Painting

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

July 19, 2019 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

“Most of the good things in pictures happen by accident.”
—John Ford
Photo by Richard Avedon, Bel Air, California, 1972

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

September 20, 2018 by Robert J. Avrech 4 Comments

“I turned my hair dark and have received much better parts ever since… I was sometimes greeted as Miss Lamarr in dimly lit restaurants. Personally, I liked the idea of escaping from all that bland, blonde innocence and thought the whole thing was very funny, but I don’t think Hedy found the comparisons very amusing.“
—Joan Bennett

Friday Photos: Just Photos

April 24, 2015 by Robert J. Avrech 12 Comments

Admit it, when you think of betty Grable you are thinking: legs. But Eugene-Robert Richee's 1930s portrait of Grable goes beyond the obvious. — Admit it, when you think Betty Grable you are thinking legs. But Eugene-Robert Richee’s 1930s portrait of Grable goes beyond the obvious.

No commentary today.

No rants about politics and culture.

I am drained.

Here are some random pictures that will, hopefully, enliven a darkling plain.

Friday Photos: Just Because the World is Still Burning…

December 12, 2014 by Robert J. Avrech 8 Comments

Brigitte Bardot, photo by Douglas Kirkland, 1965.

It’s been another terrible, horrible very bad week with the release of a Democrat, ahem, study, that seeks to persecute President George W. Bush and the CIA for their efforts to protect America against genocidal IslamoNazis. The Democrat Senate report is a lynching, just as the Ferguson riots are lynch mobs, and just as Rolling Stone’s UVA story and Lena Dunham’s false accusations of rape are politically correct calls for lynching.

Postmodern liberals have no use for facts. They get off on creating narratives, compelling story-lines that comport with their world view. Just as the so-called Palestinians have created a narrative, so too does the Alinsky-aligned Democrat party. You will notice that Jew-hating Arab-Muslims have grafted themselves to the Ferguson riots from Oakland to New York. Indeed, Jew-hatred has found its niche in the new Democrat party. Scoop Jackson, Daniel Moynihan and John F. Kennedy are dead. Long live Al Sharpton, Barack Obama and CAIR, a Muslim Brotherhood front.

The North Korean cyber attack on Sony Studios has created an amusing if bizarre sideshow. The adolescent e-mail exchange between studio head Amy Pascal and uber-producer Scott Rudin about President Obama’s taste in movies (all black flicks, because Obama is only a black face to Hollywood liberals) reveals the hypocrisy which at the core of postmodern liberalism. If Pascal and Rudin were Conservatives they would be fired, disgraced. But because Pascal and Rudin are major contributors to the Democrat party they will get a pass, their dopey e-mails disappearing down a Soviet-style memory hole.

Anyhoo.

A few random photos to brighten your weekend.

Scenes From Movies I’d Like To Write

December 27, 2013 by Robert J. Avrech 17 Comments

“Escaping Criticism” 1874, by Pere Borrel del Caso (1835 -1910). A masterful and witty example of trompe-l’oeil where the artist tries to trick our eye by creating a convincing optical illusion. Here we have a boy dressed in rags escaping the confines the frame, his world, perhaps seeking a better life by stepping into the viewer's world. — “Escaping Criticism” 1874, by Pere Borrel del Caso (1835 -1910). A masterful and witty example of trompe-l’oeil where the artist tricks our eye by creating a convincing optical illusion. Here, a barefoot boy is escaping the confines of the frame—his world—perhaps seeking a better life by stepping into the viewer’s universe. Think of this painting as a scene from a time travel movie.

When our children were little, one of our favorite Shabbat activities was leafing through art books. I’d sink into a comfortable chair. One of the children would plop into my lap. We’d look at reproductions of art, and make up stories about various paintings.

The best paintings are like scenes from movies never produced. The characters feel real. They think. They feel. We care about them. We want to know them. Most of all, we yearn to know what happens next.

Here are a few paintings that never failed to capture our imaginations.