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slug: Historic Deerfield Winter Lecture Series
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DEERFIELD, MASS. â The Historic Deerfield Winter Lecture series, starting January 23, features three experts who will speak on the Shaker seed industry, Victorian seed catalogs and the role of Chinese plants in American gardens. All three lectures are free and open to the public.
M. Stephen Miller will present the lecture, âThe Shaker Seed Industry, 1790â1890: A Century of Evolution,â January 23 at 2 pm in the White Community Church on Memorial Street in Old Deerfield
Miller, who has collected and researched objects from the Shaker Industries for the last 25 years, will present an illustrated talk on the Shaker seed industry, the groupâs largest revenue-producing business. He will focus on the Shaker community from New Lebanon, N.Y., and show some of this communityâs seed envelopes, wooden seed boxes, advertising posters and broadsides.
The next lecture, scheduled for February 27 at 2 pm, will feature Maureen Horn, librarian for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society Library in Wellesley. With 40,000 seed catalogs, the horticultural society has one of the largest collections of seed catalogs, and Horn will draw from the collection to discuss the use of seed catalogs over the centuries and how they have evolved.
Maida Goodwin, project archivist in the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College, will present final lecture in the series, March 20 at 2 pm. Shewill lecture on âMother of Gardens: The Journey of Chinese Plants to Western Gardens,â focusing on how the bringing of plants from China in the Nineteenth Century to the Western world dramatically altered the landscape. For example, chrysanthemums, camellias, rhododendrons and azaleas are native Chinese plants that are now commonplace in American gardens.
For information on the lecture series 413-775-7214 or www.Historic-Deerfield.org.
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ROCOCO PRINTS ON VIEW AT WORCESTER w/1 cut emailed
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WORCESTER, MASS. â Ornamental images combined with craftsmanship are the focus of a new Worcester Art Museum exhibition, âRococo: French Eighteenth Century Prints,â on view through March 20.
The museum draws from its print collection to exhibit examples of the rococo style by leading artists of the time including Boucher, Jean Honoré Fragonard and Jean-Antoine Watteau.
The rococo period, which corresponded roughly with the reign of Louis XV, was the acme of intaglio printmaking technology, when artisans combined etching, engraving, aquatint and mezzotint in lavish color prints.
Arabesque lines characterize the style, along with asymmetrical, shell-like shapes that became progressively more delicate. Rococo takes its name from rocaille, meaning rock or shell-grotto, and baroco, the Italian for Baroque.
The rich colors favored by Charles Le Brunâs Academy in Louis XVIâs reign were eventually replaced by soft, pastel hues. Artists like Watteau painted fanciful, courtly subjects with curvaceous delicacy, replacing the preceding reignâs weighty symbols of power.
When the Marquise de Pompadour became Louis XVs mistress in 1745, her taste for the rococo set the fashion. As administrator of the royal residences, her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, favored rococo artists like Boucher and Fragonard. There was great demand for printed replicas of famous images by these versatile artists, who worked as printmakers themselves.
To engage the buying public, other artisans perfected color intaglio techniques to replicate the look of a colored chalk, pastel or watercolor drawing. This visual and technical refinement ran parallel to developments in science and philosophy.
Voltaireâs appointment as royal historiographer in 1745 marked the widespread interest in thought and inquiry that characterized the Age of Enlightenment. The monarchy eroded in the reign of King Louis XVI. In 1789, the French Revolution replaced the finesse of the rococo with classical revival. In the last years of the century, the triumphs of Napoleonâs empire were reflected in neoclassical images by artists who once worked in the rococo style.
Hours are WednesdayâSunday, 11 am to 5 pm; Thursday, 11 am to 8 pm; and Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm. Admission is $8. For information, www.worcesterart.org or 508-799-4406.Â