Discoveries: Arts and Culture

Helen Frankenthaler painted this painting inspired by her visit to the caves in Altimera, Spain.  The numbers 273 refer to Motherwell's apartment as they were lovers at the time... So here is the painting and one by Rothko, which always draws me in,  in the current BAMPFA show, BERKELEY EYE.  These beckoned to me this past evening, when I went to PFA's showing of an Austrian film, in anticipation of their Austrian Film Series this fall, "In the Museum", about art and its spectators, in this instance, museum goers, but also a museum guard and a Canadian woman come to see a childhood friend who has asked her to come, as she is hospitalized and dying. The Brueghel room is particiularily interesting, as the "museum lecturer" talks about W.H. Auden's poems about Brueghel and how devoted he was to portraying humanity...and the vernacular life of peasants...showing how distracted they were by the major events, such as The Crucifixion.

The next section is : BLACK, WHITE , Gray. Minimalism and emphasis on art's relationship to the body through a quiet assertive presence.   My favorite here is Eva Hesse Eva Hesse Test Studies  Miro Angels  Rothko India 

re my favorite, along with the Carracci and the Rembrandt, and the Durer.  Durer was one of my papers in learning about prints in my Museum Studies Masters degree. Durer  Caracci  Rembrandt  The second section curated is: NATURE  Here the Bierstadt of Yosemite which is one of the first paintings the Berkeley art museum acquired, is a favorite, as is the Cezanne .  The James Ensor is the painting I would take home. I like the depiction of the white swallows in Kubo Shunman's painting. Cezanne  White Swallows  Ensor  The next section is HUMAN NATURE.  Poet Billy Collins(not my favorite) is quoted:  "I dont' think people read poetry because they're interested in the poet.  I think they read poetry because they're interested in themselves."  Perhaps those people who read Billy Collins; all the poets I read, I read, because I am interested in their lives and what they ...

Yanaihara Isaku was 38 years old at the beginning of his stay in Paris. A recommendation of Jean Wahl had allowed him to get a scholarship from CNRS. In his homeland, he taught philosophy at the University of Osaka; he wrote and meditated about Rouault, Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus which he translated  The Myth of Sisyphus  . After the parenthesis of a trip to Greece and Italy, he had agreed to pose for the artist he met at an exhibition for autumn 1955. This decision  transformed his life. Immediate consequence, she brought him to extend his stay in France: Alberto had always need new work days to specify what the disconcerted and frightened from his friend's face.  "Your face ... I see everything tiny and terribly huge ... I must paint the two together. "  Yanaihara had planned to leave for a trip to Egypt before joining Japan. His departure was constantly postponed: Giacometti desperate to complete the portraits he had...

ill post... I left this post in draft.  I had just returned from Myanmar and saw my first elephant with an invory tusk ; astonishing!  I was up close to the elephants in their preserve at the sacred site of Bordubur....they move so gracefully and have so much dignity, for an animal that weighs tons!   Returned to AAM in SF to sese this exhibition....perhaps I will say more but it is now six months later, so will publish now.  From the Indian collection at the Asian Art Museum in SF. 

Not Lawrence of Arabia, which was a favorite of my husband's; I do not know how many times we watched that on a rainy evening in Bucks County! A recently divorced American business man is sent off to Saudi Arabia and has some surprizes awaiting him, the least being that the King is not there...and during this period, he has a stroke, and meets a woman doctor...who takes care of him, and operates on his precancerous lump on his back, which suddenly appears...etc...an entertaining movie.  The book did better in the market.  But if you want some insights into Saudi Arabian culture and an American's "education", watch it.  I was pleasantly surprized that I actually enjoyed it!  The son of the king, as usual, was educated in the USA.  The Chinese are also deal making?  Guess who gets the deal???!!  .

The article begins, "I love the POORLY educated," Donald Trump said during a victory speech in February....It is interesting that he chooses "poorly" educated...those who have not received a good education, in order to be able to be enabled, empowered, to know their rights, to make comparisons, to read, to listen smartly and make up their own minds.  Of course, he has fertile ground for planting the seeds he wants in their minds: racism, fear of the foreigner, fear of our borderers, the Mexicans( so far has he attacked the Canadians)....he tells people in coal mining towns that shut down in th 1950's that he is going to open them and see they have employment again; is he introducing fracking to them? Is he stock raving mad?  He says he knows how to win:  set up false hopes in "poorly educated" minds...in minds without hope...in minds who cannot see that Donald Trump only wants office to buy America,  -- look his daughter has already bought up Donna Ka...

I just love the New Yorker and could really identify with Lauren Collins' Love in Translation , which is about living with a french spouse and learning french.  I will definitely read this book. So many wonderful cultural observations about differences of expression and perspective....review on p. 52-59 gives a preview...of her book to be published in the fall.  Along with Jhumpa Lahair's love of Italian, and a new book about Latin, it appears authors are following suit and thinking speaking about translation and intercultural languages has a market. I also read Jay McINerney's "Bright Precious Days'.  He is a fine editor and was extremely well connected, but I have never gotten much vibration from his writing, and now this memoir like piece. I read his piece in Town and Country this month, on wines and this new book. He definitely has the budget to buy some stellar vintages... Jana Prikryl is totally new to me.  She is an editor of the NYT Book Review as I ga...

Lu Shan Falls  I have stood in this very position.... I have stood in this spot I stood beneath this falls....what a climb!  A quiet moment with the trees  The resilient bamboo The ever lasting  Lotus...