Tabsidista - MintTheNorm

So somebody on my Facebook posted this. And I’ve seen sooooo many memes like it. Images of a canvas with nothing but a slash cut into it, or a giant blurry square of color, or a black circle on a white canvas. There are always hundreds of comments about how anyone could do that and it isn’t really art, or stories of the time someone dropped a glove on the floor of a museum and people started discussing the meaning of the piece, assuming it was an abstract found-objects type of sculpture.

The painting on the left is a bay or lake or harbor with mountains in the background and some people going about their day in the foreground. It’s very pretty and it is skillfully painted. It’s a nice piece of art. It’s also just a landscape. I don’t recognize a signature style, the subject matter is far too common to narrow it down. I have no idea who painted that image.

The painting on the right I recognized immediately. When I was studying abstraction and non-representational art, I didn’t study this painter in depth, but I remember the day we learned about him and specifically about this series of paintings. His name was Ad Reinhart, and this is one painting from a series he called the ultimate paintings. (Not ultimate as in the best, but ultimate as in last.)

The day that my art history teacher showed us Ad Reinhart’s paintings, one guy in the class scoffed and made a comment that it was a scam, that Reinhart had slapped some black paint on the canvas and pretentious people who wanted to look smart gave him money for it. My teacher shut him down immediately. She told him that this is not a canvas that someone just painted black. It isn’t easy to tell from this photo, but there are groups of color, usually squares of very very very dark blue or red or green or brown. They are so dark that, if you saw them on their own, you would call each of them black. But when they are side by side their differences are apparent. Initially you stare at the piece thinking that THAT corner of the canvas is TRUE black. Then you begin to wonder if it is a deep green that only appears black because the area next to it is a deep, deep red. Or perhaps the “blue” is the true black and that red is actually brown. Or perhaps the blue is violet and the color next to it is the true black. The piece challenges the viewer’s perception. By the time you move on to the next painting, you’re left to wonder if maybe there have been other instances in which you believe something to be true but your perception is warped by some outside factor. And then you wonder if ANY of the colors were truly black. How can anything be cut and dry, black and white, when even black itself isn’t as absolute as you thought it was?

People need to understand that not all art is about portraying a realistic image, and that technical skills (like the ability to paint a scene that looks as though it may have been photographed) are not the only kind of artistic skills. Some art is meant to be pretty or look like something. Other art is meant to carry a message or an idea, to provoke thought.

Reinhart’s art is utterly genius.

“But anyone could have done that! It doesn’t take any special skill! I could have done that!”

Ok. Maybe you could have. But you didn’t.

Give abstract art some respect. It’s more important than you realize.

guys i think dean winchester is kind of sort of in love with castiel

“The Heaven-World of the ancient Celts, unlike that of the Christians, was not situated in some distant, unknown region of planetary space, but here on our own earth. As it was necessarily a subjective world, poets could only describe it in terms more or less vague; and its exact geographical location, accordingly, differed widely in the minds of scribes from century to century. Sometimes, as is usual to-day in fairy-lore, it was a subterranean world entered through caverns, or hills, or mountains, and inhabited by many races and orders of invisible beings, such as demons, shades, fairies, or even gods. And the underground world of the Sidhe-folk, which cannot be separated from it, was divided into districts or kingdoms under different fairy kings and queens, just as the upper world of mortals.”

— The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, by W.Y. Evans-Wentz (via worldofcelts)

Fashioned out of sterling silver, this large rune compass is based on an Icelandic magical symbol called  Vegvísir. This roughly translates as ‘guidepost’ and the symbol is first found in a late 16th century Icelandic book of spells known as Galdrabók. It is also found in the Huld Manuscript, which states: 'if this sign is carried, one will never lose one’s way’.

Available here: Silver Rune Compass Pendant 

**the entire fandom dies inside**

I’ve recently begun reading Anamchara by John O’Donohue and It’s such a wonderful book, unlike anything I’ve read or found nowadays. Infusing a fresh and healing view of Celtic spirituality into modern circumstances and issues, in relationships, in solitude and beliefs, in the workplace/corporate world, etc. Highly recommended if you want to read something special that stays with you.

Did he just imply...?

pokemon are real. dan howell is gay. taylor swift is calling out homophobes and doctor who and the villian from twilight are in love. 13yo me is quaking. she’s feral. she’s completely lost the goddamn plot

“(In Iron Man) there are no civil wars fought, no city takeovers and hostage threats, no galactic beings intent on destroying the planet. There is only a moneyed megalomaniac who gets shocked into becoming a better person after confronting the ugly consequences of his arms manufacturing business face to face.

… (In) a universe that’s come to include a pantheon of gods, sorcery, and green-skinned rage monsters, powered armor feels pretty down to earth. After all, beneath it, there’s only a man.

That’s another thing that makes Tony Stark, and Iron Man, essential to the post-2010s superhero boom. Stark isn’t quite relatable, per se — few among us can truly relate to a guy with bottomless resources and Robert Downey Jr.’s good looks — but he is, at the core, a human on the quest for humility. Stark is the template for a number of characters brought to screens large and small since Iron Man’s release 10 years ago … After Iron Man, projects centered on swaggering ladykillers with too much money became their own sub-niche in the superhero genre …

That’s not to say Iron Man invented the modern superhero. But it did invent the modern superhero movie as we know it. Taken together, the film was a watershed: It opened the door to a new kind of superhero, and spawned a collection of interconnected films for those heroes to appear in.

So it turns out Tony Stark has a superpower after all: He can bring together heroes from across nations and even galaxies, by doing nothing more than rejecting his industrialist ways.”

– THE WEEK: Why Iron Man was the most pivotal movie of the last decade.

*

On this day ten years ago – May 2, 2008 – Iron Man was released and the Marvel Cinematic Universe was born.

I would watch it!

I blame Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston for this.

So there’s this interview where Chris and Tom play Would You Rather. (Which they sort of play, but sort of don’t.)

So this question:

Tom.

Chris.

If you describe a character in that much detail, you are asking for fan art.

So…

I did it.

Don’t steal it please. (Like and reblog as much as you want, but no reposts)

Cuz I did it. ❤️💚🇦🇺