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Anne Denoon

@annedenoon.bsky.social

Crone, wastrel, lapsed (but twitching) novelist. Posts about art & lit. Me: https://www.writersunion.ca/member/anne-denoon My book: Back Flip, a novel about art & the 1960s: https://t.co/m7fQSOo6At or (with reviews) https://tinyurl.com/4dzwzpdp

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Anne Denoon@annedenoon.bsky.social · 3d ago

Mavis Gallant (1922-2014); A Fairly Good Time, 1970 This is why I love and marvel at MG: in one sentence, she interweaves Canadian, British & French cultural foibles. A Fairly Good Time is a terribly sad book overall, but it's also consistently funny. 📷François Le Diascorn #SundaySentence 📚 #CanLit

They had named it the box-room because the term, a hangover from English novels about little boys growing up and going to Cambridge, sounded comic to Shirley; and Philippe, who was grave mostly, unconscious of the origins of all that she could hate and yet think laughable, accepted it as one more of the Anglo-Saxon mysteries.A black and white photo of Mavis Gallant, smiling, seated on an armchair with her hands clasped on her knee. She wears a dotted skirt, a dark V-necked sweater and two strings of beads.
Anne Denoon@annedenoon.bsky.social · 2w ago

Edouard Manet Interior at Arcachon, 1871 oil on canvas 39.2 x 54 cm. Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts #WindowsOnWednesday 🎨 #Manet Currently reading - thanks to TPL - a fascinating catalogue: "Manet: A Model Family," Isabella Stewart Garner Museum/Princeton University Press, 2024.

A painting of a man and a woman in 19th-century clothing seated at a round table in front of an open window with a view of the sea. From the Clark Institute: "Manet painted this domestic scene while staying in a seaside town in southwestern France. He never exhibited it, perhaps because its subject was deeply personal. The artist had recently reunited with his family after serving in the National Guard, defending Paris during the Franco-Prussian war. His wife looks up from her writing to enjoy the view, while her son holds what appears to be a cigarette, seemingly lost in thought. The loose, sketchy technique gives the painting an intimate, informal quality."
Anne Denoon@annedenoon.bsky.social · 2w ago

"All flesh fades: for centuries, hymns were written with this as their main piece of news, and it was not considered depressing, but something instructional and even refreshing to contemplate." Joan Silber, in "Covered" (In My Other Life, Sarabande Books, 2000) 📷 Shari Diamond #SundaySentence 📚

Photo by Shari Diamond of Joan Silber in a grey T-shirt and glasses, with her hair swept up. She is seated, smiling and gesturing with papers in her lap.
Anne Denoon@annedenoon.bsky.social · 3w ago

We're all classicists now! (May have to start muting.) So here's one of the few objects I actually remembered from 1st-year Art & Arch lecture slides @ UofT & was evocatively delighted to see in the flesh (so to speak) a few years ago. 🏛️🎨 The Ludovisi Throne, c. 260-250 BC Palazzo Altemps, Rome

From Palazzo Altemps site: "The three-sided relief, carved from a single block of white marble from the Greek island of Thasos, frontally depicts the birth of Aphrodite from the sea foam supported by two female figures of Horai, divinities of nature and seasons, dressed in a peplum (to the left) and a chiton (to the right). On the right side a young nude woman plays the double flute and on the left side a cloaked and veiled woman puts grains of incense in an incense burner. Both figures, seated on a folded cushion resting on a seat, have been interpreted as priestesses of the cult of Aphrodite." https://museonazionaleromano.it/en/palazzo-altemps/the-boncompagni-ludovisi-collection/
Anne Denoon@annedenoon.bsky.social · 3w ago

Yikes, the bots are really out this morning! Overnight I acquired a string of simultaneous but clearly non-human followers. They even tossed a bunch of likes at me, too, for added appeal. All blockèd now.

Anne Denoon@annedenoon.bsky.social · 3w ago

I remember July 14, 1965. On my first visit to Paris as a Toronto provincial, I was amazed & thrilled to see people - apparently spontaneously - dancing on Boul. St. Germain. Lucien Aigner (1901-1999) Street Dancing on Bastille Day, Paris, 1937 silver-gelatin print Victoria & Albert Museum, London

From V&A: Black and white photograph of men and women dancing in the street. In the foreground to the right are three ladies in hats talking to a man.
Anne Denoon@annedenoon.bsky.social · 3w ago

V. S. Pritchett, 1900-1997 from "The Marvellous Girl" in The New Yorker, December 17, 1973; collected in The Camberwell Beauty, Chatto & Windus, London, 1974 [I am currently (re)reading these wonderfully disconcerting stories.] #SundaySentence 📚

Under the weeping chandeliers of what had once been the ballroom of the mansion now occupied by the Institute, the faces of the large audience yellowed and aged as they listened to the last leaden speeches and made one more effort of chins and shoulders to live up to the gilt, the brocaded panels of the walls, and the ceiling, where cherubs, clouds, and naked goddesses romped.