Month: February 2019

Paul Lockhart: “Mathematics is the Music of Reason”

 

Six Gifs by Circle Art

“Mathematics is the music of reason. To do mathematics is to engage in an act of discovery and conjecture, intuition and inspiration; to be in a state of confusion—not because it makes no sense to you, but because you gave it sense and you still don’t understand what your creation is up to; to have a break-through idea; to be frustrated as an artist; to be awed and overwhelmed by an almost painful beauty; to be alive, damn it.”
― Paul Lockhart , A Mathematician’s Lament

Images reblogged with thanks to the artist’s site: http://circleart.tumblr.com

Carl Van Vechten

Bessie_Smith_(1936)_by_Carl_Van_Vechten

Carl Van Vechten, ” Bessie Smith Holding Feathers”, 3 February 1936, Restored by Adam Cuerden, Library of Congress

Accomplished photographer, Carl Van Vechten was an author, critic, and a supporter of Harlem Renaissance artists. After moving to New York City, he was hired by The New York Times as an assistant to the music critic. In 1908 Van Vechten became the Paris correspondent for The New York Times, returning in 1909 to become the first American critic of modern dance. In the period from 1913 to 1914, he worked as the drama critic for the Times.

In the early 1930s, Carl Van Vechten began photographing his large circle of friends with a 35 mm Leica camera, given to him by the Mexican painter Miguel Covarrubias. His earlier career as a writer with the New York Times and his theater connection through his actress wife provided him with access to new and established artists and cultural figures of the time. His portraits were usually busts or half-length poses in front of backdrops, using an assistant for lighting setups but developing his own photographs.

His portfolio of photographic works was a ‘who’s who” of America’s cultural icons of the early to middle 1900s. His portfolio includes images of Eugene O”Neill, Gertrude Stein, actress Anna May Wong, Langston Hughes, Pearl Bailey, and many others. His works were exhibited at Bergdorf Goodman in 1933, at the annual Leica Eshibitions between 1934 and 1936, and at Museum of the City of New York in 1942 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1951.

Carl Van Vechten felt srongly that his work documenting the period of the 1900s should be availabe for scholarly research. With that in mind, he donated, during his lifetime, his collection of manuscripts, clippings, letters, and photographs to several university libraries. He remained an active photographer and writer until his death in 1964. The Library of Congress acquired Van Vechten’s assistant of twenty years Saul Mauriber’s collection of 1,400 photographs in 1966. The Museum of the City of New York also holds an extensive collection of over 2,000 images.

Top Insert Image: Carl Van Vechten, “Self Portrait”, May 8 1934, Gelatin Silver Print, Van Vechten Collection, Library of Congress, Washington DC

Bottom Insert Image: Carl Van Vechten, “Actress Amy May Wong”, 1932, Gelatin Silver Print, Van Vechton Collection, Library of Congress, Washington DC

Tom Wolfe: “The Present We Know is Only Movies of Our Past”

 

The Faces of Man: WP Set Two

“A person has all sorts of lags built into him Kesey is saying. Once the most basic is the sensory lag, the lag between the time your senses receive something and you are able to react. One-thirtieth of a second is the time it takes if you are the most alert person alive and most people are a lot slower than that…. You can’t go any faster than that… We are all doomed to spend the rest of our lives watching a movies of our lives – we are always acting on what has just finished happening. It happened at least 1 30th of a second ago. We think we are in the present but we aren’t. The present we know is only a movies of the past and we will really never be able to control the present through ordinary means.”
― Tom Wolfe, The Electrid Kool-Aid Acid Test, 1968

 

Joseph Conrad: ” The Mirror of the Sea”

Photographer Unknown, Title Unknown, (Dolphin Sails)

“Nowhere else than upon the sea do the days, weeks and months fall away quicker into the past. They seem to be left astern as easily as the light air-bubbles in the swirls of the ship’s wake, and vanish into a great silence in which your ship moves on with a sort of magical effect.”
― Joseph Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea

Jean-Léon Gérôme

Jean-Léon Gérôme, “A Bischari Warrior”, 1872, Oil on Canvas, 40.6 x 33 cm, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire

Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor of the academicism style, painting historical themes, portraits, Greek mythology, and oriental and Middle-East themes. He studied under the historical painter Paul Delaroche and later attended the atelier of Charles Gleyre, a Swiss artist who took over Delaroche’s studio in 1843. Gérôme attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris but failed to enter the notable Prix de Rome due to inadequacy in his drawing skill.

Gérôme won a third-class medal at the 1847 Paris Salon Exhibition for his 1846 painting “The Cock Fight”, which is viewed as a high point of the Neo-Grec movement. He took a second-class medal at the 1948 Prix de Rome Exhibition for his painting “Bacchus and Cupid”. Gérôme received two important commissions between 1852 and 1854 which enabled him to widely travel: the large historical canvas, “The Age of Augustus”, for the court of Napolean III, and his “Last Communion of Saint Jerome” for the Church of Saint-Séverin in Paris.

Jean-Léon Gérôme visited Egypt in 1856 for the first time, traveling up the Nile to Cairo, across the Sinai Peninsula, and eventually to Damascus. This trip began the start of his many orientalist paintings depicting the Arab religion, landscapes of the North African regions, and genre life of the its peoples. He made multiple studies and sketches of the landscapes and gathered costumes and artefacts as studies for his oriental scenes. Between 1864 and 1904 Gérôme taught at his own atelier at the École des Beaux-Arts, one of three professors, teaching his students a progession of drawing skills before they were allowed to work in oils.

Jean-Léon Gérôme died in his atelier on the 10th of January 1904. He was found in front of a portrait of Rembrandt and close to his own painting “Truth Coming Out of Her Well”. At his own request, he was given a simple burial service. But the Requiem Mass given in his memory was attended by a former president of the Republic, most prominent politicians, and many painters and writers. Gérôme is buried in the Montmartre Cemetery in front of the statue “Sorrow” that he had cast for his son Jean who had died in 1891.

José Saramago: “All the Names”

The Parts and Pieces Making a Whole: Set Four

“Don’t be afraid, the darkness you’re in is no greater than the darkness inside your own body, they are two darknesses separated by a skin, I bet you’ve never thought of that, you carry a darkness about with you all the time and that doesn’t frighten you…my dear chap, you have to learn to live with the darkness outside just as you learned to live with the darkness inside” 

José Saramago, All the Names

Miguel Viladrich Vila

Miguel Viladrich Vila, “Arab with Goat”, 1933, Oil on Canvas

Miguel Viladrich Vila was born in Torrelameu, Catalonia, Spain in 1887. In his early life, he studied architecture in Barcelona. Receiving a scholarship in 1907, Vila moved to Madrid and dedicated himself to painting. He traveled throughout Spain with sculptor Julio Antonio, sketching and painting gypsies and women wearing traditional costume. Vila went to Paris in 1909 and then onto Florence and Rome, studying the works of Botticelli and da Vinci. In 1910, Vila took part in Madrid’s National Exhibition of Fine Arts, entering his symbolist painting “My Funerals Presided Over by Death”.

Returning to Madrid, Vila frequented the New Cafe Levante, a gathering place for intellectuals, including the Spanish writer and dramatist Gomez de la Serna and painter Romero de Torres. In 1911, Vila produced his four painting series of “Gypsy of Seville”. Traveling with his friend and sculptor Julio Antonio, Vila met Catalan artist Anglada Camarasa, who helped both the artists with financial support. Villa exhibited works at the Annual Salon in Paris, selling works for the first time to Spanish and North American collectors.

Miguel Viladrich Vila travel as his reputation grew, throughout Spain, France, Italy and South America. While in Argentina he met Ana Morera, a painting teacher, whom he married in 1919. A trip to New York in 1926 resulted in the sale of thirty-six oil paintings to art patron Archer Milton Hutington, who established the first Hall of the Hispanic Society of America. In the decade of the 1930s, Vila traveled regularly to Morocco, painting a series of Moorish figures and tradesmen. He returned to Buenos Aires in 1940, where he remained until his death in 1956.

Images reblogged with thanks to http://thouartadeadthing.tumblr.com

Fyodor Dostoevsky: ” If One Has Only One Good Memory Left in His Heart’

 

Photographers Unknown, If One Has Only One Good Memory Left in His Heart

“You must know that there is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and good for life in the future than some good memory, especially a memory of childhood, of home. People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov 

Nella Foresta

Artist Unknown, “Nella Foresta (In the Forest)”

“We walked always in beauty, it seemed to me. We walked and looked about, or stood and looked. Sometimes, less often, we would sit down. We did not often speak. The place spoke for us and was a kind of speech. We spoke to each other in the things we saw.”
― Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow

Ansel Adams: “The Intimate Aspects of Nature”

Photographers Unknown, The Black and White Collection: WP Photo Set Two

“Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and wonder surrounding him.”
― Ansel Adams

Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula

Johnny-Warangkula-Water-Dreaming-Tjikari

Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, “Water Dreaming Tjikari”, 1998, Acrylic on Linen, 121 x 182 cm

Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula was born 1925 at Mintjilpirri, north-west of the Kangaroo Dreaming site of Ilpili waterhole. He was one of the founding members of the Western desert Aboriginal art movement. He was an extremely innovative artist who depicted traditional ceremonial ground designs as abstract depictions on canvas and board.

Warangkula’s painting career began after working as a labourer for many years building airstrips and settlements in Haasts Bluff. In return for his work building and labouring, he was remunerated with consumable goods. After moving from Haasts Bluff to Papunya, Warangkula served on the Papunya Council along with Mick Namarai, Limpi Tjapangati and Kingsley Tjumgarrayi.

During the 1960’s, Warangkula’s rapidly developed a distinctive style of his own which came to be known as ‘overdotting’. He uses several layers of dots to depict his dreaming’s, which consist of water, yam, fire and egret stories. This more painterly approach signified his expanding encounter with the outside world, creating effects that art patron Geoffrey Bardon called ‘tremulous illusion’.  Warangkula’s artworks are strictly Aboriginal stories without conscious European influence, they remain of major significance and are of considered of modern aesthetic.

David Seidner

David seidner from of fleeting and lasting interest

David Seidner, Title Unknown, “Dancers” Series, 1993, Gelatin Silver Print

American photographer David Seidner was known for his portraits and fashion photography. He had his first cover photo published at the age of nineteen; and at the age of twenty-one he had the first of many solo exhibitions of his work in Paris. He was under contract for Yves Saint Laurent in the 1980s and his work included fashion shoots for the French and Italian editions of leading magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair among others.

Seidner’s immense cultural knowledge influenced his timeless images. His nudes evoked Greek classical sculpture; his mid-1990s portraits were inspired by John Singer Sargent, Boldini and Valazquez; his portraits of artists recalled classical busts of Roman emperors. In its evolution, his work became more simple and pure, ending in his “Orchid” series shot with an auto-focus camera and color negative film.

David Seidner’s portrait of Helena Carter was selected for the millennial exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, as one of the 100 great photographs of the century and received the 1999 Alfred Eisenstaedt Photograph of the Year Award. He had over a dozen solo exhibitions and was in many group shows at the Whitney Museum and the Pompidou Center in Paris. David Seidner died of complications of AIDS on June 6, 1999.

Image reblogged with thanks to http://doctordee.tumblr.com