Professor Butter Beard and Gabriele Münter’s “Breakfast of the Birds”
Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul's
The little old bird woman comes
In her own special way to the people
She calls, “Come, buy my bags full of crumbs”
“Come feed the little birds, show them you care
And you'll be glad if you do
Their young ones are hungry, their nests are so bare
All it takes is tuppence from you”
- Richard M. Sherman for “Mary Poppins”
She loved her canary. Every morning at daybreak, my grandmother would come down the grand staircase at the “big house” to remove the drape over her canary’s cage which hung in the side bay window between two ancient wicker chairs. The fragile yellow bird would immediately start to sing as my grandmother would sit with her tea, reading and writing her morning letters. If it was one of my lucky weekends spent with her, my brother and my grandfather, I would climb up into the second chair, and while nibbling on a slice of toast with jam, I would dive deep into the “Adventures of Conan the Barbarian” or “The Lord of the Rings” while the canary continued to sing.
This memory flooded my vision yesterday morning as I read further in “The Artist’s Palette,” authored by Alexandra Loske, highly suggested by my dear friend “Wanda Across the Pond.” The author had just introduced Gabriele Münter, and I was immediately transported back to that wicker chair, the smell of violet perfume and fresh bread, and birdsong.
Gabriele Münter was born in Berlin to upper-middle-class Protestant parents. Despite being raised in a family and country that discouraged women from a career in the arts, Münter eventually attended Munich’s progressive new Phalanx School, where she studied sculpture and woodcut techniques. In 1902, Münter began a 12-year professional and personal relationship with the Phalanx School’s director, Wassily Kandinsky. They traveled together and in 1908 discovered the Bavarian Alps village of Murnau, where Münter purchased a picturesque white house.
During World War I, Münter and Kandinsky went to Switzerland, but due to his Russian nationality, Kandinsky was considered an enemy alien, and he returned to Moscow in 1914. Shortly thereafter, Kandinsky obtained a long-sought divorce from his first wife - but wed another woman instead of Münter.
For some years in the 1920s, Münter ceased painting altogether. Her new companion, the art historian Johannes Eichner, encouraged her to paint, however, and, late in that decade, she took up the brush again. In the post–World War II years, Münter returned to her house in Murnau and found intact the cache of her own paintings and works by her fellow artists that she had hidden there. The survival of these works seemed miraculous given that the Nazis had considered members of the “Expressionist” group (Kandinsky, Münter, and Franz Marc) to be “degenerate artists” and many of their works were lost.
The artist found solace and her reborn voice in nature. “Münter loved painting outdoors,” writes Alexandra Loske, “especially in the lush surroundings of the Alps. She was known to paint outdoors in all weather conditions, including in thick mountain snow, standing by her portable easel and wearing gloves.” This soulful understanding of mountain snow would also make a guest appearance in one of her most applauded works “Breakfast of the Birds.”
Many art critics and historians believe “Breakfast of the Birds” best exemplifies Münter’s expressionist style: thick, rapid brushstrokes, heavy, dark outlines, simplified forms, and compressed space. In the painting, a unidentified woman sits indoors at a table arrayed with a morning breakfast of tea and cake. We are invited to share her view of snowcapped branches and a host of birds through the window. The heavy looking draperies that frame the window add an element of coziness, warmth and protection. This interior has been interpreted by historians as alternately indicative of solitude and quiet reflection or entrapment and emotional isolation. I must admit to siding with the interpretation of a morning meditation. With her back to the viewer, the woman portrayed here has been identified by many scholars as the artist herself.
In 1957, shortly before she turned 80, Gabriele Münter recalled painting a landscape half a century earlier. In 1908, while in the countryside of southern Germany, Münter came across an evening sight that caught her eye: a road and an inn backed by blue mountains and red clouds. “I quickly sketched the picture that presented itself to me,” she wrote. “Then it was like I woke up and had the sensation as if I were a bird that had sung its song. I didn’t tell anyone about this sensation, I am not a very talkative person anyway. But I kept the memory for myself.”
This morning, as the bold early-spring birds congregated on the still-baren lilac bush outside my living room window, I watched and listened to them gossip with each other as I read Loske’s book, enjoying my coffee and a still-warm blueberry corn muffin. A loaf of Sourdough Seeded Rye rose in its banneton basket on the table beside me. My grandmother’s soul joined me, humming along with her canary, sipping her tea and gingerly scolding me to please be careful of crumbs. That delicious memory reminded me to save the last few slices of the seeded rye in order to:
“Feed the birds, tuppence a bag
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag”
“Feed the birds,” that's what she cries
While overhead, her birds fill the skies.
Professor Butter Beard’s Seeded Rye
One 9” round
3 Tbsp caraway seed, divided
1 ¼ cup cool water (1 ½ cup, if not adding your sourdough starter)
2 Tbsp dark molasses
½ tsp instant dry yeast
½ cup of your sourdough starter (optional)
3 cups bread flour
4 Tbsp rye flour
2 tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
1) Toast 2 Tbsp of the caraway seeds until they start to pop and are aromatic. Set aside to cool.
2) Whisk together the cool water, molasses, dry yeast and your starter (optional). Set aside for the yeast to bloom.
3) In a standing mixer with the dough hook, stir together the two flours, salt and black pepper. Add the wet mixture and mix on low until the wet and dry are incorporated. Turn the mixture to medium and knead for ten minutes or so until the dough is soft and elastic. Listen for the “whack” sounds of the dough slapping the edge of the bowl. Add the cooled caraway seeds and mix until evenly incorporated. Turn the dough into a greased glass bowl, cover with plastic and set aside to rise to double in size. This will take anywhere from 2-3 hours.
4) Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a smooth ball. Lightly flour a proofing basket and turn the dough into the basket, cover with plastic and let rise again for one hour while you preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
5) After 45 minutes of preheating and 2nd rise, place your baking sheet in the oven to also preheat. Cut a 12” square of parchment paper and dust lightly with cornmeal. Carefully turn the dough onto the parchment paper. Dust off any excess flour. Stir together the 2 Tbsp sesame seeds and the remaining 1 Tbsp caraway seeds. Spray the dough with water and sprinkle seeds all over the dough. Score the dough with a razor. Carefully remove the heated sheet pan from the oven and slide the parchment paper and dough onto the pan. Place in the oven and bake for 45-50 minutes until the loaf is a deep golden brown and sounds hollow to the touch.
6) Cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before slicing.
