This is how I feel right now, me and my cat Zulu. Lord almighty, please give me strength, a clear mind and throat; make me attractive and wise. More than 100 signed in for the conference -and counting- Who would’ve thought? I never ever imagined that my professional and personal path could be a subject of interest to people other than my cat. Well, let’s do it ….. even if not there anymore, this goes for you Zulu; I will always love you. Go get them Tiger!!!
Nothing happens randomly, there’s a purpose in small things happening almost inadvertently. This week I received an invitation to attend The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The line-up this year boasts performances from Radiohead, Bon Iver and Lady Gaga among many others. Radiohead? I have almost forgotten how much I enjoyed their music. Swamped with work and music from other latitudes I consistently let go old baggage. God, if I just could do the same with other stuff!
Coachella brought Fake Plastic Trees to my mind and by listening to it I couldn’t help but recalling one of my favourite poems:
Maybe I am doing exactly the same thing right now, yearning for something I can’t have, but maybe the thing I desire so much isn’t what I need. In a world full of deceptiveness, one wants desperately to believe that real things do exist. How much are we willing to mislead ourselves?
Originally tagged The Lovers, this renown piece is part of Klimt’s golden period. It shows a couple sharing joy, symbolically dissolving in an embrace. They stand against a rich decorated background flecked with gold leaf, which is not incidental; Klimt’s father was a gold engraver by trade. Gustav also learned mosaic techniques, fresco and oil painting through him. The unique treatment of gold though resembles Byzantine mosaics; Klimt was very much influenced by the paintings he saw in Ravenna, I assume pre-raphaelitian ones. This influence is especially patent in the carpet of flowers.
“Enough of censorship……I want to break free”
Klimt’s explorations of human relationships in his work were considered very modern at the time. He believed that no institution or person had the right of censorship over his work, which is a synthesis of both the decorative and sumptuous Art Nouveau (Secessionism) and Symbolism; great combo.
Personally, I find his work not as interesting as the one of Egon Schiele, but still enormoulsy stimulating because among many other things Klimt beautifully used hidden keys within his paintings. Just look at the hands and to what’s not painted, but suggested -the abysm behind the woman suggesting danger- More explicit are the geometric forms, which have been always used in Art to represent genders. Circles stand for the eternal, the instinctive, thus the feminine, while rationality is associated with squares and rectangles, the virile. Look at his neck, how it reaches out and around, and you get a sense of his physical power through the strength of that bold rectangle; how such a simple iconographic hint fully expresses here the overwhelming intensity of his desire. Not bad for a man who never married and lived with his mother until her death.
Well, this goes to all of you who celebrate the entrance of the new year according to the Chinese Solar Calendar. May the Universe bring blessed days and nights of love, wine and roses.
hé jiā huān lè 阖家欢乐
gōng xǐ fā cái, xīn nián kuài lè
nohemidragonne.net 