Art & Culture | NancyElin.blog

Jan

#NF Dawn of the Belle Epoque

Alfred Sisley: Fog, Voisins (1874)

JANUARY

by Mary McAuliffe

Finish date: 17 January 2022
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: A
Review:

Bad news: No book is perfect…but I had to think very hard to find a minus point in this book.
It was long (400 pages). That is a lot to cover in 2 days. I have the next book on my reading list but will have to wait until I digest this one. Rightly Ms McAuliffe touches on the politics and science (..few pages about Mme Cure) in the Belle Epoque. Honestly, I’ve read about – seen movie about The Dreyfus Affair so felt I could skim these pages. Also George Clemeanceau and all his band of merry men…don’t interest me. Also…there were not many illustrations in the book so I had to depend on Wikipedia/Google.

Good news: Now the real reason to read this book is the world of literature, art, music and engineering! 75% of the book is about the wonderful world of French painters who dazzeled the world. We all know the list of names but I fell very much head over heels reading about Pissarro. He tends to fall into the back round when you think about Van Gogh, Renoir, Degas, Manet brothers and Monet. But Camille Pissarro was the father figure who nurtured and held these men together! PS: Did you know Pissarro was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands?

Good News Having read bio’s about B. Morisot and V. Hugo I could quickly get through the first chapters. Also I’ve read all 20 of Zola’s Rougon-Macquart books….so references to Nana or L’Assommier, L’Oeuvre were familiar characters to me. I knew nothing about the great 4 composers Claude Debussy, D’Indy, Ravel and the wonderful Saint-Saëns. If you do anything listen to his Carnival des Animaux on Spotify…just breathtaking. This book contains tidbits of information that have slipped between the cracks of Wikipedia!

Good news: There were interesting chapters about the history of
the Pantheon in Paris (…..Victor Hugo thought is a wretched copy of St. Peter’s in Rome!) Statue of Liberty – Eiffel Tower. There were…steamy love affairs: between Debussy and older Mme Vasnier (married). Another affair between Claude Monet and Mme Alice Hoschedé (married) was very touching…they stayed devoted to each other for life! Loved the back round information about Rodin’s famous sculpture “The Kiss”…was it inspired by his affair with Camille Claudel or Dante’s Inferno 2nd level Francesca en Paolo?

Good news: Auguste Escoffier shook-up the world of haute cuisine and created Pêche Melba for Australian singer Nellie Melba and Fraises Bernhardt for Sarah, the great French actress. He was just as revolutionary as anything Rodin, Seurat, Debussy or Gustave Eiffel were doing! He looked at restaurant meals from a woman’s point of view….as every chef should!

Good news: Did I learn something I never heard about? Sarah Bernhardt was not only an actress but also a sculptor. I got a peak at the installation plans for the Statue of Liberty and Tour Eiffel. Learned about the uproar the controversial sculpture The Bronze Age by Rodin created. The model was a Belgian soldier and so lifelike no one believed it was not made with a plaster caste of the body! What a body! (see Wikipedia)

Personal While reading this book I had Spotfy to listen to the music of the composers and Wikipedia to have the many works of art (don’t forget the beautiful Art Nouveau illustrations by Alphonse Mucha….beautiful!) by the painters at my fingertips. It is the best way to read this book. Finally after having collected dust on my TBR for 5 years…I discovered this gem!
#MountTBR2022

Jan

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters

“History would be an excellent thing if only it was true” (Leo Tolstoy)

Author: J. Douglass, Pete Larkin
Title: JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters (518 pg)
Published: 2008
Genre: non-fiction
Challenge 2020
Monthly plan

Introduction:

This book still haunts me.
I feel in the 1960s that I have been taken for a fool.
Warren Report about the Kennedy assassination?
You can just shred it and use it in the kitty litter box.
Worthless.

Conclusion:

The assassination of JFK left an indelible mark on me.
I came home from school and heard on th TV as Walter Cronkite
announced, with tears in his eyes, that JFK was dead.
The nation mourned, the world mourned.
Who killed JFK?
It is no secret now
…it was the CIA
…it was a coup d’etat.
Lee Harvey Oswald was only a product of a fake defector program run by CIA
…and groomed as a despensible scapegoat for the killing of a presdent.
The tapestry of President Kennedy’s killing is enormous.

This is an encyclopedic work that covers a vast amount of research.
While elements of organized crime and Cuban exiles were very likely
recruited to the ‘Big Event’ the plotters came from
the military – big business – CIA – FBI – Secret Service – LBJ
That is why the cover-up persists today.
The book also mentions several people who ‘died mysteriously’
shortly before and after the assassination.
This brought me to a book published in 2013
….that has not gotten much
attention on non-fiction reading lists:

Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the
…Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination.
Also Crossfire by Jim Marrs (1989) and
Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy,
Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace (2013).
#MustReads if you want to know more about 22 November 1963.

Last thoughts:

After fifty-six years, the official spin
remains of a the lone nut assassin.
When will this lie finally be eradicated?
So devastating to read how so many people’s lives were ended
because they knew or saw too much.
The prostitute ‘Sharlee’ thrown out of bar the Silver Slipper.
She ends up in hospital 2 days before the assassination and
announces that Kennedy will be killed in Dallas!
She was killed in 1964.
A man’s life is ruined because he gave Lee Harvey Oswald a lift while
…he was carrying a package of curtain rods
…a few days before 22 November 1963.
He told his story and ended up in a prison and mental institutions for 11 years
…he was clearly not stable according the ‘powers that be.’

The US government consistently and intentionally
misrepresented and lied about what really took place
in Dallas on 22 November 1963.
You cannot deny it….US government is corrupt.
Like Rome before it ….America is indeed burning.
Now when I watch the US news
….I think “what is REALLY going
….on behind closed doors in The White House?“
President Donald Trump blocked the
…release of an unknown number of documents,
saying he had “no choice” but
to bow to national security concerns of the FBI and CIA.
The deadline for releases was on 26 April 2018.
Who knows what we will learn when the last 1% is released.
I hope I live to hear the truth!
Essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest
in the assassination, and, of course, for every history major.
#MustRead

Dec

Brett Whiteley Australian Artist

Author: Ashleigh Wilson
Title: Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing
Genre: biography
Reading time: 13 hours 25 min (audio book)
Published: 2017
List of Challenges 2019
Monthly plan
Trivia: #ABIA 2017 short list (Australian Book Industry Awards)
@ashleighbwilson
@artgalleryofNSW
@ABIAs_Awards

Introduction:

Of all the Australian painters who emerged during the mid
20th century Brett Whiteley was the (Wikipedia link for more info)
most mercurial, the most ambitious
to make an impact on the world at large.
I had NEVER heard of Brett Whiteley
…and realize it was my loss.
Delighted to discover this brilliant
biography by Ashleigh Wilson.

Brett Whitely:

Born in Australia, Whiteley moved to Europe in 1960 determined to make an impression.
Before long he was the youngest artist to have work acquired by the Tate.
With his wife, Wendy (1941), and daughter, Arkie (1964-2001), Whiteley
then immersed himself in bohemian New York.
Despite many affairs…Brett proclaims that
he and his wife Wendy “We’re lifers.”
His art depended on his relationship to Wendy.
It had been that way since his early abstractions.

Ashleigh Wilson:

He has been a journalist for almost two decades.
He received a Walkley Award for his reports on unethical behavior
in the Aboriginal art industry, a series that led to a Senate inquiry.
He has been The Australian’s Arts Editor since 2011.
Wilson follows the chronological order of Whiteley’s paintings:
Early works
Abstraction
Bathroom series (sensual sketches of Wendy)
John Christie (serial killer) & London Zoo
Lavender Bay, Australia
Portraits
Birds
Landscapes
The studio & late works

Conclusion:

Brett Whiteley (1939 – 1992)
died from a drug overdose.
He was an heroin addict.
The deeper problem was that his
dependency was entwined with his art.
Like many addicts he found it hard to imagine life sober.
Heroin provided stability...
…and to live without it was like to peering into darkness.
It was one thing to be clean for his health
…but what would it mean for his art?
He was found dead at the Beach Motel, Thirroul Australia.
This expansive biography
Wilson gave the essential details about the death. (ch 22)
Chapters 1-21 concentrate on the
…richness and variety of Whiteley’s work
…and the many exhibitions he held and prizes won.
#ExcellentBiography
Worth your reading time!

Strong point:

Ashleigh Wilson Wilson takes the reader through a
virtual art gallery describing and assortiment
…of Brett Whiteley’s paintings.

Portrait of Patrick White (Brett Whiteley)

Photo in frame….Emmanuel George “Manoly” Lascaris
Look at White’s eyes and
….Centennial Park in the backround.

Portrait Vincent van Gogh

On the table….a candle, a pipe, a letter to Theo and a razor.
Two arrows:
towards the right = good, light and sanity
towards the left = evil, darkness and madness

Portrait of Gauguin

Gaughin on the eve of his attempted suicide
We see ‘The Tree of Knowledge, photograph of Van Gogh and a woman’s body.
Brett had extended the right side to an ear shape with a bottle with a white substance
labled ‘Arsenic’.

Portrait Wendy (wife)

Brett Whiteley was a master draughtsman.
This sketch reveals his command of line.
The way Brett could capture the essence of his
subject with only a few simple sweeps.

Henri’s Armchair

This is Brett Whiteley’s debt to Matisse.
He painted the interior of Lavender Bay where the
…water can be seen through the window
…frame at the end of the room beyond the arches.
It is a domestic workmanlike scene.
Two legs on the couch and used matches
…are scattered on the coffee table.
There is a vase and notebook on which is written the title of the painting.
As in the works of his historical model, Matisse,
….there are notes of domesticity:
bed, open fire, and several works of Whiteley in the room
…a sculpture, a nude drawing and an erotic drawing.
There is a deep red brown color in the house
…but the blue is all around.

My Armchair

This was the most expensive painting in Brett’s
September 1976 Australian Galleries exhibition.
This painting’s was priced for 10.000 dollars.
This was a companion piece for “Henri’s Armchair”.
The blue soaked canvas inside Brett’s studio including
pictures (B/W = ‘Inside an Avocado Tree’), sculptures
…a view out to the Sydney Harbour and the chair in which
…he sat to reflect on the art around him.

Another way of Looking….Vincent

Whiteley pays homage to Vincent van Gogh and
…the profound influence this Dutch post-impressionist
painter had on Whiteley throughout his career.

Birds:

I had to include some of the most beautiful sketches/paintings of birds!
Whiteley first came to notice the captivating beauty of birds
…in July 1969 during a blissful five-month stay in a small cottage
in the village of Navutulevu, about eighty kilometres from Suva in Fiji.
The couple, with their five year-old daughter Arkie,
lived simply and happily and enjoyed their
island paradise after the turmoil and bustle of New York.
Wendy Whiteley summed the period up well: ‘We really did live in Paradise there.”

Kookaburra