COWGIRL'S LAND

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Le dandysme

Francois-Rene Chateaubriand (1768 - 1848)

"Ces êtres n’ont pas d’autre état que de cultiver l’idée du beau dans leur personne, de satisfaire leurs passions, de sentir et de penser. Ils possèdent ainsi, à leur gré et dans une vaste mesure, le temps et l’argent, sans lesquels la fantaisie, réduite à l’état de rêverie passagère, ne peut guère se traduire en action."

"C’est le plaisir d’étonner et la satisfaction orgueilleuse de ne jamais être étonné. Un dandy peut être un homme blasé, peut être un homme souffrant; mais, dans ce dernier cas, il sourira comme le Lacédémonien sous la morsure du renard. "

" Le caractère de beauté du dandy consiste surtout dans l’air froid qui vient de l’inébranlable résolution de ne pas être ému; on dirait un feu latent qui se fait deviner, qui pourrait mais qui ne veut pas rayonner. C’est ce qui est, dans ces images, parfaitement exprimé. "

Charles Baudelaire, Le peintre de la vie moderne (1863)

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Women playing Lute

Evaristo Baschenis (s. XVII)

Thomas Wilmer Dewing (s. XIX)

Hendrick Terbrugghen (s. XVI)

Friday, November 20, 2009

Erwin Smith, the cowboy photographer

Erwin Smith

A Texas cowboy himself, Erwin E. Smith (1886-1947) depicted life on the open range, with its intriguing interrelationship between humans, horses, and cattle in the early twentieth century. Imagining the Open Range: Erwin E. Smith, Cowboy Photographer features almost 100 of Smith's finest black and white photographs printed on warm-toned paper. This exhibition pays tribute to the beauty and excitement of Smith's work and the way of life he recorded.Organized by the Amon Carter Museum, the show is made possible by grants from the Erwin E. Smith Foundation and Chase Bank of Texas. As a young boy in Fannin County, northeast of Fort Worth, Smith pursued a passion for art and for cowboy life. Daunted at first by the challenge of combining these two loves, he doubted his ability to properly capture the country's beauty. He wrote: "From the first time I laid eyes on the sun burnt plains of the West, with its grand scenery, I have been in love with its still, enchanted solitude. Its change of colors no artist can portray."
However, after witnessing the rapid changes taking place in the cowboy culture, he felt a mission to record it before this historic ranching tradition completely disappeared.
For almost a decade Smith spent his summers photographing on ranges in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, including the Matador, LD, SMS, Turkey Track, and JA ranches. The body of work he created between 1905 and 1912 remains some ofthe best of its kind. Smith photographed legendary ranch owners, trail bosses, bronc-busters, and cutting horses, and documented the complete scope of ranching activities, including trail drives, spring and fall roundups, daily chores, and recreation around the campsite. Disdaining artists who occasionally falsified or exaggerated aspects of cowboy life, Smith tried to create an authentic record. His images accurately capture the clothing, tools, and other artifacts the cowboy used.

National Cowboy Hall of Fame
Oklahoma City, OK
Imagining the Open Range: Erwin E. Smith, Cowboy Photographer

http://www.tfaoi.com/newsmu/nmus87d.htm

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Ritratto di un cavaliere, 1510

Vittore Carpaccio, Ritratto di un cavaliere (1510)

In primo piano, un giovane cavaliere, in piedi, nella sua armatura; dietro, un personaggio a cavallo, celata alzata, lancia in resta, abito nero e giallo-oro; più dietro ancora, una città fortificata; e, tutt’attorno, un paesaggio di fiori ed animali, con, in primo piano, un ermellino. Due cartigli (in basso a destra e a sinistra), con la firma e una data, 1510, e un motto, "malo mori quam foedari", preferisco morire piuttosto che macchiarmi, apparsi dopo un restauro negli anni cinquanta.
Il giovane in piedi, ripone malinconicamente la spada: in un atteggiamento simile alle statue di eroi nei monumenti funerari; nel piano intermedio, compare un cavaliere, secondo l’iconografia consolidata del miles christianus; e si tratta sempre del medesimo personaggio, che incontra una morte precoce in battaglia o duello, come suggerisce l’airone abbattuto dal falco dipinto a sinistra in alto. Non è credibile chi legge uno scudiero nella figura in secondo piano, con il bel risultato di proporre il cavaliere a piedi e lo scudiero in sella". Dunque, si tratta di un’allegoria, che fa riferimento a due diversi momenti: prima, e dopo la morte eroica. "Perché il cavaliere muore per difendere il proprio onore, come comunque spiegano, anche senza il cartiglio restaurato con il motto "meglio morire che contaminarsi", il giglio oppresso dal rovo, e il candido ermellino in primissimo piano". E allegorica, non reale, è anche la città ritratta sullo sfondo: "Una delle tante fortezze veneziane, a difesa di punti strategici delle coste mediterranee".