I wanted to do a painting from the Central American region of the world next and this particular painting caught my eye sheerly based on the way the young boy was standing. The way his arms and his shirt is shaded makes it appear his arms are posterior to his torso and that he is extending his chest forward as if to confront an oncoming stranger on his turf. Siqueiros seemed to empower the boy in his painting whether it was intended or not. This is almost ironic because young children aren’t supposed to be by themselves at all. A young child deserves care of a parent and not to join street gangs as displayed in my interpretation to the right.
David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) was a man that lived almost all life had to offer by living and experiencing the terrors of the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and prison. It was in prison most of his easel works were created including Jesusito sera un Santo. At this point in his life he had mastered his style and was well known for his three-dimensional perspective. It was the depth in the paintings that made him who he is today as a painter. Siqueiros believed that his art should be public, educational, and ideological and he did this through painting subject matter of the struggles of the working class. This young boy’s seems to have trouble finding his parents… and his pants.
There wasn’t a terrible amount of information about this particular piece of art by Tang Yin, but this painting is by far my favorite work of his. I have selected this work based upon my obsession with tree houses and the fact that this house is casually built intertwined with a tree and a mountain face makes it stand out amongst other Ming dynasty landscape art. There is something special about how the lines in this and other landscape paintings are used at both the simple and detailed levels that generates awe. For example the rock faces are very simply constructed with lines where as the the trees and the leaves are very detailed. This emphasis on line also makes parts of the painting without lines look foggy and mysterious as the the house is shrouded in a mist atop the mountain. I take solace in the fact that even though the mist is engulfing the mountain, the people remain safe in their home and look off into the distance from their perch.
Tang Yin, also known as Tang Bohu, was a Chinese scholar, painter, calligrapher, and poet that became famous during the Ming Dynasty and who’s life became part of common Chinese lore. He was a hard worker from the start and had everything under his belt from winning provincial imperial examinations to serving time for involvement in a fraud case. However, as his skills developed he was given the self-proclaimed title of “The First Talented and Romantic Scholar in South China.” Tang Yin is most famous for his landscape paintings, as seen above, and his figure painting which typically are of woman and important historical matter. His paintings were so impressive, he made his living simply by painting and selling his works. I’m sure he eventually bought a house in the hills… or a treehouse in the hills.
I’m going to take everyone on a journey today the like of which many have most likely not experienced. I listen to just about every genre of music on a regular basis, but Melodic Death Metal is by far the most emotive and thought provoking of anything out there. I plan to explain the genre to the best of my ability and highlight three of my favorite “Melodeath” bands to further help everyone grasp the sound and the experience. Just so people have an idea of what to expect, this music is defined as a combination of New Wave British Heavy Metal and Death Metal that utilizes and is highlighted by the natural minor scale, dark subject matter, fast rhythms, gruff vocals, keyboards, and both clean and distorted guitar. However the outstanding aspect of Melodic Death Metal, to me, is the outstanding harmonic/melodic guitar riffs that lead every song and leave tunes stuck in your head for eternity. Honestly, this post might change your life.
Be’Lakor: Be’Lakor is a band based out of Melbourne, Australia that is made up of a group of men in their twenties who have been playing music together for just about their whole lives. Though these boys may be young, as their band is young, they managed to be invited to the Summer Breeze Music Festival in 2010. The previous year they won several awards for their 2009 album Stone’s Reach which has been described by many as a hauntingly beautiful, well-oiled musical composition from start to finish. I see much in this bands future. The piece entitled Countless Skies is the first available to listen to and it is the longest track on the album. It covers the topic of the ever changing weather and how it cannot be controlled; instead, it is the seasons of change that control us. The first time I heard this song, it was pouring rain out and I was stuck inside with nowhere to go. The words and notes empathized with my thought on the situation and lead me to keep listening to their music. The next track is entitled Aspect is about losing everything you hold dear and just flat out fading away. This song stood out to me because of its powerful introduction and dynamic composition. Both of these songs contain harmonic melodies that accent the gloomy subject matter at hand. Two words: Brutal Symphony.
Omnium Gatherum: This group of men is a recent acquaintence of mine that became an instant classic. They are based out of Karhula, Finland and have had many members play with them before their current line-up. Their newest album New World Shadows, which was released this year is topping the metal charts almost everywhere and is currently rated the best album of the year by several web pages. The first song by them on the blog is the title track on the album and is about the memories of people who have died and how their spirits cast shadows upon the living that calms and tames what they were in contact with. The first thing I noticed and appreciated about this song is how well the keyboards and guitar work together to bring out the introduction riff in the beginning and the end. It was so stuck in my head after my first exposure, I listened to that song only for almost a week it felt like. The next track is from their previous album released in 2008. This song is entitled Nail and is about staring death in the face and how unavoidable it is. Both songs featured here contain subject matter fitting of a melodic death metal band and also have a defining and driving melody behind the brutal vocals.
Amon Amarth: As one of the fore-running bands of this genre, Amon Amarth set the bar very high for other bands to come. The lyrics of the band are Norse themed and this makes sense because the band is based out of Tumba, Sweden. The lead singer and front-man Johan Hegg drives the music with his deep viking vocals and organizes the synchronized head-banging for which this band is so famous. The album that these two songs were taken form is entitled With Oden On Our Side released in 2006. The first song presented is entitled Cry of the Blackbirds referencing the swarm of ravens that come to feed on a battlefield after the fight is over. This is the song that made me come back and listen to them again after hearing a few of their licks. The powerful melody on the guitar got stuck in my head and before I knew it I owned all their albums. This song’s lyrics are my favorite because you listen to the battle from the victorious perspective and it inspires you to succeed in any endeavor. The next track is called Runes to My Memory and is about going to war on foreign ground and being slain away from your homeland. It wasn’t my favorite track on the CD, but I played on speakers during a national cross country skiing race to pump up the races and I watch tired men turn into monsters who felt no pain whatsoever. These songs’ machine-gun-like rhythms and tales of the dead in battle classify them in the Melodic Death Metal genre without a doubt. I hope that this post has been an informative and inspiring to all.
This piece of music is a jazz composition performed by Joscho Stephan who is heavily influenced by the music of Django Reinhardt. Django was very famous for playing this song and he remains the most influential jazz musician to me. The piece was originally composed by Phil Boutelje and Dick Winfree in Philadelphia in 1922 and is entitled China Boy. This song has set a jazz standard that is hard to match and has been recorded by such performing artists as Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson, Django Reinhardt and Fats Waller (among many others).
Phil Boutelje was trained at the Philadelphia music academy and was an American military band master in World War I. He was also a pianist and author who arranged for and played with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra and eventually was the director of Paramount Pictures. Dick Winfree was simply a member of a west coast dance band. Both of these men without a doubt received their jazz and swing influence from the African American jazz movement in the South but I feel the Phil especially had an opportunity to do so through his service with the military.
Even though it is an instrumental piece, China Boy was an easy pick for this era because of how its melody flows. I really enjoy the way the tune has a happy beginning and builds all the way to the 2 minute mark before going back to the melody. It is also a favorite because I recently found Joscho’s musical styling and have been playing this song for about a week straight. I have listened to several different versions of China Boy and this version is played almost as immaculate as the Madonna, is the fastest paced, and has the most technical guitar work. I feel I could practice until I die and never achieve the confidence or dexterity to play comfortably what this man sweats out of his pores.
Impressionism is more than just a flood of beards and silent t’s. It is a way of expressing the real life through color and smooth brush strokes that make viewing a pleasant activity. My first impression of impressionism was negative because I was getting kind of tired of viewing real life situations, but after watching one of the shared videos I realized that are many portraits in life that don’t need angels, muscular anatomical sculptures, or naked chicks riding clams to be considered beautiful. My favorite impressionist painting I could find was Monet’s Woman and a Parasol from 1875.
This painting is by no means “of epic proportions”. It is a simple moment captured in time forever with the perfect balance of light and a sort of carpe diem feel to it. The way the light is casted from above the hill and from behind the attractive woman almost say to the viewer: “Hey. Why don’t you just climb on up here and a few more steps and bask in the sunlight with us.” I really enjoy the way the impressionist artists juxtaposed the colors to say make simple and soothing. Even the techniques the artists used expressed that it was better to take a step back and enjoy a beautiful moment rather than look to closely and miss the picture.
It am a man who finds beauty in paintings of the outdoors. It seems to me redundant to hang a painting of the indoors inside because a painting of the outdoors reminds you of what glorious things await for you in nature when you are trapped in a room devoid of light. Drab paintings of the indoors belong on the outside walls of a house during a nice day in my opinion because then its a reminder of how lame it is inside. Both Romanticism and Impressionism capture outdoor paintings really well where as Realism doesn’t necessarily commit to those standards to as great of an extent. Because of this I favor Impressionism and Romanticism quite a bit more.
This next painting is also by Monet, is entitled Houses of Parliament and was created in 1904. It expresses almost the exact opposite kind of beauty as the previous painting. It is hauntingly gorgeous and encapsulates a dark dormant rage within every animal on this planet. This goes to show that Impressionism has such a wide variety of expression, that it is difficult to imagine how there couldn’t be an impressionist painting out there to touch each and every person alive, from the family man… to the rage-aholic.
What you have just heard comes from an opera buffa composed by Gioachina Rossini entitled The Barber of Seville that first premiered on February 20th 1816 in Rome. This comedic musical extravaganza is originally based off of a play that was written in 1775 by Pierre Beaumarchais. The play had musical accompaniment but not to the extent of this newer humorous opera.
This story is clearly tied in with the middle class based upon its plot line. A rich count wishes to test his how much a woman loves him by taking his wealthiness out of the equation. In other words the count disguises himself as a commoner to win the love of his life from another man. This story clearly connects with the middle class by putting the main character in the shoes of the “everyman”. Another way this piece has a broader appeal is that is combines this role with humor, love and music. What more can an audience member ask for?
I love this piece because it really lifts your spirits after you listen to it. It has a very staccato and enlightening feel that makes being stressed or worrying almost impossible. The real reason I find this piece appealing is not only because its overture was in Loony Toons, but because when I was younger my sister and I used to play it over and over again in a cheap Silvester Stallone flick about an Italian mobster who wishes to become an honest man. This composition is Italian, but I highly doubt Stallone’s character was considering hair cutlery as a career.
I was very excited to find one of my favorite musical compositions ever listed amongst the possibilities for my blog. In 1725, a man by the name of Antonio Vivaldi fist published his set of four violin concertos known as The Four Seasons. The set of concertos was published in Amsterdam and is separated into two slower pieces and two faster pieces, each representing one of the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autum, and Winter (respectively).
The particular portion of The Four Seasons I selected to share with everyone is Winter. When I was younger I learned to play a portion of this piece on guitar and it was all I would play for a good portion of six months. It was first shown to me by a friend, but I found myself easily able to relate to its sound to the weather conditions we were currently having. I strictly remember strapping on my ear goggles and jamming to all three parts of the Winter. Its first and third movements represent the fast pase of the icy wind chill and chattering of the teeth, whereas the second movement contains a slower tempo to capture the remembrances of quiet days waiting out a storm.
During the Baroque era, the Catholic Church created the Council of Trent that aimed to counteract the effects of Protestant Reformation and one method they used was to support the creation of music accessible to all listeners. I feel that Vivaldi used this idea of the seasons to create a tune people accepted as the representation for each season. Everyone 1+ years of age would have experienced the four seasons fury and calamaty would be able to listen and make connections to memories in their own lives. It was those connections that caused me to put Winter on my ipod, put my snow gear on, and also to run around in the snow doing rock and roll pelvic thrusts in my back yard.
Similarly to my last post, I have included a modern day interpretation of what I think this piece would have been like had Vivaldi been alive today and had the technology we have. He would have shed the fiddle-stick and picked a real man’s intrument… an electric guitar.
I selected the work formally known as A Portrait of a Young Man by Sandro Botticelli. Botticelli did several other paintings with this title, however this particular piece of artwork was done circa 1482. I believe that this painting best ties in with the ideals of humanism and not only because it contains a human and no other life forms in the background. This is a humanistic painting due to the fact that it captures a young man of the time period that is no one of immediate importance or stature for that matter. It was a teenager or young adult who Botticelli thought had an essence and a social value worth capturing in time. There is talk that Botticelli even incorporated the young man’s rheumatoid arthritis on his hand in this painting. If so, this would mean he had the attention to detail that showed the quality and tenacity this young man put forth every day in his particular line of work (The arthritis is quite apparent in the pinky finger).
A part of this painting impossible to not note out is the gang sign the young man is clearly throwing up. Clearly this is not a casual hand position for resting and I highly doubt his arthritis is bad enough to disfigure his hand. The explanation I found was that he did belong to a gang and it is the same gang I, Andrew Slagle, belong to to this day: The Catholic Church. The fingers come to three distinct points, representing the holy trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
If you look to the right, you will notice I included a rough idea of what I think this painting would have looked like had it been of a modern young man. The fact that this painting looks like a facebook photo of a modern day thug made this painting stand out amongst Botticelli’s other works. I also think that this man looks surprising similar to myself had I been alive in the fifteenth century.
This is my first wordpress post. I’m excited to announce that the destiny that awaits in the near future is of emotional expression of the highest quality on the planet formally known as Midguard.
Slagle's Bagels 
