Category: Culture

Art, music, literature and thespianism

Landscapes Extraordinaire

Fine Art

Ever since I took a few Art Appreciation classes during my belated university career*, I have been an admirer of Corot’s landscapes — sheesh, okay, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot — because for some reason, they seem to me to straddle the hyper-realism of the Academy and the later swirling Impressionists like Monet.  Here are a few which typify this part of his work:

A Farmyard near Fontainebleau

A Farmyard in the Nievre

The Path leading to the House

Trees and a Swamp

A View Near Volterra

Smyrna, A Boat

A Sudden Gust Of Wind

I love this last one most of all, because it’s almost a photograph, so well does he capture the effect of wind on both the trees and the walker.  But I would be happy to hang all the above on my walls.

In fact, what I think I’d do is get four small 18″x12″ Corot landscapes from, say, iCanvas and arrange them on a wall, thus:

Hey, it’s not too bad a dream, is it?

Corot also did portraits and such, but to be honest, I don’t care for them at all.  Here’s one which I think is his best:

…and another more like his others:

Sorry, but no.  I have high standards when it comes to portrait paintings, what can I say?

*The appreciation of art was truly a neglected part of my education.  Art classes at high school gave me an understanding of movements such as Impressionism, Dadaism, Surrealism and so on, but I never learned to appreciate art properly.  So when I went back to university in my early 50s, I took one such class, realized that I needed to take another, and then took a couple more.

I just wish I’d taken them earlier on in life, because I’ve missed so much.

Perfect Something

Fine Art, Two-Minute Hate, Wokism

And another fine and wonderful thing comes under attack:

Michelangelo’s masterpiece, The Creation Of Man, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a symbol of white supremacy, according to one woke writer.

The world-renowned piece of art which features a white-skinned Adam reaching out his hand to God, has come under fire.

It has been called ‘the perfect convergence’ of Caucasian dominion.

My idea of “perfect convergence” would be that of an axe with this fuckwit’s head, but no doubt someone is going to have a problem with this.

Update:  Never mind;  it’s Robin DiAngelo.  Should have known.  Not even worth a rant, although I had one ready.  Every time this human shithole speaks, she lessens humanity’s sum of knowledge and goodness.

Worthless sack of wokist shit [redundancy alert].

Next…

Irrelevant Protest

Culture, Marketing / Advertising

Talk about misplaced priorities outside Rome’s Colosseum:

Alexis Mucci, who has 7.5million followers on Instagram, donned nothing but satin robes and black lingerie sets with fitness model Issa Vegas. In the clip, which has gained more than 134,000 likes, the pair untied the belts on their robes to reveal their skimpy outfits.

Dark-haired beauty Alexis was seen in a strappy bra that barely covered her cleavage with a lacy thong and pair of patterned fishnet stockings. Meanwhile, Issa wore a black lace bra with a matching thong and similar stockings.

So far, so good.

However, some Instagram viewers took to the comments begging the OnlyFans model and her fitness star pal to “cover up.”

One user said: “Cover yourself it’s cold.” Another added: “Move I can’t see the colosseum.” A third commented: “What a shame they have to sell themselves like this.”

It’s the last comment which got me shaking my head.

Anyone who’s ever been to the Colosseum knows that it’s a hive of hucksterism:  people offering tourists “private tours” of the place, and gawd knows how many assholes dressed up as Roman legionaries offering to pose with said tourists in front of the ruins, all for a (horrifying) price, of course.

So in fact the Colosseum is the perfect place for two houris  to sell themselves.

Feel free to scrutinize them via the link, but be warned that they’re nastier than cheap Italian red wine.

“Modern”

Fine Art, Modernism

Whenever one is confronted with the random squiggles and daubs that are a feature of “modern” art, there is an irresistible impulse to say dismissively “Looks like something my kid could do”.

Because it’s true.

I defy anyone to argue otherwise when seeing this travesty in what is quite possibly the world’s most cultured city.  (via Insty, thankee Sarah… I think)

Fucking hell.

Silken Drapes

Fine Art

I have always been fascinated, not to say turned on, by the appearance of the female form when loosely covered with soft, diaphanous materials such as silk, satin or linen.  Here’s an example of what I mean, that of a statue of Callipygian Venus, in the Louvre:

The nineteenth-century American sculptor William Wetmore Story specialized in the form, seen here with his Cleopatra Reclining:

…and Semiaramis:

That last pic I took myself when the statue was on display at the Dallas Museum of Art, and I stared at it for ages.

Story, by the way, had this to say about sculpture in general:

Quite so.

Nowadays, of course, such wondrous sights are few and far between, and pretty much confined to photography.  Although there is this lovely picture of Mr. and Mrs. David Bowie:

…wherein even the bony Angela looks quite appealing, most such pictures seem to need backlighting:

…while most (shall we say) are more prurient:

Honestly?  I prefer Story’s sculptures to all of them.

Permanence And Instability

Culture

Over at Intellectual Takeout, Walker Larson has some sobering thoughts about the difference between civilization and barbarism:

A true civilization produces architecture, art, artifacts, customs, heritage, and traditions that are meant to last. A barbaric culture may invent some crude forms of these things, but their purpose, and the mindset that generates them, remains fundamentally different, and thus the results are different, too. While civilization engenders a consistent set of customs—a coherent and unifying way of looking at the world rooted in time and tradition—the barbarian is unmoored from any such stable pillars.

His argument is peculiarly appropriate for the times we find ourselves in, and I urge you to read the whole article.