Monday 9 July 2007

Mine!


In his lecture on the background of the British drawing collection owned by the National Gallery, the curator who originally put this exhibit together reminded the audience that all of the drawings belonged to the people of Canada. So I already own a CRM-I just have to share it with 30 million other people. I don't know why they wouldn't let me get my time's worth out of it at by keeping it at my house for awhile.

Okay I didn't steal it, but I did buy the retrospective book that went with the exhibit, and by posting this picture from that am likely violating copyright so I'm still breakin the laaaawww.

At the time this was painted, the Mackintoshes careers were in the tank. While architectural and other design were abandoned, Charles focused on serene landscapes and continued doing his beautiful, painstakingly detailed flower paintings. I was reminded of the famous quote from a lecture he gave:

Art is the Flower...Life is the Green Leaf.
Let every artist strive to make his flower a beautiful living thing, something that will convince the world that there may be, there are, things more precious, more beautiful-more lasting than life itself.

I was so drawn to the cartouche, which he inscribed with his own and Margaret's initials in pencil.

The Salon itself was interesting. They had organized lectures, a piano performance (Mama and I only recognizing the most common of the four pieces he did-Clair de Lune-since we are part of the unwashed masses), a rather amusing tableau in which the performers re-created one of the paintings, and a poetry reading. All of these were interspersed with periods for conversational circles relating to various subjects. The major complaint I had was that the conversational circles were almost impossible to join in because we couldn't hear a thing. I tried very hard to hear the fellow who was involved in the work with the synchrotron, but to no avail.

At least we got booze and food-totally the redeeming part for mama. :-P She said it was just like all the functions she used to go to with dad; she had no idea what the hell they were on about half the time.


Here is what 100 of my dollars looks like. Why do art books always have to be so expensive? I think someone is trying to keep them from we unwashed masses or some such thing. Okay and they have lots of pictures-and colour ones at that.
I had to go back the next day and buy the book as the gift shop was closed during the Salon, then went back a third time and bought the Lanigan collection book. Since admission is by donation, I visited my favorite pictures-and especially the CRM-every time. :)
I didn't buy them at once was because I didn't think I could really afford both until mama the buying enabler got involved and told me to go back for the one on the left. Though both exhibits were beautiful, some of my favorites were from the Lanigan collection (he is reported to own the most impressive personal collection of PRB and related works in the country).


This one does however partially belong to me:

This is a detail of a large and meticulous pen sketch by David Wilkie chronicling a visit to Scotland of George IV. I just love this guy, he's all "who gives a rip about that fatarsed German king? Don't these people know if it's not Scottish it's crrap?!"

10 comments:

mem said...

It sounds like you had a good time, which is pleasing. I was looking forward to hearing about you spending an evening or three in jail, but I guess food and booze are okay, too.

My week was probably less interesting than yours, though I did just kill several ants on my desk. (This reminds me of a friend in my childhood years who referred to the little ones as piss ants, which makes me laugh.)

Hopefully you are somewhat relaxed and/or rested and/or ready to avoid killing residents now.

mem said...

You know, I was afraid you would feel that way about that entry. I know you have a long reach, but 2000 miles is a bit of a stretch, probably, even for you.

One of the advantages of freedom is being able to spread it to others. (Of course, here in the States we have a somewhat marred track record with this.) Next time I plan anything grandiose, I'll take you along.

mem said...

Okay, so I change them once a month. When I initially started blogging, I figured I would only post once a month—hence the name. However, I realize now that I have more time than I ever did in school, so I post more frequently than someone should if he had a life. Like I do.

So I change the subtitle monthly instead. Next month it was going to be "Cool since 1981. And by cool, I mean totally sweet." But since you brought up clinjas, I may have to use that instead. Maybe I will create a combination of all of your suggestions into one voltron like subtitle.

Another good one is "Not all transvestite friends since 1981" or "Growing on people like a fungus since 1981."

I'm full of them.


Did you ever hear the story about FDR being sworn in for the third time (or last or something)? When he was receiving people for congratulations, he would say, "I killed my grandmother this morning" to find out if they were listening. Nearly everyone said, "Oh, that's nice" or some variation thereof until the last one—a little old lady. She looked at the president somewhat startled and whispered in his ear, "Well, I'm sure she had it coming to her."

The moral of the story is that you can poison your new overlord and she'll be the only one who notices.

mem said...

Fries are good. I may have to get some today. I sometimes buy them at work to warm my freezing hands.

I used to sit in the front, where I was the first line of defense against solicitors (mostly from banks) and cold blasts of air in the winter. See, it was cold for me all year round. Now I don't mind too much of a chill when I wake up, but it's nasty all day.

We did not kill the moth, though it was probably on its way out anyway. J (yet another in my list, holy cow) merely subdued the creature so we could photograph him sufficiently. He was pretty sedentary, actually, just sitting on the wall. And we replaced him as soon as we were done. J will find it amusing to find out that her grip is considered a "Mini Rack of Death."

Hahah. Quitler. hahahaha.

mem said...

I don't understand your defense of the moth. You are doing it more out of a love of trying to goad me than out of a love for moths, aren't you? Hater.

I may take your advice, or pass it along to the woman who inhabits my old cube. I actually got warm at work today, something that almost never happens, and she was asking me, "How do you turn down the air conditioning?"

I will tell her to start by burning her chair.


The verification word, ironically, is "dqkanqu," which sounds like a terrible slogan for Dairy Queen.

mem said...

I think the easiest way to convince your brother of the wisdom of giving the dog away is to explain the economics of the situation—how many balls of yarn or paintstiks you can purcahse per dog food bag. Then extrapolate out (with interest) on a yearly basis.

Then just give the dog to the kennel anyway.


Today a pretty remarkable thing happened. A sparrow lighted on the outer sill of my window. I proceeded to take 150 pictures of him. He studied me with equal curiosity. The images are going to bear quite a bit of clean up, unfortunately.

Do you have any tips for removing glass from images? Basically I'm thinking about trying to create a glow layer or something and then subtract out the luminance, or maybe try to make an alpha layer that looks like the glass and subtract it out...but it is going to be a long and complicated process for each photo.

mem said...

I didn't say make him pay, I said "Communicate the economics of the situation and give the dog away anyway." Men understand money and votes. Well, not both at the same time. So he won't understand how two votes to take the dog in trumps one vote not to—but he will understand that you can buy roughly 37 paintstiks a year (or 97 in 2013 dollars) for all that you feed that huge black thing.

Does this mean you don't have any recommendations about how to take the glass out? I think I'm going to just subtract the background out and piece a new one together.

mem said...

You know, it's entirely possible, and reasonable, and happy, even, that the bird and I were kindred spirits and found studying each other very neat. I kind of assumed it was running away from something, actually, and just really didn't have the strength to run off.

But it was really, really cool, regardless of whether he has a blog or was looking for food.

I think the likely fix for the background is to steal the one from the posted picture, blur it and tile it and put it over the others. Hopefully it will work, though it is going to take some clever masking to get the bird out of the picture. I may see if working in other color spaces will help.


I'm so happy to amuse you.

mem said...

Hey, not to add fuel to your burning fire of resentment against me, but I think I got a jacket today that you would utterly hate.

mem said...

(You know, that comment says so much about you.)

So that is your real beef with rain. You think it's some kind of cosmic urine, while the rest of ius think of it as tears (of happiness, too!). All I have to say is that I would love to be able to make it thunder while I was taking a leak. (I definitely didn't think that all the way through before writing it. Maybe I should've just talked about lightning instead of thunder. Yeah.)