“Round about the caldron go; In the poison’d entrails throw.“
“TOAD, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot.”
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and Cauldron bubble.”
“Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake:
Eye of newt, and toe of FROG,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and owlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.“
Pics taken by Resa – August25, 2025
Toronto, Canada
The Artist: Not sure. Searches came up with several names, none checked out.
END NOTES
For those who may not know, the words in this post are from Act IV – Scene I – in William Shakespeare’s tragedy- MacBeth (written 1606-07); a tale of achieving ultimate power through treachery and murder, and the personal madness that ensues.
I did research toads and frogs. Frogs have bigger back legs for jumping. Toads have bumpy skin and frogs have smooth skin. There are green toads. I believe this is a Froad or a Trog.
John Lennon rocks my socks. When I found this street art, Trent raced to mind.
We did 2 joint Lennon posts just over a year ago. We both have an abundance of respect and love for him.Trent wrote a song for John and everything.
Resa – I knew you were taking some voice lessons, but I had no idea you were studying a song, let alone Imagine. Did you pick Imagine right away, or did that come later? Why did you pick Imagine?
Trent – My instructor picks the songs for me, mostly late 60s, early 70s songs. He plays them on his guitar and I sing along. He chooses the key that he feels is best for me. Imagine was a relatively early pick, so it has been at least 8 months and maybe close to a year. I think I had played my song about John for him which is why he chose it.
Trent’s Cover of Imagine
Not only do I love Trent’s cover of Imagine, I adore his drawing of John.
Resa – There are many John Lennon quotes. Some are profound, Some are hilarious. Two of my faves (of many) are – “Time wounds all heels” & “One thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside”
What are a few of yours?
Trent – John was pretty witty, but I can’t think of quotes right off the top.
Trent – I just looked up “John Lennon Quotes”, and there are so many to choose from!
Perhaps – We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace. So why not give peace a chance for once?” Of course, for me his song lyrics are worthy of quoting.
Resa – I completely agree!
“I’m Shot”
Were Lennon’s last words.
Resa – I was shattered when I heard the news that John had been shot and died. I honestly believed in his message of love and peace being a way forward for the world and its people. I felt that die with him. Do you have any memory of hearing the news? Do you understand why I felt the way I did?
Trent – I had pretty much just rediscovered the Beatles just a short time before he was murdered. When rediscovering the Beatles, I gravitated towards John and his message more than towards the others. Peace and Love, the brotherhood of Man. These were huge themes for me. I was pretty much devastated when I heard the news. I sat and listened to Beatles’ songs nonstop for two days.
Trent – Did I feel John’s message was killed with the messenger? Yes and no. I understood that we had entered a new era, but I tried to believe that his violent death would wake people up and that his message would grow. Well, Ronald Reagan and all that he stood for took over the culture so that even kids my age went total right wing. But the spark did remain.
Trent– Like many geniuses, John was a contradiction,
… and had a lot of bad qualities. He said he was violent when he was young, fighting with boys and hitting girls and that a lot of his peace and love was to keep those tendencies at bay, to conquer the violence within himself. He could be super petty and paranoid.
Resa – I love the insight!
Trent – One of the saddest things is that I think after dropping out of public life for all of those years he had finally made peace with himself and was just breaking out again, ready to take on the 80s. But all of that was nipped in the bud.
Favourite Songs
Resa – I think John Lennon is a brilliant songwriter.
My Fave John song from The Beatles’ days is Don’t Let Me Down.
John songs (excluding Imagine) are: Jealous Guy, Whatever Gets You Through the Night and Instant Karma.
So Trent, what are your favorite John Lennon songs?
Trent – With the Beatles I loved: Strawberry Fields, I am the Walrus and Across the Universe.
Solo?
Hmm, maybe: Imagine, Mind Games and Watching the Wheels“- had to put that last one in because I wanted something from Double Fantasy and that was by far the most popular song from that album – it sounds so much like his earlier works.
Resa – I absolutely love the album cover for Double Fantasy. Yoko Ono is an interesting person. I’ve only seen her art in photos. However, as a performance artist she is brilliant in the video for Instant Karma, knitting with a blindfold on, while the band plays. John’s love for her is wonderfully obvious. Do you see it?
Trent – I think there is a huge love story between John and Yoko and is often very apparent. So yes, I see it in the video you mentioned and also at the end of the one for Imagine where they are trying to keep straight faces but end up cracking each other up. I think it is awful how much hate she has received from the world, though I think it has mellowed a lot in the last couple of decades.
Resa – I agree!
About –Let’s All Join In & Trent’s cover of Imagine
Trent wrote on YouTube
Resa thought she saw Lennon’s face from a trolley but didn’t’ find it again until recently. When talking about it, some said we need Lennon’s vision today more than ever and others said there should be a song about seeing Lennon’s face from a trolley…So here it is, both ideas in one. Yes, I drew my own picture instead of using the real street art – how could I without asking the artist? And, of course, I manipulated the drawing in a thousand and one ways.
Click pic to see post with “Let’s All Join In”lyrics
IMAGINE
Here is Trent’s blurb from YouTube, slightly edited for this post.
Yep, a quick take on John Lennon’s classic “Imagine”. Though very close, this is not an exactly note-for-note transcription of John’s original arrangement. Besides a few different notes and different drum fills, I recorded in Bb instead of C. I didn’t even listen to the original string arrangement, I just played. I had a few reasons for recording this song. One is that I sing this in my voice lessons.
Another was that Resa had told me she had found some street art featuring Lennon’s “Imagine”. Since I had been singing the song, why not do a recording?
Many thanks to Trent for joining me here today!
Pics of John Lennon art taken by Resa – July 2, 2025
They were not royalty, but may have painted for royalty.
Their parents worked for royalty, were politicians, acclaimed artists or important clergy. These aristocrats wielded economic, political, and social influence. They were fortunate ones, before and during the rise of a European middle class due to the industrial revolution.
Louise-Adéone Drölling
French – 1797 – 1831
Young Woman Tracing a Flower – Circa 1820-22
Louise-Adéone‘s father, Martin Drölling, and older brother, Michel Martin Drölling, were celebrated artists in their day. At the age of 15 she was encouraged to begin painting.
In 1819, Louise-Adéone married architect Jean-Nicolas Pagnierre. Widowed in 1822, she remarried Nicholas Roch Joubert in 1826. Joubert, chief tax officer of Paris, was the son of politician and former bishop Pierre-Mathieu Joubert. They had two daughters, Adéone Louise Sophie, and Angélique Marie.
Louise-Adéone Drölling, aka Madame Joubert won a Gold Medal from Salon des Amis des Arts, for her above painting; Young Woman Tracing a Flower. Thought be a self portrait, it later became part of the distinguished collection in the Gallery of La Duchesse de Berry.
I have found conflicting dates of her Gold Award – 1824, 1827 or 1831.
Marguerite Gérard
French – 1761 – 1837
Motherhood Circa 1795-1800
Marguerite Gérard attained much wealth and real estate during her life, despite remaining unmarried.
In 1775 she moved from Grasse to Paris and lived with her sister’s family. Her sister was married to the popular Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Here she had financial freedom and was trained in art as Fragonard’s unofficial apprentice.
By her mid 20’s, Gérard had achieved a signature style.This involved precise details made with subtle and blended brush strokes, inspired by 17th-century Dutch genre paintings. However, she made it her own by focusing on females in intimate domestic settings.
Young Woman Embroidering – Circa 1815-20
In the 1790’s, once the Salons were opened to women, she exhibited often, winning three medals.
Over the course of her successful fifty years, Gérard survived the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.
Her paintings were acquired by luminaries such as Napoleon and King Louis XVII.
Her small-scale, portable canvases appealed to many wealthy collectors, who preferred to display her small scale still life and genre paintings in their homes, over large historical canvases.
The numerous engraved versions of Gérard’s paintings made them accessible to less affluent art lovers and helped increase her reputation.
Gérard did not always follow convention, turning down a place at the French Royal Academy.
Catherine Lusurier
French – 1753 – 1781
Portrait of a Woman Drawing
Catherine Lusurier died at the young age of 28 years old. There is not a lot known about her, and only a few known signed paintings are accounted for.
Her mother, Jeanne Callot, was a dressmaker, while her father Pierre was a milliner. Apprenticing under her uncle,Hubert Drouais (1699-1767), her work bears his stylistic influence. Her paintings are predominantly portraits of children and artists.
A Catherine Lusurier work recently headlined Christie’s Old Masters and 19th Century Paintings, selling from a Private Collection. Sold Without Reserve at 3.11 million dollars, it exceeded the pre-sale high estimate.
Amélie Legrand de Saint-Aubin
French – 1797 – 1878
Portrait of an Artist Drawing a Landscape in her Sketchbook – 1831
Amélie Legrand de Saint-Aubin, the eldest daughter of Pierre Jean Hilaire Legrand de Saint-Aubin (1772–1839) and Denise Marie Claudine Legrand (1772–1855), was born in Paris. After training and studying in the Women Only Studio with Charles Meynier, Amélie Legrand de Saint-Aubin‘s Rococo style portraits and history paintings grew in popularity.
Portrait of an Artist Drawing a Landscapein her Sketchbook is of a long standing tradition of women artists picturing women painting art.
Political changes from the French Revolution resulted in women being allowed to exhibit in the French Salon. Amélie Legrand de Saint-Aubin went on to exhibit at 17 salons over the course of her career.
Around 1831, she began teaching, offering private lessons. She never married.
“This stunning portrait recently joined the AGO’s permanent collection and made its debut as part of the exhibition Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe 1400 – 1800. “
Marie-Guillemine Benoist
French – 1768 – 1826
Portrait of a Lady Circa 1799
Marie-Guillemine was born in Paris. Her mother was Marguerite-Marie Lombard and her father, René Laville-Leroux, a royal administrator for the ancien régime state. Marie and her sister, Baroness Larrey, (1770–1842), studied art from Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Later they studied under Jacques-Louis David.
Her first exhibition was in 1784, at an annual 1 day show in Paris – Exposition de la Jeunesse.
Until the Louvre Salon became open to all exhibitors in 1791, where Benoist was one of 22 women presenting, she showed yearly at the Exposition de la Jeunesse.
At the Salon in 1804, she won a medal, whereby France’s new Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, ordered multiple commissions.
Other than her Salon successes, which are in the French state collection, Benoist’s work, including Portrait of a Lady was attributed to a man; in her case, Jacques Louis David.
Like many women artists of her day, their posthumous fate was to be overlooked, forgotten and/or effaced.
Mary Beale
English – 1633 – 1699
Portrait of a Woman with a Black Hood -Circa 1660
Mary Beale was the daughter of a clergyman, John Cradock, so it seems natural that much of her portraiture is of churchmen. It is not sure who she trained under, but she received considerable guidance from Peter Lely
In London, she moved in intellectual circles. By, and into the 1670s she was in demand as a portrait artist, earning enough money to support her family of four.
After several years of mundane civil service; Mary’s husband, Charles Beale, left his monotonous job to become her full time studio manager.
Much has been learned from the many notebooks he kept.
One example: Charles recorded that in 1677 Mary completed 90 commissioned portraits. There were 31 female sitters and 34 male. The women and girls were mostly either titled or gentry. Men and boys were gentry or of “middling sort.”
Rosalda Carriera
Italian – 1673 – 1757
Portrait of a Woman – Circa 1720’s
Rosalba Carriera was born in Venice to Andrea Carriera, a lawyer, and lacemaker, Alba Foresti. Taught to make lace by her mother, little is known of her artistic training. She is renowned for pastel portraiture and allegories.
In 1720, during a stay with French banker Pierre Crozat in Paris, Rosalba created portraits of Louis XV as a child, and members of the French aristocracy. Here she developed a friendship with Antoine Watteau, who influenced her work.
Rosalba is one of the originators of the Rococo style in Italy and France.
Her greatest patron, Augustus III of Poland, collected more than 150 of her pastels. He also sat for her in 1713.
In 1746 she lost her sight, but her work continued to influence many other artists.
I’ve merely highlighted these women’s lives. There is so much more to know about our trailblazing sisters, who went before us.
This reminds me of an antique coral & white cameo ring I have.
I like it in blue, too.
The profile is characteristic of a cameo carving.
The face, set in a circle, is cameo-like.
They were wildly popular with the Victorians, a renaissance from the Renaissance,
… in a Victorian garden.
Pics taken by Resa – June 27, 2025
Toronto, Canada
The Artist:
So, you might ask outside of the fact that the band’s name is Cameo and that there is a blue hue to much of the video, what it has to do with Victorian or Renaissance cameos?
Nothing, but it’s got a great beat you can dance to and Larry Blackmon’s red cod piece is outstandingly hilarious!
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