Olive Trees

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 11, 2018
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Olive Trees
Vincent van Gogh

"This painting comes from a series of 15 canvases that Vincent van Gogh dedicated to the subject of olive trees during his stay at the asylum of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, where he committed himself after suffering a series of breakdowns. When free to wander the countryside, he explored the region’s olive groves. “The murmur of an olive grove,” he wrote to his brother Theo, “has something very intimate, immensely old about it.”  The artist’s animated brushwork and stylized passages of broken color suggest that he painted the scene directly from nature. They communicate the essence of olive trees with their twisting trunks and heavy canopy in the light of southern France."

🎨

Like Autumn ~

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 10, 2018
Posted in: Music, Nature, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , , , , .

I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death. ~ Lin Yutang

Castor or Pollux

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 9, 2018
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Castor or Pollux
Mid-2nd century c.e.
Probably Italy, marble.

"This youth is either Castor or Pollux.  These two brothers were the offspring of a mortal woman.  They had different fathers:  Castor was the son of a mortal prince while Pollux was the son of the king of the gods, Jupiter.  Thus Castor was mortal and Pollux, immortal.  At the death of Castor, Jupiter offered the immortal Pollux a choice.  He could remain immortal or he could divide immortality with his slain brother.  They could live on alternate days in heaven and the Underworld.  Out of love for his brother, Pollux chose to divide his immortality.  The youths were associated with the constellation Gemini and thus they are portrayed with a star on their caps.  Our figure cradles in his left arm a sheath.

The statue may be an approximate copy of a famous fifth-century B.C.E. sculpture that stood at the entrance of the Acropolis in Athens."

♊️

Nine Crow Clowns

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 8, 2018
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Nine Crow Clowns, 2012
Wendy Red Star
Crow, Montana, born 1981
Pigment prints on satin canvas

Clowns have long been a part of Crow ceremonial life, and here Wendt Red Star celebrates their contemporary incarnation.  The painting -- a series of nine photographic pigment prints transferred to canvas -- depicts the mischievous figures against a unifying blue background.  Only men portrayed clowns in the past; now, both men and women participate.  They costume themselves as elders, wear pillows to distort their bodies, and don masks to hide their faces.

🤡

Oh Beloved

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 7, 2018
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Artist Unknown


Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you.

💛

Jalaluddin Mevlana Rumi

― Henry Ford

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 6, 2018
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“When Henry Ford decided to produce his famous V-8 motor, he chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block, and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder engine-block in one piece.”

Ford replied,”Produce it anyway.”

🚘

Drug Jar

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 3, 2018
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Drug Jar (albarello)
Italy, probably Pesaro
ca. 1480
Earthenware, tin glazed (maiolica)

Pharmacies were great patrons of maiolica potteries from the early fifteenth century onward.  Usually housed in monastic hospitals or royal residences, pharmacies often commissioned large sets of matching jars which were displayed in rows on shelves around the walls.  Each jar was marked with the name of the drug it contained.  Spouted jars were used to store and dispense liquid medicine.  Early examples were closed by tying parchment over the top.

Mu Nu ~

Posted by Maverick ~ on October 2, 2018
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Mu Nu (Mother and daughter) 1997
Hung Liu
Oil on canvas, diptych

The Song Of The Old Mother
by William Butler Yeats

I rise in the dawn, and I kneel and blow
Till the seed of the fire flicker and glow;
And then I must scrub and bake and sweep
Till stars are beginning to blink and peep;
And the young lie long and dream in their bed
Of the matching of ribbons for bosom and head,
And their day goes over in idleness,
And they sigh if the wind but lift a tress:
While I must work because I am old,
And the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold.

🎸