Wall Street Journal art critic Terry Teachout asks: “Are our brains big enough to untangle modern art?” As examples, Teachout quotes one of thousands of sentences from James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake like this one: “It is the circumconversioning of antelithual paganelles by a huggerknut cramwell energuman, or the caecodedition of an absquelitteris puttagonnianne to the […]
Is modern art too complicated for us? Read More »
Friedrich Nietzsche“From High Mountains: Aftersong” O noon of life! O time to celebrate!O summer garden!Restlessly happy and expectant, standing,Watching all day and night, for friends I wait: Where are you, friends? Come! It is time! It’s late! The glacier’s gray adorned itself for youToday with roses,The brook seeks you, and full of longing risesThe wind,
Nietzsche’s poem “From High Mountains” Read More »
From the still-hilarious files. Changing times. Rembrandt van Rijn (1653) and Michael Crawford (1992).
Aristotle with a Bust of Homer, Then and Now Read More »
Reprising this amusing jibe at the great conductor Herbert von Karajan, whose perfectionism and sometimes-authoritarian leadership style could cause enmity. “St. Peter calls upon Freud and tells him that God is evidently in need of psychiatric help. ‘I should be glad to help, but tell me, what seem to be His symptoms?’ asked Freud. ‘God
Humor: Herbert von Karajan and God Read More »
For comparison purposes, two artists’ views: Related:
Two portraits of Charles Read More »
From Jack D. Flam’s Matisse and Picasso: The Story of Their Rivalry and Friendship (2003): ‘Picasso characterized the arbitrariness of representation in his Cubist paintings as resulting from his desire for “a greater plasticity.” Rendering an object as a square or a cube, he said, was not a negation, for “reality was no longer in
Artistic representation: Picasso versus Matisse Read More »
An Artist’s View: Michael Newberry on Key Works of Art in History Michael Newberry is a California-based artist who has exhibited across Europe and North America. He is the author of books on color theory, philosophy of art, modernism and postmodernism in art, and art history. We invited him into our studio for this series
Three Goddesses, c. 438-32 BCE [Newberry on Great Art series] Read More »
The great Callas, according to biographer Richard Levine: Maria’s impressive willpower and focus enabled her to develop into the artist we think of when we think of Callas, but at the time her fellow students were hardly charmed by her chilly single-mindedness. One of them later said that ‘her earnestness was oppressive.’ Maria knew, however,
Creative geniuses as selfish — Maria Callas version Read More »