San Francisco was called the Queen City of the West, and the Palace Hotel near Union Square was called the Palace of the West. 

I sat in the Garden Court at the Palace Hotel.  When it opened in 1875, it was the carriage entrance and thousands flocked to see it.  And the crowd came to see the hydraulic elevators which were called "rising rooms."  This hotel has history.

I was entranced by the glass ceiling and the sheer elegance of that giant palm-filled room, sharing thoughts and musings on the San Francisco art scene with a number of people.  The evening before several family members and I had been in the Pied Piper Bar talking about the history of this hotel, studying Maxfield Parrish's mural, The Pied Piper of Hamelin, hanging prominently behind the bar.  It all seemed wildly romantic, without the Sturm and Earthquake...

Maxfield Parrish (1877-1966).  He was big in the late 60's when the rock culture took up the illustrative genre for the posters announcing the Filmore or Avalon. 

And of course when he was alive he was a household must - everyone had their Parrish print hanging somewhere in their home. They (whoever that is) named a color "Parrish blue," a luminous neon kind of blue.  Above all Parris was a colorist achieving his luminous surfaces by means of glazing - layerings of oil and varnish. 

In Art in America (March 1996), Ken Johnson said of him "Kitsch meets the sublime - illustrator Maxfield Parrish."

One of the quotes from Parrish is:

  "I'm done with girls on rocks!..."  

After painting them for thirteen years, he quit.  I wonder if there was a detox involved.  Imagine how many girls, how many rocks.

The Golden Age of Illustration, of which Parrish was a prominent force, continues today.  Look at deviantART.  Sure, we've gone from the bright side of the moon to the dark side of the moon.  The girls are more than likely emaciated and world-weary rather than aglow with virginal purity.  But it's 100 years later and a long walk through the woods.

And what's this got to do with ArtSlant? 

Nothing really.  It was just that the Joshua Petker interview was published in the San Francisco slant yesterday and he mentions Parrish in his interview.  I was reflecting on how post-romanticism seems to vie with post-modernism in capturing our attentions, and wanting to think about that a little more.  I don't really even like Maxfield but that's not to say thinking about him hasn't been satisfying. 

Then I was reminded of that weekend at the Palace Hotel last November sitting in the Garden Court when the weather was crystal, the bridge was gleaming, and I was running around the Queen of the West interviewing writers for ArtSlant...and it seemed, well, wildly romantic.

As I was writing this I read the legend of the pied piper (Robert Browning's take) which is about a man with a magical pipe who, after saving the town of Hamelin, Germany from rats, was betrayed by the townsmen and not paid for his services.  In revenge the pied piper lured all but two of the village's children with his magical pipe into a cave never to be seen again...now that's Sturm and Dragnet.  Guess Parris had his dark moons as well.

-georgia