Beware the
Ides of
March. Almost everyone knows that the phrase comes from the story of the assassination of Julius Caesar, most familiarly in the
Shakespeare version, although
"The Life of Augustus," written by Nicolauas of Damascus, contains what is thought to be the earliest narrative of the plot to murder Julius Caesar, based in part on eyewitness accounts. But, not everyone knows that The Ides Of March is also a
band [flash intro] (best known for the song
"Vehicle")
[YouTube], an epistolatory
novel by Thornton Wilder (with forward by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.), an
instrumental song by Iron Maiden [YouTube], and two paintings, one by
Edward Poynter and one by
Andrew Wyeth.
posted by amyms
on Mar 15, 2007 -
10 comments
Kehinde Wiley :
painter and
sculptor . "The subjects, anonymous men in T-shirts and jeans that Wiley approaches on the street, are given the mantle of authority and grandiosity bestowed on figures such as
Napoleon in Jacques-Louis David's famous depiction with a rearing steed or the holiness of saints." (
via)
posted by desjardins
on Mar 7, 2007 -
7 comments
"Another useful analogy might be with a clearing in the jungle. The web is certainly a jungle, and without a few clearings it is hard to see how the innocent can stay sane in there, and it might soon be hard to see anything at all." The words of poet and essayist
Clive James, whose eponymous site is an online galley/anthology of breathtaking writing, art, and video interviews. My favorites include Ophelia Redpath's
paintings titled after Shakespeare quotes, Laura Noble's
photos of rusty things, and, of course, a collection James's
outstanding poetry.
posted by eustacescrubb
on Mar 3, 2007 -
8 comments
This time-lapse video of an oil-painting being created by Pablo Picasso is brief, but captivating. The clip is a scene taken from the 1955 French documentary "
The Mystery of Picasso," in which director Henri-Georges Clouzot filmed the artist painting 20 different pieces. Bizarrely enough, almost all the art created for the film had to be destroyed upon close of production due to contractual obligation.
Via
posted by jonson
on Jan 1, 2007 -
28 comments
Beauty in bitmaps- Some artists work in watercolors, some oils, and some with clay. The 'artists' at tacoholic express themselves in the universally accessible medium of really bad MS Paint drawings. Its public so you can submit your own masterworks.
posted by AVandalay
on Aug 18, 2006 -
7 comments
Fascination with
ground and figure carries on in various fields after
The Rubin vase / face Illusion,
M.C. Escher, and
Marshall McLuhan.
Besides being extremely important in the fields of
photography and
poetry, the figure/ground relationship is important to physicist
Paul Davies, who says "the true miracle of nature is to be found in the ingenious and unswerving lawfulness of the cosmos, a lawfulness that permits complex order to emerge from chaos, life to emerge from inanimate matter, and consciousness to emerge from life."
Also, Peter Grundy and Yiang Yan discuss how
contextual ground relates to linguistic figure in Bill Clinton's famous apology,
Andrew Graydon plays with the distinction between sound as environment and sound as music, and W.C. Richardson creates
paintings in which "positive and negative spaces seem unstable; figure becomes ground, ground becomes figure."
posted by Aghast.
on Aug 12, 2006 -
3 comments
Bali is an island in Indonesia that attracted
Walter Spies, a Russian born, German artist who settled in the colonial Dutch East Indies from 1923 on. Adored by the Balinese, Spies was the co-founder of the
Pita Maha artists' cooperative, he shaped the development of contemporary Balinese art and established the West's image of Bali that still exists today. [more images and background inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Jul 29, 2006 -
15 comments
At least one commander told him, "Follow the soldiers' instructions, because they'll put their lives at risk to save you." But no one tried to censor his drawings or discourage him from going out on missions. -- Steve Mumford is a New York painter who was embedded as a "combat artist" in Iraq. The archives of his
Baghdad Journal make for fascinating reading. He has recently published a large
book of the art he created on this voyage.
posted by Gator
on Dec 18, 2005 -
9 comments
Art Rage: An unfortunate name for a really fun program. From the site: "ArtRage is all about playing with paint without the mess, and having fun in the process. You can paint your own image from a blank canvas to completed work, or load in a picture to trace and have the tools pick their colours for you as you paint over it." Friday fun that can keep you occupied all weekend. Enjoy.
posted by FunkyHelix
on Aug 26, 2005 -
9 comments
Legend has it that
Charles Dellschau (1830-1923) was the
draftsman for the secret
Sonora Aero Club, a collective of 60 or so mostly German immigrants who reportedly constructed
dirigible like aircraft in California in the 1850's. One club member was said to have discovered
suppe -- the magic antigravity fuel alleged to have lifted the craft.
There were sightings of these 'airships', tenuously linked back to the club, up to
the end of the 20th century.
Dellschau, described variously as butcher, inventor, civil war spy, scientist and
America's first visionary artist, retired at age 70 in Texas and
spent the last 2 decades of his life as a recluse,
producing mixed media art works that
record the craft and workings of the fabled Sonora Aero Club.
They are accompanied by cryptic symbols, newsprint about aircraft and detailed notebooks and were salvaged from the garbage in 1967.
His artworks were selling for $15,000 each 5 years ago. A would-be author and long-time sleuth believes he has unlocked the mysteries of
Dellschau's cryptic accoutrements and may be
publishing a book on the legends this year.
via
posted by peacay
on Jun 15, 2005 -
11 comments
Body Art. (NSFW) Martin Armand gives a whole new meaning to the term "anatomical art" with his airbrush paintings on bare skin. Five galleries of photos: the first page only links to a few larger images, but the rest of the galleries work fine. More bodypainting
here (E-cards site, but very cool images),
here (very nice "camouflage" body art),
here (especially artistic) and via
this previous MetaFilter thread. But remember; if you worky, no clicky the linky!
posted by taz
on Jun 2, 2005 -
10 comments
