Renewing the floors--the hard way

The Artdog Image of Interest
Note: due to events beyond my control, we missed the Image of Interest last weekend. Therefore, this week, we get two!

The Floor Scrapers, by Gustave Caillebotte (1875), currently in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.

Today's Image of Interest is Gustave Caillebotte's The Floor Scrapers (1875), regarded by some scholars as "one of the greatest genre paintings of the 19th Century," and also a masterful realist work.  Genre paintings, in contrast to paintings of classical or heroic subjects, sought to portray scenes from everyday life.

Rejected by the Salon for its "vulgar subject," this painting moved Caillebotte more firmly into the Impressionist school, and placed a spotlight on the urban working class, just as Gustave Courbet's The Stone Breakers (1849) and a host of others had focused on rural workers a generation earlier.

Some commentators have made a point of linking the nude torsos of the workers, the sensuous lighting, and the speculation that the artist himself was homosexual. This may indeed have been a factor, but as many others have pointed out, the dynamic approach to a previously unattended subject, the use of light, and the sympathy demonstrated for the workers and their labor all deserve recognition.

IMAGE: Many thanks to "Art and Labor in the Nineteenth Century," by Alice J. Walkiewicz, edited by Amy Raffel for this image.

Days of the Dead: All Saints Day

Because we have a significant Hispanic population in Kansas City, I learned several years ago about some holiday observation traditions for the Days of the Dead.

I have a lot of admiration for a cultural celebration that deals in a poetic and artistic way with the reality that death inevitably touches every life.

This graveyard in San Gregorio, Mexico has been decorated for the Days of the Dead (AP/Alexandre Meneghini)

The culture in which I grew up does not handle death very well. Much of mainstream U.S. culture seems to worship youth and health, but tries to ignore or banish any intimation that illness, disability or death may exist.

To my mind this is both foolish and futile. It turns us into cowards, who live in carefully-blinkered denial. It sets us up to be blindsided by one of the profound realities of existence, and it seriously distorts our priorities.

As a result, I believe we live less fully, and care less well for those who've fallen victim to life's misfortunes.

We often don't know what to say to people who are grieving a loss. As someone who has lost loved ones, I believe what we should do is embrace the sadness, acknowledge the loss, and smile at the good memories.

Here are a couple of others' thoughts on that.

Keep your loved ones close, cherish them in life, and also in memory. They are why we are who we are today.

IMAGES: Many thanks to NBC Latino's 2012 feature on the Days of the Dead, for the beautiful photo of the Mexican graveyard; to The Better Future's website, for the "Speak their Name" graphic; and to Christine Snider's Pinterest board, and amiesniderDESIGN's Etsy site, for the "Those we love don't go away" graphic.

Artdog Quote of the Week: Buy from an Artist

Here's why:

I'm posting this now, in honor of all the art fairs being held in the Kansas City area this month--but it holds true whenever and wherever you are.

IMAGE: Many thanks to Jessilyn Park Art Studio and the Jessilyn Park Art Studio Facebook Page, for this image.

Artdog Quote of the Week: Chaos

It looks to be a chaotic week ahead for me. I'm going to keep this in mind!

IMAGE: Many thanks to the ever-abounding Word Porn Facebook page!

Artdog Quote of the Week: The Best Things

IMAGE CREDIT: Word Porn strikes again! Many thanks! 

Artdog Quote of the Week: Breathless

When we seek to express ourselves, it behooves us to look beyond ourselves to the experience we can offer to others. It is when art is experienced and reacted to, that it becomes complete.

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Word Readers Facebook page.

Artdog Quote of the Week: How do you make people Feel?

A word for all Artists (whatever your medium); for that matter, for ALL of us:

IMAGE CREDIT: This image has been floating around on Facebook. I found it on Word Porn's page. 

Artdog Quote of the Week: a Bonus Thought for the New Year

IMAGE CREDIT: Thanks to Kristen Lamb's Blog for this image!

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Why Humans Need Art

The first time I had occasion to write the date and time this morning, I immediately thought, "Oh. By this time both of the Towers were down."

I suppose every American old enough to remember 9/11/2001 has a moment like that. "By this time the first plane had struck."  "By this time the North Tower was down."  "By this time the world had changed."

"9/11 at the World Trade Center," image from The History Channel website.

I watched a TV video of the second plane hitting the South Tower that day, not long after it happened, and it looked like movie special effects. This can't be happening was the first reaction for most of us, I think. Reading the sequence of that day's events still feels like reading the synopsis of a thriller novel--and a rather over-the-top one, at that.

However, no protagonist raced to overcome seemingly-insurmountable odds and defeated personal demons to save the day and stop those planes, as they most likely would have, if it really were a thriller novel.

Real is messy, often brutal, meaningless. Yet humans still grope for meaning. It's a gut instinct, a reflex, an involuntary response. We react, we grieve, we meditate on what happened. And then we begin to make art.

In large and small ways, consciously and unconsciously, we take our experiences and our understanding of life, and we do this human thing where we take often-meaningless events and within them, within ourselves, we find meaning.

Only a few of us take the extra step of using that meaning-making process to feed the creation of what we call "works of art." But without that universal human seedbed of meaning-making, no painting would ever be painted, no song written or sung, no story told. 

And no sense ever made of anything.

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to The History Channel Website for the sequence of the plane hitting the South Tower on 9/11/2001.

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Artpromotivate's "99 Inspirational Artist Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Inspirationfeed, and the Inspirationfeed Pinterest board, "Quotes."

Artdog Quote of the Week

Some days it requires no effort (when we're lucky).  Other days, you definitely need the club.  Just keep at it.

IMAGE CREDIT: Many thanks to Goose 501^st/TK Bear Crew member’s “Diary of a Death Starlette” blog.