{"id":1694,"date":"2017-09-23T12:20:45","date_gmt":"2017-09-23T19:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/muddyvalleyfarm.com\/?p=1694"},"modified":"2017-09-23T12:20:45","modified_gmt":"2017-09-23T19:20:45","slug":"far-from-my-muddy-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/?p=1694","title":{"rendered":"Far From My Muddy Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After 35+ years working and raising our family, my DH and I are finally on the European tour we&#8217;ve always talked about, leaving our muddy valley in the capable hands of our live-in farmhand.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1722\" src=\"https:\/\/muddyvalleyfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/20170602_194715.jpg\" alt=\"20170602_194715.jpg\" width=\"1280\" height=\"720\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In typical crazy chicken lady fashion, I&#8217;ve kept an eye out for chicken-related art as we&#8217;ve made our way through England, Holland, Belgium, France, Italy and now Hungary and Germany.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve only found two artists, Jan Steen and\u00a0Melchior de Hondecoeter &#8211; both Dutchmen &#8211; who painted chickens. Hondecoeter in particular focused on birds. At the time he painted his Eagles Attacking Chickens (below) in 1673, critics said he &#8220;&#8230;displays the maternity of the hen with as much tenderness and feeling as Raphael the maternity of Madonnas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I agree, and I&#8217;ve seen lots of Raphaels lately.<\/p>\n<p>Now hanging in the Louvre in Paris, Hondecoeter&#8217;s scene blew me away. The mama hen&#8217;s fury, the chicks&#8217; panic, the rooster&#8217;s bravery; it&#8217;s all quite wonderful. Zoom in to see what I mean.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1714\" src=\"https:\/\/muddyvalleyfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/img_6306.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_6306\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1536\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I have a Jan Steen print &#8220;The Poultry Yard&#8221;, 1660, at home, and as with all his work, there&#8217;s lots going on.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1750\" src=\"https:\/\/muddyvalleyfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/img_6357.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_6357\" width=\"2258\" height=\"3000\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Steen didn&#8217;t specialize in birds like Hondecoeter, he took a humorous look at daily life. His <span>paintings are<\/span>\u00a0lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, so much that &#8220;a Jan Steen household&#8221;, meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb of the time. His paintings included chickens because every household had them.<\/p>\n<p>In the Rijks Museum, in Amsterdam, I found some chicken porcelain and pottery, decorative and lovely, but dead somehow; it doesn&#8217;t tell a story like Hondecoeter&#8217;s masterpiece or Steen&#8217;s slices of daily life.<\/p>\n\n<p>We have more museums to see still, the British Museum in London is on our list for sure and maybe more. Hopefully I will find another Hondecoeter or two, or even discover another chicken-appreciating artist.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been a great trip so far, and a long break from farm chores too. But I will be glad to get back to my muddy little valley next month, where I shall sit beside a cozy winter fire and remember all the sights, sounds, smells and scenery of our old world tour.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1767\" src=\"https:\/\/muddyvalleyfarm.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/img_6191.jpg\" alt=\"IMG_6191.JPG\" width=\"1528\" height=\"1601\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After 35+ years working and raising our family, my DH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chickens","category-farm-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestablecomicstore.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}