2015.03.23 13:00 - Which one would you choose?

The Guardian for this meeting was Aphrodite Macbain. The comments are by Aphrodite Macbain.

Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Wol
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Elan
Aphrodite Macbain: Glad to see you both
Wol Euler: hello bruce, Elan
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Bruce
Aphrodite Macbain: How is everyone?
Aphrodite Macbain: I hope your week will be better than last week Wol
ElanVitalo Resident: Hi, Aph. Hi, Wol. Hi, Bruce.
Wol Euler: thanks :) me too
Bruce Mowbray: Hi, Elan, Wol, Aph.
Bruce Mowbray: I'm good, thank you. I've been working all day on shadows -- in artistic compositions, using Caravaggio as my mentor. Exhausted!
Aphrodite Macbain: Wow sounds really interesting Bruce
Aphrodite Macbain: what have you been doing with those shadows?
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, it's fascinating. I think my problem is there are too many options.
Aphrodite Macbain: always!
Wol Euler smiles.
Bruce Mowbray: I need to limit my lighting and camera angles - consolidated all down to something simple, until I really know what I'm doing.
Aphrodite Macbain: what are you trying to accomplish?
Bruce Mowbray: I'm trying to make simple composition.
Bruce Mowbray: ( digital graphics media.)
Aphrodite Macbain: nods
Aphrodite Macbain: what's the image? or can you tell us?
Bruce Mowbray: I'm using Poser.... and the options for lighting alone are literally infinite.
Bruce Mowbray: but then I try to bring in mirror affects, shadows, multiple lights....
Aphrodite Macbain: OMG
Bruce Mowbray: and they don't succeed in much except having everything fight each other.
Bruce Mowbray: yes, you can understand my problem now.
Aphrodite Macbain: please show it to us when it's finished
Bruce Mowbray: I love Caravaggio's chiaroscuro effects, though... so that's what I'm sort of using as a guide and "mentor."
Aphrodite Macbain: a good mentor indeed!
Aphrodite Macbain: though he had a pretty rocky life!
Bruce Mowbray: I'm really grateful to have this session because it pulled me away from my obsessions today.
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Aphrodite Macbain: good

Bruce Mowbray: in the interest of " channeling" Caravaggio better, I will be watching a bit all of him tonight... (on DVD)- a biography of him*

Aphrodite Macbain: What's the project that's been making you crazy, Wol?
Wol Euler: the same, we only really have one biggish project on the go
Wol Euler: adding sauna rooms and wellness to the pool/sauna/health place we finished in 2011
Bruce Mowbray: Wow! GREAT, Wol!
Aphrodite Macbain: ah - I think I remember that
Bruce Mowbray: I remember it well!
Aphrodite Macbain: do you get a free pass?
Aphrodite Macbain: You could probably use a sauna
Aphrodite Macbain: after a long day's frustrations
Wol Euler: no, no free passes
Wol Euler: dam it
Wol Euler: it's over an hour away by autobahn
Aphrodite Macbain: :-(
Aphrodite Macbain: too bad.
Aphrodite Macbain: there are probably closer ones
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh.
Aphrodite Macbain: Maybe I'll build a sauna on my little plot of land for you to use!
Bruce Mowbray: My typist built a sauna in his house -- as well as the house itself (13 years ago).
Aphrodite Macbain: Bruce, I will be in Rome from April 23-29. I can see if I can find some Caravaggio's for you there.
Aphrodite Macbain: I was exploring a sim called "Roma" and got inspired by the Roman baths
Aphrodite Macbain: Their heating system was amazing
ElanVitalo Resident: Bruce and I seem to be experiencing extreme lag....
Aphrodite Macbain: oh? I wonder why
Aphrodite Macbain: Are you Wol?
ElanVitalo Resident: he typed something over a minute ago and it has not yet appeared in the chat box.

ElanVitalo Resident: what he typed was that he hoped he would bring back some original Caravaggio's for him from Rome.
Aphrodite Macbain: Weird
ElanVitalo Resident: yes I thought his suggestion was weird also.
ElanVitalo Resident: but I've learned to live with it.
Aphrodite Macbain: I'll do what I can Bruce! Maybe it will have to be a postcard
Bruce Mowbray: why can't my typing show up in this box?
Aphrodite Macbain: Bruce Mowbray: oh there it is!
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Wol Euler smiles.
Aphrodite Macbain: It's tricky using 2 viewers at once- it slows everything down: I am a dragon and a knight in the play I'm in, and it is very laggy

Bruce Mowbray: I would be happy to take original Bouguereau's or Caravaggio's -- take your pick.
Bruce Mowbray: ahhh.
Wol Euler: there's a game I play in art galleries and museums, called "which one?"
Bruce Mowbray: please say more, Wol.
Wol Euler: you have the time and the opportunity and the tools to take just one [whatever] with you.
Wol Euler: but only one
Wol Euler: which one would it be, and why?
Bruce Mowbray nods, a fun game...
Aphrodite Macbain: Yes- I've played that
Wol Euler: my parents started us on that, as a way of getting us to think about what we were looking at
Bruce Mowbray: Wonderful.
Bruce Mowbray: Have you noticed that your choices have changed through the years?
Aphrodite Macbain: It's a great way to really look at the art work
Aphrodite Macbain: mine changes based on what new things I learn and see
Aphrodite Macbain: what galleries did your parents take you to Wol?
Wol Euler: everything!
Wol Euler: everywhere we went, including "downtown"
Aphrodite Macbain has fond memories of looking at the Peggy Guggenheim museum in Venice with Wol
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: indeed we did
Aphrodite Macbain: It was a wonderful occasion. Great art, great company
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: Each of us with different ideas and knowledge
Bruce Mowbray: Last year my typist actually observed his "pick one" choice changing in the course of one afternoon.
Aphrodite Macbain: Everything ended up looking like art- including the umbrellas on the roof
Aphrodite Macbain: what afternoon Bruce?
Wol Euler: ah, do tell
Aphrodite Macbain listens curiously
Bruce Mowbray: it was my second visit to the Milwaukee Art Museum, last June.
Bruce Mowbray: http://collection.mam.org/
Bruce Mowbray: I had gone on sort of a pilgrimage to a Bouguereau painting "Homer and His Guide",
Aphrodite Macbain: Ah yes
Aphrodite Macbain: your fave
Bruce Mowbray: but while sitting there with that painting I realized that I loved other paintings in the room even more than the Bouguereau.
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Qt Core: Hi all
Aphrodite Macbain: nice feeling
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Qt!
Zen Arado: Hi all
Aphrodite Macbain: We are talking about looking at art
Aphrodite Macbain: and our experiences
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Qt.
Wol Euler: hello zen, hello qt
Aphrodite Macbain: Hi Zen
Aphrodite Macbain: GTSY
Bruce Mowbray: Heya, Zen.
Zen Arado: well you are the expert on that Aph
Aphrodite Macbain: Not really Zen. I know a tiny corner of it and we each have different knowledge and favourites. What's your favourite?
Bruce Mowbray: This is the Bouguereau I'd gone there (Milwaukee Art Museum) to see.... http://collection.mam.org/details.php?id=14910
Aphrodite Macbain: Tx Bruce
Zen Arado: do you think painters appreciate art better than non painters?
Qt Core: I went to the Pinacoteca di Brera a few months ago, and after a few painting i stood immobilized for a few minutes thinking about their age, i was in front of one painted around 1250
Zen Arado: RE: paintings
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Aphrodite Macbain: what was it Qt?
Bruce Mowbray: I'm sure that artists appreciate art more than non-artists --- the same with architects, no?
Qt Core: so many of them, don't remember
Aphrodite Macbain: We often appreciate things more if we know them well
Zen Arado: but maybe we become too interested in technique
Wol Euler: yes, Zen, that's what I was thinking
Zen Arado: rather than experience what artist is trying to say
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, Qt! It IS a wonderment -- to consider the age of such works.
Aphrodite Macbain: we all see things differently, no matter what it is, no?
Bruce Mowbray: That's my problem today, Zen. I have been working on some graphics compositions and am utterly lost in the technique, so I need to get away from it for a while.
Zen Arado: don't we add value to art by its provenance?
Aphrodite Macbain: commercial value? or intrinsic value?
Bruce Mowbray: how do you mean, Zen?
Zen Arado: but it didn't get fame for nothing I guess
Bruce Mowbray: I think Zen means fame.
Zen Arado: well like a Monet worth millions
Aphrodite Macbain: ah fame and money
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Zen Arado: but not thousands of times better than other srt
Aphrodite Macbain: It's hard to talk about art without talking about the art market
Bruce Mowbray nods again.
Wol Euler nods.
Bruce Mowbray: I feel this especially about modern art . . .
Aphrodite Macbain: People always seem to want to know what it's monetary worth is
Zen Arado: yes
Zen Arado: if 'experts' say it is good it must be
Bruce Mowbray: yes, since there is absolutely no question about my not purchasing, I seldom even think about the value ( monetary value, I mean.)
Aphrodite Macbain: I suppose it's easier if you have no money and you just look at the art work for other reasons: aesthetics, meaning, purpose
Bruce Mowbray: that frees me up to enjoy the art for its own sake...
Aphrodite Macbain: yes
Wol Euler: that was one of the reasons behind my parents' starting the "which one" game, because it completely bypasses the monetary value
Wol Euler: leaving just "do I like this enough to bother taking it?"
Bruce Mowbray: , yes Aph.
Aphrodite Macbain: Right Wol
Bruce Mowbray: I think that's a wonderful game that your parents played with you . . .
Wol Euler: for the newcomers: in any gallery or museum: imagine you have time, tools and opportunity to take home anything that you want ("steal" is such an ugly word)
Wol Euler: but you can only take one thing
Bruce Mowbray: (I also suspect that in my family of origin that might have created a thief.)
Bruce Mowbray: sry.
Wol Euler: np :)
Bruce Mowbray: mine was a family of literalists.
Wol Euler: heheheheh
Aphrodite Macbain: Grins. What do you think about the museum/gallery providing information on the art work and artist - would it change your appreciation of it?
Bruce Mowbray: which one do you want to steal today????!
Zen Arado: funny but it works in reverse too
Wol Euler: I love that, Aph, but I often wish for different info than they supply :)
Zen Arado: I was never that keen on Picasso until I saw some of his paintings in London
Aphrodite Macbain: Like what Wol?
Bruce Mowbray: I usually turn to those little note cards of information after I've been attracted to the painting itself . . . otherwise I'd probably not even read them.
Aphrodite Macbain: yes
Wol Euler: I love the idea of having QR codes beside the usual labels, that would lead you to a web-page-style fount of into
Zen Arado: maybe just enough info and no more
Aphrodite Macbain: I find it interesting to learn about the artist him/herself
Bruce Mowbray: the Metropolitan in New York has a room with about 20 or more Picassos in it

Qt Core: i found the paintings whose age shocked me, i took a pic of it (yes, you can do that there): https://picasaweb.google.com/1104762...27069188544802

Aphrodite Macbain: Do you find that a bit overwhelming?
Aphrodite Macbain: Bruce?
Bruce Mowbray: that's interesting, Aph, because most of the time I really try to put biographical information aside.
Aphrodite Macbain: It's very beautiful Qt!
Bruce Mowbray: Ahhh!
Bruce Mowbray: THANKS for sharing that, Qt!
Aphrodite Macbain: I love those early Renaissance paintings even more than the later ones
Bruce Mowbray nods.
Qt Core: isn't 1250 a little too early for calling it renaissance ?
Zen Arado: I remember studying early Italian in a course
Aphrodite Macbain: Biographical information can, occasionally, give you insight into the mind of the person holding the brush/pen etc
Aphrodite Macbain: early Renaissance.Medieval was a bit earlier
Bruce Mowbray: For some reason or another I really feel a need for depth in a painting... perhaps that's one reason why I enjoy chiaroscuro so much
Zen Arado: remember Madonnas with halos in gold
Zen Arado: frescos
Zen Arado: probably gettig mixed up
Zen Arado: they were tempera on fresco though ?
Aphrodite Macbain: Gold halos were big in the medieval times --icons etc
Zen Arado: or did they start on wood panels by then?
Zen Arado: ah ok
Aphrodite Macbain: some, yes Zen
Bruce Mowbray: I think wood panels came in with icons...
Wol Euler: I want to know odd stuff about the paintings, for example: in Stuttgart there is a Rembrandt self portrait which has a strange frame: it's clearly been cut into quarters and extended by adding in wood panels which don't quite match
Aphrodite Macbain: Interesting Wol. It is surprising there was nothing said about it. Maybe in an exhibition catalogue or on the Internet. Frames are so interesting in themselves.
Wol Euler: indeed!
Wol Euler: that's the kind of thing I want the museum/gallery to tell me :)
Aphrodite Macbain: It gives you an idea of how it was valued when it was framed
Bruce Mowbray: if an icon had been painted on a wood panel, it could be carried around -- an advantage that a fresco would not have, obviously.
Aphrodite Macbain: right Bruce
Aphrodite Macbain: they were put on little altars
Zen Arado: "Much painting of the Renaissance period was commissioned by or for the Catholic Church. These works were often of large scale and were frequently cycles painted in fresco of the Life of Christ, the Life of the Virgin or the life of a saint, particularly St. Francis of Assisi. There were also many allegorical paintings on the theme of Salvation and the role of the Church in attaining it. Churches also commissioned altarpieces, which were painted in tempera on panel and later in oil on canvas. Apart from large altarpieces, small devotional pictures were produced in very large numbers, both for churches and for private individuals, the most common theme being the Madonna and Child."
Bruce Mowbray: Amazon the folks were moving around during the Renaissance.
Aphrodite Macbain: thanks Zen :-)
Aphrodite Macbain: Amazon! lol
Bruce Mowbray: and a lot of folks* (NOT Amazon, for heaven's sake.)
Wol Euler: heheheh
Zen Arado: I remember that painters were consodered juat as craftsmen too
Aphrodite Macbain: It's an amazonly long river
Zen Arado: maybe that was earlier
Bruce Mowbray: and wide.
Aphrodite Macbain: they decorated churches and worked in guilds
Aphrodite Macbain: and schools
Aphrodite Macbain: like the masons
Zen Arado: yes painting was mostly religious
Qt Core: there is a letter of presentation of himself by Leonardo that mentioned just as a little detail that he can paint, when he wanted to come to Milan to work
Aphrodite Macbain: yes
Aphrodite Macbain: cool Qt
Bruce Mowbray: isn't that amazing?
Qt Core: he presented himself as an engineer, mostly
Aphrodite Macbain: I love those little details of knowledge
Bruce Mowbray: I wonder if da Vinci did the same.
Aphrodite Macbain: he was an amazingly good engineer
Zen Arado: it was such a different world
Zen Arado: we can't imagine really
Aphrodite Macbain: Leonardo da Vinci, no?
Zen Arado: what a shock to travel back
Zen Arado: if we could time travel
Zen Arado: us
Zen Arado: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: yes-I do in movies and books
Aphrodite Macbain: in my imagination
Bruce Mowbray: imagine a world in which one individual could have multiple fields of expertise -- no need to specialize, as in the modern world (e.g. WHAT IS YOUR MAJOR?!)
Wol Euler nods.
Zen Arado: yeh
Aphrodite Macbain: yes- we specialize too soon
Bruce Mowbray: speaking of travel in time, has anyone seen the movie "LUCY"?
Qt Core: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087814/
Qt Core: (not lucy)
Aphrodite Macbain: But when you get old like me you can go back to university and study anything you want
Aphrodite Macbain: what is Lucy?
Bruce Mowbray: I watched it last night . . . some very poignant themes about "time."
Aphrodite Macbain: Love Roberto Begnini
Bruce Mowbray: is the movie you just cited available in English, Qt?
Qt Core: it's about the Australopithecus skeleton ?
Qt Core: don't know
Aphrodite Macbain: ahhh
Bruce Mowbray: kk, I will do research.
Aphrodite Macbain: from whom all of us have come!
Bruce Mowbray: Yes, the title LUCY comes from that discovery.
Aphrodite Macbain: we are all one
Aphrodite Macbain: sharing almost all the same genes
Bruce Mowbray: and the female lead character actually meets the original Lucy, in the movie.
Aphrodite Macbain: I like that :-)
Aphrodite Macbain: In what way does she "meet" her?
Bruce Mowbray: (she travels back in time to the place where Lucy was...)
Wol Euler: interesting premise
Bruce Mowbray: and they touch fingers.
Wol Euler: like ET
Bruce Mowbray: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: like Michelangelo's God and Adam
Zen Arado: yes
Aphrodite Macbain: but Woman and Woman
Aphrodite Macbain: :-)
Wol Euler: ah, silly me
Wol Euler: wrong reference :)
Aphrodite Macbain: huh?
Bruce Mowbray: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2872732/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
Wol Euler is joking.
Aphrodite Macbain: grins
Zen Arado: the course I did with the most long and unintelligible words was art history
Aphrodite Macbain: see- we all read things differently!
Bruce Mowbray: I think there may have been a reference to that Michelangelo image, yes.
Zen Arado: art historians specialize in weird vocabulary
Aphrodite Macbain: connection with another
Wol Euler: oh I saw that one on a plane, that was about its level of quality :)
Aphrodite Macbain: grins
Aphrodite Macbain: what weird vocabulary Zen? Any weirder that Buddhism?
Zen Arado: oh yes
Qt Core: i get annoyed fast at over analysis of art (whichever form)
Zen Arado: pompous words
Bruce Mowbray: the movie itself is silly, of course..... but the themes it suggests are profound.
Zen Arado: maybe it's just the English ones
Aphrodite Macbain listens for more
Qt Core: no, Zen, sadly not ;-)
Zen Arado: :)
Aphrodite Macbain: lol
Bruce Mowbray: I think some art critics are jealous of the ability of the artist to control her/his media . . . and so they compensate by trying to control the vocabulary (over analysis)... and by "framing" the art with their own critique.
Aphrodite Macbain: Most words sound strange until we understand them
Zen Arado: hmm could be Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: hmm.
Qt Core: he who can't do, criticize ? ;-)
Wol Euler: bye elan, take care
Zen Arado: bye Elan
ElanVitalo Resident: thanks, everyone. bye for now.
Aphrodite Macbain: Bye Elan
Qt Core: bye Elan
Aphrodite Macbain: I have to go back to my study of strange words
Wol Euler smiles.
Wol Euler: I shall move on too
Qt Core: bye Aph, Bruce
Bruce Mowbray: kk, THANKS, Aph and everyone.
Wol Euler: goodnight, my dears
Aphrodite Macbain: thank you for joining me. I was feeling a little sad but I'm better now,
Zen Arado: byee all, going for cup of tea
Wol Euler: good!
Qt Core: 'night all
Aphrodite Macbain: :-) bye , arrivaderci
Aphrodite Macbain: alla prossima
Aphrodite Macbain: etc