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~*~
'Foxglove Year', was painted in the summer of 1913, apparently notable for foxgloves and worth recording in watercolour. Tolkien had been doing paintings and drawings from life since boyhood. 1913 was also the year Tolkien became engaged to Edith Bratt. Fr. Francis Morgan, Tolkien's guardian, had forbidden him to see Edith until he'd come of age, and, on Tolkien's twenty-first birthday, 3 January 1913, he dashed off a proposal.
That summer, Edith was staying in Warwick with her cousin, Jennie Grove. Her relations, opposed to her conversion to Catholicism (she agreed to convert before marrying Tolkien, a devout Catholic), had turned her out. While Edith was in Warwick, Tolkien traveled into Worchestershire, staying for a while with his maternal cousins, the Incledons. They had a cottage in Barnt Green Tolkien loved to visit, both for the company of his cousins and its idyllic setting. At the bottom of this post I've included another watercolour Tolkien painted while staying there, a view of the Incledon's garden filled with flowers. In just one week it will have been one hundred years since Tolkien painted the foxgloves of Barnt Green. So much time has gone by, but Tolkien's watercolours are still vibrant and fresh.
Tolkien must have been feeling very content and high-hearted during his stay in Worchestershire, both because of the high summer beauty all around him and because he was engaged to Edith at last. Jan-u-wine's poem well conveys the mood, both of the watercolour and its painter.~*~
Foxglove Year
It was a foxglove year.
A foxglove year,
the sirening purple-ivory-pink
revelry of them
rioting within an
unremarkable
Spring.
It was a foxglove year,
the winds above the oak
yet chill with retreated Winter,
the tender green of fern-shoots
growing about the chocolate ribbon
of rain-wet earth.
It was a foxglove year,
sun and shadow
hide-and-go-seeking
among staid trees,
a robin's-egg sky
flying its lac'd flag
between wind-teased
branches.
A foxglove year:
a time of faerie,
a place of dreams
a moment of holding fast.
~*~
~ The Incledon's Cottage at Barnt Green, 12 July 1913, by J. R. R. Tolkien.
Previous entry:~ "The Tree of Amalion" by jan-u-wine for drawing of the same name by Tolkien.
Other Links:~ All entries featuring jan-u-wine's poems.
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http://www.amazon.com/J-R-R-Tolkien-Illustrator-Wayne-Hammond/dp/0618083618/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372465019&sr=1-1&keywords=J.R.R.+Tolkien%3A+Artist+and+Illustrator
Hammond and Scull's text is excellent at presenting and explaining the pictures.
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Thanks to you both.
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a robin's-egg sky
flying its lac'd flag
between wind-teased
branches.
Wonderful image! I loved this description of Jan's best.
I hope you and the kitties are well.
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The kitties are fine. Still costly to keep healthy, but sooooooooo darling. Yours?
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>>Tolkien must have been feeling very content and high-hearted during his stay in Worchestershire, both because of the high summer beauty all around him and because he was engaged to Edith at last.<<
There is something so poignant about that when you consider the year - 1913. Little did he know what lay in store for him - and the rest of the world.
Many thanks to you both, Mechtild and Jan, for another interesting post and beautiful poem:)
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You live near Barnt Green???? Is there still some of the loveliness Tolkien so much enjoyed in Worchestershire? I hope so. I read that the view he painted from the top of Bilberry Hill looking towards King's Norton is all built over (if that is also Worchestershire), but maybe it isn't true all over.
And what about your hip replacement? Is it a happening thing anytime soon? I'm beginning to think it's time for mine. I'm away again caring for my mother and I'm really feeling it. Who knows, we may be bonded in hip replacement-hood in 2013. :)
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I've been told I won't be having the hip replacement until I've had the op for the hiatus hernia and I still don't know when that will be. Sorry to hear you're a fellow sufferer!
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Here's a small internet copy of Tolkien's watercolour of the view of King's Norton from Bilberry Hill:
http://www.tolkien-archives.com/gallery/tolkien-earlyyears/kingsnorton-bilberryhill.jpg
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By the way, Not Alone, Frodo looks SO sexy in your icon!
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You know, I thought the same thing as you, when i noted the year. Still......I think there were many signs of what was about to happen, although no one could know how very cruel mankind would end up being to each other.
have you ever seen a cartoon called "Peace on Earth"? Everytime I see it, I think of Tolkien and what he saw in the war. Here is a link if you have never seen it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8stkqssLYc
of course, were it not for that terrible war, would he have written LOTR? I wonder.....
I am glad you enjoyed the post, Paulie and hope you are well!
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We'll never know, of course, if Tolkien would still have written LOTR if there had been no WW1 but if he had it would probably have been very different in parts - we know that his experiences in the war were behind several events in the book:)
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(it was nominated for an Oscar, i believe)
Re Tolkien: not only the events, but, of course, the character of Samwise was modeled on an officer's 'batman'. And Tolkien (though I can't say I agree) has said that Sam is the hero of the piece. Just as i imagine that the Brit batman may very well have been the hero to many an officer's story.
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Curious, in my line of work I came across someone with the surname Incledon the other day ...
It's Worcestershire, by the way. :) A beautiful county. Shakespeare's home county! And very, very Shire-like.
The summer of 1913 is renowned for being a very hot one. In the USA, but also in the UK, I think. Which makes me feel sad. A beautiful, dreamy, hot summer, content in the presence of the woman you love. A respite before the oncoming storm. Before the unimaginable carnage that would be unleashed. Before the war that would change our world forever. We are feeling the repercussions from that terrible war, 100 years later. As Tolkien said, 'the machines have won'.
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I didn't realize 1913's summer was an especially warm one, Pearl. If it wasn't too dry, I imagine the gardens and crops must have done very well. Yes, it's ironic that such a verdant summer came before a series of such terrible years, but I'm glad it was there, that summer idyll before the seemingly endless season of hardship and death. (I imagine, though, dire things were already afoot in 1913, even if not in England.)
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