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8421. wabbit - 4/30/2007 4:08:52 PM 
Bjork hasn't lost her flair.
8422. wonkers2 - 5/2/2007 3:41:18 AM The Heidelberg Project 8423. concerned - 5/2/2007 5:46:51 AM 
Sapphire Buddha carving.
8424. alistairConnor - 5/6/2007 11:23:53 AM My kids cruising blogs. Found some kid's translation of a song from English to French :
When she's sad, hold her tight
Which was translated, almost accurately, as :
Quand elle est triste, tiens-lui le collant
which, re-translated, is :
When she's sad, hold her panty hose 8425. Magoseph - 5/6/2007 11:34:49 AM When she's sad, hold her thigh 8426. wonkers2 - 5/6/2007 10:38:52 PM The Cap'n sez "French wimmen don't wear panty hose." 8427. Ms. No - 5/10/2007 2:17:44 AM Was just listening to this on YouTube and thought I'd share the joy. This piece brings joyful tears to my cheeks every time I hear it. You all know it, but when was the last time you heard it all?
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor 8428. wonkers2 - 5/10/2007 3:52:34 AM Nice. Thanks. 8429. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 5/10/2007 2:28:48 PM Loved the visualization of it! 8430. Ms. No - 5/10/2007 3:15:08 PM It was surprisingly entertaining to just watch the notes happen. 8431. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 5/14/2007 7:37:01 PM
8432. wabbit - 5/14/2007 9:39:37 PM Hey, a page to yourself, how cool is that? Congrats, that's some nice exposure, and well deserved! 8433. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 5/15/2007 12:39:29 AM Thanks wabb, but you know the drill--with the morass of artists and their dealers humping their way to the middle of the pyramid-scheme. It's all writ on water. The text is pathetic and the mag, if truth be told, is a meretricious rag for naive collectors and unschooled decorators.
Art is lost and indecipherable to the majority of people. 8434. wonkers2 - 5/15/2007 2:19:13 AM Ron Mueck Sculptures 8435. wabbit - 6/2/2007 12:29:54 AM 
I haven't written any art stuff for several years, so bear with me.
I saw the Edward Hopper show at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. This is not what I would call a retrospective so much as a review of some of his work done in a few American locales. If you have never seen Nighthawks in person, it's there, in a room with Office At Night and New York Movie and nothing else. Those three are considered "iconic" works by Hopper, and I suppose they are, although Office At Night is over-rated, imho. The boss is disinterested in his sexy 'J-Lo from a scene in Out of Sight' secretary. Snore. Of the three, New York Movie is the most interesting. The usherette is lost in her thoughts, having seen the movie playing on the screen in the left side of the painting. It's a wonderful juxtapositioning of two versions of the fantasies we all play out in our heads.
Hopper's career came late, when he was in his late thirties, and didn't really form until he was in his forties. He made a living as an illustrator, and hated the term. Most people in the art world will tell you, privately if not publicly, that illustrators are not considered real artists. I think WoW will agree with me here: many so-called illustrators are very fine artists indeed, and many of the well-known, well-heeled artistes owe their careers to a small group of critics and to snobbery. I'll leave that for another day.
There are no drawings in this show, none of the illustrations from his early career, which is a disappointment. Two notebooks in a display case are very interesting, but you really want to turn the pages and see the thumbnail drawings Hopper made of his various works that were displayed or sold. In most cases, the thumbnails are far more interesting than the oils.
The shame of Hopper's illustration career is that while he hated being an illustrator, he was a very good one. This show is weak on great oils, but heavy with excellent watercolors and etchings. The etchings are very fine, and it is regrettable to me that he gave up printmaking in the early 1920's. He was quite skilled. His watercolors are wonderful, far more textured than almost any of the oils. There is a room of work from his Gloucester years, mostly watercolors of houses (remember, he said all he ever wanted to paint was the light on the side of a house). Two works stand side-by-side, both of the same street scene in Glouscester (Prospect Street), and the oil looks like a lazy man's copy of the watercolor. I don't mean that it is flat, or lacking in detail, it is simply lacking. It has none of the atmosphere of the watercolor.
None of the early Paris paintings are in this show, but if the oils up to the early twenties that are here are any measure, we aren't missing much. It wasn't until the twenties that Hopper's paintings became his own, more than his spin on George Bellows or Robert Henri. Even so, I'm not a huge fan of his oils, especially of the female nudes. He never seemed to differentiate flesh from the walls in whatever room he was painting, and that matters, at least to me. I don't find his nudes sensual at all, or even interesting. If you've ever looked at female breasts in a work by Michaelangelo, you know what I mean. Hopper's clothed figures are far better, but they are not what interests Hopper. Even the rooms and buildings play second fiddle to the light, which is his real subject. The final piece in the show, Sun in an Empty Room, is one of the best. Simple, not grandstanding, no theatrics, not trying to be something it isn't. It is a painting of light on a wall in a room, and that's enough.
About halfway through the show, I was struck by a thought of Hopper living in today's world. I looked at Early Sunday Morning and couldn't help but think how much he would love Google's Street View. It would be, so to speak, right up Hopper's street.
8436. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/3/2007 8:26:38 PM Many thanks for your take, wabb. My wife was a grants-juror for the Mass Arts Council recently and asked me if I wanted to come to Boston with her and see that show. I couldn't get tickets and passed; so your appraisal helps mitigate my lost opportunity. I also think his watercolors and etchings top his oils, but I hate the crowds at popular shows and can't enjoy perusing the work with the many distractions. 8437. wabbit - 6/4/2007 4:34:20 PM WoW, I was there at about 1pm on Friday afternoon and the gallery wasn't at all crowded. I thought there would be more people, but it was a treat not to have to elbow my way through the masses. If you find yourself in Beantown, you might swing by in the late morning/early afternoon and check it out. 8438. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/4/2007 4:53:29 PM Thanks again wabb. How much to get in and did you buy your ticket there without a reservation?
Btw, you can peruse many pages of his sketchbook at their website.
Click on: Hopper's Sketchbook 8439. wabbit - 6/4/2007 6:25:33 PM I'm a member, so I didn't have an additional charge. It's $23 (inclusive of museum admission) for non-members. I'm sure you could buy a ticket at the museum without a reservation, there were people doing that when I was there (maybe 15 people in line, not bad at all).
I was happy to see the sketchbook online, at least you get to see the contents beyond just one page. Great stuff, interesting to see how he kept track of his work. The Smithsonian has a nice "scrapbook" site about Hopper.
There is a painting in the show of a house on Rte. 6 in Eastham (you can see it online here) that I know you would get a kick out of seeing. The Cape hasn't been that empty for as long as I've been in MA (since 1966). You'd appreciate all the Cape work, I think.
btw, the image of the Prospect Street work I linked to in my initial post is the watercolor, not the oil. 8440. prolph - 6/5/2007 12:28:51 AM
wabbit, thanks for your post, I will add to painting light on a wall. I have a book-art in new mexico 19001945- Which has a section of -tje faraway nearby-many eastern paiters are included and some were sort of not able to deal with faraway. hopper came to santa fe and his mearby is a white wall with a few bluish houses and the church behind and tiniy bit of mountain and sky.
deapite having been an intrepid solo traveler i am regularly pulled back to santa fe where i was born,
patsy
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