Month: November 2018

William Shakespeare: “Lo! The Wonders Upon Earth!”

“Lo! The Wonders Upon Earth!”

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
―William Shakespeare, A Midsummer’s Night Dream

 

The Center is at the Center of the Totality

“The Cental Point About Which the World Spins”

“This is why classical thought concerning structure could say that the center is, paradoxically, within the structure and outside it. The center is at the center of the totality, and yet, since the center does not belong to the totality (is not part of the totality), the totality has its center elsewhere. The center is not the center.”
― Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves

Reblogged with many thanks to http://puppybra.tumblr.com

Lucy Glendinning

Lucy Glendinning, “Feather Child 4″, Date Unknown, Feathers on Form

Lucy Glendinning is a sculptor and installation artist, who works in a contemporary British sculpture tradition. Her different aesthetic expressions are brought together under one central entry point: the human body as a semiotic medium. For Glendinning, art is the primary tool for investigating psychological and philosophical themes. Her work is thus permeated by a conceptual content, superior to the value of aesthetics.

Glendinning seduces the observing eye by emphasing subtle expressions and presenting stunning craftsmanship. Her way of cleverly combining paradoxical qualities are revealed in the twisted combinations of tenderness and brutality, empathety and ignorance, stillness and movement.

The suite “Feather Child” series originates from Glendinning’s fascination with visions of a future society. The feathered children are embodied questions, where the artist is asking us if we, in a world where our genetics could be freely manipulated, will be able to resist altering our physical abilities. Will necessity or vanity be the ruling power? The fragility of the feathers is simultaneously mirroring the perhaps most classic tale of human hubris: the fate of Icarus in Greek mythology.

Calendar: November 28

A Year: Day to Day Men: 28th of November

Responsive to Touch

November 28, 1866 was the birthdate of American architect Henry Bacon.

Born in Watseka, Illinois, Henry Bacon studied briefly at the University of Illinois in 1884 but left to be employed at the office of McKim, Mead and White, one of the best-known architectural firms at that time. Bacon’s work was in the late Greek Revival and Beaux-Arts forms associated with the firm. He worked on the 1889 Paris World Expo, the Boston Public Library, the Harvard Club of New York, and New York’s Pennsylvania Station.

In 1889, Henry Bacon won a scholarship for architectural students, enabling him to travel in Europe, learning and drawing details of Roman and Greek architecture. Upon his return to the United States, he rejoined McKim’s firm, working on projects such as the Rhode island State House and the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago.

In 1897, Bacon formed a partnership, called the Brite and Bacon Architects, with James Brite, a younger architect from the McKim firm. In the same year, they were selected to build three private residences including the La Fetra Mansion  in Summit, New Jersey. The La Fetra Mansion was designed and built by Bacon, and his design was published in the September 1901 issue of “Architecture” the pre-eminent architectural professional journal of its time.

The La Fetra Mansion fully exhibits Bacon’s preference for Beaux-Arts Neo-Greek and Roman architecture styles. His simple and elegant lines, and his skill in dimensions and proportions, gave rise to a stately elegance, peaceful tranquility, and a sense of divine protection.

In 1897, Henry Bacon was also approached by a group which was organized with the intent to raise public and private funds to build a monument in Washington, D.C. to memorialize President Abraham Lincoln. Bacon began his conceptual, artistic, and architectural design for the Lincoln Memorial that year. He continued in the effort even though the funding for the building of the project did not materialize until years later. The Memorial opened in May of 1922.

The Brite and Bacon Partnership dissolved in 1902, partly resulting from Brite’s disagreement over Bacon’s passion and the unpaid time he spent on the design of the Lincoln Memorial. After that, Bacon practiced under his own name with significant success, building a large number of famous public buildings and monuments. In May of 1923 President Warren G Harding presented Bacon with the American Institute of Architects’s Gold Medal, making him the sixth recipient of that honor. Henry Bacon died in February of 1924 and is buried in North Carolina.

Top Insert Image: Photographer Unknown, “Henry Bacon”, 1910,, Vintage Portrait Photo, The Royal Institute of British Architects, London

Second Insert Image: Henry Bacon, “Competition Proposal for a Monument to Abraham Lincoln”, 1911-1915, Record Group 42, National Archives, Washington DC

Bottom Insert Image: George F. Landegger, “B. C. Scranton Library, Madison, Connecticut”, Architect Henry Bacon, 1900

E.M. Forster: “Man is the Measure”

Photographer Unknown, Man is the Measure

“I did not fear that I might tread upon a live rail and be killed. I feared something far more intangible-doing what was not contemplated by the Machine. Then I said to myself, “Man is the measure”, and I went, and after many visits I found an opening.”
― E.M. Forster

Reblogged with thanks to https://southafricangayboy.tumblr.com

Nahum B. Zenil

 

Nahum B. Zenil, “The Escape”, Date Unknown, Mixed Media on Canvas

Mexican artist Hahum B Zenil taught classes on many different subjects in Mexico City for twenty years before deciding to become a full-time artist. He had a solo exhibiton in 1980 at the Casa de Arte CREA in Mexico City. Zenil was selected to be part of a group exhibition of Mexican art in Stockholm and London in 1984. He continues to work and support artists who explore their sexualities through their art.

Much of Zenil’s works use mixed media on paper or oil on canvas. He preferred to paint on canvas until the materials compromised his health, changing to collages on paoer. Zenil uses his image to relieve pressures he felt as a child growing up homosexual in a small town and to comment on contemporary Mexican culture.

Within Zenil’s mixed media pieces he uses mainly himself as the subject. He pictures himself in his images with many religious figures such as the Virgin of Guadalupe. Within his images are many reworked traditional Mexican forms like the retablo and ex-voto styles.