Mind blowing art

[Surf_Nazis_Must_Die 8958]

A question to everybody:

 

What's one mind blowing piece of art you've come across that has changed you in some way?

It could be a painting, music, sculpture, literature, poetry... You get the idea! ;)

 

I'm curious to see where you other Cerbites find beauty and inspiration.

[SamanthaEvans 166766]

What a great question this is. Thank you for asking it!

 

There's no ONE piece that has changed me by itself, but there are several that have helped to form a lot of who I am.

 

1. Shakespeare's tragedies, particularly Othello and King Lear, have taught me about the pitfalls of pride and how fundamental is our need to be loved. In addition, they're cautionary tales, for me: we never really know what is going on with other people and we need to be careful about assuming too much!
   
2. Vincent VanGogh's Sunflowers, which he painted many times. I don't like these paintings. I wouldn't hang a print of any of them in my house. But they provoke such a strong, visceral response from me that I have to contemplate them and their message of fading beauty.
   
3. Michelangelo's Pieta, the sculpture of Mary holding the body of her dead son. This hear-rending image shows the enormity of grief. Though we somehow easily overlook it, Michelangelo made Mary more than double life-size so that she could cradle the life-size Jesus on her lap much as she might have done when he was a child. Profound grief enlarges us.
   
4. T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets help me put pain and loss into perspective.
   
5. I am not religious, but the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke have helped me to recognize the kinds of things we seek to know about and hear from the people we admire, and also to appreciate how little we may ever understand about them. How context changes the way a story is told is also important.
   
6. As for music . . . I don't know where to start! Bach. Mozart. Beethoven. Bob Marley. Bob Dylan. Pete Seeger. Leonard Cohen. Joni Mitchell. Holly Near. Adèle. Sometimes Gregorian chant, too!
   

[Surf_Nazis_Must_Die 8958]

Wow!

 

Thanks for the response Samantha, you are clearly more cultured than I!

 

Now I feel kind of silly posting my selection ;)

 

Megadeth's Rust In Peace album.

 

Before I heard this album I was strictly a punk rock fan, this whole album changed the way i listen to, and enjoy music.

 

[Andee 220524]

Music:

 

Pink Floyd: The Great Gig in the Sky

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBabMxnFQsQ&feature=related

 

 

 

Literature:

 

The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

 

The Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (Phadedrus you should know this one!)

 

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

 

The Happy Hooker by Xavier Hollander

 

 

Record Album Art:

 

Led Zeppelin IV

 

 

KISS Destroyer:

 

 

Beatles: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

 

 

Elton John: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy

 

 

Santana: Abraxus

 

 

Fleetwood Mac: Rumours

 

[Guest E*******h S******s]

Secret Garden by Bruce Springsteen

 

She'll let you in her house

If you come knockin' late at night

She'll let you in her mouth

If the words you say are right

If you pay the price

She'll let you deep inside

But there's a secret garden she hides

She'll let you in her car

To go drivin' 'round

She'll let you into the parts of herself

That'll bring you down

She'll let you in her heart

If you got a hammer and a vise

But into her secret garden, don't think twice

 

You've gone a million miles

How far'd you get

To that place where you can't remember

And you can't forget

 

She'll lead you down a path

There'll be tenderness in the air

She'll let you come just far enough

So you know she's really there

Then she'll look at you and smile

And her eyes will say

She's got a secret garden

Where everything you want

Where everything you need

Will always stay

A million miles away

 

I'm a big fan of street art: http://www.redjellyfish.com/fun/street-art.html

 

Veronica Franco's Familiar Letters (she was a famous Venetian courtesan in the 15th century)

[Kate von Katz 49953]

Probably the poem that really got me hooked as a die-hard E A Poe fan:

 

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

 

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

 

His works are often macabre and gothic, but he was brilliant in his insights. It didn't alter my life, but it did inspire me to be more reflective on things.

[Guest **cely***r***ne]

Art is such a diverse topic!

There are paintings, pictures, dance, music, sculptures and the list could go on and on.

 

But the one thing that had changed my life in a little way happened a few years back. I was reading a book called "Dance of the Dissident Daughter" by Sue Monk Kidd and was doing some research into Female Spirituality when I came across a beautiful piece of work that inspired me. It was the beginning of a wonderful change for me, and I will never look back.

Below I have attached something like it.

[Old Dog 179138]

Music?

 

Dave Brubeck - Take 5

 

Take 5 is that one Jazz tune that just takes you somewhere else... it's like an instant trip back in time to a smokey jazz club... beautiful

 

Will Millar - Celtic Reverie

 

Will Millar was the former lead singer of the Irish Rovers. That is NOT why I love this album. He left the group for a while and concentrated on traditional instrumental Celtic music... and this my friends is a masterpiece.

 

Florence K - Bossa Blue

 

 

Florence K is an incredibly talented singer/songwriter/musician from Montreal. This is her debut CD with that smooth Euro Bossa Nova flare. Enchanting.

 

Literature:

 

Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Zafon

Lamb - Christopher Moore

Kenneth - Nigel Tranter

Anything by Ian Rankin

 

 

Art:

 

Anything that amazes... all art has merit.

 

This is incredible:

 

[Guest f***2f***]

The Pieta.....saw this in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican when I was 17. It was before some idiot took a hammer to it and you could walk right up to it and touch it. It is amazing! Michelangelo sculpted it when he was 22 years old!

This and the sculptures of the grieving mother at Vimy Ridge touched me very deeply.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_Pieta_5450_cropncleaned_edit.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Canadian_National_Vimy_Memorial_-_.Mother_Canada.JPG

[Kate von Katz 49953]

 

Nice image: it's a mixture of the Celtic-inspired Maiden-Mother-Crone trinity with the Norse Norns, or fate weavers. Very nice piece, I'd be interested to know more about this carving.

[Winnipegcub 21293]

Well kind of a sculpture. But it was last year when I went to Cambodia and seeing the temples of Angkor Wat and people of Siem Reap. This poster art piece captures it well. Today I take nothing for granted and live my life much fuller. Cub

 

[Old Dog 179138]

Well kind of a sculpture. But it was last year when I went to Cambodia and seeing the temples of Angkor Wat and people of Siem Reap. This poster art piece captures it well. Today I take nothing for granted and live my life much fuller. Cub

 

 

and to think that for about 400 years it was almost completely swallowed by jungle.... I can only imagine how amazing it would have been to see the beauty emerge through the restoration periods. It's a 900 year old marvel of art and architecture.

[Nathalie L 112512]

I love spoken word performance pieces by woman identified authors. Two of my favorite performance pieces that I've seen in the past two years are:

 

1) "Yapping Out Loud: Thoughts of an Unrepentant Whore" by Mihra-Soleil Ross (she's a transsexual sex worker and political activist in Montreal)

 

and

 

2) "Gender Martini" by Beth-Anne Fischer (available here:

). She performed at VerseFest here in Ottawa this past January, and I had the pleasure of flirting with her ;)

[Areez 11906]

 

:) i love the comic book style tattoos.

[Surf_Nazis_Must_Die 8958]

I just remembered M.C Escher's stairs! This painting fascinated me as a child, his take on perspective turned my little world on it's head!

 

[Emma Alexandra 123367]

Maya Angelou-

 

Phenomenal Woman

 

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

 

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

 

 

Artists:Picasso, William De Kooning and Jackson Pollock...just a couple

 

I love so much different art and so much has helped me along the way for different reasons...even speeches by the Keddedy's and Martin Luther King which in a way were art to me as well...

I see many things as art and still have my biggest pieces to discover and the only way i can feel it for myself is by travel...some countries i know will change me in a way no single piece will...

I love so many different cultures and people which translates into art for me.

[loopie 15358]

My favorite visual artist is Erro. I actually took a trip to his homeland of Iceland to see the gallery where they house most of his works. It's really trippy stuff with great detail.