Just read your heroic materialism post (really nice). Couldn't help but feel envious-I was stuck at Newark for nine hours talking to some mad man about how he'd escaped from Phoenix...I'll spare you the details! :-0
Was wondering, could you recommend any other good t.v. arts programmes?
sparing me the details? ah no! please, it sounds like a wonderful horror story to share (knowing that you did survive).
Have you lived in NY /US for a long time?
( ... delaying the confession that i'm unable to recommend TV arts programmes since I don't own a TV - seemed like the best way to avoid TV's siren call - lest i'd do nothing else but working & watching TV)
Oh, so you've haven't seen the t.v. version of Civilisation? The tv. series is, amazingly, at least as good as the book. If you watch just one episode (I think it's on youtube) do check 'The Light of Experience'.
okay, books then, fff?
No, f, haven't lived in the states...was just visiting. Was at JFK for four hours. The immigration people were quite strict (being a British Pakistani isn't very helpful these days). Usual inane questions:
Do you have any relatives in the U.S.? "Yes, but I don't want to meet them..you know what it's like?"
Have you had any military training ? (I nearly burst out laughing at that one)
Why are you in Pakistan? Me: "If I could get a job abroad I'd leave at the drop of a hat"
The comedy routine didn't go down too well. Eventually the robot let me through but it did mean I couldn't get a hotel in Newark and had to spend 9 hours there before my connecting flight to Chicago. Very tiresome. And there's a limit to how many sweet coffees and pastries one can eat at Dunkin' Donuts-yes, even for me! The Phoenix guy was a real character..what the Yanks might call an "all-American loser".
Anyways...
I'm now going to see if you've written anything else on traveling. There was one on London, wasn't there?
oh poor B, that is a horrific story - why don't they simply put real robots at immigration, pre-programmed with the usual prejudices and recognizing a given stock of menacing facial features.
As to Civilisation, you're pretty convincing - i'll get the DVD (thàt i am equipped for).
good art books...well... i still love the way the story of art was told by Gombrich (despite its conservativeness & even though it's for kids). disclaimer: now it's going to get geeky & not quite contemporary ) In fact it's the European old school art historians i really dote on - from the 19thC-early 20th C German scientific thoroughness of a Wölfflin, over the immense erudition and obsession with "meaning in the visual arts" of a Panofsky to the more intuitive laconic connoisseurship of a Friedländer. On gothic art there is the unsurpassed Emile Mâle (early 20th C) and then there are the romantic and symbolist French (such as Fromentin (19thC) and later the Belgian Verhaeren), insisting on the happiness art procures (so a far cry from the depressingly complicated & joyless french post-modernist writers on art)
not very helpful perhaps - i do confess to a certain datedness in my tastes... anyway ... best!
Thanks, fff...will certainly check the Male book. Sounds intriguing. Thanks! anything on breugel?
For me it's: M. Lings's book on Calligraphy; T. Burckhardt's Art of Islam'; Lossky and Ouspensky on Icons; and R. Hughes's shock of the new. I'd love to get his monograph on Auerbach.
Take care,
b.
[I shall cleverly avoid the question: why, o why did we ever get involved in the dismal science?!].
have just now eagerly jotted down in my little notebook (dedicated to exhibitions to see and books to read): the Burckhardt book and the Lossky & Ouspensky book.
What's handy about Friedländer: in 1 book about early netherlandish painters you get the whole lot - incl. Brueghel!
(were we dismally inspired or was it a question of adapting to a dismal world?)
12 comments:
do you like autumn, because then the green finally has to go? :)
well, autumn just does it all best: the light (when it's sunny), the rain (when it rains) , the greys, the yellows and even the translucent greens!
that's true, i also really like it. and it is really nice in that one foto with the clouds: how they have arranged themselves so nicely in a row.
yah, most considerate of those clouds! ;-)
these are beautiful pictures, fff.
thanks b.! good to know you're around ...
Just read your heroic materialism post (really nice). Couldn't help but feel envious-I was stuck at Newark for nine hours talking to some mad man about how he'd escaped from Phoenix...I'll spare you the details! :-0
Was wondering, could you recommend any other good t.v. arts programmes?
Salams,
b.
sparing me the details? ah no! please, it sounds like a wonderful horror story to share (knowing that you did survive).
Have you lived in NY /US for a long time?
( ... delaying the confession that i'm unable to recommend TV arts programmes since I don't own a TV - seemed like the best way to avoid TV's siren call - lest i'd do nothing else but working & watching TV)
Oh, so you've haven't seen the t.v. version of Civilisation? The tv. series is, amazingly, at least as good as the book. If you watch just one episode (I think it's on youtube) do check 'The Light of Experience'.
okay, books then, fff?
No, f, haven't lived in the states...was just visiting. Was at JFK for four hours. The immigration people were quite strict (being a British Pakistani isn't very helpful these days). Usual inane questions:
Do you have any relatives in the U.S.?
"Yes, but I don't want to meet them..you know what it's like?"
Have you had any military training ?
(I nearly burst out laughing at that one)
Why are you in Pakistan?
Me: "If I could get a job abroad I'd leave at the drop of a hat"
The comedy routine didn't go down too well. Eventually the robot let me through but it did mean I couldn't get a hotel in Newark and had to spend 9 hours there before my connecting flight to Chicago. Very tiresome. And there's a limit to how many sweet coffees and pastries one can eat at Dunkin' Donuts-yes, even for me! The Phoenix guy was a real character..what the Yanks might call an "all-American loser".
Anyways...
I'm now going to see if you've written anything else on traveling. There was one on London, wasn't there?
Keep well,
b.
oh poor B, that is a horrific story - why don't they simply put real robots at immigration, pre-programmed with the usual prejudices and recognizing a given stock of menacing facial features.
As to Civilisation, you're pretty convincing - i'll get the DVD (thàt i am equipped for).
good art books...well... i still love the way the story of art was told by Gombrich (despite its conservativeness & even though it's for kids).
disclaimer: now it's going to get geeky & not quite contemporary ) In fact it's the European old school art historians i really dote on - from the 19thC-early 20th C German scientific thoroughness of a Wölfflin, over the immense erudition and obsession with "meaning in the visual arts" of a Panofsky to the more intuitive laconic connoisseurship of a Friedländer. On gothic art there is the unsurpassed Emile Mâle (early 20th C) and then there are the romantic and symbolist French (such as Fromentin (19thC) and later the Belgian Verhaeren), insisting on the happiness art procures (so a far cry from the depressingly complicated & joyless french post-modernist writers on art)
not very helpful perhaps - i do confess to a certain datedness in my tastes... anyway ...
best!
Thanks, fff...will certainly check the Male book. Sounds intriguing. Thanks! anything on breugel?
For me it's: M. Lings's book on Calligraphy; T. Burckhardt's Art of Islam'; Lossky and Ouspensky on Icons; and R. Hughes's shock of the new. I'd love to get his monograph on Auerbach.
Take care,
b.
[I shall cleverly avoid the question: why, o why did we ever get involved in the dismal science?!].
have just now eagerly jotted down in my little notebook (dedicated to exhibitions to see and books to read): the Burckhardt book and the Lossky & Ouspensky book.
What's handy about Friedländer: in 1 book about early netherlandish painters you get the whole lot - incl. Brueghel!
(were we dismally inspired or was it a question of adapting to a dismal world?)
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