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Jacaranda Time! |
There's a magical purplish-blue hue dotted across Sydney's skyline at the moment. Yes, it's Jacaranda Time! The
Jacaranda mimosifolia, a tree introduced to these shores around 150 years ago, for a short period during spring (a.k.a. Michaelmas Term* in the Olden Days) generously gives most of us the treat of a regal display of their purple blossoms. I say most, as for some, (and I'm not naming names,
Mum), they are not a treat but a nuisance, dropping their showy petals and carpeting otherwise tidy lawns and driveways and even playing merry havoc with their swimming pools.
Tiresome!
But for the rest of us, tourists and locals alike, they are much beloved and when they put on their splendid display, it's worthy of celebration. The Pipistrello's are particularly lucky to live in an older part of the city, where the trees are abundant and well-established, and as we aren't tasked with the job of cleaning up after them, we are quite happy to Make a Fuss over their seasonal glory. Even a grey and wet day is made brighter by their pop of colour peaking out over rooftops and across vistas.
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The Harbour Bridge glimpsed across rooftops |
Mr. P. and I walked with J through the rain over to the Art Gallery of New South Wales the other day to catch the end of the John Russell exhibition, taking in the grand floral display through the old suburb of Woolloomooloo, where the harbour foreshore and naval base rubs up against Victorian terraces and narrow streets, public housing and chic modern developments. Eclectic, maritime, but oh-so-leafy, too, this little suburb is what separates the Pipistrello roost from the City and is home to J&P and is a far cry from the
plague-ridden slums of its past, a mere hundred-odd years ago.
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The spring streetscape on a sunnier day |
The exhibition
John Russell: Australia's French impressionist** was the first survey of this artist who spent forty years from the 1880s in Europe, studying first at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, then under Fernand Cormon in Paris. There he settled into the avant-garde set and experimented with emerging styles and the exhibition is thusly broad and ranges wide. Along the way he formed close friendships with Van Gogh and Rodin and had an influential encounter with Monet in Brittany, which is evident in some of the works which I did prefer (unsurprising, as my taste,
as mentioned before, is so very
Pedestrian). Alongside Russell's work there were pieces from his friends and contemporaries and a series of Rodin's busts of his wife, Marianna.
Behold, some of my favourite paintings of John Russell's, a former resident of our 'hood come good:
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The garden, Longpré-les-Corps-Saints, 1887 |
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Antibes View from Hotel Jouve, 1892 |
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Rough Sea, Morestil, Belle-Île, c1900 |
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Stormy weather at Belle-Île, 1904 |
Perhaps it was the seasonal joy of the Jacaranda-Fest working its magic on my subconscious, but the preceding four choices of painting did leap out at me as worthy of a photographic attempt. Because I am unsubtle and need to push my palette point, here are some more gratuitous photos of the same streets walked on a sunnier day:
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Beneath the canopy |
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Painterly palette in Cathedral Street |
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Classic old pub on Cathedral Street |
And a couple more of Russell's painting, for good measure and to show I'm not entirely fixated on purple at the moment:
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Mrs Russell among the flowers in the garden of Goulphar, Belle-Île, 1907 |
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Pear blossom in grey, 1920 |
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Rainswept view from the AGNSW across to Woolloomooloo |
You could take the man out of Sydney but its colours remain in his work!
* In the unlikely event a Youth is lurking about these pages,
Get Back to your Studies!
** If this exhibition is News To You, sadly, you have now missed it.
Hello Pipi,
ReplyDeleteI'd be smiling all day if I were to walk amidst the Jacarandas of your hood. What an extraordinary vision of majestic purple. We have nothing like it here in my hood. What we have instead (and what made me chuckle when I read about the messy habit of Jacarandas) is New Zealand Christmas trees or Metrosideros excelsa to give them their botanical name. Ugh, you've not seen messy until you've seen these in bloom. A friend parked his red car under one for a week while he went off traveling only to return to find the car had grown a red wooly coat of fallen tree stamens dripping in sap.
I enjoyed the connection of the purple hued paintings which, of course, I spotted straight away.
Hello CD,
DeleteYes, I know the Metrosideros excelsa well, which are around and about here, too, but not as major street plantings. Messy, messy! And a fun job for your friend to clean up their woolly car, perhaps not!
We don't have Jacarandas planted around our apartment building but our driveway is shaded by massive Ficus macrophylla wherein houses at night a small colony of flying foxes. The fruit is inedible for us mere humans but is an indescribable treat for these "bats" and if you leave your car sitting for too long under their canopy, the attendant mess of fruit and poo &c. on your car is also indescribable. City life, hey?
I've just read up on Ficus macrophylla, a species we don't have here in the Bay Area (at least I've not seen any firsthand). Lovely trees indeed. I laughed at the bat meet car comment. Here, with our Metrosideros excelsa, raccoons seem to favor hiding in their canopy and enjoy playing hide-and-seek with us as we walk by. They are very cute and mischievous little fellows.
DeleteHow adorable! And such a fitting game with their little bandit masks. I should have entitled this post Nature Notes!
DeleteLOVE JACARANDA!
ReplyDeleteMY MOTHER snuck in from MEXICO when I was a baby in my diaper!!!!!
That tree blossomed every year in my front yard ;I have fond memories of it!
THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING ME TO GO BACK IN TIME!
XOXO
Hip hooray! Welcome back into play!!
DeleteI can't imagine the smuggling exercise went without some noisy protestations from the miniature you! You were so lucky to have one of your own. Clever, tasteful Mother!
How beautiful the Jacaranda tree is Vanessa and lovely photographs too. It is too cold to grow them here in the UK although some try. XXXX
ReplyDeleteIn the past I, too, valiantly tried to grow beloved plants well outside of their comfort zone to no great success. The heart wins over common sense when it comes to blossoms!
DeleteThank you for stopping by, Jackie! xx