp exhales and the clicks and pops. And it might feel weird at first talking to yourself in your space (if you’re flying solo). So imagine what most guides call your ‘listener avatar’ or ‘listening persona’ and talk to this imaginary person. That sounds weird, I know. But it really helps nail down who you’re trying to reach and makes you feel more comfortable. If you don’t do that (I’ll be honest, I didn’t), I recommend setting up some representation to talk to. It could be a photo of a friend or family member, it could be a stuffed animal.

Third, use water. Just do it. Keep a bottle or glass next to you and keep. Drinking. 

Now you should be ready to start talking. But don’t use your script just yet, or just use the beginning of it. Keep a short script, like your intro and outro, handy and keep saying that. Move around, taking verbal note of what you’re doing. Lean forward, lean back, turn your head, talk louder, talk softer, laugh. Do anything you can think of that you might do during a recording. And when you’re done, stop the recording and listen back. There will be differences in audio. Find the best one.

And then take those test files and play them back in different environments- through headphones, through your phone speakers, through your computer’s speakers, in the kitchen, through the car stereo. Take notes of what sounds best and keep them in mind for when you record.

When you’re ready to start recording your episode (I can practically hear the sigh of relief), take lots of breaks. This will save either future you or another editor lots of time during the editing process. Keep the speaking segments short. In Long Live Bat Art, I try to pause every other or third paragraph or so. If you mess up, don’t worry about it. There are a few ways to denote that mistake. Stop, take a deep breath, exhale, and start the entire sentence over. Or, if you prefer, pause, clap, and start the sentence over. The clap will make a spike in the wave form so you can easily see it. The silence will do the opposite- you’ll see nothing and that’s as good of an indicator as the spike. And you do want to start the sentence over, rather than just the part you messed up. Cutting whole sentences is easier than cutting words or phrases. And you WILL change your tone and cadence from take to take. Just do yourself a favor and start the sentence over. 

Remember: the best editing you can do is having a good recording session. So try to keep the audio fairly clean. I don't mean try to do it in one take, just don't clutter it. Take breaks, drink water, and just give it your best. 

If you have more than yourself talking, do yourself a favor- have one microphone per person. That will make your editing so much easier- it’s nigh impossible to edit two people talking over each other on the same track.

If you have different segments, stop recording and choose a different track for each one. I made the mistake of not doing that and when it came time to edit my first episode I almost pulled my hair out. 

This is a tip I’ve seen on one or two guides but really works wonders- record about 15-30 seconds of complete silence in your podcasting space so you know a baseline.

And if at all possible, do your first episode recording and editing before you batch the rest. You'll make mistakes in your first recording that you can eliminate and make good choices going forward. You will also make different mistakes, so try to nip obvious bad habits in the bud. 

Step 12: Edit

Editing makes or breaks a podcast. If you’re editing yourself, it will take time. If you let someone else do it, I would recommend leaving instructions. Listen to the raw file and take notes of the time stamps you want specific edits to be made and what the edits you want are. 

Tip number 1: name every track so you know at a glance what is what. It’s a small step that takes less than a minute and saves you so much time later.

Tip number 2: edit with your ears. This sounds weird, but hear me out. Just listen to the entire recording without making a single change. Take note of what you felt when. Did you laugh? Did you get bored? If you have to, start a new recording (maybe on your phone) to say what happened when. Give context like time stamps or what sentence preceded what you felt. Then when the first listen is done, look over your physical notes or listen to your voice ones. That gives you a good starting point. Some people call this a ‘punchlist’ and it’s basically a first to-do list of what you want to do with your file. 

Tip number 3: edit in passes. Edit for content first, not those random noises in the background or the weird clicks. You don’t want to take out all those little things from a section you end up cutting completely. It’ll save you time, trust me. Between passes, take breaks of at least 20 minutes. This will help you both not get in the headspace of ‘eh, good enough’ and prevent you from getting bored. 

Tip number 4: Have a goal for each editing pass. Say for the first one you want to get rid of weird silences, this way you’ll have less to listen to as you make content edits. Then the second one you’re looking for the obvious mistakes- the sentences you stopped in the middle and then took another shot at. Then the third is those hesitant words- ‘uh’s and ‘um’s and ‘ah’s and ‘like’s and ‘so’s (I’m particularly susceptible to ‘so’s. It’s my crutch word. I especially say ‘and so’ a lot). Keep making goals. 

Tip number 5: Keep the volume consistent- you don’t want listeners turning up and down the volume between episodes or even during them. 

Tip number 6: If at all possible, have someone listen to the recording before you post it. Ask them questions! Did they get bored at any point? Did they have to adjust the volume at any point? Are there any silences or noises you missed? 

Step 13: Hosting Site

Most people think that you post the podcast directly to the app/site where podcasts live. They’re wrong. There’s something called a hosting site that acts as the middleman. Basically, you need something called an RSS feed to post to the podcast app/site. Don’t ask me why because I have no idea. 

Now some hosting sites are free, some are paid, some provide websites as part of the plan, some don’t. My tip is to research the major sites like buzzsprout. You’ll find the one that’s right for you and your podcast.

Step 15: Launch

If you’re thinking the ‘Grand Opening’ route is the only way, you’re wrong. There’s something called the ‘soft open.' It helps to get the kinks out, gives you a chance to get used to the podcast, and helps you overcome that ever-so-annoying imposter syndrome. But I don’t mean ‘tell absolutely no one.’ Tell your friends, tell your family, tell the people closest to you. They’ll be your first audience. 

Most guides I read suggest posting three episodes on your first day. Not only does it give you a chance to get ahead, but it gives listeners a chance to binge. I know I binge listen and don’t always wait for each episode to come out. Because I’m a disaster who often forgets which podcast updates when and I have an ungodly amount of podcasts on my to-listen list (cough, over 200, cough). 

But don’t think that launch is a one-and-done thing. Every single episode will be the first time someone’s heard of your podcast, so treat every episode with that in mind. Make a big deal about it once you’re in the groove!

Step 16: Set goals

Set MEASURABLE goals when you want to track your progress. And don’t think of just what your audience does, though that’s part of it. Set personal goals, too! For example, my first goals for Long Live Bat Art were 50 listeners by the end of the season, and 10 interactions on my social media posts. I also wanted to find out the average time to produce an entire episode and cut it down by 20 minutes by the end of the season.

Keep them short, keep them low, keep them measurable, and keep them time-based. But don’t sweat it if you don’t reach them! They’re goals, not the end of the world. If you don’t meet a goal, reach out to your audience and see what can help you meet the goal. 

If you start to get discouraged and think ‘only 20 people listen to my podcast,’ do me a favor. Try to imagine 20 people in the room you’re in right now. That’s a lot of people. 

At the same time, don’t worry about numbers. Just make your podcast as well as you can and keep putting it out there with social posts and you will get your audience. 

Remember: the best thing you can do for your podcast is to make it good. Don’t bother promoting it if the sound quality or content aren’t as good as you can make it. 

Other tips

This is a space for tips I’ve picked up that didn’t really fit into any of the other steps. 

Build systems. You want to have a process down that you can follow over and over and over and really streamline your workflow. For example, my process for writing looks like: give story of the piece (if it’s particularly obscure or otherwise requires a bit of background knowledge), describe artwork, give thoughts on the piece, do the challenge at the end, and THEN research the history of the artist. I do it this way because I don’t want the history of the artist to influence what I think of the piece or how I describe it. If I find a particularly interesting tidbit in the history that changes how I think, I can add that in my thoughts afterwards! In addition to streamlining how I produce the podcast, if I ever hire someone on, I already have a game plan for what specifically I need help with. 

Do NOT underestimate how long it takes to produce a podcast. I thought I could get it all done in two months. Boy was I wrong. I set a soft launch date and figured I could have it all written, recorded, edited, and transcribed before then. I didn't. And that's OK! I continued to produce it during the season, and that's just fine. Now I set aside enough time to get everything done and I don't sweat it if I have to produce along the way instead of front loading all the work. 

Take. Breaks. Otherwise you'll get burnt out. I already said mine is season based, so in the offseason I don't do anything. It helps me both rest and build excitement for the next season. 

Batch. I mean batch everything. Batch write, batch record, batch edit. If you do each piece individually you'll spend like three times as long. Think assembly line, not craftsman. 

Take time to celebrate your wins. It's not arrogant, it's reassuring yourself that this whole podcasting thing is going well. 

In case someone wants a taste of what the podcast is about, or even has trouble following along with podcasts as I sometimes do, I transcribe each episode. Transcriptions aren’t necessary, but they are nice to have. There is software that does this automatically, and you can pay someone to do it for you, but I do it myself. 

 If at all possible, make a file in your audio program for a template with everything named already and just copy the file for each new episode and change the content. 

Conclusion

If this seems like a lot of work, I hope I didn’t discourage you. It’s really a lot of fun if you choose the right topic. 

Now, you can look at all the guides you want- and I do recommend looking at quite a few- but nothing will prepare you to your satisfaction. So roll up your sleeves, tell that voice that says you can’t do it in your head to kindly shut up, and just do it once you have it planned out. You’ll learn on the way. Give yourself permission to be a beginner. 

But above all, have fun. This is most likely a hobby for you that might in the future generate some pocket change. But the kernel that started this was love. Keep that love there. 

Here's a bunch of resources I found really helpful, in case you want to check them out.

On starting

Shout me loud

Buzzsprout

NPR

Podcast insights

The podcast host

How to choose a topic- Podcast host

How to name- Podcast host

Episode titles- Podcast host

First site guide

Tips

Checklist

Riverside

Castos

Shopify

Buffer

Upwork

Captivate FM

Social Pilot

Profile Tree

Music Radar

Descript

Adam Enfroy

Ryrob

Porch

Nashville Film Institute

The podcast host (again)

Writing

Intro and Outro- the podcast host

Intro- Buzzsprout

Descriptions- the podcast host

Show Notes- the podcast host

Taglines- the podcast host

Equipment

Microphone- the podcast host

Microphone techniques- the podcast host

Editing

NPR

Artwork

Buzzsprout

Well, that's it! All the advice and experience I have at this moment. Hopefully it helped someone out there.

[thepodcasthoard]

Long Live Bat Art

The first podcast I collect may as well be my friend's (with permission, of course)! It's called Long Live Bat Art, and you can find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, I Heart Radio, Podcast Addict, the Podcast Index, Podchaser, Pocket Casts, Deezer, Listen Notes, and Player FM!

Here's the description:

So you want to see art more often than you do, or maybe you just want a fresh perspective on art you’ve seen before. Join your host, Sydney, on a slow tour through an art gallery. Every season will have a theme and each episode will be dedicated to one artwork. You’ll get a brief history of the artist before the description of the work and then you’ll get to hear Sydney’s thoughts on it. Because Sydney is a casual art fan you won’t hear overly complicated technical terms, or if you do then you’ll get an explanation of what the term means in plain English.

Long Live Bat Art is seasonal, with 16 episodes a season posted every other Friday from the first Friday in July to 32 weeks later. The rest of the calendar year is the offseason.

It's an awesome podcast, still in its first season, and it's all about art. What Sydney does is describe what the artwork looks like in detail, which is something I haven't heard of anyone else doing. It's the perfect podcast for those who don't have the same access to art she does, and the history of the artist is brief. Her thoughts are always interesting and often funny, and she even poses a challenge for the listener to do in their everyday life. She makes art approachable and fun by giving her own interpretation of the art, without sounding pretentious at all. She doesn't go into symbolism, just how the art makes her feel. The episodes are an average of 13 minutes as of posting this, when there are ten episodes up.

I'd love it if you could listen to at least the general and season trailers, just to get a sense of how she runs it. The first episode is twelve minutes and eighteen seconds, so it's not a huge time commitment.

[longlivebatart]

Oh, you'll make me blush. You're so awesome, thank you!

[longlivebatart]

Bor's The Disillusioned Medea

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about The Disillusioned Medea by Paulus Bor. I hope you enjoy. 

Paulus Bor was born in 1610 in Amersfoort in Urecht in the Netherlands. He was born Catholic and his family was well-liked and highly respected. Like most Dutch painters we’ve covered so far, he went on a studious trip to Rome. Once there, he was one of the pioneers of a group whose English translation is Birds of a Feather. Birds of a Feather was a group that consisted of mainly Dutch and Flemish artists that were in Rome from about 1620 to a hundred years later. They’re also known as the painters’ clique. I won’t embarrass myself trying to pronounce that Dutch word. Apparently, Birds of a Feather were known for their parties and strange initiation rites. So they were pretty much a fraternity. And before any of you frat brothers come after me, I’m basing my knowledge of college Greek life solely from movies since my college didn’t have a Greek life. But Bor took the nickname Orlando when he was doing Birds of a Feather rituals and other work. 

After returning from Rome in 1626, he helped provide art for a palace for Frederick Henry, the Prince of Orange. This palace- whose name I will again leave to the Dutch to pronounce- was known as one of, of not the finest examples of Baroque architecture in all of the Netherlands. As you might expect, Bor wasn’t the only person who worked on the art for Prince Frederick. Gerard van Honthorst, Wybrand de Geest, Pieter de Grebber, Cornelis Vroom, and others were also tasked with the job. 

Bor died on August 10, 1669 when he was in his late 60s. 

If you think this history is thin, imagine my surprise when I started researching Bor. There is little research in English that has been done about him, and I found only five paintings that have been attributed to him. I did not expect to have this level of difficulty researching when I was drawn to this piece in the museum. Then again, I guess I never heard of Bor before I read his name on the plaque next to the artwork.

For those who don't know who Medea is, I'll briefly give you her story.

Medea was the daughter of King Aeetes of Colchis, niece of Circe, and granddaughter of Helios the sun god. She appears in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts. That tale originally appeared in Hesiod’s Theogony, but she’s best known for the play by Euripedes that bears her name. She’s a sorceress and priestess of Hecate, Greek goddess of magic. 

She falls in love with Jason and helps him take the Golden Fleece from her father. Because of the theft, because she killed her brother to distract her father from their escape, and because of her love for Jason, she leaves Colchis with Jason. They make a pitstop to Circe’s island for Medea to be absolved of the sin of murdering her brother. 

They go to Corinth and get married. After a decade, Jason leaves her and marries the Corinth King, Creon’s, daughter- Creusa or Galuce, depending on the source. Medea and her children by Jason are going to be banished from their home. Enraged, Medea kills Creusa and her own children to get back at Jason. Medea has other aspects to her story, but that is what forms the basis for the scene this painting depicts.

Onto the painting.

The focus of The Disillusioned Medea is a young woman who is lit from the right and above. She’s in the middle left of the painting. She’s sitting on the floor and leaning against the base of the statue on her right and her legs bent to her left. Her right leg is up higher. The side of her knee is resting against a red cushion with yellow tassels on the corners. She’s wearing a blue-green skirt, more the former color.

The skirt is made of a satin or similar material with gold details at the hem. The skirt is high and her white blouse is loose and attached to the skirt. Her blouse is slipping off of both of her shoulders and down her chest, enough that her left breast is exposed halfway. She isn’t well-endowed in the chest area, it’s mostly flat. She’s also wearing a light brown-gray thin shawl with dark brown elements. The design on the shawl is light, not densely packed. The shawl is draped over her right arm and across her lap, trailing against her bent legs. 

Medea is the only color in the piece besides gray, along with the pillow she’s leaning against. She’s pale with rosy cheeks. Her right elbow is propped up on the base of the statue. Her expression is morose and melancholic. She is adorned with a few flowers in her hair, where barrettes would be to keep your hair back from your face. Her hair is long and in a braid.

Medea is holding a long, thin stick loosely in her left hand, the tip disappearing off the bottom left corner of the painting. It might be wood or dull brass, to snuff out a candle. The statue Medea is leaning against is a full-bodied profile of a woman dressed in a loose dress. The gray statue is adorned with flowers, as both a necklace and as a crown. The statue has more flowers trailing from its right hand.

There’s an altar behind Medea, with a pile of ashes still smoldering on it and black smoke rising from the center. It also is adorned with a garland of flowers, along with an animal skull. Beyond the altar is a pillar with another pile of smoldering ashes on it. The pillar is ornately carved, unlike the plain gray stone altar. The pillar’s top is flat for the incense or other sacrifice to be burned, with leaf and floral designs that lead to a smoother carving. It looks like a baby climbing the pillar, its back to the viewer. The baby has its arms wrapped around the pillar, its right leg hitched up, and is pushing with its left foot to climb higher. Under the baby is fluting, which is a fancy word for wide vertical ridges. Below that is a carving of another baby, also climbing the pillar. Under the second baby are more leaf designs that slope out and form the base of the pillar. Beyond the pillar is a large functional statue that reminds me of those big carved stone planters. The carving is of the top part of a harpy- so the head, shoulders, and breasts of a woman with wings for arms. Under this carving is one of a blindfolded woman that forms the base of the statue. At the very base of this is a carving of a face, half-hidden by the sloping base of the altar. The background of the painting is a flat gray. 

Now for my thoughts.

It’s an interesting piece. The lighting is strong and uncolored, and is coming from the upper right of the painting like I said. It looks, for lack of a better word, holy. And maybe that’s what Bor intended, but I’m not entirely sure. It could be that he thought that was the best placement for the light source. Medea is further pulled into the focus because she’s the only thing colored with anything other than gray, besides her pillow and the very pale colors of the flowers.

The satin of the skirt was rendered incredibly. I knew immediately that it was satin or a similar material- some smooth, shiny fabric. It reflects the light that is shining on Medea, but subtly. There aren’t pure white highlights, they’re instead a soft and deep teal.

The look on her face is heartbreak. She loved Jason and just discovered that he used her. So she’s retreated to a comfortable and private space to grieve for what she lost. They’re very human emotions- grief and loss and heartbreak and betrayal. This moment is one Medea experienced alone. And that’s just what she most likely felt- alone. And not just physically. Humans are a self-absorbed species; we always think our emotions are solely ours, and that no one would understand. 

It’s interesting that Bor depicted this scene. Medea was hated in Ancient Greece. She was a foreign sorceress and child-murderer. But he depicted her here as a heartbroken young woman, which would have been unheard of or nearly so. Even the name elicits sympathy- The Disillusioned Medea. She was tricked, used, and then thrown aside. The viewer is reminded of what Medea was before the tragedy- a young woman who was left by her lover. Jason, although he isn’t pictured, is the villain instead of Medea. It all reminds me of a Mark Twain quote- “But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?” 

Now, Medea certainly isn’t the Devil, but to Ancient Greeks she might as well had been. But Bor painted her as needing sympathy. Because we’ve all felt like Medea at one point. We’ve all been disillusioned, tricked by people we once considered loved ones. And while most of us wouldn’t exact the horrible revenge she did, in this moment Bor shows us that she isn’t a murderer yet. She’s just a young woman grieving lost love and what could have been. 

Like Medea, there are figures throughout history- mythical and otherwise- who have been demonized. Most of them were pushed to their breaking point and beyond by people now seen as heroes.

So here’s my challenge. Think about one of those people- just one. Throw out the picture you have in your head and remember that they’re a human who made mistakes. Maybe massive ones, but that doesn’t mean they lose their humanity. No one is born a villain.

So take a moment and picture what they might have been like before their tipping point. What they might have felt. Chances are that you’ve felt like that too. Take a moment and try to think like Bor. You don’t have to make an oil painting of whoever you’re thinking about, but extend some sympathy. Because if humans all had some more sympathy and remembered that everyone they meet is also a human that feels as alone as we do, the world can get brighter. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

Just checked my files- I'll have to re-arrange the episodes (which is fine, because they don't rely on a certain order), and then fix the episode I recorded today another time. Y'know, just so I don't pull my hair out.

[longlivebatart]

In other news, I might have to re-record the vast majority of the next episode because my microphone was too far away. Use tests, kids. Ughhhhhhh

[longlivebatart]

Cuyp's Young Herdsmen with Cows

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Young Herdsmen with Cows by Aelbert Cuyp. I hope you enjoy. 

Aelbert Jacobszoon Cuyp was born on October 20, 1620 in Dordrecht, which boasts the claim to fame as being the oldest city in Holland. His father, Jacob Gerritszoon Cuyp, was also a painter. And I’m actually sad that it took me this long to figure out that ‘szoon’ might mean that your middle name is your father’s name plus ‘szoon,’ like how your last name in English used to be your profession or father’s name with 'son'. Think of it as ‘Jacobson.’ 

Cuyp comes from a family of artists- his uncle Benjamin and grandfather Gerrit were stained glass designers. Because of their work, Cuyp inherited a ‘considerable fortune.’ But how much he inherited is somewhat of a mystery- even my nemesis Arnold Houbraken didn’t touch much on Cuyp’s artistic career, even though he was the sole authority on the man for a hundred years. I don’t know about you, but if I was the sole authority of something, I might give it a bit more research. 

Cuyp’s works were mainly produced between 1639 and 1660. He married a woman named Cornelia Bosman on July 30 in 1658, which coincided with the tail end of his career. Most biographers blame her for ending his career, but it could be that Cuyp decided to focus on his wife and being a family man for his daughter on his own. 

Cuyp’s career can be broken into 3 periods, based on what artist was believed to have influenced him. The unimaginative names of his periods are his ‘van Goyen phase,’ based on Jan van Goyen, his ‘Both’ stage of Jan Both, and his father’s influence. I don’t know if historians called it ‘Cuyp’s Cuyp phase,’ but if they did it would have been funny. He mainly learned color from van Goyen, light from Jan Both, and form from his father.

You might recognize Jan van Goyen’s name from episode 2- he was a teacher and later father-in-law of Jan Steen. Cuyp may have encountered van Goyen’s work around 1640. Historians think that because two of Cuyp’s paintings, both dated 1659, show that Cuyp hadn’t yet discovered his style. Paintings in 1641 that he collaborated on with his father where Aelbrecht did the landscape and Jacob the figures that are accepted as ‘van Goyenesque.’ The colors and brushstrokes are similar in appearance to van Goyen’s Dunes he painted in 1629. The brushstrokes are generally accepted as being precursors to impressionism, which is known for visible brushstrokes. 

Jan Both lended his light source to Cuyp. Instead of having the light be at a right angle, it instead emanates from the background. That change meant that new degrees of depth could be achieved. Cuyp was one of the first Dutch artists to latch onto the technique that Jan Both brought back from Rome. Cuyp used the technique for sunrises and sunsets. 

Cuyp’s influence from his father was less time-based, instead woven throughout his entire career. Instead of being a pure landscape painter, he learned figures from his portrait painter father. Both father and son had rather fluid styles, each taking inspiration from the other, which frustrates historians and pleases me. It’s a lovely idea, the fact that you can take inspiration from someone that was inspired by you and have it be playful. You are not stagnant, nor should you be. The fact that you’re a human means you are constantly growing, and growing means change. 

Unlike some of the artists we’ve covered this season, Cuyp often signed his works. While he dated some of them, the majority are left undated. Unfortunately, another artist who did similar landscapes- Abraham Calraet- had the same initials that could be confused with Cuyp’s. So some of Calraet’s paintings could be misattributed to Cuyp, and vice versa. Calraet was also an avid follower of Cuyp, which adds to the confusion. Cuyp also had a workshop, and artists would add his initials to paintings he never touched in reference to who the artist’s teacher was. In fact, Hofstede de Groot cataloged 800 works to Cuyp in the early 1900s. However, by 2002 the number had diminished greatly to 45 paintings and the same number of drawings. 

On to the painting.

The painting depicts a grassy hill with a river on the left and below. On the hill are five cows, all with horns. The cow closest to the viewer is brown with a white face except for its cheeks. It’s lying down and is lit from the left and above. The next cow is black and standing, looking over the water. It has a small patch of white along its left jawline, which is facing the viewer. It also has a low white sock marking on its back left leg. Its bones are slightly more prominent than the closer cow- its hips are pronounced and you can see the dip before its shoulder blades, along with its ribs. The next cow is also black. It has a white marking between its eyes. It’s lying down and almost facing the viewer. It has a light gray marking around its nose. The next cow is a lighter shade of brown than the first one, and its face is entirely white. The white cuts off in a line down from just in front of its horns. It’s laying down the same way as the others, with its tail and lugs tucked under itself. The last cow is also lying down and is a rich brown, almost red color. 

Behind the last cow are two young men. One is wearing a straw hat that looks like the stereotypical farmer’s hat, and the other is wearing a black beret, longer on the right side. The young man wearing the straw hat is wearing a blue shirt with a square white covering from his head down his shoulder blades. The covering doesn’t go over his arms. His legs are obscured by the cows, but he seems to be sitting on a rock. The other young man is standing and holding a staff in his left hand. He’s facing the other man and talking with him, using his other hand to point at him, emphasizing whatever he’s saying. He’s wearing a long brown garment with a white shirt underneath you can just see the collar of. His legs are also obscured by the cows. 

There’s another straw hat next to the first man- whether it’s the other man’s or a third man sitting on the ground I can’t tell. 

In the foreground is low vegetation- thin branches with small ivy-like leaves and a larger but still low plant with large leaves on the right. The larger plant’s leaves are spreading from the center like a lily’s petals. There are five of them, all rippled at the edge. There’s a rock among the branches on the left. 

In the background, beyond the river, is another piece of land. It’s more mountainous with trees along the bank. The sky is light. It’s blue on the upper right corner and a subtle orange transitioning into pale yellow beyond the mountains, like the sun is rising. It has a cloud along the right side, above the men and cows. The cloud is light gray and broken up, showing the sky in parts. A sunbeam is cutting diagonally from the middle of the top edge of the painting and towards the bottom right of the cloud. There’s a bird, maybe a white goose, flying overhead. 

Now for my thoughts. 

I like the lighting in this piece- it’s soft and golden. There’s a wide shaft of light coming through the clouds and it’s just absolutely gorgeous. The cows seem healthy and robust, at least from an admittedly never-seen-a-cow-in-real-life person. And the way the black cow is looking over the scenery, it’s almost like it’s admiring the view as well. I know bears can do that- there’s been instances of people seeing bears sitting back and enjoying beautiful things. Humans aren’t the only ones who can admire beauty for the sake of it. 

The whole scene is just a peaceful one. The cows are relaxed, the herdsmen are chatting. I don’t know what drew me to this piece, I really don’t. It has nothing to do with my life- I’ll probably never bring cows out to a hilly area to graze as long as I live. But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the simplicity of that idea. Yes, herding is probably a rough life- moving animals that are much larger and stronger than you is probably stressful- but right now, animals and humans are relaxed. And they do as most animals and humans do when relaxed- they both rest their legs and humans talk. 

The fact that this scene is the one Cuyp chose to be his subject might be a practical one- he could have had more access to herdsmen or life experience to draw from- but I like to think that there’s something deeper there as most artists do choose with hidden agendas. Maybe Cuyp chose this view because it’s a common one, maybe he chose it to show others what his life or those of his subjects are. Maybe he wasn’t even aware of it. I know I’ve made pieces of art that I thought were interesting for different reasons than other people that saw them. The person experiencing the art and the artist often have very different views. The artist might have created from their own experience, but the viewer also brings their life experience with them when they view the art. My life experience is vastly different from Cuyp’s and his audience’s, so I probably see it very differently.

But that’s fine- you don’t have to precisely ‘get’ the artist’s vision. You might look at a piece of art and see something the artist never intended, or they might create something you’ll never think of. The artist and the viewer have both a symbiotic and antagonistic relationship. Symbiotic because there can be no art without an audience and vice versa. Antagonistic because often artists will create something that the audience won’t see at first, or maybe even ever. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You can’t see anything other than what your own experiences let you, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. 

So that’s my challenge to you- try to see from another person’s experience today. I know, I just said that was impossible, but it’s a worthy exercise. As one of my favorite books- To Kill A Mockingbird- advises, try to climb in his skin and walk around in it for a while. Unless you’re Hannibal Lecter, I don’t suggest that literally. In fact, even if you are Hannibal Lecter, I strongly suggest you don’t do that literally.

So try to see life from their perspective. A family member, a friend, anyone. A stranger, even. And, if you can, try to pick someone vastly different from yourself. I don’t mean pick someone rich and famous, that will bring you nothing but envy and depression. Nor do I mean pick someone from the very bottom of the so-called social hierarchy. That will bring you nothing but pretentiousness. Try someone more on your level.

But trying to see from another person's perspective, to remember that you are not the center of the universe and not everything should revolve around you, is a humbling experience people should undertake more often. You might be the center of your own universe, but so is everyone else. There are no background characters in life, everyone is the main character in their own story. And if you remember that there’s no such thing as an ensemble role in life, I would bet you’d appreciate your own a lot more. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

Bruegel the Elder's The Harvesters

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. I hope you enjoy. 

Since I already covered Pieter Bruegel the Elder, we can go right on into the painting- The Harvesters.

The painting depicts workers cutting down hay and bundling it. The hay takes up the majority of the image, mostly the midground. The hay was grown on a slope, the people are generally working or sitting on a raised part. There are seventeen people in the painting that are easily seen, and they’re all sitting on the raised part of the slope in the foreground. There are four a ways into the background and several more in the far background. Two of the seventeen that are easily seen are knelt a little ways away from a tree, picking up what looks like apples from the ground. There’s a ladder flat on the ground behind them with a wooden bucket near it. Three are collecting cut hay and bundling it into sheaves. Another person is using a scythe to cut more hay.

The hay yet to be bundled is in three columns. Each pile looks approximately the same size. There are six pairs of sheaves fully shown, leaned against one another like a teepee. The side of a seventh is barely shown- just the base and about halfway up the slope. 

Next to the partially-shown pair of bundled hay, nine people are clustered at the base of a tree, in various stages of relaxation. One is sleeping, and the others are eating and drinking. They’re sitting on bundled hay that is yet to be leaned together and bundled again. 

To the left of the painting, there are three figures working. One is using a scythe, one is using a long stick to maybe separate the cut hay into those equal piles, and one is carrying a jug of what’s probably water to the workers through a corridor cut into the hay. Next to the scythe-wielder is a tall handled clay jug, which I’m assuming is holding more water. 

Further down the cleared corridor are three people walking into the distance. Two are carrying clearly-shown hay bundles, the third might be doing the same but the hay isn’t showing. To the left of the trio are two birds flying over the yet-to-be-cut hay. 

Beyond the birds is a single figure, though only the top half can be seen over the hay. They must be another worker, but I can’t really tell.  

That ends with a hill, and on the other side is a church painted in blue tones. The pointed roof is almost green, like oxidized copper. It has a bell tower and a smaller pointed part that has a circular window near the top. You can barely see the rest of the building. The sky is flat gray.

The midground of the majority of the image is a lower area of green grass and plenty of trees. Beyond that is even more hay, stretching into the distance. In the greener area, there’s what looks like a campus quad or another clear grassy area with paths cut through it from the trips of hundreds of pairs of feet. There are people milling there, and they seem to be playing some kind of game- you can see a few figures with their arms outstretched and running towards each other. There’s a small group that seems to be made of spectators. There’s a building near them, whether it’s a large house or a public gathering place I’m not sure. To the left of that small scene is a truck coming up the road, carrying a huge block of hay. It’s being pulled by a pair of horses, one brown and one darker in color, maybe black. Behind the truck is a curved road that recedes into the distance and seems to lead to another building. It could be another church. It has the same style as the closer one- a pointed tower with a lower A-frame part. In the far distance you can see a body of water, most likely the coastline. There are boats on it headed towards the land that’s in the far distance, which is colored much lighter than the rest of the land. 

Now for my thoughts. 

I like the hay and foliage. Every stalk and leaf are individuals of the same whole. Bruegel didn’t skimp and paint a large area a single color, highlight it, and then call it a day. He took his time painting each part. The bushes are more dense, so he might have used multiple shades of green on a fan brush and dabbed. But the hay stalks are so detailed. You can see the bushy tops of every single one in the front. And the people playing the game in the background, you can see the paths between them. You can tell some are spectators. In the background you can see ships. Even when the painting recedes into the distance there’s nuance to the color.

I also love the subject of this painting. And not just because I got to say one of my favorite words- scythe. I love this painting because you can see people relaxing. One is even asleep next to the ongoing picnic. As I said about Twelfth Night, life wasn’t all misery and difficulty. People took breaks. People had picnics. People took naps. Life wasn’t constant break-breaking work. Yes, others are working, and working hard, but it looks like they’re working in shifts. People have always cooperated to make things easier for others. Because being overworked helps no one. Burnt out and overworked people make mistakes. Fortunately, there’s a simple solution- take breaks. Resting. Relaxing. People in the 1600s got that, and it seems to be one of the things humans forgot. We’re always rushing, always striving for the next task. It’s good to slow down. 

So I’m going to challenge you. Set a timer for ten minutes. Ten minutes, just for you. Sit down with your favorite beverage and drink it slowly. Do nothing else. Don’t check social media, don’t plan what you’re going to do tomorrow, don’t worry about what you won’t do today. Just ten minutes to sit with yourself. I’m not going to lie to you- it’ll be hard at first. You’ll automatically want to reach for your phone. Suppress that urge. Sit and listen to your thoughts. And, if you’re lucky, your thoughts will start to slow down. And you’ll like it. Hopefully, you’ll want to take those ten minutes more often. Because everyone could use some ‘nothing’ in their life. That ‘nothing’ is everything.

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

Pyramus and Thisbe by van Leyden

Just a word of warning for those that might find today’s episode’s content upsetting or triggering: the topic of suicide does come up, but for fictional people. I did my best to not glamorize it, but if you don’t want to hear that, I recommend listening to another episode.

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Pyramus and Thisbe by Lucas van Leyden. I hope you enjoy.

Lucas van Leyden was born in the similarly-spelled Leiden with an ‘I’ city of the Netherlands in 1494. He was an intelligent child, and was apparently often scolded by his mother for reading after nightfall because candles were expensive. I guess that’s the 1500s equivalent of being told to turn off the car light when you try to read as a kid.

He’s known more as an engraver than a painter, though he was a known and early advocate for genre painting, which is depicting ordinary life in painting. Van Leyden’s earliest known print was when he was around 14. It’s unknown where and from whom he learned the technique he became known for. Despite the unsure tutelage, he’s considered in the art world as one of the best printmakers of all time. 

It’s thought that he was the one who pioneered using copper and not iron plates. The copper, being a softer metal, let the artist combine etching and engraving in the same print. While those may sound like the same technique, they aren’t. Etching uses acid to make the lines, line engraving is the hand-carving aspect. 

But van Leyden did paint during his career, including a self-portrait in 1508. He was most likely first trained by his father, who was a painter in his own right- Huygh Jacobszoon. He was later apprenticed under Cornelis Engelbrechtsz and then Albrecht Dürer, both of which were friends of his. He produced what is largely regarded to be his masterpieces of engravings under Dürer, who he learned more about engraving and Romanist style from. Romanist is just a term that art historians use to describe artists from places like the Netherlands who traveled to Rome and brought knowledge and inspiration back home.

One masterpiece produced under Dürer is a work of art that van Leyden titled, funnily enough, The Milkmaid. A second piece was named Ecce Homo and the Return of the Prodigal Son, which Rembrandt especially loved. 

Van Leden did a series called “The Power of Women” from 1513 to 1517, which made him 19 years old when he started the series. While this seems forward-thinking, it was a pretty common subject and source of inspiration during the Renaissance in both art and written works. Despite the name, “The Power of Women” is more about women being sexual tempters to men than actually strong women standing on their own merit. 

Max Friedländer, a German art historian who specialized in works done during the Northern renaissance by artists native to the Netherlands, tried to make some semblance of a developmental study in 1924 but had a lot of trouble because of the attribution mistakes that swelled and shrunk van Leyden’s body of work over the years. Elise Lawton Smith had some success during the early 1990s describing his development by breaking his body of work into four distinct- yet incredibly roomy- categories. These categories are half length figures, landscapes, artwork influenced by Antwerp, and so-called ‘late works’ featuring full figures against the woods. 

During the later part of his suspected career, Marcantonio Raimondi inspired van Leyden with his nude figures, which van Leyden incorporated into some of his commissioned altarpieces. This made van Leyden one of the first Dutch artists who borrowed the Italian style of depicting nude people. 

Van Leyden died in 1533 at the age of 39. 

About 200 of van Leden’s signed engravings survive, with about 17 paintings. Another 27 paintings were described by Karel van Mander or were copied by Jan de Bisschop. 

I actually had never heard of van Leyden before I started researching Dutch Masters. But this piece of art was fascinating to me. First of all because I had never heard of Pyramus or Thisbe, and second of all because I had never seen an engraving before. 

Because I had never head of Pyramus or Thisbe, I needed to do a bit of research. They’re a mythological couple that Ovid wrote in his Metamorphoses and then later by Geoffrey Chaucer in his Legend of Good Women. Pyramus is the man, Thisbe is the woman. They were neighbors in Babylon who were forbidden to marry by their families, but they spoke to each other via a crack in the wall that separated their houses. They made plans to meet at a mulberry tree and elope. Thisbe arrived first, but as she waited for her love a lioness came to drink from the spring, her face bloody from her last meal. Thisbe ran, dropping her veil in the process. The lioness took the veil in her bloodied jaws and ripped it like a plaything before she grew bored and left. 

Pyramus came upon the bloody and torn veil, and knew it was Thisbe’s. He thought the love of his life was dead because she was waiting for him. He impaled himself on his sword. Why he was carrying a sword to meet his love, I’m not sure. But maybe in case of lionesses. 

Thisbe found him with her veil in his hand. The dying Pyramus opened his eyes and saw her, alive and well. She realized what had happened and took the sword from his body and killed herself with it. They died together. Their families found them and buried them in the same tomb. It’s said that the mulberries from that tree are dark because of their blood. So remind me not to eat the mulberries from that tree. 

On to the star of this episode- the engraving.

Pyramus is lying on the ground on the right of the image. He’s still clutching where he stabbed himself with his right hand. His left hand is carelessly sprawled closer to the viewer on his rumpled coat. The folds on his coat are more geometric, but still realistic in a way- they’re shaded. The coat has a high collar which is stiffer than the rest of the garment. The collar has only a few folds near the back of his neck. Pyramus has his head thrown back, and his long wavy hair is spilled out on the ground. 

His throat is exquisitely detailed- you can see his Adam’s apple. His shirt is detailed, as well. There are vertical pleats over his chest above a design that looks like braided rope. Under the rope design, the folds are horizontal. Below that, his pants start. Where a belt would be on a modern pair of pants are tight vertical pleats. I think the fabric is gathered there. Under the belt, the pants are smoother where they stretch across his thighs. Below that is the rest of his pants or maybe high decorative socks. They have different designs- pleats, yes. But these are wider and curved around his calf. Four rows of wide pleats with a couple more of that rope design. There’s a bow just below his knee. You can only see one leg clearly, and even that one is bent at the knee with his foot pointed like a ballerina as his toes graze the ground. The other leg is obscured by his calf and bent at the knee, but on that one it's his heel that is sliding across the ground. He’s still wearing the sheath his sword used to be in- it’s trapped underneath him. The leather belt holding the sheath is thin and wrapped diagonally across his hips. There are more rope-like designs on the arm of his coat. Again, only one arm is fully shown, his left. It’s laid on top of his cloak and the fabric extends to cover most of his hand- only part of his fingers are visible. He’s wearing shoes that have another bow on the top.

Now onto Thisbe. She’s crying- she has a handkerchief to her closed eyes and her other hand is around Pyramus’s sword. She’s holding the blade delicately. The sword itself is long- even though she’s holding it to her chest, the pommel almost touches Pyramus’s thigh. The sword’s hilt is plain- dark, but with a lighter band cutting it in half the short way. The hilt is curved towards the blade. Above the hilt is another crossbar, this one circular. Each half turns from the edge and into the blade. Thisbe is wearing a dress. It’s more taut around her thighs, though the center has folds before it stretches across her other thigh. It’s a long dress- the end of it is pooled on the ground. Again, geometric yet realistic folds. She has a sash tied around her waist that’s holding some other piece of fabric. The tassel of the sash closer to the viewer ends at her mid-thigh. The dress is a deep v-neck, but there has to be some undergarment- I highly doubt Babylonian women were allowed to wear such revealing clothing.

On the dress’s front you can see a band where the fastenings of the dress are hidden that ends before the skirt of the dress starts. The skirt above the sash is taut across her body in the front, and it has folds in the rear. Thisbe is wearing a tight covering on her head that must have been under the veil. There’s a separate small piece of metal or a button attached to the fabric at her forehead. It looks like a flower, with a center and petals. On the side of her head is another piece of metal or button, this one much larger. That piece is circular with another flower design on it. The garment curves under her chin- there are more folds in the fabric, these much slimmer and tighter, more like wound bandages than fabric. The back of the garment is billowing behind her, as if she’s in a strong wind. There are more geometric folds at the ends, like Pyramus’s coat. The arm she’s using to hold the handkerchief to her face has fabric on it, as well. It’s pleated above her elbow, but you can only see the rounded bottoms of the pleats. There are tighter folds between those and her wrist, which has the fabric gathered around it. Her face is oval shaped, and she’s turned her face away from Pyramus. That’s it for the figures.

To the right of Thisbe and further back in the space of the engraving there’s a fountain. It has smooth sides that have a wide band near the lip, then it has the lip itself. The top of the well of the fountain is wide. The water is cascading down from spouts above carvings in the post of the fountain. The carvings are of figures, but only one is seen from a frontal view. Male or female, I’m not sure because it’s so small. But the figure is depicted as slightly being turned to the left of the scene, more towards Thisbe than Pyramus. Above the spouts is a ball that’s below a small statue of Cupid and his bow and arrow. He’s drawing the bowstring back, and his bow is curved at the top and bottom and is tucked in the middle, enough for his hand to hold. The arrow is pointing at the top of Thisbe’s head.

The ground is a combination of cragged rock and sparse grass. There’s a patch of tall grass right behind the hilt of Pyramus’s sword. Near Pyramus’s cloak is what may be his hat. I think those are the soft feathers- like a quill or the top of a decorative helmet- that he might have had on it. You can see some small individual stones scattered on the ground, but still clustered together. To the right of the fountain and near the edge of the image are two trees you can see the trunks of. There’s a branch coming out of the left one that’s twining around another, slimmer, branch. You can’t see many leaves.

In the background, below the elevated part where Pyramus and Thisbe are, is a low valley that is lusher. The lioness is there, playing with the veil Thisbe discarded. The lioness has her front paws and her jaws on the fabric, the rest of her body is off of it. Her tail is slightly curved but is along the ground. Behind her are more trees. The sky is shaded with tight horizontal lines that fade around a large cloud on the right. The cloud has smaller horizontal lines in it where the cloud shows the sky.

Now for my thoughts. 

The way van Leyden was able to use simple lines and no color to create such a moving scene is incredible. Even the ground is detailed. The water pouring from the fountain- it’s so clear what it is, even if there wasn't a fountain for it to pour into. It’s made of two gently curved lines showing the start and end of the thin stream, and the minimalist detail is fascinating. The detail of Cupid being the statue at the top of the fountain is as humorous as it is heartbreaking. Love brought them together and drove them apart, and killed them at the end. I’m glad that their families buried them in the same tomb- they’re together now, in body as well as in the afterlife. They’re as they always wanted to be, even if it took such tragedy to get there.

The emotion in this piece is relatable- Thisbe is crying because the love of her life is dead or dying. And the detail of the lioness still being present is an amazing artistic choice. Not only does it give a nod to the viewer who knows the story, but it’s also a reminder of what preceded the scene van Leyden depicted. The lioness can well be seen as an agent of fate, one that tore the lovers apart by her mere presence and not her claws and teeth. It almost would have been less heartbreaking if the lioness had killed Thisbe. Sure, Pyramus would have probably still killed himself to join her, but the fact that it’s the misunderstanding that breaks his heart and he saw Thisbe alive at the end is what makes the ending so poignant. There’s no monster to slay, no outside force to blame. Just two young lovers that want desperately to be together and can’t be, at least not in life.

The fluidity in the piece is incredible. Pyramus isn’t lying flat on his back, he’s contorted. And normally that would be grotesque, but van Leyden depicts it as almost dancer-like. I mentioned that one of his feet is pointed like a ballerina’s, and the rest of his body is just as graceful. Even the way his coat is laid on the ground is interesting- it’s not flat or even bunched, it’s more like it’s been laid out. And I know this isn’t realistic, but it is beautiful. 

Thisbe’s billowing clothes are just as beautiful, and just as not realistic. But realism isn’t the only thing to strive for in art. Sometimes you have to sacrifice realism to capture emotion. The way the fabric around her head is being almost inflated is fascinating. It’s almost like Nature itself is apologizing for the lioness’s interference and trying to lift Thisbe to join her lover’s spirit. 

Thisbe’s also turned her face from Pyramus, like she can’t bear to look at him dead one more second or maybe doesn’t want him to see what she’s about to do. 

Even though this story is purely mythological, there’s a lesson to be learned here. And it’s not just ‘watch out for lionesses at streams’ or ‘make sure that somebody is actually dead before going to such drastic measures.’ But it’s the idea that love can’t be stopped. 

Pyramus and Thisbe were forbidden to get married, but they made a plan to do it anyway. And they paid for their love with their deaths. Their families had to live with that for the rest of their lives, and they finally saw the truth at the end- they’re buried together. Love is what moves everything around us, and I don’t mean just romantic love. Love from parents, love from children, love from friends, love from within ourselves. It all adds up and makes humans do what we do. It makes humans do what we’ve always done, and always will. And that’s reach out. Because that’s all it takes, really. Reaching out. Pyramus and Thisbe reached out and they found each other. Their families reached towards them at the end and brought them closer together. Because even if all else goes wrong, there’s always a chance that reaching out will fix it. 

Even at the end, when love wasn’t enough, the fact that it was there at all mattered. And knowing that is really all you need to keep moving forward in life and find new and exciting things to love. 

Here's my challenge for you. Open your eyes a little wider today as you go about your life and notice one thing you haven't before. It could be a bird's nest in a tree you've passed a million times. It could be a chalk drawing on the sidewalk. It could be a sign you've looked at without seeing before. You might just find yourself with a new interest, like bird watching, drawing, or typography. And if you find a new interest, there's a lot more love in your future. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks. 

[twigsandhearts]

podcast distribution

where do you listen to podcasts?

spotify

youtube

apple podcasts

amazon music

google podcasts

anchor

acast

other

Voting ended onOct 27, 2023

[longlivebatart]

Hals' Youth with a Skull

Note: Sorry I haven't been around, guys! Life kinda got in the way.

Transcript:

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Youth with a Skull by Frans Hals. I hope you enjoy. 

Frans Hals was born somewhere around 1582 in Antwerp. Hals and his family fled Antwerp after the fall of the city to the Spanish when he was around 2 years old. Protestants were given a mere four years to get all their affairs in order before leaving the city. The Hals family moved north to Haarlem in the Netherlands, which was part of the fledgling Dutch Republic. Hals did his studying as an artist under Flemish artist Karel van Mander, though the older painter’s style is barely seen in Hals’ own work. It seems as though Hals worked with portraits exclusively. 

Hals joined the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke in 1610, when he was in his late twenties, which was considered old to be admitted to the Guild. Once admitted, Hals actually worked as a restorer for the town council, which brought him some amount of money. After the council sold off to Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen, a Guild member and painter, Hals was forced to seek other work. It’s then that Hals decided to try his hand at original work, starting with portraiture. He stuck with religious themes by using a Catholic pastor, Jacobus Zaffius, as a subject in 1611. But it isn’t until 5 years later that he had his first work that gained him some attention when he produced a schutterstuk and painted the officers of the Saint George Militia company. Hals even painted René Descartes in 1649. 

Instead of the usual custom at the time of painters moving from place to place as they were commissioned, often staying in the house or general vicinity of their patrons, Hals remained in Haarlem and his customers came to him. Perhaps it was because he was a devoted father to his 10 children. 

In 1644 he became chairman of the Guild that he was once considered too old to be admitted into. 

Hals was also a musketeer- though sadly not one of the swashbuckling three- in the Saint George civic guard, which was a kind of town guard. After being a musketeer from 1612-15, he served another function in the same guard for nine years. From 1616 to 1624 he was a man after my own heart- he was a second member of an amateur dramatic society whose translated name is The Vine Tendrils. In fact, one of Hals’ earliest known portraits was of a man named Pieter Cornelisz van der Morsch. Van der Morsch apparently was known for his cutting wit. 

Like Vermeer, unfortunately no foundations of Hals have survived.

Frans Hals is considered by many in the art world to be second only to Rembrandt before the last century when Vermeer was re-discovered as a Dutch Master. Hals was especially popular in Paris past 1850. Hals’ often-colorful palette and incredibly bold brushwork was particularly inspiring to Impressionist and Realist painters, even more so than Rembrandt. And you might remember our friend Theophilé Thoré from the Vermeer episode, who was also a fan of Hals. It seems as though Thoré had a very good eye and incredible taste. After Thoré brought Hals back to the public eye, Hals’ work soared in value. His work went from being sold for just over 4 British pounds to 25,000 of the same currency. That’s from about 5 to nearly 31,000 American dollars. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum from Thoré’s flattery and support, the same critic that wrote a quote biography unquote of Steen- Arnold Houbraken- said in 1718, long after the painter’s death, that Hals’ financial struggles later in his life were due to alcoholism. Of course, it might have had nothing to do with the fact artists were rarely appreciated or paid well in their time and his 10 children, but I highly doubt it. To further cast doubt on Houbraken’s biography, it seems as though a scene in the book - where Anthony van Dyke went to visit Hals had to search taverns for the man when he wasn’t at home, painted a picture of Hals who recognized him by the art alone, and how van Dyke tried to get Hals to move to England - was borrowed almost entirely from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History from around the year 78 ACE. Seymour Slive tried to squash those rumors, but they remained persistent for quite a while. People tend to like unsubstantiated gossip more than facts.

Hals had several students once he was established, though the exact number and even names are debated. The ones that are known for sure are Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne and Pieter Gerritsz van Roestraten, the latter of which later married Hals’ daughter Adriaentje. Because of her style, Judith Leyster has been offered as a possible student of Hals. She often signed her work, which was unusual at the time but very helpful today. Her husband, Jan Miense Molenaer, is also a possible student.

Hals’ influence extended far beyond his lifetime- I said before that Impressionists and Realists were influenced by his work. What I didn’t mention was that one of those influenced painters was Claude Monet, and that even Vincent van Gogh admired Hals’ work. Still other painters were able to learn the technicalities of painting due to Hals’ tendency to not hide his brushstrokes as many of his contemporaries did. 

As with most of the painters this season, the exact numbers of surviving painters that have been attributed to Hals differ greatly, depending on which source you draw from. Slive claims 222 works in 1970-74, but in 1989 Claus Grimm, another historian of Hals, attributed only 145. Now for the painting.

The young man depicted in the painting has shaggy and wispy brown hair that extends past his chin, but not by much. It’s unkempt- the right side is fluffed out carelessly. So not a vain young man.

He has pale skin and a rosy complexion, mostly around the apples of his cheeks and his nose. His mouth is also very red. He’s looking to his left, the viewer’s right. He’s wearing a bright red hat with a very long red feather on the right side of the image stuck in the front by the quill. The feather extends from the hat to just past the young man’s shoulder, then it drapes down. The fibers of the feather are fluffy. Each strand is a different shade of pink or red. The main vein of the feather is a very pale pink, actually more of a white.

The boy is wearing a loose navy garment wrapped around his front. It- like the feather- is oversized. The folds are realistic. The low points are a deeper blue, the highlights a brighter one. The fabric is actually shaded with a rust color on the left side of the image. The collar of the young man’s clothes peeks over the fabric- his shirt is white. The clothing underneath the fabric, what must be his overcoat, is red. It’s a deeper shade than the hat and the feather. A little closer to burgundy than true red. The young man’s right hand is stretched towards the viewer, his thumb above the others and the rest of his fingers flat, as if he’s going to awkwardly shake hands. His fingers are too spread for a grab. His palm is in shadow, and the backs of his fingers are highlighted. The webbing between his thumb and his hand is also highlighted, and the webbing is detailed. You can see the actual curve of it in front of the rest of his skin. His overcoat is open over his hand, and you can see the button holding the sleeve halves shut on the bottom of his arm. His arm is casting a shadow on the rest of his body. Now for the skull.

The boy is holding it from beneath, his fingers curled around it. There’s no bottom jaw, just the top jaw that’s connected to the rest of the skull. The skull is somewhat in profile- you can see only one half of the teeth, where the cartilage of the nose was, and an eye socket with only part of the other one visible. The right half of the skull is in a gentle shadow. The skull has a pronounced brow ridge, and its cheekbones are pronounced, as well. The skull is shaded in faded yellow and neutral tones, with some blue-toned grays. The gray is concentrated in the hollow above the cheekbone and following the line of it. The eye socket is almost completely in deep black shadow, with some lighter shadows closer to the nose. The opening in the nose where the nostrils were is in deep shadow, as well. The few teeth that remain are whiter than the rest of the skull. The wall behind the boy is a dingy gray with some texture. There is a shadow thrown on it beneath the feather, though not by it. By his head, maybe.

Now for my thoughts.

The boy looks unsure. It’s clear Hals was giving him directions on how to pose himself. He’s looking for assurance that he’s doing it correctly. And at the same time, there’s an innocence about him, even though he’s holding a skull. His mouth is very red. It’s slightly open, too. Just enough to show his front teeth. There’s just something soft about this. And the finality of the skull, the symbol of death, in such a vibrant young man’s hand. Lots of artists used skulls and skeletons as a subject- Van Gogh did the latter with a cigarette hanging from its mouth. And I’ll hopefully describe that baller painting in a later season. 

But the juxtaposition of death and youth is interesting. As much as death is scary, youth is comforting. And both death and youth are important. Without death, we wouldn’t appreciate life. And without youth, we wouldn’t remember where we came from. But as far as youth, people have to be very careful when giving advice, no matter how well-meaning, to people younger than they are. Nostalgia makes us think the past was better, but it isn't. It’s just the past. It only seems better because we’re no longer experiencing it. Time and distance bring wisdom in a lot of situations. 

Here’s today’s challenge- learn one thing from your life. I don’t mean examine every second of your life for a theme, though you’re free to do that and all the more power to you. I mean learn one thing you didn’t know yesterday. It can be a fact about a subject you think you know well, or something from a brand-new one. It can be a joke- the dumber the joke, the better. It can be some new story from a friend or family member. Learn from your life, because life is the best teacher there is, even though it isn’t always the easiest. 

Not only skills take practice- being a human does, too. Learning how to be a better friend to others and yourself takes practice. Learning to communicate your wants and needs takes practice. Trying new things takes practice. And you should dive into practicing whole-heartedly because finding out what makes you happy is a great feeling. And don’t feel like you’re ever done learning- humans are ever-changing beings. Labels can be useful, but boxes are prisons. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.

[longlivebatart]

Ter Brugghen's Mars Asleep

Welcome to Long Live Bat Art, the podcast for art lovers who don’t see art as much as they want to. My name is Sydney and thank you for taking this slow tour through an art gallery with a casual art lover. Today, I’ll be talking about Mars Asleep by Hendrick ter Brugghen. I hope you enjoy. 

Hendrick ter Brugghen’s life is shrouded in mystery. He was born around 1588 in maybe Deventer in the Netherlands. Ter Brugghen studied under Abraham Bloemaert, who we will cover later this season, in Utrecht in the early 1590s. 

He may have met Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in Rome in 1604 because when ter Brugghen came back to the Netherlands, art historians can see Caravaggio’s influence. So if he didn’t meet the man himself, he definitely came into contact with his work. He also might have met Peter Paul Rubens. Other Italian artists that influenced ter Brugghen were Annibale Carracci, Domenichino- whose real name was Domenico Zampieri but was mostly called by his nickname because of his short height- and Guido Reni, who were all Baroque artists. The technique of lighting called chiaroscuro is prevalent after this time. Chiaroscuro is a fancy term for lighting and shading. 

When ter Brugghen returned to Utrecht in late 1614, he worked with Gerard van Honthorst, who was a fellow Dutch follower of Caravaggio, known colloquially as the Dutch Caravaggisti. 

In 1616, ter Brugghen registered with Urecht’s St. Luke’s Guild, which was a painter’s guild. 

He painted Christ Crowned with Thorns in 1620 based on prints by Lucas van Leyden, who we will cover in a couple of episodes. It seems as though ter Brugghen used van Leyden’s work as a base because some of his countrymen saw him as being too Italianate in his work so ter Brugghen cleverly used an artist from his own country to temper these protests.

He and a few other Dutch painters- Thijman van Galen, Michiel van der Zande, Frans van Knibbergen, Dirck van Baburen, and Gerard van Hornthorst- seemed to have been cavorting around Italy around the same time. Ter Brugghen and van Baburen seemed to be close when they returned to Holland because van Baburen’s themes and style creeped in, especially in the early 1620s. 

Ter Brugghen died on November 1st, 1629, possibly because of the plague. 

The little we do know about ter Brugghen is mostly because of his son, Richard. Richard found a letter from Adriaen van der Werff, another painter, that read that van der Werff appreciated ter Brugghen’s work. Richard presented this letter and four paintings his father had done of the Evangelists to be hung in Deventer’s town square as a memorial to his father. On the memorial, it claims in Dutch that when Rubens traveled through the Netherlands and arrived in Utrecht around 1627 he said he saw only one artist whose work impressed him- ter Brugghen.

It’s mainly because of this letter and memorial that interest in his father was drummed up again and more art historians started looking into this artist. 

Now the painting.

A man is asleep, his head propped up on his hand and his elbow on a small circular table. His skin is pockmarked and rough, and he has a light brown beard and mustache. The mustache is short and the beard only extends slightly past his chin. He looks peaceful, for the Roman god of war.

He’s wearing polished metal armor- a breastplate, arm guards, and a helmet. The helmet has a large white feather along the entire top, anchored at the back and flowing towards the front. The fibers of the feather- they’re fine. They pick up the light, which is coming from directly overhead. It casts a shadow on the left side of Mars’s face. The helmet has rivets along the brim and a slim band going from the front of his forehead to the feather. There’s an oval design on the side facing the viewer of the painting. There are smaller designs in the oval, but they’re so fine I can’t see them. The helmet is slightly battered, but still retains its shine and decoration. The helmet casts a shadow along the top part of Mars’s face, right over his eyes. Very convenient for a nap. 

He has a tight coif under the helmet, protecting the sides of his head and his neck. It leads to the breastplate. It is made of two curved decorative pieces over the main body of the armor. The decorations on the front of the shoulders are curls, almost like ferns or more feathers. More towards the center of his chest are designs that look like the spade in a deck of cards. Now that I’m looking more closely, I think what I initially took as an oval on his helmet might be another spade.

Mars’s left arm is still holding his sword, though it’s lax in his lap. His arm armor is banded on the upper part of his arm, halfway up his bicep. At his elbow is another spade design. There’s a slim band of fine design going from his elbow to his wrist. The same design is on the underside of his other arm, straight down his chest, and from the midpoint of the curl design diagonally to meet the center design at the bottom of the armor. Again- so fine I can’t tell what it is. The armor is also battered, like it’s been struck multiple times by a ball peen hammer. Mars is wearing a red cloth around his lower half that’s gathered above his knees. The folds are realistic. They’re more draped than folded, actually. The clothing has a black stripe down the side, from the hip to the side of the knee. His knees and lower legs are exposed, though you can’t see much below his knees. The hilt of his sword has multiple curled metal arms wrapping around above the grip. 

At another second look, what I took for a table originally now looks more like a drum- there are wooden sticks near Mars’s elbow. Most likely a drum of war. 

Now for my thoughts.

The shine off Mars’s armor is incredible, as is the softness of the white feather. The detailing in the armor, I feel like I would have to practically press my nose against the painting to see what they are, but I doubt the museum would let me do that. The fact I had to look twice at both the drum I thought was a table and the detail on his helmet means that it’s worth it to examine art for a while. And not just art, either. If you can, I recommend looking at anything with a closer eye. First impressions aren’t always right, though you probably already know that. Never be afraid to admit when you’re wrong- it’s a skill everybody needs to practice. I’ve been guilty of doubling down on ideas I now regret. Digging my heels in stubbornly when four words and a contraction would have helped- ‘I’m sorry, I was wrong.’

Admitting fault in yourself is never simple or easy, but no one is perfect. Depending on your religion, your deity might not even be perfect. Romans certainly didn’t think their deities were perfect- they argued, they fought, they made mistakes. And they rarely admitted fault. So learn to do it, and you’ll be better for it.

I always liked Greek mythology more than Roman. That may just be because I was exposed to Greek first, so I’m biased. But Mars is an interesting god. He’s the god of war, yes. But also of death and the protector of the Caesars. 

His Greek equivalent, Ares- he’s less nuanced. Ares wasn’t worshiped as widely as Mars was because he was more or less seen as the hated brutality of war and conquest. Even his own parents weren’t particularly fond of him. But he had children by Aphrodite, goddess of love, who was married to Hephaestus, the god of fire and the forge. 

But I love Greek mythology because the gods were so, for lack of a better word, human. The people of the past didn’t always see their God or gods as untouchable, perfect figures. The Greeks and Romans especially saw their gods as just like them- they ate and played and argued and slept. Instead of the Judeo-Christian belief of humans being made in God’s image, the Greeks and Romans instead put their own habits and needs on the gods. I think that made the gods more approachable and made the people more relaxed about talking and praying to them. 

So this is the challenge for this episode- think of whatever deity or deities you believe in as a friend. Not an authority figure, not the Almighty. A friend. And if you don’t believe in any deity, try to personify whatever you hold dearest but might be a little afraid of. Maybe it’s science, maybe it’s math, maybe it could even be a person you really trust. But here’s a secret- in my experience, people aren’t ever as scary as they seem. Whether they’re a politician, a celebrity, or one of those people all over social media, there’s a lot more in common between you than you think. And for the religious people, try to remember that when you’re making the deity you believe in a friend. Make common interests- even if that common interest is yourself and your well being. Because if you find that common interest, you’ll find it a lot easier to relate to the person you’re pretending these ideals are. And once you do that, you might find it a bit more comforting when you believe in whatever you do. And I’ve always firmly believed that prayer should be comforting, as all aspects of religion should be. Not so much fire and brimstone, but the comfort that someone loves you dearly and truly wants what’s best for you. I think most people have forgotten that, and it’s something I think we should bring back. Comfort is something we could all use more of in our lives, and it’s the comfort we bring ourselves that can be the most powerful. 

If you liked this episode of Long Live Bat Art, please consider telling a friend and reviewing to help the podcast grow. A link to the transcript of this episode is available in the show notes below. And you can follow me on Twitter at Long Live Bat Art and tumblr at tumblr dot com forward slash Long Live Bat Art. That’s Long Live B-A-T Art. Thank you for listening to this episode, and I will see you in two weeks.