Month: July 2018

A Study in Blue

Photographer Unknown, (A Study in the Color Blue)

“How do you know, when you think blue — when you say blue — that you are talking about the same blue as anyone else?
You cannot get a grip on blue.
Blue is the sky, the sea, a god’s eye, a devil’s tail, a birth, a strangulation, a virgin’s cloak, a monkey’s ass. It’s a butterfly, a bird, a spicy joke, the saddest song, the brightest day.
Blue is sly, slick, it slides into the room sideways, a slippery trickster.
This is a story about the color blue, and like blue, there’s nothing true about it. Blue is beauty, not truth. ‘True blue’ is a ruse, a rhyme; it’s there, then it’s not. Blue is a deeply sneaky color.”
― Christopher Moore, Sacre Bleu: A Comedy d’Art

Reblogged with thanks to http://gonewildandhorn.tumblr.com

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, “Romulus’ Victory Over Acron”, Detail, 1812, Oil on Canvas, Amphithéatre d’Honneur, Paris, France

Completed in 1812, Jean Auguste Ingres’ source for this subject comes from Plutarch’s “Life of Romulus”. The painting depicts the war that resulted from the Roman abduction of the young Sabine women in an effort to remedy the shortage of women in the newly founded city of Rome. In retaliation Acron, the king of the neighbouring tribe, the Caeninenses, declared war upon the Romans. Aaron and his tribesmen are mercilessly defeated and their city is sacked by the Romans.

This neoclassical painting of Jean Ingres is one of his largest, cast in the form of a long frieze, a style traditional of the ancient world. Ingres used tempera to evoke the matte quality which is consistent with the ancient Roman frescoes.

Source: hadrian6

Okiie Hashimoto

Okiie Hashimoto, “Sand Garden Scene”, 1959, Wood Block Print, Edition of 60

Japanese printmaker Okiie Hashimoto graduated from Tokyo School of Fine Art in 1924 with training in Western-style oil painting. He also studied with the printmaker Haratsuka Un’ichi; but it wasn’t untill the 1930s that Hashimoto began to make woodblocks in any great number. After Hashimoto retired from his teaching career in 1955, he concentrated on his printmaking.

Hashimoto’s prints from the period between 1957 and 1966 represent a particular phase of his work which was imbued with complex perspectives and drawn with aspects of Western abstraction. He used modernism with its abstract tendencies to show a subtle view of reality.

Calendar: July 29

A Year: Day to Day Men: 29th of July

Stripping Among the Cattails

July 29, 1954 was the publishing date for Tolkien’s “Fellowship of the Ring”.

“The Lord of the Rings” started as a sequel to J. R. R. Tolkien’s work “The Hobbit”, published in 1937. The popularity of “The Hobbit” had led George Allen & Unwin, the publishers, to request a sequel. Tolkien warned them that he wrote quite slowly, and responded with several stories he had already developed; however the publishers thought more stories about hobbits would be popular. So at the age of 45, Tolkien began writing the story that would become “The Lord of the Rings”.

Persuaded by his publishers,Tolkien started the new Hobbit series in December of 1937. After several false starts, the story of the One Ring emerged. The idea for the first chapter , which became entitled “A Long-Expected Party” arrived fully formed, although the reasons behind Bilbo’s disappearance, the significance of the Ring, and the series title “ The Lord of the Rings” did not arrive until the spring of 1938.

Originally, Tolkien planned to write a story in which Bilbo had used up all his treasure and was looking for another adventure to gain more; however, Tolkien remembered the Ring and its powers and thought that would be a better focus for the new work. As the story progressed, he also brought in elements from his “Simarillion” mythology.

Because J.R.R. Tolkien had a full-time academic position and needed to earn further money as a university examiner, his writing on the project was slow. Tolkien abandoned writing the series during most of 1943 not restarting it until April of 1944. This spate of writing became a serial for his son Christopher, who was sent chapters as they were written while he was stationed with the Royal Air Force in South Africa. Tolkien made another concerted effort in 1946, and showed the manuscript to his publishers in 1947. The story was effectively finished the next year, but Tolkien did not complete the revision of earlier parts of the work until 1949. Finished after twelve years, the original manuscript totaled 9,250 pages.

A dispute between Tolkien and his publisher George Allen and Unwin led to the book being offered to Harper Collins Publishers in 1950.  After Milton Waldman, Tolkien’s contact at Collins, expressed the belief that the book urgently needing “cutting”, Tolkien demanded that they publish it in 1952, Collins did not; so Tolkien took it back to Allen and Unwin, stating that he would consider it being published in parts.

For publication, the book was divided into three volumes to minimize any potential financial loss due to the high cost of type-setting and modest anticipated sales: “The Fellowship of the Ring“(Books I and II), “The Two Towers” (Books III and IV), and “The Return of the King”(Books V and VI plus six appendices). Delays in producing appendices, maps and especially an index led to the volumes being published later than originally hoped. The first volume of the “Fellowship of the Ring” was finally published in the United Kingdom on July 29th of 1954.

The Lit Candle

Photographer Unknown, (The Lit Candle)

“When you have gone beyond thinking, and if you can still remain alert, aware, as if one is fast asleep but still alert—deep down at the very core of one’s being a lamp goes on burning, a small candle of light—then you will see your original face. And to see your original face is to be back in the Garden of Eden.”
― Osho, The Secret of Secrets

Robert Whitman, “Prince”

Robert Whitman, “Prince at Age Nineteen”, 1977, Gelatin Silver Print

Robert Whitman was born in New York City. He attended Columbia University in New York and graduated with a BA from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He currently lives and works in Warwick, New York.

This photograph is from a series created during three separate photoshoots for a press kit that then 26-year old Robert Whitman made of Prince during 1977. Whitman photographed Prince in his Minneapolis studio, Owen Husney’s Linden Hills Boulevard home and on the street of downtown Minneapolis, including in front of the mural of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony painted on the side of the Schmitt’s Music store. Only 15 copies of the press kit weries were ever produced. The photographs from these sessions have rarely been seen.

​This photograph is a select from that series made by the Robert Whitman in 2013 from the three shoots taken in 1977. The photos in that press kit series, Prince’s first with a professional photographer, mark an instrumental moment in his career and the creation of his style and persona.

Please credit the photographer Robert Whitman when reblogging. Thanks.