Tag Archives: Giotto di Bordone

stigmata of contradiction

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Dave

Putting the world in order in just the opposite way. That is, instead of simplifying, the material the world offers to that artist, the opposite effect occurs and we have a multiplication of detail. That is the case of Van … Continue reading →

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traitors and spies: pathology of victimhood

Posted on January 26, 2013 by Dave

Its a very particular and idiosyncratic group of individuals that constitute the traitor and in some cases the spy and the double-agent. In the former group few perceive of themselves as traitors, tending to view their plight from the perspective … Continue reading →

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malraux: buchenwald of the plastic arts?

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Dave

Achievement and failure. Andre Malraux arrayed all art beneath a soaring arch of philosophical vision…but the philosopher is left seekingsalvation in the aesthetic “World Beyond,” … Thus Malraux. At this point he abruptly concludes  La Metamorphose des Dieux. His account … Continue reading →

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malraux: venus as rival of the virgin

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Dave

The end of feudalism, the waning of intense religious fervor,  and the beginning of the bourgeois values and cycles of consumerism changed everything. Andre Malraux and his Metamorphosis of the Gods. Its not hard to follow the slippery slope from … Continue reading →

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crisis of imagination: vulcan in a smith’s apron

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Dave

Andre Malraux and his Metamorphosis of the Gods… …In a sense this produces a crisis of the imagination. The Middle Ages knew the supernatural only as reality. Angels were no more surprising than elephants; if anything, medieval people knew angels … Continue reading →

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malraux: after the defeat of eternity

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Dave

Andre Malraux wrote his Metamorphosis of the Gods over a half century ago, essentially showing how the spiritual in art was slowly transformd into the truncating and commodifying of eternity, idolatry, and the cult of celebrity and the man-centered universe … Continue reading →

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malraux: art of pictorial fiction

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Dave

Andre Malraux’s The Metamorphosis of the Gods…The dawning Renaissance bids farewell to Eternity, dragons, and sacred art-Venus descends from Olympus to become a naked woman… Later ages, particularly the Renaissance, praised Giotto for his illusionism, his still relatively primitive, so … Continue reading →

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cathedral in the hearts of man

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Dave

The Gods in Art. Andre Malraux traced the evolution of the deity in his Metamorphosis of the Gods a half century ago, and effectively traced the broad contours whereby the agnostic writer clearly delineated our ambiguous and often willing acceptance … Continue reading →

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at the speed of a mouse: ease of epiphany

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Dave

Battle of the prophets? Back a thousand years ago, the Jewish sage Maimonides had no illusions about an Islamic Golden Age. For a Jew it was a precarious existence and he thought and witnessed the particular animus of Muslim culture … Continue reading →

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trial of JC: 12 angry pharisees

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Dave

Was Christ condemned to death by the Jews, as tradition has held for so long, or was he really executed by the Romans as a political offender?… The author of Mark endeavors to meet the difficulty by transferring the responsibility … Continue reading →

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