http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec Just another WordPress weblog Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:41:08 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In the John Moores painting prize 2010 catalogue, Alison Watt, one of the judges, has an essay where she uses an extract to speak about the difficulty of painting.  I love it, so thought I would write it down to try and remember it. "There's an essay by Thomas Hess on ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/10/12/theres-no-telling-what-we-might-find/ Look at your chin Look at you chin Your big chin Your big chin Your long chin Your long big chin Your mighty chin. Look at your mighty chin Rising up to the clouds Down into the volcano. Look at it grow Look at your mighty chin grow Your behemoth chin Your tectonic plate of a chin World moving chin Look at your chin Look at ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/10/04/chin/ Johannes Kepler was a contemporary of Galileo. He stated (in rough terms) "Before the universe was created, there were no numbers except the Trinity, which is God himself... For the line and the plane imply no numbers: here infinitude itself reigns.  Let us consider, therefore, the solids.  We must first eliminate the ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/09/28/keplers-law-of-planetary-motion-another-guy-who-had-issues-with-order-and-control/ I want to create Liminal paintings, space and places which are Heterotopias. I want the spaces to be neither here nor there, to exist in the space between. I want my paintings to feel awkward and uncomfortable by merit of a certain multiple familiarity. I want people to feel as ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/08/30/liminal/ A photo can’t be tragic. A painting can’t be tragic. It is these two facts that make both tragic. This is not double speak. Post Structuralism, through writers such as Baudrillaird, has put forward a convincing, if slightly melodramatic and abstract, argument for the continued detachment of society and the ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/08/30/can-a-photo-or-a-painting-be-tragic/ I have recently started having homeopathic therapy, ostensibly for my eating, which is incredibly limited. I eat no meat, no fruit, no vegetable, no rice, no pasta, no sauces and very little cheese. The reason this form of therapy interested me is that it is holistic, looking to figure out ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/08/30/diary-entry/ In 1839 Paul Delaroche declared, "From today painting is dead." The advent of painting had led him to believe that there would soon be no need for painting. Instead photography’s arrival has seen painting reinvent itself, using photography to its own ends. The Modernism championed by Clement Greenberg in ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/08/30/is-painting-dead/ Freud’s psychoanalytical approach suggests that tragedy is our chance to act out, in a safe arena, the desires we have repressed. It is a chance to give form and action to the barbaric, primitive, monstrous types that society and civilisation has, supposedly, rejected. He sees tragedy as in direct opposition ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/08/30/freud-on-tragedy/ Hume and Pope are two thinkers who has criticised Shakespeare, mainly due to his populist tendencies and supposed lack of refinement. Pope’s snobbery leads him to dismiss Hamlet as the work of a genius tainted by a barbaric nature. “It is a gross and barbarous piece, and would never ... http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/08/30/criticisms-of-shakespeare/ Who are the victims in modern tragedy? Who are to be the Martyrs and scapegoats? http://www.whalecrow.co.uk/whalec/2010/08/30/victims/