The Beauty of Art part 4 - some clues

The Beauty of Art part 4 - some clues

Since I have not received any(!) answers on the Beauty of Art part 4, I am giving a clue and another week before I post the answers.  

Clue:

The same sculptor has also created this, more known, sculpture:

I hope this additional clue makes it easier to answer the questions at the end of this blogpost. Remember, even if you do not know the answers to the questions, I am really interested in how the piece of art makes you feel!

In the beauty  of art parts 1, 2 and 3 ,you have seen a number of beautiful paintings. There is more to art than paintings of course so in part 4 we will look at another art form, one that I admire a lot:
sculpting.

The subject of the Beauty of Art part 4 is the following sculpture:

And here are the questions I would like you to answer:

What is the name of the sculpture?

Who is the sculptor?

Where can this sculpture be seen?

How does this piece of art make you feel?

Let me know your answers to the questions, especially the last one and I will inform you about the answers in a coming blogpost!

The Beauty of Art part 4

In the beauty  of art parts 1, 2 and 3 ,you have seen a number of beautiful paintings. There is more to art than paintings of course so in part 4 we will look at another art form, one that I admire a lot:
sculpting.

The subject of the Beauty of Art part 4 is the following sculpture:

And here are the questions I would like you to answer:

What is the name of the sculpture?

Who is the sculptor?

Where can this sculpture be seen?

How does this piece of art make you feel?

Let me know your answers to the questions, especially the last one and I will inform you about the answers in a coming blogpost!

Not the same hamburger for everyone

The great business man and philanthropist Bill Gates, once famously said:

"I can understand about having millions of dollars. There's meaningful freedom that comes with that, but once you get much beyond that I have to tell you, it's the same hamburger. "

This makes perfect sense to me, to many of us. But not to all. It seems that some people want much, much more than they can ever and I mean ever, use.

You have read about them, heard about them, maybe you have met them. The ones who never get enough, the ones who get greedy.

 "Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction." 

Erich Fromm (German psychologist and philosopher)

Andy Warhol, Dollar Signs $ (9)

How about introducing a law that says that politicians can never earn more than Y times the minimum wage  / lowest income in the country they rule? In my opinion Y should be a one-digit number.

And how about a corporate guideline that the CEO of a company can never earn more than X times what the lowest  paid person in the company earns? Or, wait a minute, does this worry you? Have you bought in to all that talk about the necessity to pay enormous salaries combined with absurd bonuses to "get the best ones"? Stop worrying. The myth has been debunked. A study by MSCI ESG showed that:

"total shareholder returns for companies with CEO pay that exceeded the sector median performed worse than companies with less excessive pay."

 Worse!

It may not be simple to set guidelines like these, but that does not mean we should not figure out how. I agree fully with Sir Michael Marmot (see 2 min video here) when he says:

"I do not think it's in fantasy land wanting a fairer society".

It is not fantasy land. It is a necessity to create a better world for all.

The Beauty of Art part 3, the answers

I was happy and impressed to see that several of you knew that Paul Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire that I showed in Beauty of Art part 3:

If you want to see the painting in real life, you will find it in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

Paul Cézanne found Mont Sainte-Victoire in Provence in France a beautiful motif and painted it multiple times. I like this painting too: Mont Sainte Victoire with large pine.

The type of art is post-impressionism. It has been described as an extended Impressionism (See the Beauty of Art part 1) "while rejecting its limitations". Like impressionism, post-impressionism uses vivid colours and real-life subject matter, but it uses geometric forms more and sometimes distort form and color for expressive effect.

So, the interesting part, how does Cézanne´s painting make you feel? 

This particular painting doesn't affect me much. Other Cezanne paintings of the same mountain makes a stronger impression though.

I remember it was Cezanne and that it was a beautiful place to visit. The mountain and nature around it gave tranquility after a long day traveling, maybe Cezanne felt the same when he looked at the mountain?

His paintings create a good feeling due to all the green colors plus the open space and air that provide lebensraum (sorry a bit of German there). I have always liked his paintings due to the calmness.

The Beauty of Art, part 3

Those of you who follow this blog know the drill by now, you have already seen Part 1 and Part 2: I display a piece of art and you let me know how it makes you feel and if you can you provide answers to my questions about the painting and the artist.

So here it goes, the Beauty of Art part 3:

On our journey through Europe this summer, my family and I took a walk in the surroundings of this mountain:

It is a mountain that the artist of this quiz painted often.

So here we go again:

What is the name of the painting?

Who painted it?
What is this type of art called?

Where can the original painting be seen?

How does this painting make you feel?

Even if you do not know the answers to the first questions (I believe this one is more difficult than my first two quizzes, but let´s see) please answer the final one. All answers are correct on that one!

As usual I will provide the answers and your comments in a coming blogspot.

The Russian tick

We had just moved back from Spain to Sweden and we were sitting in the car, listening to Swedish radio for the first time for a couple of years. The presenters were talking about how to protect your pets during summer. They were talking about ticks and one of them exclaimed:

Yes, and now there are the Russian ticks as well, they are lethal!

My husband and I couldn´t help but look at each other and laugh. Not about the ticks, we know that we need to protect our dogs and cats from parasites that can give them and us different diseases, but when they start talking about Russian ticks as some kind of murder machines, we found it amusing.

To use "Russian" to describe something that is scary or bad is not unusual in Sweden. The tabloids often write:

Nu kommer ryssvintern! /Here comes the Russian winter! 

 and we all immediately understand that it will be an unusually cold and hard winter this year.

The frost by the Russian painter Igor Grabar

The use of the word "Russian" in media as a scary adjective can seem harmless and even amusing but the desire to scare us in the name of profit or to shape opinion, is not fun at all.

Some time ago, the big hype in media was to scare us about neo nazism. At other times the focus has been on incest and on serial killers. An even longer time ago we were supposed to be afraid about what rock music could do to us.

Now it is - I am sure you have noticed - muslims and islam. Muslims are what we are supposed to be afraid of now, they are the ones we are supposed to condemn and dislike. We are supposed to think, believe and agree that all muslim men think rape is normal and that most of them kill their sisters or daughters to protect their honor.

Let´s make a bet. I bet that in a few years from now, muslims will no longer be a hot topic in media. Something else will for sure be considered scary and terrible, but then it will be something else, someone else.

You do as you please with all the information about things that are terrible and supposedly scary.

I choose to stand up tall, use my common sense (Do ticks and seasons have a nationality? Hardly. Are all muslims rapists and killers since some are? Since I know there are Swedes who rape and kill, but I also know most Swedes do not, I do not find this likely), I say like the Parisians did in November 2015:

Meme pas peur!

The beauty of art part 2: the answers

In my last blogspot, I shared this painting:

and I asked you a number of questions. It seems they were easier than part 1, maybe because I chose the most known of the four versions of the painting. Here are the other three:

Here are the answers to the questions I posted:


What is the name of the painting?
Skriet / the scream

Who painted it?
Edvard Munch

What is this type of art called?
Expressionism. It has been said that Expressionist artists want to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. Something we clearly see in the Scream.

Where can the original painting be seen?
Nasjonalgalleriet / the national gallery in Oslo

How does this painting make you feel?
No right answers to this one of course, but these are the feelings you have described:
Anger, anguish, despair, awful and cannot watch

I deliberately chose this painting as part 2 in this series, since the painting shared in part 1 gives most people completely different feelings.

Art has an ability to inspire many different types of emotions. Therein lies its amazing strength.