: food, nutriment
: sustenance
Yesterday marked the date of Titian's death. As a belated gift, here is Titian's masterwork The Worship of Venus:
The Worship of Venus
1518-20
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado
In the painting we witness a Roman ceremony of worship; the people are honoring the goddess Venus. In such a ceremony the women would clean themselves and makes themselves blemish-less for the goddess. The ground is littered with male infants - putti. The work was one of several Titian pieces that was commissioned by Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara.
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I always try to discover who was born today - artists, etc. that you and I might not know too much about. Today is the birthday of the Irish supernatural writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, whom I've never read. Le Fanu (1814-1873) isn't taught or even read very much anymore, and almost none of his works are anything you would recognize. He was an Irish writer who studied law at Dublin's Trinity College. He never practiced, though, switching careers to become a journalist. He wrote short stories and, after the death of his wife in 1858, entered his most productive years as a novelist. His most famous novel is Uncle Silas (1864), about an orphaned teenage heiress fearing for her life at the hands of her dastardly uncle. It is his novella Carmilla (1872) that he will most likely be remembered for, if for no other fact that it pre-dated and highly influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula. LeFanu's tale is about a young woman under the charms of a female vampire.
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Today's entry in the 500 Greatest Performances of All Time:
How about a two-fer:
Henry Fonda
as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
Perfect casting. Fonda brings his quiet, innate dignity to the part of literature's most famous Okie - the tower of strength that is Tom Joad. It might be the definitive Fonda performance - cut-and-dry, plainspoken, oozing a responsible, churning power. This is one of those black-and-white adaptations of a Great Novel you might have had to watch in high school - and enjoyed.
Holly Hunter
as Ada McGrath in The Piano (1993)
A wondrous performance, full of rapture and expression, though of course Hunter doesn't speak once. As a mute mother who's forced to move to New Zealand with her daughter (Anna Paquin in her Oscar-winning, fetching turn), Hunter is truly beguiling. It's lyrical work, entirely dependent on facial expressions and contemplation - acting at its most elemental. The film was probably overrated, but the acting sure isn't - though, upon reflection, casting Harvey Keitel as a Maori was a stretch.
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Today's Football List:
Best Tight Ends of My Lifetime:
1) Tony Gonzalez
2) Shannon Sharpe
3) Jimmy Graham (is this premature? I don't think so)
4) Rob Gronkowski (same with this - these guys are revolutionizing the position)
5) Antonio Gates
6) Ben Coates
7) Jason Witten
8) Brent Jones
9) Jeremy Shockey
10) Todd Heap
11) Jay Novacek
12) Keith Jackson
13) Mark Bavaro
14) Aaron Hernandez
15) Wesley Walls
Images:
http://uploads2.wikipaintings.org/images/titian/the-worship-of-venus-1518.jpg
http://acertaincinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/fonda-wrath_opt.jpg
http://blogs.dailyprincetonian.com/intersections/files/2011/11/pianohats.jpg
http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2009/0716/nfl_g_gonzalez_600.jpg
http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333158947l/13569434.jpg
Information:
http://www.antiquesartgallery.com/titian-list-of-works/the-worship-of-venus/
http://www.online-literature.com/lefanu/
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