I’ve considered myself an artist beginning at age five or six. I love creating art but I’m also a student of art history and read any and all information I can find. Here are a few samples of art history covering many decades and artists.
- The world’s largest art gallery is the Winter Palace and the neighboring Hermitage in Leningrad, Russia. One has to walk 15 miles to visit each of the 322 galleries, which house nearly 3,000,000 works of art and archaeological remains.
- The largest painting in the world is The Battle of Gettysburg, painted in 1883 by Paul Philippoteaux and 16 assistants, who worked for 2 1/2 years. It is 410 feet long, 70 feet high, and weighs 11,792 pounds. In 1964, the painting was bought by Joe King of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
- Henri Matisse’s La Bateau, hung in New York’s Museum of modern Art for 47 days in 1961 before someone noticed it was upside down. About 116,000 people had passed in front of the painting before the error was noted.
- Vincent Van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting.
- In 1930, during the depths of the depression, Andrew Mellon, the American financier, bought 21 paintings from Russia’s Hermitage Museum for $7 million. The Russians needed the cash, and this American millionaire has lots of it, even during the depression.
- As penance for a quarrel with Pope Julius II, Michelangelo, in 1505, began a more than year-long project creating a gigantic bronze portrait of His Holiness. Later, the portrait was melted down for cannon.
- “I am so rich that I just wiped out 100,000 francs,” said Picasso, after making a new picture he didn’t like disappear from his canvas.
- The genre of art known as Cubism derived its name from a belittling remark made by Henri Matisse in reference to a Braque painting. Matisse said that the landscape looked as though it were wholly made up of little cubes.
- In his earliest and poverty-stricken days, Pablo Picasso kept warm by burning his drawings.
- Pablo Picasso, when he died in 1973, left in for repositories in the South of France the following: 1876 paintings, 1355 sculptures, 2,880 ceramic pieces, more than 11,000 drawings and sketches, and some 27,000 etchings, engravings, and lithographs in various stages of completion.
YOU JUST NEED TO BE DEAD TO BE FAMOUS
I’ve always considered myself something of an artist. Most artists lack a certain amount of self-confidence about their works and don’t even understand why. I know I do. Other people view artists entirely different than the artists themselves. It’s something I’ve been trying to figure out for most of my life and no matter how much I create I always have doubts about my abilities. Even the people close to me don’t get it at all. It’s frustrating to say the least and I’ll probably never figure it out. Every artist I’ve ever known suffers through the same nonsense in one way or another. Here are a few quotes about art and artists from some of the greats of history.
- “All art is subversive.” Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
- “An artist must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye.” Michaelangelo (1475-1564)
- “The more I become decomposed, the more sick and fragile I am, the more I become an artist.” Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890)”
- “Today, as you know, I am famous and very rich. But when I’m alone with myself, I haven’t the courage to consider myself an artist, in the great and ancient sense of the word . . . I’m only a public entertainer, who understands his age.” Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
It makes me feel better about myself when I hear doubts voiced by great artist like Picasso. I can put my doubts to rest for now but without question they’ll return as soon as my next project begins.
“IT IS ART, AND ART ALONE, THAT REVEALS US TO OURSELVES”
(Oscar Wilde 1854-1900)
I’ve been a coffee addict in a serious way since my time in the U.S. Army. During those years my Army buddies and I drank a great quantity of what was called coffee. It was strong and thick and black as night. It was really just a poor man’s substitute for “speed. It would keep you alert for hours on end while patrolling or carousing in the nearby villages until all hours. It was as important to us as the food we ate and there was an endless supply available in the mess hall around the clock.
I returned to the states to resume my civilian life and within a short time became a member of the Pennsylvania State Police. The coffee was a little weaker but we drank it constantly as we patrolled both at night and during the day. And no, donuts weren’t as prevalent as the media and stand-up up comics would lead you to believe. It was all about the caffeine.
I come by my coffee addiction honestly and it still remains an important part of my existence to this day. Just as a point of information I feel the need to reiterate; I hate Starbucks. They’ve made coffee a yuppie joke to those of us who are real coffee drinkers.
With International Coffee Day approaching on September 29 I thought you might find a little coffee trivia interesting since it’s been an important commodity for millions of people throughout the centuries. Here we go. . .
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Once in the past, coffee was believed to be the devil’s drink. Pope Vincent III heard about it and decided to taste it. He enjoyed it so much he baptized it, saying "Coffee is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels (Muslims) have exclusive use of it."
Both the American Revolution and the French Revolution were born in coffee houses. The American Revolution was developed by patriots who were customers in the Green Dragon (some say it was the Green Lion) Public House in London. The infamous French Revolution in 1789 was spurred on by Camille Desmoulins’s verbal campaign in coffeehouses.
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Vincent Van Gogh was a big frequenter of the café society and famously said “I have tried to show the café as a place where one can go mad.”
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An interesting Turkish law decreed that it was quite acceptable for a woman to ask for a divorce if her husband failed to provide her with adequate coffee rations.
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Coffee was denounced by many religious leaders as the drink of Satan. Coffee houses were known as “hotbeds of sedition”. In the 1700’s many coffee houses were ordered to close.
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There are 900 different flavors of Arabica. Complex and very volatile, they deteriorate if exposed to air and light.
The original blend called "Maxwell House" got its name from The Maxwell House Hotel, where it was first served in Nashville Tennessee in 1886 (also where Teddy Roosevelt was heard to say "good to the last drop", creating the Maxwell House slogan).
In 1732, at the height of his creative genius, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Cantata No. 211 or Coffee Cantata. It is considered by many to be a work of perfection.
In Turkey, bridegrooms were once required to make a promise during their wedding ceremonies to always provide their new wives with coffee. Failure to do so would be grounds for divorce (no pun intended).
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The second most widely used product in the world after oil.
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It is a living to more than 100 million people.
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It is consumed at the rate of 1400 million cups per day.
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The world’s second most popular drink after water.
Beethoven, a known coffee lover, was not only particular about his music. He was also particular about his coffee brew. He always wanted 60 beans for each cup of his coffee.
Today, there must be 10,000 coffee shops in Venice alone! (In the year 1763, there were already over 200 coffee shops in Venice)
Cappuccino derived its name due to its similarity in color to the robes of an order of Monks called the Capuchins.
Well-known performers such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan began their careers performing in coffeehouses. Another singer, Lightnin’ Hopkins, complained about his woman’s neglect with her domestic situation because of her coffeehouse socializing in his 1969 song, Coffeehouse Blues.
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Well there you have it. Every thing you always wanted to know about coffee but were afraid to ask. It’s now time for me to get back to my new friend, the K-Kup coffee maker, for a hot and sweet cup of vanilla/biscotti. Man that’s the cats ass.
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