An acrylic sketch in the larger moleskine I bought in Italy.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Free Music Download: A Tabua de Esmeralda
Going to try to regularly provide links to any great free/legal downloaded music I find online for you guys. Everything on here should be top notch.
This is Jorge Ben's A Tabua de Esmeralda (1974), provided by the wonderful Brazilian music download sharers: Loronix.
Jorge Ben is one of the greatest musicians of the MPB (Popular music of Brazil) era, and was very influential in fusing african and american rock rhythyms with the brazilian style. Here Ben has began to grow to his full mature style and this is my favorite album of his that I own. This is one of the most beautiful single works of music I have ever heard and I highly highly reccomend it. If you enjoy this check out Africa Brasil (1976) for more African rhythyms and funk in his music or Samba Esquema Novo (1963) for his older, more traditional music (both also available easily by search on Loronix).
And if you want a taste before downloading the full thing here's the phenomenal opening track's music video (which hopefully won't be hurt by the silliness on screen):
This is Jorge Ben's A Tabua de Esmeralda (1974), provided by the wonderful Brazilian music download sharers: Loronix.
Jorge Ben is one of the greatest musicians of the MPB (Popular music of Brazil) era, and was very influential in fusing african and american rock rhythyms with the brazilian style. Here Ben has began to grow to his full mature style and this is my favorite album of his that I own. This is one of the most beautiful single works of music I have ever heard and I highly highly reccomend it. If you enjoy this check out Africa Brasil (1976) for more African rhythyms and funk in his music or Samba Esquema Novo (1963) for his older, more traditional music (both also available easily by search on Loronix).
And if you want a taste before downloading the full thing here's the phenomenal opening track's music video (which hopefully won't be hurt by the silliness on screen):
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
When I Read the Book
When I Read the Book
When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)
-Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass
When I read the book, the biography famous,
And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life?
And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life?
(As if any man really knew aught of my life,
Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life,
Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections
I seek for my own use to trace out here.)
-Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Back from Florence
Ok technically I've been back for a good month now but I'm titling this post after my New York one in which I reported back with images from the JMW Turner solo show at the Met that blew my mind (found here). So to "report" back from Florence I want to show you some work from Fra Angelico who I saw a lot of work of. I particularly enjoyed the solo exhibit I saw at the Capitoline museum in Rome (however that excellent work is all heavily guarded by the Vatican normally so I cannot find images of it, sorry) but I also went to San Marco in Florence.
Anywho, beyond the fact that he is a very spiritual artist, and my own goals in art look towards the spiritual, I am particularly interested in Fra Angelico's work due to his unusually acute sense of composition as 2d shapes and forms interacting acrossed a single plane. My theory is that while early Rennaissance artists were trying to figure out simply how to render within 3d space, Fra Angelico, and other similar late gothic revivalists were making amazing discoveries in compositional understanding in 2d. Figures are exaggerated into anatomically incorrect shapes, shapes that become compositional devices. In particular, color is masterfully used, a gothic tradition that would toned down by Renaissance artists (even considering our new knowledge of the brightness of Michaelangelo's paintings [which don't even compare color theory wise]) and then all but destroyed by the chiaroscuro obsessed Caravaggio.
But enough talk, pictures:
"Annunciation", Fresco, 1439-1443, Cell 3 of the Convent of San Marco, Florence
Fra Angelico is a master of Annunciations (this being a lesser known one than his most famous work, but from the same convent). Here the colors are more muted than usual but still employed effectively (the figures become simple positive shapes over the large negative white background). An excellent example of Angelico bending the forms into elegant beautiful shapes.
"Crucifixion", From the convent of San marco
Excuse the small image, I could not find a very good one of it. Here we have a very well treated composition. The figures interact across the bottom of the frame creating a rippling undercurrent beneath the figure of Christ, who rises above, all in his supreme holiness. Many of the figure's positions lead off from one to another, and where they do not they often point upward leading the eye towards Christ. This is most obvious in the invisible line between the hand of Saint Dominic just right of the Christ, and Mary (who is fainting)'s hand.
In everyone of Fra Angelico's images I can find little hidden compositional devices that I could stare at for hours.
Anywho, beyond the fact that he is a very spiritual artist, and my own goals in art look towards the spiritual, I am particularly interested in Fra Angelico's work due to his unusually acute sense of composition as 2d shapes and forms interacting acrossed a single plane. My theory is that while early Rennaissance artists were trying to figure out simply how to render within 3d space, Fra Angelico, and other similar late gothic revivalists were making amazing discoveries in compositional understanding in 2d. Figures are exaggerated into anatomically incorrect shapes, shapes that become compositional devices. In particular, color is masterfully used, a gothic tradition that would toned down by Renaissance artists (even considering our new knowledge of the brightness of Michaelangelo's paintings [which don't even compare color theory wise]) and then all but destroyed by the chiaroscuro obsessed Caravaggio.
But enough talk, pictures:
"Annunciation", Fresco, 1439-1443, Cell 3 of the Convent of San Marco, Florence
Fra Angelico is a master of Annunciations (this being a lesser known one than his most famous work, but from the same convent). Here the colors are more muted than usual but still employed effectively (the figures become simple positive shapes over the large negative white background). An excellent example of Angelico bending the forms into elegant beautiful shapes.
"Crucifixion", From the convent of San marco
Excuse the small image, I could not find a very good one of it. Here we have a very well treated composition. The figures interact across the bottom of the frame creating a rippling undercurrent beneath the figure of Christ, who rises above, all in his supreme holiness. Many of the figure's positions lead off from one to another, and where they do not they often point upward leading the eye towards Christ. This is most obvious in the invisible line between the hand of Saint Dominic just right of the Christ, and Mary (who is fainting)'s hand.
In everyone of Fra Angelico's images I can find little hidden compositional devices that I could stare at for hours.
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