It’s a Very Outdated Post!

I know it’s very-very outdated. 2015 was already far away… but I won’t ever forgive myself if I don’t, somehow, wrap up my last year Literary Movement Reading Challenge. You know, of course, that I failed my own challenge, but there are others who took efforts to read all, or at least most of, the movements. In the middle of my spare time during office hours—yayy… J--Ihave managed to count all participant’s posts (though I’m really sorry if I couldn’t read nor comment them one by one). From 22 who signed up, just a few managed to ‘survive’ to the last. And from the few, only ONE person completed the whole challenge, by reading at least one book for all movements; and I’m proud to announce that the winner of this challenge is…..

Ruth – A Great Book Study

Congratz to Ruth—a very good job! I’m proud of you and your dedication for this challenge. I will contact you soon to arrange the prize.

And now…. Allow me to retreat to my quiet corner of bookish life again. I’ll keep posting every now and then, especially for Belle Époque Event, but I’ll dedicate most of my limited spare time with… reading, of course! ;)

Belle Époque Artists: Gustave Caillebotte

Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877

Gustave Caillebotte (19 August 1848 – 21 February 1894) was a French painter, member and patron of the group of artists known as Impressionists, though he painted in a much more realistic manner than many other artists in the group. Caillebotte was noted for his early interest in photography as an art form. Caillebotte's style belongs to the School of Realism but was strongly influenced by his Impressionist associates.

Caillebotte is best known for his paintings of urban Paris, such as The Europe Bridge (Le Pont de l'Europe) (1876), and Paris Street; Rainy Day (Rue de Paris; temps de pluie, also known as La Place de l'Europe, temps de pluie) (1877). The latter is almost unique among his works for its particularly flat colors and photo-realistic effect which gives the painting its distinctive and modern look, almost akin to American Realists. Showing little allegiance to any one style, many of Caillebotte's other urban paintings produced in the same period, such as The Place Saint-Augustin (1877), are considerably more impressionistic.

Le Pont de l'Europe, 1876

My Note:

Gustave Caillebotte's paintings are not new to me... well, several of them, at least. Apparently, Oxford World's Classics used at least three of them as covers for Emile Zola's books. The "Paris Street, Rainy Day" was used for The Kill's cover, while "Le Pont de l'Europe" was actually picked by OWC as the cover of La Bête Humaine. And if you own the latest edition of The Money from OWC, you will not  be surprised to see that its cover was borrowed from Caillebotte's "Man on a Balcony". To me it's really nice of OWC to pick French Impressionist's paintings as Zola's book cover. Zola was one of the supporters of Impressionism on his era anyway.

Man on a Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann, 1880

A Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann, 1880

I posted this for my Belle Époque Event 2016, You will find more artists along the year; the next one will be up in March!

Belle Époque Artists: Édouard-Denis Baldus

Hotel de Ville et Pont d'Arcole, Paris

Édouard-Denis Baldus (June 5, 1813, Grünebach, Prussia – 1889, Paris) was a French landscape, architectural and railway photographer. Baldus was originally trained as a painter and had also worked as a draughtsman and lithographer before switching to photography in 1849. In 1851, he was commissioned for the Missions Héliographiques by the Historic Monuments Commission of France to photograph historic buildings, bridges and monuments, many of which were being razed to make way for the grand boulevards of Paris, being carried out under the direction of Napoleon III's prefect Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann.

Reconstruction of Hotel de Ville de Paris, 1880

The high quality of his work won him government support for a project entitled Les Villes de France Photographiées, an extended series of architectural views in Paris and the provinces designed to feed a resurgent interest in the nation's Roman and medieval past.

In 1855, Baron James de Rothschild, President of Chemin de Fer du Nord, commissioned Baldus to do a series of photographs to be used as part of an album that was to be a gift to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as a souvenir of their visit to France that year. The lavishly bound album is still among the treasures of the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.

In 1856, Baldus set out on a brief assignment to photograph the destruction caused by torrential rains and overflowing rivers in Lyon, Avignon, and Tarascon. He created a moving record of the flood without explicitly depicting the human suffering left in its wake.

He was extremely well known throughout France for his efforts in photography. One of his greatest assignments was to document the construction of the Louvre museum.

La Grande Galerie, Paris, 1870

Baldus used wet and dry paper negatives as large as 10x14 inches in size. From these negatives, he made contact prints. In order to create a larger image, he put contact prints side by side to create a panoramic effect.

Baldus was renowned for the sheer size of his pictures, which ranged up to eight feet long for one panorama from around 1855, made from several negatives.

View of the Seine, Paris

Despite the documentary nature of many of his assignments, Baldus was no purist when it came to technique. He often retouched his negatives to blank out buildings and trees, or to put clouds in white skies; in one print from 1851, he pieced together fragments of 10 different negatives to create a composite print of the medieval cloister of St. Trophime, in Arles.

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I will post more French artists in this blog for this event:

Merry Christmas, Dear Readers!

Fanda Classiclit: Plans for 2016

Considering my failure this year, I did not set any ambitious target for next year. All I wanted is reading any book I want to read, in any speed I could. So, this post is not going to be very long, as I have only two reading plans (and I limit myself to only these two—stop me if I was tempted to add anything else! LOL):

Belle Époque Event 2016

The only event I will be hosting next year, for fun only, no pressure.

The 2016 Reading the Bible as Literature Event

I decided to participate in Adam’s event because I have been trying to read the Bible from cover to cover, but without any success. So, why not challenging myself this year? Thanks to Adam’s reading plan, I may be able to finally do it—hopefully!

Apart from these two, I will treat myself to pick any book I would like to read. It’s time to read just for fun and pleasure…

How about you…any particular plan for next year? Share me!

Belle Époque Event 2016

I have been wanting to do this since early this year; maybe since my Zoladdiction event—which, by the way, I am not going to host for next year. I have been doing this fun reading of Emile Zola for three years, but right now I don’t think I have time & energy to host it. It’s not ended yet, maybe next year it will be back, but for right now I just like to have a quiet event, in which I can still read Zola!... ;)

Belle Époque is forty years of beautiful (or golden) era in France, started from the end of Franco-Prussian War (1871) to the outbreak of World War I (1914). It’s an era of optimism, prosperity, and flourishing of art, architecture, and entertainment—especially in Paris. It’s joie de vivre during French Third Republic. Post-impressionist artists like Monet, Gaugin, Matisse, Rodin, and Picasso belonged to Belle Époque era; so did naturalism authors like Zola, Maupassant, and Proust. It’s also the era of salon music and cabaret (Moulin Rouge!), and the building of Paris Metro and Eiffel Tower. Oh, and don’t forget the infamous Dreyfus Affair! In short, things that made me love Paris, began at the Belle Époque period. How can I not love it?

And now the event…. It’s really simple!

• Read and post as many things from Belle Époque era, and as often as you can, during 2016.
• You can read books from Belle Époque authors, or books about… whatever happened during or about the era. It can be fiction or non-fiction, just whatever you can find.
• Or maybe you just want to decorate your blog by posting Belle Époque paintings? That’s fine too!
• Just don’t forget to submit it to the linky in this post (will be up only on January 1^st).
• But first…. Sign up with the linky below!

In my part, I planned to do this:

Reading:

Emile Zola – Pot Bouille (1882)

Emile Zola – The Ladies’ Paradise (1883)

Guy de Maupassant – Bel-Ami (1885)

Emile Zola – The Dreyfus Affair: “J’Accuse” and Other Writings (1901)

Marcel Proust – Swann’s Way (1913)

Posting:

Works and some information of Belle Époque artists we rarely heard of. I plan to do this every month (one artist per month).

What are you waiting for? Let’s explore and have fun!....

I’m Back!

Yes, it’s been three months since my last post. I have been busy organizing a new Church community, and for some months didn’t have time to sit and pour my thoughts to this blog. I didn’t even read for few months! L But today is a national holiday in Indonesia (due to major election), and despite of it, I came purposely to the office to reorganize my reading life.

Unfortunately, I totally failed in ALL my reading challenge this year, and most of all, MY own Literary Movement Reading Challenge… LL But I am not completely disappointed at that, because I’ve been sacrifying my reading life for something much bigger and important in my life. I only feel sorry to you, my readers, especially #LitMoveRC participants, for my being quite a bad host this year. Kudos to you who are still on fire to keep reading and posting along the movements! One of you will surely be winning my prize after all this! J

Now I am going to reorganize everything, maybe wrapping up my challenges, thinking about next year plan, and maybe doing a book tag to awake my blogging spirit… But you might not see my proper reviews for a while, I just don’t have any energy (or mood) left to do it. Meanwhile, I’m going to pick any book I feel like reading, and don’t force myself to post a review.

See you around!