A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
Photographer Unknown, “Hermann Hesse”
“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else … Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, 1922
Ludwig Favre, Photographs of Grundtvig’s Church, Copenhagen, Denmark
Favre is a photographer that specializes in major city landscapes, and has a history of shooting interiors.
Copenhagen’s Grundtvig’s Church is a rare example of expressionist church architecture, and one of the most well-known churches in the Danish city. French photographer Ludwig Favre was attracted to the perpendicular lines that compose the early 20th-century structure, in addition to the nearly six million yellow bricks that fill its interior. Favre decided to shoot the building’s 1800-seat congregation, capturing the minimal ornamentation found in the famous church’s massive vaulted halls and nave.
Photographer Unknown, The Elephant Ear Plant: Alocasia Calidora
Cleomenes of Athens, “Marcellus as Hermes Logios (Mercury)”, 20 BCE, Marble, Musee du Louvre, Paris, France
This sculpture of Marcellus the Younger was executed by Cleomenes the Athenian two years after Marcellus’ death on the order of his uncle Imperator Caesar Augustus, first Emperor of the Roman Empire, as a funerary monument for his nephew. King Louis XIV placed it in the collection at Palace of Versailles in the year 1664. It was later moved by Napolean to the Louvre in Paris, where it now resides.
A Year: Day to Day Men: 31st of May
Curvature of Nature
Ramesses II assumed the throne on III Shemu day 27 (May 31, 1279 BC), becoming the third Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt.
Ramesses II is often regarded as the greatest, most celebrated and the most powerful pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire. The Greek sources knew him as Ozymandias from the transliteration
into Greek of a part of his throne name Usermaatre Setepenre, “The justice of Rê is powerful- chosen of Rê”.
Ramesses II led several military expeditions into historical Syria, reasserting control over Canaan, the area of Phoenicia, Philistia, and Israel. He also led expeditions into the south to restore possession of previously held territories that had been lost to the Nubians and Hittites. The Egyptian army during his reign was formidable, estimated to have totaled about one hundred thousand men- a force he used to strengthen Egyptian influence.
After reigning for 30 years, Ramesses II joined a select group that included only a handful of Egypt’s longest-lived rulers. By tradition, in the 30th year of his reign, Ramesses celebrated a jubilee called the Sed Festival. These were held to honor and rejuvenate the pharaoh’s strength. Only halfway through what would be a
66-year reign, Ramesses already had eclipsed all but a few of his greatest predecessors in his achievements. He had brought peace, maintained Egyptian borders, and built great and numerous monuments across the empire. Ramesses’ kingdom was more prosperous and powerful than it had been in nearly a century.
Ramesses built extensively throughout Egypt and Nubia, and his cartouches are prominently displayed even in buildings that he did not construct. There are accounts of his honor hewn on stone, statues, and the remains of palaces and temples—most notably the Ramesseum in western Thebes and the rock temples of Abu Simbel. Ramesses covered the land from the Nile Delta to Nubia with buildings in a way no monarch before him had. He also founded a new capital city in the Delta during his reign, called P-Ramesses.
By the time of his death, Ramesses, now near ninety years of age, was suffering and plagued by arthritis and hardening of the arteries. He had outlived many of his wives and children and left great memorials all over Egypt. Nine future Egyptian pharaohs took the name Ramesses in his honor.
Ramesses II originally was buried in the tomb KV7 in the Valley of the Kings, but because of looting, priests later transferred the body to a holding area, re-wrapped it, and placed it inside the tomb of queen Inhapy. Seventy-two hours later it was again moved, to the tomb of the high priest Pinudjem II. All of this is recorded in hieroglyphics on the linen covering his body. Ramesses’ mummified body is today in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
Top Insert Image: Ramesses II Burning Incense and Pouring Water, 19th Dynasty, Frescoe Painting, Valley of the Kings, Thebes, Egypt
Bottom Insert Image: Ramesses II (Ramessess the Great), 19th Dynasty, Pink/Gray Granite, One of a Pair, Ramesseum, Thebes, Luxor West Bank, Egypt, British Museum
Photographer Unknown, (Kunal with a Pillow)
Fauve, “De Ceux (Of Those)”
Fauve is a French arts collective of music and videography established in 2010 in Paris. It is an open collective containing at times more than twenty members: musicians but also visual artists, theater technicians, and comedians. On stage, the collective is represented by five musicians and a video artist, all remaining anonymous.
The name of the band inspired by “Les Nuits Fauves (Savage Nights)”, a 1992 France drama film written and directed by Cyril Collard. Its first release was the EP “Blizzard” which won the INOUIS Award as the discovery act of the festival Decouvertes du Printemps. The collective’s first album is called Vieux Freres, Part 1 and Part 2, released separately. .
“We’re from those who aren’t noticed
Ghosts / transparent people / tools
We’re from those who aren’t taken into account
We’re from those who are chosen by default”
Artist Unknown, “Poseidon”, Digital Art, Photography
Artist Unknown, (Science Advances Through Research), Computer Graphics, Gifs
William Roberts, “The Barber’s Shop”, 1946, Oil on Canvas, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, Tate Museum, London
William Roberts joined the Vorticists in 1914. Founded that year by artist and writer Wyndham Lewis, the Vorticist objective was to break with the decayed state of British art and begin anew. Its style relied on a combination of the styles of Cubism and Futurism. Roberts’ work exemplifies some of the motifs, while equally retaining a connotation of Fernand Léger’s tubular representation of human figures.
After the war, Roberts returned to London with a different aesthetic in mind. The experiences of the war had changed him. He now focussed on the everyday city life of people; but he imbued his work with his pre-war architectural aesthetic and a renewed concentration on the human figure.
Photographer Unknown, Title Unknown, (Adoration of the Sailor)
“He was a fine, tall, slim young fellow, with black eyes, and hair as dark as the raven’s wing; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to men accustomed from their cradle to contend with danger.”
―
A Year: Day to Day Men: 30th of May
Sitting in a Field of White Cotton
May 30, 1896 was the birthdate of American film director, producer and screenwriter Howard Hawks.
By the end of April in 1917 Howard Hawks was working on De Mille’s “The Little American” and later on on the Mary Pickford film “The Little Princess” directed by Marshall Neilan. Hawks began directing at age 21 after he and cinematographer Charles Rosher filmed a double exposure dream sequence with Mary Pickford. He worked with Pickford and Neilan again on another film before joining the United States Army Air Service. After the war he returned again to Hollywood.
Hawks first major film was the 1926 “Road to Glory”, the story of a young woman going blind and trying to spare her loved ones of the burden of her illness. Ir was filmed in two months and premiered in April of 1926, It received good reviews from critics but Hawks was dissatisfied with the film. Immediately after completing the film, he began writing his next film, his first comedy “Fig Leaves”. It was released in July of 1926 and was Hawks’ first hit as a director.
In March 1927, Howard Hawks signed a one-year, three-picture contract with 20th Century Fox and mad “A Girl in Every Port” in 1928. This film is considered by film scholars to be the most important film of Hawks’ silent career. It is the first of his films to utilize many of the distinctive themes and characters that would define much of his subsequent work.”A Girl in Every Port” was his first “love story between two men,” within which two men bonded over their duty, skills and careers and, as a result, considered their friendship to be more important than their relationships with women. Hawks wrote the original story and developed the screenplay with James Kevin McGuinness and Seton Miller. The film was released in February 1928, successful in the US, and a hit in Europe.
Over his career Howard Hawks directed and produced many important films in a wide variety of genres. He was a versatile director, whose career included comedies, dramas, gangster films, science fiction, film noir and westerns. His most popular films include” the 1932 “Scarface”, “Binging Up Baby” with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, the 1940 “His Girl Friday”, “The Big Sleep” with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, the western “Red River” starring Montgomery Clift and John Wayne, the sci-fi classic “The Thing from Another World”, and the 1959 “Rio Bravo” with John Wayne and Dean Martin.
Howard Hawks popularized a particular female archetype in his films; women were portrayed as strong, less effeminate characters. Such an emphasis had never been done in the 1920s and therefore was seen to be a rarity. Hawks’ directorial style and the use of natural, conversational dialogue in his films are cited as major influences on many noted filmmakers, including Robert Altman, John Carpenter, and Quenton Tarantino. Howard Hawks received his only Oscar in 1975 as an Honorary Award from the Academy.
Gastohn Barrios, Title Unknown
Gastohn Barrios is a fashion photographer born in Buenos Aires. He originally started as a worldwide model in front of the camera but now has started taking the photographs himself. In 2009 he moved back to Buenos Aires. His work has been exibited at the Leslie-Lohman Museum in New York.
