Inventory

Titles of paintings by Salvador Dalí:

  • Debris of an Automobile Giving Birth to a Blind Horse Biting a Telephone
  • Bed and Two Bedside Tables Ferociously Attacking a Cello
  • Premature Ossification of a Railroad Station
  • Rock and Infuriated Horse Sleeping Under the Sea
  • Fifty Abstract Paintings Which as Seen From Two Yards Change Into Three Lenins Masquerading as Chinese and as Seen From Six Yards Appear as the Head of a Royal Bengal Tiger
  • Necrophiliac Fountain Flowing From a Grand Piano
  • Dalí at the Age of Six When He Thought He Was a Girl Lifting the Skin of the Water to See the Dog Sleeping in the Shade of the Sea
  • Skull With Its Lyric Appendage Leaning on a Bedside Table Which Should Have the Exact Temperature of a Cardinal’s Nest
  • Bread on the Head of the Prodigal Son
  • Barber Saddened by the Persistence of Good Weather (The Anguished Barber)
  • The Man With the Head of Blue Hortensias
  • A Soft Watch Put in the Appropriate Place to Cause a Young Ephebe to Die and Be Resuscitated by Excess of Satisfaction
  • Two Pieces of Bread Expressing the Sentiment of Love
  • Mysterious Mouth Appearing in the Back of My Nurse
  • Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening
  • Invisible Afghan With the Apparition on the Beach of the Face of Garcia Lorca in the Form of a Fruit Dish With Three Figs
  • Giant Flying Mocca Cup With an Inexplicable Five Metre Appendage
  • Dalí’s Hand Drawing Back the Golden Fleece in the Form of a Cloud to Show Gala, Completely Nude, the Dawn, Very, Very Far Away Behind the Sun
  • Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano
  • My Wife, Nude, Contemplating Her Own Flesh Becoming Stairs, Three Vertebrae of a Column, Sky and Architecture

He wrote, “It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.”

Minimalism

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There are several simple little drawing tricks which the nurse may use to arouse the interest of her patient as she uses puzzles and catches. The oldest of these is by Hogarth and represents a soldier and his dog going through a doorway. As is seen by the diagram, it consists of three straight lines and one curved one.

— William Rush Dunton, Occupation Therapy, 1915

In the 1950s, humorist Roger Price invented “Droodles,” simple enigmatic drawings explained by their captions. Frank Zappa used one on the cover of a 1982 album:

zappa droodle cover

It’s called Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch.

Words and Music

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia user Tarquin points out that the natural rhythm of spoken language can be used to teach polyrhythms.

Above: The phrase “cold cup of tea,” spoken naturally, approximates a rhythm of 2 against 3.

Below: The phrase “what atrocious weather” approximates 4 against 3.

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The Grammar of Landscape

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

In 1782, during a tour of Hampton Court, Hannah More encountered landscape architect Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who compared his art to literary composition:

‘Now there‘ said he, pointing his finger, ‘I make a comma, and there’ pointing to another spot, ‘where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon; at another part, where an interruption is desirable to break the view, a parenthesis; now a full stop, and then I begin another subject.’

From a letter to her sister, December 31, 1782.

Variations

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Illusion Diffusion uses Stable Diffusion to produce illusion artwork.

The image above was produced by uploading an image of the Mona Lisa and specifying the prompt “colour photograph of an Italian city in the Renaissance” (illusion strength 1 and seed 0).

Below is Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring modified with the prompt “Amsterdam canals in 17th century” (illusion strength 1.8 and seed 0).

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Practice

For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with a feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being.

— Pablo Casals, Joys and Sorrows, 1970