My Dark Academia Life

There is this Dark Academia trend fueled by people who like Harry Potter and libraries. You imagine yourself back in an earlier era, lost among old books and music and poetry. I have never read any Harry Potter or seen any of the movies. However this is a trend I love. And yesterday while I was playing the piano I began thinking about how Dark Academia my life is.

I did not plan it! It just worked out like that.

Just looking around my living room absolutely killed me when I thought about it.

Steinway grand piano from 1905.

Photo of the Van Cliburn Competition jury from 1963. Next to busts of Chopin and Beethoven.

Tapestry from my friend Brenda, as seen from the piano.

Portrait of Franz Schubert, a gift from my friend Peter.

That is the ultimate Dark Academia portrait if you ask me.

And speaking of the ultimate, how about this...

This was the book I was playing out of when these thoughts came into my head. It is Mendelssohn's "Songs Without Words."

It is copyright God knows what year. I mean I would have to go down and check. However it is the 19th century. I know that because the book has an inscription. A father inscribed it to his daughter in 1898. She was at the Richmond Preparatory Academy in Virginia.

There is writing throughout the book where someone, it appears to be the father, went through and wrote the titles to the various Songs Without Words.

I acquired this book at some sale somewhere a few years ago. Perhaps I should not be playing out of it because I have my own copy of the Songs Without Words, as every pianist should. I worry that I will hurt the binding or the pages. However you know what, I think this father and daughter would be happy that the book is being played out of, as it was once upon a time. I always get a beautiful feeling when I sit down of an evening, and open it, and start to play.

One of the WNED-FM hosts, I think it was Stratton Rawson, said one night that in the Victorian era there was always a piano book in every house and it was the Songs Without Words. And every pianist played them.

So there I am, smack in the middle of the Victorian era. Wearing my long dresses, playing my Victorian-era copy of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. This was the first music by the way that I ever played on this beautiful old Steinway, back when I bought it. I think of that when I play it.

I never thought of it being Dark Academia.

I always just thought it enchanting!

Columbus picture opens a new world

Since I mentioned my print of Christopher Columbus finding the New World, people who know about art have told me that it was painted by N.C. Wyeth. That is Mr. Wyeth pictured above!

One Facebook friend, the esteemed artist Michael Gelen, told me that. And another Facebook friend chimed in and said that N.C. Wyeth was the father of Andrew Wyeth.

Do I know quality when I see it or what? Just like I know quality when I hear it, as in the case of Leonard Pennario.

The picture of N.C. Wyeth does seem to suggest he had something of a fevered imagination. Wikipedia says that he illustrated books including "Treasure Island." You know what, I think that was the book my father read to us from when I was little. It had fevered illustrations that now that I think of it, remind me of the picture of Columbus on the high seas.

The best artists are the ones described as illustrators, you know?

A neat observation from Wikipedia: "Wyeth's exuberant personality and talent made him a standout student. A robust, powerfully built young man with strangely delicate hands, he ate a lot less than his size implied. He admired great literature, music, and drama, and he enjoyed spirited conversation."

"He ate a lot less than his size implied." That is priceless and cannot be said of me.

I eat a lot more than my size implies!

Here is something terrible and tragic. In 1945, "Wyeth and his grandson (Nathaniel C. Wyeth's son) were killed when the automobile they were riding in was struck by a freight train at a railway crossing near his Chadds Ford home."

All these things we are learning. Some of them funny and some of them sad. Like Columbus we are discovering an uncharted world. Uncharted to us anyway.

Oh, man. This is something that hits home for me. Wikipedia also says that N.C. Wyeth painted the pictures of Wagner, Beethoven and Liszt for Steinway and Sons. I have been to Steinway Hall in New York and seen those paintings. Even if I had not visited Steinway Hall, I would know them from books. That is amazing! I had no idea. I will have to explore that on my Music Critic Web log.

Anyway we can all see now where Andrew Wyeth got his talent. Why is he so much better known than the old man, is what I would like to know.

No justice in the world!