Cincinnati Art Museum

A few weeks ago we made the trek to Cincinnati to see a couple of special exhibits at the Cincinnati Art Museum: "Wedded Perfection: Two Centuries of Wedding Gowns" and "Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman." Both were beautiful exhibits and well worth the price of admission (free). Unfortunately, photography was not allowed in either special exhibit.

I suppose you could take our word that the most of the wedding gowns were interesting to observe, even if you couldn't get too close, and even a man could discern the subtle changes in style from one decade to the next. Gainsborough's talent was easy to recognize in the 16 paintings presented as evidence, and to see his full length portraits up close was a satisfying treat for those of us that haven't visited London's collection of art.

Since we can't share the special exhibits, allow me to share a few things that impressed me in the rest of the museum. The 18th century portrait above was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1771, and it caught my eye for its lifelike quality. Although the background is imaginary, the subject's attire is impeccable.

This next painting caught my eye from across the gallery for its vivid color. It appeared to glow from any distance, and I had to look carefully once I was close to it to convince myself it wasn't backlit like some computer screen. I regret that I didn't capture the name of the artist.

This portrait caught Karen's attention as much for the name of the artist as for the gown depicted. Lucas Cranach the Elder painted this portrait of "St. Helena with the Cross" in 1525 when Cranach was a close friend of Martin Luther and an enthusiastic supporter of the Protestant Reformation. Karen used several of Cranach's paintings as guides when she designed German Reformation costumes several years ago.

This last image shows a collection of miniature portraits, each only a couple of inches tall. I'm sorry I don't have artist or subject information for this collection either, but it caught my eye for its simple, yet formal manner.

Thanks for visiting!

Further definition on the Google map challenge

At the end of the last post, I expressed hope that our neighbors had good records since I noticed something in the Google Maps images of our neighborhood that related to their activities. The image below is a wider view of a portion of our neighborhood (images courtesy of Google Maps, copyright 2010) that shows our house at the bottom left and two colored squares that denote the objects of interest.

I first noticed the object in the green square on the road, and quickly identified it as belonging to our neighbors. A closer view is shown below.

That's our neighbor's blue tractor pulling a grain wagon, that appears to be laden with corn. It's headed back to the grain bin, so the combine is probably not far away.

Here's a closer view of what's in the yellow box. Sure enough, that's their yellow combine making its way through the field in the valley. A check of their records indicates that field was harvested on October 5 and 6. In the image, the field appears to be less than half harvested, and the shadows seem to mark the time of day slightly before noon, so my neighbor's comment on the previous post that the image was taken at 11:03 AM on October 5th is probably as close as we'll get. With that knowledge, I think we can all sleep soundly now.

Deductions on the Google map challenge

Several readers have submitted insightful speculations on the date of the aerial photo currently describing our home on Google Maps. Since many of you probably don't know our yard as intimately as I do, I'll share my observations so we can try to narrow the photo date as closely as possible.

The "A" in the photo below identifies the teeter totter, which according to a previous post was placed into service on September 17. Unfortunately, I'm not able to tell from this image whether the upper level of the pivot is complete or not. On to the next clue.

The "B" on the left side of the photo designates the approximate location in the field that serves as our corn-measuring spot. Apparent in this photo, and even more apparent if you zoom out to see more of the cornfield, is the fact that the field has been harvested, and tilled. We know from another post that harvest happened on September 7 (which doesn't narrow the satellite image date), but we haven't noted in the blog when the tilling took place. We do, however, have a post about the second crop of corn that grew this fall, and a photo from September 27 that shows the field untilled. That helps, and we can narrow the photo to sometime between September 27 and December 16 when we first posted the Google Map image.

Moving on to item "C." Some readers noticed the absence of the gravel path from the house to the barn as described in another post. That post was dated November 11, but I know that the path was built the previous Saturday, November 6. That narrows the image down to about a 40-day window, Sep 27 to Nov 6, but I think we can do better than that.

Area "D" on the image locates a bare-dirt section of the yard that I tilled the same day Farmer Wagenbach tilled the big field next to us. As I recall, that was October 2. That day I was able to sow a bit of the grass seed on the south end of the dirt patch and immediately watered only that section. Over the next week, I eventually sowed all the grass seed, and began watering the entire patch. The Google Maps image appears to show damp earth only on the south end of the patch, so I think the image must have been taken sometime in that first full week of October, and at the latest, sometime in the second week. That's the best I can do with the data I have right now, but if my neighbors have good records, we might be able to narrow the date further. If so, you'll be the first to know!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Blessings from the Riggenbach Family

Beautiful sunrise #12

December 23, 7:04 AM