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ARTZUID 2025 Amsterdam
The 9th edition of the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale ARTZUID takes place from 21 May to 21 September 2025. On Apollolaan and Minervalaan in Amsterdam-Zuid, 70 outdoor sculptures are being showcased of renowned artists and young talented artists.
This exhibition draws from top international artists and Dutch talent for the selection of sculptures and installations that can be seen this summer in Amsterdam. ARTZUID transforms the exhibition location into a surreal urban landscape in which figurative sculptures alternate with architectonic installations. They show a great variety in format and material. What unites them is their focus on the enigma of human existence; the wonder, the emotions and visions of being, the ambitions and fears about our place in the world. Artists such as Leiko Ikemura, Alicja Kwade and Neo Rauch invite the visitor to an exchange of thoughts about this, in a sensual conversation with the sculptures. Displayed is the upheaval of occupation, the fear of war and the spirit of resistance in the contributions of artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Shinkichi Tajiri and Armando. Atelier van Lieshout refers to power and impotence, struggle and victimhood, in a group of figures around a rider on horseback. On the trail of ARTZUID this work is connected to the Indonesia-Netherland Monument on Apollolaan. These are just a few examples of the more than 60 works that populate ARTZUID. The architectural works by often young artists have a commitment and idealism reminiscent of architect H.P. Berlage and urban sculptor Hildo Krop. Both having been instrumental in developing the urban design of the neighbourhood home to ARTZUID. They stimulate visitors to think about the future of the urban community and seek answers to the question of what strategies are needed to create a sustainable and peaceful society
Participating artists ARTZUID 2025
Adam Colton (NL/GB), Arlene Shechet (USA), Art van Triest (NL), Atelier van Lieshout (NL), Alicja Kwade (PL), Armando (NL), Bart Lunenburg (NL), Bastienne Kramer (NL), Britte Koolen (NL), Carin Scholten (NL), Chris Peterson (NL), Cristobal Gabarron (ES), David Bade (CW), David Nash (GB), Erik Buijs (NL), Eiji Watanabe (JP), Esther Jiskoot (NL), Fiona Römpp (NL), Gavin Turk (GB), Helen Vergouwen (NL), Herbert Nouwens (NL) Henk Visch (NL), Hieke Luik (NL), Huub en Adelheid Kortekaas (NL), Isa van Lier (NL), Ilse Oelbers (NL), Iris Le Rütte (NL), Ivan Cremer (NL), Jaume Plensa (ES), Jean-Marie Appriou (FR), Katleen Vinck (BE), Klaas Gubbels (NL), Laura Schurink (NL), Leilah Babirye (USA), Lina Iris Viktor (USA), Leiko Ikemura (JP), Lotta Blokker (NL), Louise Schouwenberg (NL), Maja van Hall (NL), Marcel Pinas (SR), Maen Florin (BE), Magdalena Abakanowicz (PL), Marte Röling (NL), Marieke Bolhuis (NL), Margot Berkman (NL), Marion Verboom (FR), Micky Hoogendijk (NL), Nadia Naveau (BE), Natasja Alers (NL), Nel van Lith (NL), Nelson Carrilho (NL), Neo Rauch (DE), Paloma Varga Weisz (DE), Paul Goede (NL), Rachel Harrison (USA), Ricardo van Eyk (NL), Rob Schreefel (NL), Rob Voerman (NL), Ronald Westerhuis (NL),Ruud Kuijer (NL), Shinkichi Tajiri (USA), Sjef Voets (NL), Sokari Douglas Camp (GB), Stefan Rinck (DE), Tirzo Martha (CW), Tschabalala Self (USA), Tal R (DEN), Tony Cragg (GB), Wjm Kok (NL), Wouter van der Giessen (NL), Xavier Veilhan (FR), Yoshitomo Nara (JP)
Although farewell rituals were enacted in numerous homes during the Civil War, artists rarely depicted them. In Lambdin's portrayal, a woman kisses her husband's sword as an oath of honour, declaring her loyalty to him and her commitment to the nation's good. Painted during the fourth year of the war, when both sides were exhausted, the picture evokes the patriotic zeal and idealism that had marked the war's early days and perhaps commemorates the many soldiers who would not return to their loved ones. Lambdin may also have intended to refer to the ultimate reconciliation of the North and the South, which was commonly equated with a marriage in which the North was the husband and the South the wife. Lambdin's woman, dressed in grey in contrast to her husband's dark blue Union uniform, may thus imply the expected allegiance of the South to the reunited nation
[Oil on canvas, 61 x 46.4 cm]
SOCIAL WORK IN THE TENDERLOIN WILL KILL SOMETHING INSIDE OF YOU
www.vice.com/read/social-work-in-the-tenderloin-will-kill...
The Tenderloin is widely acknowledged as the most hellish neighborhood in San Francisco. Out of the city's ten most violent crime plots, the Tenderloin is home to seven. Recent stats estimate the neighborhood has an average of three major crimes per hour, including one-third of the city’s drug offenses, with a yearly mean of two crimes per resident. The population is made up of more than 6,000 homeless people and contains one-fourth of the city’s HIV-positive drug users. Filthy sidewalks and vacant buildings peppered with single-occupancy hotel rooms provide a home to all levels of drugs and prostitution.
My friend Jenny has been employed as a social worker in the Tenderloin for several years now. Her tweets about it (things like: “today: 4 dead clients, 1 murdered provider, 1 client defecated in the lobby, 1 dead dog, & 1 facebook friend posted pictures of nachos.”) got me curious as to what her job is like. She was kind enough to answer some of my questions.
VICE: I imagine it varies greatly, but can you describe your average workday?
Jenny: The first thing is getting through the door at 9 AM. We usually have to step over clients or random strangers passed out on the benches from drinking and/or using since God knows when. The smell is the first thing that hits you—a stench of urine, feces, poor hygiene—it's really at its strongest in the morning, but you get used to it throughout the day. Then we check our voicemail. Twenty messages from the same two or three clients who either scream their financial requests over and over, simply sit there and breathe, or tell you that witches are under their beds waiting for the next blood sacrifice. Paranoid clients like to fixate on witches, Satan, etc. Anyway, we get ready to open and hand out checks to the clients who are either on daily budgets, or who make random check requests. The budgeted clients are the most low-functioning, as they can be restricted to as little as $7 per day in order to curb their harm reduction. They'll go and spend that $7 on whatever piece of crack they can find, and then two hours later they're back, begging for more money. Clients will find some really brilliant ways to beg. When we're not dealing with clients out in the lobby, which can involve anything from handing out checks to cleaning up blood to clearing the floor for folks having seizures, we're usually dealing with the government agency assholes over at Social Security. I personally work with around 200 clients, so the paperwork and filing can be extraordinary. My “average day” starts at 9 AM and lasts until 7 or 8 PM.
You're in the Tenderloin, right? What's the deal with that area?
Yeah, the Tenderloin is where the majority of our clients live in residential hotels (SROs). It's one of the two predominately black neighborhoods left in SF (the other is the Western Addition), and it's the center of the crack, heroin, and oxy drug culture, and it hosts the transgendered sex-worker scene. It's an incredible neighborhood. There's a preservation society that works really hard to keep the original buildings in place, so the 'Loin has an impressive architectural history, not to mention random shit like vintage fetish-magazine stores, pot dispensaries, and transgender strip clubs. It's literally located at the bottom of a giant hill (Nob Hill), where the old money sits and looks down on the poor black folk, so the geography of SF's class structure is more blatant than in other cities, I think. It's a fucked place: human shit smeared on the sidewalks, tweakers sitting on the corner dismantling doorknobs for hours, heroin users nodding out in the middle of the streets, drug dealers paying cornerstore owners $20 to sell in their stores, dudes pissing on your doorstep as you leave for work, etc. It's a weird, fascinating, and very hard place to live.
Why do you think so many of your clients are paranoid and/or disturbed?
Why are my clients so fucked up? Traumatic backgrounds, PTSD, and severe mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and dementia are the most frequent cases we see). And whenever you combine a drug habit with compromised mental health, you usually get a mess of a brain. Abuse, rape, murder, suicide, war—you name it, they've experienced it. Most of our clients live with on-site case management and nursing staff, so their medication is monitored, but when they stop taking the meds, that's when psychotic breaks and fixations happen. I've been the “subject” of quite a few of these fixations. And even though our agency pushes the belief that “housing is healthcare,” the shit that goes down inside these residential hotels can be hard to stomach. A lot of our clients feel safer living on the streets.
How does being in the midst of so much mental illness affect you emotionally?
Man, social work is so fucking weird. People think you're a saint. “It takes a certain person to do that kind of work,” is what I hear a lot. Fuck that. When you're young, you can afford to have ideals and believe in stuff, and think that what you're doing matters, but after watching grown men shit themselves and sometimes try to eat their own shit, not to mention the countless number of times I've had to pick people off the floor and put them back in their wheelchairs because they've been drinking since 6 AM and can't even sit up straight, your measly 32K salary starts to matter a helluva lot more than social justice.
I think I got into social work because I had this idea of it somehow “killing” my ego. It seems silly, but it felt very real at the time. There's a sadness to watching your idealism and convictions go to shit. Not to mention that working in such a thankless and fucked system will kill a sacred part of you. I feel tired. For the most part, people do not want help. They want money or they want drugs or they want death.
What you do seems important, though. There must be some goodness in it, too, right? I feel like you tweet sometimes about people bringing you weird things they see as gifts or saying nice, if totally bizarre things. Are there moments that help balance the heavy?
I don't really think of what I do as “important,” because days are days and everyone is dying and who am I to think anything of anything. But yes, there are moments, there is goodness. Today a client brought me a huge drawing he made of a tree in Golden Gate Park. It must've taken him hours. He said he drew every leaf. I told him the line work was amazing, and he said, “An amazing tree for an amazing woman.” And then he asked me, “When is the Fourth of July?” Sometimes moments like that are enough.
@blakebutler
~ You'll never succeed in idealizing hard work. Before you can dig mother earth you've got to take off your ideal jacket. The harder a man works, at brute labor, the thinner becomes his idealism, the darker his mind. ~
D. H. Lawrence
François-Xavier Fabre - Saint Antoine de Padoue introduisant deux novices frères dans un paysage montagneux (1815)
Although known primarily today as a portraitist to the elite in his adopted city of Florence, Fabre was also a highly accomplished landscapist. Initially following in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin, his landscapes became increasingly influenced by other contemporary French artists working in Italy, such as Louis Gauffier (1762-1801) and Pierre Henri de Valenciennes (1750–1819), as well as the German artist Jacob Philipp Hackert (1737-1807).
This is one of the only known dated works from 1815, a year in which Fabre executed almost no paintings due to both political unrest throughout Europe related to the rise of the First Empire, as well as health issues related to gout. The canvas is unlined and beautifully preserved, which allows the artist to demonstrate the highly refined style which he had absorbed from his French contemporaries. This meticulous, linear approach to painting naturalistic detail would have also been developed in part through his prolific work as a draughtsman. No less than 500 examples of Fabre's drawings exist today, most preserved in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier and Uffizi, Florence. Many of these would have been completed en plein air, in local Florentine parks such as the Cascine, a favorite destination for the artist. This landscape, which does exhibit a freshness often associated with plein air painting, also demonstrates Fabre's characteristic refinement, notably in the foliage, and subtle play of light along the receding rock formations. Furthermore, and perhaps most central to Fabre's success as a landscapist, is his ability to combine this technically sound naturalism with a carefully constructed sense of idealism and deliberate spatial construction. The landscape presented here, is not a specific Tuscan location, but rather an assemblage of motifs which give an overall sense of calm, beauty, and harmony. It is for this reason that we see other examples from Fabre's oeuvre which share basic compositional designs. Specifically, the rocky cliff background, which recedes to the right above a calm body of water and is crowned by a neo-classical temple (or in the present example, probably a Franciscan monastery), is found also in his Death of Narcissus (Musée Fabre, Montpellier), a work executed in 1814, only a year prior to this canvas.
www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/important-ol...
Arthur Schopenhauer German: 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation (expanded in 1844), wherein he characterizes the phenomenal world as the product of a blind and insatiable metaphysical will. Proceeding from the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, Schopenhauer developed an atheistic metaphysical and ethical system that has been described as an exemplary manifestation of philosophical pessimism, rejecting the contemporaneous post-Kantian philosophies of German idealism.Schopenhauer was among the first thinkers in Western philosophy to share and affirm significant tenets of Eastern philosophy (e.g., asceticism, the world-as-appearance), having initially arrived at similar conclusions as the result of his own philosophical work.
Though his work failed to garner substantial attention during his life, Schopenhauer has had a posthumous impact across various disciplines, including philosophy, literature, and science. His writing on aesthetics, morality, and psychology influenced thinkers and artists throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Those who cited his influence include Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Leo Tolstoy, Ludwig Wittgenstein,Erwin Schrödinger, Otto Rank, Gustav Mahler, Joseph Campbell, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung, Thomas Mann, Émile Zola, George Bernard Shaw,Jorge Luis Borges and Samuel Beckett.
Main interests: Metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, morality, psychology
Notable ideas:
Anthropic principle
Eternal justice
Fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason
Hedgehog's dilemma
Philosophical pessimism
Principium individuationis
Will as thing in itself
Schopenhauerian aesthetics
Born 22 February 1788 Danzig (Gdańsk), Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Poland)
Died 21 September 1860 (aged 72)Frankfurt, German Confederation
Original photo: J Schafer 1859
Artwork By TudioJepegii
In France, the Decadent Movement could not withstand the loss of its leading figures. Many of those associated with the Decadent Movement became symbolists after initially associating freely with decadents. Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé were among those, though both had been associated with Baju's Le Décadent for a time.Others kept a foot in each camp. Albert Aurier wrote decadent pieces for Le Décadent and also wrote symbolist poetry and art criticism.Decadent writer Rachilde was staunchly opposed to a symbolist take over of Le Décadent even though her own one-act drama The Crystal Spider is almost certainly a symbolist work.[31] Others, once strong voices for decadence, abandoned the movement altogether. Joris-Karl Huysmans grew to consider Against Nature as the starting point on his journey into Roman Catholic symbolist work and the acceptance of hope.[7] Anatole Baju, once the self-appointed school-master of French decadence, came to think of the movement as naive and half-hearted, willing to tinker and play with social realities, but not to utterly destroy them. He left decadence for anarchy? Decadence, in contrast, actually belittles nature in the name of artistry. In Huysmans’ Against Nature, for instance, the main character Des Esseintes says of nature: “There is not one of her inventions, no matter how subtle or imposing it may be, which human genius cannot create . . . There can be no doubt about it: this eternal, driveling, old woman is no longer admired by true artists, and the moment has come to replace her by artifice.The Decadent Movement was a late 19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The visual artist Félicien Rops's body of work and Joris-Karl Huysmans's novel Against Nature (1884) are considered the prime examples of the decadent movement it first flourished in France and then spread throughout Europe and to the United States.The movement was characterized by self-disgust, sickness at the world, general skepticism, delighting in perversion, and employing crude humor and a belief in the superiority of human creativity over logic and the natural world.The concept of decadence dates from the eighteenth century, especially from the writings of Montesquieu, the Enlightenment philosopher who suggested that the decline (décadence) of the Roman Empire was in large part due to their moral decay and loss of cultural standards.When Latin scholar Désiré Nisard turned toward French literature, he compared Victor Hugo and Romanticism in general to the Roman decadence, men sacrificing their craft and their cultural values for the sake of pleasure. The trends that he identified, such an interest in description, a lack of adherence to the conventional rules of literature and art, and a love for extravagant language were the seeds of the Decadent Movement.The first major development in French decadence would come when writers Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire used the word proudly, to represent a rejection of what they considered banal "progress." Baudelaire referred to himself as decadent in his 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du Mal and exalted the Roman decline as a model for modern poets to express their passion. He would later use the term decadence to include the subversion of traditional categories in pursuit of full, sensual expression. In his lengthy introduction to Baudelaire in the front of the 1868 Les Fleurs du Mal, Gautier at first rejects the application of the term decadent, as meant by the critic, but then works his way to an admission of decadence on Baudelaire's own terms: a preference for what is beautiful and what is exotic, an ease with surrendering to fantasy, and a maturity of skill with manipulating language.Though he was Belgian, Félicien Rops was instrumental in the development of this early stage of the Decadent Movement. A friend of Baudelaire,he was also a frequent illustrator of Baudelaire's writing, at the request of the author himself. Rops delighted in breaking artistic convention and shocking the public with his combination of (often graphic) with gruesome, fantastical horror. He was explicitly interested in the Satanic, and he frequently sought to portray the double-threat of Satan and Woman. At times, his only goal was the portrayal of a woman he'd observed debasing herself in the pursuit of her own pleasure. It has also been suggested that, no matter how horrific and perverse his images could be, Rops' invocation of supernatural elements was sufficient to keep Baudelaire situated in a spirtually-aware universe that maintained a cynical kind of hope, even if the poetry "requires a strong stomach."Their work was the worship of beauty disguised as the worship of evil.For both of them, mortality and all manner of corruptions were always on their mind.The ability of Rops to see and portray the same world as they did, made him a popular illustrator for other decadent authors.The concept of decadence lingered after that, but it wasn't until 1884 that Maurice Barrès referred to a particular group of writers as Decadents. He defined this group as those who had been influenced heavily by Baudelaire, though they were also influenced by Gothic novels and the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. Many were associated with Symbolism, others with Aestheticism.The pursuit of these authors, according to Arthur Symons, was "a desperate endeavor to give sensation, to flash the impression of the moment, to preserve the very heat and motion of life," and their achievement, as he saw it, was "to be a disembodied voice, and yet the voice of a human soul."In his 1884 decadent novel À Rebours (English, Against Nature or Against the Grain), Joris-Karl Huysmans overthrew the past, subordinated nature to the human creative will, and suggested the primacy of but inherent disillusion in pleasure. He also identified likely candidates for the core of the Decadent Movement, which he seemed to view Baudelaire as sitting above: Paul Verlaine, Tristan Corbière, Theodore Hannon, and Stéphane Mallarmé. His character Des Esseintes hailed these writers for their creativity and their craftsmanship, suggesting that they filled him with "insidious delight" as they used a "secret language" to explore "twisted and precious ideas."Not only did Against Nature define an ideology and a literature, but it also created an influential perspective on visual art. The character of Des Esseintes explcitily heralded the work of Gustave Moreau, Jan Luyken, and Odilon Redon. None of these artists would have identified themselves as part of this movement. Nevertheless, the choice of these three established a decadent perspective on art which favored madness and irrationality, graphic violence, frank pessimism about cultural institutions, and a disregard for visual logic of the natural world. It has also been suggested that a dream vision that Des Esseintes describes is based the series of satanic encounters painted by Félicien Rops.Capitalizing on the momentum of Huysmans' work, Anatole Baju founded the magazine Le Décadent in 1886, an effort to define and organize the Decadent Movement in a formal way. This group of writers did not only look to escape the boredom of the banal, but they also sought to shock, scandalize, and subvert the expectations and values of society, believing that such freedom and creative experimentation would better humanity.Not everyone was comfortable with Baju and Le Décadent, even including some who had been published in its pages. Rival writer Jean Moréas published his Symbolist Manifesto, largely to escape association with the Decadent Movement, despite their shared heritage. Moréas and Gustave Kahn, among others, formed rival publications to reinforce the distinction.[19] Paul Verlaine embraced the label at first, applauding it as a brilliant marketing choice by Baju. After seeing his own words exploited and tiring of Le Décadent publishing works falsely attributed to Arthur Rimbaud, however, Verlaine came to sour on Baju personally, and he eventually rejected the label, as well.Decadence continue on in France, but it was limited largely to Anatole Baju and his followers, who refined their focus even further on perverse sexuality, material extravagance, and up-ending social expectations. Far-fetched plots were acceptable if they helped generate the desired moments of salacious experience or glorification of the morbid and grotesque. Writers who embraced the sort of decadence featured in Le Décadent include Albert Aurier, Rachilde, Pierre Vareilles, Miguel Fernandez, Jean Lorrain, and Laurent Tailhaide. Many of these authors did also publish symbolist works, however, and it unclear how strongly they would have identified with Baju as decadents.In France, the Decadent Movement is often said to have begun with either Joris-Karl Huysmans' Against Nature (1884) or Baudelaire's Les Fleur du Mal.[20] This movement essentially gave way to Symbolism when Le Décadent closed down in 1889 and Anatole Baju turned toward politics and became associated with anarchy.[7] A few, writers continued the decadent tradition, such as Octave Mirbeau, but Decadence was no longer a recognized movement, let alone a force in literature or artBeginning with the association of decadence with cultural decline, it is it not uncommon to associate decadence in general with transitional times and their associated moods of pessimism and uncertainty. In France, the heart of the Decadent Movement was during the 1880s and 1890s, the time of fin de siècle, or end-of-the-century gloom.[21] As part of that overall transition, many scholars of Decadence, such as David Weir, regard Decadence as a dynamic transition between Romanticism and Modernism, especially considering the decadent tendency to dehumanize and distort in the name of pleasure and fantasy.Symbolism has often confused with the Decadent Movement. Arthur Symons, a British poet and literary critic contemporary with the movement, at one time considered Decadence in literature to be a parent category that included both Symbolism and Impressionism, as rebellions against realism. He defined this common, decadent thread as, "an intense self-consciousness, a restless curiosity in research, an over-subtilizing refinement upon refinement, a spiritual and moral perversity." He referred to all such literature as, "a new and beautiful and interesting disease."[17] Later, however, he would go on to instead describe the Decadent Movement as an "interlude, half a mock interlude" that distracted critics from seeing and appreciating the larger and more important trend, which was the development of Symbolism.Only a year later, however, Jean Moréas wrote his Symbolist Manifesto to assert a difference between the symbolists with whom he allied himself and this the new group of decadents associated with Anatole Baju and Le Décadent.[19][14] Even after this, there was sufficient common ground of interest, method, and language to blur the lines more than the manifesto might have suggested.In the world of visual arts, it can be even more difficult to distinguish decadence from symbolism. In fact, Stephen Romer has referred to Félicien Rops, Gustave Moreau, and Fernand Khnopff as "Symbolist-Decadent painters and engravers.Nevertheless there are clear ideological differences between those who continued on as symbolists and those who have been called "dissidents" for remaining in the Decadent Movement.[24] Often, there was little doubt that Baju and his group were producing work that was decadent, but there is frequently more question about the work of the symbolists.In a website associated with Dr. Petra Dierkes-Thrun's Stanford University course, Oscar Wilde and the French Decadents (2014), a student named Reed created a blog post that is the basis for much of what follows.Both groups reject the primacy of nature, but what that means for them is very different. Symbolism uses extensive natural imagery as a means to elevate the viewer to a plane higher than the banal reality of nature itself, as when Stéphane Mallarmé mixes descriptions of flowers and heavenly imagery to create a transcendent moment in "Flowers.Symbolism treats language and imagery as devices that can only approximate meaning and merely evoke complex emotions and call the mind toward ideas it might not be able to comprehend. In the words of symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé:Languages are imperfect because multiple; the supreme language is missing... no one can utter words which would bear the miraculous stamp of Truth Herself Incarnate... how impossible it is for language to express things... in the Poet's hands... by the consistent virtue and necessity of an art which lives on fiction, it achieves its full efficacy.As Moréas would go on to assert in his manifest on symbolism, words and images serve to dress up the incomprehensible in such a way that it can be approached, if not understood.Decadence, on the other hand, sees no path to higher truth in words and images. Instead, books, poetry, and art itself as the creators of valid new worlds, thus the allegory of decadent Wilde’s Dorian Gray being poisoned by a book like a drug. Words and artifice are the vehicles for human creativity, and Huysmans suggests that the illusions of fantasy have their own reality: "The secret lies in knowing how to proceed, how to concentrate deeply enough to produce the hallucination and succeed in substituting the dream reality for the reality itself."Both groups are disillusioned with the meaning and truth offered by the natural world, rational thought, and ordinary society. Symbolism turns its eyes toward Greater Purpose or on the Ideal, using dreams and symbols to approach these esoteric primal truths. In Mallarme’s poem “Apparition”, for instance, the word “dreaming” appears twice, followed by “Dream” itself with a capital D. In “The Windows,” he speaks of this decadent disgust of contentment with comfort and an endless desire for the exotic. He writes: “So filled with disgust for the man whose soul is callous, sprawled in comforts where his hungering is fed.” In this continuing search for the spiritual, therefore, Symbolism has been predisposed to concern itself with purity and beauty and such mysterious imagery as those of fairies.Ultimately, the distinction may best be seen in their approach to art. Symbolism is an accumulation of “symbols” that are there not to present their content but to evoke greater ideas that their symbolism cannot expressly utter. According to Moréas, it is an attempt to connect the object and phenomena of the world to "esoteric primodial truths" that cannot ever be directly approach. Decadence, on the other hand, is an accumulation of signs or descriptions acting as detailed catalogs of human material riches as well as artifice. It was Oscar Wilde who perhaps lay this out most clearly in The Decay of Lying with the suggestion of three doctrines on art, here excerpted into a list:"Art never expresses anything but itself.""All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals.""Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.After which, he suggested a conclusion quite in cotrast to Moréas' search for shadow truth: "Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art." While the Decadent Movement, per se, was truly a French phenomenon, the impact was felt more broadly. Typically, the influence was felt as an interest in pleasure, an interest in experimental sexuality, and a fascination with the bizarre, all packaged with a somewhat trangressive spirit and an aesthetic that values material excess. Many were were also influenced by the Decadent Movement's aesthetic emphasis on art for its own sake.In Britain, influenced through general exposure but also direct contact, the leading figures associated with decadence were writer Oscar Wilde, poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, and illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, as well as other artists and writers associated with The Yellow Book. Others, such as Walter Pater, resisted association with the movement, even though their works seemed to reflect similar ideals.[34] While most of the influence was from figures such as Baudelaire and Verlaine, there was also very strong influence at times from more purely decadent members of the French movement, such as the influence that Huysmans and Rachilde had on Wilde, as seen explicitly in The Picture of Dorian Gray.[32][35] British decadents embraced the idea of creating art for its own sake, pursuing all possible desires, and seeking material excess.[33] At the same time, they were not shy about using the tools of decadence for social and political purpose. Beardsley had an explicit interest in the improvement of the social order and the role of art-as-experience in inspiring that transformation.[34] Oscar Wilde published an entire work exploring socialism as a liberating force: "Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody."[36] Swinburne wrote explicitly addressed Irish-English politics in poetry, as when he wrote, "Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet black with lies | Clap and clamour--'Parnell spurs his Gladstone well!'"[37] In many of their personal lives, they also pursed decadent ideals. Wilde had a secret homosexual life.[32] Swinburne had an obsession with flagellation.The Decadent Movement reached into Russia primarily through exposure to the writings of Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine. The earliest Russian adherents lacked idealism and focused on such decadent themes as subversion of morality, disregard for personal health, and living in blasphemy and sensual pleasure. Russian writers were especially drawn to the morbid aspects of decadence and in the fascination with death. Dmitry Merezhkovsky is through to be the first to clearly promote a Russian decadence that included the idealism that would eventually inspire the French symbolists to disassociate from the more purely materialistic Decadent Movement. The first Russian writers to achieve success as followers of this Decadent Movement included Konstanin Balmont, Fyodor Sologub, Valery Bryusov, and Zinaida Gippius. As they refined their craft beyond imitation of Baudelaire and Verlaine, most of these authors became much more clearly aligned with symbolism than with decadence.Some visual artists adhered to the Baju-esque late Decadent Movement approach to sexuality as purely an act of pleasure, often ensconced in a context of material luxury. They also shared the same emphasis on shocking society, purely for the scandal. Among them were Konstantin Somov, Nicolai Kalmakov, and Nikolai Feofilaktov.In Bohemia, Czech writers who were exposed to the work of the Decadent Movement saw in it the promise of a life they could never know. They were neither aristocrats nor bored bourgeoisie. They were poor and hungry for something better. The dreams of the decadents gave them that something better, but something that was hopelessly unattainable. It was that melancholy that drove their art. These Bohemian decadent writers included Karel Hlaváček, Arnošt Procházka, Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic, and Louisa Zikova. One Czech writer, Arthur Breisky, embraced the full spirit of Le Décadent with its exultation in material excess and a life of refinement and pleasure. From the Decadent Movement he learned the basic idea of a dandy, and his work is almost entirely focused on developing a philosophy in which the Dandy is the consummate human, surrounded by riches and elegance, theoretically above society, just as doomed to death and despair as they.Few prominent writers or artists in the United States were connected with the Decadent Movement. Those who were connected struggled to find an audience, for Americans were reluctant to see value for them in what they considered the art forms of fin de siècle France.Poet Francis Saltus Saltus was inspired by Charles Baudelaire, and his unpracticed style was occasionally compared to the French poet's more refined experimentation. He embraced the most debauched lifestyle of the French decadents and celebrated that life in his own poetry. At the time, mostly before Baju's Le Décadent, this frivolous poetry on themes of alcohol and depravity found little success and no known support from those who were part of the Decadent Movement.[42] The younger brother of Francis, writer Edgar Saltus had more success. He had some interaction with Oscar Wilde, and he valued decadence in his personal life. For a time, his work exemplified both the ideals and style of the movement, but a significant portion of his career was in traditional journalism and fiction that praised virtue.[43] At the time when he was flourishing, however, multiple contemporary critics, as well as other decadent writers, explcitily considered him one of them.[41] Writer James Huneker was exposed to the Decadent Movement in France and tried to bring it back with him to New York. He has been lauded to his dedication to this cause throughout his career, but it has also been suggested that, while he lived as a decadent and heralded their work, his own work was more frustrated, hopeles, and empty of the pleasure that had attracted him to the movement in the first place. Largely, he focused on cynically describing the impossibility of a true American decidance.Critical Studies.German doctor and social critic Max Nordau wrote a lengthy book entitled Degeneration (1892). It was an examination of decadence as a trend, and specifically attacked several people associated with the Decadent Movement, as well as other figures throughout the world who deviated from cultural, moral, or political norms. His language was colorful and vitriolic, often invoking the worship of Satan. What made the book a success was its suggestion of a medical diagnosis of "degeneration," a neuro-pathology that resulted in these behaviors. It also helped that the book named such figures as Oscar Wilde, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Paul Verlaine, and Maurice Barrès, members of the Decadent Movement who were in the public eye.In 1930 Italian art and literature critic Mario Praz completed a broad study of morbid and erotic literature, translated and published in English as The Romantic Agony (1933). The study included decadent writing (such as Baudelaire and Swinburne), but also anything else that he considered dark, grim, or sexual in some way. His study centered on the 18th and 19th Centuries. The danger of such literature, he believed it unnaturally elevated the instinctive bond between pain and pleasure and that, no matter the artists' intention, the essential role of art is to educate and teach culture.
ARTZUID 2025 Amsterdam
The 9th edition of the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale ARTZUID takes place from 21 May to 21 September 2025. On Apollolaan and Minervalaan in Amsterdam-Zuid, 70 outdoor sculptures are being showcased of renowned artists and young talented artists.
This exhibition draws from top international artists and Dutch talent for the selection of sculptures and installations that can be seen this summer in Amsterdam. ARTZUID transforms the exhibition location into a surreal urban landscape in which figurative sculptures alternate with architectonic installations. They show a great variety in format and material. What unites them is their focus on the enigma of human existence; the wonder, the emotions and visions of being, the ambitions and fears about our place in the world. Artists such as Leiko Ikemura, Alicja Kwade and Neo Rauch invite the visitor to an exchange of thoughts about this, in a sensual conversation with the sculptures. Displayed is the upheaval of occupation, the fear of war and the spirit of resistance in the contributions of artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Shinkichi Tajiri and Armando. Atelier van Lieshout refers to power and impotence, struggle and victimhood, in a group of figures around a rider on horseback. On the trail of ARTZUID this work is connected to the Indonesia-Netherland Monument on Apollolaan. These are just a few examples of the more than 60 works that populate ARTZUID. The architectural works by often young artists have a commitment and idealism reminiscent of architect H.P. Berlage and urban sculptor Hildo Krop. Both having been instrumental in developing the urban design of the neighbourhood home to ARTZUID. They stimulate visitors to think about the future of the urban community and seek answers to the question of what strategies are needed to create a sustainable and peaceful society
Participating artists ARTZUID 2025
Adam Colton (NL/GB), Arlene Shechet (USA), Art van Triest (NL), Atelier van Lieshout (NL), Alicja Kwade (PL), Armando (NL), Bart Lunenburg (NL), Bastienne Kramer (NL), Britte Koolen (NL), Carin Scholten (NL), Chris Peterson (NL), Cristobal Gabarron (ES), David Bade (CW), David Nash (GB), Erik Buijs (NL), Eiji Watanabe (JP), Esther Jiskoot (NL), Fiona Römpp (NL), Gavin Turk (GB), Helen Vergouwen (NL), Herbert Nouwens (NL) Henk Visch (NL), Hieke Luik (NL), Huub en Adelheid Kortekaas (NL), Isa van Lier (NL), Ilse Oelbers (NL), Iris Le Rütte (NL), Ivan Cremer (NL), Jaume Plensa (ES), Jean-Marie Appriou (FR), Katleen Vinck (BE), Klaas Gubbels (NL), Laura Schurink (NL), Leilah Babirye (USA), Lina Iris Viktor (USA), Leiko Ikemura (JP), Lotta Blokker (NL), Louise Schouwenberg (NL), Maja van Hall (NL), Marcel Pinas (SR), Maen Florin (BE), Magdalena Abakanowicz (PL), Marte Röling (NL), Marieke Bolhuis (NL), Margot Berkman (NL), Marion Verboom (FR), Micky Hoogendijk (NL), Nadia Naveau (BE), Natasja Alers (NL), Nel van Lith (NL), Nelson Carrilho (NL), Neo Rauch (DE), Paloma Varga Weisz (DE), Paul Goede (NL), Rachel Harrison (USA), Ricardo van Eyk (NL), Rob Schreefel (NL), Rob Voerman (NL), Ronald Westerhuis (NL),Ruud Kuijer (NL), Shinkichi Tajiri (USA), Sjef Voets (NL), Sokari Douglas Camp (GB), Stefan Rinck (DE), Tirzo Martha (CW), Tschabalala Self (USA), Tal R (DEN), Tony Cragg (GB), Wjm Kok (NL), Wouter van der Giessen (NL), Xavier Veilhan (FR), Yoshitomo Nara (JP)
Known for 20th-century philosophy
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, essayist, social critic, political activist, and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, although he also confessed that his sceptical nature had led him to feel that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense." Russell was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom.
In the early 20th century, Russell led the British "revolt against idealism". He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics, the quintessential work of classical logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". His work has had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system) and philosophy, especially the philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics.
Russell was a prominent anti-war activist and he championed anti-imperialism.Occasionally, he advocated preventive nuclear war, before the opportunity provided by the atomic monopoly had passed and "welcomed with enthusiasm" world government. He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Later, Russell concluded that war against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany was a necessary "lesser of two evils" and criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought".
Born in Trellech, Monmouthshire, United Kingdom
Artwork by TudioJepegii
“Class is the impartial, consistent display of emotional integrity.”
~ J. Frederick Millea ~
"I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way."
~ Carl Sandburg ~
TODAY'S NEWS:
"CLASS RESUMES TODAY IN CHICAGO:
Teachers end stalemate with mayor, vote to suspend strike"
Wherever one is headed this month . . . back to class, high school reunions or taking advantage of children back in school to hit the roads for a little vacation, ENJOY!
I'll be on and off line while I consider the options!
HAVE FUN, EVERYONE!
but of course, do it with "class" . . .
Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833 - 1870.
This great poet, recognised as one of Australia’s greatest, was born in the Azores to English parents in 1833. But by the time he was twenty his father was exasperated with Adam’s hedonistic lifestyle which was frowned upon in Victorian England. Adam Gordon senior secured a position for young Adam with the SA government and Adan Lindsay Gordon arrived at Port Adelaide in 1853. Adam was tall, handsome, moody, and reckless but an excellent horseman and rider. He was appointed as a police trooper at Penola for two years and then from 1855 he broke horses around the Mt Gambier district with some financial backing from this father. In 1857 Adam met Father Tenison Woods and began reading poetry with him. When his mother died in 1859 he received a legacy of £7,000 which he received in 1861. Although profligate with his money he was comfortable with his winnings from steeple chases and horse breaking of thoroughbreds. In 1862 he married Margaret Park a girl of 17 years who was also an excellent horsewoman. So in 1864 he bought Dingley Dell cottage for their home. The cottage was located at Port MacDonnell where he had lived and when the ship the Admella sank at Cape Northumberland in 1859 with the loss of 89 lives Adam was deeply affected by it. In 1869 he wrote a poem about it entitled the Ride from the Wreck. Around 1864 Adam speculated with land investments that failed and this seemed to increase his reckless horse riding exploits. His famous leap over the edge of the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier occurred in July 1864. The monument to this daring feat was erected on that spot in 1887. In January 1865 he was elected to the SA parliament whilst he kept publishing poems and some stories. He became a good friend of John Riddoch of Yallum Park near Penola once he attended parliament. His time in parliament provoked him into more poetry publishing, horse riding and racing and land speculation in Western Australia as well as South Australia. In 1867 he moved to a residence in Mt Gambier for a short time. He published several poems that year and then moved to Ballarat. He rented Craig’s hotel livery stables but his idealism and lack of business acumen soon delivered financial failure. His pretty little Ballarat Cottage is now located in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens. He left Ballarat at the end of 1868 and moved to Melbourne. He continued racing horses and in 1870 had a serious fall whilst racing at Flemington race course. He never fully recovered but managed to publish two works in mid-1870 Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes. When he got the account for publishing the two books he realised he had insufficient money to pay the publishers and he took his own life in June 1870. Although the newspapers speculated he was an alcoholic his friends were all adamant that he seldom drank but he was subject to depression and melancholy. He was buried in the Brighton cemetery in Melbourne and his friends erected a monument on his grave in October 1870. Sadly his prowess as a poet was mainly recognised after his death. In 1932 a statue of him was erected near Parliament House in Melbourne. In 1934 a bust of Adam Lindsay Gordon was placed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey the Australian poet to have such recognition. British composer Edward Elgar set several of Adam’s poem to music, Queen Elizabeth II quoted lines from one of his poems in her 1992 Christmas broadcast and Australian Post released a stamp honouring Adam Lindsay Gordon in 1970. In 2014 he was inducted into the Australia Jumps Racing Association Gallery of Champions. On his statue in Melbourne are four of his lines:
Life is mainly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone —
Kindness in another's trouble.
Courage in your own.
Below are some lines from the Ride from the Wreck (of the Admella.)
Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm’d on the reef,
And many on board still, and some wash’d on shore.
Ride straight with the news—they may send some relief
From the township; and we—we can do little more.
You, Alec, you know the near cuts; you can cross
"The Sugarloaf" ford with a scramble, I think;
Don’t spare the blood filly, nor yet the black horse;
Should the wind rise, God help them! the ship will soon sink.
Old Peter’s away down the paddock, to drive
The nags to the stockyard as fast as he can—
A life and death matter; so, lads, look alive.’
Dingley Dell and Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833 - 1870.
This great poet, recognised as one of Australia’s greatest, was born in the Azores to English parents in 1833. But by the time he was twenty his father was exasperated with Adam’s hedonistic lifestyle which was frowned upon in Victorian England. Adam Gordon senior secured a position for young Adam with the SA government and Adam Lindsay Gordon arrived at Port Adelaide in 1853. Adam was tall, handsome, moody, and reckless but an excellent horseman and rider. He was appointed as a police trooper at Penola for two years and then from 1855 he broke horses around the Mt Gambier district with some financial backing from this father. In 1857 Adam met Father Tenison Woods and began reading poetry with him. When his mother died in 1859 he received a legacy of £7,000 which he received in 1861. Although profligate with his money he was comfortable with his winnings from steeple chases and breaking thoroughbred horses. In 1862 he married Margaret Park a girl of 17 years who was also an excellent horsewoman. So in 1864 he bought Dingley Dell cottage for their home. The cottage was located at Port MacDonnell where he had lived and when the ship the Admella sank at Cape Northumberland in 1859 with the loss of 89 lives Adam was deeply affected by it. In 1869 he wrote a poem about it entitled the Ride from the Wreck. Around 1864 Adam speculated with land investments that failed and this seemed to increase his reckless horse riding exploits. His famous leap over the edge of the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier occurred in July 1864. The monument to this daring feat was erected on that spot in 1887. In January 1865 he was elected to the SA parliament whilst he kept publishing poems and some stories. He became a good friend of John Riddoch of Yallum Park near Penola once he attended parliament. His time in parliament provoked him into more poetry publishing, horse riding and racing and land speculation in Western Australia as well as South Australia. In 1867 he moved to a residence in Mt Gambier for a short time. He published several poems that year and then moved to Ballarat. He rented Craig’s Hotel livery stables but his idealism and lack of business acumen soon delivered financial failure. His pretty little Ballarat Cottage is now located in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens. He left Ballarat at the end of 1868 and moved to Melbourne. He continued racing horses and in 1870 had a serious fall whilst racing at Flemington race course. He never fully recovered but managed to publish two works in mid-1870 Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes. When he got the account for publishing the two books he realised he had insufficient money to pay the publishers and he took his own life in June 1870. Although the newspapers speculated he was an alcoholic his friends were all adamant that he seldom drank but he was subject to depression and melancholy. He was buried in the Brighton cemetery in Melbourne and his friends erected a monument on his grave in October 1870. Sadly his prowess as a poet was mainly recognised after his death. In 1932 a statue of him was erected near Parliament House in Melbourne. In 1934 a bust of Adam Lindsay Gordon was placed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, the only Australian poet to have such recognition. British composer Edward Elgar set several of Adam’s poem to music, Queen Elizabeth II quoted lines from one of his poems in her 1992 Christmas broadcast and Australian Post released a stamp honouring Adam Lindsay Gordon in 1970. In 2014 he was inducted into the Australia Jumps Racing Association Gallery of Champions. On his statue in Melbourne are four of his lines:
Life is mainly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone —
Kindness in another's trouble.
Courage in your own.
Below are some lines from the Ride from the Wreck (of the Admella.)
Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm’d on the reef,
And many on board still, and some wash’d on shore.
Ride straight with the news—they may send some relief
From the township; and we—we can do little more.
You, Alec, you know the near cuts; you can cross
"The Sugarloaf" ford with a scramble, I think;
Don’t spare the blood filly, nor yet the black horse;
Should the wind rise, God help them! the ship will soon sink.
Old Peter’s away down the paddock, to drive
The nags to the stockyard as fast as he can—
A life and death matter; so, lads, look alive.’
Before I made the acquaintance of George Anastaplo I saw him walking down the street in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.
There was something about him that caught my eye... something about the way that he walked and the way that he smiled... there was something about his spirit... there was something that I wanted to capture.
George has what I like to call 'The Magic Mojo.'
I wanted to pop him right there on the street but I was late in getting to a very special dinner with some great friends.
I had to let the urge go.
I regretted my artistic inaction the moment I passed him on the street there.
Fortunately the regret would be short lived.
In one of those funny little twists of fate that life seems to lay on me... when we got to the dinner George ended up being seated right next to me.
He's a fascinating guy.
A great storyteller, I really enjoyed the conversation that we shared as we sat there at the table.
'While most lawyers go through an entire career without getting the opportunity to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, George Anastaplo did so without entering the legal profession—and then, he likes to say, he retired.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, April 25, 2011, page 1
George completed his undergraduate degree in only one year at the University of Chicago.
It took me longer than that to pay my overdue library fines from freshman year.
In 1951 he graduated at the top of his law school class.
I would have liked to have sat next to him.
In 1964 George completed his doctorate at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought.
Since then he's written more than 20 books on a multitude of subjects.
"A longtime Loyola University Chicago School of Law professor who today teaches courses in constitutional law and jurisprudence, Anastaplo became an eclectic scholar and teacher" ~ Maria Kantzavelos
'Fifty years ago Sunday, on April 24, 1961, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision that affirmed the decision of the Illinois Supreme Court to deny Anastaplo admission to the Illinois bar because he refused to answer questions asked by the bar’s character committee about political associations.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos
When George graduated from law school and he interviewed for admission into the Illinois Bar Association he had to be questioned in front of the 'character committee' they asked 'do you think a communist should be admitted into the bar of this state?'
George's answer?
‘Well, why not?’
Then they asked George if he was now or was ever a member of the Communist Party.
George didn't feel that he should answer that question and because of that conviction they wouldn't give him admission into the Illinois Bar and he couldn't practice law even though the dude graduated at the top of his class. Hmmmmph.
'Had he gone along with the process, things could have turned out differently for Anastaplo, who was being considered for a position at one of the big law firms in town.' ~ Maria Kantzavelos
But that didn't stop the fiesty twenty five year old.
He fought over the next ten years, ultimately laying out his case in front of the United States Supreme Court.
He argued there as a lawyer without a license!
'In 1954 petitioner, George Anastaplo, an instructor and research assistant at the University of Chicago, having previously passed his Illinois bar examinations, was denied admission to the bar of that State by the Illinois Supreme Court. The denial was based upon his refusal to answer questions of the Committee on Character and Fitness as to whether he was a member of the Communist Party.' ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO
'The ensuing lengthy proceedings before the Committee, at which Anastaplo was the only witness, are perhaps best described as a wide-ranging exchange between the Committee and Anastaplo in which the Committee sought to explore Anastaplo's ability conscientiously to swear support of the Federal and State Constitutions, as required by the Illinois attorneys' oath, and Anastaplo undertook to expound and defend, on historical and ideological premises, his abstract belief in the 'right of revolution,' and to resist, on grounds of asserted constitutional right and scruple, Committee questions which he deemed improper. The Committee already had before it uncontroverted evidence as to Anastaplo's 'good moral character,' in the form of written statements or affidavits furnished by persons of standing acquainted with him, and the record on rehearing contains nothing which could properly be considered as reflecting adversely upon his character or reputation or on the sincerity of the beliefs he espoused before the Committee. Anastaplo persisted, however, in refusing to answer, among other inquiries, the Committee's questions as to his possible membership in the Communist Party or in other allegedly related organizations. ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO
Thereafter the Committee, by a vote of 11 to 6, again declined to certify Anastaplo because of his refusal to answer such questions, the majority stating in its report to the Illinois Supreme Court:
'his (Anastaplo's) failure to reply, in our view, obstructs the lawful processes of the Committee, prevents inquiry into subjects which bear intimately upon the issue of character and fitness, such as loyalty to our basic institutions, belief in representative government and bona fides of the attorney's oath and results in his failure to meet the burden of establishing that he possesses the good moral character and fitness to practice law, which are conditions to the granting of a license to practice law.
'We draw no inference of disloyalty or subversion from applicant's continued refusal to answer questions concerning Communist or other subversive affiliations. We do, however, hold that there is a strong public interest in our being free to question applicants for admission to the bar on their adherence to our basic institutions and form of government and that such public interest in the character of its attorneys overrides an applicant's private interest in keeping such views to himself. By failing to respond to this higher public interest we hold that the applicant has obstructed the proper functions of the Committee. We cannot certify the applicant as worthy of the trust and confidence of the public when we do not know that he is so worthy and when he has prevented us from finding out.'
At the same time the full Committee acknowledged that Anastaplo 'is well regarded by his academic associates, by professors who had taught him in school and by members of the Bar who know him personally'; that it had 'not been supplied with any information by any third party which is derogatory to Anastaplo's character or general reputation. ~ ~ 366 U.S. 82 IN RE ANASTAPLO
THE DISSENTING OPINION
'United States Supreme Court
366 U.S. 82
IN RE ANASTAPLO
No. 58. Argued: December 14, 1960. --- Decided: April 24, 1961.
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF ILLINOIS.
Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, Mr. Justice DOUGLAS and Mr. Justice BRENNAN concur, dissenting.
The petitioner George Anastaplo has been denied the right to practice law in the State of Illinois for refusing to answer questions about his views and associations. I think this action by the State violated rights guaranteed to him by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The reasons which lead me to this conclusion are largely the same as those expressed in my dissenting opinion in Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, 366 U.S. at page 56, 81 S.Ct. at page 1010. But this case provides such a striking illustration of the destruction that can be inflicted upon individual liberty when this Court fails to enforce the First Amendment to the full extent of its express and unequivocal terms that I think it deserves separate treatment.
The controversy began in November 1950, when Anastaplo, a student at the University of Chicago Law School, having two months previously successfully passed the Illinos Bar examination, appeared before the State's Committee on Character and Fitness for the usual interview preliminary to admission to the Bar. The personal history form required by state law had been filled out and filed with the Committee prior to his appearance and showed that Anastaplo was an unusually worthy applicant for admission. His early life had been spent in a small town in southern Illinois where his parents, who had immigrated to this country from Greece before his birth, still resided. After having received his precollege education in the public schools of his home town, he had discontinued his education, at the age of eighteen, and joined the Air Force during the middle of World War II-flying as a navigator in every major theater of the military operations of that war. Upon receiving an honorable discharge in 1947, he had come to Chicago and resumed his education, obtaining his undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago and entering immediately into the study of law at the University of Chicago Law School. His record throughout his life, both as a student and as a citizen, was unblemished.
The personal history form thus did not contain so much as one statement of fact about Anastaplo's past life or conduct that could have, in any way, cast doubt upon his fitness for admission to the Bar. It did, however, contain a statement of opinion which, in the minds of some of the members of the Committee at least, did cast such doubt and in that way served to touch off this controversy. This was a statement made by Anastaplo in response to the command of the personal history form: 'State what you consider to be the principles underlying the Constitution of the United States.' Anastaplo's response to that command was as follows:
'One principle consists of the doctrine of the separation of powers; thus, among the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary are distributed various functions and powers in a manner designed to provide for a balance of power, thereby intending to prevent totally unrestrained action by any one branch of government. Another basic principle (and the most important) is that such government is constituted so as to secure certain inalienable rights, those rights to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (and elements of these rights are explicitly set forth in such parts of the Constitution as the Bill of Rights.). And, of course, whenever the particular government in power becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and thereupon to establish a new government. This is how I view the Constitution.'
When Anastaplo appeared before a two-man Subcommittee of the Committee on Character and Fitness, one of its members almost immediately engaged him in a discussion relating to the meaning of these italicized words which were substantially taken from that part of the Declaration of Independence set out below. This discussion soon developed into an argument as Anastaplo stood by his statement and insisted that if a government gets bad enough, the people have a 'right of revolution.' It was at this juncture in the proceedings that the other member of the Subcommittee interrupted with the question: 'Are you a member of any organization that is listed on the Attorney General's list, to your knowledge?' And this question was followed up a few moments later with the question: 'Are you a member of the Communist Party?' A colloquy then ensued between Anastaplo and the two members of the Subcommittee as to the legitimacy of the questions being asked, Anastaplo insisting that these questions were not reasonably related to the Committee's functions and that they violated his rights under the Constitution, and the members of the Subcommittee insisting that the questions were entirely legitimate.
The Subcommittee then refused to certify Anastaplo for admission to the Bar but, instead, set a further hearing on the matter before the full Committee. That next hearing, as well as all of the hearings that followed, have been little more than repetitions of the first. The rift between Anastaplo and the Committee has grown ever wider with each successive hearing. Anastaplo has stead-fastly refused to answer any questions put by the Committee which inquired into his political associations or religious beliefs. A majority of the members of the Committee, faced with this refusal, has grown more and more insistent that it has the right to force him to answer any question it sees fit to ask. The result has been a series of hearings in which questions have been put to Anastaplo with regard to his 'possible' association with scores of organizations, including the Ku Klux Klan, the Silver Shirts (an allegedly Fascist organization), every organization on the so-called Attorney General's list, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and the Communist Party. At one point in the proceedings, at least two of the members of the Committee insisted that he tell the Committee whether he believes in a Supreme Being and one of these members stated that, as far as his vote was concerned, a man's 'belief in the Deity * * * has a substantial bearing upon his fitness to practice law.'
It is true, as the majority points out, that the Committee did not expressly rest its refusal to certify Anastaplo for admission to the Bar either upon his views on the 'right of revolution,' as that 'right' is defined in the Declaration of Independence, or upon his refusal to disclose his beliefs with regard to the existence of God, [4] or upon his refusals to disclose any of his political associations other than his 'possible' association with the Communist Party. But it certainly cannot be denied that the other questions were asked and, since we should not presume that these members of the Committee did not want answers to their questions, it seems certain that Anastaplo's refusal to answer them must have had some influence upon the final outcome of the hearings. In any case, when the Committee did vote, 11-6, not to certify Anastaplo for admission, not one member who asked any question Anastaplo had refused to answer voted in his favor.
The reasons for Anastaplo's position have been stated by him time and again-first, to the Committee and, later, in the briefs and oral arguments he presented in his own behalf, both before this Court and before the Supreme Court of Illinois. From a legal standpoint, his position throughout has been that the First Amendment gave him a right not to disclose his political associations or his religious beliefs to the Committee. But his decision to refuse to disclose these associations and beliefs went much deeper than a bare reliance upon what he considered to be his legal rights. The record shows that his refusal to answer the Committee's question stemmed primarily from his belief that he had a duty, both to society and to the legal profession, not to submit to the demands of the Committee because he believed that the questions had been asked solely for the purpose of harassing him because he had expressed agreement with the assertion of the right of revolution against an evil government set out in the Declaration of Independence. His position was perhaps best stated before the Committee in his closing remarks at the final session:
'It is time now to close. Differences between us remain. I leave to others the sometimes necessary but relatively easy task of praising Athens to Athenians. Besides, you should want no higher praise than what I have said about the contribution the bar can make to republican government. The bar deserves no higher praise until it makes that contribution. You should be grateful that I have not made a complete submission to you, even though I have cooperated as fully as good conscience permits. To the extent I have not submitted, to that extent have I contributed to the solution of one of the most pressing problems that you, as men devoted to character and fitness, must face. This is the problem of selecting the standards and methods the bar must employ if it is to help preserve and nourish that idealism, that vital interest in the problem of justice, that so often lies at the heart of the intelligent and sensitive law student's choice of career. This is an idealism which so many things about the bar, and even about bar admission practices, discourage and make unfashionable to defend or retain. The worthiest men live where the rewards of virtue are greatest.
'I leave with you men of Illinois the suggestion that you do yourselves and the bar the honor, as well as the service, of anticipating what I trust will be the judgment of our most thoughtful judges. I move therefore that you recommend to the Supreme Court of Illinois that I be admitted to the bar of this State. And I suggest that this recommendation be made retroactive to November 10, 1950 when a young Air Force veteran first was so foolish as to continue to serve his country by daring to defend against a committee on character and fitness the teaching of the Declaration of Independence on the right of revolution.'
The reasons for the Committee's position are also clear. Its job, throughout these proceedings, has been to determine whether Anastaplo is possessed of the necessary good moral character to justify his admission to the Bar of Illinois. In that regard, the Committee has been given the benefit of voluminous affidavits from men of standing in their professions and in the community that Anastaplo is possessed of an unusually fine character. Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn, Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, at the University of Wisconsin, for example, described Anastaplo as 'intellectually able, a hard, thorough student and moved by high devotion to the principles of freedom and justice.' Professor Malcolm P. Sharp of the University of Chicago Law School stated: 'No question has ever been raised about his honesty or his integrity, and his general conduct, characterized by friendliness, quiet independence, industry and courage, is reflected in his reputation.' Professor Roscoe T. Steffen of the University of Chicago Law School said: 'I know of no one who doubts his honesty and integrity.' Yves R. Simon, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, said: 'I consider Anastaplo as a young man of the most distinguished and lofty moral character. Everybody respects him and likes him.' Angelo G. Geocaris, a practicing attorney in the City of Chicago, said of Anastaplo: 'His personal code of ethics is unexcelled by any practicing attorney I have met in the state of Illinois.' Robert J. Coughlan, Division Director of a research project at the University of Chicago, said: 'His honesty and integrity are, in my opinion, beyond question. I would highly recommend him without the slightest reservation for any position involving the highest or most sacred trust. The applicant is a rare man among us today: he has an inviolable sense of Honor in the great traditions of Greek culture and thought. If admitted to the American Bar, he could do nothing that would not reflect glory on that institution.'
These affidavits and many more like them were presented to the Committee. Most of the statements came from men who knew Anastaplo intimately on the University of Chicago campus where Anastaplo has remained throughout the proceedings here involved, working as a research assistant and as a lecturer in Liberal Arts and studying for an advanced degree in History and Social Sciences. Even at the present time, he is still there preparing his doctoral dissertation which, understandably enough, is tentatively entitled 'The Historical and Philosophical Background of the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.'
The record also shows that the Committee supplemented the information it had obtained about Anastaplo from these affidavits by conducting informal independent investigations into his character and reputation. It sent agents to Anastaplo's home town in southern Illinois and they questioned the people who knew him there. Similar inquiries were made among those who knew him in Chicago. But these intensive investigations apparently failed to produce so much as one man in Chicago or in the whole State of Illinois who could say or would say, directly, indirectly or even by hearsay, one thing derogatory to the character, loyalty or reputation of George Anastaplo, and not one man could be found who would in any way link him with the Communist Party. This fact is particularly significant in view of the evidence in the record that the Committee had become acquainted with a person who apparently had been a member of a Communist Party cell on the University of Chicago campus and that this person was asked to and did identify for the Committee every member of the Party whom he knew.
In addition to the information it had obtained from the affidavits and from its independent investigations, the Committee had one more important source of information about Anastaplo's character. It had the opportunity to observe the manner in which he conducted himself during the many hours of hearings before it. That manner, as revealed by the record before us and undenied by any findings of the Committee to the contrary, left absolutely nothing to be desired. Faced with a barrage of sometimes highly provocative and totally irrelevant questions from men openly hostile to his position, Anastaplo invariably responded with all the dignity and restraint attributed to him in the affidavits of his friends. Moreover, it is not amiss to say that he conducted himself in precisely the same manner during the oral argument he presented before this Court.
Thus, it is against the background of a mountain of evidence so favorable to Anastaplo that the word 'overwhelming' seems inadequate to describe it that the action of the Committee in refusing to certify Anastaplo as fit for admission to the Bar must be considered. The majority of the Committee rationalized its position on the ground that without answers to some of the questions it had asked, it could not conscientiously perform its duty of determining Anastaplo's character and fitness to be a lawyer. A minority of the Committee described this explanation as 'pure sophistry.' And it is simply impossible to read this record without agreeing with the minority. For, it is difficult to see what possible relevancy answers to the questions could have had in the minds of these members of the Committee after they had received such completely overwhelming proof beyond a reasonable doubt of Anastaplo's good character and staunch patriotism. I can think of no sound reason for further insistence upon these answers other than the very questionable, but very human, feeling that this young man should not be permitted to resist the Committee's demands without being compelled to suffer for it in some way.
It is intimated that the Committee's feeling of resentment might be assuaged and that Anastaplo might even be admitted to the Bar if he would only give in to the demands of the Committee and add the requested test oath to the already overwhelming proof he has submitted to establish his good character and patriotism. In this connection, the Court says: 'We find nothing to suggest that he would not be admitted now if he decides to answer, assuming of course that no grounds justifying his exclusion from practice resulted. In short, petitioner holds the key to admission in his own hands.' However well this familiar phrase may fit other cases, it does not fit this one. For the attitude of the Committee, as revealed by the transcript of its hearings, does not support a belief that Anastaplo can gain admission to the Illinois Bar merely by answering the Committee's questions, whatever answers he should give. Indeed, the Committee's own majority report discloses that Anastaplo's belief in the 'right of revolution' was regarded as raising 'a serious question' in the minds of a majority of the Committee with regard to his fitness to practice law and that 'certain' members of that majority (how many, we cannot know) have already stated categorically that they will not vote to admit an applicant who expresses such views. Nor does the opinion of the Illinois Supreme Court indicate that Anastaplo 'holds the key to admission in his own hands.' Quite the contrary, that court's opinion evidences an almost insuperable reluctance to upset the findings of the Committee. Certainly, that opinion contains nothing that even vaguely resembles the sort of implicit promise that would justify the belief asserted by the majority here. And, finally, I see nothing in the majority opinion of this Court, nor in the majority opinions in the companion cases decided today, that would justify a belief that this Court would unlock the door that blocks his admission to the Illinois Bar if Anastaplo produced the 'key' and the state authorities refused to use it.
The opinion of the majority already recognizes that there is not one scrap of evidence in the record before us 'which could properly be considered as reflecting adversely upon his (Anastaplo's) character or reputation or on the sincerity of the beliefs he espoused before the Committee,' and that the Committee had not received any "information from any outside source which would cast any doubt on applicant's loyalty or which would tend to connect him in any manner with any subversive group." The majority opinion even concedes that Anastaplo was correct in urging that the questions asked by the Committee impinged upon the freedoms of speech and association guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. But, the opinion then goes on to hold that Anastaplo can nonetheless be excluded from the Bar pursuant to 'the State's interest in having lawyers who are devoted to the law in its broadest sense .' I cannot regard that holding, as applied to a man like Anastaplo, as in any way justified. Consider it, for example, in the context of the following remarks of Anastaplo to the Committee-remarks the sincerity of which the majority does not deny:
'I speak of a need to remind the bar of its traditions and to keep alive the spirit of dignified but determined advocacy and opposition. This is not only for the good of the bar, of course, but also because of what the bar means to American republican government. The bar when it exercises self-control is in a peculiar position to mediate between popular passions and informed and principled men, thereby upholding republican government. Unless there is this mediation, intelligent and responsible government is unlikely. The bar, furthermore, is in a peculiar position to apply to our daily lives the constitutional principles which nourish for this country its inner life. Unless there is this nourishment, a just and humane people is impossible. The bar is, in short, in a position to train and lead by precept and example the American people.'
These are not the words of a man who lacks devotion to 'the law in its broadest sense.'
The majority, apparently considering this fact irrelevant because the State might possibly have an interest in learning more about its Bar applicants, decides that Anastaplo can properly be denied admission to the Bar by purporting to 'balance' the interest of the State of Illinois in 'having lawyers who are devoted to the law in its broadest sense' against the interest of Anastaplo and the public in protecting the freedoms of the First Amendment, concluding, as it usually does when it engages in this process, that 'on balance' the interest of Illinois must prevail. If I had ever doubted that the 'balancing test' comes close to being a doctrine of governmental absolutism-that to 'balance' an interest in individual liberty means almost inevitably to destroy that liberty-those doubts would have been dissipated by this case. For this so-called 'balancing test'-which, as applied to the First Amendment, means that the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion and petition can be repressed whenever there is a sufficient governmental interest in doing so-here proves pitifully and pathetically inadequate to cope with an invasion of individual liberty so plainly unjustified that even the majority apparently feels compelled expressly to disclaim 'any view upon the wisdom of the State's action.'
I, of course, wholeheartedly agree with the statement of the majority that this Court should not, merely on the ground that such action is unwise, interfere with governmental action that is within the constitutional powers of that government. But I am no less certain that this Court should not permit governmental action that plainly abridges constitutionally protected rights of the People merely because a majority believes that on 'balance' it is better, or 'wiser,' to abridge those rights than to leave them free. The inherent vice of the 'balancing test' is that it purports to do just that. In the context of its reliance upon the 'balancing test,' the Court's disclaimer of 'any view upon the wisdom of the State's action' here thus seems to me to be wholly inconsistent with the only ground upon which it has decided this case.
Nor can the majority escape from this inconsistency on the ground that the 'balancing test' deals only with the question of the importance of the existence of governmental power as a general matter without regard to the importance of its exercise in a particular case. For in Barenblatt v. United States the same majority made it clear that the 'balancing test' is to be applied to the facts of each particular case (360 U.S. 109, 79 S.Ct. 1093): 'Where First Amendment rights are asserted to bar governmental interrogation resolution of the issue always involves a balancing by the courts of the competing private and public interests at stake in the particular circumstances shown.' Thus the Court not only 'balances' the respective values of two competing policies as a general matter, but also 'balances' the wisdom of those policies in 'the particular circumstances shown.' Thus, the Court has reserved to itself the power to permit or deny abridgement of First Amendment freedoms according to its own view of whether repression or freedom is the wiser governmental policy under the circumstances of each case.
The effect of the Court's 'balancing' here is that any State may now reject an applicant for admission to the Bar if he believes in the Declaration of Independence as strongly as Anastaplo and if he is willing to sacrifice his career and his means of livelihood in defense of the freedoms of the First Amendment. But the men who founded this country and wrote our Bill of Rights were strangers neither to a belief in the 'right of revolution' nor to the urgency of the need to be free from the control of government with regard to political beliefs and associations. Thomas Jefferson was not disclaiming a belief in the 'right of revolution' when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. And Patrick Henry was certainly not disclaiming such a belief when he declared in impassioned words that have come on down through the years: 'Give me liberty or give me death.' This country's freedom was won by men who, whether they believed in it or not, certainly practiced revolution in the Revolutionary War.
Since the beginning of history there have been governments that have engaged in practices against the people so bad, so cruel, so unjust and so destructive of the individual dignity of men and women that the 'right of revolution' was all the people had left to free themselves. As simple illustrations, one government almost 2,000 years ago burned Christians upon fiery crosses and another government, during this very century, burned Jews in crematories. I venture the suggestion that there are countless multitudes in this country, and all over the world, who would join Anastaplo's belief in the right of the people to resist by force tyrranical governments like those.
In saying what I have, it is to be borne in mind that Anastaplo has not indicated, even remotely, a belief that this country is an oppressive one in which the 'right of revolution' should be exercised. Quite the contrary, the entire course of his life, as disclosed by the record, has been one of devotion and service to his country-first, in his willingness to defend its security at the risk of his own life in time of war and, later, in his willingness to defend its freedoms at the risk of his professional career in time of peace. The one and only time in which he has come into conflict with the Government is when he refused to answer the questions put to him by the Committee about his beliefs and associations. And I think the record clearly shows that conflict resulted, not from any fear on Anastaplo's part to divulge his own political activities, but from a sincere, and in my judgment correct, conviction that the preservation of this country's freedom depends upon adherence to our Bill of Rights. The very most that can fairly be said against Anastaplo's position in this entire matter is that he took too much of the responsibility of preserving that freedom upon himself.
This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that Anastaplo has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows, not only that Anastaplo has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost. It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law-men like Malsherbes, who, at the cost of his own life and the lives of his family, sprang unafraid to the defense of Louis XVI against the fanatical leaders of the Revolutionary government of France -men like Charles Evans Hughes, Sr., later Mr. Chief Justice Hughes, who stood up for the constitutional rights of socialists to be socialists and public officials despite the threats and clamorous protests of self-proclaimed superpatriots -men like Charles Evans Hughes, Jr., and John W. Davis, who, while against everything for which the Communists stood, strongly advised the Congress in 1948 that it would be unconstitutional to pass the law then proposed to outlaw the Communist Party -men like Lord Erskine, James Otis, Clarence Darrow, and the multitude of others who have dared to speak in defense of causes and clients without regard to personal danger to themselves. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.
But that is the present trend, not only in the legal profession but in almost every walk of life. Too many men are being driven to become government-fearing and time-serving because the Government is being permitted to strike out at those who are fearless enough to think as they please and say what they think. This trend must be halted if we are to keep faith with the Founders of our Nation and pass on to future generations of Americans the great heritage of freedom which they sacrificed so much to leave to us. The choice is clear to me. If we are to pass on that great heritage of freedom, we must return to the original language of the Bill of Rights. We must not be afraid to be free'
' if a government gets bad enough, the people have a 'right of revolution.' ~ George Anastaplo
That's why I like you George... what you just said right up there... you're a principled man and a patriot... you're a fiesty guy indeed as the following exchange points out...
This is from the transcript of the committee questioning George...
'Commissioner Mitchell: When you say 'believe in revolution,' you don't limit that revolution to an overthrow of a particular political party or a political government by means of an election process or other political means?
'Mr. Anastaplo: I mean actual use of force.
'Commissioner Mitchell: You mean to go as far as necessary?
'Mr. Anastaplo: As far as Washington did, for instance.
'Commissioner Mitchell: So that would it be fair to say that you believe the end result would justify any means that were used?
'Mr. Anastaplo: No, the means proportionate to the particular end in sight.
'Commissioner Mitchell: Well, is there any difference from your answer and my question?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Did you ask-
'Commissioner Mitchell: I asked you whether you thought that you believe that if a change, or overthrow of the government were justified, that any means could be used to accomplish that end.
'Mr. Anastaplo: Now, let's say in this positive concrete situation-I am not quite sure what it means in abstract.
'Commissioner Mitchell: I will ask you in detail. You believe that assuming the government should be overthrown, in your opinion, that you and others of like mind would be justified in raising a company of men with military equipment and proceed to take over the government of the United States, of the State of Illinois?
'By shaking your head do you mean yes?
'Mr. Anastaplo: If you get to the point where overthrow is necessary, then overthrow is justified. It just means that you overthrow the government by force.
'Commissioner Mitchell: And would that also include in your mind justification for putting a spy into the administrative department, one or another of the administrative departments of the United States or the government of the State of Illinois?
'Mr. Anastaplo: If you got to the point you think the government should be overthrown, I think that would be a legitimate means.
'Commissioner Mitchell: There isn't any difference in your mind in the propriety of using a gun or using a spy?
'Mr. Anastaplo: I think spies have been used in quite honorable causes.
'Commissioner Mitchell: Your answer is, you do think so?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.
'Commissioner Baker: Let me ask you a question. Are you aware of the fact that the Department of Justice has a list of what are described as subversive organizations?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.
'Commissioner Baker: Have you ever seen that list?
'Mr. Anastaplo: Yes.
'Commissioner Baker: Are you a member of any organization that is listed on the Attorney General's list, to your knowledge? (No answer.) Just to keep you from having to work so hard mentally on it, what organizations-give me all the organizations you are affiliated with or are a member of. (No answer.) That oughtn't to be too hard.
'Mr. Anastaplo: Do you believe that is a legitimate question?
'Commissioner Baker: Yes, I do. We are inquiring into not only your character, but your fitness, under Rule 58. We don't compel you to answer it. Are you a member of the Communist Party?'
George lost the case at the US Supreme Court but it was his principled approach to not answering the question in the first place and his ten year battle to overcome the ramifications of that refusal that earned him the respect of many who respect a person who lives a principle centered life.
He never would practice law, but he would become a passionate and inspiring teacher according to many.
He's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twelve times.
And they sat him down for dinner next to 'Viewminder' a street photographer... who was only nominated for the Peace Prize once... by himself.
Crowned 'The Socrates of Chicago' George has written more books than some of the people I know have read...
"He has written books and articles analyzing the influence of Greek literature on American politics, on the Thinker as Artist, and the Artist as Thinker, on the O. J. Simpson trial, on lights at Wrigley Field, on McCarthyism, on hate speech, on lawyers, on judges, on the Bible, on ethics, on Abraham Lincoln, on the remodeling of Soldier field, and I have only touched the surface of his eclecticism. ~ 'George Anastaplo' by Abner Mikva
George Anastaplo I admire you.
You saw something that was wrong and you refused to be a part of it...
Even if that meant it would create difficulty in your life and in your pursuit of the career that you studied so long and hard for.
You stood true to your convictions.
You stood up for what you believe in.
You never backed down.
You're an inspiring man and a patriot George Anastaplo.
They outta give out a prize for that.
Faces on the street
Chicago 7.9.11
35mm 1.8 SOOC with a ping of contrast
7.20.11
BOCCI
"Have you got *any idea who's winning??"
--
The Maltese game of boules bocci is played on a very smooth surface that is covered with coarse-grained sand. The jack has the size of a marble and the boules are of composition and they look like billiard-balls. One team plays with red boules, the other one with blue (or green).
Each team has three players. The lancer has to deliver the jack and to point the coloured boules. The two other players don't point; they only have to shoot well-placed boules by means of wooden cylinders that have the shape of a preserving can of about one litre. These cylinders have the same colours as the boules of the same team. Each lancer has three boules to play and each shooter two cylinders. Only boules will count for the score.
The players have to deliver their boules or cylinders from a metal V that points out into the direction of the jack. While throwing a boule or a cylinder, at least the toe of a foot has to stay in the metal V. The other foot is stretched as far as possible into the direction of the jack. The jack is thrown out between 6 and 10 m. Although the game is played up to 21 points, it can also be agreed by the players before play starts. Source
Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833 - 1870.
This great poet, recognised as one of Australia’s greatest, was born in the Azores to English parents in 1833. But by the time he was twenty his father was exasperated with Adam’s hedonistic lifestyle which was frowned upon in Victorian England. Adam Gordon senior secured a position for young Adam with the SA government and Adan Lindsay Gordon arrived at Port Adelaide in 1853. Adam was tall, handsome, moody, and reckless but an excellent horseman and rider. He was appointed as a police trooper at Penola for two years and then from 1855 he broke horses around the Mt Gambier district with some financial backing from this father. In 1857 Adam met Father Tenison Woods and began reading poetry with him. When his mother died in 1859 he received a legacy of £7,000 which he received in 1861. Although profligate with his money he was comfortable with his winnings from steeple chases and horse breaking of thoroughbreds. In 1862 he married Margaret Park a girl of 17 years who was also an excellent horsewoman. So in 1864 he bought Dingley Dell cottage for their home. The cottage was located at Port MacDonnell where he had lived and when the ship the Admella sank at Cape Northumberland in 1859 with the loss of 89 lives Adam was deeply affected by it. In 1869 he wrote a poem about it entitled the Ride from the Wreck. Around 1864 Adam speculated with land investments that failed and this seemed to increase his reckless horse riding exploits. His famous leap over the edge of the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier occurred in July 1864. The monument to this daring feat was erected on that spot in 1887. In January 1865 he was elected to the SA parliament whilst he kept publishing poems and some stories. He became a good friend of John Riddoch of Yallum Park near Penola once he attended parliament. His time in parliament provoked him into more poetry publishing, horse riding and racing and land speculation in Western Australia as well as South Australia. In 1867 he moved to a residence in Mt Gambier for a short time. He published several poems that year and then moved to Ballarat. He rented Craig’s hotel livery stables but his idealism and lack of business acumen soon delivered financial failure. His pretty little Ballarat Cottage is now located in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens. He left Ballarat at the end of 1868 and moved to Melbourne. He continued racing horses and in 1870 had a serious fall whilst racing at Flemington race course. He never fully recovered but managed to publish two works in mid-1870 Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes. When he got the account for publishing the two books he realised he had insufficient money to pay the publishers and he took his own life in June 1870. Although the newspapers speculated he was an alcoholic his friends were all adamant that he seldom drank but he was subject to depression and melancholy. He was buried in the Brighton cemetery in Melbourne and his friends erected a monument on his grave in October 1870. Sadly his prowess as a poet was mainly recognised after his death. In 1932 a statue of him was erected near Parliament House in Melbourne. In 1934 a bust of Adam Lindsay Gordon was placed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey the Australian poet to have such recognition. British composer Edward Elgar set several of Adam’s poem to music, Queen Elizabeth II quoted lines from one of his poems in her 1992 Christmas broadcast and Australian Post released a stamp honouring Adam Lindsay Gordon in 1970. In 2014 he was inducted into the Australia Jumps Racing Association Gallery of Champions. On his statue in Melbourne are four of his lines:
Life is mainly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone —
Kindness in another's trouble.
Courage in your own.
Below are some lines from the Ride from the Wreck (of the Admella.)
Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm’d on the reef,
And many on board still, and some wash’d on shore.
Ride straight with the news—they may send some relief
From the township; and we—we can do little more.
You, Alec, you know the near cuts; you can cross
"The Sugarloaf" ford with a scramble, I think;
Don’t spare the blood filly, nor yet the black horse;
Should the wind rise, God help them! the ship will soon sink.
Old Peter’s away down the paddock, to drive
The nags to the stockyard as fast as he can—
A life and death matter; so, lads, look alive.’
maybe 1992
there are nine people in this picture and they were legends all
I am still in touch with four of them
This famous cofee house has been around since the 1940s. In 1958, the Indian Coffee Workers' Co-operative Society took it over from the Coffee Board. The Society still runs the place, a musty shadow of its glorious years. This year, a renovated Coffee House, threw open its doors to a brew of nostalgia.
Untill then, ravages of age marked its high ceiling, mildewed walls and wooden tables. Elderly turbaned waiters in dull white uniform and green cummerbund seemed remembrances of things past.
Patrons of the Coffee House reads like a list of the who's who from the world of art, culture and intelligentsia. The patrons could choose to sit in the House of Lords, the upper floor or the House of Commons, the floor beneath. It was christened Coffee House by the central government in 1947.
Later, the crème of Calcutta's intellectual landscape, Satyajit Ray, Amartya Sen, Utpal Dutt, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, Aparna Sen - all were regulars at the Coffee House as were firebrand Naxalite leaders in the 1960s and '70s. It was a hotbed of politics, its walls plastered with revolutionary posters and slogans pledging to bring in the revolution and change the world.
A young Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, when he was in Presidency College, and other budding Marxists frequented the place. As West Bengal CM, he has not visited this old haunt.
When poet Allen Ginsberg came to Calcutta in the summer of '62, he spent hours at the Coffee House discussing poetry with author Sunil Gangopadhyay, poet Shakti Chattopadhyay. But author Gunter Grass, reportedly, missed it. The old signs were missing.
It was a common sight to see Manna Dey break into a song while trying to compose the lines of a new number. At another table, actor Soumitra Chattopadhyay and Nirmalya Acharya would be engrossed in discussions for launching a new magazine - Ekkhon.
While in Calcutta, film director James Ivory wanted to meet Satyajit Ray. Ivory recounted to author, Amitav Ghosh, "While I was in Calcutta I just decided to call him. Just to meet him, but also to ask if it would be possible to see Jalsaghar... He was in the phone book, so I just called him up and told him who I was. He said fine, he would try and arrange Jalsaghar for me. We agreed to meet in a coffee house and I went there. He was alone and we talked."
Manna Dey's eponymous song - Coffee Houser shei addata aaj aar nei, aaj aar nei/ Kothay hariye gelo shonali bikel gulo shei (Those addas of Coffee House are no longer there/ Those golden evenings are lost) - rings more true than ever.
Much has changed. The brew of high brow intellectualism, aesthetic thresholds crossed, fire of young revolutionaries on a mission to change the world, a rainbow of idealism, dreams of the youth, living bohemian fantasies, easy familiarity with the famous, simplicity of celebrity, have all faded away.
Yet, there is still something about the place that captivates. It offers the comfort of continuum. And, more importantly, it still doesn't burn a hole in your pocket like the new-fangled 'bourgeois' coffee joints. The menu still remains the same with a later addition of 'Chinese' (just like the coloured plastic chairs which stick out like sore thumbs) - a rare sign of changing times here.
Venue Calcutta Coffee House, Collage Street, Kolkata ( Calcutta ), West Bengal, India
Date : 11-10-2010
Time : Morning
Camera : Canon 450D
Lens : Canon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 IS
Shooting Mode : Aperture Priority
Shutter Speed : 1/25
Aperture Value : 7.1
ISO : 1600
Focal Length : 18.0 mm
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Do not use this image without my permission.
You can mail me on sukanta.maikap@yahoo.com for further details.
Definition
absolutism doctrine of government by a single absolute ruler; autocracy
absurdism doctrine that we live in an irrational universe
academicism doctrine that nothing can be known
accidentalism theory that events do not have causes
acosmism disbelief in existence of eternal universe distinct from God
adamitism nakedness for religious reasons
adevism denial of gods of mythology and legend
adiaphorism doctrine of theological indifference or latitudinarianism
adoptionism belief that Christ was the adopted and not natural son of God
aestheticism doctrine that beauty is central to other moral principles
agapism ethics of love
agathism belief in ultimate triumph of good despite evil means
agnosticism doctrine that we can know nothing beyond material phenomena
anarchism doctrine that all governments should be abolished
animism attribution of soul to inanimate objects
annihilationism doctrine that the wicked are utterly destroyed after death
anthropomorphism attribution of human qualities to non-human things
anthropotheism belief that gods are only deified men
antidisestablishmentarianism doctrine opposed to removing Church of England's official religion status
antilapsarianism denial of doctrine of the fall of humanity
antinomianism doctrine of the rejection of moral law
antipedobaptism denial of validity of infant baptism
apocalypticism doctrine of the imminent end of the world
asceticism doctrine that self-denial of the body permits spiritual enlightenment
aspheterism denial of the right to private property
atheism belief that there is no God
atomism belief that the universe consists of small indivisible particles
autosoterism belief that one can obtain salvation through oneself
autotheism belief that one is God incarnate or that one is Christ
bitheism belief in two gods
bonism the doctrine that the world is good but not perfect
bullionism belief in the importance of metallic currency in economics
capitalism doctrine that private ownership and free markets should govern economies
casualism the belief that chance governs all things
catabaptism belief in the wrongness of infant baptism
catastrophism belief in rapid geological and biological change
collectivism doctrine of communal control of means of production
collegialism theory that church is independent from the state
conceptualism theory that universal truths exist as mental concepts
conservatism belief in maintaining political and social traditions
constructivism belief that knowledge and reality do not have an objective value
cosmism belief that the cosmos is a self-existing whole
cosmotheism the belief that identifies God with the cosmos
deism belief in God but rejection of religion
determinism doctrine that events are predetermined by preceding events or laws
diphysitism belief in the dual nature of Christ
ditheism belief in two equal gods, one good and one evil
ditheletism doctrine that Christ had two wills
dualism doctrine that the universe is controlled by one good and one evil force
egalitarianism belief that humans ought to be equal in rights and privileges
egoism doctrine that the pursuit of self-interest is the highest good
egotheism identification of oneself with God
eidolism belief in ghosts
emotivism theory that moral statements are inherently biased
empiricism doctrine that the experience of the senses is the only source of knowledge
entryism doctrine of joining a group to change its policies
epiphenomenalism doctrine that mental processes are epiphenomena of brain activity
eternalism the belief that matter has existed eternally
eudaemonism ethical belief that happiness equals morality
euhemerism explanation of mythology as growing out of history
existentialism doctrine of individual human responsibility in an unfathomable universe
experientialism doctrine that knowledge comes from experience
fallibilism the doctrine that empirical knowledge is uncertain
fatalism doctrine that events are fixed and humans are powerless
fideism doctrine that knowledge depends on faith over reason
finalism belief that an end has or can be reached
fortuitism belief in evolution by chance variation
functionalism doctrine emphasising utility and function
geocentrism belief that Earth is the centre of the universe
gnosticism belief that freedom derives solely from knowledge
gradualism belief that things proceed by degrees
gymnobiblism belief that the Bible can be presented to unlearned without commentary
hedonism belief that pleasure is the highest good
henism doctrine that there is only one kind of existence
henotheism belief in one tribal god, but not as the only god
historicism belief that all phenomena are historically determined
holism doctrine that parts of any thing must be understood in relation to the whole
holobaptism belief in baptism with total immersion in water
humanism belief that human interests and mind are paramount
humanitarianism doctrine that the highest moral obligation is to improve human welfare
hylicism materialism
hylomorphism belief that matter is cause of the universe
hylopathism belief in ability of matter to affect the spiritual world
hylotheism belief that the universe is purely material
hylozoism doctrine that all matter is endowed with life
idealism belief that our experiences of the world consist of ideas
identism doctrine that objective and subjective, or matter and mind, are identical
ignorantism doctrine that ignorance is a favourable thing
illuminism belief in an inward spiritual light
illusionism belief that the external world is philosophy
imagism doctrine of use of precise images with unrestricted subject
immanentism belief in an immanent or permanent god
immaterialism the doctrine that there is no material substance
immoralism rejection of morality
indifferentism the belief that all religions are equally valid
individualism belief that individual interests and rights are paramount
instrumentalism doctrine that ideas are instruments of action
intellectualism belief that all knowledge is derived from reason
interactionism belief that mind and body act on each other
introspectionism doctrine that knowledge of mind must derive from introspection
intuitionism belief that the perception of truth is by intuition
irreligionism system of belief that is hostile to religions
kathenotheism polytheism in which each god is considered single and supreme
kenotism doctrine that Christ rid himself of divinity in becoming human
laicism doctrine of opposition to clergy and priests
latitudinarianism doctrine of broad liberality in religious belief and conduct
laxism belief that an unlikely opinion may be safely followed
legalism belief that salvation depends on strict adherence to the law
liberalism doctrine of social change and tolerance
libertarianism doctrine that personal liberty is the highest value
malism the belief that the world is evil
materialism belief that matter is the only extant substance
mechanism belief that life is explainable by mechanical forces
meliorism the belief the world tends to become better
mentalism belief that the world can be explained as aspect of the mind
messianism belief in a single messiah or saviour
millenarianism belief that an ideal society will be produced in the near future
modalism belief in unity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit
monadism theory that there exist ultimate units of being
monergism theory that the Holy Spirit alone can act
monism belief that all things can be placed in one category
monophysitism belief that Christ was primarily divine but in human form
monopsychism belief that individuals have a single eternal soul
monotheism belief in only one God
monotheletism belief that Christ had only one will
mortalism belief that the soul is mortal
mutualism belief in mutual dependence of society and the individual
nativism belief that the mind possesses inborn thoughts
naturalism belief that the world can be explained in terms of natural forces
necessarianism theory that actions are determined by prior history; fatalism
neonomianism theory that the gospel abrogates earlier moral codes
neovitalism theory that total material explanation is impossible
nihilism denial of all reality; extreme scepticism
nominalism doctrine that naming of things defines reality
nomism view that moral conduct consists in observance of laws
noumenalism belief in existence of noumena
nullibilism denial that the soul exists in space
numenism belief in local deities or spirits
objectivism doctrine that all reality is objective
omnism belief in all religions
optimism doctrine that we live in the best of all possible worlds
organicism conception of life or society as an organism
paedobaptism doctrine of infant baptism
panaesthetism theory that consciousness may inhere generally in matter
pancosmism theory that the material universe is all that exists
panegoism solipsism
panentheism belief that world is part but not all of God’s being
panpsychism theory that all nature has a psychic side
pansexualism theory that all thought derived from sexual instinct
panspermatism belief in origin of life from extraterrestrial germs
pantheism belief that the universe is God; belief in many gods
panzoism belief that humans and animals share vital life energy
parallelism belief that matter and mind don’t interact but relate
pejorism severe pessimism
perfectibilism doctrine that humans capable of becoming perfect
perfectionism doctrine that moral perfection constitutes the highest value
personalism doctrine that humans possess spiritual freedom
pessimism doctrine that the universe is essentially evil
phenomenalism belief that phenomena are the only realities
physicalism belief that all phenomena reducible to verifiable assertions
physitheism attribution of physical form and attributes to deities
pluralism belief that reality consists of several kinds or entities
polytheism belief in multiple deities
positivism doctrine that that which is not observable is not knowable
pragmatism doctrine emphasizing practical value of philosophy
predestinarianism belief that what ever is to happen is already fixed
prescriptivism belief that moral edicts are merely orders with no truth value
primitivism doctrine that a simple and natural life is morally best
privatism attitude of avoiding involvement in outside interests
probabiliorism belief that when in doubt one must choose most likely answer
probabilism belief that knowledge is always probable but never absolute
psilanthropism denial of Christ's divinity
psychism belief in universal soul
psychomorphism doctrine that inanimate objects have human mentality
psychopannychism belief souls sleep from death to resurrection
psychotheism doctrine that God is a purely spiritual entity
pyrrhonism total or radical skepticism
quietism doctrine of enlightenment through mental tranquility
racism belief that race is the primary determinant of human capacities
rationalism belief that reason is the fundamental source of knowledge
realism doctrine that objects of cognition are real
reductionism belief that complex phenomena are reducible to simple ones
regalism doctrine of the monarch's supremacy in church affairs
representationalism doctrine that ideas rather than external objects are basis of knowledge
republicanism belief that a republic is the best form of government
resistentialism humorous theory that inanimate objects display malice towards humans
romanticism belief in sentimental feeling in artistic expression
sacerdotalism belief that priests are necessary mediators between God and mankind
sacramentarianism belief that sacraments have unusual properties
scientism belief that the methods of science are universally applicable
self-determinism doctrine that the actions of a self are determined by itself
sensationalism belief that ideas originate solely in sensation
siderism belief that the stars influence human affairs
skepticism doctrine that true knowledge is always uncertain
socialism doctrine of centralized state control of wealth and property
solarism excessive use of solar myths in explaining mythology
solifidianism doctrine that faith alone will ensure salvation
solipsism theory that self-existence is the only certainty
somatism materialism
spatialism doctrine that matter has only spatial, temporal and causal properties
spiritualism belief that nothing is real except the soul or spirit
stercoranism belief that the consecrated Eucharist is digested and evacuated
stoicism belief in indifference to pleasure or pain
subjectivism doctrine that all knowledge is subjective
substantialism belief that there is a real existence underlying phenomena
syndicalism doctrine of direct worker control of capital
synergism belief that human will and divine spirit cooperate in salvation
terminism doctrine that there is a time limit for repentance
thanatism belief that the soul dies with the body
theism belief in the existence of God without special revelation
theocentrism belief that God is central fact of existence
theopantism belief that God is the only reality
theopsychism belief that the soul is of a divine nature
thnetopsychism belief that the soul dies with the body, to be reborn on day of judgement
titanism spirit of revolt or defiance against social conventions
tolerationism doctrine of toleration of religious differences
totemism belief that a group has a special kinship with an object or animal
transcendentalism theory that emphasizes that which transcends perception
transmigrationism belief that soul passes into other body at death
trialism doctrine that humans have three separate essences (body, soul, spirit)
tritheism belief that the members of the Trinity are separate gods
triumphalism belief in the superiority of one particular religious creed
tuism theory that individuals have a second or other self
tutiorism doctrine that one should take the safer moral course
tychism theory that accepts role of pure chance
ubiquitarianism belief that Christ is everywhere
undulationism theory that light consists of waves
universalism belief in universal salvation
utilitarianism belief that utility of actions determines moral value
vitalism the doctrine that there is a vital force behind life
voluntarism belief that the will dominates the intellect
zoism doctrine that life originates from a single vital principle
zoomorphism conception of a god or man in animal form
Vincent van Gogh - "La Nuit Etoilee" 1888
From the moment of his arrival in Arles, on 8 February 1888, Van Gogh was constantly preoccupied with the representation of "night effects". In April 1888, he wrote to his brother Theo: "I need a starry night with cypresses or maybe above a field of ripe wheat." In June, he confided to the painter Emile Bernard: "But when shall I ever paint the Starry Sky, this painting that keeps haunting me" and, in September, in a letter to his sister, he evoked the same subject: "Often it seems to me night is even more richly coloured than day". During the same month of September, he finally realised his obsessive project.
He first painted a corner of nocturnal sky in Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles (Otterlo, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Muller). Next came this view of the Rhône in which he marvellously transcribed the colours he perceived in the dark. Blues prevail: Prussian blue, ultramarine and cobalt. The city gas lights glimmer an intense orange and are reflected in the water. The stars sparkle like gemstones.
A few months later, just after being confined to a mental institution, Van Gogh painted another version of the same subject: Starry Night (New York, MoMA), in which the violence of his troubled psyche is fully expressed. Trees are shaped like flames while the sky and stars whirl in a cosmic vision. The Musée d'Orsay’s Starry Night is more serene, an atmosphere reinforced by the presence of a couple of lovers at the bottom of the canvas.
_______________________________________________
From Au-dela des Etoiles - Le Paysage Mystique de Monet a Kandinsky
"Seeking an order beyond physical appearances, going beyond physical realities to come closer to the mysteries of existence, experimenting with the suppression of the self in an indissoluble union with the cosmos… It was the mystical experience above all else that inspired the Symbolist artists of the late 19th century who, reacting against the cult of science and naturalism, chose to evoke emotion and mystery. The landscape, therefore, seemed to these artists to offer the best setting for their quest, the perfect place for contemplation and the expression of inner feelings.
Thus the exhibition, organised in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, explores the genre of landscape principally through the works of Paul Gauguin, Maurice Denis, Ferdinand Hodler and Vincent Van Gogh, but also presents North American painters such as Giorgia O'Keeffe and Emily Carr, who are less well known in France. Contemplation, the ordeal of the night or of war, the fusion of the individual with the cosmos, and the experience of the transcendental forces of nature, are stages in a mystical journey the exhibition invites you to take."
Landscape received scant mention in Symbolist circles although the Impressionists had embraced it as a subject and invented a new style of painting focusing on the tangible world.
However, some artists chose to address their spiritual inquiries by depicting landscapes.
Against the backdrop of the rise of Positivism, which prioritised scientific experimentation, and in a world experiencing significant change, artists were pervaded by a form of idealism and began to question their own origins, religious culture and the relationship between man and nature. Nature became the locus for soul-searching, culminating in mystical experiences.
Mysticism was widespread in the late 19th century and this phenomenon is a feature of all religions and beliefs, offering a means of accessing the mysteries of existence through oneness with nature. This exhibition aims to analyse how mysticism influenced landscape painting at the dawn of the 20th century, paving the way for the birth of abstraction.
The sections of the exhibition reveal works by artists from diverse cultures who are exploring the transcendence and immanence of nature. The first section, which is underpinned by Monet’s aesthetic experiments, introduces visitors to the work of art as an aid to contemplation.
However, many artists use the motif of the landscape as a starting point to express their aspiration to mystical experience, including the Nabis, who found the theme of the sacred wood conducive to meditation. The second section explores the notion of the divine in nature in greater depth through works belonging to the Synthesist, Symbolist and Divisionist movements. Their iconography draws on Christian and Pantheist tropes.
In the third section, vivid and original paintings by Canadian artists from the period 1910-1930 tell the story of the North in pictures influenced by the natural world of Scandinavia. Landscape also reflects actual or internalised night in the fourth section, which is luminous in the case of Van Gogh, or melancholic and tragic when evil makes its presence felt.
By contrast, the mystical painter Dulac paves the way for the universal. The final section addresses the forces which transcend man and draw him to the realm of the stars: the cosmos and its interstellar light. This visit aims to reflect what Kandinsky describes as “those seeking for the internal in the external”.
www.musee-orsay.fr/en/events/exhibitions/in-the-musee-dor...
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Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco, CA: Well known as a defender of conservative academic values in 19th-century art, Bouguereau rose to prominence in the 1850s. An influential teacher at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, his work displays the idealism and decorative quality typical of paintings shown at the official Salon. Influenced by Italian Renaissance masters during his stay in Italy, he became a superb draftsman who produced works with a smooth and refined surface finish that contrasts sharply with the naturalism of his Barbizon and Impressionist contemporaries.
Peasant imagery, particularly young and pretty peasant girls, obsessed 19th-century artists. However, The Broken Pitcher is based on a famous 19th-century composition of the same title by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. The sexual symbolism of the broken pitcher is made more explicit by the girl's plaintive expression. Bouguereau's sentimentality softens the harsh realities of peasant life, portrayed more brutally and honestly by Gustave Courbet and Jean-Francois Millet.
حتى أنت ؟؟
سيكلي العزيز ..
لم تسلم من عبث تلك الحثالة ..
تلك العصبة ..
هؤلاء من يسعون خلف دحر التمدن ..
وفرض الهمجية ..
هؤلاء من يبحثون عن انفسهم بين خراب ذاتهم ..
ابق هنا يا إطار سيكلي العزيز ..
ابق هنا ..
لتخبر العالم كم ان هناك من حقراء ..
لم يأخذوك حتى متكاملا ..
فالوقت لم يسعفهم لأخذ اطارك الثقيل ..
اذهبوا الى الجحيم ياأعداء الحظارة ..
وأعداء الانسانية ..
o_0
أيمن تركستاني
===============
تم التقاط هذه الصورة من داخل الحرم الجامعي لجامعة اوكلاند بنيوزيلاند ..
لكل من يتهم شعوبنا بأنهم أقل من أقرانهم في الغرب ..
لكل من يدعي مثالية هؤلاء الهمجيون حتى في تجاوزاتهم ..
اليكم القليل من الحقائق ..
وما خفي كان أعظم ..
This picture was taken from inside the campus of the University of Auckland, New Zealand ..
To those who accuse our people to be less than their peers in the West ..
To those who claim the idealism of the savages people in the West even in their excesses ..
Here a few facts ..
The worst was the greatest ..
اسألني هنا
Ask me here
"We began this train trip in Philadelphia earlier today. It is fitting that we did so - because it was there that our American journey began. It was there that a group of farmers and lawyers, merchants and soldiers, gathered to declare their independence and lay claim to a destiny that they were being denied.
"It was a risky thing, meeting as they did in that summer of 1776. There was no guarantee that their fragile experiment would find success. More than once in those early years did the odds seem insurmountable. More than once did the fishermen, laborers, and craftsmen who called themselves an army face the prospect of defeat.
"And yet, they were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line - their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor - for a set of ideals that continue to light the world. That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by, and for the people can endure. It was these ideals that led us to declare independence, and craft our constitution, producing documents that were imperfect but had within them, like our nation itself, the capacity to be made more perfect.
"A few decades after the framers met in Philadelphia, our new union faced its first true test. The White House was in flames, and the British were advancing on Baltimore. That's when the fate of our nation fell to the troops at Fort McHenry. They were a varied lot, these troops: sailors, militiamen, and even a runaway slave. But on one long and rainy night, they beat back the greatest navy that the world had ever known. And when that night was over, they raised a flag in triumph, inspiring an onlooker to compose a poem that became the Star-Spangled Banner.
"We are here today not simply to pay tribute to those patriots who founded our nation in Philadelphia or defended it in Baltimore, but to take up the cause for which they gave so much. The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right. Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast. An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil.
"And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that those first patriots displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives - from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry - an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.
"That is the reason I launched my campaign for the presidency nearly two years ago. I did so in the belief that the most fundamental American ideal, that a better life is in store for all those willing to work for it, was slipping out of reach. That Washington was serving the interests of the few, not the many. And that our politics had grown too small for the scale of the challenges we faced.
"But I also believed something else. I believed that our future is our choice, and that if we could just recognize ourselves in one another and bring everyone together - Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, north, south, east and west, black, white, Latino, Asian, and Native American, gay and straight, disabled and not - then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.
"This is what I believed, but you made this belief real. You proved once more that people who love this country can change it. And as I prepare to leave for Washington on a trip that you made possible, know that I will not be traveling alone. I will be taking with me some of the men and women I met along the way, Americans from every corner of this country, whose hopes and heartaches were the core of our cause; whose dreams and struggles have become my own.
"Theirs are the voices I will carry with me every day in the White House. Theirs are the stories I will be thinking of when we deliver the changes you elected me to make. When we are seeing new jobs created that pay more to those who work them, I will be thinking of people like Kevin and Kirsten Meehan, who can't afford to turn on the heat or pay rent, and are tapping into Kevin's 401k to help support their two young children.
"When our children are graduating from newer, better schools that prepare them to be good citizens and sought-after workers, I will be thinking of middle school teachers like Rosa Mendoza, who is giving her students the chance to fulfill their God-given potential.
"When quality health care is no longer something we hope for, but something we can count on, I will be thinking of people like Patricia Stiles, who was diagnosed with a serious illness just as her husband lost his pension and her kids' tuitions were coming due.
"These are the stories that will drive me in the days ahead. They are different stories, told by men and women whose journeys may seem separate. And yet, what you showed me time and again is that no matter who we are or what we look like, no matter where we come from or what faith we practice, we are a people of common hopes and common dreams, who ask only for what was promised us as Americans - that we might make of our lives what we will and see our children climb higher than we did.
"We recognize that such enormous challenges will not be solved quickly. There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency.
"But we should never forget that we are the heirs of those early patriots, ordinary men and women who refused to give up when it all seemed so improbable; and who somehow believed that they had the power to make the world anew. That is the spirit that we must reclaim today.
"For the American Revolution did not end when British guns fell silent. It was never something to be won only on a battlefield or fulfilled only in our founding documents. It was not simply a struggle to break free from empire and declare independence. The American Revolution was - and remains - an ongoing struggle "in the minds and hearts of the people" to live up to our founding creed.
"Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union.
"Let's build a government that is responsible to the people, and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable.
"Let's all of us do our part to rebuild this country.
"Let's make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning.
"Join me in this effort. Join one another in this effort. And together, mindful of our proud history, hopeful for the future, let's seek a better world in our time. Thank you."
Title: The title stems from the ignorance many people have with Baltimore. Often, including here on Flickr, People will take a picture out the amtrak and call it "Baltimore" As though the entire city looks like East Baltimore, when clearly that is completely ignorant. In reality there are really on two large pockets of this sort of thing. This is NOT Baltimore. This is Berea , East Baltimore
Cultural Learnings of America: The Democratic Party Caucus.
This choosing a candidate business turns out to be event more complicated than I expected. Washington State's Democrats choose their delegates by 'caucus': a party-organised system of getting people together to argue about the candidates then go and stand around in groups with their like-minded supporters. A little bit like picking teams in football at school and a perfect chance to add that all-important element of peer pressure to the democratic process.
There's also a State-run election (Primary) later in the year, but the Democrats in Washington seem to ignore that. I'm sure there are good reasons for this.
In a classic example of the piss-up/brewery scenario, the caucus for our part of the city was arranged so that the entire neighbourhood had to congregate in one small room. I've never seen people literally queue all the way round a city block before. I have to admire their commitment.
It eventually became apparent that you can't fit a whole neighbourhood in a small room, so different districts were painstakingly coaxed across to the adjacent park. Apparently there were no grown ups involved in the process, so this took some time, with no one having any clear idea of what was supposed to happen next.
After an hour of hanging around, a nice man with a sign decided to take matters into his own hands and learn how to conduct the process himself. Finally I'd get to see some caucusing.
Well-meaning people from the Hillary and Bernie camps volunteered to make finely nuanced cases about issues nobody else understood, or ranted generally about issues that they didn't appear to understand (but felt very strongly about).
Still, some woman got to make reference to Benghazi, once someone had reminded her what it was called.
At the end of all this, I was told there's no apparent connection between how many people turn up in each district and how many delegates they end up representing, so just across town half-empty rooms of people got to play a much bigger role in deciding between the forces of idealism and pragmatism (or, to my eyes, realism).
American democracy is stranger than I'd realised.
Nicolau Maquiavel
Um texto, em português, do site da Wikipédia, a Enciclopédia livre:
Nicolau Maquiavel, em italiano Niccolò Machiavelli, (Florença, 3 de Maio de 1469 — Florença, 21 de Junho de 1527) foi um historiador, poeta, diplomata e músico italiano do Renascimento. É reconhecido como fundador do pensamento e da ciência política moderna, pela simples manobra de escrever sobre o Estado e o governo como realmente são e não como deveriam ser. Os recentes estudos do autor e da sua obra admitem que seu pensamento foi mal interpretado historicamente. Desde as primeiras críticas, feitas postumamente por um cardeal inglês, as opiniões, muitas vezes contraditórias, acumularam-se, de forma que o adjectivo maquiavélico, criado a partir do seu nome, significa esperteza, astúcia.
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli viveu a juventude sob o esplendor político de Florença durante o governo de Lourenço de Médici e entrou para a política aos 29 anos de idade no cargo de Secretário da Segunda Chancelaria. Nesse cargo, Maquiavel observou o comportamento de grandes nomes da época e a partir dessa experiência retirou alguns postulados para sua obra. Depois de servir em Florença durante catorze anos foi afastado e escreveu suas principais obras. Conseguiu também algumas missões de pequena importância, mas jamais voltou ao seu antigo posto como desejava.
Como renascentista, Maquiavel se utiliza de autores e conceitos da Antiguidade Clássica de maneira nova. Um dos principais autores foi Tito Lívio, além de outros lidos através de traduções latinas, e entre os conceitos apropriados por ele, encontram-se o de virtù e o de fortuna.
Durante o Renascimento, as cinco principais potências na península Itálica eram: o Ducado de Milão, a República de Veneza, a República de Florença, o Reino de Nápoles e os Estados Pontifícios. A maior parte dos Estados da península era ilegítima, tomados por mercenários chamados "condotiere".
Eram incapazes de se aliar durante muito tempo estando entregues à intriga diplomática e às disputas, e, por suas riquezas, eram atrativos para as demais potências européias do período, principalmente Espanha e França. A política italiana era, portanto, muito complexa e os interesses políticos estavam sempre divididos. Batalhando entre si, ficavam a mercê das ambições estrangeiras, mas a influência de alguém como Lourenço de Médici havia impedido uma invasão. Com a morte deste em 1492, e a inaptidão política de seu filho, a Itália foi invadida por Carlos VIII, causando a expulsão dos Médici de Florença.
Esta era em si palco do conflito entre duas tendências: a da exaltação pagã do indivíduo, da vida e da glória histórica, representada por Lourenço de Médici e seu irmão Juliano de Médici; e a da contemplação cristã do mundo, voltada para o além, que se formava como resposta ao ressurgimento da primeira nos mais variados aspectos da vida como a arte e até na Igreja, representada por religiosos como Girolamo Savonarola.
Anunciando a chegada de Carlos VIII como a de um salvador, contrário aos Médici e com grande apoio popular, o pregador Girolamo Savonarola tornou-se a figura mais importante da cidade dando ao governo um viés teocrático-democrático. Com sua crescente autoridade e influência Savonarola passou a criticar os padres de Roma como corruptos e o Papa Alexandre VI por seu nepotismo e imoralidade. O Papa excomungou o frei, mas a excomunhão foi declarada inválida por ele. No entanto, Savonarola acabou preso e executado pelo governo provisório em 23 de maio de 1498. Com a demissão de seus simpatizantes era nomeado para o cargo de secretário da Segunda Chancelaria de Florença, cinco dias depois da morte do frei, Maquiavel, com 29 anos.
Pouco se conhece da biografia de Maquiavel antes de entrar para a vida pública. Ele era o terceiro de quatro filhos de Bernardo e Bartolomea de' Nelli. Sua família era Toscana, antiga e empobrecida. Iniciou seus estudos de latim com sete anos e, posteriormente, estudou também o ábaco, bem como os fundamentos da língua grega antiga. Comparada com a de outros humanistas sua educação foi fraca, principalmente por causa dos poucos recursos da família.
Não se sabe ao certo o que teria levado à escolha de Maquiavel para a Chancelaria em 19 de Junho de 1498. Alguns autores afirmam que ele teria trabalhado aí como auxiliar em 1494 ou 1495, hipótese contestada atualmente. Outros preferem atribuir a sua entrada à escolha de um antigo professor seu, Marcelo Virgilio Adriani, o qual ele teria conhecido em aulas na Universidade Pública de Florença e naquele momento era Secretário da Primeira Chancelaria.
A principal instituição de Florença nesse período era a Senhoria com diversos órgãos auxiliares como as duas Chancelarias. A Primeira Chancelaria era responsável pela política externa e pela correspondência com o exterior. A Segunda ocupava-se com as guerras e a política interna. No entanto, essas funções muitas vezes se sobrepunham e a autoridade da Primeira Chancelaria prevalecia sobre a da Segunda. Entre as funções exercidas por Maquiavel estavam tarefas burocráticas e de assessoria política, de diplomacia e de comando no Conselho dos Dez, um outro órgão auxiliar da Senhoria.[...] 1512 Maquiavel foi demitido acusado de ser um dos responsáveis por uma política anti-Médici e grande colaborador do governo anterior. Foi multado em mil florins de ouro e proibido de se retirar da Toscana durante um ano.
Para piorar sua situação, no ano seguinte dois jovens, Agostino Capponi e Pietropolo Boscoli, foram presos e acusados de conspirarem contra o governo. Um deles deixou cair, sem querer, uma lista de possíveis adeptos do movimento republicano, entre os quais estava o de Maquiavel que foi preso e torturado.[12] Para sua sorte, com a morte de Júlio II em 21 de fevereiro de 1513 e a eleição de João de Médici, um florentino, como Leão X, todos os suspeitos de conspiração foram anistiados como sinal de regozijo e com eles Maquiavel, depois de passar 22 dias na prisão.
Libertado, seguiu para uma propriedade em Sant'Andrea in Percussina distante sete quilômetros de San Casciano. Foi durante esse ostracismo e inatividade, o qual duraria até sua morte, que ele escreveu suas obras mais conhecidas: "O Príncipe" e os "Discursos sobre a primeira década de Tito Lívio" (1512-1517). Foi também nesse período que conheceu vários escritores no Jardim Rucellai, círculo de literatos, e se aproxima de Francesco Guicciardini apesar de já conhecê-lo há tempos. Entre os escritos desse período estão o poema Asino d'oro (1517), a peça A Mandrágora (1518), considerada uma obra prima da comédia italiana,[13] e Novella di Belfagor (romance, 1515), além de inúmeros tratados histórico-político, poemas e sua correspondência particular (organizada pelos descendentes) como Dialogo intorno alla nostra lingua (1514), Andria (1517), Discorso sopra il riformare lo stato di Firenze (1520), Sommario delle cose della citta di Lucca (1520), Discorso delle cose florentine dopo la morte di Lorenzo (1520), Clizia, comédia em prosa (1525), Frammenti storici (1525) e outros poemas como Sonetti, Canzoni, Ottave, e Canti carnascialeschi.
Com a morte de Lourenço II em 1520, Júlio de Médici assume o poder em Florença. Ele via Maquiavel com melhores olhos que seus antecessores e o contrata como historiador da República para escrever uma História de Florença, obra a qual dedicaria os sete últimos anos de sua vida. Nesse mesmo ano, ele estava ocupado escrevendo A Arte da Guerra (1519-1520). E é a partir de uma viagem a trabalho a Lucca que ele escreve a "Vita di Castruccio Castracani da Lucca" (1520).
Após a queda dos Médici em 1527 com a invasão e saque de Roma por tropas espanholas, a República instalou-se novamente na cidade, mas Maquiavel viu mais uma vez suas esperanças de voltar a servir à cidade serem desfeitas pois havia trabalhado para os Médici e foi tratado com desconfiança pela nova República. Poucos dias depois, ficou doente, sentindo dores intestinais, e morreu obscuramente sendo enterrado no túmulo da família na Igreja de Santa Croce em Florença.
Veja mais sobre Nicolau Maquiavel no endereço pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maquiavel
This sculpture was fotographed at the street in front of the Ufizzi Museum in Florence, Italy.
Niccolò Machiavelli
A text, in english, from Wikipedia the free encyclopedia:
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian diplomat, political philosopher, musician, poet and playwright. Machiavelli was a figure of the Italian Renaissance and a servant of the Florentine Republic. In June of 1498, following the ouster and execution of Girolamo Savonarola, the Great Council elected Machiavelli as the Secretary to the second Chancery of the Republic of Florence.
He is most famous for one of his shorter works, The Prince, sometimes described as a work of realist political theory. However, both that text and the more substantial republican Discourses on Livy — as well as History of Florence (commissioned by the Medici family) — were printed only after his death, all appearing in the early 1530s. In his own lifetime, while he circulated The Prince among friends, the only work Machiavelli promoted through printing was his dialogue on The Art of War. But generations from the sixteenth century onwards were most attracted and repelled by the cynical approach to power on display in The Prince, Discourses and History. Whatever Machiavelli's own intentions (and they remain a matter of heated debate), his name became synonymous with ruthless politics, deceit, and the pursuit of power by any means.
Machiavelli was born in Florence, the second son of Bernardo di Niccolò Machiavelli, a lawyer, and of Bartolommea di Stefano Nelli. His family was believed to be descendants of the old marquesses of Tuscany, and to have included 13 Florentine Gonfalonieres of Justice.
Machiavelli was born into a tumultuous era in which Popes were leading armies, and wealthy city-states of Italy would fall one after another into the hands of foreign powers — France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. It was a time of constantly shifting alliances, condottieri who changed sides without warning, and governments rising and falling in the space of weeks. Perhaps most significant during this erratic upheaval was the sack of Rome in 1527 by rampaging soldiers of the Holy Roman Empire, the first time that Rome had been sacked by a Germanic army in almost eleven centuries. Rich cities such as Florence and Genoa suffered a similar fate during these years.
Machiavelli, trained as a man with severe rigor by his father, was educated to be skilled in Latin, but had little Greek. He entered governmental service as a clerk and ambassador in 1494; that same year, Florence had restored the republic and expelled the Medici family, rulers of the city for nearly sixty years. Machiavelli was placed as a member of a Council responsible for diplomatic negotiations and military matters. Between 1499 and 1512, he undertook a number of diplomatic missions to the court of Louis XII in France, Ferdinand II of Aragón, and the Papacy in Rome. From 1502 to 1503, he was a witness to the effective statebuilding methods of the soldier/churchman Cesare Borgia, who was at that time enlarging his territories in central Italy through a mixture of audacity, prudence, self-reliance, firmness and, frequently, cruelty.
Between 1503 and 1506, Machiavelli was responsible for the Florentine militia including the defense of the city. He distrusted mercenaries (a sentiment he explained in the Discourses and in the Prince) and much preferred a citizen militia. This philosophy bore fruit when, in 1509, Florence's citizen forces defeated Pisa under Machiavelli's direction. However, in August 1512, the Medici with the help of Pope Julius II used Spanish troops to defeat the Florentine forces at Prato. The Florentine head of state, Piero Soderini, resigned and went into exile, and Florence and the republic was subsequently dissolved. Machiavelli, having played a significant role in the republic's anti-Medici government, was removed from office and in 1513 he was accused of conspiracy and arrested. Although tortured "by the rope" (a practice wherein one's hands were bound behind one's back and connected to a pulley which would lift the victim off the ground, dislocating one's shoulders), he denied his involvement and was eventually released. He retired to his estate at Sant'Andrea in Percussina near Florence and began writing the treatises that would ensure his place in the development of political philosophy and conduct.
In a famous letter to his friend Francesco Vettori, he described how he spent his days in exile:
When evening comes, I return home [from work and from the local tavern] and go to my study. On the threshold I strip naked, taking off my muddy, sweaty workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death; I pass indeed into their world.
Machiavelli himself identified a unifying theme in The Prince and the Discorsi:
All cities that ever at any time have been ruled by an absolute prince, by aristocrats or by the people, have had for their protection force combined with prudence, because the latter is not enough alone, and the first either does not produce things, or when they are produced, does not maintain them. Force and prudence, then, are the might of all the governments that ever have been or will be in the world.
Machiavelli died in San Casciano, murdered by David Gonzalez of Spain, a few miles outside of Florence, in 1527. His resting place is unknown; however a cenotaph in his honor was placed at the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. The Latin sentence on the tomb — TANTO NOMINI NULLUM PAR ELOGIUM — is translated as either 'for so great a name, no praise is adequate' or 'No elegy is equal to such a name'.
Machiavelli's best known book is The Prince, in which he describes the arts by which a Prince (a ruler), can retain control of his realm. He focuses primarily on what he calls the "new prince", under the assumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task since the people are accustomed to him. All a hereditary prince needs to do is carefully maintain the institutions that the people are used to; a new prince has a much more difficult task since he must stabilize his newfound power and build a structure that will endure. This task requires the Prince to be publicly above reproach but privately may require him to do immoral things in order to achieve his goals.
Machiavelli explains through examples which princes are the most successful in obtaining and maintaining power. He draws his examples from personal observations made while he was on diplomatic missions for Florence and from his readings in ancient history. He periodically uses Latin phrases, and many examples are drawn from Classical sources.
Machiavelli does not dispense entirely with morality. Instead he outlines his definition of, for example, the criteria for acceptable cruel actions (it must be swift, effective, and short-lived). Machiavelli also does not miss the irony in the fact that good can come from evil actions. Notwithstanding the mitigating themes in The Prince, the Catholic Church put the work in its Index Librorum Prohibitorum and it was viewed in a negative light by many Humanists such as Erasmus.
The primary contribution of The Prince to the history of political thought is its fundamental break between realism and idealism.
he Prince is a guide to acquiring and keeping power. In contrast with Plato and Aristotle, the ideal society is not the aim. In fact, Machiavelli emphasizes the need for the exercise of brute power when necessary and rewards, patron-clientelism etc. to preserve the status quo.
The term "Machiavellian" was adopted by some of Machiavelli's contemporaries, often used in the introductions of political tracts of the sixteenth century that offered more 'just' reasons of state, most notably those of Jean Bodin and Giovanni Botero. The pejorative term Machiavellian as it is used today (or anti-Machiavellism as it was used from the sixteenth century) is thus a misnomer, as it describes one who deceives and manipulates others for gain; whether the gain is personal or not is of no relevance, only that any actions taken are only important insofar as they affect the results. It fails to include some of the more moderating themes found in Machiavelli's works and the name is now associated with the extreme viewpoint. However Machiavellianism retains a place in popular and journalistic usage, as well as denoting a personality type in psychology.
As I was strolling on the beach, as part of my daily routine, I was attracted by this big camera and went to inquire about it.
I saw two men and a woman so I asked the woman what they were shooting. She told me that the Dutch TV is making a program about Iran and the threats of nuclear war, while not too many miles away from there, the people here in Israel, like myself on the Tel Aviv beach, are going about life as usual.
Ankie is a writer for the Dutch TV, she lives in Ramat HaSharon, north-east of Tel Aviv.
She was born in Holland...
(See more in the comments below.)
Ankie Spitzer recalled her husband's idealism and attitude towards the Olympics:
(While strolling in the Olympic Village)... he spotted members of the Lebanese team, and told (me) he was going to go and say hello to them... I said to him, "Are you out of your mind? They're from Lebanon!" Israel was in a state of war with Lebanon at the time. "Ankie," Andre said calmly, "that's exactly what the Olympics are all about. Here I can go to them, I can talk to them, I can ask them how they are. That's exactly what the Olympics are all about." So he went... towards this Lebanese team, and... he asked them "How were your results? I'm from Israel and how did it go?" And to my amazement, I saw that the (Lebanese) responded and they shook hands with him and they talked to him and they asked him about his results. I'll never forget, when he turned around and came back towards me with this huge smile on his face. "You see!" said Andre excitedly. "This is what I was dreaming about. I knew it was going to happen!" (Reeve 2001, pgs. 52-53)
ARTZUID 2025 Amsterdam
The 9th edition of the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale ARTZUID takes place from 21 May to 21 September 2025. On Apollolaan and Minervalaan in Amsterdam-Zuid, 70 outdoor sculptures are being showcased of renowned artists and young talented artists.
This exhibition draws from top international artists and Dutch talent for the selection of sculptures and installations that can be seen this summer in Amsterdam. ARTZUID transforms the exhibition location into a surreal urban landscape in which figurative sculptures alternate with architectonic installations. They show a great variety in format and material. What unites them is their focus on the enigma of human existence; the wonder, the emotions and visions of being, the ambitions and fears about our place in the world. Artists such as Leiko Ikemura, Alicja Kwade and Neo Rauch invite the visitor to an exchange of thoughts about this, in a sensual conversation with the sculptures. Displayed is the upheaval of occupation, the fear of war and the spirit of resistance in the contributions of artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Shinkichi Tajiri and Armando. Atelier van Lieshout refers to power and impotence, struggle and victimhood, in a group of figures around a rider on horseback. On the trail of ARTZUID this work is connected to the Indonesia-Netherland Monument on Apollolaan. These are just a few examples of the more than 60 works that populate ARTZUID. The architectural works by often young artists have a commitment and idealism reminiscent of architect H.P. Berlage and urban sculptor Hildo Krop. Both having been instrumental in developing the urban design of the neighbourhood home to ARTZUID. They stimulate visitors to think about the future of the urban community and seek answers to the question of what strategies are needed to create a sustainable and peaceful society
Participating artists ARTZUID 2025
Adam Colton (NL/GB), Arlene Shechet (USA), Art van Triest (NL), Atelier van Lieshout (NL), Alicja Kwade (PL), Armando (NL), Bart Lunenburg (NL), Bastienne Kramer (NL), Britte Koolen (NL), Carin Scholten (NL), Chris Peterson (NL), Cristobal Gabarron (ES), David Bade (CW), David Nash (GB), Erik Buijs (NL), Eiji Watanabe (JP), Esther Jiskoot (NL), Fiona Römpp (NL), Gavin Turk (GB), Helen Vergouwen (NL), Herbert Nouwens (NL) Henk Visch (NL), Hieke Luik (NL), Huub en Adelheid Kortekaas (NL), Isa van Lier (NL), Ilse Oelbers (NL), Iris Le Rütte (NL), Ivan Cremer (NL), Jaume Plensa (ES), Jean-Marie Appriou (FR), Katleen Vinck (BE), Klaas Gubbels (NL), Laura Schurink (NL), Leilah Babirye (USA), Lina Iris Viktor (USA), Leiko Ikemura (JP), Lotta Blokker (NL), Louise Schouwenberg (NL), Maja van Hall (NL), Marcel Pinas (SR), Maen Florin (BE), Magdalena Abakanowicz (PL), Marte Röling (NL), Marieke Bolhuis (NL), Margot Berkman (NL), Marion Verboom (FR), Micky Hoogendijk (NL), Nadia Naveau (BE), Natasja Alers (NL), Nel van Lith (NL), Nelson Carrilho (NL), Neo Rauch (DE), Paloma Varga Weisz (DE), Paul Goede (NL), Rachel Harrison (USA), Ricardo van Eyk (NL), Rob Schreefel (NL), Rob Voerman (NL), Ronald Westerhuis (NL),Ruud Kuijer (NL), Shinkichi Tajiri (USA), Sjef Voets (NL), Sokari Douglas Camp (GB), Stefan Rinck (DE), Tirzo Martha (CW), Tschabalala Self (USA), Tal R (DEN), Tony Cragg (GB), Wjm Kok (NL), Wouter van der Giessen (NL), Xavier Veilhan (FR), Yoshitomo Nara (JP)
ARTZUID 2025 Amsterdam
The 9th edition of the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale ARTZUID takes place from 21 May to 21 September 2025. On Apollolaan and Minervalaan in Amsterdam-Zuid, 70 outdoor sculptures are being showcased of renowned artists and young talented artists.
This exhibition draws from top international artists and Dutch talent for the selection of sculptures and installations that can be seen this summer in Amsterdam. ARTZUID transforms the exhibition location into a surreal urban landscape in which figurative sculptures alternate with architectonic installations. They show a great variety in format and material. What unites them is their focus on the enigma of human existence; the wonder, the emotions and visions of being, the ambitions and fears about our place in the world. Artists such as Leiko Ikemura, Alicja Kwade and Neo Rauch invite the visitor to an exchange of thoughts about this, in a sensual conversation with the sculptures. Displayed is the upheaval of occupation, the fear of war and the spirit of resistance in the contributions of artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Shinkichi Tajiri and Armando. Atelier van Lieshout refers to power and impotence, struggle and victimhood, in a group of figures around a rider on horseback. On the trail of ARTZUID this work is connected to the Indonesia-Netherland Monument on Apollolaan. These are just a few examples of the more than 60 works that populate ARTZUID. The architectural works by often young artists have a commitment and idealism reminiscent of architect H.P. Berlage and urban sculptor Hildo Krop. Both having been instrumental in developing the urban design of the neighbourhood home to ARTZUID. They stimulate visitors to think about the future of the urban community and seek answers to the question of what strategies are needed to create a sustainable and peaceful society
Participating artists ARTZUID 2025
Adam Colton (NL/GB), Arlene Shechet (USA), Art van Triest (NL), Atelier van Lieshout (NL), Alicja Kwade (PL), Armando (NL), Bart Lunenburg (NL), Bastienne Kramer (NL), Britte Koolen (NL), Carin Scholten (NL), Chris Peterson (NL), Cristobal Gabarron (ES), David Bade (CW), David Nash (GB), Erik Buijs (NL), Eiji Watanabe (JP), Esther Jiskoot (NL), Fiona Römpp (NL), Gavin Turk (GB), Helen Vergouwen (NL), Herbert Nouwens (NL) Henk Visch (NL), Hieke Luik (NL), Huub en Adelheid Kortekaas (NL), Isa van Lier (NL), Ilse Oelbers (NL), Iris Le Rütte (NL), Ivan Cremer (NL), Jaume Plensa (ES), Jean-Marie Appriou (FR), Katleen Vinck (BE), Klaas Gubbels (NL), Laura Schurink (NL), Leilah Babirye (USA), Lina Iris Viktor (USA), Leiko Ikemura (JP), Lotta Blokker (NL), Louise Schouwenberg (NL), Maja van Hall (NL), Marcel Pinas (SR), Maen Florin (BE), Magdalena Abakanowicz (PL), Marte Röling (NL), Marieke Bolhuis (NL), Margot Berkman (NL), Marion Verboom (FR), Micky Hoogendijk (NL), Nadia Naveau (BE), Natasja Alers (NL), Nel van Lith (NL), Nelson Carrilho (NL), Neo Rauch (DE), Paloma Varga Weisz (DE), Paul Goede (NL), Rachel Harrison (USA), Ricardo van Eyk (NL), Rob Schreefel (NL), Rob Voerman (NL), Ronald Westerhuis (NL),Ruud Kuijer (NL), Shinkichi Tajiri (USA), Sjef Voets (NL), Sokari Douglas Camp (GB), Stefan Rinck (DE), Tirzo Martha (CW), Tschabalala Self (USA), Tal R (DEN), Tony Cragg (GB), Wim Kok (NL), Wouter van der Giessen (NL), Xavier Veilhan (FR), Yoshitomo Nara (JP)
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Steel, Flock, Sponge, cheap plastic flowers, 180cm x 120cm, 2010
As is usual this idea has been bouncing around in my head for at least a couple years. Most likely from when after 7 years of threatening the city of Barcelona finally decided to begin the project of rearranging my neighborhood. Since I arrived in Barcelona in 1999 I've been living in the shadow of the wrecking ball but somehow have managed to remain in this small corner of the city unscathed. Then in 2006 things started to move, at least that's when the photo below is dated from which was the view from my front window (I have a workspace that I am extremely fortunate to have so the idea of having to leave it struck terror into the deep recesses of my being). Regardless I had an opportunity to reflect on some heavy equipment for some time. It's impressive to see it up close tearing down walls etc. and reminded me of the fascination I had with these machines as a child. What crossed my mind at that point though was the shift in my understanding of said machines from that of a child's understanding which is one of fascination, creation and possibility as well as responsibility, to that of an adult which recognizes them (at least in an urban environment) as the harbingers of change for better or worse. To be honest I still view cranes, front end loaders, bulldozers etc... with a certain amount of awe for the simple fact that they really are miracles of engineering.
On the other hand in the urban environment they are also the agents of metamorphosis, representatives of decisions that are normally made in other places by people who aren't directly affected by those decisions. Barcelona has undergone unprecedented growth in the construction sector over the last twenty years, to the point that "rabid" might be an appropriate term to describe the nature of what has been going on. With the bursting of the real estate bubble this is no longer the case. Within the metropolitan habitat obviously a certain amount of change is constant and required for a variety of reasons. It's not the idea to go too deeply into the economics and the moral repercussions of the construction boom, although it is fascinating and worthy for reflection, for the simple fact that my knowledge of it is superficial not being an economist. Needless to say there is constant change and constant shifting which has a profound impact on the individual and sometimes the collective as well. I don't say this as a positive or negative judgment just a simple fact.
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, Steel, Flock, Sponge, cheap plastic flowers, 180cm x 120cm, 2010
As is usual this idea has been bouncing around in my head for at least a couple years. Most likely from when after 7 years of threatening the city of Barcelona finally decided to begin the project of rearranging my neighborhood. Since I arrived in Barcelona in 1999 I've been living in the shadow of the wrecking ball but somehow have managed to remain in this small corner of the city unscathed. Then in 2006 things started to move, at least that's when the photo below is dated from which was the view from my front window (I have a workspace that I am extremely fortunate to have so the idea of having to leave it struck terror into the deep recesses of my being). Regardless I had an opportunity to reflect on some heavy equipment for some time. It's impressive to see it up close tearing down walls etc. and reminded me of the fascination I had with these machines as a child. What crossed my mind at that point though was the shift in my understanding of said machines from that of a child's understanding which is one of fascination, creation and possibility as well as responsibility, to that of an adult which recognizes them (at least in an urban environment) as the harbingers of change for better or worse. To be honest I still view cranes, front end loaders, bulldozers etc... with a certain amount of awe for the simple fact that they really are miracles of engineering.
On the other hand in the urban environment they are also the agents of metamorphosis, representatives of decisions that are normally made in other places by people who aren't directly affected by those decisions. Barcelona has undergone unprecedented growth in the construction sector over the last twenty years, to the point that "rabid" might be an appropriate term to describe the nature of what has been going on. With the bursting of the real estate bubble this is no longer the case. Within the metropolitan habitat obviously a certain amount of change is constant and required for a variety of reasons. It's not the idea to go too deeply into the economics and the moral repercussions of the construction boom, although it is fascinating and worthy for reflection, for the simple fact that my knowledge of it is superficial not being an economist. Needless to say there is constant change and constant shifting which has a profound impact on the individual and sometimes the collective as well. I don't say this as a positive or negative judgment just a simple fact.
I chose to work with a front end loader (Caterpillar 950-H) for a number of reasons, but primarily because it is menacing, the architecture/design of it is all strength, aggression and masculinity. Especially the teeth on the front of the shovel and the treads on the tires. In movement it is full of a sort of awkward muscular grace (yes I know, oxymoron). I chose the surface texture for the obvious visual irony that it proposes which fuses the idealism that I had as a child and the realities exposed to me as an adult in relation to construction and the machinery used to achieve it. And hence the title which reflects on the often life changing displacements of land, architecture, families and people that these machines are fundamental in creating. For better or worse...
On the other hand in the urban environment they are also the agents of metamorphosis, representatives of decisions that are normally made in other places by people who aren't directly affected by those decisions. Barcelona has undergone unprecedented growth in the construction sector over the last twenty years, to the point that "rabid" might be an appropriate term to describe the nature of what has been going on. With the bursting of the real estate bubble this is no longer the case. Within the metropolitan habitat obviously a certain amount of change is constant and required for a variety of reasons. It's not the idea to go too deeply into the economics and the moral repercussions of the construction boom, although it is fascinating and worthy for reflection, for the simple fact that my knowledge of it is superficial not being an economist. Needless to say there is constant change and constant shifting which has a profound impact on the individual and sometimes the collective as well. I don't say this as a positive or negative judgment just a simple fact.
I chose to work with a front end loader (Caterpillar 950-H) for a number of reasons, but primarily because it is menacing, the architecture/design of it is all strength, aggression and masculinity. Especially the teeth on the front of the shovel and the treads on the tires. In movement it is full of a sort of awkward muscular grace (yes I know, oxymoron). I chose the surface texture for the obvious visual irony that it proposes which fuses the idealism that I had as a child and the realities exposed to me as an adult in relation to construction and the machinery used to achieve it. And hence the title which reflects on the often life changing displacements of land, architecture, families and people that these machines are fundamental in creating. For better or worse...
Veteran; " It's not that I can and others can't.
it's that I did and others didn't "
Nee, en daar weet ik alles van.
In de jaren '80 was je een hele kerel als je je had weten te onttrekken aan de dienstplicht.
Tijdens een verjaardagsfeest was je de gevierde man als je vertelde dat je met een smoes onder de dienstplicht was uitgekomen.
Vermeende S-5, onmisbaar voor het bedrijf, wapenvrees en andere bullshit argumenten of gewoon dienstweigeraar of totaalweigeraar.
Ging je toch in dienst, dan was je wel een beetje een sukkel.
Daarbij nog eens de gehele antimilitaristische sfeer in het Nederland van toen; wat had je eigenlijk aan dat leger?
Dat was de setting waarin ik in maart 1981 mij meldde aan de poort van de Johan Willem Friso kazerne in Assen.
Het werd het begin van een avontuur van 14 maanden dat ik voor geen goud had willen missen.
Nu, 40 jaar later, kijk ik er met trots op terug.
Op de foto dienstplichtig soldaat Dirk Bruin, op Unifil Dutchbatt Post 7-12 van de PaOst-Cie van het Nederlands VN-detachement Unifil, 44 Pantserinfanteriebataljon in Zuid-Libanon in het jaar des Heren 1982.
In de linkerhand een Russische RGD-5 handgranaat die ik voor 15 Libanese ponden kocht van mijn vriend Mohammed Iskander.
Na twee maanden dienst doen bij het Nederlands Detachement Unifil begon de routine er wel wat in te sluipen, en zochten we naar afleiding.
In dat kader kochten we bij Mohammed een aantal Russische RGD-5 handgranaten.
Waren we in Nederland blij met het afsteken van een paar voetzoekers, in Libanon kon dat met handgranaten.
Op de foto draag ik een M69 Flak Jacket , een Amerikaans scherfvest dat vooral in de oorlog in Vietnam werd gedragen.
Het werd door het Nederlandse leger gekocht als aanvulling op de uitrusting van de Unifil militairen.
Tijdens het verblijf op onze sub post hebben we een paar van deze handgranaten in de Wadi gegooid; zware explosies die door de hele vallei echode.
Vlakbij de subpost 7-12 Charlie was een steengroeve, waar geregeld met explosieven gewerkt werd.
Het was gebruikelijk om explosies en schoten via de radio aan de commandopost e melden; dus in dit geval werd er '1 gecontroleerde explosie richting steengroeve' gemeld.
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Today, saturday the 276h of June 2021, it is Veterans Day in the Netherlands.
For this occasion a photo of myself on UNIFIL Post 7-12 in 1982.
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Veteran; "It's not that I can and others can't. it's that I did and others didn't "
Op Unifil Dutchbatt Post 7-12 van de PaOst-Cie van het Nederlands VN-detachement Unifil, 44 Pantserinfanteriebataljon in Zuid-Libanon in het jaar des Heren 1982.
#veteranendag
Zo deelde ik dat op Facebook, en daar kreeg ik een paar leuke reacties op.
Een reactie schoot mij echter in het verkeerde keelgat.
Het was Marian Woestenburg-Grijpstra, die daar op reageerde met;
"Others did other things."
Ik lees daar dan in; jij ging dan wel naar Libanon, maar denk daar niet teveel van, terwijl je daar was, deden anderen andere dingen.
Ja, onnozele, die gingen heel nadrukkelijk niet naar Libanon, die kozen de weg van het minste risico en gevaar, die liepen er voor weg die bleven thuis. Ik ging wèl.
Ik reageerde daar wat beleefder op, en zei haar;
"Ik vind dit een onaardige opmerking naar een veteraan op Veteranendag, Marian Woestenburg."
Marian W. komt terug met;
"Ik vind de quote niet zo sympathiek. Hij zet mensen weg die, in dit hele proces niet doen/deden wat anderen doen. Daarbij denk ik aan journalisten die ook hun leven wagen en soms in koelen bloede vermoord worden. Ik denk aan artsen zonder grenzen, aan Amnesty international. Het draagt bij tot verdeeldheid. Ik ben ook niet zo weg van dit soort dagen waarop het in de media gewoon tot een soort verheerlijking komt. Waarom de een wel en de ander niet? In het kader van vrijheid, gelijkheid en broederschap past het niet in mijn wereldbeeld. Heb ik daarom geen respect voor veteranen? Ja, natuurlijk heb ik dat wel."
Mooi bullshit verhaal, ik lees geen respect voor een veteraan op veteranendag.
Ik leg haar het nog eens uit;
"It's not that I can and others can't. it's that I did and others didn't "
Dit schrijf ik, als veteraan, op Veteranendag, bij een foto van mijzelf van 40 jaar geleden toen ik dienst deed bij Unifil in Libanon.
Het is niet ik het wèl kan, en anderen niet, het is dat ik het wèl deed en anderen niet.
Hiermee verwijzend naar mannen die er van afgezien hebben om uitgezonden te worden, dit hebben aangegeven bij de dienstkeuring of na de opkomst.
Het gaat over mannen die onder de dienstplicht uitwurmden met smoesjes als wapenvrees, onmisbaar voor het bedrijf of gewoon dienstweigeraar waren.
Die gingen niet naar Libanon, en ik wel.
Met de quote wordt niemand weggezet, het is gewoon een feitelijke constatering.
Wat jij er vervolgens allemaal van maakt en er nog aan toevoegt is mijns inziens een stropop redenatie, het is in geen geval van toepassing op wat ik zeg.
Ik vond je reactie op mijn bericht niet sympathiek, en dat vind ik nog steeds."
Marian moet het laatste woord hebben, en laat mij weten;
"Quote van wijlen mijn oude wijze grootmoeder Grietje:" Andermans boeken zijn duister te lezen!""
Ik heb het erbij gelaten.
De opmerking en houding van Marian Woestenburg bracht mij terug naar het moment dat ik terug kom op Vlieland na vier maanden Libanon. Ik ervoer dat als volgt:
" Ja, Dikkie Bruun, dan kom je weer terug naar Vlieland met je gebleekte blauwe baret, terug van 4-maanden vakantie aan de Middellandse zee, maar denk vooral niet te veel van jezelf, en wij zullen je daarbij wel een handje bij helpen".
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Aanvulling
Marian is van 1952, en valt daardoor onder de babyboomers.
Herman Vuisje heeft een boek geschreven over waarom die babyboomers niets moesten hebben van de militaire dienstplicht.
Het zou een verklaring kunnen zijn voor de houding.
In een recensie van het boek van Herman Vuisje krijgen we een beetje een beeld van hoe de babyboomers tegen de dienstplicht aankeken.
Er wordt daarin gezegd dat die gevoelens in de jaren ’60 en ’70 heersten, maar ik weet uit eigen ervaring, en heb dit boven ook genoemd, dat het ook tot ver in de jaren ’80 door liep.
Hier even de boekrecensie gedeeld, want ik ben niet alleen in mijn observatie.
BOEKRECENSIE
Schuldbewust bekritiseert Herman Vuijsje zijn eigen generatie, die niets moest hebben van militaire dienst.
In een fraaie proeve van ‘speculatieve sociologie’ fileert Herman Vuijsje de onwil van de protestgeneratie om de gekoesterde vrijheid te verdedigen in militaire dienst.
Zo vaak komt het helaas niet voor, dat babyboomers zichzelf de maat nemen. En dat is jammer, want veel – zo niet de meeste – problemen die wij nu het hoofd moeten bieden, zijn ontstaan in de tijd waarin zij het voor het zeggen hadden. Een aansporing tot bescheidenheid gaat daar echter niet van uit. Integendeel: de protestgeneratie wenst zichzelf onverkort als idealistisch, dus deugdzaam, te kwalificeren. En ze lijkt bij uitstek ontvankelijk voor de gedachte dat vroeger alles beter was.
Als deze zelfgenoegzaamheid inderdaad de regel zou zijn bij babyboomers (je moet met dit soort generalisaties natuurlijk altijd oppassen), vormt socioloog en journalist Herman Vuijsje (1946) er een weldadige uitzondering op. Graag plaatst hij kanttekeningen bij de geloofsartikelen van zijn generatie. Daarbij ontziet hij zichzelf allerminst. Oprechte, schuldbewuste zelfkritiek is zelfs het uitgangspunt van zijn recentelijk verschenen boek Wij waren geen soldaat – over de vanzelfsprekendheid waarmee hij en veel van zijn generatiegenoten zich in de jaren zestig en zeventig hebben onttrokken aan de militaire dienstplicht.
Dat was ook het thema van een artikel van zijn hand dat in 2018 in NRC Handelsblad verscheen en dat de aandacht trok van (onder anderen) voormalig VVD-Kamerlid en kolonel b.d. Theo van den Doel. Die reageerde op het artikel met een (niet geplaatste) brief waarin hij Vuijsje weliswaar prees om zijn eerlijkheid, maar waarin hij er tevens zijn teleurstelling over uitsprak dat de ‘salonmilitair’ Vuijsje zich had beperkt tot een persoonlijke getuigenis van spijt, maar er als socioloog ‘geen verdere conclusies’ aan had verbonden.
Vuijsje had, met andere woorden, de individu-overstijgende vragen niet gesteld: waar kwam die generieke afkeer van militaire dienst (en van het leger in het algemeen) vandaan? Hoe keken de jongemannen die gretig opteerden voor een afkeuring op grond van S5 (de laagste score voor geestelijke stabiliteit) aan tegen het reële Russische gevaar? En hoe konden zij hun freeridergedrag – profiteren van de vrijheid die zij niet wensten te beschermen – verenigen met hun vertoon van idealisme en onbaatzuchtigheid?
De tijdgeest ontleden
Vuijsje besloot alsnog een poging te doen om het verzuim van zijn generatie te verklaren nadat Van den Doel hem vorig jaar de niet-geplaatste brief had laten lezen. Hijzelf vergelijkt het boek dat hieruit resulteerde met het verslag van een bergwandeling op onbekend terrein: ‘Steeds als je meent de top in zicht te hebben, blijkt daarachter weer een nieuw massief op te doemen.’ Op basis van getuigenissen van dienende en verzakende dienstplichtigen, krijgshistorische en sociologische literatuur probeert hij een tijdgeest te ontleden waarvan hij zelf onderdeel is geweest. En dat levert een zinnige en onderhoudende proeve op van ‘speculatieve sociologie’, die geen sluitende antwoorden oplevert, maar wel degelijk bijdraagt aan onze nationale zelfkennis.
Vuijsje schrijft dat de onwillige dienstplichtigen in een lange traditie stonden van het ‘uitbesteden’ van de nationale defensie: in de 17de eeuw aan buitenlandse huurlingen, in de 19de eeuw aan de ‘remplaçanten’ uit de lagere sociale klassen (die de dienstplicht van beter gesitueerden tegen betaling vervulden). Hij oppert dat de verloren ‘goede’ oorlog van mei 1940 en de verloren ‘foute’ oorlog in Indonesië hebben bijgedragen aan de a- of anti-militaire stemming in grote delen van de samenleving.
Vuijsje herinnert zich dat de enkeling die zijn dienstplicht vervulde daarvoor door zijn vrienden ter verantwoording werd geroepen, terwijl de velen die een S5 hadden gescoord daar uitbundig om werden geprezen. Hij veronderstelt (op goede gronden) dat achter gewetensbezwaren doorgaans weinig meer schuilging dan ‘ik heb geen zin’. Hij verklaart – in navolging van de historici Duco Hellema en James Kennedy – het meebewegen van de bestuurlijke elite met de protestgeneratie vanuit ‘passiviteit als traditionele Nederlandse reflex’ en munt het begrip ‘passivisme’ voor deze houding.
Onder verwijzing naar eigen ervaringen verklaart Vuijsje onze onmacht tegenover geweld. Daarvan getuigde ook het Postbus 51-spotje waarin burgers werden opgeroepen om bij geweldsincidenten vooral niet zelf te interveniëren (‘de held uithangen’ noemde Ivo Opstelten dat, de toenmalige burgemeester van Rotterdam). Vuijsje wijst op de veranderde gevoelswaarde die woorden als ‘eer’, ‘vaderland’, ‘held’, ‘vaderland’ en ‘sneuvelen’ hebben ondergaan.
In de dichtbundel Ik ben lekker stout van Annie M.G. Schmidt ziet hij een voorbode van de ongehoorzaamheid die door babyboomers tot hoogste deugd zou worden verheven. Hij betoogt dat het Nederlandse leger in mei 1940 veel meer weerwerk heeft geleverd dan wij menen te weten. En hij noemt de paradox dat Nederlanders enerzijds tot ‘de koplopers in militantie’ behoren als het om de hulp aan Oekraïne gaat, terwijl geen volk zo weinig bereidheid aan de dag legt om voor het eigen land te vechten.
Zo voert de ‘speculatieve sociologie’ van Herman Vuisje diens lezers langs talrijke ongerijmdheden, eyeopeners en uithoeken van het collectief geheugen. Afhankelijk van hun leeftijd zal verwondering of gêne bij hen opkomen. Of ergernis, want niet alle ouderen worden graag van hun gelijk of van een glorieus verleden beroofd.
Door; Sander van Walsum – Volkskrant - 18 mei 2023
ARTZUID 2025 Amsterdam
The 9th edition of the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale ARTZUID takes place from 21 May to 21 September 2025. On Apollolaan and Minervalaan in Amsterdam-Zuid, 70 outdoor sculptures are being showcased of renowned artists and young talented artists.
This exhibition draws from top international artists and Dutch talent for the selection of sculptures and installations that can be seen this summer in Amsterdam. ARTZUID transforms the exhibition location into a surreal urban landscape in which figurative sculptures alternate with architectonic installations. They show a great variety in format and material. What unites them is their focus on the enigma of human existence; the wonder, the emotions and visions of being, the ambitions and fears about our place in the world. Artists such as Leiko Ikemura, Alicja Kwade and Neo Rauch invite the visitor to an exchange of thoughts about this, in a sensual conversation with the sculptures. Displayed is the upheaval of occupation, the fear of war and the spirit of resistance in the contributions of artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Shinkichi Tajiri and Armando. Atelier van Lieshout refers to power and impotence, struggle and victimhood, in a group of figures around a rider on horseback. On the trail of ARTZUID this work is connected to the Indonesia-Netherland Monument on Apollolaan. These are just a few examples of the more than 60 works that populate ARTZUID. The architectural works by often young artists have a commitment and idealism reminiscent of architect H.P. Berlage and urban sculptor Hildo Krop. Both having been instrumental in developing the urban design of the neighbourhood home to ARTZUID. They stimulate visitors to think about the future of the urban community and seek answers to the question of what strategies are needed to create a sustainable and peaceful society
Participating artists ARTZUID 2025
Adam Colton (NL/GB), Arlene Shechet (USA), Art van Triest (NL), Atelier van Lieshout (NL), Alicja Kwade (PL), Armando (NL), Bart Lunenburg (NL), Bastienne Kramer (NL), Britte Koolen (NL), Carin Scholten (NL), Chris Peterson (NL), Cristobal Gabarron (ES), David Bade (CW), David Nash (GB), Erik Buijs (NL), Eiji Watanabe (JP), Esther Jiskoot (NL), Fiona Römpp (NL), Gavin Turk (GB), Helen Vergouwen (NL), Herbert Nouwens (NL) Henk Visch (NL), Hieke Luik (NL), Huub en Adelheid Kortekaas (NL), Isa van Lier (NL), Ilse Oelbers (NL), Iris Le Rütte (NL), Ivan Cremer (NL), Jaume Plensa (ES), Jean-Marie Appriou (FR), Katleen Vinck (BE), Klaas Gubbels (NL), Laura Schurink (NL), Leilah Babirye (USA), Lina Iris Viktor (USA), Leiko Ikemura (JP), Lotta Blokker (NL), Louise Schouwenberg (NL), Maja van Hall (NL), Marcel Pinas (SR), Maen Florin (BE), Magdalena Abakanowicz (PL), Marte Röling (NL), Marieke Bolhuis (NL), Margot Berkman (NL), Marion Verboom (FR), Micky Hoogendijk (NL), Nadia Naveau (BE), Natasja Alers (NL), Nel van Lith (NL), Nelson Carrilho (NL), Neo Rauch (DE), Paloma Varga Weisz (DE), Paul Goede (NL), Rachel Harrison (USA), Ricardo van Eyk (NL), Rob Schreefel (NL), Rob Voerman (NL), Ronald Westerhuis (NL),Ruud Kuijer (NL), Shinkichi Tajiri (USA), Sjef Voets (NL), Sokari Douglas Camp (GB), Stefan Rinck (DE), Tirzo Martha (CW), Tschabalala Self (USA), Tal R (DEN), Tony Cragg (GB), Wjm Kok (NL), Wouter van der Giessen (NL), Xavier Veilhan (FR), Yoshitomo Nara (JP)
www.vincenzopisani.com/dystopia-photographer-rome
Can you "feel" the places where you live?
Do you perceive any relation between your feelings and the geography of your daily path? Are emotions and places connected by some extent? What does your personal landscape look like? Do you ever feel alienated, a stranger in your own place ?
ARTZUID 2025 Amsterdam
The 9th edition of the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennale ARTZUID takes place from 21 May to 21 September 2025. On Apollolaan and Minervalaan in Amsterdam-Zuid, 70 outdoor sculptures are being showcased of renowned artists and young talented artists.
This exhibition draws from top international artists and Dutch talent for the selection of sculptures and installations that can be seen this summer in Amsterdam. ARTZUID transforms the exhibition location into a surreal urban landscape in which figurative sculptures alternate with architectonic installations. They show a great variety in format and material. What unites them is their focus on the enigma of human existence; the wonder, the emotions and visions of being, the ambitions and fears about our place in the world. Artists such as Leiko Ikemura, Alicja Kwade and Neo Rauch invite the visitor to an exchange of thoughts about this, in a sensual conversation with the sculptures. Displayed is the upheaval of occupation, the fear of war and the spirit of resistance in the contributions of artists such as Magdalena Abakanowicz, Shinkichi Tajiri and Armando. Atelier van Lieshout refers to power and impotence, struggle and victimhood, in a group of figures around a rider on horseback. On the trail of ARTZUID this work is connected to the Indonesia-Netherland Monument on Apollolaan. These are just a few examples of the more than 60 works that populate ARTZUID. The architectural works by often young artists have a commitment and idealism reminiscent of architect H.P. Berlage and urban sculptor Hildo Krop. Both having been instrumental in developing the urban design of the neighbourhood home to ARTZUID. They stimulate visitors to think about the future of the urban community and seek answers to the question of what strategies are needed to create a sustainable and peaceful society
Participating artists ARTZUID 2025
Adam Colton (NL/GB), Arlene Shechet (USA), Art van Triest (NL), Atelier van Lieshout (NL), Alicja Kwade (PL), Armando (NL), Bart Lunenburg (NL), Bastienne Kramer (NL), Britte Koolen (NL), Carin Scholten (NL), Chris Peterson (NL), Cristobal Gabarron (ES), David Bade (CW), David Nash (GB), Erik Buijs (NL), Eiji Watanabe (JP), Esther Jiskoot (NL), Fiona Römpp (NL), Gavin Turk (GB), Helen Vergouwen (NL), Herbert Nouwens (NL) Henk Visch (NL), Hieke Luik (NL), Huub en Adelheid Kortekaas (NL), Isa van Lier (NL), Ilse Oelbers (NL), Iris Le Rütte (NL), Ivan Cremer (NL), Jaume Plensa (ES), Jean-Marie Appriou (FR), Katleen Vinck (BE), Klaas Gubbels (NL), Laura Schurink (NL), Leilah Babirye (USA), Lina Iris Viktor (USA), Leiko Ikemura (JP), Lotta Blokker (NL), Louise Schouwenberg (NL), Maja van Hall (NL), Marcel Pinas (SR), Maen Florin (BE), Magdalena Abakanowicz (PL), Marte Röling (NL), Marieke Bolhuis (NL), Margot Berkman (NL), Marion Verboom (FR), Micky Hoogendijk (NL), Nadia Naveau (BE), Natasja Alers (NL), Nel van Lith (NL), Nelson Carrilho (NL), Neo Rauch (DE), Paloma Varga Weisz (DE), Paul Goede (NL), Rachel Harrison (USA), Ricardo van Eyk (NL), Rob Schreefel (NL), Rob Voerman (NL), Ronald Westerhuis (NL),Ruud Kuijer (NL), Shinkichi Tajiri (USA), Sjef Voets (NL), Sokari Douglas Camp (GB), Stefan Rinck (DE), Tirzo Martha (CW), Tschabalala Self (USA), Tal R (DEN), Tony Cragg (GB), Wjm Kok (NL), Wouter van der Giessen (NL), Xavier Veilhan (FR), Yoshitomo Nara (JP)
Have you ever felt like your heart was on fire? Maybe you fell in love, gazed into the eyes of your new baby, or caught the fire of the love of the divine.
You would definitely recognize that heart-on-fire feeling if you’ve ever had it before. It’s hard to describe, but it kind of feels like your heart warms your entire body and soul with the heat of an internal flame. Do you know what it’s like to sit in front of a blazing hearth on a cold night? Well, that’s what pure love feels like inside.
It’s easy for most of us to understand how we can love another human being—but not always as easy to figure out how to love the unknowable essence of the Creator. The Baha’i teachings say that one of the requirements of being a Baha’i, though, is “becoming enkindled with the fire of the love of God …” – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 336.
What does that mean?
The symbol of fire has always stood for life, love and health, for energy, transformation and regeneration, for light and warmth. When we feel passion for something or someone, we feel the fiery heat of an enkindled inner flame. We burn with it, that fire of inner feeling, and it sustains us.
To understand it, to comprehend its mystical meanings, I suspect, we need to turn to poetry, to the mystical and to the revelatory:
Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames. – Rumi
… heaven set the fire that burns in our spirits. – Gibran
Cause our souls to be enkindled with the fire of Thy tender affection and give us to drink of the living waters of Thy bounty. – The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 199.
The Word of God hath set the heart of the world afire; how regrettable if ye fail to be enkindled with its flame! – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 316.
You’ve probably recognized that inner fire in others. Those who have it burn with passion and enthusiasm for life. They have a contagious ardor for what they do; they live and love with great eagerness. Their excitement, because it generates so much heat, can catch everyone around them on fire, too:
All creatures that exist are dependent upon the Divine Bounty. Divine Mercy gives life itself. As the light of the sun shines on the whole world, so the Mercy of the infinite God is shed on all creatures. As the sun ripens the fruits of the earth, and gives life and warmth to all living beings, so shines the Sun of Truth on all souls, filling them with the fire of Divine love and understanding. – Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 26.
Everyone can access that “fire of divine love and understanding.” It’s simple—just turn your face toward the sun. When you do, it will gradually warm you with its rays:
Likewise, in the spiritual realm of intelligence and idealism there must be a center of illumination, and that center is the everlasting, ever-shining Sun, the Word of God. Its lights are the lights of reality which have shone upon humanity, illumining the realm of thought and morals, conferring the bounties of the divine world upon man. These lights are the cause of the education of souls and the source of the enlightenment of hearts, sending forth in effulgent radiance the message of the glad tidings of the Kingdom of God. In brief, the moral and ethical world and the world of spiritual regeneration are dependent for their progressive being upon that heavenly Center of illumination. It gives forth the light of religion and bestows the life of the spirit, imbues humanity with archetypal virtues and confers eternal splendors. This Sun of Reality, this Center of effulgences, is the Prophet or Manifestation of God. Just as the phenomenal sun shines upon the material world producing life and growth, likewise, the spiritual or prophetic Sun confers illumination upon the human world of thought and intelligence, and unless it rose upon the horizon of human existence, the kingdom of man would become dark and extinguished. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 94.
We all owe our lives to that ever-burning fire we call the sun. Without it, nothing could survive. In the same way, we owe our inner lives, the realities of our souls and their attributes and perfections, to that heavenly center of illumination we call God:
Every man trained through the teachings of God and illumined by the light of His guidance, who becomes a believer in God and His signs and is enkindled with the fire of the love of God, sacrifices the imperfections of nature for the sake of divine perfections. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 452.
When you start that fire burning in your heart, when you enkindle your soul with the fire of the love of God, you’re on your way to achieving the greatest possible attainment in the world of humanity.
bahaiteachings.org/feeling-get-hearts-fire
Heart intelligence is the flow of awareness, understanding and intuition we experience when the mind and emotions are brought into coherent alignment with the heart. It can be activated through self-initiated practice, and the more we pay attention when we sense the heart is speaking to us or guiding us, the greater our ability to access this intelligence and guidance more frequently. Heart intelligence underlies cellular organization and guides and evolves organisms toward increased order, awareness and coherence of their bodies’ systems.
Throughout much of recorded history, human beings have understood that intelligence, the ability to learn, understand, reason and apply knowledge to shape their environment, was a function of the brain in the head.
There also is ample evidence in the writings and oral traditions societies passed down through the generations that they strongly believed in an intelligent heart.
Research into the idea of heart intelligence began accelerating in the second half of the 20th century. During the 1960s and ’70s pioneer physiologists John and Beatrice Lacey conducted research that showed the heart actually communicates with the brain in ways that greatly affect how we perceive and react to the world around us. In 1991, the year the HeartMath Institute was established, pioneer neurocardiologist Dr. J. Andrew Armour introduced the term “heart brain.” He said the heart possessed a complex and intrinsic nervous system that is a brain.
Today, more than a half century after the Laceys began their research, we know a great deal more about the heart:
The heart sends us emotional and intuitive signals to help govern our lives.
The heart directs and aligns many systems in the body so that they can function in harmony with one another.
The heart is in constant communication with the brain. The heart’s intrinsic brain and nervous system relay information back to the brain in the cranium, creating a two-way communication system between heart and brain.
The heart makes many of its own decisions.
The heart starts beating in the unborn fetus before the brain has been formed, a process scientists call autorhythmic.
Humans form an emotional brain long before a rational one, and a beating heart before either.
The heart has its own independent complex nervous system known as “the brain in the heart.”
Although scientists say it is clear there is still much to learn, future generations may well look back and cite another important discovery as one of the most pivotal of the 20th century. The HeartMath Solution, the book that details the program used by hundreds of thousands of people to access and utilize heart intelligence to improve their lives, discusses this discovery.
“Researchers began showing in the 1980s and ’90s that success in life depended more on an individual’s ability to effectively manage emotions than on the intellectual ability of the brain in the head,” says The HeartMath Solution, by HeartMath founder Doc Childre and his associate and longtime HeartMath spokesman Howard Martin.
This discovery naturally resulted in people wanting to know how to infuse emotions with intelligence.
Scientists at the nonprofit HeartMath Institute , which had been conducting research into heart intelligence and emotions posed the theory that “heart intelligence actually transfers intelligence to the emotions and instills the power of emotional management,” the book explains. “In other words, heart intelligence is really the source of emotional intelligence.
“From our research at the HeartMath Institute, we've concluded that intelligence and intuition are heightened when we learn to listen more deeply to our own heart. It’s through learning how to decipher messages we receive from our heart that we gain the keen perception needed to effectively manage our emotions in the midst of life’s challenges. The more we learn to listen to and follow our heart intelligence, the more educated, balanced and coherent our emotions become. Without the guiding influence of the heart we easily fall prey to reactive emotions such as insecurity, anger, fear and blame as well as other energy-draining reactions and behaviors.”
Early HeartMath research found that negative emotions threw the nervous system out of balance and when that happened heart rhythms became disordered and appeared jagged on a heart monitor. This placed stress on the physical heart and other organs and threatened serious health problems.
“Positive emotions, by contrast, were found to increase order and balance in the nervous system and produce smooth, harmonious heart rhythms,” Childre and Martin wrote. “But these harmonious and coherent rhythms did more than reduce stress: They actually enhanced people’s ability to clearly perceive the world around them.”
The heart has been considered the source of emotion, courage and wisdom for centuries. For more than 27 years, the HeartMath Institute Research Center has explored the physiological mechanisms by which the heart and brain communicate and how the activity of the heart influences our perceptions, emotions, intuition and health. Early on in our research we asked, among other questions, why people experience the feeling or sensation of love and other regenerative emotions as well as heartache in the physical area of the heart. In the early 1990s, we were among the first to conduct research that not only looked at how stressful emotions affect the activity in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and the hormonal and immune systems, but also at the effects of emotions such as appreciation, compassion and care. Over the years, we have conducted many studies that have utilized many different physiological measures such as EEG (brain waves), SCL (skin conductance), ECG (heart), BP (blood pressure) and hormone levels, etc. Consistently, however, it was heart rate variability, or heart rhythms that stood out as the most dynamic and reflective indicator of one’s emotional states and, therefore, current stress and cognitive processes. It became clear that stressful or depleting emotions such as frustration and overwhelm lead to increased disorder in the higher-level brain centers and autonomic nervous system and which are reflected in the heart rhythms and adversely affects the functioning of virtually all bodily systems. This eventually led to a much deeper understanding of the neural and other communication pathways between the heart and brain. We also observed that the heart acted as though it had a mind of its own and could significantly influence the way we perceive and respond in our daily interactions. In essence, it appeared that the heart could affect our awareness, perceptions and intelligence. Numerous studies have since shown that heart coherence is an optimal physiological state associated with increased cognitive function, self-regulatory capacity, emotional stability and resilience.
We now have a much deeper scientific understanding of many of our original questions that explains how and why heart activity affects mental clarity, creativity, emotional balance, intuition and personal effectiveness. Our and others’ research indicates the heart is far more than a simple pump. The heart is, in fact, a highly complex information-processing center with its own functional brain, commonly called the heart brain, that communicates with and influences the cranial brain via the nervous system, hormonal system and other pathways. These influences affect brain function and most of the body’s major organs and play an important role in mental and emotional experience and the quality of our lives.
In recent years, we have conducted a number of research studies that have explored topics such as the electrophysiology of intuition and the degree to which the heart’s magnetic field, which radiates outside the body, carries information that affects other people and even our pets, and links people together in surprising ways. We also launched the Global Coherence Initiative (GCI), which explores the interconnectivity of humanity with Earth’s magnetic fields.
This overview discusses the main findings of our research and the fascinating and important role the heart plays in our personal coherence and the positive changes that occur in health, mental functions, perception, happiness and energy levels as people practice the HeartMath techniques. Practicing the techniques increases heart coherence and one’s ability to self-regulate emotions from a more intuitive, intelligent and balanced inner reference. This also explains how coherence is reflected in our physiology and can be objectively measured.
The discussion then expands from physiological coherence to coherence in the context of families, workplaces and communities. Science of the Heart concludes with the perspective that being responsible for and increasing our personal coherence not only improves personal health and happiness, but also feeds into and influences a global field environment. It is postulated that as increasing numbers of people add coherent energy to the global field, it helps strengthen and stabilize mutually beneficial feedback loops between human beings and Earth’s magnetic fields.
www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/
Note what he wrote concerning the machaira sword in Ephesians 6:17, “And take up…the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
The sword (machaira) that Paul referenced was approximately nineteen inches long and both sides of the blade were razor sharp. This sword was used for cutting and slicing flesh. The tip of the sword was turned upward so that it could rip out the entrails of the enemy. It was extremely lethal. Paul said that we could stand firm against the schemes of the enemy by taking up, among other things, a spiritual sword—the sword of the Spirit. Paul said that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. This is the rhema word, which is an inspired utterance from the Lord. It can be defined as a spoken word by a living voice or a divine word spoken through the Holy Spirit.
A rhema word is a clearly spoken word in undeniable, unmistakable, and unquestionable language that we hear and understand. Renner wrote, “In the New Testament, the word rhema carries the idea of a quickened word, such as a word of scripture or a ‘word from the Lord’ that the Holy Spirit supernaturally drops into a believer’s mind, thus causing it to supernaturally come alive and impart special power or direction to that believer.” Throughout history, there have been men and women who have made critical decisions or life-changing moves simply because they heard a word from the Lord. God spoke an undeniable, unmistakable, unquestionable word to them and they obeyed it. As a result, through God’s people who were obedient to the spoken Word of God, extraordinary accomplishments have occurred. The sword of the Lord was picked-up by those believers and used to stand firm against the enemy by cutting down the work of darkness.
Much of Paul’s ministry was influenced by rhema words being spoken to him. For example: God spoke to Paul at the time of his conversion (Acts 9:4-6), God spoke to Ananias concerning Paul’s life and need of a healing (Acts 9:10-16), the Holy Spirit spoke at the time of Paul’s “commissioning” into public ministry (Acts 13:2), the Holy Spirit warned Paul where he was not to preach (Acts 16:6), God spoke to Paul in preparation for a period of persecution that he would experience in Jerusalem (Acts 21:11), and the Holy Spirit spoke concerning Paul’s ministry in the city of Rome (Acts 23:11).
We can conclude that Paul used the sword of the Spirit to advance the kingdom of God. He heard the rhema Word of God and by obeying it, the gospel of Christ was advance against the perils and wiles of the devil. The Holy Spirit desires to speak a rhema word to you, too. He wants to speak to you in undeniable, unmistakable, and unquestionable language that you hear and understand. Have you heard a word from the Lord recently? The challenge becomes living in such a way that we’re able to hear the subtle voice of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says today if we hear His voice we’re not to harden our hearts (Heb. 4:7). I believe the issue is not if God is speaking, but if we’re listening. Recently, I wrote that one of the most significant things that we can do to stand firm against the schemes of the enemy is to “listen” to the voice of the Holy Spirit. Life is in His voice; we don’t live by bread alone, but by every word (rhema) that proceeds out of God’s mouth (Matt. 4:4). If we live by His words, then, could we spiritually die by the absence of hearing them?
We must arrange our lives in a posture of intimacy to hear what Jesus is saying to us. Choose to live a “Mary lifestyle” at the feet of Jesus. This is a challenge, no doubt, because we live in a “Martha world” that is worried, bothered and distracted about so many things (see Luke 10:38-42). Intimacy with Jesus is fundamental to hearing, and it’s how we’re equipped to use the sword of the Spirit against the schemes of the enemy. Additionally, some of the greatest spoken words that you will hear occur when you read the written words of God. The Bible says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). Become a student of the Bible so that you can be adequately equipped for every work that the Lord calls you to do. Read, soak, immerse, listen, study, and memorize the written Word of God, and watch how frequently He will speak a living word into your heart.
Stand firm, my friends, and use the sword of the Spirit against the schemes of the enemy so that you can advance the kingdom of God.
This nurse in her crisply starched uniform has the look of youthful idealism on her face as she gazes directly into the camera. Her spectacles are perhaps the result of pouring over many books while studying for her career. However, I suspect the books in this photograph are photographer's props as the book on the back of the table has a picture on its cover that would be suitable for a children's book. The book she is "reading" is propped up against what appears to be a lovely "woven" small china pot filled with small daisy-like flowers."
She has autographed the back of her photograph in pen: "With love & best wishes to all from Nursie."
The photograph is blind stamped "E. & E. Pickering , Petersfield" in the lower lefthand corner. So far, I have not been able to find out anything about the photographer.
Petersfield is a market town and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 17 miles (27km) north of Portsmouth. The town is surrounded on all sides by farmed countryside, with the South Downs south of the town, the Hampshire Downs to the west, and forested hills (Durford Wood) to the northeast.
*"dog lovers" based on the famous poem by Guillermo Arriaga, a "R" rated Cumbia by Alonso Castro and lately the expressionist trilogy film by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrittu
Amores Perros is the first movie in Iñárritu's trilogy of death, it is a triptych; an anthology film, containing three distinct stories which are connected by a car accident in Mexico City. Each of the three tales is also a reflection on the cruelty of humans toward animals and each other, showing how they may live dark or even hideous lives. Amores Perros was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2000 and won the Ariel Award for Best Picture from the Mexican Academy of Film. The film Amores Perros gives a clear representation of the division between classes in Latin American society, as we are shown characters from under, working and middle classes. But the film's theme is loyalty, as symbolized by the dog, "man's best friend". Dogs are important to the main characters in each of the three stories, and in each story various forms of human loyalty or disloyalty are shown; disloyalty to a brother by trying to seduce the brother's girl-friend, disloyalty to a wife by keeping a mistress with subsequent disloyalty to the mistress when she is injured and loses her beauty, loss of loyalty to youthful idealism and rediscovered loyalty to a daughter as a hit-man falls from and then attempts to regain grace.
The film was released under its Spanish title in the English-speaking world, although its title was sometimes translated as Love's a Bitch and in Europe as "the dog lovers". The soundtrack included songs by well-known Latin American rock bands, such as Café Tacuba, Control Machete and Bersuit Vergarabat.
The film remains as one of the finest examples of expressionist art of the past century. Some of you may find my attempt to try my humble attempt to link my painting to the two greatest artists of our time an affront, but hey at my age why should I call it abstract if that link has moved me to produce several hundred paintings linked directly to the writings of Guillermo Arriaga.
p.s. on a note of interest, for those not familiar with the film, it is definitely not for the faint of heart for it portrays brutality only humans are capable of. /it comes unrated/ The Cumbia which is beautifully composed and played on accordion, has unfortunately been removed from You Tube.
/no reason given/
The Skater (Portrait of William Grant)
West Building, Main Floor—Gallery 59
•Date: 1782
•Medium: Oil on Canvas
•Dimensions:
oOverall: 245.5 × 147.4 cm (96⅝ × 58 1/16 in.)
oFramed: 274.3 × 177.2 × 9.5 cm (108 × 69¾ × 3¾ in.)
•Credit Line: Andrew W. Mellon Collection
•Accession Number: 1950.18.1
•Artists/Makers
oPainter: Gilbert Stuart, American, 1755-1828
Overview
In 1775, Gilbert Stuart set sail for London where Benjamin West welcomed the destitute young man into his home. The Skater marks the end of his five-year apprenticeship to West. Stuart’s first effort at full-length portraiture, its originality brought the artist so much notice at the 1782 Royal Academy exhibition that he soon set up his own studio.
The unorthodox motif of skating—indeed, any presentation of vigorous movement at all—had absolutely no precedent in Britain’s “Grand Manner” tradition of life-size society portraiture. The painter recalled that when William Grant, from Congalton near Edinburgh, arrived to have his picture painted, the Scottish sitter remarked that, “on account of the excessive coldness of the weather … the day was better suited for skating than sitting for one’s portrait.” Thus artist and sitter went off to skate on the Serpentine River in Hyde Park. When he returned to West’s studio with Grant, Stuart conceived the idea of portraying his subject on ice skates in a winter landscape, with the twin towers of Westminster Abbey far in the distance.
In this innovative design, Grant glides effortlessly forward with arms crossed over his chest in typical eighteenth-century skating form. Except for his folded arms, the figure’s stance derives from an ancient Roman statue, the Apollo Belvedere, a cast of which stood in the corner of West’s studio.
Provenance
The sitter, William Grant [d. 1821], Congalton, Scotland, and Cheltenham, England; his son, William Grant [d. 1827], Congalton, Scotland, and London; his daughter, Elizabeth Grant [Mrs. Charles Pelham-Clinton, d. 1899];[1] her son, Charles Stapleton Pelham-Clinton [1857-1911], Moor Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire;[2] his widow, Elizabeth Pelham-Clinton [d. 1946], London and Holmes Green, Buckinghamshire; her niece and adopted daughter, Georgiana Elizabeth May Pelham-Clinton [Mrs. John Stuart Bordewich, b. 1913] London; sold 1950 to the NGA.
[1]The wills of William Grant and his son (Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh) do not mention the portrait. Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, Privy Council and Order of Precedence, 101st ed., London, 1956: 1611, lists Mrs. Pelham-Clinton, the first owner of record, as her father’s only surviving child at the time of her marriage in 1848. Her husband was the second son of Henry Pelham-Clinton, 4th Duke of Newcastle.
[2]According to a file note by William P. Campbell (NGA curatorial file), a label from the 1878 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts is attached to the stretcher and documents this owner and address; see Burke 1956, 1611, for the dates of this and later owners.
Associated Names
•Clinton, Pelham, Miss
•Grant, William
•Grant, William
•Pelham-Clinton, Charles Stapleton
•Pelham-Clinton, Charles Stapleton, Mrs.
•Pelham-Clinton, Elizabeth
Exhibition History
•1782—Royal Academy, London, 1782, no. 190, as Portrait of a gentleman skating
•1878—Exhibition of Works by Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School, Royal Academy, London, 1878, no. 128, as Portrait of W. Grant, Esq., of Congalton, Skating in St. James Park, attributed to Thomas Gainsborough
•1946—American Painting from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, Tate Gallery, London, 1946, no. 206
•1963—Style, Truth, and the Portrait, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 1963, no. 38
•1967—Gilbert Stuart, Portraitist of the Young Republic, 1755-1828, National Gallery of Art; Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, 1967, no. 8
•1976—American Art: 1750-1800, Towards Independence, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1976, no. 44
•1981—American Portraiture in the Grand Manner: 1720-1920, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1981-1982, no. 21.
•2001—Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, 2001-2002, no. 35, repro.
•2004—Gilbert Stuart, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery of Art (for the National Portrait Gallery), Washington, D.C., 2004-2005, no. 6, repro.
Bibliography
•1782—”Candid.” Letter to the Editor. The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser (9 May 1782): 2.
•1782—”Postscript. Account of the Exhibition of Paintings, &c. at the Royal Academy.” St. James Chronicle, or British Evening Post, 2-4 May 1782: 4.
•1782—”Royal Academy, 1782. Fourteenth Exhibition.” The Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser (30 April 1782): 3.
•1816—Jouett, Matthew Harris. “Notes Taken by M. H. Jouett while in Boston from Conversations on painting with Gilbert Stuart Esqr.” Manuscript, published in Gilbert Stuart and His Pupils, by John Hill Morgan. New York, 1816: 86, 87.
•1846—Lester, C. Edwards. The Artists of America. New York, 1846: 126.
•1869—Dunlap, William. A History of the Rise and Progress of The Arts of Design in the United States. 2 vols. Reprinted in 3. New York, 1969 (1834): 1:183-184.
•1877—Stuart, Jane. “The Youth of Gilbert Stuart.” Scribner’s Monthly 13, no. 5 (March 1877): 642.
•1878—”The Old Masters at Burlington House. Second Notice.” The Illustrated London News 72, no. 2012 (January 19, 1878): 66.
•1878—”The Old Masters at Burlington House. Third Notice.” The Illustrated London News 72, no. 2013 (January 26, 1878): 91.
•1878—”The Old Masters at the Royal Academy.” Saturday Review 45, no. 1159 (January 12, 1878): 50.
•1879—Mason, George C. The Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1879: 187-190.
•1880—”Portraits Painted by Stuart...taken from Mason’s Life and Works of Gilbert Stuart.” In Exhibition of Portraits Painted by Gilbert Stuart. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1880: 41, no. 268.
•1883—Quincy, Josiah. Figures of the Past from the Leaves of Old Journals. 4th ed. Boston, 1883: 84.
•1926—Park 1926, 34, 358-359, no. 343, repro.
•1928—Whitley, William T. Artists and Their Friends in England, 1700-1800. 2 vols. London and Boston, 1928: 2:395-396.
•1932—Whitley, William T. Gilbert Stuart. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1932: 15, 31-36.
•1952 Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 138, color repro., as The Skater.
•1956 Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1956: 50, color repro., as The Skater.
•1957—Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 91.
•1961—Oswald, Arthur. “Our Ancestors on the Ice.” Country Life 129 (9 February 1961): 268-270, repro.
•1964—Mount, Charles Merrill. Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1964: 69-74.
•1966—Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:380, color repro.
•1969—Novak, Barbara. American Painting of the Nineteenth Century: Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience. 2nd ed. New York, 1979: 32, fig. 1.17.
•1969—Prown, Jules David. American Painting, From its Beginnings to the Armory Show. Geneva, 1969: 47-48.
•1970—American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 106, repro., as The Skater.
•1973—Button, Dick. “The Art of Skating.” Antiques 103, no. 2 (February 1973): 351-362, color repro. on cover.
•1973—Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 135.
•1975—Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 380, color repro. 381.
•1978—King, Marian. Adventures in Art: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1978: 54, pl. 31.
•1980—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 234, repro.
•1980—Evans, Dorinda. Benjamin West and His American Students. Exh. cat. National Portrait Gallery, Washington; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Washington, 1980: 55, 57-58, repro. 59.
•1980—Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 10, no. 6, color repro.
•1981—Waterson, Merlin. “Hissing Along the Polished Ice.” Country Life 169 (2 April 1981): repro. 872.
•1981—Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 49, 62, repro. 63.
•1984—Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 376, no. 531, color repro.
•1986 McLanathan, Richard. Gilbert Stuart. New York, 1986: color repro. 36, 37, 45-47.
•1986—Pressly, William L. “Gilbert Stuart’s The Skater: An Essay in Romantic Melancholy.” American Art Journal 18, no. 1, 1986: 42-51, fig. 1.
•1987—Pearson, Andrea G. “Gilbert Stuart’s The Skater (Portrait of William Grant) and Henry Raeburn’s The Reverend Robert Walker, D.D., Skating on Duddington Loch: A Study of Sources.” Rutgers Art Review 8 (1987): 55-70, fig. 1.
•1988—Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 58-59, no. 6, color repro.
•1990—Crean, Hugh R. Gilbert Stuart and the politics of fine arts patronage in Ireland, 1787-1793; A social and cultural study. Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1990: 55-62.
•1992—American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 345, repro.
•1992—National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 214, repro.
•1995—Miles, Ellen G. American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 162-169, color repro. 165.
•1997—Hughes, Robert. American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. New York, 1997: 128, color fig. 81.
•1997—Thomson, Duncan. Raeburn: The Art of Sir Henry Raeburn 1756-1823, Exh. cat. Scottish National Portrait Gallery at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh; National Portrait Gallery, London, 1997-1998, p. 90, no. 61, repro.
•1998—Mandel, Corinne. “Melancholy.” In Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art, edited by Helene E. Roberts. 2 vols. Chicago, 1998: 2:586-588.
•2004—Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 294-295, no. 240, color repro.
•2011—Gopnik, Adam. Winter: Four Windows on the Season. Toronto, 2011: 142-143, color repro.
•2013—Evans, Dorinda. Gilbert Stuart and the Impact of Manic Depression. Burlington, 2013: 162-164, 168 nn. 36 and 37, fig. 11.
•2016—Rather, Susan. The American School: Artists and Status in the Late Colonial and Early National Era. New Haven, 2016: 171-172, color fig. 125.
From American Paintings of the Eighteenth Century:
1950.18.1 (1051)
The Skater (Portrait of William Grant)
•1782
•Oil on Canvas, 244.5 × 147.4 (96¼ × 58)
•Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Technical Notes
The support is a finely woven twill fabric. The top and bottom tacking edges have been unfolded and add about 6 cm to the painting’s height. The lateral tacking margins have been cropped, but cusping remains along these edges. The thin white ground extends to cover the tacking margins, suggesting that the canvas was pre-primed. Much of the preliminary drawing, done loosely with paint and brush, is visible on the surface, having been incorporated into the painting. The paint is thinly applied, except in the sitter’s upper body, face, and collar, and in the sky around his head, where the paint is thicker and its handling more controlled. Many pentimenti are evident, including changes in the figure’s hat, shoulders, tail of the coat on the viewer’s right, and the sitter’s right leg.
Abrasion is found in the ice at the sitter’s feet. Crackle is more pronounced near the head, where the paint is thicker, and is especially pronounced to the right of the skater’s thigh. There are pinpoint losses throughout. The painting was lined prior to 1950.
Provenance
William Grant [d. 1821], Congalton, Scotland, and Cheltenham, England; his son William Grant [d. 1827], Congalton, Scotland, and London; his daughter Elizabeth Grant [Mrs. Charles Pelham-Clinton, d. 1899];1 her son Charles Stapleton Pelham-Clinton [1857-1911], Moor Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire;2 his widow Elizabeth Pelham-Clin ton [d. 1946], London and Holmes Green, Buckinghamshire; her niece and adopted daughter Georgiana Elizabeth May Pelham-Glinton [Mrs. John Stuart Bordewich, b. 1913], London.
Exhibited
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1782, no. 190, as Portrait of a gentleman skating. Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, and by Deceased Masters of the British School, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1878, no. 128, as Portrait of W. Grant, Esq., of Congalton, Skating in St. James3s Park, attributed to Thomas Gainsborough.3 American Painting from the Eighteenth Century to the Present Day, Tate Gallery, London, 1946, no. 206. Style, Truth and the Portrait, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 1963, no. 38. Gilbert Stuart, NGA; RISD, 1967, no. 8. American Art: 1750-1800, Towards Independence, YUAG; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1976, no. 44. American Portraiture in the Grand Manner: 1720-1920, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; NGA, 1981-1982, no. 21.
In 1782 Gilbert Stuart, a young painter in London, was “suddenly lifted into fame by the exhibition of a single picture,”4 his full-length of William Grant called Portrait of a Gentleman Skating. (The painting was given its present title of The Skater m 1946.) Stuart devised the theme after an outing on the Serpentine river in Hyde Park with Grant, a young Scottish lawyer, who had come for a sitting for a full-length portrait. According to American artist William Dunlap, who heard the story from miniaturist Charles Fraser,
Stuart said that he felt great diffidence in undertaking a whole length; but that there must be a beginning, and a day was accordingly appointed for Mr. Grant to sit. On entering the artist’s room, he regretted the appointment, on account of the excessive coldness of the weather, and observed to Stuart, that the day was better suited for skating than sitting for one’s portrait. To this the painter assented, and they both sallied out to their morning’s amusement. Stuart said that early practice had made him very expert in skating. His celerity and activity accordingly attracted crowds on the Serpentine river—which was the scene of their sport. His companion, although a well-made and graceful man, was not as active as himself; and there being a crack in the ice, which made it dangerous to continue their amusement, he told Mr. Grant to hold the skirt of his coat, and follow him off the field. They returned to Mr. Stuart’s rooms, where it occurred to him to paint Mr. Grant in the attitude of skating, with the appendage of a winter scene, in the back ground.5
The setting for the portrait is the Serpentine, a popular skating spot in London that was created when Kensington Gardens was landscaped during the reign of George II.6 Grant is dressed completely in black, from his hat and the fur-lined lapels of his coat to his breeches, stockings, and shoes. Behind him to the right two skaters sit at the edge of the ice, putting on their skates, while two other men stand under a tree. In the left background two skaters perform the Salutation, also known as the Serpentine Greeting, while others watch.7 The painting offers a balance of black, gray, and off-white, with slight touches of red on the clothing of the background figures. Stuart’s pupil Matthew Harris Jouett later described the portrait as a “fine contrast of Grant in full black to the snow & grey chilly background.”8 The young lawyer William Grant (d. 1821) was the son of Ludovick Grant of Edinburgh.9 Why he chose Stuart to paint his portrait is not known ; perhaps he was a friend or a distant relative of Stuart’s early London patron Alexander Grant, also a Scot.10 Moderately wealthy, Grant was fond of portraits. George Romney painted him in 1781 and again in 1787, and in 1794 he painted “ Mrs. Grant, “ perhaps Grant’s wife Dorothea Dalrymple, whom he married that year. Grant’s children were painted by John Opie (LaSalle University Art Museum, Philadelphia).11 At his death in 1821, Grant left his heirs a large estate called Congalton, in Scotland, as well as stock in the Bank of England and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The portrait, Stuart’s first full-length, showed his ability to invent new compositions within the tradition of English portraiture, in which standing cross-legged poses had been popular for men’s portraits since the 17405. Its success made it possible for Stuart to move from West’s studio into one of his own. Comparisons between the two American artists by contemporaries were inevitable. When Giuseppi Baretti, an Italian-born lexicographer, author, and friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds, saw the painting at West’s before its exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, he commented, according to Dunlap, “What a charming picture ! Who but the great West could have painted such a one ! “ Later, seeing Stuart at work on the painting, he exclaimed, “What, young man, does Mr. West permit you to touch his pictures?” Stuart replied that it was his own painting. Baretti is supposed to have said, “Why, it is almost as good as Mr. West can paint.”12 The close association of the two men’s work is revealed by an undated chalk drawing by West titled Skateing. West, like Stuart, enjoyed a reputation as a good skater, and in this chalk drawing depicted skaters and spectators on the ice at the Serpentine. A skater in the center foreground turns toward the man behind him, who lies on the ice after a fall. To the left, two figures who perform the Serpentine Greeting are virtually identical to the two skaters in the background of Stuart’s portrait of Grant. To the right is a small figure whose pose seems similar to Grant’s; the figure is very sketchy.
A reviewer noted Stuart’s relationship to Benjamin West when Stuart exhibited the painting with three others at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1782.
Mr. Stuart is in Partnership with Mr. West; where it is not uncommon for Wits to divert themselves with Applications for Things they do not immediately want; because they are told by Mr. West that Mr. Stuart is the only Portrait Painter in the World; and by Mr. Stuart that no Man has any Pretensions in History Painting but Mr. West. After such Authority what can we say of Mr. Stuart’s Painting.13
The portrait enchanted visitors who attended the Academy’s exhibition. Horace Walpole, author of Anecdotes of Painting in England (1762-1771), the first history of British art, wrote “very good” next to the entry for the portrait in his copy of the catalogue.14 Stuart overheard the Duke of Rutland on opening day, urging Sir Joshua Reynolds, “I wish you would go to the exhibition with me, for there is a portrait there which you must see, every body is enchanted with it.” When Sir Joshua asked who painted it, the Duke replied, “A young man by the name of Stuart. “15 Visitors and reviewers praised the portrait’s unusual pose and Stuart’s ability with likeness. Sir John Cullum commented on the novelty of the theme in his letter of 1 May 1782 to Frederick Hervey, Bishop of Derry and Earl of Bristol. “One would have thought that almost every attitude of a single Figure had long been exhausted in this land of portrait painting but one is now exhibited which I recollect not before—it is that of Skating. There is a noble portrait large as life thus exhibited and which produces the most powerful effect.”16 A reviewer for the Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser commented on 30 April that “Stuart and Opie, whose merits were not so generally known, have proved themselves able artists” and praised Stuart for his “striking likenesses.”17 Stuart’s ability to capture a likeness was borne out by Charles Fraser’s later comment to artist William Dunlap that the picture attracted so much comment that Stuart was “afraid to go to the academy to meet the looks and answer the inquiries of the multitude. Mr. Grant went one day to the exhibition, dressed as his portrait represented him; the original was immediately recognized, when the crowd followed him so closely that he was compelled to make his retreat, for every one was exclaiming, ‘There he is, there is the gentleman.’”18
Opinion was divided on the technique of the painting. One reviewer said that “Mr. Stuart seldom fails of a Likeness; but wants Freedom of Pencil, and Elegance of Taste.”19 However, the author of a letter in the Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser noted, “ Mr. Stuart… may be said to be an acquisition to the public; his Gentleman seating, No. 190, is reposed, animated and well drawn.”20 And a critic in the London Courant commented on the portrait as Stuart’s first attempt at a full-length. “If we have been informed aright this is the gentleman’s first essay in this branch of the art ; at all events it does honour to his pencil, from the novelty of the design and the neatness of the execution.”21 A commentator in 1795 wrote about Stuart’s early difficulty with a portrait of this size.
It is now some years since Stuart the portrait painter … painted a portrait of a Mr. Grant in the action of skating; this portrait was given in so spirited an attitude and with so appropriate a character that when it was exhibited, it established the fame of the artist, of whom his brethren had before that time said he made a tolerable likeness of a face, but as to the figure he could not get below the fifth button.22
The combination of the full-length portrait with the act of skating was indeed a novel theme. Stuart appropriately portrayed Grant as a figure skater, the version of the sport popular in England, which emphasized graceful and refined movements, instead of as a Scottish speed skater, which encouraged skill, speed, and competition. Grant wears skates designed for the “small pivots and graceful maneuvers which were essential to the art of figure skating.”23 Robert Jones, in his influential Treatise on Skating (London, 1772), recommended a similar crossedarm pose as “a proper attitude for genteel rolling” (Figure 2).24 Matthew HarrisJouett in 1816 quoted Stuart on “the importance of keeping the figure in its circle of motion, “ giving the example of “his famous skaiting picture of Grant as contrasted with Buckminster Preble who turns his body one way his neck another and his eyes another…. “25
The painting is unlike other images of skaters, which belong to the tradition of sporting scenes. They include Irish painter Robert Healy’s Tom Conolly and his Friends Skating (1768, private collection, Ireland), Sir Henry Raeburn’s The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch (c. 1784, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), Thomas Rowlandson’s watercolor Skaters on the Serpentine of 1784 (National Museum of Wales, Cardiff), and a view by Julius Caesar Ibbetson engraved in 1787 as Winter Amusement; A View in Hyde Park from the Moated Housed Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg’s A Winter Morning, with a Party Skating of 1776 is particularly close to Stuart’s and West’s images in that it shows skating figures similar to those who perform the Serpentine Greeting. And like de Loutherbourg’s scene, Benjamin West’s undated drawing Skateing focuses its action on the popular Serpentine river. In the background is a structure similar to the Cheesecake House, a refreshment lodge that is also seen in the images by Rowlandson and Ibbetson. De Loutherbourg’s scene, which includes portraits of the artist and his wife, the artist’s partner V.M. Picot and others, was the best known of the various images of skaters made before or at the time that Stuart painted his portrait of Grant. It was reproduced by Matthew Boulton’s picture manufactory in Birmingham, England, between 1776 and 1780 by an unusual reproductive process that replicated paintings with their original coloring. In the mid-1780s a cloth merchant and amateur painter named Joseph Booth revived the idea of reproducing the painting by using a “polygraph process.” Numerous color reproductions of de Loutherbourg’s Winter Morning survive.27
Art historian William Pressly has proposed an interpretation of The Skater as expressing the theme of melancholy. To Pressly, the “recently revived tradition of the melancholy hero” explains the somber coloration of the painting, the darkly shaded eyes of the skater, and the use of a crossed-arm pose. In this view the painting becomes a self-portrait of Stuart’s own tendency toward melancholy. The snowy setting is appropriate in this theory, since winter was traditionally associated with melancholia.28 One might even suggest that Stuart included himself as the man on the right who stands under a tree. The physiognomy of this spectator, with his long nose and angular chin, closely resembles Stuart’s self-portrait of around 1786. Whether the association of the mood and the season necessarily points to melancholy as the subject of the painting is uncertain, even though the connection of the two was well known at the time and had been developed in verse many years earlier by the English poet James Thomson in his poem “Winter” in The Seasons (1730). “Winter” itself could be the theme, rather than “melancholy.” As Jules Prown has pointed out, “The skater evokes an allegorical image of Winter as one of the Four Seasons. “29 Lines from Thomson’s “Winter” form the caption for a late eighteenth-century English mezzotint titled “Winter,” which shows three warmly dressed figures walking near the Serpentine, where skaters can be seen in the background. “While every work of man is laid at rest, “ they “swoop on sounding skates a thousand different ways” and the “land is madden’d all to joy” (“Winter,” verses 761, 769, 771).30 The allusion to the mood of the season indicates that Stuart had absorbed the highly sophisticated London practice of borrowing from literary works for the subject matter of portraits.
Stuart was also absorbing lessons on technique. The portrait is a masterpiece of the late eighteenth-century British style of portraiture, which focuses on the figure, particularly the face, by painting the background with less detail. X-radiography shows that Stuart, when painting Grant’s face, had not yet developed the fully calligraphic brushwork for which he is known in his later paintings. Here he shaped the eyes, nose, mouth, and shadow of the nose by drawing the features with the brush. Later he would not follow the outline of the individual features as closely. Stuart also used more white pigment in the transitional flesh tones than he would in later works. X-radiography suggests, not surprisingly, that Stuart painted the background after completing the figure; the brushstrokes of the clouds mark the outer edges of the hat, face, and shoulders, which were already blocked out and painted. In addition, close examination of the painting reveals changes, or pentimenti, in the hat, shoulders, tail of the coat, and sitter’s right leg, indicating that Stuart did indeed struggle with the challenge inherent in a full-length, a size he rarely agreed to use again in his long career.
EGM
Notes
1.The wills of William Grant and his son (Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh) do not mention the portrait. Burke 1956, 1611, lists Mrs. Pelham-Glinton, the first owner of record, as her father’s only surviving child at the time of her marriage in 1848. Her husband was the second son of Henry Pelham-Glinton, 4th Duke of Newcastle.
2.According to a file note by William P. Campbell (NGA), a label from the 1878 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts is attached to the stretcher and documents this owner and address; see Burke 1956, 1611, for the dates of this and later owners.
3.Royal Academy 1878, unpaginated; Graves 1913, 1:383,3:1275; Graves 1905,71296. For a discussion of the attribution of the portrait in 1878 to Gainsborough, and the Grant family’s research to determine Stuart’s authorship, see Whitley 1932,33-36.
4.Quincy 1883,84, who does not identify the picture.
5.Dunlap 1834, 1:183; Fraser heard the story from Stuart. John Gait had by then published his story about Benjamin West as a skater; see Gait 1820, 2:26-31. Gait told how, when West was a young artist in London in the 17605, his skating skills had brought him to the attention of the English aristocracy. Allen Staley kindly pointed out the similarity of the two anecdotes.
6.Hayes 1990, 64.
7.Button 1973, 354.
8.Jouett 1816, in Morgan, Stuart, 1939, 87; since Jouett never saw the portrait, his description must be a quotation from Stuart.
9.Faculty of Advocates 1944, 90, courtesy of Dr. Louise Yeoman, Scottish Record Office, Edinburgh.
10.Alexander Grant is mentioned in Stuart 1877, 642; see also Stuart 1967,14.
11.Ward and Roberts 1904, 2:63-64. The earlier portrait of Grant by Romney was sold by Georgiana Bordewich, former owner of The Skater, at Christie’s on 22 March 1974 (lot 96) and bought by Léger Galleries; see Léger Galleries 1975, unpaginated, no. 5. Mrs. Bordewich also sold a portrait said to be of Grant by Thomas Hudson (lot 94), 127 by 101.6 cm (50 by 40 inches), and the portrait of his four eldest children, attributed to Opie (lot 95). The portrait of Mrs. Grant remained in Romney’s studio and was sold at Romney’s sale in 1807.
12.Dunlap 1834, 1:183; Jouett referred to Baretti’s “mistaking it for Wests best production” when he recorded Stuart’s comments about painting in 1816; see Jouett 1816, in Morgan, Stuart, 1939, 87.
13.“Postscript. Account of the Exhibition of Paintings, &c. at the Royal Academy,” St. James’s Chronicle, or British Evening Post, 2-4 May 1782, 4.
14.Whitley 1932,32.
15.Dunlap 1834,1:184.
16.Quoted in Whitley 1932,33, and Pressly 1986, 44, from Childe-Pemberton 1925,1:284.
17.“Royal Academy, 1782. Fourteenth Exhibition,” Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser, 30 April 1782, 3.
18.Dunlap 1834,1:184.
19.“Postscript. Account of the Exhibition of Paintings, &c. at the Royal Academy,” St. James’s Chronicle, or British Evening Post, 2-4 May 1782, 4.
20.The letter from the correspondent, identified as “Candid,” was published in the Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser on 9 May 1782, 2.
21.Quoted in Whitley 1932, 33, from an unidentified issue.
22.Quoted in Whitley 1932,33, from an unidentified source.
23.Pearson 1987, 59.
24.Pressly 1986, 48; Pearson 1987, 60, 62, fig. 8.
25.Jouett 1816, in Morgan, Stuart, 1939, 86.
26.For three of these paintings see Hayes 1990, 64-66, no. 19, color repro.; and Pearson 1987, 57 fig. 2 and 61 fig. 7.
27.de Loutherbourg 1973, unpaginated, cat. no. 22. Allen Staley kindly pointed out the significance of this image for Stuart’s and West’s works.
28.Pressly 1986, 42-51.
29.Prown 1969, 48.
30.Quoted in Button 1973, 355, fig. 4.
References
•1782—”Royal Academy, 1782. Fourteenth Exhibition.” Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser. 30 April: 3.
•1782—”Postscript. Account of the Exhibition of Paintings, &c. at the Royal Academy.” St. James’s Chronicle, or British Evening Post. 2-4 May 1782: 4.
•1782—”Candid.” Letter to the Editor. Morning Chronicle, and London Advertiser. 9 May: 2.
•1816—Jouett: 86, 87.
•1834—Dunlap: 1:183-184.
•1846—Lester: 126.
•1877—Stuart: 642.
•1878—”The Old Masters at the Royal Academy.” Saturday Review 45, no. 1159 (12 January): 50.
•1878—”The Old Masters at Burlington House. Second Notice.” Illustrated London News 72, no. 2012 (19 January): 66.
•1878—”The Old Masters at Burlington House. Third Notice.” Illustrated London News 72, no. 2013 (26 January): 91.
•1879—Mason: 187-190.
•1880—MFA: 41, no.268.
•1883—Quincy: 84.
•1926—Park: 34, 358-359, no. 343, repro.
•1928—Whitley: 2:395-396.
•1932—Whitley: 15, 31-36.
•1961—Oswald: 268-270, repro.
•1964—Mount: 69-74.
•1969—Prown: 47-48.
•1973—Button: 351-3 62, color cover repro.
•1980—Evans: 55, 57-58, repro. 59.
•1980—Wilmerding: 50, color repro .51.
•1981—Waterson: 872 repro.
•1981—Williams: color repro. 49, 62, repro. 63.
•1984—Walker: 376, no. 531, color repro.
•1986—Pressly: 42-51, fig.1.
•1986—McLanathan: color repro. 36, 37, 45-47.
•1987—Pearson: 55-70, fig. 1.
•1988—Wilmerding: 58-59, color repro.
•1990—Crean: 55-62.
Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833 - 1870.
This great poet, recognised as one of Australia’s greatest, was born in the Azores to English parents in 1833. But by the time he was twenty his father was exasperated with Adam’s hedonistic lifestyle which was frowned upon in Victorian England. Adam Gordon senior secured a position for young Adam with the SA government and Adan Lindsay Gordon arrived at Port Adelaide in 1853. Adam was tall, handsome, moody, and reckless but an excellent horseman and rider. He was appointed as a police trooper at Penola for two years and then from 1855 he broke horses around the Mt Gambier district with some financial backing from this father. In 1857 Adam met Father Tenison Woods and began reading poetry with him. When his mother died in 1859 he received a legacy of £7,000 which he received in 1861. Although profligate with his money he was comfortable with his winnings from steeple chases and horse breaking of thoroughbreds. In 1862 he married Margaret Park a girl of 17 years who was also an excellent horsewoman. So in 1864 he bought Dingley Dell cottage for their home. The cottage was located at Port MacDonnell where he had lived and when the ship the Admella sank at Cape Northumberland in 1859 with the loss of 89 lives Adam was deeply affected by it. In 1869 he wrote a poem about it entitled the Ride from the Wreck. Around 1864 Adam speculated with land investments that failed and this seemed to increase his reckless horse riding exploits. His famous leap over the edge of the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier occurred in July 1864. The monument to this daring feat was erected on that spot in 1887. In January 1865 he was elected to the SA parliament whilst he kept publishing poems and some stories. He became a good friend of John Riddoch of Yallum Park near Penola once he attended parliament. His time in parliament provoked him into more poetry publishing, horse riding and racing and land speculation in Western Australia as well as South Australia. In 1867 he moved to a residence in Mt Gambier for a short time. He published several poems that year and then moved to Ballarat. He rented Craig’s hotel livery stables but his idealism and lack of business acumen soon delivered financial failure. His pretty little Ballarat Cottage is now located in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens. He left Ballarat at the end of 1868 and moved to Melbourne. He continued racing horses and in 1870 had a serious fall whilst racing at Flemington race course. He never fully recovered but managed to publish two works in mid-1870 Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes. When he got the account for publishing the two books he realised he had insufficient money to pay the publishers and he took his own life in June 1870. Although the newspapers speculated he was an alcoholic his friends were all adamant that he seldom drank but he was subject to depression and melancholy. He was buried in the Brighton cemetery in Melbourne and his friends erected a monument on his grave in October 1870. Sadly his prowess as a poet was mainly recognised after his death. In 1932 a statue of him was erected near Parliament House in Melbourne. In 1934 a bust of Adam Lindsay Gordon was placed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey the Australian poet to have such recognition. British composer Edward Elgar set several of Adam’s poem to music, Queen Elizabeth II quoted lines from one of his poems in her 1992 Christmas broadcast and Australian Post released a stamp honouring Adam Lindsay Gordon in 1970. In 2014 he was inducted into the Australia Jumps Racing Association Gallery of Champions. On his statue in Melbourne are four of his lines:
Life is mainly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone —
Kindness in another's trouble.
Courage in your own.
Below are some lines from the Ride from the Wreck (of the Admella.)
Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm’d on the reef,
And many on board still, and some wash’d on shore.
Ride straight with the news—they may send some relief
From the township; and we—we can do little more.
You, Alec, you know the near cuts; you can cross
"The Sugarloaf" ford with a scramble, I think;
Don’t spare the blood filly, nor yet the black horse;
Should the wind rise, God help them! the ship will soon sink.
Old Peter’s away down the paddock, to drive
The nags to the stockyard as fast as he can—
A life and death matter; so, lads, look alive.’
Sono tante le scuse che ci raccontano per l'avvenimento di tante guerre, ma per lo più i responsabili sono:
Iraq: Petrolio
Israele e Palestina: Territorio, petrolio e acqua
Giordania: Acqua
Turchia: Petrolio, gas naturale e acqua
Yemene: Petrolio, acqua e gas naturale
Marocco: Acqua e oro
Egitto: Acqua
Colombia: Narcotrafico
Mexico: Droga
Somalia: Petrolio
Etiopia: Platino e oro
Congo: Coltan "columbite e tantalite"
Uganda: Petrolio
Sudan: Petrolio
Repubblica Centrafricana: Diamanti
Ciad: Petrolio
Nigeria: Uranio
Algeria: Petrolio, acqua e gas naturale
Ciprio: Acqua e petrolio
Russia nord Caucaso: Petrolio, tungsteno e gas naturale
Afghanista: Litio, oro, petrolio e oppio
Pakistan: Petrolio e gas naturale
India Assam: Petrolio, acqua e gas naturale
India Naxaliti Kashmir: Bauxite, acqua, carbone e uranio
Birmania: Rubini e legno
Thailandia Cambogia: Acqua, legno, rubini e diamanti
Thailandia Pattani: Petrolio, acqua e gas naturale
Filippine: Oro
Corea: Tungsteno e oro
Amazzonia: Legno
I giacimenti della terra sono un bene prezioso per tutta l'umanità, ma c'è sempre qualcuno pronto e diventarne padrone e senza pensarci due volte riduce popolazioni alla povertà più estrema, all'abbandono di territori, alla morte di tante anime innocenti e tutto per arricchirsi e diventare il più potente ... tutto questo viene spesso nascosto da idealismi come la religione e patriottico.
... è ora di levarsi la maschera, noi subiamo ma sappiamo.
E vergognatevi, sciacalli.
There are many excuses that we tell to the advent of so many wars, but most managers are:
Israel and Palestine: Land, oil and water
Jordan: Water
Turkey: Petroleum, natural gas and water
Yemene: Oil, water and natural gas
Morocco: Water and gold
Egypt: Water
Colombia: Drugs
Mexico: Drug
Somalia: Oil
Ethiopia: Platinum and gold
Congo: Coltan "columbite and tantalite"
Uganda: Oil
Sudan: Oil
Central African Republic: Diamonds
Chad: Oil
Nigeria: Uranium
Algeria: Oil, water and natural gas
Cyprus: Water and oil
Russia North Caucasus: Oil, natural gas and tungsten
AFGHANISTA: Lithium, gold, oil and opium
Pakistan: Oil and natural gas
India Assam: Oil, water and natural gas
India Naxalite Kashmir: Bauxite, water, coal and uranium
Burma: Rubies and wood
Thailand Cambodia: Water, wood, rubies and diamonds
Thailand Pattani: Oil, water and natural gas
Philippines: Gold
Korea: Tungsten and gold
Amazon: Wood
The fields of the earth are a valuable asset for the whole of humanity, but there is always someone ready and master it without thinking twice and reduces populations to extreme poverty, abandonment of land, to the death of many innocent souls and all to get rich and become the most powerful ... this is often hidden by idealism as religion and patriotic.
... it's time to take off the mask, but we know we suffer.
And be ashamed, jackals.
Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833 - 1870.
This great poet, recognised as one of Australia’s greatest, was born in the Azores to English parents in 1833. But by the time he was twenty his father was exasperated with Adam’s hedonistic lifestyle which was frowned upon in Victorian England. Adam Gordon senior secured a position for young Adam with the SA government and Adan Lindsay Gordon arrived at Port Adelaide in 1853. Adam was tall, handsome, moody, and reckless but an excellent horseman and rider. He was appointed as a police trooper at Penola for two years and then from 1855 he broke horses around the Mt Gambier district with some financial backing from this father. In 1857 Adam met Father Tenison Woods and began reading poetry with him. When his mother died in 1859 he received a legacy of £7,000 which he received in 1861. Although profligate with his money he was comfortable with his winnings from steeple chases and horse breaking of thoroughbreds. In 1862 he married Margaret Park a girl of 17 years who was also an excellent horsewoman. So in 1864 he bought Dingley Dell cottage for their home. The cottage was located at Port MacDonnell where he had lived and when the ship the Admella sank at Cape Northumberland in 1859 with the loss of 89 lives Adam was deeply affected by it. In 1869 he wrote a poem about it entitled the Ride from the Wreck. Around 1864 Adam speculated with land investments that failed and this seemed to increase his reckless horse riding exploits. His famous leap over the edge of the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier occurred in July 1864. The monument to this daring feat was erected on that spot in 1887. In January 1865 he was elected to the SA parliament whilst he kept publishing poems and some stories. He became a good friend of John Riddoch of Yallum Park near Penola once he attended parliament. His time in parliament provoked him into more poetry publishing, horse riding and racing and land speculation in Western Australia as well as South Australia. In 1867 he moved to a residence in Mt Gambier for a short time. He published several poems that year and then moved to Ballarat. He rented Craig’s hotel livery stables but his idealism and lack of business acumen soon delivered financial failure. His pretty little Ballarat Cottage is now located in the Ballarat Botanic Gardens. He left Ballarat at the end of 1868 and moved to Melbourne. He continued racing horses and in 1870 had a serious fall whilst racing at Flemington race course. He never fully recovered but managed to publish two works in mid-1870 Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes. When he got the account for publishing the two books he realised he had insufficient money to pay the publishers and he took his own life in June 1870. Although the newspapers speculated he was an alcoholic his friends were all adamant that he seldom drank but he was subject to depression and melancholy. He was buried in the Brighton cemetery in Melbourne and his friends erected a monument on his grave in October 1870. Sadly his prowess as a poet was mainly recognised after his death. In 1932 a statue of him was erected near Parliament House in Melbourne. In 1934 a bust of Adam Lindsay Gordon was placed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey the Australian poet to have such recognition. British composer Edward Elgar set several of Adam’s poem to music, Queen Elizabeth II quoted lines from one of his poems in her 1992 Christmas broadcast and Australian Post released a stamp honouring Adam Lindsay Gordon in 1970. In 2014 he was inducted into the Australia Jumps Racing Association Gallery of Champions. On his statue in Melbourne are four of his lines:
Life is mainly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone —
Kindness in another's trouble.
Courage in your own.
Below are some lines from the Ride from the Wreck (of the Admella.)
Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm’d on the reef,
And many on board still, and some wash’d on shore.
Ride straight with the news—they may send some relief
From the township; and we—we can do little more.
You, Alec, you know the near cuts; you can cross
"The Sugarloaf" ford with a scramble, I think;
Don’t spare the blood filly, nor yet the black horse;
Should the wind rise, God help them! the ship will soon sink.
Old Peter’s away down the paddock, to drive
The nags to the stockyard as fast as he can—
A life and death matter; so, lads, look alive.’