Jordan

 

Photographer Unknown, “Jordan”

The human mind is a fearful instrument of adaptation, and in nothing is this more clearly shown than in its mysterious powers of resilience, self-protection, and self-healing. Unless an event completely shatters the order of one’s life, the mind, if it has youth and health and time enough, accepts the inevitable and gets itself ready for the next happening like a grimly dutiful American tourist who, on arriving at a new town, looks around him, takes his bearings, and says, “Well, where do I go from here?

― Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Go Home Again

Paul Signac

Paul Signac, “Blessing of the Tuna Fleet at Groix”, Oil on Canvas, 1923, Minneapolis Institute of Art

Neo- Impressionism flourished from 1886 to 1906. The term was coined by art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe the innovative work of the pioneers of this daring new vision.

Neo-Impressionism extended its reach beyond France to Belgium as well, where an avant-garde group known as Les Vingt (Les XX) embraced Seurat’s ideals following the 1887 exhibition in Brussels of his masterpiece “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte”. Théo van Rysselberghe was also a member of this highly visible Belgian circle.  Even Henri Matisse briefly experimented with a Neo-Impressionist technique, prompted in part by the influence of Signac’s treatise “From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism” and by the invitation to paint with Signac at his Saint-Tropez residence.

Neo-Impressionists rejected the random spontaneity of Impressionism. They sought to impose order on the visual experience of nature by way of codified, scientific principles. An optical theory known as “mélange optique” was formulated to describe the idea that separate, often contrasting colors would combine in the eye of the viewer to achieve the desired chromatic effect.

The separation of color through individual strokes of pigment came to be known as “Divisionism” while the application of precise dots of paint came to be called “Pointillism.” According to Neo-Impressionist theory, the application of paint in this fashion set up vibrations of colored light that produced an optical purity not achieved by the conventional mixing of pigments on canvas.

Nisachar

Nisachar, “Lord Agni”

Agni in Sanskrit means fire and is the name of the Vedic fire god. Agni is also one of the guardian deities of direction, who is typically found in the southeast corners of Hindu temples. In classical cosmology, Agni as fire has been one of the five inert impermanent constituents, Dhatus, along with space: Akasa, water: Ap, air: Vayu, and earth: Prithvi. The five combine to form the empirically perceived material existence or Prakriti.

In the Vedic literature, Agni is a major and oft invoked god along with Indra and Soma.  Agni is considered as the mouth of the gods and goddesses, and the medium that conveys offerings to them in a home or votive ritual.  He is conceptualized in ancient Hindu texts to exist at three levels, on earth as fire, in atmosphere as lightning, and in the sky as sun. This triple presence connects him as the messenger between gods and human beings in the Vedic thought.

Stanley Stellar

Top Image: Stanley Stellar, “Chad and Bruce No. 2”, 1995, Edition of 5, Gelatin Silver Print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, Private Collection

Bottom Image: Stanley Stellar, “Concentration”, 1992, Edition of 25, Gelatin Silver Print, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, Private Collection

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1945, Stanley Stellar is an American photographer whose five decades of work captured the beauty and vitality of the LBGTQ community of New York City. His work followed its life through the 1969 Stonewall Riots, the first Gay Pride Parades and evolving Gay Liberation Movement, as well as the realities of the HIV/AIDs epidemic. As a participant and a documenter, Stellar produced works that have become historic and cultural references for both the young and old.

More images and an extenxive biography can be found at this site’s October 2023 article on Sanley Stellar.

The Elm’s Fountain

The Marble and Bronze Fountain at The Elms, Newport, Rhode Island

Located at 367 Bellevue Avenue, The Elms was completed in 1901 for the coal baron Edward Julius Berwind. The steel-framed, brick-partitioned $1.5m estate with a limestone facade was built to the design of Horace Trumbauer, whose design was based on the Château d’Asnières in Asnieres, France.

The property is a National Historic Landmark with one of the great classical revival gardens in America, containing almost 40 species of trees.  It is also one of a few remaining examples in America of an estate with a Classical French Revival style carriage house set in a period garden accented by elaborate Italian bronze and marble fountains.

Jared Muralt

Jared Muralt, “Godzilla” and “Godzilla (Variant)”, Silk Screen Prints, 2015

These silk screen prints were released by Mondo, a gallery and printing house in Austin, Texas. The artist Jared Muralt resides and works in Bern, Switzerland. Though he attended art school for one year in Bern, Muralt is primarily self-taught, and he developed his precision and skill through the careful study of books as diverse as those pertaining to anatomy, art history and comics. Muralt is also co-founder of BlackYard studio, a Swiss illustration and graphic design agency that was honored with Bern’s Advancement Award for Design in 2009.

Pablo Neruda: “Only with Kisses and Red Poppies Can I Love You”

Photographer Unknown, (We Have Red Poppies and More…)

“Only with kisses and red poppies can I love you,
with rain-soaked wreaths,
contemplating ashen horses and yellow dogs.
Only with waves at my back can I love you,
between dull explosions of brimstone and reflective waters,
swimming against cemeteries that circulate in certain rivers,
drowned pasture flooding the sad, chalky tombstones,
swimming across submerged hearts
and faded lists of unburied children.”

—Pablo Neruda, The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems