We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
Well, I have been playing around with the image-generation AI for a while now. I have passed the “introduction” stage, and am nor in the “novice user” stage.
I have been focusing my attention on one particular program known as DeepAI.
I have bought some “AI call” time, and been “mucking around” with it. This is what I have learned about this one particular type of image AI generation software…
Each time you click on the generation button”, a new picture is generated. Even if the rest of the settings stay the same. No two images are the same.
Word text description orientation makes a big difference.
Big grey elephant with monkey riding on top
Will have a very different image result than…
Monkey riding on top of a big grey elephant
Make sure you spell things properly. Steel is different than steal. A spelling mistake can have substantial impact on your resultant art.
The simple sentence will generate “pure” drawings, while the complicated description will provide more accurate results.
The art seems to generate some kind of “feel” for the imagery that you detail out, not any actual anatomical, or functional details.
The image context “style” groupings make all the difference in the world.
Quick note; Double Click on the images to see the full size.
Example – Spaceship interior
In this example, I have created a text that looks like this…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic and shiny chrome and metal style spaceship
And the screen will look like this…
Resulting in the following images… very futuristic, and stylish. Reminds me a little of the spacecraft in the movie “Alien”.
Now, I then went and changed some wording. What I intended “black lit” was obviously not understood by the AI ‘Bot. I wanted to have a kind of “2001 space odyssey” kind of interior.
Resulting in the following images… not really what I intended. But pretty cool. Anyways.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic and shiny chrome with black lit controls in a metal style spaceship
Whoops!
I should of said “Back lit” instead of “black lit”.
Oh well…
Make a change…
Jules Verne style.
With this… very interesting. You do get the “feel” of Victorian science fiction.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship
Make the following changes…
From this…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship
To this…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the view ports and widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun.
Resulting in… this very beautiful and interesting drawing.
And some more… looks good with the blue skies, eh?
More…
Let’s jazz up the interior some…
Let’s add brass, and red velvet.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the view ports and widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet.
And look at the interior now… damn!
But, of course, some of the results can be really unexpected…
My gosh! Check out this one!
And this one…
The images build upon each other, as you can see in this train of images.
Let’s further refine the description…
From
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the view ports and widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet.
To
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet. leather chairs. Many levers and switches.
And it’s getting closer and pretty impressive.
.
Let’s add some carved ivory handles…
Let’s make this change.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet. leather chairs. Many levers and switches. There are white carved ivory handles for the doors, switches and fixtures.
Let’s do something radical…
It’s going in a direction that I am not that interested in. Let’s change the description.
From
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant blue sky with white fluffy clouds and bright morning sun. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet. leather chairs. Many levers and switches. There are white carved ivory handles for the doors, switches and fixtures.
To
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a stormy and rainy sky. The interior is one of brass, and red velvet.
Resulting in this…
More playing with changes…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant morning sky. The interior is one of brass, polished wood, and red velvet.
Resulting in this…
Changing the style…
As in this image displays…
Results in this…
Pretty impressive, though all the details are sketchy and there really isn’t any conformity in Industrial Design…
And…
It can also make very beautiful, but complex and nonsensical images…
Another alteration to the text…
Let’s try this, shall we…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant morning sky overlooking lush green hills. The interior is one of brass, polished wood, and red velvet.
Resulting in…
Another change…
Adding a cupola bubble.
A view from the observation cupola bubble that is part of detailed interior view of the control deck of a Jules Verne Victorian century style spaceship. Outside the many big view ports and wide widows is a brilliant morning sky overlooking lush green hills. The interior is one of brass, polished wood, and red velvet.
Resulting in…what?
Sigh.
I think that you all can get a “feel” for how this systems works. Right?
A view from the Palaeozoic period
New attempt. Different subject area.
Next try…
Back to Basics…
We revisit the initial statement with an add-on, and removed the requirement of metal.
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic style spaceship. the interior is clean and organized
Resulting in…
And now let’s make yet another change…
detailed interior view of the control deck of a futuristic style spaceship. the interior is clean and organized. The walls are brushed and anodized aluminum, the controls are back-lit.
Conclusion
I have started playing with this software and find it has potential. You are able to effortlessly create your own royalty free art to illustrate your projects instead of paying for images, or using the tired old “internet” art.
That being said, it’s a cantankerous beast. You have to run through many iterations before you can find anything usable.
In this example, I tried to obtain a spaceship interior, but none of the generated art fit my notions of what it should be. Though the art was in many cases spectacular, more practice must be mastered before it can be of any use.
I will tell the reader that I continue to play with this software and I will have further reports in the future.
Morgan Weistling is an American painter who paints the everyday life and characters of the Wild West. An accomplished painter, Weistling is skilled in both paint and printmaking, creating truly inspiring paintings of beauty and danger. Weistling’s paintings have won multiple awards and been purchased for permanent display by major museums.
Normally, I conduct a 3/3 affirmation campaign. This is a fine balance for world-line travel and seems to mesh well with the fate-forecasting. But, as long time readers will recognize, I am running 3/4 campaigns (three months off and a four month wait (dwell) time) and the result are (personally) stunning. My life has cranked up a notch and there’s all sort of discomforting changes in my life. In short, seriously, MM’s life is upside down.
Not in a bad way mind you, but in an exhausting and time-consuming way. New things are being forced into place as a matter of necessity, and other things have dropped to the side.
For instance, being in a new home, you adapt to the new environment.
When I lived in Shenzhen, we rode subways all the time to get around.
When we lived in Zhuhai, we rode bikes or took ride-hail services or buses.
Now in Tanzhou, a (growing, developing, but) rural section of China, we must rely on buses, electric scooters, or cars.
This is forcing the purchase of a car. Not something that I want to do, but (well) it’s a different situation, and I have to adapt to the changes as they materialize. And a car, will force a change in daily routines, habits, and finances.
That’s just one example.
I am conducting the campaign with pluck and still plowing forward, and I hope that you all do so as well. Good things are in your future. I just know it.
For today, here’s another art post. The world needs art.
Please enjoy this post.
A midcareer figurative painter with a distinctive and haunting narrative vision, Bo Bartlett composes large-scale contemporary portraits and landscapes that combine the memories and impressions of his upbringing, his faith, his family, and his friends. Presenting iconic American subjects subtly underlined with open-ended questions, Bartlett implies that there is a chance for magic and wonder in everyday life. Bo Bartlett belongs to the tradition of American realist painters defined by such artists as Andrew Wyeth, who called Bartlett “fresh, gifted and what we need in this country.”
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
International relations can be likened to a game of 3D chess.
In this great game Putin, in the finest Russian tradition, or like Mr. Spock in Star Trek, is a grand master.
I don’t believe the chess players in the U.S. State Department, such as Victoria Nuland (wife of the Robert Kagan mentioned above) and the other neocons who are at the helm, are quite at Putin’s level, but they had the great advantage of being able to make a series of aggressive moves (e.g., the series of NATO expansions and the 2014 Ukraine coup) before Putin was able (i.e., was strong enough) to make a counterplay in response.
By comparison, the general run of media journalists, commentators and even supposed analysts are tiddlywinks players.
-UNZ "Russia is back"
Ok, the peak of the event sequences for this phase of “bumpiness” has passed. We are an a momentary adjustment period. See? It wasn’t all that bad. just your fears screeching towards you, eh? Well, you will be fine. Just stay calm.
Let’s go this array of odds and ends at this particular point in time.
Spaceballs – They’ve gone into plaid
We start with a funny clip of a parody of Star Wars known as “Spaceballs”. It’s a Mel Brooks classic. I hope to remind everyone not to get too serious. It’s really cramping our happiness, don’t you know.
North Korean news agency Yonhap quoted on Monday sources as saying that US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln will access the international waters of the East Sea this week as a "show of force" movement to fend off any possible North Korean provocations.
The aircraft carrier along with a strike group will stay in the sea for about 5 days, Yonhap reported, adding that it will be the first incident of its kind since November 2017.
The news agency quoted the spokesman for US Forces Korea, Lee Peters, as saying that "as a matter of operational security," he refuses to comment on the matter.
Local man and father of a 5-year-old trans pterodactyl Bradley Mingastank is struggling to find the medical care his young dinosaur son needs, as it is very difficult to find species-affirming care in the United States.
“Seriously, it’s 2022, and we still haven’t figured out how to provide adequate medical care to children who think they’re extinct flying lizards,” said Mingastank. “I do my best to raise my son Madison as a pterodactyl per his wishes, which is important for his self-esteem. I only communicate to him in ear-piercing dinosaur screeches, I feed him small rodents and fish, and every once in a while I push him off the roof of the garage so he can try flying. But no other doctors seem to be willing to help him get the ultraviolet heat lamps and lizard medicine his pterodactyl body desperately needs.”
According to sources within the family, Madison first discovered his true pterodactyl identity when he put on a Halloween costume and then refused to take it off. It was then his parents knew he was a dinosaur trapped in a human child’s body.
“According to science, If someone thinks they are something, then they are automatically that thing, and the whole world must pretend they are that thing or they’ll die. That’s just proven science,” said Mingastank as he called a veterinarian to set up an appointment for his son.
UPDATE: Madison has changed his mind and has decided he is now a sea lion. His parents are currently looking for a giant aquarium to keep him in.
Dracula meets Lucy Westenra – “Dracula: Dead and Loving It”
One of my favorite scenes. Funny but sensual. I really like those old 1960s style vampires and their attractive female companions.
How To Make 1950’s good wife’s guide
I found this. It's really very dated. I found it interesting, but I do not recommend that anyone follow the guidelines. Never the less, I do think that this is good advice for either mean or women in regards to talking to strangers, friends, or family.
Don't shoot the messenger. -MM
Food – Dinner
Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have be thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they get home and the prospect of a good meal is part of the warm welcome needed.
Prep
Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you'll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.
Be interesting and happy
Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.
No clutter
Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives. Run a dustcloth over the tables.
Fire
During the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering to his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.
Peace and quiet
Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer or vacuum. Encourage the children to be quiet.
Welcoming
Be happy to see him.
Smile
Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.
Listen
Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first - remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.
Be positive
Don't greet him with complaints and problems.
No complaining
Don't complain if he's late for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through at work.
Comfort
Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or lie him down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
Shoes and pillow
Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.
No questions
Don't ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.
Yes, it’s dated advice.
.
But if you look at it closely, just about all of the advice pertains to cats and their “owners”.
.
And you know, both of my grandparents were happy folk and had functioning families. Perhaps they knew something that we have forgotten over the years.
A very strange find
Reports: Chemical Weapons Dropped in Mariupol (False Flag???)
Numerous reports are coming in claiming an unmanned aerial vehicle dropped some type of chemical or nerve agent against a target in Mariupol, Ukraine, killing several and injuring 100’s.
We have no OFFICIAL confirmation, but the reports are flooding-in anyway.
This could be the exact, precise, FALSE FLAG that the USA and NATO have been “warning” the Russians “might use” which could spark a formal NATO military response into Ukraine.
It was back on March 24 that NATO publicly stated a Chemical attack would prompt their intervention (Story HERE)
The headline to that story looked like this:
More info as it becomes available. Check back.
UPDATE 4:59 PM EDT —
One (a single, isolated report) claims the following:
"Russian forces used a poisonous substance of unknown origin against Ukrainian military & civilians in the city of Mariupol, which was dropped from an UAV. The victims have respiratory failure and vestibulo-atactic syndrome."
Now, there are real problems with this report.
1) It does not say WHERE in Mariupol the attack allegedly took place.
The _only_ major fight zone where any type of chemical weapon would prove useful, is at Asovstal Steel Mill, where thousands of AZOV nazis are scattered through vast catacombs beneath the sprawling plant. It is in these catacombs, where a reported Biolab exists, consisting of allegedly 8 full floors deep, all beneath the plant, and initial rumors (not confirmed) claim this lab was working on genetic-specific bioweapons in violation of treaties.
2) The decision to FLOOD those underground catacombs by using fire trucks to pump water into the air shafts, to force out the Nazis, was already publicly reported (Story HERE)
Thus, it makes no sense at all to turn around and use a chemical weapon or nerve agent against the very target they intend to flood-out.
3) NATO has been itching for an excuse to enter the war inside Ukraine, and has, on more than one occasion, said the use of chemical weapons would meet that excuse.
Interesting timing now that a Biolab has been proved to be under that steel mill, and if Russia successfully takes over that Biolab, they will find PROOF that the US and others were working on Biological weapons in violation of Treaties. Or, worse, that they were working on race-specific bioweapons, designed to wipe out . . . only . . . . Russians.
4) The report cites “vestibulo-atactic syndrome”
Pathogenesis
In the practice of a neuropathologist, the vestibulo-atactic syndrome is most often observed in patients with cerebral ischemia, when the brain receives insufficient oxygen because of a violation of blood flow.
The pathogenesis of this pathology includes the lack of blood flow in the vertebro-basilar system, which unites the vertebral and central (base) arteries of the brain, the violation of blood circulation in the brain stem structures, as a result of which their energy supply and connections with other parts of the central nervous system (CNS) are disrupted.
Stem brain formations are sensitive to hypoxia (oxygen starvation of systems and organs), which causes a large prevalence of vestibular-ataxic syndrome and also the variety of forms and manifestations of this pathology in cerebral ischemia.
The clinical picture can vary depending on the cause of the disease, age and condition of the patient. For example, in elderly patients, the disruption of the central part of the vestibular analyzer is often combined with the lesion of its peripheral part, which forms a peculiar picture of the pathological disorder.
This pathology – a combination of motor and vestibular disorders due to violations of the general and cerebral circulation. It is quite common, many of its symptoms have been noticed in itself, without giving them much importance. If, when walking, a person begins to feel dizzy, he throws from side to side, coordination of movements is disturbed – this is an occasion to immediately consult a doctor.
What constitutes a vestibulo-atactic syndrome and what are its causes we have figured out. What are the signs and complaints of patients that enable the neurologist to diagnose ataxia?
Ischemic disorders in the work of the brain are dangerous because in the early stages they can simply not be noticed, since the first symptoms that appear can correspond to various disorders of the patient’s health and condition. A person can simply not pay attention to individual cases of malaise. This makes it difficult to timely diagnose and treat diseases that are the companions of the vestibulo-atactic syndrome.
The first signs of the initial stage of the disease are:
If NATO officially asserts that chemical weapons WERE used (and that’s a big “if”) and that NATO is entering the war, Russia has already said publicly it will use its nuclear missiles.
UPDATE 5:28 PM EDT —
Kira Rudik, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, confirms recent reports about Mariupol attack: “The unknown substance was sprayed by Russians in Mariupol. People are suffocating.”
UPDATE 5:42 PM EDT —
The mass-media is starting to “run” with the story of a “Chemical attack” in Mariupol. They would only be running with it if their government masters told them to. And Government would only tell them to, if the plan is for NATO to announce they are intervening. Here, from the London “Mirror” newspaper (Link)
This is getting worse by the hour.
UH OH . . . 5:46 PM EDT — Now NEWSWEEK in the USA is carrying the story . . . . (Link)
5:49 PM EDT — Microsoft Network (MSN) now carrying the story too . . . (Link)
Whatever and whomever is in that lab is worth potentially destroying the world to them.
UPDATE 6:08 PM EDT —
UK'S FOREIGN MINISTER TRUSS TWEETS: REPORTS THAT RUSSIAN FORCES MAY HAVE USED CHEMICAL AGENTS IN AN ATTACK ON THE PEOPLE OF MARIUPOL. ANY USE OF SUCH WEAPONS WOULD BE A CALLOUS ESCALATION IN THIS CONFLICT AND WE WILL HOLD PUTIN AND HIS REGIME TO ACCOUNT.
6:52 PM EDT –
All the latest info TONIGHT at 9:00 PM Eastern (8:00 Central, 7:00 Mountain, 6:00 Pacific, 5:00 Alaska, 4:00 Hawaii) on the Hal Turner Radio Show. Set a REMINDER in your cell phone!
NOTE: This link does not go active until about one hour BEFORE showtime. During that hour, it streams commercial-free music until the show begins.
FINAL UPDATE —
It turns out that the “reports” of this “Chemical attack” originated from . . . . wait for it . . . . the Azov Battalion which is stuck in the Asovstal Steel Mill, and under siege from Russian forces. It appears to have been a blatantly fraudulent claim, designed to instigate the entry of NATO into the Ukraine situation.
The claim was repeated and re-circulated by the press and PR machine backing Ukraine. That’s why reports “flooded-in.”
Here’s the “rub.” If NATO, which appears to be run by sociopaths and psychotics, CHOOSES to treat this report as legitimate and CHOOSES to enter Ukraine, then it’s war with Russia and the nuclear missile will fly.
None of us knows right now if NATO sociopaths and psychotics will try to put lipstick on this pig of a report, and treat it as legitimate. Until we know, there is very real danger that this will be the match that ignites world war.
Isn’t the Iraq/Saddam trick with the “chemical weapons” a little out of date?
Or they are hoping that we don’t remember how the fake war started over there?
Well, some of us remember.
A decent thrift store find
INTEL: U.S. Delta Forces and U.K. “SAS” Fighting inside Ukraine since February!
A source in the French intelligence community reportedly informed a Le Figaro reporter last week that elite special forces from the UK and the US have been deployed in Ukraine since the start of hostilities with Russia in late February.
The claim was made public by the newspaper’s senior international journalist Georges Malbrunot on Saturday, the same day that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson paid an unexpected visit to Kiev. Although this information has not been officially confirmed, the British leader was reportedly accompanied by special SAS guards.
SAS units “have been present in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, as did [sic] the American Deltas,” Malbrunot tweeted, citing a French intelligence source. He went on to say that Russia was well aware of the “secret war” waged against its troops by foreign commandos, according to the source. His information was mentioned in Le Figaro’s Ukraine updates.
The French journalist who returned from Ukraine after arriving with volunteer fighters told broadcaster CNews that “Americans are directly “in charge” of the war on the ground.”
The United Kingdom and the United States have been among Kiev’s most ardent military supports. Johnson is said to have personally urged his Ukrainian colleague, Volodymyr Zelensky, to continue fighting Russia until better terms are presented.
It seems that the United States and Europe lost their bet on Ukraine and Zelensky. They will not receive anything for the supplied weapons
Something tells me, dear readers, that, in the end, the Anglo-Saxons will get nothing from Ukraine but losses.
These losses will become the operating costs of the West.
There are several reasons for Western operating losses:
- the current power of the Nazis is illegitimate, even if the state of Ukraine will exist due to the succession of the DPR and LPR;
- it is not a fact that the state of Ukraine will exist after the completion of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces;
- to save the Nazi regime in Ukraine, Russia must suffer a military defeat and disappear as a state. This is the "wet" dream of the West, which is not destined to come true. From the word "never".
With a probability of up to 97%, in my opinion, instead of the state of Ukraine, the Southwestern Federal District of Russia may appear on the map.
Variants of names - Little Russia, Malorossia
After the victorious completion, of course, of the special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of Ukraine.
All the enslaving "rights" of the West, to the best of my understanding, exist exactly until the moment when, instead of today's illegitimate government, legitimate successors come to govern Ukraine - the DPR and LPR.
That's when the United States and the rest of the West will get a "donut hole", nothing more.
All their costs will become their sunk costs.
Similar to the Nazis, who armed the collaborators, during the war with the USSR.
I don’t remember that in the history of the wars of the West against Russia, the Republic of Ingushetia, the USSR, such issues were resolved somehow differently.
And this will happen after the cleansing of the current Nazi regime in Ukraine.
With a high degree of probability, even shameful for the part of the Russian people living there, the name "Ukraine", invented by the Poles, will cease to exist.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, "soon the fairy tale is told, but the deed is not done soon."
Social processes, in comparison with the life expectancy of people, are slow.
For them, 100-300 years is not a period.
But, to the best of my understanding, this time. all the main events that cleanse the part of the Russian people living there from Nazism (constituting, somewhere, at least 80% of the total population), will occur much faster.
It will work out the social law of three generations, at least there are signs of this.
In addition, dear readers, as far as I know, Ukraine did not find time to register the 1991 treaty borders with the UN.
It directly follows from this that the entire territory of Ukraine was and is, from the point of view of the UN and international law, under the administrative control of Russia, as the legal successor of the USSR.
(The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, inhabited mainly by Russians, having not agreed to become part of Romania, has a similar legal status, similar to that of the DPR and LPR.)
This explains why Russia, in this case, legally, is not at war with another state.
This fact legally confirms that civilians who are not at war with the Russian Armed Forces are OWN for Russia.
Which he confirmed with his order of the Supreme Command of Russia.
Russia, in its own right, conducts a special military operation on the territory that is legally one of the administrative units of Russia.
Yes, a few specific units, but nothing more.
It should also be borne in mind that there can be no war, other than a civil one, between territories under common administrative control.
As well as no annexations, etc., etc.
But, administrative reforms on the territory of Ukraine, in my understanding, can and, perhaps, should be in the future.
Moreover, Russia has the right to carry out administrative and other reforms at its own discretion, and, of course, in its own interest.
On the above basis, there is the only internationally recognized state western border of the USSR with the countries of Eastern Europe.
The rights of Russia, as the successor of the USSR, are registered with the UN.
So, Russia paid the debts of the USSR for all the republics, including for Ukraine, in accordance with international law.
Thus, from the point of view of international law, no one has any grounds for a dispute with Russia about the territorial affiliation of Ukraine.
Author – Gennady Tsybanev
Cool thrift shop find…
Dr Lexus!
One of the best Scenes. Dr. Lexus! Idiocracy 2006 comedy film, directed by Mike Judge. Starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph.
British Mercenary “CossackGundi” Surrenders To Russian Forces in Mariupol Ukraine
We have received reports that British “volunteer” Aiden Aslin, better known as “CossackGundi”, and other international “volunteers” in the Ukrainian Marines, have chosen to lay down their arms to Russian forces around Mariupol, Ukraine, after running out of food and ammunition.
A source close to Aiden, who previously served with him in the YPG (Syria) spoke with him by phone and told us “I just spoke with Aiden. His unit is out of food and ammo. They have no other option but to surrender. He said he loves you all.”
He is surrendering to Russians which is only slightly better than surrendering to Chechyns.
He’s upset. Likely he knows he’s going to spend the rest of his life in some Russian prison. Worse, for him, is that once Russia tells the world they have him, the country of Syria is likely to issue an arrest warrant for the mercenary role he played in THAT country. This likely translates to life in prison not only in Russia, but in Syria as well.
Hal Turner Analysis
THIS is what happens to British forces who actually believe the mentally retarded British government. The people inserted into government positions are such incredible fools, and such blatant liars, they will fabricate just about __any__ story to get people to go do things for them. And when those things go bad . . . . the government fools who caused it all, are nowhere to be found.
British officials like Liz Truss are unimaginable liars; they deliberately falsify information to the public – and likely in private as well – to cause people to do things that are not in the interests of others. Those others fight back and whoever volunteers to help the British, gets the consequences. Just like CossackGundi is getting right now.
Same thing with the Americans. Look at what they did to Afghans. Pulled out of Kabul, and simply LEFT all the Afghans who helped them. Those Afghans – what few were allowed to live — were dealt with by the Taliban.
DO NOT FIGHT FOR THE UK OR FOR THE USA. If you choose to believe the lies of those government nitwits, liars, and sociopaths, you will likely get what CossackGundi is getting right now.
For what its worth, Ukraine is losing this conflict and is going to lose. Period. Full stop.
Ukraine never had a chance against Russia. Only an idiot would think otherwise.
Ukraine lost when they decided to accept western money to overthrow the Democratically elected President, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2014.
They lost again when they elected a west-financed puppet government in Kiev.
They lost again when the people of Crimea voted in a referendum, to leave Ukraine and return to Russia.
They lost again when the people of Luhansk and DOnetsk decided they, too, were leaving Ukraine for Russia – but Ukraine said “no” and sent the Ukraine Army to bomb them.
Ukraine lost again when their army in Luhansk and Donetsk was confronted by “Little Green men” sent in by Russia to protect the civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine lost again when they signed the Minsk Agreements, then did absolutely NOTHING to implement them for five years, and instead continued to bomb civilians in Luhansk and Donetsk.
Ukraine lost again when they openly incorporated actual NAZIS into their government, police, and military.
Ukraine lost again when Luhansk and Donetsk declared Independence and invited Russia in to protect them.
Ukraine lost again when the Kremlin called on February 23, and gave Ukraine five hours to accept the terms of the Minsk Agreement, accept that Crimea was now Russian territory, and allow Luhansk and Donetsk to be free, then IGNORED the Kremlin ultimatum at the behest of the British and Americans. Once that five hour window expired, the Russian Army entered Ukraine.
Ukraine’s public relations machine would have people think that Ukraine is the victim; they are not. They are the perpetrators . . . they brought all this upon themselves and they are losing.
Discovery 1
The United States Begs China to help them deal with the American economic crisis
Translated from Chinese. This is from an article out of Hong Kong. I don’t know how accurate it is. While my factories and logistics carriers are seriously nervious about shipping to the USA, none of them has actually refused making products for Americans. -MM
2022-04-12 18:23 HKT
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The trade war between China and the United States has been fought for several years, but judging from the current overall situation, it is clear that the outcome has been divided. The United States has fallen into a serious economic crisis, while China will enter a new round of golden age of economic development. Even when the United States has been forced to do nothing, it has repeatedly released goodwill hopes to China to soften China and get China's help to get out of the crisis..According to a New York Times report, in mid-May, the U.S. Trade Representative made two requests for dialogue with senior leaders of the Chinese commerce sector, but both were rejected by China..The current US economic crisis is indeed very serious.. In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic has brought a huge blow to the US economic order, because the US government at that time did not consider to achieve effective control of the coronavirus, and in response to the 2020 election. ..The Trump administration's policy of only focusing on economic data has directly led to the loss of control and raging of the domestic epidemic in the United States, which also caused headaches for the Biden administration, which had just taken office only a few months ago..Although the Biden administration has adopted a relatively clear epidemic prevention and control policy after taking office, it has also vaccinated the people on a large scale, hoping to achieve herd immunity. .However, the epidemic in the United States cannot be completely controlled in just a few months. Under the influence of the epidemic, the unemployment rate in the United States has reached about 10%, and it is difficult for many Americans to maintain their basic survival. .Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic is after all spreading throughout the world, which has also had a huge impact on the overall world trade. It is already difficult for the United States to export its goods to all parts of the world without hindrance as before, and the world It is still unknown when the economy can be fully restarted..What's more terrible is that in order to restore the instability of the economic order, the Biden administration unilaterally began to seek economic recovery after taking office. The Biden administration proposed a trillion-dollar infrastructure construction plan, but the current U.S. finances clearly cannot support it. According to data released by the U.S. Department of Finance, the U.S. government debt ratio reached 137% in fiscal year 2020, which is a historic high..If the US government wants to pay back the money, it will take at least 20 years, so the Biden administration can also be said to have completely abandoned its control of the inflation rate. The Biden administration implemented monetary easing and fiscal stimulus plans, requiring the Fed to step up printing trillions of dollars into the market to revitalize the US economy. From the perspective of existing economic indicators, this is indeed useful..The U.S. government has given the people a lot of money for consumption, thereby promoting the stability of the U.S. economic order. Therefore, in the first few months of this year, U.S. economic growth has at least returned to a normal track, but what this has brought is The domestic inflation rate in the United States has increased as never before. (note : when the world stop buying US treasury debt and begin to sales those in hand, US lost its power of printing money without domestic inflation) .In May of this year, the U.S. consumer price index rose to 5%, and the inflation rate was as high as 53%. This will bring more serious obstacles to the future economic development of the United States, and even now the United States is overdrafting its global economic hegemony. And the US dollar hegemony to temporarily stabilize the economic order..The high inflation rate means that the domestic price level in the United States is rising rapidly, but the average salary of American residents has not followed up, and even has declined to a certain extent. After all, the coronavirus pandemic still exists, and various American companies want to guarantee themselves. The business interests of the United States have carried out large-scale layoffs and reduced employee salaries. Therefore, the economic harm caused by inflation to the United States has actually been hit on ordinary Americans, while the rich in the United States have entered the rotation of leeks. Carnival..Because these wealthy people can also receive government financial subsidies, they have invested all the financial subsidies they received in the stock market to plunder the wealth of the American middle class. Therefore, we can clearly see that in the last half of the year, the top 10 wealthy individuals in the United States have completed their own rapid accumulation of capital, and their average asset ratio has increased by nearly 40%. Therefore, under the influence of the coronavirus pandemic, the inflation rate in the United States is rising rapidly, and the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is becoming wider and wider..The U.S. government must be responsible for all this. After the end of World War II, the U.S., as a capitalist country, has encountered economic crises more than once, but because of the existence of the Bretton Woods system and subsequent U.S. dollar hegemony and economic hegemony, the U.S. When suffering from an economic crisis, it is possible to transfer the crisis to the entire international community by investing a large amount of US dollars in the market. The facts have proved that such measures are indeed effective. The US economy protected by the international economic order has guaranteed its long-term prosperity, but now the US dollar hegemony has been challenged unprecedentedly..The first point is that the global de-dollarization process is constantly being promoted. According to the data released by the IMF, the proportion of the US dollar in the world trade orientation system has dropped from 85% at its peak to 57%. Although it still has an advantage, But the advantage is far from what it used to be..Moreover, in 2020, the entire world will be severely affected by the epidemic. ..The United States can indeed ensure its own economic order by transferring the economic crisis, but this has a premise that the world trade market must be stable, and all countries must buy American products. Products, or export products to the United States, but now obviously there is no such condition..Because most countries are unable to maintain their trade stability under the influence of the epidemic. Vietnam, India and other well-known markets in the international community have begun to reduce their product imports. .It is no longer possible for them to import products from the United States on a large scale. As the world's largest and most dynamic market, China is of course also It is impossible to allow American products to enter the Chinese market on a large scale. After all, the Sino-US trade war has not completely ended until now..But for the current U.S. government, there is not much that can be found. The U.S. needs China. As we have mentioned above, the inflation rate in the United States is very huge, which has even reached a historic high. The domestic price level in the United States has risen by 31% in just three months.(note : apparently, China stop export subsidies and imposed export tariff on certain strategic products such as steel help to keep the domestic prices stable, while making US cost rise to counter US irresponsible money printing.).In order to quell domestic prices in the United States, they must obtain goods from China, because China's industrial output is huge, and because we have the advantage of the entire industrial chain, Chinese goods are characterized by good quality and low prices. .Once Chinese goods are acquired, the domestic price level in the United States will inevitably fall. Therefore, many American companies have begun to place orders with Chinese factories, but most Chinese factories have rejected orders from the United States. There are two main reasons for China's rejection of orders..The first point is because of the coronavirus pandemic. Although the overall domestic epidemic in China has been brought under control, China's economic recovery level and factory resumption rate rank first in the world. However, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on us still exists. Unhindered large-scale industrial production as before is obviously unrealistic, which is not conducive to our overall epidemic prevention and control..Therefore, the main purpose of China's industrial operation is to ensure its own market demand, not to save the United States. It is obvious that the rejection of US orders by Chinese companies is understandable. After all, the catastrophe is imminent. .Even if China is a responsible country, the first consideration is its own national interests and market needs. (note: still remember last winter, in the name of energy shortage and prices, China deliberately cut certain factory output? I believe it is deliberately cutting those output so that they can reject US order to avoid the dollar they received become useless in a foreseeable future. ).The second is that Sino-US relations have not yet returned to normal. .Before, the United States initiated a full-scale trade war against China, but now the United States has taken the initiative to show its favor to China, hoping that Chinese goods will enter the United States and quell American inflation. .How can this be possible? .The initiative in the relationship between China and the United States is in China's hands. It is impossible for us to maintain the economic order of the United States by harming our own commercial and corporate interests..And if Chinese factories do not accept US orders, US inflation may fall into an endless loop, because the US's own industrial manufacturing obviously cannot meet the needs of the market. .The U.S. has a population of hundreds of millions, and the U.S. economy is also the world's No. 1, but we can see that in the total U.S. economy, manufacturing accounts for only 10% of the total, while U.S. manufacturing and industry are only about 27% of China's. , It is simply impossible to meet the domestic market demand in the United States..Not to mention that most of the US manufacturing and industry are concentrated in military weapons and high-end information industry. .These industrial categories and product categories can bring huge commercial benefits to the United States in peacetime, but they are severely affected in global trade. Under the circumstances, this does not have any positive effect on the United States' current idea of consolidating economic order. After all, Americans can't eat bullets. It's not realistic to let them eat mobile phones..Although the Biden administration has put forward a large-scale infrastructure construction plan and a US secondary industry plan since it came to power, it takes time and money. So now the US needs China to help. If there is no China, the US inflation rate will only be Progress expands..And the economic crisis in the United States really tells us that the economy of this country is mainly based on manufacturing and industry. About 80% of the total US economy comes from the tertiary industry, and about 7% of the total US economy is created by the lawyer industry. .That is to say, the total output value of the US manufacturing and industry is only more than that of the lawyer industry. The created GDP is 3% higher, and the US economy can be said to be built on castles in the air.In the past, the US economy was able to stabilize because the US possessed global hegemony and dollar hegemony. However, when US hegemony was challenged, their economic order did not have a solid foundation. China can certainly help the United States, but the premise is that the United States must respect our national sovereignty and give up unrealistic suppression and blockade of China. China is no longer an object that the United States can suppress at will.
China’s top offshore oil and gas producer CNOOC Ltd. is preparing to exit its operations in Britain, Canada, and the United States, because of concerns in Beijing the assets could become subject to Western sanctions, industry sources said.
All in a Day’s Work
From <redacted> a fine MM follower…
Back when we were supposed to be locked down for some unknown period of weeks or months, Wifeyand I stocked up on some barterable and essential slop that we both could tolerate in an emergency.
Booze, beans and bullets.
Yesterday I came in for lunch from my yardwork tasks in the swampy bitch that is our backyard; muddy,but wet enough that the soles of my boots were pretty clean. Wifey was rotating out some of the A-Bombsupplies and a large can (12oz) of tuna + greenery was my awaiting meal. The can said that it had expired over a year ago–like I give a shit what those lying planned-obsolescence assholes say. I pound down thatmound of an enhanced salad in about fifteen minutes. I suited back up and headed to the quagmire todistribute Wifey’s latest “all natural” cure upon our weed farm that the neighbors love so. About fifteen minutes into the task, I felt something gurgling down deep in my processing plant.
Article 9 of the South Korea-US Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) stipulates that a custom’s examination “shall not be made” in case of “military cargo consigned to the US armed forces,” according to a document posted by the South Korean Foreign Ministry.
“According to the SOFA, the US military cargo is exempt from customs inspection, allowing (the USFK) to bring in whatever it wants … (South) Korea is a very friendly country for the United States to import germs and conduct tests,” Lee Jang-hie, emeritus professor at law school of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told Xinhua.
This is the recipe we used in Home Economics in the l950’s. It’s very moist and chewy, a super rich brownie. It goes great with pudding, ice cream, or fudge toppings.
And a fine brandy or hot coffee.
Here’s the recipe:
1 cup softened butter
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 ounces semi-sweet bakingchocolate bar
1 1/4 cups of sifted all-purpose flour
(measure flour after sifting)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Optional: add 1 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts.
dark chocolate can be used
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Use 13″ x 9″ pan, greased and floured
Bake 40-45 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Allow to cool in pan before slicing.
These brownies freeze very well, they will keep for months.
A few days ago—and I’m not sure it was the first time—Polish uniformed personnel “attacked” a Belarus border post.
In the short video clip below, one Polish serviceman shoots a slingshot (see around 0:27) and another one shines a stroboscopic lamp, towards the Belarussian position.
You might think this is not serious.
It is serious. This is an international border. Unless you think the Polish border guard (or army, or whoever this is) is a hooligan rabble, they would not be doing this without orders.
Imagine if Mexico’s army did this to the U.S. Border Guard, how would Americans feel? (We know the cartels do much worse, but they’re not the government, so Mexico gets a pass.)
Next, the Poles may deploy a watermelon catapult, or sound warfare, or tear gas, or whatever, and someone on the Belarussian side will get hurt, or worse.
Poland will say, “It’s just a catapult!”, but if it breaks someone’s neck, Belarus would have to respond…..
…..And then it’s “NATO Article 5”, and the 10,000-plus U.S. military personnel in Poland, most located within 30 miles of the Ukrainian or Belarussian borders (for just such an eventuality), get drawn into it. Not to mention, just now I got video of this U.S. or German (these are not in the Polish arsenal) howitzer train—at least two batteries’ worth—moving into Poland.
In short, the border actions are a provocation.
This is one step in a campaign of escalation.
Poland has been trying to pull off a regime change in Belarus since 2020.
Claims that Uncle Sam is directly behind the regime change efforts are mostly false. It’s Poland, with Lithuania and Germany in second place.
In response, Belarus had been facilitating a wave of chaotic illegal migration of Iraqis and others into Poland, however, that more or less stopped, many months ago.
Recently, a team of railway saboteurs was arrested in Belarus; one of the three resisted and was shot (not killed.) They were found to have a pistol and some professional radio gear. I have videos of their apprehension and the damage they caused, but it’s not that interesting.
It’s likely they were operating under pay and orders from Polish intelligence. The railway is a target because it moves Russian army gear.
Poland’s intelligence service has set up a virtual “front group” called BYPOL, allegedly consisting of Belarussian security personnel who want to see a democratic Belarus blah blah.
BYPOL might have some uniformed collaborators in its employ. (We don’t know, because no one is identified—it’s made out like it’s an undercover network inside Belarus, probably imaginary.)
Even if it’s not 100-percent fake, it’s a front. You know who is writing the checks and pulling the strings.
BYPOL “exists” so that any sabotage inside Belarus can be “plausibly denied” by Poland. “It wasn’t us, it was BYPOL.”
BYPOL’s English-language website is here. It’s ridiculously slick, probably made in the USA, or with the help of an American PR firm.
Poland has been looking to expand its influence over its neighbors.
Much of Belarus and the Ukraine were controlled by Poland from the 1400s to the early 1700s, and then western Belarus and northwest Ukraine were occupied by Poland again from 1919 to 1939.
Now, Poland wants it back.
Don’t just take my word for it. Polish-American tweeter Jack Posobiec—1.7 million followers, and a regular on Steve Bannon’s show—has been calling for a renewed Polish empire for over a year.
A retired commander of Polish ground forces recently told Poland’s leading tabloid that Russia’s Kaliningrad province (taken from Germany in 1945) is rightfully Polish and must be conquered.
That’s the sort of crap that is going around in their media space. Their public is being primed for intervention and expansion.
In recent weeks, Poland has mobilized an entire infantry division (with the help of U.S. trainers) to move into northwest Ukraine, to “protect” the Ukrainians, even though the Ukraine-Russia fighting is hundreds of miles away.
A few military targets in this part of the Ukraine have been bombed, but no one seriously thinks Russia wants—or would be able to—move its ground forces into the area anytime soon. If the war comes here, unlikely as that is, it is still months away.
So far, the European Union and NATO Command have told Poland, “No!”
That may change if something heats up on the Poland-Belarus border.
If Poland and Belarus start fighting, that would be bad enough, it would involve NATO and possibly nuclear weapons. But (if we’re still here), Poland would also have some pretext and political cover to move into northwest Ukraine and establish a long-term protectorate there.
(This “expeditionary force” would be supported by NATO Patriot missile batteries now deployed in Slovakia.)
That’s their goal. That’s what this Belarus border drama is about.
Everyone must understand now, if the Russia-Ukraine war gets “out of control”, and turns into a broader Russia-NATO war, or a nuclear war, it won’t be thanks to Brandon.
It would be thanks to Poland.
It’s a common enough problem.
FLASH TRAFFIC: RUSSIA TO CONSIDER US/NATO VEHICLES BRINGING WEAPONS TO UKRAINE AS LEGITIMATE MILITARY TARGETS
Russia will consider US and NATO vehicles that transport weapons to Ukraine as legitimate military targets, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said.
He did not elaborate on WHERE such vehicles would be treated as legitimate military targets. While it may be normal to treat them as such INSIDE Ukraine, the statement seems deliberately ambiguous on that point.
In other news, however, there was no ambiguity:
The Russian Ministry of Defense today publicly warned Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenski that if Ukraine continues to attack targets inside Russia, then Russia will commence targeting the “centers of decision making” in Ukraine. Read that to mean, government buildings in the national capital, Kiev.
Earlier, the governor of the Kursk region in Russia reported several attacks at border crossings perpetrated on the Ukrainian side of the crossing. The attacks with mortars and small firearms have not yet caused any casualties, the governor said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has warned that Russian armed forces will launch strikes on Ukrainian “decision-making centers”, including Kiev, if Ukraine doesn’t stop trying to hit objects on Russian territory. The ministry added that, so far, Moscow had avoided hitting these centers, but this policy might change.
Russia announced its decision drastically to scale down its military activities near Kiev after making such progress in the last in-person bilateral talks with Ukraine, which took place in Istanbul on 29 March. Moscow explained that key decision-makers, who can make the final call in peace talks, live in Kiev and hence the city should be spared any hostilities in the near future.
The defense ministry’s announcement comes in the wake of several incidents, in which the Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out attacks on Russian territory. Governor of the Kursk region, Roman Starovoit reported that a border crossing was shelled from the Ukraine side on 9 April and that the mortar position was suppressed when the Russian side returned fire. Starovoit also said that a group of Russian border guards came under small arms fire from the Ukrainian side on 13 April. There were no casualties among Russians in both incidents.
Discovery 3
4 Checkmate – Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner
This show should be watched in its entirity. This is a classic 1960s show about the retirement of “secret agents”. This is a really nice segment, and you really should watch the ENTIRE clip. It’s just… precious.
I hope you enjoy it. It seems very bizzare, but as you watch it you can see the beauty in the entire production.
The Social Democrat party leadership in Sweden has allegedly decided on the NATO issue. Party Leader Magdalena Andersson‘s goal is for Sweden to join NATO in June this year, say sources in the party.
The application is planned to be submitted at the NATO meeting in Madrid on June 29-30.
The official neutrality of both Sweden and nearby Finland, has kept the peace with Russia for decades.
It is not yet known what Russia’s reaction might be to such a decision by Sweden, but the reaction by Russia over Finland joining is not in question: Russia has publicly stated that the only thing Finland would achieve by joining NATO would be the destruction of their country.
The America Competes Act of 2022
The America Competes Act of 2022 contains a proposal for a new outbound review process that would screen investments in offshore supply chains, notably in China
.
Though there is bipartisan political support for the investment regime, it is not yet clear what shape it will take or how it will impact US firms in China, say experts
So you lift up this crappy old rug, and you find a crappy owld wooden floor. On closer inspection, you see that it is real hardwood, and so you fix the holes and sand and clean it up then a fine layer of acrylic. Look at the transformation!
Russia’s role in space program is irreplaceable, Roscosmos boss says as EU suspends cooperation on Mars mission
Western countries are heavily sanctioning Russia’s space program. The European Union has decided to suspend cooperation with Russia on exploring Mars. But the head of Russia’s space program, known as “Roscosmos” told CGTN that Moscow’s role in space exploration is indispensable.
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “Mr. Rogozin, thank you for accepting our interview. The EU has halted cooperation with Russia on ExoMars. How has this affected the Russian Space Agency and what is the impact on manned space exploration?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “It’s a cooperative mission. If Russia doesn’t join, Europe won’t go ahead with the mission, because Russia’s contribution to the mission is huge. It is not only about the heavy rockets that send these instruments into orbit and to Mars. It’s also about the landing vehicles. These vehicles must help achieve a soft landing on Mars or the research rovers. The module itself is a research station. We have been waiting so long to realize this mission. If it is delayed, it will never happen. They may change Russia’s landing module, but that decision could take a lot of time and money.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “Without international cooperation, will Russia be able to conduct the expedition research on its own?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “The problem is when someone does it on their own, it costs a lot of money. It will be a huge burden on the budget. In the construction of ExoMars, the main element is the landing module. The Mars research rover is not the essential element. I think we can make this mission happen with another partner like China or someone else.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “How about the International Space Station? NASA has said the Russia-US cooperation on the ISS will not be affected by the new sanctions. What’s your take on that?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “The sanctions have been imposed on Russia to make our economy and high-tech companies suffer, to make our people’s lives more difficult, and to bring Russia to its knees. Clearly, it’s not possible because of the strength and will of our people and country.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN “So let’s say there are more sanctions on Russia and Russia decides to withdraw from the ISS programme. You previously warned that the ISS could collapse as a result of the sanctions. I’m quoting you as saying ‘if you stop cooperation with us, who will save the 500-ton ISS from going out of control, derailing and falling on Earth.’ What’s your take on that?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “Russia’s role is vital. Only Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft can transport American, European, Canadian, Japanese astronauts and their guests. Soyuz is irreplaceable, because America doesn’t have any spacecraft. Russia helps the international space station avoid space rubbish and maintain orbital correction. The ISS is in a low earth orbit. It helps deliver fuels to the station. These are the main contributions from Russia and Roscomos in particular. So working without Russia is impossible, just like working without America. If they pull us out of this, the ISS wouldn’t exist anymore.”
LI JIANHUA CGTN Reporter “China’s Shenzhou-13 crew are set to come back to Earth in mid-April. What’s your comment on their mission? What do you think of China’s promise of international cooperation in the future?”
DMITRY ROGOZIN Director General, Roscosmos “We work well with our Chinese friends. We have Glonass, and China’s Beidou system was built in orbit not long ago. They are compatible, very compatible. The second project is interesting, which is the International Lunar Research Station. We have signed all the necessary documents with our Chinese friends. Regarding China’s space station, we can talk about creating new modules. To be friends in space, we must be friends on Earth. Russia and China are friends on Earth. I think China and Russia can work together in manned cosmonautics.”
Most Americans don’t realize this, but we truly have entered historic territory. As you will see below, the inflation crisis of 2022 has now escalated to a level that is beyond anything that we experienced during the horrible Jimmy Carter era of the 1970s. If you are old enough to have been alive back then, you probably remember the constant headlines about inflation. And you also probably remember that it seemed like the impotent administration in power in Washington was powerless to do anything about it. In other words, it was a lot like what we are going through today. Unfortunately for us, this new economic crisis is still only in the very early chapters.
Of course the mainstream media would like us to believe that what we are experiencing today is not even close to what Americans went through in the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to CNN, the U.S. inflation rate hit a peak of 14.6 percent in the first half of 1980…
The inflation rate hit a record high of 14.6% in March and April of 1980. It helped to lead to Carter’s defeat in that fall’s election. It also led to some significant changes in the US economy.
Compared to that, the numbers we have been given in early 2022 seem rather tame. On Tuesday, we learned that the official rate of inflation in the U.S. hit 8.5 percent in the month of March…
Prices that consumers pay for everyday items surged in March to their highest levels since the early days of the Reagan administration, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday.The consumer price index, which measures a wide-ranging basket of goods and services, jumped 8.5% from a year ago on an unadjusted basis, above even the already elevated Dow Jones estimate for 8.4%.
8.5 percent is much lower than 14.6 percent, and so to most people it would seem logical to conclude that we are still a long way from the kind of nightmarish crisis that our nation endured during the waning days of the Carter administration.
But is that the truth?
In reality, we can’t make a straight comparison between the official rate of inflation in 2022 and the official rate of inflation in 1980. The way that the inflation rate is calculated has been changed more than 20 times since 1980, and every time it was changed the goal was to make the official rate of inflation appear to be lower.
What we really need is an apples to apples comparison, and fortunately John Williams over at shadowstats.com has done the math for us.
According to Williams, if the inflation rate was still calculated the way that it was back in 1980, the official rate of inflation would be somewhere around 17 percent right now.
17 percent!
That means that the inflation that we are seeing now is even worse than anything that Americans went through during the Jimmy Carter era.
And government figures for individual categories seem to confirm that inflation is now wildly out of control. For example, the price of gasoline has risen by 48 percent over the past year…
The price of gasoline rose by 48.0 percent from March 2021 to March 2022, according to numbers released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.In just one month—from February to March—the seasonally adjusted price of gasoline went up 18.3 percent.
Vehicle prices have escalated to absurd levels as well. If you can believe it, the average retail selling price of a used vehicle at CarMax has risen by 39.7 percent in just 12 months…
CarMax experienced a slowdown in fourth-quarter used car sales volume as its average retail selling price jumped 39.7% year-over-year to $29,312, an increase of approximately $8,300 per unit.
And I discussed yesterday, home prices in the United States have jumped 32.6 percent over the past two years.
We have entered a full-blown inflationary nightmare, and the Biden administration is trying to blame Vladimir Putin for it.
Needless to say, that is extremely disingenuous of Biden, because prices were already skyrocketing even before the war in Ukraine started.
But it is true that the war is making economic problems even worse all over the globe, and that isn’t going to end any time soon.
A couple of weeks ago there was a bit of optimism that some sort of a ceasefire agreement could be reached, but now there appears to be no hope that there will be one any time soon.
On Tuesday, Putin told the press that peace talks have reached “a dead end”…
Talks with Ukraine have reached “a dead end,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in fresh Tuesday remarks. “We will not stop military operations in Ukraine until they succeed.” He explained that Ukraine has “deviated” from agreements and any possible prior progress reached during the Istanbul meetings, according to state-run RIA.The strong remarks aimed at both Kiev and the West were given during a joint presser with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. He further hailed that the military operations is still going “according to plan,” Bloomberg reports, however while admitting to the domestic population that “Russian logistics and payment systems remain a weakness and the long-term impact of western measures could be more painful.” But he also said the county has withstood the economic “blitzkrieg” from the West.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky named recognition of the annexation of the Crimea region as one of his red lines for Moscow in any potential peace talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end war between the two countries.Russia annexed the southern region of Crimea in 2014. Russian-backed separatists and forces, as well Ukrainian soldiers, have since been fighting in the eastern region of Ukraine.
Russia will never, ever willingly give Crimea back to Ukraine.
Anyone that thinks otherwise is simply being delusional.
So unless someone changes their tune, this war between Russia and Ukraine is going to keep going until someone achieves total victory.
And that could take a really long time.
Meanwhile, global food supplies will get tighter and tighter, and global economic conditions will continue to rapidly deteriorate.
And so what happens if another “black swan event” or two hits us later in 2022?
We are so vulnerable right now, and it wouldn’t take much at all to push us over the edge and into an unprecedented worldwide crisis of epic proportions.
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Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
There are all sorts of evidence of the various intelligences that occupied the earth in the past. Most are buried deep down inside mountains, or fossilized into stone, or twisted and bent into unrecognizable shapes and appearances.
I have cataloged numerous examples for the sake of curiosity. And they are able to tell us some things of interest.
In this article we will look at the discovery of a buried wall… not just a few feet under the ground (a meter), but rather many miles under the ground (kilometers down, down, and down). So far down, and so deeply underground that it is unfathomable how it got there.
Underground Wall
Indeed, often structures are often found deep, deep underground. These structures are frequently manufactured out of quarried stone; stone that is not locally quarried. The problem with such structures is that excavation at such great depths are problematic and require enormous financial outlays.
One such discovery was the 1927 find by W. W. McCormick of Abilene, Texas. Here, he reported his grandfather’s account of a stone block wall that was found deep within an Oklahoma coal mine (The reader should note the location of the wall relative to the Oil Lamp discovery.):
"In the year 1928, I, Atlas Almon Mathis, was working in coal mine No. 5., located two miles north of Heavener, Oklahoma.
This was a shaft mine, and they told us it was two miles deep. The mine was so deep that they let us down into it on an elevator.... They pumped air down to us, it was so deep."
The Location
This location in on the Eastern side of Oklahoma.
It has interesting topography and geology. Here’s a geologic map of the region. The mine in question could be either in the Arkoma Basin, or part of the Ozark Uplift.
The mines…
Much of the mining done in the Eastern half of Oklahoma are coal and lead-zinc. Given the story, and other stories of objects found in nearby coal seams, it seems quite probable that the story relates to a coal mine.
The two major types of mining towns in Oklahoma were coal and lead-zinc. The coal-mining regions cover much of the eastern half of the state, spanning over twelve thousand square miles. The most prominent coal-producing areas are in the McAlester and Coalgate districts of southeastern Oklahoma.
-Oklahoma Mining Towns
The Story
One evening, Mathis was blasting coal loose by explosives in “room 24” of this mine.
"The next morning, there were several concrete blocks laying in the room.
These blocks were 12-inch cubes and were so smooth and polished on the outside that all six sides could serve as mirrors.
Yet they were full of gravel, because I chipped one of them open with my pick, and it was plain concrete inside.
As I started to timber the room up, it caved in; and I barely escaped.
When I came back after the cave-in, a solid wall of these polished blocks was left exposed. About 100 to 150 yards farther down our air core, another miner struck this same wall, or one very similar."
Size of the structure
The “wall” or structure feature is (at least) roughly 125 yards (125 meters) long on one side. That’s a pretty big structure.
The question is, what was it doing in the middle of a swampy lowland?
Age of the structure
The coal in the mine was Carboniferous, which would mean the wall was at least 286 million years old.
The Carboniferous Period
The Carboniferous Period is a geologic time period that took place between 360 to 286 million years ago. The Carboniferous Period is named after the rich coal deposits that are present in rock layers from this time period. The Carboniferous world was a remarkably different one to that we know today, but it is extremely significant nonetheless. The name Carboniferous is Latin for coal-bearing, which is appropriate given that much of the coal reserves we rely on today were formed during this time. Nonetheless, to today’s observer, the Carboniferous Earth would have looked and felt remarkably alien.
The Age of Amphibians
The Carboniferous Period is also known as the Age of Amphibians. It is the fifth of six geologic periods that together make up the Paleozoic Era. The Carboniferous Period is preceded by the Devonian Period and followed by the Permian Period.
The climate of the Carboniferous Period was quite uniform (there were no distinct seasons).
It was also more humid and tropical than our present-day climate. The plant life of the Carboniferous Period resembled modern tropical plants.
The Carboniferous Period was a time when the first of many animal groups evolved: the first true bony fishes, the first sharks, the first amphibians, and the first amniotes.
During the Carboniferous Period, the vast oceans that covered the earth often flooded the continents, creating warm, shallow seas. It was during this time that the armored fish that had been abundant in the Devonian Period became extinct and were replaced by more modern fishes.
Vast Swamp Forests
Freshwater wetlands increased and formed vast swamp forests. Fossil remains show that air-breathing insects, arachnids, and myriapods were present during the Late Carboniferous.
The seas were dominated by sharks and their relatives, and it was during this period that sharks underwent much diversification.
The Air Was Completely Different
The Carboniferous, as evidenced by air trapped in ice from that period, is known for having the highest percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere ever. If you were to visit the Carboniferous, you’d instantly notice that the air is ‘richer’ to breath, since it reached a peak of 35% oxygen as opposed to today’s 21%. This dramatic difference also allowed insects to grow to truly ungodly proportions.
It Was a Time of Enormous Climate Change
The early Carboniferous saw lush jungles and swamps span vast stretches of the world, and the average global temperature was some 6 °C warmer than it is today. The atmospheric CO2 content was also three times higher than preindustrial levels, making for a far stronger greenhouse effect than that which concerns us today. However, from the middle of the period, the glaciers started to advance from the poles, and global temperatures decreased to bring about a severe ice age.
Timekeeping Wasn’t Easy
If you were to be transported back to the Carboniferous, your alarm clock and calendar wouldn’t be much use. 350 million years ago, the day was only 22.4 hours long, and there were approximately 385 days in a year. The Earth’s faster rotation, combined with its thicker atmosphere, also made winds significantly stronger than they are today.
The Map Was Unrecognizable
Since the Carboniferous was so long, the natural movement of the tectonic plates had ample time to change the map significantly, but at no time did it look anything like the one we’re familiar with today.
By the end of the period, what is now Africa, the Middle East, India, Australia and South America were all joined together with Antarctica. The Eurasian tectonic plate was connected to this enormous southern content, named Gondwana, by a thick strip of land.
Insects ruled the earth
Long before dinosaurs, birds or mammals existed, insects ruled the Earth, leading the Carboniferous to be dubbed the Age of Insects.
Due to the much higher oxygen levels, insects were able to evolve to horror-movie sizes. The meganeura, for example, was a dragonfly sporting a 30-inch (75 cm) wingspan.
Although not technically an insect, the arthropleura was another enormous creepy-crawly, a millipede that grew as long as a car. Adapted perfectly for the Carboniferous atmosphere, animals such as these would not be able to survive in today’s air.
Era & DiscoveryArthropleura lived in North America and Scotland during the Late Carboniferous, approximately 315 – 299 million years ago. It lived alongside other animals like Megarachne, Pulmonoscorpius, Meganeura, and even the primitive reptiles and giant predatory amphibians. Since their discovery in 1854, there are many fossilized footprints from Arthropleura can be found on the coast of Scotland in the Scottish land of Arron.
Physical AttributesArthropluera was perhaps the largest arthropod of the Carboniferous and was overall among the largest arthropods that ever lived, measuring on average between 6.6 – 10 feet (2 – 3 m) long, as large as a man or crocodile and as long as a car. However, there were very rare colossal specimens that were discovered to have measured around 20 feet (6 m) in length. Arthropleura is the largest land arthropod known, a huge relative of the modern millipedes closely resembling a giant centipede or millipede.
The reason why they were able to grow so large is that oxygen levels were 50% higher than today. The higher oxygen level content in the atmosphere of the Carboniferous could support larger species whose circulatory system was not as efficient as those of mammals and other species. Therefore, it allowed this creature (and many others) to grow to very large sizes. In addition, males and females were different in appearance. Arthropluera was arguably the largest known land invertebrate of all time and would have had few predators (If any as an adult.)
Arthropleura was heavily defended by thick, tough, and wide armor plating along its back. Underneath its armor were lots of small legs and a soft underbelly. On its head, it had two pincers and two antennae. The color of Arthropleura varied. Some of them were red with yellow lines whilst some were brown with yellow lines. The body of the Arthopleura was composed of thirty armored plates, which each had a pair of legs under them. However, it was not invincible as large amphibians, like Proterogyrinus, could relatively easily get the better of it. Even its own environment could threaten it. Sharp rocks could easily impale Arthropleura and the superpowered Carboniferous storms were often devastating to Arthropleura as well as other animals.
Behavior & TraitsArthropleura was a solitary creature, often foraging on the forest floors of the Carboniferous. Arthropleura was a massive arthropod that they were such powerful beasts. In spite of its daunting appearance, it as a herbivore, feeding on the rotting foliage, dead-wood and leaves on the floor of the steamy Carboniferous Period swamp forests. Although later found out they were vegetarians, their strong jaws can still have delivered a nasty bite.
Arthropleura was herbivorous though when they were juveniles, they ate meat because they couldn't digest plants until they grew older. Arthropleura was one of the first animals to eat plants, they had strong jaws, but it is unlikely that it may have been poisonous for defense. Arthropleura was practically blind but had a good sense of smell and touch through which to detect other animals. It is discovered that while Arthropleura was a timid creature, it was also shown to be highly aggressive and could be easily provoked into attacking.
Most Arthropleura lived in piles of leaves or foliage or in small underground dens whilst some lived out in the open. As its body armor was colored similar to its surroundings, Arthropleura was camouflaged. However, its armor couldn't protect it from the Carboniferous forest fires. Although the animal would often crouch for cover on the ground, most of the time it was burned alive.
Defense
When it comes to fighting, their armor was their best defense unless it got split. Much like cobras, Arthropleura could rear up at its opponent so it could tower over it, tall enough to look humans right in the eye. And that rearing up was obviously a defensive reaction. However, rearing up would expose its soft innards and were a bulls-eye for predators. They could spray like modern millipedes and centipedes. They could secrete cyanide. That smells of almonds and when they spray in the eyes of their enemies, and it really burned. Uniquely, Arthropleura was also able to leap long distances, which allowed it to strike at its prey like a battering ram.
Additionally, Arthropleura possessed a deadly venom, injected into a victim through a long, thin, metallic-looking tube located behind its mandibles, in a similar manner to an insect bite. When a large mammal such as a human was poisoned by an Arthropleura, the venom would slowly attack their central nervous system, putting the bitten victim into a state of uncontrollable shaking and convulsion very shortly after being bitten, and rendering them barely able to move, before they lost consciousness after a while. An antivenin could be derived from pure samples of Arthropleura venom, but without this antidote, poisoned humans would have a zero chance of survival, dying a matter of hours after being bitten. If one did survive and recover from an Arthropleura's venomous bite, then they would still be left with short-term memory loss.
As did scorpions …
Scorpions are one of the oldest orders animals on Earth, having existed for some 430 million years. However, the early Carboniferous saw the most horrifying scorpion of all – the 28-inch (70 cm) long pulmonoscorpius, and the largest arachnid that ever lived. It’s likely that pulmonoscorpius lived on other arthropods and perhaps smaller amphibians. As is the case with Carboniferous insects, it is thought that the scorpion’s terrifyingly large size was also a due to the higher oxygen levels.
Sharks Dominated the Seas
The early Carboniferous saw sharks at the top of the food chain in the seas, but they weren’t much like the sharks today. Among the stranger of the many species of that period was the akmonistion, characterized by its bizarre anvil-shaped crest and spines on the top of its head. Fortunately, however, at one metre (3 feet) long, it probably didn’t look particularly threatening.
However, the helicoprion, which first appeared towards the very end of the Carboniferous, grew three times longer, and it sported a circular sawblade for jaw.
Trilobites Started to Decline
Trilobites, a highly diverse class of marine arthropod, that ruled the Earth for hundreds of millions of years, started to decline rapidly towards the end of the Carboniferous period, likely due to competition with the explosion of versatile sea life. By the end of the period, only three families survived, which themselves became extinct some 250 million years ago.
Amphibians Were Highly Successful
Alongside insects, amphibians radiated to form the ancestors of the reptiles, birds and mammals that followed. These creatures made up the taxonomic clade of synapsida, which also includes all mammals.
The earliest of these was the archaeothyris, a lizard-like creature that grew about 20 inches long and lived some 306 million years ago.
About the wall / structure…
Perfectly smooth sided concrete blocks show an assembly sequence involving exact molds. A mirror finish suggests metal or plastic mold forms with possible release chemical to get the sides so smooth. According to the miner, it appeared to be just everyday utility grade concrete.
We can say that the use of perfectly square blocks and not rectagles is instructive. As anyone who has played with Legos can attest to, it’s awfully difficult to create an interlocking structure with just simple square blocks.
Thus, this is suggestive of a wall, a retaining wall, or some type of decorative finish.
Since, the miner did not say anything at all about this being the outer finish of a structure, we are left to conclude that it was part of a wall, a retaining wall or a rampart of some type.
Followup story
According to Mathis, the mining company officers immediately pulled the men out of the mine and forbade them to speak about what they had seen.
Mathis said the Wilburton miners also told of finding “a solid block of silver in the shape of a barrel… with the prints of the staves on it,” in an area of coal dating between 280 and 320 million years ago.
Musings…
What could this be? Well, I am certainly curious. The things is that we really don’t know much about all this. It’s a wall found in an “impossibly” deep location underground. It’s made out of manufactured cement blocks at a time when the earth was covered in swamps, bogs and populated with large insects.
What else can we figure out?
What we do know is…
Other items suggestive of metal forgery, utensils, roads, clothing, wheeled transport and creature domestication has been found is nearby / related Carboniferous coal strata.
Combined together, this suggests a planet-wide series of socities and cultures that lived and thrived within the dense oxygen atmosphere, with it’s enormous insects and creatures.
Other items, such as the bell, and the wheeled cart suggest a society of dimunitive (child size) intelligent humanoids with insectoid attributes.
These other similiar trending explorations and discoveries are enough to better flush out what this wall-like structure represents.
Rather than a singular lone outpost in a swampy bog-like land, the picture is emerging of a large, planet-wide network of creatures that apparently seem to resemble the mantids as displayed in popular lore. They seem to have lived in societies that were well at home and comfortable in the dense swampy lands that existed on the earth at that time.
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this somewhere in my OOPART Index here…
One of the things that I loved to do as a boy was to go through the history books in the stacks at the High School library. In particular, they had these illustrated books that went decades by decade and helps pictures and stories about what it was like to live there at that time. There was a book on the 1920’s. There was another on the 1950’s and so on and so forth. Of course there were many history books that I just loved, but these were special because of the great pictures and easy reading captions. This article is of a similar nature using movies from the past. I do hope that you all will enjoy it.
Here we list the movie videos with both an embedded player and a link. I strongly advise the reader to click on the link as it will open up in a new tab and allow much faster loading than relying on this article to view the video. In any event, I hope that you all will enjoy these videos.
It’s a nice “rainy day” article. I hope that these videos remind you of how unique this time is, and how wonderful it is to enjoy it. Stop thinking that one of these days… something will happen. The time is now. So go forth, make some special treats for your cats. Put on a nice outfit and go out with a friend. Call your parents or your grandparents. Treat yourself to a nice cup of coffee and a pie at the local diner. Ride a bicycle.
Make your time special.
It will be gone soon enough. But you are here now. This is YOUR time. Enjoy it and share that enjoyment with others it’s ok. Just do it.
Do you want more?
I have more articles like this in my Happiness Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
One of the things that I loved to do as a boy was to go through the history books in the stacks at the High School library. In particular, they had these illustrated books that went decades by decade and helps pictures and stories about what it was like to live there at that time. There was a book on the 1920’s. There was another on the 1950’s and so on and so forth. Of course there were many history books that I just loved, but these were special because of the great pictures and easy reading captions.
This article is of a similar nature using movies from the past. I do hope that you all will enjoy it. It’s a trip down familiar places with unfamiliar people separated by generational experiences. These movies come to life using (Chinese) AI technology, and are wonderful. I do hope that you are as enthralled by them as I.
1950’s in America
In all these videos you have the option of watching them on this page or clicking on the link. I strongly urge you all to click on the link. This page is heavy with videos and unless you have super efficient internet access, it might take forever to load the videos.
It’s a nice “rainy day” article. I hope that these videos remind you of how unique this time is, and how wonderful it is to enjoy it. Stop thinking that one of these days… something will happen. The time is now. So go forth, make some special treats for your cats. Put on a nice outfit and go out with a friend. Call your parents or your grandparents. Treat yourself to a nice cup of coffee and a pie at the local diner. Ride a bicycle.
Make your time special.
It will be gone soon enough. But you are here now. This is YOUR time. Enjoy it and share that enjoyment with others it’s ok. Just do it.
Do you want more?
I have more articles like this in my Happiness Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Here’s some notes that I collected over the years, and pulled together for myself. It’s just some thoughts, and some guidelines that I collected in a file that I promised myself that I would get to “one of these days”. On Saturday, I was going though a dusty old hard drive and found this collection. And so, I decided to “put it up there” for everyone to read and (perhaps) to scoff at. (Hopefully not.)
Now, I have gone in and out of fashions and styles all my life. There were times when I was truly fashionable. Such as the bell-bottom, long-haired 1970’s, and the cargo pants and layered pastel polo 1980’s. This evolved over time into the early 1990’s when I was wearing pencil thin neck-ties, double breasted suits and mullets. And so on and so forth.
But something happened to me.
Maybe it was prison.
Maybe it was no longer working in a corporate environment.
Maybe it was China.
Or maybe it was when my facial hair started to turn grey.
There comes a time, in every man’s life, where you take a step back and say, “well, I just want to wear clothes that are comfortable, and where I look good in them”. And that is what caused me to generate this collection of guidelines.
Don’t you know…
Introduction
There’s a joke that “we spend all our lives trying to look older, right up until we spend all our lives trying to look younger.”
Terrible idea, really.
The perfect age to be is always the one you are.
Although you all have to admit that being of legal age to do everything is always an improvement.
When you start seeing your hair turn grey (or white) is when a man should fully come into his own. You’re a gentleman with a firm idea of himself and his place in the world, and your wardrobe should reflect that.
Casual Attire
Your business wardrobe is your business wardrobe. Sigh. It’s dictated by the necessity of your profession. Whether you wear a uniform, or meet the company “dress code”. Do it well — but do your “casual” wardrobe better.
Your casual clothes are, quite simply, what you wear for yourself. It’s the most obvious outward expression of your taste, your attitude, and your place in life.
Don’t go on confusing “casual” with “sloppy”.
Big mistake.
Just because you’re not at the office is no reason to look like you don’t care. Your clothes should still look like a deliberate choice and a conscious statement — a powerful one, too, at this age.
Here are some things an older man wants to keep in mind when choosing his casual wardrobe:
[1] Fit
Wear ONLY clothes that fit you well.
Do not wear clothes that don’t fit.
Do not wear clothes that are too tight. Or clothes that are too big. You wear clothes that fit you well. I know that you all probably have nice clothes that cost some money, but you never wear because they don’t fit you well. But you keep them anyways.
Throw them out or give them away.
By this decade of your life, you should have a very good sense of your body.
[2] Tailoring clothes to fit you well
I go on the internet, and especially on English websites, they talk about having a tailor make some perfectly fitting clothes for you. How wonderful! But let’s face it, most men don’t have a few thousand dollars to dedicate to this. And having clothes that fit is not on the main list.
Instead, it is on a secondary list that includes chores, repairs, and special purchases for the family. And at that, unless you are single, it’s at the bottom of that list.
But think a minute.
If you had no other issues; no other attachments, wouldn’t clothing rank as your top priority after food? (Fine, delicious food, by the way.)
The guy (or gal) you go to doesn’t have to be someone who actually creates tailor-made clothing, though they’re often the best. There are perfectly good tailors at basic clothing repair shops and even some dry cleaners that can do adjustments. The point is that you should be getting those adjustments done.
They don’t cost a lot of money.
In the days when I worked for a massive automotive electronics company, our dress code was a white shirt and a red tie. But I made sure that I would buy off-the-shelf high quality shirts, and then spend a few dollars having each one tailored to fit me exactly. It did make a difference on how I looked and felt about myself.
Get everything trimmed to fit you.
Shirts, and trousers are mandatory. Suits and jackets go without saying. About the only thing you should be leaving unadjusted at this age are your socks, underwear, and gym/chore clothing. Everything else gets a tailored fit.
Oh, and don’t be afraid to toss old underwear, too. And, ladies… this includes old bras. Toss those fancy wire things that you love that never wear, and those bras that are old, and frayed. Go get yourself a nice VERY WELL fitting bra. Make sure that you have the right cup size, and the right under boob width. Wearing a comfortable bra makes all the difference in the world.
Or, so I am told.
This has a twofold benefit: it makes your body look better, flattering the best parts of your figure, and it also makes you more comfortable.
A big part of looking good when you get old is looking relaxed and at ease with yourself — hard to pull off when you’re constantly re-tucking your shirt or tugging the crotch of your pants into place. (It’s a guy thing, don’t you know.)
[3] Comfort
I wear black tee-shirts all the time.
But that’s just me. When they get old I toss them and get a newer one. These are plain black shirts that fit me well, and that either have a small logo on my left chest, or an embroidered pattern. I rarely wear large garish patterns, or designs.
Again, that is just me.
And remember that I live in the tropics. Zhuhai temperatures are much like Singapore. We have two seasons. Warm, and very Hot and very humid.
On that note, an older man really should look comfortable, and even relaxed, at nearly all times. Leave the hard-edged, high-strung look to the younger guys.
A lot of looking comfortable in your clothes comes down to actually being comfortable in your clothes, but you can do a lot with tailoring and styling too.
For those of you who still wear suits, and even I do from time to time, this is a good time of life to be moving away from aggressively fitted “power suits” and sharp-edged European cuts. The American, slightly looser suit was made with the middle-aged man in mind — give it a try.
For less dressy styles, try relaxed looks like sweaters and knitted tee-shirts, or other more relaxed shirts. You just need to move away from the business-standard dress shirt and its turn-down collar (and tie) ensemble. (Burrr.) Handsome, well-fitted clothing that’s obviously made for leisure tells people that you’re prioritizing your own pleasures.
A man who is comfortable, will look comfortable.
A man who is happy, and confident, will look happy and confident.
The key here is to have stylish comfortable options. Yeah, stretch-waist sweatpants are comfortable, but there’s such a thing as too much of a good thing. Buy clothes that fit your personality; grown-up clothes, just buy them in soft fabrics, relaxed cuts, and a nice casual variety of colors.
[4] Luxury
Not to be confused with comfort, though it often provides it, luxury in clothing is the province of the older gentleman.
This mostly comes about as increased discretionary income intersects with a life’s worth of dressing experience. Even if you never got that serious about your wardrobe, decades of putting fabric on your body gives you some idea of what feels good and what feels cheap. And of course you know this. Don’t you?
Rich wools, soft cottons, light linens — live ’em all up.
The texture and “drape” of a good fabric are more noticeable, even at a distance, than we often think.
It’s the reason a bunch of men in $99 blazers from the sale rack at Men’s Wearhouse all look vaguely insubstantial — and the reason a man in the middle of them wearing a $599 blazer made from top-notch worsted wool stands out like a lighthouse.
Buy less frequently than you did when you were younger, but more expensively.
Decades of accumulation should have your wardrobe in decent shape for the staples. That frees up your clothing budget to add a couple reallynice things for yourself.
Whatever you like to wear most, buy it in the best quality you can get…
…Then wear the hell out of it.
[5] Some “Looks”
When you were younger, your style perhaps could have been summed up in one or two words: “urban cowboy,” “power exec,” “thrift-store hipster,” whatever.
By now you should be past that.
Your clothing should just be you, defying categories. It should look like what you wanted to wear, not like what a “style blog” told you to wear.
Maybe the most important thing at this age is for everything to look like an outfit, rather than a collection of unrelated clothes all thrown on together.
You should put some time and care into selecting not just the big pieces (trousers, shirt, jacket), but the accents as well (everything from the necktie and shoes to things like scarves, watches, hats, pocket squares; even your eyeglasses if you wear them).
For me, I tend to wear (and keep in mind that I am in the topics), a nice well fitting black tee-shirt, and long well made (hiking) trousers. I wear with a special kind of canvas loafer local to China, and accessorize with my (good will energy) bracelet, watch, and belt.
With that in mind, here are a couple of looks that will always look good on a man in his older years…
The Sunday Best
We’ll start at the top end of your casual wardrobe: the social suit and tie.
For most men, especially younger men, this doesn’t exist anymore. Suits are strictly business wear, and not even then are they a necessity for a lot of professions.
That just makes it even easier for you to stand apart from the crowd when you dapper it up don’t you know. A suit in a casual color and pattern offers all the things we talked about above: luxury, comfort, and, if your tailor did his job right, a perfect fit as well.
But what ever you do, don’t look like a used car salesman!
The traditional time for a man to wear his social suit was on Sunday, to church and then to the inevitable social activities afterward, but don’t let that middle-American habit limit you. A casual suit, with or without a necktie, is always good daytime wear when you want to look sharp.
When I wear a suit, I always simply wear a black blazer over my black tee-shirt. It’s simple. I’m dressed up. Ya gotta problem with that?
For a real impression, I buy a brand new crisp white tee shirt. Then wear it instead of a black one. You gotta break out of your mold every now and then, don’t you know.
Shirts. I do wear them from time to time. Especially when the temperature drops below 90C (30C or so).
After 5:00 or so be sure to skip the necktie — you don’t want to be mistaken for a businessman with dubious professionalism coming home from work. Leave the collar open unless you’re going somewhere very fancy (and if you are, maybe wear a darker, more somber suit).
The Stroller
A “stroller” is an older phrase for daytime semi-formal wear, especially for being out and about — truly strolling somewhere.
It’s really a cool thing to do. But what ever you do, don’t clasp your hands behind your back, carry a boom-box playing forty-year old pop music, or wear pristine white tennis shoes as you do so.
Not recommended.
You should own a good walking outfit, or several, because frankly a man in his silvering years needs to be walking from time to time. It keeps you in good shape — and strolling down Main Street, taking in the crowd for no reason other than personal pleasure is both a perk and a tradition of the silver-haired years.
So own some simple, comfortable trousers and nice clean top, and a good pair of walking shoes, and then… Suddenly you’re a respectable gentleman of means out for a stroll.
A couple of good accents help with this one.
Own some scarves, hats, and gloves with a little flavor to them. Yes, you could wear a baseball cap and stick your hands in your pockets, but (come on!) you can do better than that.
Besides, if a fine attractive lady and you strike a nice conversation, take it inside and enjoy their company over some delicious food!
The Silverback Badass
Style in your older years (not ancient years) is all about not trying too hard. You don’t want to look like a rebel without a cause. That was silly when you were 20, and now it’s really silly.
But can you still be a bit of a rebel from time to time?
Sure. An older gentleman can still wear a leather jacket and jeans, or a denim coat and cords. He just has to make it a little more dignified.
This is a great age for plain-fronted leather jackets — think stripped-down bomber or fatigue styles, not too heavy on the details and fitted close but not hyper-streamlined. Don’t be shy of a little surface weathering; it goes well with gray hairs (assuming you have those — some guys don’t, even in their fifties).
If leather’s not your thing, show some attitude with mix-and-match levels of formality instead. Wear a plush velvet suit jacket over a pair of jeans and let people like it or lump it. You do what you want, right? You gotta problem with that?
It’s important not to get too experimental — you don’t want to look like a runway designer’s latest vision. That’s for younger men. If you can’t wear the look with casual confidence, skip it. But if you can, go ahead and be a rebel now and again.
Here’s some things that an older man should own by now…
Given your environment, obviously.
A Wool Cardigan
No, it’s not a grandpa sweater.
Did Steve McQueen wear grandpa sweaters? No. He wore cardigans, and he looked rugged as hell doing it. So did John Wayne. So does Daniel Craig. They’re awesome, and you should have one.
A good cardigan should be knit wool, heavy enough to be your outer layer for much of the fall and spring. An inner lining of something like flannel makes it warmer and can minimize dry cleaning needs as well. Stay away from hugely oversized floppy collars or really big buttons — those are a little feminine — but otherwise feel free to play around with styles.
Gray is always a reliable color if you don’t feel like experimenting. For the more adventurous man in his fifties, try a cardigan in deep shades of bright primary and secondary colors — burgundy red, forest green, burnt goldenrod.
You can throw a good cardigan over almost anything and be ready for everything from brunch to a cozy late night coffee date. Expect to, once you’ve bought one you like.
A Good Scarf Collection
Scarves?
Yeah. I tend to dress in dark colors and when I am wearing a black blazer over my black tee-shirt, a few nice black scarves really makes the outfit “pop”! And it’s a great conversation piece with the ladies.
Scarves as a style piece rather than a functional necessity are a direct descendant of early airmen and fighter pilots. That made them popular during the interwar years in America, and worn well they still lend you a little of that old-fashioned, dashing appeal, like a gentleman who goes about in something called a “motorcar.”
Start with the basics (black and brown) and then start adding color and pattern. A scarf can be an eye-popping centerpiece or it can blend right into your jacket until the moment when the wind catches the end and whisks it about. Both are good.
While you’re at it, practice a few different ways of looping/tying your scarf. There’s no reason to use the same knot every time. Thin materials look better in different knots than thick materials, and you may want a more or less structured look depending on the rest of your outfit.
So are you fully scarf literate yet? If not, that’s a good project for your later years.
Suede / Canvas topped Shoes or Boots
I have been told that I’m done with sneakers and court shoes at this point in life, except for on the actual court. But that is ok. Suede / Canvas toppers are your new casual, comfortable footwear default.
For the classically-styled man, bluchers in white, gray, blue, and brown are the way to go. If your style is more modern, suede skate-style shoes with contrast lacing make a nice grown-up alternative to teenager’s footgear.
And if you’ve never tried the look, go ahead and get yourself a pair of high-ankled boots in suede. They’ll serve you from about the time it gets too cold for sandals to when the snow starts falling, and the reverse in the spring.
Skin Care Lotion That You Respect
Ignore the commercials; there’s nothing wrong with wrinkles. Your face ought to have some creases after fifty years of well-lived life. If it doesn’t, you weren’t using it enough.
But…
But you want your skin to feel good, and as you age that means taking a little more care of it than you did when you were younger. Find a product or two that keeps your hide feeling supple and healthy. I use moisturizing cream twice daily, and I live in the tropics. If I didn’t my face would probably look like the grand canyon with all sorts of deep crevasses and wrinkles from my days of working the chain-gain at Brickey’s East Arkansas Regional Unit’s Hoe Squad.
If it makes you feel artificially slick or dried out, it’s the wrong product. A really basic moisturizing cream made from natural ingredients if often all a man needs. Lightly scented if you please — you don’t want it to clash with your cologne.
(You are putting a splash of subtle cologne on when you get dressed up at this point in your life, aren’t you? Work on that if you’re not.)
Looks to avoid
There are no completely hard and fast rules in fashion. Someone, somewhere, has probably pulled one of these off in his later years. But you’re not him, and you’ll probably just look bad if you try. So don’t.
Sneakers/trainers. You’re done with ’em. Give it up and get over it. A pair for the gym or other athletic endeavors is fine, but unless you’re in a rock band and on stage, you shouldn’t be wearing athletic shoes as a style choice.
Neckties without jackets. This is a look men should avoid in general, but once you get into your fifties it can only make you look like a depressed, mid-salary cubicle worker with nothing left to live for. Very Death of a Salesman. Throw a jacket on if you’re wearing a necktie. For that matter, throw a jacket on if you’re wearing a dress shirt in general, even without the tie.
Sleeveless shirts. Even on the beach. Tank tops, especially the scoop-neck kind, should be firmly left behind as soon as your hair starts receding and/or going gray. And if you’re in your fifties and it hasn’t, good for you, but still don’t wear sleeveless shirts as your only upper-body covering. (Though, I do wear them in the house as house clothing in the impossibly hot Summers of the South China Sea.)
Also worth avoiding is anything with too much of an “advancing age” feel to it — the really chunky orthopedic shoes, thick, dated eyeglasses, worn-out sweatshirts, or elastic-waist trousers. Oh, and don’t forget to toss that Alice Cooper Tee-Shirt from 1971.
If there’s something you need for your physical health, do it, and don’t ever let anyone make you feel ashamed of it. But go ahead and keep the element small and surrounded by other, purely aesthetic accents, so that it’s not defining who you are the moment people look your way.
Youth is almost always wasted on the young, but with a bit of sharp dressing, middle age can be made to work great for the man in his fifties. Have fun with it. You might be surprised how well you feel, how well you look, and the kinds of people you will meet and strike up conversations with. You never know.
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this in my Happiness Index here…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
It’s difficult to measure the damage that an ideology can do on a society. Often you don’t realize what a mess things are until long after the great looting, and destruction. But you can notice events. Often singular events, and often whispered about quietly. And one such event is the purging of art in favor of the formless and meaningless.
Look at the painting above. It is titled “Consulting the Oracle” and was painted by John William Waterhouse. It’s great right? It’s large. It would occupy the wall in a nice sized living room. It’s 77 inches long and 46 inches high. And it’s beautiful. Right?
This painting was very quietly sold by the museum that held it for £5 ($7.50) to a private individual.
I’ve seen cups of coffee that cost more.
The excuse is that the museum needed the money. Bills needed to be paid, and new works of art needed to be purchased to “keep the museum alive and vibrant”. Of course that old “song and dance”. The excuse, a progressive excuse, that you must destroy the old to make room for the new.
Ok.
I’ll bite.
What “new” art was worthy of purchase. How about millions of dollars for this magnificent piece…
.
This undeniably strange-looking painting of a woman made Willem de Kooning and his estate a few millions richer. The painting recently changed hands to the tune of $137.5 million. This abstract painting was finished by Kooning in 1953. The painting became rather controversial in the 1970s, because it was refused for exhibit at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. This painting is currently privately owned. It spans 68 inches in height and 48.5 inches in width.
Yes. I cannot believe it. Can you?
And we are not alone either…
This painting is awful.
I get that it’s an abstract expressionist painting, but it is so hideous to look at. You honestly couldn’t convince me to take it if I was walking down the street and saw that laying on the grass. Clearly that means I have no taste because it sold for a ridiculous $137.5 million in 2006. This made it the 4th most expensive painting ever sold.
It was created by painter Williem de Kooning in 1953.
The buyer, David Geffen, is worth $6.5 billion, so nobody is going to step in and tell him how to spend his money… but are you kidding me?
-10 Ugly Pieces Of Art You Won't Believe Sold For Millions
Who in their right mind made this decision?
The Art Renewal Center chimes in…
From the Art Renewal Center…
Works of art worth tens of millions of pounds today have been sold off quietly by museums over the past 50 years for a few pounds. British art institutions such as the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Exeter City Museum have disposed of pictures by masters such as Van Dyck and Henri Fantin Latour . They were sold without public notice, dismissed as too unimportant to keep. Among the most serious cases is a painting by the 19th-century master, John William Waterhouse . In 1965, the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro sold it for £200 ($300) to a private collector; today it is worth more than £5 million ($7.5 million).
"Most of the works were sold off as they were deemed to be artistically worthless", Christopher Wright, a leading Old Masters scholar, said. He discovered evidence of the sales while preparing a nationwide study of British art for Yale University Press. "They have been sold off without public notice," he said. "Many of the museums didn't dare make it public. They've all been proved wrong."
Mr Wright expressed disbelief at the decision of the Exeter museum to "rape" its collection of 160 works - "there is no other word to describe the destruction of an entire museum collection". The auctions, which involved selling works for as little as £5 ($7.50), included Waterhouse's Consulting the Oracle, four paintings by Fantin-Latour and one by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema . Caroline Worthington, fine art curator at Exeter, said that the sale took place at Christie's in 1954, "when High Victorian art was deeply unfashionable ... We would like them back, most definitely." "We're talking household names", Mr Wright said, adding that many were bought by the heavyweight dealers Agnews and Colnaghi, who clearly appreciated the importance of the artists, even if the museums did not.
Tamsin Daniel, Truro's curator of art and exhibitions, said that the museum had needed money for storage and a lift. She conceded that the loss was painful. The Waterhouse went to a private collector bidding at Christie's. The £200 ($300) it cost him, she said, was "a bit different to what Andrew Lloyd Webber paid recently for a Waterhouse": £6.6 million ($9.9 million).
Leeds City Art Gallery and Museum, Mr Wright was told by an insider, actually disguised the provenance of works when selling them through an auction house. "They were described as property of Madame X," he said. "The sales were clandestine. They didn't say Leeds was de-accessioning. They were all Victorian pictures purchased from the Royal Academy. They got rid of dozens." Nigel Walsh, curator of exhibitions, expressed surprise at the news, denying that the gallery had sold anything. Nor did Evelyn Silber, its director, know anything about it until contacted by The Times. She later discovered that 37 paintings (nearly all Victorian) had been sold in 1939 under the then director, Philip Hendey, who went on to head the National Gallery in London. The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge sold more than 200 works in the 1950s. Although they were marked "property of the Fitzwilliam" in the catalogs, they were mixed up with hundreds of other lots, Mr Wright said. "They put them through the salerooms in dribs and drabs."
Mr Wright said that the Fortune-teller with Soldiers "was sold off as a copy, but it has since been published as the real thing worth millions".
Craig Hartley, a Fitzwilliam curator, said: "In retrospect, this seems a horrific thing to have done." Among other institutions to have sold off paintings, Mr Wright said, were the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich; the Cooper Art Gallery in Barnsley; the Holbourne Museum of Art in Bath; and the Birmingham City Art Gallery.
-Art Renewal Center article by Dalya Alberge
I am horrified.
Just beyond my self.
So who ended up getting these magnificent works of art?
"They were described as property of Madame X," he said. "The sales were clandestine. They didn't say Leeds was de-accessioning. They were all Victorian pictures purchased from the Royal Academy. They got rid of dozens."
Well, you must understand that a museum collects works of art for pubic display and enjoyment. If they no longer wants to display that art to the public, they take if off display and put it in storage. Apparently these works took up too much space, so they sold them to “Art Dealers”. And these art dealers held auctions and auctioned them off to wealthy attendees.
Yes.
That’s right. The art was taken away from public display and sold off to the oligarchy for their own personal use.
Ladies and Gentlemen ... Artists,
The art of painting, one of the greatest traditions in all of human history has been under a merciless and relentless assault for the last one hundred years. I'm referring to the accumulated knowledge of over 2500 hundred years, spanning from Ancient Greece to the early Renaissance and through to the extraordinary pinnacles of artistic achievement seen in the High Renaissance, 17th century Dutch, and the great 19th century Academies of Europe and America. These traditions, just when they were at their absolute zenith, at a peak of achievement, seemingly unbeatable and unstoppable, hit the twentieth century at full stride, and then ... fell off a cliff, and smashed to pieces on the rocks below. Since World War I the contemporary visual arts as represented in Museum exhibitions, University Art Departments, and journalistic art criticism became little more than juvenile, repetitive exercises at proving to the former adult world that they could do whatever they damn well wanted ... sadly devolving ever downwards into a distorted, contrived and contorted notion of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression? Ironically, this so-called "freedom" as embodied in Modernism, rather than a form of "expression" in truth became a form of "suppression" and "oppression." Modernism as we know it, ultimately became the most oppressive and restrictive system of thought in all of art history.
Every reasonable shred of order and any standards with which it was possible to identify, understand and to create great paintings and sculpture, was degraded ... detested ... desecrated and eviscerated. The backbone of the painters' craft, namely drawing, was thrown into the trash along with modeling, perspective, illusion, recognizable objects or elements from the real world, and with it the ability to capture, exhibit, and poetically express subjects and themes about mankind and the human condition and about man's trials on this speck of stardust called Earth ... Earth, hurtling through infinity with all of us along on board, along with everything we know and everything we hold dear.
Reason ... philosophy ... religion ... literature ... fantasy ... dreams, and all of the feelings, emotions and pathos of our every day lives ... all of it was no longer worthy of the painter's craft. Any hint by the artist at trying to portray such things was branded as banal, maudlin, photographic, illustration, or petty sentimentality.
Our children, going supposedly to the finest universities in the world, being taught by professors with Bachelors or Arts, Masters of Arts, Masters of Fine Arts, Masters of Art Education ... even Doctoral degrees, our children instead have been subjected to methodical brain-washing and taught to deny the evidence of their own senses. Taught that Mattisse, Cézanne, and Picasso, along with their followers, were the most brilliant artists in all of history. Why? Because they weren't telling us lies like the traditional painters, of course. They weren't trying to make us believe that we were looking at scenes in reality, or at scenes from the imagination, from fantasy or from dreams. They were telling us the truth. They were telling it like it is. They spent their lives and careers on something that was not banal, and not silly, insipid or inane. They in fact provided the world with the most ingenious of all breakthroughs in the history of artistic thought. Even the great scientific achievements of the industrial revolution paled before their brilliant discovery. And what was that discovery for which they have been raised above Bouguereau , exalted over Gérôme , and celebrated beyond Ingres , David , Constable , Fragonard , Van Dyck , and Gainsborough or Poussin ? Why in fact were they heralded to the absolute zenith ... the tiptop of human achievement ... being worthy even of placement shoulder to shoulder on pedestals right beside Rembrandt , Michelangelo , Leonardo , Caravaggio , Vermeer and Raphael ? What did they do? Why were they glorified practically above all others that ever went before them? Ladies and gentleman, they proved ... amazing, incredible, and fantastic as it may seem, they proved that the canvas was flat ... flat and very thin ... skinny ... indeed, not even shallow, lacking any depth or meaning whatsoever.
And the flatter that they proved it to be the greater they were exalted. Cézanne collapsed the landscape, Matisse flattened our homes and our families, and Pollock, Rothko and de Kooning placed it all in a blender and splattered it against the wall. They made even pancakes look fat and chunky by comparison. But this was only part of the breathtaking breakthroughs of modernism ... and their offshoots flourished. Abstract expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, minimalism, ColorField, Conceptual, op-art, pop-art and post modernism ... and to understand it all ... to understand, took very special people indeed, since the mass of humanity was too ignorant and stupid to understand. Like that famous advertisement in the NY Times said so many years ago ... Bad art ... or Good art? You be the judge, indeed.
Of course, to justify this whole theoretical paradigm, all the artists that painted recognizable scenes with depth and illusion had to be discredited ... and discredited they were, with a virulence and vituperation so scathing and merciless that one would think they must have been messengers of the devil himself to deserve such abuse. And to put the final nail in their coffins, all of their art was banished and their names and accomplishments written right out of history. I graduated with a Master's in art education from Columbia University, and I'd never heard of Bouguereau , much less that he was President of the Academy and head of the Salon ... the most celebrated artist of his time who single handedly, using all of his influence as the most respected leader of art world, opened up L'Ecole Des Beaux Arts and the Salons to women artists for the first time in history.
During most of the 20th century, the type of propaganda that has been hurled at academic artists is so insidious that people have been literally trained to discredit, out-of-hand, any work containing well-crafted figures or elements, or any other evidence of technical mastery. All the beauty and subtlety of emotions, — interplay of composition, design and theme, — the interlacing of color, tone and mood, — are never seen. The viewer has been taught that academic painting on a prima facie basis is bad by definition — bad by virtue of its resorting to the use of human figures, themes or stories and objects from the real world.
Prestige suggestion causes them to automatically assume that a work must be great if it's by any of the "big names" of modern art, so they at once start looking for reasons why it must be proclaimed great. Any failing to find greatness is not considered a failing in the art but in the intelligence and sensibilities of the viewer. Students operating under that kind of intimidating pressure, you can be sure, will find greatness - no matter what they are looking at.
The reverse of this has been trained into them when they view academic paintings. They have been taught that works exhibiting realistic rendering are "bad art" and therefore any good that is seen is not due to qualities inherent in their artistic accomplishments, but are rather due to a lack of intelligence and taste in the viewer. The same intimidating pressure works in reverse to ensure that a work by Bouguereau , Lord Leighton , Burne-Jones , Gérôme , Frederick Hart , or any of the rest of you here, will not be seen as anything other than bad by definition.
No student in a school with this kind of dictatorial brain-washing will ever risk exploring or even listening to opposing views, for fear of being stigmatized from that point on, with some undesirable label and being universally despised ... sadly, a very effective deterrent to independent thought. Thus the visual experience of well-drawn representational elements is perceived as a negative, ad hominem, that proves with knee-jerk automaticity the presumed "badness" of the art and its creator.
It is especially ironic that these are the same people who trumpet the virtues and inalienable right to freedom of speech, while they surreptitiously and steadfastly conspire to remove that freedom from those with whom they disagree.
Equally ironic is the charge that academic painting is "uninspired," a proclamation issued by critics who are unable to see beyond the technical virtuosity for which they condemn it, to see what is being said. This rich visual language is wasted on eyes that will not see. It would be no different than dismissing out-of-hand a piece of music as soon as it was determined that notes, chords and keys were used, or dismissing any work of literature upon noticing words arranged in grammatically correct sentences.
That is not to say that all academic art is great, or above criticism - certainly, it is not. It would be no less fallacious to issue blanket praise to an entire category than to condemn it. Academic painting ranges from brilliantly conceived and deeply inspired, to trite and silly, depending on the subject and the artist.
That being said, I find even the worst of it more meaningful than art based on the ridiculous notion that it is somehow important to prove the canvas is flat, and/or that one needs no skill or technique to be an artist - views generally embraced by those who condemn the entire category of academic art. Their point seems to be to elevate to legitimacy that which has removed all standards and prior defining characteristics of art. In other words, by defining non-art as art, the logical conclusion is that art is non-art.
Modern artists are told that they must create something totally original. Nothing about what they do can ever have been done before in any way shape or form, otherwise they risk being called "derivative". How utterly absurd.
These critics like to say Bouguereau's work is really only derivative, harking back to earlier artists. Only in the 20th century has such a thing ever been scorned. To this I have one thing to say:
What, dear friends, is wrong with being derivative?
That's one of the core beliefs of modernism that must be soundly vanquished by common sense and logical analysis. Nobody can accomplish anything of merit if they are in fact not derivative. Only by mastering the accomplishments of the past and then adding to it can we go still further. Every other field of endeavor recognizes this truth. Without the knowledge of the past we are doomed to everlasting primitivism.
And, as far as holding our works up to the old masters, that's what we want to have happen. If we are to accomplish things of true merit and excellence, we must germinate and nurture great masters in the next millennium, too. Bouguereau was quite aware that his work would be compared on the altar of past accomplishments, as did his contemporaries. It was precisely because they mastered the techniques of the past, built upon them and then opened them up to an avalanche of new subject matter and Enlightenment ideals, that they accomplished the greatest half-century of painting in art history.
And when we talk about the basic criteria and parameters of the academic tradition that built from the 14th through 19th centuries, Bouguereau , Lord Leighton and Alma-Tadema were second to none.
Could Bach and Beethoven and Mozart have achieved their masterpieces if someone before had not discovered scales and the circle of fifths? Does that mean these musical giants were nothing but derivative too? In fact all great literature exists due to the existence of advanced language. This upside down thought process would make Dosteovsky, Balzac, Chekhov, Shakespeare and the Brontë sisters derivative as well. If you think about it a bit you will see that these are exact analogies. There is nothing any more derivative about these 19th century Traditional-Humanist-Academic masters.
Being derivative is entirely different from copying. Copying itself can have value, but only for the purposes of instruction. Obviously, a copied work is not original art. But modernist ideologues have disingenuously dismissed all realist art as "derivative" as if that were the same as copying.
Additionally, students today are taught that every parameter upon which any standard for quality and excellence can be deduced is improper, because it's "limiting to freedom of expression."
There can be no story, for then you have to stay within the "tight boundaries" of the tale.
There can be no illusion, for then you are "chained" by the need to recreate a sense of three dimensions.
There can be no drawing, as that can be "limiting" to objects or people or things taken from the real world.
They want to remove the "shackles" of modeling, perspective, or subject matter of any sort.
There certainly can be no attempt at harmonizing of the above parameters with composition, color and tonality, for that would "restrict" one to making everything work together.
On the contrary, they have been propagandized by modernism into believing that only those works that break boundaries, ignore standards, and show no interest in skill or technique can be truly "original" or "inspired." In fact originality of methods take precedence over all else. If something has been done before, or is derivative in any way of anything that was done before, it thereby loses value proportionate to those similarities. In such a "Through the looking glass" world, every would-be "artist" is placed in the untenable position of trying to create an entirely new art form in order to be considered relevant. The sheer glaring reality is that nothing could be more imprisoning, binding, restricting, chaining and shackling than the impossible limitations of modernism and post-modernism, that remove from the would-be artist every tool (including training) that could give him or her the ability to create great works of art. The simple truth is that each and every one of us (and I mean nearly every human being), is capable of thinking of something that has never been done before. Does that make it worth doing and the work of genius?
For example:
(1) I could carefully (with enough money) dig up an old bombed out tenement building in the Bronx, and have it transported to a special slab built for it in Central Park. Rope off the structure and aim lights at it at night and give it a title, and with enough pomp and circumstance think of twenty reasons why this is sheer brilliance and genius.
(2) I could boil the entrails of several different animals and then preserve them by imbedding them in clear plastic. I could then hang them from a mobile with similarly preserved body parts of cadavers, and have critics claim that this is the greatest artistic statement about the horrors of war since Guernica
(3) I could imbed into the walls, ceiling and floors of a small room, pieces of neon lights, parts from broken machines and engines, and broken pieces of structural building materials like bricks, beams and cinder blocks. Then I could glue between everything millions of nails, nuts and bolts, and have clever writers and critics point out how this room (which could be installed at MOMA or the Guggenheim) is the quintessential statement of the effects of the industrial age on human psychology.
Well, those three ideas took all of 3 minutes to think of. MY GOD! This must mean I'm three geniuses rolled into one. Why, at this rate I could come up with more brilliant ideas for Modernism than all of the modernist geniuses put together, if I just would put aside a week or two.
The thing here that really is interesting is not their art at all, but the statement it makes about the nature of our species — that so many seemingly intelligent people have been so easily snookered by the tongue-twisting, convoluted illogic of modernist rhetoric. Clearly for many people it is more important to feel that they are some part of an elitist in-group that is endowed with the special ability to see brilliance where the bulk of humanity sees nothing and is afraid to say so.
Since most people aren't devoted to or educated in fine art, they have successfully intimidated the bulk of humanity into cowering away in silence, feeling foolish for their inability to understand. The average person shrinks away from believing the reality of his or her own senses in the face of seemingly overwhelming numbers of people in this 20th century "establishment" who authoritatively dictate what is great art and what everyone should be seeing.
Modern and Post-modern Art is nihilistic and anti-human. It denigrates humanity along with our hopes, dreams, desires and the real world in which we live. All reference to any of these things is forbidden in the canonistic halls of modernist ideology. We can see that their hallowed halls are a hollow shell, a vacuous, vacant vault that locks their devotees away from life and humanity. It ultimately bores the overwhelming bulk of its would-be audience, who can find nothing with which to relate.
It has been called exciting and cutting-edge, but the sad truth is that it is incredibly humdrum and monotonous. Whether you glue together pieces of plastic or shards of glass, assemble metal scraps or piles of feathers. Whether you dribble little dollops of colors or drag fat uneven slashes of black. Whether you compile a mountain of paper or wrap the Statue of Liberty. The effect is always the same. MEANINGLESS PRIMITIVISM.
Modernism is art about art. It endlessly asks the question, ad nauseam: What is art? What is art? Only those things that expand the boundaries of art are good; all else is bad. It is art about art. Whereas all the great art in history, my friends, is ART ABOUT LIFE.
Of course, this isn't exactly the first time in history that ideas which were complete shams managed to engulf the belief systems of entire cultures and civilizations. In many of those in the past, the lunacy was enforced by the severest of punishments for anyone who would dare to speak out.
At least we live in a time and place where it's possible to speak against this consummate con that has been perpetrated against the greatest period of artistic development and achievement in the history of Western Civilization and culture over the last 500 years.
Three-quarters of the 20th century will go down in art history as a great wasteland of insanity — a nightmarish blip in the long road of the development of human logic and reason and art, from which we are only just starting to awake.
The artists of the 19th century exhibited a deep, abiding respect for humanity and human feelings. A respect for our minds, our spirits and our reason, and a love of beauty, grace and true excellence and accomplishment. Bouguereau , Lord Leighton , Waterhouse , Burne-Jones and the other giants of the 19th C. tried to capture those things that are good and decent in our species. Their accomplishments are the quintessential high point of hundreds of years of human study and development in the art of painting. They are arguably the greatest painters that history has ever produced. Bouguereau especially fits this description. How fitting and sadly obvious that he should be characterized as the chief villain by those who would destroy rather than build — who celebrate chaos rather than order and beauty.
He continues…
Recently, a contributor to an on-line art forum I subscribe to made the following comments about Picasso,
I love the way Picasso did that woman all shards and angles. I don't recall the name of the work. But, he painted the woman in her turmoil how she tore herself apart within, and how he saw what her turmoil did to her. He painted the way he saw her, as fragmented as he saw her. She was a beauty on the outside. Yet, he painted the ugly face of her turmoil, and in so doing painted his turmoil as well.
Picasso worked in a turbulent time. I think it's why some of his works appeared to be reflections in a broken mirror. Shards, impressions all cut up and each with a voice about his subjects and of Spain. His work shows a deeply sensitive artist and was a pivotal point for the Russian avant garde school that said it was okay to feel in paint, to get all the chaos out in paint ... I didn't love him until I studied him ...
- Laurie
And he continues…
I thought it fitting to read here my response to her.
Laurie and Goodart subscribers,
I really need to address these ebullient expressions of praise for Picasso a bit more precisely.
Laurie, this is not to fault you at all, but to analyze the description you have made which reflects the gospel that is taught about him in most art history courses. His name and "achievements" have become so "untouchable" within the sacrosanct walls of modernist cathedrals, that to do any other than you have stated here would be like criticizing the cross or the bible in the College of Cardinals.
Let's look at this one idea at a time.
You said that, "He painted the woman in her turmoil how she tore herself apart within, and how he saw what her turmoil did to her".
I
n fact, all that he painted was a messy characterization of a woman in which the forms and shapes don't align or create any cohesive form. The drawing is virtually non-existent, and the disintegration of all artistic elements are self-consciously laid out for the express purpose of rejecting prior artistic standards.
There is no beauty in her face, or for that matter, ugliness. There isn't even a face ... but elements thrown together with just enough evidence to let the viewer know that it was meant to suggest a face.
Everything about the finished product is utterly awful and would be beneath the capabilities of a talented 12 year old.
Now, what if you are a theorist who needs to justify this hodge-podge of sloppy color and form? What can you creatively think of to place value and meaning, where none exists ... especially, if you are being paid to do just that?
It's simple: you need but approach the work as you would a Rorschach inkblot test, where anyone can use creative ability to make up a story, suggested by little, if any, information. If you want this man's work to be valued highly, you must create a tale of great importance, with meaning, which, when discussed or analyzed in intellectual circles, will be considered profound and meaningful.
The idea of a lady being ugly on the inside is a concept from literature, psychology, and in fact all of human history. Ugliness, mean-spiritedness, and turmoil are major concepts that tint all of human experience. So you simply say that the messiness represents that, and look how brilliant he is to have captured it.
But in truth he has done nothing of the kind. The writers who said that was what it means were the one who did it, and not the artist. Inner turmoil and ugliness on the inside is far more difficult to capture, and takes intense, subtle handling of story telling, composition, drawing, and realistic rendering to successfully convey so that it can be recognized without any words. Waterhouse's Lady of Shalott and Bouguereau's Divideuse both capture beautiful women loaded with inner turmoil, and Cabanel's Cleopatra testing poisons on slaves portrays intense inner ugliness within a beautiful face and figure infinitely better than these broken blotchy messes on canvas by Picasso.
But when the modernist professors say that's what it means, then implicit in their words is that if you don't see it too you're stupid and tasteless. Also to not see it becomes associated with not seeing how wonderful that subject matter would be. And it is after all truly wonderful subject matter. Only one problem; Picasso didn't paint it.
You say, "his work shows a deeply sensitive artist," but I don't conclude any sensitivity whatsoever. What is there is the sensitivity of a bull in a china shop, who stomps around breaking all the beautiful porcelain, and then with an army of critics lined up with their nostrils flaring dares anyone to criticize the dump he just left in the your living room.
"Either you love my turds or you are against freedom of expression."
If you don't want it in your museum, you're the enemy of freedom of speech. Faced with such intimidation surely many would rather line up in support. But there is truly nothing there. It's a trick of words and intimidation. An Illusion of social pressure and fearful conformity.
His school, "... said it was okay to feel in paint, to get all the chaos out in paint ... I didn't love him until I studied him."
Of course you didn't love him until you studied him. What you learned to love was all the explanations about worthwhile concepts and subjects. And with a training right out of Pavlov, you were taught to salivate when you were shown things that caused associations to those worthwhile ideas.
But Laurie, WHERE'S the BEEF? You're salivating at a symbol much the way people react to their country's flag. The flag comes to be seen as beautiful because it represents family, home and hearth, friends, loyalty, and the things we love. You've been taught to react to symbols instead of responding with the freedom of independent thought to works of art that are not supposed to be flag-like-symbols of great artistic ideas, but the great works of art themselves, which communicate, through a readily discernable visual language, some aspect of the human condition.
You had to be taught to love Picasso, because nobody would love him otherwise. But people don't need to be taught to love Rembrandt , Michelangelo , Bouguereau , or for that matter Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, or Tom Sawyer, The Grapes of Wrath, Alice in Wonderland, or The Christmas Carol.
Teaching and information can add to the depth of understanding of great works of art, but they are great initially by their ability to capture the soul and imagination of the viewer, without thousands of words to instruct us on how to deny the evidence of our own senses and to deny our innate sense of truth and reason.
Of course, what tends to happen to people who have allowed themselves to be convinced that the emperor is wearing beautiful clothes, is that they have become "ego invested" due to years of having parroted the same falsehoods ... and the associated humiliation that goes with acknowledging that one has been had. The more years, and the more said in support of Modernism, the greater the difficulty in breaking through the gestalts, and taking off the iconic blinders, shedding all the preconceptions and looking again with "innocent eyes" and describing what is really there (at least to yourself), and then comparing it to the maligned academics like Waterhouse , Bouguereau , Lord Leighton , Burne-Jones , Gérôme , and Alma-Tadema , and deciding with freedom of thought and an honest wish to find the truth, which of them indeed are works of art, and which are snake oil salesmen."
He continues…
And so I ended that letter.
The change in people's perceptions about this is happening now very quickly. Even this austere institution, probably the greatest museum in the Western Hemisphere, just a couple of summers ago had a major retrospective of one of these maligned 19th century masters, Edward Coley Burne-Jones.
And in their literature on the show declared him one of the three greatest English artists of the last century, along with Constable and Turner. In fact, the Metropolitan Museum deserves great credit for being one of the first great institutions to once again hang their Bouguereaus and Gérômes, Meissonnier and Burne-Jones, on permanent exhibit in the face of scathing criticism from the press back in 1980.
Soon after, Laurie followed this with a good-natured post saying that although she felt that I may have insulted her intelligence, she loved me all the same. To which I responded:
And …
Laurie,
It was not my wish to insult your intelligence. The very brightest of people are just as vulnerable. It is in human nature to go along to get along. I certainly did it too when I was in college and grad school in fine art. Even when I was finally willing to speak my mind about Pollock, de Kooning, Rothko and Warhol .... Picasso was somehow sacrosanct, and I would pay lip service to his brilliance while the works of the other modernists I allowed myself to see as they were.
It wasn't until I hit about 40 years old that I started to more fully recognize the power of prestige suggestion and social intimidation in forming opinions.
To truly judge your own feelings and opinion about a work of art, you need to look at it as if it were painted by a complete unknown, perhaps some student in another town, and then ask yourself what your opinion of that work would be then. Would you think it was one of the greatest works in the history of civilization, would it even be great ... or good ... or mediocre .... or just plain bad?
So true.
He continues further…
I know now absolutely that nearly all the works by most of the famous Modernists are truly awful on all fronts.
I also know that the best works by Bouguereau and Waterhouse would thrill me to my bones even if they had been painted by complete unknowns. When I saw a Bouguereau for the first time, I had never heard of him, but my response was immediate unambiguous and self-validating. I needed no books or texts or convoluted explanations. The strength of the work was powerful, unique, immediate and overwhelming.
It was exactly as I had felt in the presence of Michelangelo's David. Ah, but when I saw the David I was already predisposed to see what history considered one of humanity's greatest masterpieces. However, it was that seminal experience at 18 that excited my interest in art. The Bouguereau that I saw, Nymphs and Satyr, was when I was 32 years old, and it's effect was equally profound, changing the course of my life, ultimately leading me to this podium here today.
Don't let pride get involved here. Don't even answer me. Just ask yourselves and answer honestly.
One common claim that you hear repeatedly is that the proof that some abstract expressionists were great artists, can be found in their high quality academic student drawings. My answer to this is that it's really irrelevant whether or not they could do a decent student drawing. If anything it only makes it sadder that promising young talent was wasted. The quality and value of their "mature" work is not helped a bit by showing that they could draw decently when young.
The best way to prove that is to consider the inverse.
Would Raphael or Bouguereau's mature work be somehow made the worse if their student drawings from decades earlier had been of poor quality? Their great paintings would still be just as great, and de Kooning's hideous smears for which he is so famous are still just as awful.
I am quite certain that every artist in this audience paints better than all of the famous modernists and post modernists, and is more deserving of societal attention and praise. Yet still, so-called "major works" of theirs can sell for between 2 and 25,000,000 dollars at auction. The dirty little secret, however, that the modernist establishment and the press has been hiding, is that those same works sold for two to three times those prices back in 1988 and 1989. While the prices of all the icons of modernism peaked at that time, and any money invested then has declined a whopping 50 to 80%, the market for Gérôme , Waterhouse , Bouguereau , Alma-Tadema , Burne-Jones , Rossetti , Millais and Lord Leighton , has increased between 2000 and 10,000 percent since 1975.
Every year, records are being broken again and again.
In 1977, the world record price for a Bouguereau was $17,000. Now, in the past 3 years, the world records for his work first topped a million dollars in 1997, then a million and a half in 1998, two and a half million in 1999, and last May, Charity sold for over $3,500,000. Additionally, last June the world record for any Victorian painting was completely trampled when Saint Cecilia, by John William Waterhouse, sold for just over $10,000,000 in London to Andrew Lloyd Weber.
There are only 826 Bouguereaus and about 465 Tademas in the world. Do you know how many Picassos there are? Can anybody here guess? There are 80,000 of them, and the balance between supply and demand has faltered, and like the dot com stocks of last year they will soon come crashing down along with hundreds of billions of paper profits lost in the dust of history. Like the tulip bulbs in the 17th century, or Tokyo Real estate in the 1980's, investors will be decimated. If I owned a work by any of those "Abstract artists" I would be racing to cash it in before the fall, and that has been my recommendation to dozens who have asked me.
Many of my friends in and out of ARC have told me that I shouldn't talk so much about the modernists. One of them recently wrote to me saying, "I really don't think we help our cause by helping talentless modernists get press coverage." Another fearfully said, "Don't criticize the modernists, just focus on what's good."
I replied as follows:
His reply…
When have the modernists ever held back from criticizing traditional and academic art? The problem with this attitude, while I also find it very appealing, is that our not talking about the modernists doesn't really mean much.
The fact is that they are being talked about with high praise, in nearly every university art department and art history course in the western world ... parroting the same things that they were taught. They are also being constantly celebrated and exhibited by the biggest and most prestigious museums and getting rave reviews in the newspapers as often as not.
If somebody doesn't explain to everybody why they're not really any good, and why they're not really even artists, and how the whole thing is a hoax, then they will continue their propaganda and continue brainwashing our children and intimidating them into feeling stupid if they don't go along to get along ... and they'll do it unopposed.
If we don't speak up and tell the world that the Emperor's naked, nobody else will. We may not want to talk about them, but we have to if we are going to have any chance of turning things around. We have to provide a theoretical and philosophical context for the feelings of the tens of millions of people out there who are disgusted and feel an aversion for Modernism ... but feel afraid to say so. They need to know that they are not alone and they need to have their feelings validated. And at the same time, we need to provide alternatives ... rich alternatives with great traditional art and with countless images of the greatest paintings in history.
So well put…
And now ladies and gentlemen ... artists ... portrait artists ... I come at this point ... to you. Who are you? Who do you think yourselves to be? Well let me tell you how I see you. You are beyond doubt, the true artistic heroes and heroines of the 20th century.
Many of you know that I am the chairman of the Art Renewal Center, which you can find at http://www.artrenewal.org. The Art Renewal Center is building the largest on-line museum on the internet, and is completely devoted to the return of standards, training and human themes and subjects in the visual arts. Modern Art is about expanding the definition of art.
They believe that "everything is art", or, "Whatever the artist says is art, is art."
Well, if everything is art, then nothing is art.
Any definition that includes everything is not a definition at all. As I said, Modern art is "art about art", while all the great art and literature and theatre throughout history is "Art about life."
I wrote about all of you, and your teachers, in the published Philosophy of the Art Renewal Center. Here's what I said:
Against all odds, and in the face of the worst kind of ridicule and personal and editorial assault, only a small handful of well-trained artists managed to stay true to their beliefs. Then, like the heroes and heroines who protected a few rare manuscripts during inquisitional book-burnings of the past, these 20th Century art world heroes managed to protect and preserve the core technical knowledge of western art. Somehow, they succeeded in training a few dozen determined disciples. Today, many of those former students, have established their own schools or ateliers, and are currently training many hundreds more. This movement is now expanding exponentially. They are regaining the traditions of the past, so that art may once again move forward on a solid footing. We are committed in every way possible to record, preserve and perpetuate this priceless knowledge.
That's who you are. So if some of you are having trouble selling your work, or haven't been able to command the prices you deserve ... if you feel infuriated at piles of bricks and elephant dung filling museum galleries, while you can only pay to have space allotted to you for an evening in a great museum like this ... don't despair.
Your time is coming. You have done humanity a service of such magnitude, that sadly you will never be properly repaid. Keep painting your great portraits, and when you can find the time, paint what your heart tells you to paint, too.
The modern world is a boiling cauldron of all sorts of great and absurd ideas, feelings, pathos, pathologies, psycho pathologies, humiliation, and dehumanizing ideas ... and yet ... yet even beauty, too, is still here amongst us, here in this hall and throughout the world, and her manifestations in modern times have been insufficiently expressed. So, find her in your homes, find her in the streets, find her in your communities and in nature, and especially, find her in each other ... and save her ... save her ... protect and cherish her ... and exalt her back to her rightful place ... a place of supreme prominence, and bring her back into these our greatest institutions and our highest citadels of society and culture.
Thank you.
So inspiring.
Here’s one of my lost paintings. Destroyed by the “new” America that exists for the few; the oligarchy that controls all.
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Psychopathic systems do not lend longevity to society. Instead they offer a means of destruction.
I aruge that the oligarchy can only continue upon this path that they tred upon by converting everyone to adopt their methodology, or to convert everyone into mindless, emotionless followers.
How about other examples…
"In retrospect, this seems a horrific thing to have done."
Ya. Think?
There are so many examples of great works of art that used to be owned by museums for public enjoyment, but that have been sold off to private collectors. And while some have been repurchased by other museums and are now available for viewing, the battle to obtain these “lost works” was contentious in many cases. We are , and should consider ourselves, to be lucky. Lucky that the oligarchy has allowed us to be able to view these works on the internet. Lucky to be able to recognize that they existed and still exist, and lucky that they were not burned in bonfires of progressive revisionism and fashion.
Examples of artworks that have been sold off…
Let’s look at just some of the art; the paintings that the museums around the world has sold off for the price of a cup of coffee…
And…
And…
Draper's vision of Icarus, crashed and dead on the rocks, stays true to the myth and yet has a drama to it that is definitely the making of a more contemporary mind. Nearly 50% of the canvas is covered by the image of Icarus' gigantic, broken, dark wings. The wings are so huge they are cut off at the top left of the canvas and at the middle right.
This makes the image seem even larger than life. It is as if we look through a window that is not large enough to hold the view. It is possible that the advent of the camera influenced the artist's eye in choosing this unusual perspective.
But the impact is successful, dramatic and highly emotional because of the skill in which the wings are painted.
They are so huge, in fact, that they make shadows on much of what remains of the canvas. They are so immense and yet they have failed poor Icarus so completely.
Icarus lies dead; a darkening figure still strapped to the useless wings, as a sorrowful and sensual nymph pulls his upper torso gentle towards her. Two other nymphs look on woefully. The canvas creates a heart breaking darkness with small splashes of gold light falling on the nymphs and the far rock wall. The golden light is reminiscent of the hope for freedom that Dadelus had once had for his son Icarus.
All life, beautiful or not, comes to an end, and all our grand strivings lead us to the same end. The power in this work of art is the sense of loss it projects. If you read the text in the catalogue, it mentions other layers of possible meaning. Simon Toll makes note that Draper's father died shortly before this painting was executed and he suggests that this painting "may also be a private statement of loss." The text also suggests that the painting may be a tribute to the artist Leighton, who died two years earlier.
-ARC
And…
Examples of “art” that have been purchased by museums afterwards…
Let’s have a look at the kinds of art that the museums (all over the world) purchased once they discarded the “old” and “outmoded” art…
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Would you believe that this ridiculous-looking canvas was sold for $3.8 million? This abstract painting, which is comprised of two straight lines, was created in 1954. Barnett is an American artist who is a strong follower of abstract expressionism.
Abstract Expressionism, broad movement in American painting that became a dominant trend in Western painting during the 1950s. The movement comprised many styles varying in both technique and quality of expression. Artists include Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler.
-Abstract Expressionism | Definition
This painting, which follows the color field painting style, is one of the few pieces that he has created during his lifetime. Barnett is considered the greatest color field painters of his time. That is the reason why this expensive painting is very popular now.
Or how about a museum considering this to be a worthwhile addition…
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This is one of the most basic paintings to date but don’t let its simplicity fool you. It was sold for a whopping $75.1 million during a Sotheby’s auction in November of 2012.
The painter, Mark Rothko, is a known abstract expressionist.
This painting date back 1954 and basically has three blocks of color – and that’s it. Rothko is an American painter with Russian and Jewish Roots. He is known for the color field method style of painting which was popular in New York during the 50’s.
Summary of Color Field Painting
Color Field Painting is a tendency within Abstract Expressionism, distinct from gestural abstraction, or Action Painting. It was pioneered in the late 1940s by Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Clyfford Still, who were all independently searching for a style of abstraction that might provide a modern, mythic art and express a yearning for transcendence and the infinite.
To achieve this they abandoned all suggestions of figuration and instead exploited the expressive power of color by deploying it in large fields that might envelope the viewer when seen at close quarters. Their work inspired much Post-painterly abstraction, particularly that of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski, though for later color field painters, matters of form tended to be more important than mythic content.
-The Art Story
The idea is to paint the canvas with large blocks of solid colors giving off an impression of an uneven surface and a flat plane. This painting pretty much depicts that, although very simplistic that you can imagine a toddler painting this art piece, it has a surprisingly outrageous value.
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To a lot of people, this can be viewed as a real abstract painting with a lot of character in it. There is no doubt about it- but to be valued at $300 million sparks a different kind of conversation.
As with all abstract art, most people can claim they can paint something similar, but in fact, there is more to this painting that meets the eye.
William de Kooning is a New York painter, but is originally from Netherlands. This artwork is an example of ‘action painting’ which is a technique where the artist spontaneously splash paint on canvas versus the traditional painting style that is meticulous and takes time to complete.
Action painting, direct, instinctual, and highly dynamic kind of art that involves the spontaneous application of vigorous, sweeping brushstrokes and the chance effects of dripping and spilling paint onto the canvas. The term was coined by the American art critic Harold Rosenberg to characterize the work of a group of American Abstract Expressionists who utilized the method from about 1950.
-Action painting | art | Britannica
It is somehow a form of physical art.
This technique is made popular during the 40’s to 60’s and has coined the concept of abstract expressionism. This painting was made in 1955 and is now housed in the private collection of Kenneth C. Griffin.
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This is one of the most boring paintings that you will ever see but you will be surprised to know that this blue colored canvas sold for over $43 million in 2013. It is one of the works of Barnett Newman, a known abstract expressionist. He has done a number of similar paintings such as this and has an entire “Onement” collection, which is basically composed of one dominant color and a division (what he calls a ‘zip’) right smacked in the middle. The zip is used to define the space of his paintings. This New York artist was born in 1905 and has made a following because of his color field art.
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If you don’t know better, you might mistake this for a preschooler’s art project. This is actually a painting from the famed painter Paul Klee. It starts off with an odd old maroon color with asymmetrical and disorganized images of triangles and squares, and oh yes, an odd orange circle in off center. One can maybe make this out as a series of houses or even a castle- but, hey, what do we know. Paul Klee is a Swiss-German painter born in 1879. Most of his works are now housed in varied museums all over the globe.
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If you hear the word ‘painting’ you might be imagining something with a lot of imagination, color gradients and creative imagery. This painting from Kazimir Malevich is far from being complicated or deep but it is one of the most significant work of art to date.
Malevich is actually the pioneer of geometric abstraction- that is pretty obvious with his love of squares and rectangles.
Geometric abstraction, through the Cubist process of purifying art of the vestiges of visual reality, focused on the inherent two-dimensional features of painting. This process of evolving a purely pictorial reality built of elemental geometric forms assumed different stylistic expressions in various European countries and in Russia.
-Geometric Abstraction | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of ...
This artwork was sold in Sotheby’s auction for a staggering $60 million and is the most expensive piece of Russian artwork of all time.
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To the naked eye, this painting may simply look like a piece of stringy lines splashed around using a yarn, just like those kindergarten art projects kids use to make. This is an artwork done by Jackson Pollock in the year 1948. It is quite a large piece of artwork measuring 8 ft by 4 ft. He is a known abstract expressionist.
This painting in fibreboard uses brown, yellow, white and grey paint. It is often tagged as a dense bird’s nest because of the way the strips of paint overlap each other. This artwork was reported to be sold for over $140 million to a private collector.
This oil painting was done in oil on linen and is now housed at the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. As you would have realized by now, the painting is a mere black square. But there is a lot of philosophy and history behind this seemingly plain and dull painting. This piece is dubbed as the ‘zero point of painting’ and a combination of various art methods including futurism and constructivism. This is one of the prime works of Kazimir Malevich, who is the leader in Russian avant-garde art and has several pieces of similar works under this collection. He described this artwork as ‘liberated nothing’.
Conclusion(s)
One afternoon I toured an art museum while waiting for my husband to finish a business meeting.I was looking forward to a quiet view of the art works.
A young couple viewing the paintings ahead of me chatted nonstop between themselves.I watched them a moment and decided the wife was doing all the talk.I admired the husband's patience for putting up with her continuous talk.Distracted by their noise,I moved on.
I met with them several times as I moved through the different rooms of art.Each time I heard her constant burst of words,I moved away quickly.
I was standing at the counter of the museum gift shop making a purchase when the couple came near to the exit.Before they left,the man reached into his pocket and pulled out a white object.He extended it into a long stick and then tapped his way into the coatroom to get his wife's jacket.
"He's a brave man."The clerk at the counter said,"Most of us would give up if wewere blinded at such a young age.During his recovery he made a promise that his life wouldn't change.So ,as before,he and his wife come in whenever there's a new art show."
"But what dose he get out of the art?"I asked,"He can't see."
"Can't see?You're wrong.He sees a lot.More than you or I do."The clerk said,"His wife describes each painting so he can see it in his head."
I learned something about patience,courage and love that day.I saw the patience of a young wife describing paintings to a person without sight and the courage of a husband who would not allow blindness to change his life.And I saw the love shared by two people as I watched this couple walk away hand in hand.
-MoFanGe
If you were in the role of the wife (as described above – explaining each painting to her husband), how would you go about describing the more traditional artworks that the museums have sold off? How long would each painting take to describe?
Likewise, how would you describe the new progressive artworks? How long do you think it would take to describe them?
Perhaps this simple measurement, this idea in how to describe the impressions of art that is presented to you, is an element of it’s value and worth. Not that of the amount of currency that is used to purchase it, but rather the emotions and feelings that are generated upon viewing it.
I have argued HERE that the oligarchy is populated with psychopathic individuals that not only are unable to emote, but are unable to feel or express real emotions. Instead they only mimic actions and facial expressions to manipulat others to follow and believe them. As such, these psychopathic individuals see no value in art. Their only value is how they can be used as an element in financial exchange and commerce.
And thus, the study of art, is the study of the oligarchy that rules us.
The oligarchy that rules 99.9% of humans have evolved into a new KIND of human.
They are in possession of a service-for-self sentience, and are extremely good at manipulation, creation and generation of money and currency, as well as the accusition of power as well as the control over others. They are weak in the ability to express emotions and cannot emote. Medically they are known as psychopathic personalities and a healthy society cannot afford to have individuals of this disposition near any positions of power.
As they see no value in the art like “normal” people, they have subverted the institutions that they control; the libraries, the museums, and the art world into something that they understand. They understand money and using objects as trade mediums. They do not conderstand or emote the value of art.
And finally…
This movement towards progressive revisionism can only originate from those that are unable to understand art. They have no idea or concept of evoked emotion via visual stimulation. It is alien to them. They couldn’t understand it in any of it’s myrid forms. Thus…
Indeed, thus…
The entire progressive revisionism movement from art, to culture to society is driven from the oligarchy downward. It is their efforts to redraw the world into a “utopia” that they can understand and embrace.
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There is very little information about French artist Henri-Paul Motte (1846 – 1922) online. Motte studied under Jean-Léon Gérôme and was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salon.
I love his work, and I consider it very curious and interesting. However when I point it out to some of the younger folk today they just shrug their shoulders and say that Instagram has better photos, and that painting and art is too “rigid” and not suitable for their tastes.
They explain that representative art is just an old style of photography from before the time of the invention of the camera. Since the camera is “better” at recording images, that art need not be true to form, but can be free-form and shapeless.
I disagree.
I guess that I am just an old codger. I guess.
Here’s some great examples of Motte’s work. To fully appreciate what is going on, you do need a few short history lessons. But, it’s all fun and very interesting. I’ll tell you what.
The Fiancée of Belus
I’ve always loved this painting. It’s rather fantastic, and unlikely to be historically accurate, but never the less, it’s beautiful.
For the Tyrian king in Roman mythology, see Belus (Tyrian). Belus was the son of Poseidon and Libya; a descendant of the river god Inachus and nymph Melia. His brother was King Agenor of Phoenicia and he was married to Achiroe, the daughter of the river god Chremetes. Achiroe's sister Telephassa, was married to Agenor.
-Belus | Mythology wiki
The painting is concerned with a major player of the “Thirty Years War”.
Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu (September 9, 1585 – December 4, 1642), was a French clergyman, noble, and statesman. He was consecrated as a bishop in 1607, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Church and the state, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Jules Cardinal Mazarin.
The Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the King's "Chief Minister." He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-SpanishHabsburg dynasty. Although he was a Roman Catholic cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve this goal. His tenure was marked by the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe.
-Cardinal Richelieu - New World Encyclopedia
Well, when Roman armies set about the conquest of Iron Age Britain in AD 43, they later attacked Anglesey under the command of Suetonius Paullinus. The Romans’ Celtic enemies appeared at the shore, among them women in black with torches aflame, resembling mythical Furies.
Suetonius – ultimately victorious – took care to demolish his opponents’ sacred altars, which were stained with the blood of sacrificed humans.
The ones apparently responsible for this were the Druids, the educated ‘upper’ class who supposedly officiated as magician-priests, even lawmakers, and who shielded the mysteries of Celtic religious beliefs.
Julius Caesar – in his Gallic Wars – also mentions human sacrifice among the Celtic upper echelons, with their victims immolated in a huge pyre. (The inspiration for the 1973 pagan horror movie, The Wicker Man.)
Ancient historian Diodorus Siculus mentioned that one of the Druids’ methods of divining the future was to stab a man in the chest, then observe how he moved in his death throes. So could these elite, educated men also be the barbarians committing human sacrifice?
For that matter, how much do we really know about the Druids, anyway?
Some authorities say we know next to nothing, and not even the accounts of ancient historians are to be relied upon. One of them is Professor Ronald Hutton – and I agree (the reasons are given below.)
‘In 1984, peat-cutters at Lindow Moss in Cheshire found a well-preserved body which was eventually dated to the first century AD.
‘Lindow Man’ … appeared to have undergone a ritual killing, and his stomach contents included grains of mistletoe pollen.
Proof at last, it was said, that the Greeks and Romans were right: Druidic sacrifice was a grisly business, involving both mistletoe and blood. But when Ronald Hutton discusses this evidence, he shows that not a single detail can be relied on.
The pollen consisted of four grains – a literally microscopic quantity, which might have just blown on to the man’s lunch.
What looked like garroting might have been just the effects of a corroded necklace, and the gash to the man’s jugular could have been caused by peat-cutting equipment.
As for the Greek and Roman authors, few had any first-hand knowledge of Druids in either Gaul or Britain; and the one who was best placed to gain it, Julius Caesar, seems to have copied his information about Druids out of somebody else’s writings instead.’
Despite (or because) of our lack of inner knowledge of the Druids, they have fascinated commentators for generations. This is especially true for modern neo-pagans, drawn to their veneer of secrecy and their mystique as guardians of unfathomable, arcane wisdom.
But there are no texts recording their own beliefs, no contemporary origin stories, as with Christianity – there is no ancient Celtic Bible!
Accordingly, the word ‘Druid’ is not Celtic but a conflation of the Greek word drus (oak tree or oak wood) and the Indo-European infinitive wid (‘to know’). Thus, a Druid is, metaphorically, ‘one who knows the oak’.
Oak trees have a special totemic power and sanctity in Celtic tradition.
It was the Druids’ task to interpret the handiwork of the gods in all its forms, and with its long age and great size, the oak represents everything that speaks of life, that has strength, that endures, that appears immortal, even.
The Druids and the Mistletoe
This brings us to that fabled object of ritual desire, the mistletoe. In fact, we’re about to open the door to a treasure trove of magical symbolism. Here is what the Roman historian Pliny (c. AD 77) had to say about the Druids:
‘The Druids—for that is the name they give to their magicians held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, supposing always that tree to be the robur [Latin for oak]…
In fact, it is the notion with them that everything that grows on it has been sent immediately from heaven, and that the mistletoe upon it is a proof that the tree has been selected by God himself as an object of his especial favor.
The mistletoe, however, is but rarely found upon the robur; and when found, is gathered with rites replete with religious awe …
Having made due preparation for the sacrifice and a banquet beneath the trees, they bring thither two white bulls, the horns of which are bound then for, the first time.
Clad in a white robe the priest ascends the tree, and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle, which is received by others in a white cloak.
They then immolate the victims …
It is the belief with them that the mistletoe, taken in drink, will impart fecundity to all animals that are barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons.’
We’ll soon see how fanciful this is, but apparently, in the ancient Druid tongue, the word for mistletoe translated as ‘all-healing’, and the parasite mistletoe is indeed said to be used in early medicine. (Even in the 20th century it was thought to be able to cure epilepsy.)
And yet, the plant is also known to be toxic, and one wonders how safely it was used.
The Geese of the Capital
Rome is often viewed in a few set periods. The Fledgling founding by Romulus, the Punic Wars, the Civil wars and Empire, and finally the fall. Once Rome grew to cover most of Italy they it exploded into the Mediterranean, scooping up new territory with almost every war, but the struggle for Italy was a long and taxing period for Rome.
They fought many fierce enemies near and far and in wars lasting generations. The great siege of Veii was a monumental undertaking of a strong rival city only ten miles away, and that took approximately ten years to complete.
When hordes of Celts came rampaging through Italy, the Romans were simply not prepared for the new and fearsome enemies from outside their familiar Italy.
The Celtic expansions of the 6th-3rd centuries BCE caused a lot of early commotion throughout Europe. It would bring about the growth of a Celtiberian realm in Spain, and the Celts traveled so far that they formed their own state in the middle of modern Turkey. A group of Celts known as the Senone was led through Italy by their commander, Brennus.
The Senone Gauls were threatening the nearby town of Clusium, when Roman Ambassadors from the Fabii family were sent to negotiate peace for Clusium. The Romans were notoriously aggressive, and so it is only a little surprising that when a scuffle broke out between the Gauls and Clusians, the Fabii joined in and actually killed a Senone chieftain.
The Roman people voted to decide the fate of those who broke the sacred conduct of ambassadors, but the Fabii were so popular that they were instead voted to some of the highest positions in Rome. This absolutely infuriated Brennus and his people and they abandoned everything and headed straight for Rome.
Rome was woefully unprepared for this sudden attack.
The Gauls had marched with purpose, declaring to all the towns they passed that they would not harm them, they were heading straight for Rome. The numbers are heavily disputed for this battle with figures ranging from 9,000 to 40,0000 for either side. It seems likely that each side had about 12-15,000 men, but the Gauls had hardened veterans and the Romans mostly raw recruits. The Romans had also earlier exiled a celebrated commander Camillus on corruption charges.
The battle for the defense of Rome was fought near the Tiber and Allia rivers. The Gauls seemed to have a slight numbers advantage and the Romans, under command of one or a group of Tribunes, decided to put a reserve force on a nearby hill. The hope was to counter-flank the Gauls if the broke through the Roman center or enveloped the wings.
Brennus saw through this and decided to send a force straight at the Roman hilltop reserves.
The surprised Romans soon fled. The rest of the battle was an utter disaster for the Romans, likely fearing this new and significantly larger enemy. Many Romans scattered to the recently conquered Veii and many others went to Rome. Many drowned trying to cross the river while still wearing armor.
The Gauls were astonished by how easy their victory was.
Rome only had control of a few dozen miles around their city but had built up a powerful reputation throughout Italy. It took only a day for the Gauls to reach Rome, and again they were surprised by how lightly defended it seemed to be.
The light defense was due to the sheer panic following the battle, only a small portion of the survivors were able to make it back to Rome. People fled to nearby cities or the country, many of the priests and priestesses took their religious artifacts out of the city. Those who stayed mostly fortified the steep Capitoline Hill, though some of the nobles and elderly decided to defend their homes.
When the Gauls stormed the walls they killed these lingering men and rampaged through the city. They soon realized that the bulk of the remaining inhabitants were entrenched in the tall Capitoline hill and promptly attacked, full of confidence from their earlier victories. For the first time, the Romans effectively fought back, easily holding the high ground.
The assault a disaster, Brennus decided to simply lay siege to the hill and sent his men out to forage supplies.
Here they came to blows with the exiled Camillus, who organized a resistance from a nearby town. Back in Veii the disgraced Roman survivors fought back against some Etruscan Raiders hoping to take advantage of the defeat. The Romans in Veii marshaled under the command of Quintus Caedicius, a respected Centurion.
Caedicius saw that hope rested with Camillus commanding the counter attack.
It is from here on that some truly unbelievable, almost humorous events ensued. To get permission for the exiled Camillus to lead, Caedicius had to get approval from the senate on the besieged Capitoline. A messenger snuck through the Gallic camp and scaled the unguarded cliff side of the hill to deliver the message. It was quickly decided to restore Camillus to his command and to give him dictatorial powers and then the messenger snuck his way out again.
Though official word was received the attempt greatly risked the lives of all who resided on the Capitoline for the Senone scouts discovered the messenger’s footprints and figured out that there was a way to scale the cliffs. They choose a night with a full moon and sent their bravest warriors up the cliff. The ascent was so skillful that neither the Roman sentries nor their dogs noticed anything, but the Geese did.
The Geese were actually a sacred animal of Juno, kept and fed on the Capitoline despite the dwindling food. they began quacking and honking relentlessly and some of the sleeping Romans were awakened. The first to respond was a man named Manlius.
Manlius did not hesitate for a second and charged the few Gauls cresting the top of the cliff. He killed one and pushed another off the cliff with his shield.
Soon other Romans joined the fight and killed the remaining Gauls as they came up. Other Gauls still clinging to the rocks had little hope of survival as the Romans threw javelins and rocks at them until they fell to their death.
After this battle the Gauls themselves suffered some disease and food shortages, as they laid siege to the Romans. With both sides in a difficult position, negotiations were made to pay the Gauls to leave. As the humiliated Romans loaded gold onto the scales they noticed that the Gauls were rigging the weights to make the Romans pay more than agreed.
Brennus calmly threw his sword on with the Gallic weights and said the famous words “Vae victis” meaning “woe to the vanquished/conquered”, words that the Romans would take to heart. Successive generations would fight with great ferocity in order to never hear those words again.
“Vae victis” meaning “woe to the vanquished/conquered”
The sources are unclear, but it seems that before the transaction of gold was actually complete the Dictator Camillus appeared on the scene. As dictator, he declared the gold deal void and demanded that the Gauls leave immediately. Camillus told the Romans that they would win back their city through steel, not by gold.
The Gauls were furious by the retraction of the gold that they were so close to acquiring and marched out to attack Camillus’ newly formed army comprised of the survivors of the earlier battle at Allia and many new volunteers. The Romans under the skilled command of Camillus won an easy victory and attacked the retreating Gauls and completely sacked their camp and killed almost every Gaul.
The sources for this story are often not in agreement were written generations after the events. The Geese are a common theme and their saving of the Capitoline is just crazy enough to be plausible. Camillus’ timely intervention and complete defeat of Brennus’ army may have been added to make for a less humiliating story, though other humiliating aspects are left in the accounts.
The ambassadors flagrantly disregarding the peaceful role and killing Gauls is certainly embarrassing, despite how the men themselves were viewed by their fellow Romans.
The initial Roman defeat is never put in any sort of good light, it was a humiliating loss and represented that way. So the story could have occurred as written above through primarily Livy as a source. Other sources have the Gauls leaving with the gold and being defeated at a later date, but what we do know is that Rome was very nearly completely captured by a foreign foe, and miraculously saved by some spooked geese.
The siege of the Huguenot stronghold of La Rochelle by the forces of Louis XIII, 1627-9, was a huge operation that lasted for fifteen months. The king’s forces had to devise massive seaward barriers to prevent the English, who had occupied the fle de Re, from assisting their Huguenot allies. Three-quarters of the population died from starvation.
-Siege of La Rochelle | Weapons and Warfare
Hannibals crossing of the Rhone
At the beginning of the treacherous passage, Hannibal entered Gaul with 50,000 infantry and 9,000 cavalry. He then crossed the Rhone river with 38,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry. After crossing the Alps, Hannibal controlled 12,000 African and 8,000 Spanish infantry.
-Why did Hannibal cross the Alps ? | History Forum
Hannibal’s plan of persuading the Roman allies to join him required him to take the Second Punic War to Italy.
In order to do so, he had huge obstacles to overcome.
The feat alone of transporting an entire army of men and elephants to Italy is evidence of Hannibal’s military aptitude.
The first of these great obstacles came at the 800 yard wide Rhone River. To add to the difficulty of crossing such a body of water, the Volcae people, natives of the Rhone River, wished to stop him. They gathered all of their boats and moved to the far side of the river, intending to use it as a barrier and fight Hannibal while he was vulnerable in crossing.
The traditional military strategies of the time would have Hannibal to attempt to find another place to cross the river. Fortunately, Hannibal did not believe in following the traditional approach anymore than Caesar did. He came up with a new way to cross and thus once again proved himself to be a great innovator.
When he reached the river, Hannibal gathered what few boats he could find from the inhabitants who stayed in their homes.
The Gauls aided him by hollowing out the trunks of trees to make canoes and then taught his Spanish soldiers how to do so. The problem of how to cross sorted, Hannibal had to find a way to cross without being destroyed by the Volcae.
An army trying to cross a river cannot fight back, particularly when its enemy has arrows.
Hannibal selected Hanno from among his officers to lead a division of Spaniards and Gaul guides upriver to cross out of sight of the enemy.
After a day of marching, Hanno and his company found a shallow part of the river and easily crossed—many of the Spaniards swam with their shields on their backs while the others quickly made rafts for the horses. They proceeded to march uphill behind the Volcae and lit a fire.
When Hannibal saw the smoke of Hanno’s fire, he ordered his men to begin crossing the river.
The Volcae were so focused on Hannibal’s army crossing that they did not know Hanno approached from behind. Hanno easily took their camp as they started to fight Hannibal. When the Volcae became aware of the ambush, they realized they were surrounded and fled.
Hannibal specialized in preparing for battles, setting the field up so he could surround or ambush superior forces. Few would have thought to send a small group of men on a three day detour to fight a force on the other side of the river, yet a head-on attack would surely have spelled doom for Hannibal.
The surrounding of the Volcae was not Hannibal’s only innovation at the Rhone, however. He was also very creative in how he actually crossed the river. He had a long line of boats moored upstream completely covering the width of the river so that the lighter vessels could be rowed on the side sheltered from the wind and current (Dodge 181). This enabled his men, largely inexperienced at sailing, to cross calm water easily. Most of his horses swam but several were taken over barges fully tacked up so they would be ready for battle on the moment of crossing.
The elephants proved to be the greatest challenge for crossing the Rhone.
As Hannibal’s elephants were bred in captivity, they never learned to swim, making it difficult to convince them to cross a river.
Two theories are held about how he got the elephants across. The first, and most simple, follows the principle of herd mentality. The driver of the dominant female elephant teased her until she chased him into the river. The rest of the elephants, as herd animals, then followed her into the river and across.
The second, longer theory, if true, demonstrates more great innovations of Hannibal. He had two 200’X50’ rafts made and covered with dirt so they looked like ground. The first raft was moored to the side and would not move while the second lay loose just beyond. The elephants were coaxed onto the first, then second raft and on that moved to the other side. According to Livy, who is the source of this theory, many got scared and jumped off the rafts and swam the rest of the way ashore.
Both theories are evidence of the original thinking of Hannibal and his ability to overcome all adversities.
The Trojan Horse
The Trojan Horse is a story from the Trojan War about the subterfuge that the Greeks used to enter the independent city of Troy and win the war.
In the canonical version, after a fruitless 10-year siege, the Greeks constructed a huge wooden horse and hid a select force of men inside, including Odysseus.
The Greeks pretended to sail away, and the Trojans pulled the horse into their city as a victory trophy. That night the Greek force crept out of the horse and opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army, which had sailed back under cover of night.
The Greeks entered and destroyed the city of Troy, ending the war.
-Wikipedia
Trojan horse, huge hollow wooden horse constructed by the Greeks to gain entrance into Troy during the Trojan War. The horse was built by Epeius, a master carpenter and pugilist.
The Greeks, pretending to desert the war, sailed to the nearby island of Tenedos, leaving behind Sinon, who persuaded the Trojans that the horse was an offering to Athena (goddess of war) that would make Troy impregnable.
Despite the warnings of Laocoön and Cassandra, the horse was taken inside the city gates.
That night Greek warriors emerged from it and opened the gates to let in the returned Greek army.
The story is told at length in Book II of the Aeneid and is touched upon in the Odyssey.
The Mirage
Mirage
An optical illusion caused by atmospheric conditions, especially the appearance of a sheet of water in a desert or on a hot road caused by the refraction of light from the sky by heated air.
Vercingetorix Before Caesar
The Gallic chief Vercingetorix (72-46 BC) surrendering to the Roman chief Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) after the battle of Alesia in 52 BC. Painting by Henri Motte (1846-1922) 1886. Crozatier Museum, Le Puy en Velay, France.
He we look at Caesar, bored, looking at the caged captives. As he decides on what to do with them.
Napoleon in Front of the Throne
In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte, a general in the army, was named first consul of the French Republic. But Napoleon’s ambitions were too large for the role. At the end of 1804, he crowned himself Emperor of the French in an elaborate, highly planned ceremony. By that time, he had brought much of continental Europe under French control.
Another painting that aptly describes how the geese saved Rome.
All that we have of this image is a blurry black and white photograph of it. As the original, I believe, has long been destroyed and is now obliterated from viewing.
Die Gartenlaube (the Garden Arbor)
I’m not quite sure what this painting represents. But in full color and in it’s magnificent size, it must have been spectacular. I am sure that it resided over a mantle within one of the great homes in Europe.
Unfortunately all that remains of this work is this black and white poor photograph of it. We can well imagine that it was destroyed during one of the great wars of Europe. And all we can have is the pale copy of a blurry photograph.
Die Gartenlaube
This work of art is probably a black and white photograph of a work that has become lost, misplaced, or damaged over the years. We should consider ourselves fortunate to have the photograph, even though the original would have been magnificently colorful.
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Lord Frederick Leighton was an amazing painter from the days of true classic art. He painted a total of 518 artworks. All told, he is considered to be “English Aesthetic, New Sculpture (19th Century British), Olympian Classical Revivalist painter, sculptor, illustrator and writer”. He was Born in 1830 and Died in 1896. He was only 66 years old.
You can see all of his works at the Art Renewal Center here.
Pay attention to the kind and amazing details in this remarkable piece of work. It’s art like this that puts a smile on my face. And that is the truth. First, here is the painting. It’s hard to appreciate all the work and beauty that went into it…
It’s a pretty amazing painting.
Please check out the details up close to really appreciate the art, and the form…
Elijah (ēlī`jə) or Elias (ēlī`əs) [both: Heb.,=Yahweh is God], fl. c.875 B.C., Hebrew prophet in the reign of King Ahab.
He is one of the outstanding figures of the Bible. Elijah's mission was to destroy the worship of foreign gods and to restore exclusive loyalty to God. His zeal brought about a temporary banishment of idolatry (see Jezebel).
Incidents in his life include his raising the widow's son from the dead; his contest of faith with the priests of Baal, resulting in his triumph and their death; his being fed by ravens; his experience of the still, small voice on Mt. Horeb (Sinai); and his departure from earth in a chariot of fire enveloped in a whirlwind. His disciple was Elisha.
Unlike other great prophets, Elijah and Elisha left no written records. In Jewish tradition, Elijah is the eschatological herald of the Messiah. John the Baptist and Jesus were asked if they were the incarnation of Elijah, who appeared at the Transfiguration. The prophet is prominent in the Qur'an. Mendelssohn composed an oratorio, Elijah.
-The Free Dictionary
Translated from Hebrew, the name Elijah means “My God.” The prophet was a devoted follower of the Christian religion in Israel. Using his preaches and working miracles, he faithfully fought for the elimination of idolatry and disgrace. In different religions, including Christianity and Judaism, it is believed that Elijah was taken to Heaven alive, conquering death.
The saint was among the first religious figures worshiped by Orthodox Christians in Russia. A few churches were built to honor his life path. Believers continue to regard Elijah as one of the most revered Biblical personalities.
Many religious people consider the “Elijah in the Wilderness” icon their most beloved miraculous painting.
Poet and politician Dante Alighieri is exiled from Florence, where he served as one of six priors governing the city.
Normally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about politicians. But this fellow was a writer and a poet, and this guy was chased out of his home and “on the lam” while being hunted down by the rival political forces of the day.
And this painting is beautiful.
He wasn’t virginal. He did bad things too.
Dante’s political activities, including the banishing of several rivals, led to his own banishment. It was during this banishment that he wrote his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, as a virtual wanderer, seeking protection for his family in town after town.
You might think of him as a “blue blood”; a member of the “elite”.
Dante was born to a family with noble ancestry that had fallen in fortunes.
He began writing poetry in his teens and received encouragement from established poets, to whom he sent sonnets as a young man.
He had fallen in love with another fine young lass, and the combination of poetry and love, infatuated forbidden love is a story in itself.
At the young age of nine, Dante first caught a glimpse of Beatrice Portinari, also nine, who would symbolize for him perfect female beauty and spiritual goodness in the coming decades. Despite his fervent devotion to Portinari, who did not seem to return his feelings, Dante became engaged to Gemma Donati in 1277, but the two did not marry until eight years later.
The couple had six sons and a daughter. I am sure that it was a lively household. Six boys! Lord have mercy!
He made his money from his poetry…
About 1293, Dante published a book of prose and poetry called The New Life, followed a few years later by another collection, The Banquet. It wasn’t until his banishment that he began work on his Divine Comedy.
In the poem’s first book, the poet takes a tour through Hell with the poet Virgil as a guide.
Virgil also guides the poet through Purgatory in the second book. The poet’s guide in Paradise, however, is named Beatrice.
The work was written and published in sections between 1308 and 1321. Although Dante called the work simply Comedy, the work became enormously popular, and a deluxe version published in 1555 in Venice bore the title The Divine Comedy.
Another beautiful painting. I particularly love the tender embrace with the hands, and the way the two lovers cheeks press together. From a fellow painters point of view, I am really impressed with the details on the dress and the clothing folds. Just look at it all. Impressive!
Take a look at the vase of flowers. What detail and what perfect shading. Look at the tapestry of a crane behind the mother, and the details on her hands. The folds in both of the dress are exquisite. This is a marvelous work. It is stunning and just wonderful.
Greek history can be very interesting, as long as you can adjust to the names, and the cultural differences. Here is a great write up about the story of Alcestis and our Hero Hercules…
For the ancient Greeks, the quality of arete (personal excellence) and the concept of eusebia (social duty) were most important.
Aristotle discusses both of these at length in his Nichomachean Ethics and relates arete to eudaimonia – translated as “happiness” but actually meaning “to be possessed of a good spirit”.
To have arete, Aristotle claims, one must associate oneself with those striving for the same goal.
I really can agree with that. Can't you?
If one wanted to become an excellent musician, one should associate oneself with excellent musicians and the same if one wished to be a star athlete or carpenter or doctor.
The Greek concept of eusebia is often translated into English as “piety” (as, for example, in Plato’s dialogue of the Euthyphro), but the concept is actually much closer to “duty”, particularly social duty.
Eusebia dictated how one interacted with one’s husband, wife, parents, servants, and those of higher and lower classes. Eusebia also touched on how one understood the gods (though not on how one interacted with the gods, which would be the concept of housia, much closer to “piety”).
The gods, and especially the all-powerful Fates, controlled and directed the lives of human beings and one needed to accept that fact and live one’s life accordingly. If one suffered some tragic loss or financial set-back, it was the will of the gods, or the Fates whom not even the gods could sway, and by accepting this as the order of the universe, one could better accept such loss.
The stories the Greeks told – which today are referred to as their myths – played a part in understanding arete and eusebia in that they illustrated for the listeners these virtues of Greek civilization.
In hearing how heroes and kings and even gods behaved, one was provided with a model for one’s own behavior. Among the many myths the Greeks told, one that exemplifies the virtues of personal excellence and social duty is the story of Hercules and the Queen Alcestis. There are two versions of the myth, one in which Hercules plays no part at all, but thanks to the playwright Euripides (480-406 BCE), and his play Alcestis, the version featuring Hercules is the better known.
The Story of Alcestis & Admetus
Both versions begin the same way and emphasize the importance of loyalty, love, and kindness in informing one’s social duty.
Once upon a time, as the story goes, there lived a gentle king named Admetus who ruled over a small kingdom in Thessaly. He knew each of his subjects by name and so, one night when a stranger appeared at his door begging for food, he knew the man must be from a foreign land but welcomed him into his home anyway.
He fed and clothed the stranger and asked him his name but the man would give no answer other than to ask Admetus if he could be the king’s slave. Admetus had no need for another slave but, recognizing the man was in distress, took him on as shepherd for his flocks.
Apollo thanked Admetus for his kindness and offered him any gift he desired.
The stranger stayed with Admetus for a year and a day and then revealed himself as the god Apollo. He had been sent to earth by Zeus as punishment and could not return to the realm of the gods until he had served a mortal as a slave for a year.
Apollo thanked Admetus for his kindness and offered him any gift he desired; but Admetus said he had all he needed and required nothing for what he had done. Apollo told him he would return to help him whenever he needed anything in the future and then vanished.
Not long after this, Admetus fell in love with the princess Alcestis of the neighboring city of Iolcus. Alcestis was kind and beautiful and had many suitors but only wanted to marry Admetus.
Her father Pelias, however, refused Admetus’ request for her hand and stipulated that the only way he would give his daughter to him would be if he rode into the city in a chariot pulled by a lion and a wild boar. Admetus was despondent over this situation until he remembered the promise of Apollo.
He called on the god who appeared, wrestled a lion and a boar into submission, and yoked them to a golden chariot. Admetus then drove the chariot to Iolcus and Pelias had no choice but to give him Alcestis in marriage.
Apollo was among the wedding guests and gave Admetus an unusual gift: a kind of immortality. Apollo told them how he made a deal with the Fates who governed all so that, if ever Admetus became sick to the point of death, he might be well again if someone else would volunteer to die in his place.
The couple lived happily together for many years and their court was famous for their lavish parties but then, one day, Admetus fell ill and the doctors said he would not recover. The people of his court remembered the gift of Apollo and each felt that someone should give their life to save so kind and good a king; but no one wanted to do so themselves. Admetus’ parents were old and so it was thought that one of them would volunteer but, even though they had only a short time left on the earth, they refused to surrender it. None of the court, nor any of Admetus’ family, nor any of his subjects would take the king’s place on his death bed – but Alcestis did.
At this point the two stories diverge.
In the older version, Admetus wakes on his bed feeling better and runs to tell Alcestis he is cured – only to find it was she who took his place. He then sits by her body in mourning and refuses to eat or drink for days. As this is going on, Alcestis’ spirit is led down into the underworld by Thanatos (death) and presented to Queen Persephone.
Persephone asks who this soul is who has come willingly to her realm and Thanatos explains to her the situation. Persephone is so moved by the story of Alcestis’ love and devotion to her husband that she orders Thanatos to return the queen to life. Alcestis and Admetus then live happily ever after.
Hercules & Alcestis
In the version popularized by Euripides in his play Alcestis (written c. 438 BCE), however, Hercules plays the pivotal role in bringing Alcestis back from the dead.
In this version, as in the first, no one will take Admetus’ place in death except for Alcestis.
Admetus is informed of this, accepts her sacrifice, and begins to recover as his queen grows weaker. The entire city falls into mourning for Alcestis as she hovers on the brink between life and death.
Admetus stays by her bedside and she requests that, in return for her sacrifice, he should never marry again and so keep her memory alive. Admetus agrees to this and also swears he will never throw another of their parties again nor allow any merrymaking in the palace once she has gone; after these promises are made, Alcestis dies.
Hercules was an old friend of the couple and he arrives at the court knowing nothing of Alcestis’ death.
Admetus, not wishing to spoil his friend’s arrival, instructs the servants to say nothing about what has transpired and to treat Hercules to the kind of party the court was known for. The servants, however, are still upset over the loss of the queen and Hercules notices that they are not serving him and his entourage properly.
After a number of drinks, he begins to insult them and ask for the king and queen to come remedy this poor performance on the servant’s part, when one of the maidservants breaks down and tells him what has recently happened.
Hercules is mortified by his behavior and so travels to the underworld where Thanatos is leading Alcestis’ spirit toward Persephone’s realm. He wrestles death and frees the queen, bringing her back up into the light of day.
Hercules then leads her to where Admetus is just returning from her funeral. He tells the king that he must depart on other business and asks him to take care of this lady while he is gone.
Admetus refuses because he promised Alcestis that he would never marry again, and it would be unseemly for this woman to reside at the court so soon after his wife’s death.
Hercules insists, however, and places Alcestis’ hand in Admetus’. Admetus lifts the woman’s veil and finds it is Alcestis returned from the dead. Hercules tells him that she will not be able to speak for three days, and will remain pale and shadow-like, until she is purified, after which time she will become as she always was.
Euripides’ play ends there while other versions of the myth continue the story further and conclude with everything then happening as Hercules has said, and Alcestis and Admetus living a long and happy life together until Thanatos returns and takes them both away together.
Personal Excellence & Social Duty in the Tales
The characters of Admetus, Alcestis, and Hercules, all at some point in the story exemplify – or fail to meet – the values of personal excellence and social duty.
Admetus exemplifies the value of hospitality (which would be considered part of social duty) in taking in the stranger at the beginning of the story and would fall short of that value when he allows festivities in his home directly after his wife’s death.
These two incidents are directly related to each other, however, in that, when Hercules arrives at his home, Admetus is under a social obligation to entertain his friend according to the custom he is used to.
Even though Hercules would have certainly understood the house being in mourning after Alcestis’ death and is embarrassed when he finds out he has been drinking and carrying on in the palace so soon after a death, Admetus values social obligation to such a degree that he fails to keep his promise to his wife – and so fails in arete and, because he neglected the promise he had made to Alcestis, eusebia as well.
Alcestis epitomizes the loyal, loving wife who is so devoted to her husband that she would literally die for him.
In this, she exemplifies both arete and eusebia.
A modern-day reader may feel uncomfortable with the version of the story in which Admetus accepts his wife’s sacrifice, but this would have been completely understandable to an ancient Greek audience.
The husband, especially the husband who was a king, was responsible for the well-being of more people than the wife or queen.
Alcestis’ virtue in taking Admetus’ place is admirable in that she not only sacrifices herself for the man she loves but also for the people who depended upon Admetus for their continued well-being.
Her personal excellence is illustrated in her willingness to die for the good of others and the value of eusebia through her understanding of the social order and how she could do her best to maintain it. In all ways, Alcestis stands as a model for proper behavior.
Hercules exemplifies the values of arete and eusebia and provides the story with its heroic climax.
In his drunken behavior in the house of mourning, he fails in both, of course, and yet he cannot be blamed for this in that he was not told of Alcestis’ death.
The more important – and interesting – breach in social conduct is his wrestling Thanatos for Alcestis’ soul.
The Fates were all powerful to the ancient Greeks, and Apollo had made a deal with them for Admetus’ continued life.
The Fates had kept their part of the deal and restored Admetus to life, once someone else agreed to take his place. By wrestling Alcestis’ soul away from death, Hercules was breaking the deal.
If one made a deal with the supernatural powers, one was expected to honor that deal. This can be most clearly seen in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, where Orpheus makes the deal with Hades that he will not look back on his way up from the underworld but then breaks that deal, and so loses Eurydice.
Unlike that story, at no point in any version of the Alcestis story is Hercules portrayed in any way but admirably for rescuing the queen from death. Further, by placing himself in danger by physically wrestling death, Hercules embodies the personal excellence of courage and heroism and, by doing so, he restores order to the kingdom by bringing the queen back to her king and rewarding the selflessness of Alcestis.
The story operates on many levels, of course, which is why it has resonated so strongly with audiences for over 2,000 years but, on the simplest level, it would have transmitted the values of the society to those who heard it sung or recited or watched it performed.
How one balances one’s personal excellence with one’s place in society and, further, in the universe, would have been illustrated through Hercules and his confrontation with Thanatos.
In defeating death, Hercules is shown as the ultimate hero who defies even the will of the Fates in order to do what he feels is right.
In the version of the story where Persephone sends Alcestis back to life, it is eusebia which is emphasized through Alcestis’ selfless gesture while, in the Hercules’ version, it is arete through Hercules’ decision to fight with death, and yet both versions highlight the importance of both of these values to ancient Greek society.
The popularity of the Hercules’ version indicates that, while the ancient audience would have understood the value of social duty and conduct, they also valued personal achievement and, of course, heroism, which is the embodiment of personal excellence.
Scholars have long been divided on the Alcestis play by Euripides regarding why he wrote it and even what he was trying to say in it but, perhaps, it was as simple as promoting the concept that one should do what one feels one must to right a wrong no matter what societal rules may stand in the way and, in doing so, one can actually restore order instead of upsetting balance.
Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in Greek mythology.
While the Greek army was preparing to set sail for Troy during the Trojan War, Agamemnon caused the anger of the goddess Artemis, because he killed a sacred deer. So, she decided to stop all winds, and the ships would not be able to sail. The seer Calchas realised what the problem was, and informed Agamemnon that to appease the goddess, Agamemnon had to sacrifice Iphigenia to her.
Reluctant at first, Agamemnon was forced to agree in the end. He lied to his daughter and his wife by saying that Iphigenia was to marry Achillles before they left. The mother and daughter happily went to the port of Aulis, only to find out the horrible truth.
Achilles, unaware that his name was used in a lie, tried to prevent the sacrifice, but Iphigenia utterly decided to sacrifice herself in honour and of her own volition. The most popular version of what happened afterwards is that on the moment of the sacrifice, the goddess Artemis substituted Iphigenia for a deer, but Calchas who was the only witness remained silent. Iphigenia was then brought by Artemis to the city of Tauris where she became the goddess' priestess.
Years later, after Orestes, Iphigenia's brother, had killed his mother and her lover Aegisthus, he was hunted by the Erinyes for committing matricide. He was then advised to go to Tauris, take the carved wooden image of Artemis and bring it back to Athens.
In Tauris, where he went with his friend Pylades, he was taken captive by the locals, and the two men were brought before Iphigenia. Although initially the two siblings did not recognise each other, they finally realised the truth and managed to escape the city. They then returned to Greece, where Iphigenia continued to serve Artemis as a priestess in her temple.
-Greek Mythology
According to a story published in 1897, Leighton spent six months searching throughout Europe for a model to match his imagined ideal of Iphigenia for his intended portrayal of Cymon and Iphigenia.
He saw a young actress, Dorothy Dene, in a theater in London and his search was over. Possessing a classical Greek style beauty, Dene had golden wavy hair with excellent skin texture and coloration on her face; she was taller than average with graceful arms and legs together with an “exquisitely molded bust”.
She appeared in several other of Leighton’s works, including Greek Girls Playing Ball and Summer Moon.
Lena, one of Dene’s younger sisters, appears in the painting as the child slave.
Other paintings by Leighton featuring Dene are: The Bath of Psyche, Clytie, Perseus and Andromeda, Solitude, The Return of Persephone and The Vestal.
The painting took eight months to complete; a succession of line drawings were done first as Leighton tried to capture the position he wanted for the central figure, around 56 – including several of foliage and other elements of the piece – of these are known to exist.
The English art critic Peter Nahum describes the painting as “central among Leighton’s later works”, an opinion Mrs Russell Barrington considered was shared by Leighton.
Leighton’s painting Idyll dating from a few years earlier has some similar elements but lacks the complexities of Cymon and Iphigenia. The two compositions each highlight the difference between the fair complexion of a female with a dark skinned male; both feature a full-length woman reclining beneath a tree and similar lighting techniques are used.
Lord Frederick Leighton would paint these amazing enormous paintings. In it would be crammed such detail that you could spend hours admiring every little morsel. Such as in this work.
This painting celebrates the Madonna painted by Cimabue. It is known as the “Madonna in Majesty.”
The picture originally stood on the high altar of Santa Trinità church in Florence. The iconography is frequent in medieval painting and represents the Madonna enthroned with Child and angels, a pattern commonly said Maestà as shows the Virgin as Queen of Paradise. In the lower part are four biblical figures, symbolizing foundations of Christ's kingdom: the prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah under lateral arches, Abraham and King David under the chair of the throne.
This Madonna, which is similar in structure to the same artist's Madonna at the Louvre and Duccio's Ruccelai Madonna, still shows the influence of the Byzantine tradition. There is, however, an unprecedented tension in the profiles and in the attempt to create spatial depth, which is rendered by superimposing the figures and in the concave structure at the base of the throne behind the figures of the prophets. The architectural structure of the throne becomes a sort of robust spatial scheme which creates a three-dimensional effect, while the edges of the painting seem to compress and hold in the bodies. There is an intense vitality in the figures and the same dramatic force that characterizes all Cimabue's work.
-Web Gallery of Art
Here, we have Lord Frederick Leighton painting a celebration of that painting in public display for all to admire. The emotions on the people’s face and the scenes depicted are both fascinating and curious at the same time.
This is a lovely painting. I truly enjoy the art and the skill that went into painting it.
Others, not so enthralled, have used this image to profit from it, or to make some kind of contemporaneous statement. As an example, here is a work by Alexey Kondakov titled “Kyiv, bus station at “Nauki Ave.” , 2015″.
One of the things about art by “masters” is that they are able to convey emotions within certain specific scenarios. If you have had a very private event, one that evoked the same kind of emotions, then the art would resonate with your.
I love the woman’s hand, and the upturned face, and the details of the folds on the dress. But that is just me. This painting speaks to me…
Condottiere, leader of a band of mercenaries engaged to fight in numerous wars among the Italian states from the mid-14th to the 16th century. The name was derived from the condotta, or “contract,” by which the condottieri put themselves in the service of a city or of a lord.
-Condottiere | Italian history | Britannica
I cannot help but think that this painting was part of an inspiration for a movie made in 1972…
Aguirre, The Wrath Of God(Werner Herzog, 1972) Full time force of nature and part time filmmaker Werner Herzog has a career filled with eerily atmospheric masterpieces of almost every style, genre, and form.
Yet, if ever we find ourselves in some sort of movie apocalypse and only one Herzog movie can be saved, that title must be Aguirre, The Wrath Of God.
Herzog’s career was up and running by the time he descended into the jungle to make this his first genuine masterpiece and when he emerged on a raft surrounded by monkeys he was a legend.
It’s an encapsulation of everything that the filmmaker does well (including a collection of insane and possibly fictionalized behind the scenes stories) and also boasts quite possibly the finest performance Klaus Kinski’s career.
Aguirre is a brutal, thoughtful, poetic, and terrifying work of art that never possibly could have existed unless Herzog decided to point a camera at his twisted imagination. The director might have equaled the remarkable achievement of Aguirre several times in his career, but he never topped it.
The story is deceptively simple.
It follows Kinski’s Spanish conquistador Aguirre who recently triumphed with his army in battle and has now been ordered to trek through the jungle in search of the mythical city of El Dorado and the untold riches therein.
The journey is treacherous from the start, with an unforgiving jungle offering little more than immense physical and philosophical difficulties challenging the journey.
Eventually a death toll mounts and Aguirre’s mind becomes as lost as his quest.
That’s pretty much it and yet the film is as complex thematically as it is simplistic in narrative.
Herzog was clearly influenced by Joseph Conrad’s Heart Of Darkness and Aguirre would quickly inspire Francis Ford Coppola to make Apocalypse Now. It’s hard to say which work explores those shared themes better, but given that one of the major concepts of all three is an exploration of the cold brutality of nature, you can assume that Herzog nailed that one.
After all, give Herzog 30 seconds and a microphone and he’ll be sure to let you know how horrendous nature can be.
Like Fitzcarraldo, the most immediately striking aspect of Aguirre, The Wrath Of God is the physical brutality of the production.
From the astounding opening shots of an army wiggling down the edge of a mountain, it’s clear that this production was as dangerous as the journey it staged. Filth, grit, pain, and exhaustion radiates from the screen and at times it blurs the lines between fiction and documentary.
The second most striking aspect is Klaus Kinski’s devastating performance.
Forever caught between stoic silence and volcanic explosion, Kinski is a wild and unpredictable beast at the center of Werzog very deliberately paced and hypnotic film. He’s a constant element of danger and a physical embodiment of insanity that’s impossible to take your eyes off of (which was important given that mood and spectacle easily could have dominated the picture).
Beyond the surface dangers and central performance, the movie is filled with layers of meaning and moments of visual poetry that Herzog never fully explains.
It’s a mystery of a movie to be experienced and interpreted in many different ways. At times it’s terrifyingly real, at other times is archly stylized. Some scenes are quietly contemplative, others viscerally thrilling.
The project was a bold announcement of a new filmmaking voice from Werner Herzog and has lost none of its power in the decades that followed. Love or loath it, Aguirre: Wrath Of God is one of those movies that everyone needs to see to even consider themselves a cinephile.
The rich colors of the jungle and filthy details of the period costumes pop off the screen like never before. The production might have been rough and tumble, but the beauty of Herzog’s images here have rarely been equaled.
The Hit
Most people have never heard of this man, and he is rarely mentioned in art schools. And that, is a shame. For all that most people can read about him is found in obscure Wikipedia listings.
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, (3 December 1830 – 25 January 1896), known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was a British painter, draughtsman and sculptor. His works depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter in an academic style. His paintings were enormously popular, and expensive, during his lifetime, but fell out of critical favour for many decades in the early 20th century.
Leighton was the bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history; after only one day his hereditary peerage became extinct upon his death.
-Frederic, Lord Leighton 1830–1896 | Tate
Modern Art
Most lovers of “modern art”, raise their noses to this kind of art. They say that it is old, tired, and out of date. That instead, one needs to be “progressive” and “enlightened” to see and appreciate the art with no form.
Something like this…
And…
And apparently this Mark Rothko is considered to be an acclaimed genus in the modern, progressive art world. Here’s another one of his “breathtaking” and “astounding” works of art.
Modern art is no longer about art for the sake of beauty and appreciation.
Modern art is just a convenient way to launder money, as it is difficult to put a price tag on art. Thus in the modern art world, money is the king, and emotions, passion and beauty have no place in the modern art world.
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
Kai Carpenter is a freelance illustrator and painter based in New York, United States who has created magnificent artworks with traditional gouache painting… His list of clients includes Wizards of the Coast, LEGO Systems, Anderson Design Group, and Harper Collins publishing. Let’s take a look at some of his amazing artworks styled in an Art Deco flair, these adventurous scenes are sure to inspire and bring a smile.
Kai Carpenter’s elegiac scenes mine the myth and history coursing beneath the whole of human consciousness. Occupying the nebulous space between waking and dreams, his subjects hover just at the edge of our collective understanding.
Like figures emerging from mist, they are both seen and unseen, their presence more intuited than perceived. Carpenter’s portrayal of nature and the human form harkens back to the very roots of Western culture.
He embraces the ideals of the Romantic, offering art as a conduit through which we are meant to both contemplate and celebrate the mysteries of life.
W hen it came to painting of Redwood National Park for an ambitious centennial art book, Kai Carpenter decided to “turn the saturation way up”—use bright exaggerated colors—with his palette of oil paints.
The Brooklyn-based illustrator hadn’t set foot in the park, but had been commissioned to paint a stylized rendition of it, along with 11 other parks.
After speaking with people who had been there and studied photos of the park, Carpenter thought a bold color scheme would convey the sheer size of the place. He conjured a giant redwood, drenched in red and burgundy, towering above two small travelers, with more giant trunks receding into the background.
“I was going for the look of old lithographs with those great color palettes,” he says. He referred to the early 20th century art deco travel posters, which featured happy couples exploring Technicolor versions of far-off locales: Visit Fascinating Fiji! Fly with Trans World Airlines! “And I was taking a lot of cues from the parks themselves, they’re already so vibrant.”
Five years ago, Joel decided he wanted to pay homage to the iconic Works Progress Administration posters, created between 1938 and 1941 for 14 national parks to encourage Americans to explore the great outdoors.
He started recruiting artists he’d worked with through his Nashville firm, Anderson Design Group, who generally specialize in that retro travel poster style. To achieve that look, most ADG art is hand-lettered and drawn or painted before it’s given a final polish on the computer.
“We studied the WPA posters to make sure we were plowing new ground,” Joel says. “Luckily, the parks are so vast that it wasn’t hard to find new landscapes and color palettes.”
All 71 works in the book draw from styles that characterize the Golden Age of Poster Art: rich colors, hand-lettered text, timeless scenes like a cowboy in Saguaro National Park or a couple canoeing through the Everglades.
Three weeks after completing all of the paintings in September, Carpenter and his older brother road-tripped from Brooklyn to Seattle, stopping over two weeks at three of the parks he’d painted: Zion, Yosemite, and Redwood.
“I was worried I was going to be devastated that I butchered all of these places,” he says. “But I was surprisingly happy with how they turned out.” Especially the Redwood poster: “I’m really glad that I went bananas with the colors,” Carpenter says. “It feels that way when you’re there. Like you’re maybe seeing something you’re a little too small to be seeing.”
The Seattle-based Carpenter’s work is jam-packed with color and storytelling, so much so that you might assume these works are digitally created. However each one is effortlessly painted in oil on canvas.
Inspired by a collection of vintage citrus labels…
… reflect the art styles seen throughout 1900-1950 with an influence of the Works Progress Administration.
This period included persuading Americans to travel to the great outdoors as advertised by the automobile and railroad industries, and later influenced by the art boom of the depression.
Early advertising posters from the 20th Century were pasted onto walls to grab public attention as busy people passed by. By necessity, good poster composition included bold color, contrast, iconic imagery and easy-to-read type.
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
“Meticulously painted, Ferguson’s darkly humorous narratives evoke an achronological magical realism, featuring composite cities and landscapes comprised of everything from from 16th Century European towns to early 20th century Americana (or Canadiana as the case may be),” the gallery says.
“Combining grandiose narratives of the great ages of exploration with a distinctly paranormal bent, Ferguson’s work subtly hovers the line between fantasy, surrealism, and realism without ever falling into either of them fully. Norman Rockwell meets H.P. Lovecraft.”
Peter Ferguson was born in Montreal, Canada in 1968. He set his sights on an illustration career after seeing the movie Star Wars, deciding that he would like to draw spaceships.
After graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto in 1992, he began his career as a professional illustrator, using oil as his medium of choice.
Peter’s brilliant ability to conceptualize clients’ ideas as well as his distinctive characters gave him a running start in the editorial and book publishing markets. Since signing with Three in a Box Inc, Peter’s career has grown steadily.
Peter is also a highly sought after fine artist, who’s vividly imaginative works read like a lucid dream of an alternate history, recalling the aesthetic of Dutch Renaissance painting, old National Geographic photography, and 18th century British Naval history.
Meticulously painted, Ferguson’s darkly humorous narratives evoke composite cities and landscapes from 16th Century Europe and early 20th century small town Americana (or Canadiana as the case may be).
Combining grandiose narratives of the great ages of exploration with a distinctly paranormal bent, Ferguson’s work subtly hovers the line between fantasy, surrealism, and realism without ever falling into either of them fully.
Luminously painted and complex in their composition, his paintings retain an air of both melancholy and wonder at days gone past.
He has an enormous gallery on line with all sorts of interesting and amazing art. You can find it HERE (it opens up in a separate link).
Ferguson’s work subtly hovers the line between fantasy, surrealism, and
realism without ever falling into either of them fully.
Canadian painter Peter Ferguson has been working had a career as a professional illustrator since graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto in 1992. He has been very successful over the years and has had many clients such as Marvel Comics, The Wall Street Journal, and has illustrated the covers of the Sisters Grimm collection.
His personal work is an imaginative mixture of the fantastical and bizarre. The fusion of technical skills and imaginative depictions of characters within the work seems to indicate that strong cultivations of narratives are the premise behind his extraordinary oil paintings.
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Kayla Mahaffey “KaylaMay” is a Chicago based artist specializing in illustration and fine art. In 2012, she attended the American Academy of Art where she gained knowledge and strengthened her skills.
Her work speaks about how living in our world can be tough and how making the best of it can simply be done by holding on to each other.
Her inspiration is the world around her and her colorful paintings contain hints of whimsy and realism that tell a story of inner thoughts and society issues that sometimes go unheard. Being born and raised on the South side of Chicago, only ignited her love for all things art.
Seeing the struggle and the support from the community made her work evolve to a concept that is personal to her. She continues to further her technique and creativity in her field in order to paint a beautiful picture of a new world for those who live in it.
‘Off to the Races’ narrates the ever-changing road of life. As we travel through life we experience the daily trials and tribulations that help shape us into the people we are today. During this journey we may end up hitting some bumps or may experience some rough terrain, but it’s how we deal with those situations that make the difference.
We are all on the journey to greatness, each individual racing to the finish line in hope of reaching goals and prosperity. With the race may come with it mistakes and regret, but not taking part in the race leads you nowhere.
Playful portraits by Chicago-based artist and illustrator Kayla
Mahaffey. Using a combination of whimsy and realism, Mahaffey explores
the inner thoughts and personal issues that so often go unheard,
creating work that reflects both the struggle and support she sees
within her own community:
“Living in our society can be tough and most of the time we have
to make the best of it. A wild imagination can take you so far, but at
the end of the day we need to realize and observe the world around us.
And the world around us is where I find my inspiration to paint.”
Her work speaks about how living in our world can be tough and how
making the best of it can simply be done by holding on to each other.
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Kisung Koh uses his art as a means to opening gateways into nature’s spiritual dimensions, exploring the intimate connections he has formulated with wildlife during his lifetime. Over the course of years, this South Korean has had the honor of coming in close contact with many wild animals within their natural habitats and has become aware of these incredibly strong energies.
“I love animals and natures like anyone else and they are all my inspirations. My parents had wanted me to live in somewhere full of trees and the beauties of nature because they knew I was extremely fascinated of being in nature. In my childhood I lived in a small town of South Korea surrounded by mountains and rivers and spent most of the time in nature and farms. “
“One day, I was walking in a forest myself in early morning. It was very silent and calm. While having a nice walk, I had a chance to see a deer family very close. I can’t explain how I felt at the time because it’s unspeakable. It was just truly amazing. “
” It’s probably easier to say that I saw not only deer but also beautiful spirits around them. In my opinion, there is nothing more beautiful than when you actually see a wild animal in nature. However, we rarely see them where they are supposed to be and just don’t know how amazing they are to be alive. “
Kisung Koh (Canada) uses his art to open gateways into nature’s spiritual dimensions and explores the intimate connections he has built with wildlife during his lifetime. Drawing heavily on the memories and dreams provided to him by the sheer awe inspiring spectacles he has witnessed in the great outdoors, Koh pays tribute by creating imagery that is suggestive of the metaphysical energies and bonds which can exist between two living creatures, even when interacting from a distance.
Over the years, Koh has had the honour of coming in close contact with many wild animals in their natural habitats, and has become aware of these energies, which have manifested themselves to him with an ethereal majesty. Through his art, Koh captures the essence and beauty of the natural world, and reminds us that our relationships with it are…
Kisung Koh was born during the year of 1985, in South Korea. He lived in his home country until 2006 when his entire family moved to Toronto, Canada. Based in a new nation with an entirely new culture, Kisung Koh needed some time to adjust. He eventually received a BAA in Illustration from Sheridan College, ON, Canada, receiving these honors in the year of 2012.
Since then, he has been developing his technical skill and establishing a reputation within the art community of Canada.From the moment he became a professional artist, Koh has exhibited his art around the world and has become a much sought after name within the international scene. From day one, he has been finding inspiration in animals and natures, fascinated by their grace and harmony.
Kisung Koh became noticed by art pundits thanks to his dreamy and imaginative places that featured animals, packed with mysterious spirits that make the depicted creatures seem safe. Such a practice culminated over time and is a result of a deep fascination with nature that followed this illustrator his whole life:
There is nothing more beautiful than when you actually see a wild animal in nature. However, we rarely see them from where they are supposed to be and just don’t know how amazing they are to be alive.
Exploring the spiritual potential of the wild and its stoic inhabitants, Koh draws comparable connections between the animal and human plights.
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Award-winning contemporary artist Iva Troj creates fine art pieces which seamlessly merge Renaissance aesthetics and techniques with postmodern praxis. Her intensely detailed images achieve astonishing tricks of light and shade, as practiced by the great masters while incorporating dreamlike scenes which challenge cultural norms.
Exhausted by a society in which women often feel vulnerable, threatened, or powerless, Troj recasts the fairer sex as powerful creatures, freed from the “oppressive male gaze” and placed within Edenic settings where they can revel in their own beauty and potential. Blending abstraction with figuration, the natural world with the urban landscape, dream with reality, Troj’s breathtakingly beautiful artworks achieve something truly unique, both in terms of aesthetics and concept.
“In many ways, I am what you get when you throw ancient Sakar Mountain wisdom failing to adapt to totalitarian ideas right into the pits of post-industrial capitalism. My grandmother’s village used to be in the no man’s land surrounding the Turkish and Greek/Bulgarian border during the communist regime.
It used to be totally isolated from the industrial world and there was no school or a library (or pollution). And somehow my grandma knew what Wabi-sabi was. I asked her about it and she told me a story about a lion tamer. Beauty is ”imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete,” she said. I am not sure how I came to find the clues to Japanese culture.
She never talked about China or Japan, “intimacy”, or appreciation of the ”ingenuous integrity of natural objects”. That was not how she spoke. Instead of using fancy words she showed me things and explained their beauty to me. Her house and her garden were full of evidence of beautiful imperfection.”
In 2016, Troj was named Contemporary Art Excellence Artist of the
Year and, in 2013, was the winner of the Towry Best of East England
Award. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally and is
permanently represented in Shoreditch, London.
ARTIST STATEMENT
As a child, I was taught to question one-dimensional narratives,
which grew from a survival technique to a development technology of the
artistic self. The foe I so often portray almost always represents the
normalization of one or more dysfunctional discourses, such as the
victimization of the female gender, religious dogma and racial
inequality.
Like many artists, I discuss personal experiences. At the same time, I strive to escape the self, an urge that partially stems from crossing borders in the last years of the cold war.
Living through cultural starvation in my childhood has made me restless and hungry for honest creativity with an almost childlike curiosity. In that sense, nothing I discuss is strictly personal. Sexual abuse, violence, trauma… I may present an unusual perspective on these topics stemming from the self, but only as an outset. The work needs to keep changing, relive itself, challenge its own conformity.
There is a point in every artist’s career when one is tempted to
choose a tested and proven path. I’m constantly trying to resist this
temptation by containing the “paths” in series where I can explore a
motif or a theme without succumbing to the comforts of one visual style.
The artists that I look up to for inspiration have one thing in common –
constant renewal.
Traditional elements are very central to my body of work. It’s not so much a need to keep the style ”traditional”, but rather the way I speak.
I grew up in a communist country. We sang songs about machines being superior to man and praised modernity while destroying nature and killing creativity and the human spirit with it. At the same time, my summers were spent in the mountains with my grandmother who had hanging gardens, thousand stories and no TV. These two realities are inseparable in my mind.
The painting technique I mostly use resembles the Flemish method of
layering thin veneers of paint between layers of varnish. I start with
pencils, pastels and varnish. After that I paint a lighter layer with
acrylics and finish with a couple of thicker layers using a combination
of mediums, often acrylics and oils, but sometimes gold leaf and inks.
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Jason Limon
is a painter who has exhibited his artwork in galleries across the U.S.
and in parts of Europe. He has had recent solo exhibitions in New York
City, Chicago and Albuquerque. His current art follows stories based on
mythological creatures and paranormal cryptids portrayed with a hint of
humor with a dose of strangeness. You can often see his characters
brought to life in dimensional form through his complex sculptures.
Jason lives and works in San Antonio, Texas with his wife and two
daughters.
“The main thing that drove me to finding my place in the fine art world was watching and admiring what other artists were doing.”
” I used to spend my days sitting behind a computer working in the graphic design biz and almost every single day I’d scour through illustration annuals and art books we had lying about in shelves and piled on our desks. I was always amazed at the great new things many of these artists were creating.”
” For the longest time it was a place where I always felt I belonged, but was frightened to jump into seeing as I have a family to support and all. Over time these feelings just became stronger and I grew really tired and felt restricted by the computer. “
“I decided to dive in head first in 2007 and began painting full time and all good things just snowballed from there. It’s been a tremendous honor and pleasure to be able to be in the exhibits I’ve been in. I do look forward to seeing what more this avenue has in store for me.” – Jason Limon (Murphy Design)
“Over the last few years when I would lay down to sleep at the end of the day the first thoughts that would run through my head were about death. I’m not a morbid person, nor am I afraid of death. The thoughts were typically quick, then I’d do my best to understand what they meant, but would usually fall asleep before even coming close to an answer.”
“They went on for a little over two years and I noticed just a few months back that they went away. With hindsight and looking at it altogether I took it as a signal to rethink how I express my feelings through art. “
“Most of what I am saying in these paintings is personal and revolve around fear, confusion and the fragility of life – about not having answers and trying to move beyond these ominous feelings. As dark as it all may sound, it has shed a positive light on how I create. “
“In most of this work I have also reintroduced the application of typography as well as the usage of multiple panels in a painting; elements that I enjoyed early on, yet had faded with time.“
My images almost always seem to portray doom and gloom! I’ve been shoveling through my brain, tossing out some darkness and trying my hardest to stick to absorbing positive thoughts.
In the process I was thinking about my fifteen year old daughter poking fun of my typical dad concerns, complaints and worries. Sometimes my only response to her is “You Will See“. It’s sometimes tough to keep fighting off problems and remain strong inside.
Of course, we’ve all been through trouble. We deal with it and keep moving ahead. She’s had a different life than I have and I do my best to see her happy, but just a suggestion to keep in mind: It is not that easy to keep going. Hold on to hope through it all as you go forth.
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Dave Lebow is a representational painter, illustrator and teacher. Born in 1955 in Oklahoma, he has a BFA in Painting from Boston University and an MFA in Experimental Animation from Cal Arts. He studied in Los Angeles with Harry Carmean and Glenn Vilpuu and privately in New York with Burton Silverman and at the Art Students League with Robert Beverly Hale, David Leffel, Daniel Green, Robert Philipp, and Robert Brackman.
In 2000, Dave left painting to work in animation. He went back to painting full time in 2009 and devoted himself to more imaginative, surreal and expressive subject matter. His work was included in the Southwest 90 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in the HEY! Modern art & pop culture Act III, Collective exhibition in the Halle Saint Pierre Museum Paris, France.
Southern California based artist Dave Lebow walks a line between classical painting and fantasy art. Perhaps best known as the real-life painter behind Showtime series Dexter character “Travis”, Lebow admits that he has always liked strange subject matter.
His oil paintings have the sensitivity and attention to detail of realism, yet they are also mystical, racy and even titillating. They depict a realm inhabited by beautiful, sexy women, both warriors and damsels in distress, and absurd creatures of the night.
” I’m attracted to subject matter from the world of pulp illustration, other worldly realms of fantasy, drama and horror as well as classical illustration and realism,” Lebow says.
Despite the darkness in his work, there’s something bright and wonderful about Lebow’s brand of insanity where figures appear in both ordinary and out-of-this world places. Whether at the dining room table or in outer space, something unexpected always happens: a little girl discovers a genie in the kitchen cupboard, a woman in a bar is attacked by a flying eyeball, and Ezekial’s Angels receive alien visitors.
” I love for people to create their own meaning,” Lebow says, pointing to the multitude of characters and visual elements that he applies to his scenes inorder to create a prolonged visual interest. “I want my images to grab you and drag you if not willingly, then kicking and screaming into my picture.” Dave Lebow will debut new paintings in his solo “Prime Time” opening on May 6th at La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles.
Dave Lebow paints nostalgic, pulpy noir narratives using traditional painting techniques. Like an auteur from Hollywood’s Golden Age, Lebow directs themes of adolescent rebellion, oppressive male voyeurism, and hardboiled female revenge by photographing live models in costume.
His protagonists are photoshopped into fictitious, often absurd, chiaroscuro lit backdrops and then printed on glossy paper resembling the inside of a private eye’s briefcase. After this meticulous photo process is complete, Lebow begins to paint his inspired compositions in the vein of Robert McGinnis, Margaret Brundage, and other masters of the genre.
Each its own tale, the paintings vibrate on social constructs that have become increasingly controversial and/or obsolete in the 21st century. Lebow invites the viewer to read into the imagery. Monster Attacking Woman, for example, depicts a human skeleton with a dinosaur skull invading the space of a submissive, scantily posed woman on a bed wearing only thigh-high panty hose and heels.
The symbolism of the dinosaur skull suggests notions of the machismo and womanizing psyche are extinct. Not to mention the obvious- skeletons are dead. The monster is meant to highlight the significance of this historical context, but also emphasize that this social construct is no longer socially acceptable.
Dave Lebow was born in Oklahoma in 1955. He received his BFA in
Painting at Boston University and his MFA in Experimental Animation from
Cal Arts where he currently teaches portrait painting. He lives and
works in Venice, California.
Finalist in the Imaginary Realism Category of the Art Renewal Center’s 2013-2014 ARC Salon. Art Renewal Center with the painting “The Enchanted Sword”.
Art Related Index
This is an index of art that I have found profound, interesting,
beautiful or enlightening. In any event, I find that art soothes my
soul. I enjoy painting figurative and portraits in oils using the more
traditional Flemish technique, but it never really brought me the kind
of money I need to live off of. Such is the life of a painter today.
Please enjoy.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
The works of Tokuhiro Kawai always conjure whimsical and phantasmical stories of the likes of the Aesop and Anderson, the Grimm brothers’ fairytales. Each of his painting entails a particular story that draws viewers to its details and its numerous fascinating characters. Characters which encompass from within so vivaciously and vividly.
Kawai’s attempt to reinvigorate Renaissance style of painterly technique by imbuing myth, legend and fantasy has defined a unique sense of visual style. This style is both intriguing and refreshing in the field of Japanese contemporary art.
Each of Kawai’s painting is the blackboard to his imaginary filmstrip that allows his liberal expression to be realised into a magnificent vista that arouses viewer with curiosity and delight… not to forget the natural Japanese love of cats.
Tokuhiro Kawai is known for paintings that both recall and satirize scenes from mythology. Yet, as his statement with Gallery Gyokuei reminds us, “The history of pictorial expression is history of reproduction.”
In recent years, Kawai has specifically garnered popularity for the motif of felines donned in the garb of royalty.
Tokuhiro Kawai (1971-present, Japanese) Tokuhiro Kawai (1971- present, Japanese) is a surrealist contemporary artist who weaves stories into his art. Sometimes relying on fantasy and magic, his works ignore gravity and perspective, stimulating thought and imagination with vivid colors. Kawai’s “regal” cats are whimsical.
- TokuhiroKawai (1971-present, Japanese) - The Great Cat
“After the modern period, art expression has shifted its theme to personal lives and the role of storytelling is gradually passed over to literatures and films. Gyokuei says.
“Upon this, Kawai approaches to work on the now fragile bond between story and picture to bring the two into reunion. Since gods and faith are less related to our modern society, Kawai complements the theme with his own imagination.”
Born in 1971 in Tokyo, Tokuhiro Kawai graduated in 1995 from the oil paintings department at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, and in 1997 he graduated with a master’s degree from the same university.
He has held several solo exhibitions in Japan and a group exhibition at the Mori Art Museum in 1997, where he was an award recipient, and at Setsuryosya Firenze in 1999.
In 2006 he took part at a group exhibition at Kabutoya Gallery, Tokyo, as well as being involved in numerous exhibitions at Art Fair Tokyo since 2008.
The works of Tokuhiro Kawai always conjure whimsical and phantasmical stories of the likes of the Aesop and Anderson, the Grimm brothers’ fairy. Each of his painting entails a particular story that draws viewers to its details and its numerous fascinating characters, which encompass from within so vivaciously and vividly.
In Symbiotic Relationship – Automatic Duel (Lot 557) Kawai’s floating angels behold the younglings lopsided in the sky, with the younglings’ swords closely opposed at each other. In which this composition have a nuanced affiliation with the angelic wall mural of The Creation of Adam at the Sistine Chapel from the Renaissance.
Kawai’s attempt to reinvigorate Renaissance style of painterly technique by imbuing myth, legend and fantasy has defined a unique sense of visual style that is both intriguing and refreshing in the field of Japanese contemporary art.
Each of Kawai’s painting is the blackboard to his imaginary filmstrip that allows his liberal expression to be realised into a magnificent vista that arouses viewer with curiosity and delight.
Kawai has a particular gift for painting animals and many of his compositions are filled from top to bottom with flamingos, foxes, owls, ammonites, and pelicans.
Cats seem to be his favorite and they are pictured as conquerors, tyrants, and gods.
In one of his pictures a feisty cat has killed an angel like it was a songbird and is holding the limp corpse in his fangs while standing like a stylite atop a classical column.
Tokuhiro Kawai is a Japanese artist from Tokyo born in 1971. The works of Tokuhiro Kawai is always coloured with beautiful stories. Ignoring the principles of physics such as gravity and perspective, idealized characters appear inside the picture, creating depth and expression to the view of his world.
Tokuhiro Kawai is known for paintings that both recall and satirize scenes from mythology. Yet, as his statement with Gallery Gyokuei reminds us, “The history of pictorial expression is history of reproduction.”
In recent years, Kawai has specifically garnered popularity for the motif of felines…
The cultural depiction of cats and their relationship to humans is old and stretches back over 9,500 years. Cats are featured in the history of many nations, are the subject of legend and are a favorite subject of artists and writers.
Cats in Asian art have been a part of Chinese, Japanese and Korean art for centuries and are still prominent subjects of contemporary artists.
The Chinese cat goddess Li Shou was worshipped and adored, and likewise, the Japanese paid tribute to the Maneneko who is said to have saved the life of a Samurai warrior. Rooted deep in myth, cats in Asian art became an icon for Chinese and Japanese as well as other Asian cultures.
Owned only by the elite few in Japan, early scrolls show cats on leashes and living luxurious lives indoors.
In contrast, in China cats were depicted as hunters. In the Edo period (1603-1868), Japan was at peace and turned its attention to Ukiyo-e art and culture. Ukiyo-e woodblock prints made art available for the masses, and the merchant class was the first to purchase such prints.
These prints depicted cats going about their natural cat behavior: playing, sleeping and cleaning themselves. Human forms soon became cats that were often caricatures that professed some social commentary.
In the mid-19th century Japanese Kabuki actors were portrayed by cats, as it was against the law to display actual pictures of the real actors and courtesans. Because of cats’ viciousness, cat monsters appeared in art and in literature as Bakenekos. Many Asian artists have portrayed the cat through history as pampered pets, hunters, ghosts, monsters or spirits.
Something to look forward to in any trip is a contact with the local animals. Japanese people have lived with cats for ages and because of this history there are places in Japan that are a must-see for all cat-lovers.
‘Cat Cafés’ have become increasingly popular, and the wide variety of cat-themed merchandise available in Japan will surely appeal to the cat-lover in you.
Japanese people have had a long relationship with cats. More than 1000 years ago, people in the upper class were already living with cats. Common people also started having pet cats at home several hundred years ago and Japanese people have been involved with cats in a variety of ways since then.
There are shrines that worship cats as gods across Japan and cats have also played a part in folk beliefs through the ages.
The extent to which Japanese people have been involved with cats is evident from the volume of artworks that depict cats as the main subject.
In the Edo period (1603-1868), Ukiyoe virtuosos Hiroshige Utagawa and Kuniyoshi Utagawa painted cats, and in the Meiji period (1868-1912), the great novelist Soseki Natsume wrote the novel “I Am a Cat”, which became a famous masterpiece of Japanese literature.
Even nowadays you can find examples, such as the famous character “Hello Kitty” the cute anthropomorphic cat, and “Krocchi” a stray cat character that has recently started to become popular. Cats have been loved by Japanese people through the ages.
Places that show traces of the relationship between cats and people are scattered throughout Japan.
Tashirojima Island in Ishinomaki City located east of Sendai City
is known as the ‘Cat Island’. Cats come to welcome the boats at the
port. Many cats wait patiently around the fishing port for fishermen to
return.
Neko-jinja or the cat shrine is located in the central area of the island and it enshrines a “cat god” in hope of a good catch and safety of the fishermen. Cats have been worshiped as gods for several hundred years when people began forecasting the outcome of fishing based on cats’ behavior.
Tashirojima Island was damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in 2011, but many of the cats survived, evacuating to the area around Neko-jinja.
Aoshima Island in Shikoku area is also known as a cat island. The catch-phrase of this island is “15 residents and 100 cats, the cat paradise”.
They say that 10 years ago when the population of the island went below 50, the number of cats started to increase. The biggest appeal of Aoshima Island is that you can have an extremely close contact with cats. The island has recently become increasingly popular as a tourist spot, especially among cat lovers.
Day trips to the island are recommended since there are no accommodation or restaurants in Aoshima.
There is a passenger boat which makes the 45-minute ride twice a day to Aoshima from Nagahama port in Ozu City, Ehime prefecture located at the west end of Shikoku island. There is a limit to the number of passengers since the boat is used for the islanders’ daily use and therefore there is a chance you may not be able to board.
There are also no stores or vending machines on the island, so please make sure you take food and drinks when you visit.
“Of course, you can also see cats in the city. In Yanaka, a cat town in Tokyo reasonably close to Ueno Park, you can see cats living freely in the city.
You can feel the old atmosphere of Japan in Yanaka Ginza, a shopping street that has kept their old streets and atmosphere. The cats living there also add to the view of the town. Shopping there is also a fun experience for cat-lovers because Yanaka Ginza has many shops selling cat-themed goods.”
“Nyankodo” in Jinbocho, approximately 10-minute train ride away from Tokyo Station, is a book store that collects only cat-themed books.
They carry books related to cats published all over the world including photo books, literature, picture books, story books and comics. They also have books on Kuniyoshi Utagawa, a world-famous Ukiyoe painter and a photo collection of Mitsuaki Iwago, a wildlife photographer. You will surely find your favorite book here.
“Maneki-neko”, the beckoning or welcoming cat, is best known in Japan as a lucky charm said to bring business success. Cats used to be a lucky charm in the silk industry long ago as they get rid of crops eating rats and silkworms.
They became popular as a lucky charm to increase business. It is believed that a cat with a beckoning paw has the power to bring in more people.
According to a legend, Gotokuji Temple, located approximately 10-minutes from Gotokuji Station on the Odakyu Line in Tokyo, is the birthplace of Maneki-neko. Enshrined on one corner of the temple are a number of Maneki-neko that were donated by those whose wishes came true. There are several kinds of Maneki-neko, ranging from the small ones that cost several hundred yen to big ones that cost as much as 5,000 yen. This is a perfect souvenir for your family and friends. I bet you can almost see the smile on their faces now!
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Art that Moves Me
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
There is a cool, quiet elegance to Alan
Macdonald’s paintings, which belies the disequilibrium at their heart.
His figures, grey eyed and dreaming, might be time travellers, drawing
distant cousinship from the portraits of Rembrandt or Frans Hals. His
bucolic northern landscapes lay claim to an equally venerable artistic
heritage. But if an accretion of the art historical past informs his
imagery, it is transposed into a world where confidence has been lost,
where the spiritual beliefs and myths which once bound man to nature,
and through nature, to the divine, fail to connect.
Frequently, single letters or words, even meticulously copied dictionary definitions, are added to the sections of a painting, as if language might hold a key.
We follow through the a,b,c, trying to piece together the jigsaw, but language proves as fallible as any system by which we structure our existence, and we are left with a series of miswired lexical circuits. Is a landscape “an area of land regarded as being visually distinct,” or is it “a painting, drawing, photograph etc. depicting natural scenery?”
Macdonald lets both definitions stand. Though he would not call himself a surrealist, like Magritte, he points up the ambiguities surrounding real objects and their images in art, encouraging us to consider his work as more than a simple pictorial narrative.
The otherworldly characters in his
series of portrait heads have the look of forgotten pilgrims, bonneted
and constrained by cords like the followers of some perverse form of
Puritanism. Each is neatly titled according to a state of mind:
hedonist, altruist, sadist. We read the titles and search their waxen
features, hoping to discover their soul in the curl of a lip, or the
tilt of a chin. Despite this attempt at self assertion the figures
remain isolated, pinned down by their cords, as if by the codes and
strictures of society.
These are beautiful paintings, all the
more potent for their distilled sense of calm. Macdonald gives us no
answers, but the questions he raises about the search for faith and
identity in a difficult modern world touch a nerve, and in the faces of
his pilgrims, we recognise ourselves.
It seems fitting that artist Alan Macdonald, born and brought up in Malawi, one of the least populated areas in South East Africa, now lives and works in a small town not too far from medieval Edinburgh, Scotland. His meticulously crafted images are emblematic of Scottish characteristics – love of nature, history, humour, beauty and surreal scenery – linked together in compelling enigmatic and sometimes foreign imagery.
" “It took me years to realize that it is the darkness in things that I respond to, whether it is a painting by Francisco Goya, a song by Leonard Cohen, a play by William Shakespeare or a film by Pedro Almodovar.
When I was a child living in Africa, I was outside on a night lit by the moon and, feeling a little scared, I stepped from the light into a dark shadow,” the artist told Tatha Gallery.
“The darkness wrapped itself around me and fear was replaced by an understanding that I was being protected. Later, when I was twelve, a boy walked into my classroom with drawings he had done in pencil. They were representations of figures, that went from the white of the paper to the blackest black that the graphite could muster, and from that moment the artistic light for me was ignited.”
-Alan MacDonald
There is seemingly no element too exotic to inhabit an oil painting by Alan MacDonald, whose works traverse cultures and histories to present something always elegant in execution. At the base of MacDonald’s work seems to be a need for adventure, exploring inspiration and varying perspectives in each work.
Often incorporating hyper-realistic contemporary popular culture objects and well-known phrases, Macdonald’s Renaissance style paintings are at once familiar yet strange, inviting close inspection as if asking us to solve an amusing, highly original puzzle. Alan Macdonald acknowledges that, indeed, the solution can sometimes elude him; his skill is to give us hauntingly beautiful pictorial clues which tug on our psyche while making us smile, even laugh out loud while encouraging us to search for our own answers.
Alan Macdonald considers his work a visual journey with a subtext of a sense of adventure and excitement but destination unknown. As he tells us… “There is the belief in every painting that one day, as you set sail, you will find a faraway beach on which to land, avoiding the ragged rocks and inky depths of doubt. On one of the luckier voyages you arrive somewhere that is strangely familiar but which you have never seen before. It is a distant coast of you”.
It took me years to realise that it is the darkness in things that I respond to, whether it is a painting by Francisco Goya, a song by Leonard Cohen, a play by William Shakespeare or a film by Pedro Almodovar. When I was a child living in Africa, I was outside on a night lit by the moon and, feeling a little scared, I stepped from the light into a dark shadow. The darkness wrapped itself around me and fear was replaced by an understanding that I was being protected. Later, when I was twelve, a boy walked into my classroom with drawings he had done in pencil. They were representations of figures, that went from the white of the paper to the blackest black that the graphite could muster, and from that moment the artistic light for me was ignited.
A wise old German painter friend once said to me, after seeing me floundering around trying to explain away one of my paintings, “Remember, Alan, your paintings are like a bubble, and a bubble with a hole in it is no longer a bubble.” So with that in mind, I will tread carefully.
-ALAN MACDONALD
Nothing pleases me more than when someone laughs out loud whilst looking at one of my paintings. As comedians are aware, humour is a subversive thing, breaking down barriers and making others more receptive to your message or point of view. Years ago, a particularly tired, world-weary man came into my exhibition, with an, 'impress me if you can' expression on his face. He trudged from painting to painting, unimpressed… that is, until he came to a painting of a man covered in tattoos with a row of pins in his forehead, called 'Masochist'. It caused him to burst out laughing! He then went back and looked again at all the paintings he had just trudged past, now taking his time and responding to them all. It confirmed for me the importance of humour in art.
All the shapes and forms my work takes, have evolved over years. Painting clothes that resemble period clothing, for example, happened naturally. At first because it just seemed right, but I now realise that it brings to the work a sense of someone lost and out of time, desperately trying to work out the universal question, “What the hell am I doing here?” Especially when modern items like a can of coke or a scooter are included. Max Ernst once wrote that an artist should have one foot in the subconscious and one in the conscious. This, I think, is what I am trying to do.
-ALAN MACDONALD
When I begin a painting, I feel like I am embarking on a journey, one in which I have no idea of the ultimate destination. As a result there is a real sense of adventure and excitement as you set sail into the unknown, armed only with a belief that, one day, you will find a faraway beach on which to land. Unfortunately, too often, the ship founders on the jagged rocks of doubt, leaving your heart to sink into the inky depths, from where you have to resurrect it. On the luckier voyages, though, you arrive somewhere that is strangely familiar, but which you have never seen before. It’s a distant coast of you.
-ALAN MACDONALD
Alan MacDonald is a brilliant artist, and I would be proud to hang his art within my home.
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Art that Moves Me
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
“The Prince of Pop Art”, Mitch O’Connell is a beloved, cherished and respected leader of the “Lowbrow” art movement and one of the greatest illustrators of all time! Inspired by Pin-ups, hot-rods, comics, sideshows and all things kitsch, cuddly and curvaceous, he takes the vintage and makes it contemporary with his distinctive, eye-popping Pop Art imagery.
“I'm tempted to tear out the pages and hang them on the wall!"
-USA Today
He’s happy to play nice and follow instructions with illustration assignments for nearly every publication on Earth.
"We're smitten with everything Mitch has ever done. There's no escaping that his art is awesome!"
-Bizarre magazine
Magazine work includes Newsweek, Time, Rolling Stone, New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, GQ and Playboy! Overnight deadlines met for newspapers include The New York Times, Village Voice, Chicago Tribune and dozens more!
He’s been featured in the world of rock ’n’ roll on album covers and posters for groups from The Ramones to Weezer to No Doubt to Moby! Mitch’s doodles are utilized in advertising campaigns for major companies from McDonalds to KFC, 7-11 to Coca-Cola! And when he’s not working with an art director, his fine art paintings have been exhibited in sold-out gallery shows from New York to Berlin, Tokyo to Miami and Hollywood to Mexico City.
"An eye-popping curation of the pop artist's finest illustrations!"
-Yahoo! Music
His sexy tattoo flash is a fixture on the walls of tattoo shops around the word (and on the bodies of thousands of tattoo lovers) with many of the designs collected in two bestselling books “ Mitch O’Connell Tattoos Volume 1” and “Mitch O’Connell Tattoos Volume 2“!
His newest book, “Mitch O’Connell, the World’s Best Artist by Mitch O’Connell” is a huge career-spanning retrospective look at his art from the age of 3 to now!
"A pop surrealist and low-brow luminary ...an over-the-top, kitschy, vibrant mood-elevating coffee table book!"
-Huffington Post
The following are some reviews for those of you who are a tad unsure of this artists greatness…
Earlier today, if you heard a sort of weird, high-pitched shrieking noise, not unlike the mating cry of some long extinct bird, wafting high above the trees, far off in distance...it was just ME receiving a package from my UPS Heart Throb that contained THIS BOOK, quite possibly THE BEST BOOK EVER!
First of all - it has a vinyl cover. A VINYL COVER!!! Perfect for tubby-time viewing, or perhaps for enjoying in the inflatable wading pool on those hot summer days.
And then there's the AWESOME, AMAZING ARTWORK on the inside. From tattooed vixens to big-eyed bunny rabbits, there's something here for the whole family...if you have a family where the kiddies are allowed to look at pictures of nekkid women. There is a mind-altering feast for the eyes in store for you.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back to squeezing that vinyl cover. (This is apparently a new fetish I didn't know I had, and to tell you the truth, it's got me a little worried.)
- I'm Still Squealing!
A review of his book on Amazon.com
If you liked the art on the cover, well, there is more of it inside. The book itself is reminiscent of retro children's books with a foam / vinyl embossed type cover. It even has glitter. Its something you can't appreciate on the internet. The size is thick with tons of vibrant reproductions of his artwork.
There is lots of detail like the pages have a contoured edge. The book construction itself is amazing. The reason I bought this on amazon was because my bookstore's copy was damaged. Seeing it in real life made me want this book, so I had to get it.
Its just fun to pick up and flip through.
Chances are you are an artist and will find some inspiration in here even if it is a little bit crazy/freaky. I wouldn't give this book to a child, the audience is more adult. I can't say this is lacking anything as it is just an art book with good examples. The time that went into this book puts it over the top.
Worth 5 stars. I can see why 66 people thought it was awesome. I don't know who would rate this a 4 or less unless they had a problem with amazon. Sweet!
Indirectly, I've been a fan of Mitch's art since roughly, 1987. I worked as a designer at a newspaper and we had subscriptions to two clip art services (big, hulking glossy printed pages of several images, covering nearly anything that can be advertised).
One was Metro and the other was Dynamic Graphics. Dynamic Graphics was my "go-to" service as, each month, I scoured it's pages for that flashy, interesting, fun art with the peculiar "MoC" signature.
Since then, I learned the MoC was a cool artist named Mitch O'Connell and I saw his work here and there in Heavy Metal and some comics. I've moved on from the newspaper business but, thanks in part to the Internet and various art books, I've been able to follow Mitch's enthusiastic, dynamic work the last several years.
I've always admired his bold, daring renderings. As an illustrator myself, I find inspiration in his lines and color palette. Today, I'm proud to say I now own this comprehensive book. Tons of color, tons of illustrations, tons of inspiration.
Even the design of the book itself is daring and bold. I've perused it several times since receiving it in the mail and I plan on perusing it several more times, seeing something new and interesting each time I open the book.
Mr. O'Connell's art speaks for itself but I'll say that It's unique a completely different style than what anyone may be used to. I especially like the 70s-style. He not only acknowledges it, he embraces it and you have to admire that. I highly recommend!
- Lived up to my expectations
The puffy plastic cover over Mitch O'Connell The World's Greatest Artist gives a damn good indication of what's inside: A massive, whopping, ridiculously definitive collection of Mitch... and all Mitch.
From the cutesy-sweet to the clip art to the truly naughty, here is EVERYthing. Superb book design makes the collection seem to fly, float and take on a life of its own.
There was a long, long wait for this terrific tome; it was truly worth the wait. WOW!
- Holy moley! All this and World War, too.
This book is so amazing you'll want to sleep with it tucked under your head. And thanks to the soft puffy cover you can!
Try it, i did. Hoping some of O'Connell's brilliance would seep into my brain.
Fat chance! If you have been a long time devote of O'Connell or have no idea who he is (been living under a rock?) You NEED this book!
By merely placing this book on your coffee table you will immediately notice that you have become more attractive to the world.
You'll start getting more dates than you can fit in your calendar. And you don't want to be left behind when it hits the New York Times best seller list, do you? I didn't think so. Get in on Mitch-Mania now!
- My Bible has arrived!
I cant put this book down!! It had me hooked just with the glitter cover. Wow!! I've loved this mans work for years. I can sit and look at his art and tattoo flash for hours. This is a great addition to my collection of his books and art work. Filled with beautiful women and kitsch galore. This book is VERY large and informative. We learn more about the man, myth and legend!!! It's also a great price for so much magnificent eye candy. I highly recommend it to any lover of Pop, Surrealism, Kitsch or just Damn good art! :)
- 5.0 out of 5 stars This book is Fan-Stinken-Tastic!!
It has a sparkly cover and It's Mitch! So, It's good. I usually only read on the Crapper but I already crapped today. I may just break my own rule and read this while sitting on the couch!
- The most important book you will ever buy
EXCITEMENT! FUN! NUDITY! THRILLS!
BALLOONS! NUDITY! ALCOHOL! CAKE!
HILARITY! NUDITY!
When a book has that as it's opening intro you know you have stumbled across the new bible. Mitch may be the world's best artist (his words, mentioned many many times in this book) he is also probably the world's funniest artist.
This book is comical to the extreme, louds of laughing out loud guffaws and so much drink sprayed across the room, luckily I chose to read this in lots of different locations so everywhere got a nice even coating of beer.
This book is a huge collection of his artwork, from drawings as a kid to early adverts he was commissioned to draw to posters, tattoos and toilet seats, it is all here. The history of his rise to greatness and even a tour of his mansion (puts the Taj Mahal to shame) can be found in this book. Also its the only book I've come across that has a gift shop at the end.
Hopefully there will be more books from Mitch to entertain us all. I'm now off to locate him to get myself one of his tattoos.
- World's best book
The second worst thing about moving to Wisconsin (first being living under incipient fascism)is not having access to Mitch O'Connell. A lot of the art in this book only appeared in posters , leaflets and other material distributed in and around Chicago (Mitch 's art has appeared on everything from pencils and skateboards to delightful women's bare butts- I personally am waiting for the whoopee cushion).
Years ago I could pick the stuff up tear it off walls and enjoy it! My 20 year deprivation has been cured with this book collecting Mitch's unique (well sometimes a bit bizarre) interpretations of reality.
The world goes into Mitch's brain gets mashed around and comes out well wonderfully different- and you can see it all here in this book without skulking around sleazy burlesque houses, grunge band concerts and other affairs- though all of the latter do enhance the experience! Only thing that would make it better would be if it came with an inflatable Little Puddles doll.
- Modest Title Masks True Genius!
This is the only art book I own that actually entertained me. Face it - most art books you pay for nothing- a lot of white space around a a reproduction of a piece you can't afford. That means you are paying most of the cover price on blank or what design shysters call negative space. O'Connell doesn't waste anything- including your time.
Rather than hiring some fancy college boy shill to write essays, O'Connell does the writing his'sef which is why I am am actually going to read every word- eventually. Right now I'm just happy to skim and look at all the purty five star pictures.
By the way, not only are there sparkles in the puffy plasticine cover- its spot glitter- which means it was probably really expensive other than just expensive.
- Gave Me A Stiffy
Having known the artist for about 35 years, I've had the great pleasure of watching him progress from talented teen to peerless paragon of pop art. Now, with the publication of this classy compendium, anyone who is even remotely interested in popular art can share in this pleasure. With exceedingly-deft hand, keen eye, and acerbic wit, Mitch O’Connell has come to occupy a place in pop surrealism that is shared with only a few artists --Robert Williams, self-described progenitor of the ‘Lowbrow’ movement, springs to mind.
While many of the pop surrealists or other Lowbrow artists share the same interest in skewering the social, cultural, political, and sexual mores of our consumerist culture, no one --for my money, anyway-- does a better, funnier job of sending up the obsessions of the modern world. While his technical skill is beyond reproach, and repeated study of his work will prove this, it’s Mitch’s sense of humor that will find readers coming back to this volume for amusement long after the average coffee table book has been shelved and forgotten.
In a wonderful addition to the content, the exceedingly-high production values of the book --with a brilliant, sparkled and textured cover; heavy, glossy-stock pages; and stunning page layouts-- will make even those who are not familiar with Mitch’s work sit up and take notice. Presuming there are yearly awards given for outstanding book design, I’ll be not at all surprised to find this book topping the list of nominees.
So, summing up: If you’re a fan of Mitch O’Connell, buy the book. If you’re interested in modern art, buy the book. If you’re fond of well-designed and executed art books, buy the book. If you merely want to take a chance on a bold and brilliant artist, this is the one to pick up...you won’t be disappointed!!
- A peerless artist, a peerless book
I purchased this book expecting just another glowing biography of yet another pampered, spoiled, filthy rich, low-brow artist. All I can say is "I was blind...and now I see!" After reading this man's, no, this immortals, life story and gazing at his life's work, I declare myself his humble servant.
The colors, line work and, most importantly, the brilliance BEHIND the work, have given my life a purpose. I worship at the filthy, somewhat ripe feet of my Lord and Savior: Mitch O'Connell. Mitch, I hope you are reading this. I have scanned the photos from your book and created wallpaper (no, not digital wallpaper, but actual paper wallpaper) and covered the walls of my cabin with thousands of images from your book, and more importantly, you. I now live in my car and only enter my shrine to you, formally my home, to worship at an alter that I created that features an 8' paper mache head of you (it came out really cool- except the left side looks a little droopy and concave. One of my cats climbed onto it before it was fully dried.).
If you have any personal items that you could send me for my alter I would appreciate it. I would collect your hair, but....! Could you send me some of your old clothes or maybe some toe nail clippings? I would expect them to be brightly colored and dipped in glitter, just like your art. I am working on a life size action figure of you that I can clothe in Holy vestments so you can perform ceremonies and we can have imaginary conversations- together! Everyone out there, please, throw away your Bibles and holy books and pick up Mitch O'Connell The World's Best Artist and let's commence to worshipping at the Holy Church of Mitch! Amen!
- This Book Spoke To Me- no kidding it actually talked
The perfect book to introduce the unsuspecting Cool Kid to the work of Mitch O'Connell!
If you like hot rods, 1950's comics, kitsch culture, tattoos, big-breasted women who aren't afraid to spank you when necessary, pink poodle dogs, aliens, motorcycles and the sarcastic, self-aware humor of one of America's favorite retro-culture artist, then this is the book for you!
And it comes wrapped up in a plushy, plastic foam cover that cleans up easy if splattered with blood, baby vomit or spunk. Or a disgusting combination of all three!
This book will make you laugh!
This book will tentpole your trousers!
This book will make you a cooler individual than your lesser friends! I am cooler than you, because I own this book (and a few other Mitch O'Connell books too.)
What are you waiting for? Get up on this book!
- Throw money at your local bookseller for this book!
Mitch O'Connell's latest book, "Mitch O'Connell the World's Best Artist by Mitch O'Connell", is the BEST and GREATEST book ever penned by the Master to this date!
Mitch, my friend for over 30 years has created the world's MOST magical collection of SUPER ART.... yes, the term is SUPER ART!
Owning his most current book has cured my arthritis. By reading the pages my 60 year old eyes now possess 20/20 vision. I can walk without a cane. My elderly wife read it and is now using tampons again. THE BOOK IS A MIRACLE!!! This modest genius has created the cures for all maladies of the Human Condition by merely printing the World's Best Art; HIS World's Best Art and AMAZING LIFE STORY in this Remarkable 288 page book!
Ladies & Gentlemen throw away your Bibles because THIS IS IT!!!!!!! The only Good Book you will ever need!
You will never EVER get a bigger bang for your $20.
- GOD'S GIFT TO THE ART WORLD !!
All art books have pictures (that's kind of the idea) but how many would you sit down and read? Sure, "Mitch O'Connell, the World's Best Artist" is chock-full of the requisite lifetime's worth of artwork (well, maybe two-thirds to half a lifetime, he's not dead yet), but it's also brimming with personal tales and anecdotes filled with witty, self-deprecating braggadocio, all wrapped in a puffy, sparkly vinyl cover.
Not many other (any other?) artists can claim to have been published in everything from the New York Times to Juggs and you'll learn that and many other fascinating facts when you read this book.
Did I mention the puffy, sparkly vinyl cover? It's an art book which moonlights as a coaster, which is super-practical (buy a set!). So, if you like 60's kitsch, creepy clowns, and big-eyed rabbits (and who doesn't?) then this is the book for you.
- The first coffee table book you'll actually read!
I first saw Mitch's work back in the dark ages - before computers and t'internet and the writing of book online reviews. It was a "graphic novel" (trans.: Fat Expensive Comic Book) called GINGER FOX, and I've been following his work ever since, picking up the odd book or flyer or cover whenever I came across them.
Now, all of that scattered detritus has been collated into one big fat squishy plastic-covered wipe-clean book. Fatter and more expensive than Ginger Fox, who must be in her fatter and more expensive mid-50s' by now.
Mitch has an assured clean graphic line, a searing sense of eye-popping colour, a healthy interest in the female form, and a joyous sense of the pop-art poetry inherent in the commercial ephemera those fancy-pants "high art" snobs just don't get. I want to delve into the dark recesses of this man's "gentleman's magazine" collection, but fear I may never emerge... Go buy!! NOW!!
- Squishy!
I never in a million years would have thought I'd own this book. I'm a fan and I love art books but my own art has consumed all resources and left my book aquiring funds non existent. Fast forward to my B-day party this yr and I get Mitch's book for a gift. So of course we immediatly crack it open to take in the mind bending eye candy.. First words out of my mouth. "danmmit, he IS the Worlds Greatest Artist!"
Endless hours of entertainment. Known about in France. As advertised. All in all pretty stinkin' cool. Color me jealous and inspired all at the same time. So if you're like me, put it on your wish list, and if you can buy it just do it now. You'll be happy you treated yourself.
- Worlds Greatest Artist, yea right.
In 2015 my friend, the fabulous artist Mitch O'Connell, created this excellent illustration of Donald Trump as one of the evil aliens from John Carpenter's 1988 science fiction film, They Live. Once Trump became president, Mitch tried to install a billboard with the illustration, but no one in the US would let him. He ended up displaying it in Mexico City, though.
Well, Mitch recently found out that a Times Square billboard company will allow him to display his illustration on a billboard and he's started a gofundme campaign to make this dream a reality.
Fictional Story Related Index
This is an index of full text reprints of stories that I have
read that influenced me when I was young. They are rather difficult to
come by today, as where I live they are nearly impossible to find. Yes,
you can find them on the internet, behind paywalls. Ah, that’s why all
those software engineers in California make all that money. Well, here
they are FOR FREE. Enjoy reading them.
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Art that Moves Me
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Asians and Nazis are two things that you would think wouldn’t really go together. That is because there just aren’t any well known (in the West) associations between the two. You would assume that there would be no way that they’d fit together to create a single perfect shape.
It’s all about rain clearing the air so that the beautiful day can manifest. It is about war clearing the bad so peace can come about. It is about the woman that complements the man, and the good that comes about from the bad.
In Asia, you won’t find things that you cannot talk about. Things you are forbidden to do. Lifestyles that are considered too odd or strange to show in public. And yes, things that others might find repulsive has a home in Asia. Because being politically correct is often against the law.
Nazi chic is a thing, and yes in Asia (all over Asia, actually) a very popular thing.
Being able to dress as you like, free of anyone or any government telling you otherwise is called freedom.
It’s terribly refreshing, if a bit disturbing.
Asian Nazi Fashion
Every few years we hear of some incredibly bizarre subculture that startles us away from our comfortable life inside of Starbucks, and McDonalds.
Often it is so unlike what we would find on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, or on Oprah Show.
They would behave, dress and act in ways that we would find absolutely disturbing and outrageous. Ways that are most certainly banned in the more sensible sections of New York City or San Francisco.
In the United States and Europe it’s just not a very good idea to don the ornamentation of the Third Reich. Unless you want to send a very specific message, that is: I’m a fascist and antisemitic, and damn proud of it.
Many just can’t wrap their minds around these obscure behaviors.
They argue “there ought to be a law“, and “how dare these people flaunt the unwritten societal rules of behavior“. But they don’t. They just go on living their life, oblivious that others in far-away places like Pasadena, and Martha’s Vineyard are repulsed by their actions.
Meanwhile the Asians are all just smiling inside.
I think that they (deep down inside) love to watch the horror creep on the faces of the elite millennials from their protected cribs in the United States. Maybe it’s kind of a game to them. Like “look what I can do, and you cannot”. Sort of like that.
They are living life on their terms. Right or wrong and totally oblivious to who it offends.
It’s called freedom.
Others, living as LGBT, or who identifies as a transgender potato, are just as free to live their life as they see fit. Aren’t they? But most Americans wouldn’t have anything to say about that. Now would they?
They don’t. They are protected. They are privileged.
Alternatively, if they want to be a full-functioning male, but enter the ladies room in a middle-school, and it is allowed by the local government, they why should anyone else have a problem with how someone else dresses? Heck, they would be fully supported by the government, the educational establishment, the school board, and the media. You know this is true.
If they want to shit on the sidewalk in San Francisco, well fine and dandy. If they want to wear hats that look like a woman’s neither regions, well then let them.
Live and let live.
Or is that too repulsive a point of view to accept?
People, you cannot pick and choose "types" of freedom. You are either free, or you aren't. It's black and white. Either everyone is free to do as they wish, or no one is.
If you are in a situation where SOME people can do what they wish, while others cannot, then you are on the dangerous Marxist road to the elimination of all freedoms and all liberties. Hey! How about cracking open a history book why won't ya?
Fashion exists everywhere.
To close our eyes to other cultures, and other ways of doing things is really not smart. If we are so easily offended about such a silly thing as how people dress, then perhaps we really need to take a serious reappraisal of our life. Our priorities are seriously out of wack.
Do you get all upset because the person in the other car is listening to 1970’s era Disco?
Are you furious when you discover that there are no lilac colored doggie collars in Pet-Smart?
Do you totally freak out when your transgender supervisor comes to work wearing bright red lipstick, and eyelashes?
People! Different places have different cultures and different ways of doing things. If you want to live in your closed and shallow life and be fearful of the world outside of Starbucks, it’s up to you. But, it will hurt you.
We need to accept the fact that different people are different, and different and being different is a GOOD THING. If you don’t believe me, just ask a Chinese person what they thought of the universal-blue clothing that Mr. Mao made everyone wear.
Being different is a good thing.
People are different. Different is good. It adds color to our life and permits us to view things in a completely new light. Instead of being in an echo chamber where everyone else tells us what we want to hear.
You should not be offended by something as silly as clothing. Really!
Culture and Fashion
Now this trend in Asia, in the big picture, isn’t really that strange. It certainly isn’t as bad as any other things that many others find offensive. Take the United States for instance. These things are considered normal…
Yet, for all the craziness that Americans take for granted in their own life, they are absolutely horrified by this trend on the other side of the globe.
To them, this one; this love of Nazi style uniforms, really stands apart.
It is about as politically incorrect that you can get. And many of the PC-crowd in the USA, and Europe are absolutely horrified by it.
Which is really silly. Especially what passes for as “normal” in the United States today. Normal in the United States today…
This subculture in Asia is called “Asian Nazis” and it’s basically what it sounds like. It’s a bunch of young kids with an affinity for militarism, anti-semitism and a love for all things Hitler.
It’s sort of like the Obama-worship subculture in the United States. Only not so rabid, and hyper-monitized.
Normal in the United States today…
America has it’s very own fashions and trends that people in other nations find offensive.
Over the last few decades or two, groups of fashionable young people in Asia have discovered Nazi clothing and paraphernalia.
Apparently, they’ve also decided that “hey, this is pretty stylish, I wanna look like this!” without realizing that they were connecting themselves to the propagators of the Holocaust and, you know, the entire World War II thingy.
They don’t know that they are being offensive to Americans and Israelites.
In their world, people are free to live the life as they choose. As long as they are not bothering anyone, they can be themselves. It’s called liberty. It’s called freedom. You all should give it a spin. It’s actually really nice once to get used to the concept of “live and let live“.
This is what happens when you regulate things so that no one is ever offended…
Trends
In Japan, the latest example of this incredibly strange fashion style happened with the pop group Pritz, who performed in public in 2014 while wearing dark clothing and symbols that were unmistakably inspired by the Nazis. Although they apologized and claimed that they didn’t know what they were doing, examples of subtle Nazi love are found in several Asian countries.
In Thailand in 2007, students held a Nazi-themed parade, and another school held an SS sports rally in 2012. At a top Thai university, students painted a giant mural depicting Hitler with other superheroes, while some students delivered the sieg hiel salute. Nazi-themed pop groups are also popular.
In China in 2003, the Chinese retailer Izzue decorated all 14 of their stores with swastikas. After complaints from foreigners (Mostly Americans, and Canadians.), the company’s marketing manager said: ‘This is Hong Kong, and Chinese people are not sensitive about Nazism’. With comments like that, it looks like this bizarre-and somewhat offensive-subculture is here to stay.
In South Korea, there are Nazi-themed bars, and in China, it was fashionable to dress up like Nazi officers for wedding photos. Whether there’s an extreme case of “lost in translation” going on here or whether Asians just think that style takes precedence over historical tragedies, we’re not sure.
It's sort of like how the NFL now has African-American themed anti-white people rally's during the half-time show. No one gets offended, and they just continue without any "push back".
What a time to be alive…!
Yeah, it’s completely crazy.
Nazi cosplaying is taking place all over the continent, too, from Tokyo to Hong Kong, plus parts of China, South Korea and even Burma. There’s even a Tumblr account dedicated to ‘Nazi chic’ (their words, not mine!) called Fun With Asian Nazis.
There is but one thing that’s crystal clear: If you’re planning to go abroad, try to leave your offended and outraged pants back home because vacations are for de-stressing, not clawing your eyeballs out in horror.
Get your head out of the sand…
The rest of the world are not encumbered with limits on their behavior. Right or wrong, a limit on a behavior is a restriction on freedom.
These limits, while constructed with the best of intentions, eventually stifle creativity and life. Look at how well it has worked out for North Korea, Stalinist Russia, Modern Iran, and Mr. Mao’s China.
All of them started to place little, simple rules, you known to make life better… for the children.
And while you go about your day-to-day life in the United States, watching the goings on, keep in mind that the rest of the world is living their life oblivious to your problems, and restrictions.
As such, here’s a window to what the rest of the world is like…
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Asia news site AsiaObscura stumbled across some Korean Nazi cosplayers. Why were they dressed that way? The writer wanted to know. As one of the cosplayers told him: “We’re not racist. We just like the fashion. Really.”
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are
some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you
might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up
in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society
within communist China. As there are some really stark differences
between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have
broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones
actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little
different, in subtle ways.
Funny Pictures
Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.