Europacollective

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

so-so

This started off well, but ultimately didn't draw me in. I have a lot of questions about Mona's family. I realize I live in America, where rent is a nightmare and healthcare is impossible, so maybe I'm wrong to wonder, but how can they afford to live in Paris when Paul's shop is going under and Camille only works part time? Also, does Paul not have parents? Why is there zero mention of his family? #europacollective

Tamra I‘m lowering my expectations for this one. The premise though really had me looking forward to it. 14h

lauraisntwilder @Tamra Parts of it were really lovely and the discussions about the artwork were generally interesting. 14h

14 likes2 comments

mcctrish

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

Ch 34: Piet Mondrian Simplfy. Mona‘s last hypnosis session = the truth is out about her sight failing twice, Mona‘s last Wednesday at Musée d‘Orsay but art therapy will continue over summer vacation ? PM‘s ‘Haystacks III‘ c1908 (top right) what?! This can‘t be Mondrain! says everybody everywhere. And so we learn. ‘Mill of Heeswijk‘ c1904 is an early Mondrian when he was doing a Vermeer-ish realism style. Then he found Expressionism cont‘d

mcctrish Expressionism is when “.. (a) lived sensation prevails over real perception” which is very present in ‘Windmill in Sunlight‘ c1908 ( lower middle) both Windmill and Haystacks are in PM‘s midpoint of evolution as a painter. He embraces simplicity and evolves to the Mondrian everyone knows in ‘Tableau I‘ c1921 ( left) #europacollective 2d

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LitsyEvents

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine | Alina Bronsky

#EuropaCollective
Leslie and I hope you enjoyed the first reborn
#EuropaCollective read: Mona's Eyes. The discussion is on Leslie's thread, feel free to comment there once you've finished the book.
For January, we'd like to announce the tagged book as our second read. We'll discuss it in the last weekend of the month. We'll keep you posted, let me know when you want to be tagged or removed from the List via @Lesliereadsalot @BarbaraBB

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BarbaraBB

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine | Alina Bronsky

#EuropaCollective

Leslie and I hope you enjoyed the first reborn #EuropaCollective read: Mona‘s Eyes. The discussion is on Leslie‘s thread, feel free to comment there once you‘ve finished the book.

For January, we‘d like to announce the tagged book as our second read. We‘ll discuss it in the last weekend of the month. We‘ll keep you posted, let me know when you want to be tagged or removed from the taglist!

mcctrish, Caryl, GatheringBooks, tpixie, DrSabrinaMoldenReads, AmyG, kspenmoll, TheBookHippie, Gleefulreader, mhillis, youneverarrived, Sapphire, TheKidUpstairs, Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick, Suet624, Deblovestoread, charl08, JulietteReadsALot, Tamra, lauraisntwilder, Amor4Libros, Chelsea.Poole, squirrelbrain, Cathythoughts, CBee, Lesliereadsalot, LitsyEvents, willaful

TheKidUpstairs Ooh, fun! I'll have to see if I can find a copy. I really liked

Baba Dunja's Last Love

Amor4Libros This sounds great! 3d

Suet624 Just ordered it through Better World Books. Looks good! 3d

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TheBookHippie Still waiting on my hold 😆 3d

TheBookHippie Will try to locate this one! 3d

Deblovestoread Sounds great. Hope to get Mona‘s Eyes read soon. 3d

squirrelbrain Thanks for the tag! 3d

Sapphire One of my earliest from Europa. Loved it once I caught “the voice”. Will def be here for the discussion! Thanks. 3d

Liz_M I just bought it recently! Please tag me for this one 3d

tpixie Great cover!! 3d

Tamra Thank you for the tag. 😁 3d

GatheringBooks I have been waiting for the January book and was about to ask. Woohoo! I read Baba Dunja‘s Last Love by Bronsky in 2020. Featured it here: https://gatheringbooks.org/2020/07/25/saturday-reads-85/ 3d

BarbaraBB @TheKidUpstairs @GatheringBooks That one sounds good. Hopefully this one will be as well! 3d

BarbaraBB @Liz_M Will do💕 3d

BarbaraBB @Sapphire That‘s Good to know! 3d

Chelsea.Poole I‘ve never heard of this one…off to find a copy. Thanks to you both for putting this together! 2d

mcctrish I‘m in 2d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick This sounds interesting, and it looks like I can borrow it from a nearby library within our sharing network. I should be in, barring any minor catastrophe. 2d

BarbaraBB @Amor4Libros @Suet624 @TheBookHippie @Deblovestoread @Chelsea.Poole @mcctrish @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick Glad you‘re all in for this one. I hope you‘ll be able to find a copy, but there‘s plenty of time so fingers crossed! 2d

BookNAround Can I be added to the tag list for January despite being terrible at group reads? I already have a copy of this one. 2d

willaful Wow, my library has it. 🤯 2d

BarbaraBB @willaful Yay! 2d

BarbaraBB @BookNAround Of course you can! Happy to have you! 2d

sarahbarnes This sounds like a fun read - can I join? 2d

BarbaraBB @sarahbarnes Of course 💕! We‘ll tag you! 2d

Lesliereadsalot @BookNAround I‘m not that great at group reads either but Europa Press has so many interesting books. Thanks for giving this a try! 1d

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mcctrish

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

Ch 33: Vilhelm Hammershøi Make your inner self talk. Paul‘s tinkering = success and Mona is ashamed that her joy for him is tinged with worry about him backsliding into drinking ? Dadé and Mona walk thru‘ the Tuileries Garden ( bottom left) for ice cream on their way to Musée d‘Orsay. The sunlight thru‘ the trees has Dadé telling her about ‘phosphene‘ light spots on the retina & Brion Gysin‘s ‘Dreamachines‘ ( upper right) cont‘d

mcctrish Both phenomena can put the viewer in a restful state, leading Dadé and Mona to VH‘s painting ‘Rest‘( upper left) which is meditative to view, soothing colours, the portrait‘s stillness, the viewer and the model contemplating the same wall. Dadé watching Mona thinks of René Magritte‘s ‘Not to be Reproduced‘ ( lower right) a lot of VH‘s work focuses on inner worlds, physical and mental, and serenity #europacollective 3d

30 likes1 comment

mcctrish

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

Ch 32: Gustav Klimt Let death wishes live. Mona is growing up, summer approaches and she worries about the time with her Dadé and art ending. They visit GK‘s ‘Rose Bushes Under the Trees‘ ( bottom left) which imo looks like magic painted onto a canvas which Dadé explains, with Mona‘s help, to be an explosion “an enthusiastic dynamism” this esthetic comes from Impressionism, mosaic based on tessellae ( bottom right) and decorative arts cont‘d

mcctrish What I learned; this painting was returned to heirs of original owners ( ‘sold‘ to Nazis in Vienna in 1938), Hitler applied to Vienna‘s Academy of Art in 1907 and was declined kicking off his villain era ( making his side gig of hoarding of art as he marched across Europe make sense) GK‘s famous painting ‘The Kiss‘ ( top right) was a bucket list see for me when we went to Vienna. It hangs in Belvedere Palace ( middle right) #europacollective 4d

GatheringBooks Wow, what a fantastic collage. Love the trivia bits, too. Haven‘t reached this part yet. 4d

BarbaraBB I saw The Kiss at the Klimt exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum last year and it was beyond my expectations 🤩 3d

mcctrish @BarbaraBB honestly GK had to have used magic when he painted 🤯 3d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick I agree with your assessment that he must have used magic. I'm always drawn to his work. There's a luminosity to them. 2d

31 likes5 comments

Lesliereadsalot

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

#EuropaCollective

Hi everyone! We hope you‘ve had time to read Mona‘s Eyes and are ready to discuss. We‘ve only tagged everyone once so scroll down to see all the discussion questions and feel free to ask your own. We hope you‘ll join the discussion even if you‘re only partially through the book. Stay tuned for info about the January read!

mcctrish, Caryl, GatheringBooks, tpixie, AmyG, kspenmoll, TheBookHippie, Gleefulreader, mhillis, youneverarrived, TheKidUpstairs, Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick, Suet624, Deblovestoread, charl08, JulietteReadsALot, Tamra, lauraisntwilder, Amor4Libros, Chelsea.Poole, Saphire, squirrelbrain, Cathythoughts, BarbaraBB, CBee, willaful

AmyG I apologize as I didn‘t get to read this. 4d

BarbaraBB I loved so many of them. I think the Vermeer, and the Magritte are my favorites. I‘ve been working for museums in the Netherlands for about 15 years now and always visit art museums when traveling so most of the works I knew about. My perspective didn‘t really change but I loved the way he makes us look at the art works. 4d

Chelsea.Poole Unlike @BarbaraBB I‘m very much NOT immersed in the art world. Not because I don‘t appreciate it, just because I don‘t have as many opportunities in my location/current phase of life. So I was changed by many of the descriptions and dives into the works. I was especially struck by Camille Claudel‘s The Age of Maturity. I had a little side quest with this piece and the backstory. The author certainly did a great job of bringing meaning to each work 4d

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BarbaraBB @Chelsea.Poole Camille Claude is a super interesting person, just partly because she was Rodin‘s muse. If you are interested in her I can highly recommend this book:

Camille Claudel: une femme

Lesliereadsalot My favorite was The Wheel of Fortune. Like @Chelsea.Poole I have never been very involved with art, but this one really spoke to me. I would get this for a kindle book cover if I could! I loved the idea of the goddess Fortune turning the wheel for the slave, the king, the poet. The artist said “My wheel of fortune is a true-to-life image; it comes to fetch each of us in turn, then it crushes us.” I love that. 4d

charl08 Thank you so much for organising this read. I got a couple of chapters in and it just didn't grip me, and I've had to return it to the library for another reader. Hopefully they will like it more than me! 4d

Lesliereadsalot @charl08 I felt the same way when I started this book, not exactly a gripper. But the art turned out to be the star of the book, not the plot or the characters. Thanks for trying! 4d

mcctrish I am still reading and savouring this a chapter a day. I love that I‘ve been to all 3 museums and I love spending time with Mona and a different artist each day. I took art in high school and teenaged me wished to see the art we studied in real life one day and I have worked hard at my bucket list of museums and art ever since. It‘s too hard to pick one artist/painting b/c I have so many connections to so many ❤️❤️❤️ 4d

Tamra I will get to it yet! Life got in the way. I do generally really enjoy Europa publications. 😄 4d

Lesliereadsalot @mcctrish A chapter a day is such a good idea and I loved your posts with the pictures. I found I couldn‘t stop when I picked up the book, and I usually read at least 3 chapters at a time. 4d

Lesliereadsalot @Tamra @AmyG Watch for the January book! 4d

AmyG Thanks, I will. Ihave just been way busier than anticipated. 4d

Chelsea.Poole @BarbaraBB thanks for the recommendation! 4d

Suet624 Sadly, I gave up on this one. Looking forward to the January selection. 4d

Lesliereadsalot @Suet624 I almost gave up on this one too, but ended up liking it. See you in January! 4d

GatheringBooks I am only halfway through - and while it started off as strong for me, i like the descriptions of the first few paintings, I found it too technical as it progressed which affected my interest and engagement. I feel that I am being lectured to rather than being told a story. 😅 4d

Sapphire I am enjoying the art, but the “lectures” feel pretty heavy handed. I enjoy Mona‘s reactions more than the art history lessons. But when I visit museums I rarely read the blurbs. I try just to absorb and then dive in more once an artist really speaks to me across several works. I am not done yet, and so far I recognize all the artists but non are favorites yet. I love Monet, Cezzane, Degas. 4d

Lesliereadsalot @Sapphire I‘m with you on the Impressionists. 3d

Lesliereadsalot @GatheringBooks Agreed. Hard to stay interested when there‘s not much of a story! 3d

youneverarrived I was with family all day yesterday so couldn‘t join in but will comment later! (edited) 3d

DrSabrinaMoldenReads Please add me to this! 3d

Lesliereadsalot @DrSabrinaMoldenReads 👌 3d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick I enjoy looking at art, but even after that one art history class 25 years ago, I was never one to dive into the meaning of a work or its place in history. I'm a fan of Klimt, so Rose Bushes under the Trees was my favorite, but I was captivated by the details of The Interesting Student by Marguerite Gérard. I'd pull up the works on my phone to zoom in and really look at it. This one was full of imagery & Henry gave it more depth. Also...pets! 3d

Sapphire @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick I think I will try pulling up some of the works on my phone! 3d

tpixie I think the Vermeer- I‘ve always loved him. @barbarbb I‘m heading to Amsterdam, Delft, The Hague, & Otterlo beginning Wednesday- do you live in the Netherlands?! 🇳🇱 3d

tpixie I also love Dega‘s, the star and the story behind Manet‘s single sprig of asparagus. After Ephrussi paid Manet 1,000 francs for a painting of asparagus, which was 200 francs over the asking price, Manet painted a second, smaller work of a single asparagus spear. He sent it to Ephrussi with a note saying, "There was one missing from your bunch," highlighting his humor. 3d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick @Sapphire I do recommend it. I could zoom in to see details & faces when specific folks were mentioned as subjects. If you're a Google Chrome user, you may also get a pop-up on some of them indicating that you're an art explorer and get a badge! It was a cute surprise. 2d

JulietteReadsALot Still reading it, half through it, but I love the discussion about each work. I feel that to really understand a piece of art, it is necessary to know the context in which it was created. 2d

lauraisntwilder I had the odd experience of realizing I'd seen the painting of Whistler's mother in Paris, when I honestly thought I'd seen it in Chicago. 15h

21 likes29 comments

Lesliereadsalot

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

#EuropaCollective

BarbaraBB

BarbaraBB Yes I definitely went down a rabbit hole reading this book. I really enjoyed that and it‘s great how much more you appreciate a work when having read about it! 4d

Chelsea.Poole Yes! I spent quite a bit of time with each piece. Some matched perfectly and others weren‘t exactly what I had expected. I would switch it up at times too—sometimes I would look up the work before starting the chapter to see how the description would fit. It sort of hypes a person up for viewing a piece after hearing the backstory. 4d

Lesliereadsalot Looking up the actual artworks was what I loved about this book. Reading the history and the details about each one really enhanced my reading. I felt enmeshed in art for the first time in my life! 4d

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mcctrish I looked up so many things, other art work, names mentioned, every day is a new rabbit hole. Reading this a chapter a day gave me the permission I needed to just immerse myself in what each chapter talked about and investigate further 4d

GatheringBooks Oh yes, i made sure i have copies of all the images of the art work and compared it to them while i read. The descriptions enhanced my aesthetic understanding of the art. 4d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick My copy of the book has small versions of the art on the inside of the jacket, so I could see what we were discussing in a small photo, but for most works in the Lourve & Orsay, I searched for then to look more extensively. I tried to look before Henry spoke about it, then again afterward, just for a couple of minutes to take in what I'd missed. I didn't feel the need to do this with much of the modern art. 3d

11 likes6 comments

Lesliereadsalot

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

#EuropaCollective

BarbaraBB

BarbaraBB I think he suggests that seeing is not just visual but also emotional and moral. Regarding understanding I guess he wants to teach is it requires love and attention. Wise lessons! 4d

Chelsea.Poole In our attention-driven society the more eye-catching and exciting the better. And most content is created to be experienced quickly (I‘m looking at you TikTok). But we cannot take everything at face value…we need to spend some time admiring, looking deeper and engaging with art which will help us understand more than the surface level images. The same goes for our interaction with people. 4d

Lesliereadsalot He wants to teach us to think, really think, about art. No passing glances for him! Study the art, learn from the art. I wish I had done more research before my trip to Paris two years ago. 4d

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mcctrish I love the idea of spending time with one painting and just looking at it, letting it wash over you and feeling it. What a joy and gift to have a weekly date to go to the Louvre. Just know if I win the lottery I will be living this book irl. And then going to London to see the Tate and the National Gallery, they are on my bucket list. Then I will revisit my favourites around the world 4d

BarbaraBB @mcctrish so well said, “letting it wash over you and feeling it”. 💝 4d

GatheringBooks Reminds me of mary oliver: “attention is the beginning of devotion.” Clearly Dadé is devoted to art, and it shows. 4d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick What I got from this is how nothing is just surface level. Similar to what @Chelsea.Poole said about the quick culture, there is the visual representation where we see the initial artwork. Is it pretty, ugly, dark, bright, crisp, blurry, etc? Then you really look at it & notice the brushstrokes, the style, or a hidden detail. Then you can read about the author, style & place in history to pick up more nuance. It's like getting to know people. 3d

Lesliereadsalot @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick Great analogy! 3d

JulietteReadsALot I think it's also about checking our own biases. In several art pieces, he had to explain the context for her to really see and understand the work. Time passes, society changes... It's also about getting passed our first emotions. Why do I find this painting repulsive, pretty, etc.? To take some distance with our emotions to try and see/understand what the artist tried to convey. 2d

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Lesliereadsalot

Mona's Eyes | Thomas Schlesser

#EuropaCollective

BarbaraBB

BarbaraBB I definitely agree. I am not sure if a work of visual art has ever been a consolation to me but music for example, certainly has. As has reading of course 4d

Chelsea.Poole I‘m not sure. Seems to me that at first the beauty would sting after a loss—knowing that loved one isn‘t here to share it with. But could inspire healing over time. I hope so. 4d

Lesliereadsalot I like the idea of finding beauty in the arts after a loss. My mother always said “Life is for the living” and she was so right. Find beauty where you can, let it wash over you in a time of grief. 4d

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mcctrish This makes me think of the book PB wrote after he lost his partner and the museum and art healed him

All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

GatheringBooks @mcctrish thanks for sharing the book - didn‘t know about this one, and will be on the lookout for it. For me, I find that beauty can either intimidate/alienate - or it can also be a form of refuge, like water that nourishes. It could also be aspirational, a glimpse of the beyond. 4d

mcctrish @GatheringBooks All the Beauty is set in the Metropolitan and I loved being able to picture what and where the author was referencing 4d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick Yes, beauty can console us, but it has different forms. It's a pretty picture. An emotional song. The smile of a friend. Witnessing a selfless act. It's said that a 20-minute walk can boost mood. It's difficult not to feel that after waking my dog, being in nature, seeing people smile at him, or greeting other dogs or kids. Watching a family enjoy a picnic in the park. Heck, even a favorite entertainment clip can be beautiful & comforting. 3d

Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick @mcctrish Thanks for the rec! I'm inspired to head over to my library to borrow museum passes, so this may help me to extend that fervor! 3d

youneverarrived Yeah, I think it can be a consolation. I think beauty and ‘glimmers‘ (like the things @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick mentions) can help us through loss or suffering. Like @Chelsea.Poole said maybe not initially but definitely over time. 3d

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