[Click image to enlarge: bottom image is updated version, can you see the difference ?]
These days I've been stressing about all sorts of things and it is time to put the breaks down on all this irritation and anxiety. I feel like a locomotive with too much steam barreling through the landscape. At times like this, I feel that the only way to relax, is to do yoga breathing exercises or just going for a long walk or a bike ride. Simple, yet I forget so often.
[Click image to enlarge]The "Collyer Death Chair" has an unnerving feel to it and a dark history that will bring chills to anyone’s bones. The Collyer brothers were famous examples of hoarding and obsessive-compulsive behavior.
Even today, if the fire brigade comes to your house and you hear them report a Collyer Mansion call back to the firehouse, you’ll know its time to start tidying up. The term has become synonymous with pack rats and homes that are chucked full of garbage. On March 21, 1947, New York police received an anonymous tip-off that there was a dead body in the house. Breaking down the front door, they were unable to pass the wall of rubbish. Gaining access through a second floor window, they found the body of Homer. An autopsy established he had not eaten for several days and had died of a heart attack. No one knew where Langley was.The whole place was a maze of warrens and nests and tunnels. Everything was booby-trapped. The tunnels were full of trip wires that would bring debris showering down on any intruder.Workers had to cut through the roof and lift out 136 tons of junk, floor by floor: the grand pianos, two organs, and a clavichord; human medical specimens preserved in glass jars; the chassis of a Model-T Ford; a library of thousands of medical and engineering books; an armory of weapons; gas chandeliers; the folding top of a horse drawn carriage; a rusted bicycle; three dressmaking dummies; a saw horse; a doll carriage; a rusted bed spring; a kerosene stove; a checkerboard; a child's chair; countless old newspapers; pinup girl photos; 6 U.S. flags and one Union Jack; a primitive X-Ray machine; and 34 bank deposit books with the balance totaling $3,007.18.
Two American brothers, Homer Lusk Collyer [Novemer 6, 1881 -March 21, 1947) and Langley Collyer [October 3rd, 1885 – March 1947] became famous because of their snobbish nature, filth in their homes, and compulsive hoarding. The brothers are often cited as an example of compulsive hoarding associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), as well as disposophobia or 'Collyer brothers syndrome', a fear of throwing anything away.
For decades, neighborhood rumors swirled around the rarely-seen, unemployed men and their home at 2078 Fifth Avenue Manhattan, where they obsessively collected newspapers, books, furniture, musical instruments, and many other items. Both were found dead in the Harlem brownstone where they had lived as hermits, surrounded by over 100 tons of rubbish that they had amassed over several decades..!
[Click image to enlarge] [watercolor paper, collage, gouache, aquarelle, pencil..]
Look carefully, and you see the tiny wrinkly waves the fish produces while she knits..
This collage-sketch is absurd, strange and perhaps somewhat disturbing. Does it come close to surrealism ? Does it have anything to do with symbolism ? Or any -isms aside, what does it convey ?
A group of artists, the Surrealists sought to explore an inner reality beyond the rational world. They often used symbols to portray bizarre, dreamlike landscapes and were influenced by the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud.
The Surrealists were interested in more distinct forms than the Impressionists, who often depicted objects dissolved in bright sunlight. Like Dada artists, they experimented with new subjects. Unlike Dada artists, the Surrealists were not in favor of anarchy as a way of protesting politics and war. Andre Breton, poet and critic was known as one of the founding fathers of the Surrealist movement. In his treatise of 1924, First Manifesto of Surrealism, Breton defined the doctrines of the movement. In it, Breton emphasized the importance of an "automatic" approach and a dream state for creativity.
One of the most controversial and key figure of the Surrealist movement was Salvador Dali. He was intrigued by Freud's ideas of the unconscious mind, and the symbolic significance these ideas held, inspired most of his art. Dali, more than many other Surrealists, combined realism into his strange landscapes, giving them a startling, familiar quality. His goal was "to record unconscious objects as precisely as possible."
"Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning." Igor Stravinsky
[Click image to enlarge]A Russian art movement originated from the book Neo-primitivizm (1913) written by A. Schevchenko.This book introduces a new style in painting with elements of cubism, futurism and traditional Russian folk art. The work Neo-primitivism in the West is also used as a wider term to describe the work of artists who aspire to the aesthetic of primitivism. One of these artists is Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky [June 17th, 1882 - April 6th, 1971], who was a Russian composer. He is considered by both the West and his native Russia to be the most influential composer of the 20th century. An example of primitivism in music is Stravinsky's third ballet, The rite of Spring. When it first premiered in Paris, a riot erupted in the audience — spectators were shocked and outraged by its pagan primitive sound, its harsh dissonance and percussions and the pounding rhythms — but but it too was recognized as a masterpiece and influenced composers all over the world.
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