Editor’s Letter

November, 2013

“Art is the reasoned dearrangement of the senses.” ~Kenneth Rexroth

Left: Andy Warhol, Mao (1972), Private collection

Forging Ahead

BEWARE of this scam: Recently, ARTES, a fine arts magazine with a circulation of 125,000 unique monthly visitors, found itself at the receiving end of a series of emails from various Internet service “companies” located in Shanghai. All claimed to represent different organizations in China demanding to appropriate the name ‘artesmagazine’ with the added domain suffix,.cn. They claimed it was essential for their “business model” to direct web visitors to their Chinese operation under this particular heading. The senders stated that their client “insisted” on using the ARTES name, regardless of any claim or objection at my end. The catch was that I could prevent this from happening if I would agree to buy the rights to the various China-bound suffixes, redirecting readers away from ARTES.com. The cost would be several hundred dollars a year, depending on the duration I wanted to “protect” my ARTES magazine URL. In the face of this sudden onslaught, I had a conversation with my own ARTES internet service provider, who gave me the assurance that my license was global and that this was an attempt by Chinese operatives to scam U.S. companies out of cash. artes fine arts magazineMore

September, 2013

“The worst misfortune?… to be original.” ~Stendahl (1783-1842), French writer

Vincent van Gogh, Self-portrait with Straw Hat (1887). Detroit Museum of Art.

Digging for the Truth…

With the news that Seamus Heaney, Irish Poet of Soil and Strife, died recently at age 74, I was reminded of the role we, as artists and writers, play in heightening awareness regarding the role of the arts as purposeful ‘work.’ Picasso once described himself to Matisse as a “manual laborer,” and Henri did not disagree! artes fine arts magazine More

August, 2013

“Of all lies, art is the least true.” ~Gustave Flaubert~

Left: Thomas Hart Benton, King Phillip (1922). Collection: St. Josephs University Art Gallery.

ARTES Launches New Look, Newsletter

ARTES, a fine arts magazine is undergoing some radical changes in its appearance. There is a dismissive expression, “…as useful as yesterday’s newspaper.” As everyone knows, content availability on the Internet serves a different purpose than yesterday’s news. Not only is it stored in the ‘cloud’ for something like perpetuity, it has redefined the ‘Information Age’ by functioning like a gargantuan repository for all of civilization’s likes and dislikes, issues and debates, and intellectual content, while serving as a platform for personal perspectives on all things imaginable in this universe (and beyond!). artes fine arts magazineMore

July, 2013

“Observation, yes, but true art lies in a reality that is felt.” ~Odilon Redon~

Calculating the Weight of the Sun:

ARTES, a fine arts magazine, welcomes summer (at last!) and presents a little thought exercise related to our new-found BFF, the sun. The editor opts to wear his ‘Mr. Science’ hat just this once—I promise—because it relates to art, in this, a monumental year in the art world!

But first, don your white coats; it’s into the science lab for a little show-and-tell… artes fine arts magazineMore

June 1, 2013

“Nothing that surrounds us is object, all is subject.” ~Andre Breton

Left: My Father, John William Friswell (1917-2005), Self-portrait (1938)

Epilogue

Those blessed structures, plot and rhyme—

why are they no help to me now

I want to make

something imagined, not recalled?

I hear the noise of my own voice:

The painter’s vision is not a lens,

it trembles to caress the light.

But sometimes everything I write

with the threadbare art of my eye

seems a snapshot,

lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,

heightened from life,

yet paralyzed by fact.

All’s misalliance.

Yet why not say what happened?

Pray for the grace of accuracy

Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination

stealing like the tide across a map

to his girl solid and yearning.

We are poor passing facts,

warned by that to give

each figure in the photograph

his own living name. ~Robert Lowell, 1977 artes fine arts magazineMore

May 1, 2013

“The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery.” ~Francis Bacon

Left: Yoshitora (active circa 1840 – 1880) Lovely Beauty Design (1870). Private collection

Losing Your Head in New York

ARTES, a fine arts magazine, is always on the lookout for cool images that could fit the old adage: art is where you find it. Readymade art has a long and illustrious history, beginning with the Dadaist and surrealists, who fashioned artistic statements out of unlikely material, combining them in unique and quirky ways, like Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1913, 3rd version, 1951), or his Fountain (1917) right, making the statement that art is personal and doesn’t depend on the usual combination of ‘artful’ subject matter and the institutional validation of the museum/gallery culture. It caused quite a stir at the time…and still does–during this year, in particular, the 100th anniversary of the famed Armory Show in New York. artes fine arts magazineMore

April 1, 2012

“A child sees everything in a state of newness; he is always drunk.” ~Charles Baudelaire

Left: Part of a mosaic pavement with the personification of the month of April. Early 6th century, stone and marble. From Thebes, Chalkis, 23rd Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities. Photo: © Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

ARTES, a fine arts magazine, tears headlines of some of the world’s biggest newspapers on this, April 1st, 2013:

FLORIDA SINK HOLE SWALLOWS BEER TRUCK, REVEALING TROVE OF PREHISTORIC CAVE PAINTINGS: BISON, WOOLY MAMMOTH, SEAL AND MORE…

SCHOLARS CLAIM ANCIENT NATIVE-AMERICAN CERAMICS DEPICT MOSES, TEN COMMANDMENTS: PROOF OF LOST TRIBE OF ISRAEL.

PAINT-BY-NUMBERS IS BACK! REPLICATE A POLLOCK MURAL-SIZED ‘DRIP PAINTING’ OF YOUR VERY OWN!

NEW TRANSLATION OF PICASSO LOVE LETTERS PROVES HE WAS NICE GUY, NOT A WOMANIZER. (see image, right, c. 1948)

POPE FRANCIS ORDERS SISTINE CHAPEL CEILING REVISION: HEAVEN-BOUND GAYS OK WITH HIM.

IMPRESSIONISM A BIG MISTAKE: WINE INDUCED NEAR-SIGHTEDNESS THE UNDERLYING CAUSE.

HALF-BILLION DOLLAR’S WORTH OF STOLEN ART ADORNS PHILLY PIZZA SHOP WALLS. WENT “UNNOTICED” FOR 20 YEARS. artes fine arts magazineMore

March 5, 2013

“Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend.” ~John Singer Sargent

Left: Lucian Freud, The Hon. Colin Tennant (1968). Private collection

Convergences

When the arts and sciences intersect, the product of those partnerships is often greater than the sum of their parts. In a recent trend that is, after all, not so new*, nuclear physicists and biologists are in earnest dialogue with painters and dancers, for example, to determine what they can learn from each other. From this perspective—having, of late, witnessed some of the provocative and inspiring results of their combined labors—it may be fair to say that an entirely new genre of creative expression lies at this intersection. When joined together to configure, plan and share, these highly-energized collaborations between left brain scientists and right-brain studio types struggle, at first, to find a common language adequate to describe their respective domains. The lexicon emerging from these exchanges is worthy of study in itself, but it serves only as a means, not an end. artes fine arts magazineMore

February 1, 2013

“The act of painting is about one heart telling another heart where he found salvation.” ~Francisco de Goya

Left: Henri Matisse, The Dream (Le rêve), 1935. Collection Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris

Casting Call!

www.artesmagazine.com — ARTES readership is growing by ‘leaps’ and bounds

ARTES, a fine arts magazine, is approaching its fourth anniversary. A concerted effort by a small group of dedicated professionals has made ARTES a well-respected magazine, read by over 60,000 unique visitors each month, with 170,000 page reads. It has maintained its scholarly, historically-based focus, as wide-ranging topics in art, architecture, photography, theater and design are presented each month. ARTES is a tasteful and thoughtful platform for communicating with a educated, professional readership who, statistics show, collect art, read about art and include museums and galleries on family trips. artes fine arts magazineMore

January 1, 2013

“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.” ~Stella Adler, Actress & Acting Teacher

Left: Hans Memling, Portrait of a Young Man (c. 1480). Private Collection.

One Degree of Separation

We are all residents of Newtown, Connecticut.

When tragedy struck that community, less than an hour from where ARTES is published, we asked ourselves, “Who do we know there?” The answer soon emerged. Many knew a bereaved family of one or more of the victims directly—or at least knew someone who knew someone. We breathed a sigh of relief as we struggled with the cruel reality of events unfolding on that day and its aftermath, and embrace our loved ones more closely. But the fact is, just as in the wake of 9/11, there is a gut feeling that life has changed permanently for every American from 9:30 a.m. December 14th, onward. artes fine arts magazine.comMore

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