The upstairs contains an art gallery, mainly featuring the recent works of Bruce Munro, plus a few blasts from the past by others…. First Munro… These are representative of the rest…. but perhaps you would rather enjoy seeing Life imitating art….. Here’s a whimsical painting from the past…. Or an old photo of Leslie Cheek Jr. and his handlers riding along in a vintage car…. And here is an homage to the nannies and others who looked after the... Read more
For the record, Cheekwood is a much more eloquent and livable home than the other ones we visited. This family’s taste was much better than various of their forebears and contemporaries. Mind you this mansion is much more modern than the others visited and was the home of Mabel and Leslie Cheek, dating to the 1930s. You still see the influence of classical culture, but also more modern conveniences. These people had taste, and education as well. It is difficult... Read more
When the Cheeks (whose house we will see) married the Woods, the name of the property including considerable Botanical Gardens was Cheekwood. And this is by far the most eloquent and interesting of the mansions we visited. We will start with the gardens, which includes a Japanese garden as we shall see. Let’s start with the Japanese garden and work our way to the other ones. The The little white globes are part of the illuminations of Bruce Munro, a... Read more
We also toured the gardens, and did the horse and buggy tour of some of the grounds, chiefly of the area where the slaves worked and lived. And our carriage driver was a fine guide named Dawn, and the two horses pulling the wagon were beautiful. One was named Aslan. Dawn explained how very difficult picking and cleaning cotton was before Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. She showed a container of cotton which comprised a whole day’s work for... Read more
Andrew Jackson lived from time to time here, but mostly during his Presidency he was in Washington whereas his wife Rachel died shortly before Jackson’s Inauguration as President in 1829. There had been a major controversy over his marriage to Rachel— was she a bigamist? She had been previously married, and there was an issue about whether she had been properly divorced or not. Rachel thought her first husband from Nashville had secured the proper divorce papers, and so she... Read more
A recent article in the NY Times. (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/16/opinion/poetry-christianity-faith.html) by Tish Warren, an Anglican priest, has an interesting dialogue with her former poetry teacher…. Here’s a helpful excerpt… Your next book is about the connection between faith and poetry, and you have quoted the poet and former head of the National Endowment for the Arts Dana Gioia, saying, “It is impossible to understand the full glory of Christianity without understanding its poetry.” What does that mean to you? There’s poetry all over... Read more
Unlike, for instance The Belmont Mansion, the Hermitage, the home of President Andrew Jackson, sits on hundreds of acres to this very day. Jackson who was from N.C. was hero of the battle of New Orleans in 1812 who helped the U.S. win the second war against the British. But he was also the man who killed off many Indians, such as the Creek, and deported the Cherokee from N.C. on the trail of tears to Oklahoma. On top of... Read more
At Belmont University in Nashville there is an historic mansion which is perhaps one of the most ornate 19th centuries houses I’ve ever seen in America. But it also has an interesting history. This was the largest house in Tennessee and was built between 1849 and 1860, just before the Civil War. When the Union Army showed up in Nashville it used this mansion as a headquarters and lookout point by climbing up to the cupola and spying out the... Read more
In the basement of Nashville’s Parthenon is a small art museum with some nice landscapes, still lifes, and one painting by Winslow Homer, the most famous American artist included in the gallery. Here are some examples starting with Winslow Homer…. Here’s an interesting and atypical European painting of a woman … This very fine painting from Venice is by an unknown artist. Read more
There were reports the day we visited the Parthenon in Nashville (constructed to give that city a reason to call itself the Athens of the South) that the Parthenon in Athens had been shut down due to extreme heat because people were passing out on the top. It could not have been more hot and humid than at the Parthenon in Nashville— 100F in the shade with high humidity. Yikes! This Parthenon was first constructed in 1897 for the Exposition... Read more
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