Saturday, March 31, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
The most beautiful place in the world to die. Tyler Clementi... Dharun Ravi... the George Washington Bridge... and the necessity for remembrance
“Wow! I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ve snagged another one of Dr. Lant’s superb articles.”
I wish to thank each and everyone of you who read this “Blog” and those who take the time out of their busy day to comment. We are only just getting started here. So please do keep reading and especially making comments. The direction of this “Blog” comes from you and the comments that you impart to us. Today’s “Blog:..The most beautiful place in the world to die. Tyler Clementi... Dharun Ravi... the George Washington Bridge... and the necessity for remembrance
So as I mentioned to you above. Comment, Comment, Comment. Your opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif matters so make it known. Until Tomorrow. You can reach me by email lrewhomebusiness@gmail.com; cell phone 310-561-2580, or Skype me at lawencecrinke http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif . And I want to hear from each and EVERY one of you
the George Washington Bridge
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. Tyler Clementi was a young violinist who with his obliging instrument produced sounds that touched the heart. Given world enough and time who knows where this undeniable talent, showcased in the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra and Bergen Youth Orchestra, would have taken him? But because he was attracted to men rather than to women, he was never to know. And so today, I sit here in Cambridge starring at a photograph of a dead boy we cannot afford to forget, for to forget would be the real crime...
... but memory is sharp, hard, remorseless, exquisitely painful...
And so we must have Mozart. Mozart who so well understood life... and who with such grandeur enables us to cope with death...
Thus, as the occasional music to this tale I give you the Master's Requiem Mass in D Minor (K. 626), composed in Vienna (1791) available in any search engine... Focusing on his life, whilst never forgetting his death and uneasy spirit...
The thousands of pages dedicated to the matter of Tyler Clementi focus on when he died, how he died, why he died, and, above all, who is responsible that he died... and I shall also deal with these crucial questions. But, first and foremost, we must never lose sight of the boy at the center of this matter... for this is above all his story...
Tyler was born in 1991 in Buffalo, New York and raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He was a good student and like so many other aspiring musicians found life, beauty, meaning and sustenance in the celestial purity of sound, often so intense as to produce exaltation, apotheosis, catharsis, ecstasy. Tyler was one of the gifted who took mere notes on a page and produced beauty... and whenever he picked up his violin that beauty was his to command.... and to give...
... and he gave freely, liberally, with the exuberance and trust of youth and a heart that sought love and meant no harm to anyone...
And so Tyler Clementi went to Rutgers, to test himself against the best of his peers... He was just 18 years old... with a mere handful of days to live. What happened next is now a matter of detailed record... why it happened will always require the judgement of Solomon and perhaps more... for the person we long to ask -- Tyler himself -- cannot tell us.
Dramatis personnae.
Now come the principal actors...
Tyler, his roommate Dharun Ravi, fellow hallmate Molly Wei... and the gaping worldwide community found on the Internet and without which there would have been no story, no tragedy, and a happier life for all.
Here is what happened....
On the nights of September 19 and 22, 2010 Clementi texted Ravi about using their room for the evening, a thing college students have been asking their roommates forever. On the first occasion Ravi met Clementi's friend, an older man whom Ravi did not like. Nothing so far meant very much; surely no one thought that Tyler would be soon dead. But the mad chemistry of tragedy had started... and it fermented in the brain of Dharun Ravi.
Ravi now says, as well he might, that he wasn't the agent provocateur for what happened, but as he stands convicted before the world, this is not surprising.
Fact: He thought it fitting and proper to use a webcam to view a portion of Clementi's dorm-room liaison with another man... and immediately tweeted it to his list of 150 people, thus beginning its viral dissemination.
Fact: Ravi posted text messages saying "Yeah, keep the gays away" and "People are having a viewing party with a bottle of Bacardi and beer in this kid's room for my roommate", along with directions on how to view it remotely.
Fact: Ravi set up his webcam and pointed it toward's Clementi's bed, where it was found by police, still so pointed.
All this Tyler learned... and acted responsibly, complaining to his resident assistant and two other college officials. He also wrote in detail about these events on the "Just Us Boys" message board and the Yahoo message board. He asked for a new room, a new roommate, and for help. He was doing what he had to do and he was doing it responsibly.
But here is where things went so very wrong...
"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." (Hamlet)
But something gnawed at Clementi and so 38 times following his first webcam viewing he returned... returned... and returned again and again to that bit of video that he became convinced had destroyed his life, his future, his peace of mind. He was wrong, so very wrong, but he was young, inexperienced, and, he thought alone. And that is the real tragedy...
Thus did his dark purpose commence.
8:42 PM September 22.
The cast of characters was growing now. College administrators were now involved.. Ravi was back peddling as quick as he could, minimizing what he did, why he did it, stating over and over again that he meant nothing by it, didn't mean it, apologized for it.
But already Tyler had his foot upon a very different path... He was Hamlet now, without even knowing it:
"To be, or not to be: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or take arms against a sea of troubles."
He had solved this conundrum.... tragically, finally, unnecessarily... an act of passion from a mind in turmoil. "The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world." Le Corbusier
And it was here Tyler Clementi came to die, that is to say to do the extremest thing in his power... to embrace oblivion. What made him do this deed of rashness, to end everything and remove the future and every joy to come? We can never know, for his final words, sent on his cell phone from the great marvel towering above him, picked out in the brightest of lights, was brief, inadequate, far too little for such an epochal event:
"Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."
And so he jumped, alive for seconds still... already gone from the living, en route to eternity, the last things he saw, the dark waters of the Hudson, the explosion of light that was Manhattan. Then nothing... a dead boy of enigmas and secrets which I so long to know but never shall.
Envoi.
On March 16, 2012 now 20 year old Dharun Ravi was convicted of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, a hate crime. Wherever he goes in life, however long he lives, every day he will think on young Tyler Clementi, whose vivid memory and restive spirit will be ever present... "To die, to sleep/No more... Be all my sins remember'd."
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Truth About Abs -> http://www.ActionEqualsProfit.com/?rd=tp9xaE66
Lawrence Rinke
Business Coach
President : ActionEqualsProfit.com
Join Me On Skype: lawrencecrinke
P.S., If you would like content like this free to use in your blog to generate leads .Give me a call at 310-561-2580, I’d be glad to tell you how, or Leave phone number in comment. . I respond immediately to all comments.
Thanks Again
LCR
20,000 safelist credits
http://www.HomeSafelistTraffic.com
This For You What Are You Waiting For
FREE Sign Up!! = FREE $10
http://adv.justbeenpaid.com/?r=CtMSMJPvFD&s=logogirl3&=AEPB
I wish to thank each and everyone of you who read this “Blog” and those who take the time out of their busy day to comment. We are only just getting started here. So please do keep reading and especially making comments. The direction of this “Blog” comes from you and the comments that you impart to us. Today’s “Blog:..The most beautiful place in the world to die. Tyler Clementi... Dharun Ravi... the George Washington Bridge... and the necessity for remembrance
So as I mentioned to you above. Comment, Comment, Comment. Your opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif matters so make it known. Until Tomorrow. You can reach me by email lrewhomebusiness@gmail.com; cell phone 310-561-2580, or Skype me at lawencecrinke http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif . And I want to hear from each and EVERY one of you
the George Washington Bridge
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. Tyler Clementi was a young violinist who with his obliging instrument produced sounds that touched the heart. Given world enough and time who knows where this undeniable talent, showcased in the Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra and Bergen Youth Orchestra, would have taken him? But because he was attracted to men rather than to women, he was never to know. And so today, I sit here in Cambridge starring at a photograph of a dead boy we cannot afford to forget, for to forget would be the real crime...
... but memory is sharp, hard, remorseless, exquisitely painful...
And so we must have Mozart. Mozart who so well understood life... and who with such grandeur enables us to cope with death...
Thus, as the occasional music to this tale I give you the Master's Requiem Mass in D Minor (K. 626), composed in Vienna (1791) available in any search engine... Focusing on his life, whilst never forgetting his death and uneasy spirit...
The thousands of pages dedicated to the matter of Tyler Clementi focus on when he died, how he died, why he died, and, above all, who is responsible that he died... and I shall also deal with these crucial questions. But, first and foremost, we must never lose sight of the boy at the center of this matter... for this is above all his story...
Tyler was born in 1991 in Buffalo, New York and raised in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He was a good student and like so many other aspiring musicians found life, beauty, meaning and sustenance in the celestial purity of sound, often so intense as to produce exaltation, apotheosis, catharsis, ecstasy. Tyler was one of the gifted who took mere notes on a page and produced beauty... and whenever he picked up his violin that beauty was his to command.... and to give...
... and he gave freely, liberally, with the exuberance and trust of youth and a heart that sought love and meant no harm to anyone...
And so Tyler Clementi went to Rutgers, to test himself against the best of his peers... He was just 18 years old... with a mere handful of days to live. What happened next is now a matter of detailed record... why it happened will always require the judgement of Solomon and perhaps more... for the person we long to ask -- Tyler himself -- cannot tell us.
Dramatis personnae.
Now come the principal actors...
Tyler, his roommate Dharun Ravi, fellow hallmate Molly Wei... and the gaping worldwide community found on the Internet and without which there would have been no story, no tragedy, and a happier life for all.
Here is what happened....
On the nights of September 19 and 22, 2010 Clementi texted Ravi about using their room for the evening, a thing college students have been asking their roommates forever. On the first occasion Ravi met Clementi's friend, an older man whom Ravi did not like. Nothing so far meant very much; surely no one thought that Tyler would be soon dead. But the mad chemistry of tragedy had started... and it fermented in the brain of Dharun Ravi.
Ravi now says, as well he might, that he wasn't the agent provocateur for what happened, but as he stands convicted before the world, this is not surprising.
Fact: He thought it fitting and proper to use a webcam to view a portion of Clementi's dorm-room liaison with another man... and immediately tweeted it to his list of 150 people, thus beginning its viral dissemination.
Fact: Ravi posted text messages saying "Yeah, keep the gays away" and "People are having a viewing party with a bottle of Bacardi and beer in this kid's room for my roommate", along with directions on how to view it remotely.
Fact: Ravi set up his webcam and pointed it toward's Clementi's bed, where it was found by police, still so pointed.
All this Tyler learned... and acted responsibly, complaining to his resident assistant and two other college officials. He also wrote in detail about these events on the "Just Us Boys" message board and the Yahoo message board. He asked for a new room, a new roommate, and for help. He was doing what he had to do and he was doing it responsibly.
But here is where things went so very wrong...
"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." (Hamlet)
But something gnawed at Clementi and so 38 times following his first webcam viewing he returned... returned... and returned again and again to that bit of video that he became convinced had destroyed his life, his future, his peace of mind. He was wrong, so very wrong, but he was young, inexperienced, and, he thought alone. And that is the real tragedy...
Thus did his dark purpose commence.
8:42 PM September 22.
The cast of characters was growing now. College administrators were now involved.. Ravi was back peddling as quick as he could, minimizing what he did, why he did it, stating over and over again that he meant nothing by it, didn't mean it, apologized for it.
But already Tyler had his foot upon a very different path... He was Hamlet now, without even knowing it:
"To be, or not to be: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or take arms against a sea of troubles."
He had solved this conundrum.... tragically, finally, unnecessarily... an act of passion from a mind in turmoil. "The George Washington Bridge over the Hudson is the most beautiful bridge in the world." Le Corbusier
And it was here Tyler Clementi came to die, that is to say to do the extremest thing in his power... to embrace oblivion. What made him do this deed of rashness, to end everything and remove the future and every joy to come? We can never know, for his final words, sent on his cell phone from the great marvel towering above him, picked out in the brightest of lights, was brief, inadequate, far too little for such an epochal event:
"Jumping off the gw bridge sorry."
And so he jumped, alive for seconds still... already gone from the living, en route to eternity, the last things he saw, the dark waters of the Hudson, the explosion of light that was Manhattan. Then nothing... a dead boy of enigmas and secrets which I so long to know but never shall.
Envoi.
On March 16, 2012 now 20 year old Dharun Ravi was convicted of invasion of privacy and bias intimidation, a hate crime. Wherever he goes in life, however long he lives, every day he will think on young Tyler Clementi, whose vivid memory and restive spirit will be ever present... "To die, to sleep/No more... Be all my sins remember'd."
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Truth About Abs -> http://www.ActionEqualsProfit.com/?rd=tp9xaE66
Lawrence Rinke
Business Coach
President : ActionEqualsProfit.com
Join Me On Skype: lawrencecrinke
P.S., If you would like content like this free to use in your blog to generate leads .Give me a call at 310-561-2580, I’d be glad to tell you how, or Leave phone number in comment. . I respond immediately to all comments.
Thanks Again
LCR
20,000 safelist credits
http://www.HomeSafelistTraffic.com
This For You What Are You Waiting For
FREE Sign Up!! = FREE $10
http://adv.justbeenpaid.com/?r=CtMSMJPvFD&s=logogirl3&=AEPB
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Flowers assuage 'all sorts of misfortune'. A masterpiece by Jean-BaptisteMonnoyer found, restored, enjoyed in The Lant Collection.
The picture was brought to Simon’s studio where tests were carried out to remove…..
“Wow! I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ve snagged another one of Dr. Lant’s superb articles.”
I wish to thank each and everyone of you who read this “Blog” and those who take the time out of their busy day to comment. We are only just getting started here. So please do keep reading and especially making comments. The direction of this “Blog” comes from you and the comments that you impart to us. Today’s “Blog:..Flowers assuage ‘all sorts of misfortune’. A masterpiece by Jean-BaptisteMonnoyer found, restored, enjoyed in The Lant Collection.
So as I mentioned to you above. Comment, Comment, Comment. Your opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif matters so make it known. Until Tomorrow. You can reach me by email lrewhomebusiness@gmail.com; cell phone 310-561-2580, or Skype me at lawencecrinke http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif . And I want to hear from each and EVERY one of you
Before After
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. In the 17th century, in France, ambitious men strove to become the masters of their crafts. They didn’t look for short-cuts; abominated slothful, slipshod ways, and always, always aimed not merely to excel, but to astonish not only their colleagues and their patrons… but most of all themselves, their most discerning critic, the one who knew everything and from whom there could be no secrets or matters undisclosed.
For the incidental music to this article on French master Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer, painter of flowers, I have selected music by Francois Couperin (1668-1733), master composer. Go to any search engine and find one of the many renditions of his gem “Les Baricades Misterieuses.” Turn it on, turn it up, for you are in the company of deft mastery, of craftsmanship, of genius.
Sotheby’s, London, Lot 251, December 8, 2011.
This is what the catalog said:
“Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (Lille 1636-London 1699)
A still life of lilies, honeysuckle and other flowers in a vase on a ledge.
Signed lower right JBaptiste. oil on canvas 17 7/8″ by 22 3/8 in.”
This write-up was accompanied by a photograph, a photograph disclosing without mercy the pitiable condition of what had once been a work of grace, beauty, and allure, but which now was anything but. My heart went out to this picture, its painter, its present state of distress and the thought that here I might be able to make a difference, to make a once proud and beautiful object proud and beautiful again.
About Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer.
Monnoyer started his career providing designs for both the Gobelins and Beauvais tapestry workshops, the acme of such works. There his fruit and flower designs were judged to be excellent. Such was his skill and artistry that he was taken up by Charles Le Brun and so came to work at the Chateau de Marly, the hideaway King Louis XIV sought when the pomp and protocol which he created and insisted be used at Versailles became too overwhelming even for a Sun King. Monnoyer, thus, was in the perfect place at the moment of its sumptuous perfection.
In 1690, having been admitted to the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, he went to England, where his masterful work crafting over 50 panels for Montague House, Bloomsbury, London created a vogue for the man and his meticulous work produced with botanical accuracy. He did not merely paint flowers, he made them live. It was a skill only the greatest masters possess… and which Monnoyer possessed in such abundance that he was no longer a painter of flowers, no matter how excellent, but The Master of such painters, the doyen who set the standard by which all others would be judged. Such a master did not ask me to scrutinize this work and do what was necessary to rehabilitate it. He commanded me to do so.
A call to Simon Gillespie, Cleveland Street, London.
When I see a thing of beauty which I might want for my collection, I contact Simon Gillespie, for in the art of conserving pictures, he is as masterful as Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer in creating them. And I know whereof I speak, for over the last 25 years Simon has restored over 30 pictures for me, all of which were badly damaged at acquisition but, because of painstaking, meticulous work, came to live again. For a thing of beauty can only be a joy forever if it is expertly, regularly cared for with the skill and dexterity of which Gillespie is past master. I know the man. I know his work. I would not think of commissioning another to save the imperiled pictures I collect and delight in saving.
This is what he told me about this Monnoyer before I acquired it: “This was once a very beautiful picture by a very good artist. It has probably been in a very hot room at the start of its life where it dried rapidly causing a dramatic set of cracks. I think I should go and have a look when it is up on the wall to determine the viability of resurrecting it.” And so it began… he doing his research, me doing mine.
The online Artcyclopedia provided me with excellent but rather daunting information; the works of Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer are found in the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge; the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Royal Collection in London. Moreover, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has acquired 13 — yes 13 — of his paintings and with almost unlimited funds could easily outbid me…. outbid, perhaps, but perhaps not outsmart.
And so, with the perceived distress of this masterpiece working in my favor, I acquired it… happy that what it needed we could provide and at once.
What had to be done.
The picture was brought to Simon’s studio where tests were carried out to remove the various layers of dirt, grime, discolored varnish. and small amounts of over paint which had been applied to minimize some of the cracking but also liberally covered original paint unnecessarily.
The cracks were indeed disfiguring and interrupted the fine detail of the brush strokes of the flowers. The canvas had also been enlarged top and bottom incorporating the old edges of the canvas, presumably to fit an old frame or match a series of other paintings. Each of these problems — and several others –had to be solved, not merely finessed. And as you can see from the merest glance above, each and every one of them was solved…
All this having been accomplished, Simon wrote this to me: “The resulting work of art is a very refined piece of painting from a famous artist who knew how to achieve a great painting. I am always proud to see that after years of bad experience a picture can undergo such a good transformation. Looking at the painting now, you would never know that it had taken this recent journey.”
Indeed not, and that is why Simon Gillespie is the master craftsman he is, and why I deem it not merely a practical necessity but an honor to enage him and his talented staff.
Here, in Cambridge, to cheer and remind me.
Now this masterpiece hangs in my inter sanctum, the place where I think, write, and think some more; the place where I am writing you now. It is a special place… a place devoted to making the world a better place… an exacting task in which my two Monnoyers assist. For both fell upon hard times and were rescued… and if two can be rescued, why not three, three hundred, and more?
All it takes is starting with a single step, for as 20th century poet Wallace Stevens wrote after discovering Monnoyer, flowers assuage “all sorts of misfortune”. Thus we must do everything we can to ensure they have the chance to perform their comforting work, suffusing our often difficult lives with brilliant color, light, hope… and the vision and craft of masters like Monnoyer, Couperin, and Gillespie.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Commission AutoPilot -> http://www.ActionEqualsProfit.com/?rd=zq6tZblL
Lawrence Rinke
Business Coach
President : ActionEqualsProfit.com
Join Me On Skype: lawrencecrinke
P.S., If you would like content like this free to use in your blog to generate leads .Give me a call at 310-561-2580, I’d be glad to tell you how, or Leave phone number in comment. . I respond immediately to all comments.
Thanks Again
LCR
20,000 safelist credits
http://www.HomeSafelistTraffic.com
This For You What Are You Waiting For
FREE Sign Up!! = FREE $10
http://adv.justbeenpaid.com/?r=CtMSMJPvFD&s=logogirl3&=AEPB
“Wow! I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ve snagged another one of Dr. Lant’s superb articles.”
I wish to thank each and everyone of you who read this “Blog” and those who take the time out of their busy day to comment. We are only just getting started here. So please do keep reading and especially making comments. The direction of this “Blog” comes from you and the comments that you impart to us. Today’s “Blog:..Flowers assuage ‘all sorts of misfortune’. A masterpiece by Jean-BaptisteMonnoyer found, restored, enjoyed in The Lant Collection.
So as I mentioned to you above. Comment, Comment, Comment. Your opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif matters so make it known. Until Tomorrow. You can reach me by email lrewhomebusiness@gmail.com; cell phone 310-561-2580, or Skype me at lawencecrinke http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif . And I want to hear from each and EVERY one of you
Before After
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s program note. In the 17th century, in France, ambitious men strove to become the masters of their crafts. They didn’t look for short-cuts; abominated slothful, slipshod ways, and always, always aimed not merely to excel, but to astonish not only their colleagues and their patrons… but most of all themselves, their most discerning critic, the one who knew everything and from whom there could be no secrets or matters undisclosed.
For the incidental music to this article on French master Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer, painter of flowers, I have selected music by Francois Couperin (1668-1733), master composer. Go to any search engine and find one of the many renditions of his gem “Les Baricades Misterieuses.” Turn it on, turn it up, for you are in the company of deft mastery, of craftsmanship, of genius.
Sotheby’s, London, Lot 251, December 8, 2011.
This is what the catalog said:
“Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (Lille 1636-London 1699)
A still life of lilies, honeysuckle and other flowers in a vase on a ledge.
Signed lower right JBaptiste. oil on canvas 17 7/8″ by 22 3/8 in.”
This write-up was accompanied by a photograph, a photograph disclosing without mercy the pitiable condition of what had once been a work of grace, beauty, and allure, but which now was anything but. My heart went out to this picture, its painter, its present state of distress and the thought that here I might be able to make a difference, to make a once proud and beautiful object proud and beautiful again.
About Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer.
Monnoyer started his career providing designs for both the Gobelins and Beauvais tapestry workshops, the acme of such works. There his fruit and flower designs were judged to be excellent. Such was his skill and artistry that he was taken up by Charles Le Brun and so came to work at the Chateau de Marly, the hideaway King Louis XIV sought when the pomp and protocol which he created and insisted be used at Versailles became too overwhelming even for a Sun King. Monnoyer, thus, was in the perfect place at the moment of its sumptuous perfection.
In 1690, having been admitted to the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, he went to England, where his masterful work crafting over 50 panels for Montague House, Bloomsbury, London created a vogue for the man and his meticulous work produced with botanical accuracy. He did not merely paint flowers, he made them live. It was a skill only the greatest masters possess… and which Monnoyer possessed in such abundance that he was no longer a painter of flowers, no matter how excellent, but The Master of such painters, the doyen who set the standard by which all others would be judged. Such a master did not ask me to scrutinize this work and do what was necessary to rehabilitate it. He commanded me to do so.
A call to Simon Gillespie, Cleveland Street, London.
When I see a thing of beauty which I might want for my collection, I contact Simon Gillespie, for in the art of conserving pictures, he is as masterful as Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer in creating them. And I know whereof I speak, for over the last 25 years Simon has restored over 30 pictures for me, all of which were badly damaged at acquisition but, because of painstaking, meticulous work, came to live again. For a thing of beauty can only be a joy forever if it is expertly, regularly cared for with the skill and dexterity of which Gillespie is past master. I know the man. I know his work. I would not think of commissioning another to save the imperiled pictures I collect and delight in saving.
This is what he told me about this Monnoyer before I acquired it: “This was once a very beautiful picture by a very good artist. It has probably been in a very hot room at the start of its life where it dried rapidly causing a dramatic set of cracks. I think I should go and have a look when it is up on the wall to determine the viability of resurrecting it.” And so it began… he doing his research, me doing mine.
The online Artcyclopedia provided me with excellent but rather daunting information; the works of Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer are found in the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge; the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Royal Collection in London. Moreover, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has acquired 13 — yes 13 — of his paintings and with almost unlimited funds could easily outbid me…. outbid, perhaps, but perhaps not outsmart.
And so, with the perceived distress of this masterpiece working in my favor, I acquired it… happy that what it needed we could provide and at once.
What had to be done.
The picture was brought to Simon’s studio where tests were carried out to remove the various layers of dirt, grime, discolored varnish. and small amounts of over paint which had been applied to minimize some of the cracking but also liberally covered original paint unnecessarily.
The cracks were indeed disfiguring and interrupted the fine detail of the brush strokes of the flowers. The canvas had also been enlarged top and bottom incorporating the old edges of the canvas, presumably to fit an old frame or match a series of other paintings. Each of these problems — and several others –had to be solved, not merely finessed. And as you can see from the merest glance above, each and every one of them was solved…
All this having been accomplished, Simon wrote this to me: “The resulting work of art is a very refined piece of painting from a famous artist who knew how to achieve a great painting. I am always proud to see that after years of bad experience a picture can undergo such a good transformation. Looking at the painting now, you would never know that it had taken this recent journey.”
Indeed not, and that is why Simon Gillespie is the master craftsman he is, and why I deem it not merely a practical necessity but an honor to enage him and his talented staff.
Here, in Cambridge, to cheer and remind me.
Now this masterpiece hangs in my inter sanctum, the place where I think, write, and think some more; the place where I am writing you now. It is a special place… a place devoted to making the world a better place… an exacting task in which my two Monnoyers assist. For both fell upon hard times and were rescued… and if two can be rescued, why not three, three hundred, and more?
All it takes is starting with a single step, for as 20th century poet Wallace Stevens wrote after discovering Monnoyer, flowers assuage “all sorts of misfortune”. Thus we must do everything we can to ensure they have the chance to perform their comforting work, suffusing our often difficult lives with brilliant color, light, hope… and the vision and craft of masters like Monnoyer, Couperin, and Gillespie.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author’s permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Commission AutoPilot -> http://www.ActionEqualsProfit.com/?rd=zq6tZblL
Lawrence Rinke
Business Coach
President : ActionEqualsProfit.com
Join Me On Skype: lawrencecrinke
P.S., If you would like content like this free to use in your blog to generate leads .Give me a call at 310-561-2580, I’d be glad to tell you how, or Leave phone number in comment. . I respond immediately to all comments.
Thanks Again
LCR
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Lawrence: On the matter of great books you have not read or ...
Lawrence: On the matter of great books you have not read or ...: “Wow! I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ve snagged another one of Dr. Lant’s superb articles.” I wish to thank each and everyone of you who re...
On the matter of great books you have not read or even heard about, andone such book in particular,
“Wow! I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ve snagged another one of Dr. Lant’s superb articles.”
I wish to thank each and everyone of you who read this “Blog” and those who take the time out of their busy day to comment. We are only just getting started here. So please do keep reading and especially making comments. The direction of this “Blog” comes from you and the comments that you impart to us. Today’s “Blog:..On the matter of great books you have not read or even heard about, andone such book in particular,
So as I mentioned to you above. Comment, Comment, Comment. Your opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif matters so make it known. Until Tomorrow. You can reach me by email lrewhomebusiness@gmail.com; cell phone 310-561-2580, or Skype me at lawencecrinke http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif . And I want to hear from each and EVERY one of you
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. I am, have been, and always will be a book man; a man, that is, whose life has been enriched in every way by books. These books have been my joy, my obsession, always the source of bliss. And no wonder. For in my own special corner with book in hand and my imagination, I have learned something of the utmost significance. Books can take you anywhere. With them you can be anyone... achieve anything... experience everything. ... This is what a book can do and what books for the last 65 years have done for me.
Books... the necessary and irreplaceable tools for education... boon companions and dearest friends for life, the solace of our older age, and where we look to assuage our grief when a loved one passes. Books offer us everything... for books are about everything... about everyone... about everywhere.
The only drawback to books... is that there are so many, so brilliant, so moving, so epochal, so packed with fact and incident that we time-challenged humans don't have even a tiny fraction of the hours we need to know them, read them, think on them, and use them to improve the person we are and wish always to ameliorate. Books are always present, reminding us with their full assistance, how much better we can be... if only we open the cover and allow the words and pages that follow to take us to the superior place that is theirs to give to each of us.
Had we but world enough and time (Andrew Marvell, 1681)...
... but you see, that is the eternal challenge, for we do not... and this, then, becomes the particular puzzle of all our lives. How to know of, find, and find the time to read what must be read... the greatest books by our greatest masters; for as one grows older and older still, one discovers that time is too short to read anything else. That is why when people do me the honor to ask what books have influenced me, I am ever ready with the contents of my library to advise them. And so I take this opportunity to tell you about "The Leopard", a masterpiece that was in 1957 so despised by Italian publishers that some said it would never be printed, was not worth printing... thereby breaking the heart of its author, Prince Di Lampedusa whose manners were so refined that he did not excoriate and rebuke the purblind publishers who thereby missed a work of high genius. It is this great book by an undoubted master that I tell you about this day.
But before I tell this tale, I wish to commend to you the incidental music to accompany this piece. It is the "valzerone e quadriglia" by that composer of cinematic magic, Nino Rota (1911-1979). Go now to any search engine and play it at once, for if "The Leopard" could possibly be improved upon, it would be by Rota and his mesmeric dance rhythms. A novel about the Italy you know nothing about.
http://youtu.be/s6-0kgAMoh4
You cannot understand this book unless you know that its author was a bona fide principe, prince of ancient lineage and generations of hubris, condescension and perfect manners. He would not have liked you... why should he?... but you'd never know how exquisite his insults until long after he'd made his graceful exit from your unwanted company, the mark of a true aristocrat, a nonpareil who kills but never maims -- unless he intends to.
But, and this too is crucial to understanding this book, this principe was not a prince of Italy, but a prince from Palermo, in Sicily, an island which had been since ships could sail the highly desirable target of one monarch after another, Dei gratia all.
As a result, there was a plenitude of titles on Sicily; grandiose, exalted, the residue of one temporary regime after another. Every noble knew how every title in the kingdom had been procured, by blood, valor... bedroom services or outright purchase. Thus the same title could mean wildly different things, of one order going up, while another was descending. Every nobleman and most especially his milady knew every nuance and secret. And so reputations wilted and died, scandals commenced and scandals reported behind delicate fans which at once enabled them to show their artistry and delicate wrists to best advantage while obscuring expressions which might well reveal too much.
This was a world the prince of Lampedusa knew well, every flutter of a fan, every patent of nobility finagled, every tittle of gossip, enjoyed, examined, twisted to best advantage. This is the arcane world, now as distant as the moon, that his excellency brought to life in "The Leopard".
"Nothing much happens. They just talk."
In doing my research for this article, I came across the line above, sentiments posted online by a reader puzzled by this book. This is understandable, for unlike our action packed books and films, "The Leopard" moves at a very different pace... the pace of real life in the 1860s when the old verities of Sicilian life were giving way before the insistent realities of Italian unification.
You see, the unified Italy you know and which you may assume has existed for centuries is in fact a new reality. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, Italy had been broken up into smaller states. And these states spent their time intriguing against each other, gaining an acre here, losing a city there. It gave generations of princes and their privy counselors something to do during the delicious days of la dolce far niente. It was this ancient system that the princes reigning in Turin, the House of Savoy, were determined to end... reigning instead over one nation, their patrimony.
It is towards the end of this opera-bouffe revolution that Lampedusa begins his tale, a tale based on the life of his paternal great-grandfather, a grandee of Sicily who saw everything changing, changing, changing to the detriment of the beautiful life he loved but could no longer afford.
And so "The Leopard", Prince Fabrizio Salina, finds himself doing something he abhors but knows is absolutely necessary... allowing his beloved nephew, Prince Tancredi Falcorieri, to marry beneath himself... to the most attractive young lady of the district, Angelica Sedara, who is socially ambitious, endlessly calculating... and rich.
Thus while they live, think, intrigue, eat, dance and make love, the House of Savoy changes everything for everyone... Thus is the reader rebuked who thinks that nothing is happening, for in fact an entire world and everyone, everything in it changes forever right before your eyes...
... a riveting story told in language so beautiful, so poignant, so epigrammatic and apt one is forced to reread line after line so as not to miss a single limpid word. It is for this that "The Leopard" is a work of genius and the prince of Lampedusa occupies at last his just place in the literary pantheon.
April, 1993.
I read "The Leopard" in the spring of 1993; I know because I entered the date on the title page. I've been reading it again lately, and will come back again, perhaps only to read a page, or even a single paragraph, before my life is over. Classics are like that... drawing us back, insinuating themselves into our lives in ways lesser creations cannot hope to duplicate.
Now, therefore, go to any search engine, find Nino Rota's valzerone written for Visconti's 1963 grand film recreation of the leopard's doomed world, open the book, turn the music on and commence reading from the first line,
"Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. The daily recital of the Rosary was over..." but your pleasure has just begun.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Truth About Abs -> http://www.ActionEqualsProfit.com/?rd=tp9xaE66
Lawrence Rinke
Business Coach
President : ActionEqualsProfit.comhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Join Me On Skype: lawrencecrinke
P.S., If you would like content like this free to use in your blog to generate leads .Give me a call at 310-561-2580, I’d be glad to tell you how, or Leave phone number in comment. . I respond immediately to all comments.
Thanks Again
20,000 safelist credits
http://www.HomeSafelistTraffic.com
FREE Sign Up!! = FREE $10
http://adv.justbeenpaid.com/?r=CtMSMJPvFD&s=logogirl3&=AEPB
I wish to thank each and everyone of you who read this “Blog” and those who take the time out of their busy day to comment. We are only just getting started here. So please do keep reading and especially making comments. The direction of this “Blog” comes from you and the comments that you impart to us. Today’s “Blog:..On the matter of great books you have not read or even heard about, andone such book in particular,
So as I mentioned to you above. Comment, Comment, Comment. Your opinionhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif matters so make it known. Until Tomorrow. You can reach me by email lrewhomebusiness@gmail.com; cell phone 310-561-2580, or Skype me at lawencecrinke http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif . And I want to hear from each and EVERY one of you
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author's program note. I am, have been, and always will be a book man; a man, that is, whose life has been enriched in every way by books. These books have been my joy, my obsession, always the source of bliss. And no wonder. For in my own special corner with book in hand and my imagination, I have learned something of the utmost significance. Books can take you anywhere. With them you can be anyone... achieve anything... experience everything. ... This is what a book can do and what books for the last 65 years have done for me.
Books... the necessary and irreplaceable tools for education... boon companions and dearest friends for life, the solace of our older age, and where we look to assuage our grief when a loved one passes. Books offer us everything... for books are about everything... about everyone... about everywhere.
The only drawback to books... is that there are so many, so brilliant, so moving, so epochal, so packed with fact and incident that we time-challenged humans don't have even a tiny fraction of the hours we need to know them, read them, think on them, and use them to improve the person we are and wish always to ameliorate. Books are always present, reminding us with their full assistance, how much better we can be... if only we open the cover and allow the words and pages that follow to take us to the superior place that is theirs to give to each of us.
Had we but world enough and time (Andrew Marvell, 1681)...
... but you see, that is the eternal challenge, for we do not... and this, then, becomes the particular puzzle of all our lives. How to know of, find, and find the time to read what must be read... the greatest books by our greatest masters; for as one grows older and older still, one discovers that time is too short to read anything else. That is why when people do me the honor to ask what books have influenced me, I am ever ready with the contents of my library to advise them. And so I take this opportunity to tell you about "The Leopard", a masterpiece that was in 1957 so despised by Italian publishers that some said it would never be printed, was not worth printing... thereby breaking the heart of its author, Prince Di Lampedusa whose manners were so refined that he did not excoriate and rebuke the purblind publishers who thereby missed a work of high genius. It is this great book by an undoubted master that I tell you about this day.
But before I tell this tale, I wish to commend to you the incidental music to accompany this piece. It is the "valzerone e quadriglia" by that composer of cinematic magic, Nino Rota (1911-1979). Go now to any search engine and play it at once, for if "The Leopard" could possibly be improved upon, it would be by Rota and his mesmeric dance rhythms. A novel about the Italy you know nothing about.
http://youtu.be/s6-0kgAMoh4
You cannot understand this book unless you know that its author was a bona fide principe, prince of ancient lineage and generations of hubris, condescension and perfect manners. He would not have liked you... why should he?... but you'd never know how exquisite his insults until long after he'd made his graceful exit from your unwanted company, the mark of a true aristocrat, a nonpareil who kills but never maims -- unless he intends to.
But, and this too is crucial to understanding this book, this principe was not a prince of Italy, but a prince from Palermo, in Sicily, an island which had been since ships could sail the highly desirable target of one monarch after another, Dei gratia all.
As a result, there was a plenitude of titles on Sicily; grandiose, exalted, the residue of one temporary regime after another. Every noble knew how every title in the kingdom had been procured, by blood, valor... bedroom services or outright purchase. Thus the same title could mean wildly different things, of one order going up, while another was descending. Every nobleman and most especially his milady knew every nuance and secret. And so reputations wilted and died, scandals commenced and scandals reported behind delicate fans which at once enabled them to show their artistry and delicate wrists to best advantage while obscuring expressions which might well reveal too much.
This was a world the prince of Lampedusa knew well, every flutter of a fan, every patent of nobility finagled, every tittle of gossip, enjoyed, examined, twisted to best advantage. This is the arcane world, now as distant as the moon, that his excellency brought to life in "The Leopard".
"Nothing much happens. They just talk."
In doing my research for this article, I came across the line above, sentiments posted online by a reader puzzled by this book. This is understandable, for unlike our action packed books and films, "The Leopard" moves at a very different pace... the pace of real life in the 1860s when the old verities of Sicilian life were giving way before the insistent realities of Italian unification.
You see, the unified Italy you know and which you may assume has existed for centuries is in fact a new reality. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, Italy had been broken up into smaller states. And these states spent their time intriguing against each other, gaining an acre here, losing a city there. It gave generations of princes and their privy counselors something to do during the delicious days of la dolce far niente. It was this ancient system that the princes reigning in Turin, the House of Savoy, were determined to end... reigning instead over one nation, their patrimony.
It is towards the end of this opera-bouffe revolution that Lampedusa begins his tale, a tale based on the life of his paternal great-grandfather, a grandee of Sicily who saw everything changing, changing, changing to the detriment of the beautiful life he loved but could no longer afford.
And so "The Leopard", Prince Fabrizio Salina, finds himself doing something he abhors but knows is absolutely necessary... allowing his beloved nephew, Prince Tancredi Falcorieri, to marry beneath himself... to the most attractive young lady of the district, Angelica Sedara, who is socially ambitious, endlessly calculating... and rich.
Thus while they live, think, intrigue, eat, dance and make love, the House of Savoy changes everything for everyone... Thus is the reader rebuked who thinks that nothing is happening, for in fact an entire world and everyone, everything in it changes forever right before your eyes...
... a riveting story told in language so beautiful, so poignant, so epigrammatic and apt one is forced to reread line after line so as not to miss a single limpid word. It is for this that "The Leopard" is a work of genius and the prince of Lampedusa occupies at last his just place in the literary pantheon.
April, 1993.
I read "The Leopard" in the spring of 1993; I know because I entered the date on the title page. I've been reading it again lately, and will come back again, perhaps only to read a page, or even a single paragraph, before my life is over. Classics are like that... drawing us back, insinuating themselves into our lives in ways lesser creations cannot hope to duplicate.
Now, therefore, go to any search engine, find Nino Rota's valzerone written for Visconti's 1963 grand film recreation of the leopard's doomed world, open the book, turn the music on and commence reading from the first line,
"Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen. The daily recital of the Rosary was over..." but your pleasure has just begun.
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Services include home business training, affiliate marketing training, earn-at-home programs, traffic tools, advertising, webcasting, hosting, design, WordPress Blogs and more. Find out why Worldprofit is considered the # 1 online Home Business Training program by getting a free Associate Membership today. Republished with author's permission by Lawrence Rinke http://ActionEqualsProfit.com. Check out Truth About Abs -> http://www.ActionEqualsProfit.com/?rd=tp9xaE66
Lawrence Rinke
Business Coach
President : ActionEqualsProfit.comhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Join Me On Skype: lawrencecrinke
P.S., If you would like content like this free to use in your blog to generate leads .Give me a call at 310-561-2580, I’d be glad to tell you how, or Leave phone number in comment. . I respond immediately to all comments.
Thanks Again
20,000 safelist credits
http://www.HomeSafelistTraffic.com
FREE Sign Up!! = FREE $10
http://adv.justbeenpaid.com/?r=CtMSMJPvFD&s=logogirl3&=AEPB
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