a young dog acquires name of Henry Yah-mes

Alvin Langdon Coburn / Max Beerbohm Portrait

Max Beerbohm (in a letter to Lytton Strachey)—

Some time in 1913, at this address, my wife and I acquired a young fox terrier. We debated as to what to call him, and, as Henry James had just been having his seventieth birthday, and as his books have given us more pleasure than those of any other living man, I, rather priggishly perhaps, insisted that the dog should be known as James. But this was a name which Italian peasants, who are the only neighbors we have, of course would not be able to pronounce at all. So we were phonetic and called the name of the dog Yah-mes. And this did very well. By this name he was known far and wide—but not for long; for alas, he died of distemper.

do portraits begin to resemble their subjects?

William Zorach, Art Is My Life: The autobiography of William Zorach. Cleveland OH: World Publishing, 1967, p 130—

There is a disconcerting thing about portraits. Someone does your portrait and you don't like it, your friends don't like it; everyone says it doesn't look like you. A few years go by and you look like that portrait and all your family and all your friends say, "What a good likeness." People, they say, begin to look like their dogs. Maybe this is somewhat the same thing.

Index of American Design / Dog Doorstop

Poster / Roy R. Behrens (2023)

 

teaching dogs olde tricks all the way to the bank

Poster © Roy R. Behrens (2022)

Roy R. Behrens, poster from a series that pays tribute to the Index of American Design (1935-1942). The original watercolor painting is in public domain at the National Gallery of Art.  

a poodle doth spare us the odium of a law suit

Giovanna Garzoni (1648)

Above Giovanna Garzoni, Dog with Biscotti. Oil on canvas, 1648. Public domain.

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Abel G. Warshawky, The Memories of an American Impressionist. Kent State University Press, 1918, pp. 131—

An amusing story was told me in this connection by Robert Logan [1875-1942], the American etcher. A wealthy maiden lady of Boston had commissioned a local painter to do her portrait, and when it was finished had indignantly refused to take it on the grounds that the portrait was unrecognizable. Why even her pet poodle, she exclaimed, the loving companion of all her hours, had failed to recognize his mistress in the picture, which, as a matter of fact, was both an excellent painting and a first-rate likeness. Not wishing to risk the publicity and odium of a law suit to recover his fee, the portraitist in his dilemma turned for advice to a distinguished painter of his acquaintance, who also happened to know the recalcitrant lady. The latter in due course received a letter from the portrait painter, informing her that he had effected certain subtle changes in her picture and that if she would come to see it in his studio, she would, he felt sure, be highly satisfied with the result.

The invitation having been accepted, the friendly adviser appeared in the painter’s studio shortly before the hour appointed for the lady’s visit, bringing with him a piece of fresh bacon, which he proceeded to rub over the features of the portrait. When the lady arrived, bringing her poodle with her, she found the distinguished artist admiring her portrait and congratulating his colleague on the excellent resemblance he had obtained. To these eulogies the lady replied dryly that the portrait did not please her, and that even “darling Fido” did not recognize his mistress. “But, dear Madam,” insisted her friend, “are’t you aware that dogs, especially poodles, are notoriously shortsighted? Hold the little darling close to the picture, and then see if he does not recognize you.” Held close to the canvas, Fido, who sniffed the delicious aroma of bacon grease, made frantic efforts to kiss the painted image of his mistress, succeeding in applying several licks to her mouth, eyes, and nose. “See, Madam,” remarked the painter, “how the dog recognizes and adores your likeness.” Needless to say, the lady was won over to admiration and the portrait was paid for.

38th year of a rare and fortuitous marriage

As of this very day, Mary and I have been married for 38 years. We've lived all over the country, traveled abroad for the pleasure of work, and have come to know so many people. It is a joy to be with her, increasingly, with each passing day. How wonderfully fortunate we are—as is tiny Lola, only the most recent of the amusing and curious creatures who have shared our daily lives. What is the secret? In part, it is because we see and think alike.

a car came down the street and ran into them

view larger

Above Roy R. Behrens, Moon River Dog (© 2021). Digital montage.

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Frank Jacobs, The Mad World of William M. Gaines. NY: Bantam Books, 1973, p. 77—

In the fall of 1954, [William M.] Gaines [founder and publisher of MAD Magazine] and Nancy [a close friend and staff member] were turning into a gas station on West 96th Street in Manhattan. As they made their turn, a car came down the street and barreled into them. No one was hurt, and Gaines exchanged the usual insurance data with the driver of the other car, whose name was Gene Zahn. About a year later, two blocks from the gas station, Gaines pulled up to a newspaper stand. After buying his paper, he returned to his car, backed out a few feet, and was struck by a car rounding the corner. No one was hurt, and Gaines exchanged the usual insurance data with the driver of the other car, whose name was Gene Zahn.

“Didn't we have an accident a year ago?” Gaines asked.

“I believe we did,” answered Zahn, giving a polite nod to Nancy, whom he remembered from the previous run-in. “Say, don't you think it's time you two got married?”

Gaines thought if over and decided that the point was well-taken. Within a month, he and Nancy were married.

aesthetics / each species appears itself designed

Ogden

Above Roy R. Behrens, Ogden (© 2021). Digital montage.

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James Hillman, Cosmos, Life, Religion: Beyond Humanism, 1988—

Animal life is biologically aesthetic: each species presents itself in design, coats, tails, feathers, furs, curls, tusks, horns, hues, sheens, shells, scales, wings, songs, dances.

•••

Tom Driberg, Baron Bradwell, quoted in the Daily Express (1937)—

Sincerity is all that counts…Think again. Bolsheviks are sincere. Fascists are sincere. Lunatics are sincere. People who believe the earth is flat are sincere. They can’t all be right.

Entangled threesome | a walking Läocoon

Coles Phillips "fadeaway" magazine cover illustration (1916)

Above Magazine cover illustration for the October 1916 issue of Good Housekeeping by Coles Phillips (1880-1927). As shown in this example, he was especially known for paintings in which edges of the figure merge with the background. Tragically, he died of tuberculosis at the early age of 47. We reproduced another work of his in an earlier blog post.

•••

Ford Maddox Ford as quoted by Simon Nowell-Smith, compiler, The Legend of the Master (London, Constable, 1947), p. 44—

I was once walking with him [Henry James] and Mr. John Galsworthy…[whose] dachshund Maximilian ran sheep, so, not to curtail the animal’s exercise, the Master had provided it with a leash at least ten yards long. Mr. Galsworthy and I walked one on each side of James listening obediently while he talked. In order to round off an immense sentence the great man halted…He planted his [walking] stick firmly into the ground and went on and on and on. Maximilian passed between our six legs again and again, threading his leash behind him. Mr. Galsworthy and I stood silent. In any case we must have resembled the Laocöon, but when Maximilian had finished the resemblance must have been overwhelming. The Master finished his reflections, attempted to hurry on, found that impossible. Then we liberated ourselves with difficulty. He turned on me, his eyes fairly blazing, lifting his cane on high and slamming it into the ground: “H…” he exclaimed, “you are painfully young, but at no more than the age to which you have attained, the playing of such tricks is an imbecility! An im…be…cility!”

A Sweet Disorder in the Dress / Robert Herrick

Above A parody of a painting by either Angnolo Bronzino (Jacopo Carucci) or (possibly) Pontormo, titled Portrait of a Lady with a Lapdog (c1537), providing current portraits of the charming, smart, beautiful women, Mary and Lola, with whom I delight in life.

•••

Robert Herrick
Delight in Disorder (1648)

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, that when art
Is too precise in every part.

Louis MacNeice on English Dog Shows

Canine Portrait © Roy R. Behrens

Louis MacNeice, The Strings Are False: An Unfinished Autobiography. London: Faber and Faber, 1965, pp. 138-139—

An English dog show is very very English; you meet all the people you never would have thought of inventing. Dog-fanciers can be divided into two classes—those who look very like their dogs and those who look exactly unlike them. While there are old ladies showing Pekinese who look like Pekinese themselves, there are also gigolos with bulldogs or bruisers with Yorkshire terriers. The show is a wonderland of non-utilitarian growths. Through the smell and the noise and the clouds of chalk you can distinguish dogs that have been passed through the mangle and dogs with permanent waves, Bond Street ladies in veils and Amazons all boots. The human beings talk to each other roughly and curtly but twitter and coo to their dogs. There sportsmen and sportswomen who work their dogs in the field, and there are hermits from caves of melancholia who might have been artists or had lovers. You feel his nose to be sure that he is not ill, you chop up his meat so neatly, you put in his cod liver oil and a spoonful of lime for his bones, you brush him and comb him and pluck him and every so often you worm him—you are proud if he passes worms and proud if he doesn’t.

It’s not fair, that’s what it’s not, judge don’t know a dog from a carthorse, I tell you straight been showing for forty years and never in my life I mean when I say, see the dog he put up well would you believe it, no it’s not fair, that’s what it is, it’s not.

Repugnant Wallpaper | Dallas Guffey

Wallpaper | Dallas Guffey ©2015

Above In graphic design studio courses, as an exercise in rapid fire problem solving, I sometimes ask my students to work in class, within a time limit, in producing fresh solutions to seemingly off-beat assignments. In one case, for example, I asked them to come up with a design for "repugnant wallpaper." The solution reproduced above is by Dallas Guffey.

•••

Robert Kipness, Robert Kipness: A Working Artist's Life. Hanover NH: University Press of New England, 2011 [recalling an experience in a painting class taught by artist Stuart Edie (1908-1974), probably in the early 1950s, when Kipness was a student at the University of Iowa], pp. 59-60—

After two or three sessions of witnessing this outpouring of energy [as Kipness worked on his paintings in class] from the wild-eyed kid from the literature department, Edie came over to my space and said, "Very interesting, Kipness. Let me show you something," and he picked up one of my brushes, mixed some paint on my palette, and moved the brush toward my painting. Instinctively I grasped his wrist with a grip that seemed to frighten him. His pale blue-gray eyes widened. "Tell me anything you want, but don't touch my work," I whispered, outraged that he would interfere with the surface of my painting. Realizing my grip was strong, and that I might be hurting hm, I released his wrist, and he put down my brush and walked away. Understandably, he didn't talk to me again for over a month.

From a respectful distance we grew to like each other…He was a kind and perceptive man…

We came to an agreement. He would leave me alone in class, and as long as he felt I was making progress he would continue to let me be. If he judged otherwise I would either take instruction or he would give me a failing grade. Eventually he issued me a key to the building, allowing me to come and work anytime I wished. "Just make sure you put out the lights and see that the door is locked when you leave." In my eyes he was a prince, and I appreciate that my fierce enthusiasm and individuality were no threat to him. He was delighted to see me so consumed with painting, and he wanted to see what I could do. There was no battle of egos, just respect and a kindly concern for my young life. Later I more fully understood that his response was what he thought would be best for me.

There is an interesting online interview with Kipness by Ira Goldberg at LINEA: The Artist's Voice. There is additional information about three of the artists who taught at the University of Iowa while Kipness was a student there: Stuart Edie, Byron Burford and James Lechay. My own memories of Lechay are online here.

Collections & Recollections | Mackenzie Pape

Collections Poster © Mackenzie Pape (2014)

Above Design for a poster for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Mackenzie Pape (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens.

•••

Julian Bigelow, quoted by Ed Regis, Who Got Einstein's Office? New York: Basic Books, 1988—

[John] von Neumann [Hungarian-born American mathematician] lived in this elegant house in Princeton [NJ]. As I parked my car and walked in [for a job interview] there was this very large Great Dane bouncing around on the front lawn. I knocked on the door and von Neumann, who was a small, quiet, modest kind of a man, came to the door and bowed to me and said, "Bigelow, won't you come in," and so forth, and this dog brushed between our legs and went into the living room. He proceeded to lie down on the rug in front of everybody, and we had the entire interview—and this lasted maybe forty minutes, with the dog wandering all around the house. Towards the end of it, von Neumann asked me if I always traveled with the dog. But of course it wasn't my dog, and it wasn't his either, but von Neumann, being a diplomatic, middle-European type of person—he kindly avoided mentioning it until the end.