Man with a Pipe
Paul Cézanne
French (1839–1906)
Oil on canvas
“I love above all else the appearance of people who have grown old without breaking with old customs.” —Paul Cézanne "Man with a Pipe is one of a group of studies related to The Card Players, one of Paul Cézanne’s most important pictorial projects. The local workers reminded Cézanne of the qualities he admired in another of his favorite subjects, Mont Sainte-Victoire — steadfast, unchanging, and monumental."
Excavated at the tomb of the king of Chu at Tuolanshan.
"These exquisite dancers and musician figures found at Tuolanshan provide a fascinating insight into the rich, colorful life of the Han. The performance seems to be a popular Chu dance of the period that featured long waving sleeves and swaying movements. Similar earthenware dancers and musicians were also found in the entertainment hall in the auxiliary complex of the tomb at Beidongshan."
The White Cupboard (1931)
Pierre Bonnard
French, 1867–1947
Oil on canvas
"Primary colors (red, yellow, blue) and simple vertical and horizontal lines create this quiet domestic scene. Seen from the back, Pierre Bonnard’s wife, Marthe, arranges tableware in the cupboard. By composing the image as he did, Bonnard invited the viewer into his home and offered a place at his table. This sense of intimacy and warmth is characteristic of his work. Bonnard, a former attorney, painted with feeling and from memory, rather than seeking to reproduce faithfully what he saw."
Good Weather
Güzel Havalar
by Orhan Veli Kanık
Translated by Fatih Akgül
This good weather ruined me,
Beni bu güzel havalar mahvetti,
I resigned in such a weather
Böyle havada istifa ettim
From my government job.
Evkaftaki memuriyetimden.
I got used to tobacco in such a weather,
Tütüne böyle havada alıştım,
I fell in love in such a weather;
Böyle havada aşık oldum;
I forgot to take home bread and salt
Eve ekmekle tuz götürmeyi
In such a weather;
Böyle havalarda unuttum;
My disease of writing poems
Şiir yazma hastalığım
Recurred in such a weather;
Hep böyle havalarda nüksetti;
This good weather ruined me.
Beni bu güzel havalar mahvetti.
Faaturuma (Melancholic), 1891
Paul Gauguin
French (1848–1903)
Oil on canvas
"Disillusioned with modern society, Paul Gauguin left France for Tahiti in 1891 in search of an earthly paradise that he imagined was untouched by civilization. Upon arriving, he realized that colonialism had all but eradicated traditional Tahitian culture. Here, a Tahitian woman wears a Western-style dress and gold marriage band introduced by Catholic missionaries. In order to emphasize the “exoticness” of his subject, Gauguin gave his painting a Tahitian title, Faaturuma. This roughly translates to melancholic or brooding; Gauguin appears to be commenting on the sadness of this lost paradise."
The Croquet Party
Edouard Manet
Oil on canvas (1871)
"Considered the most innovative French painter of the 1860s, Edouard Manet greatly influenced the artists who would become the Impressionists through his urban subjects and painterly style. Although Manet never exhibited with them, he adopted their bright and high-keyed palette from the 1870s onward. Here, Manet depicted his friends and family playing a game of croquet at a fashionable resort on the Normandy coast. On the advice of his doctor, Manet traveled there in the summer of 1871, probably to recover from the devastating siege of Paris by the Prussian army in 1870–1871, during which time he served as an officer in the French army."
Here I Am
All night, a man called “Allah”
Until his lips were bleeding.
Then the Devil said, “Hey! Mr Gullible!
How comes you’ve been calling all night
And never once heard Allah say, “Here, I am”?
You call out so earnestly and, in reply, what?
I’ll tell you what. Nothing!”
The man suddenly felt empty and abandoned.
Depressed, he threw himself on the ground
And fell into a deep sleep.
In a dream, he met Abraham, who asked,
“Why are you regretting praising Allah?”
The man said, “ I called and called
But Allah never replied, “Here I am.”
Abraham explained, “Allah has said,
“Your calling my name is My reply.
Your longing for Me is My message to you.
All your attempts to reach Me
Are in reality My attempts to reach you.
Your fear and love are a noose to catch Me.
In the silence surrounding every call of “Allah”
Waits a thousand replies of “Here I am.”
~ Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
The Eruption of Vesuvius
Sebastian Pether
English, 1790–1844
Oil on wood panel (1825)
This dramatic scene of Mount Vesuvius emphasizes the grandeur and terror of lava against the night sky. Sebastian Pether traveled to Naples, Italy, to paint the volcano, which erupted in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
The volcano’s activity allowed artists like Pether to imagine its destruction of the Roman city of Pompeii in 79 c.e. Rather than depicting a contemporary scene, in this painting he represented the only eyewitness account of the historic eruption as described in an ancient letter by Roman author Pliny the Younger.
Capricorn
Max Ernst
Bronze (1948)
"Capricorn is an inventive portrait of Max Ernst and his wife, fellow Surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning. On another level, it expresses the duality of male and female. For the Surrealists, as for the Greeks, the minotaur (half man/half bull) symbolized the battle between rational mind and aggressive instinct. This minotaur figure was probably inspired by a Katsina-a Zuni spirit sculpture-that was owned by Ernst. A mermaid and a dog, with pipe eyes and trowel tongue, rest next to him. The mermaid is also a hybrid. Part woman and part fish, she lives in the sea, a symbol of the feminine unconscious. Tanning named Capricorn after a constellation. The title hints at astrology, the study of the influence of celestial events upon the lives of humans."
"The Weeping Woman series is regarded as a thematic continuation of the tragedy depicted in Picasso's epic painting Guernica. In focusing on the image of a woman crying, the artist was no longer painting the effects of the Spanish Civil War directly, but rather referring to a singular universal image of suffering."
Portrait of Dora “Weeping Woman” became a symbol of grief, pain and suffering. Everything in the painting is subordinated to this idea. Pablo always portrayed Dora with huge eyes, sad, pensive or weeping. He emphasized her delicate nervous system, clean face and long red nails. Dora Maar was Picasso's mistress from 1936 until 1944. In the course of their relationship, Picasso painted her in a number of guises, some realistic, some benign, others tortured or threatening. Picasso explained:
"For me she's the weeping woman. For years I've painted her in tortured forms, not through sadism, and not with pleasure, either; just obeying a vision that forced itself on me. It was the deep reality, not the superficial one."
"Dora, for me, was always a weeping woman....And it's important, because women are suffering machines"
Maverick Mist 