Posts By lane
if you meet a shaman on the road…
This is what she told him: I think it is as important as any religion. It’s a different way of saying the same thing. They [priests] say it by allegory and words. We say it in a visual way, which is much more immediate, much more direct. . . . You’re given a gift to fulfill. You did not bargain for happiness; you bargained for something else. You bargained for revelation. You bargained for a closer concept of reality. And you bargained for your own sanity, I think, half the time. You’re really right down with the elements.”
The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen
The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen | George Monbiot
In a study published by the journal Psychology, Crime and Law, Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon tested 39 senior managers and chief executives from leading British businesses. They compared the results to the same tests on patients at Broadmoor special hospital, where people who have been convicted of serious crimes are incarcerated. On certain indicators of psychopathy, the bosses’s scores either matched or exceeded those of the patients. In fact, on these criteria, they beat even the subset of patients who had been diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders.
The psychopathic traits on which the bosses scored so highly, Board and Fritzon point out, closely resemble the characteristics that companies look for. Those who have these traits often possess great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people. Egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others and a lack of empathy and conscience are also unlikely to damage their prospects in many corporations.
lyric essence: there are no maybes
Matisse by Henri-Cartier Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson is recognized as one of the great masters of photography. Armed with only a Leica, he strove to capture the fleeting reality of what he called, “the decisive moment.”
He employed neither gimmicks of craft nor tricks of composition. Lincoln Kirstein wrote, ” he is not making art, but taking life.” He always remained true to the French classical tradition, with its stress on simplicity, clarity and economy of means.
lyric essence: there are no maybes | Madame Pickwick Art Blog.
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.
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.
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.