IMG #1: Still Life

 

An Advent Calendar: Day 20

It all began at the beginning, when man and woman became estranged - from God, and from each other

Marc Chagall - Adam and Eve (1912)

then Abraham, the father of nations, entered into a covenant with God

Julia Stankova - The Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah (1993)

Julia Stankova - Trinity (1998)

then the chosen people were exiled, wandered, grew and flourished, went astray, and went astray some more, and were called back, and waited for the Promised One,

Marc Chagall - The Praying Jew (1923)

then an Annunciation was made to a young Jewish woman

Jay DeFeo   The Annunciation (1957-59)

and some people went on a trip to find what they have been researching, and thinking about, and expecting 

Léopold Chauveau - Les Rois Mages suivent l'étoile (1920)

after the star they've seen (so they say)

Vincent Van Gogh - La Nuit étoilée (1888)

toward Bethlehem in Judea

James D. Robertson - Béthléem près de Jérusalem (photo, 1859-60)

(and some shepherds were awoken as well, to go out)

Arthur Rothstein - Sheepherder’s Camp, Montana (photo, 1939)

to meet the One born humbly, to a young, unknown family

Watanabe Sadao - The Holy Family (1970)

And of course, the story will not end here, but let us just rest with the newborn Son - that is, let us look forward to the moment, to that meeting, when we will be able to rest with this newborn Son - and, for now, let us prepare for it - because the day is near

An Advent Calendar: Day 16

The Visitation refers to Mary's visit to her cousin, Elizabeth, who had become pregnant at an advanced age, and needed help with all the preparations. What is especially attractive about this event is its ordinariness; Mary takes this trip to her cousin, while herself in the early stages of her pregnancy, simply because of very normal human needs and duties: your relatives need help, so you go to lend them a hand. And yet this ordinariness and utter humanness is also an occasion for the sacred to manifest itself, to irradiate outward; when she meets Mary, Elizabeth feels as if her own child "leaps" in her womb, and is suddenly aware of the grace that had been bestowed on Mary ("blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb"). And then the days went on, and Mary helped Elizabeth, and everybody was busy with the preparations for the birth, and for the ceremonies and celebrations that were to follow. 

What this very human (yet also sacred) event points to, is the fact that the sacred does not abolish or eliminate the human condition, but manifests itself in and through it. In fact, for most of us it is probably the path of ordinary duties and tasks - familial, because family is good; and social; and professional - that is also the path on and through which one has to live out one's sacred vocation. As Thérèse of Lisieux indicated and showed in her life, there is a "heroic" way of living out the "ordinary," simply by performing even the littlest duties and tasks in and out of charity.

And the ordinary - the most ordinary - will also characterize the context in which the Birth of the awaited Child will happen. A simple, unknown young family - a father, a mother, and a child. Ordinary, anonymous, caught in the middle of following a recently passed governmental act (of having to travel to the man's hometown, to register for the census), and trying to make do while on the road, in difficult conditions (it is probably winter, they are on the road, the wife might give birth at any moment, and they have found no place to stay overnight). One can put oneself very easily in the frantic mindset of the young father, as he is trying to figure things out and to take care of his young family, with little means, and with little help from the people around.  

Indeed, it would be a dangerous and in-human thing to try to erase and abolish the human - or, one could say, historical, immediate - dimension of the sacred events. Doing that would result in separating the sacred from our own lives, in fact - because the sacred becomes something extraordinary, "magical," otherworldly, "angelic," and thus unattainable; and thus something that can not actually concern us. But if everydayness is the place and the space where the sacred is lived out - and where we can live it out simply by giving to the ordinary a direction and a meaning that come from the Love that grounds all existence - then every day becomes a task, and an opportunity for an (imperceptible, but true) living out of the sacred.  

Domenico Ghirlandaio - Visitation (1486-90)

Jacopo Pontormo - Visitation (1528-29)

An Advent Calendar: Day 11

The three "magi," or "wise men," or "kings from the Orient," who "followed the star" to find the Christ child in Bethlehem, symbolize - and factually represent - the "pagan" (i.e. non-Jewish) world's search for the truth, which led them to the same end, or result, as the chosen people's expectation of their Messiah. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," will say later the adult Christ; and, just like the mono-theistic God of Israel was not actually a god of a people, like the many other polytheistic gods, but, while choosing a people for himself (Israel), was acknowledged even by them as the one God of the entire universe, and the Creator of all that is; so the Christ, later called the Son of God, while born in a marginal province, does not represent a "provincial," or "particular" answer to the quest for the truth - but is the Truth. The Truth, as in the answer to the quests of all the true philosophers ("the lovers of Wisdom") and of all the righteous people no matter the time (BC or AD) or place in which they lived. 

The "three wise men," therefore, who will bring gifts and will adore the newborn Child (the Truth), are a symbolic and also factual accomplishment of the multimillenial quest for truth of humankind itself. Our own Advent, therefore, harkens back to the journey of these three men, which they endeavored guided by the frail light of human reason and knowledge - and of the "star." And yet their pursuit was rewarded in an extraordinary fashion - as they became part of the very, very small society of those who first had a glimpse at, and access to, the newborn Truth. It is worth thinking, therefore, at their journey, as we endeavor our own Advent journey; their journey which, while supported by human reason and knowledge, was most probably pursued in constant incertitude, and thus was in fact led by hope (since they could not know if their endeavor was not completely futile), and by a kind of faith. 

Giorgione - The Three Philosophers (1508-09)

Gislebertus - Dream of the Magi (1120-30)

Sassetta - The Journey of the Magi (c.1435)

       

An Advent Calendar: Day 6

 

Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Rest in Flight to Egypt (1647)

What I like about this picture (zoomable version here) is the inconspicuousness of the (young) holy family, almost lost (seemingly) amidst the immensity of the landscape, and (apparently) obscured by the busy-ness of daily life depicted in the foreground. Indeed, one might have to read the title of the painting, first, in order to realize its "subject" (inverted commas, because Claude Lorrain was, first and foremost, a landscape painter). 

It takes attention, then, and a certain kind of "tuning," to observe and to pay attention to the element of the landscape whose importance actually surpasses that of everything else in the picture - notwithstanding what our eyes might tell us, initially. 

And yet the rest of the picture remains beautiful, and the everyday scene remains fascinating. And yet they all receive a different meaning, once the horizon of the painting is re-centered (not visually, but in our understanding) around this new focal point (which is interior, not exterior). 

However, this inversion of meaning(s) is up to the "reader," to the one who engages with the scene. In this duality - natural beauty and daily business vs. the spiritual reality in its humble guise - the choice is always with the subject who engages this complex reality..     

An Advent Calendar: Day 3

The image featured today, of the "Virgin and Child with St Catherine and St Barbara" (1520-25), painted by the so-called Master of the Holy Blood, might be somewhat inappropriate for the Advent season that we are marking (as it depicts the Virgin with the already-born Child). However, it might also be useful for other purposes, of deepening our understanding of the Advent season that we are going through. 

Just like the other "seasons" of the liturgical year, the Advent season slices up the astronomical (cosmic, calendar) year into sections which hearken back to and re-present (i.e. make present again) key moments or periods from salvation history (the history of the relationship of God with his people, with mankind). By doing that, they transport us into that moment of salvation history, and elevate us to a different plane of meaning. This is how, as we mentioned, the Advent that we live through each year is a re-living of the period of expectation that Israel itself, and mankind itself, experienced and lived through, before and leading up to, the birth of the Son of Man.   

Today's painting, then, is a good illustration of the same mechanisms and connections, of the same plays with different kinds of "time" and meanings.

While painted in the sixteenth century, this triptych depicts interactions and relationships that span fifteen hundred years. At the center of the frame is the Virgin and the Child (first century), adored (and physically touched) by St Catherine (fourteenth century) and St Barbara (third century, Byzantine). On the side wings of the triptych, the two donors (who paid for the making of this painting, and thus contemporary - from the sixteenth century) are depicted, each of them being supported by their patron saint (St Joachim, by tradition the father of the Virgin, and thus first century) and St Judocus (seventh century). In the background, other scenes from salvation history or from the lives of these saints are depicted, spanning various centuries of cosmic time. 

And yet, no matter this crisscrossing through various moments and periods of historical time  the story depicted is coherent, as it all takes place in the extratemporal "now," in the everlasting "present," of eternity. The eternity of God, which is also the eternity of faith. 

But let us return again to the painting, and notice that the buildings and habitations depicted are all contemporary (i.e. sixteenth century); in fact, there might even be a Christian church (!) on the hill to the left (which would be highly incongruous with a historical depiction of the infant Jesus and of his Mother). Continuing with this temporally-rooted examination, one will also notice that all the characters, while belonging to different eras and culture (and perhaps excluding the Virgin and the Child), are dressed in "contemporary" fashion - in the fashion of the time (sixteenth century), and of the place (Northern Europe - current Belgium). 

What is happening here? Surely the author was well aware of these "historical" or "cultural inconsistencies." Of course. But dressing the characters of salvation history, and of the history of the Church, in contemporary gowns, and situating them in the context of our day, of this moment, and of our surroundings, also carries a very powerful message. Namely, that we are all part of the same "story", a story that is not past, but actual and immediate; and that, notwithstanding the accidents of geographic or temporal differences, we all partake in the same human condition, and in the same sacred condition (in terms of our relationship to the eternal God). 

The danger, as Kierkegaard pointed out, and as illustrated in a recent film by Terrence Malick, rests exactly in the attempt to use temporality (historical distance) as an excuse and as protection, against facing the radical questions and provocations of salvation history: of facing the infant Jesus, of being looked in the eyes by the Christ. 

Living - truly living - the seasons of Advent is thus a means of bridging this faux gap and bypassing this temptation, as it puts us right in the middle of the great questions, and of the great invitation: such as the question of "What is truth?", which Pilate asked, when faced with Christ; and the invitation "Venite adoremus" (oh, come let us adore him), which is the invitation of Nativity offered to us, today, just like it was offered, contemporaneously, to the magi or to the shepherds.

 

Bric-à-brac for January 2020

1. The World's Oldest Olive Tree
... as far as we know, is located in the village of Ano Vouves in Crete (Greece), and is about 3000 years old (or more). Durable and enduring as all olive trees are (which is why they have been cultivated for thousands of years throughout the Mediterranean), this tree continues to produce fruit - and to live. (You can learn more about the Vouvos tree on this blog and in this article.)

In the video below you can see some drone-filmed images of the tree, with its ancient, contorted, and now mostly hollowed-out trunk. Looking at it, and thinking about it - and learning that is used to be surrounded, millennia ago, by a cemetery - brings to mind the sun-scorched ages of man in the Mediterranean, the lives and the societies that surrounded - and used - this tree, the length of time that preceded us - days that were not shorter nor longer than ours; a "present," then, that was equally a "present time," as is our own "present;" in short, duration, or, in fact, human duration (always the same, and always equally oblivious of its own past).

In any case, enjoy:



And, since you asked about the process of making olive oil out of the fruits of the tree, here is a primer that presents both the traditional and the modern methods of production.



2. The Aftermath of Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier is, of course, the father figure of a school of architecture and urban planning that represents, in many ways, the quintessentially Modern vision - namely, the idea of designing and implementing ("on" human beings) a masterplan for their lives that is guided by (purportedly) the most "enlightened" and "humanist" ideals, but which is also far removed from, and even disdainful of, the lived messiness of human existence, of its floral diversity, gregarious needs - and of its actual history.

It does have a certain charm, or so I find, this "brave" vision of a new future, which combines hopefulness (i.e. naive idealism) and hubris, reflecting that typically Modern combination of half-digested Enlightenment ideas with the promise and enticing power of the empirical sciences (that we will "measure" the world and take complete control of it - Die Vermessung der Welt, the French encyclopedists). Of course, from similar hubristic-yet-well-intended metanarratives resulted also the catastrophic ideologies of the twentieth century...

Part of Le Corbusier's philosophy was the creation of "machines for living" that were designed (in total disregard for architectural traditions, heritage, and context, but) following rationalist and utilitarian principles - pure and angular geometric forms, made mostly using exposed concrete, and following rational rules about what the human beings want and need. In other words, a top-down vision about designing human habitation that rejects all things "organic" and messy, and aims for pure rationality (rationalism, in fact) and utility (utilitarianism, in fact). If this does not sound all too friendly or appealing, well, perhaps you have to be taught how to live (by these buildings). (At the other end of the pendulum swing, but perhaps with quite a few similarities, would be Gaudi, whose "organicist" architecture isn't terribly "human," either; just as the jungle is the not the friend of man.)

I would note here that I do find Brutalism, as an architectural style, to have its own charm, in isolated exemplars and reduced quantities. In other words, I would not say the same thing about the aforementioned principles of urban planning, nor of habitations made entirely of Brutalist buildings, streets and squares. (Of course, this idea of teaching people how to live, and of forcibly re-making the world, still holds appeal - the remains of the days of Modernity.)

But, as much as we want to re-make existence based on pure, rational, measurable principles (all for the "higher good"), life takes over, life flows beyond the human-set bounds; it turns out that we will not measure, categorize and put in neat boxes the entire world, all of existence; it seems, then, that time and life win, and win, over and over again. It does not help either that concrete is an ugly construction material, especially when affected by said passing of time and by the elements.

One of the major projects in which Le Corbusier was involved, which gave him relatively free reign both in urban and in architectural design, was the planned city of Chandigarh, the capital of the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana (a planned city like Brasilia, the capital of Brazil). (See more info on Chandigarh here - but do watch the video, as it is more instructive than the text itself - and one has to see it.)

Given what was said above, I find the video below quite poetic; it is of a building in Chandigarh, and, if modernist architecture is inherently futuristic, this video seems to express a post-apocalyptic version  - and also the organic denouement - of said vision. Quite ironic and quite poetic, I find.




3. Sport & the Arts
At the commemoration of 70 years since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the local football team, V-Varen Nagasaki (playing in J-League's second division) launched a dedicated “Pray for Peace” kit that featured an origami crane (a symbol of peace) and an image of Seibo Kitamura’s Peace Statue (statue located in Nagasaki's Peace Park, and which is meant to symbolize both the atomic threat and the mercy and peace of God).

Here are the jerseys:

UK Soccer Shop

On the brighter side of the same topic of sport & the arts (and, in fact, of football and the arts), some creative minds decided to start awarding the Fallon d'Floor award (the name is a spoof on the prestigious Ballon d'Or award), for the best "dive" (faking a foul, and following that with a spectacular fall) of the year. Although such dives can indeed be artistic, that is not the aspect that brought this issue under this sport & the arts heading, but the fact that in 2014 the same creative minds spiced up the awards by creating mock film posters for each dive (also spoofing in the process the titles of major movies).

Here are a couple of examples, and you can find more at this link. Regarding the first poster, a bit of context: it makes reference to the incident at the World Cup when Argentinian player Luis Suárez (whose most recognizable physical characteristic is a significant overbite) bit (!) Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini on the shoulder (!!), and then pretended that it was the Italian player who actually hit him in the teeth (!!!) with the shoulder (and I ran out of exclamation signs).

4. Morricone on the Streets, courtesy of Italo Vegliante
... and featuring a variety of instruments (or instrument sounds). The esteemed street artist featured in the video, signor Italo Vegliante, besides being a minor (Internet) celebrity today, was an Italian B-movies star (in the 80s), and is, most obviously, a talented musician / guitarist / entertainer.

Bric-à-brac for November '12

1. 500 Years from the Unveiling of the Sistine Chapel's Ceiling

The Delphic Sibyl (Cappella Sistina, Vatican)

On October 31st, the Eve of All Saints, the world celebrated 500 years from the finishing & first public showing of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It is as much a work of art as one of theology, a worthy emblem of the Renaissance but also a deep immersion in the history of salvation, a Biblical trip into history. The rest of the chapel is itself a celebration of beauty and faith, with walls covered in paintings by Perugino, Botticelli,  Ghirlandaio; when one visits it, the beauty of it all becomes apparent, even if it is the ceiling, and especially the creation scene there, as well the Last Judgment on the western wall, that are known by most.

You are invited therefore to make a virtual visit and delight in a panoramic view of the chapel (use the + and - buttons on the bottom left for the zoom function). To learn more about the paintings and the Sistine Chapel, you can visit this attractively slick multimedia guide, or go even more in depth with a dedicated page on the Web Gallery of Art (one of our favorite resources). And I should not forget to recommend the wonderfully balanced and realistic movie, The Agony and the Ecstasy (based on Irving Stone's homonymous book), which deals quite admirably with the relationship between art, history and faith.

2. Metropolitan Museum Catalogs  - Available for Free Download

Wonderful news from the Met, as they are offering their excellent art catalogs for online viewing or free download (in .pdf format). If you have been collecting them at second-hand shops or by rummaging through book sales, or if you have been purchasing new ones online, here is now a wonderful tool, which intends to gradually cover all their out of print materials. Browse and choose to your liking, from the MetPublications website. [notified by I Require Art]







3. Hibaku no Maria

One of the lesser-known facts about the bombing of Nagasaki is that it managed to destroy, in one coup, the largest Christian community - 22,000 strong - of Japan. What centuries of persecution and, in fact, of extermination policies did not manage to accomplish, the Allies did, in one strike. A powerful memento of this is the Hibaku no Maria (the "bombed" Mary), which is the remaining, scarred head of a sculpture of the Madonna from the destroyed Nagasaki cathedral. Learn more about the story of the statue, the history of Catholics in Nagasaki and in Japan, or just look at some additional images of the Hibaku no Maria, which has since become a powerful symbol of the senselessness of war and a message/messenger of peace (as the current Archbishop of Nagasaki explains in this video). [signaled by St. Peter's List]

Image: St. Peter's List

4. Dresch Quartet

Dresch Mihály, the saxophone- (and assorted reed instruments-) player & his quartet, with one of their typical, Eastern European folk- infused jazz pieces. Green and red lines on a canvas with folk motives.  

A Virtual Walk Through Museums: Google's Art Project

Google's motto used to be "do no harm." However patchy its record of living up to that noble goal, Google does actually do some good, too. A good thing coming out of their creative labs is the Art Project.

In short, this is a tool "powered by Google" which allows the user - you - to explore some of the great museums of the world, and to look at some great artworks in detail. In amazing detail, for some of them, as the high definition pictures go as deep as the painter's brushstrokes - as in the case of In the Conservatory by Edouard Manet, from the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. In other cases, such as the painting of Sir Thomas More by Hans Holbein the Younger, from The Frick Collection, you can still go in-depth in your examination of the painting, even if not to the same degree.

Besides examining very closely some of the paintings from Tate, MOMA, the National Gallery in DC, Hermitage in St Petersburg, and many more, the "visitor" can also browse through the hallways of these museums, looking at all the objects exhibited; it is Google's street view technology, applied to the interior of some magnificent houses of art.

What can I say other than that there is art to be encountered through Google's Art Project.

You can also take a look at this short, useful video about how to use this new and enjoyable tool.

Hedgehog in the fog

A short and beautiful animated film by Yuri Norstein.

The way true fairy tales - or folk tales - are, the way they really are... There is more dramatic tension in this 10 minutes-long animated film, than in a big movie. Not to mention the poetry of the story-telling, and of the visual expression. The rhythm and the direct simplicity of the hedgehog's thoughts - just like a child's. A child's inner life, as you might remember from your own, is not simplistic, or of overbearing, saccharine-like sweetness. But it can become like that, if the stories and images we give him to think with, to think about, are clichéd, sentimentalized, dumbed down (because simple does not mean simplistic!). But fairy tales - the real ones, the old, original ones, and even some of those written by a Perrault or Collodi - are realistic, yet their imagination is uncontrollable; simple, yet also complicated, in their story turns, and in the feelings they induce; they never end, that way.

KARAWANE

Karawane,

the sound poem by Hugo Ball, one of the Zürich Dadaists.*

And a masterful interpretation of the poem:

A great interpretation; others, such as this one by Trio Exvoco of Switzerland are, by comparison, downright depressing. Among other things, they lack an important - and maybe the essential - dimension of Dada, and of the avant-garde in general: its youth. Youth, both in the sense of young persons, and also, and most importantly, as that age in a person's life that we call youth. The stirring and moving of young age itself... as it "clashes" with society, with the drab, meaningless decorations it puts on its buildings, with the absurd that is intertwined with the everyday life in that society etc.** And youth responds organically, irrationally, and, needless to say, emotionally - by defacing the statues, overturning the garbage bins, and dancing in the fountains on the main square, after leaving the café at 2 am (you can't go mad while hungry; not if you're sane and healthy).***

The above-posted video, however, is quite excellent, and I could note a few aspects of why I think it is so well-done. First, it follows intelligently and almost "puristically" the phonetic value of the words in the poem - in this sound (or phonetic) poem. Furthermore, being set to a tribal drumbeat, it is very much in tone with the (quite important) primitivist dimension of Dada. Third, it was made using technology (Adobe Flash, I guess), and mechanized algorithms for the movement of the visual appearance of the words; thus removing itself, to a significant degree, from the subjective, personal, human dimension, very much in tone with Dada's emphasis on accident, the mass-produced, collage, and modern technology (see Schwitter's Merz, or Duchamp's Fountain). And, finally, it certainly has the inventiveness and randomness and freshness of a movement of the youth. After all, the author is 24 years old.

I do not know if this author, loris10mi (according to his Youtube name), is necessarily aware of all these dimensions - and he does not have to be, of course, given what was discussed above; but he might be, as this seems to have been part of an academic project. In any case, as noted, this might be one of the best interpretations of a Dada poem I have encountered yet.

...

* Dada? You can listen to Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara talking about its beginnings - after the fact, of course, and after having been caught (the two of them) in ersatz visions of the world and of art, i.e. ideologies.

** It is not by chance that Dada appeared within the context of World War I, which, like all wars, was a celebration and joyful manifestation of the absurd; WWI perhaps even more so than the rest, given its utter pointlessness and unnecessary quality.

*** The scene with Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni, at the Fontana di Trevi, in La Dolce Vita, is not all too far removed from this youthful rebellion; but it is much "later" compared to youth itself, and thus, much sadder. As evidence of the similarity, see the very entertaining reaction of this youth from 60's Hungary (which was then under the (imposed) burden of a Communist regime), when watching the same scene from The Sweet Life; this funny and intelligent depiction is from Csinibaba, by Péter Timár, a movie made in the '90s.