Tag Archives: Benjamin West

the good ole’ days: conspicuous they were

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Dave

The noble houses of eighteenth century England and the regal lifestyles that accompanied them. Life was good if you had money and bling was king… As with paintings, so it was with all that was rare, exotic, and costly: nobleman … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Madame Pickwick Weekend | Tagged Benjamin West, David Garrick, Dr. Pepusch, George Macaulay Trevelyan, James Brydges Duke of Chandos, Johann Zoffany, Lord Egremont of Petworth, Lord Stavordale, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Pompeo Batoni, Pompeo Batoni paintings, Princely Duke of Chandos, Sir Peter Beckford, Sir Robert Walpole | Leave a comment

judging joan

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Dave

Those judgements of Joan.Her trial and execution were only the beginning. In the centuries since,the Maid has continued to provoke both anger and adoration, skepticism and awe. There have been many fluctuations in Joan’s fame… In 1429, when Joan so … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Benjamin West, Charles D'Orleans poems, Duke Philip the Good, Isabella of Bavaria, Jennifer Warnes, Joan of Arc, King Charles VI, Leonard Cohen, Madame Pickwick, Philip the Good Duke of Burgundy, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, sir arthur conan doyle sir nigel, The Hundred Years War | Leave a comment

memory almost full: “je me souviens”

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Dave

Je Me Souviens! Its on the license plate. And it mean I remember. I remember what happened on the Plains of Abraham. The crushing defeat of 1759 that gave England and the English language hegemony in the New World. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Benjamin West, David Frum, Death of General Wolfe, Durham Report, FLQ Crisis, James Cross, Jean Charest PLQ, Lord Durham, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Major General James Wolfe, Paul McCartney, Pauline Marois, pierre falardeau, Pierre Laporte, Pierre Vallieres, The Durham Report, War Measures Act 1970, William Pitt the Elder, Wolfe and Montcalm | Leave a comment

its always money in philadelphia

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Dave

Philadelphia. It’s always had a peculiar character about it; an aristocracy of old families, Quaker in conscience if not in religion or taste… “Philadelphia,” wrote George Biddle in his autobiography, ” has its own breed of integrity. It believes in … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Andrew Wyeth, Benjamin West, Charles Willson Peale, Eakins, George Biddle, John Singer Sargent, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, Mary Cassat, mary cassatt, Raphael Soyer, Thomas Eakins, William Penn, Winslow Homer | Leave a comment

painting: hewers of wood and drawers of H2O

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Dave

Hewers of wood and drawers of water. That is the traditional and somewhat pejorative view of Canada. And although Canada likes to think of themselves as a global “soft power” and memeber of the Group of Eight ( G8 ) … Continue reading →

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Marketing/Advertising/Media | Tagged Benjamin West, benjamin west general wolfe, Conrad Black, Daler-Rowney system 3, daler-rowney system 3 heavy body, harold innis, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art supplies, Northrop Frye, Paul Kane, paul kane art | Leave a comment

w. blake: the quack doctors of painting

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Dave

The Royal Academy. The real power of the Royal Academy lay in its early days, and the driving force behind its consolidation was not primarily intellectual or social at all. It related to the machinery of distribution and sale. High … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion | Tagged Benjamin West, Grosvenor Gallery, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Joshua Reynolds, Madame Pickwick, madame pickwick art blog, madame pickwick art supplies, Richard Wilson Royal Academy, The Grand Tour, the royal academy, Thomas Gainsborough, William Blake, William Hazlitt, William Hogarth | Leave a comment

two state solution

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Dave

There is a feedback loop at work here: Do we really want more separation from Canada, statehood, or does all this incessant chatter about it simply desensitize the issue into the realm of indifference and boredom? Or, in today’s consumerist … Continue reading →

Posted in Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Marketing/Advertising/Media | Tagged Antonin Artaud, Benjamin West, Bob Dylan, bruce mallen, Carl Jung, clotaire rapaille, Greil Marcus, ian and sylvia, Irving Layton, John Verelst, louis joseph papineau, Mordecai Richler, napoleon bourassa, Northrop Frye, patriotes movement quebec, paul bennett le devoir, rheal seguin, victor-levy beaulieu | Leave a comment

PASSION FOR POMPEII: “RANDY FOR ANTIQUE”

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Dave

It was buried by a volcanic eruption in 79 A.D. Pompeii. When the ruins came to light, beginning in 1747, they caused a revolution in taste- stripping away rococo gilt, reshaping the female figure , and leaving a deposit of … Continue reading →

Posted in Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology, Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Visual Art/Sculpture/etc. | Tagged Archibald Alison, Benjamin West, Bulwer-Lytton, Charles Greville, Christopher C. Parslow, Claude Lorrain, Dr. Salvatore Ciro Nappo, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Eleanor Coade, Emma Hamilton, George Romney, Giambattista Piranesi, Giorgio Sommer, Goethe, Goethe Italy, Horace Walpole, Jean Racine, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, John Flaxman, Joseph Addison, Josiah Wedgewood, Josiah Wedgwood, Judith Harris, Karl Weber Pompeii, Lord Nelson, Matthew Boulton, Nicolas Poussin, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples, Richard West, Robert Adam Architect, Robert Fulford, Sir William Hamilton, The Grand Tour, Thomas Gray, William S. Anderson | Leave a comment

NEGATIVE CAPABILITY:Curtain Call For The Complexity of Sympathy

Posted on October 17, 2010 by Dave

“Brown and Dilke walked with me & back from the Christmas pantomime. I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form … Continue reading →

Posted in Cinema/Visual/Audio, Feature Article, Ideas/Opinion, Literature/poetry/spoken word, Miscellaneous, Music/Composition/Performance | Tagged Alastair Robson, Alexandre Dumas, Barry Cornwall, Barry Corwall, Barry Waller Procter, Ben Kingsley, Ben Sher, Benjamin West, Bennett Cooperman, Charles R. Forker, Coleridge, Edmund Kean, Edward Ziter, Eli Siegel, G.W. Lewes, Gail Marshall, George Clint, Hawkins, Howard Hillebrand, Jane Moody, Jean Paul Sartre, John Murray, John Philip Kemble, John William Cole, Jonathan Bate, Jonathan David Gross, Julia Ward Howe, Lord Byron, Marianne Ackerman, Percy Shelley, Peter J. Manning, Richard Andrew Cardwell, Samuel taylor Coleridge, Sarah Siddons, Tracy C.Davis, William Hazlitt, William Heath, William Wordsworth | Leave a comment

DISTINCT FROM THE AMBIANCE OF HISTORY

Posted on August 23, 2010 by Dave

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous … Continue reading →