Archive for August, 2007
Interior Decoration
August 31st, 2007 Uncategorized
Detail:
In the foyer leading to the inner rooms:
Detail:
In the study – ma’s work area:
(and some Georgia O’Keeffe flowers)
In the study – my work/play area:
Detail(and some Georgia O’Keeffe flowers):
Bedroom of Brother
Detail:
Dutch painter – have forgotten name of painter and painting
My Bedroom
Detail
Pictures of Vermeers and Netscher’s Lacemaker taken from The Essential Vermeer.
Pictures of the Seurat taken from The National Gallery, London.
Pictures of Arcimboldos taken from The Louvre.
Can’t remember where I took the Hoppers from but An Edward Hopper Scrapbook a good source.
Picture of the Van Gogh taken from The Art Institute of Chicago.
To be rich and powerful
August 31st, 2007 Uncategorized
This week turned out to be fine art week. Catching up on blog reading, I came across MMV’s Fine Art Friday on Pollock and Smart Set’s Dilettante’s Guide To Art. (If you are keen on Hopper MMV has a link to Smithsonian Magazine’s article on Hopper.)
With art categorised by movements, it would seem that artists guide the tastes of the masses, sweeping us up towards revolutions one after another. If so, there would be continuous improvements to technique and perfection of symbolism but art movement is random, it’s one thing after another. The fact is we are rubbish at knowing greatness, not even when greatness rests its tush in our countenance. Only those who have the means can select what lives on, what gets buried in wastelands or incinerated. Art is luxury and the competition for the supply luxury is intensely close to the fashions of the rich society who are looking for the next amusing thing to one up the equivalent of Jones in their neighbourhood. A perfect example would be the Dutch Golden Age. Almost every well known piece has emphasis on clothing, accessories and jewellery and puts the face into soft focus. The greatness of Mona Lisa is that it’s amusing. Another example: abstract art.
“Each painting that made it into the final cut did so because it was important or interesting, or both. Interesting because of its subject matter or the way it was painted, important because of its relationship with other paintings.” The absurd circularity of saying that paintings are good because they are interesting or important doesn’t bother Stephen much, and God bless him for it.
Living Dangerously
August 31st, 2007 Uncategorized
My friend suggested that “we shld plan a holiday, maybe a short one, not so many museums and shopping centres so that we can spend more time with each other.” Compromises and spats directly and positively correlates with time spent together and the probability of fatalities. I trust the pyschology professor on this.
The Consultants
August 31st, 2007 radio
This is a bit from The Consultants – an exchange between an optician and his patient. In most comedians one looks forward to the uproariously funny. In some one seeks out the quietly tragic.
A:So if you could take a look at the letters behind me and read them out please.
B:Y
A:Well that’s one of the ways we find out how good or bad your eye sight is.
B:G
A:Well yes, I suppose that is a little surprising. If you igbore the top two letters now and go for the second row.
B:L O
A:Yes, Hello. I’m not sure if you are following this. Just look at the fourth row from the bottom and tell me what you see.
B:I C U
A:Well that’s a start. What about those letters? What letters do you see?
B:I C U X L
A:Well hah – I wouldn’t go that far. I am a good optician.
B:U R S X E Q T
A:Oh ah er that’s very flattering but on you go.
B:U F S X E S
A:Well I try to keep trim but gosh we should keep on with the eye test.
B:R U C C N E body
A:That’s really really not any of your business. I am in a sort of a relationship. Yes.
B:O R U
A:Well no. I’ve been single for a while. I don’t normally discuss private things with strangers
B:K G R U
A:I’m just a bit shy. Can we just do the eye test please?
B:I M M T
A:Oh. You feel like that too?
B:Y M I L O N
A:I don’t know. Why should any of us be alone. I mean I see 20 patients a day and I go home and I don’t see anyone until I come back the next day. I eat alone. I sleep alone. I need someone so badly too. Do you need someone too? Well?
B:I finish the chart.
A:Sorry?
B:I’ve read all the letters now.
A:Oh yes, I see. Well done. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with your eyesight. You can go now. It’s
Something for everybody at the Art Hypermarts
August 29th, 2007 Treats
At the National Gallery, UK
Sesto’s Salome. The evilest of all Salomes I’ve seen.
Vermeer’s A Young Woman standing at a Virginal looks more impressive in front of your eyes than in the Taschen picture book. Vermeer is very good at showing the light points on the jewelery and dress. I didn’t get to see A Young Woman seated at a Virginal. I almost missed The Music Lesson displayed at the Buckingham Palace. The palace has a nice collection of dutch artists. I am pleased to find there is Steen’s A Woman At Her Toilet, a print I gave to J.
I found Steenwyck’s An Allegory of the Vanities of Human Life similar to Holbein’s The Ambassadors being dominated by the skull. I thought Holbein was particularly brave to include the skull: it seems to mock the achievements of the Ambassadors.
Botticelli ’s Venus and Mars. It’s only when I see it at the gallery that it hits me how Venus looks: calculative, smirking and triumphant over the exhausted Mars. A picture for the bedroom of a sneakily clever wife if you ask me.
Rousseau’s Surprised! makes Rousseau look bad. The tiger looks piss in the pants frightened. Tigers growl and kill whatever that had threatened them and do not crouch down, dismayed with fear.
Hammershoi’s Interior looks like one of Hopper’s interiors but somehow, Hammershoi manages to fill this interior with a love and comfort.
Seurat’s Bathers at Asnieres. I love every bit of this picture. Luckily a print is available for purchase.
At the Louvre, Paris, France
Scheffer’s Les ombres de Francesca da Rimini et de Paolo Malatesta apparaissent à Dante et à Virgile
I found the pair most beautiful of all the nudes I’ve seen. In the same room, was Delaroche’s incredibly beautiful La Jeune Martyr. The museum shop sold the print of Delaroche’s Young Martyr and I thought the shadows slightly greenish when it was much darker in the painting.
Schall’s La Comparaison – hilarious! I love it! A print of it would go so well in my room! However, it seems that this Schall isn’t popular – it is difficult to find a print.
Helpful signs showed the way to the old lady and one saw it from afar behind glass. It’s true: Mona Lisa does looked like she’s grinning from afar. I don’t think her eyes followed me around the museum, however. Madonna of the rocks was also popular.
I thought Les Noces de Cana by Paolo CALIARI dit VÉRONÈSE located in the same room lively and exciting. I can almost hear the music, the shouting and the eating. Jupiter punissant les vices by the same painter located nearby looked like Saint Michel terrassant le démon. I like the tumbling bodies in the sky and St Michel’s calm victory of the demon.
I was thoroughly amused by Arcimboldo’s Seasons I bought the picture postcards for my colleagues and a post print of Spring (L’Printemps) for the boss who remarked that it was a little serious.
The prize was to see The Lacemaker and The Astronomer.
At the Orsay, Paris, France
I walked through a roomful of Seurat’s pictures and was disappointed that I liked none of them. Oddly I gained a liking of Van Gogh’s La chambre de Van Gogh à Arles . I still don’t like the way his painting brushes show up and the strange tilt as though I’m wearing wrong powered glasses but I’m fond of the intimacy of this painting.
I was passing through the rooms seeking out Manet’s nudes when The Origin Of the World appeared without a warning. I can’t imagine anyone looking at the painting without squirming. A young man near me took a picture of the painting and walked away. An elderly couple withstood the painting for a few seconds and moved on. I wonder if Courbet drew that in revenge, knowing its impact on the viewer.
I was little affected by Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe and Olympia and Cezanne’s Pommes et Oranges and Nature morte à la bouilloire and was disappointed – I was quite eager to see them.
At the Cluny, Paris, France
The tapestries at Cluny Museum were seriously outstanding. The Lady and the unicorn tapestries were amazingly well kept and I particularly liked the Saint Stephen’s Tapestry.
Holiday Photographs
August 29th, 2007 Uncategorized
Click here for slideshow of the better pictures.
London Bridge, Thames, Big Ben
August 17th, 2007 Uncategorized
Climbing Eiffel Tower in one hour – ah, no.
I feel as though I am again Primary Five, and it is three days before my first camping trip and I am cranky and exhausted from the lack of sleep that is from unbearable excitement.
Einstein: His life and universe by Walter Isaacson (and some meandering)
August 15th, 2007 books
In the lives of great men and women, one observes a recurring theme of social difficulty that ‘immortality’ cannot be achieved without being offensive in some way. P. Kovalevsky says of Peter the Great: “We could enthuse forever about the greatness of Peter’s actions and still not depict in all its fullness, brilliance and worth everything that he accomplished…But in creating, he destroyed. He caused pain to all in whom he came into contact. He disturbed the safety, peace, prosperity, interests, strength, well-being, rights and dignity of everyone he touched. He made things unpleasant for everyone. He did harm to everyone. He touched intellectual, political, social, financial, family, moral and spiritual interests. Is it possible to love such a statesman? In no way. Such men are hated.” Like Peter the Great, Einstein is the giant of scientists. Like Peter, he caused much pain to those who are close to him. He offended those who could have brought him into fame, caused his own poverty, neglected his wife and abandoned his child. The ability to withdraw and to distance makes these persons impervious to guilt. When others fail to motivate such persons to behave in a socially accepted way with guilt or humiliation, naturally, lives of these persons become wrought with difficulty – not from the lack of cooperation of individuals but purposeful setting of obstacles out of vengeance. Aside from his personal difficulty, I’m most impressed by Einstein’s energy. He worked hard 16 – 18 hours a day for years and years, hacking away, always focused on the big picture, and kept himself from the minutiae. I am driven to reflect on the recent changes in my lifestyle – is the vast expanse of leisure time good for a purposeful life; how has my mind benefited from my job change.
More of Geoffrey Miller
August 13th, 2007 popscience
One important difference between peacocks’ tails and human minds, of course, is that the peahen’s accoutrement is a drab affair. No one could say the same of the human female psyche. That, Dr Miller believes, is because people, unlike peafowl, bring up their offspring in families where both sexes are involved in parenting. It thus behoves a man to be as careful about choosing his wife as a woman is about choosing her husband.
Both sexes, therefore, have reason to show off. But men and women will have different criteria for making their choices, and so the sexual-display sides of their minds may differ in detail.
Testing this hypothesis will be a long haul. But in a paper he has just published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, in collaboration with Vladas Griskevicius of Arizona State University, Dr Miller goes some way towards it. He, Dr Griskevicius and their colleagues look into two activities
