Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Mirka Knaster on her blog posted a provocative entry today with the title "Appreciate the art but despise the artist?"   I agree with Mirka and post my thoughts below as a follow up to her post. Zola's open letter "J'Accuse...!" 13 January 1898 Mirka, you pose an important question. While an undergrad at UCLA, I had classes with the noted art historians Albert Boime and David Kunzel. Boime's "Social History of Modern Art" and Kunzel's study of the history of fashion have prompted me to consider the social structures that exist around an artwork. Pulling a painting out of its time and pinning it alone in a case like a rare butterfly often leads to a limited understanding of an artwork. Degas' moral failings are problematic and are important to consider in the broader understanding of the man and the artist.  The comparison between Degas and Emile Zola concerning the anti-Semitic campaign against Captain Dre...

Doğum günün kutlu olsun Claude Monet! pic.twitter.com/qWUHuBK4BL — Celine Symbiosis (@CelineSymbioss) November 14, 2016

Happy Birthday to Edgar Degas born on 19 July 1834! " Four Dancers" @ ngadc https://www. nga.gov/collection/gal lery/gg89/gg89-46597.html   … Edgar Degas   1834 - 1917 Four Dancers , c. 1899 oil on canvas 59 1/2" x 70 15/16" National Gallery of Art -Chester Dale Collection photo by Gregg Chadwick

"Rue Mosnier with Flags" Édouard Manet 25 3/4 x 31 3/4 in. oil on canvas 1878 Getty Museum, Los Angeles photo by Gregg Chadwick Édouard Manet's "Rue Mosnier" was painted two years before July 14th was declared the French national holiday in 1880. The holiday is known as the Fête Nationale in France and commemorates the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris by an angry mob on 14 July 1789, sparking the revolution that rid France of its monarchy. Manet painted the scene as if he is looking down from his second story studio onto the flag decked street below. Manet's brush is fluid and the color scintillating but the weary amputee on crutches, perhaps a war veteran from the disastrous Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, is the figure with which we enter the painting. In essence we as viewers enter the scene carrying a ladder just behind the man on crutches bearing the "costs and sacrific...