Category Archives: ART

Paintings, photography, aesthetic objects, beautiful communication, and anything I consider to be art, artful, artistic, artsy or whatever.
Art is subjective. It is a quality of communication can be contributed to by the viewer through empathy or agreement with its creator.

DYING TO ENTERTAIN

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Why is it that killing, mayhem, destruction, murder, blood & guts, war and death in general are called “entertainment”?  It’s not just on television.  Dying horribly has featured as the prominent theme in books, magazines, newspapers, plays, movies and every kind of “entertainment” ever conceived.  A couple thousand years ago we used to go to arenas all over the Roman Empire to watch people slaughter each other and innocent animals by the thousands!  Bloody “sports” like boxing, wrestling, sword fighting, and jousting have been  popular for thousands of years.  More people have been slaughtered on battlefields all over the world throughout human history than by any other cause (except disease and old age).

Why are homo sapiens are utterly fascinated by, and relish violent, dramatic death?  Why is death entertaining?

My guess is because we don’t really die.  We just keep on coming back and doing it all again.  What we really love about death is the drama, the mystery and the pain of playing a game.

— Lawrence R. Spencer, 2012

STAR WARS IN 1902

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What if “Star Wars” had been released 75 years earlier — in 1902 instead of 1977?

Anachronisme by LesSingesHurlants

THE SILENT FILM ERA:  1894 -1929

The first projected sequential proto-movie was made byEadweard Muybridge some time between 1877 and 1880. The first narrative film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a two-second film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden, entitled Roundhay Garden Scene. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the “silent era“(1894-1929) before silent films were replaced by “talking pictures” in the late 1920s. Many film scholars and buffs argue that the aesthetic quality of cinema decreased for several years until directors, actors, and production staff adapted to the new “talkies”.

The visual quality of silent movies—especially those produced in the 1920s—was often high. However, there is a widely held misconception that these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards. This misconception comes as a result of silent films being played back at wrong speed and their deteriorated condition. Many silent films exist only in second- or third-generation copies, often copied from already damaged and neglected film stock.

As motion pictures eventually increased in length, a replacement was needed for the in-house interpreter who would explain parts of the film. Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the cinema audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decoration that commented on the action.

READ MORE ABOUT THE HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY OF “SILENT” FILMS ON WIKIPEDIA:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_film

CLOTHES OF THE SOUL

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The BHAGAVAD GITA is an ancient Sanskrit text comprising 700 verses of the Mahabharata. The verses, using the range and style of Sanskrit meter (chandas) with similes and metaphors, are very poetic; hence the title, which translates to “the Song of the Divine One”, of Bhagavan in the form of Krishna. It is revered as sacred by the majority of Hindu traditions, and especially so by followers of Krishna. In general speech it is commonly referred to as The Gita. The content of the Bhagavad Gita is a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna taking place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra just prior to the start of a climactic war. Responding to Arjuna’s confusion and moral dilemma, Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a famous warrior and Prince and elaborates on number of different Yogic and Vedantic philosophies, with examples and analogies. This has led to the Gita often being described as a concise guide to Hindu philosophy.

PHOTOGRAPH:  taken during the 1930s in the workshop of Madame Tussauds  wax museum in London.  The museum was founded by wax sculptor Marie Tussaud (1761–1850) who was born in Strasbourg, France.  Her mother worked as a housekeeper for Dr. Philippe Curtius in Bern, Switzerland, who was a physician skilled in wax modelling. Curtius taught Tussaud the art of wax modelling.  Tussaud created her first wax figure, of Voltaire, in 1777.