Pierre Bonnard, The Terrace, 1918
1. Congratulations to Tyler Green, on his 200th podcast! If you want a list of contemporary voices and conversations in and about art that is pushing its way to becoming definitive, you would do well to start at the beginning of the Modern Art Notes Podcast and listen all the way through this week's show.
http://manpodcast.com/portfolio/no-200-our-greatest-hits/
2. “I saw and loved art before I knew anything about it. I lucked out of the problem of learning about art before you see it—because you will always be dealing with that information at the expense of what moves you first-hand. I discovered very quickly in the ’60s that I was the world’s leading expert in my experience. And then I got praised for making the most of that. I think Jasper Johns said one of my favorite lines, which I remember vaguely but goes something like ‘Style is only common sense. You figure out what people like about you, and you exaggerate it.’”
-- one of the many gems to come from Peter Schjeldahl's interview with Jarrett Earnest.
http://www.brooklynrail.org/2015/07/art/peter-schjeldahl-with-jarrett-earnest
3. If you've ever casually strolled through the Phillip's Collection in Washington, D.C., only to have your face melted by Pierre Bonnard's simply unbelievable The Terrace, 1918 (pictured above), you'd do well to read the following review in Burlington Magazine:
http://burlington.org.uk/archive/exhibition-review/pierre-bonnard-paris
4. “Emerson’s essays are like wonder handbooks: they tell you where to find it, how to use it, what to do when it fails you. “Nature,” “The Poet,” “Self-Reliance,” “Circles,” “Experience”: you can use these essays to become enchanted; many dejected secular people have gone to them regularly to see the world in renewed and refreshed terms of beauty.” -- Dan Chiasson
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/09/07/ecstasy-of-influence?mbid=social_facebook
Video of the week:
As the election season heats up and the memes fly, most patently ridiculous and insulting to even the most casual and empty intelligence, I can't help but think of one of my favorite moments from the West Wing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85dKvletfSo
Poem for the week:
After reading the essay on Emerson and the powers of his prose and the less than awe inspiring nature of his poetry, I wonder if I can counter Chiasson's wonderful opening, laying out the biographical details that led to Emerson's "Experience," with a poem powerful enough to show an alternate (read Poetic) impact of grief. Marie Howe's The Gate might be the most important poem I've ever read (at least, personally) when it comes to what death can mean for the living (right up their with Donne's Holy Sonnet 72). I'd say it is a more than worthy response to Emerson's great prose reflection on grief.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/181382