The mission of the National Portrait Gallery is to tell the story of America by portraying the people who shape the nation’s history, development and culture. | Legal: s.si.edu/emVrm
I just got the 1948 version of The Water Margin/All Men are Brothers and saw Covarrubias was the creator of the BEAUTIFUL illustrations and wanted to know more about him. Great video
Still amazed by the direct simplicity of these charcoal portraits-- and glad that this exhibition was mounted even in a time when few could visit and enjoy the works, though the gallery was filled and waiting. We tend to forget-- here where I live a local museum (MART) had mounted a show to display a newly-restored Caravaggio masterpiece, along with related masterful works...and nothing but the video tour remains. Not a soul could visit the museum during lockdown. Celebrate our current open access to original works of art, and try to see actual works as often as possible. It makes a difference.
this is historical revisionism: not his last painting and deliberately left unfinished. Also, David Ward succeeded in make Keith Haring boring, a real feat!
I also took note of his monotone voice but there were a couple interesting things he said other than him saying the painting was actually unfinished and the last painting he worked on, I only looked this up cause I heard of AI "finishing" his painting
Placing great importance on the value of master drawings, I simply cannot look at Sargent's drawings without stating the obvious. And that is, for those who have seriously studied the best drawings throughout art history, I find these quite minor when compared to all the better artists. There is a degree of insipidity of "vision", while executed with much crowd-pleasing flashiness using a whole slew of what I must call "illustrator's tricks". Again, for me, Sargent's drawings (paintings, too!) do not measure up very well in the annals of Fine Art. The vision is always quite maudlin. I can understand his popularity because, on the surface, general likeness is depicted, but always with an eye on commercialism.
For as much as I don't like watercolors (of his- I don't like the medium specifically) his charcoals are mesmerizing. I could look at the detail of these all day. thanks.
Environmentalism = self-aggrandizing, oral-only (talking about it) exercise in futility and scamming government out of money by women and their simp orbiters. What a great panel to showcase how worthless environmental activists are, it's all an excuse to go for a vacation in Hawaii paid for by scammed donation money to speak to some 'village elder', like he's the global authority that has to be listened.
Colon Cemetery in Havana, supposedly the second largest in Latin America, has some very interesting graves. Amongst them is that of American hijacker, one time Black Panther Party member, William Lee Brent. During the last years of his life Mr. Brent said he was working on a book about the discrimination faced by black people in Cuba. Mind you this is in Castro's Cuba which was depleted of many whites. In Castro's Cuba where anyone would have been treated to lectures on the superiority of The Revolution because it did not discriminate amongst whites and blacks, men and women. Of course, Mr. Brent could never publish such a book in Cuba. And, as Kurt Vonnegut might have said, "so it goes".
There was a movement for autonomy in Cuba that even dated back before 1868. However, the Spanish didn't offer autonomy as a way to potentially resolve the third Cuban War for independence until the Maine blew up in Havana harbor, probably as a consequence of a coal bunker fire. The Spanish's reaction to the outbreak of the third war in 1895 is reflected in who they put in charge first having as Governor General Campos, who had "saved" Cuba for Spain in the Ten Years War, then appointing the "butcher" Wyler and penultimately the conciliatory Blanco.
The term "decolonizing" ceases to make sense in the context of Cuba. Now, yes, Cuban history is usually divided into phases. The colonial prior to 1762 and then to 1895-1898. The Spanish-American War/third Cuban War of Independence, The Republic, The Revolution, and post-Castro Cuba. But the indigenous population was early devastated by disease and secondarily the ecomienda system. Because of this Cuba can hardly be called a colony after the end of the 16th century. A generation before historians like Philip Foner sought to view Cuba's history through the lens of labor emancipation, and in particular through the struggles of Afro -Cubans. Much of this history was loosely couched as a Marxist struggle. Marxism and Communism having truly fallen on hard times, Dr Ferrer phrases this history as of it were through a personal lens. But she's a "white" Cuban who came as a child in 1963 with an exodus of mostly other white middle and upper class Cubans. Can she really appreciate what the experience was like for Afro Cuban families? Or is it academic. E.g. in another online talk* she suggests that Cuba is black. Well nonsense. As Dr Ferrer herself recounts the Spanish and many wealthy Cubans were very much afraid of Haitian style slave revolts. The Aponte "rebellion" of 1812 and the truly fearsome Escalera revolt of 1844 were very much on the minds of Cubans and Spaniards. In part for this reason Spain encouraged more immigration. By the time that Cuba abolished slavery in 1886, about 1/3rd of the island was pardo o moreno. It was not all black as coals. In fact, not only would Americans of the 20th century believe that most Cubans were white, but that despite Afro-Cubans having played such a large role in the Mambi army, Afro-Cubans were far more cast aside during the Republic than Puerto Rico were, that island being smaller, there was more miscegenation. In fact, for those who identified as white, race must have seemed to have stopped being a concern after the 1912 Partido de Color uprising. And indeed some of those may have even viewed those protests as a consequence of disenfranchised veterans. It's more logical to speak about discrimination on all levels, overt and more subtle, patronizing and slumming experiences than actually of decolonization. I am sure that even if Cuba had gained independence in 1820, and no the "most loyal isle" despite the sentiments of some intellectuals didn't even try until 1868, but even if Cuba had joined other Latin American countries in achieving independence early on, the Cuban sugar plantation owners would have striven to preserve slavery. Some wanted it to become a slaveholding American state! Was Cuba an American colony? And was it's experience colonial in that sense? I know that many Cubans of Dr. Ferrer's parents age if they had deep roots on the island would view Cuba's history of one of trading masters, the United States for Spain, the Soviet Union for the United States. And their overarching drift of Cuban history is of never really being independent. But that's not to say that Cubans really were a colony of the United States... And no I'm not going to examine how many resources the Hawley Sugar Trust "controlled." So it's not appropriate to talk about decolonizing Cuba. It's sort of a lame excuse for Cuba after 1990 having one of the most insipid economies in the Americas...as of it were obligatory suffering for past experiences that are the fault of the United States, or if all its problems in the first half of the 20th century a legacy of it as a colony to Spain. *Dr Ferrer's books are amongst the best in recent history of Cuba. Only Sugar, Cigars and Revolution is a better read. And that's saying a lot because of the broad scope of Cuba, An American History, which makes it more comparable to the similarly titled book by Hugh Thomas from 1971 reissued in 2010.
