people, places, worlds
Kylie is studying studio arts in school to be a teacher. She has a plush that looks a lot like a zombie pikachu and after she mentioned Pokemon, that’s what I thought. Disclaimer: I’ve played the original gameboy Pokemon game for maybe 30 minutes at my cousin’s house and don’t know much about the series aside from the Simpsons’ “Pokey and the Mon and the guy who comes out of the thing and makes a fra fra fra huuh huh huh.” Also I know what Team Rocket is and what the Team Rocket of various things are.
Kayley has tattoos of two koi fish that may or may not represent Mateus the Corrupt and a silver butterfly wing necklace. Kylie pointed out that they have similar names. Kylie posed the question what’s the craziest name I’ve encountered in my travels.
There was a guy at the MFA with a drawing of a cat clock on his jacket. I actually have one of those and I have it because the Simpsons do. It doesn’t have the overbite though.
For dinner, I had a half roasted chicken with whipped sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichoke, which are from the Americas and are not artichokes), chimichurri, baby carrots, and rosemary & garlic roasted potatoes.
The MFA borrowed some Dali paintings so you don’t have to go to fucking Clearwater, which is a city owned by that diuretics guy and his cult, and paired them with art from their collection.
He’s not just famous for his art. He’s famous for his pet anteater, his mustache, and his tendency to make provocative statements.
Sur- means above or beyond. Surrealism, therefore, means above or beyond reality. I think the Worcester Art Museum described surrealism as realism but assembled in an unrealistic way.
It, uh, worked. Maybe. Imgur actually made an improvement to their upload system, that is to say, it’s as good as it was ten years ago.
Salvador Dalí - The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. It’s kind of the sequel to the more famous painting at the Museum of Modern Art. Maybe it’s about the way time is distorted in dreams. There are rhino horns, which grow in a logarithmic spiral and present the the order of nature.
Phillips Wouwerman - Knight Vanquishing Time, Death, and Monstrous Demons
The writing on the shield translates to something about attaining the heights under the most perilous of conditions.
Death is a skeleton while Time carries a scythe and hourglass.
Salvador Dalí - Paranonïa
What does paranonïa mean? Google’s useless here. Not a burning question because it does have an actual answer probably. Maybe it’s based paranoia, from para- and noös.
Pieter van der Heyden - The Temptation of Saint Anthony
David Teniers the Younger - The Temptation of Saint Anthony
I told you. The Dutch invented surrealism before there was surrealism.
Salvador Dalí - Apparatus and Hand
Dali kinda found himself kicked out of the Surrealists. Politics (dude, you’re a Catalan.) as well as disagreements on what surrealism is.
Salvador Dalí - The First Days of Spring
There’s a photograph in the center.
He painted this in Paris. Inspired by post-impressionism and cubism.
Salvador Dalí - Self-portrait (Cadaqués)
This is the earliest painting by Dalí in this exhibit.
Salvador Dalí - Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces
They become one with the landscape.
Salvador Dalí - The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As A Table
Dali once claimed he would eat a large quantity of camembert cheese before bed in order to give himself vivid dreams. Joe Lansdale said the same thing about popcorn. I’ve said that about Thai food. And what I’ve learned is that eating anything before bed will get you vivid dreams if it doesn’t just keep you awake with stomach cramps until you start dissociating, which is probably why popcorn is a better idea, since it’s mostly air while camembert is mostly cheese.
Salvador Dalí - Two Adolescents
This painting reminds me of Paul Delvaux with its nudes, except he’d put more detail in the ruins and make them more classical Roman or maybe make it a train station. Also, Dali seems to prefer brightly lit and lifeless arid landscapes.
There’s an extremely barren desert named after him in Bolivia, so named for the landscapes in his paintings.
I’m genuinely surprised they didn’t bring out Proposition Diurne (La femme au miroir) to compare and contrast it with. In fact, they need to bring that painting out. It’s a cool painting.
Salvador Dalí - Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire
Dali really likes making illusory faces out of objects and figures.
Voltaire was not the favorite person of the surrealists. Too much reason and rationality.
Salvador Dalí - Velázquez Painting the Infanta Marguerita with the Lights and Shadows of His Own Glory
This one’s the opposite of your typical Dalí. Dark and the figure is barely visible.
Velázquez - Infanta Maria Teresa
Solomon de Bray - Study of a Young Woman in Profile
Salvador Dalí - Girl’s Back
Sometimes Dalí painted portraits. This is his sister Anna.
Velázquez - Luis de Góngora y Argote
Dead Can Dance fans might recognize that name.
Salvador Dalí - Oeufs sur le Plat sans le Plat (eggs on the plate without the plate)
The egg looks like a hanged man. You can see windows in the yolks.
Luis Meléndez - Still Life With Bread, Ham, Cheese, and Vegetables
Salvador Dalí - Morphological Echo
Food on the bottom, human figures in the middle, structures ion the top. Tall things on the left, squat things on the right.
Pieter Claesz - Still Life With Stoneware Jug, Wine Glass, Herring, and Bread
Hendrik de Fromantiou - Trompe l’Oeil with a Dead Partridge
Salvador Dalí - Nature Morte Vivante (Still-Life Fast Moving)
Some things by Dali make me think of mid 90s CGI. It’s the shapes and the lack of detailing.
Floris Claesz van Dijck - A Still Life With Cheese and Fruit
Francisco Goya - Annunciation
This is the sketch for an alterpiece in Madrid.
Salvador Dalí - The Angel of Port Lligat
Dalí returned to Spain in 1948, living out the war in the US. No, I think that’s just the reflection of the wall behind it in the material of the painting.
illustration for Don Quixote by Salvador Dalí.
Salvador Dalí - Madonna
Orazio Gentileschli - Saint Francis Supported by an Angel
During the Reformation, the Catholic Church tried to stem the tide of Protestantism by commissioning artists to depict many saints and angels.
Salvador Dalí - Figure (seated friar)
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) - Saint Dominic in Prayer
Edgar Degas once owned this painting
Salvador Dalí - Sainte Hélène à Port Lligat.
Dali spent time reading about nuclear phyics after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then became religious in the 1950s.
Pompeo Batoni - The Crucifixion
Salvador Dali - Christ in Perspective
There’s a personal connection: Salvador means savior. Not to be confused with El Salvador, which is an open air prison ruled by a Bitcoin Bro.
It depicts Jesus from the viewpoint of God.
Salvador Dalí - Judith and Holofernes
A common subject in painting.
Salvador Dalí - The Ecumenical Council
His subject matter went from the inner world to the unseen realm.
The Second Vatican Council was called by Pope John XXIII who looked upon the destruction wrought in the first half of the 20th century and came to the conclusion that Christianity has failed at its goals, and thus made a decision to switch the Mass from Latin to the vernacular to connect with people and to connect people to each other. Dalí saw this as a good thing.
Salvador Dalí - Suez
Evokes the feeling of being trapped in a grave.
Salvador Dalí - Average Atmospherocephalic Bureaucrat in the Act of Milking a Cranial Harp
Dalí was supposed to play Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune. H.R. Giger was involved as well. It’s too bad it fizzled out.
Salvador Dalí - Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing A Grand Piano
I like when the names are self-explanatory.
Jusepe de Ribera - Saint Onophrius
Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts - Vanitas Still Life
Even the artwork is depicted as fragile.
Time is delicate. Savor all moments. Today we own the sky.
Salvador Dalí - Shades of Night Descending
Salvador Dalí - Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (the three ages)
I wonder if it’s intentional that he put old age first.
Francisco Goya - Time, Truth, and History
Flowers of Summer and Fall - a collection of paintings and artwork depicting flowers. No, me, Spring and Autumn (春秋) is something entirely different.
On the other hand, Imgur didn’t like these ones. Or maybe the capcha just failed to work properly, as it’s wont to do. And oh yeah, maybe I don’t want to help self-driving cars. I’m glad they’ll never catch on in Boston.
All these paintings are anonymous unless specified otherwise.
Curtain with flowers and hunters
These aren’t real plants depicted.
Some of the elements of these pants are native to south Asia while some are not.
Painting from the Boston Rasikapriya
Radha and Krishna slip away from a festival.
Page from the Boston Rasikapriya
Radha and an unnamed human discuss love.
Tray
The metalwork originates in the Deccani sultanates.
Krishna and friends encounter a demon in donkey form
Nanda and Yashoda in a temple
Water flask
Handle for a fly whisk
The word paradise comes from a Persian word parādaiĵah, meaning a walled garden. A literal one, like the one at the Gardner Museum, not a figurative one like Facebook. Can’t have flies ruining it.
Fragment of a pecchavai
Krisha associates by sages and shepherds.
Study of a Pride of Barbados Spray
The flower called the Pride of Barbados originated in the Americas but was most likely accidentally brought over to India.
Young heroine sick from separation from her beloved
Depicts her resting on a bed of lotuses.
Embroidery design: abstract lotus
Portrait of an unknown woman
A cypress tree, a peach tree in bloom, a Pride of Barbados. A lotus.
Gathering on a garden terrace
Beyond the figures are poppies, damask roses, a Pride of Barbados.
Devi on a Lotus Throne
Vishnu on a Lotus Throne
Their feet do not touch the muddy water.
Maharaja Amar Singh of Katholi on a garden terrace
The Pride of Barbados can grow up to 12 feet tall. It’s no tulip tree or white pine, which are the tallest trees in New England.
Gathering on a garden terrace
A Pride of Barbados, of course, as well as some jasmine and a bowl made from leaves.
Floral motifs
Studies
Rose lotus fruit and leaves
Maybe these were supposed to be scientific drawings.
Madumhadhavi Ragini
She’s waiting for her lover despite the storm.
Ascetics near a lotus pond
They’re perhaps discussing consciousness and the cycle of birth and rebirth.
Presentation box
From mid 16th century Sri Lanka. A gift by the king of Kotte to Portuguese nobles. Made from ivory, gold, glass, rubies, turquoise, and gilt bronze
Asavari Ragini
A musical mode. She’s sitting on a pile of lotus petals charming snakes. Even though snakes don’t have ears. They’re actually just watching the flute. Probably wondering if they can eat it or maybe if it will eat them, since that’s mostly all snakes think about.
There’s an urban legend about snakes measuring their owners so they can try to eat them. Nah. If a snake doesn’t think you’re going to eat it, it probably just thinks of you as a perch that walks around and also gives off some nice heat.
Terrace by a lotus pond
Lotuses are native to Asia and are a symbol of purity as they root in muddy water but float above the surface. Parts of the lotus are edible. Once they flourished in man-made waterways but as India became more industrialize and waterways became more polluted, they’ve vanished.
The purple was added much later.
Krishna and companions
27 lotus flowers. Ah ha ha!
Part of a flowered bedspread
Again, none of these flowers are real.
guh?
Siyuri Ragini
A jasmine vine winds itself around a cypruss tree. A crown of champaka flowers, a type of magnolia.
Picking jasmine
Some use manipulation and subterfuge instead of noble actions.
Elephant goad
This is more decorative and symbolic than functional.
Krishna as a lover of many
He can use Power Distribution to clone himself.
Gauri ragini
A baton and a garland made of jasmine
Prasanna Ragaputra
Jasmine and red cockscombs, which bloom in the monsoon and in autumn.
Desakar Ragini
She feeds a crane. The flowers are marigolds. The gold line is lightning, showing that it’s a rainy, hot and humid night, and the monsoon will arrive.
Fruit, flowers, and leaves of the rainy season
Mangoes, amaranth leaves, and noon flowers. Marigolds are native to Mexico.
Women enjoying grapes in a garden
Purple grapes fruit in summer. Also mangoes, lotuses, jasmine, malati, banana. The rains have come and all is verdant. People in South Asia might recognize this. Boston, however, is a different climate and it’s become worse because California’s making a transition from mediterranean to semi-arid (except for Los Angeles, which I’ve heard is become subtropical) and there’s less rain to put out wildfires and all that haze is blocking out the sun and making it colder. I don’t drink wine but my understanding is that the change in climate makes wine more bitter.
Printed textile panel
And even more fantastical plants.
Nidha Mal - Muhammad Shah in a Garden
The Mughals, who were Central Asian and Persian, structured their gardens with a border of tall trees, then shrubs and pergolas with grape vines, then in the center, flower beds and fountains.
burning question: have you ever been so tired that you can’t sleep?
Kayley has tattoos of two koi fish that may or may not represent Mateus the Corrupt and a silver butterfly wing necklace. Kylie pointed out that they have similar names. Kylie posed the question what’s the craziest name I’ve encountered in my travels.
There was a guy at the MFA with a drawing of a cat clock on his jacket. I actually have one of those and I have it because the Simpsons do. It doesn’t have the overbite though.
For dinner, I had a half roasted chicken with whipped sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichoke, which are from the Americas and are not artichokes), chimichurri, baby carrots, and rosemary & garlic roasted potatoes.
The MFA borrowed some Dali paintings so you don’t have to go to fucking Clearwater, which is a city owned by that diuretics guy and his cult, and paired them with art from their collection.
He’s not just famous for his art. He’s famous for his pet anteater, his mustache, and his tendency to make provocative statements.
Sur- means above or beyond. Surrealism, therefore, means above or beyond reality. I think the Worcester Art Museum described surrealism as realism but assembled in an unrealistic way.
It, uh, worked. Maybe. Imgur actually made an improvement to their upload system, that is to say, it’s as good as it was ten years ago.
Salvador Dalí - The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory. It’s kind of the sequel to the more famous painting at the Museum of Modern Art. Maybe it’s about the way time is distorted in dreams. There are rhino horns, which grow in a logarithmic spiral and present the the order of nature.
Phillips Wouwerman - Knight Vanquishing Time, Death, and Monstrous Demons
The writing on the shield translates to something about attaining the heights under the most perilous of conditions.
Death is a skeleton while Time carries a scythe and hourglass.
Salvador Dalí - Paranonïa
What does paranonïa mean? Google’s useless here. Not a burning question because it does have an actual answer probably. Maybe it’s based paranoia, from para- and noös.
Pieter van der Heyden - The Temptation of Saint Anthony
David Teniers the Younger - The Temptation of Saint Anthony
I told you. The Dutch invented surrealism before there was surrealism.
Salvador Dalí - Apparatus and Hand
Dali kinda found himself kicked out of the Surrealists. Politics (dude, you’re a Catalan.) as well as disagreements on what surrealism is.
Salvador Dalí - The First Days of Spring
There’s a photograph in the center.
He painted this in Paris. Inspired by post-impressionism and cubism.
Salvador Dalí - Self-portrait (Cadaqués)
This is the earliest painting by Dalí in this exhibit.
Salvador Dalí - Enchanted Beach with Three Fluid Graces
They become one with the landscape.
Salvador Dalí - The Ghost of Vermeer of Delft Which Can Be Used As A Table
Dali once claimed he would eat a large quantity of camembert cheese before bed in order to give himself vivid dreams. Joe Lansdale said the same thing about popcorn. I’ve said that about Thai food. And what I’ve learned is that eating anything before bed will get you vivid dreams if it doesn’t just keep you awake with stomach cramps until you start dissociating, which is probably why popcorn is a better idea, since it’s mostly air while camembert is mostly cheese.
Salvador Dalí - Two Adolescents
This painting reminds me of Paul Delvaux with its nudes, except he’d put more detail in the ruins and make them more classical Roman or maybe make it a train station. Also, Dali seems to prefer brightly lit and lifeless arid landscapes.
There’s an extremely barren desert named after him in Bolivia, so named for the landscapes in his paintings.
I’m genuinely surprised they didn’t bring out Proposition Diurne (La femme au miroir) to compare and contrast it with. In fact, they need to bring that painting out. It’s a cool painting.
Salvador Dalí - Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire
Dali really likes making illusory faces out of objects and figures.
Voltaire was not the favorite person of the surrealists. Too much reason and rationality.
Salvador Dalí - Velázquez Painting the Infanta Marguerita with the Lights and Shadows of His Own Glory
This one’s the opposite of your typical Dalí. Dark and the figure is barely visible.
Velázquez - Infanta Maria Teresa
Solomon de Bray - Study of a Young Woman in Profile
Salvador Dalí - Girl’s Back
Sometimes Dalí painted portraits. This is his sister Anna.
Velázquez - Luis de Góngora y Argote
Dead Can Dance fans might recognize that name.
Salvador Dalí - Oeufs sur le Plat sans le Plat (eggs on the plate without the plate)
The egg looks like a hanged man. You can see windows in the yolks.
Luis Meléndez - Still Life With Bread, Ham, Cheese, and Vegetables
Salvador Dalí - Morphological Echo
Food on the bottom, human figures in the middle, structures ion the top. Tall things on the left, squat things on the right.
Pieter Claesz - Still Life With Stoneware Jug, Wine Glass, Herring, and Bread
Hendrik de Fromantiou - Trompe l’Oeil with a Dead Partridge
Salvador Dalí - Nature Morte Vivante (Still-Life Fast Moving)
Some things by Dali make me think of mid 90s CGI. It’s the shapes and the lack of detailing.
Floris Claesz van Dijck - A Still Life With Cheese and Fruit
Francisco Goya - Annunciation
This is the sketch for an alterpiece in Madrid.
Salvador Dalí - The Angel of Port Lligat
Dalí returned to Spain in 1948, living out the war in the US. No, I think that’s just the reflection of the wall behind it in the material of the painting.
illustration for Don Quixote by Salvador Dalí.
Salvador Dalí - Madonna
Orazio Gentileschli - Saint Francis Supported by an Angel
During the Reformation, the Catholic Church tried to stem the tide of Protestantism by commissioning artists to depict many saints and angels.
Salvador Dalí - Figure (seated friar)
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) - Saint Dominic in Prayer
Edgar Degas once owned this painting
Salvador Dalí - Sainte Hélène à Port Lligat.
Dali spent time reading about nuclear phyics after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and then became religious in the 1950s.
Pompeo Batoni - The Crucifixion
Salvador Dali - Christ in Perspective
There’s a personal connection: Salvador means savior. Not to be confused with El Salvador, which is an open air prison ruled by a Bitcoin Bro.
It depicts Jesus from the viewpoint of God.
Salvador Dalí - Judith and Holofernes
A common subject in painting.
Salvador Dalí - The Ecumenical Council
His subject matter went from the inner world to the unseen realm.
The Second Vatican Council was called by Pope John XXIII who looked upon the destruction wrought in the first half of the 20th century and came to the conclusion that Christianity has failed at its goals, and thus made a decision to switch the Mass from Latin to the vernacular to connect with people and to connect people to each other. Dalí saw this as a good thing.
Salvador Dalí - Suez
Evokes the feeling of being trapped in a grave.
Salvador Dalí - Average Atmospherocephalic Bureaucrat in the Act of Milking a Cranial Harp
Dalí was supposed to play Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV in Alejandro Jodorowsky’s adaptation of Dune. H.R. Giger was involved as well. It’s too bad it fizzled out.
Salvador Dalí - Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing A Grand Piano
I like when the names are self-explanatory.
Jusepe de Ribera - Saint Onophrius
Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts - Vanitas Still Life
Even the artwork is depicted as fragile.
Time is delicate. Savor all moments. Today we own the sky.
Salvador Dalí - Shades of Night Descending
Salvador Dalí - Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (the three ages)
I wonder if it’s intentional that he put old age first.
Francisco Goya - Time, Truth, and History
Flowers of Summer and Fall - a collection of paintings and artwork depicting flowers. No, me, Spring and Autumn (春秋) is something entirely different.
On the other hand, Imgur didn’t like these ones. Or maybe the capcha just failed to work properly, as it’s wont to do. And oh yeah, maybe I don’t want to help self-driving cars. I’m glad they’ll never catch on in Boston.
All these paintings are anonymous unless specified otherwise.
Curtain with flowers and hunters
These aren’t real plants depicted.
Some of the elements of these pants are native to south Asia while some are not.
Painting from the Boston Rasikapriya
Radha and Krishna slip away from a festival.
Page from the Boston Rasikapriya
Radha and an unnamed human discuss love.
Tray
The metalwork originates in the Deccani sultanates.
Krishna and friends encounter a demon in donkey form
Nanda and Yashoda in a temple
Water flask
Handle for a fly whisk
The word paradise comes from a Persian word parādaiĵah, meaning a walled garden. A literal one, like the one at the Gardner Museum, not a figurative one like Facebook. Can’t have flies ruining it.
Fragment of a pecchavai
Krisha associates by sages and shepherds.
Study of a Pride of Barbados Spray
The flower called the Pride of Barbados originated in the Americas but was most likely accidentally brought over to India.
Young heroine sick from separation from her beloved
Depicts her resting on a bed of lotuses.
Embroidery design: abstract lotus
Portrait of an unknown woman
A cypress tree, a peach tree in bloom, a Pride of Barbados. A lotus.
Gathering on a garden terrace
Beyond the figures are poppies, damask roses, a Pride of Barbados.
Devi on a Lotus Throne
Vishnu on a Lotus Throne
Their feet do not touch the muddy water.
Maharaja Amar Singh of Katholi on a garden terrace
The Pride of Barbados can grow up to 12 feet tall. It’s no tulip tree or white pine, which are the tallest trees in New England.
Gathering on a garden terrace
A Pride of Barbados, of course, as well as some jasmine and a bowl made from leaves.
Floral motifs
Studies
Rose lotus fruit and leaves
Maybe these were supposed to be scientific drawings.
Madumhadhavi Ragini
She’s waiting for her lover despite the storm.
Ascetics near a lotus pond
They’re perhaps discussing consciousness and the cycle of birth and rebirth.
Presentation box
From mid 16th century Sri Lanka. A gift by the king of Kotte to Portuguese nobles. Made from ivory, gold, glass, rubies, turquoise, and gilt bronze
Asavari Ragini
A musical mode. She’s sitting on a pile of lotus petals charming snakes. Even though snakes don’t have ears. They’re actually just watching the flute. Probably wondering if they can eat it or maybe if it will eat them, since that’s mostly all snakes think about.
There’s an urban legend about snakes measuring their owners so they can try to eat them. Nah. If a snake doesn’t think you’re going to eat it, it probably just thinks of you as a perch that walks around and also gives off some nice heat.
Terrace by a lotus pond
Lotuses are native to Asia and are a symbol of purity as they root in muddy water but float above the surface. Parts of the lotus are edible. Once they flourished in man-made waterways but as India became more industrialize and waterways became more polluted, they’ve vanished.
The purple was added much later.
Krishna and companions
27 lotus flowers. Ah ha ha!
Part of a flowered bedspread
Again, none of these flowers are real.
guh?
Siyuri Ragini
A jasmine vine winds itself around a cypruss tree. A crown of champaka flowers, a type of magnolia.
Picking jasmine
Some use manipulation and subterfuge instead of noble actions.
Elephant goad
This is more decorative and symbolic than functional.
Krishna as a lover of many
He can use Power Distribution to clone himself.
Gauri ragini
A baton and a garland made of jasmine
Prasanna Ragaputra
Jasmine and red cockscombs, which bloom in the monsoon and in autumn.
Desakar Ragini
She feeds a crane. The flowers are marigolds. The gold line is lightning, showing that it’s a rainy, hot and humid night, and the monsoon will arrive.
Fruit, flowers, and leaves of the rainy season
Mangoes, amaranth leaves, and noon flowers. Marigolds are native to Mexico.
Women enjoying grapes in a garden
Purple grapes fruit in summer. Also mangoes, lotuses, jasmine, malati, banana. The rains have come and all is verdant. People in South Asia might recognize this. Boston, however, is a different climate and it’s become worse because California’s making a transition from mediterranean to semi-arid (except for Los Angeles, which I’ve heard is become subtropical) and there’s less rain to put out wildfires and all that haze is blocking out the sun and making it colder. I don’t drink wine but my understanding is that the change in climate makes wine more bitter.
Printed textile panel
And even more fantastical plants.
Nidha Mal - Muhammad Shah in a Garden
The Mughals, who were Central Asian and Persian, structured their gardens with a border of tall trees, then shrubs and pergolas with grape vines, then in the center, flower beds and fountains.
burning question: have you ever been so tired that you can’t sleep?