The Week in Meep: It's A Grand Old Country!
250 Years Young! Let's Keep Rockin' in the New Millennium! Plus Japanese prints!
I’ve been a bit tired/out of it lately, so haven’t been doing the “Week in Meep” feature as often. Indeed, I pretty much slept through the 4th of July… but that’s okay, everybody records everything nowadays, so I get to enjoy the celebrations after the fact!
Local History: Sybil Ludington … one of the local riders
I’ll tell the story of Sybil Ludington in a moment, but there’s a prominent statue of her riding sidesaddle that I often pass as I drive in Carmel, NY, as it’s situated next to Lake Gleneida on the way to several places I like to shop.
This is the statue before it was recently spiffed up:
Yeah, it’s bronze, so it’s done the oxidation thing that bronze does.
It’s been outdoors for about 60 years at this point, so they decided it was a good idea to clean it up for the 250th birthday:
Ah, nice and bronze-y again.
Here’s a better pic from the Putnam Historian facebook account, after all the workmen have gone:
It’s a good statue.
Here’s a Liberty Kids version of her story:
Here’s the way I’m going to tell it:
Sybil Ludington died at the age of 77 in 1839. In 1854, one of Sybil’s nephews, Charles H. Ludington, wrote a letter regarding upcoming July 4th celebrations, saying his aunt should be recognized as a Revolutionary War hero for her ride in 1777. That’s the first known written record (so far) mentioning her ride:
“My Aunt Sybil,” her nephew wrote, rode “on horseback in the dead of night...through a Country infested with Cowboys and Skinners to inform Gen’l Putnam.”
The Ludington family obviously had discussed Sybil’s famous ride amongst themselves before this. That this is the first item where someone wrote it down doesn’t mean that it never happened. In any case, people can dispute aspects of the story. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t.
The story is that the night of April 26, 1777, the British torched Danbury, CT, and various riders from that area fanned out to warn others of the danger. Somebody went to her family’s house to warn them. Sybil rode around Putnam and Westchester Counties to gather militiamen for her father, who met up with other Patriot troops in the Battle of Ridgefield.
The claim is that Sybil rode a total of 40 miles in a loop to gather the troops. There are disputes as to the length of her ride, and whether she rode at all. Given her father was in the Battle of Ridgefield on April 27, with militiamen, somebody gathered them. They didn’t randomly wander over to Ridgefield. It could have been the effort of multiple people to organize the group, to be sure.
I live in North Salem, and you can see how we abut western Connecticut. Ridgefield/Ridgebury is just on the other side of the border. Danbury is not far away.
There have been other famous loops through our area (such as the Leatherman), but let me not get into that today. Whether Sybil Ludington rode 40 miles or not (I think she did ride, but perhaps a smaller loop), it is a really cool statue.
Rock and Roll, America!
Even if I were not feeling unwell, I rarely stay up late enough for fireworks.
So here is a smattering of displays from yesterday:
Washington, DC:
Boston:
NYC:
(I wish they wouldn’t do the AI thing, but oh well)
Mount Vernon, VA
This has some stuff additional to fireworks:
EPCOT Center (aka Disney in Florida):
Have a National Mass of Thanksgiving!
In addition to fireworks, why not have a Mass?
When D & I can’t get to Mass in person on a Sunday, we often watch recorded Masses from the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, as it’s the nation’s Basilica. (There are other choices, too — my parish’s livestream, as well as St. Patrick’s Cathedral livestream… quite the wealth of choices).
For these special Masses, they go a bit longer, as they add a LOT of music.
The recording is longer than the Mass, actually - there’s introductory music. The Mass starts about an hour into the recording. Yes, they include the national anthem.
The recessional hymn (spoiler!) is America the Beautiful, so let me post the best rendition…
Japan & USA USA USA!
This is a little random, but I really enjoy some of the art from Japan when Americans visited Japan or Japanese visited the U.S. in the 19th century:
Here are examples from the collection of the Met.
U.S. Grant was president from March 4, 1869 to March 4, 1877, and after his tumultuous 2-term presidency was over, he took a world tour.
He was in Japan for July 4, 1879, though I don’t know if they had any special July 4th ceremonies for him while he was there. July 7th is tanabata, the “star festival”, and there are all sorts of summer festivals involving fireworks… which he probably got to see.
Met description of the print:
This print was commissioned to commemorate the former American president's visit to Tokyo (Edo was renamed Tokyo when the emperor made it his residence in 1868) and his attendance at a Kabuki performance. Like many prints executed during the Meiji era, this one acted as a type of Japanese photojournalism. As such, the speed with which it was executed and the number of copies made are partly responsible for the general decline in quality most noticeable in the color registration and uneven paint application. The setting of the print can be identified as Tokyo's new Western-style Main Street located in the Ginza district and designed by the English architect Thomas Waters. In their choice of setting, Kunichika and Kunisada III consciously celebrate the advent of modernism in Japan. Likewise, the artists made a bold statement of the Meiji era's strong nationalistic sentiment by the repetition of Japan's newly adopted flag and by the rhythms created by the pattern of the flags' brillian red centers. The bold silhouettes of hte seven Kabuki actors, one of whom wears a Western bowler hat, dominate the print as they watch Grant's silhouetted procession. According to Julia Meech, the dramatic emphasis of the actors' silhouettes recalls the tradition of Japanese shadow theater, a premise strengthened by the hand gestures made by four group members.
The next set of prints are fabulous.
Utagawa Yoshitora
Utagawa Yoshitora was a prolific printmaker, but I cannot find out much about him (not in English anyway). Westerners would consider Utagawa his surname or “last name”. He had been in the “Utagawa school” for printmakers — that is, he wasn’t the child of Utagawa-san, but had been a pupil/apprentice, and thus his name got changed when he professionally was “adopted” into that school.
The few stories we can find of him (can’t even determine when he was born or died), indicate to me that he was very headstrong… which is interesting, considering the Japanese culture. He was kicked out of his artistic master’s workshop (for differences of opinion), and was jailed for implicit criticism of the Japanese government. He kept the Utagawa name, though.
He had plenty of prints of traditional Japanese subjects, but he also had lots of prints of foreigners after the (forced) opening of Japan by Commodore Perry (aka the U.S.) in 1853. These prints were made after Americans had been hanging around for a while.
The U.S.-related prints make me wonder — was he basing these off prints other people were showing him or stories he heard? Some of the prints look like he had drawn pictures of people he saw in Japan…. but did them in the typical Japanese style. He drew Russian couples, French people, English people… but I’m going to focus on the Americans.
These are delightful prints. I want a copy of the balloon one.
No, I can’t read that Japanese at all.
He really liked those balloons.
Sadahide
He wasn’t the only artist making these prints — these had to be popular. In the “Utagawa school”, there were other, more amenable artists. (And because they didn’t get booted out, we actually know more details about them).
Sadahide was one such:
Sadahide Utagawa was a woodblock print artist active during the 19th century. Sadahide went by several names during his career, but was born Kenjiro Hashimoto in 1807. Working in both Edo and Yokohama, he was one of Kunisada’s most accomplished pupils. His compositional style was greatly influenced by Western art, offering extensive studies of perspective, sometimes depicting his subjects from a bird’s eye view. Sadahide was one of eleven Japanese printmakers who exhibited their work at the Paris International Exposition of 1866, from which he received the Légion d’Honneur.
In 1854, the Convention of Kanagawa established formal U.S. trade with Japan. Four years later, the Harris Treaty of 1858 opened two more trade ports to the United States. The Ansei Treaties (1858) followed, extending trade to the Netherlands, Russia, France and England. The foreigners of these five nations poured into the port of Yokohama, just south of modern Tokyo. During this time, Sadahide Utagawa produced a number of acclaimed studies of Westerners known as Yokohama-e. He stayed true to the ukiyo-e spirit by continuing to capture the everyday, a world that now featured baroque architecture, hooped skirts, and violins. Sold by booksellers and vendors, these prints illustrated the curious machines and imported fashions entering Japan, as well as imagined renderings of the foreigners’ homelands.
Sadahide, like Utagawa Yoshitora, was active when Japan was opened to the West, so had several prints depicting Americans:
Again, it’s unclear if Sadahide was working from someone else’s print/sketch, or if he had been to California himself (it’s possible).
Anyway, thought these were some neat prints. I definitely want one of the balloons.
Comments are open.
Happy 4th, Mary Pat. I always enjoy your writing.
That's a beautiful bronze statue, but I rather like the green patina