Art, creativity, and despair

[baby tuckoo]

Wow. I didn't know that one, Mahima.

It makes the geometric one on my own wall look downright representational.

[yovargas]

*sw0000ns for Kandinsky*

[Inanna]

Thanks, V!! I'll keep it mind next time, to put up a smaller pic!

I really love this one too, even though I am actually not a HUGE-HUGE Kandinsky fan, not like I am one of Van Gogh, I mean. I actually bought this for my cousin who is nuts about Kandinsky from the Guggenheim Museum. He loved it, but refused to take it, insisting that it will look lovely in our new apartment in state college. I left it at their place, anyway. We went back after a couple of months, and his wife and got this lovely (and expensive ) framing done and gave it to us. Those two are two too lovely people. Anyway, it is now on my wall, looks awesome and I also get a warm fuzzy feeling because of this history.

Enough said.

It makes the geometric one on my own wall look downright representational.

Which one is that, bt?

[baby tuckoo]

It's from 1926 and it's called "Counter Weights." I'd post it, but I don't know how. No, I'm no huge Kandinsky fan, but I like this one.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Thanks, V!! I'll keep it mind next time, to put up a smaller pic!

[Plug]Our gallery here automatically resizes pictures to 600 pixels, which is the limit that we have established to make sure that the page doesn't get stretched.[/Plug]

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It's from 1926 and it's called "Counter Weights." I'd post it, but I don't know how. No, I'm no huge Kandinsky fan, but I like this one.

[Inanna]

That pic was already up on my LJ and I couldn't be bothered loading it again somewhere. But I will keep it in mind.

Thanks again, V...hmm.. so thats "counter weights"... I don't like it.
Another one I love:



By the way, I just got a shock, I just searched the internet for "Kandinsky" and got "Wassily Kandinsky" not "Vasily" - which is what my Several Circles poster says. And then I found that it is "VASILY VASILYEVICH KANDINSKY" in Russian, for some reason written in English as Wassily.

[Primula Baggins]

Transcripts from other alphabets into ours can be kind of random. Russian names often show up in all kinds of forms. And I still remember struggling in an Asian history class in college with the various ways of transcribing Chinese—while I wasn't looking Mao Tse-Tung had become Mao Zedong, and Peking Beijing, and much, much more.

Of course names from India have come across in all kinds of forms, too.

I use Webster's New Biographical Dictionary, because you have to pick something and the publishing industry has mostly picked that. Webster's has "Wassily Kandinsky."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Is it time to split off a separate Kandinsky thread?

[baby tuckoo]

With all due respect, Mahima, clearly you have no taste.

[Inanna]

Thats' a good point, Prim - you don't realise that other languages will have the same issues as yours so. In ours, an "a" gets added - Ram as Rama and so on....

Is it time to split off a separate Kandinsky thread?

Now, why did I see this coming? I wonder.... must be my psychic sense.

bt

[baby tuckoo]

*bt suffers the inappropriate icthian smites from Mahima*




VtF: NO. YES.

[Primula Baggins]

The puir wee mite.

[baby tuckoo]

The puir wee mite.

*Looks shiftily at others in the room*


Yeah. Right, Prim.

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

Another artist who likely falls into this category is Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864), an American composer during the mid-19th century. As you can see from his dates, he failed to reach his 40th year. I believe alcoholism was a major factor in his short life.

Foster wrote a number of popular songs that are deeply imbedded in American culture including "Camptown races", "I dream of Jeanie with the light brown hair", "Beautiful dreamer", "Oh! Susanna", and "Old folks at home" (also known as "Swanee River").

Although Foster was a Northerner, many of his songs convey an idyllic portrayal of Southern plantation life. Unfortunately, many of his songs would not be considered politically correct today, largely because of the use of such terms as "darkie" (which was certainly a more polite term in his day) to describe people of African decent.

This is posted on the account of his life at Wikipedia:

Many of Foster's songs were of the blackface minstrel show tradition popular at the time. Foster sought, in his own words, to "build up taste...among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order." He instructed white performers of his songs not to mock slaves but to get their audiences to feel compassion for them.

I own a CD of several of his songs performed by the Robert Shaw Chorale. Some songs are upbeat and lively, while others are melancholy. These are the lyrics of one particularly beautiful song

Laura Lee

Why has thy merry face
Gone from my side,
Leaving each cherished place
Cheerless and void?
Why has the happy dream,
Blended with thee,
Passed like a flitting beam,
Sweet Laura Lee?

Far from all pleasure torn,
Sad and alone,
How doth my spirit mourn
While thou art gone!
How like a desert isle
Earth seems to me,
Robbed of thy sunny smile,
Sweet Laura Lee!

When will thy winning voice
Breathe on mine ear?
When will my heart rejoice,
Finding thee near?
When will we roam the plain
Joyous and free,
Never to part again,
Sweet Laura Lee?

[vison]

Now, Laura Lee was one of my Dad's favourite songs.

Thanks for the memory.

[Old_Tom_Bombadil]

Now, Laura Lee was one of my Dad's favourite songs.

Thanks for the memory.

My pleasure, vison.

For some strange reason that song often crosses my mind shortly after I awake in the morning, usually when I'm by myself in the kitchen. I'm not sure why.