~ from The Moon and Sixpence

by W. Somerset Maugham, 1919

I HAVE an idea that some men are born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid strangers in their birthplace, and the leafy lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have ever known. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves. Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth. Here at last he finds rest.

Wer sehen will,
muss die Augen schließen.

(Paul Gaugin)

The huddled encampment had come into view hours ago, but had never seemed to get any closer as our tiny convoy negotiated the springtime Mongolian desert. At last we pulled up, and Ted stretched with relief before beginning to unload our paraphernalia. As we looked anxiously round for signs of the scientific expedition we had travelled thousands of miles to film, our interpreter, Genghis, went to greet the headman outside his yurt. The atmosphere was intense.
“Juju man no here, boss,” said Genghis, “Disfella still make ready”. A keen student of Eng. Lit. – B.A. Mumbai (failed) – Genghis had his own idea of how an interpreter should speak.
“Any other camera crews arrived?”
“No, boss.”
We were still the first.

The race had begun nearly 3 weeks earlier, in the suburban headquarters of Warrington-online.com. The Editor came rushing up to our table excitedly, narrowly missing the Starbucks waitress, who was clearing away the coffee cups.
“This has got to be the story of the century,” he wheezed, collapsing into a chair. “A major zoological expedition to find a long-lost species of wildlife!”
“David Attenborough going after the Abominable Snowman is he?” asked Ted, slurping noisily at the dregs of his Frappucino.
“Better than that.” The Editor produced a sheaf of printouts from various Web pages, “This story is all over the Internet and Twitter’s on fire. The Fortean Times is going to look for the Mongolian Death Worm!”
“Again?” yawned Ted, idly scratching his beer-gut. “Didn’t they go a few years ago?”
“No, mate, that was a Czech.” And so the story unfolded.

The first known reference in English seems to have come from Professor Roy Chapman Andrews’ 1926 book On the Trail of Ancient Man. He had talked with the Mongolian Prime Minister who wanted to catch the Mongolian Death Worm, or Olgoi Khorkhoi, because the worm had killed one of his relatives.

Quite well-respected in his own time, Professor Chapman Andrews achieved posthumous fame as the inspiration for the character of Indiana Jones.

Inspiration of a different sort was provided by a short story about Olgoi-Khorkhoi from the Russian palaeontologist, Ivan Yefremov. In 1942/1943 he wrote about a worm, which resembled a bloody intestine, that could grow to the length of a small man and mysteriously kill people at great distance, possibly with poison or electricity.

Filled with such scientific material was the boyhood reading of the foremost investigator of the Mongolian Death Worm, Czech author Ivan Mackerle. When he grew up, he searched for the Worm on two occasions in 1990 and 1992, using night-vision goggles and camera-equipped ultralight planes.

The Mongolian Death Worm was brought to the general attention of the English -speaking public by British zoologist Karl Shuker in his 1996 book The Unexplained. This was followed a year later by his Fortean Studies paper on this subject, presented to his colleagues, among whom was Ivan Mackerle.

The presentation must have had a stimulating effect, as in 2003, Adam Davies and Andy Sanderson from Extreme Expeditions travelled to Mongolia to have a look for the fabled beast , funded by The Fortean Times.

In 2005, led by British cryptozoologist Richard Freeman, Chris Clark, (physicist), Jon Hare, (science writer) and Dave Churchill, (artist and designer), a joint expedition by E-Mongol and the Centre for Fortean Zoology examined reports and sightings of the Mongolian Death Worm, but found no proof that it exists.

This did not deter a second expedition in July, 2006, conducted by the reality-television series, Destination Truth, who, sadly, did not find any truth in the reality of Olgoi Khorkhoi when they reached their destination.

And now, July 2009, just in time for the start of the silly season, New Zealand TV entertainment journalist David Farrier and cameraman Christie Douglas were about to spend two weeks in the Gobi desert. They believe that explosives are the best way to find the “intestine worm” as it is said to be attracted to tremors.

Any suggestion that they may have been influenced by films about Graboids is, of course, unfair.

The widely-differing methods of investigation, and the fact that no expedition has yet succeeded has come as no surprise to Mongolian scientist D. Tsevegmed, who was quoted in the Ulan Bator News as saying that “Mongolians consider that there are 33 different Gobi Deserts, and there are two kinds of death worm in the Gobi.”

“But these articles all say the same thing,” objected Ted. “And I don’t see anything published by scientific journals or other reputable sources.”

“What are you talking about? There are reports here from Cryptozoology News, the Australian Courier Mail, and the Ulan Bator Post and Mongol News. Plus there’s a piece in Wikipedia. You don’t think anyone would put a joke article there, do you?” nodded The Editor, basking in self-delusion. “I can see it now. It’ll be ‘Build A Better Mousetrap’ all over again. Just get confirmation of the Mongolian Death Worm, and everyone and his dog will want to RSS our feeds. All you need are your mobile phones. Take some pictures, record a sound bite or two, blog it on your laptop, and Robert’s your father’s brother. It’ll be a great adventure for the two of you. Is that clear, Bill?”
“Yes, Ben”.
“Right,” said Ted

Events had moved swiftly after that. The Editor pawned his new Swiss army knife and mortgaged his greenhouse to finance the trip. I had topped up my mobile, and Ted bought a new battery for the laptop. And now here we were, following Genghis into an acrid, smoke-filled yurt that bore the legend – Teahouse of the Death Worm Moon.

We gazed round in astonishment. The wicker walls were papered over with photos and drawings of Olgoi Khorkhoi – the very same photos we had seen on the Internet. Pride of place had been given to a full-size poster of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, with Harrison Ford’s name crossed out and Roy Chapman Andrews written in shaky bright red crayon.

At the far end, a rickety camp table was covered with plasticine rejects from Jurassic Park VI , and a wizened Japanese in steel-rim spectacles and a topi sat behind it, looking for all the world like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany’s and painting eyes on what appeared to be a cross between a Chinese dragon and a Martian stick insect. Every now and then he reached out and tilted the head of a bored-looking iguana whose tongue cast after flies with the world-weary insouciance characteristic of all artists’ models.

“Disfella Hirohito, boss,” said Genghis proudly. “Him very famous man. Work on olla big ones – Godzilla, King Kong, Krakatoa East Of Java.”
“Special effects?” said Ted, doubtfully.
“Cosmeticist”.
“So, what..?”
“Him make Death Worm so juju men not go way disappointed. Last time he get here too late.”

It turned out that Hirohito had made a career out of following myth hunters and paranormal investigators. Staying just out of sight, he would provide them with tantalising glimpses of whatever it was they were seeking. Perhaps it was just as well that he was never up close and personal since he tended to have what might be called a gestalt approach to his craft – more Rolf Harris than Gauguin.

This lack of fine detail had got him into trouble more than once. He it was who had dressed his pet and uber-model, Iggy, in a skirt and tried to get him discovered as the Kimono Dragon. On another occasion, he had been stymied by Dian Fossey, who had been quick to publish her book before he could photoshop Godzillas in the Mist.

His career was now at a cusp, and when a villager came in with news that the New Zealanders had gone to the 32nd Gobi by mistake, he seemed to lose heart. All this effort for nothing.

It was close to noon by now, and the metal table top had heated to an uncomfortable degree. Iggy gazed piteously at Ted, lifting first one foot, then another, rocking from side to side in an effort to get some relief.
“Poor little monster,” remarked Ted to Hirohito. “Can’t you put a cloth on the table for him? Then he wouldn’t have to rock so much.”

No one else paid any attention. The feeling of disappointment was palpable. No scientists, no discoveries, and more importantly, no tourist trade spin-offs. We picked up our mobiles and Twittered to the world at large that the Mongolian Death Worm had once again declined to put in an appearance.

After a final round of farewell handshakes with our hosts we commiserated with the little make-up artist on the failure of yet another of his enterprises and wished him good luck for the future. But where would he go from here?

As we turned to depart, Hirohito crouched in front of his pet, swaying from side to side in time with the iguana’s dance. His spectacles gleamed with the fanaticism of one who has discovered the Holy Grail as he picked Iggy up and whispered a mantra, “Rock Less Monstah.”

(While I’m learning about art I’m also learning about blogging: this following post contains only a few pictures as my education on blogging is now taking me on a journey around copyright issues and until I know more I won’t use more images, and will remove those so far included if I learn that is the right thing to do).

So onwards to the stuff about art …..

I’m tired, it’s a Friday after work, and I’m making a quick well timed gallery visit in the post professional and pre pinot grigio part of my day.

The National Gallery is a marvellous building that dominates one side of Trafalgar Square, I dodge the regal stone lions and the spraying fountains, the hundreds of tourists most of whom are either sitting on said lions or either being corralled by the street performers into tight circles or ignored by the pavement artists busy at their work. I pass ‘the empty plinth’ and for a moment wonder whether to apply for one of the slots that are available to stand on the top of the plinth for an hour and do whatever you want in that time, as long as it’s legal. It’s the new interactive public art work for the plinth instead of a statue. I think it’s a brilliant idea and it made me giggle when it was reviewed on Radio 4 recently. I could make a speech, thankfully the plinth is very high so the tourists and the lions are spared my garbled Shakespearean prose or my ill remembered Alan Bennett monologues.

The national art collection it not that old actually and it’s not long been in this impressive building. Apparently in the 1700’s the government did not think about providing an art collection even for the nobles maybe because the nobles had their own private collections anyway. Then in the early years of the 1800’s a few paintings began to be collected and eventually their number grew, originally they were simply exhibited in a private house on Pall Mall then in the 1831 the collection moved to it’s new purpose built building in Trafalgar Square. So the collection (so I was told my evening class art tutor) is not as impressive as other capital cities possess because we haven’t been collecting for as long. Today I have come to see just three rooms, that is the paintings of the of impressionists.

Room 46

• Young Spartans Exercising – Degas.

A summers day in a Roman field, in the backdrop there’s mountains and hills and the spread of a town; in the middle ground a small group of gossiping spectators and in the foreground five naked boys are looking somewhat nervously at a group of semi naked girls one of whom is reaching out to the boys, perhaps she’s the reason they are feeling nervous. The boys appear to be stretching and posing, one has arms up stretched, one has his arm raised defensively his weight on his back foot, 2 are posing and the fifth is on his hands and knees like a dog.

The painting is presented as a classical work which allows nakedness as part of it’s classicism. I think it’s certainly a talking point but not very entertaining.

• Portrait of Hermine Gallia – Klimt

• Miss La La at the Circus – Degas

Degas has fabulously captured the complicated perspective of the circus tent dome and Miss La La hanging from a trapeze by her teeth. She was a famous circus performer of mixed race parents which although she was a friend of the artist’s, he went to the circus a lot, still made her unacceptable to those who would buy his paintings, for this reason he paints her dark legs as if she is wearing dark tights. I think the painting is wonderful (aside from hiding his models identity of course), it is so evocative of the time.

• Combing the Hair (La Coiffure) – Degas

He uses vibrant exaggerated reds and in this way he led the way for later artists use of colour, the painting was actually owned at one time by Matisse. In the painting there is a woman having her hair brushed by her maid, she sits on a chair allowing the pull of the brush in her hair to cause her to lean back both maid and mistress are relaxed in this intimate moment. For the viewer of the painting the intimate private moment that this painting depicts is highlighted by the curtain in the foreground that is pulled back to reveal the women.

• Woman Seated In Garden – Toulouse Lautrec

The location of the painting is Monmatre, the Bohemian quarter of Paris. The painting is ‘oil on millboard’. Question: what is millboard? I prefer the Lautrec that’s in the Courtauld (see that journey).

My favourite painting from this room is the Portrait of Hermine Galla

Room 45

• Surprised ! – Henri Rousseau

Ooh this is lovely, a vibrant jungle scene with a heavy thunderstorm slashing across a grey sky with a flashes of white lightening. The trees and wild foliage is being blown diagonally across the picture and in the foreground only a little hidden by the leaves is a large crouching tiger complete with menacing growl, bright alert eyes and a very long tail.

Aside: I don’t have an audio guide today cos a) I’m only doing a few rooms and b) I can’t be bothered to carry one, too tired after work.

• Avenue at Chantilly – Cezanne 1888

I like this one, an avenue flanked by tall trees leads away into the distance, light is filtered through the trees and everything is dappled and sunny. Amazing to be able to paint like this.

• An Old Woman with a Rosemary – Cezanne

This is starkly different in style from the ‘Avenue …’ it is full of sadness and despair.

• Hills in Provence – Cezanne

This is very similar to the ‘Route Tourant’ hanging at the Courtauld, which is only to be expected really as they are both paintings of Aix-en-Provence the region in France where Cezanne was born, grew up and returned to later in his life.

• Les Grandes Baigneuses or The Bathers – Cezanne

In this painting there are eleven naked woman lying around

Aside: I take a moment to sit and ease my back and have a look at the other visitors – for fun I treat them in my mind as I do the paintings I ask myself; what am I looking at? What colours and shades and patterns are there – do their clothes ensemble look good to my eye!? What emotions are on their faces? What emotion do I feel looking at them? Do I like them? and lastly cos I’ve worked in health and social care virtually all my working like I also ask, What health issues can I spot? I look around the gallery; there’s a young couple come straight from work neat in their office suits they look like they’re on a date but not an early date as they are holding hands and standing very close. There’s tourists of course, behind me a young English male is chatting a young woman who says she’s from Poland and there’s a skinny old man in baggy shorts who really shouldn’t stand like that, from the back it looks like he’s going to have a pee !

• The Painter’s Father Louis August Cezanne – Cezanne

Now I’ve got a side on look at the old guy in baggy shorts I realise he’s not old or about to have a pee, he’s young man with sketch book in hand, feet planted apart for balance and rest while he does a charcoal sketch of yet another Cezanne painting; The Stove in the Studio.

• Child with Dove – Picasso 1901

I like this a lot it seems pre cubism but just past his naturalistic style of painting. I remember reading that the dove is the bird his father taught him how to paint and soon he able to draw the dove better than his father who recognising a greater talent despite being an artist and teacher gave up his paints to his son. The description on the card tells me the painting is from the transition phase of his career (and I feel good for having recognised this myself).

• Picnic at Pouldu CHECK – Maurice Denis

• The Chair – Vincent Van Gough

This is a famous painting of the yellow straw and wood chair in a cottage room.

• Two Crabs – Vincent Van Gough

This painting is wonderful, it’s very bright and sharp.

Aside: I like forming my own opinion of a painting before reading the description card.

• Sunflowers – Vincent Van Gough 1888

Vincent did four of these paintings, he apparently liked this one particularly and hung it in his spare room which was going to be his friend Paul Gaugin’s room when he came to stay.

• Wheatfield with Cypresses – Vincent Van Gough

I love this, it’s colourful and swirling, full of movement and light yellows, blues and greens. This painting is my favourite in this room.

Room 44

• Bathers at Asniers – Seurat

This room is dominated by this enormous painting. I get up close to look at the very specific brushwork he used and then I retreat to a distance to see it all out once. When it was painted it was shocking to the Parisian official salon and fashionable society because it’s huge size demonstrates an entirely unfashionable attention to the lives of factory workers that the artist must have shown and it also requires the viewer to give attention to them as well.

The factories themselves can quite clearly be seen in sunny misty outline across the horizon and winding down from them comes a river. In the mid section and foreground the river is wide and covers the right side of the painting, on the left side is warm green grass upon which a group of the workers sit or lie about, there’s also a couple of men in standing in the river. The individuals seem seem lost in their own thoughts, sat slightly apart and not giving each other attention, just relaxed on a hot day and pleased to be away from their hard work environment.

All around me are people moving in and moving away from this painting. It’s difficult to imagine what Seurat thought would happen to the painting, it would be very expensive to buy and the fashionable rich were unlikely to want it however maybe it would snapped up by serious art collectors recognising it’s worth as piece of striking modern art, perhaps I’ll research that one day.

Seurat along with another painter whose name escapes me devised a painting style known as pointillism. They were interested in finding ways to depict how light affects colour. The technique was quite scientific in it’s approach using colour theory as a basis, in this they differed in their approach from the impressionists who were using colour to create an emotional impression on the viewer, pointillism was designed to create a physiological response. The human retina sees only four colours red, green, blue, yellow merges colours CHECK and also shades of grey this the brain interprets and creates the huge variety of colours we are aware of. So Seurat’s painting style was to paint vast vast numbers of individual tiny dots of these four colours with the priming white colour of the canvas showing through to a greater or lesser degree depending on the amount of shimmering light he wanted. So when you get close to the painting you can see the dots but when you get some distance away you can just see the shimmering colours that your brain has interpreted out of the four colours used.

Today as I get close to it I see for the first time that he did not use pointillism across the entirety of the canvas some areas appear as smoothly applied painting. – oh well I’ll just have to come back and check this out again and read up a bit on the painting. I particularly love the dog and the boy in the orange hat.

• Akseli – Gallen-Kaileta

A Swedish painter. This is beautiful I’m always attracted to this when I walk into this room, it’s very calming yet I sense a malevolent spirit lurking beneath the waters, so it tingles the senses while it lulls you by it’s still beauty. The setting of a watery ghost story perhaps. In this painting silvery streams of light traverse across a large lake as we look across to the bank on the far side and a small island near the far side. The style is calmly dramatic rather than soft and naturalistic.

• The Boulevard of Montmartre at Night – Pissaro 1897

This painting is wonderfully evocative, it is my favourite painting in this room however all the other Pissaro’s on display bore me.

• There’s some paintings by Gaugin but I’m still not a fan of his.

• The Umbrellas – Renoir

This is a famous painting of Parisians attempting to enjoy an afternoon concert in a park when the sky turns grey it starts to rain and everyone puts up umbrella’s strangely they are all of the same type, a young woman who is without a brolly is turned and looking out at us and young girl child is in front of all dressed richly and holding on to a toy hoop, the woman could be her governess or nanny. No one seems to be getting wet even the woman.

Room 43

The paintings seem to be all florals and pastoral scenes on one side and of people on the other, I prefer the people side. However a couple from the floral side are worth a mention.

• Water Lily Pond – Monet
• Nymph by a Stream – Renoir

She has a round naked voluptuousness and looks directly out at the viewer as if daring you (a member of late 19th century fashionable society) to turn away from her nakedness. She has a small laurel leaf crown on her head which is hint of classicism, an echo that alludes to the rules from the salon of what makes acceptable art. The description on the card says the painting is a strange mixture of classism and realism. This is my favourite in this room.

• Man At His Bath – Caillebotte

This is the painting of the back view of a man drying himself after his bath. It’s not a spectacular painting it’s quite boring really but it’s worth a mention just because for once the naked subject is male.

• Corner of Cafe Concert – Manet

This is so vibrant, the beer in the glass looks so real and delicious, the smock coat and cigar are amazing.

• Execution of Maximillian – Manet

This giant painting is of a firing squad taking aim and firing at Maximillian. There are only fragments left as the painting was cut up after the artists death.

Rooms 41 and 40

I’ve wandered into room 41 but all the paintings in here come from an era earlier than I’m interested in – at the moment.

Room 40 is full of art from Italy 1700 to 1800 which is the Baroque era and it doesn’t take me long to spot a cherub…

• An Allegory With Venus & Time – Battista Tiepolo

Oh my goodness that’s an ugly baby! Venus hands over her new born son to Old Man Time – not sure what Social Services would have to say about giving away your baby, even though it is such an ugly one to a semi naked grizzled old man with wings growing out of his back. Venus is beautiful of course.

Aside: If I can be bothered I’ll research the meaning of the allegory. Now I’m beginning to feel over art-ed, it’s a bit easy to do this here as every long and grand corridor is hung with yet more art. Ok now I need the way out but which is the right corridor and it looks as if I’m not going to get there without seeing another hundred cherubs.

Room 30

• Peasant Boy Leaning On A Sill – Bartolome Esteban Murillo

This is lovely a little portrait.

• Kitchen Scene With Christ In The House Of Martha & Mary – Diego Velazques

We talked about this painting when my art evening class came on a group trip to The National Gallery. We looked at how beautifully it was painted combining portraiture and still life, the eggs and fish look so real and is that a window or a painting on the wall.

• The Toilet of Venus (The Rockeby Venus) – Diego Velasquez

My grandparents had a framed copy of this on their bedroom wall, on his side of the room actually so I always thought of it as his and although it’s obviously got that classical construction which would presumably have made it acceptable to the Salon judges I used to wonder what my sheltered grandmother really thought of this painting hanging next to her husbands bed. When I was a child I think I found this painting quite sinister for various reasons not least that they had it in a heavy black frame and where it hung it was always in shadow. Today I see it in the light and I see and can appreciate it’s beauty and that dispels the remembered emotions.

With my family, I spent most of the past week at the ocean, specifically the warm Gulf of Mexico, sitting on a beach chair under a sheltering umbrella, wondering why I found myself once again situated in the same spot, on the same stretch of beach, in the same “destination” with the same view of the horizon, that I had experienced the year before, and the year before that, and for several preceding years.

It’s got to be an obsession, is about all I can make of it.  Perhaps you have one, too.  All I know is I simply had to be there.

Matter of fact, everyone in my family appeared, at least during the week we were away, to have a similar disposition to want to do something repeatedly, which is a fair definition of “obsession.”  My son read three or four sci fi action adventure novels — in five days.  My daughter decided to be an artist, and so sketched out a view of our rented beach house’s kitchen, until the lure of riding the waves on a boogie board proved irresistible and became her obsession.  My wife seemed determined to bake in the sun, which she proceeded to do whenever she was not snapping photos with her digital Nikon — another obsession.

Me?  As is always the case during these summer interludes, I had several obsessions to indulge:  I was determined to avoid wearing socks of any kind (check); seek and find the world’s best fried fisherman’s platter (nada), and somehow, in the space of a few days, conjure the plot and characters of the novel of the century while nursing a salty dog on a bar stool at a windswept beachside tavern ( I got the bar right; the novel waits still).

Other than becoming a Hemingway or Hiassen, my only other repeatable obsession is to relax, which I suppose is everyone’s ultimate goal.  Harder said than done, as they say.  I cannot relax as long as there is green algae bloating the ocean water.  I cannot relax with anvil-shaped clouds looming over the shore landscape, lightning spitting across the sky and thunder rumbling, the sound amplified and scarier because I am out in the open and vulnerable.  I cannot relax because it’s typically up to me to make the right restaurant choice for dinner.  This is a nearly impossible and always thankless task because the familiar places from previous trips are either “under new ownership,” or so over-priced that to eat there would be an act of colossal stupidity.  $36 crab cakes, anyone?  I also obsess over what book to read, and obsess about whether to forego reading to sit in my beach chair and ponder the meaning of life — an endeavor made more urgent and relevant by the repetitious lapping of waves on to the sand.

A finger-painted image of the ocean

However, this time, I am glad to report, I found an obsession that occupied my time, caused me to relax, and resulted in my family smiling at me sympathetically:  electronic finger painting on my iTouch.

Laugh not.  The iTouch/iPhone App Store sells an application called “Brushes,” and with it, you can with very little practice (and no appreciable skill or talent), paint Winslow Homer-like seascapes on your phone screen.  I learned, doing this, that fingers are imprecise paintbrushes.  But Brushes compensates with a variety of brush styles and widths from hairline to cover-the-sky.  Your finger points and glides, swirls and pirouettes, and the app does the rest, as if a brush were attached to the end of your index finger.  There’s also a virtually endless range of colors, opacities and shadings available.  If this sounds like an unsolicited plug for Brushes, it is.  Great fun, especially when the alternative — pondering the fates of humankind or choosing between grouper or pizza — brings on a headache.

Now, back home, I wonder whether this obsession with Brushes was just a temporary fling into my imagined world, sitting under a thatched lean-to on a beach in Tahiti with Paul Gaugin, sharing an easel and throwing caution to the wind in splashes of brilliant, surprising colors.

Can you do that on a PDA or a telephone screen?  Now there’s a question worth pondering.

This is for any and all expats or former expats reading this.  Yes, that sneaking suspicion is true.  You are fabulous.  You are creative.  You have flair.  Yes, just soak it in.

Here is the lede to an article in the Economist.

Anecdotal evidence has long held that creativity in artists and writers can be associated with living in foreign parts. Rudyard Kipling, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Gauguin, Samuel Beckett and others spent years dwelling abroad. Now a pair of psychologists has proved that there is indeed a link.

To check that they had not merely discovered that creative people are more likely to choose to live abroad, Dr Maddux and Dr Galinsky identified and measured personality traits, such as openness to new experiences, that are known to predict creativity. They then used statistical controls to filter out such factors. Even after that had been done, the statistical relationship between living abroad and creativity remained, indicating that it is something from the experience of living in foreign parts that helps foster creativity.

You can read the whole article here.

The article is actually about business students.  But I am going to take it more literally, as I have lived abroad in Budapest, Croatia and Sweden.  So instead of sleeping, I am off to take up watercolors, large metal sculpture, and opera.

When Do You Marry?

I read recently about a new Gaugin being gifted to a Portland Museum. (If you are interested you can read about it here.) And since I’ve been thinking a lot about muses and his work falls into that category for me I thought I’d share him with you.

Gaugin followed his instincts and ended up in Tahiti for two years. During the height of colonialism he chose to live with the native Tahitians instead of the “white” people. Gaugin learned their language and even married one of the women on the Island. (He had a wife at home in France … so like most people he is not my perfect hero).

But what I like about Gaugin is his willingness to just jump into an entirely new situation and cut the cords with the things that are familiar. I struggle with jumping into anything! So I really admire that trait in others.

He withstood Picasso’s criticism of his work, who said that he painted “flatly” and also that he had “never wanted and [would] never accept the lack of modeling and gradation: it’s an absurdity. Gaugin was not a painter; he only made Chinese pictures.”*

It takes a thick skin to stand up for your own vision without adding peer criticism from Picasso!

The best part though is that Gaugin’s vision and persistence paid off. Perhaps it is stories like these that keep us crazy artists moving forward. Someday someone somewhere will value our work and see our vision in the way that we imagine they would.

Or it could just be me…

* See page 90 of The Collected Essays and Criticism Vol. 3 By Clement Greenberg, John O’Brian

*Evil: Many people hate poetry. Many people hate Bono. Everyone hates Bono’s poetry. I would draw a VENN diagram of this, but it would be covered in human bile, and therefore illegible. [pop candy]

*Beverage: The original formula for Dr. Pepper was an 1880s recipe for D Peppers Pepsin Bitters! Empirical research would lead me to believe that this same formula is still in use. [licensing plate]

*Consumption: Megan is moving and selling ALL her stuff. Via a gorgeously orderly online catalog – GoodbyeWaffleMaker. [swiss miss]

*Breaking: Van Gogh didn’t cut off his own ear, Gauguin did. Maybe. These two. [bits]

*Sports: I’m trying to figure out exactly what coasteering is. I think it has something to do with ritual suicide, but with lots of helmets and life jackets, which I’m sure is to make the act even more humiliating. [mefi]

*More poetry: Poets ranked by beard weight. Weird that Homer didn’t win? What? [buzzfeed]

*NOTE: I will dedicate a eupemism to my 500th twitter follower.

Vincent Van Gogh: Selvportrett med avkuttet øre

Dette er historien slik gutta fortalte den: Den nederlandske maleren skar av seg øret etter en krangel med sin kollega Paul Gauguin i 1888. Med blodet rennende tok han seg til et bordell, der han viste fram øret til en litt overrasket prostituert, som het Rachel. Så gikk van Gogh hjem og sovnet med masse blod i senga.

Men det er ikke sant, hevder to tyske historikere.  I ti år har de gransket politidokumenter, vitneforklaringer og brev og hevder at Gauguin, som var en meget god fekter, sannsynligvis kuttet av van Gogh øret i en fektekamp. De to gutta fant det best å dekke over sannheten. 

Dermed sparte de vel Paul Gauguin for politiubehag. Vincent van Gogh tok livet av seg to år senere. Han fikk bare solgt ett maleri mens han levde.

Fu Paul Gaugin a mozzare l’orecchio sinistro di Vincent Van Gogh al culmine di un litigio davanti a un bordello “per una certa Rachel”: la nuova ipotesi, avanzata dagli studiosi tedeschi Hans Kaufmann e Rita Wildegans e ripresa da Le Figaro, mette in discussione uno dei punti fermi sulla vita del grande pittore olandese. Infatti per piu’ di un secolo e’ prevalsa la tesi che fosse stato Van Gogh ad automutilarsi ad Arles nella notte del 23 dicembre 1888, dopo un litigio  con Gauguin, e che quella ferita coperta da una benda in un autoritratto segnasse l’irrimediabile discesa verso la follia che sette mesi dopo avrebbe portato il maestro al suicidio. Nel piu’ famoso film su Van Gogh, “Brama di vivere” del 1956, il Kirk  Douglas-Vincent si mozza l’orecchio con un rasoio dopo aver discusso con Gauguin per divergenze artistiche. Dopo dieci anni di ricerche, i due studiosi di Amburgo hanno affidato a un libro, “L’orecchio di Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin e il patto del silenzio”, le loro scoperte basate sui rapporti della polizia, su articoli di giornale dell’epoca e su alcune testimonianze posteriori ai fatti.

“You need not leave your room.

Remain seated at your table and listen.

You need not even listen; simply wait.

You need not even wait; just be quiet, still, and solitary.

The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.

It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

Franz Kafka (1883-1924), German-language fiction writer: image: self-portrait Paul Gaugin.

The exhibit of Van Gogh’s work at the MOMA is an interesting exhibit, despite its meager number of paintings.  The work is not uniform, but varies both chronologically and stylistically.  The early work, despite their sparseness and often rather banal sense, already capture the traces of the later mannerism.  But because it already evokes without yet enacting the later work, the earlier pieces seem subdued, as if Van Gogh is wrestling with his relationship to impression.  Heavy brushstrokes that convey light and color over shape, that seem to express content at the expense of form, still struggle also with his desire to portray an intimate family space, the quiet back of a house, even a sketch of a church.  The latter two, especially, stand as reminders to his proximity to the impressionists.

But the impressionists were known to paint the same scene numerous times, letting it vary in time of day or season.  There is a hidden platonism in impressionists, a sense of what appears and what exists, that makes impressionism possible at all.  Impressions only work if there is a difference of what impresses and what is impressed upon, a note that becomes abundantly clear when the logic of representation fragments, such as in cubism.  Impressionism could never hold Van Gogh for long, because it is clear from his work that he never held its limited notion of temporality.  Impressionsim really seems literally to take time as simply moving the image of eternity, where Van Gogh clearly perceives eternity as the impossible moment that exceeds time.  His work is atemporal, in the sense that it always presents a temporal image as inherently fractured, as incapable of holding itself together.  The eternal, in Van Gogh, is always negative, purely what we see to be dissolving before our very eyes.

In this, Van Gogh is a marked anti-platonist.  The tragic dimension in each of his works is that there is nothing to recall, but there is something to mourn.  The impression of a scene and the expression of an affect come curiously close, giving the painting an autonomy that dislocates it, making it untimely.  The exhibit is remarkably effective, in that it isolates this event called ‘night;’ no longer a mere setting for painting, it now becomes a participant to be captured, but with the ineffective grasping of the melancholic.  Night is not phenomenalized, taken as a certain type of event.  The scene becomes a site for the occurrence for night, rather than night becoming the setting for some happening.  Viewing the works one-by-one, night begins to stand out in the way color stands out in his friend Gaugin’s work, as a monstrous and uncontainable presence that backgrounds all forms.

Van Gogh’s scenes, with their excess on color and content, grows with each passing year of his artistic life into a joy with materiality, a sense of pleasure found in the very stuff of painting in all of its overwhelmingness.  What gives Starry, Starry Night its allure is the sense of weight involved, as if the whole sky is itself burdened and collapsing.  A similar experience is found in Gaugin’s chair, which seems to slant from the density of the paint, attempting to hold together an object made of oil.  Although it remains subdued in form, it already evokes the work of Soutine and his grisly piece of meat that bursts with life, not because either the painting or the object represented have any life in them, but because the material has become so profound.  There is a sense that we encounter in these works a soul, precisely in the way we encounter souls in others: the depth is the effect of a formless mass terminating in the beautiful surface.  Van Gogh toys with the limits of the corporeal and incorporeal, with skies made of spirals and fields that literally roll, never willing to explode incorporeal forms but nor willing to limit the mixture of colors and materials too rigorously.  From early to late in his work, the stark black marks of outline mark many of the person’s forms in his work, in contrast to the limitless fields and skies and seas.  It is as if a childish impulse holds him back, a sort of sanctity of form, a taboo he acknowledges, oversteps, and apologizes for, giving his work its character of failed-semblance, of a crumbling scene that can no longer maintain.

Indeed, looking back upon Van Gogh from the work of Picasso or the later expressionists, his work becomes even more melancholic.  It seems as if he is salvaging something within it, attempting to prevent his world from shattering.  His world is fragile and always in danger of disappearing, without any churches or bridges or wheat stacks that might endure through the ages.  Despite the amount of movement and vitality in his work, there is far more a sense of a frozen instant of loss, as if we are always about to watch a collapse.  Each work is stamped with the becoming of the past-tense, as much when he captures Gaugin’s empty chair, still vibrant but also beginning to mourn for its owner, to the faceless throng of the night club, too indefinite to ever be anything but a false memory.

It is this feature, perhaps, that makes these works so affective: they are not quite in the past, and not quite present.  They are, to be sure, twilight; an ideal moment that is never present, but always ‘not-yet’ or ‘already.’

Le Sud et la lumière : deux ingrédients qui marquent un tournant décisif dans la peinture ‘’matissienne’’. L’artiste dépasse la lumière flamande caractéristique de ses tableaux vers des couleurs plus vives, plus lumineuses et des thèmes spécifiques au Sud.

Premiers contacts

L’histoire d’Henri Matisse avec le Sud est fascinante. L’artiste issu du Nord de la France, dont les oeuvres sont marqués par les paysages particulièrement sombres de sa région natale, va découvrir avec émerveillement un autre type de lumière en 1904. Invité par son ami, le divisionniste Paul Signac à Saint-Tropez, Matisse est ébloui par la forte luminosité du Sud et ses effets sur la teneur et la vivacité des couleurs. Il travaille alors sur la décomposition prismatique de la lumière en appliquant les techniques de la synthèse additive et soustractive. Il joue avec les reflets et les contrastes clair/obscur. Matisse s’inspire du pointillisme de Paul Gauguin des débuts, de Cézanne et de Vincent Van Gogh qui avaient bousculé des normes établies. Matisse ira vers des touches colorées éclatées en petits points qui marquent les débuts du fauvisme largement théorisé par Paul Gauguin.

Son goût pour ce genre de peinture lui est inspiré depuis ses voyages en Corse en 1898: « J’étais en Corse une année, c’est en allant dans ce pays merveilleux que j’ai appris à découvrir la Méditerranée, là-bas j’étais ébloui : tout brille, tout est couleur, tout est lumière. »(1). Il visite l’Espagne méridionale et le Maroc entre 1910 et 1913 d’où il puise le fameux bleu matissien. En décembre 1915, il est à Marseille avec son ami Marquet ; il y retourne l’été suivant.

Rue du soleil Matisse, 1905

La période niçoise ou l’explosion des couleurs

Pour soigner une bronchite tenace, Matisse se rend à Nice en 1917. Séduit par la ville, son port, ses paysages et ses lumières méditerranéennes, il décide de s’y installer. Commence alors la fameuse période niçoise qui s’étalera jusqu’en 1928.

Il a 50 ans et c’est l’après-guerre baptisée ‘’Les Années folles’’. Matisse, ainsi que Picasso et d’autres artistes dont l’école de Paris se cherchent de nouveaux repères d’expression, de nouvelles techniques. La thématique de Matisse s’articule autour des intérieurs à la fenêtre, des odalisques, réminiscences de son séjour au nord du Maroc ou d’innombrables portraits des membres de sa famille, réalisés dans la chambre des différents hôtels où il réside. Ses peintures sont marquées dès lors par des couleurs écarlates, chatoyantes, décomposées. Il veille à utiliser les couleurs primaires de sa palette, empreintes de lumières intenses et expression de ses propres repères. C’est très manifeste sur ses œuvres durant cette période, comme dans Paysage, Le Repos, Nice- la mer, Femme auprès de la fenêtre ou Ma Chambre à Nice : « Je me suis servi de la couleur comme moyen d’expression de mon émotion et non de transcription de la nature. J’utilise les couleurs les plus simples. Je ne les transforme pas moi-même, ce sont les rapports qui s’en chargent. Il s’agit seulement de faire valoir des différences, de les accuser. Rien n’empêche de composer avec quelques couleurs, comme la musique qui est bâtie uniquement sur sept notes. »(2).

Paysages et végétation sont omniprésents dans les œuvres d’Henri Matisse fort appréciés par la bourgeoisie locale qui lui commande souvent des peintures. Arbres et branchages, lianes, fleurs et plantes décorent des intérieurs qui célèbrent le chatoiement des couleurs dans leur décomposition lumineuses et des espaces rythmés.

Fasciné par les effets produits par la lumière du Midi, Matisse a poussé son périple jusqu’à Tahiti en 1930, pas loin des endroits où Paul Gauguin, qui l’a tant inspiré, a mis en exergue les couleurs dites fauves et la décomposition des couleurs primaires.

Henri Matisse a fini sa vie à Nice où il est décédé en 1954 en ces lieux lumineux qui ont constitué pour lui un tournant important et pour l’art la pérennité de ses œuvres indémodables. Des fenêtres pour d’autres courants picturaux qui sont apparus par la suite.

Fenêtre à Tahiti 1936

(1) Dominique Fourcade, Henri Matisse. Ecrits et propos sur l’Art, Paris, Hermann, 1992

(2) Propos recueillis par Gaston Diehl dans Art présent, n°2, 1947.

F.O

]]> http://bennythomas.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/persistence-of-life/ Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:36:54 +0000 bennythomas http://bennythomas.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/persistence-of-life/

Where does life of a man or woman begins? Birth is merely a point, a reference point, a milestone as death is. Influences of life from its parents have already made its own impressions even while it is still a foetus. A life is measured between birth and death as a way of convenience. But it misses the essentials, which are supplied by life. Stendhal in his own time had to put up with indifferent public and conspiracy of silence from literary critics of the day. Nevertheless he kept on with his writing of which a few perceptive minds, Honorè de Balzac was one, were enthusiastic about. Stendhal dedicated his ‘ The Charterhouse of Parma’ to these ‘ happy few,’. He also predicted that he would be read some 50 years hence which uncannily was proved true.
Oneness of things works on a different timescale than we hold. We have a quality time and it is for doing the needful things like our creature comforts. We are simple and misguided to think of success in terms of material riches. It is arbitrary. Creative genius of Van Gogh or Gaugin was such that they had different priorities in life and they outraged the conservative tastes of the day.

2.

Van Gogh sold only one painting in his troubled life and now his works are priceless. Paul Gaugin’s bad luck persisted throughout his life. He left France and Paris the art capital of the world hoping that the king of Tahiti would buy his works. Before he could see him the king had died leaving him to fend for himself to a yahoo life as TE Lawrence qualified any life that was given into ‘ possession of aliens.’ Worse still his only skill, which he possessed was of not much use in Tahiti. He was forced to a life in a limbo entirely cut off from the world of art, which was necessary for him. Three years after his death in 1903 in Marquesas islands, an exhibition of his retrospective works held in Paris was a triumph. It caused a revival and interest in his works. Soon he was judged as one of the greatest painters who had impressed upon the 20th Century art.
One may in course of his or her life come up for many disappointments. What are many missed opportunities or disappointments  of a genius if he is denied what is his due? It is not that the public or the masses are dumb but the sorrows of a genius owe to the fact the public and the genius march to a different beat; The  public have their opinion on tastes and would act as an arbiter of what is good and what is bad. These guardians of morality derive their authority from their perception of finite time: they fashion their judgment to explain their times from their insufficient evidences; they are like automatons sold to the tyranny of time. Creative minds have a different concept of time. As the sage who said, these march to a different drummer than they. Character is what balances a life whether it is done on the coordinates of time or Time. These variable Speeds still give Character its recognizable form. Truth.
Truth is that quality which, like a keystone, holds all facets of a life where influences, what is derived and what is patently homegrown, are in equipoise.
benny

Desde que Adolf Hitler, pintor frustrado, se hizo con París casi sin resistencia el 14 de junio de 1940, tuvo el propósito de vaciar de arte la capital francesa, esquilmarla, desvalijarla metódica, meticulosamente, saquearla a conciencia tomándose todo el tiempo que hiciera falta. De este modo, el irrepetible tesoro artístico francés pasaría a ser la orgullosa colección de arte del Reich. Para ello, Hitler creó un intrincado aparato burocrático dirigido por Kurt Von Behr, que rendía cuentas directamente con Herman Göring, con la finalidad de organizar una labor sistemática de expolio que se prolongaría durante años y que incluiría, ya desde 1940, una red clandestina de fuga para obras y traficantes de ellas que permitiera sacarlas de Francia al margen de la suerte de la guerra. En apenas tres años, de abril de 1941 a julio de 1944, casi ciento cuarenta trenes especiales partieron desde París hacia Alemania o hacia los países pantalla para el robo organizado (Suiza, España, Portugal, Suecia, el Vaticano…) más de cinco mil cajas y arcones repletos de objetos artísticos de todo tipo, en un extraño paralelismo irónico con los trenes que hacían casi las mismas rutas y que terminaban algo más lejos, en Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka o tantos otros. Muchas de esas obras siguen hoy en proceso de recuperación; algunas fueron recuperadas en 1945 en las dependencias privadas del propio Hitler o de algunos de sus jerarcas, como Von Ribbentrop o Herman Göring, a pesar de que calificaran en público repetidamente a la mayor parte de los autores de aquellas obras de artistas degenerados, o incluso, conservando obras de artistas judíos. Se calcula que el número total de obras expoliadas supera las 100.000, de las que unas 60.000 se recuperaron, y que los domicilios privados saqueados superan los 40.000, en su mayor parte propiedad de judíos enviados al exterminio. La contabilización escrupulosa de estas operaciones pudo realizarse gracias a una infiltrada en la organización, Rose Valland, quien pasaba información a la resistencia y a los servicios secretos británicos y norteamericanos en orden a impedir la salida de las obras de arte de Francia o a dejar constancia del origen, destino y transporte utilizado para las mismas.

El tren, obra maestra del irregular director John Frankenheimer, recoge un episodio puntual relacionado con estos hechos. Cuando faltan pocos días para que los aliados entren en París, los nazis cargan en un tren los cuadros más valiosos de la capital francesa para enviarlos a Alemania y de ahí al mercado negro para sostener la fuga de los dirigentes nazis que ya ven perdida la guerra. Un grupo de resistentes intentará impedir la salida de las obras de Francia, saboteando el tren en el que son transportadas, con un doble riesgo: la necesidad de recuperar las obras sin dañar al tren que las contiene bajo la amenaza de perder una cantidad ingente de obras irrepetibles.

Sin duda se trata de la mejor película de su director, y cuenta para la ocasión con un magnífico reparto: Burt Lancaster, Jeanne Moreau, Albert Rémy, Howard Vernon y el shakespeariano actor, recientemente fallecido, Paul Scofield, que interpreta al coronel alemán encargado de salvaguardar el envío y de perseguir y acabar con quienes lo pongan en dificultades. La película es una obra imprescindible de ritmo vivísimo y precisión casi matemática. Supone uno de los más grandes fenómenos cinematográficos de la conjunción entre interpretaciones sobresalientes y acción magnificamente rodada junto con un guión espléndido y un estilo vibrante y emocionante que no da un respiro. Incluso vista hoy, cuarenta y cuatro años después de su rodaje, es imposible no resaltar la espectacularidad e impresionante magnitud de la película, superior a años luz a la mayor parte de los pirotécnicos productos repletos de explosiones y destrucción de chapa “modelo Michael Bay”.

Pero además de acción perfectamente rodada, El tren nos sumerge en el clima contradictorio de la época a través de unos personajes fantásticamente dibujados y mediante los cuales Frankenheimer nos ofrece una galería de los sentimientos y razones del momento: unos alemanes que se saben derrotados pero que se resisten a dejar de seguir provocando daño, una resistencia que prefiere sacrificar vidas humanas por la salvación de unas obras de arte que considera parte del orgullo nacional, imagen de la identidad francesa (aunque entre los pintores y artistas haya tantos no franceses como Picasso, por ejemplo, cuyo nombre aparece múltiples veces en las cajas de embalaje, verdadera curiosidad a lo largo del film que nos permite encontrarnos con nombres como Matisse, Cezanne, Monet, Degas, Gaugin, y tantos otros), y también el combate físico y moral entre dos inteligencias, cada una al servicio de sus fines, Paul Scofield y Burt Lancaster, majestuosos ambos en la conformación de sus caracteres, en el primer caso, como hombre al que no le importa que sus tropas mueran por conservar las obras, en el segundo, como un defensor de la vida, reticente a perderla por la defensa de unos lienzos cubiertos de garabatos que no obstante terminará poniéndose en riesgo para salvarlas cuando comprenda que el poder simbólico que encierran esas obras va mucho más allá de la calidad o del gusto.

Por otro lado, la cinta hará las delicias de todos los aficionados al mundo del ferrocarril. Casi podría considerarse una puesta en imágenes del juego del Ibertren, en el que los frikis del asunto podrán encontrar un compendio de la manera de trabajar y conducirse en el mundo del tren de los años cuarenta, casi como un curso acelerado en imágenes, con todo el realismo y el encanto de la época, de las máquinas de vapor, los cambios de agujas, las antiguas y monumentales estaciones que nada tenían que ver con las actuales moles de hormigón y cristal…

Pero la película, cómo no, incide directamente en un concepto sobre el que merece la pena reflexionar. Claro está que basta con colocar un uniforme gris y una cruz de hierro al malvado de turno para que interpretemos que todo lo que hace es malo, que nos pongamos de lado de Lancaster y de sus compañeros y aliados por la conservación de las obras de arte y para impedir su caída en manos de la bestia de las tinieblas que representa la esvástica. Pero, ¿cuántas veces en la Historia, en nuestra propia Historia, en la Historia de quienes concibieron la película, en la Historia de Francia, el país que lucha por evitar un saqueo criminal, todos no hemos terminado ocupando en uno u otro momento el lugar de los nazis? No sólo en cuanto a la comisión de crímenes, genocidios o exterminios, sino en cuanto a la idea central de la cinta, el expolio. ¿Acaso la Corona de Castilla no arrasó las riquezas de América exterminando a millones de indios como Roma lo había hecho antes con las de la Península Ibérica? ¿Acaso el Imperio Británico no constituía una magna empresa destinada al pirateo organizado por los cinco continentes a costa de la vida de millones de seres? ¿Acaso no robaron piezas únicas de arte griego que hoy en día siguen pendientes de devolución? ¿Acaso Napoleón no arrambló con todo lo que pudo en su breve paso por el Egipto de los mamelucos a fines del siglo XVIII? ¿Acaso los museos, colecciones, salas de arte, palacios y parlamentos de occidente no están a rebosar de tesoros artísticos robados a sus antiguos propietarios a punta de sable o de pistola? Ciertamente, ha habido pocos (pero los ha habido) criminales capaces de organizar aparatos de exterminio humano tan perfeccionados como los creados por los nazis. En cuanto al expolio, por desgracia, no les faltaron maestros. No tenían más que leer la Historia o, todavía más fácilmente, recordar el historial de sus enemigos.

Cabe resaltar, por último, el magnífico trabajo de dirección y la enorme capacidad de Frankenheimer para sugerir emoción, acción y riesgo con una gran limitación de medios. Sin los engaños, retoques ni artificios actuales, con un gran acierto en la toma de decisiones y la asunción de riesgos, consigue transmitir un ritmo vibrante gracias a un elaborado y minucioso trabajo de dirección que encadena picados y contrapicados, planos selectivos y escenarios parcialmente dejados fuera de cuadro que suplen con creces la ausencia de un presupuesto mayor y de unos medios más ampios.

En suma, obra maestra imperecedera, recomendable al cien por cien, que hace disfrutar por lo emocionante de su historia, por la calidad de las interpretaciones, por las múltiples lecturas humanas, políticas e históricas que abre, por el encantador retrato que hace del mundo del ferrocarril y, cómo no, por recuperar con toda justicia y merecimiento para la posteridad el papel de los profesionales de ese medio de transporte, cuyo papel en la Historia suele pasar desapercibido pero que en la era moderna ha sido de capital importancia, tanto para lo malo, como eslabón imprescindible de la solución final, pero, sobre todo, para lo bueno, como su importante contribución a los hechos reales de los que esta película pretende ser una muestra que, como resultado, es magistral.

Nesse curioso mais cheio de cultura e constrate,mas um contraste bom entre a modernidade e o lado que tenta continuar com o estilo rural de antes e assim podemos dividir entre Helsinki moderna e Helsinki Antiga e ambas tem seus encantos.

Cabe destacar a praça central da cidade, os edificios estilo imperial,  praça do senado, a universidade e a catedral todas com uma arquitetura impressinante.

Se gostam de museus nao deixem de visitar o museu de belas artes que deve ser o primeiro a ser visitado ja que conta com obras de arte de Gaugin,Cezanne, Van Gogh, Munch entre outros e vao amar visitar a cidade de carro ja que raras vezes encontramos engarrafamentos.

Bom nao deixem de visitar Helsinki ou como tambem é conhecida a cidade Branca.

Several years ago we happened to be in Amsterdam during the fantastic Van Gogh and Gaugin exhibition ‘The Studio of the South’. The paintings were sublime and the audio commentary fascinating, so this painting (thanks Wikipedia commons) makes a fitting finale for my yellow week.
Meanwhile,  issue 1 of The Yellow Room has arrived and I leapt on the first story by Zoe Fairbairns, a name I hadn’t heard for quite some time.  Zoe was a contemporary of mine at St. Andrews University. We never met, but I went on to read several of her novels. I still have a copy of Daddy’s Girls , but a visit to Zoe’s website reminded me that my favourite was Stand We at Last, a historical saga with a feminist slant. If you can get your hands on a copy, read it. I think I might look out for one myself.

It looks like Zoe no longer writes novels but I like her short story ‘Decisions’ very much indeed. Being close to someone who has recently suffered a bereavement,  I can relate to the surreal elements of the story as well as the suppressed grief that comes tumbling out at the end.

BTW the book of the Studio of the South exhibition is still available and is the best account I have read of the Van Gogh Gaugin story. The illustrations alone give it a lot more impact than the later Yellow House by Martin Gayford.

Last night I dreamt that I had sex over and over again with the first girl I slept with, Jackie, the Guatemalan. In my dream I counted. In this created world I remembered how she felt inside and how we were insatiable. Afterward I was at a giant waterfront fort turned art gallery/elementary school around exhibits. Something about a resort…the elevator had a small café and was very slow. A giant elevator.
The night before that I dreamt my brother and I had birthdays close. And huge feasts were prepared for us.

Today we languidly wander, heading toward our last Parisian museum. On the way we stop by bakeries and a quick corner cafe. In line we eat next to life sized sculptures of animals and it starts to rain lightly, there are other people eating in line…but not many. Those without stare hungrily as the line barely moves.
We are waiting to go into the Musée d’Orsay
Jane Avril dancing is ugly.
The fluidity of Van Gogh’s self portrait is something I believe you have to see in person to appreciate. All of his works are so vibrant when not reduced to a picture replication.
Degas: Danseuse Bleues.
Degas and his beautiful ballerinas, every painting rich and awkwardly soothing.
Monet: Les Tullefies – gorgeous pinks and reaches, the tree on left foreground is fireworks.
the subtle muted bright colors of the London parliament 1904.
the fat paint skin of L’Oncle Dominique en Avocat – Cezanne.
Marie Botkin’s lips. Redon.
Guillaomin: Soleil Couchant a Ivry.
Rousseau: La Guerre.
Feed Isis. Lacombe.
Where did Gaugin travel to? Of course…Tahiti.
Make neon flash mosaic life split from desire hygiene. Pull it vibrant. Cross. L’Air du Soir.
So bright.
Dance on the shore at full moon.
Nuit d’ete: Homer. A photograph cannot capture the nuances of the moonlight on sand. The feeling I get when I stand and stare at this, like I’m intruding on something beautiful I should not witness. Me, standing behind a rock with sand in between my toes.
Manet doesn’t paint nipples. But seeing two of the paintings he did that I can’t remember not being aware of, Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass were moments I will always remember.
Moreau: Galatee. The shine and shimmer metallic is more brilliant.
What is the story of De Chavannes rose paintings?
Le Ballon 1870 so wistful.
Corinth foreshadows the Hamburgler.

I see the gates of Hell again, and my sister and I have become companions during this walk around. I don’t let myself go too much…I would rather talk with her about the paintings we see than stop to write these reflections. We sit often, staring at one thing or the other.
We laugh at The Origin of the World and run into my brother staring at something or other.
My favorite piece in the museum is:

For some reason it gets to me, stranger than the others. Almost a bastard child among this collection presented. I am grateful for having seen it all.
Check some out at the museum’s website:
Musée d’Orsay

I recently reviewed Martin Gayford’s book, The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gaugin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence.

Drawing from extensive written correspondence, Martin Gayford provides a detailed account of the nine weeks Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin shared a house in the south of France. Van Gogh fans will remember this time in his life as the lead-up to cutting his own ear off and presenting it to a female neighbor.

Read the full review at Curled Up With a Good Book.

Although I think claiming Van Gogh as your favorite painter is similar to saying Kind of Blue is your favorite jazz record or Metallica is your favorite metal band, I can’t help myself. Even in lousy textbook prints, Van Gogh’s paintings are startlingly brilliant. His personal life is probably as much of an interest as his work – especially for casual art fans. Gayford’s book seems focused to casual fans. Art scholars know this story inside out, but I found myself learning quite a bit and also breaking a few preconceived notions.

Van Gogh’s art was the first that I remember as a child. I am sure it appeals to children in the same way it does to adults. For some reason I have always been drawn to the darker characters in everything I was interested in. I am sure that is a reason I love rock and roll so much. There always seems to be something under the surface. Slightly sinister. Slightly haunted. But it explodes into blaring blasts of color and light.

Alternately, there is a clear and pure side that creates just as incredibly. The balance between the two is where the truly amazing comes from. Much like Van Gogh’s bi-polar tendencies that cut through his entire life. He was probably trying to make sense of the dark and the light. That’s probably all any artist is trying to do.