Funny signs and solution

Perhaps a map that leads to the front door is a good idea.

The Blogger Award

Sandee at Comedy Plus gave me "The Blogger Award". I'm very happy that this blog is reminded by someone. Thank you very much Sandee. I'll follow it now for Cathy at Dare to Think and Marcelo Rampazzo at Kócegas. Later I will publish my whole list.

Street Art

Right: el Bocho in Hamburg
Left:  amdoom Alice2 in Holland
Graffiti and other forms of expression at the streets have always been a polemic issue. Things have changed and even Tate Gallery has dedicated this site to street art and some of it's artists.
Here at "Unurth - Street Art" there are many photographs and a list of street artists and their blogs. I've seen many amazing works.
I'll be publishing them.

Funny newspaper's ads

Michelangelo Merisi - Caravaggio - The Card Players

Click at the image above to see "Tutta l'opera del Caravaggio" an amazing project with great images of his works. Above "The Card", 1594. Hmmm.... the card. Americans can see it at Kimbell Art Museum, Texas. Caravaggio is the name of city he was born.

Echo and Narcissus - Caravaggio and Poussin - Mythology

Nicolas Poussin, Echo and Narcissus, 1627 Caravaggio, Narcissus, 1596 Echo was condemned by Jupiter only to be able to speak the last words of someone else's speech. Narcissus was in love with his own image and left Echo, who was in love with him, heartbroken and she spent the rest of her life in lonely glens, pining away for the love she never knew, until only her voice remained. This is the dialog at Ovid's Metamorphoses: Narcissus [shouts]: "Is there anyone here?" Echo [eagerly]: "Here!" Narcissus: "Come to me!" Echo: "Come to me!" Narcissus [starting to get irritated]: "Why are you avoiding me?" Echo: "Why are you avoiding me?" Narcissus: "Here! Come with me!" Echo [shouting in ecstasy]: "Come with me!" She rushes out of her hiding place and flings herself at him. Narcissus, repelled by the idea of physical contact, pushes her away, and starts to run. Narcissus [savagely]: "Take your hands off me! No! How dare you touch me!" Echo [screaming]: "Touch me!"

Sunday - Letter to mummy

Dear Mom,

I am in a well here and hoping you are also in a well there.

I`m writing this letter slowly, because I know you cannot read fast.

Soon will be with you.

Ana

Saturday drawing - I like it

This is Lindsay's. I don't know why I loved this drawing. Why do we feel like we have to explain why a drawing has touched us? I leave it for the critics: "Well, it has a connection with nature in a non organic way of depicting the frog and plants. We cannot forget the mimetic aspect of the theme. The frog has two colors which is an unequivocal concern with mimesis an aspect that has first been approached by the Greeks, especially Plato, and is still of great concern by contemporary scholars." I like it. Period.

Wordless Friday

Thanks Khris for the photo.

Rembrandt - The money changer

Rembrandt, The Money Changer (Parable of the Rich Man)

Vermeer's painting chosen by NASA

Nasa choses one image a day: "Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer." is the project Vermeer's painting "Astronomer and Geographer" was chosen on June 26, 2005 to celebrate 10 years of the project. It has received a "little change" and there you are. You can visit this amazing project here.

Las Meninas parody

I believe most people know Velázquez most famous painting "Las Meninas". Click here to enjoy the original. I came across with this two photoshops interventions and felt like sharing with you. The left is the one I like the most because it created a new meaning in the whole environment just with the insinuation of the "Happy Birthday" ribon at the top. For those who hate photoshoping their masterpiece I would like to remember that many artists have done works inspired in "Las Meninas" including Picasso who did forty versions. Of course it's a total different thing but let's have a little sense of humor and think that it's a great way to make people get in touch with art.

Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec

Impressionists used to portrait their friends and make a reference to their friend's work. Toulouse Lautrec, Portrait of Van Gogh, 1887 (pastel and watercolor)

Van Gogh, Glass of Absinthe and a Bottle , 1884. You've just seen this glass and bottle someplace else.

Patience - Stained-glass

This is a 1996 stain-glass at Strasbourg Cathedral the same one that is at this post. I just need a little patience. Below is what is written at the site:

"Patience is represented by a female figure accompanied by a lamb.

The window was a gift from the Prison Officers' Benevolent Fund. It was installed and dedicated 1996.

The many stars symbolise the patience of Abraham and God's promise to him: "I will bless you abundantly and greatly multiply your descendants until they are as numerous as the stars in the sky." (Genesis 22:17) Patience holds a medallion in which Job's wife urges him to curse God, while his three friends look on. Satan is seen on the far left blowing an ill wind and creating all Job's suffering. The dove at the top symbolises the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Design by Ann McDuff and made by CWS Design, Lisburn. Installed and dedicated 1996."

Funny signs - on invisibility

The person who has put the right sing at that place should have read the left one. NO what? Anyway I'll try to be aware of invisibility when not home.

Carl Spitzweg - The Poor Poet

Carl Spizweg was a wealthy man whose paintings are realistic and depicted ordinary scenes of everyday life. The Poor Poet - it seems that he has been burning some of his writings if you pay attention at the stove that has no coals - became an emblematic painting of the Biedermeier period (1815-1848) an era market by the fear of revolutions at the re-established monarchies of Europe. As always, in times of troubles governments dictate the paradigms of art. The Biedermeier period has made it clear that arts should focus on everyday life, not on politics. This painting is very known and is a satire of artist's idealistic and romantic way of leaving in poor conditions in devotion to their arts and nothing left to do but writing and examining a flea that he has just found in his cloths. The umbrella? I have no idea. Perhaps any voodoo to ask for inspiration.

Conversation with Atlas

Van Gogh - Paris roofs and photography

(....................contemporary photo.....) Van Gogh "Paris roofs"

Gustave Caillebotte - Paris street compared with a contemporary photo

Gustave Caillebotte was among the impressionist although his art is far more realistic and he was one of the first artists to use photography. Perhaps this is one of the reasons he was not recognized as one of the master of impressionists. The painting above "Paris Street, Rainy day", was bought by the Art Institute of Chicago in 1964. Comparing the painting, done in 1877, to a contemporary photography shows what still remains after more than a century. The Chicago Magazine has detailed four points here.

Origami - reason for the economic crisis

Playing with money? I'm sure we will be invited. Yippee!

Van Gogh - L'Arlesienne - detail

This detail of the book gives an idea of the use of "impasto", these thick layers of paint, Van Gogh did in some of his works. In "The Bedroom" I remember that the pillows are done with this technique. He did other versions of "L'Arlesienne" the first one had no books. I'll post it later.

Polar Bear and dog friendship

Picture by Nobert Rosing

Renaissance has led Art to talk about itself

David Teniers, 1651, depicts the private collection of the archduke Leopold Wilhelm.
This is a great difference from the few functions of art in middle age of the post below. Art has started to talk about itself.

Stained-glass - biblical and political media to illiterate people

Left: Canterbury Cathedral. Each scene illustrates an episode in the life of Christ.

Right: Strasbourg Cathedral. Four of the nineteen emperors depicted in the cathedral. Most of the images of stained glasses of the middle age intended to help the illiterate public to learn about their faith. (remember there was no Gutenberg!) The Strasbourg Cathedral shows it's political propaganda function and reveals the close connection of church and state. The irony is that now those of us who are not aware of biblical facts have difficulty in understanding the biblical meaning of some stained-glasses or paintings. But we can enjoy their beauty.

Go shopping today? Sale!

Wow! Great! I'll join you. I like sales.

Kafka - "Before the Law" - Andy Warhol

This is a Andy Warhol portrait of Kafka and it's great achievement is to show a smile on Kafka's face. Sometimes we forget that Kafka is funny and it has been said that he used to read some of his writings to his friends laughing. He wrote many little texts that are great. "BEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this door-keeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. "-It is possible," says the doorkeeper, "but not at the moment." Since the gate stands open, as usual, and the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man stoops to peer through the gateway into the interior. Observing that, the doorkeeper laughs and says: "-If you are so drawn to it, just try to go in despite my veto. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the least of the door-keepers. From hall to hall there is one doorkeeper after another, each more powerful than the last. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him." These are difficulties the man from the country has not expected; the Law, he thinks, should surely be accessible at all times and to everyone, but as he now takes a closer look at the doorkeeper in his fur coat, with his big sharp nose and long, thin, black Tar-tar beard, he decides that it is better to wait until he gets permission to enter. The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at one side of the door. There he sits for days and years. He makes many at-tempts to be admitted, and wearies the doorkeeper by his importunity. The doorkeeper frequently has little interviews with him, asking him questions about his home and many other things, but the questions are put indifferently, as great lords put them, and always finish with the statement that he cannot be let in yet. The man, who has furnished himself with many things for his journey, sacrifices all he has, however valuable, to bribe the doorkeeper. The doorkeeper accepts every- thing, but always with the remark: "-I am only taking it to keep you from thinking you have omitted any- thing." During these many years the man fixes his attention almost continuously on the doorkeeper. He forgets the other doorkeepers, and this first one seems to him the sole obstacle preventing access to the Law. He curses his bad luck, in his early years boldly and loudly, later, as he grows old, he only grumbles to himself. He becomes childish, and since in his yearlong contemplation of the doorkeeper he has come to know even the fleas in his fur collar, he begs the fleas as well to help him and to change the doorkeeper's mind. At length his eyesight begins to fail, and he does not know whether the world is really darker or whether his eyes are only deceiving him. Yet in his darkness he is now aware of a radiance that streams inextinguishably from the gateway of the Law. Now he has not very long to live. Before he dies, all his experiences in these long years gather themselves in his head to one point, a ques-tion he has not yet asked the doorkeeper. He waves him nearer, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body. The doorkeeper has to bend low towards him, for the difference in height between them has altered much to the man's disadvantage. "-What do you want to know now?" asks the doorkeeper; "you are insatiable." "-Everyone strives to reach the Law," says the man, "so how does it happen that for all these many years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?" The doorkeeper recognizes that the man has reached his end, and to let his failing senses catch the words roars in his ear: "-No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made only for you. I am now going to shut it.""

Painting with a mouse using PaintBrush?

""Forthewin" spent countless hours creating this MS Paint masterpiece using just a Logitech laser mouse. Full image. " I took it from here. There are more PaintBrush pieces on the site. I'm amazed. It takes too much time and a great deal of patience. If you click to see the Full image, you will experience all Willian Moore's work. It starts here at the ocean passes through some parts of the earth and ends unexpectedly. Congratulations to those who paint with a mouse.

Polar Bear funny

I guess he was inattentive.

Manet - Soup Bubbles - The Suicide

The most known of Manet's paintings is Olympia. It was a scandal when first exhibited in 1863 although the public and critics had already seen many naked women in art history. However, they could not stand watching this contemporary woman, a courtesan, looking at them right in the eyes. Through the times Olympia has been the inspiration for many artists that have done their version of this painting and perhaps Olympia is still shocking. Few people got inspiration from this boy who is just playing with soup bubbles. I believe it is quite beautiful and makes us see that simple things of quotidian life can also inspire artists. Of course tragedy is also part of artists concerns and life: "The Suicide", 1877, is one subject that is hard to believe that Manet would paint.

Camouflage - Aya Tsukioka

It's sad that all this money was lost! I hope the police can find the vehicle. Do you want a soda to calm down? Don't search at the vending machine. It's a work by Aya Tsukioka of the serie "Urban Camouflage". It's a cloth one wears to disappear in the environment. According to Aya Tsukioka words:

"You know in stalker crimes or such, anyone could be victims, and not I myself but some of my friends had some stalker problems at that time too. And I was like “Hmm, if you could just blend in with the scenery and hide from criminals like kakuremi no jutsu of Ninja, that would be cool.” I walked around in the city, looking and looking." "I know! It’s crazy. Anyway, so that’s how the vending machine skirt was started. But at that time, it wasn’t perfect. After we did this group project, I continued working on it myself, developing it to be more light, to look more real, and to be able to transform faster."

Not crazy. Can you imagine people using it to spy others? There are many uses for it.

Cartoonists paradise - Joe Netnaplója and Marcelo Rampazzo

I've just found this site that have great cartoonists from all over the world. I've first got in touch with the Hungarian cartoonist Joe Netnaplója. His blog is amazing and I left many comments. He was kind enough to make a post about two of my comments and did a cartoon. You can find it here. I remember when I was a teenager reading "The Paul Street Boys" by Ferenc Molnár in a great Portuguese translation made by the Hungarian Paulo Rónai that came to Brazil during the WWII. Meeting the cartoonist Joe not only made me admire his work but I started to think how good it's to be able to get in touch with so many brilliant people around the world. When I was a teenager - again(?) - I used to have pen-friends. We exchanged letters and the whole process of sending and receiving the letter took ten days. I don't dare to copy any of of Joe's cartoons before he gives me permission. But I've found the Brazilian Marcelo Rampazzo. I've copied this amazing cartoon and left him a comment at his blog saying I already have copied this. This is a great cartoon. As we have the same maternal language he can either say he "appreciated" or "how dare you?" the Brazilian way. I've really loved this cartoon because of it's dialog with arts. Can you see the left Mondrian's picture that is like a counterpoint to Munch? The idea of "The Thinker" shushing "The Scream" is great.

United family

Funny Signs

"I just took a cheese."