You can call me Art, or Mr. de Triomphe

Just a fun post.

I have now officially switched my blogger name from Micmmic to Art de Triomphe, as you'll see at the bottom of my posts.

And as you may have guessed, neither one is my real name - or has anything to do with it, for that matter. : )

Garry Kasparov: "Nobody in Russia cares about chess"

The quote in the title of this blog post was made by a Grandmaster and former world chess champion. If you don't believe me, please go to the London Times piece published here.

Who would have thought that democracy in Russia would bring an end to, of all things, the old Soviet domination of this sport? Will wonders never cease?

As well, Garry Kasparov has just written a new book entitled How Life Imitates Chess. He's an extremely intelligent man, a great writer (if you've ever seen his occasional contributions to the Wall Street Journal) and has a real political mind. I haven't seen this book yet, but I highly recommend it based on his past insights and political commentary.

Second-rate art?

It's probably hard for some people to stomach the phrase "second-rate art" when it refers to the work of the Old Masters or various Impressionist painters.

Terry Teachout, however, has made a very wise assessment in this regard, "...second-rate art, however derivative, can sometimes teach you as much as first-rate art about the nature of greatness."

The rest of Teachout's column - based on an exhibition of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and some contemporaries - will be published in the March 31st edition of the Wall Street Journal. I'll post a link next week, if possible.

Two Rubens, two views

There's an interesting exhibit at the Hermitage Museum of two versions of a single painting by Pieter Paul Rubens entitled The Statue of Ceres.

One version has been part of the Hermitage collection since 1768. The other version is privately owned by Mr. Herman Bayeler, who resides in Switzerland.

The Hermitage has a short explanation of the exhibit. Here's the most unique section:

When repeating his works, Rubens, as a rule, changed something in them, whether details of secondary importance or separate features in the appearance of the main personages. Researchers believe that the Ceres which now belongs to the Bayeler collection was made approximately in the years 1615 – 1617 and is more likely another version of the Hermitage painting by the artist than a simple duplication.

Interesting, wouldn't you say?

Paris Hilton and Britney Spears

For some quick amusement, here's a decent piece from the Hattiesburg American about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and other so-called teen idols.

Retired teacher Gail Hamwi is absolutely right when she says, "...the emptiness of today's teen icons boggles the mind." It really is quite shocking at times."

And I also liked this part of Hamwi's op-ed piece:

Let them live their lives as they choose. They don't owe anyone anything. Someone, however, in the adult world does. The response to such pitiful values must rise from the inner guts of society itself. The Parises of our world must not be quashed. They must simply become irrelevant.

To quote one of Hamwi's targets, "now, that's hot!" : )

No appeal in the Beaverbrook Art Gallery case?

Earlier this week, the London-based Beaverbrook Foundation lost a high-profile case concerning the ownership of 132 paintings currently on display at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in New Brunswick.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Peter Cory ruled that 85 paintings were the property of the art gallery, since Lord Beaverbrook gave them as a gift when it opened in 1959. The remaining 48 paintings given after the art gallery opened are still the property of the foundation.

Like most people, I thought that this unusual verdict would be appealed. But now it appears that an appeal might not happen due to high costs.

Great art exhibition in Hawaii

I have always wanted to go to Hawaii to see the island, enjoy the weather and visit the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts is an 80-year-old gallery with - believe it or not - some of the finest Japanese prints in the world. This is thanks in large part to the author James Michener, who donated over 5,400 vintage Japanese prints to their permanent collection, some of which can be viewed here.

They currently have a nice exhibit running as a tribute to their founder, Anna Rice Cooke. You can look at four pieces in the exhibit here.

Hmm...I wonder how much is a ticket to Honolulu this time of year... : )

The work of Lyonel Feininger

Surfing the Internet this morning, I happened to come across a new book of art by the late painter/cartoonist Lyonel Feininger. This book is a collection of his comic strip art, to be published by Fantagraphics Books.

Feininger had a fairly extensive career as a painter. He was a modern artist with expressionist and impressionist leanings - you can see a little bit of Picasso and even Kadinsky in some of his work.

Here's an overview of some of his paintings. I quite like some of his sketches of sailboats, which is an obvious tribute to J.M.W. Turner.

But Feininger also had a short albeit influential career as a cartoonist. He created two comic strips, The Kin-der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie's World. Both strips were beautifully drawn and well-written, and are still highly regarded today. The former strip ran from April 29-November 18, 1906, and the latter from August 19, 1906-February 17, 1907, both published in the Chicago Sunday Tribune.

If you want to learn some more about Feininger, his biography can be found here, and his Wikipedia entry is here.

O.J. Simpson's book

The rights to O.J. Simpson's controversial book, If I Did It, will be auctioned off on April 17. It will be interesting to see who ends up with the winning bid. I'd imagine that it will be a Hollywood studio or book publisher, although the Goldman family is still a possibility.

British-owned Rembrandt painting to head to Amsterdam?

The Art Newspaper is reporting that Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum is in negotiations to purchase an original Rembrandt painting from a private collection.

The painting, entitled Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet, is currently owned by the Penryhn family, and resides at the National Trust-owned Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in north Wales. According to the article, the family no longer controls the castle. (The painting is currently on loan to the Rijksmuseum.)

The price tag? £40m, which would double any Rembrandt has ever sold at auction. As reporter Martin Bailey wrote, "If the sale to the Rijksmuseum proceeds, a UK export licence would almost certainly be deferred, because of the painting’s importance, allowing a UK buyer to match the price. The public collections with a special interest would be the National Trust (to keep the picture at Penrhyn), the National Museum and Gallery of Wales in Cardiff and the National Gallery in London."

Finally, some interesting facts from the last two paragraphs of the article:

Meanwhile, Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet remains on loan to the Rijksmuseum until 29 April. If it then stays in Amsterdam, there will be three Rembrandt masterpieces left in British private collections: Judas and the Thirty Pieces of Silver (Marchioness of Normanby, loaned for two months every year to the National Gallery), An Old Woman Reading (Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, on view at Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire) and a 1657 Self-portrait (Duke of Sutherland, on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland since 1945).

Astonishingly, in 1949 Portrait of Catrina Hooghsaet was valued at only £1,000, with the family’s pre-war Rolls Royce worth three times more. The car still survives at Penrhyn Castle, although its value has long been eclipsed by the Rembrandt.

Quite amazing, don't you think?

I'll trade you a J.M.W. Turner for a piece of Chinese art

Although the title of this blog post sounds odd, that's kind of what happened recently.

According to an article in The Art Newspaper, Baron Guy Ellens - a Belgian art trader - will be auctioning off his 14 J.M.W. Turner watercolours to focus on contemporary Chinese art. Sotheby's has estimated that Ellens' Turner collection will sell for between £10m-£15m ($19.7m-$29.55m).

Traditional art lovers may be completely confounded by this decision, or simply disagree with it. Put me in the latter category.

To be fair, the baron recently "founded the first private museum for both Chinese and international contemporary art in Beijing, which is to open in October." So, it's understandable why he decided to part with his 14 Turner watercolours.

But 14 original Turner watercolours?! Good Lord - I wish I could afford just one!

Further on Charles M. Schulz

It occurred to me that some of you might want to do further research on Charles M. Schulz, the creator of Peanuts. If so, Schulz's Wikipedia entry is here. The official Peanuts website is here. A few videos of Schulz and Peanuts - plus some parodies - can be found on Google Video here. And here are some good fansites.

Charles M. Schulz Museum

Ever seen the website for the Charles M. Schulz Museum? If not, click here. It's nicely done, and gives you the chance to become more familiar with the creator of the comic strip Peanuts, his life and work and different exhibitions. For example, take a look at this exhibition, which is based on some recently discovered Schulz artwork on the actual nursery wall of his daughter's old bedroom.

Harry Potter keeps its original cast

As expected, the three main stars of the Harry Potter films - Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint - have signed on for the final two instalments.

FUN WEEKEND FACT: The fictional title reigns of Rocky Balboa

Here's proof that you can find some interesting things on the Internet if you do a little bit of digging.

I was reading some movie reviews today about Rocky Balboa, and I happened to catch this unusual notation when I searched through "Union Cane" at Wikipedia:

Heavy Weight Champions as acknowledged by the Rocky films: (Fictional time line)(In Rocky mythology the late Ali era, the Larry Holmes era and the post Lennox Lewis era does not exist and neither do most of the portion belt holders.)(Some non fictional events do occur but within an alternate time span.)
1967: Muhammad Ali (stripped of title)
1968-1971: Joe Frazier (Wins Vacant Title)
1971-1972: George Foreman (KO Frazier)
1972-1973: Muhammad Ali (KO Foreman) (retires after the Thrilla in Manila)
1973-1976: Apollo Creed (Wins Vacant Title)
1976-1981: Rocky Balboa (KO Creed)
1981-1982: Clubber Lang (KO Balboa)
1982-1984: Rocky Balboa (KO Lang) (Rocky is stripped of title then retires)
1984-1986: Clubber Lang (Wins Vacant Title)(Retires)
1986-1990: Mike Tyson (Wins vacant title) (Mike Tyson is sent to prison. The title is vacated.)
1990: Union Cane (wins the vacant title)
1990-1991: Tommy Gunn (KO Cane)
1991-1993: Evander Holyfield (KO Gunn)
1993-1995: Riddick Bowe (Decisions Holyfield) (title splits because Bowe refuses to fight mandatory challenger.)
1994-1995: Ivan Drago (WBC)(retires)
1995: Evander Holyfield (WBA and IBF) (Decisions Bowe)
1996: Michael Moorer (WBA and IBF)(Decisions Holyfield)
1996: Lennox Lewis (wins vacant WBC title)
1997-1998: George Foreman (KO Moorer) (WBA and IBF)
1997: Mike Tyson (Tyson wins vacant IBF and WBA title that is stripped from Foreman.)
1998: Evander Holyfield (KO Tyson)(IBF and WBA)
1999-2002: Lennox Lewis (Decision Holyfield)(unifies titles) (retire)
2003-present: Mason Dixon (Former Light Heavyweight and Cruiser Weight Champion wins vacant title)

I have often wondered if there was an alternative heavyweight title history in the Rocky films. This notation - and I'm not sure of the primary source - seems to imply just that.

In order, we have Apollo Creed (Rocky, Rocky II), two reigns of Clubber Lang (Rocky III), Ivan Drago with the WBC title (Rocky IV), Union Cane and Tommy Gunn (Rocky V) and Mason Dixon (Rocky Balboa). As well as the two reigns of Rocky Balboa himself.

This is your fun weekend fact.

Jane Austen painting for sale

What is believed by some to be the only painting of author Jane Austen has gone on the auction block in an upcoming Old Master Paintings sale. It was painted by Ozias Humphry in 1788 or 1789. Christie's estimates the portrait will ultimately reach $400,000-$800,000. So, if you are curious as to what Austen looked like as a young girl, here is the link.

French painters and female portraits

Art Daily has a wonderful gallery of ten paintings from the NOMA exhibit entitled "Paintings of Women in French Society from Daumier to Picasso." All of them are well worth the price of admission...which, in this case, is free! : )

French painters and female protraits

Art Daily has a wonderful gallery of ten paintings from the NOMA exhibit entitled "Paintings of Women in French Society from Daumier to Picasso." All of them are well worth the price of admission...which, in this case, is free! : )

William Hogarth exhibit at Tate Britain

There is an exhibit of the great British painter William Hogarth running at Tate Britain until April 29. A few of the paintings in two rooms are available for viewing. Room 7 has portraits, and Room 9 has larger pantings. Go take a look if you get a chance.

What is avant-garde?

Here is a provocative - albeit not entirely valid - article by Dushko Petrovich about the need for a "practical avant-garde" in the art world. Petrovich is the artist at residence at London's Royal Academy, and this article is a condensed version of his remarks at a panel discussion on the avant-garde.

I agree that the term avant-garde is used rather liberally when pertaining to the arts. Art is a often a matter of taste and choice. Some people like traditional art, some people like modern art, and others like both or none of the above. Therefore, what one person may regard as avant-garde in art may be seen by another person as lacking style or character.

Petrovich prefers to use the late painter/critic Fairfield Porter's definition - avant-garde refers to the people with the most energy.

What does that mean, exactly? It could refer to passion, vibrancy of colours, use of mediums and materials, or changing an art style to your specifications. From a modern perspective, this could refer to the work of Picasso, Dali, Warhol and so on. Again, a lot of depends on what you perceive as being avant-garde. Or whether you perceive anything as being avant-garde, I guess.

Hence, Petrovich believes there is a need for a practical avant-garde in art. He defines it in the following way:

A practical avant-garde is post-careerist. It seeks out low rent and private time, and it concentrates on powerful objects.

A practical avant-garde experiments, but is honest about the results, displaying only the work that is full-fledged and generous. It surveys past achievements with similar honesty, looking at past experiments with an eye for what was truly strong. It knows that images are ubiquitous and coercive, while real pictures are rare.

All of this means that the practical avant-garde has a lot of work to do. It knows that manifesto is the weakest genre and that promises are irrelevant, so it will use words but not hide behind them.

Finally, the practical avant-garde is grateful to the impractical avant-garde, but we will not defer to it.

I don't really agree with this position at all. Practical avant-garde is "post-careerist?" I know that artists are not attracted to wealth and luxury, but I doubt that all of them would look at a career in said fashion. And experimentation with colours and styles is very personal. One painter's honesty is another painter's dishonesty. For example, a painter may honestly believe that grass is purple and will paint it that colour, but it's a dishonest perception since grass is understood to be green. So, is the painter regarded as being practical avant-garde for painting the grass as he perceives it to be, or a fraud because his perception of grass isn't realistic?

These are just basic examples, of course. But what these examples prove is that Petrovich's definition of practical avant-garde is very questionable. Provocative, but questionable.

But Petrovich is right about one thing, "the practical avant-garde has a lot of work to do." Especially when it comes to selling the general public about this definition.

The myth behind notable quotables

The title of this blog post refers to a notable quotable supposedly made by George Washington in reference to chopping down his father's cherry tree, "I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my little hatchet."

There's one little problem. Washington's famous quote - which was written by an early biographer, Parson Weems, in 1806 - is probably a lie. There's no proof that the man who grew up to be the first American president did not cut down his father's cherry tree, except a 200-year-old anecdote with questionable roots.

But this is not the first time that a notable quotable wasn't so notable and didn't deserve to be quotable.

Louis Menard has written a great piece in the Books section of The New Yorker on this very topic. The first paragraph of Menard's review is intriguing in itself:

"Sherlock Holmes never said “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Neither Ingrid Bergman nor anyone else in “Casablanca” says “Play it again, Sam”; Leo Durocher did not say “Nice guys finish last”; Vince Lombardi did say “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” quite often, but he got the line from someone else. Patrick Henry almost certainly did not say “Give me liberty, or give me death!”; William Tecumseh Sherman never wrote the words “War is hell”; and there is no evidence that Horace Greeley said “Go west, young man.” Marie Antoinette did not say “Let them eat cake”; Hermann Göring did not say “When I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my gun”; and Muhammad Ali did not say “No Vietcong ever called me nigger.” Gordon Gekko, the character played by Michael Douglas in “Wall Street,” does not say “Greed is good”; James Cagney never says “You dirty rat” in any of his films; and no movie actor, including Charles Boyer, ever said “Come with me to the Casbah.” Many of the phrases for which Winston Churchill is famous he adapted from the phrases of other people, and when Yogi Berra said “I didn’t really say everything I said” he was correct."

I'm not going to spoil the rest of the article, except to say that many quotations you have heard in your life have gone through some interesting modification and/or storytelling. It's a good piece, so take a look at it.

Bad book! Be gone with ye!

This is a really amusing column in The London Times about the books we haven't read, and how to talk about them. It gave me a good laugh.

One minor point of contention. Times columnist Sarah Vine wrote the following about Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code:

"I don’t know anyone with an ounce of intellectual pride who will confess to having read it, and yet statistically some of them must be lying."

Now you have, Ms. Vine. But it was a good column, so I'll let it slide. : )

(h/t Arts and Letters Daily)

Cathy Seipp, RIP

Cathy Seipp was a great writer. She was intelligent, funny and wise beyond her years. Not bad for a Manitoba-born girl who made her way to Los Angeles, wrote about Hollywood and was a conservative.

Read some of Cathy's work on her blog here. Her obituary is here. Read a tribute by Susan Estrich here, by John O'Sullivan here, and by Kathryn Jean Lopez here. A National Review Online symposium on Seipp can be found here. And her daughter, Maia Lazar, has a blog here.

Rest in peace, Cathy.

Alice in the USSR...er, Wonderland...er, USSR

Most people are familiar with Lewis Carroll's classic children's tale, Alice in Wonderland. Here's a really interesting story of how the book made its way to the Soviet Union in 1967 by way of - believe it or not - Bulgaria. The woman who translated Carroll's book, Nina Demurova, brought Soviet children the purest tale of fantasy that the Iron Curtain had probably seen up to this point. Read all about it...and keep a close eye out for the smiling cheshire cat!

Museum of Communism

I'm not sure how many of you are aware of this. In 2002, a then 36-year-old political science graduate named Glenn Spicker opened the Museum of Communism in the Czech Republic. Spicker had not lived in the country during the Velvet Revolution, and was more well-known for having started up a number of restaurants and bagel shops in Prague. Yet, he opened up this museum, which celebrates the triumph of capitalism over communism. The website for the Museum of Communism can be found here. It's not very high-tech, but it's worth a look.

Richard Wagner and Anti-Semitism

The composer Richard Wagner emotes both sympathy and disdain, depending on who you are talking to.

Wagner's music and lyrics were sources of inspiration for Nazi leader Adolf Hitler (see here, here and here, among many others) due to the former's virulent anti-semitism. Wagner's hatred of Jews is without question.

Yet, there are many people - including a fair chunk of Jewish musicians - that have been trying to get people to stop thinking about Wagner's rage and start listening to Wagner's music. This includes the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981, which played selections from Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" to an audience that had mixed opinions.

With this in mind, here is an interesting piece by A.J. Goldmann in The Jewish Daily Forward about Wagner's opera "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg." This is the opera that Hitler claimed to have attended more than 100 times, and Joseph Goebbels called "the incarnation of our Germanness." That's quite the recommendation, wouldn't you say?

But seriously, Goldmann's piece cleanly deconstructs the opera and proves that people should listen to the beauty of Wagner's music. The history behind the opera and its composer is what it is - and it ain't pretty - but that shouldn't prevent a person from attending a performance. As Lydia Goehr, professor of aesthetics at Columbia University, put it:

"Art is not meant to be there just to make you happy. Go enjoy the music, and realize that sometimes the beauty of the music conflicts with the awfulness of the text."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Leonardo @ the Museum of Science

I recently found a nice little website that the Museum of Science posted on Leonardo da Vinci based on a 1997 exhibit. It's a good little primer on the great painter, his life and work. I would highly recommend the Virtual Leonardo section, which allows you to look at a few examples from the exhibit. Wish I had been there...

Simon Schama videos online

The art historian Simon Schama seems to provoke a black or white reaction in the mainstream. Either people are enamoured with his books and BBC specials, or they can't bear to watch him. I tend to be in the former category.

With this in mind, the Internet-based art newspaper artdaily.org currently has links (on the front page) to two segments of Schama's Power of Art series that was on BBC Two last year - Bernini and Caravaggio. I highly recommend both.

If you want to read more about the Power of Art series, go here.

Green is the colour of...Harry Potter?

The seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series will be released on July 21. Entitled Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the book will be a staggering 784 pages.

Yet, the biggest news about the book seems to revolve around the colour green. More specifically, the environment. Scholastic Inc. has made a deal with the Rainforest Alliance to produce a more environmentally friendly volume.

The seventh book will therefore include the following items:

* Paper containing "a minimum of 30 percent post-consumer waste fiber."
* Nearly two-thirds of the 16,700 tons of paper will be approved by the Forest Stewardship Council, a group which promotes "environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the world's forests."
* A deluxe edition of the new book will be printed on paper containing "100 percent post-consumer waste fiber."

And the point of highlighting this decision is, exactly?

Look, if Scholastic wants to follow the trend of using environmentally friendly paper and products - like the Canadian publisher Raincoast Books - that's up to them. They deserve neither praise nor condemnation for their decision.

But does anyone think for one second that most children and their parents wouldn't buy the last volume of the Harry Potter series from Scholastic simply because they didn't "go green"? If you do, you're quite mistaken.

So, let's concentrate on the contents of the book, rather than what the contents of the book are made out of.

Sorry for the delay

Art de Triomphe will be launched next week. Sorry for the delay, folks.

Welcome to Art de Triomphe

Hi! My name is Micmmic - formerly the proprietor of this now-defunct blog - and I'd like to welcome you to Art de Triomphe, an intellectual examination of the arts.

Art de Triomphe will be profiling artists and musicians, recommending museums and galleries, taking an irreverant look at animation, and maybe even throw in a picture or two.

My goal is to create a blog that is similar to Terry Teachout and Our Girl in Chicago's superb About Last Night. I agree that this is a tall order, but I believe that having lofty goals builds character.

Please feel free to pass along ideas and suggestions in the Comments section. And come back as often as you wish!