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22 Feb 00 - 10:08 AM (#182724) Subject: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Peter T. (feb 22) The first sunny day on the snowfields brings thoughts of shadows -- not, I hasten to add, as the classic symptoms of a depressive -- but everywhere outside the trees and larger rocks cast beautiful blue shadows. In the early years of the Impressionists, critics were heard to remark that no one had ever seen blue shadows, which were obviously absurd. Yet here they are, plain as a post-Impressionist world can make them. So the shadow of the mind clearly cast a shadow on shadows. Absence of light means black: what else could it mean? In the Early Renaissance, you can see painters trying to handle shadows by intensifying colour and putting a little black into it -- a light red gown becomes a denser red, but that misleads the eye, since shadows in nature lessen the underlying colour, not intensify it. Leonardo began the revisioning process by using darkness as his basic mode, not light -- because he was haunted by the mystery of things. But his shadows lack colour. Rembrandt's approach is to represent shadow and light struggling for the soul, drawing wrinkles of life over the face. But shadow is still absence, if a palpable absence. In Boudin, Monet, Pissaro, at last, shadow becomes part of the light, or more correctly, takes its part in the overall web of the visual field. We see that shadows take colour from reflected light of other nearby objects, or very large, or distant objects, like the blue sky. If it were not so, on a bright sunny day, shadows on the snow, in the pure absence of light, would be black. There are lots of other things going on -- complementary colours, warm and cool colour balances, aerial perspective that blues the light and dark of distant hills. And so the shadows cease being simply empty black space. They are alive with variation, colour, temperature. Might not help much dealing with depression, but then again.... |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:12 AM (#182728) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Peter T. sorry, should be "very large distant objects" yours, Peter T. |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:19 AM (#182734) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: GUEST,Mbo Don't forget Matisse and his great colored shadows--like in "The Green Stripe (Madame Matisse)" looks excellent well. Alas, painting is not my forte, though. --Mbo |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:19 AM (#182735) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: GUEST,Mbo Don't forget Matisse and his great colored shadows--like in "The Green Stripe (Madame Matisse)" looks excellent well. Alas, painting is not my forte, though. --Mbo |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:26 AM (#182740) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Amos "To draw the spaces between what is seen, as to paint shadows among the lights, is a challenge not only to the artist but to the imagination in all of us." Wilfred Tambein, "Early Light", 1947 |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:27 AM (#182742) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: alison Happy "thinking Day" to all those Guides, Brownies, and Scouts out there..... slainte alison |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:39 AM (#182749) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: GUEST,Mbo I just 2 seconds ago read about an organization called "The International Color Consortium" who decide things about colors and theories on colored light. Real exciting stuff, eh? --Mbo |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:47 AM (#182754) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Peg there is a great book by Alexander Theroux called Primary Colors with essays on how red, yellow and blue have affected humans in art, literature, etc. through the years..he followed it up later with Secondary Colors... |
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22 Feb 00 - 10:50 AM (#182756) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: GUEST,Mbo Um....ok... |
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22 Feb 00 - 11:14 AM (#182765) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: katlaughing Well, here in Wyoming one of the things that I love to watch are the great HUGE cloudshadows which scuttle across the prairie as they traverse the sky. The first time my son's SO came out here, from growing up in New England, she was amazed. They are constant and as such I think a lot of people just never notice them. Being fair-haired and fair-skinned, I have always sought the shadows to keep from burning. Among my rare tropical plants I have a few favourites of the more common variety. One of them is a red hibiscus about 34 yrs old. This morning when I went to open the window blinds, I noticed that instead of its usual one-at-a time blossoming, it had wide-opened TWO blossoms at once. Each bloom only lasts for a day, so it is really exciting to have two at once. Such a brilliant red and so large, the size of saucers. Their shadows and those of the hanging plants and others around them always cast lovely, fantastically shaped shadows on my living room walls. |
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22 Feb 00 - 11:17 AM (#182767) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Amos That's it, kAT...me an' Barky are coming to visit. Amos |
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22 Feb 00 - 12:04 PM (#182778) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: katlaughing Anytime, Amos! Welcome, plenty of space for as long as we are here!**BG** Oh, and the mountain is only five minutes from our house. It is full of quaking aspens, Tall Lodgepole Pines lined up like soldiers on a march, ramrod straight and countless shadows, which reveal, in early spring and summer, shy little Ladyslipper orchids and otehr wildflowers. Some of them are not shy, though, and blatantly worship the sun out in the middle of the bald patches....the rockfields. kat |
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22 Feb 00 - 12:29 PM (#182790) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Willie-O Of all the skies I saw during my wandering youth, the Wyoming one is the definitive one... W-O |
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22 Feb 00 - 01:03 PM (#182809) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Amos There is no sky like Wyoming sky For endless open gazing There is no air like Wyoming air No mountains as amazing There are no plains like Wyoming's plains Where the cattle still go grazing So when the world has sent me home And I am done with roaming I know that I will wander back To kAT's place in Wyoming Love ya, fair lady! A |
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22 Feb 00 - 01:10 PM (#182812) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Crowhugger Here in southern Ontario, the shadows are sweet mauve; the bleakest black cannot find its way into the eager blue-yellow sunshine! A glorious day of light discovered. |
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22 Feb 00 - 01:23 PM (#182817) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: bseed(charleskratz) Amos, you are absolutely amazing. I have been constantly delighted by the songs and poems you have been posting--and the way they seem to come right off the top of your head, on demand, without apparent effort. You and Roger Gall (the Shambles) seem to be totally irrepressible creative forces and the Mudcat is certainly vastly richer because of your presence. And Peter, as a photographer and teacher of photography, I appreciate your statement and have copied and pasted it (since I'm at school now, I have been able to past it only in a sticky--there's no word processor on this computer) but I'll do the same at home when I get back on line there. --seed also, hi, kat |
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22 Feb 00 - 01:24 PM (#182819) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Little Neophyte Peter T., I think your Thought for the Day may in fact help depression because even if you can not clearly see in the shadow, like you say, "there are lots of other things going on". Maybe you were right the first time. "Shadows take colour from the reflected light of very large and distant objects". It reminds me of people. We may not directly see all the magnificant colours a person may possess but their light reflects in the shadow offering us a hint of the beauty they behold. Little Neo |
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22 Feb 00 - 01:39 PM (#182829) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Little Neophyte Charles your home! |
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22 Feb 00 - 01:44 PM (#182834) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: catspaw49 Yeah, talk about your shadows!!! Ya' know, some of us worry when friends disappear.....ASSHOLE!!!! A note would have been nice or something along that line.....YOU JERK!!!! Spaw |
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22 Feb 00 - 01:45 PM (#182836) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Amos Thanks, Sir Seed...as long as I stay on the top of my head, I can stay out of trouble. If I go any deeper it gets really yewwwwgly! :>) A |
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22 Feb 00 - 02:19 PM (#182846) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Metchosin Ok you arty fellows, we're talking "chirosciro" here, can anyone tell me how to spell it properly? |
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22 Feb 00 - 02:29 PM (#182853) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Osmium can't spell but talking of shadows there's a high walk in Ireland where, when the sun sets your shadow may be cast upon the clouds and you can stride the stride of giants. Anyone know where and what the entity us called (I seem to remember it as a Gaelic name) |
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22 Feb 00 - 02:47 PM (#182863) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: catspaw49 Lest there be another error....... My post above was directed jokingly at friend Seed who has been off for awhile and it took awhile before I found why he wasn't around. I had e-mailed, etc...and hadn't heard a word in two weeks. I'm glad to see him back. Spaw |
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22 Feb 00 - 02:56 PM (#182866) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Amos chiaroscuro from the Italian "clear" plus "dark" (chiara and oscuro, respectively). |
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22 Feb 00 - 03:10 PM (#182873) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: katlaughing Oh, smarty-pants Amos! Ya beat me to it!!! WhaddaMudder! Thank you so much for you brill poem and sentiments. If i had one them 100,000 acres spreads out here, I would FILL it with Mudcatters! Will-O, glad ta hear you've clapped eyes on that sky I love. Forgot this, was probably more to the point of Peter's orginal posting: I collect Maxfield Parrish, esp. for his skies and clouds. One day after we'd been back in Wyoming about a year, my daughter and I were headed east at the base of the mountain. It had been a rainy day before and a bit blustery. I was driving along, when she suddenly said, "Look! It's a Maxfield Parrish sky!" And, it was indeed, could've been painted there by himself; great, white billows upon billows of clouds, stretching up, with bright, almost blinding white, laced with a reflected orangish-pink from the setting sun. It was magnificent and glorious and magical. We pulled over and just sat there looking in amazement, knowing that Parrish HAD to have seen a sky like that to have created it so faithfully for someone's silly calendar. Anyhow, we'll find that big spread, if'n ya'll come out! Oh, and Charles (Seed), hi and it sure is DAMN good to see you back, my friend! luvya'llkat |
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22 Feb 00 - 03:14 PM (#182875) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Metchosin Thank you Amos (my other beloved), my dictionary is only a help when I can at least come close to the correct spelling. I didn't realize how much my written vocabulary lagged behind my verbal until I came to Mudcat. Most humbling. |
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22 Feb 00 - 03:32 PM (#182882) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: bseed(charleskratz) Bonnie, Paw, kat, Mbo, et al: Yesterday I finally got a replacement for my old Performa 6300--a Performa 6400, and it's amazing what that change in the second digit made: The 6300 Macintosh Performa was a pain in the ass from the beginning: its original logic board was freezing a couple of times a day, causing the loss of whatever I was working on that I hadn't saved (usually not much of importance), was slow (100 mz) and, worst of all, could not be upgraded, except for RAM. I had one hard drive crash (probably not the computer's fault) and endless system problems, and when my floppy drive died for the second time and my keyboard went kaput I figured it was time for an upgrade, especially when I took the old box to the shop and saw that they had the 6400 for sale, and with an upgrade to a G-3 chip and a new keyboard and installation of my 10 gig hard drive after reconfiguring it to get rid of the crap that had accumulated as I tried to get the system functioning, I would be out only $900. I picked it up yesterday afternoon but have not had time to do much with it except watch in amazement as Photoshop opens in 3 seconds flat. Anyway, when I get back on line and start to get on top of my eMail again, I should be able to waste my usual 30 hours a week in the Mudcat Cafe. --seed(filling the thread with irrelevancies, as usual) |
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22 Feb 00 - 03:43 PM (#182888) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Little Neophyte I would really get on top of that email of yours Charles. I'm receiving mail you sent to others. I promise not to reveal the content. Though I must say one thing, those kind of boo boos could get you in an awful lot of trouble. Glad your back Bonnie |
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22 Feb 00 - 04:02 PM (#182897) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Metchosin Maybe I'm a bit wierd, but I love black and white for landscapes not colour. I have a large black and white lithograph of Highland Cattle by a rushing stream, with the mist and the moors and mountains, scudded with cloud shadows, by the Scottish landscape artist Peter Graham. I have seen his landscapes in colour but still prefer my lowly lithograph. I find that the power of the piece is enhanced by the use of black and white. Although I was in awe, when I finally got to see the grand canyon a couple of years ago, as art, Ansel Adams' photographs take it to another place beyond, if that seems possible.
I think, whatever is going on in my brain, is linked to the reason I find most black and white films more emotionally powerful than a lot of colour extravagansas. And I do not find the lack of colour in any way depressing Susan (whoseesincolourbutunderstandsinblackandwhite) |
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22 Feb 00 - 04:07 PM (#182899) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Amos I second that emotion... And Metchosin, it warmeth my little old cuckolds to be your other beloved...I keep a text version of the OED on line. Makes it easy. As for your spread, kAT, (...don't go there! don't go there!) we could just start up a real Neil Young Center for all these impoverished folkies to sit at and croon in their sunset years. Make an entry requirement of a minimum number of high-quality Mudcat posts, see, and at least one Cow Chip. Don't think we could have cattle, cuz the singing would drive them off their feed, but we could raise possums, feed 'em to the old folkies as Spam, use their hides to make custom Mudcat bodhrans, and give the tailholes to Spaw to fertilize his imagination... |
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22 Feb 00 - 04:08 PM (#182900) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: GUEST,Mbo Hey Seed, my ol' arguing buddy--glad to see you back. It's been a while. Hope you're feeling better! Ah yes...chiaroscuro...I am a self-proclaimed master of it. You can rip apart my whole design idea and drawing concepts, but you can't touch my chiaroscuro. Am I being a bit too high self-esteemed? --Mbo |
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22 Feb 00 - 04:29 PM (#182917) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Peter T. And what of the loss of black and white films to video and the closing of art movie theatres? Surely one of the most beautiful things on earth is a fine black and white film projected onto a big screen, with really saturated blacks and honeyblond whites. But you can hardly see them anymore -- Schindler's List and the occasional Woody Allan film are the exceptions. I think most people now have no idea of how stunning these films are visually, since they only see them on TV: Top Hat, Rebecca, Manhattan, Citizen Kane, The General, The Big Sleep.... I could go on and on. It is a tragedy. yours, Peter T. |
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22 Feb 00 - 04:42 PM (#182921) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: Metchosin Agreed Peter T. Where are the Sergei Eisensteins and Fritz Langes of today? |
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22 Feb 00 - 07:30 PM (#183028) Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 22 From: katlaughing And that classic Hitchock with a very young Shirley MacLaine, The Trouble With Harry. Metchosin, I love B&W, too, have even had a couple of mine own photos published. Amos, you are talking to a veggie here, sweetie. Ain't no feeding a'any possums on my big ole' ranch, nothing with eyes thet kin see, ya unnerstan? Why, ole Rawg had the purrfect idee t'other day, saz he knoz jist what we kin promote and make sum money wid...veggie rodeo...roping wily stalks of celery, wrestling down a big pumpkin, well...ya git the pichur, right? Then, a'course we kin have them cows, take 'em in as refugees from t'other ranches, and let 'em live out theyah lives in peace, let the turrists pay good money t come see a genuwhine real western steer....well, think 'bout it, anyways, will ya. I think I know a closet veggie banker in town might go for it! For an idea of what it might really be like for us all to grow old together, please check out the following thread. luvya'llkat |