A Wonderful Day at Carnegie Museum

 

1/8/22

Erich Ohser: The Burden of Art

This is the sad story of a pioneer, light years ahead of the contemporary trend.

Erich Ohser (aka E.O. Plauen) was born in 1903 in Adorf,  small outlaying in Vogtland.  During a short professional career, he worked for magazines such as Vorwärts (=Forward), illustrating satirical representations of Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler. Obviously, these endeavors earned him the enmity of the Nazis, and he was prohibited from practicing his trade under an order of professional disqualification (=Berufsverbot). He continued to work under pseudonyms, and from 1940, began again to produce cartoons on political themes. He was arrested on charges of expressing anti-Nazi opinions (reichsfeindliche Äußerungen). Sadly, Ohser committed suicide in jail 24 hours before his trial.

I accidentally discovered some of his comic strips dating back to the 1930s. His art has been an intriguing subject for me. Elements of his political orientation were interwoven into his modern aesthetic flavor. His satirical caricatures or cartoons, frequently accompanied by Erich Knauf's articles, expressed his political stance against National Socialism. The interesting aspect is how an artist channels ideas under a rigid censorship regime. The notorious Father and Son series is probably the most popular work by Ohser that captivated readers between 1934 to 1937. The adventures of the funnily depicted duo gave the artist a veiled platform to express his views.

Pedram, 12/16/2021

Lessons From Norman Rockwell

by Brandon Betancourt



This past summer I got a chance to visit Washington DC. While I was there, I saw a Norman Rockwell exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. As it turned out, the exhibition was the private collection of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The exhibition highlighted Rockwell’s masterful storytelling.
I didn’t know much about Norman Rockwell before that day. I knew he was a famous American painter and I had seen a few of his replicas in restaurants. But after seeing the exhibition, I got a deep, deep appreciation of Rockwell and especially, how he was able to communicate an entire story with a single frame.


The old days
My 75 year old grandfather was with me that day and told me how, back in the day, he couldn’t wait to get the Post Magazine to see Rockwell’s cover and to read it cover to cover. He also shared with me how Rockwell’s pictures told stories about growing up, how they instilled patriotism and depicted American family values.




The influence of storytelling
The exhibition and my grandfather’s account reminded me of how powerful storytelling is. Rockwell did it with pictures and to some extend he moved a nation. But could we use storytelling to do other things such as inspire patients, communicate with customers or stir up emotions in people? I think so. Companies do it all the time. And the ones that have stories that resonate with the public are generally some of the most recognizable companies in our society.






Toyota, Hummer, Harley Davidson, American Express & Target
A perfect example of companies telling stories are car manufactures. When a person buys a Prius, they are telling a story to others about themselves. They are telling others, (and themselves) they are environmentally conscious and are doing their part to contribute towards the “green” cause. The opposite end of the spectrum is Hummer vehicles. The person that drives a Hummer is not concerned about the environment. We know at least that much.
On a Prius, one might find a sticker that reads, “my kid is an honor roll student at George Washington Elementary School,” whereas on the Hummer, you may find a similar sticker but it reads “my son can kick your honor roll kid’s ass.” Each car tells a different story.
Harley Davidson motorcycles tell a story of freedom, ruggedness and loudness. American Express tells a story of class, success and refinement. Which is the complete opposite of “Capital One’s” story. Wal-mart’s story is low prices. But despite being in the same business, Target has a completely different story. Target’s story is “design democratization.”






What is the story?
The story is essentially how we think and feel when we see a product or a service and what we tell others (and ourselves) about us when we use the product or service. Clear as mud, right?






What does all this have to do with our medical practices?
Glad you asked. Just like Starbucks creates a warm, hip, comfortable experience to support their story (different from the Dunkin’ Donuts experience), we too can use some of these storytelling elements I learned from the Norman Rockwell exhibition to help us define the narrative we tell our customers and patients.






Lessons From Rockwell
1. Define the story. We have to characterize what our narrative is going to be. For example, Subaru has had multiple advertising campaigns to support their story. Recently, they’ve used: “Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.” That slogan reinforces their story that people who own a Subaru, LOVE Subaru. It also talks about the Love that goes in to making a Subaru. It is not just an ordinary car. More recently, they’ve focused a lot on “safety.” That’s a story as well.
In our medical practices’ we too can define our story. We can have a customer service story or our story can be about being compassionate, loving and caring. We can tell the story about how we embrace holistic medicine or even be known as an obesity and nutrition clinic. A while back I met a dentist that wanted to have a high-tech dentist office. That was his story.
Answer this: What do you want others to think when they hear your practice’s name?


2. Paint the picture. Rockwell used a canvas to tell his story; Spieldberg and Lucas use movies; Apple Inc uses design to tell their story of sophistication, simplicity and innovation.
In a medical practice, we too can paint our picture and tell our story by how we decorate our offices, how we design our advertising, how we answer the phone and how we treat patients.
Painting the picture is simply the vehicle we choose to tell our stories. It can be done in many different ways. It doesn’t matter how we choose to tell our story. Heck, it could even be a simple as creating a blog for your practice. But always have the story at the center.


3. Cast to support your story. One fascinating tidbit about Rockwell was that he casted the people in his paintings much like a filmmaker cast an actor for a role in a movie. Once he found the right person or group of people, he used them as stand-ins while drawing the picture. He knew that the characters he choose would support his vision for the story he wanted to tell. This was brilliant in my opinion.
Let’s say your story is customer service … do you hire people that can support that story or do you have Ms. Grumpy McGee as the front office clerk?
At their retail stores, Apple “cast” geniuses (if you’ve been to an Apple store, you know what I’m talking about) and Starbucks don’t just have servers, they have “baristas.” Both of which help reinforce each company’s story.


4. Pay attention to detail. Norman Rockwell did not leave anything to chance. Everything in his painting was there for a reason. Every single little detail, every prop, even the supporting characters helped tell the story. In fact, for some, the details were what really emphasized the story. In other words, often it was a little detail that made the story complete.
As Walt Disney once said, “There is no magic in magic, it’s all in the details.”


In a medical practice, there are details that can enhance our story or detract from it. It could be the cleanliness of the waiting room chair or the old magazines or the pictures hanging on the wall. It could be how we answer the telephone to how the doctor is dressed to the manicure of the nurse.
We often underestimate details because, well, they are details. But I’m sure many of you can agree that sometimes, one little detail is the difference between a good story and a bad story. Don’t leave the details to chance.
Well, what do you think about this correlation between Norman Rockwell and a medical office? At first, there might not be much of an association when you first think about it. But I think there are many lessons.

Mirrors of Despair

I stare into my face 
We are connected by solitude 
Together tied in chains of despair 
Not a gleam of hope
Mentally enslaved nameless 
Having no future and no past 
I look at myself from 
The surface of a black lake 

Mirrors call 
Mirrors melt 
Mirrors take me out of here 

What the silver moon sings about 
In eternal collapse at night 
What i am looking for 
In the empty skies (empty like me) 
A swallow of freedom sticks in my throat 
When the sun goes down 
In the mirrors of despair 
There is only my face


words : Comatose Vigil
image : Regina Lafay

A Source of Inspiration

Dozens of previously unknown sketches by the artist and sculptor Alberto Giacometti have come to light, including impromptu drawings of Christine Keeler, the showgirl whose 1960s affair with Conservative minister John Profumo shook the British establishment.

Nine months ago, one of Giacometti's sculptures sold for £65m. Now the Swiss artist's family has allowed his biographer, the distinguished art historian Michael Peppiatt, access to the collection for a major new book and a loan exhibition. The unseen images reveal Giacometti at his most intimate and unselfconscious.
Giacometti seems to have taken his inspiration for the Keeler sketch from a 1963 French newspaper report. A series of nude female figures sketched across a page from France-Soir is thought to represent her. The collection also contains sculptures, paintings and drawings not seen since they left his dilapidated studio in Paris. Another find is an art book owned by Giacometti which he used to produce a striking drawing of Van Gogh's self-portrait.
Another previously unknown sketch appears across a torn-out page of L'Express, a 1964 edition with a report on Lee Harvey Oswald, President John Kennedy's assassin. Giacometti scribbled over Oswald's photograph, giving him a beard and scrawling across the page the repeated word continuare ("to go on") and the phrase "the busts were made quickly, and a painting this evening, the drawings soon". The words seem to convey Giacometti's constant urge to push himself into yet more work. The artist, who died in 1966, obsessively scrutinised his work for hints of failure, always destroying works that did not match his vision. Peppiatt said that the newspaper sketches showed that drawing was fundamental for Giacometti. "Drawing was a form of instinctive thinking for him. He was never without a pencil in his hand or a fag in his mouth," he explained.
Peppiatt, an art critic for the Observer during the 1960s, recalled his excitement at being given access to the images, taken from a collection owned by the widow of Giacometti's nephew, Silvio Berthoud: "There is something very intimate about these works. I was allowed to choose from 300 drawings. I was deeply moved. I felt that Giacometti was almost there with me … as if his drawings were dropping from his hands. He had scribbled over the inside covers of books, doodled on bits of paper in cafes." Some of the unknown images are in Peppiatt's forthcoming book, In Giacometti's Studio, and a loan exhibition he has curated at the Eykyn Maclean gallery in New York.
Through newly published letters, Peppiatt offers new insight into Giacometti, the man and his art. He has delved into the artist's relationships, notably his doomed affair with Isabel Rawsthorne, a raucous, bohemian painter and model.
Peppiatt said: "Isabel was a terrifying animal, a man-eater. She was having affairs with both sexes and drinking everybody under the table. He was ambivalent towards women. What he liked were prostitutes. Giacometti was both attracted and repelled by Isabel." Feelings of despair emerge from their letters, Peppiatt said. In one, Giacometti wrote: "I didn't think your stay was a washout, Isabel, otherwise I wouldn't have felt so upset when you left. My throat was tight. I was sobbing inside."
Peppiatt also casts light on the artist's friendship with Samuel Beckett. Describing Giacometti's skeletal figures as a visual embodiment of the Irish writer's pared down prose, he said: "They had the same nocturnal habits. They'd bump into one another in Montparnasse around midnight, go to the same brothels together and walk home together." He tried to imagine their conversations as they strolled the deserted streets. "I researched and researched, following every line of inquiry, until I came to the truth," he recalled. These 20th-century geniuses would walk in "deep, utter, total silence", he said.

by : Dalya Alberge @Guardian
Pic : Christine Keeler

I Sit And Look Out

I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,and upon all oppressions and shame,
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with themselves,
Remorseful after deeds done,
I see in low life the mother missused by her children,dying,neglected,gaunt,desperate,
I see the wife misused by her husband,i see the treacherous seducer of young women,
I mark rankings of jealousy and unrequited love attempted to be hid,i see these sights on the earth,
I see the working of battle ,pestilence,tyranny,i see martyrs and prisoners,
I observe a famine at sea,I observe the sailers casting lots to see
Who shall be kill'd to preserve the lives of the rest,
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers,the poor,and upon negros,and the like;
All these the meanness and agony without end,I
sitting look out upon ,see,hear ,and am silent.





Poem : Walt Whitman
Image : Tired Eyes by Irene Dominguez Marquez aka Namtaru

Mud Feeler

Now abyssed Lucifers master the earth

Uncloister jaded harlots once served

Enthralled by cruel raptures, rehearsed

Kiss slumbered beauty and weapon our thousand year curse

Cradle Of  Filth
Image : A Harlot's Progress by William Hogarth

Gao Xing Jiang Ink Paintings

Penumbra>>>>Gao Xing Jiang---Chinese ink on paper 2007

the Might of Art

It was the first time i found this feeling about art,maybe the first time someone showed this in pictures;a honest dazzling film;

The movie is about former well-known painter Fernhofer who interrupted his grand project "La Belle Noiseuse"10 years ago. Reason?yet to be discovered! He lives with his wife Liz in a castle cast away.

The young couple nicolas (a young painter) and his spouse Marrianne have planned to visit Fernhofer; Nicolas used to admire Fernhofer;but they face Master's bizarre behavior and fianlly Fernhofer perposed Marriane to become his model to resume the dusty ambition.

The movie shows 17-18 min of pure painting;not to mention it's a long movie(about 4hr length) ,so it needs patience definitly;but so rewarding,i mean it becomes an outstanding journey with Fernhofer and the painting process wich resembles the knowing and the suffering due to it.

There are certain scenes that raise the feeling of sympathy with the artist;as you see him unable to direct his source of inspiration to canvas.

To lead performances have been highly praised (Michel Piccoli as Fernhofer and Emmanuelle Beart as Marianne),but i think Jane Birkin (playing the role of Fernhofer 's wife;Liz) plays a key role in the whole movie.

Finally : it's about a 4 hour epic about art,love,sacrifice.

Hours of Folly Hours of Wisdom

well.well .well ; it was a frustrating day for me till suddenly sth. caught my eyes;words of magic and pure wisdom ; i had a hell of joy with William Blake's poem this evening;here's " A Memorable Fancy"(summarized)

How do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way,

Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?

.

In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by incapacity.

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.

The cut worm forgives the plow.

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

The busy bee has no time for sorrow.

The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock; but of wisdom,

no clock can measure.

No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.

A dead body revenges not injuries.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.{---->i disagree(P.) }

Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.

[.........]

Joys impregnate, sorrows bring forth.

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.

What is now proved was once only imagined.

[......]

The cistern contain; the fountain overflows.

One thought fills immensity.

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

Every thing possible to be believed is an image of truth.---->{i don't think so}

The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn

of the crow.

He who has suffer'd you to impose on him, knows you.

The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Expect poison from standing water.

[.....]

The weak in courage is strong in cunning.---->{Wow;awsome ! }

If others had not been foolish, we should be so.{it means breaking kinda vicios cycle? }

To create a little flower is the labour of ages.

Damn braces; bless relaxes.

Exuberance is beauty.

Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads

without improvement are roads of genius.

Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd.

Enough! Or too much.

What is the price of experience? do men buy it for a song?

Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price

Of all that a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Image ; Hecate or the Three Fates by William Blake