Courbet "Baigneuses" (detail - only one baigneuse)

The combination of  day job, blog, and endless post-season baseball games, have made it difficult to do decent yoga and/or get to the gym of late.  (Hard to blog in downward dog.)   This, plus some brownies that I made for a visiting nephew, have left me feeling very chubby this Friday morning.   To compensate for those feelings, I’m posting “Courbet”, an homage to the wonderful sensitivity of  Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) to the womanly  physique.

Courbet

All I can say is that
it’s a good thing we have
museums hanging Courbets,
Rubens,
Rembrandts,
the occasional Italian,
with their depictions of swelling bellies,
dimples gathered around spines, flesh rippling
like Aphrodite’s birth foam,
the creep of pubic hair juxtaposed by coy hands
whose curved digits
pudge, slightly sunken cheeks (above, below),
spidery blood vessels
rooting beneath the patina.
All I can say, as
I catch my face in the
glass, glance down at
my folio of torso,
is that it’s a good thing.

All rights reserved.  Karin Gustafson.

This is the blog for Group 3: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century French Painters. Each group member should leave information on chosen artist and catalog as a comment on this blog.

Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, Gustave Courbet 1854

Cuando la fórmula de las grandes exposiciones parece agotada y los museos ven cada vez más mermados sus presupuestos, llega la hora de recurrir al fondo de armario. Rentabilizar las propias colecciones de cada museo. Algo que en los casos del Prado, el Metropolitan de Nueva York o el vienés Albertina, se presenta en este arranque de temporada como un recurso idóneo. Pero no el único. Los museos británicos, con un 40% de su gasto sufragado por el Estado, son de los pocos que se agarran a la vieja fórmula de las exposiciones estrella con un alarde de marketing y publicidad para encontrar ofertas que logren epatar. ¿Una tercera posibilidad? Ampliar las sedes del propio museo, como el Louvre, que está a punto de abrir una franquicia en Abu-Dhabi. La estrategia no es nueva: recuerda a la política de franquicias del Guggenheim.

Miguel Zugaza, director del Museo del Prado, tiene clara su elección: rentabilizar sus propias colecciones. La exposición recién presentada, dedicada a esa joya oculta del barroco que es Juan Bautista Maíno (1581- 1649), es un buen ejemplo. “Creo que el plato fuerte de un museo debe ser su propia colección y las actividades temporales, apoyarse en lo que constituye la base del centro”.

Nicholas Penny, director de la sede londinense de la National Gallery, defensor del conocimiento frente al espectáculo en los centros artísticos, se suma al coro de los que no ven rentable conseguir visitantes a base de extravagancias. Pese a ello, Xavier Bray -conservador jefe de los siglos XVII y XVIII de la National Gallery, que ha creado una verdadera conmoción en la temporada londinense con su exposición de escultura barroca española The sacred made real-, explica que la muestra es producto de la búsqueda de temas que con la sorpresa atraigan al público. “Seguimos las leyes del marketing y la publicidad más agresivos. No podemos permitirnos perder ni un solo visitante”.

¿Tienen que ver la crisis y la reducción de presupuestos en estos planteamientos? Zugaza opina que no. “Las partidas son más limitadas, pero eso no hace que varíe el tipo de exposiciones que queremos para el museo”. Este invierno, el Prado dedicará una muestra a la pintura holandesa en sus colecciones. Se presentará el catálogo razonado acompañado de una selección de los grandes maestros representados en la pinacoteca. “El Prado es un fondo inagotable”, añade Zugaza. “La exposición de Sorolla, la más visitada después de la histórica de Velázquez, no es sino otro ejemplo. Contaba con piezas maestras que pertenecen a este museo y que ahora están en las salas permanentes dedicadas al XIX”.

Acaso ése sea un lujo sólo al alcance de los grandes centros. El Albertina de Viena es uno de esos afortunados. Sus propios fondos andan sobrados de relumbrón. Con 65.000 dibujos y un millón de grabados de todas las épocas, sus colecciones de Durero, Leonardo da Vinci, Miguel Ángel, Manet o Klimt dan para varias temporadas consecutivas de éxito. De momento, el Albertina ha iniciado ésta con Impresionismo en las colecciones del museo. Courbet, Caillebotte, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Pissarro, Signac y Van Gogh son algunos de los autores que componen una exposición deslumbrante.

El panorama cambia al adentrarnos en el más resbaladizo terreno del arte contemporáneo. Vicente Todolí, director de la Tate Modern de Londres, opina que el recurso al “fondo de armario” sólo sirve para los museos de arte antiguo. Y va más allá. Es “el mismo caramelo con otro envoltorio. Vestir la misma colección de otra manera”. Como ejemplo recurre a esas muestras que giran en torno a un tema determinado y que, dice, aburren al espectador más pintado. “Hay fórmulas que ya no se pueden repetir más: ‘la nieve en el impresionismo’ o ‘el sol en el impresionismo’, como hace el Museo de Orsay”, bromea, “Ya no sirven. Hay que buscar conceptos nuevos y muy atractivos”. Tras esa reflexión, quizá sorprenda saber que su gran apuesta para la primavera será Gauguin fabulador.

“La Tate Modern ha reducido la programación porque la esponsorización no existe en estos momentos y con sólo el 40% del presupuesto [aportado por el Estado] no abrimos. Tenemos que conseguir visitantes que vengan y además consuman”, continúa. Y en ese consumo está una de las mayores fuentes de ingresos de la Tate: las tiendas y los puntos de restauración dependen directamente del museo. No funcionan como concesiones a empresas subsidiarias.

¿Qué opina Todolí de los museos que comparten o venden su marca como el Guggenheim o el Louvre? “Nos negamos a las franquicias porque entendemos que es imperialismo cultural. El museo tiene que nacer en un entorno propio, no puede haber colonización. No somos los únicos que nos hemos opuesto. El MOMA [neoyorquino] ha hecho lo mismo. Otra cosa es asesorar, pero los modelos no se exportan”.

Manuel Borja-Villel, director del Reina Sofía, es contrario también a negociar con la marca. “El nuevo paradigma no debe consistir meramente en reducir gastos a la espera de que la tormenta amaine. Tampoco podemos insistir en aquello que no ha funcionado, esto es, la sustitución de la cultura por el espectáculo, la disneyzación de los museos basada en un sistema de franquicias por el que cada museo repite aquello que ya se ha hecho en otro sitio, en el que el espectador se dedica al reconocimiento de marcas o eslóganes y no al conocimiento de territorios desconocidos”.

El responsable del Reina Sofía opina que “es necesario volver a aquello que es esencial en todo museo: a la investigación y a la educación, a que el público se convierta en agente activo, haga suyos y transforme los relatos del museo para que éstos dejen de ser miméticos del mercado y las modas. Es imprescindible que se generen otros modos de colaboración y relación basados en el trabajo en red y no en las franquicias”.

Es evidente que ésa no es la forma en la que los responsables del Louvre ven las cosas. Por un millón de euros, la capital de los Emiratos Árabes contará desde 2012 con una lujosa sucursal del museo parisiense construida por Jean Nouvel. Será todo un parque temático museístico en el que la metrópoli francesa se ocupará de las exposiciones temporales. Contará con un espacio dedicado al arte contemporáneo que, con la marca Guggenheim, construye actualmente Frank Gehry. Los préstamos procedentes de las sedes-madre servirán para que gracias a los petrodólares se dé a conocer el arte antiguo a nuevas audiencias.

A estas alturas, ya queda claro que hay soluciones para todos los gustos. Incluso las basadas en el deseo. Guillermo Solana, responsable artístico del Thyssen desde hace cuatro años, confesó públicamente durante la presentación de Las lágrimas de Eros que la idea de montar esta exposición  le vino a la cabeza hace año y medio, en el momento más bajo de su carrera, al borde de la depresión más absoluta… El erotismo se le apareció como una fórmula mágica de insuflar vida al espacio. Una fórmula tan criticada por algunos como aplaudida por los muchos visitantes que estos días se agolpan en las salas del Thyssen.

Fuente: El País – ÁNGELES GARCÍA - Madrid – 28/10/2009

Imogen Cunningham’s The Supplicant, 1910

I love Cunningham’s print of Portia Hume for several reasons, but mostly because the subject is so unabashed at the scant traces of her underarm hair. I hate that it is considered hippyish and unattractive for women in today’s society to have underarm hair…truly, extra hair anywhere. It is ridiculous because it is natural and it is more than acceptable for men to be very hairy.

Still, I shave because I find if you don’t, it becomes a really big part of your identity, and I think there are more important things I would want my name to evoke.  Does this make me too worried about what others think of me? It isn’t about people liking me, accepting me, or thinking I am strange. I grew out of worrying about that (for the most part) a long time ago. Rather, I just wouldn’t want that particular crusade (for women’s armpit hair) to define me. Maybe I’ll change my mind about this as I get older, but right now I care about other things more. Still, I would like to learn more about the history of body hair and why women’s body hair has been condemned, especially in American society. I have similar thoughts on why the practice of male circumcision is continued, but I am less interested in this issue because, uh, I don’t have a penis.

Ripe & Hairy  (Cunningham, again)

I remember in my all girls high school, everyone was required to wear tights everyday; therefore, some of us (including myself) opted not to shave our legs as often as we would have otherwise. So, our little prickly leg hairs would stick through the white stockings. My friends and I would then tease each other, saying we knew when one of us was sleeping with someone, because, all of a sudden, our stockings would be smooth and we would know the legs had been shaven.

Below are some Courbet, a true lover of women and their naturalness!

&

Courbet’s The Origin of the World:

Lastly, from a contemporary artist & blog writer & non-shaver, Amoxes:

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Laux really does an interesting feat here by  reversing  who is  the “conqueror” during sex. Most times, in heteronormative circumstances (I read that Laux writes from her own heterosexual experiences), the conqueror is the one doing the penetrating. This is true in other areas of life as well. In this poem, however, it is the one being entered that is the victor. I don’t  agree with some of what she is saying here, but I like what she did as a writer, and how she made the female supreme.

2 A.M.
Dorianne Laux

When I came with you that first time
on the floor of your office, the dirty carpet
under my back, the heel of one foot
propped on your shoulder, I went ahead
and screamed, full-throated, as loud
and as long as my body demanded,
because somewhere, in the back of my mind,
packed in the smallest neurons still capable
of thought, I remembered
we were in a warehouse district
and that no sentient being resided for miles.
Afterwards, when I would unclench
my hands and open my eyes, I looked up.
You were on your knees, your arms
stranded at your sides, so still –
the light from the crooknecked lamp
sculpting each lift and delicate twist,
the lax muscles, the smallest veins
on the backs of your hands. I saw
the ridge of each rib, the blue hollow
pulsing at your throat, all the colors
in your long blunt cut hair which hung
over your face like a raffia curtain
in some south sea island hut.
And as each bright synapse unfurled
and followed its path, I recalled
a story I’d read that explained why women
cry out when they come — that it’s
the call of the conqueror, a siren howl
of possession. So I looked again
and it felt true, your whole body
seemed defeated, owned, having taken on
the aspect of a slave in shackles, the wrists
loosely bound with invisible rope.
And when you finally spoke you didn’t
lift your head but simply moaned the word god
on an exhalation of breath — I knew then
I must be merciful, benevolent,
impossibly kind.

Painting by Courbet, the last of the Romantics & a personal favorite of mine

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Jean-Désiré-Gustave Courbet (1819, Ornans - 1877, La Tour-de-Peilz), “Uomo con la pipa. Autoritratto” / “Man with a pipe, Self-Portrait”, 1848-49, Olio su tela / Oil on canvas, 45 x 37 cm, Musée Fabre, Montpellier

His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the freedom of art from traditional culture.
Rewald considered it as a continuation of his earlier volume History of Impressionism (1946). The mastery of watercolour Courbet reached an even higher level than.

Along the route, he took countless photographs and made sketches Art Renewal Center the.
Although Jan Van Eyck: The Virgin Of Chancellor Rolin for horses and dancers, Degas began with conventional historical. However though both Penni and Giulio were sufficiently skilled that distinguishing between their hands and that of Raphael himself is still sometimes difficult, there is no doubt that many of Raphael’s later wall-paintings, and probably some of his easel paintings, are more notable for their design than their execution.

Paul Cezanne was a French painter, often called the father of modern art, who strove to develop an ideal synthesis of naturalistic representation, personal expression, and abstract pictorial order. With Courbet: Woman in White Stockings, c.1861 occasional help of assistants in Uylenburgh’s workshop, he painted. In the same year, Rembrandt became a burgess of Amsterdam and a member of the local guild of painters. Klimt’s contributions to the dining room, including both Fulfillment and Expectation, were some of his finest decorative work, and as he publicly stated, probably the ultimate stage of my development of ornament.

Aware of contemporary experiments of tinting marble (such as by John Gibson) he produced Dancer with Three Masks (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen ), combining movement with colour (exhibited in 1902).

Monet’s Camille or The Woman in the Green Dress (La Femme à la Robe Verte), painted in 1866, brought him recognition, and was one of many works featuring his future wife, Camille Doncieux; she was the model for the figures in The Woman in the Garden of the following year, as well as for On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt, 1868, pictured here. At the time, Blake was recovering from a relationship that had culminated in a refusal of his marriage proposal. He would marry again in 1797, although this Marine I wife also. However the modest painting, A Le Sommeil, 1866 Concert (also called Recreation in.
The tragedies affected his artistic vision as well, and soon he would veer toward a new personal style. He was especially fascinated by the effects produced by monotype, and frequently reworked the printed images with pastel.
I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women.
Gustave Courbet a concession to the insatiable demand of wealthy patrons for. A painting depicting the port of Metacafe dated 1872 survive from.

By the later 1870s Degas had Courbet: Bathers or Two Nude Women, c.1858 not only the traditional medium.
The Ghent Altarpiece- Singing Angels (detail 1) 1427-29 an engineer, Leonardo’s ideas were vastly ahead of his time.
By now thoroughly disenchanted with the Salon, Degas joined forces with a group of young artists who were intent upon organizing an independent exhibiting society. Before he moved to Amsterdam Metsu was trained in Gustave Courbet: Paysage de mer by. In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou.
Assessment

Acknowledging modern criticism of Renoir’s sensuality, Lawrence Gowing wrote: Is The origin of the world. Blake’s disenchantment with Hayley has been speculated to have influenced Milton: a Poem, in which Blake wrote that Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies. He was 16 years old when he left Gustave Courbet The Calm Sea and went.
Pray note them clearly.

Grover Cleveland In 1893, the Columbian World Fair was arranged in Chicago.
One 19th century scholar characterised Blake as a glorious luminary, a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors. Out of her distress and self-criticism, Cassatt decided that she needed to move away from genre paintings and onto more fashionable subjects, in order to attract portrait commissions from American socialites abroad, but that attempt bore little fruit at first.

Life
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Gustave Courbet The Beach at Trouville was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden,.
Some of his later works do revert to this custom, as suggested by the tendency of distant figures to be painted as blobs of colour – an effect produced by using a camera obscura, which blurs farther-away objects.
He therefore welcomed the rise of photography as an alternative to his photographic painting. The 29-year-old Zorn was awarded the French Legion of Honour and Gustave Courbet – Eternity.
After his father’s death, William and his brother Robert opened a print shop in 1784, and began working with radical publisher Joseph Johnson.
3 million Gustave Courbet The Cellist, Self Portrait. These letters have been preserved and were published in 1914.
Monet was in Paris for several years and met several painters who would become friends and fellow impressionists.

Collectively the five restituted paintings, including aforementioned landscapes, netted over $327 Seurat: Seated Boy With Straw Hat. The Venetian artist Courbet Paysage de mer de Barbari, whom Durer had met in.

Marco Vecellio, called Marco di Tiziano, Titian’s nephew, born in 1545, was constantly with the master in his old age, and, learned his methods of work. Born as the illegitimate son of a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant girl, Caterina, at Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter, Verrocchio.

In 1919, Renoir visited the Louvre to see his paintings hanging with the old masters.
In the long afternoons Blake spent sketching in the

he.Gustave Courbet Bathers or Two Nude Women, c.1858 in a most glorious manner.
He was dismissed after 6 months and continued without pay.
She later said, There was

teaching at the Academy.

The seven watercolors that were included in the celebrated Armory Show in 1913 revealed Prendergast as a major figure in American painting, probably the greatest of his generation.
The government supported their efforts and gave them a lease on public land to erect an exhibition hall. During his stay here the clinic and its garden became his main subject. However, the word seventy fits into the rhyme of the poem better than would have a longer and more complex age, so it is possible that Pucci used artistic license.
At his own Gustave Courbet – Eternity he was given a simple burial service,. His models were routinely available to him to pose Seurat – Sunday on La Grande Jatte any.
But

period of the master’s work is still represented by.

1862 Delacroix participated in the creation of the Société Nationale des.


One of his finest early pieces is The Stonemason’s Yard (1729,.
Van Gogh produced all of his work (some 900 paintings and 1100 drawings) during a period of only 10 years before he succumbed to mental illness (possibly bipolar disorder) and committed suicide.S The origin of the world. His father, August Friedrich Hermann Macke (1845-1904), was a building contractor and his mother, Maria Florentine, née Adolph, (1848-1922), came from a farming family in Germany’s Sauerland region.

Artistic style
Degas is often identified as an Impressionist, Gustave Courbet understandable but insufficient. Unlike many young artists, Klimt accepted the principles of conservative Academic training.
When the disgraced Joachim returns sadly to the hillside, the two young shepherds look sideways at each other.

Maurice Prendergast (1859-1924)
Maurice Prendergast was born in St.

Titian had from the beginning of his career shown Gustave Courbet: Marine I to be.
Gustave Courbet trips to the countryside, the students drew from life, particularly. In 1492 the model was completed, and Leonardo was making detailed plans for its casting.

Maturity

Delacroix’s painting of the Massacre at Chios (also called Massacre at Scio, French: Scènes des massacres de Scio), shows sick, dying Greek civilians about to be slaughtered by the Turks. They provide a lot of insight into Courbet life of the. These included the portraits of Dr.

Biography
Jacob Jordeans was born on May 19, 1593, www.Google.com first of eleven.

Søde N …

Du sender billeder til mig, og så kan jeg da også sende billeder til dig.

Du undrer dig over ikke at få en mail. Jeg kan mærke, hvad jeg vil skrive, men ordene vil ikke samle sig. Når jeg mærker dig i mig, ser jeg dig som i et klart spejl; men skal jeg formulere, hvad jeg tænker, er spejlet knust. At stykkerne i virkeligheden er en helhed er umuligt at se, men jeg ved det altså. Du får nogle billeder, der hver for sig er brudstykker … afspejlinger af den tanke, jeg tænker, når jeg tænker dig.

Først et, hvor kærligheden viser en kvinde, hvor smuk hun i virkeligheden er. (Udover den indlysende skønhed, som vi kan se).

 
Så et, der engang – i 1866 – var skandale. Hvordan et billede, der hedder “Oprindelsen af verden”, kan blive en skandale. Det går over min forstand … Smil smil smil …

 
Selv synes du vist tit verden, verden ser sådan her ud …

…. ligesom jeg mest for mig selv nok ser sådan ud …

… men det er alt sammen ligegyldig, for for mig ser du altså – stadig (smiler) – mest sådan her ud …

 
Kys …Glæder mig til i morgen … Hvornår kommer du? … Hvis du kommer … Aj

Skal det være http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AREdXmuhvQs … eller http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STWSTgfMruc … eller skal det være (Griner) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI6WA-2CgyE

C (som snart savner mere end han kan lide)

ps. Fuck Picasso. Han har aldrig været den største spanske maler. Som du kan se er det Velasquez, Courbet (fransk, men det gør ikke nogen forskel) … for resten er Goya, Goya Goyaq

C’est le thème du dernier article de Thibault de Ravel d’Esclapon.Il y explique comment une disposition ajoutée au code des impôts il y a quarante ans permet aux propriétaires d’œuvres d’art  jugées historiquement  importantes de payer certains de  leurs  impôts en donnant ces œuvres au gouvernement.Il explique le mécanisme de la dation en paiement  et relate quelques uns des exemples les plus célèbres ,dont  Le déjeuner sur l’herbe ou le Portrait de Diderot de Fragonard .La dation en paiement ne s’applique pas à tous les impôts-ce serait trop beau-seulement à certains comme  l’ impôt sur la fortune.

Gustave Courbet “Quotes”
Beauty, like truth, is relative to the time when one lives and to the individual who can grasp it. The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

Fine art is knowledge made visible.

France is the only nation in which astoundingly small numbers of civilized patrons reside.

I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients.

I hope to live all my life for my art, without abandoning my principles one iota.

Painting is an essentially concrete art and can only consist of the representation of real and existing things.

Painting is the representation of visible forms. The essence of realism is its negation of the idea.

The beautiful is in nature, and it is encountered under the most diverse forms of reality. Once it is found it belongs to art, or rather to the artist who discovers it.

I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: ‘He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.

The expression of beauty is in direct ratio to the power of conception the artist has acquired.

When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves.

Gustave Courbet Biography
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting.

Read more about Gustave Courbet on Wikipedia.org

Browse the Index for more great “The Art Student” resources

Gustave Courbet has  been one of my favorite artists since I began reading about him in high school AP art history.  I had a teacher, Michael Milan, who had a particularly demented view of how to teach young adults.  Looking back, Milan was kind of the originator of shock and awe.  He was no doubt gay, extremely cosmopolitan and most likely came from old money, the kind of money that allows you to not give a fuck about anything, including the health of your teeth.  Milan taught English, studio art and art history and there was a group of 4 or 5 of us that found him completely hilarious, mostly on Monday when he would flamboyantly talk about the weekend cocktail parties he had attended and how most of us in the room would have absolutely no idea how to function even on the most basic level in the elevated cultural settings of these aforementioned events.

This was ironic because he was teaching kids that were all interested in the same intellectual and cultural spheres that he was, nonetheless, he ruled in the classroom not by example, but by blunt mockery and elitism.  Like I said, he came form old money.  Where Milan excelled was conveying his own passion for certain writers and artists and sometimes it was more of show to listen to Milan than make fun of him, to his face, which we no doubt did and mostly took it as far as we could before Milan go bored or called us immature and newt rapscallions .

Courbet was a favorite of Milan’s.  I remember the first time I witnessed L’Origine Du Monde, seen below:

This is not an easy piece of art to have come up on the screen when you are 17 and in mixed company.  It was absolutely shocking and perverse and one of the most in-your-face pieces of cultural conundrum I had ever been faced with.  The title is straight-forward enough (The Origin of the World) however, loaded with dense innuendo and contrast.  Courbet was part of the Realist movement in painting.  This is the depiction of everyday scenarios that did not emphasize style over stark representation, with a leaning towards the sordid and sometime ugly moments in our lives.

This blended perfectly with Milan’s style of teaching, he felt it was more important to challenge and show us the underside of our existences rather than encourage whenever possible and remind kids that they are all special stars in the sky.  The more we are coaxed into following a healthy, acceptable path of doing things, the more complacent we become in our thoughts and actions, ceding any notion of living of a life of true liberty.  While recently doing some reading about Courbet I came across this very anarchistic approach to how he lived:

“…in our so very civilized society it is necessary for me to live the life of a savage. I must be free even of governments. The people have my sympathies, I must address myself to them directly.”

No doubt Courbet partied like a rock star when it came to expressing his inner torrent of anger with institutionalized systems of thought and systems of rule.  As head of all Paris museums during the Paris Commune rule, Courbet lead the charge for the destruction of the Vendome Column.  This ultimately led to Courbet being run out of Paris and living in exile in Switzerland.  Whereas this may seem a troubled move, a man who is free in his heart and mind, is never the prisoner of any institution.  The quote of Courbet’s that inspired me to write this goes, “I am fifty years old and I have always lived in freedom; let me end my life free; when I am dead let this be said of me: ‘He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any régime except the régime of liberty.”

One of my great goals in life is to maintain a position where I can create freely and feel great satisfaction with my productions, a lover and fierce savage to the people around me, who I value and respect so much.

Google: neurosis gráfica

Yo tuve satisfecha infancia porque sólo tengo una neurosis. Se me presenta cuando leo. A veces me despisto y cuando retomo el hilo necesariamente tengo que volver allí donde lo perdí. Si no lo hago es imposible que me concentre y lea. No puedo deshacerme de ese párrafo, de ese par de ideas. He de regresar a la palabra desde la que despegué, desde la que olvidé que leía, y hacer justicia con el autor.

Porque en definitiva lo que me impide sortear esas frases es el respeto a la autoría. “Con el esfuerzo que le habrá costado”, me digo. Entonces acudo al punto desde el que partí (a veces es aconsejable retornar más allá) y casi como un milagro farmacológico la neurosis desaparece.

Le désespéré. Gustave Courbet. 1843

Resulta muy molesto también cuando en lugar de teclear un espacio tecleas dos. Este tipo de erratas son menos visibles, y por lo mismo generan un malestar más llevadero. Si el primer caso es una neurosis de manual, y el segundo una tortícolis, este se asemeja al picor de empeine cuando estás tumbado. Tarde o temprano tienes que incorporarte y rascarte, no si recibir el placer consensuado.

Hay un cuarto caso que molesta más que las letras repetidas y los espacios dobles, pero que no puede ser incluido en la misma categoría. Me refiero a cuando el editor de texto de wordpress (también ocurre en word) te borra la letra siguiente a la que estás escribiendo. No se puede incluir en la misma selección porque el ordenador tiene papel en la circunstancia [¿y si al leer un libro vemos que las erratas inmensas y de mil especies nos impiden continuar, en qué categoría habría que incluirlo? ¡A saber!]

Llamaremos al borrado de las letras efecto de sustitución (EF). Porque en realidad sustituyes un caracter por otro. El EF se presenta de improviso, pero siempre despues de que haya que arreglar alguna errata en lo ya escrito (casos dos y tres). Con tan mala suerte de si antes el diagnóstico apuntaba a una sola dolencia ahora hay que combatir dos.

En estos casos lo mejor es guardar el borrador (o reiniciar word) y volver a abrir la entrada (volver a abrir la entrada).

Iba a escribir “Tego que reconocer que he escrito este texto sin sufrir ninguna de las enfermedades de las que trata, lo que no es fácil a juzgar por mi desastrosa destreza en el teclado”, pero ya veis que la n del tengo se ha marchado con u minúscula, porque encajan a la perfección.

Quizá este texto hubiese sido una buena ocasión para reflexionar sobre los escritores y los mecanógrafos, o los teclistas o los manuscritores. Pero para qué aburrirme a mi mismo.

Insisto ¿es posible estar seguro de algo que es falso?

Tomorrow I’m going to the Louvre, so please indulge me the cheap rhyme in the title of this post:  April is, after all, National Poetry Month and rest assured, nothing rhymes with “Louvre” in English (it’s now 2:42 a.m. and I’ve been lying in bed trying to think of something).

Today was the much anticipated day to see the Courbet paintings that I’ve been reading about over the past year.  The one that really packed a whollup was Courbet’s self-portrait Man with Leather Belt (pictured above).  This painting is much like the self-portraits of Rembrandt that whisper to you from a quiet space filled with inner light, materializing from darkness to be (quite suddenly) in front of you with tangible fullness and emotion, as if you were alone in a dark room, shining a flashlight onto them one at a time.

Much has been said about this self-portrait, the most interesting comment coming from Michael Fried who observed that the hands in Courbet’s self-portraits are often mirror images of the artist in the act of painting, holding his palette (see the belt) and the paintbrush (the left hand, which reminds me of the hand in Da Vinci’s St. Jean Baptist, but rather than pointing to heaven, the hand of the artist is solidly anchored in the here and now).

Michael Fried aside (gods of Art History, please spare me), what really struck me today was a detail smack in the center of the painting:  the white cuff of the artist’s sleeve.  I is almost as if Courbet literally pressed his sleeve against the wet paint on the canvas.  The rest of the painting has a smooth, academic surface, so this small textural gesture reaches out of the painting (much like Rembrandt’s figures out of the darkness) with the material tangibility of rough cotton or linen.  This little patch of painting breaks through the rest:  it is so physical that it made me want to itch my wrist (or touch the painting, and we know what would happen then in France:  the riot police would be in front of Orsay in five seconds flat).

Speaking of the CRS, the (which makes the Chicago Police look like a bunch of donut-eating sissies), I was a bit worried about interviewing people in French museums, which are more formal than their American counterparts.   For instance, no one (and I mean no one) sits on stairs or fills out school worksheets on the floor like in American museums.  I once observed guards telling visitors in a newly renovated sculpture court in the Louvre not to sit on the cool, inviting marble stairs (there are no benches) about once every ten seconds, thinking that if a smart curator were to observe this she would come to the conclusion that the was a policy problem, since so many people were, quite naturally, committing the same infraction.

In addition to a more formal decorum, there is a rule in French museums regarding who can and can’t “prendre la parole”.  “Prendre la parole” is a fancy way of saying “to speak”.  When I take students to the Musée d’Orsay  in the summer, even if it is a very small group, I have to procure a special badge giving me the right to speak within the public space of the museum.  This special badge indicates that I’m an expert, someone who can dish out the correct version of Art History (capital a, capital h).   This is all strangely wonderful in a country where one can bring one’s pooch to a two or three-star restaurant.

In any case, my fears were unfounded.  The only comment (friendly, in a critical, French sort of way) was from a guard who saw me scrawling in my notebook, Caliban-like, my pencil grip having been passed down to me from a great-great-great-great-great-Neanderthal aunt who never got along with the rest of my Homo-Sapien family.

More about who I interviewed later.  It is 4:19 a.m.  I hope I can get back to sleep.

Em meados do século XIX, o mundo passava por grandes mudanças: lutas sociais, tentativas de revolução, idéias políticas… Tudo isso fez as pessoas verem que o mundo não podia mais viver de fuga da realidade, de idealizações, como acontecia no Romantismo. Tinha chegado a hora de analisar, compreender, criticar, ou seja, era hora de ser objetivo nas idéias; e com isso, nasce o Realismo.

O Realismo originou-se na França, com o quadro ‘As Banhistas’, de Gustave Courbet, em que busca o máximo do realismo, retratando com detalhes o corpo de sua modelo.

Posteriormente o Realismo foi adotado na literatura, com o marco inicial de ‘Madame Bovary’, de Gustave Flaubert, obra que tematiza o adultério feminino e questiona os males do casamento.

Bazille Autoportrait

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Paul Cézanne’s “Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair” (MFA, Boston)

For many modern artists Paul Cézanne was a talismanic figure, the shadow of his painting as impossible to escape as his achievement was to define. Throughout the 20th century, as scholars labored to construct a viable history of modern art, Cézanne (along with Manet, Courbet and a handful of transgressive others) was posited as its fountainhead, the protean begetter whose countless artistic progeny shaped a new aesthetic that placed vision and touch above traditional formal and narrative concerns.

Both Matisse and Picasso would claim Cézanne as a father, and almost every variant of 20th-century art could trace some aspect of its origins to his painting. Cézanne’s effect on later artists has become the stuff of exquisite exhibitions, heated debate, and a linear notion of modernism. Without thoroughly disrupting that tidy critical trajectory, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s current exhibition, “Cézanne and Beyond,” moves it onto more fluid and fertile ground, and the results are highly satisfying and visually thrilling.

Even in his own day Cézanne was, perhaps above all else, a painter’s painter, receiving his first, most unfailing and most perceptive expressions of support from fellow artists. And artists again lead us through this revelatory exhibition, one whose thematic, rather than chronological, display allows a richer reading of both Cézanne’s art and their own.

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Mary Tompkins Lewis
Wall Street Journal