Make that “Not on View,” “Seldom on View.” I’ve seen it in its own recessed niche three times over the years and it always has the same haunting effect on me. And the hauntingness is most concentrated in the outstretched hand that almost, but not quite, touches the wine jug.
Impossible to feel in just reproductions the hand hovers as if held away from the wine by a palpable but not visible force that Picasso has, somehow… somehow, fashioned out of brush strokes over a recycled canvas. It might be the way in which the actual strokes are twisted and slightly kneaded but absent being able to examine the original closely (something I doubt will happen again) it is impossible to know. The painting possesses stillness in the way of Eliot’s Chinese vase,
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still Moves perpetually in its stillness.
There are, of course, the ever-stilted curated noters that ooze out from the over-poofed precincts of the Met,
The Blind Man’s Meal, painted in Barcelona in the autumn of 1903, summarizes the stylistic characteristics of Picasso’s Blue Period: rigorous drawing, simple hieratic compositions and forms, and of course, a blue tonality. The composition presents a forlorn figure seated at a frugal repast. In a letter, preserved in the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Picasso gives a very precise description of the composition: “I am painting a blind man at the table. He holds some bread in his left hand and gropes with his right hand for a jug of wine.”
Yeah. Yeah. Jaw. Jaw. The personal encounter is the only understanding that matters.
Maverick Philosopher: Which Side Are You On? This is scary stuff. Isn’t there some alternative to war? A. And what might that be? I see only three alternatives to war, none of them good. One can attempt to WITHDRAW from the fight. Head for the hills. Build alternative communities and hope to be left alone. Unfortunately, the totalitarians, being totalitarians, won’t leave us alone. That’s not ‘who they are.’
Protests & The Left: Peak Jacobinism? The lines are thinning a bit for the guillotine. And the guillotiners are starting to panic as they glimpse faces of a restless mob always starved for something to top last night’s torching. Finally, even looters and arsonists get tired of doing the same old, same old each night. They get bored with the puerile bullhorn chants, the on-spec spray-paint defacement, and the petite fascists among them who hog the megaphones. For the lazy and bored, statue toppling — all of those ropes, those icky pry bars, those heavy sledgehammers, and so much pulling — becomes hard work, especially as the police, camera crews, and fisticuffs thin out on the ground. And the easy bronze and stone prey are now mostly rubble. Now it’s either the big, tough stuff like Mount Rushmore or the crazy targets like Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
There are only so many ways for adult-adolescents to chant monotonously “Eat the Rich! Kill the Pigs! Black Lives Matter!” blah, blah, blah. And there are only so many Road Warrior Antifa ensembles of black hoodies, black masks, black pants, and black padding — before it all it ends up like just another shrill teachers’-union meeting in the school cafeteria or a prolonged adolescent Halloween prankster show.
When an Atherton or Georgetown liberal calls 911, will he now first say: “One, I am not an angry white person calling to rat out a suspect of color. Two, I am not calling to save my ‘brick and mortar’ property at the expense of the life of a marginalized victim. Three, I support defunding the police. And so, four, look — an individual of unknown appearance may kind of, sort of be shattering our bedroom window and could be pondering a felonious infraction. So could you send out a community facilitator to inquire?AOC: ‘Most Crime Is Probably Just Some Street Rat With A Heart Of Gold Stealing Apples To Feed His Pet Monkey’
#AOC was right! This heartbreaking video of starving New Yorkers stealing bread hidden in shoe boxes tells the tale! (Don’t be fooled by their fat asses. These people are starving)! https://t.co/O6vENVZEt6
Is this a Fourth Turning? – The New Neo “History is seasonal, and winter is coming,” they wrote…
Warning that “a sudden spark will catalyze a crisis mood,” Howe and Strauss said that “[r]emnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire.”
Sometime before 2025, they wrote, “America will pass through a great gate in history” and “the very survival of the nation will feel at stake.”
Florida homeowner shoots 3 intruders, 2 fatally: sheriff Luis Casado, 21, and Khyle Durham, 21, were shot as they walked down a narrow hallway toward the homeowner, the sheriff said. They had guns and covered their faces with black masks. Jeremiah Trammel, 19,was shot after Casado and Durham went down, Nocco said. He said he ran out of the house as the homeowner went to get another gun to replace the one he had because it jammed. Nocco said Trammel didn’t get far. A neighbor with a gun caught him and then held him until deputies arrived. Sheriff Nocco has said that the victim of the home invasion believes he may have been targeted because of his extensive gun collection, of which he had occasionally posted pictures of on social media. The Vector rifle he used in the incident is somewhat of a rare firearm for civilian ownership, having been originally designed for use as a submachine gun by law enforcement and militaries.
We are living in a deluge of opinion, almost all of which is uninformed. Rather than living within a society structured by tradition, custom, and habit, people now live in a world structured by mass opinion, shaped by a small group of gangsters at the top, who use the institutions of society to shape opinion. Everywhere the intelligent turn, they are confronted by the stupid and cocksure, screaming the latest opinions on the timeless morality that was invented last week.
There is no natural unity among Blacks and Jews, and it would behoove American Jews to wake up and realize that except for some traditional Black churches and their religious connection to Jews and Judaism, we are the enemy. The casual and accepted anti-Semitism among Blacks, as evidenced recently by DeSean Jackson, Stephen Jackson, and several others is simply a public articulation of a common belief.
Some friends of mine performing my latest masterpiece: “Patriarchal Combustions: The Wraith of Phallocentrism Expiring by the Light of an Auto-Sodomised Moon”. pic.twitter.com/eAZ8DN9c7u
Lots of moms in LA are furious with @GavinNewsom for closing schools in September. These women voted for Gavin (and Hillary) but now see the impact of voting for someone who denies science and politicizes the Covid response. https://t.co/EB6UF4M8Ll
Maverick Philosopher: To Those Fleeing California DO NOT come to Arizona! It’s just too damned hot here for you snowflakes. And on top of that everybody is packing heat. That’s why you don’t hear any honking on the highways and byways. “An armed society is a polite society.”
We are racist to the core in this rattlesnake-infested inferno which is also home to the scorpion, the gila monster, and other venomous critters no librul would want to tangle with. There is nothing here but hot sand and dirt lightly covered with some dessicated but still prickly-as-hell vegetation such as cat claw. Everything here either sticks, stings, or stinks. Go elsewhere! Oregon and Idaho would love to have you. Or better yet: wallow in the shit you shat. Enjoy the sanctuary that your sanctimonious silliness has built.
Our New Religion of Race – Here in America, blacks are currently being reconceptualized as no longer our fellow citizens but now as our own sacred cows, entitled to wander wherever their whims lead them with nobody daring to tell them no. A Minneapolis white man told the newspaper that he was ashamed of calling the police after two black youths held a gun to his chest and demanded his car keys: “I regret calling the police. It was my instinct but I wish it hadn’t been. I put those boys in danger of death by calling the cops.”
Walmart Now Requires All Shoppers To Wear Pants | “I thought this was America,” said one man as a greeter asked him to please put on some sweatpants or something before coming into the store. “It is my constitutional right to go into Walmart and shop for random stuff at 3 a.m. wearing nothing but some boxers and a giant Tweety Bird T-shirt I got in the ’80s.” “Look, we don’t think this is too much to ask,” said a Walmart spokesperson. “Just throw on some sweats, pajama bottoms, whatever. This is for the health and mental safety of our employees. And for the love of God, take a shower once in a while, you know?”
The swingin’ tits on them hollarin’ harpies done put me off’n fun bags (aka pleasure pouches), maybe forever.
Roy LofquistJuly 16, 2020, 1:06 PM
That one video was actually a clip from the trailer for the next Hollywood blockbuster “Planet of the Apestresses”.
timJuly 16, 2020, 1:11 PM
If you find yourself, standing naked in the street, screaming at the top of your lungs, I dunn’o, you may want to reevaluate your life choices. But what do I know, I’m sure there are plenty of examples throughout history that shows some really great things have started that way.
Although, maybe they just found out Starbucks is adding a Covid surcharge.
azlibertarianJuly 16, 2020, 1:37 PM
Ah, c’mon, Lance. The thing about boobies is that once you see your first pair, you spend a good part of rest of your life imagining a way to see every other pair.
Also, these demonstrations have been repeated over and over again.
Joanne: “Hey, Kelli, it says right here that the Womyns Alliance will meet tomorrow in front of the court house and fight the patriarchy by stripping nekkid and shrieking at the top of our lungs. We should go. That’ll show ’em.”
Kelli: “Yeah we should go. My mom did this to protest Bush spilling blood for oil in Iraq.
Also, why can’t I get any guy to call me for a date?”
AlberticusJuly 16, 2020, 1:46 PM
Time for a real movement:
DEFUND?! YES, It is time to DEFUND ……………….. Public “Schools” SUE the schools, unions & teachers for FRAUD and taking money under false pretences.
We are getting a full on display of the Liberal Educator concept of “DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, and TOLERANCE” Burning cities are their vision of the future.
For decades the Nation’s teachers have been infusing false concepts of entitlement, oppression, as we see in Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland today. Teachers have been attacking the self-image, self-esteem of their White pupils with the Racist Hate message of mythical White privilege”. Teachers have rabidly attacked the foundations of the Nation to sooth their “Daddy issues”.
Gov. Gretchen Whitless has agreed to a settlement in a case, which sought a historic court order ruling students have a constitutional right to literacy. You do NOT have a “right” to literacy. That is S-T-U-P-I-D. You have to LEARN to read and write ….. you RETARDS.
Well these teacher’s unions have been quietly stuffing their pockets with overly LIBERAL pensions and benefits at the expense of the oppressed People of Color. Therefore in the spirit of Equality and Reparations which the teachers haveLIBERALLY preached for so long it is only proper that 75% of those FAT pensions be LIBERALLY distributed to the Elderly People of Color who were denied the opportunities the privileged teachers milked for all they could.
Stop RACISM? Equalize the retirements.
The “Graduates” of American education should be suing their teachers and school administrators for fraud and MISeducation.
They DEMAND raises for their FINE work:
Amazing— they choose Communist RED as their color — A wave of red-clad teachers …
The end result of their Great Teaching was on parade this weekend across America . ….. Monuments torn down and cities aflame as EXTREMIST VIOLENCE is everywhere.
They Really deserve raises — ‘I was a teacher for 17 years, but I couldn’t read or write’ http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43700153 and the teachers just “moved him on”
Teacher pay raises HELL! Give the Taxpayers a REFUND. The little idiots cannot read or write and have NO concept of the Constitution, Law, History. ………..The Teacher Unions should be paying DAMAGES to the Kids and America —- take their HUGE pensions and use it to actually educate the kids. A Third Of Millennials Aren’t Sure The Earth Is Round, Survey Finds http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/04/05/…-flat-earth-survey/
The same “teachers” who taught nothing about economics taught nothing about history or the Constitution …. what they DO teach is “Be PROUD of being stupid and knowing squat …… history is BOOOORING” So the Kids learn nothing about the Bolshevik Holodomor and 66 Million dead Christians.
Teachers whine about how “hard” they work but FAKEucators taught the children nothing about Economics, History, or the US Constitution. But they DO teach SOCIALISM so they should LIVE it.
JamesJuly 16, 2020, 2:13 PM
I wondered if Picasso, who could paint beautifully if he wanted to, painted the junk he did just as an experiment or joke. “Let’s see if people enjoy the beauty of the artwork I use to create or just that my hand was used in a painting’s creation. Is it in fact possible that people can find meaning in a painting I created which was never intended?”
He probably had a good laugh in the end.
butchJuly 16, 2020, 2:29 PM
Maverick Philospoher – There is a fourth option. Go Pinochet on their asses.
In The Blind Man’s Meal, I see one of the poor souls who came to Christ for healing. The meal is Eucharistic; in one hand, he holds the body, while in the other, he reaches for the blood that will cure his blindness and allow him to see. Yet he seems to hesitate, because how could anyone dare to participate in this holy sacrament? He is like the tax collector weeping on the steps of the Temple, knowing himself for what he is. Salvation is a gesture away. Did he partake, or give up and remain blind?
captfleeJuly 16, 2020, 3:59 PM
Now, I have never regarded myself as much of a breast man, “anything more than a mouthful is wasted”, which I blame on the moral laxities of the days of my youth. In my high school clique was one of us who looked older than the rest of us 15-16 year olds, and who possessed a state of the art fake ID, with which he gained admittance to, if not the Kaaba of teenage testosterone laced ambition, then surely the Haram, some Hillsborough Street titty bar. Bellying up to the bar, he found himself nose to nose with his then current “shop” teacher, and a ‘Meskin standoff ensued, which eventually was concluded with our buddy remaining, unmolested by bouncer or cop, and the Board of Education remaining innocent of the knowledge that one of their guardians of blameless yoots was employed as a bartender in a den of iniquity. You will be shocked to hear that over the next weeks, in ones and twos, a trusted group stumbled in and discovered the secret, at least until the barman stopped us at six.
So, for the next couple of years, that dark little joint, with our little gaggle of kids kept away from too many prying eyes by being parked with the dancers, was our clubhouse. At first, sitting at a table with topless dancers of varying degrees of mammoplasticity was quite, erm, titillating. In shorter time than one would have credited, those well presented tits faded into the woodwork. Jaded, jaded we were. Those were tamer days; no gynecological displays as would arrive some years later.
That having been said, I am apparently as susceptible as any hetero guy. I once let into a life a woman who gave every early indication of being a bunny boiler (though this episode predated the movie by a few years); when exposed to the sight of her incredible breasts I immediately lost all critical thinking faculties. And I was hardly the only one so rendered… she was almost never, at least when she ventured over to New Orleans to see me, without ridiculously hot female companionship, often hitherto straight, but mesmerized by her breasts. She could incite riots with those things.
Casey KlahnJuly 16, 2020, 4:41 PM
Don’t impart personal meanings before getting the intended meaning. Stop with the salvation story in the Picasso – it is isegetic and not correct about what Picasso would’ve thought. His impotent and potentially drugged-up buddy committed sideways in front of everybody (Carlos Casagemas), and the Blue Period follows with depressing but intense paintings that really served to train Picasso how to be a Modernist on his own terms. I’ve seen dozens of the 1900-almost 1910 works by Picasso, and their expressive power is tremendous. The reason the hand floats before the jug is a drawing trick, which I could explain but meh.
Beauty? OK. It’s only a part. I’m interested in beauty, too. But I’m interested in the whole experience of life not just one compartment. Picasso’s powers are capital stuff, and in the economy of correctness that is today’s culture, his name is dirt. He will wane awhile and then be rediscovered. My prediction.
I prefer Matisse, of course.
Now. what’s this about tits?
ghostsniperJuly 16, 2020, 7:05 PM
All this ‘more than a mouthful’ stuff is silly.
Unless your ho only has 1 teat or you have 2 yaps, then sumfink ain’t right here.
I mean, while you’re gummin’ on one what’s your ‘other hand’ doin?
Yes, other hand, cause we all know where the other other hand is don’t we?
If that other hand ain’t skweezin the daylights out of the udder udder then you haven’t been paing attention.
This isn’t to say there ain’t no limits. There are. If they’re hangin all the way down to there and acting like hacky sacks all the time then they have exceeeded the recommended limit. Or, if they’re been injected to hard and resemble Dick’s hatband, limits have been exceeded.
I’m neither a titty man or an ass man. I’m both and I believe in proportion and balance, rhythm and cadence too. Top heavy looks daunting and bottom heavy looks lumbersome. I made that one up. lumbering + cumbersome = lumbersome
So yeah, balance, form+function, and all that.
Remember, if you are an ass man, or a titty man, you are cutting yourself out of half the market.
Now don’t you feel silly?
Casey, I respect where you’re coming from, which is why I began my comments with I see. Perhaps I should have been more clear, but I did not mean to imply that’s what Picasso was going for. In fact, I would presume he wasn’t at all.
Even so, just because someone doesn’t intend something to be understood in a particular way, that doesn’t mean it can’t be understood in that particular way.
My comment was simply a bit of musing on what came to one viewer’s mind upon seeing this work.
Put another way, I have made a few modest attempts at creating things – art, writing, whatever – that have been shared in various places over the years. Whatever any particular piece means to me, I wouldn’t dream of dictating to a viewer that he may not find a different meaning in something I created than what I had originally intended. If it’s there to be seen, let the viewer see it.
Casey KlahnJuly 16, 2020, 11:04 PM
Thank you, James.
Hi, Julie. I did like your gospel sharing and it reminds me of how Billy Graham used to weave everything, in the end, into a gospel message. Nothing is purer than when a form is complete; an evangelist laying out the Word. Picasso, I’m afraid, was a commie and I think you might describe some of his beliefs as anarcho-communist. He was outraged that his friend Matisse would design an RC chapel. He hated Christ. However, in his early days he had the old religious mantle of up-to- and- including 19th Century Spanish art. The fukn Spaniards defined, for the worse, the common cultural visuals of the RC church. Things were better, then the Spanish gave us the horrible waxy and wooden statues and dark artworks of Roman sacred interiors. They could’ve stopped with Velasquez and Goya and El Greco, but they had to murder the art. Unforgivable. But Picasso went for none of that. He bestrode the 20th Century as a visual and cultural colossus. You can hate him, but you can’t ignore the SOB. His visuals have crept into my art to the extent that I have riffed him more than a few times.
Julie, we could have a long discussion about the integrity of the artist’s ideas. Courage and artist were a couplet up until maybe about the late 60s and early 70s. The artist’s ethos used to be in the dictionary and there wasn’t an interpretation of someone’s art. There was only what the artist said. Responses vary, I’ll grant you that. Of course artists have pissed their own bed, this much we know. But old Picasso, pissed though he often was, did not ruin art.
Be well, my friends. I am not the expert on Picasso, but I may be writing more on his frenemy, Matisse. Now let’s talk about beauty and handsful of it.
ghostsniperJuly 17, 2020, 4:47 AM
Never cared for Picasso or Matisse as it seemed they used the bare minimal effort in their stuff, much like an 8 year old. Been a lot of that going around for 50 years or more, and I pass right over it.
Recently Kim du Toit posted some art which I was unfamiliar with, http://www.kimdutoit.com/2020/07/11/the-midi-2/ , but was rather taken with instantly. I noticed long ago that the art that affects me the fastest affects me the bestest. Particularly the first one in the line up he posted. By a chap named Laurent Parcelier , of fairly recent vintage, younger than me.
Stare at that thing a minute. Look at that gauzy table cloth. I can feel it in my fingers. The diffused late summer sun. Though not visible, I can also feel the very slight breeze coming off the ocean in southern France. The palm frond tickling the back of my arm. The slightly wobbly wrought iron chair on the irregular broken tile floor. The fallen leaf in my cuppa Yorkshire Gold tea. Yeah, it draws me in.
I’m presently running that particular piece of artwork down and when I do it will be professionally framed and then mounted in the upper stair landing where the sun itself can play on it for an hour or so at just the right time in the early afternoon. I’ve been reserving that spot for 14 years waiting for the perfect thing to go there and now I’ve found it.
Fuel FilterJuly 17, 2020, 7:03 AM
re: Maverick Philospoher [sic]
I’m one of those who did just that. Got out while the gettin’ was still good. I brung my Conservative (with a Capital “C”) values with me.
Mav paints a picture of AZ designed to put the fear of Gawd into Libs from CA and more power to him.
But I don’t think he’d be opposed to a feller like me.
Thanks (genuine, not snarky!) for elaborating; that was quite enjoyable. I’m a long way off from my art history classes, and the more recent artists who tended to demand a statement be read before someone could appreciate their work usually bored me to tears. Again, purely matter of opinion, but I’ve long rebelled against the idea that one must know the artist’s ethos before one appreciates what the artist created. Once it’s out there, the art must speak in its own voice, though it can’t help but speak of the one who created it. The artist with a required statement is like a helicopter parent sitting in on an interview to explain why Johnny (who probably has his finger up his nose and his clothes on backward) deserves to get the job.
Thinking about it this morning, and considering that Picasso was a commie, I’m reminded now a bit of Gustave Courbet, who loved to paint the plight of the working man.
Anyway. In spite of who Picasso was and what he was probably intending, I find in this a far more powerful Gospel message than I find in a lot of completely Christian art (exemplified in the Babylon Bee’s hope that “Christian Filmmakers Agree To Stop Making Movies”). YMMV, of course.
VanderleunJuly 17, 2020, 1:25 PM
Well, you would julie, seeing that you have overlooked Courbet’s actual masterpiece L’Origine du monde.
That piece would let us have a fruitful discussion about the artist’s real intentions and ethics.
Casey KlahnJuly 17, 2020, 2:27 PM
Right! Which one of the Courbet’s is narrative and which one authentic? Which is historic and which universal?
I used to think there was erotic art, and not-erotic art. It turns out that all art is erotic. That quote from the estimable Henri Matisse.
Courbet for the win (of course via the goalie assist by our esteemed editor/author Gerard).
So, Ghostie: why is it only “art” if you like it?
ghostsniperJuly 17, 2020, 2:41 PM
@Casey. I didn’t say that.
Is there art that you don’t like?
Anyway, if I speak of something I like it’s usually not a dictate for others.
If I purchase a piece of art (about 40 pieces so far) it is because I like it instantly, not because others like it. I’m the one that has to look at it, not anyone else, so it should be pleasing to my eye. I’ve looked at plenty of Picasso’s and if I had to look at one everyday in my house I’d probably just shoot myself in the head. lol
(was never a fan of the kid, when he was young, hanging his stuff on the fridge and fortunately my wife wasn’t a fan of that neither)
Did you like the one at the link I provided?
Can’t say I was familiar with that one, Gerard; it wasn’t included in the kids’ art appreciation series I taught last year, for some reason. Courbet was certainly a skilled painter.
VanderleunJuly 17, 2020, 5:17 PM
“I paint what I see.” — Courbet
ghostsniperJuly 17, 2020, 7:33 PM
While Courbet was painting I was doing, um, other things.
Casey KlahnJuly 17, 2020, 11:34 PM
Fun stuff. A good mental break for me.
Ghostie, there is a thing called “visual intelligence”. I guess you didn’t say that but I was quoting a meme remark I saw on a t shirt and I thought it was a good question. No one has any right to dictate what you like, for sure.
The more you know, the more you see. A deer may stand within 10 feet from me, with me standing straight up, and she cannot tell what I am or even that I am there at all. We see what we know to see, and it is an interesting study. She also sees different colors than I, and some people postulate that different cultures understand colors differently to such a point there is question that they can see all the colors that, say, I can see.
Courbet saw plenty, huh, Gerard? The 19th C was the high water mark of art, and it is up to the public to decide if art after that it went to hell, or if it grew. Meanwhile I force myself to go to nude figure sessions and draw dix. It’s a job. But, I know I much prefer to draw females. And I catch hell for that!
Julie, don’t change for any reason. Next we’ll talk about “skill”. See how I question everything?
ghostsniperJuly 18, 2020, 4:29 AM
Casey sed: “…there is question that they can see all the colors…”
=======
Very good. Probably one of the most important aspects of all art and it can probably be learned through education and example.
I have of a people that have no words to describe the color “green” as they don’t recognize it as a different color. To them, there is blue, and then there’s yellow, and green is simply a variation of those two. Thinking that way, orange is the range of color from dark yellow to light red.
I have watched a fair amount of painting shows over the years and seldom will you hear the instructors explaining how to mix colors on the palette so as to be what they want on the canvas. Perhaps it is a learning experience that doesn’t convey well in a video format, and must be taught/learned in person? Regardless, experimentation is the key to excellence.
My brother, an artist, once told me it’s better to start learning about color by first learning about light by way of a grayscale environment. He said that starting with grayscale forced you to see the differentiation in light by not being distracted by the color. As a side note, when my wife and I watch an old black n white film we try to guess what the real color of various objects are on screen, ie., the car color, the actress’s dress color, etc. By examining things of a known color, say a red rose, or a wooden gun handle, you can learn what these things look like in grayscale and learn what all the colors look like as well through comparison. It’s an interesting subject for sure, and of course, can be beneficial if you want to understand better what, say, a deer sees (or doesn’t see) when it looks at you.
ghostsniperJuly 18, 2020, 4:30 AM
jeez… I have HEARD of a people…
VanderleunJuly 18, 2020, 8:13 AM
ghostsniper sez: “While Courbet was painting I was doing, um, other things.”
While Courbet was painting your great great grandfather was thinking about courting your great great grandmother.
VanderleunJuly 18, 2020, 8:20 AM
As for people, esp. people of the past, who see colors differently we can look at the first section of the Odyssey which reads: “And now have I put in here, as thou seest, with ship and crew, while sailing over the wine-dark sea to men of strange speech, on my way to Temese for copper; and I bear with me shining iron. “
Casey, I always preferred drawing women to men in figure study classes, too. All the lovely curves. We had a guy who would loll around in pretty much the same posture as the woman in Courbet’s painting. Not at all the same effect.
Re. the people who don’t see green, that’s Japan. Apparently, in more recent years they have updated their color vocabulary to recognize a more Western-style color palette.
Casey KlahnJuly 18, 2020, 2:29 PM
I’m interested in that about Japan, Julie. I will follow up on that, thanks. Yes, I was going to mention that a male version of Courbet’s crotch shot has a completely different effect and meaning and I think it proves there are real differences between the sexes. I’m not saying don’t do it…
Gerard, yes! I was reading an article on color perception in history and they cited Homer. Good job. The perception of color doesn’t change science nor the actual colors, but it does effect the sensuality and effect based on ignorance or, I should say, lack of visual learning.
Ghost, I will not show you the stupid work I do building and remodeling my studio if you promise never to comment on color again. I am building an entire career on why value-scale is not the basis of colors. But, I did like your story. When other art teachers say value trumps color, I can hear poor Vincent rolling over in his shallow grave. And I wretch a little in my mouth.
VanderleunJuly 18, 2020, 2:36 PM
Long ago when I was a deranged painter I was fortunate to number among my teachers such folks as Jack Ogden, William Wily, Wayne Theibaud, and, my favorite, Mel Ramos. One afternoon Ramos was pacing about behind our painting spaces in class he paused behind me and looked long and sadly at my blathered and jumbled daubs and said, “What saves you, Vanderleun, is your color sense.”
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Make that “Not on View,” “Seldom on View.” I’ve seen it in its own recessed niche three times over the years and it always has the same haunting effect on me. And the hauntingness is most concentrated in the outstretched hand that almost, but not quite, touches the wine jug.
AOC: ‘Most Crime Is Probably Just Some Street Rat With A Heart Of Gold Stealing Apples To Feed His Pet Monkey’
Gerard Van der Leun
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Strange Daze
These mixed informational/interesting/weird threads Gerard posts weekly make my week. Especially now after so many great blog sites are disappearing.
Presented without comment via WRSA:
https://zerogov.com/2020/07/14/a-nation-at-war-by-usarmyretiredsgm/
Cleon,
Amen to that.
“Those who do evil thinking good will come of it are damned.”
The Ramones hitch a ride to Rockaway beach:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0cLMW181mo
anyways, the video above was shot (see what I did there?!) FROM the police station; the low grey building is the Library.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.58596,-73.8166098,3a,75y,68.59h,94.16t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s57hU1FvQDst9MqNx3_xpXg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D57hU1FvQDst9MqNx3_xpXg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D339.80212%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?hl=en
The swingin’ tits on them hollarin’ harpies done put me off’n fun bags (aka pleasure pouches), maybe forever.
That one video was actually a clip from the trailer for the next Hollywood blockbuster “Planet of the Apestresses”.
If you find yourself, standing naked in the street, screaming at the top of your lungs, I dunn’o, you may want to reevaluate your life choices. But what do I know, I’m sure there are plenty of examples throughout history that shows some really great things have started that way.
Although, maybe they just found out Starbucks is adding a Covid surcharge.
Ah, c’mon, Lance. The thing about boobies is that once you see your first pair, you spend a good part of rest of your life imagining a way to see every other pair.
Also, these demonstrations have been repeated over and over again.
Joanne: “Hey, Kelli, it says right here that the Womyns Alliance will meet tomorrow in front of the court house and fight the patriarchy by stripping nekkid and shrieking at the top of our lungs. We should go. That’ll show ’em.”
Kelli: “Yeah we should go. My mom did this to protest Bush spilling blood for oil in Iraq.
Also, why can’t I get any guy to call me for a date?”
Time for a real movement:
DEFUND?! YES, It is time to DEFUND ……………….. Public “Schools” SUE the schools, unions & teachers for FRAUD and taking money under false pretences.
We are getting a full on display of the Liberal Educator concept of “DIVERSITY, INCLUSION, and TOLERANCE” Burning cities are their vision of the future.
For decades the Nation’s teachers have been infusing false concepts of entitlement, oppression, as we see in Minneapolis, Seattle and Portland today. Teachers have been attacking the self-image, self-esteem of their White pupils with the Racist Hate message of mythical White privilege”. Teachers have rabidly attacked the foundations of the Nation to sooth their “Daddy issues”.
Gov. Gretchen Whitless has agreed to a settlement in a case, which sought a historic court order ruling students have a constitutional right to literacy. You do NOT have a “right” to literacy. That is S-T-U-P-I-D. You have to LEARN to read and write ….. you RETARDS.
Well these teacher’s unions have been quietly stuffing their pockets with overly LIBERAL pensions and benefits at the expense of the oppressed People of Color. Therefore in the spirit of Equality and Reparations which the teachers haveLIBERALLY preached for so long it is only proper that 75% of those FAT pensions be LIBERALLY distributed to the Elderly People of Color who were denied the opportunities the privileged teachers milked for all they could.
Stop RACISM? Equalize the retirements.
The “Graduates” of American education should be suing their teachers and school administrators for fraud and MISeducation.
They DEMAND raises for their FINE work:
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/65-public-school-8th-graders-not-proficient-reading-67-not-proficient
Amazing— they choose Communist RED as their color — A wave of red-clad teachers …
The end result of their Great Teaching was on parade this weekend across America . ….. Monuments torn down and cities aflame as EXTREMIST VIOLENCE is everywhere.
They Really deserve raises — ‘I was a teacher for 17 years, but I couldn’t read or write’ http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43700153 and the teachers just “moved him on”
Teacher pay raises HELL! Give the Taxpayers a REFUND. The little idiots cannot read or write and have NO concept of the Constitution, Law, History. ………..The Teacher Unions should be paying DAMAGES to the Kids and America —- take their HUGE pensions and use it to actually educate the kids. A Third Of Millennials Aren’t Sure The Earth Is Round, Survey Finds http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/04/05/…-flat-earth-survey/
The same “teachers” who taught nothing about economics taught nothing about history or the Constitution …. what they DO teach is “Be PROUD of being stupid and knowing squat …… history is BOOOORING” So the Kids learn nothing about the Bolshevik Holodomor and 66 Million dead Christians.
Teachers whine about how “hard” they work but FAKEucators taught the children nothing about Economics, History, or the US Constitution. But they DO teach SOCIALISM so they should LIVE it.
I wondered if Picasso, who could paint beautifully if he wanted to, painted the junk he did just as an experiment or joke. “Let’s see if people enjoy the beauty of the artwork I use to create or just that my hand was used in a painting’s creation. Is it in fact possible that people can find meaning in a painting I created which was never intended?”
He probably had a good laugh in the end.
Maverick Philospoher – There is a fourth option. Go Pinochet on their asses.
In The Blind Man’s Meal, I see one of the poor souls who came to Christ for healing. The meal is Eucharistic; in one hand, he holds the body, while in the other, he reaches for the blood that will cure his blindness and allow him to see. Yet he seems to hesitate, because how could anyone dare to participate in this holy sacrament? He is like the tax collector weeping on the steps of the Temple, knowing himself for what he is. Salvation is a gesture away. Did he partake, or give up and remain blind?
Now, I have never regarded myself as much of a breast man, “anything more than a mouthful is wasted”, which I blame on the moral laxities of the days of my youth. In my high school clique was one of us who looked older than the rest of us 15-16 year olds, and who possessed a state of the art fake ID, with which he gained admittance to, if not the Kaaba of teenage testosterone laced ambition, then surely the Haram, some Hillsborough Street titty bar. Bellying up to the bar, he found himself nose to nose with his then current “shop” teacher, and a ‘Meskin standoff ensued, which eventually was concluded with our buddy remaining, unmolested by bouncer or cop, and the Board of Education remaining innocent of the knowledge that one of their guardians of blameless yoots was employed as a bartender in a den of iniquity. You will be shocked to hear that over the next weeks, in ones and twos, a trusted group stumbled in and discovered the secret, at least until the barman stopped us at six.
So, for the next couple of years, that dark little joint, with our little gaggle of kids kept away from too many prying eyes by being parked with the dancers, was our clubhouse. At first, sitting at a table with topless dancers of varying degrees of mammoplasticity was quite, erm, titillating. In shorter time than one would have credited, those well presented tits faded into the woodwork. Jaded, jaded we were. Those were tamer days; no gynecological displays as would arrive some years later.
That having been said, I am apparently as susceptible as any hetero guy. I once let into a life a woman who gave every early indication of being a bunny boiler (though this episode predated the movie by a few years); when exposed to the sight of her incredible breasts I immediately lost all critical thinking faculties. And I was hardly the only one so rendered… she was almost never, at least when she ventured over to New Orleans to see me, without ridiculously hot female companionship, often hitherto straight, but mesmerized by her breasts. She could incite riots with those things.
Don’t impart personal meanings before getting the intended meaning. Stop with the salvation story in the Picasso – it is isegetic and not correct about what Picasso would’ve thought. His impotent and potentially drugged-up buddy committed sideways in front of everybody (Carlos Casagemas), and the Blue Period follows with depressing but intense paintings that really served to train Picasso how to be a Modernist on his own terms. I’ve seen dozens of the 1900-almost 1910 works by Picasso, and their expressive power is tremendous. The reason the hand floats before the jug is a drawing trick, which I could explain but meh.
Beauty? OK. It’s only a part. I’m interested in beauty, too. But I’m interested in the whole experience of life not just one compartment. Picasso’s powers are capital stuff, and in the economy of correctness that is today’s culture, his name is dirt. He will wane awhile and then be rediscovered. My prediction.
I prefer Matisse, of course.
Now. what’s this about tits?
All this ‘more than a mouthful’ stuff is silly.
Unless your ho only has 1 teat or you have 2 yaps, then sumfink ain’t right here.
I mean, while you’re gummin’ on one what’s your ‘other hand’ doin?
Yes, other hand, cause we all know where the other other hand is don’t we?
If that other hand ain’t skweezin the daylights out of the udder udder then you haven’t been paing attention.
This isn’t to say there ain’t no limits. There are. If they’re hangin all the way down to there and acting like hacky sacks all the time then they have exceeeded the recommended limit. Or, if they’re been injected to hard and resemble Dick’s hatband, limits have been exceeded.
I’m neither a titty man or an ass man. I’m both and I believe in proportion and balance, rhythm and cadence too. Top heavy looks daunting and bottom heavy looks lumbersome. I made that one up. lumbering + cumbersome = lumbersome
So yeah, balance, form+function, and all that.
Remember, if you are an ass man, or a titty man, you are cutting yourself out of half the market.
Now don’t you feel silly?
With ya on Picasso Casey.
Casey, I respect where you’re coming from, which is why I began my comments with I see. Perhaps I should have been more clear, but I did not mean to imply that’s what Picasso was going for. In fact, I would presume he wasn’t at all.
Even so, just because someone doesn’t intend something to be understood in a particular way, that doesn’t mean it can’t be understood in that particular way.
My comment was simply a bit of musing on what came to one viewer’s mind upon seeing this work.
Put another way, I have made a few modest attempts at creating things – art, writing, whatever – that have been shared in various places over the years. Whatever any particular piece means to me, I wouldn’t dream of dictating to a viewer that he may not find a different meaning in something I created than what I had originally intended. If it’s there to be seen, let the viewer see it.
Thank you, James.
Hi, Julie. I did like your gospel sharing and it reminds me of how Billy Graham used to weave everything, in the end, into a gospel message. Nothing is purer than when a form is complete; an evangelist laying out the Word. Picasso, I’m afraid, was a commie and I think you might describe some of his beliefs as anarcho-communist. He was outraged that his friend Matisse would design an RC chapel. He hated Christ. However, in his early days he had the old religious mantle of up-to- and- including 19th Century Spanish art. The fukn Spaniards defined, for the worse, the common cultural visuals of the RC church. Things were better, then the Spanish gave us the horrible waxy and wooden statues and dark artworks of Roman sacred interiors. They could’ve stopped with Velasquez and Goya and El Greco, but they had to murder the art. Unforgivable. But Picasso went for none of that. He bestrode the 20th Century as a visual and cultural colossus. You can hate him, but you can’t ignore the SOB. His visuals have crept into my art to the extent that I have riffed him more than a few times.
Julie, we could have a long discussion about the integrity of the artist’s ideas. Courage and artist were a couplet up until maybe about the late 60s and early 70s. The artist’s ethos used to be in the dictionary and there wasn’t an interpretation of someone’s art. There was only what the artist said. Responses vary, I’ll grant you that. Of course artists have pissed their own bed, this much we know. But old Picasso, pissed though he often was, did not ruin art.
Be well, my friends. I am not the expert on Picasso, but I may be writing more on his frenemy, Matisse. Now let’s talk about beauty and handsful of it.
Never cared for Picasso or Matisse as it seemed they used the bare minimal effort in their stuff, much like an 8 year old. Been a lot of that going around for 50 years or more, and I pass right over it.
Recently Kim du Toit posted some art which I was unfamiliar with, http://www.kimdutoit.com/2020/07/11/the-midi-2/ , but was rather taken with instantly. I noticed long ago that the art that affects me the fastest affects me the bestest. Particularly the first one in the line up he posted. By a chap named Laurent Parcelier , of fairly recent vintage, younger than me.
Stare at that thing a minute. Look at that gauzy table cloth. I can feel it in my fingers. The diffused late summer sun. Though not visible, I can also feel the very slight breeze coming off the ocean in southern France. The palm frond tickling the back of my arm. The slightly wobbly wrought iron chair on the irregular broken tile floor. The fallen leaf in my cuppa Yorkshire Gold tea. Yeah, it draws me in.
I’m presently running that particular piece of artwork down and when I do it will be professionally framed and then mounted in the upper stair landing where the sun itself can play on it for an hour or so at just the right time in the early afternoon. I’ve been reserving that spot for 14 years waiting for the perfect thing to go there and now I’ve found it.
re: Maverick Philospoher [sic]
I’m one of those who did just that. Got out while the gettin’ was still good. I brung my Conservative (with a Capital “C”) values with me.
Mav paints a picture of AZ designed to put the fear of Gawd into Libs from CA and more power to him.
But I don’t think he’d be opposed to a feller like me.
Hi Casey,
Thanks (genuine, not snarky!) for elaborating; that was quite enjoyable. I’m a long way off from my art history classes, and the more recent artists who tended to demand a statement be read before someone could appreciate their work usually bored me to tears. Again, purely matter of opinion, but I’ve long rebelled against the idea that one must know the artist’s ethos before one appreciates what the artist created. Once it’s out there, the art must speak in its own voice, though it can’t help but speak of the one who created it. The artist with a required statement is like a helicopter parent sitting in on an interview to explain why Johnny (who probably has his finger up his nose and his clothes on backward) deserves to get the job.
Thinking about it this morning, and considering that Picasso was a commie, I’m reminded now a bit of Gustave Courbet, who loved to paint the plight of the working man.
Anyway. In spite of who Picasso was and what he was probably intending, I find in this a far more powerful Gospel message than I find in a lot of completely Christian art (exemplified in the Babylon Bee’s hope that “Christian Filmmakers Agree To Stop Making Movies”). YMMV, of course.
Well, you would julie, seeing that you have overlooked Courbet’s actual masterpiece L’Origine du monde.
That piece would let us have a fruitful discussion about the artist’s real intentions and ethics.
Right! Which one of the Courbet’s is narrative and which one authentic? Which is historic and which universal?
I used to think there was erotic art, and not-erotic art. It turns out that all art is erotic. That quote from the estimable Henri Matisse.
Courbet for the win (of course via the goalie assist by our esteemed editor/author Gerard).
So, Ghostie: why is it only “art” if you like it?
@Casey. I didn’t say that.
Is there art that you don’t like?
Anyway, if I speak of something I like it’s usually not a dictate for others.
If I purchase a piece of art (about 40 pieces so far) it is because I like it instantly, not because others like it. I’m the one that has to look at it, not anyone else, so it should be pleasing to my eye. I’ve looked at plenty of Picasso’s and if I had to look at one everyday in my house I’d probably just shoot myself in the head. lol
(was never a fan of the kid, when he was young, hanging his stuff on the fridge and fortunately my wife wasn’t a fan of that neither)
Did you like the one at the link I provided?
Can’t say I was familiar with that one, Gerard; it wasn’t included in the kids’ art appreciation series I taught last year, for some reason. Courbet was certainly a skilled painter.
“I paint what I see.” — Courbet
While Courbet was painting I was doing, um, other things.
Fun stuff. A good mental break for me.
Ghostie, there is a thing called “visual intelligence”. I guess you didn’t say that but I was quoting a meme remark I saw on a t shirt and I thought it was a good question. No one has any right to dictate what you like, for sure.
The more you know, the more you see. A deer may stand within 10 feet from me, with me standing straight up, and she cannot tell what I am or even that I am there at all. We see what we know to see, and it is an interesting study. She also sees different colors than I, and some people postulate that different cultures understand colors differently to such a point there is question that they can see all the colors that, say, I can see.
Courbet saw plenty, huh, Gerard? The 19th C was the high water mark of art, and it is up to the public to decide if art after that it went to hell, or if it grew. Meanwhile I force myself to go to nude figure sessions and draw dix. It’s a job. But, I know I much prefer to draw females. And I catch hell for that!
Julie, don’t change for any reason. Next we’ll talk about “skill”. See how I question everything?
Casey sed: “…there is question that they can see all the colors…”
=======
Very good. Probably one of the most important aspects of all art and it can probably be learned through education and example.
I have of a people that have no words to describe the color “green” as they don’t recognize it as a different color. To them, there is blue, and then there’s yellow, and green is simply a variation of those two. Thinking that way, orange is the range of color from dark yellow to light red.
I have watched a fair amount of painting shows over the years and seldom will you hear the instructors explaining how to mix colors on the palette so as to be what they want on the canvas. Perhaps it is a learning experience that doesn’t convey well in a video format, and must be taught/learned in person? Regardless, experimentation is the key to excellence.
My brother, an artist, once told me it’s better to start learning about color by first learning about light by way of a grayscale environment. He said that starting with grayscale forced you to see the differentiation in light by not being distracted by the color. As a side note, when my wife and I watch an old black n white film we try to guess what the real color of various objects are on screen, ie., the car color, the actress’s dress color, etc. By examining things of a known color, say a red rose, or a wooden gun handle, you can learn what these things look like in grayscale and learn what all the colors look like as well through comparison. It’s an interesting subject for sure, and of course, can be beneficial if you want to understand better what, say, a deer sees (or doesn’t see) when it looks at you.
jeez… I have HEARD of a people…
ghostsniper sez: “While Courbet was painting I was doing, um, other things.”
While Courbet was painting your great great grandfather was thinking about courting your great great grandmother.
As for people, esp. people of the past, who see colors differently we can look at the first section of the Odyssey which reads: “And now have I put in here, as thou seest, with ship and crew, while sailing over the wine-dark sea to men of strange speech, on my way to Temese for copper; and I bear with me shining iron. “
Casey, I always preferred drawing women to men in figure study classes, too. All the lovely curves. We had a guy who would loll around in pretty much the same posture as the woman in Courbet’s painting. Not at all the same effect.
Re. the people who don’t see green, that’s Japan. Apparently, in more recent years they have updated their color vocabulary to recognize a more Western-style color palette.
I’m interested in that about Japan, Julie. I will follow up on that, thanks. Yes, I was going to mention that a male version of Courbet’s crotch shot has a completely different effect and meaning and I think it proves there are real differences between the sexes. I’m not saying don’t do it…
Gerard, yes! I was reading an article on color perception in history and they cited Homer. Good job. The perception of color doesn’t change science nor the actual colors, but it does effect the sensuality and effect based on ignorance or, I should say, lack of visual learning.
Ghost, I will not show you the stupid work I do building and remodeling my studio if you promise never to comment on color again. I am building an entire career on why value-scale is not the basis of colors. But, I did like your story. When other art teachers say value trumps color, I can hear poor Vincent rolling over in his shallow grave. And I wretch a little in my mouth.
Long ago when I was a deranged painter I was fortunate to number among my teachers such folks as Jack Ogden, William Wily, Wayne Theibaud, and, my favorite, Mel Ramos. One afternoon Ramos was pacing about behind our painting spaces in class he paused behind me and looked long and sadly at my blathered and jumbled daubs and said, “What saves you, Vanderleun, is your color sense.”