del Caravaggio,Vocazione di Matteo

di Vermeer, L'Arte della pittura

degli Impressionisti

e dei pittori di ogni tempo, i quali, con le tecniche e i colori sapientemente dosati, fanno emergere dalla tela inconfondibili identità trasmettendo emozioni.
Non meno suggestivi sono tuttavia i pastelli delle albe mattutine che trascolorano in aurore dorate, o gli struggenti tramonti di fuoco in luminosità scisse e tonalità marcate e offerte allo spirito.
Alla luce fisica è simbolicamente associabile quella della ragione, rivendicata con ostinazione e con fatica da ogni “età dei lumi” a dispetto  di qualunque oscurantismo irrazionale. E la storia degli uomini annovera dialettiche frequentemente drammatiche ed impasse di tenebre fuorvianti.
Se lapalissiana è qualunque considerazione sulla preziosità della luce riguardo all’esistenza, solidale sensibilità riscopriamo nei confronti dei tanti (troppi) che mai hanno sperimentato la luce o che ne conservano solo vago il ricordo.
Il Vangelo racconta di non-vedenti guariti, anche se la “missione” del Cristo è volta ad altra luminosità, quella del disvelamento dell’amore del Padre.
«Nessuno ha mai visto Dio – afferma categorico Giovanni nel suo Vangelo – ma il Figlio che è nel seno del Padre ce l’ha rivelato».
L’asserto radicale ribalta i precedenti approcci al divino che la fenomenologia delle Religioni registra e li dichiara “inattendibili” perché non supportati da conoscenza diretta.
Credibile, al contrario, è il modello “altro”, proposto da Cristo, perché da testimone oculare. Esso si svela in testimonianza umana “perfezionata” dalla Croce, atto d’amore estremo verso l’Umanità.
L’evangelista Giovanni, nel “Prologo” del suo Vangelo prosegue la disamina circa le dinamiche Luce/Vita facendo derivare, in controtendenza gnostica, la prima dalla seconda: «La vita era la luce degli uomini». Di questa vita, ne “Le Confessioni”, parla Agostino d’Ippona, vescovo. Dopo averla cercata fuori da sé la scoprì “come luce” nell’intimo del suo spirito (“interior intimo meo”) e nella zona più alta del suo Essere (“superior summo meo”).
La luce rimane costante paradigma su cui è modulato nelle Scritture in molteplici variazioni il tema battesimale. “Photismoi”, (“Illuminati”) vengono chiamati i battezzati, e identificati da Paolo apostolo in “figli della luce e del giorno” facendo seguire all’identità cristiana le dinamiche attivanti in senso etico e morale dei comportamenti orientati dalle “Beatitudini”, proposte senza alibi da Cristo ad ogni seguace.

Edouard Manet.

it's gotten a lot hotter in new york since my last post, and a lot more complicated. i'm trying to get up the balls to quit my job and dive head first into unemployment. i didn't fare that well the first time, but i'm hoping it was because that joblessness was imposed on me and not self-imposed. and because it was the ides of march.

so i've been trying to conjure up some 'safe places' for my mind to go when things get dark. You know, like they tell you to do at the doctor's office when you're about to get a shot. Actually, for total transparency, I had to do this recently in the ER for an unexplained brain spasm. the man nurse told me to 'go to a happy place' while i got my head scanned by a giant machine...and the whole thing struck me as having a greater purpose.

the odd thing is that my brain surprised me with where it went when 'happy place' was called up - not the sunny tropical beach or exotic locale that i was anticipating. instead two memories that probably never would have resurfaced:

first one is back to when i was studying in france. I spent a day exploring new areas of the city and ended up at the Musee D'orsay, impressionist floor. As a slowly wandered the room, reading the blurbs on the wall explaining the Manets and Degas, I saw a very stylish French grandmother with her adorably French grandson. As they circled the room, she explained every piece to him. I only picked up bits and pieces of what she was saying, but it seemed so wonderful. Like the epitome of culture. Why France is superior to America. All playing out right before my eyes.

the second 'happy place' memory is about as unrelated to the first as could be. I'm back in Wisconsin where I grew up, and it's summer and I'm about 7. the age when being out of school for the summer feels like an eternity, and every day is a perfect blend of adventure and boredom. on most of summer days if the weather was right, my mom would take me, my siblings and our neighborhood posse down to the pool.  And i can remember seeing big trucks overflowing with green beans heading out of town, going to "factory". And those big trucks of green beans symbolized the heart of summer. The way tossled corn signaled the end. And i miss those signs. really connected to earth and nature. i love new york, but here my signs are artificial and man-made. so my happy place goes to simpler times when i could look out the window and see a bean truck and know that all was right with the world.[gallery]

I'm going to keep exploring these memories. Hopefully more random, 'happy place' thoughts come to the surface to get me through the road ahead. And I want to hear other people's unexpected 'happy place thoughts'.  because i'm curious to know if other people's brains take them to deep, forgotten places. And because i never have anyone comment on my wall. share....

Beneath the Impressionists’ commitment to capturing contemporary life, there lay a deep exploration of the art of the past, as well as of their more recent early-19th-century predecessors. The Impressionists learned from art historical sources by making painstaking oil copies executed at such museums as the Louvre. These copies, as well as drawings and sketchbook studies by the Impressionists, are shown with the Old Masters works they copied.

The exhibition then unfolds into a series of subject groups—portraits, still lifes, landscapes, interiors and nudes—with specific comparisons drawn between Impressionist works and the art of the past, as well as broader connections related to issues of subject, composition and technique. These thematic groupings are punctuated with small dossier sections on three artists who drew most heavily on art historical sources: Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Paul Cézanne.

June 19–September 21, 2008
SAM Downtown

Whenever I hear someone describe an artist's work as "traditional" I always want to ask "which one?"  Which tradition do you mean?  (There are so many.)  The assumption in contemporary Western art is sometimes over-broad -- so much that anything depicted in a manner that's recognizable is "traditional."  Yet within the most catholic reaches of the European inspired art, there are innumerable avenues for visual thought to travel.  Painting can be realistic, or "painterly," or linear without being realistic.  It can portray everyday life, or it can portray very extraordinary, fanciful and imaginary themes.  It can be landscape, portrait, still life, mythological paintings, and several genres besides, that don't even have names.  It can resemble other artists of earlier times, and yet be very much its own thing -- as Edouard Manet looks very 19th century French to us now, yet was a great aficionado of Diego Velasquez and other artists of the Spanish 17th century.

Skill is super important, but skill alone doesn't make art.  An artist can be skillful and find himself or herself feeling needy.  The skill has to be put into something.   And the something is more than just subject matter -- though that's part of it -- the something is an idea, an impulse, a meaning whose form needs to be seen.  When words fail, visual art steps in.  But it needs to have something to say.

When an artist is all dressed up with nowhere to go, it's not necessarily a bad thing, though.  It just means you have a journey ahead of you.

[Top of the post:  the author's pen and ink drawing after an Ingres figure -- made in a very un-Ingrist way.]

Australian police have shutdown a photographic exhibition that includes images of naked children amid complaints that the pictures breach child pornography laws, a spokeswoman said Friday

CRIMINAL investigations into Bill Henson have widened to include previous work by the controversial photographer, after police received complaints about several Henson works on display at a regional gallery

We're questioning what is art and what is pornography? Bill Henson is an established photographer, one of the "Foremost Artists of Australia" and now the subject of a criminal investigation of indecency and child pornography.  I have linked the story that has a photo of one of the pictures in question because I don't want to be labeled a pornographer, too! 

When did nudity in and of itself become pornography? How many nudes hang in The Louvre? The Met? The National Gallery? Which of the great masters do not have a classic nude that most anyone would at least recognize on sight? Da Vinci, Rubens, Cezanne, Manet, Monet, Michelangelo, Titian.  What makes theirs art and not porn?

 How many of our parents do not have that humiliating nude photo that they LOVED to show to our dates and company?  Generally these pictures involved a bathtub or a some odd little rug.  My mother has one of me and more than once i've ooo'ed and "ohhh! you can see his little thing!" when a boyfriend's mother has whipped out THAT picture to show me.  Seriously. Why isn't that child pornography?

Anne Geddes. She has naked children in her photos. Naked babies, in fact.  Why isn't her stuff pornography? If just because we have a naked picture, then BAM! Pornography!, then shouldn't her stuff be removed from public view?  How many bathrooms in America are decorated with this Child Pornography?  Bathrooms of good church going people.  In highschool, we went to my paster's house for ..something. There was an Anne Geddes potty. 

I love Anne Geddes, actually.  Several years ago, I wanted a whole themed bathroom, too. I didn't refrain because of the pornography angle, though.   It was more so because I was a single girl in my late twenties dating a lot and I didn't want to terrify the men who might use my restroom with a VISUAL CONFIRMATION of "Longing For A Baby."   No matter that I could have said "Look, Dude. I don't even want a baby. The shit is just CUTE!" That was actually how I felt. I knew, though, that it wouldn't matter. He would think "mantrap" because of my "explicit images of forbidden desires"....OH! Hey! PORNO! Guess I DID refrain from it cuz of the porno angle, after all, huh?

Are Henson's photographs actually bad and exploiting children and dirty and WRONG?  Or are we simply worried that "OH MY GOD "SOMEONE" MIGHT SEE AND FIND THEM SEXUALLY AROUSING?"   Kind of like my random shoe above this paragraph; only truthfully, i'm more *hopeful* of a random retifist's arousal than "worried".  Are his photos actually harming anyone or are we willing to censor art because a few people might be inappropriately aroused by the portrayal of the subject? It's sad that there are sick and wrong people in this world that find sexual gratification in things that have no place in a healthy person's menu of desires. However, the vast majority do not. I believe that most people would simply see it as an artistic expression.  If Hansen's photos are condemned as indecent and pornographic, who will the "decency police" next target?   

"Manet's Olympia"

She reclines, more or less.
Try that posture, it’s hardly languor.
Her right arm sharp angles.
With her left she conceals her ambush.
Shoes but not stockings,
how sinister. The flower
behind her ear is naturally
not real, of a piece
with the sofa’s drapery.
The windows (if any) are shut.
This is indoor sin.
Above the head of the (clothed) maid
is an invisible voice balloon: Slut.

But. Consider the body,
unfragile, defiant, the pale nipples
staring you right in the bull’s-eye.
Consider also the black ribbon
around the neck. What’s under it?
A fine red threadline, where the head
was taken off and glued back on.
The body’s on offer,
but the neck’s as far as it goes.
This is no morsel.
Put clothes on her and you’d have a schoolteacher,
the kind with the brittle whiphand.

There’s someone else in this room.
You, Monsieur Voyeur.
As for that object of yours
she’s seen those before, and better.

I, the head, am the only subject
of this picture.
You, Sir, are furniture.
Get stuffed.

This is quite a bit too bad, for Monette Monet was a very fine painter in the School of the Impressions. We show you now one of her most celebrated paintings, Effrayé du Calmar. It hangs sometimes near the Louvre. But mostly it travels in the wooden crate because conservateurs de musée loan it to one another immediately as it shows up. In she comes, out she goes. Bah! Such a pity. Monette never will have recognition like her big brothers Claude and Manet, perhaps because of sexisme, do you think? Or perhaps because she is scary like hell, non? Me, I do not desire to gaze very long.

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PHILIP
"You're looking a bit pale this morning."

TONY

"I'm sure I am. So, here's my question to you for this morning. See if you can guess why a cop evicted me from a park last night?"

PHILIP
"OK I give up."

TONY
"Some lady didn't like that I was snoring so loud in the park. Seems her cat tore right through the window screen because of all the noise I was making. So she called the cops. She even wants me to pay for a new window screen for her.

"I never knew that it was against the law to snore too loud but it is."

PHILIP
"C'mon, you're just making this up, right?"

TONY
"No word of a lie, Phil. It's what actually happened."

This week, The Moment welcomes Jean-Luc Le Dû, the owner of the West Village oeno-porium Le Dû’s Wines. A champion of terroir-ist vineyards and obscure libations favored by cult mixologists, Le Dû shares his favorite bottles from both the cellar and the top shelf. Cheers.

After years of being banned in America, absinthe — the drink of choice among tortured artists like Van Gogh, Guy de Maupassant, Manet and Ernest Hemingway — was finally legalized for sale in the U.S. in 2007. It’s quickly gained a new following, showing up on cocktail menus everywhere from New York to San Francisco.

Spurred by the temperance movement, which considered it a mind-altering, addictive drink, absinthe was banned in 1912. However, contrary to legend and despite first-hand accounts from Oscar Wilde and Toulouse-Lautrec, it seems hysteria fueled the misconception that absinthe was a powerful intoxicant that drove men mad, threw them into epileptic fits and was the drink that spurred Van Gogh to slice off his ear.

(Time Life Pictures)

The source of controversy is thujone, the active chemical in absinthe. Derived from wormwood, an herb prized for its medicinal qualities in the past, it is dangerous in extremely high dosages, known to cause convulsions in laboratory animals. The concentration of thujone found in absinthe, however, is many thousands of times lower than that given to the lab rats — only 10 mg/l in America and never more than 35mg/l in Europe. So what causes the hallucinations? The theory is that absinthe’s extremely high alcohol content, typically around 60 percent (and up to 72), creates problems for those that overindulge in this mystical beverage.

I recently tried the three absinthes we carry at Le Dû's Wines: the Kübler, which tastes like a high-alcohol licorice stick; the Lucid Absinthe Supérieure, which has a smoother anise flavor; and my favorite, the St. George Spirits Absinthe Verte, the only one of the three produced in America. The St. George proved to be the most complex, with a powerful botanical influence along with clean, pure licorice flavors.

(Justin Sullivan/Getty)

I recommend preparing absinthe using the traditional French ritual: place a sugar cube on a flat, perforated spoon set across the rim of a glass filled with a few ounces of absinthe. Slowly drip ice-cold water onto the sugar cube, which will gradually dissolve until you have a ratio of three to four parts water to one part absinthe. The sugar will cut any bitterness in the absinthe and bring out the botanicals.

Now that our romantic associations between absinthe and bohemian artists and writers have been smashed to bits (although not if Marilyn Manson, one of the men behind Mansinthe, can help it…), we can try and understand absinthe on its own terms. To play it safe, I suggest you keep all cutlery away from your ears when drinking absinthe.

JEAN-LUC LE Dû’S FAVORITE ABSINTHES
St. George Spirits Absinthe Verte, $74.99
Lucid Absinthe Supérieure, $67.99
Kübler Absinthe, $56.99

Edouard Manet, copyright The National Gallery

Maximillian stands in the centre
flanked by two generals,
jerks as the bullet rips through
Mejia the unseen third,
squeezing Miramon’s hand,
his thumb a trigger curve,
the soldiers in French uniform
though Mexican --
surely a commentary on
Napoleon’s decision to withdraw.
The firing squad, was the blood
louder in their ears than gunpowder
or were they thinking of national pride,
or of the last time they shot a man?
Perhaps one needed to piss,
another had an unsteady hand
after a night of mescal,
here only one shows his face,
eyes down, caught up
in the mechanics of his rifle.
They are not standing in a row
as I would have imagined them,
no the only straight lines are
where the canvas has been cut
and reassembled
like the frames of a film,
giving the scene an
ironic momentum,
Miramon facing his killers,
execution stayed
ad infinitum.

Standing in front of the painting, the canvas huge, mesmerising, another cluster of people staring at him, and his eyes not afraid, no, resigned, expectant. My own drift to the blue hills beyond, to the sky clouded by the breath of smoking guns, to shadowed ground, these things are easier to look on than Miramon.

A woman with headphones pushes through the small crowd to the front, is taking hurried notes, I want to know what she is writing but do not ask, only move away subdued, feeling as if I had been there looking on.

R. Mutt firmó en 1917 este wáter, revolucionando el arte al igual que en su día Manet hizo con El Balcón, Warhol con su pop-art, y así hasta Velázquez con su pintura impresionista (por citar un estilo, ya que revolucionó todo cuanto tenía a mano). Mutt jugaba con la ironía hasta en el pseudónimo, protegiendo a la obra de dar el verdadero nombre del artista y creando una confusión entre popularidad y relevancia pública con la verdadera identidad de quien se encontraba detrás, el artista, tantas veces ensalzado como última cruzada. Marcel Duchamp era el hombre del wáter, el hombre que se rió del MoMA como hasta ese momento no lo había hecho nadie. ¿Es arte? Desde el punto de vista de rompedor sí. ¿Es bello? A cada cual su idea. Pero esta obra es revolución, necesaria revolución cuando se llega a un punto en el que arte se emplea para cualquier tipo de obras, expresiones e incluso actos populares. La fuente, como denominó a la obra, es revolución no arte.

Todo esto viene debido a que la Tate Modern de Londres trae dicha obra como exposición temporal. Un servidor ansía verla en persona y también ansía que bajen los precios de los vuelos, ya que el viaje inicial a la capital de la música ha quedado aplazado por el alto coste de éstos. Pero no hay que preocuparse, Duchamp viene también a Barcelona, y ahí se le verá, sí o sí.

Foto: Duchamp, Marcel. Fountain. 1917

Sr. Chinarro - Yo no soy militar

Thanks to Meeta for sending me this!

I may have a new game plan in mind. I never really know these days, the way my mind likes to flit to and fro. I just never really know where my thoughts will land. I will say that the last dive into my subconscious and exploring my shadow self was a lot like wandering through the Black Forest. I think I encountered every fear along the way, along with old karmic debts to be settled. Resurfacing from the depths of the subconscious is always a treacherous endeavor, not to be taken lightly, but with the help of some really close friends I think I’ve made it back to shore. I know and I don’t know at the same time.

This time while exploring the depths of the shadow self and the subconscious I encountered the ever elusive and ethereally effervescent l’espirit d’amour. One should never approach the Goddess Venus/Aphrodite unless one is prepared to lose all sanity. To approach love is like attempting to fly near the sun. Flying too close can melt the wax that binds dreams together. I explore this topic incessantly, and yet it is from the wellspring of love I find reason to create and to live. My imagination feeds off this emotion, and attempts to transform it into something stable, something concrete. I think that when I decided I wanted to be a poet, to live off the stuff dreams are made of, I knew it would be hard but not as hard as I imagined and have experienced. To live off the addiction of love is to be at the mercy of life itself, and at the mercy of those around me.

So what is this game plan I mentioned? I’m thinking perhaps I need to change majors once again, to Photography. At some point, probably around the age of 29, I’ll let go of all idealism and allow talent to be used for commercial gain. Until then, I cultivate the crafts and dreams, and then attempt to prevent them from corruption for the rest of my life. I did want to go to Art school originally, and my freshman year I didn’t have the inner strength to handle criticism.

Now, I feel I’ve gained some security in my abilities, albeit through photography and writing. I feel confident I can parlay this into the demands of art school. I already live with the mindset of the tortured artist, I may as well begin a regimen that has actual output. I feel pretty strongly about this now, I’m just worried my mind will change once again on a whim. Who knows these days? I like to think my personality is settling down into something permanent. I’ve taken this personae of Patrique and have begun to craft a public mask I don’t mind wearing so much, because he is an honest blend of who I see myself as.

That’s also another topic I love to explore. My dimensions of personas. But, viewing it through a psychological context, my ego death began November 10^th my freshman year and ever since then I’ve been searching for someone new to be, since the Patrick Morgan I knew no longer existed. I’ve seen the worst of Patrique, a drunken mess found half coherent with keys in the ignition. Belligerent and defiant, who I began to channel when I felt I didn’t have the strength to say no. My alter ego, whereas Patrick strove to save the world, Patrique has been my shadow self who allows self expression and desires without feeling guilty. Aware of the consequence but even more aware about the dangers of repression. I think an alter ego would do everyone some good. It doesn’t absolve anyone of his or her actions, but at the same time allows oneself to release repressed emotions and deal with them. One must take responsibility for one’s actions, after all. I don’t use Patrique as an excuse, but rather a medium to assuage the consciousness into releasing the subconscious.

Then again, perhaps I’m just full of shit. I do talk to the Doctors for the Crazies, and find myself more comfortable in the presence of other crazies. Je ne sais pas. Mais, I’ve been listening to La Vie En Rose for awhile now. I’m looking at the world through rose colored glasses, not because of naivete, but instead because to look at the world any other way would be unbearable. Audrey has many life lessons to teach.

Signed,

Patrique

Las dos obras -un Monet y un Van Gogh- estimadas en unos 70 millones de francos suizos (44 millones de euros) fueron encontradas en el asiento trasero de un automóvil en el estacionamiento del hospital psiquiátrico de esa ciudad, precisó el informe.

"Las amapolas cerca de Vétheuil", de Claude Monet (1879), y "Rama de castaño florecida", de Vincent Van Gogh (1890), fueron identificados formalmente por el director del museo Bührle de Zurich, donde habían sido hurtados el 10 de febrero pasado, según dicho comunicado.

La policía sigue buscando las otras dos obras robadas: "El conde Lepic y sus hijas", de Edgar Degas (1871), y "El niño del chaleco rojo", de Paul Cézanne (1888).