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News On This Day |
| Thursday, August 31, 2000 | "Happy Birthday to my brother Jimmy" | Edited by Peter Y. Chou |
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Paris, August 31, 1963— Georges Braque, Cubist Painter Dies at 81 .jpg)
Georges Braque, cubist painter dies at 81 in Paris. A state funeral
is held in his honor. André Malraux delivers a eulogy in the Cour Carrée of
the Louvre. Braque is buried in the cemetery at Varengeville. Braque was one of the greatest
artistic pioneers of the 20th century. He was born in Argenteuil, near Paris on May 13, 1882.
His father was a house painter, building contractor, and amateur painter. In the fall of 1907,
Braque was introduced to Picasso, and saw his recently completed Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
Soon the French and Spanish artists became intimate friends, and together they revolutionalized
20th century painting. Braque is considered a founding father of Cubism, a term used to describe
the fragmented "cubelike" forms found in many of his most innovative works. Often referred to as
an iconoclast, Braque was always seeking new modes of expression. From his early ties to the colorful
vitality of the Fauves, to his groundbreaking experiments with Analytic and Synthetic Cubism,
Braque consistently pushed the boundaries of how space, form, and depth were perceived. In his
efforts to focus more on the relationship between space and an object, and not on the object itself,
Braque moved out of the physical realm of painting, creating a new pictorial domain in which forms
were thought rather than felt. Braque explained, “For me, objects exist only as far as their
mutual harmonious relationships, as well as those between the objects and myself, are concerned.”
Some of his more inventive techniques included mixing pigment with sand and metal filings; simulating
wood and marble textures; and creating compostitions of pasted paper collage, known as papier collé.
In 1949, Braque set out to work on a series of canvases, each entitled Atelier (Studio), which
would occupy him for the following eight years. In these works, the physical structure of painting
itself appears to be in motion. In Braque's studio were hung slowly spinning mobiles bearing scraps
of metal, appearing and disappearing, tracing their fine and delciate silhouettes in midair.
This inspired Braque to challenge the two-dimensional flatness of the canvas, setting the mobiles'
painted equivalents in motion as well. By 1956, Braque completed the last of his eight Atelier
canvases, and immersed himself in the production of a new motif—
paintings with birds
Sources: (1) José Maria Faerna, Braque, Cameo/Abrams, NY, 1997;
Hertfordshire, August 31, 1986—
Henry Moore died at the age of 88 on August 31, 1986 at Perry Green, Hetfordshire, England.
Moore was born on July 30, 1898 at Castleford, Yorkshire, England. In 1920, a Sculpture department
was set up at Leeds with Moore the sole student. He visited Paris, Rome, Florence, Pisa, Siena,
Assis, Padua, Ravenna, and Venice in 1925. Moore's sculptures in the 1920's and early 1930's
showed deeply romantic English lyricism with a great feeling for landscape and natural forms.
While his early work remained firmly grounded in relatively figurative forms, Moore also
rejected tradition, choosing for his inspiration not the classical figures of the Renaissance
and the Graeco-Roman tradition but primitive models, as seen in the British Museum. Moore also
rejected the established academic practices and insisted on direct carvings and truth to
materials, influenced by sculptors like Brancusi and Epstein. Moore's early sculpture was not
always understood or appreciated, and revolutionary as it was, it was largely condemned by
reviewers. The art critic of the London Morning Post (11 April 1931) led the opposition with:
“The cult of ugliness triumphs at the hands of Mr. Moore. He shows an utter contempt for
the natural beauty of women and children, and in doing so, deprives even stone of its value
as a means of aesthetic and emotional expression.” Moore visited Paris almost every year
from the early 1920s, but from 1930 onwards he went more frequently and was directly influenced
by Picasso, Arp and Giacometti. Moore took part in Surrealist activities in 1933, and signed
the Surrealist manifesto in 1936. Following this, in 1937 he became a member of the English
Surrealist group. By the 1940s Moore's international reputation grew. Sir Kenneth Clark,
director of the National Gallery, appointed Moore an Official War Artist in 1941. In 1943 Moore
had his first one-man exhibition abroad, at Buchholz Gallery, New York. In 1946 Moore made
his first visit to New York for travelling retrospective which opened at the Museum of Modern
Art, New York. Moore was appointed Trustee of the Tate Gallery (1949-1956), and London's
National Gallery (1955-1974). The International Sculpture Prizes at the 24th Venice Biennale
in 1948 and at the 2nd Sao Paulo Biennale in 1953, his appointment as a Companion of Honor
in 1955 and to the Order of Merit in 1963, the award of the Erasmus Prize in 1968 are just
a few from a chronology of over 70 accolades emanating from a dozen countries. In his last
years Henry Moore was fêted by public and politicians alike. The German Chancellor
Helmut Schmidt and later the French President François Mitterrand flew to Hoglands
by helicopter to present him with honours. The press which had been so hard on him in his
early years as a sculptor now praised his great achievements.
The London Daily Telegraph(31 August 1986) declared: “Since the death of
Sir Winston Churchill, Henry Moore has been the most internationally acclaimed of Englishmen,
honoured by every civilized country in the world.” Moore's artwork has been represented
in almost every important public and private collection, and his sculptures have been placed
in more public places throughout the world than any other sculptor in history. Geoffrey
Shakerley has photographed 80 of Moore's outdoor sculptures in 16 countries for the book
Henry Moore: Sculptures in Landscape. Moore writes in the introduction:
The sky is on of the things I like most about 'sculpture with nature'.
Sources: (1) David Mitchinson & Julian Stallabrass, Henry Moore, Rizzoli, NY, 1991;
THE ALBATROSS
Often, to pass the time on board, the crew
Biography,
Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal
Emerson on the True Scholar
Yesterday at Phi Beta Kappa anniversary. Steady, steady. I am convinced that if a man will be
a true scholar, he shall have perfect freedom. The young people & the mature hint at odium, &
aversion of faces to be presently encountered in society. I say no: I fear it not. No scholar
need fear it. For if it be true that he is merely an observer, a dispassionate reporter, no
partisan, a singer merely for the love of music, his is a position of perfect immunity: to him
no disgusts can attach; he is invulnerable. The vulgar think he would found a sect & would be
installed & made much of. He knows better & much prefers his melons & his woods. Society has
no bribe for me, neither in politics, nor church, nor college, nor city. My resources are far
from exhausted. If they will not hear me lecture, I shall have leisure for my book which
wants me. Beside, it is an universal maxim worthy of all acceptation that a man may have
that allowance which he takes. Take the place & attitude to which you see your unquestionable
right, & all men acquiesce. Who are these murmurers, these haters, these revilers? Men of no
knowledge, & therefore no stability. The scholar on the contrary is sure of his point, is
fast-rooted, & can securely predict the hour when all this roaring multitude shall roar
for him. Analyze the chiding opposition & it is made up of such timidities,
uncertainties, & no opinions, that it is not worth dispersing.
It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
Emerson's Discovery about Himself
I can find my biography in every fable that I read.
Emerson's Desire to Return to College at Age 69
I thought today, in these rare seaside woods, that if absolute leisure were offered me,
I should run to the College or the Scientific school which offered best lectures on
Geology, chemistry, Minerals, Botany, & seek to make the alphabets of those sciences
clear to me. How could leisure or labor be better employed. 'Tis never late to learn
them, and every secret opened goes to authorize our aesthetics. Cato learned Greek
at eighty years, but these are older bibles & oracles than Greek.
Thoreau's Poem on Ambrosia
TALL AMBROSIA
Among the signs of autumn I perceive
Th' ambrosia of the Gods's a weed on earth,
Thoreau's Meditation on Evening Air, Sunset, and Flowers
The evening air is such a bath for both mind and body. When I have walked all day in vain
under the torrid sun, and the world has been all trivial— as well field and wood as
highway— then at eve the sun goes down westward, and the wind goes down with it,
and the dews begin to purify the air and make it transparent, and the lakes and rivers
acquire a glassy stillness, reflecting the skies, the reflex of the day. I too am at the
top of my condition for perceiving beauty. Thus, long after feeding, the diviner faculties
begin to be fed, to feel their oats, their nutriment, and are not oppressed by the belly's
load. It is abstinence from loading the belly anew until the brain and divine faculties have
felt their vigor. Not till some hours does my food invigorate my brain— ascendeth into
the brain. We practice at this hour an involuntary abstinence. We are comparatively chaste
and temperate as Eve herself; the nutriment is just reaching the brain. Every sound is music now...
What unanimity between the water and the sky!— one only a little denser element
than the other. The grossest part of heaven. Think of a mirror on so large a scale!
Standing on distant hills, you see the heavens reflected, the evening sky, in some
low lake or river in the valley, as perfectly as in any mirror they could be. Does it
not prove how intimate heaven is with earth?
We commonly sacrifice to supper this serene and sacred hour. Our customs turn the hour
of sunset to a trivial time, as at the meeting of two roads, one coming from the noon,
the other leading to the night. It might be [well] if our repasts were taken out-of-doors,
in view of the sunset and the rising stars; if there were two persons whose pulses beat
together, if men cared for the beauty of the world; if men were social in
a high and rare sense; if they associated on high levels; if we took in with our tea a
draught of the transparent, dew-freighted evening air; if, with our bread and butter,
we took a slice of the red western sky; if the smoking, steaming urn were the vapor on
a thousand lakes and rivers and meads.
The air of the valleys at this hour is the distilled essence of all those fragrances which
during the day have been filling and have been dispersed in the atmosphere. The fine fragrances,
perchance, which have floated in the upper atmospheres have settled to these low vales!
I have no objection to giving the names of some naturalists, men of flowers, to plants,
if by their lives they have identified themselves with them. There may be a few Kalmias.
But it must be done very sparingly, or, rather, discriminatingly, and no man's name be
used who has not been such a lover of flowers that the flowers themselves may be supposed
thus to reciprocate his love.
Thoreau on Cloud Shadows and Sunshine after a Storm while Sailing
It is worth the while to have had a cloudy, even a stormy, day for an excursion, if only
that you are out at the clearing up. The beauty of the landscape is the greater, not only
by reason of the contrast with its recent lowering aspect, but because of the greater
freshness and purity of the air and of vegetation, and of the repressed and so recruited
spirits of the beholder. Sunshine is nothing to be observed or described, but when it is
seen in patches on the hillsides, or suddenly bursts forth with splendor at the end of a storm.
I derive pleasure now from the shadows of the clouds diversifying the sunshine on the hills,
where lately all was shadow. The spirits of the cows at pasture on this very hillside appear
excited. They are restless from a kind of joy, and are not content with feeding. The weedy
shore is suddenly blotted out by this rise of waters...
This is the most glorious part of this day, the serenest, warmest, brightest part, and the
most suggestive. Evening is fairer than morning. It is chaste eve, for it has sustained the
trials of the day, but to the morning such praise was inapplicable. It is incense-breathing.
Morning is full of promise and vigor. Evening is pensive. The serenity is far more remarkable
to those who are on the water. That part of the sky just above the horizon seen reflected,
apparently, some rods off from the boat is as light a blue as the actual, but it goes on
deepening as your eyes draws nearer to the boat, until, when you look directly down at the
reflection of the zenith, it is lost in the blackness of the water. It passes through all
degrees of dark blue, and the threatening aspect of a cloud is very much enhanced in the
reflection. As I wish to be on the water at sunset, I let the boat float. I enjoy now
the warmth of summer with some of the water prospect of spring.
Delacroix's Conversation on Artists
In the evening, endless conversation with Chenavard, on the beach and all along the streets.
He told me of the difficulty that Michelangelo often had in working, and cited a saying of his:
Benedetto Varchi said to him “Signor Buonarroti, you have the brain of Jove”; he is
supposed to have replied: “It needs the hammer of Vulcan to get anything out of it.”
At a certain period he had burned great quantities of studies and of sketches so as not to leave
traces of the labor that his works had cost him, when he turned them back and forth, as a man does
in producing verse. He often carved from drawings; his sculpture bears witness to this procedure.
He used to say that good sculpture was the kind that never looked like painting,
and that good painting, on the contrary, was the kind that looked like sculpture.
It was today that Chenavard talked to me again of his famous idea as to decadence. He pigeon-holes
things too much. And he has the fault of not esteeming at their true value all the qualities that
are to be esteemed. Although he says that the men of two hundred years ago are not on a level of
those of three hundred years ago, and that the men of today are not on a level with those of fifty
or a hundred years ago, I believe that Gros, David, Prud'hon, Géricault, and Charlet are men
admirable in the way that Titian and Raphael were; I believe that I myself have painted certain
passages that would not be disdained by those gentlemen, and that I have had certain conceptions
that they did not have.
May Sarton on her father George Sarton's 101st birthday
My father's birthday. He would be one hundred and one— hard to believe.
Susan Sherman, so imaginative, sent me a little "Belgian" package with tisane, marzipan
pigs and crystallized violets and a truly wonderful letter to help me celebrate
the day. It is true, as she says, that I have celebrated him and his values, but it was
also true— and still is— that there is a residue of bitterness at his lack of
real understanding when it came to my mother. Still, I look at his photograph in my
dressing room every day and am moved by that beautiful sensitive yet wide mouth, by the
sensitivity in the eyes and by the great dome of a forehead. He was a whole man,
"entier," not ambivalent, I think, and that is rare. The intellect so fine-tuned
and encyclopedic in knowledge, the heart so innocent and unaware! It is we who were
ambivalent about him— so I see him whole and rejoice that I had such a father...
It's a perfect summer day, and the sea so calm I missed the sound of waves all night.
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Born on August 31:.jpg)
Theophile Gautier (1811-1872)
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand
Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
Frederic March (1897-1975)
Ramon Magasaysay (1907-1957)
William Shawn (1907-1992)
William Saroyan (1908-1981)
Sir Bernard Lovell
Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986)
James Coburn
Jean Beliveau
Frank Robinson
Itzhak Perlman
Richard Gere
Edwin Moses
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August 31, 1688— John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress dies at age 60,
at the home of a friend in Holborn after a ride through the rain from Reading to London.
He is buried in Bunhill Fields in London. Bunyan's famous allegory about Pilgrim on his
journey to the Celestial City is second only to the Bible itself in number of copies sold
world. Here are the closing words of Bunyan's Last Sermon preached July 1688:
“Lastly, If you be the children of God, learn that lesson: "Gird up the loins of your
mind as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to your former conversation;
but be ye holy in all manner of conversation." Consider that the holy God is your father,
and let this oblige you to live like the children of God, that you may look your Father
in the face with comfort another day.”
Read more at .jpg)
August 31, 1867— Charles Baudelaire, French poet, dies in Paris at age 46 of aphasiac
and hemiplagiac in his mother's arms. He was stricken with paralysis during a Belgian lecture
tour the previous year. One of the greatest French poets of the 19th century,
who formed with Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine the so-called Decadents.
Baudelaire was the first to equate modern, artifical, and decadent. Baudelaire published his
first novel, the autobiographical La Fanfario in 1847. From 1852 to 1865 he was
occupied in translating Edgar Allan Poe's writings. When his Les Fleurs du Mal
appeared in 1857 all involved— author, publisher, and printer— were prosecuted
and found guilty of obscenity and blasphemy. Baudelaire's "The Albatross" has
inspired poets to soar.
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August 31, 1887— Thomas Edison patents Kinetoscope, producing moving pictures.
Thomas Edison's inventions helped advance a number of different technologies,
including motion pictures. His kinetoscope, which became operational on
August 31, 1889, was the forerunner of the motion-picture film projector.
The device, also known as the peephole viewer, ran film in a continuous movement
between a magnifying lens and light source. Since images were viewed through
the kinetoscope, Edison did not address the problem of showing them on a screen.
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August 31, 1950— Gil Hodges of Brooklyn Dodgers hits four homers and a single
a game against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field. Only 12 players have accomplished
this feat: Bobby Lowe (1894), Ed Delahanty (1896), Lou Gehrig (1932), Chuck Klein (1936),
Pat Seerey (1948), Gil Hodges (1950), Joe Adcock (1954), Rocky Colavito (1959),
Willie Mays (1961), Mike Schmidt (1976), Bob Horner (1986), and Mark Whiten (1993).
Only one Hall of Fame pitcher was victimized in four-homer games— Warren Spahn
threw the first homer ball when Gil Hodges hit his four against the Braves.
Hodges' seven consecutive 100-RBI seasons jump out at you. So do his two 40-homer
seasons and the seven others in which he hit 25 or more. Hodges also managed the
Miracle Mets to their improbable World Series victory in 1969 against the Baltimore Orioles. Read
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August 31, 1964— Rocky Marciano, former boxing heavyweight champion dies in plane crash
in Iowa. His record of 49 consecutive professional wins still stands. Rocky Marciano is the
only undefeated champion in any weight class in the history of boxing.
Considering over 300 champions there have been, that is quite a feat in itself.
But Rocky also brought to boxing the kind of dignity and courage that makes us admire
the truly great athletes.
On Sept. 23, 1952, Marciano challenged the heavyweight champion, Jersey Joe Walcott.
What followed was what many have called the greatest heavyweight championship fight of all time.
In the first round, Walcott caught Marciano with a perfect left hook that dropped him
for the first time in 43 fights. By the 12th round, Walcott was ahead on all scorecards,
but in the 13th round, Rocky delivered a right hand punch that knocked out Walcott, and
became the new heavyweight champion. He defended his title six times before retiring in 1956.
“Rocky Marciano stood out like a rose in a garbage dump.”
Jimmy Cannon said of Rocky's character in a sport that all too often is tainted by
corruption and greed. Jersey Joe Walcott, who lost his title to Marciano, said
“He was a man of courage inside the ring. Outside, he was kind and gentle.”
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August 31, 1979— Comet Howard-Koomenr-Michels 1979 XI (SOLWIND 1) collides with the Sun. This was
the first known comet to hit the sun, and the first comet discovered by a spacecraft. The impact was on
August 30, 1979 at 22:11 Greenwich Time (UT) or August 31, 1979 (3:11 am EST). The U.S. Naval Research
Laboratory flew a video camera and telescope mounted on an Air Force satellite P78-1 to monitor solar
corona activity. A small opaque disk is placed in front of the telescope so it blocks out the Sun. Thus
an artificial eclipse of the Sun's blinding photosphere was created, and the extremely hot solar corona
can be photographed. Not until September 1981 did Russ Howard examined the coronagraphs of August 30, 1979
and discover the amazing sequence of images recorded with the instruments designed and operated by
Martin Koomen & Don Michels. The photos showed the comet heading around the Sun, but its perihelion
distance was too close. The head never emerged on the other side of the Sun. It must have vaporized
and fragmented into its constituent small grains. But the tail of this now decapitated comet continued
intact for about 24 hours (August 31), before being dissipated and blown back from the Sun.
The photos showed a dramatic spreading of the tail into a fan and then a kind of semicircle, brightening
parts of the corona before expanding further and fading from view..jpg)
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August 31, 1983— Edwin Moses of USA sets the 400 meter hurdle record
in Koblenz, Germany. Moses produced his lifetime best of 47:02 seconds on his 28th
birthday. He had missed the 1982 season because of injury and illness, and this
was the race of his life. Shortly before this meet in Koblenz, Moses dreamed he saw
"8-31-83" and then, repeatedly, "47.03," which was a tenth of a second faster than
his world record. Moses' new world record of 47.02 was a hundredth of a second faster
than his dream. “Well, I haven't had a (personal record) for three years,”
he said with a laugh. Moses won the Olympic Gold medal in the 400 meter hurdle in
1976 and 1984 (it would have been three if not for the 1980 Moscow Olympic boycott).
At Dayton Fairview High School he was named a National Merit Scholar, and at
Atlanta's Morehouse College he majored in physics and engineering.
Moses broke the 400-meter hurdles world record three times, perfecting a technique
that many track experts thought to be impossible— only 13 steps instead of 14
between the 10 three-foot hurdles. Moses is renowned for not losing a race in nearly
a decade from August 1977 to June 1987— 122 straight victories in the 400-meter
hurdles. At the apex of his career, the top nine lines in the list of fastest
times in the 400-meter hurdles each read the same way: Edwin Moses, USA.
Moses' 47.02 record stood for nine years until Kevin Young's 46.78 at Barcelona in 1992..jpg)
August 31, 1997— Princess Diana killed in Paris car crash.
Lady Diana Spencer, the former wife of Charles, prince of Wales, was killed
with her companion Dodi Fayed in a car accident in Paris. Tests conducted by
French police indicated that the driver, who also perished in the crash, was
intoxicated and likely caused the accident while trying to escape the paparazzi
photographers who consistently tailed Diana during any public outing.
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