Monthly Archives: October 2011

Matisse notes 1908

Expression, for me, does not reside in passions glowing in a human face or manifested by violent movement. The entire arrangement of my picture is expressive: the place occupied by the figures, the empty spaces around them, the proportions, everything has its share. Composition is the art of arranging in a decorative manner the diverse elements at the painter’s command to express his feelings. In a picture every part will be visible and will play its appointed role, whether it be principal or secondary. Everything that is not useful in the picture is, it follows, harmful. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety: any superfluous detail would replace some other essential detail in the mind of the spectator.

PICASSO & IDEALS OF PEACE: Better Red than Fed

For four years, Picasso, the foreigner, did not have a single exhibition of his recent work, and Matisse had the limelight all to himself. During Vichy, the foreigner who had successfully competed with the equally famous French artist (on the latter’s turf, so to speak) was not on view. At a time of French nationalism and Fascism in Franco’s Spain, the Loyalist Picasso and his art, symbols of Judeo-Marxist foreign decadence in France, were in purgatory.

via PICASSO & IDEALS OF PEACE: Better Red than Fed | Madame Pickwick Art Blog.

Advertising is a poison

 

Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we’re hooked on it

We are subjected to ever more pervasive messages to consume, encouraging dissatisfaction.

via Advertising is a poison that demeans even love – and we’re hooked on it | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian.

Violent cornflakes ad

Matisse, Cézanne and Picasso: The Stein Family

The Stein Family exhibition focuses on this period. However unlikely it may now seem, at the time, between Rue de Fleurus and Rue Madame, where Michael and Sarah had a flat, you would have seen Woman in a Hat, Blue Nude and several Collioure landscapes, all by Matisse, as well as Picassos sublime Boy Leading a Horse, his 1906 portrait of Gertrude, 10 or so studies for Les Demoiselles dAvignon and some cubist still lives. Soon the weekly receptions at Rue de Fleurus became a mandatory rite of passage for anyone wishing to understand modern art and literature. Amazed visitors might recognise a few Cézannes – a still life, the Bathers and a portrait of Madame Cézanne in an armchair– Bonnards Siesta, and a large Vallotton nude. Two works by Gauguin and a Manet complete the section devoted to the early days, because the collection was built as a history of modern art.

via Matisse, Cézanne and Picasso: The Stein Family – review | Art and design | Guardian Weekly.

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Napoleon’s Curse – By Ian Buruma | Foreign Policy

The gradual militarization of American society — the ritual genuflections to “our men and women in uniform,” the bloated military budgets, the fawning attitude to generals — has resulted in something more often associated with tin-pot dictatorships in the developing world: crumbling bridges, potholed roads, rotten schools, and an overbearing military loaded with all the best and latest hardware.

Napoleon’s Curse – By Ian Buruma | Foreign Policy.

Stone Age painting kits found in cave | Science | The Guardian

 

 

The oldest known painting kits, used 100,000 years ago in the stone age, have been unearthed in a cave in South Africa.

Two sets of implements for preparing red and yellow ochres to decorate animal skins, body parts or perhaps cave walls were excavated at the Blombos cave on the Southern Cape near the Indian Ocean.

The stone and bone tools for crushing, mixing and applying the pigments were uncovered alongside the shells of giant sea snails that had been used as primitive mixing pots.

via Stone Age painting kits found in cave | Science | The Guardian.

george stubbs tears: putting a good face upon trade

 

RA

 

None of the members attracted as much public attention as Sir Anthony Carlisle, the Academy’s professor of anatomy from 1808-1824. A police guard was called out to restrain the crowds whenever Sir Anthony lectured; but what stirred the mob was not so much the academic content of the lectures as the auxiliary matter with which he diversified them. Often, for instance, he would have human remains handed round on dinner plates, to better make his point; and for a time he illustrated the operation of the muscular system with the help of eight private soldiers of the Foot Guards who exercised stark naked on the lecture platform.

via george stubbs tears: putting a good face upon trade | Madame Pickwick Art Blog.

Willem de Kooning Still Dazzles | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine

In 1926, Willem de Kooning, a penniless, 22-year-old commercial artist from the Netherlands, stowed away on a freighter bound for America. He had no papers and spoke no English.

via Willem de Kooning Still Dazzles | Arts & Culture | Smithsonian Magazine.

A History Of Violence Edge Master Class 2011 | Conversation | Edge

What may be the most important thing that has ever happened in human history is that violence has gone down, by dramatic degrees, and in many dimensions all over the world and in many spheres of behavior: genocide, war, human sacrifice, torture, slavery, and the treatment of racial minorities, women, children, and animals.

via A History Of Violence Edge Master Class 2011 | Conversation | Edge.