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Book, “You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto”

Image from a book review in the Economist  September 2, 2010.

Jaron Lanier, is a musician and a polymath.  

He is technologist, a futurist, and a critic. 

He is something very rare in the 21st century, an original thinker.

Last year he wrote a book called

 “You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto”

 He argues  

that what passes for creativity today is really just endlessly rehashed content.

In my observation this is increasingly true. The web is becoming tedious, rife with misinformation.  True understanding and even accuracy often gets lost along the way. 

Bored Stiff

In front of the Legeion d'Honneur

Who Killed Cock Robin?

From My First Nursery Book

first Published in 1947. Illustrations by  the marvelous Franciszka Themerson

republished in 2008 by order of the 

Tate Museum trustees London.

But who killed Cock Robin?

 Victorian,  John Anster Christian Fitzgerald (1819? – 1906)

When last we saw him the robin was alive and well.

Postcards from Paris-1

 

 In the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

Kees Van Dongen in Paris Part II

Collection Les Arts Decoratifs Paris

The couturier Paul Poiret went to visit the work shops of the Wiener Werkstatte  in Vienna.  He was inspired by this and other folk craft traditions in Eastern Europe. 

When he returned to Paris he founded Atelier Martine in April 1911. Paul Poiret named  the school and workshop after one of his daughters. Originally he set it up as a school and workshop for young girls to train in the decorative arts. What he sought was the uninhibited freshness and originality  these young girls brought their drawings. They were trained in the applied arts they also wove the designs into carpets,  and other home furnishing and under his direction they even designed interiors.
 

 Above Carpet in situ in Van Dongen's salon, at 29 villa Said c. 1920

Image from All Eyes on Van Dongen museum van  boijmans beuningen

The Carpet  was designed by Kees Van Dongen the Franco-Dutch Painter for his own home. It is now in the collection of Musee Les Arts Decoratifs here in Paris.  It was made by the Atelier Martine. Van Dongen's exuberant free hand  and exotic colors must have appealed to his friend Paul Poiret.

Paul Poiret was always seeking new inspirations, he collaborated with many artists like the painter  Raoul Duffy who went on to a lucrative career in textile design with  Bianchini-Ferier Lyon.

suggested reading A fashion For Extravagance by Sara Bowman E. P. Dutton New York,1985 

Walking Around Paris

Down the stairs and out of the door.

Paris is a very manageable city for me. It is a great place for walking. 

We live on the Left bank and I am very partial to it. 

To be fair all of Paris is worth

discovering, and every neighborhood has its own unique charm.

Today I took Metro to Place De La Concorde 0n the right bank.

I started walking down Rue de Rivoli to Rue  

St. Honere

Past Boucheron

 past Lanvin

 To Hermes.

 Chased silver-plated metal and suede accessories.

 I passed  an art gallery,

and to the Prada pop-up shop.

at the Place de Tokyo I looked up at the cooking class in progess on the roof.

I walked across the bridge Passerelle Debilly to the Musee on the Quai Branly

Past Jean Nouvel's living wall, and

home though the Parc du Champ de-Mars

Kees Van Dongen in Paris

 

 Femme au Bouquet 1930

From Van Dongen Apres le fauvisme 1976

Oh those eyes!

Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris/ARC presents

Image from cataloge VanDongen, Foundation Pierre Gianadda 2002

This exhibition Van Dongen Fauve, Anarchist and Socialite

25 March – 17 July 2011

 The title says it all.

The exhibition comprises some 90 paintings and drawings, together with ceramics, dating from 1895 to the early 1930s. Designed by the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum and organised in association with the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, it includes loans from major French and international institutions, and from  private collections.

 Femme au fond blanc 1912

Van Dongen earned a good living as a portraitist. I enjoy his

playful cynicism he is said to have remarked of his popularity as a portraitist with high society women; ' The essential thing is to elongate the women and especially to make them slim. After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels. They are ravished.' this remark in conjunction with another of his sayings - ' Painting is the most beautiful of lies.'

I always find his paintings and graphics surprising and fresh.

 lithograph Femme A Eventail

From Van Dongen Apres le fauvisme 1976

this one

From My own collection 1931

Lithograph

The eyes have it