Month: November 2015

Jared French

Jared French, “Lunchtime with Early Miners”, 1938, Mural in the Plymouth US Post Office Building in Pennsylvania, New Deal Public Works of Art Project

Nudity was to be avoided, and Treasury Department Section Director Edward Bruce was emphatic about this point. “Anybody who wanted to paint a nude ought to have his head examined!” he declared. Bruce’s officials were quick to advise artists to remove or tone down anything that might be deemed risqué. Once again, however, depictions of Native Americans proved to be an exception to the rule. Artists who specialized in figurative art could portray muscular, nearly naked Native Americans in poses deemed inappropriate for whites.

Jared French (1905–1987), an artist who devised an unusual pictorial language to explore human unconsciousness and its relation to sexuality, could not resist testing the boundaries. In 1937, he was working on two post office murals, one for Plymouth, Luzerne County, and the second for Richmond, Virginia. For the Richmond commission, he proposed depicting a group of Confederate soldiers in various states of undress preparing to cross a stream to flee advancing Union forces. The Section advised French that the figures must be clothed. “You have painted enough nudes in your life so that the painting of several more or less should not matter in your artistic career,” wrote a Section administrator. French capitulated on the Richmond mural—he wanted to be paid after all—but as a final jab at Rowan and the Section, he did manage to paint one more nude.

Before finishing the Plymouth mural, “Mealtime with the Early Coal Miners”, French inserted into the background a male figure piloting a barge, inexplicably unclothed. The nude pilot, like the union buttons of the railcar workers, went undetected by Treasury Department officials. The offending image appeared too small to be detected in the final eight-by-ten-inch photographs, and “Mealtime” became the only example of full-frontal nudity in a United States post office.

Note: For those interested in more information on Jared French, I recommend Emily Sachar’s “Jared French’s State Park: A Contextual Study”, which was submitted for his Master of Arts degree. It includes a chapter of French’s artistic circle of friends, including his freindship with Paul Cadmus, as well as several images of French’s most notable works. The article can be found at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1289&context=hc_sas_etds

Hibiki Whiskey

Hibiki Whiskey

“Earlier this year, Osaka-based Suntory shocked the world by announcing acquisition of proudly American brands Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark but lest you misunderstand their intention as some untoward occupation of quintessential Americana like beer and alcohol, one has to understand the foundations of Japanese artisan philosophy is that of complete mastery. Theirs’ is the ability to absorb and improve everything from cocktails to couture. When it comes to whiskey, Japan has close to a hundred years of heritage.

In 1923, Shinjiro Torii envisioned a whisky filled with the essence of Japanese nature and hand-crafted by artisans through a patient process of enhancing the work of nature. He dreamt of creating subtle, refined, yet complex whisky that would suit the delicate palate of the Japanese and enhance their dining experience. Inspired by traditional Scottish whisky.

Seductive, blossoming and enigmatic, Hibiki celebrates an unrivaled art of blending, fine craftsmanship and a sense of luxury from the House of Suntory. Hibiki is not only Japan’s most highly awarded blended whisky, but among the most prestigious and honoured whiskies in the world. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the relatively affordable Yamazaki and Hakushu range.” – TheMonsieur.com

Thanks to http://3leapfrogs.tumblr.com

Gertrude Bacon: “They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships”

Photographer Unknown, (Sailor Hats)

“They that go down to the sea in ships see strange things, but what they tell is oft-times stranger still. A faculty for romancing is imparted by a seafaring life as readily and surely as a rolling gait and a weather-beaten countenance. A fine imagination is one of the gifts of the ocean-witness the surprising and unlimited power of expression and epithet possessed by the sailor. And a fine imagination will frequently manifest itself in other ways besides swear words. (“The Gorgon’s Head”)”

― Gertrude Bacon

Marcantonio Raimondi

 

Marcantonio Raimondi, “The Climbers”, Engraving, 1510

Marcantonio Raimondi,was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists mainly of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figure in the rise of the reproductive print. He also systematized a technique of engraving that became dominant in Italy and elsewhere.

Around 1510, Marcantonio travelled to Rome and entered the circle of artists surrounding Raphael. This influence began showing up in engravings titled “The Climbers” (in which he reproduced part of Michelangelo’s “Soldiers Surprised Bathing”, also called “Battle of Cascina”). After a reproduction of a work by Raphael, entitled “Lucretia”, Raphael trained and assisted Marcantonio personally.

Around 1524, Marcantonio was briefly imprisoned by Pope Clement VII for making the I modi set of erotic engravings, from the designs of Giulio Romano, which were later accompanied by sonnets written by Pietro Aretino. At the intercession of the Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici, Baccio Bandinelli and Pietro Aretino, he was released, and set to work on his plate of the “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence” after Bandinelli.

Odani Motohiko

Sculptures by Odani Motohiko

Motohiko Odani was born in Kyoto, Japan, in 1972 and received an MFA from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1997. He currently holds the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Intermedia Art at Tokyo University of the Arts. In his sculpture, photography, and video works, Odani mingles human, animal, and futuristic anatomy, exploring the boundaries of reality and myth, the physical and the spiritual.

Odani’s has exhibited widely throughout Europe and Asia; in 2003, he was selected by curator Yuko Hasegawa to represent Japan at the Venice Biennale.  He has also participated in the Lyon Biennale (2000), Istanbul Biennale (2001), and Gwanju Biennale (2002).  Major solo exhibitions include Phantom Limb (P-House), a 2010 traveling exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, Shizuoka; Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kawaga and the Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Kumamoto, and Motohiko Odani: Hollow at Maison Hermes, Tokyo.

His works can be found in the public collections of Asia Society Museum, New York, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Japan; The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan, among others.

Dustin Payne

Dustin Payne, “Prairie Allies”, Bronze Monument

Dustin Payne represents the third generation of professional western sculptors in his family, so it comes as no surprise that the trade was a natural path for him. On his mother’s side he is a descendant of Hiram Daugherty and Mary Jane Goodnight, the sister of Texas Cattle King, Charlie Goodnight. Goodnight and Oliver Loving brought the first longhorns across country from Texas, inaugurating the cattle drive era.

As a child, Dustin enjoyed the drawings and books of Will James and was heavily influenced by the historical nature of his father and grandfather’s work. He feels fortunate that he has always been surrounded by such great artists and mentors, but more-so by being brought up around horses and ranching. His passion for the Western lifestyle and Western American history fuels his imagination to preserve the past in the art that he creates. He currently resides and works in Cody, Wyoming.

Giorgio de Chico

Oil Paintings by Giorgio de Chico

Giorgio de Chirico was an Italian artist. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.

De Chirico won praise for his work almost immediately from the writer Guillaume Apollinaire, who helped to introduce his work to the later Surrealists. De Chirico strongly influenced the Surrealist movement: Yves Tanguy wrote how one day in 1922 he saw one of De Chirico’s paintings in an art dealer’s window, and was so impressed by it he resolved on the spot to become an artist—although he had never even held a brush. Other Surrealists who acknowledged De Chirico’s influence include Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, and René Magritte.

Agatha Christie: “A Tongue May Sometimes Be a Weapon”

Photographer Unknown, (Tongue and Blade), Selfie

“I never gossip – but after all, a tongue is given one to speak with, and I’m not deaf mute.”

“That you most certainly are not. A tongue, Henet, may sometimes be a weapon. A tongue may cause a death – may cause more than one death. I hope your tongue, Henet, has not caused a death.”

― Agatha Christie, Death Comes as the End