Florentine painting and more

Finally had a moment to catch the show at the Met. I was enchanted as always by the aesthetic considerations of these portraits but this time around more impressed by Ghirlandaio and Bellini. Why? Because of their ability to access the most moving of human emotions with such simplicity and insight. First the wonderful portrait of an old man and little boy thought to be a grandfather and his grandson. Despite the old man's ugly face due to a chronic condition that distorted hin nose the angelic child looks up at him with adoring eyes. The gaze between these two is so touching in conveying the intimate connection, heartfelt connection that it takes your breath away. This is especially true in times like our own where true emotional connection and intimacy seem to be so rarely, authentically available for a variety of reasons too complex to get into in a blog. The Bellini is entirely a different matter. I remembered it vividly because a very talented painter friend of mine had based a painting of his lover on the Bellini. The original was a perfect blend of decorative motifs of lillies and various other symbols surrounding an old priest. The contrast of the super sized flowers with their brunished bronzed leaves, white flowers and upright stalks made a perfect setting for the realistically rendered head of this old man. The beauty of the composition, understanding of scale and color balance is damn near perfect. I would be hard put to find a better portrait in the entire history of art. The ability of Bellini to render character too is telling. He shows us a character that is resolute, inwardly focused and other worldly. The face is a map of this man's life, ambiitons and adaptations. In these two portraits each artist has been able to reveal the deepest human emotions before our eyes. What we do with what they have presented is part of how great art lives and transcends its time.

De Kooning and spaces in the brain

Recently saw the de Kooning show at the Modern. It is a beautiful and sensitive installation. I was impressed with what a master he was and how tragic his increasing Alzheimers was. He seemed to have it all together until about the mid-1960s when he faltered. I do not know if this was due to the early on-set or what. The impressive thing about the work prior to that was just how integrated his art was in terms of structure, drawing, color, form and space. He inherited all the best of Dutch and European traditions and married them with his own brand of abstraction. His use of color was eccentric and all his own and the way his line cut into space suggested layered dimensionsa and parallel universes.
Much has been made of his Divas but those Goddesses were embodiments of his own emotions concerning women and they were complex. I never saw them as women hating perse but rather his complex feelings about the women in his life and women in general as powerful and unpredictable figures.
The shocking part of the exhibition is the visual representations of his increasing disability. He was at the end a painting machine that went on cranking out paintings that reflected the spaces in his brain as his brush tried to encompass what was no longer there; the focused energy and emotions of a master artist.

Check out our new site: How the GOP Stole Christmas

Check out our new site: How the GOP Stole Christmas: Check out our new site: How the GOP Stole Christmas: https://www.dccc.org/pages/gopstolechristmas Yep you can bet deep pocket Koch brother-type Santa's are making sure he has a merry xmas at your expense. Vote them all out next year.

Healthcare for all a cultural issue

You betcha! Artists are cultural workers and as such often have no way to pay over $600.00 a month for healthcare. This group is trying to highlight the issue at a time when the flat-landers and know/no nothings are busy killing off what little safety net we have left in their version/vision of the American future they envision. The House just passed a murder woman bill that boggles the mind when it is wrapped in what they style 'Christian" compassion. Any hospital can refuse to perform a life-saving abortion. Human cell tissue is more alive than the woman carrying it-by their lights-out brains. And, Obama just jettisoned the long term part of the health plan as too expensive when it might have allowed family care givers to be paid rather than insurance companies squeezing the last pennies out of distressed working families. Is this the America we wanted to see. No, I don't think the 99% ever envisioned Eric Cantor and company's utopia. Great for the elites like the artistocrats of old and the peasants be damned. Fight the wars and die so the rich can play on. Well you know what the French did with that. They got carried away but had a point and delivered it sharply to the heads that oppressed them. Yes Artists need healthcare.

Twitter / Tweet Button

Twitter / Tweet Button So now new information on Van Gogh's portraits. Play it by ear seems to be the watch word at the Van Gogh foundation. They have discovered that portraits they thought were of Van Gogh himself actually are of his brother Theo. How--by ear--the one that isn't cut off is thought to be the clue to who is who!

Price to restore The Triumph of Civic Virtue marble statue in Queens is high

Price to restore The Triumph of Civic Virtue marble statue in Queens is high
Well here I am on my soap box trying to finds culture in Queens and folks who care enough to sign on to a grassroots group effort to rally the troops to save this American master's work. Contact me for a meet up if you have any interest in keeping this treasure in Queens.

The Agenda Project: America The Beautiful

This says it all. If you vote GOP or think you are a Christian when you sign on to the stupid and misleading policies that the extreme right supports-the only result is before your eyes. Is this what you really want American to be about? I don't think so. Gertrude Stein summed it up pretty well. What's in a name--if you call medicare "socialism" to scare people then you can cheat them out of just about everything they've worked for--social security and medicare. We have a broken system and the people who have broken it are getting fatter and greedier as the moments pass. Civil virtue is almost on a resporator and if people don't wise up the visual we just saw could become reality.