{"id":137,"date":"2018-09-17T14:45:54","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T14:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/?p=137"},"modified":"2018-09-17T14:46:34","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T14:46:34","slug":"keep-the-aspidistra-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/137\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep the Aspidistra Flying"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Gestural strokes and decisive mark-making swirl around the central anchoring and thickly applied colors of rust and deep blue. Painted by the Abstract Expressionist artist Joan Mitchell, the work dates to Mitchell\u2019s early career in New York, after she attended Smith College (1942<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2013<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">44) and the Art Institute of Chicago (1944<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201347<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">) and before she moved her studio to France in 1959. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mitchell compared painting to poetry. Like Alma Thomas, she often began with an image or memory rooted in the natural world around her, describing her paintings as \u201cremembered landscapes which involve my feelings.\u201d Here, the title may refer to George Orwell\u2019s 1936 novel of the same name. Aspidistra are hardy plants that were popular among the middle class in Victorian London because they grew well indoors, despite minimal sunlight and the poor air quality created by oil and gas lamps. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The collection of the Botanic Garden of Smith College includes several examples of aspidistra.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gestural strokes and decisive mark-making swirl around the central anchoring and thickly applied colors of rust and deep blue. Painted by the Abstract Expressionist artist Joan Mitchell, the work dates to Mitchell\u2019s early career in New York, after she attended Smith College (1942\u201344) and the Art Institute of Chicago (1944\u201347) and before she moved her &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/137\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Keep the Aspidistra Flying<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1637,"featured_media":138,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[8],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-demo","tag-abstract"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/305\/2018\/09\/1988_36.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1637"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions\/140"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/ger297-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}