An examination of the art of pottery through the work of two world renowned potters Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada.
The film traces the entire process of pottery-making, beginning with the digging of clay and its
preparation, and on through to long sequences of pots being thrown on the wheel.
“Essential to his philosophy is an oriental view that the role of the individual in the creation of true art is unobtrusive. Mike's work has maintained this philosophy in the making of unshowy pots with simply applied surface textures and subtle glazes sourced from naturally occurring materials. It is a rare approach that has required during his career an intense personal application. As a result his work enjoys the support of many serious collectors of English pottery, as well as that of some respected critics whose judgement of Mike's work is unusually and openly generous, simply that it has beauty.” Paul Vincent, Founding Editor of ‘Ceramics in Society’
http://www.mikedoddpottery.com/
This mural by famed Dada artist Marcel Janco is seeing the light of day for the first time in half a century. The discovery of the mural came as the Janco Dada museum in Israel began a restoration project of Janco's art studio in the village of Ein Hod. Eli Shaltiel is performing the restoration work and discovered the mural behind a layer of plaster. Mural Restorer, Eli Shaltiel, saying (Hebrew): "I suddenly reached a black dot, I continued to expose it further and we realized it is in fact a line. I continued following that line that day, following it wherever it will take me. I already realized it is a painting and was very excited. At the end of the day I exposed a fragment of about 30X30 centimeter, showing some kind of shape made of lines. Retroactively it was a knee and a small part of a breast." Janco was born in Bucharest in 1895 and adopted an art movement known as "Dada"-- an anti-conformist style that encouraged the use of irrational ideas. In 1941, he moved to Israel and formed a close-knit community of artists in the village. Museum curator Raya Zommer-Tal says Janco plastered over the mural himself. Director and Curator of the Janco Dada Museum in Ein Hod, Raya Zomemr-Tal, saying (English): "It wasn't done as something that a museum should exhibit it. And this is a different kind of a work of art, that you do and you know that you are going to demolish it. And we also found protocols about it, because there was a time that they wanted to leave it, but Janco said 'no, I don't mind. I am an artist but it's ok to repaint a work of art." It's believed more murals are hidden under layers of paint, which will further reveal Janco's off-beat humor, such as painting a face on human buttocks.
Andrew Schmertz, Reuters
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Most people would look on this Japanese art - depicting various men and women engaged in flatulent combat - as 200-year-old toilet humour.
But the artwork, known as 'He-gassen' (or 'fart battle'), is in fact a pointed comment on political and social changes in Japan.
Made by an unknown artist or artists, the scroll depicts a number of different scenes - all linked by the fact that at least one character is directing a debilitating blast of flatulence towards another character.
They may be riding on horseback, or directing a foul wind through a gap in a wall, but the meaning is the same.
This scroll and similar drawings were created in response to increasing intrusion of Europeans in Japan during the Edo period - between 1603 and 1868.
Just like renaissance painters left hidden meaning in their work, or modern-day cartoonists provide humorous takes on serious political events, the He-gassen scroll has specific meaning that would have been instantly interpreted at the time.
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Born Eva Amalia Striker in Budapest on Nov. 13, 1906, she was the daughter of Laura Polanyi Striker and Alexander Striker. Her father owned a textile factory. Her mother was a historian, feminist and political activist.
In 1923, Ms. Zeisel entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest to study painting. She withdrew three semesters later, inspired by an aunt’s Hungarian peasant pottery collection to become a ceramist. She apprenticed to Jakob Karapancsik, a member of the guild of chimney sweepers, oven makers, roof tilers, well diggers and potters, and graduated as a journeyman.
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When this documentary was filmed in Ojai, California in 1992 Beatrice was a one hundred year old internationally recognized artist who had led a truly remarkable life. As one of the core members of the renegade dada art movement in the 1910's in New York, Beatrice Wood was intimately involved with Marcel Duchamp and Henri Pierre Roché, whose novel Jules et Jim is based on the relationship between the three of them. Beatrice Wood was Duchamp's muse, and she was the last surviving link to those heady times. In 1962 the novel was adapted for the silver screen and made into the film Jules et Jim that starred Jeanne Moreau and Oskar Werner. It was directed by François Truffaut.
The film was the winner of the CINE Golden Eagle and was the first American film to win the Golden Panda award at the Sichuan Television Festival, Chengdu China. The film appeared nationally on PBS in late 1993.
Of note is that Beatrice served as the inspiration for the character "Rose," in the film Titanic. The director, James Cameron, spent quality time with Beatrice before filming Titanic. Hence, the music in the background is from the soundtrack of Titanic. So, turn your speakers on and enjoy.
Tom Neff produced and directed this film.
Unless indicated, Lou Delgado is the photographer.
Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) , First Painter to the King Louis XIV, was the founder of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the foremost proponent of French classicism. On 28 March 1671, addressing the Royal Academy, he formally presented his treatise:
"all of the various demonstrations that he has drawn, whether heads of animals or heads of men, making note of the signs that mark their natural inclination." (Procès-verbaux de l'Academie I : 358-359)
While the set of drawings is still conserved in the Louvre, the original text has been lost: we have but a rough synthesis by Nivelon, posthumous digests by Henri Testelin and E. Picart, and the dissertation by Morel d'Arleux accompanying the 1806 edition of the engravings.
Louis-Jean-Marie Morel d'Arleux (1755-1827) was curator of drawings and prints at the Musée Napoléon (today the Musée du Louvre). His interest in Le Brun's "demonstrations" and his devotion to their revival are noteworthy, and relate to the current of neo-classicism then in vogue, a conceptual triangulation linking the Roman and the Napoleonic imperium through the reign of the Sun King.Physiognomy, literally the "knowlege of nature," relates to the assessment of human character through study of physical features. This concept of an inherent concordance of body and soul harks back to Antiquity, and regained currency in 17th-century thought.
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Vrmanes Garden (Latvian: ) is the oldest public garden in the city of Riga, Latvia and currently comprises an area of approximately 5 hectares . The current name is a Latvian transliteration of the gardens original German name. Vrmanes Garden was originally created as Wöhrmann Park in 1814 on behalf of the Governor General of Governorate of Livonia Philip Paulucci , just a couple of years after the outskirts of Riga was burned down during the French invasion of Russia prior to the Siege of Riga . Financing and land for the park was sponsored by the Prussian Consul General to Riga Johann Christoph Wöhrmann (1784-1843) and his mother Anna Gertrud Wöhrmann (née Abels, 1750-1827). The Anna Wöhrmann Memorial depicted on a vintage picture postcardWöhrmann Park was inaugurated with festivities on 8 June 1817 as a fenced 0.8 hectares park with exotic trees, a rose garden and restaurant. A granite obelisk was erected 1829 in the park as a posthumous memorial to Anna Wöhrmann. The memorial was dismantled prior to World War II and recreated 2000 . 1836 the Riga Chemist and Pharmacist Society initiated a mineral water shop in the park restaurant. When the premises became to narrow, reconstructions were conducted according to a project by architect Heinrich Scheel in the years from 1863 to 1864 and 1870 to 1871. 1869 the park had a sundial and fountain installed. Picture postcard dated 1911 showing view of daily life in the garden 1881, the director of the Riga City Gardens and Parks Georg Kuphaldt expanded the park territory considerably
Scientific and mathematical geniuses are distinguished by a particular elegance of mind. Fiendish complexity becomes something the non-specialist can comprehend. Rarer still is the scientist whose mental elegance creates, or reveals, something of physical beauty. Watson and Crick might have staked a claim for the double helix that is the molecular structure of DNA.
Benoit Mandelbrot, whose death has just been announced, was a mathematician who made it his life's work to find beautiful shapes in nature and decode their secrets. In minute ways, he saw perfect order in apparent chaos, and enabled others to see it, too. He devised, and developed the study of, fractals – seemingly random shapes that conformed to patterns when broken down into one repeating form.
His fractals were invariably things of beauty – seen in phenomena as different as snowflakes and cauliflowers. But his methods also had practical applications that included generating graphics and producing actual works of art. He turned his mind also to economics, declaring the global financial system too complex to function properly. How right he turned out to be. If yesterday belonged to the economists, perhaps tomorrow will be the mathematician's world.(via independent)
in 1968 Lia (or Lea) Schubert arrived in Israel, after having served for eleven years as Artistic Director of the Ballet Academy in Stockholm. She decided to settle in the artists' village in Ein Hod establishing a school as well as a dance company in Haifa. The school attracted many students, young people and adults, dance fans and professionals, dancers and artists of various fields
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According to Israeli law all 18 year olds are drafted to the military. This film follows a young woman, a member of Israel’s national Synchronized Swimming team, during her last year before being drafted.
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