Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Jon Jaylo is a topnotch painter from the Philippines. His unique, often thought-provoking, poetic, philosophical and sublime works have been exhibited in Asia and Europe in recent years.

I admire Jon Jaylo as an exceptionally-gifted artist with profound ideas, vision and uncommon eloquence.





This "Immaculate Deception" work (depicted below) of an intriguingly beautiful woman was the first ever painting of Jon Jaylo which I saw at the Boston Gallery in Quezon City of the Philippines one afternoon around August 2009. It was already reserved by a buyer. I immediately texted an SMS message to art writer Giselle "Gik" Kasilag (artistic collaborator of writer Susan de Guzman) if she knew this artist.

Gik said Jon Jaylo was his friend, and she will check if he has works for sale.

Later on, days later, she and coincidentally Jon Jaylo later recommended that I buy a work of another talented artist named Ronald Ventura since his style is similar. I had then first researched the background of Ronald Ventura and I also liked the particular oil painting entitled "The Champ" by Ventura they had offered to me that time. This was a Ventura resale from an art collector, who preferred to remain anonymous. That Ventura oil painting was the first serious art work I had bought, that was in 2009, upon the suggestion of Kasilag and Jaylo.

However, I still waited for the day I will acquire my first Jon Jaylo work....

***

Here's the first Jon Jaylo work I had earlier seen and immediately liked ...

Title: IMMACULATE DECEPTION

Medium: Water Mixable Oil & acrylic on canvas

Size: 24in x 12 in
Model:Torj
Concept shot @ Art Movement Studios
Photo:Jeff Aquino

Collection of Mr. Bobby

Boston Gallery Aug 8, 2009

Exhibition Design: Mr.Ruel Caasi






This painting below is one of the most beautiful works of Jon Jaylo, a definite masterpiece...


Title: OF SAINTS AND SINNERS 

Medium: Water Mixable Oil

Size: 30 in x 48 in

Year: 2009
Model:  Torj & MItch
Photo: OliverConcept shot @ ArtMovementStudios

Collection of Mr. Wilson Lee Flores

Location: Southwing Lobby, House of Representatives, Quezon City, Metro Manila, The Philippines

Exhibition Design:  Mr.Ruel Caasi





“Of Saints and Sinners” is basically an imagery that is meant to confuse its viewers with the two clashing perspectives of what is good and what is evil.


At first look, one would already wonder and present attempts at deciphering the symbolisms masking the totality of the painting. The artwork itself is an enclosed mystery to be solved, with a question so simple, yet it never fails to decieve us all.

According to Jaylo, the figure on the left of the piece is evil personified, a dark shadow hiding beneath a façade of sinless beauty trying to tempt the character sitting next to it. “The face is almost angelic, proportionally beautiful in all aspects, but it’s quite noticeable that the smile is also very deceptive,” the artist says.

“The painting is set a few moments before the presence of dawn, perhaps the time where darkness and light meets and exchanges positions. It is very apparent that the lady in black is trying to convince the figure clothed in red. She wants her to stay in the night, where darkness triumphs within the absence of light, “ he continues.

If the painting is to be studied, a sense of parallelism between the halos is surprisingly present. However, the “sinner” reveals its true form within the black roman numerals engraved on her false radiance. “Evil has an ending. The numbers represent time. While good, as was mentioned in the bible, shall exult itself and live forever, past eternity"

The white piece of cloth resting on its elbow is softly tainted with blood, which connotes corruption and the dying of chastity. The “saint” on the other hand, is shown deep contemplation. This just shows that there is no such thing as concrete good. Man is always susceptible to the distortion of faith, because, it’s just the natural tendency of things. The good is prone to turning evil as evil is inclined to turning into good. Darkness would always choose to captivate and influence kind, god-fearing people.

"Of course, it’s a philosophical redundancy to corrupt the bad, for there is nothing left to corrupt inside their black-hearted souls, ” Jaylo explains.

“The snake is very wise, it would never instantly reveal its erectile fangs when preparing to sink it into his victim's skin and inject its secreted venom. Instead, it slithers slowly and quietly, trying to deceive its prey, and camouflaging within its environment. Like the 'Sinless Temptress', it would always blend in with its victims, pretending to be a mirror image of them, God-fearing, kind, and exquisitely angelic, like a wicked fiend dressed in sheepskin ,” he adds.

Sometimes, good-willed Samaritans could turn out as closet monsters, feeding an inner demon with their self-constructed mask of falsities and lies.

In this archaic masterpiece, Jon Jaylo simply depicts the immortal conflict of good versus evil in a classic dark, gothic fashion, guised with a hand-carved black wooden frame, to further emphasize its medieval, old world feel. Because in the void of its mystery lies a debris of hypocrisies, falsities, fake smiles, and hateful eyes. So in the end, we all recline confusion, asking ourselves: “Who’s the real Saint and who’s the real Sinner?









This photograph from the January 18, 2010 issue of the newspaper Philippine Star. The caption below from the same newspaper...

Writer and realty entrepreneur Wilson Lee Flores with painter Jon Jaylo, front-running Quezon City Vice Mayor candidate Joy Belmonte, newscaster Precious Castelo and Zamboanga Congresswoman Beng Climaco before the oil painting “Of Saints & Sinners” at the November 16, 2009 “Art for Youth’s Sake” charity exhibit in the Philippine Congress by Quezon City Councilor Winnie Castelo and wife Precious.

This Jon Jaylo oil painting entitled "Of Saints and Sinners" was bought by Wilson Lee Flores in support of the socio-civic project of Castelo to benefit the urban poor youth of Quezon City.

Quezon City Mayor Sonny Belmonte in that same occasion told Wilson Lee Flores that he and his late wife, the late Philippine Star co-founder Betty Go-Belmonte, acquired their first serious painting as a gift from the late National Artist Ang Kiu Kok when he wasn’t that famous yet and after his wife had convinced the late Equitable Bank founder Go Kim Pah to buy a work by Ang.




Once again, congratulations to the accomplished, talented and philosophical artist Jon Jaylo.





A 2012 Rodel Tapaya oil on canvas painting tribute to the Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as published in the "Philippine Star" newspaper.

This painting is in the collection of Wilson Lee Flores.

Both the painter Tapaya and Wilson Lee Flores admire Colombian novelist/journalist Gabriel Garcia Marquez among their favorite writers.

The multi-awarded University of the Philippines (U.P.) Fine Arts graduate Rodel Tapaya is one of the most accomplished painters of Asia---an artist of remarkable talent, exuberant creativity, high intellect, passion and bold vision.




RECENT UPDATES ON RODEL TAPAYA:



T A P A Y A    U P D A T E S

Present/Current
Present/CurrentCCP Thirteen Artist Exhibit
Cultural Center of the Philippines
CCP Complex, Tanghalang Pambansa
Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City, Philippines
on view until February 2013
Tuesdays - Sundays  10am - 6pm

Past / Previous

Enduring Commitment: New Acquisitions (2009-2011)The Bangko Sentral Collection (Central Bank of the Philippines Collection)
MET Metropolitan Museum of Manila
on view until December 15, 2012
Mondays - Saturdays 9am - 6pm
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex,
Roxas Boulevard, Malate-Manila
02-7087829/ 708-7828
info@metmuseum.ph

Mystic Origins: Plants I
Solo Exhibition
WADA Fine Arts, Tokyo
October 1-27, 2012

DEITIES
Solo Exhibition
West Gallery, Quezon City
November 6-17, 2012

Art TAIPEI
Group Exhibition
WADA Fine Arts at Taipei World Trade Center
November 9-12, 2012

Upcoming/Future
New Acquisitions by Pinto Art Museum
Rodel Tapaya Work
Pinto Art Museum
Silangan Gardens, 1 Sierra Madre Heights, Antipolo City
opens on Dec 16, 2012

***


Image of the topnotch international painter Rodel Tapaya, whose works are much sought after by top collectors in Asia and beyond. Source: Yahoo Singapore





November 20, 2011 article by Yahoo Singapore on Rodel Tapaya victory of another major award then.

By Sheela Sarvananda


Within the restored colonial confines of the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) on Thursday, artists, guests and media gathered to celebrate artistic excellence in Asia Pacific.


The artworks of 15 finalists, nominated from 24 countries and territories, were presented for the Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Foundation Signature Art Prize 2011 in a ceremony organised by the museum.


The extensive selection of the finalists from a pool of 130 artworks was carried out by a group of eminent art experts.


With the emphasis on a single signature work of each contender, artists are provided with an uncommon benchmark for all artists — whether they have a long, pedigreed history or not.


Tan Boon Hui, director of SAM, said the focus is to level the playing field and to bring it back to basics: appreciating art for its own sake.


Inaugurated in 2008 and held every three years, the awards aim to cultivate the vibrancy of art-making in Asia Pacific today. The stage has been set for these artists to showcase their artisanal skills to a wider
audience, giving them a platform for recognition they would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.


"In a competition like this, in which it is open to both emerging and established artists, it is structured to award the prize for a single artwork. It really looks at excellence in the work, so everyone competes on an equal footing. That's very important in opening up the possibilities to look at a diverse a selection of art from the region," Tan said.


The grand prize was presented by Grace Fu, Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts.


Grand prize winner Rodel Tapaya, from the Philippines, took home $45,000 for his painting Baston ni Kabunian, Bilang Pero di Mabilang (Cane of Kabunian, numbered but cannot be counted).


The floor-to-ceiling work is an impressive sight to behold, with a dynamic interplay of the past and present. It reflects the folkloric roots interwoven into the history of Tapaya's people, as well as the underlying themes of the devastating effects of nature. Bold colors abound, and even from a distance, painstaking brushstrokes and lovingly-executed details are evident, even to the untrained eye.


Tapaya said that his art is multi-layered in approach. "Philippine folklore is my world, the main theme I create in my work. But I want the viewer to not just see my painting as stories. I want him to look at the deeper perspective, too. So, I added some commentary on why we experience great floods, global-warming, deforestation," he pointed out.

Singapore's very own Michael Lee was also a winner on the celebratory night as he walked away with the People's Choice Award worth $10,000. This was presented by Michael Koh, CEO of the National Heritage Board.


Lee's Second-Hand City is a suite of eight digital prints exploring contemporary life with wit and insight into the machinations of everyday existence. His work showcases an insightful dialectic on living in a concrete jungle — using urban architecture, science fiction and pop culture as his palette and salvo.


This award in particular is the result of the public voting online at SAM's website, or casting their votes in person at the exhibition, prior to the 17th of November date of the ceremony. Lee's art is the undeniable hot-favorite with the public, and deservedly so.


Lee said he creates utopian architecture to encourage dialogue away from polarising debates on conservation. While some might believe conservation is key and others advocate the new as penultimate, he believes a middle-ground is where the answer lies.


"My position begins with moving out from moralising, taking a judgmental position. Morality is important to a certain extent. At its best, it pushes human being to be better. But very often, rules and norms make us complacent and unable to think out of the box — people may not even know they have been restricted. So when I propose imaginary buildings and impossible cities, I'm not saying these are my proposals as a solution. I want my work to be triggers through humor and irony, to get people to see things from a bigger perspective," he explained.



L-R Sheba Chhachi (Jurors Choice), Michael Lee (People's Choice), Rodel Tapaya (Grand Prize), Aida Makoto (Jurors Choice), Daniel Crooks (Jurors Choice). (Photo courtesy of Singapore Art Museum)L-R Sheba Chhachi (Jurors Choice), Michael Lee (People's Choice), Rodel Tapaya (Grand Prize), Aida Makoto (Jurors …


During the night, four more artists were presented awards. Three Jurors' Choice Awards, worth $10,000 each, were given to Daniel Crooks from Australia, Sheba Chhachhi from India and Aida Makoto from Japan. These were presented by Roland Pirmez, advisory committee chairman and board of trustees member of the APB Foundation.


Pirmez spoke of the importance of the melting pot of cultures in the region.


"The foundation was set up to applaud and celebrate the diversity of life, as showcased in the artwork of the Asia Pacific region. The flourishing arts scene in Singapore provides the perfect platform to showcase regional contemporary art, and highlight the way in which it connects us to the communities around us," he said.


The APB Foundation Signature Art Prize 2011 Finalists Exhibition will run from 11November 2011 to 4 March 2012 at the Singapore Art Museum. There will be a series of curatorial talks, artist talks and guided tours held in conjunction with the show to give the public further insight into the works on display.


(Image below of Tapaya work sourced from oneartworld.com)

Contemporary Art in the Philippines is outstanding, there are quite a number of talented young artists here.

One of the most talented contemporary artists of the Philippines is Annie Cabigting. I was walking at an arts event---known as the "ManilArt 10"---in Metro Manila a couple of years ago or about July 2010, when a prominent art blogger Trickie Lopa saw me there and took a photograph of me standing in front of Annie Cabigting's work.

No, I don't own this beautiful Annie Cabigting oil on canvas painting (though I wish I own it!!!). I believe this painter is a talent of Finale art gallery in Makati City, Metro Manila, The Philippines.

Here is the picture sourced from manilaartblogger.wordpress.com


Blog caption:  Wilson Lee Flores and Annie Cabigting's oil on canvas auction piece, "After Yves Klein"






The image below of painter Annie Cabigting and short bio-data are sourced from spot.ph

The artist: Born in 1971, Annie Cabigting majored in painting at the University of the Philippines. She views her craft as means to carry on the work of artists who have inspired her. Her piece After Yves Klein was auctioned off in the 2010 ManilArt.



Monday, December 24, 2012

I would rather own this Condo painting (featured way below) rather than a million-dollar condo in New York City! Agree or not? Share your comments below or email me your thoughts? Merry Christmas to everyone!

Congratulations to the talented artist George Condo!!!

(Image below of artist George Condo sourced from sarabronfman.com)





George Condo's 'The Manhattan Strip Club' Breaks Record At Christie's (PHOTO)

Posted: Updated: 11/15/2012 9:53 am EST Bloomberg
George Condo, an American painter who coined the term "Artificial Realism" and designed multiple covers for Kanye West's album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, was among a long list of record-breaking artists at Christie's Postwar and Contemporary Evening Sale last night. Condo's painting, "The Manhattan Strip Club," soared well beyond its estimated price, proving once again that the seedy East Village scene always has a place in Midtown's posh art quarters.
But just how much did the Condo go for, exactly?


george condo
George Condo (B. 1957), The Manhattan Strip Club, signed and dated ‘Condo 2010’ (upper left) acrylic, charcoal and pastel on canvas, 75 x 95 in. (190.5 x 241.3 cm.) Painted in 2010. Estimate: $600,000-800,000.


The chaotic array of supple nudes and garish, grabbing men sold for a whopping $1.3 million, Christie's announced today. The impressive price tag is the highest ever for the New York-based painter, who is still alive to see his smut-inspired masterpiece turn heads at the prestigious auction house.


Condo is not exactly a stranger to the glitzier side of art, however. His pieces currently hang in well-known permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, and past auctions at Christie's and elsewhere have breached the million dollar mark.


So, readers, what do you think of Condo's big Christie's hit? Are you a fan of "The Manhattan Strip Club" or would you rather spend your millions on, say, an actual condo? Let us know in the comments section.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, one of the great writers and among my top novelists. I first read his novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude", it was so enthralling and well-written I felt that my imagination was on fire!
After reading the English translation of that novel, I even bought the Spanish-language original "Cien Años de Soledad". His other novels, books of short stories and prose are very interesting to read.

Colombian writer, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, there's a new book about him as a journalist. Please read the news report below...

(Image below sourced by en.wikipedia.org)










 



BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A lesser-known side of Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez is celebrated and analyzed in a new book that comes on the 30th anniversary of his being awarded the Nobel literature prize.

It’s called “Gabo, periodista,” the 85-year-old author’s nickname and the Spanish-language word for journalist. It will initially be published in his native language in Colombia and in Mexico, where the writer lives.

The 512-page volume includes reportage by Garcia Marquez and commentary from such well-known journalists as Jon Lee Anderson and Alma Guillermoprieto.

The author of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” was presented a copy last week at his Mexico City home.
Published in part by the Colombia-based journalism institute that Garcia Marquez founded, the book was being launched Tuesday at the Guadalajara International Book Fair.












Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Ernest Hemingway, one of my favorite novelists, he was an outstanding writer! Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

I couldn't forget an inspiring quote from Hemingway cited by a Hollywood movie: "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for."



(These images below sourced from en.wikipedia.com)










(Image below sourced from biography.com)



Tribute to a great French Jewish art collector and banker James Rotschild, 19th century


Anyone visiting France? Don't miss this unique exhibition:

“The Rothschilds in France in the 19th Century” runs at the old National Library, 5 Rue Vivienne, Paris, France through February 10, 2013. For information: http://www.bnf.fr

It is inspiring to read about how great wealth and passion for the arts often come together to bring about great strides in human progress, such as in the case of the eminent French Jewish financier and art collector James Rotschild. Overcoming persecutions and even outright prejudice, entrepreneurial families of Europe's Jewish families like the Rotschilds have immensely contributed to economic and social progress. Read the article below

 

 

 

Rothschild’s Souffle Joins Art Treasures in Paris Show


“Money is the god of our time, and Rothschild is his prophet,” wrote German poet Heinrich Heine.
While penning this bon mot, the Rothschild he had in mind was James, head of his family banking empire’s French branch and the subject of a charming exhibition at the old National Library in Paris.
 
 
 
"Portrait of James de Rothschild" (1864) by Hippolyte Flandrin. The oil painting is on view at the Paris National Library through Feb. 10, 2013. Source: Bibliotheque Nationale de France via Bloomberg


'Portrait of James de Rothschild' 'Library of the Rothschild Bank'  
 
 
"Library of the Rothschild Bank on Rue Laffitte in Paris" (ca 1880). The anonymous oil painting is on view at the Paris National Library through Feb 10. Source: Bibliotheque Nationale de France via Bloomberg


Enlarge image Check for One Million Thalers

Check for One Million Thalers

Check for One Million Thalers
Bibliotheque Nationale de France via Bloomberg
A check for one million Prussian thalers, the first installment of the war reparations (1871). It is on view at the Paris National Library through Feb 10.
A check for one million Prussian thalers, the first installment of the war reparations (1871). It is on view at the Paris National Library through Feb 10. Source: Bibliotheque Nationale de France via Bloomberg

'Hall of the Chateau de Ferrieres'  
 
"Hall of the Chateau de Ferrieres" (ca 1865) by Eugene Lami. The water color is on view at the Paris National Library through Feb. 10. Source: Bibliotheque Nationale de France via Bloomberg


The youngest son of Frankfurt banker Mayer Amschel Rothschild, the founder of the dynasty, Jakob Rothschild, as he was originally called, arrived in Paris in 1812. Five years later, after the family was ennobled by Austrian emperor Franz I, he renamed the bank “Banque MM. de Rothschild Freres,” (the ’de’ indicated nobility).

In 1818, he moved the bank’s headquarters to the townhouse of Napoleon’s former chief of police, Joseph Fouche, on Rue Laffitte, close to the Paris Bourse. (CAC)

His meteoric rise began after 1830 when the “Citizen King” Louis Philippe was crowned. His prime minister, Francois Guizot, preached the gospel: “Enrichissez-vous” (Enrich yourselves).

Railroad Baron

Nobody embraced this dictum more than Rothschild. He frequently dined with the king at the Tuileries Palace and bankrolled some of France’s biggest industrialization projects, including the Ligne du Nord, the railroad that connected Paris with Lille and Brussels.

The opening of the monumental Gare du Nord, the gateway to Paris for British visitors arriving by train, was one of the proudest moments of Rothschild’s career.

His relationship with Napoleon III, who succeeded Louis Philippe in 1848 as president and became emperor in 1852, was less friendly -- much to the delight of Rothschild’s competitors who froze him out of several national projects.

Yet within a few years Le Grand Baron had become indispensable, and the emperor’s 1862 visit to Rothschild’s country house, the Chateau de Ferrieres, sealed his return to favor.

One of the most impressive items in the exhibition shows just how indispensable he had become. After the country’s defeat in the war against Prussia in 1871, he issued a check for one million Prussian thalers, the first instalment of war reparations imposed on France.

A-Listers

The emphasis of the show is on the brilliant social life of James, who married his niece Betty. In their townhouse adjacent to the bank, they entertained Le Tout Paris, including composers Gioacchino Rossini, Hector Berlioz, Frederic Chopin and Franz Liszt, as well as painters Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres and Eugene Delacroix.

Rossini was happy to compose a “Hymn to Napoleon III” on the occasion of the emperor’s visit to Ferrieres. Chopin dedicated a waltz and a ballad to Rothschild’s daughter Charlotte, to whom he gave piano lessons.

Not the least of the reasons why Le Beau Monde flocked to Rothschild’s dinner parties was his gifted cook Antonin Careme who had worked at the courts of St. James and St. Petersburg before coming to Rue Laffitte.

There he created the Souffle a la Rothschild, the Saumon a la Rothschild and the Filet de Boeuf a la Rothschild, slices of cold beef covered with foie gras and truffles and other delicacies documented in his “L’Art de la Cuisine Francaise” included in the exhibition.

Not everyone was in awe of the Le Grand Baron. The exhibition includes a number of caricatures and reminds us that he inspired one of Honore de Balzac’s less attractive characters who appeared in 12 of his novels: Frederic de Nucingen, a roguish banker who speaks French with a heavy German accent and who made his fortune from a series of bogus bankruptcies.

Numerous illuminated manuscripts, paintings and sculptures, some portraying Christian saints, evoke Rothschild the bibliophile and art collector. Only Ingres’s portrait of Betty, the gem of his collection, is missing from this comprehensive exhibition.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Today November 25 is the 511th birth anniversary of Yi Hwang (1501–1570), one of the two most prominent Korean Confucian scholars of the Joseon Dynasty.


His surname is written in Hanja or Chinese character as 李, which is also pronounced in Korean or Chinese as Lee. He had authored many Confucian books.


My comments:

One of the reasons the Korean people are outstanding and Korea is a great nation is due to their traditional Confucian values. I believe this is almost equivalent to the Protestant ethic of countries in the West before, like Germany, Britain and the United States of America but sadly this Protestant ethic has eroded in many Western societies nowadays?



A key figure of the Neo-Confucian literati, he set up the Yeongnam School and founded the Dosan Seowon as a private Confucian academy.

Yi Hwang in Hanja or Chinese chracters is written as 李滉, he is often referred to by his pen name Toegye which is written in Hanja or Chinese characters as 退溪 (meaning "Retreating Creek"). His courtesy name was Gyeongho which is written in Hanja or Chinese characters as景浩 .







Toegyero, a street in central part of the South Korean capital city Seoul, is named after him.

His image is on the South Korean currency in the 1,000 won note.

The Taekwondo pattern Toi-Gye was named in honor of Yi Hwang.

There are numerous institutes and university research departments devoted to Yi Hwang in Korea and also in foreign countries, sych as the Toegye Studies Institute set up in Seoul in 1970,  Kyungpook National University's Toegye Institute opened in 1979, and also an institute and library in Dankook University in 1986.

He followed the dualistic Neo-Confucianism teachings of Chu Hsi, which views i (Chinese “li”) and gi (Chines “qi”) as the forces of foundation of the universe

Saturday, November 17, 2012

 

Rupert Brooke was one of the best poets of the English language, he died young in war. 

(Below is a photograph by Sherrill Schell, of the poet Rupert Brooke in 1913. The photo is from the book The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke published 1926)


Rupert Brooke 

Nationality - English
Lifespan - 1887 - 1915
Family - Father was House Master at Rugby School
Education - Cambridge University
Career - Poet and Officer in Royal Navy
First Published in 1909 


Famous Poems


Peace
Retrospect
Safety
The Chilterns
The Dead
The Soldier
The Great Lover

This informations from poets.org of the Academy of American poets:

Rupert Brooke

English poet Rupert Chawner Brooke was born in 1887. The son of the Rugby School's housemaster, Brooke excelled in both academics and athletics. He entered his father's school at the age of fourteen. A lover of verse since the age of nine, he won the school poetry prize in 1905.

A year later, he attended King's College, Cambridge, where he was known for his striking good looks, charm, and intellect. While at Cambridge, he developed an interest in acting and was president of the University Fabian Society. Brooke published his first poems in 1909; his first book, Poems, appeared in 1911. While working on his dissertation on John Webster and Elizabethan dramatists, he lived in the house that he made famous by his poem "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester."

Popular in both literary and political circles, he befriended Winston Churchill, Henry James, and members of the Bloomsbury Group, including Virginia Woolf. Although he was popular, Brooke had a troubled love life. Between 1908 and 1912 he fell in love with three women: Noel Olivier, youngest daughter of the governor of Jamaica; Ka Cox, who preceded him as president of the Fabian Society; and Cathleen Nesbitt, a British actress. None of the relationships were long lasting. In 1912, after his third romance failed, Brooke left England to travel in France and Germany for several months.

Upon his return to England, Brooke received a fellowship at King's College and spent time in both Cambridge and London. In 1912 he compiled an anthology entitled Georgian Poetry, 1911-12, with Edward Marsh. The Georgian poets wrote in an anti-Victorian style, using rustic themes and subjects such as friendship and love. While critics viewed Brooke's poetry as too sentimental and lacking depth, they also considered his work a reflection of the mood in England during the years leading up to World War I.

After experiencing a mental breakdown in 1913, Brooke traveled again, spending several months in America, Canada, and the South Seas. During his trip, he wrote essays about his impressions for the Westminster Gazette, which were collected in Letters From America (1916). While in the South Seas, he wrote some of his best poems, including "Tiare Tahiti" and "The Great Lover."

He returned to England at the outbreak of World War I and enlisted in the Royal Naval Division. His most famous work, the sonnet sequence 1914 and Other Poems, appeared in 1915. Later that year, after taking part in the Antwerp Expedition, he died of blood poisoning from a mosquito bite while en route to Gallipoli with the Navy. He was buried on the island of Skyros in the Aegean Sea.

Following his death, Brooke, who was already famous, became a symbol in England of the tragic loss of talented youth during the war.

A Selected Bibliography
Poetry

Poems (1911)
Georgian Poetry, 1911-1912 (1912)
1914, and Other Poems (1915)
The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke (1915)
The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke (1918)
The Poetical Works of Rupert Brooke (1946)

Prose

Lithuania: A Drama in One Act (1915)
John Webster and the Elizabethan Drama (1916)
Letters From America (1916)
Democracy and the Arts (1946)
The Prose of Rupert Brooke (1956)
The Letters of Rupert Brooke (1968)
Rupert Brooke: A Reappraisal and Selection From His Writings, Some Hitherto Unpublished (1971)
Letters From Rupert Brooke to His Publisher, 1911-1914 (1975)


Rupert Brooke

1887-1915
'Here lies the servant of God, sub-lieutenant in the English Navy,
who died for the deliverance of Constantinople from the Turks'
The late talented and patriotic English poet lies buried in an olive grove on Skyros Island of Greece, near Tris Boukes Bay. The tomb is some 50 yards to the left of the road which descends down to the bay.
 
Tomb of Rupert Brooke
Photograph by Neil Maybin

When he was at Cambridge University, the poet moved out of London and lived at The Old Vicarage in Grantchester. Years later when feeling in Berlin, the poet reminisce about the past he had spent there and composed the poem: The Old Vicarage, Grantchester and concludiong it with this well-known famous couplet:
Stands the Church clock at ten to three?
And is there honey still for tea?


Brooke in 1913 Brooke suffered a nervous breakdown, he tried to recover by travelling to the United States, Canada and the Pacific islands. When he was in Tahiti, Brooke wrote Tiara Tahiti and other poetry considered to be among his best poems.

In 1914 Brooke joined the Royal Navy and took part in the Antwerp expedition.

The poet died of blood-poisoning aboard a hospital ship on the way to the Dardanelles. He was originally buried by his fellow officers. The body was carried to the olive grove in the evening and a simple stone cairn was built, with a wooden cross bearing the above inscription was erected.

After World War I ended, at the instigation of his mother, Brooke's tomb was replaced by the present grave and has the inscription of his famous war sonnet The Soldier.
If I should die, think only this of me:
  That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
  In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
  Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
  Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
  A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
  Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
  In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Who did the huge painting and what is the title of this work used as backdrop for new China leaders' group photograph today?



General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Xi Jinping (C) and the other newly-elected members of the Standing Committee of the 18th CPC Central Committee Political Bureau Li Keqiang (3rd R), Zhang Dejiang (3rd L), Yu Zhengsheng (2nd R), Liu Yunshan (2nd L), Wang Qishan (1st R), Zhang Gaoli (1st L) meet with journalists at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Nov 15, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Picasso Painting of Lover Fetches US$41.5 Million in New York!

My comments:
The art works of the late genius painter Pablo Picasso are really spectacular, stunning and unique. I'm sharing latest news article on one of my favorite painters Pablo Picasso. This news is from Bloomberg...


Picasso’s 1932 painting of his young mistress Marie-Therese Walter fetched $41.5 million tonight at Sotheby’s (BID) in New York.

Philip Hook, senior specialist at Sotheby’s London, bought it for a client on the phone.
'Femme a la fenetre (Marie-Therese)'
"Femme a la fenetre (Marie-Therese)" (April 13, 1936) by Pablo Picasso. The painting is estimated at $15 million to $20 million. Source: Sotheby's via Bloomberg
Enlarge image 'Nature morte aux tulipes'

'Nature morte aux tulipes'

'Nature morte aux tulipes'
Sotheby's via Bloomberg
"Nature morte aux tulipes," signed and dated 2 Mars XXXII (March 2, 1932), by Pablo Picasso. The oil-on-canvas painting is estimated at $35 million to $50 million.
"Nature morte aux tulipes," signed and dated 2 Mars XXXII (March 2, 1932), by Pablo Picasso. The oil-on-canvas painting is estimated at $35 million to $50 million. Source: Sotheby's via Bloomberg

“Nature Morte aux Tulipes” is at once a portrait and a still life, depicting Walter’s sculpted white head on a pedestal next to a bouquet of tulips and some sexually suggestive fruit. It had been estimated to bring $35 million to $50 million.

The work was the top lot by estimate of Sotheby’s evening Impressionist and modern art sale, expected to bring more than $169 million.

The seller had been guaranteed a minimum undisclosed price, provided by Sotheby’s, a third party or a combination thereof, according to the catalog. A third party also provided Sotheby’s with an irrevocable bid on the lot, ensuring that the work will sell.

It sold for $28.6 million in 2000 at Christie’s in New York. Picasso’s paintings of Walter have been popular with collectors, surging since his “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” went for $106.5 million at Christie’s in New York in 2010.

Most of the top Marie-Therese paintings that have come up for auction have been dated 1932, the year of Picasso’s big retrospective at Galeries Georges Petit in Paris.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Faulkner estate sues over quotes in Woody Allen film & Washington Post ad!

 
My Comments:
 
Whether these lawsuits by the heirs of the Nobel Prize for Literature winner and two-time Pulitzer awardee poet/novelist William Faulkner (1897-1961) are legally valid or not is, I believe, besides the point. For a writer like me, what is more interesting is that these news reports will hopefully encourage more people to be curious about the great literary writer William Faulkner and his works.
 
William Faulkner was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, a giant of the U.S. south.
 
Let us read these literary masterpieces:
 
The Sound and the Fury
 
As I Lay Dying
 
Absalom, Absalom!
 
 
 
Here is one of Faulkner's interesting quotes: 
"It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work."
 
– William Faulkner
 
 
 
Here is a news report about the hullabaloo...
 
Oct 30, 2012 3:51 AM Updated: Oct 30, 2012 7:52 AM
 
By JEFF AMY
Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - William Faulkner wrote that the past is never dead. His heirs say their copyright to that phrase is very much alive.

The author's literary estate is suing Sony Pictures Classics for using a paraphrase of the line in Woody Allen's 2011 film, "Midnight in Paris." It's also suing Northrop Grumman Corp. and The Washington Post Co. for using another Faulkner quote in a newspaper ad by the defense contractor.

Midnight in Paris Movie

The first lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Oxford, Miss., says Sony infringed on the copyright when actor Owen Wilson slightly misquoted the line from Faulkner's "Requiem for a Nun." He said, "The past is not dead! Actually, it's not even past."

The second lawsuit, filed Friday in Jackson, Miss., makes similar claims about the ad, which used a passage from a 1956 essay Faulkner wrote in Harper's Magazine. The quote, which says in part "We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it," was the conclusion to an essay criticizing the South's response to school integration.

Sony says the quote is "fair use," a legal term meaning the user doesn't have to license or pay for it.
"This is a frivolous lawsuit and we are confident we will prevail in defending it," a Sony Pictures spokeswoman said in a written statement.

Northrop Grumman declined comment. The Washington Post did not return a phone call Monday.
David Olson, a Boston College law professor who specializes in patent law and copyright, said he agrees that the estate is over-reaching legally.


Lee Caplin, who represents the estate, disagrees. He said these are the first lawsuits it has ever filed. Caplin said that the estate recently licensed a quote to the sitcom "Modern Family." He contrasted that to Allen's use of the quote in the movie.

"He just wanted to kind of take it and he felt entitled," Caplin said of Allen.

Caplin said the suit is not a "money grab." He said Sony was dismissive of his attempts to license the quote after the movie came out.

Under the fair use principle, people can take and reuse part of a copyrighted book, song or movie without permission. Generally, excepts can be used if they're short and if they're part of a new artistic work, scholarly work or a parody. Noncommercial uses are generally more permissible, Olson said.

"If it's for a commercial use, they do have to pay for it," Caplin said.

Olson, though, said that's a flawed understanding of copyright law.

"Commercial use isn't presumptively unfair," he said. He said no one watches "Midnight in Paris" as a substitute for buying "Requiem for a Nun."

"The Faulkner estate's interest is not being harmed in any way," Olson said. "If anything it draws a little more interest."

Caplin argued that even though the movie snippet is short, it's a key summing-up of the whole film, and that Allen took it because Faulkner said it better.

"This is Mr. Faulkner's most famous quote," Caplin said.

In the Northrop case, Caplin said he's not sure the heirs would have wanted Faulkner's name to be associated with an arms manufacturer.

Olson said the Northrop case may be stronger, but he fears that authors are using copyright to limit the political context in which works are quoted or used.

Olson said some estates are zealous about enforcing copyright, to increase revenue or limit discussions that
heirs find disagreeable. The suits could just be warning shots by the estate to other users.

"Part of what they could be doing is just trying to get the word out," Olson said.

Friday, October 26, 2012

One reason to visit New York City! One of the exhibits in the Jewish Museum New York titled "Crossing Borders: Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries" (Sept. 14, 2012 - Feb. 3, 2013)





My Comments:

I'm in awe and very impressed with this exhibit on books, especially in this modern 21st century era when the popularity of ebooks, social media, computer games, 24-hour cable TV channels, online movies, texting and shopping malls try to make reading of books less of a pastime than it used to be. I love books! 

Over 50 manuscripts, many of them illuminated, from the famous Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, highlight "the role of Hebrew books as a meeting place of cultures in the Middle Ages".

There is even the "Mishneh Torah" of Maimonides written in his own hand! Egypt, circa year 1180, found in the Cairo Genizah, 9 1/4 x 6 1/2 inches (23.5 x 16.5 centimeters), MS. Heb. d. 32, fols. 53b-54a.

This is a draft of a portion of the Book of Civil Laws, a section of the "Mishneh Torah" of Maimonides (1135– 1204), written in his own hand. The philosopher and royal physician wrote his masterpiece on rabbinic law in Hebrew, whereas his earlier works had been composed in Judeo-Arabic (Arabic in Hebrew characters). Maimonides’s cursive Sephardic script is similar to contemporary Arabic script. The pages seen below deal with the laws of hiring (right) and the laws of borrowed and deposited things (left). See image below:





Many of these amazing and ancient books are on exhibit in the United States for the first time.



Address of Jewish Museum: 1109 5th Ave at 92nd Street, New York City, New York 10128, USA 

Free entrance on Saturdays because of the Jewish Sabbath, a day of rest and a special time for spiritual enrichment free from the concerns of schedules, everyday work and commerce



(Below) Kennicott Bible, scribe: Moses ibn Zabara, artist: Joseph ibn Hayyim, commissioner: Isaac, son of Solomon di Braga, Corunna, Spain, 1476.Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, MS.
Kennicott 1, fol. 7b

 



The New York Times newspaper's Exhibition Review

What Books Said to One Another

‘Crossing Borders’ Opens at the Jewish Museum

Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times
Crossing Borders A 15th-century book showing the Virgin riding a unicorn in this show at the Jewish Museum.
If you listen closely at the subtly startling new exhibition at the Jewish Museum, “Crossing Borders: Manuscripts From the Bodleian Libraries,” you can hear manuscripts murmuring across millenniums.
Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times
Books of many eras displayed in vitrines at the exhibition “Crossing Borders: Manuscripts From the Bodleian Libraries,” at the Jewish Museum.
Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times
A page from the Kennicott Hebrew Bible.
 
Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times
A miniature of Thomas Bodley painted by Nicholas Hilliard.
 
Lauren Lancaster for The New York Times
The Virgin Mary with a unicorn in a 15th-century Italian manuscript.
Some defer to others: they are commenting on sacred texts. Some supplant others: sacred texts of one faith argue against those of another. But, as presented here, many also engage in unexpected dialogues, emulations, even dissections. Scripts imitate one another, even if they are in different languages; images and designs recur in manuscripts from different conceptual worlds. Some texts remain unflustered while everything changes around them. And all of this takes place among just 52 works, some of which are astonishingly ancient, many of which are beautifully illuminated, and most of which are written in Hebrew.

It would be a challenge just to give individual items the attention they demand, let alone attend to their interactions: a third-century fragment of papyrus with Philo of Alexandria’s interpretation of scripture; a fifth-century codex of the Four Gospels written in the ancient Aramaic dialect Syriac; a 12th-century autograph manuscript of legal commentary written in Arabic by the Jewish scholar Maimonides using Hebrew letters; a 16th-century Persian Koran with exquisite decoration; a 16th-century Hebrew poem written for Queen Elizabeth I, urging her to support Hebrew scholarship at the University of Oxford, as had her father, King Henry VIII.

It all comes from the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, which has one of the world’s most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts. These examples were first gathered in 2009 for an exhibition at Oxford called “Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Culture.” Its curators, Piet van Boxel and Sabine Arndt (who also edited an informative catalog), suggested that as exiled Jews established communities in vastly different cultures, their manuscripts both reflected the world around them and influenced it in unusual ways. Even when the texts themselves were relatively unchanging, their script and illumination testified to a dynamic, shifting relationship to the dominant cultures and religions of Christianity and Islam.

The curator at the Jewish Museum, Claudia Nahson, uses most of the same material but organizes it slightly differently to highlight the multilingual conversation, forming a capsule history of a people’s textual sojourn. The manuscripts have also been hauntingly mounted by the exhibition designer, MESH Architectures, in vitrines, each illuminated by beams from LEDs projected down, so that when a visitor looks across the galleries, the open codices seem to hover against the deep red walls, a sensation at once reverential and elevating. (MESH also designed the show’s rich Web site: bodleian.thejewishmuseum.org.)

There are some problems that come up, but the overall impact is powerful, with each display creating a miniature colloquy among texts. In some of the earliest material, for example, we see a vertical Hebrew scroll (a “rotulus”) of the 10th or early 11th century. But by that time, we learn, another form of textual presentation had become dominant: the codex, which is close in form to our printed books. And, indeed, the other items in the case, though older than the rotulus, are from codices.

Why were Hebrew codices so late in appearing? In the catalog the scholar Anthony Grafton suggests it may have been deliberate, perhaps to emphasize religious differences, particularly since the codex had become widely used as a portable means of proselytizing for Christianity.

But elsewhere in the exhibition, imitation is more the rule than rejection. Biblical commentary by the 11th-century Jewish scholar Rashi influenced Christian texts, and we see a 13th-century Hebrew Psalter extensively annotated in Latin and French. We also see how Islamic decorative style affected Hebrew scripts and influenced illuminations of both the New Testament and the Hebrew Bible.

One of the most beautiful objects here — the show’s centerpiece — is the 922-page Kennicott Bible, “the most lavishly illuminated Hebrew Bible” to survive from medieval Spain. It was completed in 1476, less than 20 years before the expulsion of the Jews, and is so elaborate it almost undermines itself, a sacred text more enticing for its decoration and its encyclopedic embrace of Islamic, Christian and folk styles than for its content. Its entire text has been scanned and put online by the Jewish Museum; each of its pages can also be examined at the exhibition on a sequence of mounted iPads.

Other examples of transformations of religious symbols are fascinating. Three manuscripts here display a common Christian motif in 15th-century Italy: the Virgin with a unicorn on her lap, defending it from a hunter.

The unicorn had become a symbol of Christ, so the image was an allusion to the Incarnation. But even seemingly secular images of unicorn hunts could be seen as allegories of persecution. With its status as a targeted innocent, the unicorn also became a Jewish symbol, the hunt invoking another kind of persecution.

So when the first page of an elaborately illustrated 1472 Hebrew Bible from Italy includes an image of a woman with a unicorn, as well as an image of Adam and Eve about to eat from the forbidden tree, how is this to be interpreted? This is a manuscript with a considerable scholarly “apparatus,” including commentary and readings, meant, we are told, for a synagogue. Was a Christian illustrator of the Hebrew text engaging in a subtle polemic? Or had the symbols become so bipolar they could sustain incompatible meanings?

These are difficult matters, but the currents of cultural influence run through these texts. We see a 15th-century book of fables in Hebrew that is a 13th-century translation of an Arabic translation of a 4th-century Sanskrit source: a collection of stories about scheming jackals. It is adjacent to a 14th-century Arabic version of the fables from Syria, and a 15th-century printed book from Strasbourg that is a Latin translation of an early Hebrew translation of the Arabic. We learn, too, that such texts led to the development of original Hebrew stories during the same period.

And while examples of the transmission of knowledge during this era have become more familiar in recent years, there is still something uncanny about seeing three examples of Euclid’s “Elements” open to the same diagrams and proofs in 13th-century Arabic, 14th-century Hebrew and 13th-century Latin.

The final gallery here also begins to put the collection itself in context, another astonishing phenomenon: how English Protestants in the late 16th century established Hebrew as a central subject for study. Thomas Bodley, a Hebraist and humanist, re-established a library at Oxford that had been plundered and provided the foundation for its renowned holdings.

There is one issue that is missing here, though it would have been difficult to explore it without considerably more explanation (and perhaps other manuscripts). In the early examples of the influence of Hebrew commentary on Christian scholars, we see a bit of what was at stake in these cultural and religious interactions: religious reinterpretations had to be grounded in a thorough understanding. But then the show ends up paying very little attention to substance, focusing instead on similarities of style, script and image that lie more on the surface of these texts.

Such cosmetic resemblances encourage a sense of vague ecumenism. The interactions among the three religions were described as “practical cooperation” at Oxford and here as “intellectual exchange,” but we don’t really understand much more about the content behind the form.

When stylistic influences were present, for example, were there intellectual or religious transformations that accompanied them? Did beliefs change along with textual styles? What was the nature of the relations among these communities? Even the rise of Protestant Hebraism might have been explored more deeply. In a way, we are its heirs: early Puritan settlers imagined the New World’s possibilities through the imagery of the Hebrew Bible.

But this is also asking for far too much, as if we were seeking elaborate discourses instead of appreciating the muted conversations. An acknowledgment of the complexities would have sufficed. As for inspiring deeper inquiry, that, after all, is a measure of the exhibition’s success.
“Crossing Borders” is on view through Feb. 3 at the Jewish Museum, 1109 Fifth Avenue, at 92nd Street; (212) 423-3200, thejewishmuseum.org.