JAMES AND THE ANIMALS PART XVI

James and the animals Part 16 is posted

James And The Animals Part XV

Part XV is posted.

EDGAR DEGAS "Three Ballet Dancers,one with Dark Crimson Waist "

 

Edgar Degas: 1834 - 1917

A member of a Neapolitan banking family that had settled in Paris, Degas studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and then spent a few years in Italy. Although he participated in all the Impressionist exhibitions except the seventh, he sometimes caused disunity within the group and was not deeply involved in their technical innovations - being more concerned with linear and compositional issues. His subject matter ranged from horse-racing and ballet to cafe and brothel scenes. He was also a keen photographer, and in his old age turned largely to sculpture. A lifelong bachelor, Degas was dandified, witty and opinionated.

Degas never really accepted impressionism on Monet's terms, and was its great traditionalist even while he was one of its most startling innovators. It was never necessary for Degas to revert to traditionalism as Renoir was to do, since he had been a traditionalist from the beginning. His innovations, eccentric at first glance, are as a matter of fact brilliantly logical extensions of traditional principles.

Degas was the aristocrat of the impressionists, not only by birth but in his intellectuality and reserve, his personal detachment in observing a commonplace world to record it intimately. Of all the impressionists he is the most subtle, disguised as the most direct; the most reflective, disguised as the most noncommittal; the most acute, disguised as the most casual. He is their finest draughtsman and composer; he is one of the finest draughtsmen and composers of any period. He was the only impressionist to recognize that the momentary effect - with Degas a moment may be split to its ultimate fraction - can be used for complete revelation of individual character. He was, in fact, the only impressionist who was interested inpainting individuals as psychological entities. The personalities he thus recorded exist with completeness, a reality, that puts their portraits among the great ones of any age.

Degas is one of those painters whose art is conventionally discussed chronologically. His father, a banker, had planned a career in law for his son, but this study was abandoned in 1855. This was the year of the Exposition Universelle, and Degas was much excited by Courbet's Pavilion of Realism. He was also an admirer of Delacroix. But Ingres was his great man, and the exposition gave him a chance to meet the old painter. M. Valpincon, a friend of Degas' father, owned a couple of Ingres' paintings but had refused lend them to Ingres for a retrospective planned for that year's vast Salon. Degas induced Valpincon to change his mind and Valpincon told Ingres of this. Degas and Valpincon were invited to Ingres studio, where Degas was given the advice to "draw lines, young man, many lines."

Degas loathed the word impressionist with its connotation of the accidental and the incomplete, and he fought against it until he managed to get it dropped from the announcements of the fourth exhibition in 1879, when it was replaced by the word independent. He was not interested in the paraphernalia of outdoor impressionism, the countryside and atmospheric effects. City streets offered him as much fresh air as he wanted; the racetrack was open country enough. Theaters and intimate interiors offered the kind of light and air he liked to paint. He needed artificial life, he said, and not for a moment would he have considered yielding to impressionist seductions to paint at Argenteuil, as Manet finally did. Degas insisted that painting was an art of convention. To imitate nature from the model was bad enough; to imitate all its accidents out of doors was unthinkable. He painted from brief notes and sketches, preferring to observe carefully and then depend upon memory.

Comment from Vince---The barnes foundation near Philadelphia has the largest collection of Impressionist Paintings outside the Louvre. I love it there!

James and the Animals Part XIV

James and the Animals     Part XIV is posted !

James and the Animals Part XIII

James Part XIII Is Posted!

D R E A M S

In dreams, the past comes alive.

She who has haunted my memories

gains substance,

and presents herself to me,

in all her mystery.

 

Colors blaze, pain fades

and hopes become reality.

 

in this moment

of reverie.

c Deabler,V.T. 2004

AMUSED Mara

Mara, I`ve left many comments on " Amused ", but just to state publicly, you were the 1st person to mention my Journal by name. I`ll never forget it!

I must protest publicly the removal of your wonderful journal from  "Editor`s Picks"[sic]. And then to see the  overt pandering of this week`s picks!

People who were selected to advance the celebrity [ and cash ] of their new hire!

S  O    S  A  D   !!

Hang in there, my Editor!

Vince  [Proudly]

Poem " C R E A T I V I T Y "

Death is that which hovers

wherever people are.

That knowledge of our finiteness,

that makes us human

and produces our neuroses,

is also what drives us to write,

and all our attempts

at immortality.

Vince

c 2004 deabler,v.t.

James and the Animals

Part 12 is posted. See my other journals for link.

Scalzi`s Challenge

1. I saw Judy Garland Live, twice in the year before her death.

2.I got  " high " with 2 members of the grateful dead while they were being interviewed live on the radio.

3. I met and spent some time speaking to Timothy Leary.

4. I`m a left-hander who was forced to learn the right-hand Palmer method in grade school.

5. I was a very good basketball player.

6. I spend too much time on the computer.

7. I miss my kitty, Soren , who died 2 weeks ago.

8. Today is my mother`s Birthday. She would have been 91.

9. My favorite movie is " Lawrence of Arabia ".

10. My favorite opera is " Cosi Fan Tutti '   Mozart.

11. I live alone.

12. My favorite guitarist is Jerry Garcia.

13. There is nothing in the world I would like more than a grandchild. [Hope Sean reads this!]

14. During the [ hippy days], my favorite group was the Moody Blues.

15. My 3 favorite composers are Mozart, Wagner, and Verdi.

16. I have developing Diabetes.

17. My favorite poets are Shakespeare, Goethe, and Emily Dickinson.

18. My favorite English contemporary writers are Saul Bellow, John Le Carre and Tony Hillerman.

19. My favorite novel is " Herzog " by Saul Bellow.

20. I once had a drink with Linus Pauling.

21. Love Monet, Renoir, Degas.

22. I only go to Philly to see the Opera, although I used to live downtown.

23. I spent 6 hours on IM yesterday listening to Wagner`s " Siegfried ", live from the Metropolitan Opera, with my love of 20 years ago.

24.  23 is scary.

25. I have felt rejuvenated by all of the wonderful, talented paople I`ve met in Journal-land.

vince

Renoir " Nude in a Straw Hat "

Repost ESSAY ON NIETZCHE

ESSAY ON NIETZCHE

Nietzche looks at man through murky waters.He defends his renunciation of God by pointing out to us the evil in organized Western religions,in effect condemning God because of man`s shortcomings.He scoffs at all philosphers who came before him because all made the same fatal mistake,accepting the supposition that what is moral and ethical is known to man.Nietzche condemns all "a prioris";nothing is given.It is just that man before him has not had the courage to go this far. Man has sacrificed his courage and freedom to such "a prioris".The question of the chicken and the egg,resolved by many,beginning with Aristotle,in favor of the chicken,is a universal not to be solved but to be scoffed at.Man`s destiny is resolved by man,not by final cause.At best causality is unanswerable and man should no longer waste his time on unanswerable questions. At worst,the question is stagnation and directly attributable to man`s fear of being responsible for his existence.

For Nietzche,the basis for human existence is will to power and the means for self-fulfillment is personal courage. The over-man,the future man who will accept his destiny [and Nietzche believed he was a precursor,"A Stranger In A Strange Land"] will show concern for his fellow man but from a position of power and self confidence. It is Nietzche`s belief that the "love for fellow man" so universally accepted as a basic pattern necessity of life is merely a projection of man`s fear of being hurt. He postulates a distinct difference between such morbid self-protection and that concern shown by the "over-man". Although he goes to great lengths to contradict this feeling,it seems to the writer that,except for the honest respect given to others who live life according to his principles,Nietzche translates his concern to all others as pity. [Since Nietzche believes that pity is an emotion not worthy of the lowest animal,we may get an inkling of his view towards those of the human species who do not share his view of life.] Such a position,of course,is also strikingly similar to the "we are right" communality expressed by members of Western organized religions,one of the cores which he so mercilessly attacked.                 

Vince

c 2004

Goethe on love

That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec " Jane Avril "

 

Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de (1864-1901). Many immortal painters lived and worked in Paris during the late 19th century. They included Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat, Renoir, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Toulouse-Lautrec observed and captured in his art the Parisian nightlife of the period.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born on Nov. 24, 1864, in Albi, France. He was an aristocrat, the son and heir of Comte Alphonse-Charles de Toulouse and last in line of a family that dated back a thousand years. Henri's father was rich, handsome, and eccentric. His mother was overly devoted to her only living child. Henri was weak and often sick. By the time he was 10 he had begun to draw and paint.

At 12 young Toulouse-Lautrec broke his left leg and at 14 his right leg. The bones failed to heal properly, and his legs stopped growing. He reached young adulthood with a body trunk of normal size but with abnormally short legs. He was only 1.5 meters tall.

Deprived of the kind of life that a normal body would have permitted, Toulouse-Lautrec lived wholly for his art. He stayed in the Montmartre section of Paris, the center of the cabaret entertainment and bohemian life that he loved to paint. Circuses, dance halls and nightclubs, racetracks--all these spectacles were set down on canvas or made into lithographs.

Toulouse-Lautrec was very much a part of all this activity. He would sit at a crowded nightclub table, laughing and drinking, and at the same time he would make swift sketches. The next morning in his studio he would expand the sketches into bright-colored paintings.

In order to become a part of the Montmartre life--as well as to protect himself against the crowd's ridicule of his appearance--Toulouse-Lautrec began to drink heavily. In the 1890s the drinking started to affect his health. He was confined to a sanatorium and to his mother's care at home, but he could not stay away from alcohol. Toulouse-Lautrec died on Sept. 9, 1901, at the family chateau of Malrome. Since then his paintings and posters--particularly the Moulin Rouge group--have been in great demand and bring high prices at auctions and art sales.

INTERACTIVE HAIKU Haikulike

haiku

The above link will take you to a wonderful new site, INTERACTIVE HAIKU.

Grandmumsy has done it again! A Picture a day is presented for your haiku response. I had never tried to write a haiku, and if you need help, it`s all there.Please take a look, write a haiku, or just browse and/or comment. It`s really a lot of fun!

P S Y C H O T H E R A P Y

Psychotherapy

is creating an atmosphere

where someone [ or someones ] can feel,

to the continually changing

best of their ability,

completely free

[to be

who they continually

are changing ]

to become.

{......course, we can substitute love or trust......}        Vince

MONET " IMPRESSION : SUNRISE "

                       

Monet "Impression : Sunrise " 1873, oil on canvas. Musee Marmottan, Paris.

This is the painting from which the term Impressionist came.

LAST PHOTO OF SOREN

Soren and I met 19 years ago this month.He was just 6 weeks old and I was newly divorced. How was I to know that I would fall in love again so quickly! He was named after the philosopher Kierkegaard, [ I know!, I know!, unusual!], and he proved wise and giving. We have spent the last 19 years together, have had our spats, [Me, hairballs and vomiting ; Him, not getting enough attention], but our love just deepened!

Soren had to be put to sleep yesterday. He outraced me to old age, though maybe not by much. The Photo above was taken in his last hour.

I love you, Soren.

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR

Renoir, Pierre-Auguste

(b. Feb. 25, 1841, Limoges, France--d. Dec. 3, 1919, Cagnes)
French painter originally associated with the Impressionist movement. His early works were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colour and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women (e.g. , Bathers, 1884-87).
In 1854 he began work as a painter in a porcelain factory in Paris, gaining experience with the light, fresh colors that were to distinguish his Impressionist work and also learning the importance of good craftsmanship. His predilection towards light-hearted themes was also influenced by the great Rococco masters, whose works he studied in the Louvre. In 1862 he entered the studio of Gleyre and there formed a lasting friendship with Monet, Sisley, and Bazille. He painted with them in the Barbizon district and became a leading member of the group of Impressionists who met at the Café Guerbois. His relationship with Monet was particularly close at this time, and their paintings of the beauty spot called La Grenouillère done in 1869 (an example by Renoir is in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) are regarded as the classic early statements of the Impressionist style. Like Monet, Renoir endured much hardship early in his career, but he began to achieve success as a portraitist in the late 1870s and was freed from financial worries after the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel began buying his work regularly in 1881. By this time Renoir had 'travelled as far as Impressionism could take me', and a visit to Italy in 1881-82 inspired him to seek a greater sense of solidarity in his work. The change in attitude is seen in The Umbrellas (NG, London), which was evidently begun before the visit to Italy and finished afterwards; the two little girls on the right are painted with the feathery brush-strokes characteristic of his Impressionist manner, but the figures on the left are done in a crisper and drier style, with duller coloring. After a period of experimentation with what he called his `manière aigre' (harsh or sour manner) in the mid 1880s, he developed a softer and more supple kind of handling. At the same time he turned from contemporary themes to more timeless subjects, particularly nudes, but also pictures of young girls in unspecific settings. As his style became grander and simpler he also took up mythological subjects (The Judgement of Paris; Hiroshima Museum of Art; 1913-14), and the female type he preferred became more mature and ample. In the 1890s Renoir began to suffer from rheumatism, and from 1903 (by which time he was world-famous) he lived in the warmth of the south of France. The rheumatism eventually crippled him (by 1912 he was confined to a wheelchair), but he continued to paint until the end of his life, and in his last years he also took up sculpture, directing assistants (usually Richard Guino, a pupil of Maillol) to act as his hands (Venus Victorious; Tate, London; 1914).

Renois is perhaps the best-loved of all the Impressionists, for his subjects---pretty children, flowers, beautiful scenes, above all lovely women---have instant appeal, and he communicated the joy he took in them with great directness. `Why shouldn't art be pretty?', he said, `There are enough unpleasant things in the world.' He was one of the great worshippers of the female form, and he said `I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.' One of his sons was the celebrated film director Jean Renoir (1894-1979), who wrote a lively and touching biography (Renoir, My Father) in 1962.

JAMES AND THE ANIMALS PART 8

James looked at the Sheriff and shook his head. "Are you accusing me of something, Sheriff ?" "Nah, James, just wonderin` if you heard or saw anything", Taylor replied. James and Taylor stared at each other, then the Sheriff turned away and lit a cigarette. "Well, gotta be movin`, if you hear anything, please let me know." "Okay, Sheriff, I`ll let you know."

As Sheriff Taylor drove away, James pondered the situation; the dead man on his porch, the dead sheepherder. "Could I have had anything to do with this?" He remembered little from these nights, and felt himself shivering." Rather than hurt anyone else, if I did these things, I`ll kill myself!"....................

Sheriff Taylor had an appointment back at the office and so he took Rte. 40 straight into town. A Doctor was coming up from Philadelphia, wanted to talk to him about Larry Dean, the dead man found on James` porch. His name was van Helsing and he was some big deal shrink from Europe. It seems as if Dean was vacationing near the moors in Scotland and he was attacked by a large animal there. This van Helsing was called by Interpol to investigate the attack [ it seems as if he was listed as the expert by Interpol for these mysterious goings-on, and was always sent for to investigate these crimes.]

Taylor finished his cigarette, parked the cruiser, and entered his offices. Mary was on duty at the desk. "Hi, Sheriff, the Doc`s waiting for you in your office" The sheriff replied," Thanks, Mary, no calls please", and entered his office.

Standing at the window,peering at the town, was a tall thin man who very slowly turned at the sound of the door opening. "Good Morning, is it Sheriff Taylor?" Taylor nodded his head and the man continued,"I am van Helsing."

copyright 2004