Posts in Category: Art History
When Homo sapiens hit upon the power of art
When Homo sapiens hit upon the power of art.
Rail engineer Peccadeau de l’Isle was supervising track construction outside Toulouse in 1866 when he decided to take time off to indulge his hobby, archaeology. With a crew of helpers, he began excavating below a cliff near Montastruc, where he dug up an extraordinary prehistoric sculpture. It is known today as the Swimming Reindeer of Montastruc.
men and women are born, and live, and work, and suffer, and die, without any sense of a fundamental reason for it all…
the almighty is not interested in creating paintings | Madame Pickwick Art Blog.
Derek Allan:The result today is an agnostic culture—a culture lacking any fundamental value. The claim is not, one should stress, that belief in God has necessarily become an impossibility, or that no-one in any previous culture ever doubted the prevailing beliefs of their times. ‘Agnosticism is no new thing,’ Malraux writes, ‘what is new is an agnostic culture’. The unprecedented development, which is our present reality, is a culture lacking any fundamental value, any absolute in the sense defined earlier—unlike Ancient Egypt, unlike Greece, unlike Byzantium or the Middle Ages, unlike post-Renaissance Europe, unlike even the nineteenth century despite the fragility of its faith in Man—in short,
unlike so many other cultures that have preceded ours or that have existed in other parts of the world. We can look back across the millennia of human history, Malraux is saying, and see culture after culture in which a shared sense of the numinous, or of the sacred, has given man an assurance of his place in the scheme of things—an assurance that there is something other than the ephemeral realm of appearances. Modern Western culture, by contrast, has only a series of unanswered questions. Having taken to heart Nietzsche’s pronouncement (issued somewhat late in the day) that God is dead, and having recognised, willingly or not, that, in Malraux words, ‘Man is dead after God’, we are the first ‘agnostic culture’—the first civilisation in human history in which men and women are born, and live, and work, and suffer, and die, without any sense of a fundamental reason for it all. The consequences in the field of art, Malraux argues, have been dramatic….
Orange Barrel Industries
for all the artist, art students or just art admirers out there– this is one of my favorite sketch book sites
In other men most of their life is repressed by…
In other men most of their life is repressed by the bourgeois structure, their professional, social, and community mores.
The artist retains his sensibility; it is the element he needs for his profession.
The artist matches his life to his needs and lives by his own design and does not conform to patterns made by others.
The artist lives more in harmony with his own character and is closer to freedom and individuality, and therefore integrity.
Anaïs Nin in Diary of Anaïs Nin Volume 5 1947-1955: Vol. 5
via In other men most of their life is repressed by… • literary jukebox.
Celebrating 1913, a glory year for modern art | Art and design | guardian.co.uk
Celebrating 1913, a glory year for modern art
A Leeds gallery gets set to mark the centenary of an artistic annus mirabilis – when Duchamp, Matisse and Picasso brought modern art out of the studios and into the streets.
Art is soon to celebrate a dazzling centenary. When the new year chimes in and we enter 2013, it will be 100 years since Marcel Duchamp put a bicycle wheel on top of a wooden stool to invent the readymade; since Henri Matisse came back from a trip to Morocco that sparked his most radical phase; since the Armory Show gave America its first big blast of modern art; since …
via Celebrating 1913, a glory year for modern art | Art and design | guardian.co.uk.
BBC News – Van Gogh did not kill himself, authors claim
Vincent van Gogh did not kill himself, the authors of new biography Van Gogh: The Life have claimed.
Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith say that, contrary to popular belief, it was more likely he was shot accidentally by two boys he knew who had “a malfunctioning gun”.
The authors came to their conclusion after 10 years of study with more than 20 translators and researchers.
via BBC News – Van Gogh did not kill himself, authors claim.
Auction Season: Artists request a share of profits made from their work
Were it to become legislation, the Artist Resale Right would entitle artists to receive 5% from subsequent public sales of their work through auction houses and commercial galleries. It is common for visual art to appreciate in value over time, as the reputation of the artist grows.
via CARFAC » Auction Season: Artists request a share of profits made from their work.
The Very Best of Strange Soviet Architecture
Not long after Tolstoy immortalized Anna’s affair with Count Vronsky, the old Russian regime collapsed, and an era of extreme artistic inquiry ensued. We’ve explored the experimental style that represents the ideological dreams and chaotic impulses of a stifled society; from retro-future research institutes and vacation spots to a wedding palace, click through to check out the very best of strange Soviet architecture.
via Flavorwire » The Very Best of Strange Soviet Architecture.