Untitled painting, detail, 1960, Leonora Carrington. (Click to enlarge) The full image can be found below the jump-break.... |
(From) Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe
(Formerly Trans-D Digital Art, a blog investigating - & creating - artistic anomalies since 2011.)
Untitled painting, detail, 1960, Leonora Carrington. (Click to enlarge) The full image can be found below the jump-break.... |
(From) Spirits of the Dead by Edgar Allen Poe
Devi Vijaya Lakshmi - the Lakshmi of Victory. G - DS - 2024. |
synonyms: thriving, doing well, fortunate, successful, lucky, rich, vigorous, roaring, strong, productive, flourishing, booming, opulent, golden...
antonyms: depressed, poor.
- Via Google/Oxford Languages. Prosperous is a word few of us can really wrap our heads around. Why is this?
I see them every day now in southwestern Albuquerque... more of them, and more frequently: the misfortunate nomads - the darker side of the American dream - wheeling their life's belongings in shopping carts down the vacant streets with no destination... no protection, no peace. They appear to be American refugees of every description. While I was never one of them, I, too, was homeless - and, theoretically, still am - but the emergence of the new Traveler or Nomad and the plight of the disenfranchised is not a recent development. I began living in my car the year following Trump's inauguration. And, then, came the Black Hole - the Pandemic. We all know the rest.
It is true: we - none of us - can "go back"; "back" no longer exists as we once knew it.
In 1964, Chisholm ran for and became the second African American in the New York State Legislature... There, “Fighting Shirley” introduced more than 50 pieces of legislation and championed racial and gender equality, the plight of the poor, and ending the Vietnam War. She was a co-founder of the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971, and in 1977 became the first Black woman and second woman ever to serve on the powerful House Rules Committee."
- Via this Women in History page. I am old enough to remember Shirley Chisholm... whose 1972 candidacy was treated as some sort of joke by many Americans... not so much because she was a woman of color but because she was a she.
She was an avatar.
"Her campaign was underfunded, only spending $300,000 in total. She also struggled to be regarded as a serious candidate instead of as a symbolic political figure; the Democratic political establishment ignored her, and her black male colleagues provided little support. She later said, "When I ran for the Congress, when I ran for president, I met more discrimination as a woman than for being black. Men are men." In particular, she expressed frustration about the "black matriarch thing", saying, "They think I am trying to take power from them. The black man must step forward, but that doesn't mean the black woman must step back."This ancient symbol has an important cosmological significance as well. In fact is been observed that the design of the Sri Yantra, and in particular the triangles, is based on the rules of the Golden Ratio, a mathematical and geometrical equation observed in all of creation."
- Descriptions of the Sri Yantra and the image (inset left) were found here. In short, the Sri yantra represents an ultimate truth and is an ancient metaphysical and geometrical diagram contemplated to achieve enlightened states of mind and spirit or superconsciousness.It is in direct opposition to commercial, materialistic, and (some might say) heretical artifacts of our modern day... which polarize us while politicizing, misinterpreting and degrading religious traditions.
(More below the jump...)
Pope Urban VIII Barberini's coat-of-arms, 1600s. Geometry: 2024, DS. |
"Originally from the small Tuscan town of Barberino Val d’Elsa, the Barberini family moved to the regional metropolis of Florence in the early 11th century. They grew prosperous as wool, grain and textile merchants, but later came into conflict with the powerful Medici dynasty and fled to Rome after the Medici seized control of Florence in the 1500s. This did not deter the Medici from assassinating prominent Barberini family member Francesco di Antonio, but his son Francesco di Carlo survived to see their business flourish and ultimately rose to the exalted position of papal treasurer. The family’s good fortune was to continue, and in 1623 Cardinal Maffeo Barberini was ordained Pope Urban VIII."
- Excerpt from an entertaining article about the House of Barberini from Ben's Bees. While not the most popular pope in some respects, Pope Urban was an avid supporter and collector of art. In fact, the many members of the Barberini dynasty were all great patrons of the arts, amassing an impressive collection which can be found at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome and museums throughout the world. Inset right is an example: a stunning twin-tailed mermaid or mixoparthenos - a Vitruvian mermaid, if you think about it - housed at the Met Museum in New York. Little is actually known about her for certain, but, let's face it, this bronze siren is a show-stopper and, in some odd way, she became my guide at first encounter.
It begins here... with the bees... |
Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus (Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze), 1600-1603, Hendrick Goltzius. Geometry: 2024, DS. |
- Via the Philadelphia Museum of Art page: A Masterpiece in Focus, a short article describing the unusual painting featured above and inset left which the museum acquired in 1992. Apparently, after the Dutch artist, Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), completed it - and Goltzius was so secretive about his methods he never allowed anyone to see his work at an incomplete stage - it was snatched up by Emperor Rudolph, the "Mad Alchemist" of Prague. There's more to add to this post regarding Rudolph, but, suffice to say, he was also an avid collector of works by Albrecht Dürer. Meanwhile, Dürer was an artist that Goltzius felt motivated to "surpass," with the same competitive enthusiasm the old Master, himself, expressed regarding the Masters of his own time.
So, did Goltzius surpass Dürer? Well, we shall investigate. But, before we go much further, allow me to mention that my first golden egg was found in Goltzius's odd Venus painting. Of the four golden eggs I've found, this appears to have the most perfect - albeit static - form. Interestingly, it is configured with the same arrangement of pentagrams as the former golden egg found in my previous file. But, note the star's differing orientation (inset right).The two ovoids are very similar; in some images they are almost interchangeable. The difference is shown inset right and below with phi-shells. I favor Ovoid 1 as superior in the Venus... image, but Ovoid 2 has a few things going for it, too.
So, which is the true ovoid in this painting?
Ovoids 1 & 2 |
L'Ange déchu (The Fallen Angel), 1847, Alexandre Cabanel. Geometry: 2024, DS. |
Nemesis or The Great Fortuna, Albrecht Dürer - copper-plate engraving - 1502. Geometry: 2024, DS. |
The Mirror of Venus: The 5 Keys - 2023, DS. |
Fetal Venus & Her First Dove (sketch #1) - digital - 2024, DS. |
Apple Blossoms in Hopewell's Orchard - Photo credit: NPS/A. Kane. |
"It is remarkable how closely the history of the Apple-tree is connected with that of man. The geologist tells us that the order of the Rosaceæ, which includes the Apple, also the true Grasses, and the Labiatæ, or Mints, were introduced only a short time previous to the appearance of man on the globe.
...Pliny, adopting the distinction of Theophrastus, says, “Of trees there are some which are altogether wild, some more civilized.” Theophrastus includes the apple among the last; and, indeed, it is in this sense the most civilized of all trees. It is as harmless as a dove, as beautiful as a rose, and as valuable as flocks and herds. It has been longer cultivated than any other, and so is more humanized; and who knows but, like the dog, it will at length be no longer traceable to its wild original? It migrates with man, like the dog and horse and cow; first, perchance, from Greece to Italy, thence to England, thence to America; and our Western emigrant is still marching steadily toward the setting sun with the seeds of the apple in his pocket, or perhaps a few young trees strapped to his load.
...Men could afford then to stick a tree by every wall-side and let it take its chance. I see nobody planting trees to-day in such out-of-the-way places, along the lonely roads and lanes, and at the bottom of dells in the wood. Now that they have grafted trees, and pay a price for them, they collect them into a plat by their houses, and fence them in,—and the end of it all will be that we shall be compelled to look for our apples in a barrel."