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February 26, 2010
February 23, 2010
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. February 21, 2010
Richmond Barthe
James Richmond Barthé (January 28, 1901 – March 5, 1989) was an African American sculptor known for his many public works, including the Toussaint L’Ouverture Monument in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and a sculpture of Rose McClendon for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House.
Barthe once said that “all my life I have be interested in trying to capture the spiritual quality I see and feel in people, and I feel that the human figure as God made it, is the best means of expressing this spirit in man.”
Richmond Barthé was born in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, (in January 1901). His father died at 22, when Richmond was only one month old, leaving his mother to raise him alone. Barthé spent his teen years in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Lyle Saxon of the Times Picayune newspaper, tried unsuccessfully against racist policy to get Barthé registered in art school in New Orleans. In 1924, with the aid of a Catholic priest, the Reverend Harry Kane, S.S.I, and with less than a high school education and no formal training in art, Barthé was admitted to the Art Institute of Chicago. During the next four years Barthé followed a curriculum structured for majors in painting. During his four years of study he worked as a busboy at a small café. His work caught the attention of Dr. Charles Maceo Thompson, a patron of the arts and supporter of many talented young black artists. Barthé was a flattering portrait painter, and Dr. Thompson helped him to secure many lucrative commissions from the city’s affluent black citizens.
February 19, 2010
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. February 16, 2010
Michelangelo’s Dream: What was on his mind?
During the winter of 1532, the 57-year-old Michelangelo fell heart and soul in love with the Roman nobleman Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, who was probably not yet 20 years old. As well as extraordinary beauty, the young man possessed gentle manners, a cultivated mind, and an intelligence capable of appreciating the honour of being loved by a man of Michelangelo’s genius.
As far as is known, that love was physically unrequited, though that does not mean it was chaste. For Michelangelo expressed his desire for Tommaso openly in letters, poems, and the spectacular gift of five of the most perfect drawings he ever made, known today as the presentation drawings.
A new exhibition reveals what was really on Michelangelo’s mind when he drew The Dream.
From www.telegraph.co.uk
By Martin Gayford
A naked, sleeping man is woken by a winged angel, also naked, blowing a trumpet in his face. Behind him jostles a circle of figures representing the deadly sins. This drawing, thought to have been executed in the mid-16th century by Michelangelo (and reproduced here) is known as Il Sogno or The Dream.
From Thursday, it will form the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery in London comprising Michelangelo’s drawings, letters and poems, which promises to throw new light on the emotions, imagination and private life of one of the greatest artists who ever lived. There is one small problem: The Dream and the other drawings on show are far from easy to decode. On the contrary, they bring to mind Churchill’s celebrated remark about Russia in 1939; they, too, are “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”.
The first of the questions presented by The Dream is: for whom was it made? The most popular theory says the recipient was a young Roman nobleman named Tommaso de’ Cavalieri who was, without much question, the love of Michelangelo’s life. Almost immediately, more questions begin to crowd in: what were the terms of this love and how was it expressed? The two men first met in Rome in the winter of 1532 when Michelangelo was 57, and de’ Cavalieri was, according to rather vague documentation, between 12 and 21.
Over subsequent years, the artist bombarded this youth with letters and poems. Both reveal a different Michelangelo – vulnerable, suffering, and capable of tenderness – to the fearsome figure often seen by his contemporaries. A year after that first meeting Michelangelo wrote to de’ Cavalieri that “while my memory of you lasts I am unable to feel either weariness or fear of death”. In sonnets he declared, punning on the other’s name: “I remain the prisoner of an armed cavalier.”
February 15, 2010
Not Your Everyday Erotica
Life changing circumstances are what makes a story interesting. Stories that lay bare the grit and muscle of life are the stories I like to read. Tales that get into the essence of a character’s soul. If you feel the same way, Erotic Tales for Enlightened Minds is for you. It’s available at Amazon, both in a paperback version, and on Kindle.
You can now download a Kindle reader on your PC, free, and read any book available on Kindle. Here is the link: FREE KINDLE READER
February 14, 2010
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. February 13, 2010
Women With Negative Body Image
Women’s genital self-esteem affects sex, health
From The Globe and Mail.com
By Zosia Bielski
Study finds shame about their body can hamper orgasm and keep women from going to the doctor.
Women who feel negatively about female genitalia find it harder to have an orgasm and are less likely to get regular gynecological exams, says a new study from Indiana University.
They are also often more critical of their own genitals – and other women’s – than men are, according to the study, published in the current issue of the International Journal of Sexual Health.
The anxiety some women feel about their genitals is rooted in messages gleaned from parents and pop culture, said study author Debby Herbenick, a sexual health educator with The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction.
“Individuals may adopt negative attitudes toward women’s genitals as a result of cultural-level scripts that suggest that women’s genitals are unclean or dirty,” writes Dr. Herbenick, who is also associate director of Indiana’s University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.
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