Month: July 2018

Intersection of Two Walls

Photographer Unknown, (Action at the Intersection of Two Walls)

“Belief, like fear or love, is a force to be understood as we understand the theory of relativity and principals of uncertainty. Phenomena that determine the course of our lives. Yesterday, my life was headed in one direction. Today, it is headed in another. Yesterday, I believe I would never have done what I did today. These forces that often remake time and space, that can shape and alter who we imagine ourselves to be, begin long before we are born and continue after we perish. Our lives and our choices, like quantum trajectories, are understood moment to moment. That each point of intersection, each encounter, suggest a new potential direction.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

Richard Gerstl

Richard Gerstl, “Semi-Nude Self-Portrait”, 1902-1904, Oil on Canvas, 43 x 63 Inches Leopald Museum, Vienna

Among such notables as Egon Schiele, Max Oppenheimer and Osker Kokoschka, Richard Gerstl was one of the leading Expressionist painters in Vienna at the turn of the twentieth-century. He was a leading innovator of the Austrian avant-garde who participated in the change from a Neo-impressionist technique to a portraiture style of deliberately heightened colors.

Early in his life, Gerstl decided to become an artist, much to the dismay of his father. After performing poorly in school and being forced to leave the famed Piaristengymnasium in Vienna as a result of disciplinary difficulties, his financially stable parents provided him with private tutors. In 1898, at the age of fifteen, Gerstl was accepted into the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where he studied under the notoriously opinionated and difficult Christian Griepenkert. Gerstl began to reject the style of the Vienna Succession movement and what he felt was pretentious art.

A passionate music lover, Gerstl painted portraits of many of the leading figures in Vienna’s musical arts including composers Alexander Zeminsky and Arnold Schoenberg. He was known for his expressive psychologically insightful portraits, and his lack of critical acclaim during his lifetime. Gerstl’s highly stylized heads anticipated German Expressionism and his use of pastels  emulated the works by Oskar Kokoschka, another Expressionist painter.

Gerstl, distraught over the ending of an affair with Mathilde Schoenberg, entered his studio during the night of November 4, 1908, burned every letter and piece of paper he could find. It is believed that a great deal of his artwork and personal papers were destroyed. After burning his papers, Geerstl hanged himself in front of the studio mirror and somehow managed to stab himself as well.

After his suicide at the age of twenty-five, his family took the surviving paintings to art dealer Otto Kallir, who organized a posthumous show of Gerstl’s work at Neue Galerie. The Nazi prescence in Austria hindered further acclaim of Gerstl; it was only after the wr that Gerstl became known in the United States. Only sixty-six paintings and eight drawings attributed to Gerstl are known.

Top Insert Image: Richard Gerstl, “15 September”, Self Portrait, Pencil and Charcoal on Paper, 40 x 29.9 cm, Wien Museum, Austria

Bottom Insert Image: Richard Gerstl, “Beach”, Date Unknown, Oil on Cardboard, 43.5 x 33 cm, Private Collection

Calendar: July 3

A Year: Day to Day Men: 3rd of July

A Luxurious Sprawl

July 3, 1945 was the birthdate of American actor, Michael Cole.

Michael Cole was born in Madison, Wisconsin. He has appeared in numerous films and television shows, beginning with his first role in the 1961 film drama “Forbid Them Not”. In 1966 Cole had the role of Mark in the 1966 science fiction film “The Bubble”, later re-titled “Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth”, which introduced the Space-Vision 3-D system. He played  the character Spivey in the 1967 western “Chuka”, known for Cole’s military-fort flogging scene. He later starred in the 1971 science fiction movie “The Last Child” which was nominated for a Golden Globe Award.

Cole also appeared in many television shows. He played Kipp in the 1966 season of “Gunsmoke”. During the 1970s, he made guest appearances on “Wonder Woman”, “The Love Boat” and “CHiPs. He also worked on “Murder, She Wrote”, “Fantasy Island”, and Diagnosis Murder”. Cole later appeared in Stephen King’s 1990 two-part television movie “It”, playing the older version of Henry Bowers.

The role that made Michael Cole an international celebrity was his role as Pete Cochrane, a troubled youth turned crime fighter in the 1968-1973 “The Mod Squad”. Cole’s boyish good looks and brooding, deep voiced personality meshed perfectly with his character’s background. Aaron Spelling, the executive producer of the show, thought Cole was perfect for the part of Pete. Cole, however, originally balked at taking the part; but he was persuaded to do it after reading the script and realizing the show’s potential appeal. “The Mod Squad” resonated with the counter-culture-era viewers and ran for a total of 123 episodes over five seasons.

Michael Cole is also known for an incident in 1973 which was broadcast live on Australian television during the annual TV Week Logie awards.  Stepping on stage to accept an award, Cole, described later as drunk or “emotionally tired”,  gave a barely coherent “thank you” speech that ended with the actor saying, “Oh, shit.” This was the first time this profanity had been heard on Australian television.

Michale Cole continues to act in film and television projects. He appeared as Charles Hadley in a 2006 episode of the television series “ER”. He also made an appearance in the 2007 psychological thriller “Mr. Brooks” as the attorney for Demi Moore’s character Tracy Atwood. The film was directed by Bruce Evans and showcased performances by Kevin Costner,  Demi Moore, Dane Cook, and William Hurt.

Leonardo Lanzolla

Leonardo Lanzolla, “Visionary Influences to Believe”, Date Unknown, Mixed Media on Board, 12 x 16 Inches

From Torino, Italy, Leonardo Lanzolla was born in Torino, Italy, in 1958. He is a self-taught artist, influenced by Miro, Cobra avant-garde, art brut, folk art, Dubuffet, Basquiat, urban graffiti and cave paintings. His practice is very direct and unpretentious, displaying keenness for experimentation.

Leonardo Lanzolla studied in Torino and moved in 1986 to Seattle where he now lives and makes art. His timeless, colorful and original works are in private collections around the globe and have been featured in notable exhibits in France and Sweden.

Alexandre Dumas: “Space has No More Distance”

Monday Evening: Ten Daydream Images for the Short Work Week

“Nothing makes time pass or shortens the way like a thought that absorbs in itself all the faculties of the one who is thinking. External existence is then like a sleep of which this thought is the dream. Under its influence, time has no more measure, space has no more distance.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

Cyborg 009

Poster for Manga Film “Cyborg 009”

Shotaro Ishinomoni was a Japanese manga artist who became an influential figure in manga, anime and tokusatsu. He created  several popular long-running series such as “Cyborg 009”, the Super Sentai series that was later adapted into the Power Rangers series. “Cyborg 009”, created in 1963, was the firest superpowered hero team created in Japan.

Calendar: July 2

A Year: Day to Day Men: 2nd of July

The Magic of Buoyancy

On July 2, 1816, the French frigate Méduse struck the Bank of Arguin, a sandbar off the Atlantic shore of Mauritania.

The mission of Méduse was to ferry French officials to the port of Saint-Louis in Senegal and to formally re-establish French occupation of the colony. Viscount Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys was appointed Captain of the frigate and given command of the Méduse, even though he had hardly sailed in 20 years. On the 17th of June of 1816, a four ship convoy under the command of Chaumareys and with the appointed French Governor of Senegal, Julien Schmaltz, on board, departed for the port of Saint-Louis.

Governor Schmaltz wanted to reach Saint-Louis as fast as possible, by the most direct route, though this would take the fleet dangerously close to the shore, where there were many sandbars and reefs. Experienced crews sailed further out. Méduse was the fastest of the convoy and, disregarding his orders, Captain Chaumareys quickly lost contact with the other ships. As she closed on the coast of Africa, the course of Méduse became dangerous. Realizing the danger at last, Chaumareys ordered the ship brought up into the wind, but it was too late, and Méduse ran aground on a sandbar and stuck fast thirty-one miles from the coast.

On July 5th, a gale developed and the frigate showed signs of breaking up. The passengers and crew panicked, and Chaumareys decided to evacuate the frigate immediately, leaving no time to enact the original plan of making multiple ferry trips to shore. Instead, it was suggested that the raft they had built for ferrying the supplies could be used to carry passengers and Méduse’s longboats could tow the raft to safety. One hundred and forty-six men and one woman boarded the woefully unstable raft. The raft had few supplies and no means of steering or navigation. Much of its deck was underwater.

The towing proved impractical, however, and the boats soon abandoned the raft and its passengers in the open ocean. Without any means of navigating to shore, the situation aboard the raft rapidly turned disastrous. Dozens were washed into the sea by a storm, while others, drunk from wine, rebelled and were killed by officers. Stormy weather threatened, and only the center of the raft was secure. Dozens died either in fighting to get to the center or because they were washed overboard by the waves.

Rations dwindled rapidly; by the fourth day there were only 67 people left alive on the raft, and some resorted to cannibalism to survive. On the eighth day, the fittest decided to throw the weak and wounded overboard, leaving just 15 men remaining, all of whom survived another four days until their rescue on July 17 by the brig Argus, which accidentally encountered them.

Rick Stevens

Rick Stevens, “A Glimmer of Memory”, 2015, Pastel on Paper, 14 x 14 Inches

Michigan-based artist Rick Stevens began as a landscape painter, but the ephemeral appeal of nature eventually led him away from the realistic rendering of what he saw around him and into a realm of abstraction, where pulsating energy and lambent light create the crescendos and diminuendos of a world in continuous flux. Working both in the studio and en plein air, he draws on the realism and abstractions of the natural world to create paintings that challenge us to perceive the underlying structure of the universe within a seemingly random expression of unalloyed beauty.

Reblogged with thanks to the artist’s site: http://rickstevensart.tumblr.com

Emilio Greco

Emilio Greco, Title Unknown, Date Unknown, Ink Drawing Detail, The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London

Strongly influenced by Etruscan, Greek and Roman art, Emilio Greco is best known for his powerful portrait busts and sensual nudes, often characterised by perfectly rounded heads. However, while such subjects dominate his collected works, Greco also received important religious commissions during his career. One of the artist’s first major works was his 1953 “Monument to Pinocchio”, the base of which differed markedly from Greco’s subsequent figurative style in its abstract, spiralling forms.

Having been awarded prizes at both the 1952 Rome Quadriennale and the 1956 Venice Biennale, Greco began to work on a set of monumental bronze doors for Orvieto Cathedral in 1962. He was initially unenthusiastic about the commission as the proposed themes left him uninspired, but his attitude altered dramatically once the subject matter was changed.

“When, finally, the Corporal Works of Mercy – those capital commands of human behaviour – were suggested to me, I accepted immediately because I felt strongly that this theme was congenial to my beliefs. It is an eternal theme, perpetually occurring, not only an historical one; a human theme, not only one connected with the Church.”- Emilio Greco

Completed in 1964, Greco’s doors reveal debts to Renaissance masters such as Donatello in their subtle bas-relief modelling. However, they also exhibit more modern tendencies, as in the two lateral doors depicting angels in flight set against a geometric-abstract background. The following year, Greco was commissioned to create a monument to John XXIII for St Peter’s in Rome, representing the Pope visiting the city’s Regina Coeli prison.

Greco’s drawing style is extremely sculptural in its evocation of volume, and its concern with defining the spaces and relationships between forms. Conversely, the surfaces of Greco’s sculptural heads are often scored with lines recalling the cross-hatching characteristic of his vigorous yet elegant ink drawings.

Calendar: July 1

A Year: Day to Day Men: 1st of July

Sitting with Clasped Hands

July 1, 1535 is the starting day of the trial of Sir Thomas More.

Thomas More began his studies at Oxford University in 1492, at the age of fourteen, receiving a classical education and becoming proficient in both Latin and Greek. At his father’s insistence he left Oxford after two years to study law at New Inn, a place of initial training for barristers. More became a student in 1496 at Lincoln’s Inn, a professional association for barristers, until 1502 when he was deemed qualified as a barrister.

Thomas More lived for a year near the Carthusian Monastery, joined the monks’ spiritual exercised and contemplated joining the order. However, he decided to remain a layman, standing instead for election to a position in Parliament in 1504 and marrying Jane Colt the following year.  More was elected to Parliament to represent Great Yarmouth, a coastal area in Western England, and later elected in 1510 to represent London.

Thomas More was knighted and made under-treasurer of the Exchequer in 1521, becoming increasingly influential as a personal advisor to King Henry VIII. More succeeded to the office of Lord Chancellor in 1529 when that post became vacant. He strongly supported the Catholic Church and saw the Protestant Reformation as heresy and a threat to the church, particularly the theology of Martin Luther and William Tydale.

More opposed King Henry VIII’s separation from the Catholic Church: he refused to acknowledge King Henry as the Supreme Head of the Church of England, Henry VIII established the church after Pope Paul III had excommunicated the king over his divorce from his wife Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy to Henry as required, Thomas More was put on trial for treason.

More was an experienced judge and lawyer who had prepared himself for his final trial over several years. At this trial, he was determined to bring all of his experience and training to bear—to defend not only himself and his family, but also his country, his church, the English tradition of law, and the future of Christendom.

On July 1, 1535, he appeared before fifteen judges and twelve jurors. Despite the impressive numbers, however, this trial was not to be impartial. Thomas More aptly discredited all of the government’s evidence and established the credibility of his own character. The total lack of viable evidence against More proved to be totally irrelevant. The jury took only fifteen minutes to render its verdict: “Guilty.” He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered; but the King commuted this to execution by decapitation. The execution took place on 6 July 1535.