cascada post 22

Art Circles -- Part 2

Recently I learned that 'tondo' a shortening of the Italian 'rotondo' i.e. 'round' is the word used in the art world for round paintings as shown in my last post. Today let me move temporarily away from tondos and show some interesting art involving circles in which the paintings are not circular. First is a painting by Arthur Dove (1880-1946), arguably the first American abstract painter. Here it is:

Arthur Dove, 'Red Sun', 1935

I really like that large red sun, at once a natural object, a three dimensional spiral, and a symbol. The muted red stripes in the foreground seem agricultural. The image is both austere and yet warm. Even the artists signature in the lower middle seems part of the composition.

The next image is a painting of Chagall. I am not sure I can put into words why I find it compelling. Stare at it a bit, because it will just have to speak for itself.

Chagall, 'Compostion aux Cercles et à la Chèvre', 1920

Next is a strange glowing circle in a sort-of landscape by Christopher Orr. I hope you like it.

Christopher Orr, Untitled (Circle), 2006

Christopher Orr is a contemporary artist, born in 1967. You can find more about him, and see more of his work, by looking at his CV at IBID PROJECTS, London.

Now, let us step back two millennia and compare Christopher Orr's painting with this image on a classical Greek bowl:

Classical Greek Ceramic Work, 2000 or more years ago

There is a similarity in that both images feature a man seemingly enamored with a circle. In the first image the man seems amazed that he can make a circle of light with his finger, while perhaps in the Greek image the man is simply enjoying the pleasure of rolling a hoop. Certainly I do not know. Perhaps a more knowledgeable person can explain the symbolism, if any, of the circle. The rooster in the Greek image is the symbolic gift of love, or perhaps more often an offer understood to imply a desire for sex. But, in this case, there is no other person in the image. I still have to wonder if Orr might have been influenced by this or some similar Greek image from another era.

For today's last image let us move forward, past the Renaissance, to the Dutch Golden Age and examine this self-portrait of Rembrandt in older age:

Rembrandt, 'Self-Portrait with two Circles', 1665-1669

I think the circles add something important to the picture. Without them the painting would be much less interesting.

This series of circles in art will be continued in some future postings.

cascada post 21

Art Circles

For a while now I have been collecting images of art in which circles played an important role. My collection now has over 350 images, mostly snagged from the Internet, some from Usenet groups, a few from photos I took, a few from things I scanned or created. For the most part I know little of the artists. Still I thought it would be fun to share some of these images and in some cases say something about the artists who created them. In the beginning I set myself some ground rules, such as no crop circles, no religious paintings in which a large halo around someone's head is the circle, no mandalas, no spheres or 3D sculptures, no plates or bowls, no manhole covers, no large moons or suns, no coins or medallions, no amazingly circular breasts, etc. In the end I occasionally broke many of my self imposed rules and just saved what caught my fancy. So it will be a little of everything that you see here, but always involving a circle in some way. Some of the artists are famous and some are nearly unknown, and perhaps some (for example me) are not even artists.

Let me start with Banksy's dictum. Banksy, as you may know is a famous (or infamous) graffiti artist many of whose works you can find on walls or buildings in London and elsewhere. His homepage with many interesting images you can find here. Next, as one of his pieces of 'art', is his dictum:

banksy's dictum

Mind you, I am not arguing that this is one of Banksy's better pieces -- in fact it may be self-refutational -- but it was an easy lead-in for this article. So far as I know, Banksy mostly did not follow his own advice. I have only seen one of his other pieces that featured a circle. It is a sort of modern day Iwo Jima image with a political statement, but not particularly noteworthy otherwise, so I won't show it here.

Following this idea let me first show you some art pieces which, it seems to me, are rather arbitrarily framed by a circle. The circle in these cases does not seem to have much to do with the art other than to frame it. Let us start with the early Renaissance artist Botticelli (1445-1510). He is most often known as Sandro Botticelli, but his original name was Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi. Most of his life was spent in Florence, Italy. Probably his most famous work is Birth of Venus (c. 1485). Here we see a circular painting by Botticelli in which the Virgin offers her breast to the Christ Child:

Botticelli, 'The Madonna and Child with Three Angels', 1493

Notice that the hands of the angels at the left and right are chopped off by the circular frame and the base of the ceramic at the bottom is also truncated. It seems unlikely that Botticelli would have painted it that way. It seems more likely that a circular frame was imposed on a larger painting, maybe even a rectangular one. However, I have seen a digital version of this painting where noticeably more of the angles hands were visible, so this version has most likely been digitally cropped to a slightly smaller circle. Compare this with another of Botticelli's circular paintings:

Botticelli, 'Madonna of the magnificat', c 1485 (diameter 118 cm)

In this tranquil, peaceful painting the arcs above the crown and the leaning figure on the left suggest that Botticelli intended a circular frame. The bisected hand at the left may indicate that the circular diameter was a little smaller than Botticelli expected or wanted.

Botticelli's work, in addition to religious paintings like the above, includes many depictions of classical Greek mythology and many wonderful portraits of the powerful Medici family. The vast majority of his work is not framed by circles.

The next painting is by the Dutch artist Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) who painted mostly landscapes in the Netherlands and in Germany.

Jan van Goyen, 'Summer', 1625, diameter 33.5 cm

I downloaded this image from a usenet group a few years ago. A larger version (1600x1600 pixels, 400k bytes) can be found at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It is well worth clicking here to see the large version. A second Goyen circular painting is entitled 'winter'. Here it is:

Jan van Goyen, 'Winter', 1625

In the second image parts of the black diamond (or tilted square) shaped frame can be seen, insuring that the full extent of the circular painting is visible. The people seem to be carefully arranged to fit in this circular frame so Goyen must have consciously designed the piece for a circular frame. The circular frame does not seem to serve any artistic purpose, other than perhaps giving one the illusion of looking through a circular window or perhaps through a telescope, since low power telescopes were readily available in the Netherlands at the time this picture was painted. See here for an interesting history of the telescope. I do not know if Goyen made paintings for 'Autumn' or 'Spring'. Certainly most of his over 1200 paintings and 800 drawings were not circular.

Now let us jump to the year 1740, where we find this wonderful painting by the Dutch artist Jacob de Wit. Yes, it looks 3D, like maybe it is made out of plaster. But that is not the case. It is a painting. The children may be playing with fire, but they are also keeping warm in the winter.

Painting by Jacob de Wit, 1740

Now here is a curve ball for you:

Picasso, 'Nature morte à la chaise cannée', 1911-12 **

**You are right if you are saying 'wait a minute', because, so far as I know Picasso did not paint any circular pictures. The original of the above is elliptical and you may well like it better. It should be easy to find using google image search. Still, the circular version above, which I created using Irfanview, doesn't look too bad. The rope and the cane are not painted -- at least I don't think they are -- as this is a multi-media picture.

I will continue with more 'art circles' in a future posting, and I will include non-circular pictures in which the circle plays an important role.

cascada post 20

Chile Extranjero Update


Chile habanero (left) and chile extranjero (right)

click here for a larger version

In a previous posting, cascada post 8, I discussed the beautiful chile pepper (or chili pepper if you prefer that spelling) you see on the right in the picture above. Here locally, in Col. Ursulo Galvan, near Xico, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico, people call this chile "chile extranjero" which literally means "foreign chile". Apparently it originated in the Andes mountains of South America many millennia ago but was not introduced into Mexico until roughly 100 years ago.

The vast majority of chile peppers available in the USA are different varieties (or cultivars) of a single species: Capsicum annuum. The two chile peppers above are both unusual in that neither is Capsicum annuum. The chile habanero is Capsicum chinense (a misnomer since it is not of Chinese origin) and the chile extranjero is Capsicum pubescens. If it has black seeds you know you have chile extranjero.

Both of these chiles (the habanero and the extranjero) are tasty but very hot. The interior part of the chile extranjero and the seeds are much hotter than the meaty part near the skin. Even just touching the seeds will cause your fingers to burn, even if you wash your hands. Be careful not to touch your eyes after cutting or preparing chile extranjero.

What I learned recently, which did not surprise me, is that 'chile extranjero' is just a local name. Here in the state of Veracruz the correct name is 'chile cera', which literally means 'wax chile'. In much of Mexico it called 'chile manzano' (apple chile), in the state of Oaxaca it is called 'chile canario' (canary chile, because it is yellow), and in the state of Michoacán it is called 'chile Perón'. Click on this link for more information about Mexican chiles, and look under 'Chile Manzano' for more about chile extranjero, which from now on I will try to remember to call 'chile cera'.

cascada post 19

Niños y Niñas

Colonia Ursolo Galvan is the name of the small town where I live. It is a small place, maybe 1000 people, about a mile or so off the main road, roughly halfway between Coatepec and Xico, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico. The 'Colonia' part of the name is because it is a 'Colonia' of Xico. This means that officially it is in the municipality of Xico, even though it is about three miles from the population edge of Xico. It is a peaceful, friendly, and generally nice place to live although is quite poor. Most people do not have cars, most cook on wood fires, and some have dirt floors. Still, there is community pride, and family pride, and pride in the state of Veracruz. There are lots of children here and they are, compared to many kids in the U.S., well behaved. They often play in the streets, and save for buses there is little traffic and it is safe. The picture (above left) shows about one third of the town.

When I first arrived here I was surprised to learn that this little town has four schools. One is a preschool which seems to have two or three levels, roughly like kindergarden and pre-kindergarden. There are two primary schools, and a secondary school called a 'Telebachillerato', roughly like a high school in the U.S. but much of the instruction is piped in via satellite TV. This seems to be fairly common in rural parts of Mexico.


Our friend Marie dropped by one day to invite us to attend Daniela's end of school celebration. Daniela (or Dani) is her preschool daughter, about four years old. At left is a picture of Dani, from about a year ago. That is a really serious pose. She is really a happy, smiley, busy little girl and a delight to be around.




So the time arrived and we went to Dani's school. Here are some pictures of her school.

The first is the sign on the front of the school. The second is the entrance to the school as decorated with balloons for the celebration.

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Next the 'Bienvenidos' or welcome sign near the entrance and a portion of the playground.




After quite a wait during which the audience, proud parents, relatives and friends, was remarkably patient, the ceremony began. First some speeches, for which my Spanish was largely inadequate. Then came some sort pledge of allegiance and applause and finally each class of children (there seemed to be three) performed a dance or two. The sound system was terrible and the volume way too loud for it to handle, but it really didn't matter.



Here are some scenes of the children dancing, and the audience audience watching. All were dressed for the event. The first photo shows the little children waiting for their turn to dance. Next we see some of them dancing.

After the picture showing some of the audience [hopefully the next photo, this blogging software's preview never shows what the published post will look like] is a photo of Dani, kneeling as her part in the dance is about to begin. She is older and more mature than in the photo above taken about one year ago. Click on any photo to see it larger.















Soon came more dances of the other two class, each dressed in a different color.

The music was mostly Mexican, loud and crackly.





Then a real surprise for me. The oldest group came out to dance. I guess these were the graduating preschool children. An when the music came on it was the 1966 Percy Sledge favorite "When a man loves a woman".


What a strange feeling it was to see those little children, in this very foreign (for me) country dancing to that song to which I have my own set of memories.














And here they are at the very beginning of the dance:









I have to confess that I didn't stay till the very end of this event. Presumably the graduating preschoolers all got certificates and parents and children when home pleased and happy. In any case I was really glad I went and I came away proud of my little town, Col. Ursulo Galvan.

cascada post 18

Video of Cascada

Here you have it, short on quality, but it is my cascada -- the view from my front window.

My Cascada

And here you have Cascada at her worst:

Cascada, August 6, 2006

That's all for today.

cascada post 17

Hark Back

There was once, long ago, a day when Africa had a chance. Sadly, it seems, that day has passed.Here are four photos I took in West Africa, which I remember fondly, many years ago.

Transportation, Kano, Nigeria, August, 1965

Young Girl, Kano, Nigeria, August, 1965

Waiting for the mammy wagon (as was I), Kano, Nigeria, August, 1965

Court in session, Kaduna, Nigeria, August, 1965

It will take a concerted effort .......

But maybe there is hope. See Gobou's photos.

cascada post 16

Finding Cascada

Google Analytics (the free version) tells me that 14 people in 11 different cities around the world have visited my blog in the last two days. Now that's some warm fuzzies!. Well, maybe not, because Google Analytics also tells me that the average length of visit was zero seconds! Hmm. They must have been looking for something other than the strange fare I offer. Again, Google Analytics, to the rescue. They were looking for photos and information about the singer who calls herself 'Cascada' -- or maybe that is the name of the group.

So, if that is why you are here, this is for you:

Cascada the singer

But your jollies may be limited since you probably saw this photo already, 'cause I stole it off the web. If the owner wants it back I'll be happy to oblige.

Sorry to disappoint you but the namesake of this blog is the cascada I see every morning when I get up and look out my front room window.

This cascada:

Cascada -- before the storm

Cascada -- after the storm

Hang in there, you cascada fans! But that is it for today.