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Now man with all his faculties and also with his soul recollects himself and enters into the temple (his inner self) in which, in all truth, he finds God dwelling and at work. Man then comes to experience God not after the fashion of the senses and of reason, or like something that one understands or reads . . . but he tastes Him, and enjoys Him like something that springs up from the “ground” of the soul as from its own source, or from a fountain, without having been brought there, for a fountain is better than a cistern, the water of cisterns gets stale and evaporates, but the spring flows, bursts out, swells: it is true, not borrowed. It is sweet. (Sermon for the Thursday before Palm Sunday)
After this, one should open the ground of the soul and the deep will to the sublimity of the glorious Godhead, and look upon Him with great and humble fear and denial of oneself. He who in this fashion casts down before God his shadowy and unhappy ignorance then begins to understand the words of Job, who said: The spirit passed before me. From this passage of the Spirit is born a great tumult in the soul. And the more this passage has been clear, true, unmixed with natural impressions, all the more rapid, strong, prompt, true and pure will be the work which takes place in the soul, the thrust which overturns it; clearer also will be the knowledge that man has stopped on the path to perfection. The Lord then comes like a flash of lightning; he fills the ground of the soul with light and wills to establish Himself there as the Master Workman. As soon as one is conscious of the presence of the Master, one must, in all passivity, abandon the work to Him. (Second Sermon for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, #5)
-John Tauler (ca. 1300–1361) was a German Dominican and mystical writer, a disciple of Meister Eckhart.
Freedom to enter the inner sanctuary of our being is denied to those who are held back by dependence on self-gratification and sense satisfaction, whether it be a matter of pleasure seeking, love of comfort, or proneness to anger, self-assertion, pride, vanity, greed, and all the rest.
-The Inner Experience Notes on Contemplation THOMAS MERTON
-Tangerine Dream, Sun Gate
Supposedly Wearing a ring on your thumb signifies willpower, strength of character, freedom of thought, and self-assertion.
On the "other hand" you might just be mistaken.
(Market trader, Taunton, Somerset, UK)
Saturn entered Aries at 11:36 PM last night. This is my first Saturn Return self-portrait of 3 -- this one taken when it goes into the sign of Aries (00°), the second taken when it reaches 01° (the degree my Saturn is in), the third when it reaches 01.19° (the precise degree my Saturn sits at).
Saturn in Aries is considered to be in Fall, as it's in the opposite sign to its Exaltation -- that's not a good thing, but it can be a good thing if you work it right. Just in a kinda idiosyncratic way.
Saturn is all about hard work and discipline, and Aries is fiery, impatient energy. One of the various strengths of Saturn in Aries is the development of a strong sense of self throughout life via various challenges surrounding identity/self-expression/self-assertion.
People born from roughly April 7th 1996 to June 8th 1998 will be experiencing their first Saturn Return at this time (though for those born later, it won't hit exactitude for quite a while). For those who don't have their Saturn in Aries, they will be experiencing this energy more generally; the hard lessons of life will begin to take on a more Martial tinge.
Identity, self-assertion, and action will be called for, as opposed to the spiritual restructuring that occurred during Saturn's transit through Pisces from 2023-till yesterday.
According to the Ancient Texts, anyway. :)
The great writer from Bergen (født 3. desember 1684 i Bergen), eventhough the danish belive that Ludvig Holberg comes from Denmark...
His thinking appears rational and enlightened, but his arguments were always rooted in everyday experiences. Holberg did not much care for theoretical constructions intended solely as intellectual amusement or as a means of self-assertion. It was precisely this approach that made him one of the most widely read authors of his day.
Nació en Bergen (Noruega), y estudió en las universidades de Copenhague y Oxford. Más tarde, fue profesor de la Universidad de Copenhague, y en 1747 se le concedió el título de Barón Holberg. En un momento en que la literatura en danés se reducía a algunos himnos y baladas, y las obras de teatro se representaban sólo en alemán o francés, Holberg creó una enorme cantidad de obras de carácter dramático, poético e histórico que sirvieron, casi por sí solas, para fijar el danés como una lengua literaria. En total, escribió más de una docena de obras teatrales, que se representaron con gran éxito. Entre ellas se encuentran las comedias El indeciso (1722) y Henrik y Pernille (1724), que aún hoy en día continúan representándose en los escenarios de Dinamarca. Su poema Pedar Paars (1719), una sátira del modo de vida de su época, es el más antiguo de los clásicos de la literatura danesa. Compuso otras sátiras en verso, como Metamorfosis (1726) y Viaje subterráneo de Niels Klim (1741).
'What I try to do in my work is mix ideas of attraction and ideas of discomfort - colourful and attractive, but strangely, scarily surreal at the same time.' Hew Locke
We have all taken part in some sort of procession. People assemble and move together to celebrate, worship, protest, mourn, escape or to better themselves. Hew Locke's The Procession evokes all such endeavours. It is populated by imagined people who move through this imposing neo-classical space, claiming it for themselves.
Locke's installation takes as its starting point the history and character of Tate Britain's building and its original benefactor, the sugar refining magnate Henry Tate. More broadly, with The Procession, Locke invites visitors to 'reflect on the cycles of history, and the ebb and flow of cultures, people, finance and power.
The figures travel through space but also through time. They carry historical and cultural baggage: the evidence of global financial and violent colonial control embellishes their clothes and banners. Images of the colonial architecture of Locke's childhood Guyana emblazon the flags and their bearers, its flooded fields and rotten wooden walls vanishing under rising sea levels. Despite this, their attire and stance suggest power and self-assertion.
Locke occupies a space that was founded from wealth derived from an industry previously built on the labour of enslaved African people and their descendants, and which subsequent relied on the indentured labour of Asian people. Locke says he 'makes links with the historical after-effects of the sugar business, almost drawing it out of the walls of the building.' The Procession also carries Locke's own past artistic journey, with imagery linked to his previous work incorporating statues rising sea levels, Carnival and the military.
I believe in self-assertion
Destiny or slight diversion
Now it seems I've got my head on straight
I'm a freak
An apperitian
Seems I've made the right decision
Try to turn back now, it might be too late
And it's off to the morning and back again
Same old day, same situation
My happiness is back as if to say
I wanna stay home today
Don't wanna go out
If anyone comes to play
Gonna get thrown out
I wanna stay home today
Don't want no company
No way
Yeah, yeah, yeah
A simple life's my cup of tea
I don't need nobody but me
What I wouldn't give just to be left alone
I wanna be a millionaire someday
And know what it feels like to give it away
Watch me march to the beat of my own drum
And it's over and over and over again
Same old day, same situation
The happiness is back as if to say
I wanna stay home today
Don't wanna go out
If anyone comes my way
Gonna get thrown out
I wanna stay home today
Don't want no company
No way
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Same rain every day
Everyone just step away
Come another- Come another- Come another day
I wanna stay home today
I wanna stay home today,
I wanna stay home, stay home, stay home, stay h-
I wanna stay home today
Don't wanna go out
If anyone comes to play
Gonna get thrown out
I wanna stay home today
Don't want no company
No way
'What I try to do in my work is mix ideas of attraction and ideas of discomfort - colourful and attractive, but strangely, scarily surreal at the same time.' Hew Locke
We have all taken part in some sort of procession. People assemble and move together to celebrate, worship, protest, mourn, escape or to better themselves. Hew Locke's The Procession evokes all such endeavours. It is populated by imagined people who move through this imposing neo-classical space, claiming it for themselves.
Locke's installation takes as its starting point the history and character of Tate Britain's building and its original benefactor, the sugar refining magnate Henry Tate. More broadly, with The Procession, Locke invites visitors to 'reflect on the cycles of history, and the ebb and flow of cultures, people, finance and power.
The figures travel through space but also through time. They carry historical and cultural baggage: the evidence of global financial and violent colonial control embellishes their clothes and banners. Images of the colonial architecture of Locke's childhood Guyana emblazon the flags and their bearers, its flooded fields and rotten wooden walls vanishing under rising sea levels. Despite this, their attire and stance suggest power and self-assertion.
Locke occupies a space that was founded from wealth derived from an industry previously built on the labour of enslaved African people and their descendants, and which subsequent relied on the indentured labour of Asian people. Locke says he 'makes links with the historical after-effects of the sugar business, almost drawing it out of the walls of the building.' The Procession also carries Locke's own past artistic journey, with imagery linked to his previous work incorporating statues rising sea levels, Carnival and the military.
About the artist:
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1959, Locke is the eldest son of Guyanese sculptor Donald Locke (1930–2010) and British painter Leila Locke (née Chaplin) (1936–1992). He spent his formative years (1966 to 1980) in Georgetown, Guyana, before returning to the UK to study. He received a B.A. Fine Art degree in 1988 from Falmouth University, and an M.A. in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art, London, in 1994. In 1995 he married curator Indra Khanna.
Unready means afraid. You are afraid of what you are. Your destination is the whole. But you are afraid that you will lose your identity. This is childishness, clinging to the toys, to your desires and fears, opinions and ideas. Give it all up and be ready for the real to assert itself. This self-assertion is best expressed in words: 'I am'. Nothing else has being. Of this you are absolutely certain.
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Excerpt from I Am That by Nisargadatta Maharaj
Painting by Van Gogh
There is more than one way of telling what the forthcoming sunset would be like. Still, in the presence of your own biting heart and pounding your chest in self-assertion, how many times you have been let down by yours “all considered” only to look like a newbie with plucked feathers and red, envious face. As for my own comfort I then run my hand over my face to change it for a happy expression and mutter to myself "do better next time” putting regrets to the side. Well, you can't get them all, do we ?
Picture - more lucky dips with sunset light over river Bug in Poland.
Cette jeune femme rousse incarne avec audace et liberté cette nouvelle vague de la jeunesse espagnole, qui s’affranchit sans complexe des tabous et des convenances !
Son shooting en petite tenue reflète une génération fière, décomplexée et résolument moderne, à l’image de ce renouveau culturel espagnol où l’ouverture d’esprit et l’affirmation de soi dessinent un futur sans scrupule ni pudeur !
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
This young red-haired woman boldly and freely embodies the new wave of Spanish youth, breaking away from taboos and conventions without any complex !
Her photoshoot in minimal attire reflects a proud, uninhibited, and truly modern generation, representing a cultural revival in Spain where open-mindedness and self-assertion shape a future without scruple or modesty !
credit : Lua Ribeira,
_______________________________________PdF_______
Poetry is the deification of reality.
— Edith Sitwell
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NO GIFS AND ANIMATED ICONS, PLEASE!
"Heschel writes, “It is for us to decide whether freedom is self-assertion or response to a demand.”17 Our humanity, as we have seen, is constituted by our capacity to rise above the selfish ego. So, Heschel reminds us, is our freedom."
-Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence by Shai Held
"The greatest beauty grows,” Heschel writes, “at the greatest distance from the ego."
--Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence by Shai Held
“In the 1950s kids lost their innocence.
They were liberated from their parents by well-paying jobs, cars, and lyrics in music that gave rise to a new term ---the generation gap.
In the 1960s, kids lost their authority.
It was a decade of protest---church, state, and parents were all called into question and found wanting. Their authority was rejected, yet nothing ever replaced it.
In the 1970s, kids lost their love. It was the decade of me-ism dominated by hyphenated words beginning with self.
Self-image, Self-esteem, Self-assertion....It made for a lonely world. Kids learned everything there was to know about sex and forgot everything there was to know about love, and no one had the nerve to tell them there was a difference.
In the 1980s, kids lost their hope.
Stripped of innocence, authority and love and plagued by the horror of a nuclear nightmare, large and growing numbers of this generation stopped believing in the future.
In the 1990s kids lost their power to reason. Less and less were they taught the very basics of language, truth, and logic and they grew up with the irrationality of a postmodern world.
In the new millennium, kids woke up and found out that somewhere in the midst of all this change, they had lost their imagination. Violence and perversion entertained them till none could talk of killing innocents since none was innocent anymore.”
― Ravi Zacharias, Recapture the Wonder
Please don't use any of my images on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit written permission. © All rights reserved.
The Street Walker
Sitting on sidewalk on Elm Steet in Manchester, NH......re-edit and square format.......I asked if I could photograph him while he told me a secret with his stare and he agreed to let me....
I realized I snapped a fleeting look caught between two worlds—the stubborn spark of self-assertion and the quiet weight of surrender. The cigarette become both shield and statement, the gaze both challenge and confession. This portrait lingers in the tension between resistance and weariness, offering no simple resolution—only the raw presence of a man suspended in his own truth.
It's always wonderful to re-discover images from the archives.....❤️❤️🙏🙏
Qiu Zhijie was born in 1969 in Zhangzhou, China, and lives and works in Beijing and Hangzhou. He is known for his text- and calligraphy-based practice, which encompasses photography, performance, installation, painting, video and explores the struggle of self-assertion, particularly with reference to Chinese history..
In 1992, he graduated from the Printmaking department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art), Hangzhou. The artist’s break-through exhibition was in 1992 with China’s New Art, Post-1989 at the Hanart Gallery and Hong Kong Arts Centre. By 1999, his work began receiving international interest with his inclusion in Revolutionary Capitals: Beijing-London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. In 2005, his work was exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s Between Past And Future: New Photography And Video From China, including Tattoo 1, which explores Qiu’s assertion that in our media-saturated age, “signs and codes have overpowered actual human beings, and our bodies have become merely their vehicles.” The character bu-meaning “no”-is written across the artist’s body and on the wall behind him, creating the illusion that it floats free of the body. The ironic mixture of an ancient method of transmitting texts with contemporary content provokes people to rethink the relationship between tradition and today’s society. He is also a curator, art critic and professor. He has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the world at prestigious institutions and events, including MoMA PS1 (1998) and Queen’s Museum (2001), both New York; The Sao Paulo Biennale (2002); The Shanghai Biennale (2004); The Moscow Biennale (2007); Fondazione Querini Stampalia (2013), Venice; the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Fondazione Berengo (2015), Venice. He was the curator for the 2012 Shanghai Biennale. He is currently a professor in the School of Cross-Medium Art at the China Academy of Art.
Who lit the wonder before our eyes and the wonder of our eyes? Who struck the lightning in the minds and scorched us with an imperative of being overawed by the holy as unquenchable as the sight of the stars?
-Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Endless wonder unlocks an innate sense of indebtedness. Within our awe there is no place for self-assertion. Within our awe we only know that all we own we owe. The world consists, not of things, but of tasks. Wonder is the state of our being asked. The ineffable is a question addressed to us.
-Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Albrecht Dürer - Selbstbildnis, [1498]
Madrid, Museo del Prado, Inv. Nr. P 2179
Holz, 52 x 41 cm
Signiert und datiert unterhalb des Fensters:
1498 / Das malt Ich nach meiner gestalt / Ich war sex vnd zwanzig jor alt / Albrecht Dürer / Monogramm
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I. Detailed Description of the Painting
The Self-Portrait of 1498 presents Albrecht Dürer as a half-length figure, turned slightly to the left in three-quarter profile, while his gaze is deliberately displaced from this axis and directed straight at the viewer. This controlled manipulation of pose and gaze creates an immediate sense of presence and self-assertion. Head and upper torso occupy almost the entire pictorial field, positioning the figure close to the picture plane and enhancing its sculptural effect.
The upper body, together with the gently bent arms, forms a stable pyramidal composition. Dürer’s right arm rests casually on a stone parapet that marks the frontal boundary of the image, while his hands, encased in elegant grey gloves, are loosely clasped. The gesture conveys composure and effortless authority rather than ostentation.
The spatial setting behind the figure is shallow and functions more as a backdrop than as a fully articulated interior. To the right, a stone-framed window opens onto a distant mountainous landscape, partially snow-covered, beneath a blue sky animated by drifting clouds. This glimpse into depth does not compete with the dominance of the figure; instead, it subtly expands the pictorial space. The slight overlap of Dürer’s shoulder with the window frame blurs the boundary between interior and exterior and reinforces the illusion of spatial continuity.
Face and hair are rendered with extraordinary refinement. The skin is smooth and evenly modelled, the physiognomy precise and self-possessed. Beard and hair are carefully differentiated, enlivened by fine blond and golden highlights that lend the head vitality and luminosity. The portrait balances meticulous observation with a degree of idealisation, suppressing signs of ageing in favour of intellectual clarity and concentration.
Particular emphasis is placed on the clothing. Dürer wears a finely smocked and pleated white shirt adorned with gold embroidery, over which lies a deep-cut black-and-white doublet, loosely fastened with a twisted cord. The strikingly striped sleeves echo the colouring of the pointed cap and enhance the fashionable character of the ensemble. The costume is clearly chosen with deliberation and signals social distinction and cultivated taste.
Beneath the window is the prominent inscription, including date, monogram and an autobiographical verse stating the artist’s age. This text explicitly asserts authorship and self-representation, transforming the painting into a conscious and public statement of identity.
________________________________________
II. Art-Historical Evaluation
In comparison with Dürer’s earlier painted self-portrait of 1493, the Prado self-portrait marks a decisive shift towards greater confidence and representational ambition. No longer the introspective young artist, Dürer here presents himself as a refined and fashionably dressed gentiluomo, a term he would later use to describe himself in correspondence with his friend Willibald Pirckheimer. The image is carefully staged, self-aware and imbued with a strong sense of artistic self-worth.
The composition draws on a portrait type established in early Netherlandish and Italian painting from the early fifteenth century: the half-length figure set before a window opening onto a landscape. Dürer adopts this convention with assurance, combining it with a restrained spatial construction that serves to isolate and emphasise the sitter. The mountainous landscape—sometimes interpreted as an allusion to his travels to Italy—remains deliberately ambiguous, functioning less as narrative content than as a sign of intellectual breadth and worldly experience.
For a long time, Dürer’s sumptuous attire was thought to violate Nuremberg’s strict sumptuary laws; this interpretation has since been convincingly dismissed. Rather than an act of provocation, the clothing corresponds closely to contemporary depictions of well-born young men in German manuscript illumination and painting. It is now generally accepted that Dürer faithfully represents his own ceremonial dress, underscoring a redefinition of the artist’s social status.
The date of the painting situates it at a crucial moment in Dürer’s career. In 1498 he published the Apocalypse, the woodcut series that would secure his international fame. Even before this success fully unfolded, Dürer fashioned an image of himself as a new kind of artist: educated, cosmopolitan and intellectually autonomous. This perception was shared by contemporaries; as early as 1499, the humanist Conrad Celtis hailed him as “Apelles Germaniae”.
The self-portrait thus stands at the beginning of Dürer’s mature self-conception. His contemporaneous graphic works—such as The Men’s Bath, Hercules and the Sea Monster—as well as his growing engagement with theories of proportion and his close ties to humanist circles, all attest to this ambition. The Prado self-portrait gives pictorial form to these aspirations: not an expression of vanity in the superficial sense, but a measured declaration of artistic identity.
Dürer appears here as a young man at the threshold of his career, yet already conscious of his role within a new generation of artists—one that understood artistic creation as an intellectual and enduring endeavour.
Qiu Zhijie was born in 1969 in Zhangzhou, China, and lives and works in Beijing and Hangzhou. He is known for his text- and calligraphy-based practice, which encompasses photography, performance, installation, painting, video and explores the struggle of self-assertion, particularly with reference to Chinese history..
In 1992, he graduated from the Printmaking department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art), Hangzhou. The artist’s break-through exhibition was in 1992 with China’s New Art, Post-1989 at the Hanart Gallery and Hong Kong Arts Centre. By 1999, his work began receiving international interest with his inclusion in Revolutionary Capitals: Beijing-London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. In 2005, his work was exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s Between Past And Future: New Photography And Video From China, including Tattoo 1, which explores Qiu’s assertion that in our media-saturated age, “signs and codes have overpowered actual human beings, and our bodies have become merely their vehicles.” The character bu-meaning “no”-is written across the artist’s body and on the wall behind him, creating the illusion that it floats free of the body. The ironic mixture of an ancient method of transmitting texts with contemporary content provokes people to rethink the relationship between tradition and today’s society. He is also a curator, art critic and professor. He has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the world at prestigious institutions and events, including MoMA PS1 (1998) and Queen’s Museum (2001), both New York; The Sao Paulo Biennale (2002); The Shanghai Biennale (2004); The Moscow Biennale (2007); Fondazione Querini Stampalia (2013), Venice; the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Fondazione Berengo (2015), Venice. He was the curator for the 2012 Shanghai Biennale. He is currently a professor in the School of Cross-Medium Art at the China Academy of Art.
The Judgendstil Estonia Theatre of 1913 was once Tallinn's largest building. Designed by Finnish architects Armas Lindgren and Wivi Lönn, it was built as a national effort by an Estonian élite groping towards national self-assertion. It was heavily damaged in the Soviet air raid on Tallinn on 9 March 1944. It was reconstructed in a classical and Stalinist style, and reopened in 1947. It now houses the Estonian National Opera and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra.
Qiu Zhijie was born in 1969 in Zhangzhou, China, and lives and works in Beijing and Hangzhou. He is known for his text- and calligraphy-based practice, which encompasses photography, performance, installation, painting, video and explores the struggle of self-assertion, particularly with reference to Chinese history..
In 1992, he graduated from the Printmaking department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art), Hangzhou. The artist’s break-through exhibition was in 1992 with China’s New Art, Post-1989 at the Hanart Gallery and Hong Kong Arts Centre. By 1999, his work began receiving international interest with his inclusion in Revolutionary Capitals: Beijing-London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. In 2005, his work was exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s Between Past And Future: New Photography And Video From China, including Tattoo 1, which explores Qiu’s assertion that in our media-saturated age, “signs and codes have overpowered actual human beings, and our bodies have become merely their vehicles.” The character bu-meaning “no”-is written across the artist’s body and on the wall behind him, creating the illusion that it floats free of the body. The ironic mixture of an ancient method of transmitting texts with contemporary content provokes people to rethink the relationship between tradition and today’s society. He is also a curator, art critic and professor. He has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the world at prestigious institutions and events, including MoMA PS1 (1998) and Queen’s Museum (2001), both New York; The Sao Paulo Biennale (2002); The Shanghai Biennale (2004); The Moscow Biennale (2007); Fondazione Querini Stampalia (2013), Venice; the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Fondazione Berengo (2015), Venice. He was the curator for the 2012 Shanghai Biennale. He is currently a professor in the School of Cross-Medium Art at the China Academy of Art.
Awakening
All of my life I’ve been waiting for you.
The time flew up and down full of irritation .
I created a lot, but it was never new.
I was losing something main, my self-assertion.
The words which always are passing through me,
I’ve never heard the splitting force of them.
I’ve never felt consuming sense and never seen
The spacious horizons of every human gem.
I was a kind of the closed space,
And no one could see my stars.
And everything that did a mind trace,
Was missing throw, just stream of lies.
When walking hard alone across the life,
I always speak to you and every time I have the answer.
By now, I’m charged with feels, I was revived,
After the whole life of self-image disaster.
Leading the way, across denouncing views,
You’ve never tried to be a former idol.
You waked me up and got to be my muse.
You fed my heart and broke the made-up idyll.
Qiu Zhijie was born in 1969 in Zhangzhou, China, and lives and works in Beijing and Hangzhou. He is known for his text- and calligraphy-based practice, which encompasses photography, performance, installation, painting, video and explores the struggle of self-assertion, particularly with reference to Chinese history..
In 1992, he graduated from the Printmaking department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art), Hangzhou. The artist’s break-through exhibition was in 1992 with China’s New Art, Post-1989 at the Hanart Gallery and Hong Kong Arts Centre. By 1999, his work began receiving international interest with his inclusion in Revolutionary Capitals: Beijing-London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London. In 2005, his work was exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum‘s Between Past And Future: New Photography And Video From China, including Tattoo 1, which explores Qiu’s assertion that in our media-saturated age, “signs and codes have overpowered actual human beings, and our bodies have become merely their vehicles.” The character bu-meaning “no”-is written across the artist’s body and on the wall behind him, creating the illusion that it floats free of the body. The ironic mixture of an ancient method of transmitting texts with contemporary content provokes people to rethink the relationship between tradition and today’s society. He is also a curator, art critic and professor. He has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the world at prestigious institutions and events, including MoMA PS1 (1998) and Queen’s Museum (2001), both New York; The Sao Paulo Biennale (2002); The Shanghai Biennale (2004); The Moscow Biennale (2007); Fondazione Querini Stampalia (2013), Venice; the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Fondazione Berengo (2015), Venice. He was the curator for the 2012 Shanghai Biennale. He is currently a professor in the School of Cross-Medium Art at the China Academy of Art.
Albrecht Dürer – Hercules at the Crossroads [1498]
(also: Jealousy) (engraving version from Städel, Frankfurt)
The starting point of our investigation was the question of whether Dürer’s Hercules at the Crossroads should primarily be read within the context of late medieval demonology – particularly the Malleus Maleficarum – or whether another interpretation, more closely related to the emergence of subjectivity, might prove more convincing.
We took the historical context seriously: the Nuremberg printings issued by Anton Koberger in 1494 and 1496, the presence of inquisitorial discourse, and the iconographic identification of the satyr with the incubus. All this initially made it plausible to understand the “satyr” as a demonic figure of libido and to associate the woman with the sphere of witch-theoretical conceptions.
Yet, upon closer examination, this interpretation proved insufficient to explain the centre of the print. The decisive turning point lay in the physiognomic analysis of the hero and of his bodily expression.
________________________________________
1. The Hero as One Already Resolved
In the shadowed profile of Hercules we observe:
an open, tension-charged mouth
a thrust-forward chin
a focused, purposeful gaze
This is not a figure in a state of hesitation.
It is a body at the moment of activation.
The crossroads therefore appears not as an open discursive space but as the instant before action. Consequently, the interpretative emphasis shifts from the surrounding context to the inner axis of the figure itself.
________________________________________
2. The Headgear as a Signal of Self-Assertion
The “helmet” worn by Hercules is not a classically antique attribute. It appears fashionable, almost contemporarily updated (for example reminiscent of a tournament helmet). When compared with Dürer’s self-portraits – such as the Self Portrait with Thistle – a structural parallel becomes visible: self-confidence is articulated through fashionable markers.
Hercules thus appears not as a figure of mythic antiquity but as a Renaissance subject.
This iconographic updating suggests that the print represents not merely a moral exemplum but a form of self-positioning.
________________________________________
3. Panofsky’s Theory of the Subject as Theoretical Framework
By returning to the ideas of Erwin Panofsky – particularly the Renaissance conception of Hercules emphasised by Martin Warnke – the interpretation gained conceptual clarity.
What determines the outcome is not divine grace but inner disposition.
The hero becomes an autonomous chooser.
This perspective proves far more consistent with the physiognomic evidence of the print than a demonological reading.
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4. The Reinterpretation of the “Clothed” Woman
A decisive corrective concerns the clothed woman.
Her posture appears aggressive, almost fanatical. Structurally she recalls:
the militant archangel Michael
the angel with the flaming sword before Paradise
the executive severity associated with inquisitorial enforcement
She therefore embodies not sensual temptation but radical moral zeal.
The constellation of the scene thus shifts fundamentally.
The opposition is no longer virtue versus vice, but rather two extremes:
sensual entanglement
fanatical moralism
Hercules does not stand between good and evil, but between excess and intolerance.
This ambivalent constellation explains why Hercules restrains both women. His gesture is directed not only against sensuality but simultaneously against moral fury. He rejects both excesses. The decision therefore favours neither libertine indulgence nor fanaticism, but a third path: a self-determined moderation grounded in intellectual self-discipline.
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5. The Biographical Horizon
Against this background the personality of Albrecht Dürer becomes decisive.
Dürer was:
disciplined
ambitious
theoretically oriented
committed to achieving intellectual renown
His later work – especially Melencolia I – demonstrates an uncompromising claim to intellectual height.
It therefore seems plausible to understand the Hercules not as a sinner oppressed by moral temptation but as a young subject consciously rejecting extremes.
________________________________________
6. Conclusion
Our argument leads to the following result:
The demonological context forms an important historical resonance, yet it is not the interpretative centre.
The secondary figures embody extremes of human possibility – sensuality and fanatical severity.
The physiognomically determined Hercules stands not in doubt but in the act of self-determination.
The fashionable headgear updates him as a Renaissance individual.
The print thus appears as the self-positioning of a young artist between excess and dogma.
Hercules at the Crossroads may therefore be read as an image of an autonomous decision in favour of intellectual moderation – neither libertine nor fanatical, but directed toward the conscious formation of the self.
________________________________________
Text: “ChatGPT 5.2 and Petrus Agricola”
11 March 2026
Bought this great old puzzle from a BCD friend after he showed it at a BCD meeting some time ago.
Gladstone and Disraeli were great rivals who differed in their views on many things, among them the British Empire, Disraeli being the imperialist while Gladstone saw the empire as a burden the country didn't need to bear.
305 pcs
18" x 12"
www.britishmuseum.org/collection:
Parody of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" with the ghost of Disraeli conjuring an image of Queen Victoria's Christmas dinner table for a sleeping man; the Queen seated at head of the table hosting multiple nationalities, representations of the Empire; servants serving a large Christmas pudding; presentation illustration to "St Stephen'sReview" (25 December, 1886).
Chromolithograph
www.pbs.org/empires/victoria/text/empiregladstone.html
The two rivals also disagreed on Britain's imperial destiny, Gladstone seeing colonies as more burden than boon, and attempting to disengage from empire and its expense.
victorianweb.org/history/empire/ljb1.html
Disraeli is commonly viewed as the great pro-active imperialist who hoped to unite the classes under the banner of Empire. Indeed, such an attitude might be seen as justified in the light of his glorious rhetoric, exemplified in the Manchester and Crystal Palace speeches of 1872. However, such an overly simplistic approach ignores the facts; the Imperial territories did not extend nearly as greatly between 1874-80 as they did under Gladstone, the supposed proponent of "the rights of the savage." Rather, Disraeli took a consolidatory approach, often opportunistic, but always with the definite objective of preserving the Empire according to his principles of "ToryDemocracy."
A summary of Disraeli's ideas of imperial action can be seen in his decision in 1876 to make Queen Victoria Empress of India. although it is clear that it was opportunistic, in that it gained him and his party favour with the Queen, it simultaneously asserted British control of India by providing a personal link, especially effective as a warning to the Russians that the Empire was there to stay.
www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/disraeli_gladsto...
What really mattered to Disraeli, however, was not home affairs but foreign and imperial policy. He was a strong supporter of empire and of English nationalism. This was a traditional Conservative mantra, but as long as Palmerston was leader of the Liberals it was hardly possible for the Conservatives to outbid them in terms of patriotic self-assertion. Palmerston's death left a vacancy. Gladstone was altogether more internationally minded - the protagonist of an ethical foreign policy that sometimes meant compromise over some of Britain's interests. Disraeli was all for cutting a dash - as with his purchase of the Suez Canal Company's shares, and, though somewhat less enthusiastically, with the passing of the Royal Titles Act in 1876, making the Queen Empress of India.
I recognize some of those megalomaniacal male tendencies you are describing, and why wouldn’t I (DUH!)? I know that ‘lost boy’ behaviour. It’s even attractive until one reaches a certain age, then it slopes off through unfortunate, and heads downhill rather swiftly towards downright tragedy. Applying the brakes at that stage is no party, let me tell you. Sometimes I feel as if I had been worn down up to the knees, a would-be demi-legged, own-trumpet-blowing, Falstaff, (if only those Jesuits had gotten hold of me) but then this isn’t about me. All these men searching for mammys, what can I say other than sorry about my gender, and thank Yahweh that I am a cis-gender homo (can I call myself that anymore?).
I think you can tell that I have arrived at the point that I am at, now, not at all sure what I am, or am not, permitted to call myself. I fear that I, at last, know what and who I am, but I am not at all sure if being that is acceptable in an evolving world. Luckily, we will all be dead soon enough. Now that’s something to really look forward to for the terminally bewildered. I like the idea of ‘A Death’ as the inflexion point of this ‘Comedy’ we are constructing. I have that funny death story to tell yet properly. That one where Jeffrey suddenly shot upright, screaming at his parents who were quibbling over what to watch on the TV. He screamed fiercely at them “I’m dying, I get to choose the video!”. It was gloriously well said. I do love the tyranny of the dying. I do love the abject tyranny of the victim (my specialty). Feck it, I will go the whole hog. I do love tyranny. I also love saying ‘Feck’, when everyone understands that you are insinuating another vowel in the place of that ‘e’. I love that feck is proper and Irish, a softening of that blow, liked a dropped ‘h’, that sort of softening and lilting.
He chose 'Singing in the Rain' and collapsed back into bed raving madly about having to make three different types of pies to prepare for some party or other in his head.
I did my job. I pressed the button and released more morphine, through the catheter in his chest, awash in the 'poor meeees'.
mea culpa, mea culpa,
mea máxima culpa.
Later, I made a drawing about his wonderful, life-affirming, self-assertion. I photographed myself beside it, the drawing that is, but discovered, whilst looking at it later, that I seemed to have disappeared.
I guess that's how things go. (Secretly, I love removing myself (with photoshop), but don't tell anyone).
John: A fine eulogy, full of life.
Ruin: I want to reply to this, a little later. I might even have to go into the third person, to get a little distance from the answer, and what it means. This will be an important part of 'the book'. I am putting this here as a sort of commitment.
Anyway, to start, another extended version of this 'story' begins under this photo (the title in parentheses below) below this. It starts with “I’m dying, I get to choose the video”, about halfway down. But I now want to write something a lot more personal, a lot more 'private' perhaps. So far I have been writing about what I call the 'Wild Geese', a recognised phenomenon in Irish history and culture. Now I want to talk about something a little more close to home. and that's the cuckoo gene. That born out of desperation taking up domicile in the 'nests' of other birds, that type of 'taking over'. I think of it slightly relative to that 'banquet idea' that excess, like a pheasant being stuffed with a quail, and the quail in turn being stuffed with a starling, or any smaller bird, that decadence. Anyway, I want to look at that goose initially stuffed with a cuckoo, that idea of the self as a desperate exploiter, but also looking at it as a survival strategy, a Darwinian ploy, even. I am still brewing it in my head, so it will stutteringly along.
‘On Universal Innocence and The Forgiveness of Freckles’.
But back to Geese and cuckoos.
‘The Rôti Sans Pareil Is 17 Birds Stuffed Inside Each Other and It Is Delicious’. So ran the headline.
"The recipe calls for a bustard stuffed with a turkey stuffed with a goose stuffed with a pheasant stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a duck stuffed with a guinea fowl stuffed with a teal stuffed with a woodcock stuffed with a partridge stuffed with a..."
There is a sort of madness there, manifesting, perhaps, one of the reasons we don't deserve to be here at all. Not that deserving has anything to do with it anyway.
Chickenman, Wild Geese, and now Cuckoo, this sounds like I am on a type of fowl trajectory. Here's to soaring, or swansonging, or attempting both, even!
John: The cuckoo was a popular metaphor in the 1950's, quite possibly in response to the aftermath of WWII and your revival gifts greater depth. One of the explorations of Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow was the impossibly undermined reconstruction of male identity, no matter what roots they sought to revive. The cuckoo, with its echo of cuckold, the returners from war rewarded with the ghost of doubt of paternity, puts all into those same murky depths of identity which artists equally embrace or flee. As ancient mythology evidences, we have always had a need to understand and belong. Post wars and natural disasters our need for the perceived solidity of information is greatly enhanced.. Technically, having a family formed of my partner's and her ex's three daughters, I am a cuckoo.
Apart from the actual people (greatly rewarding) I have also wondered if I was defying my sense of unbelonging by consciously electing to be the cuckoo, which, unlike artist, is I believe a choice.
Ruin: Yes, that would be true, that returning soldier thing. I would guess it has always been the case, have soldiers not been returning since time immemorial? I didn't make the connection between cuckoo and cuckold, a 'duh!' moment for me. Of course, it is there. I particularly like the cuckold personage. If I was going by the evidence of Reddit, or wherever, cuckolding seems to be enjoying a huge revival in the fetish world currently. I would guess it was all part and parcel of dealing with the diminished, and further diminishing, male, that area of 'twixt and 'tween being generated by an excess of hormone disruptors now in the environment (in plastics and whatever). But I have a whole theory about that relative to the possibility of the human animal evolving from sexual reproduction to bifurcatory splitting, that laboratory assisted dividing known as cloning, the copying of the self, whilst we are at that point of the Y chromosome being, apparently, at 3% of its former glory. Scientists tell us that it appears to be stable at 3%, but infinity is funny like that relative to stability.
The only place we would differ on here is that "unlike artist", which I am pretty sure we might partially agree on anyway. I don't see making art (or writing, even), any form of communication really, as a 'choice'. I see it both as an instinct and a compulsion, and for the most part a disruptive nuisance, an itch. I would have to fight very hard to resist it, that scratching called art making or communicating. I would have to go totally against my 'natural' self.
But this is something I will continue to work out until I no longer can, compulsively, this awful/wonderful itch. I like writing here, simply because it is immediate communication, and sometimes the feedback like yours is invaluable. There is this idea that writing needs to be done alone, like art, but I don't think that is necessarily 'true'. I think you have to work it out the best way you can, and there are no rules.
When I quote you, should I call you John Seven, or just John.? I have been calling you John, but thought I should ask. As in "John: A fine eulogy, full of life." Would you prefer John Seven?
John: Well, I don't know what went wrong with my sentence construction there, as I intended to state that artist is not a choice (nor a guarantee of quality). Now amended. Regarding my name - John used to be the skinhead universal form of address, as in "Y'want bovver Jon?"
It was also, in the the year I was born, the Mohamed, Muhammad, Muhamad, or Mohammad of its day, the most common male name in the world. In its many forms - Ian, Iain, Ifan, Sean, Shaun, Shane, Jens, Jean, Joan, Johan and so on.
I am happy with whatever you choose.
Ruin: I guessed we were on the same page relative to art, or writing, this 'fever' to communicate, is uncontrollable. It’s not a choice at all. But I feel the same about this cuckoo behaviour and this catfishing too. I see them both as survival manoeuvres, generated mostly out of desperation. Anyway, that's the point I will be starting from for this 'chapter'. I will be using the text generated here, and pulling it through the pronoun mangle, writing it in the third person, to get some distance, some overview.
Blimey, he realised, his behaviour had been stark raving cuckoo. He found it as difficult to think about as to write about this, but felt in the writing of it, that some liberation might be found there. The working out of it was going to have to be in the present, but there would be references and stories that harked back to his ‘Wild Goose’ history, his wandering, his running away. He knew too that he was going to have to stop playing with words, stop trying to entertain, this was not the way to go. By this he meant that “meself” as opposed to myself, that ‘cod Irish’, that “at all, at all”. That would naturally fall away anyway, as he moved away from childhood, as he learnt to speak, to communicate, even. His leaving Ireland was, in a way, his learning to talk. Before that period, he had been that oft-described stuttering, nervous, entity, floundering between church-generated guilt, and maintaining his secret, that abuse, that incest, that familial interference that could only serve to completely sunder him from family, and any semblance of security, of a feeling of belonging or of ever having been nurtured. It was nobody’s fault. Those who haven’t been nurtured have no idea how to nurture, and similarly those who have never been protected have no way of knowing how to proffer protection. Both his parents had, in their turn, being abandoned as children. It was all they knew. This was somehow part-and-parceled in with the history of that emerald island, that history of hundreds of years of abuse. That this abuse caused Irish literature to blossom, in that foreign tongue, English, is one of those creative offshoots of abuse, one of those ‘miracles’, as his mother used to say, describing anything good or beneficial, a silver-lining around those multi-generational deadening clouds.
He was angry, sad, and excited when he discovered that he had to leave to survive, that he had to give up everything, and everyone he had ever known, and set out alone for that pagan land, on the other side of the Irish Sea. Looking back, he liked that this cuckoo also described a sort of madness, other than the survival instinct it became somewhat renowned for, it also described that ‘stark raving’ idea, that there had always been this connection we humans make about this misunderstood creature, and its development of certain Darwinian characteristics generated by its struggle to survive.
Stealing somewhat from the title of the book by Mr. Foster Wallace (of the multiple footnotes on footnotes), he suspected that he had come to that point where he might, at last, ‘Consider the Cuckoo’.
John: This riffing on a thought, expanding out to discover surprises and similarities is a thing of wonder.
Ruin: It's a bit strange to be working it out in 'real time' here. I am literally working it through in my head as I write it. It becomes a self-justification, of sorts, I guess. I will tie it in, somehow, to the main theme. I am coming out of that chapter which has to do with childhood, and heading towards London, via a year in Liverpool, that age-old Irish route, through Aristophanes 'The Birds', from which the expression 'Cloud Cuckoo Land' comes, through Mr. Darwin, on the way towards New York, and 'Rack and Ruin'.
But yes, he was heading for ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’, only in as much as it was to be totally unfamiliar, there was the madness there of difference, a way of thinking that was foreign to everything he knew. The old rules just didn’t apply, but there were also new rules to learn.
On Universal Order
Or blessed lack thereof.
Dear Rack,
I suspect we have both had our moments with each other, compassionate and understanding, and the opposite. I have never felt particularly worthy, but that’s a universal, some dreadful leftover from a hideously insecure childhood, neglectful parents, absent alcoholic father and abusive uncle, all that palaver, that stuff of amateur melodrama, probably endemic, commonplace even, on that little emerald jewel called ‘home’. The thing is, or the pedestrian tragedy is, that you don’t really realise what you are carrying with you when you set off into the world alone, when you put on your walking shoes, you have no idea what your coping mechanisms are, how skew-whiff they might be relative to a world out there, a place that has most likely generated another type of abuse, a foreign variant, one which you have no experience of at all. It’s not unlike our beloved Omicron, another spiked battering ram, something that you might survive or not.
Yes, it’s the same old same old, those ‘Wild Geese’ setting off, full of youthful energy and dreams of conquest, already weighed down by their own undoing. Compassion was easy for me when we met. You had, apparently, fallen at the first hurdle, or so it seemed. I was very wrong about that. Wrecked Rack was phoenix-like. I didn’t know that then, though that constant re-igniting can work a certain ruin on the old cadaver. I notice a chemical smell in my urine, and I was wondering if you do too. We are now part chemical; a bit liked our beloved de Selby’s part bicycle, part human. We have been absorbing chemicals now for decades, and you even two decades more than I have. One cannot help but wonder how they have an effect on our very DNA, our day-to-day thoughts, our moods and our hopes, or despairs. But, butt, chicken butt, as I like to say, I have decided to make their influence positive. We are hybrid, a new man, and woman, a chemically enhanced super-breed of survivors.
How’s that for famous last words?
We are like no one else, though this is true of everyone. Now we have the added in-put of our screens, our hard-drives and external devices, all brain-enhancers and exploitable. These are our external memories, as that innate ability to remember slopes off, and it’s nothing less than a frigging ‘Universal Superhighway’. Nobody has had that before, though I would question as to whether this is a recurring phenomenon, forgotten but recurring, on an infinite ever-expanding loop (call me loopy). Heloise and Abelard could have done with a bit of that, but they managed anyway, so how can we not rape and pillage the universe with this magnificent, unimaginable, tool at our disposal? The only thing that holds us back is our massive insecurity, and our excuses. But the proffering of these to each other, the unashamed exposing of them, is the beginning of this Knausgaardian ‘struggle’, and we have been doing this for almost 30 years. We have the capacity to cross germinate, to percolate Sontag’s ‘Camp’ through Knausgaard’s, and the other tyrant’s, ‘Kampf’, that tragedy and camp comedy combined. I would like a little more of that ‘fun’ back, the laughing at the absurdity of it all combined with the realization of what we wrought, and how blindly reactive it was, and we were.
It would be wonderful to laugh, and scream, together again.
"But I wonder if you share my feeling that to write anything sufficiently accurate and engaging, and actually get it over all the hurdles of publication, and risk the ultimate disappointment of remaindering ... Oh, I could not do it now."
No, I have no intention of 'publishing', or even presenting what I am writing and thinking about, other than on Flickr. I find that I do things in 4-year traunches. The idea is just to sort out some of the mess I made, that cacophony of images I generated whilst trying to understand.
I am looking for where I didn't manage to communicate, although some of it ended up in museums (with appropriate puffing out of chest). A 4-year traunch/tranche is a challenge, a challenge because of age and the dragging of another 'fatal' disease along, with one, through a pandemic. Blissfully, science has intervened, yet again, somewhat offering respite, temporarily, from the Horsemen. I got that second Astra Zeneca yesterday, but am still jealous of those enjoying the intervention of the MRNA vaccines into the livestream of their DNA. If we are going to be so interfered with in that way, I want to be one of the first, on that cutting edge of the glorious new Science religion (that I love)! I would have loved to have been the Musk of death, that space pioneer and not the smell. Although, one appears to have missed that boat, along with many others, for now. But there is an acute awareness of their fetlocks and broomsticks, of those aforementioned Horsemen, that is, and their Woo and Woe.
Publishers, Bookshops, Museums and Galleries are over. Didn't you get the memo?
At the same time that remainder bin is essential. It is, more or less, where we all end up, the good and the bad, those who write with clarity and those who lick and salve their purple wounds in public.
You know that I love Purple, in a hate purple sort of way. Don't start me on Orange.
I was a an annual local Trans Pride Conference yesterday: would you believe that time is gone already? I tried to innoculate me against the unavoidable but the only i was able to do was to bring back this souvenir. This is such an "exploit", in french. I arrived way too soon for the conference which started at 9. Beautiful day, perfect sky, yesterday. So I could dress lightly. This is how I was dressed, in fact. I was wearing my faithful yellow wig with a new "british" Marks & Spencer pre-owned dress. So proud it only cost me a fraction of a new dress, at today's prices. Besides, even at todays's prices, I could not find a dress like that "new" in stores? They don't have that style anymore. That must be pre-Michael Jackson era? OK. Boy George. There. Yet, it looks brand new? Not missing a single button, not stained or anything. To me, the perfect dress. My size. My mother says the breast is just tight enough... I consider myself qute lucky that my mother is still alive at 90. That she still loves me dearly and that she is still perfectly willing to play the role of herself, with me, that is, to treat me, to some extent, as a daughter, and give me motherly advice. As you can see, she has a great influence on me. And I'm not at all shy to say that her influence is great, in the sense "great to have". I wish you all knew her. I'm sure she would treat you all as her daughters in return. What can I say? She tought me love, and love is not something we can keep to ourselves, it commands of good dose of sharing, and Nietzche would say a good dose of what we call rather judgementally "selfishness", which he calls "self-assertion". (I'll eventually include a picture of my mother in my Photostream: why should I be ashamed of her?)
--
Anyhow, I arrived way too soon at the conference. So, because the weather was so inviting outside, I naturally stepped out of the building. The neighborhood was perfectly quite, the expected picture of a saurday morning at 8:00 when most people don't work. I decided to take a few pictures with my Nokia Lumia 920 (which I still recommend strongly to ALL my friends). *But*something in me was compelling to snap a picture of me, there, somehow. So, up passes this beautiful, young woman. I mean, a real pretty girl. I stopped her to ask whether she could take my picture, and she gladly accepted! I had to stand back a few feet because, the sun light was too intense where we were standing. I knew we were getting in the shade and that would be best for the picture. I knew that. I'm good with photography. But I was far from expecting the interesting quality of light I was stepping into. I tried to be so natural, for the picture. I knew this womand was on her way somewhere and she did not have too much time for me. So, it was "the last chance" I had to bring back that sensational souvenir, for me, but also for my Flickr friends. Yes, ALL of you. Sidonie, Ruby, Laurette, Valerie, Grace, Brenda, you're just too many to remember for inclusion here, but I know you are there, and you "care" for me. That's very woman quality of you and I thank you when you take the time to comment and add my pictures to your Favorites. I mean, we all thrive on this sort of experience, aren't we? // How many more like do I have to go? // I ask because I don't want to seem like I'm taking all your time...
--
So, the light was perfect, even beyond perfect. Yeah! Why settle for mere perfect when you can have "beyond perfect"? Out of this world, right? Yeah. That was it. Bu with hindsight. I mean, the light setting I stepped into was totally random and unexpected, and I would even venture to say that it was a FLUKE! Yet, there I was? Talk about the love of fate. (BTW, Dear Lena, I meant to write "fate" all along -- not "faith").
--
So, take about fate? Perfect lighting. A beautiful Young woman accepting to take my picture for posterity. All I was missing is an expression on my face. I learned so much at that conference? I always do. There is a practicing psychologist who comes visiting every year and present fascinating stuff, stuff that always opens my mind. She used the term "Gender expression" quite a bit in her talk. Somehow, I am picking up on the meaning of that very term this morning, with you, as I am describing myself: this picture, my dear friends, can be considered an expression of my gender. But you see, the word "gender" to me does not mean man OR femaile, and I got that from her presentation yesterday. So, I guess I was looking for a way to stand before this young woman that would not be demeaning to me, you see? I'm a complicated person and won't go into the detail if you don't understand what I meant by "complicated" person. It does not matter. Suffice it to say that I don't mean to use it in a derogative way to describe myself.
---
I seem to err from the subject but, have no fear, I'm not straying too far way... Yet, I have to obey my instinct. Have you ever felt the need for being compelled to do something, for biological reason?
--
Sorry again for erring in a new direction, I keep searching my way in words. I have to say I am SO PROUD OF MY EXPRESSION ON THIS PICTURE. It's probably the image I'm a most proud of of all the images I shared to far on Flickr. It is simply me. I'm proud of my smile, the way I placed my feet, not too far apart, you see? It's the attention to détails, I think, that our fellow human beings are noticing about ourselves. I love everything about this image. It's me, in a "nutshell". They say a picture is worth 1000 words? Well, that probably explains a large part of the internet success, pictures "talk". They are so rich, can create such moods. They're like "instant paintings". It must have made the paint artists of the time photography was invented "obsolete"?
---
Thank you for reading down this far into my presentation. I feel we're in communion. Not in a religious, spiritual sense but in a "human" sense, you and me and all the other who are like us, appreciating the beauty that lives within ourselves. Others can be tough on me but I see a kind of beauty that is true in me, and that I want to share with whoever wants to share. A special thank's to Jan Griffin, who still believes in me, even though I neglected her badly, by not writing. Another special thank's to a special person, dear to my heart, Elaine Margane. Elaine, you are my sunshine! And anothe special thank's to my good friend Karla: Karla, pardonnes-moi de ne pas écrire en français.. J'essaieraie de la faire dans un commentaire plus tard ou sur une autre photo mais saches que tu comptes beaucoup pour moi, toi aussi, tu occupes une place bien spéciale dans mon cœur.
XXX / Jacqueline
This 1856 painting by American artist Lilly Martin Spencer is displayed at the Brooklyn Museum. From the museum's description: "As the title implies, this bold young woman promises a dose of molasses to the person advancing to kiss her while she makes fruit preserves....Lilly Martin Spencer was a wife and mother as well as a professional painter and family breadwinner. Her great accomplishment was in representing homemakers who combined ideal domesticity and a more liberated, playful self-assertion."
“WE MUST have an unconditional readiness to change in order to be transformed in Christ,”
For it is in contrition that the new fundamental attitude of a humble and reverent charity becomes dominant and manifest, that man abandons the fortress of pride and self-sovereignty, and leaves the dreamland of levity and complacency, repairing to the place where he faces God in reality...
...Contrition causes us to withdraw from our peripheral interests and to concentrate on the depths....
...By the just are meant neither the saints on the one hand nor the Pharisees on the other, but persons who, while leading a correct life and avoiding all transgressions in the strict sense of the term, never come to achieve that full surrender to God which (in a humanity tainted with original sin) is possible in contrition alone. Such persons are anxious to keep God’s commandments but they never discover the immense, unbridgeable abyss that separates the holiness of God from our sinfulness. Full self-surrender and the renunciation of all self-assertion (however hidden); the spiritual position of standing naked before God and throwing oneself altogether upon His mercy—these are things beyond their range of experience.
-Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ
War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars.
Arthur Koestler
War is a ritual, a deadly ritual, not the result of aggressive self-assertion, but of self-transcending identification. Without loyalty to tribe, church, flag or ideal, there would be no wars.
Arthur Koestler
The International Auschwitz Committee’s sculpture “To B Remembered” in front of the European Parliament in Brussels. The inscription above the main gate to Auschwitz that reads “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” (work sets you free) was a cynical lie, as all the prisoners knew and physically experienced day in day out. When the SS ordered them to weld the sign together, they had deliberately placed the ‘B’ in the word ‘ARBEIT’ upside down. It was a sign of self-esteem and self-assertion in an environment where all vestiges of human rights had been eradicated. They created a mark of their courage, their will to overcome the fear, to survive and later to tell the world about what happened in Auschwitz. #neverforget #HMD2014
Through Language in Vienna
A collaboration between Parrhesia, Zochrot and Ursula Hofbauer
Within the framework of the exhibition: OVERLAPPING VOICES
Israeli and Palestinian Artists
Essl Museum, Vienna
16/05 – 26/10/08
Opening: 15/05/08, 7.30 p.m.
Curators: Karin Schneider and Friedemann Derschmidt (Rites-institute), Vienna
Co-Curators: Tal Adler, Amal Murkus, Israel
Through Language is a public art project, a visual dictionary and site-specific glossary alternating between Arabic, German and Hebrew.
Giving the Arabic and the Hebrew languages presence in the public sphere in Europe evoke issues relating to the presence of our cultures within Europe, in the past as well as in the present .
We hope to question the tendencies of the Western world to perceive Arabic and Hebrew languages and cultures as threats and thus refer to the constant uprising of xenophobia and Anti-Semitism in Europe.
he project also proposes language and culture as an arena for listening and engaging in dialogue with the others.
AugartenStadt was not chosen by chance; as "verlorene Insel (lost island)" was the main scene of Jewish displacement in 1938 – and as a site of new migration, it is the space of current conflicts between populism, xenophobia and Muslim self-assertion.
The project was carried out before in two places in Israel – in Jerusalem and in Jaffa – employing Arabic and Hebrew transcriptions and translations. The project was a response to the widespread practice of Israeli extremists erasing the Arabic language from street signs, by using stickers or spray paint and to the state practices of Palestinian cultural oppression by marginalizing and under-privileging Arabic - an official language in Israel.
The Arabic words constitute keys to stories, memories, hopes and fears that are for the most part heard only inside private homes, without a presence in the public sphere and its discourse. The idea was to allow Arabic a presence in our public life.
We would like to manifest the presence of the Palestinian citizens of Israel - the native people upon whose destruction our state is built - through the visualization of their language and to express our wish to become culturally integrated in the Middle East.
Through Language was first presented in August 2006 in the exhibition "Neighborhood Works" (Curated by the Sala-Manca group) in the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem. The project's second presentation was in Jaffa where it was curated by the "Ayam" artist group, with the support of the Tel Aviv–Jaffa Municipality's Culture & Arts Division, Department of Arts; The Israeli Center for Digital Art, Holon; and The New Israel Fund.
Parrhesia is a group of educators, social activists and artists from the fields of graphic and industrial design, cinema, photography, video and fine art, who are engaged in Israel's civil society.
The group collaborates with organizations for social change and community activists – in addition to their independent activities in the public sphere.
Zochrot ["Remembering"] is a group of Israeli citizens working to raise awareness of the Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948. Zochrot endeavors to make the history of the Nakba accessible to the Israeli public, so as to engage Jews and Palestinians in an open recounting of their painful common history.
Zochrot hopes that by bringing the Nakba into Hebrew, the language spoken by the Jewish majority in Israel, they can make a qualitative change in the political discourse of this region. Acknowledging the past is the first step in taking responsibility for its consequences.
This must include equal rights for all the peoples of this land, including the right of Palestinians to return to their homes.
Parrhesia and Zochrot are engaged in an ongoing process of collaboration – the publication of Sedek, a magazine about the ongoing Nakba. Its first two issues can be viewed in the following links:
DI Ursula Hofbauer is a Vienna-based artist and architect who has been working in and with public space in several exhibitions and art projects, including: “Strange Views” (1999), an exhibition project in the Viennese Prater with lettering on sidewalks; “Permanent Breakfast” (1999-2005), the everlasting breakfast in public space; wine-tasting with homeless people under a Viennese Bridge (2002); and art projects with refugees (2004-2006). Lectures, publications and guided tours about the Permanent Breakfast project, gender and public space and Viennese landmarks. Hofbauer is decidedly dedicated to all questions of democratic use and appropriation of public space and resulting designs.
We thank Aktionsradius Wien at Gaussplatz www.aktionsradius.at/
for a lot of valuable information, their hospitality and straightforward support.
Gargoyle is a mouth for ejected words of sweeping Lucifer this took other angels that had the seed of desire planted within them, for it is selfish desires that fuel the ego. He was expelled from the higher regions because he no longer had the Christic virtues but had the ego crystallized instead. Since we assert that selfish desires and interests strengthen the egos hold on us, it is also true that altruistic, compassionate service vivify the Christic force within us that stirs us to self-sacrifice for humanity (The hanged man). Can 'Lucifer' be the Hanged Man #12 card ? Here are a few depictions of the card for reference first: The Hanged Man...also known as Perspective....now also known as "Lucifer"....here's why I think this is an awesome pictorial for the meaning. What is the central meaning for the Hanged Man?
Letting go...as in accepting God's Will (give me a chance to explain...just a little more)
Giving up control
Accepting what is
Putting others first
NOW WAIT A MINUTE, ERIC !! You said this would all make sense....Lucifer isn't this way!
...TRUE.....and that's my point. He is the card's "shadow side" (or Reversed). The shadow side of every card is the not-so-well known or publicized meanings that are just as much true as the upright meanings...just from a different 'perspective' (like how i tied that all in...LOL)
Lucifer...Satan....the Devil....whoever you may call him....he IS the Hanged Man's other half to complete the whole story.
Let's look at the original card again...upside down or Shadow side: This way what does the card suggest? The man is now grounded again, able to walk on his OWN TWO FEET, under his OWN power. What about his head? It's still a-glow with enlightenment ! But wait....I thought the man got his enlightenment while hanging upside and submitting? He did....but he also CAN on his own...
...just like Lucifer did !
Remember the first card above said "New Vision"? The figure was 'standing tall' with wings spread, leaving the corpse on the ground that was a slave to the 'old ways'. Keeping these images in mind lets see the meanings of the Hanged Man again...as it's 'True' other "Shadow"
Reversing...turning the world around...overturning old priorities
Seeing things from a new angle or perspective
Up-Ending the old order...doing an about-face
Living in the moment...for the NOW !
Defiance
Self-assertion
Sound more like the Lucifer you know? Let's look again: What we are witnessing is the moment Lucifer made his choice to rebel...and just BE HIMSELF ! On the left...heaven...his appointment there, where he was told what to do and had limited choice. On the right, FREEDOM as not a PLACE, but an IDEA....where he stretches his hand out in acceptance (notice the other is more closed with a "shackle of light" restricting it's movement).
Notice, also, the color of his wings: white on left from that of God's control, dark on right to show expansive freedom like that of space. In-between there is a struggle for control, for power, and for self-enlightenment. Both God and now Lucifer know this....the time for a new perspective has come...and Lucifer chose FREE WILL.
Whether I believe in Lucifer or not is unimportant...only the symbolism here to help see the relationship of the meanings of both Light and Shadow...neither one more important than the other....both necessary to the True meaning of the Hanged Man card.
Which side are you? Do you submit to what others tell you is right...or do you find you listen to what your heart tells you? You may have more in common with this card than you previously thought ! Cheers !
Eric "MoonLightTrucker"
“Esoterically, the Hanged Man is the human spirit which is suspended from heaven by a single thread. Wisdom, not death, is reward for this voluntary sacrifice during which the human soul, suspended above the world of illusion, and meditating upon its unreality, is rewarded by the achievement of self-realization.” – Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages.
In the Tarot with the twelfth (12th) card called ‘The Hanged Man”or in French, “Le Pendu.” The Hanged Man (XII) is the twelfth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks.
This card portrays a young man hanging upside down by his left leg from a horizontal beam, the latter supported by two tree trunks from each of which six branches have been removed. The right leg of the youth is crossed in back of the left and his arms are folded behind his back in such a way as to form a cross surmounting a downward pointing triangle. According to Elphias Levi, the Hanged Man thus forms an inverted symbol of sulphur. Elphias Levi had stated in his book, Transcendental Magic; ” It is also implied fantastically that the Roman alphabet is related to Tarot cards, but whereas the Hebrew Mem answers to the card of Death the Roman M is referred to the Hanged Man, Resh to the Judgement card but R to the Blazing Star.” Levi likens the hanged man to the legend of Prometheus, the titan who gave fire to mankind and in turn suffered the wrath of Zeus by becoming the eternal sufferer, not just by being bound to a rock, but to also have his liver fed upon by an eagle each day. the Egyptian Tarot the hanged man is hung upside down between two palm trees, which is said to signify the Sun God who dies perennially for his world. In some Tarot decks, the figure in the 12th card carries under each arm a money bag from which coins are escaping. Some people have said that this latter card is that of Judas Iscariot who is said to have gone forth and hanged himself, the money bags representing the payment he received for his crime. The Hanged Man is a form of Pittura infamante;
(Italian for “defaming portrait”; plural pitture infamanti) is a genre of defamatory painting and relief, common in Renaissance Italy. It came to be regarded as a form of art rather than effigy; the power of the genre derived from a feudal-based code of honor, where shame was one of the most significant social punishments. Common themes of pittura infamante—which were meant to be humiliating—include depicting the subject as wearing a mitre or hanging upside down, being in the presence of unclean animals such as pigs or donkeys or those deemed evil like snakes; pittura infamante would also contain captions listing the offenses of the subject.Pittura infamante could originate as more favorable depictions, only to be transformed after the subject had fallen out of favor.
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The attitude of the Indian toward death, the test and background of life, is entirely consistent with his character and philosophy.
Death has no terrors for him; he meets it with simplicity and perfect calm, seeking only an honorable end as his last gift to his family and descendants.
Therefore, he courts death in battle; on the other hand, he would regard it as disgraceful to be killed in a private quarrel.
If one be dying at home, it is customary to carry his bed out of doors as the end approaches, that his spirit may pass under the open sky.
Even the worst enemies of the Indian, those who accuse him of treachery, blood-thirstiness, cruelty, and lust, have not denied his courage but in their minds it is a courage is ignorant, brutal, and fantastic.
His own conception of bravery makes of it a high moral virtue, for to him it consists not so much in aggressive self- -assertion as in absolute self-control.
The truly brave man, we contend, yields neither to fear nor anger, desire nor agony; he is at all times master of himself; his courage rises to the heights of chivalry, patriotism, and real heroism.
Albrecht Dürer -
Bildnis Johannes Kleberger [1526] -
Vienna KHM GAP wm
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Albrecht Dürer - Portrait of Johannes Kleberger, 1526
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Inv. no. 850
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1. Description of the painting
The square limewood panel presents Johannes Kleberger in a near-frontal three-quarter view, his head emerging like an antique bust from a dark circular recess. This zone, conceived as a medallion or blind oculus, contrasts sharply with the stone-coloured outer frame. Through a subtle trompe-l’œil effect, the head casts a shadow onto the surrounding surface, creating the illusion that it projects into the viewer’s real space.
The sitter is depicted nude, without any attributes, jewellery or clothing. The focus rests entirely on the head: a striking, slightly eccentric face with brown, wide-open eyes, dark curly hair and deeply set sideburns. The flesh is delicately modelled; hints of beard growth, carefully graduated light and shadow, and the precise articulation of nose, brows and cheekbones lend the visage a strong physiognomic presence. In the pupils, window-cross reflections are visible, further enhancing the illusion of lifelikeness.
The inscription within the medallion, executed in carefully painted orange-yellow Roman capitals, reinforces the character of an antique medal:
EFFIGIES JOHANNI KLEBERGERS NORICI ANNO AETATIS SVAE XXXX.
Adjacent to the inscription appears a sign resembling a merchant’s mark. The outer frame bears coats of arms and astrological symbols in its corners, including a golden emblem with stars in the upper left, referring to the horoscope of Kleberger, born under the sign of Leo.
The entire conception oscillates deliberately between painting, sculpture and numismatics, presenting Kleberger simultaneously as a real individual and as an idealised, heroic figure.
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2. Art-historical analysis and interpretation
The Portrait of Johannes Kleberger of 1526 is among the last and most unconventional portraits in Albrecht Dürer’s œuvre. It is devoted to a personality who provoked both admiration and resentment in Nuremberg: a socially ambitious merchant, humanist and adventurer whose life was consciously aligned with antique models of self-fashioning.
Dürer responds to this extraordinary sitter with an equally extraordinary pictorial invention. Elements drawn from ancient portrait sculpture, the Renaissance medal, and illusionistic painting are combined to create a unique portrait type. Kleberger appears as a living antique sculpture, a conception that directly engages with the paragone, the Renaissance debate on the hierarchy of the arts. Here painting triumphs over sculpture, for it creates not only plastic presence but also animation, gaze and psychological depth — a painterly equivalent of the Pygmalion myth.
The sitter’s deliberate nudity is neither naturalistic nor erotic but heroic in connotation. It recalls antique ruler portraits and Roman imperial imagery, which Kleberger himself adopted on contemporary medals. Instead of external signs of status — sumptuous dress or ostentatious display — Dürer concentrates on the physiognomic expression of character. In accordance with contemporary theories, outward appearance is understood as a reflection of inner qualities: the strongly articulated facial features convey a leonine temperament, associated with determination, ambition and self-confidence.
The astrological signs and heraldic emblems on the frame not only document Kleberger’s self-assertion and social ascent, but also point to his humanist education and familiarity with astrological writings, possibly those of Agrippa. Much suggests that the sitter himself played an active role in shaping the iconographic programme of the painting.
That Dürer accepted the commission despite Kleberger’s conflict with his close friend Willibald Pirckheimer may be explained by the artist’s fascination with the sitter’s singular personality and by the opportunity to create something radically new. The portrait is therefore far more than a mere “cabinet piece”: it is a virtuoso artistic statement that transcends genre boundaries and defines the individual not through rank or wealth, but through character and personality.
Kleberger’s evident attachment to the painting — he took it with him when he left Nuremberg — underscores its function as a form of self-portrait mediated through portraiture, oscillating between self-aggrandisement, humanist ideals and artistic reflection.
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Benvenuto Cellini (3 November 1500 – 13 February 1571) was an Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, soldier and musician, who also wrote a famous autobiography.
One of the most important works by Cellini from late in his career was a life-size nude crucifix carved from marble. Although originally intended to be placed over his tomb, this crucifix was sold to the Medici family who gave it to Spain. Today the crucifix is in the Escorial Monastery near Madrid, where it has usually been displayed in an altered form—the monastery added a loincloth and a crown of thorns.
Benvenuto Cellini was born in Florence, Italy. His parents were Giovanni Cellini, and Maria Lisabetta Granacci. They were married for eighteen years before the birth of their first child. Benvenuto was the second child of the family. The son of a musician and builder of musical instruments, Cellini's first major brush with the law came as an early teenager: He was banished from his native Florence for his alleged role in a brawl. As a result, he received his early artistic training not only from the Florentine goldsmith Marcone [Antonio di Sandro], but also from Francesco Castoro, a goldsmith of Siena. After further visits to Bologna and Pisa, Cellini was allowed to return to Florence and continue his work there. Giovanni initially wished Benvenuto to join him in instrument making, and endeavoured to thwart his inclination for metalwork. When he was fifteen, his father reluctantly agreed to apprentice him to a goldsmith, Antonio di Sandro, nicknamed Marcone.
His first works in Rome were a silver casket, silver candlesticks, and a vase for the bishop of Salamanca, which won him the approval of Pope Clement VII. Another celebrated work from Rome is the gold medallion of "Leda and the Swan" executed for the Gonfaloniere Gabbriello Cesarino, and which is now in the Vienna museum. He also took up the flute again, and was appointed one of the pope's court musicians.
In the attack upon Rome by Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, Cellini's bravery proved of signal service to the pontiff. According to his own accounts, he himself shot and injured Philibert of Châlon, prince of Orange. (Allegedly Cellini also killed Charles III, Duke of Bourbon during the Siege of Rome.) His bravery led to a reconciliation with the Florentine magistrates, and he soon returned to his hometown.
From Florence he went to the court of the duke of Mantua, and then again to Florence. On returning to Rome, he was employed in the working of jewellery. In 1529 his brother Cecchino killed a Corporal of the Roman Watch and in turn was wounded by an arquebusier, later dying of his wound. Soon afterward Benvenuto killed his brother's killer – an act of blood revenge but not justice as Cellini admits that his brother's killer had acted in self-defense. Cellini fled to Naples to shelter from the consequences of an affray with a notary, Ser Benedetto, whom he had wounded. Through the influence of several cardinals, Cellini obtained a pardon. He found favor with the new pope, Paul III, notwithstanding a fresh homicide during the interregnum three days after the death of Pope Clement VII in September 1534. The fourth victim was a rival goldsmith, Pompeo of Milan.
After briefly attempting a clerical career, in 1562, he married a servant, Piera Parigi, with whom he claimed he had five children, of which only a son and two daughters survived him. Aside from his marriage, Cellini was officially accused or charged at least three times of the crime of sodomy with men, and on one occasion with a woman.
The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini was started in the year 1558 at the age of 58 and ended abruptly just before his last trip to Pisa around the year 1563 when Cellini was approximately 63 years old. The memoirs give a detailed account of his singular career, as well as his loves, hatreds, passions, and delights, written in an energetic, direct, and racy style. They show a great self-regard and self-assertion, sometimes running into extravagances which are impossible to credit. He even writes in a complacent way of how he contemplated his murders before carrying them out.
He died in Florence in 1571 and was buried with great pomp in the church of the Santissima Annunziata.