...and other stuff, ART, LIVES, READING MATTER, The Real Johannes Vermeer, THE VERMEER WOMEN, UNIVERSES, VERMEER REVEALED

GIRL IN THE VERMEER PAINTINGS

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

stunning_painting_objects_5

This picture is a modern spoof on the world famous painting by the 16th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer.   The girl in the legendary painting (as well as in several other of his paintings) is his second daughter, Elizabeth!  Vermeer never hired models — he painted only family and friends.  It doesn’t take a cosmetic surgeon to compare the features of the women in the majority of his paintings to observe that the same women are being painted in their own home, again and again in different poses, settings, lighting and clothing.  Most of his paintings feature his wife, Catharina, who was not only his constant accomplice in creating a family, she was his foremost ally in his life as an artist!

The painting named (by others), “Girl with a pearl earring“, as well as “The girl with a red hat”, and “The girl with a flute”, and others, are all of his second daughter, Elizabeth, who was a teenager when they were painted.  He used her as the model for a series of very small “tronie” or facial portraits, which were popular at the time.

These miniature “head shots” were especially well suited to the use of the camera obscura to create what we know now to have a photographic quality, rendering the light and perspective differently than the unaided lens of the human eye perceives it.

To learn all of the details about the women who posed for Johannes Vermeer in all of his famous paintings, read the book VERMEER: PORTRAITS OF A LIFETIME, by Lawrence R. Spencer.

DOWNLOAD THIS BOOK FROM iTUNES
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/vermeer/id443800993?mt=11 

Support independent publishing: Buy this e-book on Lulu.

ART, BULLSHIT, FREE ADVICE, READING MATTER

POETIC IGNORANCE

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Adrian Mitchell (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British anti-authoritarian Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country’s anti-Bomb movement. Mitchell sought in his work to counteract the implications of his own assertion that, “Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.” In a National Poetry Day poll in 2005 his poem “Human Beings” was voted the one most people would like to see launched into space.  “Most people ignore most poetry / because / most poetry ignores most people.”

Since the Vietnam war nothing has really changed except that war-mongers have become more sophisticated about sanitizing acts of mass-murder with remote controlled drones and smart bombs.  More “enemies” are killed per square “peace keeping soldier”.  Listen to a poem performed by Adrian Mitchell in the video below.  Fill in the word “Vietnam” with the word “Iraq” or “Afghanistan” or “Iran”, etc..  Different year…. same old shit.

...and other stuff, LIVES, MOVING PICTURES, UNIVERSES

BEE PEEING

Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Slowed down footage of a bee squirting a clear liquid from its anus,, taken at the Auckland Botanical Gardens. Originally the event happened fast enough, 4 frames at 30 fps, that it was only viewable upon being slowed down. Since my camera scans from top to bottom, and the bee was positioned in the lower portion of the video, I believe this event actually took more like a tenth of a second instead of an approximately an eighth.

File:Bee Squirt.gif

File:Bee Squirt.gif – Wikipedia,