I went to the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney today. I've always liked Hopper, especially how he captured a certain era of New York with his use of color and light. This painting is not of New York. It is the 1909 "Le Bistro or The Wine Shop" which is a Parisian scene. The picture lacks two things...numerous people as might have been seen on a Paris afternoon and no food on the table. Wine glasses, bottles and pitchers appear regularly in Hopper's works, as do eating establishments, but hardly ever does food appear.

I stepped closer to the picture to get a better look to confirm a hunch. The two people appear to be sharing a bottle of rosé. Neither appears to be sporting a glittery "Rosé All Day" top. My guess is it was not a winery owned by a luxury goods company either.

#wine #winelife #winelover #wineinart #wineinpaintings #artlover #edwardhopper #thewhitney #lebistro #iseewineeverywhere #sippedsense #thesippedsense

"If music be the food of love, play on!" is the opener of "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare. I will add #wine as the elixir of love or as many in the wine world would agree, an extension of food.

Tonight is Twelfth Night, the last night of Christmas, Epiphany Eve, celebrated in many cultures for centuries. It also kicked off the Carnival season, leading up to the beginning Lent, Mardi Gras being the final party.

James Joyce's short story "The Dead" takes place on Twelfth Night and at a celebratory dinner, during customary toasts, a main character makes a rather sobering speech that could apply today: "...we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age", lamenting that rising generations "lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humor which belonged to an older day."

Let's find and keep enough humanity, hospitality and kindly humor today.

#wineinart

Pictured: Jacob Jordaens, "The Feast of the Bean King", 1645.