“THE STORY OF ART” BY E.H. GOMBRICH




















(Gustav Klimt “The kiss”)

Two weeks ago, on saturday, I went to a bookshop in Elisabets street (Barcelona). I enjoyed a lot because I spent all the morning trying to find some books and, by chance, I found one really interesting: “The story of Art ” by E.H. Gombrich. This is the most famous book about art ever publisher and his author, Profesor Gombrich, was one of the most important British art historian. I recommend it because, in fact, it’s very easy to read and understand the evolution of art from the begining until nowadays. It shows you periods and styles in a easily way because the author had a wonderful aim: “this book is intended for all who feel in need of some first orientation in a strange and fascinating field...”

From my point of view (and at the moment....) the most important topic is this specific idea about art: the whole story of art in fact, is not a story about progress in technical proficiency it’s, actually, a story of changing ideas... I think this concepts is, simply brilliant.... because you can check that new themes were introduced a long the history, new methods, new artists appears, but really nothing essentially new was added... At firts glance, the paintings not look all the same, but when you watch them careflully you can realize and thinking about this idea.

Human kind, throughout the years, has always wanted to show their feelings, fears and reality using art. Nowadays it says that we are living in the age of the power of images and when you look at an ancient picture you can imagine what happened in the past. That’s the reason why I think our society has always been living the excitation of the image.

Definitely, art is the expression of the age, and this conclusion can help us to understand our evolution better.

I sincerely hope that this little and easy blog has contributed to you can love art too.

See you!

http://www.gombrich.co.uk/

ART DECO


Art Deco was the most glamorous and popular style of the twentieth century (from 1920 until 1939, between the two World Wars, it was, without a doubt, a period marked with many contrasts...)

The term Art Deco was derived from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, an exhibition celebrated in Paris in 1925. So it was a movement originated in Europe in 1925 and quickly became popular over the world.

This movement was influenced, basically, by industrial machinery. It's interesting to know that many of the Art Deco designers rejected traditional materials for their work and they decided to work with unusual materials like ebony, marble and rare and expensive wood (different types of materials and precious metals too)

Art Deco was in many different areas like architecture, furniture, industrial desing, decorative arts, fashion, painting and jewellery. It was an important break with traditional styles, a real reaction to the flowing lines of Art Nouveau and, obviously, it became fastly a popular style (but be careful, although Art Deco was "very popular" it was not easily accessible because it was and it is now very expensive...)

Art Deco represented the fast modernization of the world and offered elegant environments. Maybe you ask and want to know how you can distinguish this style from other ones: it’s very easy because you can detect many examples of Art Deco when you see the influence of Far and Middle Eastern design, Greek, Roman, Egypt (of course, Ancient Egypt, like Tutankhamen's tomb, that it was discovered in 1922), Mayan or Precolumbian even Oriental art influence.

Definitely, as you can see, there are important and typical modern elements in this style. In fact, Art Deco was influenced by the modern art movements of Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism; however, this movement took also some ideas from the ancient geometrical design styles. Art Deco were simpler than Art Noveau (actually we can say that Art Deco is an extension of the French Art Noveau)

In some ways Art Deco was Abstract Art that fastly spread in the society and, of couse, took its place in all aspects of life.

When I think of Art Deco, I think of a loft of lines and nice colours and designs with geometric and clean lines, a really cool sophistication....

If you want to see wonderful pictures of this style, I recommend to you visit theses pages:

http://www.decopix.com/
http://www.fins-de-siecles.com/index.php?lang=en&unit=inch&cat=1
http://www.artdecoworld.com/store01.htm
http://www.artdeco.org/about.html
http://jahsonic.com/ArtDecoFashion.html

I hope you enjoy and see you!

BECOMING HUMAN

Dr. Donald Johanson is one of the best known paleoanthropologist and he shows us this interesting documentary about our origins and the human evolution. His discovery in 1974 of Lucy at Hadar, in Etiopía, an ancient fossil dating back some three million years, is a controversial change in our view of human origins. Lucy is, obviously, the most significant fossil in the world.

Fossils are the remains or imprimints of dead organisms, are the only physical evidence that we posses of ancient life and our planet. Fossils can tell us a lot about the past but are rare and difficult to find.

Fossilization is a chemical process in wich minerals replace the life form’s original cell and it can only take under the most specific circumtances. Although major fossils sites are often uncovered accidentally by miners and amateurs cave explorers, researches also use remote sensing and satellite images to get an overview of the terrain.

It’s interesting to know that a paleontological excavation is a very careful process because the location of an object is as important as the object itself… archaelogists need to know objects and their origin, the place where it was found and its association (everything found nearly is very important indeed)

Humans are members of the biological order primates. It’s a diverse group that includes prosimians, monkeys, apes and humans. Although they are very different from each other, all primates share many important similarities that make us, as a group, different from other animals. For example: big brains. Primates and particularly humans have extremely large brains compared to their body size. Humans, like many primates, have to learn complex survival and social skills (that means complex social rules and language) and of course, our brains are organized in a different way than brains of other animals, our brains are, definitely highly developed.

Another difficult question for me is the next: Can animals use language? In fact, can animals have language? A few species demonstrate parts of language capability and many experiments show that monkeys can count and understand some concepts like “more” and “less” and even apes can combine symbols with coherent meaning and express thoughts and emotions (of course, they can’t speak as humans do!) In this documentary we can also meet Koko, a nice female gorilla that has a vocabulary of over 1,000 words of American sign language. It’s incredible....

Another interesting point is the difference between religion and science. Science does not invoke supernatural forces to explain natural phenomena. But it doesn’t mean that science and religion are independent, many scientists are religious too... But scientists want to ask how we humans got here and what is our relationship to other animals. And people who have a religious creed ask why are here and what meaning our liffe have and, maybe what is the right kind of life to lead... I think, that in fact, it doesn’t matter what religion or science will to know... because finally we all want to know the same and find answers to this kind of questions.... independently than who is asking, don't we?

See you!

What is a coolhunter? Who is a coolhunter?

A coolhunter is a person who observes social tendencies. They normally must be in everywhere and take notes from everything that they think it will be a tendency, trying to be the most objective possible and trying to capture all the sensations that involve you all the time for decipher future behaviours.

In fact, they recopilate all kind of information because after that, exists an important work of explotation and investigation of probable tendencies and stiles in all type of areas.

Neverthless, there are diverses categories of coolhunters and they are not limited to influence to companies about what is fashionable or not, because they are not only working in fashions’s companies, they are also observing multiple sectors of consumption, such as decoration, art, design, publicity, etc.

In any case, althoug a coolhunter must be a creative person and to have a good intuition, they need to receive a complementary and multidisciplinary education in differents subjects. They must be constantly in everywhere anticiping new concepts and stiles of life trying to advance to the future discovering new forms of expressions in a world where to know what happens around you is, obviously, basic. That’s why they must be a polyvalent person with an important cultural formation to understand, to interpret or to anticipate themselves to any change.

Consequently, nowadays many multinationals companies have these sort of services because they want to know what the consumers are going to think about their product before it will be created. In fact, it’s a logical behaviour because they want to define their future client’s profiles and to control if their public will accept their products in the future for reduce economic risks. Obviously, this job is the way to help to create a product with greater security and, of course, they manage to persuade us and create us a necessity.... and remember that is, definitively, the final mission....

See you!

Diary of a desperate woman at the weekend of the elections day


Friday

Today I must prepare the last meeting. All the people of my department are crazy and very nervous (the are fantastic and always help me a lot, in fact I’m very happy with my team…) I must quickly review the last important instructions for the election day.

It’s a hard day today and I suppose I’m going to finish my working day very late, so I make up my mind to rest tomorrow morning… well, I’ll try…

Saturday

I wake up early (I usually do it, I like it !) I enjoy going to buy the newspaper and prepare my breakfast calmly. I listen to the radio and I think I’m going to have a peaceful morning… I need it so much...

I decide go to the Mercat de La Concepcion. I would prefer to go to La Boqueria rathen thant La Concepcion, but I haven’t time enough because this afternoon I must return to the Council. Suddenly, meanwhile I was waiting my turn in a fruitshop, my mobile phone is ringing.... It’s the Judge’s Secretary.... someone is giving out political propaganda the day before the elections ! Oh my God ! I think today is going to be a difficult day too... Bye bye to my relax morning....!

Sunday

I wake up very early, at 6:00 am... I’m exhausted ! Tonigth we have finished at 11:40 pm.... At 8:00 am we starts the electoral day. All my people are prepared and they have instructions to resolve all kind of problems (I hope so !) and I also hope they will make a good role today...

Arrive at home at 11:00 pm... (In fact I thought we will finish later...) Finally I’m at home and I don’t know who’s the winner... well I suppose, but I don’t mind.

I can’t sleep... I’m still vey nervous and I’m thinking in this working day. Suddenly I decide that I would have been happier If I had worked in a McDonalds... Yes ! tomorrow I will prepare my curriculum vitae ! (I wonder: What will my Major think about my decision?....I think I’m a dreamer....)

See you !

Article: Renewed faith in marriage
by Xanadu, Times Online special correspondent about town

I’m going to comment the article titled Renewed faith in marriage. In this article, the writer (or the journalist) shows us how a lot of people are actually not happy with their married indeed. Obviously the writer is single (well, In fact I suppose that, of course, because she tell that her family sees her like a black sheep....) It seems like, if you want to have a normally life you must be married.... But the most curious is that the writer thinks that, nowadays, there are an important loss of faith in marriage. In her family she always saw “happy marriages and cheerful healthy offspring” and she talks us about how their friends are not very satisfied with their family and their obligations.

For example, she explains to us a funny and interesting anecdote: one day she was invited for a dinner with a couple. When she arrived at their house, it was funny discoverd that she couldn’t find any trace of a tipycal family life with children and they really had two! This family was, apparently, “perfect”. The wife was young (“not wrinkles”), pleasant and, of course, she was a good cook. The house was clean and all organized, it was such a perfect home and they seem be ideally suited. And the writer asked herself: where were the signs of children? She tries to find “something” but nothing appear... and suddenly she discovered only one clue: a tiny grey tweed winter coat on a hall doorway!! Finally she ends the article thinking about the necessity of repaired the faith in the marriage, I think she believe in it though...

I was gathering my thoughts about this topic and, to my mind, people must try to be happy and it doesn’t matter if you are or not married.... The most important thing it’s, in the end, to be next to the appropiate person. However, this is the most difficult objective: to find your soulmate. In addiction, nowadays it’s understood that to be married it’s not a priority (obviously not for everybody and not for me...) Basically I think is better to be happy: firtsly with yourself, and secondly, you must try to find your own balance, although you are single or married, the last objective it’s to be with suitable people arround you.... Are you sure that you are with the correct people?

See you!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18392-2467583,00.html

Marc Chagall

Last Sunday I went to Mercat de Sant Antoni (in Barcelona). I usually go there (in fact, I love this kind of places and, of course, I can spend a lot of hours in this market, in a book shop or maybe in a library on my own….) I bought a wonderful book: “The story behind the Painting” by Leo Roslen. I think it’s a great book because you can find in it exciting stories about famous painters and their masterpieces and, in addition, you can discover interesting human stories behind these paintings.

In fact, I bought it because I found a wonderful story about one of my favourite painters: Marc Chagall. He was great, brilliant.... You can read an article about Chagall titled “The blue Air of Love”. Chagall often used blue colours, but in this painting we can see a red angel among a couple of lovers: “The wedded with an angel” is the title. He said that he fell in love with her wife before “he ever laid eyes on her...” And when he saw her for the first time he wrote “I knew that this is she.... Her silence is mine. Her eyes are mine. When she looks at me, it seem that she has know my childhood, my present life, my future too. She never saw me before, but it’s as if she had always been watching over me...” Personally, I think these sentences are the most beautifl declaration of Love that I have ever heard...

Bella was his wife. She was very important in his career for 29 years ! Chagall was a very special person, and she helped him a lot and always was next to him (he painted her a lot of times) She died in 1944 and he knew her in 1914. Chagal was born in Russia in 1889.

If you see Chagall’s paintings maybe you can think he had a lot of fantasy in his masterpieces because there are a lot of angels, little men or women flying, a lot of movements in his figures, strangers human beings.... but his paintings weren’t legends or fairy tales. He alwas said “To call anything that happens illogical is a fantasy is to admit that you don’t understant nature”

See you !