Happy Birthday!

In celebration of the birthday of my good friend, here now is one of the most iconic depictions of creation, The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli.

The stature and influence of this painting often overshadows other lesser known depictions of the same event. For instance, this wonderful masterpiece with the same title was painted by Alexandre Cabanel, a prime contributor of the Academic movement during the 19th century:

Interestingly enough, Alexandre Cabanel was born today September 28th in 1823.

Here's to you mate; I hope your birthday is a splendid one!

Jacques-Louis David

(click picture for full image size)

(click picture for full image size)

J.L. David is one of my favorite artists. His paintings are of the Neoclassical style.

From top to bottom:

The Death of Marat

Oath of the Horatii

The Death of Socrates

Napoleon Crossing the Alps

Mars Being Disarmed by Venus, David's last painting.

The Conquerer Worm -- Edgar Allan Poe

                                                  Lo! ’t is a gala night
                                      Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

in veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

                                                         
                                        Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

                                      And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

From 'Ligeia', a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, master of the dark arabesque short story. I think the whole thing is really cool, and makes you look like a learned, brooding, dark badass if you recite it at parties, or in a jammed elevator, or if you're making a toast as the Best Man at a wedding.

Poe is better known for his gloomy poems such as 'The Raven' which have inspired musical adaptations, like Rachmaninoff's 'The Bells'.

Portrait of the Artist as a Slain Giant

"In war, there are no unwounded soldiers." - José Narosky

Here, we have David with the Head of Goliath painted by Caravaggio, an Italian master of chiaroscuro. David emerges from the shadows, pensive toward his conquered enemy almost with a deep sense of regret. It is interesting to note that Caravaggio painted himself into this portrait not as the victor, but as the head of Goliath. Even though it is placed off-center in a corner, the focus of the viewer gets drawn to the decapitated head and, like David, becomes transfixed by its sorrow. The pained expression perfectly captures the inner conflicts that reside within us all, the problems and worries most often caused by our own hand. With this painting, Caravaggio reminds us that sometimes in life we are our own greatest enemies.

Raphael -- "The School of Athens"

(click image above for full size view)

Now, it's impossible to have expertise in any school of art without knowing this masterpiece by Raphael during the Italian Renaissance. This is a fresco (mural painting) that depicts distinct philosophers of Ancient Greek knowledge, and all under one roof. Raphael devised a system of iconography to reference these philosophers through their distinct personal attributes; for instance, the morose-looking fellow in front of the steps looking down at the floor depicts Heraclitus, who was known in Ancient times as "The Weeping Philosopher" for his melancholy.

Yet the most striking personas in this fresco are Plato and Aristotle (left to right), magnified below:



They both sport their representative books: Plato -- Timaeus; Aristotle -- Nichomachean Ethics. As conventional wisdom would have it, their gestures are also symbolic of central aspects to their philosophies. Pointing to the sky would seem to correctly indicate Plato's Theory of Forms in which he asserts that all objects in the whole of existence have a perfect transcendent counterpart, which he called a Form or Idea. An individual just act, for instance, is "just" only insofar as it partakes of Justice, absolute and perfect Justice which is not merely an abstract idea, but is with a real and independent existence which the individual merely "imitates" and "falls short of". Similarly, a shoe, in this imperfect world, is not really a perfect shoe but falls short of "Shoeness" to which individual shoes only approximate. Plato's political works are therefore influenced by the sad conviction that moral conduct is always in some sense second-rate; people should no doubt strive to produce the best possible conduct and institutions in their state, but perfection will elude them always.

Aristotle, by contrast (and incidentally a student of Plato), is an optimist. Things are always moving toward their full completeness: as one analyst put it, "an acorn is not destined to become an oak tree that inevitably falls short of Oaktreeness; it is destined to grow into an adult and fully formed oak tree, which is its 'end' or 'purpose' or telos; it is here in the final and complete stage of a natural process. The 'form' of the oak tree resides in the oak tree and is not something unattainable."* Aristotle's teleology (his philosophy of ends or purposes) flavors all of his work, and hence in this painting he is gesturing to concrete, natural objects on Earth.

Enjoy also his fresco La Disputa and the painting Young Woman with Unicorn.

* Sinclair in Aristotle's "Politics"

The Sick Rose -- Blake

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy;
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Image: Knight, Death and the Devil by Dürer

Incidental Similarities

In AP Lit a few days ago, I was tickled by the images of Coleridge's 'The Eolian Harp.' It had been a long, long time since I had read this poem. But I was reminded of a few similar ideas from two other poems I read more recently. Compare and contrast:


"Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!"


--- 'An Eolian Harp,' Samuel Taylor Coleridge


"Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.
Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you"


---'Peter Quince at the Clavier,' Wallace Stevens


"O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul."


---'Sailing to Byzantium,' William Butler Yeats


Image Credit: 'The Music Lesson' by Vermeer.
[you know, the guy who did 'Girl with the Pearl Earring']

The World Is Too Much with Us - Wordsworth

THE WORLD is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,                       5
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather’d now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,—                          10
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn.

Image: Morning: Dance of the Nymphs by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot