Ingres considered bright colors “anti-historic” and warned his students against them. “Better to fall into gray,” he said, “than into bright colors.” Color, as Delacroix saw it, was essential to painting. “Remember,” he urged in his journal, “the enemy of all painting is gray.”
-
-
Drawing or Color, Part II: The Florentines versus the Venetians
They called Michelangelo "the divine one." Titian was "the prince of painters." But these two contemporaries were on the opposite side of one of art's great debates.
-
On Thompson Pond
Whenever I went for a walk around the pond I would stop at the bridge for a while and look at this tree ... Each time that I returned it would show me something new. Each time I would bring my memory of the place with me, and each time I would leave with my vision slightly refined.
-
Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction” and Flannery O’Connor
Quentin Tarentino’s film “Pulp Fiction” and Flannery O’Connor’s stories smell of nihilism. But at the end of the film, and at the end of O’Connor’s stories, the light of Providence glimmers tantalizingly. So there was a meaning after all! But it was not the meaning I was expecting.
-
The Ancient Japanese Art of Shibori
Even if you don’t know it by name, you have probably seen shibori-inspired creations before. The blue and white 'watercolor-esque' patterns have started to appear on everything from throw pillows to summer dresses. Shibori is trendy now, but it is an ancient art.
-
On the Importance of Forgetting
Most attention in our culture is given to the importance of remembering. But it turns out that forgetting can be just as important. The inability to forget can be as destructive as the inability to remember.
-
“Call it”
It’s nineteen fifty-eight. It’s been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it’s here. And I’m here. And I’ve got my hand over it. And it’s either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it.
-
“I am not an iconographer”
Why did my teacher, who regularly takes commissions for iconography and teaches iconography workshops, who spent five years in an Orthodox monastery training as an iconographer, draw back from saying the words, “I am an iconographer”?
-
Drawing or Color, Part I: The Poussinistes versus the Rubénistes
Every age has had arguments about art and beauty that are deeply entangled in questions of philosophy, society and even morality. One of the most heated took place in France at in the late 17th century.
-
Blessed Are the Losers
For the most part, the Coen brothers don't seem particularly interested in the stories of those who come in first place. They appear to be more preoccupied by those who come in last. They don't even seem to be as inspired by a good old-fashioned "underdog" parable as most people are. (If the Coens told the story of David and Goliath, the little shepherd boy would definitely not have been the victor.) How many other filmmakers can you think of that consistently make their movies about losers rather than winners?
