It’s just so beautiful. I cannot wait to see director Jonas Mekas’ new movie, “Outtakes from the Life of a Happy Man.” I’m watching the trailer in my kitchen this morning, eyes shining. The avant-garde filmmaker, now 90 years-old, has assembled this filmic diary of his beautifully bohemian daily life in New York over the [...]
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I should start a separate category for all the museum shows I wished I could have seen but didn’t. Here’s another: Frida Kahlo’s wardrobe at the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico. Of course, every fashion lover knows that Frida Kahlo had amazing style, but it was a revelation to see these images of the beautiful [...]
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I loved reading about French photographer Thierry Cohen’s images of the starry skies over cities like San Francisco and Tokyo minus the light pollution we’ve added to them. Nice to remember that the stars are still there, even if we can’t always see them. (More images after the jump…) And check out this link for [...]
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Sound the trumpets! The wonderful artist who created the illustrations for Encyclopedia of the Exquisite has a wonderful new project in the works—a non-fiction graphic novel called “Nikola Tesla: Inventor, Visionary and Unsung Scientific Genius.” You can check out the trailer, here, and learn more about the project via mindafire.virb.com. As Tesla himself said, “I [...]
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Over a two year span, beginning in 1820 and culminating in the summer of 1822 when he completed as many as 50 cloud studies, English painter John Constable had his eyes on the sky over Hampstead. Most studies were finished in under an hour. “I have done a good deal of skying,” he wrote [...]
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Well, I haven’t been posting so much lately that you’d notice, perhaps, but I’ll be away for an extended visit in India over the next weeks….So Happy New Year! I hope that 2013 is magical for you. These beautiful antique prints come from a friend of a friend’s website… http://www.omfromindia.com/
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Swooning this morning over images from Andrew Zuckerman’s photography book Flower, showcasing his masterful minimalistic images of exotic and not so exotic blooms. He pictures are as lush as those of Robert Mapplethorpe or Georgia O’Keefe, though he arranges his shots without any of their artistic commentary, with his goal to simply get out of the [...]
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After the spectacular storm last night I’m thinking about wonder, and specifically 16th century thinker Francesco Patrizi’s list of the 12 sources of wonder, which he published in the 1580s. Patrizi’s twelve sources of the marvelous: —ignorance —fable —novelty —paradox —augmentation —departure from the usual —the “exceedingly natural” —the divine —great utility —the very exact [...]
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I was doing a little research on Peter Paul Rubens’ wife Helena Fourment, this morning. They married in 1630, when he was 53 and she was 16 (ahem), and she inspired some of his most voluptuously and rosy works from then on. (This image was done around the time of their wedding.) As a daughter [...]
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I always miss Wallace Stevens’ birthday—October 2—so this year I’m prematurely tipping my hat to the great poet. Thinking of him this evening, I spent some time rifling around in the archives. I do love him so. And he loved all the good things: snow, poetry, honey, walking, ravens, tea… I found a funny site [...]
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