I found this painting of the volcano Ixtaccíhuatl on eBay, for sale by a dealer in London. I'd been daydreaming about finding a nice picture of the volcanoes for my bedroom, and along came this. The technique is so-so, but it IS pretty, and it reminds me. I used to see the volcanoes every day of my childhood.
My second Xmas present to myself was the album "Amigo é casa" by Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira, and it features this beautiful piece by Milton Nascimento.
Here is Simone performing the piece in 1982. According to the YouTube upload:
"Rede Globo - Especial 'Corpo e Alma' Quinta da Boa Vista, Rio de janeiro, 17 de dezembro de 1982 - ao vivo
Especial com a cantora Simone exibido ao vivo a partir de um show realizado pela Divisão de Eventos Especiais da TV Globo na Quinta da Boa Vista, no Rio de Janeiro. Durante mais de uma hora, Simone interpretou músicas de seu novo disco, recordou sucessos anteriores e apresentou três músicas inéditas para uma platéia de cerca de 50 mil pessoas. O evento, com entrada franca, contou com a participação de uma grande orquestra, que acompanhou a cantora em várias canções de seu repertório, entre elas Sangrando, Sal da terra, Começar de novo, Corpo e Alma. Direção geral de Aloysio Legey.
So long since I've written anything at all. For months, I've been working out colors and decor schemes and, lovely as it is to envision my apartment finished, I'm tired of thinking about it as well.
So... about color.
Blocks of color that make one want to weep.
Here is Whistler's Mother, a radically modern painting for its period.
Here is some Rothko. Clearly, Whistler had to paint so that Rothko could too.
Since color has been consuming my life, I am hoping I did a decent job of choosing among the (count them) twenty-three samples I tried out.
Thank you, Mr. Allison, for introducing me to the amazing Flor Garduño. I have a lot to learn about her. She has a web sitewhich is well worth exploring. Her CV is impressive but short on personal information.
Why do I so love Fernando Botero? His work has been imprinted on my consciousness since I was very, very young. Indeed, the first painting I ever bought (at age 14) is a Mother-and-child tableau imitating Botero's style.
The Bather
Botero's images are sensuous, powerful, and often reference past masters. I'll continue this later; I need to think and study Botero more fully.
The neo-figurative style Per Wikipedia, it is representational but with an expressionist revival, originating in Spain and Mexico in the 1960s. A better description is this provided by Peter Standish and Steven M. Bell in Culture and Customs of Mexico: neo-figuration is a generalized trend away from abstraction and towards representation of the human figure informed by existentialist concerns relating to the individual.
In the 1950s, "a group of artists who came to be known as the Generacion de la Ruptura, related to the avant-garde literary Contemporaneos, [were united by] their resistance to the programmatic, dogmatic, doctrinaire aspects of the Mexican School of Painting. The ruptura group ... freely pursued their individual inclinations down such paths as Post-Romanticism, neo-expressionism, geometrical and lyrical abstraction, and various combinations thereof. They preferred the cosmopolitan and universal to the nationalistic, and they had a much more multi-media approach than the muralists....
To complicate matters, there was another group that was an offshoot of the Ruptura, known as the Nueva Presencia, which was active from 1961 to 1963 and which also went under the name of the Interioristas... The groups' members had denounced the emphasis on social realism and the didacticism of the dominant schools of muralism and indigenism, but unlike others they rejected the use of abstract modes in favor of neo-figuration; they were to become one of the most important group of neo-figuratives in the Americas. ... Neo-figuration was a generalized trend away from abstraction and towards representation of the human figure, a trend that emerged in Europe, the United States and Europe during the 1950s. Many of the European artists who worked in neo-figurative styles expressed existentialist concerns relating to the individual in the anxious context of post-war Europe. In Latin America, the industrialization and urban growth of the 1940s and 1950s resulted in an increasingly alienating urban life style which also made artists receptive to existentialist ideas. ... [They] became aware of existentialism through the writings of Octavio Paz, the U.S. Beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, European writers like Albert Camus and Franz Kafka...
— From Culture and Customs of Mexico by Peter Standish and Steven M. Bell, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, ISBN 0313304122, 9780313304125, pp. 280-281.
Abu Ghraib These are a few in a large series of works by Botero in response to prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib. They were inspired by the artist's anger after reading Seymour Hersh's article in the New Yorker. He subsequently worked on the series for fourteen months. Abu Ghraib 72, 2005 and Abu Ghraib 67, 2005 Oils on canvas, 37 x 30 cmand 43 x 35 cm, respectively
Mr. Botero discussed the series with Roberto Hass, once poet laureate of the United States, at UC Berkeley in 2007; the conversation is accessible by clicking here. It is well worth a look.
This short film below, A Permanent Accusation, shows some of the Abu Ghraib series. Prepare to be enraptured.
This freize, now housed at the National Gallery of Art, is a fine example of Arabic calligraphy on stone. It's breathtaking, no? Below is the blurb with which the NGA describes this piece.
The Written Word
Nothing is more characteristic of Islamic art than the use of inscriptions in Arabic, which appear on the walls of both palaces and mosques, and on a variety of objects. A system of proportions governing the forms of the letters and their relationship to each other was developed as early as the eighth century. Over time, the rules changed, as different styles of script became popular or fell from favor. But rules always existed, lending consistency to the art of Islamic calligraphy--the art of "writing well" in the Arabic script.
The increased importance of inscriptions during the Islamic period is intimately connected to the nature of Islam, which is based on the revelation received from God by the Prophet Muhammad. This was the Qur'an--the Word of God spoken in the Arabic language. Muslims in each generation made copies of the Qur'an written in the Arabic script, and this use of writing to record the very Word of God has given calligraphy its prominent status in Islamic culture.
Quotations in elegant calligraphy from the Qur'an and other religious texts embellish Islamic buildings and works of art. They are principally used in religious contexts, as in the case of the tile frieze bearing a monumental Qur'anic inscription that once adorned the tomb of Buyanquli Khan in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. However, a wide range of secular inscriptions also appears, many expressing benedictions such as, "Good fortune and prosperity to the owner!" Sometimes, the names of patrons and artists are worked into the calligraphic ornament, as are quotations from the huge storehouse of Middle Eastern poetry written in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish.
Above is an image of the right-hand panel of the Portinari Altarpiece, a triptych commissioned by the Bonciani family. The panel shows Maria Bonciani and her daughter Marguerite flanked by their patron saints, Saint Marguerite and Mary Magdalene. Hugo van der Goes, my favorite of the Early Renaissance Flemish artists, painted this oil on wood masterpiece in 1473-1475. It now hangs in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.
Christ and Mary Magdalene, ca. 1889. A contemporary picture would place Christ and Mary Magdalene as equals, I think, after the influence of Elaine Pagels.
I'm enjoying my mini art classes via ArtMagick. So much fun and good for the soul too.
These marvelous frescoes are in the Caves of Dunhuang, China (between Mongolia and Tibet). "A vital juncture on the Silk Road, it was where Buddhism spilled out of India and Central Asia into China, leaving a residue of spectacular art."
The blogger who does Cool Things found yet another very, very cool thing: the beard font. I was confused at first; was this a font of Jesus? It's very creative, no?
The video below is a very fine and original look at various Moore sculptures and is described by its author as a " slideshow of the work of Henry Moore for my graphics project." I found it on video.google.com. It makes me want to go back to the Moore exhibit at the Botanical Gardens even more.
I just came across ArtMagick: "a virtual gallery dedicated to the continual quest of seeking out obscure 19th century artists and long-forgotten paintings showing a "magic world of romance and pictured poetry". The majority of the content in the archive covers the Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist movements." I love it. One feature is the picture of the day, with accompanying information. What a lovely way to learn.
Today's picture is Arnold Böcklin's "War", an "allegory ... inspired by St John's vision of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse."
I am no wine connoisseur, so when I am not picking the usual Rioja — which I know will not disappoint — I am sometimes drawn to a wine by the beauty of its label.
Since 1945, Château Mouton Rothschild has commissioned artists to design its wine labels. According to Wikipedia:
"Baron Philippe de Rothschild came up with the idea of having each year's label designed by a famous artist of the day. In 1946, this became a permanent and significant aspect of the Mouton image with labels created by some of the world's great painters and sculptors. ... Mouton is French for sheep, and consequently many artist labels have featured sheep."
At left, the 1945 label, designed by Philippe Jullian, known as a "dandy," commemorates the end of World War II with the legend "Annee de la victoire." At right is a label I love, designed by Marie Laurencin, one of the few female Cubist painters. Are the two women faintly Dyonisian?
At left: Portrait of Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, 1496, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. At right: Portrait of Oswolt Krel, 1499, Alte Pinakothek, Munich.
Above are two examples of Durer's portraiture, which I adore. Elector Frederick the Wise I've always loved this portrait. Though it is not one of Durer's better known works, it is, I think, significant not only because the Elector Frederick was so important historically, but because Durer chose to paint him. Frederick was twenty-four at the time the portrait was painted; his confrontation with the Roman Catholic Church was still to come, as was his protection of Martin Luther. The scroll in Frederick's hand seems to indicate that the Elector chose to be portrayed as a learned man.
Oswolt Krel The Nuremberg merchant who commissioned the portrait asked Durer for a "true representation." The side panels with 'Sylvan men' carrying the heraldic shields of Krel and his wife seem a daring choice.
Today, I. and I went to see the Moore in America exhibit at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. Unfortunately, the place was packed, and we were unable to properly enjoy the monumental sculptures, which I first saw as a teenager in Mexico City thirty years ago. We will be returning — several times — throughout the show's run. This link to Moore at Kew has fantastic pictures and information. The image above is of Seated Woman from Moore at the Kew, a website with great photos and an interactive guide, about the show at Kew Gardens, where the sculptures were shown just before they came to New York. I highly recommend the site for its photography.
I feel truly privileged to have the opportunity to see these marvels twice in my lifetime.
Robert Rauschenberg, the master of nearly all media, died yesterday at his home on Captiva Island, Florida. I picked out a few images from a slideshow included in the artist's obituary in the New York Times. Feast your eyes.
