Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Art #132: Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Dance At Bougival

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This week’s work of art is by the famous French artist, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who painted Dance at Bougival, in 1883. Today it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and remains one of his most famous works of art.

Renoir-dance

The website for Boston’s MFA includes a typical description of the painting:

The open-air cafés of suburban Bougival, on the Seine outside Paris, were popular recreation spots for city dwellers, including the Impressionist painters. Renoir, who was primarily a figure painter, uses intense color and lush brushwork to heighten the sense of pleasure conveyed by the whirling couple who dominate the composition. The woman’s face, framed by her red bonnet, is the focus of attention, both ours and her companion’s.

But look closely beyond the dancing couple to the green tale behind them and you’ll see mugs of beer in front of the people seated there.

Renoir-dance-detail

You can read Renoir’s biography at Wikipedia and also at the Web Museum, which also has a gallery of other works, too. Other galleries include Olga’s, the Artchive and a third claims to contain Renoir’s Complete Works.

Guinness Ad #73: Guinness Golfing

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Our 73rd Guinness ad is again from the “Guinness For Strength” series, with a pair of golfers walking the links, but the one with the bottle of Guinness in this bag seems far more able to manage his large bag while his compatriot is struggling with not only a smaller bag but a wheeled cart. Since it looks likely that the U.S. Open will again be won by an Irish golfer, and in fact Northern Ireland, a golf ad seemed appropriate.

Guinness-golf-bag

Beer In Ads #393: Karate Ballantine

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Thursday’s ad is from 1968, when Karate had worked its way into public consciousness, and shows a black belt karate master posing beside four blocks of wood resting on a pair of cinder blocks, ready to be karate-chopped. The only thing standing in his way is a glass of Ballantine Ale. The tagline is pretty funny. “Stronger, Bolder, really means business!”

ballantine68karate

Beer In Ads #392: There’s Fun A-Field With Rheingold!

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Wednesday’s ad is from 1959 and is for Rheingold beer. It features a formal horse riding outing and Miss Rheingold for that year, Robbin Bain, the 19th woman to hold the title. The tagline for the ad is “There’s Fun A-Field With Rheingold!” Personally, I don’t know how much fun you could have in such stiff attire, but I’m not much of a horse person anyway.

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Beer In Art #131: John Quinton Pringle’s Man with a Drinking Mug

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art-beer
This week’s work of art is by a Scottish artist, John Quinton Pringle, who around 1904 painted Study of a Head, which is also known as Man With a Drinking Mug.

Pringle-man-with-drinking-mug

Here’s how the National Gallery of Scotland, where the painting is hung, describes Pringle and the work:

Pringle trained as an optician in 1874 and ran his own business as optician and electrician from 1896 to 1923. He used his shop as a studio after hours painting predominantly small canvases, like this painting. From around 1895 he developed an interest in French Impressionism, which influenced this work. This is one of three portraits Pringle made of an elderly man who frequented the Saltmarket area of Glasgow and visited the artist in his shop. The sitter was nicknamed ‘Kruger’ due to his supposed likeness to Paul Kruger, the Boer resistance leader and president of the Transvaal republic in South Africa. The painting is thought to date from 1904 – it is signed and dated but Pringle’s style makes it difficult to read.

You can read Pringle’s biography at Wikipedia and see a few more of his paintings at the WikiGallery and there are links to even more of his paintings at ArtCyclopedia.

Guinness Ad #72: Fishing

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guinness-toucan
Our 72nd Guinness ad is again from the “Guinness For Strength” series, with a fisherman reeling in a whale-sized fish, presumably thanks to the pint of Guinness sitting next to his chair. The fish looks every bit as surprised, even a little scared, as the dog and the fisherman.

guinness-fishing

And here’s a slightly different variation of the ad.

Guinness-big-fish