A footnote

During the early twentieth century, smoking clubs were not uncommon for the 'social' use of opium among well-to-do Parisians, and both Picabia and Apollinaire participated in them (conversations with Mme. Buffet-Picabia, October 1962). That practice was apparently more important for Picabia and continued by him until ca. 1918–19.

Efforts by this author to detect an influence of the drug in Picabia's art have failed to isolate any demonstrable feature in either the conception or execution of his paintings.

The effect of opium on artistic creation is largely unexplored.

Value

More Piero

If Piero bore psychological consequences of his father's aggressive behaviours, they are not discernible to us today. The son did construct a life that replicated his father's behaviour of labouring to elevate himself from his modest beginnings.

Piero is important in the history of painting and mathematics because he strove to surpass customary conceptions of painting and to record his geometric and mathematical calculations. He was neither the product of his family ambience nor Florentine inventions in perspective and naturalistic depictions of the human body.

His cultural production has a curious dual nature of the traditional and the innovative. His meticulous scientific reconstructions of space and humans were often placed in traditional altarpieces. His writings on painting, mathematics, and geometry reveal a striving for meticulous precision and original constructions, but he betrays his modest origins in his use of the dialect of San Sepolcro and lack of elegance. Such a duality is not customarily a choice of the individual but a result of the circumstances of one's formation.

Quote of the day

Gabrielle Buffet has recalled that, when she first met Picabia [in September 1908], he was bored with his past work; small drawings of monstrous figures and abstract designs* flowed from his pen, and he talked animatedly about liberating art, about producing 'painting situated within pure imagination which recreates the world of forms according to one's desire and imagination'.

Though initially astonished by Picabia's application of that idea to painting, her study with Vincent d'Indy had already exposed her to similar theories in music. That fostered a stimulating intellectual rapport between Gabrielle and Francis which flourished alongside a headlong romance.**

As his personal and artistic aims became focused, Picabia took dramatic action to cast off the past and start off anew. In the course of a few months he broke with the Galerie Haussmann, auctioned off all his older paintings, jilted a mistress of long standing, and married Gabrielle Buffet.

*

**

Spurious

Score!

This! is what Massey is good for. I ask for this (a classic text on Picabia that I've waited quite a few years to read), and the University of Newcastle in New South Wales sends it to me. Ha ha ha ha!

This is why I call Masters a really expensive library card. It's not as if Massey is good for anything else. They've got far too narrow a conception of what art can be to be a proper art school. They're actively hostile to any other conception. For example, I have been quite clear throughout my time there that I'm interested in using pictorial means to construct and convey meaning. And yet, at my second supervisors' meeting, when they actually looked at what I was doing for once and I was talking about what was going on in a particular Goya picture, one of them suggested that my final work could be a spoken performance or written description of the Goya pictures!

Yes, as a cunt out, it was quite funny, and there's a good classical precedent (ekphrasis), but still.

But I digress.

I've only got this Picabia book for a few weeks (during which time I've got a conflicting priority), so I'll have to drop the Piero for the meantime, even though I'm right in the middle of something.

But David, you may ask, you're copying Goya for your Masters, shouldn't you be reading about him, rather than Piero and Picabia? And isn't Piero and Picabia a rather odd combination anyway?

Well might you ask!

(PS Do you like my innovative punctuation in the first word there? It's meant to indicate a vocal emphasis, upraised finger, and slight widening of the eyes.)

Some maths

In the early 15th century, there were no standard weights or measures. This meant that people had to quickly and accurately estimate proportions, areas, and volumes.

They also had to carry out quite complex mathematical operations several times a day, just to go about their everyday lives.

In his book On the abacus, Piero gives an exercise:

There are two men who want to barter; one of them has cloth and the other has wool. The piece of cloth is worth 15 ducats and he puts it up for barter at 20 and also wants one-third in money. And a cento of wool is worth 7 ducats in money. What price must [the man with wool] put it up for barter so that neither will be cheated?

This is the kind of thing you'd have to do in your head, on the spot, in public, while bargaining with an opponent.

You'd do it using the rule of three, which Piero gives as follows:

The rule of three says that the thing one wants to know must be multiplied by that which is not similar and the result it produces must be divided by the other; and the result is of the nature of that which is not similar, and the divisor is always similar to the thing one wants to know.

That clear?

I think it's fair to say to that your average person in the 15th century West had a set of skills that your average person in the early 21st century West doesn't. As Michael Baxandall has pointed out, this has implications for how they looked at pictures, particularly early perspective pictures.

Obsession

I have a couple of friends who are complete audiophile obsessives. Oh, the hours I've spent trying to discern the difference between speaker cables! Nope, not sure. Swap them back and listen to the track again. And the same for each separate component.

One of these guys, Paul, builds his own valve amps and turntables. The other, Steve, with another friend of ours, built his own Altec speakers.

Here are Paul's Altec speakers in his listening room (yes, listening room):

This, apparently, is a 6SN7 driving 300b SE, whatever the fuck that means:

This is a home-built Garrard 301:

This is a home-built Lenco L75 (I think):

As Paul puts it, 'Extreme terror using Altec speaker systems!'

Here's Steve's listening room, with the homemade Altecs:


Crazy motherfuckers.

Road trip

We saw a sign:

We followed the signs:

And we arrived:

Two emails from Massey this morning

One reads:

Artist’s Talk
Andrew McLeod
Auckland-based artist & musician

Friday 13 May
12 – 1 pm

Lecture Theatre 10A02
Museum Building
Massey University

All are welcome

The other reads:

There has recently been a number of thefts recorded on the Massey campus and specifically in Fine Art studios.

We in the school are concerned about this and are are looking at increased measures including a keypad on the door of the postgraduate floor in Block 2.

We do ask however that everyone takes the necessary precautions against theft by using lockers and ensuring that valuables including phones, books and equipment are not left unattended in studio spaces.

Please contact security if you see anyone who may be in the buildings without necessary authorisation.