"The Lovers" - René Magritte A post about Magritte and Wagner but Chevy Chase will make a brief appearance. “What I paint is addressed to those who “live” in the present, or rather, for it… An artist who paints for posterity has an intention that I do not have. In my opinion, he is doing something idiots understand very well – those who...
I confess I thought it was pretentious to say you liked Buster Keaton. I mean, it is rare enough to like silent movies, imagine liking silent movies that are not Chaplin’s. After watching one of Keaton’s movies I have to reconsider and proclaim myself to be a big fan of him. The more I hear about his life, the more I wish I...
Shakespeare is all about emotion and catharsis. Sometimes it amazes me how his plays can be as powerful as a movie. It is incredibly difficult to choose favorite scenes when all the plays are so good. But here are some scenes that made me hold on to my seat when I saw them on stage or read them in the play (by the way,...
Source Don’t care much for architecture? I didn’t too. Until I learned that architecture is the type of art that concerns even those who proclaim to have no interest in art. After all, we all need houses, bridges, universities and so on. The ideal is that we have buildings that are both beautiful and fit for their purposes. We are getting neither, according...
Here’s an amusing inquiry: what book would you like to live in? When I was a teenager the answer was easy: Catcher in the rye. Source I would love to befriend and perhaps date Holden Caufield. I know many girls feel the same way, but I think the likely scenario is that he would end up hating me. Nowadays, however, I don’t care much...
Source A little bit of history Date: about 1340 B.C. Nefertiti was an Egyptian Queen whose husband, the Faraoh Akhenaten, broke with all religious and artistic traditions of the time. The Egyptians had many deities, but Akhenaten started worshiping one god above all the others. This god, called Aten, was represented in the shape of a sun. However, Egypt went back to being...
I remember when I was a teenager and I put High Strung on the VCR for my cousin to watch. I had seen it several times and this looked like a good option for a sleepover. After 4 minutes, she commented: “What a long scene!”. “Well, - said I - actually, this scene is pretty much the whole movie.” She protested and asked if we...
Source I admit it: I’m a big procrastinator and have to fight my laziness every single day. Sure, I love reading, but this demands time and concentration. During college I had to read often because of the classes and tests. However, I no longer have an obligation to read. It is much easier to neglect my reading and indulge in less demanding activities...
I've just discovered Shakespeare Illustrated, a website that shows, among many things, several paintings portraying scenes from Shakespeare's plays. Some of my favorites are: William Quiller Orchardson, "If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On" (1890) from Twelfth Night William Blake, Lear and Cordelia in Prison (c. 1778-80) from King Lear Joseph Mallord William Turner, Queen Mab's Cave (1846) from Romeo and Juliet Oh, Turner... you can never really disapoint,...
Source (I wasn't really going to post anything today, but then I thought "if there is one movie appropriate to a Good Friday, is this".) Back in 2004, when "The Passion of the Christ" was released, I tried to steer clear of the much warned explicit violence of the movie. Words like "graphic violence", "excruciating" and even "anti-semitic" kept appearing all over the...
source The other day I found this little card inside a book. It was a list of classical books and it asked "How many have you read?" Having nothing better to do, I started checking the list. To my utter embarrassment, there were some books I was suppossed to have read for college, but never got around to doing it. Oh... "Jane Eyre"....
In commemoration of Easter, I've compiled a list with some of my favorite "Pietàs". Probably the most famous of all is Michelangelo's sculpture, which is indeed highly impressive. Pietà - Michelangelo 1498 - 1499 Source But we can't forget that "Pietà" designates a common subject in Art which focuses on portraying Mary holding the dead Christ on her arms after the Crucificion. The Virgin mourning...
