italiangreyhounds.org

The Modern University Experience

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:57:04 +0000

“The Professors of cognate subjects require also (at Oxford) to be grouped together into Boards, which should have the regulation of their respective studies, along with the Examiners of their school, and subject perhaps to some sort of veto at the hands of the Vice-Chancellor or the University. This would go some ways toward raising the position of the Professors and encouraging the formation of the ‘learned class,’ which the English are told they do not possess. To possess it in the German-University sense is, of course, on the principles already laid down, impossible. Professors are, in England, part of the teaching body. It it best they should remain so. A portion of them will, no doubt, advance the cause of learning by publishing lectures and writing books, over and above their regular work; but the modern University experience of ‘learned leisure’ is not encouraging.”

– John Taylor Coleridge, The Quarterly Review, (London: John Murray, 1809), 413.

Fassbinder Film Festival May 2010

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Tue, 18 May 2010 05:41:28 +0000

Phassbinder Philm Phestival

Whity, (1971); Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte, (1971); Faustrecht der Freiheit, (1975); Angst vor der Angst, (1975); Liebe ist kålter als der Tod, (1969); Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (1982); Die Ehe der Maria Braun, (1979); Lola (1981).

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Few filmmakers so powerfully manage to subvert desire for cathartic drama while simultaneously fulfilling it.

Hans Selye Gets Advice…

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:06:04 +0000

“When he saw me thus launched on yet another enraptured description of what I had observed, he looked at me with desperately sad eyes and said in obvious despair: ‘But Selye try to realize what you are doing before it is too late! You have now decided to spend your entire life studying the pharmacology of dirt.’ ”
– (Hans Selye, The Stress of Life, 1956)

“Slightly Impossibly High Pants”

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 22:15:21 +0000

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“Be the first to sport this dashing new look!
Look smarter and taller.
Works best with standard regular khakis.”

Gendering in Vincent Van Gogh’s Portraiture

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:45:42 +0000

York University art history professor Carol Zemel’s overall project with respect to Vincent Van Gogh is an ambitious one, as she suggests that (among other sub-theses) Van Gogh was a somewhat pragmatic, business-oriented artist in complete, even distancing, control of his artistic product until the final few months of his life, a view that usurps his mythology. In the chapter of her 1997 book, Van Gogh’s Progress: Utopia and Modernity in Late-Nineteenth-Century Art titled “Modern Citizens: Configurations of Gender in Van Gogh’s Portraiture,” Zemel further identifies Van Gogh’s strategies and seems to suggest that external factors – the changing role of women in society, the conflict between burgeoning modern life and Van Gogh’s concept of agrarian utopia, and the shift of identifiable classed and gendered roles in general – contributed more greatly to Van Gogh’s ultimate breakdown than underlying biological mental illness.
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Hipsters in Venice

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:12:27 +0000

Aperol-fueled hipsters congregate in Venice, Italy, during the Biennale Venice in July, 2009.

Small Craft Travel In Venice, Italy

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:40:38 +0000

A small boat approaches a low bridge…

The exciting conclusion: Boat travel in Venice, Italy, during the Biennale Venice near the Arsenale hall, July 2009.

“Vincent van Gogh’s Paintings of Olive Trees and Cypresses from St.-Rémy” by Vojtich Jirat-Wasiutyski and “A Modern Gethsemane: Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive Grove” by Joan Greer.

Archivist, University of Polyleritae — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:09:16 +0000

Van Gogh scholars Vojt?ch Jirat-Wasiuty?ski and Joan Greer present comparative views – comparative in the sense that some aspects differ and some also agree – of Vincent Van Gogh’s production of olive-tree related paintings during his slightly-longer-than-one-year stay in Saint-Rémy beginning in May 1889 in the respective articles “Vincent van Gogh’s Paintings of Olive Trees and Cypresses from St.-Rémy” and “A Modern Gethsemane: Vincent Van Gogh’s Olive Grove.” While both pieces emphasize the storied Biblical association of olive trees and olive groves and explore various aspects of Van Gogh’s perception and representation of himself as a Christic figure, Greer brings forward some interesting arguments concerning Frédéric Salles, a Reformed Church minister who visited Van Gogh at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole and became involved with the artist and his family, and about the possibility of Van Gogh’s intentions around these paintings to engage in a sort of conversation with Emile Bernard and not-so-subtle reproach to Paul Gauguin about observation vs. memory studies and religious iconography. Jirat-Wasiuty?ski proposes as an aside that Van Gogh’s cypresses constitute references to Egyptian art (as invocations of immortality) and that the olive series also furthered Van Gogh’s earlier pursuit of typology and physiognomy in attempting to locate the nostalgic and essential in Provencal culture. Finally, Jirat-Wasiuty?ski makes some points about Van Gogh’s identification olive and cypress trees not as religious symbols but as relatable organisms. “Both trees were treated as tough outcasts, relegated to marginal land,” Jirat-Wasiuty?ski observes on page 650.
Greer is persuasive in her account of Salles’s appearance in Van Gogh’s life as a sympathetic figure and one whom Van Gogh could fix some of his yearning for connection upon and as a vector for rekindling connections to Protestantism. Viewed this way, Van Gogh’s representations of himself as a Christ seem more grounded in the longstanding tradition of post-Reformation artists to show themselves this way (such as Albrecht Durer’s most famous self portrait). This type of representation springs not from hubris, but from the belief that man is made in God’s image. Speaking of hubris, though, this does not account for Gauguin’s Christic delusions (coming from a Catholic family it is further mortifying to learn that Gauguin also poorly represents us – this man is a constant disappointment on every level). As to Van Gogh’s dialogue with Bernard and Gauguin, certainly this is a possibility – Van Gogh probably (in reference to conversations which may have taken place in Paris) entertained the hope of “getting the band back together.” (more…)