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[concretekiss]

Everything feels so half finished. Even my thoughts are fragmented. Sentences are abandoned for others only barely airborn. I am having problems being In the Moment. Like right now I am worried about how cluttered the house is, my fingernails have paint under them which looks like I've been playing w poo, or if I should go to the park, or what ever happened to the night blooming cereus that was stolen from my stoop years ago when I lived in shanty town. I worry the internet has made my mind as wavering as a weathervane with all this clickery. I worry that society today with its latest scandal lifestyle, its ultra mega convenient super disposable, handy newer newest thing is losing focus and no one takes the time to notice, perfectly. Or they do, briefly before moving on to the next momentarily big thing. Look at all those pronouns. So anyway, huh? (I need to get started on those pork chops for dinner)

Artists, men of learning, and enlightened prelates were fascinated by the robust and bewildering art of Caravaggio, but the negative reaction of church officials reflected the self-protective irritation of academic painters and the instinctive resistance of the more conservative clergy and much of the populace. The more brutal aspects of Caravaggio's paintings were condemned partly because Caravaggio's common people bear no relation to the graceful suppliants popular in much of Counter-Reformation art. They are plain working men, muscular, stubborn, and tenacious.


Caravaggio was a 16th century painter/bar brawler whose realism was celebrated as well as reviled. His painting of a boy with a basket of fruit was so detailed as to impart each leaf's stain, each skin's bruise and flaw.
He went on to glorify freckles like stars, paint harlots as virgins, peasants as noblemen, and retained his naturalist convictions under the pressures of poverty and to the disdain of art scholars. (Netflix is totally fleecing me.) He was a passionate and hot tempered man. He slept with weapons, murdered men in quarrels, fled the law and enemies from city to city, painting by lantern light behind closed shudders, whores and vagrants as royalty. His pieces surfaced in wealthy estates like messages on shore lines.

His paintings now resound for me in a way they never have since I've began reading about his life. I am often so affected by the biographies of artists that their work visually or audibly changes. Hindsight can tarnish or enhance the past depending on what is discovered. I am conflicted as to if an artist's biography should be avoided or sought, integrated or kept separate from the work, like church and state, though both so often influence the other. and as well, each are their own pieces of art. (Should I give up on looking good in boots?)

My latest thing is pretending I am going on a trip far far away. Looking up hotel rates in Verona, Athens or Rio de Janiero. Finding an arresting landscape photograph and following it to the job market, airline tickets, real estate. It's exciting for a moment, the things one can do from bed with the push of a button. (It could be safe to say that across the sea, a ship carries a Lexus to a trophy wife who is making dinner plans at this moment.) (What am I doing with my life?) (Do I have any broccoli?)

Comments

[4got10one.livejournal.com]

I've been focused, writing on my book. And the internet is helpful for instant research, but I miss the card catalogs and the smell of the shelves, the big library tables, and the books themselves, every size, every binding. I just like books I guess.

Wonderful post. I was introduced to Caravaggio a few years ago and remain amazed by his light. I'm amazed by your light too, but it's not just the light in your paintings, but the light in you. Sure brightened my day today. Thank you, kindly, Miss Flight.

[cowboyjesus.livejournal.com]

With the dumb luck that I ever was able to get one art history class I was left wanting after only ten or twenty minutes devoted to Caravaggio. Whatever my professor had to impart (he was a former surfer from UC Davis who swore he would never bore his class in the manner he had to endure) I savored against my own mind. I felt like I was on a train going too fast. I wanted to jump out the door, throw out a battleship anchor.

I swore that when it came to Velasquez I would be better prepared.

Caravaggio sticks in many a painter's eye regardless of his background.

[jamezm.livejournal.com]

I definitely think the artist's life is important to consider with their art. Art is a form of communication which does not stand alone -- it always tells you something about who made it, while knowledge of the artist improves your understanding of what they're communicating.

[tuckova.livejournal.com]

I would never have gotten past the first few lines of Byron if I hadn't seen Ken Russell's "Gothic". I think that a good artist transcends the biography; sometimes we need the biography to get interested or understand, but the biography is only more interesting than the art if the person's art is not so great. Therefore there is no harm, and much potential benefit, in learning their biographies. I think it's nice to make up your mind about a piece of art before reading the reviews or the explanations, and for some people they can and should be kept separate, but where it informs you to a greater appreciation (not necessarily a greater LIKE or DISLIKE), it is valuable and worthwhile.

[zombienought.livejournal.com]

I really like Caravggio, and the Baroque
style is like my favourite, as I may or
may not have said before. The Baroque
paintings are always what have stayed in
my memories from childhood, and when I
have visited museums in cities that actu-
ally have real museums. And I remember
Caravaggio's "Beheading of" works from
my childhood.

Does Netflix have a movie about the life
of Caravaggio?

You would look good without boots, but
boots are awesome.

I feel sometimes, too, like the Internet
is the new TV, but I am glad it's here,
as I'd see a lot less without it. And
*you* see more of this city than I did
in the seven or so years I had to play
in it.

I'm reading a book right now that has a
Court of Night Blooming Flowers, and one
of the Houses is Cereus. I don't even
know what that *is*! (Or won't, until I
goto Wikipedia in the next minute.)

[mojodragonfly.livejournal.com]

sometimes I think about how big the ocean is, and it makes me cry

could talk about my boy C all day

[the101dmnations.livejournal.com]

Did you know the boy with the basket of fruit was a male prostitute boyfriend of Caravaggio's?!

And that Caravaggio'd walk around his pitch-dark studio holding up a candle, making his models hold poses for hours, to find the perfect point source of light?!?!

And that he lit many of his paintings from the right (as opposed to the left), which [I kid you not] heightens the seeming contrast between dark and light for people who are used to reading right to left) (so strange that our written language affects the way we look at paintings)?!?!?!

[el-moofo.livejournal.com]

Caravaggio the movie was good too.

[streaks.livejournal.com]

i am overwhelmed by the things in my life right now.