Heart’s desire June 18, 2009
Posted by t-maker in History, Painting, Quotes.Tags: Bertrand Russell, desire, George Bernard Shaw, heart, Heraclitus, life, Pino Daeni, soul
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Heraclitus, quoted by Bertrand Russell (in “History of Western Philosophy”), was very serious saying that
“It is hard to fight with one’s heart’s desire. Whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of soul. … It is not good for men to get all that they wish to get.”
George Bernard Shaw (in “Man and Superman” (1903), act 4) responded that
There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart’s desire. The other is to get it.
P.S. Visit Pino Daeni’s Art Collections (see also Progressive Art Media – Pino Page, Pino – Pino Daeni. LiveInternet)
‘Moonrise over the Sea’ (1822) by Caspar David Friedrich April 9, 2009
Posted by t-maker in History, Miscellaneous, Painting.Tags: art, Caspar David Friedrich, century, epoch, German, landscape, moonrise, Moonrise over the Sea, paint, painter, Painting, Romantic, sea, way of spending time
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Nobody definitely would call Caspar David Friedrich the greatest painter of all times, or even of his 19th-century. It is definite, as well, that any criterion of greatness does not exist, except one’s personal taste and preferences.
I would call Caspar David Friedrich one of my favourite painters. And his ‘Moonrise over the Sea‘ is one of my favorite paintings, maybe the most loved one. It depicts a small group of people on the coast of cold northern sea late in the evening. You can imagine that these women and a man are close relatives or friends spending their free time together. It is too dark to read, to late to speak. They left their home and made their way towards the sea. They made themselves comfortable on a boulder and watched the sea, the moon over the sea, sailing ships. Quiet picture of non-existent epoch and old-fashioned way of spending time.
Links
1. Caspar David Friedrich – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. Category:Oil paintings by Caspar David Friedrich – Wikimedia Commons
3. File:Caspar David Friedrich 031.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
4. NGA – Caspar David Friedrich, Moonrise over the Sea, 1822
5. NGA – Spirit of an Age: Introduction
6. Friedrich, Caspar David: Mondaufgang am Meer [2] – Zeno.org
tempus tantum nostrum est April 8, 2009
Posted by t-maker in History, Miscellaneous, Quotes.Tags: Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, History, John William Godward, Lucilius Junior, philosophy, quote, saving, Seneca, time, Youth and Time
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At the end of his life Seneca wrote a series of letters on moral issues, so called Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, to his friend Lucilius Junior. My favorite is the first one, On Saving Time.
He wrote, in particular,
While we are postponing, life speeds by.
Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except
time. We were entrusted by nature with the owner-
ship of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery
that anyone who will can oust us from possession.
What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest
and most useless things, which can easily be replaced,
to be charged in the reckoning, after they have
acquired them ; but they never regard themselves as
in debt when they have received some of that precious
commodity, time ! And yet time is the one loan
which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.
(Translated by R. M. Gummere)
(John William Godward, Youth and Time, 1901)
Read it.
Ad Lucilium epistulae morales
