civil rights – Page 20 – TranscendingSquare

March 10, 2016October 1, 2018

Fine art from around the world

The following list includes the fifteen posters seen in a recent post about the need for gender parity in the world of art. (First post, Second post in the series) The following includes works by world famous artists from many centuries as well as many countries and represents a variety of styles. The twentieth work on the list is a painting by Michelangelo. He presents another type of dangerous person that innocent young men might encounter — the con-man, in the shape of ‘cardsharps.’ So young men needed to be wary of con-women and con-men. The ‘evil seductress’ is just a phrase to convey a stereotype. Young women may also have needed to be wary of evil seducer types but this collection of art doesn’t include that theme.

Art may have been commissioned by men for displaying in areas where men or boys worked or relaxed. So topics about activities men found entertaining or were proud of might have been ordered in addition to topics about male cardsharps or female pick-pockets (see #11) which might have been useful for educating innocent young men. Portraits and fine art existed centuries ago because photography, television, and computers didn’t exist and people get bored and like to entertain and educate or impress each other.

Art may have been a “man’s” world in part because it is work which takes time and until more recent centuries, “A woman’s work is never done.” Caregiving for children and cooking and cleaning and taking care of any farm animal or gardening chores would have left women with little time for drawing or painting fine art.

Portrait painting took months. Artists would travel from job to job and live at the residence of the person who was hiring them. Whoever was getting their portrait painted would have to ‘sit’ for the artist and try to hold still while the artist worked. See number fifteen for a portrait of a portrait painter and the Las Meninas he is painting by Diego Velasquez.

Thiebaud, Wayne Football Player, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Vi, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image Import of Canada (1963)
Homer, Winslow, The Gulf Stream, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1899)
Franche^’re, Joseph C. Le brasain de savon, (Kettle of Soap), Muse^’e du Que^’bec, Que^’bec, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1910)
Cretan Bull Dance, (La danse du faureau), Archeological Museum, Heraklion, Crete, Muse^’e archeologique He^’raklion, Cre^’te, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (~4000 years ago)
Mantegna, Andrea, The Adoration of the Shepherds, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1451-1453)
Ensor, James, Masks Confronting Death, (La Mort et les Masques), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1888)
Lippi, Filippino, The Triumph of Mordecai^’ (Le trumphe de Mardoche^’e), National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Muse^’e des beaux arts du Canada, Ottawa, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (Lippi, Filippino, 1406-1469)
Goya, Francisco de, Don Manuel Osorio de Zuniga, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1788)
Tintoretto, Portrait d’ un de la familie Foscari, (Portrait of a Member of the Foscari Family), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Muse^’e des beaux arts de Montre’al, Image de l’art 1988 Art Image (circa 1550)
Shah-Nameh, Zahek is told his fate, (Zahek se fait pre^’dire son destin.), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (ca. 1524)
De La Tour, Georges, La diseuse de bonne aventure, (The Fortune Teller), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1630)
Kabotie, Fred, The Delight Makers, Courtesy of Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (The image, more info & different but similar piece: The Hopi tribe translates into “The Peaceful People)
Colville, Alexander, Child and Dog (L^’ enfant au chien) National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Muse^’e des beaux arts du Canada, Ottawa, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1952)
Kreighoff, Cornelius, Familie indienne dans la fore^’t, (Indian Family in the Forest), The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Muse^’e des beaux arts de Montre^’al, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (Corneius Kreighoff, 1815-1872, a very similar painting, but not exactly the same)
Velasquez, Diego, Las Meninas, Museo Del Prado, Madrid, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1656)
Degas, Edgar, Chevaux de courses, (Race Horses),National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Muse^’e des beaux arts du Canada, Ottawa, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (poor color representation)
Tanobe, Miyuki, Monday, Washing-Day, Private Collection, Lundi, jour de lessive collection particulie’re, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1972)
Anshutz, Thomas, Cabbages, The Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (no date given)
Ce^’zanne, Paul, Les joueurs de cartes, (The Card Players), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1890-92)
Caravaggio, Michelangelo Merisi da, The Cardsharps, (Le tricheur), Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (1594)
Bolduc, Blanche, Cornhusking, (l^’ e^’pluchette), Muse’e du Que’bec, Que^’bec City, Image de l^’art 1988 Art Image (no date given)

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March 9, 2016October 1, 2018

Gender ratios in art

The art posters in the last post were all labeled Image de l’art 1988 Art Image and each included the artist and title of the work and its location. There was uneven representation of male and female artists and when I counted the figures in each painting I found that there was also more male adults than female adults portrayed.

There were 21 posters in total that I had found at a resale shop. They were individually priced and so I had picked out a few favorites one day. I liked them so much that I went back a few weeks later and bought the rest of the collection that remained.

Twenty of the twenty one posters had the artist’s name listed. One poster was of an ancient mural from Crete and it didn’t list an artist. Seventeen male artists and three female artists were included in the group of art from around the world.

Within the varied paintings there were 57 adult females and 81 adult males for a ratio of 70.37% females to males. There were slightly more female children included with roughly fifteen girls to nine boys – gender was sometimes more obvious than other times. Four babies were included within the group of 21 posters.

The roles that females were portrayed was largely domestic compared to the males who were portrayed in leadership or struggles against nature or fate. The themes support an idea that I had suggested in a previous post — gender bias may be in part due to a tendency to instinctually think of females as being either a mother or lover, or if not those then she must be an evil seductress.

That seems unkind and unreal but this collection of art supports the roles. Women are mainly seen as mothers or working in domestic roles. They are also seen as observers in the background or at a man’s side in the posters with a group. Except in one painting, however, where an older female fortuneteller is distracting a young man while three attractive young women are listening — and pick pocketing from him in various ways. Another painting has images of death, grim reaper like, and the focal characters are more female in appearance while the observing characters are the ones that are more male in appearance (skulls and masked faces but with more or less feminine looking hats and headscarves).

I could add a list of the paintings and see if I could find links on line but that seems like a lot more work than I have time for at the moment. I wrote the list on paper last night and tallied the figures on paper — old school but easier to carry up a ladder than a laptop. (Third post in the series, with list of the fine art from around the world.)

I hope everyone who planned to managed to get out to vote yesterday. I made it to vote, there was a library millage involved — and libraries are important ;-)

Happy Wednesday.

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March 8, 2016October 1, 2018

The Parity Pledge and Gender parity in the art world

The Parity Pledge asks for a commitment to take action and working to increase awareness of gender parity issues was the area I pledged to take action.

Thinker frog might be thinking about other things besides the need for gender parity in the art world. I don’t really know. The photographs are actually unedited rather than being badly edited and were taken with natural lighting. I haven’t learned how to use my new photo editing software yet. /adjusting the light would have been easy on the software that I had been used to using./ So these photos are poor representations of the collection of posters – I’ll add a few details about the collection and the artists later. (Second post, Third post in the series)

Hanging the collection of posters of art masterpieces from around the world was a self challenge. I had bought the collection used and laid them out on the floor one morning. The arrangement was pleasing somehow and I had an empty wall so — I just hung them up even though I wasn’t sure if I could do it by myself or without a scaffolding. I did have a stepladder though and a tape measure but no other person to help with laying out a measured gridwork over the large area. The room has a cathedral ceiling so the wall has extra space.

With poster putty on the corners laminated posters are fairly easy to stick up anywhere though and then you can adjust them slightly as needed to straighten the horizon line. I did measure the base of the wall and double check where the center of the room was located. Then I worked from the center row, hanging the lower, middle, upper posters; and then hung the bottom row, middle row, and top row. Thumb tacks at the top corners helped secure them in place after all the tiny adjustments were completed to my satisfaction when viewed when standing on the far side of the room. The poster putty by itself tends to unstick after a day or two — leaving you to rehang and readjust. I learned that lesson earlier though but thankfully with fewer posters involved.

I did it even though I wasn’t sure if I could.

So a revised version of my childhood belief: “One learns by trying, but it helps to read the instruction manual first, and it may be helpful to write one or revise the old one if needed.” Hat tip to Kurt Vonnegut for the part about the instruction manual.

“I’ve often thought there ought to be a manual to hand to little kids, telling them what kind of planet they’re on, why they don’t fall off it, how much time they’ve probably got here, how to avoid poison ivy, and so on. I tried to write one once. It was called Welcome to Earth. But I got stuck on explaining why we don’t fall off the planet. Gravity is just a word. It doesn’t explain anything. If I could get past gravity, I’d tell them how we reproduce, how long we’ve been here, apparently, and a little bit about evolution. I didn’t learn until I was in college about all the other cultures, and I should have learned that in the first grade. A first grader should understand that his or her culture isn’t a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society. Cultural relativity is defensible and attractive. It’s also a source of hope. It means we don’t have to continue this way if we don’t like it.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

Gender inequality in the art industry reflects similar employment and wage differences that are seen in other fields. Opportunities may not be as prevalent for female artists or female art museum directors according to recent research and surveys:

“Women run just a quarter of US art museums with budgets over $15 million, according to the study “The Gender Gap in Art Museum Directorships,” released in March by the Association of Art Museum Directors and the National Center for Arts Research. Those leaders make just 71 cents for every $1 earned by men, the study says. As for artists represented by galleries in New York and Los Angeles, just 30 percent are women, according to the collective Gallery Tally.” Read more: [https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-world-bias-by-the-numbers-94829]

Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use.

March 7, 2016January 15, 2018

“One learns by trying”

Recently I shared a core belief from my childhood, “One learns by trying.” The search engine didn’t find that specific phrase so I think I learned the lesson by observing my father with his invention process. He’s a mechanical engineer who worked in the defense industry as a contract worker for government projects.

The corollary to the phrase is that “Sometimes what you learn is that doing that thing really was not pleasant/effective/fun/beneficial; and that it seems to be something to not ever repeat doing; or that it seems to be an activity worth actively avoiding even accidentally ever doing again; or that it seems to be a really dangerous thing to have tried, which may be worth warning others to avoid ever trying in the first place, as well.”

That first part is easier to write.

I found a few similar quotes while not finding “One learns by trying.” These were all “Popular Quotes” on goodreads.com and while I didn’t find the one that was close enough for the search engine’s algorithms,

these are a few that stood out to me as similar or otherwise helpful (from 17 pages of 100) On re-reading them I realize a sub-corollary could be, “Reading the Instruction Manual first is a good idea.” or something along those lines:

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
― Anne Frank, Anne Frank’s Tales from the Secret Annex

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer”
― Douglas Adams

“Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
― Mark Twain

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections

“I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.”
― Herbert Bayard Swope

“What you’re supposed to do when you don’t like a thing is change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Don’t complain.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
― Joseph Conrad, Chance

“I don’t want to be a man,” said Jace. “I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can’t confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead.”
“Well,” said Luke, “you’re doing a fantastic job.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
― A.A. Milne

“You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”
― Virginia Woolf

“When you’re in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, ‘Damn, that was fun’.”
― Groucho Marx

“It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“Peace begins with a smile.”
― Mother Teresa

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
― Dalai Lama XIV

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

“The truth.” Dumbledore sighed. “It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
― Joe Klaas, Twelve Steps to Happiness

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
― Aristotle

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
― Ray Bradbury

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
― Albert Einstein

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
― Robert Frost

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”
― Bob Marley

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”
― Bob Marley

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
― Rob Siltanen

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

The Paradoxical Commandments

“People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
― William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert

“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish

“It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.”
― Albert Einstein

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“We read to know we’re not alone.”
― William Nicholson, Shadowlands

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
― Dr. Seuss

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
― Terry Pratchett, Diggers

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”
― Mark Twain

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain

“Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting.”
― John Green

“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

These turned up when I entered “One learns by trying” directly into the Goodreads.com search engine:

“But what if I make a mistake?’ Will asked.

Gilan threw back his head and laughed. ‘A mistake? One mistake? You should be so lucky. You’ll make dozens! I made four or five on my first day alone! Of course you’ll make mistakes. Just don’t make any of them twice. If you do mess things up, don’t try to hide it. Don’t try to rationalize it. Recognize it and admit it and learn from it. We never stop learning, none of us.”
― John Flanagan, Erak’s Ransom

“One of the biggest, and possibly the biggest, obstacle to becoming a writer… is learning to live with the fact that the wonderful story in your head is infinitely better, truer, more moving, more fascinating, more perceptive, than anything you’re going to manage to get down on paper. (And if you ever think otherwise, then you’ve turned into an arrogant self-satisfied prat, and should look for another job or another avocation or another weekend activity.) So you have to learn to live with the fact that you’re never going to write well enough. Of course that’s what keeps you trying — trying as hard as you can — which is a good thing.”
― Robin McKinley

“You get older and you learn there is one sentence just four words long and if you can say it to yourself it offers more comfort than almost any other. It goes like this… Ready ”
“Ready.”
“At least I tried.”
― Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting

Disclosure: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use.