Picasso's BULL

Modernism was an art form largely based on improvisation, experimentation and bravado. Pablo Picasso reigned as the undisputed god of modernity for most of the Twentieth Century. He excelled and is most noted as a painter but he also equaled and many times exceeded every practitioner of sculpture, ceramics and print of his era. His series of bull lithographs created in late 1945 are an astonishing example of the man’s genius. He titled the series of eleven drawings simply “Bull.” Each work extraordinary as individuals but as a group without peer.  The set of eleven profiles are all of essentially the same size and point of view but each is an amazing variation on the theme of the standing bull. The lithographs follow something of an arc beginning as representational pieces that evolve into more stylized and even decorative depictions. The works begin to become less defined taking on a more cubist look and more minimal in appearance until the final line drawing is by contrast the least complicated and a fine example of what would once have been described as primitive. The series “Bull” is a striking virtuoso performance and a pure pleasure.

“A picture is not thought out and settled beforehand. While it is being done it changes as one’s thoughts change. And when it is finished, it still goes on changing, according to the state of mind of whoever is looking at it. A picture lives a life like a living creature, undergoing the changes imposed on us by our life from day to day. This is natural enough, as the picture lives only through the man who is looking at it.”

Pablo Picasso

When I look at Picasso’s “Bull” I sometimes think: why eleven and not an even dozen? I can imagine Picasso saying “…eleven is enough; I have said what needs to be said.” With that I leave you to enjoy the work and bring to it what you will.

Woody Allen Recently

Woody Allen’s latest film “Midnight in Paris has just earned a richly deserved Oscar for best original screenplay. As is typical of an Allen film it is intelligent, irreverent, funny and full of irony. He has a unique insight into the human psyche and condition and his films take us to a version of reality that is always illuminating and thoroughly entertaining. Allen, like his peer Clint Eastwood is among an elite school of director/actor that seem to get better with age and every new effort. Yes; I did just pair Woody Allen with Clint Eastwood.

“Midnight in Paris” has a lot in common with other of Allen’s most recent films in that it occurs in a European city and the worlds of art, letters and sophistication are prominate and central to the adventure. The other two late Allen projects that compliment  “Midnight”  are “Vicky Christina Barcelona” and “Match Point.” The Allen protagonists (usually portrayed by himself in earlier pieces) are always searching for some kind of idealized or romanticized state of existence. In “Midnight in Paris” his stand in Owen Wilson longs for the Paris of the Jazz Age. It seems that ever period of French History co-exists in simultaneous parallel planes and at midnight from the right vantage point it is possible to visit the Paris of your dreams. This creates an especially intense and engaging environment for dialogues with the greats of literature and the art world of the Nineteen Twenties. Like any intriguing “Time Travel Film” Allen’s “Midnight” is a treatise on our own times.

“Match Point” released in 2005 starring Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Scarlett Johansson is a slight nod to Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train” and another brilliant work from Woody. Rhys-Meyers is a tennis player hoping to marry into the elite world of London money and power with a marriage of convenience to his boss’s daughter. When he finds himself actually falling for another woman; Johansson, he’s created for himself something of an additional problem. As the plot unfolds there are trips to the Tate Modern, fashionable London streets and he even walks past a Banksy graffiti wall piece.  In the midst of his nefarious plotting   Rhys-Meyers puts in a compelling performance and Allen is in great writing and directing form.

“Vicky Christina Barcelona” is one of Allen’s most original and unusual scripts. Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall are cast as two American girls on sabbatical in Spain who fall for the same rogue of an artist play wonderfully by Javier Bardem. Vicky and Christina are very different in temperament, have different senses of adventure and Vicky, just as a minor complication is engaged to be married. To mix things up just a little more Penelope Cruz enters the fray as the ex-lover and true soul mate of Bardem’s character. Now; just for laughs it happens that Penelope has recently in a fit of passion attempted to kill Bardem. The film is loaded with art and art references, propelled by an amazing score featuring the best Spanish Guitar and tunes of any contemporary soundtrack. Another home run for Allen’s team of collaborators.

Woody has recently found Europe to be a very receptive market and actually cheaper to film in European cities than in his beloved New York. Working abroad is also enhancing his credentials as an international and versatile creator. His next film scheduled for release later this year is titled “Nero Fiddled.” It is located in Rome and will mark his return to acting. Woody Allen is always interesting, always funny and inventive and truly a master of the form.  Congratulations on your Oscar and continued success.

Bombs, Beasts and Brilliance; the Works of Brad Holland

  “The Modern Jazz Sextet” a recording by Dizzy Gillespie was always intriguing to me but not necessarily for the music. It had been released in the nineteen eighties a time when music albums were recorded on vinyl and the covers were works of art. “The Sextet” cover featured a painting of a six headed musician with a single huge body playing a small trumpet. It was and remains completely fascinating, mysterious and entertaining as an all time best transcendent   illustration. This cover and the many creations of Brad Holland remain engaging and ever beautiful.

Holland was among the top contributors of that time and he continues to work and grow in achievement and skill.  I was becoming a fan of the great Holland and it was with other pieces that I began to recognize and treasure (especially those in Rolling Stone) and my fandom would be cemented. Holland; truly ranks as a leader. He is recognized by the New York Society of Illustrators as a master. It is deserved.

Holland began a professional career with Hallmark Greeting Cards and went on to work for a number of magazines including Playboy, Time, Esquire and GQ. He has also worked with Peter Schjeldahl at Avant Garde Magazine and on the New York Times Op-Ed pages.  Advertisements, book covers, portraits and posters are also among Holland’s eminent and varied repertoire. His book “Human Scandals” Is an amazing document and much prized by collectors. It consists of pen and ink drawings mostly of a political nature. Many memorable Holland drawings are featured in this collection. His style is uniquely original with reflections or comparisons to other artist/illustrators inevitable.

Goya, Dali, Millet, Daumier and his contemporaries Crumb and Levine echo in his work but Holland is his own man/artist. Holland’s work speaks so loudly for themselves that they virtually shout to the viewer. They can also speak with a nuanced elegance that has the ability to entrance. Do enjoy the works of Brad Holland and return to them often.

The Tyger

"The Tyger"   William Blake

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

                                                                    



The Dreamer's Dreamer

We live in a world populated with many dreamers of the day. Often they are also lovers of Science Fiction and Fantasy books and movies.  These dreamers often turn to works from the giants in the fields.  There are certainly no shortages of books and films but I have never met anyone that loved the genres that didn’t tell me of fantastic tales from their own imaginations. These musings equal or at times surpass the works of the masters of the form.  We will never know anything greater than the productions of our own minds, our own “Dream Time.” We imagine the elements of our lives in a heighten fashion and are inspired by the films, writings, and illustrations of others but the longings for the musings of our minds to be executed in some more concrete way are the best. This so that others can join us in our dreaming. There is one great writer that simply put the stories he imagined before falling to sleep at night to page and we have been truly enriched by his doing so. Edgar Rice Burroughs was first a dreamer and than an architect of dreams for himself and the world. He has captivated generations of his readers and those that would create movies, television, animation, music and on and on into every form of creative expression. He has added much to the vast world of the fantastic.

Burroughs was well aware of his prodigious gifts and he was not embarrassed to express what he knew to be a truth:

"...if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, that I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a whole lot more so than any I chanced to read in those magazines."

Edgar Rice Burroughs

He would go on to write his incredible ideas first as serials in pulp magazines and later as novels. “Tarzan of the Apes” would be his first novel published 100 years ago in 1912 and the same year “A Princess of Mars” which featured the seemingly immortal John Carter or Captain Jack Carter as he was known to his friends as a serial the same year. John Carter would go into a death like state of suspended animation and his spirit was teleported to an identical ageless body on the planet Mars where he was heralded as a warlord.

Opening to “A Princess of Mars”

I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more; but I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood. So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of about thirty. I appear today as I did forty years and more ago, and yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever; that someday I shall die the real death from which there is no resurrection. I do not know why I should fear death, I who have died twice and am still alive; but yet I have the same horror of it as you who have never died, and it is because of this terror of death, I believe, that I am so convinced of my mortality.

Edgar Rice Burroughs

John Carter would encounter legions of both heroic and villainous men and humanoids, beautiful women and hoards of terrible, mythic beasts. All this on a planet with gravity and an atmosphere that allowed him super human strength and agility.  He was far superior to the much larger and multi-armed men of Mars. He also possessed the temperament and chivalry of a Virginia Gentleman and this too guided him through his adventures in a much more barbaric and dangerous society.  In all of fiction there is none greater and no more fully developed or imagined character. Later this year Disney will release their film tribute as the self titled “John Carter.” The trailers that have been released seemed to have captured the spirit and look of the amazing tales. I can’t think of a better anniversary tribute to the author and his many fans.

Within the span of his abundantly successful writing career Edgar Rice Burroughs would write short stories and novels of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Westerns, and Mysteries. He would even (at an age when most would be retiring) become a war correspondent during the Second World War. Great writer, great man, the greatest of dreamers and through his writings; not unlike his character, John Carter, very much the immortal. 

Edgar Rice Burroughs: THE TARZAN COVERS

I don’t know of any kid that grew up in the Nineteen Sixties that didn’t attempt at least once to imitate the “Tarzan Yell.” We were thrilled by the series of movies starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan and the yell was a distinctive and fundamental element of Tarzan’s mystique and allure. Not only were kids amazed by it but everyone (including the adults) loved to hear Carol Burnett’s rendition of Tarzan’s victory cry from the Weissmuller films. She was fond of doing it on her variety show when asked by any audience member. There were many screen versions of Tarzan; he has been portrayed by many actors but Weissmuller’s is the definitive his version will always be “The” Tarzan for film lovers.

My introduction to Tarzan was through film. The films were by no means faithful adaptations. It was later that I would read the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs and learn the true depth of the character and establish a respect for the writings of Burroughs that the movies had only hinted at. Tarzan was British, though raised by apes in the jungle. He was later to become educated and always possessed and exhibited a respect for the tribesmen of Africa that was absent from the movies. Tarzan was conceived as a character of mythological proportions that inhabited a world more of the imagined and fantasy than the real world. That I believe is part of his universal and enduring appeal. It has been said that truth is stranger than fiction but I know of no truth that is more compelling than the fictions of Burroughs, especially his most famous; Tarzan.

There are few if any more recognizable characters than Tarzan. Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, Wonder Woman…perhaps   but they are all in an equal stratosphere of fame and familiarity. Tarzan is truly among the world’s best and lives in that realm of the immortals of literary fiction. It is this product of the mind and imagination of Burroughs that has sparked legions of fans and other artists. The influenced of the Tarzan books live on. The covers of many of the books are as exciting and intriguing as you will find among any illustrations. Never judge a book by it’s cover? I ask but it is a fact of the literary field that certain cover artist’s works do increase sales. Boris Vallejo and Neal Adams are two artists in this select club. They are among the very best practioners to have the honor of interpreting the Burroughs vision of the Jungle Lord and are featured here for the pure pleasure of viewing their works.

In the spirit of adventure and tales of the heroic there are none greater than Adams and Vallejo and Edgar Rice Burroughs is the King of his realm of the literary.

Exclusively Our Own



Norman Rockwell-"Freedom of Worship"



Exclusively our own:

The way we walk, talk, the  clothes we wear, the books we read and those we don’t all define and tell others who we are. Our jobs, professions and vocations are perhaps even greater markers of ourselves. The greatest of defining elements in our lives is probably our commitment to a faith/religion or the non-practice or participation in any recognizable or organized religion. We are what we believe. It is also a great thing that we can believe in any way we choose, any faith. We can also not believe in anything if that is what we choose. Free will is a wonderful thing. Our personal life’s journeys can unfold and take us to whatever place we choose or whatever destination is revealed to us.

The world’s three great religions all have a common beginning; Abraham. In that we are all brothers but like all brothers we do disagree. We have little spats that grow sometimes into major out of control disputes. We have to learn to think that maybe the other guy does have a point and he is also committed to his beliefs. Many times he is more dedicated to his faith than we to our own but let’s work it out and at least respect each other. God; almighty is so vast, so massive, so beyond even our comprehension that we dare to limit him with our pettiness in an attempt at knowing the unknowable. We then try to force the other guy into following us. I have no doubt that we can know some part of the divine and that part is unique to us as individuals while at the same time it is collective (we sometimes agree). There is one God. The God that created the universe and has given us the greatest gift; the gift of life and the capacity to appreciate it’s richness and beauty along with the many difficulties. Life is the great challenge and the great joy. We pray to him and call to him with different names and he answers in turn.

Norman Rockwell-"The Four Freedoms"

“The Four Freedoms” were a series of paintings done by Norman Rockwell in 1941. They were taken from FDR’s State of the Union Address to congress. The freedoms that Roosevelt spoke of were considered by him to be essential human rights. Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear were the freedoms addressed by Roosevelt. It is without question that Rockwell’s interpretations will be considered dated. A contemporary artist would express these sentiments very differently from Rockwell. The irony is that there is probably no contemporary artist that would desire to execute such a series today. This in spite of the current “Occupy Movements” and in light of the worldwide protesters seeking these very freedoms.

We continually seek and in doing so continually find. Let us both seek and find that part of the eternal that we can embrace and know in our lives through faith.