This past week saw the birthday of Pierre Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841), one of my favorite artists. He had a very long career and was a prolific artist with thousands of works. While there is no way I can do him justice in this little blog, I’ll try to show some of his work that I admire.
Renoir was born in Limoges but, when he was very young his father, a tailor, moved the family to Paris. Tellingly, the location of their new home, in proximity to the Louvre, would have a major impact on Renoir’s future.
He had a talent both for drawing and singing but, at age 13, the family’s financial circumstances forced him to withdraw from school and work in a porcelain factory. He was good at his work but found it boring and often wandered away to the galleries of the Louvre. The owner of the porcelain factory recognized is talent and Renoir started taking lessons. While studying he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille and Claude Monet. At time he didn’t have enough money to buy paint. Nevertheless, he began showing paintings at the Paris Salon.
One of his first successful paintings was of Lise Tréhot, his lover at the time.
Renoir’s early work was influenced by the colorism of Delacroix and the realism of Courbet and Manet as well as their use of black as a color. Another example of Renoir’s early work is this painting of Diana, which shows the influence of Courbet’s realism. Lise Tréhot is again the model.
Diana – Pierre Auguste Renoir 1867
The bright green colors and red accents are considered to reflect the impressionism that Renoir would become associated with a few years later.
In the late 1860s, he and his friend Claude Monet, through painting light and water en plein air, discovered that the color of shadow is not black or brown but reflects the color of the objects around them. The worked side-by side frequently and often painted the same scene. I like the contrast and similarity in their styles as shown in these two paintings.
La Grenouillère, Claude Monet 1869La Grenouillère, Pierre Auguste Renoir 1869
His impressionist period was prolific. One of his most famous impressionist paintings is Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette which depicts an open-air dance garden close to where he lived. It’s full of action, color and light.
Bal du moulin de la Galette, Pierre Auguste Renoir 1876
In 1881 he took a trip to Italy and saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance painters which convinced him he was on the wrong path. He began painting in a more severe style trying to return to classicism. He painted works such as ‘The Large Bathers” which emphasized line and form.
The Large Bathers – Pierre Auguste Renoir 1887
Notably (to me at least) two of the models for this painting were his lovers at one time or another. Suzanne Valadon on the left was a long time model for him who became a noted painter in her own right and Aline Charigot on the right who modeled for many of his paintings and became his wife.
After 1890, he changed direction again and his work showed dissolved outlines and thinly brushed work. You can see the contrast of styles between The Large Bathers above and ‘Girls at the Piano’ below which he painted in 1892.
Girls at the Piano – Pierre Auguste Renoir 1892
In the mid-1890s, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. in 1907 he moved his family to the south of France to take advantage of the warmer climate. He continued painting during the last 20 years of his life even as the arthritis severely limited his mobility. Renoir died at Cagnes-sur-Mer on 3 December 1919.
The love of his life was Aline Victorine Charigot who was a dressmaker. She met Renoir when she was twenty and he was nearly forty and started modeling for him. She gave birth to his first son, Pierre, in 1885, and married Renoir in 1890. They had two other sons, Jean born in 1894 and Claude in 1901.
She modeled for Renoir over a long period, 1880 to 1915. She cared for her husband as his arthritis became severe. After Claude’s birth she developed diabetes but hid this from her husband. Pierre and Jean were drafted into the army during World War I and both were injured, Jean seriously. Aline died of a heart attack in Nice after a visit to Jean in the hospital in 1915.
Charigot appears in many of Renoir’s paintings. In ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’ at the top of this post, she is the woman playing with the dog on the far left. Here are some more of his paintings that include her.
Madame Renoir with a Dog 1880Boating Couple (also known as Aline and Renoir) 1891Blonde Bather – 1881In the Garden, 1885
Aline and her Pierre 1886
Madame Renoir and Bob – 1910
Renoir was, to me, an amazing artist. The largest collection of his work is at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. Go and see it.
Walt showed up late for the card party at the senior center. He blamed it on his poor memory, which seemed to be growing worse with age.
“You know, I used to have that problem too,” said his friend Stan. “But then I went to a memory clinic, and they taught us some really great techniques, like visualization and association, and I haven’t had a problem since.”
“That sounds like just what I need,” said Walt. “What was the name of the clinic?”
Stan’s mind went blank. He thought and thought, and finally he said, “What do you call that flower with the long thorny stem?”
“You mean a rose?” said Walt.
“That’s it!” said Stan. Then he turned to his wife and said, “Hey Rose, what was the name of that memory clinic?”
It’s cold out and I’m thinking of warm, maybe tropical music.
One of the critical issues the Biden administration needs to deal with is Climate Change. Sea level rise is one of the effects of climate change. The image shows tidal flooding in Norfolk, Virginia. Since the 1970s, the number of flooding events in Norfolk has tripled. Sea level in Norfolk is projected to rise another six inches in the next 9 years and this kind of flooding will be at least a monthly event. Let’s go back to the cause of sea level rise.
Greenhouse Effect. Earth receives radiation from the sun in the form of ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared radiation. Some of this is reflected back into space, some is absorbed by the atmosphere and some by the earth itself. Because the earth is much colder than the sun, it radiates at much longer wavelengths and these longer wavelengths can be absorbed by certain gases in the atmosphere heating the atmosphere and radiating the heat right back at the surface. These gases are called ‘Greenhouse Gases’.
In order to maintain the Earth at a stable temperature range, it is critical that the energy being absorbed by Earth from the sun and the energy being radiated back into space be in balance. If too much energy is radiated back into space, the Earth will cool and if too little is radiated back, the Earth will warm.
Greenhouse Gases. The Greenhouse Effect is caused by ‘greenhouse gases’ in the atmosphere. Chief among these are carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere has increased dramatically and, as a consequence, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased.
This has thrown off the balance between the amount of energy absorbed by the Earth and the amount radiated back into space thus warming the planet and everything on it. The average global temperature in 2020 was approximately 1.84 degrees Fahrenheit above the 1951 – 1980 average. Further, the rate of increase is growing.
Global Warming has a number of effects:
Sea Level Rise is caused both by the melting of glaciers and other water locked up as ice such as the Greenland ice cap and the Antarctic ice cap and the thermal expansion of water as the temperature of the oceans increases. Roughly 750 million tons of ice is melting every year due to global warming. The seas have been rising for some time and the rise is accelerating. Here are graphs of the recorded sea level at Lewes Delaware and Baltimore Maryland. I chose these because they have a relatively long history. The trend is unmistakable.
Many of our coastal cities and towns are already seeing increased levels of flooding and it will get worse.
More Severe Weather. The Atlantic basin had a record number of hurricanes this past year likely due to warmer water and changed wind patterns. Severe flooding events are also increasing both in the U.S. and around the world. A warmer atmosphere can hold more water and thus an increase in flooding rains. A series of sudden thunderstorms caused this flood in the Washington DC area.
Weather-related disasters have been increasing and will continue to increase as global warming continues.
Disease. Global warming has increased the spread and occurrence of vector-based diseases. Malaria, Dengue, Zika and other mosquito-borne diseases are spreading to the United States. Yellow Fever is on the horizon and various forms of encephalitis are spread more easily as there are more frost-free months for mosquitos to feed and breed. Tick-borne diseases have more than doubled in the last 13 years including lyme, spotted fevers and babesiosis.
Wildfires. Warmer and drier summers lead to an increase in wildfires as we have seen both in California and Australia in the past year.
Increased Extinction Rates. As climate changes, species will have to adapt. Some will make it and some won’t. While animals can move to cooler climates, trees cannot. And animals that are already at the highest latitudes, such as Polar Bears which depend on sea ice, will disappear.
Ocean Acidification. So far about 30% of the excess carbon dioxide generated by human activity has been absorbed by the oceans. This is a good thing for the atmosphere but a bad thing for the oceans. As carbon dioxide is absorbed by the oceans it forms a weak acid called carbonic acid. This makes the oceans slightly more acidic and the process is continuing. This is very bad news for creatures that rely on carbonate to make their shells. These creatures include some of my favorites – mussels, crabs, oysters, clams and others such as coral that are critical to the bio-diversity of the ocean.
There are many other effects but let’s go on to what we can do about it.
Accelerate the switch to renewable energy for electricity production. Roughly 30 percent of US carbon-dioxide emissions come from electricity production, mostly from natural gas and coal. As a bonus, reducing the use of natural gas will also reduce the emission of methane through leaks – a potent greenhouse gas. A carbon tax will make a big difference here.
Accelerate the switch to electric vehicles. Roughly 28% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US come from transportation – primarily from the burning of petroleum products. A carbon tax along with a buyback of older, more polluting vehicles will have a strong impact.
Reduce industrial emissions. Roughly 22% of US greenhouse gas emissions are from industrial activities, primarily burning of fossil fuels but also through leaks in production equipment. A carbon tax along with a return to stronger rules on leaks and bans on certain activities such as flaring gas will make a big difference. More and better recycling will also reduce the amount of energy required to produce many items.
Eat less meat. Cattle are responsible for some 35% of methane emissions in this country. More efficient production will help as will a reduction in consumption.
The President has proposed a large investment in renewable energy and ‘green’ jobs and these are certainly needed, but I don’t think they go far enough. A significant carbon tax is going to be required to incentivize industry to take steps and make investments that will reduce carbon dioxide generation. The tax should focus not just on direct emissions but also on downstream emissions over the lifespan of the product. The government also needs to support efforts to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, primarily by reforestation efforts and perhaps taking some land out of agriculture and returning it to forested land. Regulations governing petroleum and natural gas exploration and production need to be strengthened. There’s really no time to waste.
I’ll have more on this soon, but I welcome your thoughts. Our grandchildren are depending on us.
Now that President Biden has been sworn in, it’s time to get down to business. I posted a week or so ago a list of five areas where I believe America needs to make some serious progress if we are to defuse some of the anger that pervades parts of our society and make economic and social progress toward an America that works for all of us and is sustainable.
The first of these areas is the need to provide economic security for working men and women. Over the past few decades, the share of income going to what we might call the ‘working class’ has declined significantly even while the cost of housing, education, child care and so forth have all increased. This issue has contributed directly to increased number of young people living with their parents, decline in the marriage rate and rapidly increasing levels of household debt. We urgently need to deal with this problem; here’s how.
Increase The Minimum Wage. The current minimum wage in the US is $7.25 per hour. In 1968, the minimum wage was $1.60. If the minimum wage had kept up with the increase in worker productivity, it would be over $19 today. We need to increase the minimum wage to at least $15/hour ($31,200/year). Further, we need to do this quickly and not put it off until 2025 or even later as some politicians seem to want. The minimum wage needs to be at $15/hour not later than January 1, 2022 and needs to be indexed to inflation from that point. This increase will affect between 20 and 30 million working Americans and help them feel they are being compensated fairly for their labor. They will be able to afford a life with dignity.
You will hear a lot of people say that increasing the minimum wage will cost jobs and, to be sure, some jobs will be lost. But the increase in purchasing power of the millions of Americans who receive pay increases will help offset that and create new jobs. A lot of business owners will say that they cannot afford to pay that much and will go out of business. To them I say that if your business plan depends on paying starvation wages to your employees, you need to make some changes. Some will say that the minimum wage in their state/county/city/region should be lower because wages there are lower than the rest of the country. But we don’t want to perpetuate pockets of poverty in our country. All Americans deserve a decent wage.
I should point out that by increasing the minimum wage, the government will save significant amounts of money in the cost of food stamps, rent subsidies, certain tax credits and so forth. We need to do this.
Limit Child-Care Costs for Families. Childcare costs have skyrocketed in the past decade. The average cost for a year of full-time care averaged about $9600 in 2019. The median wage in 2019 was about $35,000 and the median household income was about $68,000. You can see what a bite childcare can take out of a family’s budget, particularly if there is more than one child. The result is either poverty or one parent dropping out of the workforce (usually a woman) to care for children which further reduces the household income.
The Child Care for Working Families Act, introduced by Patty Murray in the previous congress would limit the amount that families pay for child care to 7% of their household income. It would also strengthen existing child care and fund training for childcare workers. It would also support universal access to quality pre-school programs. We need to enact this legislation for the sake of our children.
Housing Costs. Fewer and fewer American families can afford decent housing. There are a variety of reasons for this including the depressed wages of working class families. The increase in the minimum wage should help deal with that a bit. One of the largest contributors to the high cost of housing, though, is restrictive zoning and regulations. The most affordable housing to build are apartments but zoning in many places strictly limits the amount of land available for housing. Other local restrictions like parking requirements, height limits, minimum lot sizes and so on limit the amount of affordable housing that can be built. While zoning is a local issue, the Federal government can set certain standards and withhold funding from localities that have unreasonable restrictions.
Strengthen Unions. One of the reasons the country was more equal in the 1950s and 1960s was that unions were stronger. They were able to negotiate a fair share of the economy’s gains for workers. Unions helped improve working conditions and wages for everyone. But unions have weakened and the decline of the middle class almost exactly tracks the decline of unions.
Unions raise wages for all types of workers and improve benefits for workers including health insurance, retirement, paid sick leave and family leave. Unions are an important check on the power of corporations and the wealthy in our democracy. Unions support policies that help low and moderate-income voters. Corporate interest groups such as the National Restaurant Association, National Chamber of Commerce and oil companies almost always lobby against the interests of low and moderate-income voters.
Here’s what needs to be done to strengthen unions and help restore the middle class:
Make it easier to join a union with a simple up or down vote. Right now, long delays and procedural hurdles give big employers plenty of time to whip up campaigns against unions, even threatening they’ll close down and move somewhere else if a union is voted in.
Real penalties for companies that violate labor laws by firing workers or intimidating others. These moves are illegal, but nowadays the worst that can happen is employers get slapped on the wrist. If found guilty they have to repay lost wages to the workers they fire. Some employers treat this as a cost of doing business. Penalties should be large enough to stop this.
Enact Federal Laws that pre-empt state ‘right to work’ laws. These laws are really ‘right to free-load’ laws. They allow employees to receive all the benefits of union representation without contributing to the cost of running the union. States that have ‘right to work’ laws have wages that are an average of $1500/year lower than other states. Workers in right-to-work states are also less likely to have health benefits and pension benefits.
Allow Workers to strike, picket or boycott their own employers and other employers. Currently, unions can only negotiate or strike their own employers. Companies these days outsource work to other companies they control in order to limit the rights of employees to negotiate with their ‘real’ employer. Labor laws must be adapted to our current economy.
We’ve ignored our working women and men for too long. We need to take action to make our country more equitable and ensure that those who work in our country receive fair compensation for their labor and can afford to be a part of the American dream. These are my thoughts about how to do that and I’d love to hear yours.
Some of you may be looking for last minute gifts or something to read over the holidays or next year. Here, in no particular order, are some books I particularly enjoyed this past year. I’ve tried to include a brief description of each and I’ve added a link to an outside review for those who want to learn more about a particular book.
There There, by Tommy Orange is a wonderful book. It was one of NYT’s best books of the year in 2018. It’s set in Oakland and the title comes from the famous Gertrude Stein quoted about Oakland. It’s a wonderful, picaresque story about being a native american in the city about ‘Indians pretending to be Indians’ and searching for belonging. HERE’s the NYT review.
City of Girls is by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. It’s an odd love story set in the New York City theater world of the 1940s and told from the perspective of an older woman looking back on her youth with pleasure and a bit of regret. There sex and promiscuity and a lot of fun. I found it an enjoyable read. Here’s the NPR review.
In The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead tells the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in the Jim Crow era of Florida. It’s based on the infamous Dozier School where, at the time he was writing the book, archeology students were digging up and trying to identify the remains of students who had been tortured, raped, mutilated and buried in a secret graveyard. It’s a remarkable book that shines a light on a shameful part of American history. Here is the NYT review.
Squeeze Me, by Carl Hiaasen offers, as you might expect, some wild escapism. Be warned though, if you are wearing a MAGA hat you might not like this one. The story takes place mostly in Palm Beach near the ‘Casa Bellicosa’ where the President, whom the secret service has code-named ‘Mastadon’ spends many a day and night. One of his neighbors, a prominent dowager falls drunk into a pond and is swallowed by a python. The entire book is too funny for words. Here is the NYT review.
Erik Larson is an amazing writer of nonfiction events ranging from hurricanes to ship sinkings to crime. In The Splendid and the Vile he writes intelligently and in amazing detail about Winston Churchill and his family during the blitz. On Churchill’s first day as Prime Minister, Germany invaded Belgium and Holland and Dunkirk was just two weeks away. Despite this and a multitude of personal issues, he held the country together under the most trying circumstances and eventually prevailed. The book is very well written. Read the NPR review HERE.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips was a finalist for the National Book Award and other awards and one of New York Times ten best. One August afternoon, on the shoreline of the Kamchatka peninsula at the northeastern edge of Russia, two girls—sisters, eight and eleven—go missing. The search continues over a year in Kamchatka – a place with soaring volcanoes, dense forests, open tundra and where people still herd reindeer and are suspicious of outsiders. It’s a great read and full of interesting characters. Read the review at The Columbia Review HERE.
I do read science fiction from time to time and I enjoy it but most don’t make the cut to be in my top twenty of the year. Exhalation by Ted Chiang certainly does. Chiang doesn’t write novels; he sticks to short stories and this collection of nine stories is his best. NYT made it one of the ten best of the year as did many other publications. Chiang proves that science fiction doesn’t have to be dystopian and these original, provocative and often poignant stories will have you questioning what it means to be human along with many other questions. Read the NPR review HERE.
Half of a Yellow Sun is a wonderful book by a gifted writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The title is an allusion to the flag of the short-lived Biafran republic. The book describes the events that led up to the secession of the Igbo-dominated Biafra from the rest of Nigeria and the war and famine that followed. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. We experience the hope of independence movements everywhere and see that hope dashed. Read the NYT review HERE.
Educated is another one of the NYT ‘Best Books of the Year’ and winner of many awards. It’s the story of Tara Westover who grew up as one of seven children in a survivalist family in Southern Utah. She received almost nothing in the way of schooling and was subject to violence by her father and brother. Her father was so wary of government that four of her siblings didn’t have birth certificates. Despite all of this she decided to get out into the world and was admitted to Brigham Young University and eventually Cambridge University where she earned her doctorate in history. It’s an amazing story. Read the NYT review HERE.
A Burning, Megha Majumdar’s debut novel is tautly written and reads like a thriller. After a terrorist bombing of a train, Jivan, a young woman, writes a careless post on Facebook complaining about the ineffective police. Of course that targets her and three days later she is arrested and beaten into confessing to the bombing. We see other characters, a teacher who sees his political rise tied to Jivan’s fall and Lovely, an outcast who has the alibi to set Jivan free but speaking up would cost her everything. It’s a fast read and something you won’t forget. Here’s the WaPo review.
In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale‘ we learned how The United States became a theocratic totalitarian state where women are treated as nothing but wombs, nonwhites and unbelievers are expelled, resettled or disposed of and race and class are used to divide the people. ‘The Testaments‘, Margaret Atwood’s stunning sequel set fifteen years later we learn that there are spies in Gilead, determined to bring it down. We also delve more deeply into its founding and possible end as the lives of three radically different women converge with explosive results. It’s a great read. Here’s the NYT review.
Bernadine Evaristo was co-winner of the Booker Prize last year (along with Margaret Atwood, above) for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. It’sa magnificent portrayal of the intersections of identity and a moving and hopeful story of an interconnected group of Black British women that paints a vivid portrait of the state of contemporary Britain. The story begins just hours before the debut of a play at the National Theatre in London, and it ends 450 pages later as the audience spills into the lobby. But during that brief window of time, Evaristo spins out a whole world. Novella-length chapters draw us deep into the lives of 12 women of various backgrounds and experiences. From a nonbinary social media influencer to a 93-year-old woman living on a farm in Northern England, these unforgettable characters also intersect in shared aspects of their identities, from age to race to sexuality to class. It’s witty and emotional and we hear voices that are often sidelined. I strongly recommend it. Here’s the WaPo review.
I recently wrote about The Association of Small Bombs in this blog. I liked it a lot. The book, by Karan Mahajan, was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of many other prizes. When Mahajan was young, Kashmiri extremists set off a bomb in a market hear his home. In this book, separatists set off a bomb in a small market in Delhi killing, among others, two brothers and injuring their friend. We learn about how the survivors go on and we learn about the internal life of those who placed the bomb and why. It’s a fascinating and wonderfully written exploration and story. Here is the WaPo review.
Strangers and Cousins, by Leah Hager Cohen, is an enjoyable story about what happens when a large and chaotic family hosts an even larger and more chaotic wedding. It’s loud and funny and there are, of course, conflicts of all kinds but at the end problems find a way to be resolved and familial love perseveres. It was a WaPo ten best novel and it really is a lot of fun to read. Here is the NYT review.
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste is a wonderful book to read. They language is lyrical and sometimes you want to read a sentence or a paragraph again just because of the feel of the words. It’s set in the first real conflict of World War II; Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. At its heart is orphaned maid Hirut, who finds herself tumbling into a new world of thefts and violations, of betrayals and overwhelming rage. Hirut is a compelling hero. Fighting the Italian invaders and raging against the continued violation at the hands of her commander she finally, in the middle of a battle, loses her fear of death and runs toward the Italian army tapping her own chest and saying, ‘Boom’. There is no comedy or humor in this book but it is wonderful and you should read it. Here is the NPR review.
American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson is a kind of literary thriller. It certainly starts with a bang. On page 1 the narrator hears a noise in her bedroom and she grabs her handgun just before an armed man enters her room. She ends up with a few bruises, he ends up dead. It’s 1986, the heart of the Cold War, and Marie Mitchell is an intelligence officer with the FBI. She’s brilliant, but she’s also a young black woman working in an old boys’ club. Her career has stalled out, she’s overlooked for every high-profile squad, and her days are filled with monotonous paperwork. So when she’s given the opportunity to join a shadowy task force aimed at undermining Thomas Sankara, the charismatic revolutionary president of Burkina Faso whose Communist ideology has made him a target for American intervention, she says yes even though she admires Sankara. In the year that follows, Marie will observe Sankara, seduce him, and ultimately have a hand in the coup that will bring him down. But doing so will change everything she believes about what it means to be a spy, a lover, a sister, and a good American. It’s darkly funny and very good. Here’s the NPR review.
I hope this will give you some ideas. I selected these from many more that I read this past year. Please comment and let me know what you’ve been reading that you really like.
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