Playing piano in Second Life

Edward Hopper - “Chop Suey,” 1929; and "Automat", 1927

The polemic Left vs Right Brain test

There are plenty of brain hemispheres predominances tests at the WWW. What I like of this one is the animation. I wonder if it was a male I would see it clockwise, anti-clockwise or both.

What I could not help noticing is that when I look at the hand of the lower arm she is clockwise and if I focus at the arm that is up she is anti-clockwise.

Queer Cultural Center - Gay community fighting for their rights

"Founded in 1993, Qcc is a multiracial community-building organization that fosters the artistic, economic and cultural development of San Francisco's LGBT community. We implement our mission by operating programs that commission and present Queer artists, that promote the development of culturally diverse Queer arts organizations and that document significant Queer arts events taking place in San Francisco." This is a great initiative and I'm amazed by the way gay culture finds different ways to fight for their rights. There is still lots of prejudice, stigma and misunderstanding and some people still consider homosexuality as a disease. We cannot forget that homosexuality was considered a mental disease till 1973. Visit the site of the Queer Cultural Center. Click at the picture that depicts the Hal Fischer's Gay Semiotics, 1977, and understand the meaning of handkerchief blue or red placed on the right or left and more.

Chocolat - Toulouse Lautrec and Vicent Minnelli: Gene Kelly as Chocolat

I love the movie "An American in Paris" and I still remember the enchantement the first time I did watch it. During the ballet there is this amazing recreation of one of Toulouse Lautrec's work.

Egberto Gismonti - "Clown"

I hope you listen a tiny little bit. Egberto Gismonti is quite a genius and I used to listen to him when I was 17, in my early twenties. Brings back many memories. There are only three videos at Youtube and I have no idea where to find him in US to where he moved. Funny because from time to time I met him some place in the streets or at his concerts but felt ashamed to talk to him. He plays piano, acoustic guitar and is a composer. This music is from his album "Circus" and we can hear children laughing. Thank you Egberto for making me express emotions that I didn't know how to name. Jesus! Why am I crying? Egberto Gismoti (Wikipedia)

Do you call it security?

True meaning of "Ctrl" and "Esc" keys

Eiffel Tower at 14th of July 2009

I dind't publish at 14th of July but I've remembered the date. I rather keep silent.

Lauren Weyland - Great show at Second Life

I'm still taking a break from Real Life. Yes, it's hard to find nice places and meet people to talk at Second Life but it's not impossible. Ive just discovered Lauren Weyland's Place and I'm watching her show now. She uses the best tool nowadays: humor. I'll come back later to update this post. You can visit her site or her blog in the meantime and have some fun. I know most of my readers, thank you mum, don't have a second life. Poor people. According to Lauren we all go to Second Life with the most noble intentions but something happens along the way. In her own way she is doing a difference.

Edgar Degas - The Rape

Interior (The Rape) by Edgar Degas, 1868-9

Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea - Art and politics

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Pygmalion and Galatea, c. 1890 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

"The Royal Academy The Royal Academy in France, founded in 1648 (there was also one in England) was an arm of the monarchy. The kings of France, and the ruling parties, always recognized that controlling what art looked like and what it was about was a way of controlling or changing the opinions of others. This is one of the primary reasons that art was always seen as so politically charged—if you went against the rules of art, you were a rebel against the government. The Royal Academy essentially controlled teaching art (it ran the Ecole des Beaux Arts—the School of Fine Arts), and the exhibiting of art (by running exhibitions every year or two called the "salon"). For much of its history, the Royal Academy (made up of members appointed for life—so you can imagine their average age) promoted art that was based on ancient Greek and Roman art, and the art of the Renaissance. These were upheld as the single definition of beauty that all artists must follow.

Hierarchy of Subjects In addition, the Academy created a hierarchy of subjects, with history painting as the most elevated subject, and still-life and portraits as the lowest. History paintings (which included noble historic moments, ancient Greek and Roman mythology, and biblical subjects) were held to be the highest because they depicted heroic figures and subjects in scenes where the composition was invented by the artist. Still-life painting and portraits were held to be the lowest because there was no invention in that case by the artist, who was, in this view, simply painting what was in front of them. Genre scenes, or paintings of every day life, were also a lowly subject because they did not offer the heroic and noble.

Prix de Rome The Royal Academy sponsored a rigorous yearly competition, the Prix de Rome. The winning artist got time to study at the French Academy in Rome. In the last half of the nineteenth century, the art that was favored by the academy and by the public was a watered-down version of history painting—quaint, sentimental images with a clear narrative and a studied realism.

___________________

Gerome's Pygmalion and Galatea is a good example of academic art in the last half of the nineteenth century. The subject is taken from Ovid. The sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with his own creation, and the goddess Venus makes the sculpted figure come to life"

I took it from Smarthistory and you can read more here. I believe that artists being able to do the art they want is quite an achievement and a result of the obstinateness of many artists. I thank every one of them.

Claude Monet and William Merritt Chase - Japanese Costumes

Japanese decoration, kimonos and printings were usual in the late nineteenth-century in Europe and America and it was a cult that originated the word Japanism. The right Monet "Madame Monet in Japanese Costume", 1876, is quite unique and surprising. It's at Bostom Museum. Large version here. Left: Girl in a Japanese Costume, William Merritt Chase, 1890

Pierre Malphettes - Route of a fly / The fall of a dead leaf

You can find more of Pierre Malphettes's poetry here. With simple material his art speaks to imagination and reason in a very sophisticated way. right: The fall of a dead leaf left: Route of a fly (both phrases written in French)

Frank Sinatra and Tom Jobim - The Girl from Ipanema

It's hard to listen to this music when we are at another country. I always cry although I don't care too much about it when I'm in Brazil: "Ah! Por que tudo é tão triste." I love Tom Jobim. He is at peace singing with Sinatra, talking and singing with all his friends.

Patricia Galvão portrayed by Candido Portinari

I've just came across with the blog Art Inconnu and fond a post about Candido Portinari a Brazilian painter: "Candido Portinari (December 29, 1903 - February 6, 1962) was one of the most important Brazilian painters and also a prominent and influential practitioner of the neo-realism style in painting. Born of Italian immigrants in a coffee plantation near Brodowski, in São Paulo Portinari studied at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes (ENBA) in Rio de Janeiro. In 1928 he won a gold medal at the ENBA and a trip to Paris where he stayed until 1930, when he returned to Brazil. He joined the Brazilian Communist Party and stood for senator in 1947 but had to flee Brazil for Uruguay due to the persecution of Communists. He returned to Brazil in 1951 but suffered ill health during the last decade of his life and died in 1962 due to lead poisoning from his paints. His career coincided with and included collaboration with Oscar Niemeyer amongst others. Portinari's works can be found in galleries and settings in Brazil and abroad, ranging from the family chapel in his childhood home in Brodowski to his panels Guerra e Paz (War and Peace) in the United Nations building in New York. The range and sweep of his output is quite remarkable. It includes images of childhood, paintings depicting rural and urban labour, refugees fleeing the hardships of Brazil's rural north-east, treatments of the key events in the history of Brazil since the arrival of the Portuguese in 1500, portraits of members of his family and leading Brazilian intellectuals, illustrations for books, tiles decorating the Church of São Francisco at Pampulha, Belo Horizonte. There were a number of commemorative events in the centenary of his birth in 2003, including an exhibition of his work in London." I have chosen the portray of Patricia Galvão and I will explain why in the next post.

Street Art in Milan - a touch of divinity

This is by Sten-lex.

Water ballet

This is so good! The Sandroid Youtube Channel only has movies at the beach and I always associate beach, especially the sea, with pleasure.

Pigeons test in London

Thanks to Susan that has sent me by e-mail. I'm not that concerned because the back cover has the London underground map so I believe that at least for some time it will not be spread for other cities. I'm almost sure that this manual is for pigeons what the Knowledge course is for London cab drivers where they have to know the quicker way to go from a place to another. They study so hard that scientists have discovered that London cab drivers have an increase in the hippocampus, a region of the brain, and I'm sure the same will happen to London pigeons. I've talked about the London underground map here.

Boulevard Anna Politkovskaya

"An RA reader in Paris has forwarded us this photograph of a street sign, taken today on Boulevard Lannes right near the Russian Embassy. In an apparent gesture of protest, someone has plastered on a poster which has renamed the street "Boulevard Anna Politkovskaia." This guerilla dedication also reads "1959 - 2006 Russian Journalist." Part of the poster has been ripped away, so there may have been more text." Took it from here.