The Saunterer

Max Beckmann on the task of the artist

    Without Nature as a source of forms there could be no art. Or as Max Beckmann put it as an imperative and better:

    Learn by heart the forms to be found in nature, so that you can use them like the notes in a musical composition. That is what these forms are for. Nature is a marvellous chaos, and it is our job and our duty to bring order into that chaos and—to perfect it.

    (Quoted from page 248 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Max Beckmann, click here. For images of or relating to Max Beckmann, click here.

John Muir on the trouble with most people

    The trouble is they care little or nothing about saving Earth, a bad thing to be paired with their outnumbering those who do:

    Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

    (Quoted from page 342 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of John Muir, click here. For images of or relating to him, click here.

Paul Lockhart on reality, imagination, and mathematics

    We like his way of explaining it so much we’ll transcribe it for you:

    There are many realities out there. There is, of course, the physical reality we find ourself in. Then there are those imaginary universes that resemble physical reality very closely, such as the one where everything is exactly the same except I didn’t pee in my pants in fifth grade, or the one where that beautiful dark-haired girl on the bus turned to me and we started talking and ended up falling in love. There are plenty of those kinds of imaginary realities, believe me. But that’s neither here nor there.
    I want to talk about a different sort of place. I’m going to call it “mathematical reality.” In my mind’s eye, there is a universe where beautiful shapes and patterns float by and do curious and surprising things that keep me amused and entertained. It’s an amazing place, and I really love it.
    The thing is, physical reality is a disaster. It’s way too complicated, and nothing is at all what it appears to be. Objects expand and contract with temperature, atoms fly on and off. In particular, nothing can truly be measured. A blade of grass has no actual length. Any measurement made in this universe is necessarily a rough approximation. It’s not bad; it’s just the nature of the place. The smallest speck is not a point, and the thinnest wire is not a line.
    Mathematical reality, on the other hand, is imaginary. It can be as simple and pretty as I want it to be. I get to have all those perfect things I can’t have in real life.

    (Quoted from page 1 of Measurement, by Paul Lockhart. Harvard University Press, 2012.)
    For a brief biography of Paul Lockhart, click here. For images of or relating to Paul Lockhart, click here.

Vera Brittain on the importance of knowledge

    Vera Brittain ranked knowledge near the top:

    Only when we are thoroughly acquainted with facts can we afford to disregard them; only after a thorough understanding of technique can we dare to reach beyond it. To attempt to achieve without knowledge is like beginning a journey along an unknown road on a dark night; knowledge is God.

    (Quoted from page 279 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Vera Brittain, click here. For images of or relating to Vera Brittain, click here.

Bendor Grosvenor on what determines the market value of Old Master paintings

    The subject of a picture, how certain we are who painted it, and its condition, says Bendor Grosvenor, indicate how desirable it is. About the first two he writes:

    First is subject matter. Portraiture in particular shows just how subjective, or idiosyncratic, art valuation can be, but the same is true of other genres. A work by Canaletto with a canal is more desirable than one without. The £18.6m (with premium) auction record for the artist was set at Sotheby’s in 2005 for Venice, the Grand Canal, Looking North East from Palazzo Balbi to the Rialto Bridge—more than double its high estimate of £8m.
    Likewise, a religious scene featuring an enticing Mary Magdalene, such as Titian’s Penitent Mary Magdalene (1565) in the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, a repetition of which sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $4.5m in 2008, is more appealing than the martyrdom of St Hippolytus; the saint was torn apart by horses. Religious figures looking up are also a hard sell (too much chin, perhaps).
    Put enough cats in even the worst painting and its value will soar. My Wife’s Lovers (1891), a painting of a clowder of cats by the Austrian artist Carl Kahler, quadrupled its low estimate to sell for $826,000 (with premium) at Sotheby’s, New York, in 2015.
    The next indicator is attribution, or rather, the certainty of attribution. A well-documented and published picture will always be more desirable than a newly discovered one. Art-historical momentum counts for a great deal in the market, partly because few people feel confident enough to assess the quality of a painting objectively, and so seek reassurance from the collective opinions of other, more expert, eyes.

    (Quoted from Sexy, spotless and sure: the three golden rules of desire,” by Bendor Grosvenor. The Art Newspaper, 4 March 2016.)
    For a brief biography of Bendor Grosvenor, click here. For images of or relating to Bendor Grosvenor, click here.

The Saunterer on the claim “Animals are more lovable than people”

    One way to prove the claim is to read the obituaries of both animals and people. Here’s one for a cat from March/April 2016 of Best Friends magazine, by Carmela Hayslett:

    Sailor, our time with you was far too short. All you ever wanted from us was our love, and no amount of love we gave was ever too much for you. Everyone who met you loved you dearly. Thank you for letting us be your parents and teaching us what it truly means to love so unconditionally. You will always be our little girl.

    Human obituaries never come this close to love. You read about how the person had a smile that always lit up a room, or was a whiz at some video game, or into cars, etc. etc. One we once saw gave thanks that the dead guy held on a day longer and got to see a big University of Utah football game on TV.
    Another way of demonstrating that animals are more lovable is to imagine a cat, dog, or horse with a human ego, posturing, pouting, primping, sulking, trying to impress, showing fits of jealousy, angling to be the center of attention. Rather than lovable it would be disgusting.

Diego Rivera on what should motivate one’s work

    Spend as we did a year ago a day with Diego Rivera’s murals in the Detroit Institute of Art and you will know what motivated him. He knew too:

    Looking back on my work today, I think the best I have done grew out of things deeply felt, the worst from a pride in mere talent.

    (Quoted from page 271 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For images of Diego Rivera’s art, click here.
    For a brief biography of Diego Rivera, click here. For images of or relating to Diego Rivera, click here.

E. O. Wilson on how overpopulation is destroying the world

    Of all species, we are the only one which if it died out would improve the planet. We exist in the wrong numbers—hundreds of times too many of us:

    While ants exist in just the right numbers for the rest of the living world, humans have become too numerous. If we were to vanish today, the land environment would return to the fertile balance that existed before the human population explosion. Only a dozen or so species, among which are the crab louse and a mite that lives in the oil glands of our foreheads, depend on us entirely. But if ants were to disappear, tens of thousands of other plants and animal species would perish also, simplifying and weakening land ecosystems almost everywhere.

    (Quoted from page 2 of the February, 2016, issue of The Highlands Voice.)
    For a brief biography of E. O. Wilson, click here. For images of or relating E. O. Wilson, click here.

Henry David Thoreau on our need for wild Nature

    As he told it:

    At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature.

    (Quoted from page 321 of The Life of the Creative Spirit, by H. Charles Romesburg. Xlibris, 2001.)
    For a brief biography of Henry David Thoreau, click here. For images of or relating to him, click here.

A Sample of Ronnie Corbett’s Jokes

    British comedian Ronnie Corbett died last week. As a tribute to him and for brightening a minute of your day, here are three of his jokes from his obituary in The New York Times:

“All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my right hand.”

“A cement mixer collided with a prison van on the Kingston bypass. Motorists are asked to be on the lookout for 16 hardened criminals.”

“We’ve just heard that in the English Channel, a ship carrying red paint collided with a ship carrying purple paint. It is believed that both crews have been marooned.”

    For a brief biography of Ronnie Corbett, click here. For images of or relating to Ronnie Corbett, click here.