An article of faith for the New Year. A short, prayerful meditation for America on January 2, 2017.
Albrecht Durer, Praying Hands (1508)
Dear Lord, We Pray Most Humbly:
May God Bless America.
America, Let All Your Voices Ring Throughout the Land.
Trump ≠ America.
Thank God.
Amen
Michelangelo: Detail from Sistine Chapel from the Creation of Adam, Rome (1508-15132)
On January 1, 2017 there are 324.31 million souls living in America. On November 8, 2016 ,62.98 million of them chose to vote for Donald J. Trump. At the exact same time, 261.33 million more Americans did not vote for Trump. By plain arithmetic, that means 80.58% of all Americans (4 out of every 5) did not vote for Trump.
That’s some healthy majority.
For the final popular vote count in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election:
The Democrat outpaced President-elect Donald Trump by almost 2.9 million votes, with 65,844,954 (48.2%) to his 62,979,879 (46.1%), according to revised and certified final election results from all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
For the U.S. Census Bureau tabulation of U.S. population as of January 1, 2017:
According to the latest tabulations from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. population will be 324,310,011 on Jan. 1, 2017, a 0.7 percent increase from the start of 2016, when the country was 2,245,347 persons smaller. That’s a slight decline from the 2015, when the nation grew at a 0.77 percent clip.
From the Wikipedia entry for Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), German artist:
Albrecht Dürer (21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528) was a painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg, Dürer established his reputation and influence across Europe when he was still in his twenties, due to his high-quality woodcut prints. He was in communication with the major Italian artists of his time, including Raphael, Giovanni Bellini and Leonardo da Vinci, and from 1512 he was patronized by emperor Maximilian I.
His vast body of work includes engravings, his preferred technique in his later prints, altarpieces, portraits and self-portraits, watercolours and books. The woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known engravings include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours also mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium.
Dürer’s introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, has secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics, perspective, and ideal proportions.
Albrecht Durer, Rhinoceros (1515)
From the Wikipedia entry on Dürer’s Rhinoceros :
Dürer’s Rhinoceros is the name commonly given to a woodcut executed by German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer in 1515. The image is based on a written description and brief sketch by an unknown artist of an Indian rhinoceros that had arrived in Lisbon in 1515. Dürer never saw the actual rhinoceros, which was the first living example seen in Europe since Roman times. In late 1515, the King of Portugal, Manuel I, sent the animal as a gift for Pope Leo X, but it died in a shipwreck off the coast of Italy in early 1516. A live rhinoceros was not seen again in Europe until a second specimen, named Abada, arrived from India at the court of Sebastian of Portugal in 1577, being later inherited by Philip II of Spain around 1580.
Dürer’s woodcut is not an entirely accurate representation of a rhinoceros. He depicts an animal with hard plates that cover its body like sheets of armour, with a gorget at the throat, a solid-looking breastplate, and rivets along the seams. He places a small twisted horn on its back, and gives it scaly legs and saw-like rear quarters. None of these features are present in a real rhinoceros, although the Indian rhinoceros does have deep folds in its skin that can look like armor from a distance. Despite its anatomical inaccuracies, Dürer’s woodcut became very popular in Europe and was copied many times in the following three centuries. It was regarded by Westerners as a true representation of a rhinoceros into the late 18th century. Eventually, it was supplanted by more realistic drawings and paintings, particularly those of Clara the rhinoceros, who toured Europe in the 1740s and 1750s. It has been said of Dürer’s woodcut: “probably no animal picture has exerted such a profound influence on the arts”.
Even a fabulously accomplished artist like Durer can get many details disappointingly wrong if he intends to make a completely life-like portrait, warts and all, but doesn’t get to draw with the live subject nearby. It is far easier to distort the picture and still claim popular attention to a feigned realism by a mere copyist like Trump, since he is not restrained by knowledge of artistic standards or professional craft. As for the modern Republican Party versions of RINOs, not RINOs, and their ilk, the whole party structure is ugly and riven with disagreeable parts.
From the Wikipedia entry for Michelangelo (1475-1564), Italian master artist of the Renaissance, painter of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome:
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since been described as one of the greatest artists of all time. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Florentine Medici client, Leonardo da Vinci.
A number of Michelangelo’s works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. His output in every field of interest was prodigious; given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences taken into account, he is the best-documented artist of the 16th century.
Michelangelo: The Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica Rome (1498-1499)
He sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. Despite holding a low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and The Last Judgment on its altar wall. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library. At the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the western end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification, after his death.
Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. In fact, two biographies were published during his lifetime; one of them, by Giorgio Vasari, proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued to have currency in art history for centuries.
In his lifetime he was often called Il Divino (“the divine one”). One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur. The attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo’s impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance.
Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel; the work took approximately four years to complete (1508–12).
In 1505 Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II and commissioned to build the Pope’s tomb, which was to include forty statues and be finished in five years. Under the patronage of the pope, Michelangelo experienced constant interruptions to his work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks. Although Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years, it was never finished to his satisfaction. It is located in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome and is most famous for the central figure of Moses, completed in 1516. Of the other statues intended for the tomb, two, known as the Rebellious Slave and the Dying Slave, are now in the Louvre.
During the same period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete (1508–1512). According to Condivi’s account, Bramante, who was working on the building of St. Peter’s Basilica, resented Michelangelo’s commission for the pope’s tomb and convinced the pope to commission him in a medium with which he was unfamiliar, in order that he might fail at the task. Michelangelo was originally commissioned to paint the Twelve Apostles on the triangular pendentives that supported the ceiling, and to cover the central part of the ceiling with ornament. Michelangelo persuaded Pope Julius to give him a free hand and proposed a different and more complex scheme, representing the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Promise of Salvation through the prophets, and the genealogy of Christ. The work is part of a larger scheme of decoration within the chapel that represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
The composition stretches over 500 square metres of ceiling and contains over 300 figures. At its centre are nine episodes from the Book of Genesis, divided into three groups: God’s creation of the earth; God’s creation of humankind and their fall from God’s grace; and lastly, the state of humanity as represented by Noah and his family. On the pendentives supporting the ceiling are painted twelve men and women who prophesied the coming of Jesus, seven prophets of Israel, and five Sibyls, prophetic women of the Classical world. Among the most famous paintings on the ceiling are The Creation of Adam, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the Deluge, the Prophet Jeremiah, and the Cumaean Sibyl.
Entrance to the New York World’s Fair (1964)
One of the finest days in my youth was a visit to the New York World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows in Queens in the summer of 1964. The summer of 1964 also marked my first visit to Shea Stadium, just across from the fairgrounds, to see a Mets game. Admission to the World’s Fair was $2 dollars, and we came by subway (my father and sister came too).
Adult Admission Ticker to the 1964 New York World’s Fair
I wasn’t prophetic enough to arrange to go and see the Mets game on Father’s Day, June 21, 1964, though my father was in town visiting us then. That was the day Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jim Bunning threw the first regular season perfect game in 42 years. He beat our New York Mets 6-0 on 90 pitches in the opening game of a doubleheader, but hey, it was a Perfect Game.
Official Game Program New York Mets June 21, 1964 Jim Bunning’s Perfect Game
I attended the World’s Fair at least a half dozen times in 1964 and again in 1965, along with 51 million other New Yorkers and out of town visitors. Thanks to the generosity of Pope John XXIII the original priceless Michelangelo magnificent sculpture of the Pietà was displayed in the Vatican Pavilion at the Fair.
Exterior of Vatican City Pavilion New York World’s Fair (1964)
My first visit was in June 1964 and I stood on a slowly moving walkway passing in front of the sculpture. I stood in line three times that first day to see it again. The very marble of the two figures in the sculpture seemed to breathe as you passed by. To see this world art treasure in person, loaned to the people of another country for them to appreciate, was breathtaking and staggering. There was literally a sacred hush among the thousands of visitors of every faith passing by the work, each time I went there.
Close-Up View of Michelangelo’s Pieta on loan from Vatican to New York World’s Fair (1964)
From the New York World’s Fair website:
One of the fair’s most popular exhibits was the Vatican Pavilion, where Michelangelo’s Pietà was displayed and brought in from St Peter’s Basilica with the permission of Pope John XXIII; a small plaza, exedra monument, marking the spot (and Pope Paul VI’s visit in October 1965) remains there today. A modern copy, replica had been transported beforehand to ensure that the statue could be conveyed without being damaged. This copy is now on view at St. Joseph’s Seminary, Dunwoodie, in Yonkers. It is currently in the Immaculate Conception Seminary in Douglaston, NY. The exedra monument is now utilized with permits since 1975 for prayer Vigils by Our Lady of the Roses relocated from Bayside, NY.
Long-Distance View of Vatican’s Pieta Exhibit with Lighting New York World’s Fair (1964)
From the Wikipedia entry on the 1964 New York World’s Fair:
The 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair was the third major world’s fair to be held in New York City. However, the fair did not receive official sanctioning from the Bureau of International Expositions (BIE). Hailing itself as a “universal and international” exposition, the fair’s theme was “Peace Through Understanding”, dedicated to “Man’s Achievement on a Shrinking Globe in an Expanding Universe”. American companies dominated the exposition as exhibitors. The theme was symbolized by a 12-story high, stainless-steel model of the earth called the Unisphere. The fair ran for two six-month seasons, April 22 – October 18, 1964, and April 21 – October 17, 1965. Admission price for adults (13 and older) was $2 in 1964 (equivalent to $15.29 in 2015) but $2.50 in 1965, and $1 for children (2–12) both years (equivalent to $7.64 in 2015).
The fair is noted as a showcase of mid-20th-century American culture and technology. The nascent Space Age, with its vista of promise, was well represented. More than 51 million people attended the fair, though fewer than the hoped-for 70 million. It remains a touchstone for New York–area Baby Boomers, who visited the optimistic fair as children before the turbulent years of the Vietnam War, cultural changes, and increasing domestic violence associated with the civil rights movement.
In many ways the fair symbolized a grand consumer show covering many products produced in America at the time for transportation, living, and consumer electronic needs in a way that would never be repeated at future world’s fairs in North America. Most major American manufacturing companies from pen manufacturers to auto companies had a major presence. This fair gave many attendees their first interaction with computer equipment. Many corporations demonstrated the use of mainframe computers, computer terminals with keyboards and CRT displays, teletype machines, punch cards, and telephone modems in an era when computer equipment was kept in back offices away from the public, decades before the Internet and home computers were at everyone’s disposal.
From the Wikipedia entry for MC Escher (1898-1972), Dutch graphic artist:
Maurits Cornelis Escher (17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
Early in his career he drew inspiration from nature, making studies of insects, landscapes, and plants such as lichens, all of which he reused as details in his artworks. He travelled in Italy and Spain, sketching buildings, townscapes, architecture and the tilings of the Alhambra and La Mezquita, Cordoba, and became steadily more interested in their mathematical structure.
His work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyperbolic geometry, and tessellations. Although Escher considered that he had no mathematical ability, he interacted with mathematicians George Pólya, Roger Penrose, and Harold Coxeter; read mathematical papers by these authors and by the crystallographer Friedrich Haag; and conducted his own original research into tessellation.
Escher’s art became well known, both among scientists and mathematicians, and in popular culture–especially after it was featured by Martin Gardner in his April 1966 Mathematical Games column in Scientific American. Apart from being used in a variety of technical papers, his work has appeared on the covers of many books and albums. He featured as one of the major inspirations of Douglas Hofstadter’s 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach.
Dutch Artist M C Escher, Drawing Hands (1948)
From the Wikipedia entry of Escher’s iconic work, Drawing Hands (1948):
Visit the artists website for a glorious introduction to the fusion of art, perspective, and mathematics here.
There was a time when art, perspective, and mathematics were comfortable with each other. Today they are too often used to distort rather than enlighten, especially in politics.