Monday, December 31, 2007

The Heroic Gaze




Jacques-Louis David - The Oath of the Horatii, 1784


'To find everything profound - that is an inconvenient trait.'

Friedrich Nietzsche

Sunday, December 30, 2007

The Tragic Gaze




Jacques-Louis David - The Lictors Bringing to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, 1789


'No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.'

(Lady Anne, Richard III, 1.2 - William Shakespeare)

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Black Roses (8 of 8)




Ray Caesar - The Burden of Her Memories (date unknown)

Friday, December 28, 2007

Black Roses (7 of 8)




Anthony Lucas - The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, 2005

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Black Roses (6 of 8)




Tim Burton - The Corpse Bride, 2006

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Black Roses (5 of 8)




Mike and Doug Starn - Attracted to Light 1, 1999-2004

Monday, December 24, 2007

Black Roses (4 of 8)




Jamie Caliri - Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, 2004

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Black Roses (3 of 8)




Max Aguilera-Hellweg - Prosthetic Leg in Hallway, 2000

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Black Roses (2 of 8)




Joel Peter Witkin - Anna Akhmatova, 1998

Friday, December 21, 2007

Black Roses (1 of 8)




The Quay Brothers - Street of Crocodiles, 1986

Thursday, December 20, 2007

When Artists Flap Their Wings In A Gallery




The Little Artists - Damien Hirst's Butterfly Paintings




Damien Hirst - The Explosion - Exalted, 2006


'I am a deeply superficial person.'

Andy Warhol

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Hotel Cornucopia




Joseph Cornell - Untitled (Hotel Eden), 1945


'Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.'

Joseph Campbell

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

The Chamber Of Insights




Henry Fuseli - The Nightmare, 1781


'Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.'

Carl Jung

Monday, December 17, 2007

DIY Salvation




William Blake - Satan, Sin and Death, 1808


'If you meditate on your past sins long enough, you can get lost in your sins and not know what your virtues are. Why not meditate on the virtues? Foster the virtues and let the sins fall off.'

Joseph Campbell

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Dragons Without Dungeons




Raphael - Saint George Fighting the Dragon, c. 1504


'The demon that you can swallow gives you it’s power, and the greater life’s pain, the greater life’s reply.'

Joseph Campbell

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Who Was That Masked Human?




Mask - Olmec (Mexico), 9th - 6th C B.C.


'Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.'

Carl Jung

Friday, December 14, 2007

The Stuart Davis Quartet




Stuart Davis - Egg Beater No. 4, 1928




Stuart Davis - New York Waterfront, 1938




Stuart Davis - The Mellow Pad, 1945-51




Stuart Davis - Colonial Cubism, 1954


'The act of painting is not a duplication of experience but the extension of experience on the plane of formal invention.'

Stuart Davis

Thursday, December 13, 2007

The Ten Thousand Year Old Virgin (7)




William Hogarth - The Four Stages of Cruelty ("The Reward of Cruelty"), 1751

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The Ten Thousand Year Old Virgin (6)




William Hogarth - The Four Stages of Cruelty ("Cruelty in Perfection"), 1751

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Ten Thousand Year Old Virgin (5)




William Hogarth - The Four Stages of Cruelty ("The Second Stage of Cruelty"), 1751

Monday, December 10, 2007

The Ten Thousand Year Old Virgin (4)




William Hogarth - The Four Stages of Cruelty ("The First Stage of Cruelty"), 1751

Sunday, December 09, 2007

The Ten Thousand Year Old Virgin (3)




William Hogarth - Beer Street, 1751

Saturday, December 08, 2007

The Ten Thousand Year Old Virgin (2)




William Hogarth - Gin Lane, 1751

Friday, December 07, 2007

The Ten Thousand Year Old Virgin (1)




William Hogarth - Marriage A-la-Mode: The Tête-à-Tête, 1735


'We are all hungry and thirsty for concrete images. Abstract art will have been good for one thing: to restore its exact virginity to figurative art.'

Salvador Dalí

Thursday, December 06, 2007

The Gee Gees




Gilbert & George cutout dolls, 2000




Gilbert & George
(South Park-style spoof by Helen Bucknail)




Gilbert & George ("The Little Artists")




Gilbert & George - Son of a God, 2005




Tim Marlow with Gilbert & George, 2007


'Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.'

Oscar Wilde


N.B. Gilbert & George will be awarded the Lorenzo il Magnifico Prize at the Florence Biennale in December.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Groom Of Darkness




Rembrandt - Philosopher in Meditation, 1632


'Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.'

Arthur Schopenhauer

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Bride Of Darkness




Bill Viola - Ocean Without a Shore, 2007


'When film is not a document, it is dream. That is why Tarkovsky is the greatest of them all. He moves with such naturalness in the room of dreams. He doesn't explain. What should he explain anyhow? He is a spectator, capable of staging his visions in the most unwieldy but, in a way, the most willing of media. All my life I have hammered on the doors of the rooms in which he moves so naturally. Only a few times have I managed to creep inside. Most of my conscious efforts have ended in embarrassing failure.'

Ingmar Bergman in The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Radical Cheek




Paul Signac - Portrait of Félix Fénéon, 1890


'The anarchist painter is not the one who will create anarchist pictures, but the one who will fight with all his individuality against official conventions.'

Paul Signac

Sunday, December 02, 2007

The Man Not In The Mirror




Duane Michals - Portrait of Joseph Cornell, 1970


'Joseph Cornell never reveled in his growing status as a seminal figure, however. His last years were his most isolated. He would watch neighborhood children from his window, leaving boxes out on the porch for them to play with. In 1972, Cornell died at his Utopia Parkway home. He was cremated. His ashes buried in a small wooden box.'

Paul Solman (PBS Online News Hour, December 3o, 1997)

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Through A Glass, Kaleidoscopically




Cindy Sherman - Untitled #424, 2004


'Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.'

Jonathan Swift

Friday, November 30, 2007

Art As War By Other Means




Francesco Clemente - Map of What Is Effortless, 1978


'So it's really not East or West, it's really part of the human experience that you are given certain conditioning and a certain character and that you have to live with that, and make the best you can of it. That is why we love the Hindu tradition, because of all these paradoxes we are confronted with - on the one hand this image of immobility and original knowledge and original uncontaminated being that we carry within ourselves, and on the other hand the deepest human desire: the desire for a narrative. And interesting narratives imply conflict. A narrative without conflict is boring - this is why I get very diffident about presentations of yoga or contemplative practices as "conflict free". When I hear about peace I get mad, because there is no such thing as peace, there is always war. It's either war with the other, or war within. If you are wise, it's war within.'

Francesco Clemente

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Seven




Mano Poderosa (Hand with Religious Figures Atop Each Finger) - Mexico, 19thC

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Six




Our Lady of Cocharcas under the Baldachin - Peru, Cuzco School, 1765

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Five




Calvary Scene - Ecuadoran, 18thC

Monday, November 26, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Four




The Baptism of Christ - Pulpit of Veit Stoss (Cracow), c. 1480-1490

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Three




Nativity Group with Angel - Guatemalan, 18thC

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part Two




Gift-Bearing Figures (from a Nativity Group), Guatemalan, 18thC

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Rigid Relics: Part One




Nativity Scene - Ecuadoran, 18thC

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Yakka Dur




Georges Seurat - Stone Breaker, Le Raincy (Casseur de pierres, Le Raincy), c. 1879-81

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

L’Heure Verte






Absinthiana: a. Vintage absinthe poster (French, 19thC), b. Lemercier Fountain, c. Ecaille Glass and d. Eiffel Tower Spoon