Month: March 2016

Christian August Lorentzen

Christian August Lorentzen, “Model Class at the Copenhagen Academy of Arts”, Oil on Canvas, 1824

Christian August Lorentzen was born in August of 1749 as the son of a watchmaker. He arrived in Copenhagen around 1771 where he frequented the Royal Academy of Fine Arts; but it is unclear whether he received any formal training. From 1779 to 1782 he went abroad to develop his skills, visiting the Netherlands, Antwerp and Paris where he copied the paintings of the masters. In 1792 Lorentzen traveled to Norway to paint.

In a number of paintings, such as “Slaget på Reden” and “Den Rædsomste Nat”, Lorentzen documented key events from the English Wars between 1801 and 1814. Later in his career he mainly painted portraits, landscapes and scenes from Ludvig Holberg’s comedies. As a professor at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen from 1803 and until his death in 1828, he exercised great influence on the next generation of painters such as Martinus Rørbye among others.

Kate Morton: “The Lake House”

Photographer Unknown, (The Cabin at the Lake)

“Sunlight was everywhere, glittering gold off the bright green leaves of the garden. A blackcap, concealed within the foliage of a nearby willow, sang a sweet fanfare and a pair of mallards fought over a particularly juicy snail. The orchestra was rehearsing a dance number and music skimmed across the surface of the lake. How lucky they were to get a day like this one! ”

― Kate Morton, The Lake House

Gino Severini

Gino Severini, “War Train”, Oil on Linen, 1915, Museum of Modern Art, New York

This painting depicts a fast-moving train with soldiers shooting long, powerful guns. It is in the style of Futurism, an Italian modern movement that glorified technology, war, the dynamism of new objects, and the fast pace of urban life. It was founded by Marinetti, an Italian poet, and practiced by Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, and Severini.

WWI was raging on in Europe at this time and there was new military technology such as machine guns, chemical weapons, and cannons that were used to devastating effect. The painting has an aerial view, which reflects Severini’s Parisian studio that overlooked a train station. The fast movement of the train is broken down into flat, broad color planes that exemplify Cubism’s multiple perspectives seen simultaneously.

The smoke from the guns masks the background of ridged fields, which may hint at the destruction of the Italian countryside. The five shooters are a faceless, menacing, and threatening mass. There are also many interesting, specific details such as the rivets on the train and on the cannon.

“Armored Train” is similar to Francisco Goya’s “Third of May”, painted in1808, which shows a wall of unrecognizable oppressors shooting a defiant subject. However, unlike the Goya rendition, Severini’s painting has no identifiable victim; it’s just general chaos. Despite the violence, the colors are uplifting and the central line of composition thrusts upwards.

The Window’s Display

Through Time and Space: When Art Enters the World of the Window Display

“I discovered windows one afternoon and after that, nothing was ever the same.” – The Shape of Water

“A breeze, a forgotten summer, a smile, all can fit into a storefront window.”
― Dejan Stojanovic

“But Einstein came along and took space and time out of the realm of stationary things and put them in the realm of relativity—giving the onlooker dominion over time and space, because time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.”
― Dimitri Marianoff, Einstein: An Intimate Study of a Great Man

V. E. Schwab: “When the Warmer-Blooded Gods Began to Stir”

Photographers Unknown, (Ten Images for a Day in March)

“March is such a fickle month.
It is the seam between winter and spring—though seam suggests an even hem, and March is more like a rough line of stitches sewn by an unsteady hand, swinging wildly between January gusts and June greens. You don’t know what you’ll find, until you step outside.
Estele used to call these the restless days, when the warmer-blooded gods began to stir, and the cold ones began to settle. When dreamers were most prone to bad ideas, and wanderers were likely to get lost.”

― V. E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

 

Montaigne: “Behold the Hands, How the Promise”

Photographer Unknown, (His Hands / His Skin)

“Behold the hands, how they promise, conjure, appeal, menace, pray, supplicate, refuse, beckon, interrogate, admire, confess, cringe, instruct, command, mock and what not besides, with a variation and multiplication of variation which makes the tongue envious.” 

― Montaigne

Le Corbusier

Le Corbusier, “Bull”, Collage of Colored Paper and Newspaper, Gouache, Indian Ink and Charcoal on Paper, 1963

Le Corbusier was visionary writer, theorist, and architect, and a lesser-known painter. Born Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, he adopted his moniker when he began to author architectural designs and paintings. He had a fascination with proportion, modularity, and geometry, often taking his cue from classical architecture theory. His designs, however, were modernist and industrial. He fondly called houses “machines for living in,” and said that the base principal for design is that “it must be beautiful.”

Le Corbusier was interested in solving what he called the problem of urban co-habitation, and produced a great number of designs for houses and apartment buildings. Le Corbusier worked at the atelier of Peter Behrens, the training grounds of other architectural masters like Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius.

Sylvia Plath: “The Water Needs to be Very Hot”

Photographer Unknown, (The Man in the Tub), Selfies

“There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: ‘I’ll go take a hot bath.’

I meditate in the bath.The water needs to be very hot, so hot you can barely stand putting your foot in it. Then you lower yourself, inch by inch, till the water’s up to your neck.

I remember the ceiling over every bathtub I’ve stretched out in. I remember the texture of the ceilings and the cracks and the colors and the damp spots and the light fixtures. I remember the tubs, too: the antique griffin-legged tubs, and the modern coffin-shaped tubs, and the fancy pink marble tubs overlooking indoor lily ponds, and I remember the shapes and sizes of the water taps and the different sorts of soap holders.

I never feel so much myself as when I’m in a hot bath.”

― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

 

Run River North, “Run or Hide”

Run River North, “Run or Hide” from the Album “Drinking from a Salt Pond”

Run River North, formerly known as Monsters Calling Home, is a Korean-American indie folk-rock band. The band formed in 2011. Its early works were inspired by the band members’ Asian-American parents’ background. The band performed at venues across Southern California, including Super Concert, the DRIP coffeeshop in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, and the Kollaboration 11 competition at the Nokia Theatre on December 5, 2011.

The band released their self-titled, debut album, “Run River North” on February 25th, 2014. The second studio album is “Drinking from a Salt Pond”.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)