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, (The Green Mohawk)
“We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewellery. We see them in the night helping the Moon to light the darkness and bringing dew to the gardens and growing things. When we travel at night they guide us home. With our minds gathered as one we send greetings and thanks to all the Stars.”
The word for “stars” in Mohawk is o:tsis:tah (pronounced oh:jees:dah)”
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Photographer Unknown, (The Gaze)
“The madness of the eyes is the lure of the abyss. Sirens lurk in the dark depths of the pupils as they lurk at the bottom of the sea, that I know for sure – but I have never encountered them, and I am searching still for the profound and plaintive gazes in whose depths I might be able, like Hamlet redeemed, to drown the Ophelia of my desire.”
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Artist Unknown, “Severe Battle in the Sky”, The Illustration of the Great European War, Plate 110, Shobido and Company, Tokyo, Japan
The Shobido and Company, a Tokyo printing firm, produced many series of illustrations of World War I battles and maps. Each series was done by a different Japanese artist, and were presented in sets of eight lithographs. These were printed from 1914 through 1918.
A Year: Day to Day Men: 20th of August
Waves Don’t Die
On August 20, 1951 Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” won the Golden Lion at the 12th Venice Film Festival.
“Rashomon” is a 1950 Japanese period film directed by Akira Kurosawa, working in collaboration with cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa. It was based on Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story “In a Grove” which provided the characters and plot for the film. The plot device of the film involves various characters providing subjective, alternative, self-serving and contradictory versions of the murder of a samurai.
Akira Kurosawa, long a fan of silent films, wanted to simplify “Rashomon” in terms of sound and settings. Accordingly, there are only three settings in the film: the Rashomon Gate, the woods, and the courtyard. The gate and the courtyard are very simply constructed and the woodland is real. The film was scored by Fumio Hayasaka, who was among the most respected of Japanese composers. Hayasaka had already scored two of Kurosawa’s films, “Drunken Angel” and “Stray Dog”, and had developed an artistic relationship with Kurosawa, contributing many ideas to the visual part of the films.
The cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa contributed numerous ideas, technical skill and expertise in support for what would be an experimental and influential approach to cinematography. For example, in one sequence, there is a series of single close-ups of the bandit, then the wife, and then the husband, which then repeats to emphasize the triangular relationship between them. “Rashomon” also had camera shots that were directly into the sun. The strong sunlight hitting the actors as if through tree branches was actually done by using mirrors to reflect the sun rays onto the actors.
Kurosawa often shot a scene with several cameras at the same time, so that he could cut the film freely and splice together the pieces which had caught the action more forcefully. He also used short shots edited together that trick the audience into seeing one shot. There are 407 individual shots in the body of the film, more than twice as usual films; however, these were edited so carefully that transitions never catch your attention.
The film appeared at the 1951 Venice Film Festival after being recommended to Italian film promotion agency Unitalia Film seeking a Japanese film to screen at the festival. However, the Japanese production company and the Japanese government had disagreed with the choice of Kurosawa’s work on the grounds that it was not representative enough of the Japanese movie industry. Despite these reservations, the film was screened at the festival and won both the Italian Critics Award and the Golden Lion award—introducing western audiences, including western directors, to both Kurosawa’s films and his techniques.
Daria Khoroshavina,, Dark Chocolate Pudding with Double Chocolate Stout, Computer Graphics
Photographers unknown, A Collection: The Hands of Man
“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.”
― Michel de Montaigne
Photographer Unknown, (The Way to the Tasting Rooms)
Photographer Unknown, (Sanctuary)
“It is a thing that knows no limit, and before it all men are equal; and the silence of king or slave, in presence of death, or grief, or love, reveals the same features, hides beneath its impenetrable mantle the self-same treasure. For this is the essential silence of our soul, our most inviolable sanctuary, and its secret can never be lost;”
―
Medusa
“He certainly seemed to have all the qualities of a gentleman, but the interesting kind who knows exactly when to stop behaving like one.”
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Vincent van Gogh, “The Sower (After Millet)”, 1881, Pencil, Pen and Brush and Ink, Watercolor on Paper, Van Gough Museum, Amsterdam
“The Sower” was a subject that Vincent van Gogh keep coming back many times in his career. Peasant imagery was of great importance to Van Gogh, who began his career by copying prints of Millet, Corot and other members of the Barbizon School. Van Gogh was a particular admirer of French artist Jean-François Millet, recognizing him as a leading artist.
Although Van Gogh was born into a middle-class family, he came from the small town of Nuenen where agriculture and therefore hard labor was a prevalent industry. Van Gogh later worked in other areas of great poverty. He developed a strong sympathy and respect for the peasants that he saw, and was socialist in his opinions and outlook. Van Gogh’s depictions of peasants remained similar in concept to those of Millet, in that he gave his figures an eternalizing spirit that emphasized their long history rather than using his paintings to advocate change.
A Year: Day to Day Men: 19th of August
The Musician
August 19, 1883 was the birthdate of French fashion designer Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel.
Coco Chanel began designing hats initially as a diversion that evolved into a commercial enterprise. She became a licensed milliner in 1910 and opened a boutique at 21 Rue Cambon, Paris, named Chanel Modes. Chanel’s millinery career bloomed once theater actress Gabrielle Dorsiat wore Chanel’s hats in the 1912 play “Bel Ami”.
In 1913, Coco Chanel opened a boutique in Deauville , financed by her long-time lover Arthur Capel, where she introduced deluxe casual clothes suitable for leisure and sport, constructed from humble fabrics such as jersey and tricot, at the time primarily used for men’s underwear. The location was a prime one, in the center of town on a fashionable street. Here Chanel sold hats, jackets, sweaters, and the mariniere, the sailor blouse. Her sister Adrienne and her aunt Antoinette were recruited to model Chanel’s designs; on a daily basis the two women paraded through the town and on its boardwalks, advertising the Chanel creations.
Chanel, determined to re-create the success she had enjoyed in Deauville, opened an establishment in Biarritz in 1915. Biarritz, situated on the Côte Basque, in proximity to wealthy Spanish clients, had neutral status during World War I, allowing it to become the playground for the moneyed and those exiled from their native countries by the hostilities. The Biarritz shop was installed not as a storefront, but in a villa opposite the casino. After one year of operation, the business proved to be so lucrative that in 1916 Chanel was able to reimburse Arthur Capel his original investment.
In 1918, Chanel purchased the entire building at 31 Rue Cambon, which was situated in one of the most fashionable districts of Paris. In 1921, she opened what may be considered an early incarnation of the fashion boutique, featuring clothing, hats, and accessories, later expanded to offer jewelry and fragrance. In addition to turning out her couture collections, Chanel threw her prodigious energies into designing dance costumes for the cutting-edge Ballets Russe. Between the years 1923–1937, she collaborated on productions choreographed by Diaghilev and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, notably “Le Train Bleu” a dance-opera, “Orphee” and “Oedipe Roi”
Coco Chanel’s design aesthetic redefined the fashionable woman for the post World War I era. Chanel’s initial triumph was the innovative use of the jersey fabric, a machine knit material manufactured for her by the firm Rodier. Prior to this, jersey tended to be used only in hosiery and for sportswear for tennis, golf and the beach. The Chanel trademark became the look of youthful ease, a liberated physicality, and unencumbered sportive confidence.
Photographer Unknown, (Mountainside)
“I walked with my eyes on the path, but out of the corners of them I saw a man hiding behind an olive tree. He did not move as we approached, but I fell that he was watching us. As soon as we had passed I heard a scamper. Wilson, like a hunted animal, had made for safely. That was the last I ever saw of him.
He died last year. He had endured that life for six years. He was found one morning on the mountainside lying quite peacefully as though he had died in his sleep. From where he lay he had been able to see those two great rocks called the Faraglioni which stand out of the sea. It was full moon and he must have gone to see them by moonlight. Perhaps he died of the beauty of that sight.”
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Six Gifs by Cody Sampson
Cody Sampson is a digital artist who produces infinite loop gifs, animations, and digital still photography. He currently works from New York in the United States and New Plymouth in New Zealand.
Reblogged with thanks to the artist’s site http://cody-sampson.tumblr.com
Giorgio de Chirico, “The School of Gladiators, The Fight”, 1928, Oil on Canvas
De Chirico always believed that his early academic training was vital in preparing him for his later work, and this conservative attitude set him apart from other modernists – particularly from the Surrealists who did so much to elevate his reputation. In the 1920s this outlook grew into a renewed belief in the value of craftsmanship and the Old Masters tradition, and it directed a shift in his style towards greater detail, richer color, and more conventionally accurate modeling of forms and volumes, as well as more emphatic references to Renaissance and Baroque art.
Giorgio de Chirico’s “The School of Gladiators: The Fight”, is part of a series of sixty paintings on the theme of gladiators, which de Chirico painted between early 1927 and 1929. Contrary to how he was executing his Metaphysical Period paintings of the 1910s, de Chirico in the 1920s applied thick, dense, short brush strokes. Moreover, the palette changed, becoming more hearty and brownish.
City Life
“A bachelor, a studio, those were the names for that kind of apartment. Separate entrance it would say in the ads, and that meant you could have sex, unobserved.”
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