Flying

Talking about beauty; ever dreamed of flying? Jarno Smeets, a young Dutch engineer, has done it.

So is there anything impossible to you yet?

William Blake

I have friends who say William Blake invented surrealism before surrealism even before surrealism was borne, yet - I believe Blake is pure symbolism.

Put plainly, the main difference between symbolism and surrealism is that symbolism uses discrete, intellectual symbols, while surrealism has abstract, intuitive symbols.

The special thing is that Blake's symbols are from his own mythopoetic imagery.

It would be wrong to limit Blake to his well-known "Marriage of Heaven and Hell", and "Songs of Innocence and Experience". There is a sensitive side in him, not just the revolutionary one.

Take "The Whirlwind of Lovers", for example.

Art underground critics might find it Blake's strongest work (and name it the first surrealistic painting), but surely it's not as famous as the "Great Red Dragons":

So here's some food for thought: if you find monsters depicted on Blakes paintings, read his "Book of Thel", "Milton: A Poem" and "A Marriage of Heaven and Hell". Then look again.

Trompe l'oeil

This marble bust is a classical example of "trompe l'oeil" ("deceive the eye") technique, which amazes me. It's sculpted as if the girl is wearing a transparent veil on her face. And it doesn't matter which angle you look from, how close - the illusion never breaks.

This one is from 19th century, and is kept at Banksfield museum, England.
I'm sure you make such discoveries too from time to time. Share with me:) you won't lose anything.

Walter Inglis Anderson: schizophrenia's anxious beauty

Missisipi painter Walter Anderson isn't one you'd usually find in art encyclopedias. Critics go around him too; in other words, it would be hard to call him a widely known artist.
After being diagnosed with schizophrenia he secluded in his Shearwater house and led a simple life until his death in 1965. That's the period he spent much time biking, and then he wrote about it: "The wheels are turning again. A bicycle seems to leave no room for other evils, or goods for that matter. It is an inclusive and exclusive wheel.”
I believe the murals done in this period are his most talented works. The nature he saw and discovered around himself. The turning of planets. Ever-discovering, creative thought, without points of concentration, beginnings and endings. As the world seemed to Walter Inglis Anderson.

Kant: The Judgment of the Beautiful

Kant's "The Critique of Judgment" has its introduction dedicated to beauty. We may and may not agree with his understanding of aesthetics, but at least it is something to discuss and something to learn from. What causes us to perceive something as beauty? Kant disagrees with the idea that the perception of beauty should be undiscussable and intuitive; bringing in an intellectual context. When one says that something is beautiful - be it a picture or a scene of nature - it is an aesthetic judgment (or ‘judgments of taste’) that must have four key distinguishing features:

1. Disinterested: beauty is the cause of pleasure, not pleasure - the cause of beauty. You find something beautiful, and it pleases you, not you find something beautiful because it pleases you. Beauty breeds pleasure; not pleasure breeds beauty.
2. Universal: when one makes an aesthetic judgement, it is expected that others would agree with it - the judgement and the criteria may be applied not to one person, but to many. How it applies to different people is the source for the criteria of taste. So it contradicts to the saying "beauty lies in the eye of the beholder" - beauty is universal, not personal.
3. Necessary: an aesthetic statement and debates are necessary to transcend beauty from its source. Not define, but transcend, and the deeper the discussion, the deeper the understanding of beauty. According to Kant, these last two features - universality and necessity - are in fact a product of features of the human mind, that Kant calls 'common sense'. Objective reality contains no beauty. Adding the universality - we find that Kant's beauty lives in the people's shared subjective reality (Bayandur Pogosyan calls it "the psychosphere" or "the domain of Gods").
4. Purposive without purpose ('final without end'): an object’s purpose is the concept according to which it was made.

So, how do you define beauty? Or do you need to define beauty to know what it is?

Beautiful Black-And-White-Photography

Beautiful Black-And-White-Photography

Toni Frissell
In her legendary photos Toni Frissell impresses with a strong trend toward surrealism or realism. The photo presented below, although in black and white, is both extremely sharp and clear. To achieve such level of clarity in black and white is extremely hard.
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Alin Ciortea ⁷
Alin Ciortea presents examples of modern street photography. In black and white, of course.
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Birds
Unfortunately, the photographer is unknown. The photo seems to be taken at exact the right moment from exactly the right angle with a perfect lighting. Black and white can be powerful as well.

Sally Mann ¹⁰
This photo, titled Candy Cigarette, not just displays something, it tells a story. It is both emotional and beautiful. This is what the originality of black-and-white-photography is all about.
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Larry Towell ¹²
This shot was taken in El Salvador. Child with star mask during “Day Of The Dead”. Other child in background rolls tire for repair in garage where he works at an adult’s job. The photo is full of tiredness and stubbornness. Simple motif conveying strong emotions.
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Aneta Kowalczyk ¹⁴
Aneta Kowalczyk specializes in portrait photography. Some of her photos are provoking, some are strange and some are extremely beautiful. The example below displays the beautiful side of black and white photography.
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Nick Brandt ¹⁶
Nick Brandt is a renown animal photographer which has become famous with his book of photographs, “On This Earth”, which was published in October 2005.
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Gary Winogrand ¹⁸
Taking a shot just at the right moment.
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Larry Louie ²⁰
Woman Of Tibet. Realism at its best. Awarded with International Photography Awards in 2007.
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Gabriele Caretti ²²
Tour Eiffel: extraordinary contrast and perspective. Strong, clean and very precise shot.
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Ghost Town Charm ²⁴
Excellent lighting.
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Ansel Adams ²⁶
One of the most famous contemporary black and white photographers. Classic!
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Maurizio Polese ²⁸
Polese’s works pay close attention to small, tiny details. The tones are perfects and compositions are beautiful which is why the photos are presented in this post. Notice the sharp contrast and the lighting at the first image below and the sharp pathway leading to the light in the second one.
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Top 10 Wired.com Reader Black-and-White Photos ³¹
Ten extraordinary black and white photographs sent to the Wired.com editorial by its readers.
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Michele Clement ³⁵
Artistic yet beautiful and extremely powerful shot. Michele Clement is the winner of Black & White Spider Awards 2007 in category “Outstanding Achievement”.
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Snyder Alison
This photo has been taken in South Crillon Glacier, Washburn.
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Abbas ³⁸
Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami on the hills surrounding the captital, where his film “Taste of Cherry”, which was co-awarded the Golden Palm in Cannes 1997, was shot.
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Patrick Figaj ⁴⁰
Ceremony.
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Jack Radcliffe ⁴²
Alison’s life in black and white photos. The significance of these pictures emerges in retrospect. “When my daughter Alison was born, in the tradition of a new parent, I began to photograph her, initially in a separate and private body of work. However, in the process of documenting Alison’s growth, I developed a passionate interest in human relationships and capturing intimate moments in the lives of family and friends.”
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Arndt Laude ⁴⁵
Alignment. Sometiems all it takes is to be at the right place in the right moment and take a shot under the right angle. That’s what happened here.
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Ralph Gibson
Staircase is an example of Gibson’s high-contrast, minimalist black and white compositions have influenced a generation of photographers. By isolating the essential elements of a scene, his pictures show a style that is unique and immediately recognizable. [via ⁴⁷]
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Elliott Erwitt ⁴⁹
Erwitt, an advertising and journalistic photographer known for his black and white candid shots of ironic and absurd situations within everyday settings — the master of the “indecisive moment”.
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Roy Mckeown ⁵²
Snowy Sheep.
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Adam Hinton
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Van Shnooken Raggen ⁵⁵
Two Warehouses.
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Rodney Smith ⁵⁷
Rodney Smith has his own understanding of professional black-and-white-photography. Unusual, abstract and surrealistic works.
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Drole Deciel ⁵⁹
Smiley.
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Shazeen Samad ⁶¹
Simple yet excellent composition. This photo manages not just to show something, but to capture a moment of life in all its beauty and vividness.
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Scott Bush ⁶³
Berk-plage – France. What a sky! A really strange squadron: octopussy, teddy bear and skates.
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Pedro Meyer ⁶⁵
Pedro Meyer shows the life of people across the globe. This photo was taken in Rio De Janeiro.
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Mitch Dobrowner ⁶⁸
Mitch Dobrowner is famous due to his Earth photos.
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Robertino Nikolic ⁷³
lighting plays with geometry. Or geometry plays with lighting? The winner of the Black & White Spider Awards 2007.
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Matthias Just ⁷⁵
747.
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Unknown ⁷⁷
Capturing the right moment at the right point of time.
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Bert (Quasebart) ⁷⁹
Perfect timing, perfect lighting. A dreamy shot.
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Hughes Leglise-Bataille ⁸¹
That’s a quite unusual perspective for a photograph.
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Santosh Korthiwada ⁸³
“No peeping please!” Very powerful, emotional and somehow sad photo.
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Rui Palha ⁸⁵
Rui Palha photographs simple people in simple situations. Result: extraordinary photos of simple things surrounding our life.
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Watanabe ⁸⁹
Straws.
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Lauren ⁹¹
Two Tree Hill. The composition looks very surreal, yet powerful and beautiful.
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G. Diaz Deleon
Ventana XIV. Geometric minimalism at its best.
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Maurizio Polese ⁹⁴
Escape. Unusual angle, unusual perspective.
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Jana Stolzer ⁹⁶
Nameless.
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Vega Omer ⁹⁸
Struggling to survive.
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Ezra Caldwell ¹⁰⁰
Dog snout. Sometimes the moments from our life are the most valuable moments we should enjoy and keep in mind.
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Last Click

Crossing Lines ^102
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Classics in Lego ¹⁰⁴
An illustrative summary of iconic pictures with their pairs of Balakov’s Lego figure pictures ¹⁰⁵ which are reconstucting famous moments in the history of mankind.
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Mark Daniel Owen ¹⁰⁸
I heart you. Do you see what we see?
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