Artist of the Week: Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio aka Titian

Titian is one of those artists that I forget about and then through happenstance come across one of his works and think to myself, "Oh yeah. I like that guy!"  He is one of the few Italian Renaissance artists whose use of color isn't so garrishly typical of the period that one can look at his work and not necessarily say to themselves, "Yeah, that's an Italian Renaissance painter."  And I like that about his work.

Many of his pieces have a naturalistic feel that presents a refreshing contrast to the more refined classical pieces of the period.  Although much of his work contains subject matter congruent with what one would expect to find during the Renaissance, his paintings contain a warmth and a soul that I think is absent in many of the other commissioned pieces of his day.

Below are some of his works:

Self Portrait

Giorgione and Titian. Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman. c.1510

Portrait of a Man. 1514

St. Mark Enthroned with Saints. c.1510

Portrait of a Man. c.1512

Assumption of the Virgin (Assunta). 1516-1518

Portrait of Pope Paul III without a Cap. 1543

Allegory of Time Governed by Prudence. c.1565

St. Sebastian. 1575

Happy Tax Day!

"Republicans think every day is July 4th.



Democrats think every day is April 15th."

Musings: Indulging My Pseudohistorical Obsessions

Search Amazon.com for rennes le chateau

Long before the hype of The Da Vinci Code prompted millions of readers to explore questions of theology and what not, I read an intriguing book by Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh entitled Holy Blood, Holy Grail.  Anyone who has read the former is cursorily familiar with the precepts contained in the latter--namely, that a priest by the name of Abbé François Bérenger Saunière (1852-1917) discovered something that led to an ascension in his station not commensurate with what one would expect him to obtain considering his assignment in a rural and largely poor village in southern France by the name of Rennes-le-Château.

Abbé François Bérenger Saunière (1852-1917)

What the discovery was, no one knows or if someone does, he or she is not speaking about it or he/she is speaking about it but it's currently lost in the dustbin of clutter that is Rennes-le-Château "research."  A good synopsis of the theories can be found here, but the gist of it is is that the Abbé found a document(s) that provided him some leverage against the Catholic Church (or somebody with some money and something to lose) which created a fantastic income stream with which the priest built many peculiar additions to the delapidated church of which he found himself in charge.

Some ideas of what was found are as follows:

• A parchment that confirms the existence of the Merovingian bloodline that, in turn, validates someone who has a legitimate claim to the French throne--a relevant topic during Saunière's day
• A parchement that confirms that Jesus did not die on the cross and that he/he plus Mary Magdalene/he plus Mary Magdalene and thier child wound up in France to continue the bloodline
• A portion, large or small, of old Visigothic treasure (or treasure of some other origin)--possibly a legitimate claim as the area has been the sight of numerous settlements for thousands of years
• The tomb of Jesus/Mary Magdalene/somebody else with the body of Jesus/Mary Magdalene/somebody else in it
• A host of other oddball ideas such as: _______insert any wild idea involving UFOs, sasquatch, Atlantis, or the plot of any movie that stars Nicholas Cage, etc.

Despite the fact that I think the story is largely the result of opportunistic promoters who have picked up on snippets of curiosities embedded within the Rennes-le-Château story and the deliberate hoax masterminded by Pierre Plantard in the late 1950s, I am continually drawn to this story because it still has that "what if" element due to the fact that there are just enough elements that are unresolved to pique my curiosity.

Below are some relevant images:

The baptismal font which is a major player in the mystery--supposedly a clue which helps lead one to the treasure.

Three views of the Tour Magdala.  This tower was built by Saunière and some say that it plays a role in the map embedded within the church architecture and decor.  The interior window lines up with a view of Grotte du Fournet - dite de la Magdeleine--which translates as "the burial site of the Mary Magdalene.  Legend states that Mary Magdalene ended up in France and lived out her days in seclusion in a cave--near Marseilles which is over 3 hours away by car but I guess she could have ended up here.

A closer view of the grotto

The "Visogothic" pillar in which it is said something was found--generally believed to be coded scrolls

The baluster in which a glass vial with something in it was found during the remodeling of the church

Aerial view of Rennes-le-Château

Inside the church

There are a ton of barely legitimate resources for you to explore if you are interested in learning more.  Simply put on your tinfoil hat and type in Rennes le Chateau into the search engine of your choice.  Bon chance!

Musings: Most Recent Missouri Outing

We are blessed to be in a part of Missouri (and the world) in which we have access to numerous conservation areas all within a 30 minute drive from our home.  The photos below were all taken near the river at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area.  The habitat supports a tremendous variety of waterfowl and just across the river, bald eagles can be seen nesting, hunting, and doing other bald eagle type things.

In the off chance that you happen to live around this area and haven't visited this great area, do so immediately--unless it's early morning during waterfowl hunting season, then you should wait.

Artist of the Week : I'm in the Mood for Caspar David Friedrich

As spring approaches here in Missouri, my better half and I get the urge to frequently travel around the backwoods roads in search of wildlife, new scenery, old buildings, aliens, and new valleys to explore.  South of here, the landscape is rugged and marked with crags, bald hills, and other typical Ozarky type minutiae that always reminds me (to some degree) of Friedrich's work.

Friedrich was a German painter active back in the early 19th century and although his paintings certainly can be evaluated and analyzed via a critical eye with regard to pantheism, the divine element within nature, man's place and struggle with nature, blah, blah, blah, I am going to post them simply with regard to a purely subliminal consideration of their intrinsic beauty.  This post shall be a tribute to the visceral response--"It's pretty!"--which normally sets me on edge for reasons that nobody cares to hear (trust me, I've tried to tell plenty of people). 

"Genießen," in the words of the Germans, although I'm not sure which ones exactly,

The Wanderer Above the Mists

The Abbey in the Oakwood

Evening

The Lone Tree

Largeness

Landscape with Oak Trees and a Hunter

Two Men Contemplating the Moon

Monk on the Seashore

All of these images were obtained from http://www.caspardavidfriedrich.org/ on March 28, 2010.  There are plenty more at this great site if you are interested to see more of Friedrich's work.

Artist of the Week: Andy Goldsworthy: Easily One of the Coolest Artists on the Planet

I came across an Andy Goldsworthy book while perusing a bookstore that I desperately wanted but (naturally) could not afford so I'm going to post some of his images here via the power of copy and paste.

Movement, change, light growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue.  Goldsworthy

From: http://www.rwc.uc.edu/artcomm/web/w2005_2006/maria_Goldsworthy/TEST/index.html

Education: From Paulo Freire to Henry Giroux and Back Again

From: http://www.truthout.org/10309_Giroux_Freire accessed March 26, 2010 from an article by Henry Giroux, Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy

Education is not neutral. It is always directive in its attempt to teach students to inhabit a particular mode of agency; enable them to understand the larger world and one's role in it in a specific way; define their relationship, if not responsibility, to diverse others and to presuppose through what is taught and experienced in the classroom some sort of understanding of a more just, imaginative, and democratic life. Pedagogy is by definition directive, but that does not mean it is merely a form of indoctrination. On the contrary, as Freire argued, education as a practice for freedom must attempt to expand the capacities necessary for human agency and, hence, the possibilities for democracy itself. Surely, this suggests that at all levels of education from the primary school to the privileged precincts of higher education, educators should nourish those pedagogical practices that promote "a concern with keeping the forever unexhausted and unfulfilled human potential open, fighting back all attempts to foreclose and pre-empt the further unraveling of human possibilities, prodding human society to go on questioning itself and preventing that questioning from ever stalling or being declared finished."[9]

I came across the above excerpt when--well-- I can't tell you exactly how I ended up at the above quote because to retrace my steps through the aether of the internet portals that led me there would require more recollection than I am capable of mustering.

I wanted to write about Freire because the NAEA's national conference features him and I have to admit that I know very little about him other than the snippets that were collected over the years during various classes. 

To tackle the topic that is Freire and his legacy is impossible in this forum so instead, I will focus on the above quote from Giroux--not to imply that my response below will necessarily have any relevance due to my tendancy to drift off-topic, but one can hope.

Deconstructivism and other components of the postmodern legacy which promote a critical understanding of society are certainly nothing new within the art education field.  Critical examination of visual imagery present within popular culture can be quite revealing as to who and what is being addressed and whose agenda is best served.  It can be quite revealing as to how pervasive this can be within the advertising field in which the disparity between the constructed ideal of the observed is seldom congruent with the self-image of the one observing.  The trick is to help students understand what is happening beyond the images that they encounter in their day to day life so that they can not fall into the trap of blindly accepting what is presented to them.

I lost the source, but there is evidence that it is a teachable skill--i.e. students can be aided to view the world with a critical eye but it takes someone to make the effort to help them do so.  The same source also stated that students will seldom develop these skills on their own so it is critical that there are role models within our youths' lives that help them out because it is much too easy to walk thorugh life with your eyes closed.