Over boeken, literaire reflecties en het web van literatuur, door Niek de Greef. Werner Herzog, Paul Theroux, V.S. Naipaul en meer. Nederlandse en Engelstalige boeken.

Hockney’s Insights on Painting and Photography

Davis Hockney’s book A Chronology

I read this book about David Hockney, A Chronology, a thickly illustrated book by Taschen. It is currently on sale in many bookstores.

A Talent

David Hockney, A Chronology - book cover

Hockney could paint wonderfully at a young age. I sometimes mess around myself, but when I see his early paintings, I quickly throw my crap in a corner.

Hockney: always experimenting

What I think is so great about Hockney is that he kept experimenting. He played with a photocopier and with photography, taught himself to paint with watercolors later in life, and got to work early on with a computer, iPhone, and later iPad. He made films and great set pieces and drew with pencil and charcoal.

Hockney and photography: not real enough

Despite pioneering work with his photo collages, photography ultimately did not bring him the satisfaction he sought.

“The trouble with photography: it’s not real enough, not true to lived experience.”

In his experiments with photography, he bends the reality of the photograph into the reality of what has been observed.

david hockney stagedesign

Painting is his thing. According to Hockney, three things are essential to this: the eye, the heart, and the hand. He is a master in all three.

More on Hockney: A History of Pictures.

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Keep Going van Austin Kleon en permissie om de wereld te veranderen

austin kleon keep going boek cover

Ik lees Austin Kleon’s Keep Going. Het is een kunstwerkje op zich. Afgezien van de inhoud prachtig geïllustreerd met Kleon’s black-out poetry en andere illustraties.

Inhoudelijk is het een verzameling van “best practices” voor de creatieve geest, geeft Kleon zelf ook aan. Ik lees “you are allowed to change the world”, maar er staat “you are allowed to change your mind”. Ik vind mijn slogan eigenlijk sterker. Moeten we niet allemaal tot doel hebben iets te veranderen? Een status quo bestaat niet. Dan kan je het maar beter veranderen naar een staat die je zelf het beste lijkt. Anders krijg je alleen maar wat een ander bedacht heeft.

Ik denk bij veranderen ook aan “Consistency is overrated”, een zelfbedachte slogan die Scott H. Young al eens blijkt te hebben beschreven. Consistency kan een fuik worden, een net waarin je gevangen zit. Je wordt angstig om maar consistent te blijven, je kan niet afwijken, je moet je consistentie bewaren om aan de verwachtingen te kunnen voldoen. Het wordt een dwangbuis dat je er van weerhoudt te vernieuwen.

screen shot van tv programma over andy warhol

The Anthropocene Reviewed read

Book cover the anthropocene reviewed by john green

I wrote in an earlier post that I was reading The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. The Anthropocene Reviewed is a collection of essays in which John Greene examines some very different aspects of being human. I heard some of the essays before via via The Anthropocene Reviewed podcast.

The topics John Green touches on range from the cave paintings of Lascaux, through Indycar races in Indiana, the QWERTY keyboard to August Sander’s famous photograph titled “Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance,” which depicts three men who do not appear to be farmers. (By the way, the photo I read on Wikipedia is actually called “Jungbauern, 1914,” and “Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance” is the title of Richard Powers’ book inspired by the photo.)

Green mixes facts and personal stories in the essays in an engaging, funny and moving way. A great book that tastes like more.

Postscriptum: See also this video about a review of August Sander’s photo on The Art Assignment channel, presented by John Green.

More John Green in Looking for Alaska, Turtles All The Way Down.

The Athropocene Reviewed signed, 2 stars for the signature

I am reading The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. I bought the “signed edition.” Good book, so far. But that autograph, John Green could have practiced on that a little longer.

Two stars for the autograph ;-).

Handtekening John Green in The Anthropocene Reviewed

Islands — John Fowles & Fay Godwin on solitude, myth and the Scilly Islands

Islands - text by John Fowles, photos by Fay Godwin book cover

I bought this second-hand book (cheaply). Admittedly, I was primarily interested in Fay Godwin’s photographs in the book. Her photographs of the Scilly Islands landscape are monumental. However, I find John Fowles’s texts difficult to follow.

The island atmosphere of Fowles’s text reminds me of Tim Robinson’s books, especially those about the Aran Islands. Tim Robinson’s work provides a lot of detail on the landscape; in this book, Godwin’s photos provide a similar visual detail to Fowles’s meandering texts.

Fay Godwin The Shags photograph

Fowles’s texts follow a historical and mythological sort of baseline. He discusses the characteristics of island communities: solitude and emptiness, independence from legal power, and a unifying feeling that sets islanders apart from mainlanders. Islands, withdrawn from common law and ethics, provide a unique magic. Fowles weaves a reasonably diverting story that touches on many topics. He mixes Homer’s Odyssey (did a man really write it, or must this have been a woman?) with Joyce’s Ulysses, Shakespeare’s work, historical deviations, Robinson Crusoe, and other Greek mythology.

Troy Town Maze, St. Agnes, Isles of Scilly, 1977, Fay Godwin

Tim Robinson’s joy for precision.

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