Dance of Death
Posted: October 31, 2013 Filed under: Art, Poetry, Writing | Tags: death, Edge, ghost, halloween, puppet, Richard Harris collection, skeleton, suicide, Sylvia Plath, Wellcome, woman 1 Comment
Skeleton Puppet, courtesy The Richard Harris Collection.
Edge
By Sylvia Plath
The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.
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Mad Girl’s Love Song
Posted: October 30, 2013 Filed under: Poetry, Writing | Tags: American, Boston, death, dream, girl, love, love song, mad, madness, poem, poet, Sylvia Plath 1 CommentBy Sylvia Plath
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
God topples from the sky, hell’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
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Photopurism
Posted: October 29, 2013 Filed under: Photography | Tags: 1930s, cubism, czech, Drtikol, form, Frantisek Drtikol, geometric, photopurism, shapes, soul, world of the soul Leave a comment
Photopurism (World of the Soul). Frantisek Drtikol. 1934.
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The Meal
Posted: October 28, 2013 Filed under: Art, Painting/Drawing | Tags: bananas, food, Gauguin, meal, painting, Paul Gauguin, post-impressionist, still life, Tahiti Leave a comment
The Meal. Paul Gauguin. 1891.
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The Good Reputation
Posted: October 27, 2013 Filed under: Art, Photography | Tags: 30s, cactus, irony, Latin American Art, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Mexico, nude, reputation, sleeping, the good reputation, woman Leave a comment
The Good Reputation, Sleeping. Manuel Alvarez Bravo. 1938-9.
Whether concealed by a fig leaf or locked by a chastity belt, a woman’s erogenous area has traditionally been kept hidden from view. Flouting convention, Manuel Alvarez Bravo staged this scene by clothing the model’s upper thighs, hips, and waist, and exposing her pubic region. Although this photograph challenges traditional representations of women, it alludes to confinement through the use of bandages around the model’s wrists and ankles. These devices can be interpreted as symbols of bondage and lack of free will.
In this seemingly serene setting, the star cacti lined up beside the slumbering model signal pain and danger. The plants impede the woman’s free movement, while at the same time protecting her from the sexual advances of a potential intruder. In naming this photograph The Good Reputation, Sleeping, Alvarez Bravo drew upon the Mexican proverb: Earn a good reputation, then rest on your laurels.
(Text from Getty)
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Broadway Boogie Woogie
Posted: October 26, 2013 Filed under: Art, Painting/Drawing | Tags: 1942, 40s, abstract art, boogie, Broadway, colour blocks, De Stijl, jazz, labyrinth, Manhattan, maze, MOMA, Mondrian, neoplasticism, New York, non-representational, rhythm Leave a comment
Broadway Boogie Woogie. Piet Mondrian .1942-3
Mondrian, who had escaped to New York from Europe after the outbreak of World War II, delighted in the city’s architecture. He was also fascinated by American jazz, particularly boogie-woogie, finding its syncopated beat, irreverent approach to melody, and improvisational aesthetic akin to what he called, in his own work, the “destruction of natural appearance; and construction through continuous opposition of pure means—dynamic rhythm.” In this painting, his penultimate, Mondrian replaced the black grid that had long governed his canvases with predominantly yellow lines that intersect at points marked by squares of blue and red. These atomized bands of stuttering chromatic pulses, interrupted by light gray, create paths across the canvas suggesting the city’s grid, the movement of traffic, and blinking electric lights, as well as the rhythms of jazz.
(Text from MoMA)
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Beach Scene
Posted: October 25, 2013 Filed under: Art, Photography | Tags: 1960s, baby, beach, bikini, Coney Island, cuddling, hug, Leon Levinstein, New York, woman 1 Comment
Beach Scene: Woman in Bikini Cuddling Baby, Coney Island, New York. Leon Levinstein. 1960s.
