Tag: Art
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Dream women
Dream women Was the opening between the trees of this Japanese garden specially conceived to let me have a look at the two lovely girls that were seated there so nicely framed? Having come closer, I noticed that they were swathed in kimonos, those beautiful, traditional dresses that transform women who wear them into mysterious,…
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Leonardo between the Sunday painters
Leonardo between the Sunday painters Krakow is the proud owner of a real oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci: Lady with an Ermine. So maybe it shouldn’t surprise us to find a copy or reproduction of it in this open air stall in Krakow. It’s hanging there in the middle – even in duplicate -,…
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Where is Mandela?
Where is Mandela? I am not particularly keen on paying attention to the news of the day in this blog, but today, when the remains of what once was Nelson Mandela are carried to the grave, I do feel tempted. The world of man doesn’t know many like him. Maybe it’s also the vivid memory…
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Bird’s-eye view (1)
Bird’s-eye view (1) As you can see, I was interested here in the black and white pattern of the floor in this courtyard. It is made of small round pebbles, a kind of simple mosaic that can be observed in some places in Greece. This particular courtyard is inside the monastery of Panormitis on the…
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Non-objects
Non-objects My criticism of the large number of mirror works by Anish Kapoor in last week’s post, doesn’t do him justice sufficiently. He has made other, different works that deserve attention. Nevertheless I start here again with a distorting mirror work. Kapoor has named it a Non-Object, a title that fits many of his works…
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Distorting mirrors
Distorting mirrors I remember with delight the fun-fair that once a year pitched its tents in the small Dutch town in which I grew up. One of the attractions sometimes was a tent full of concave and convex mirrors in different sizes and combinations that showed the strangest, distorted reflections when one stood in front…
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The art is not our thing
The art is not our thing Art critic and politician Vittorio Sgarbi was chosen as curator of the Italian pavilion at the 54th Biennale in Venice (2011). Since he is known not to like modern art and even less its organizational “mafia”, his nomination was rather controversial. He decided not to select the works for…
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Art is my thing
Art is my thing The experience of art in all its manifestations (literature, music, visual arts) is occupying a privileged place in my mental and intellectual life. I could say: in my spiritual life, but I always hesitate using that word since it has these strong religious connotations I’d like to avoid. With acknowledgement and…
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Fall of man
Fall of man Adam and Eve, thrown out of paradise by an angry god. What had they done wrong? They had committed the first, original sin. They had eaten the fruits from ‘the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ which god had explicitly forbidden. As a consequence the first man and woman lost their…
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Silent witnesses
Silent witnesses When I walked between the old Khmer monuments of a thousand years ago, the guardian deities with their introverted faces on the gopuras looking out over the land in the four directions, I couldn’t help seeing them as silent witnesses of the horror that had swept the country of Cambodia only a few…
καιρός remembered 