Author: ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

https://www.instagram.com/wolvesofgray This blog is a refugee and a survivor of the Great Tumblr Inquisition of December 17th, 2018. I am gay artist, who received training at the Rhode Island School of Design, and now, a retired high-end fine art framer living in Maryland, USA. My interests and studies in life run a wide gamut from art to history and from the scientific to the esoteric. I have been building this blog of images and texts for the last eight years. My wish is that my posts pique the interest of viewers and encourage them to experience more.

Calendar: June 13

A Year: Day to Day Men: 13th of June

Woodland Path

On June 13, 1881 the USS Jeannette, under the command of George W. De Long, sank after being trapped in the ice.

James Bennett, the owner of the ship Jeannette, had a plan was to sail a vessel through the Bering Strait on the theory that the warm Pacific Ocean current known as the Kuro Siwo would provide a “thermometric gateway” whereby a suitable ship might reach the North Pole. This was the primary objective, but the ship was also equipped for scientific observation. By agreement with the US Department of the Navy, Bennett would finance the expedition, but would sail under naval laws and discipline, and would be commanded by a naval officer, George W. De Long.

The Jeannette departed San Francisco on July 8, 1879. She sent her last communication to Washington from Saint Lawrence Bay, Siberia, on August 27. Shortly afterwards she encountered ice, of increasing severity as she pushed her way forward to Herald Island. On September 7 she was caught fast in the ice.

For the next 21 months, Jeannette stuck in the ice drifted in an erratic fashion, generally to the northwest but frequently doubling back on herself. In May 1881, two islands were discovered, which De Long named Henrietta Island and Jeannette Island. On the night of June 12, the pressure of the ice finally began to crush the Jeannette. De Long and his men unloaded provisions and equipment onto the ice, and the ship sank the following morning.

The expedition began the long trek to the Siberian coast, hauling their sledges loaded with boats and supplies. After reaching the New Siberian Islands and gaining some food and rest, the party took to their three boats on September 12 for the last stage of their journey to the Lena Delta, their planned landfall. As a violent storm blew up, one of the boats (with Lt. Charles W. Chipp and seven men) capsized and sank. The other two craft, commanded by De Long with fourteen men and Chief Engineer George Melville with eleven men, survived the severe weather but landed at widely separated points on the delta.

The party headed by De Long began the long march inland over the marshy, half-frozen delta to hoped-for native settlements. After much hardship, with many of his men severely weakened, De Long sent the two strongest, William Nindemann and Louis P. Noros, ahead for help; they eventually found a settlement and survived. DeLong and his eleven companions died of cold and starvation.

In the meantime, on the other side of the delta, George Melville and his party had found a native village and were rescued. Melville persuaded a group of locals to help him search for his commander. He succeeded in finding their landing place on the delta, and recovered De Long’s logbook and other important records but returned without locating the De Long group. In the following spring, Melville set out again, and found the bodies of De Long and his companions on March 23, 1882.

Bertel Thorvaldsen

Bertel Thorvaldsen, “Jason and the Golden Fleece”, 1828, Marble, Thorvaldsen Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark

Bertel Thorvaldsen created a life-size clay version of this statue in 1803 for the Copenhagen Academy to demonstrate his progress at sculpture. It is considered to be his first great work. This marble version of “Jason and the Golden Fleece” was commissioned by Thomas Hope, a wealthy English art patron. The marble statue, at a height of ninety five inches, was completed in 1828.

Expressing both physical and mental calm, Jason is the prototype of the classical hero. The sculpture is fully balanced: no matter where your eyes fall, you can find a corresponding element. For example, the lance is reflected in the chest strap, the fleece in tree stump. and the curled tip of the helmet in the horns of the ram.

In 1917, Thomas Hope’s  heirs dispersed the holding of his estate at Deepdene, Surrey. “Jason and the Golden Fleece” was acquired by Copenhagen’s Thorvaldsen Museum at the auction.

 

Oacar Wilde: “”Corrupt Without Being Charming”

Photographers Unknown, Beguiling the Senses and Enchanting the Mind: Photo Set Three

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty.… That is all.”

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Calendar: June 12

A Year: Day to Day Men: 12th of June

Another Room Painted

June 12, 1890 was the birthdate of the Austrian painter and graphic artist, Egon Schiele.

In 1906 Egon Schiele applied at the School of Arts and Crafts in Vienna, where Gustav Klimt had studied. Later that year he was sent to the more traditional Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 1907 Schiele sought out Gustav Klimt, who at that time mentored younger artists. Klimt accepted him for training and introduced Schiele to the Wiener Werkstatte, the arts and crafts workshop associated with the Vienna Succession.

Schiele’s early work from that period between 1907 and 1909 shows a strong influence by Klimt and the Art Nouveau style. In 1909, free of the constraints of the Academy’s conventions, he  began to explore not only the human form, but also human sexuality. Schiele’s work was already daring, but it went a bold step further with the inclusion of Klimt’s decorative eroticism and with what some may like to call figurative distortions, that included elongations, deformities, and sexual openness. Schiele’s self-portraits helped re-establish the energy of both genres with their unique level of emotional and sexual honesty and use of figural distortion in place of conventional ideals of beauty.

In 1910, Schiele began experimenting with nudes. His 1910 “Kneeling Nude with Raised Hands” is considered among the most significant nude art pieces made during the 20th century. Schiele’s radical and developed approach towards the naked human form challenged both scholars and progressives alike. This unconventional piece and style went against strict academia and created a sexual uproar with its contorted lines and heavy display of figurative expression. At the time, many found the explicitness of his works disturbing.

In 1913, the Galerie Hans Goltz, Munich, mounted Schiele’s first solo show. Another solo exhibition of his work took place in Paris in 1914. During the war Schiele’s paintings became larger and more detailed, when he had the time to produce them. By 1917, he was back in Vienna, able to focus on his artistic career. His output was prolific, and his work reflected the maturity of an artist in full command of his talents.

Schiele was invited to participate in the Secession’s 49th exhibition, held in Vienna in 1918. He had fifty works accepted for this exhibition, and they were displayed in the main hall. He also designed a poster for the exhibition, which was reminiscent of the “Last Supper” with a portrait of himself in the place of Christ. The show was a triumphant success, and as a result, prices for Schiele’s drawings increased and he received many portrait commissions.

In the autumn of 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic that claimed more than 20,000,000 lives in Europe reached Vienna. Edith, his wife whom he  married in 1915 and who was six months pregnant, succumbed to the disease on October 28th. Egon Schiele died, at the age of twenty-eight, only three days after his wife.

Ricardo Bofill

Ricardo Bofill, Bofill Arquitectura, “Walden 7″, Barcelona, Spain

Walden 7, built in 1974, represents the successful implementation of an old ambition of architect Ricardo Bofill and it has a special significance within the development of his work. Working to a budget appreciably lower than the norm for subsidized housing at the time, and with some unusual funding, Walden-7 rose up as a monument and point of reference in this area to the west of Barcelona.

Walden 7 consists of a fourteen-storey cluster of 446 apartments, grouped around five courtyards, on top of which are two swimming pools. With few exceptions, each apartment faces both the outside of the block and into one of the courtyards, There is a complex system of bridges and balconies for access producing a fantastic variety of vistas and enclosures.

The exterior facade has the appearance of a huge fortification completely painted in red, which is opened to the interior spaces through large overtures like urban windows with a height of several stories. The courtyards have a lively treatment because of the intense blue and yellow colored facade. The main courtyard, at the building’s entrance, is a recovery of the street and the plaza for the benefit of the inhabitants, which generates an interior world apart from the exterior chaos.

The dwellings, a combination of square 30 square meter modules, come in different sizes, ranging from the single-module studio to the four-module apartment, either on one floor or as a duplex. The ground floor consists of public spaces, meeting rooms, games rooms, bars and shops.

Igor Samsonov

Igor Samsonov, Title Unknown

Igor Samsonov is a contemporary painter from Voronezh, Russia. He graduated in 1980 with honors from the School of Arts in Voronezh.  He attended the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and was a student of Oleg Eremeev. Influenced by Renaissance, Dutch Renaissance, and Post-Impressionist artists, Samsonov has his own modern take on Classical Realism.