Thursday, April 22, 2021

Jeff Bridges Dude Abides

 




The DUDE ABIDES






Jeff Bridges, Steve Buscemi, and John Goodman talk about the Dude
Donny, and Walter in The BIG LEBOWSKI






GOT ANY KAHLUA ?

aka The BIG LEBOWSKI COOKBOOK

The COLLECTED RECIPES of The DUDE
















The DUDE ABIDES

BIG LEBOWSKI COFFEE MUG










"Careful Man, there's a Beverage Here" !



Imagine having your very own Dude Coffee Mug to drink your beverage from, whether
it's Coffee, Tea, or Dude's beloved "Caucasian" White Russian Cocktail"

What's Better than that ?









Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Did Your FUCK My Wife

 




"Did you Fuck my wife?"




"Where do you get BALLS Big enough to ask me a question like that?"

"You're a Sick Bastard. That's a Sick Question, and I ain't gonna answer it"






Martin Scorsese's RAGING BULL

BEST SCENES





"That's in your Mind" !!!



"Don't overcook it. You overcook it, it defeats is own purpose."





"I GOT NO CHOICE !!! I GOT No CHOICE" !!!!



NOT LIKE JAKE'S (LaMotta) First WIFE






"Hey Joey, Hit me in the FACE"







SUNDAY SAUCE

MEATBALLS - BRACIOLE - PASTA

And More ...

LEARN HOW to COOK PASTA

ANd JAKE'S PERFECT STEAK








"That's a Sick Question. You're a Sick Bastard'

"And I ain't answering it"


"I Feel Sorry for You. You're all Fucked Up"





.



















Flintstones RAGING BULL DeNiro

 




"You put up with this Fucking Braciole"







FLINTSTONES "RAGING BULL" Parody

"Don't overcook it. You overcook it, it Defeats its own purpose"




"Did you FUCK my WIFE" ?





"You're a Sick Bastard. That's a Sick Question and I 
ain't gonna answer it."

"You should do a little more FUCKING and a little less Eating,
and maybe you won't have problems in the Bedroom and bother me"






"You Bother me about a FUCKING STEAK" ???


RObert DeNiro in Martin Scorsese's RAGING BULL

About New York Italian Prize Fighter JAKE LaMOTTA






SUNDAY SAUCE

LEARN HOW to MAKE SUNDAY SAUCE

BRACIOLE - MEATBALLS

And The PERFECT ITALIAN STEAK alla JAKE








"I GOT NO CHOICE !!!! I GOT NO CHOICE" !!!

Jake says to his wife, who he says Overcooked his STEAK, defeated the Whole Purpose,
and made it like a piece of Charcoal."


LEARN HOW to COOK The PERFECT STEAK all JAKE  RECIPE


















Tuesday, April 20, 2021

DUDE ABIDES T-Shirt

 

Screenshot 2020-08-07 at 9.18.14 PM


"I'll be there Man"


Screenshot2020-02-04at10.13.36PM

The DUDE ABIDES

DUDE Has a COOKBOOK

GOT ANY KAHLUA ?

aka The BIG LEBOWSKI COOKBOOK

COLLECTED RECIPES  of The DUDE

ABIDE in IT !

AMAZON.com




The DUDE ABIDES T-Shirt

GET YOUR TODAY




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Sunday, April 18, 2021

Vincent Van Gogh Bedroom Arles

 







Bedroom in Arles (French: La Chambre à Arles; Dutch: Slaapkamer te Arles) is the title given to each of three similar paintings by 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh.

Van Gogh's own title for this composition was simply The Bedroom (French: La Chambre à coucher). There are three authentic versions described in his letters, easily distinguishable from one another by the pictures on the wall to the right.

The painting depicts van Gogh's bedroom at 2, Place Lamartine in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, France, known as the Yellow House. The door to the right opened on to the upper floor and the staircase; the door to the left was that of the guest room he held prepared for Gauguin; the window in the front wall looked on to Place Lamartine and its public gardens. This room was not rectangular but trapezoid with an obtuse angle in the left hand corner of the front wall and an acute angle at the right


"BEDROOM in ARLES" 1st Version


Van Gogh started the first version during mid October 1888 while staying in Arles, and explained his aims and means to his brother Theo:

"This time it simply reproduces my bedroom; but colour must be abundant in this part, its simplification adding a rank of grandee to the style applied to the objects, getting to suggest a certain rest or dream. Well, I have thought that on watching the composition we stop thinking and imagining. I have painted the walls pale violet. The ground with checked material. The wooden bed and the chairs, yellow like fresh butter; the sheet and the pillows, lemon light green. The bedspread, scarlet coloured. The window, green. The washbasin, orangey; the tank, blue. The doors, lilac. And, that is all. There is not anything else in this room with closed shutters. The square pieces of furniture must express unswerving rest; also the portraits on the wall, the mirror, the bottle, and some costumes. The white colour has not been applied to the picture, so its frame will be white, aimed to get me even with the compulsory rest recommended for me. I have depicted no type of shade or shadow; I have only applied simple plain colours, like those in crêpes

2nd Version

In April 1889, van Gogh sent the initial version to his brother regretting that it had been damaged by the flood of the Rhône while he was interned at the Old Hospital in Arles. Theo proposed to have it relined and sent back to him in order to copy it. This "repetition" in original scale (Van Gogh's term was "répetition") was executed in September 1889. Both paintings were then sent back to Theo

3rd Version

In summer, 1889, Van Gogh finally decided to redo some of his "best" compositions in a smaller size (the term he used was réductions) for his mother and his sister Wil, The Bedroom was among the subjects he chose.[ These réductions, finished late in September 1889, are not exact copies.

In The Bedroom, the miniature portrait to the left recalls van Gogh's Peasant of Zundert self-portrait. The one to the right cannot be linked convincingly to any existing painting by van Gogh.






VINCENT VAN GOGH






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Mona Lisa da Vinci

 



Mona Lisa

Leonardo da Vinci


The Mona Lisa Italian: Monna Lisa [ˈmɔnna ˈliːza] or La Gioconda is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as "the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world". The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression, the monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism.

The painting is probably of the Italian noblewoman Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, and is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel. It had been believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506; however, Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517. It was acquired by King Francis I of France and is now the property of the French Republic itself, on permanent display at the Louvre, Paris since 1797.

The Mona Lisa is one of the most valuable paintings in the world. It holds the Guinness World Record for the highest known insurance valuation in history at US$100 million in 1962 (equivalent to $660 million in 2019).


The title of the painting, which is known in English as Mona Lisa, comes from a description by Renaissance art historian Giorgio Vasari, who wrote "Leonardo undertook to paint, for Francesco del Giocondo, the portrait of Mona Lisa, his wife." Mona in Italian is a polite form of address originating as ma donna – similar to Ma'amMadam, or my lady in English. This became Madonna, and its contraction mona. The title of the painting, though traditionally spelled Mona (as used by Vasari), is also commonly spelled in modern Italian as Monna Lisa (mona being a vulgarity in some Italian dialects), but this is rare in English.

Vasari's account of the Mona Lisa comes from his biography of Leonardo published in 1550, 31 years after the artist's death. It has long been the best-known source of information on the provenance of the work and identity of the sitter. Leonardo's assistant Salaì, at his death in 1524, owned a portrait which in his personal papers was named la Gioconda, a painting bequeathed to him by Leonardo.

That Leonardo painted such a work, and its date, were confirmed in 2005 when a scholar at Heidelberg University discovered a marginal note in a 1477 printing of a volume by ancient Roman philosopher Cicero. Dated October 1503, the note was written by Leonardo's contemporary Agostino Vespucci. This note likens Leonardo to renowned Greek painter Apelles, who is mentioned in the text, and states that Leonardo was at that time working on a painting of Lisa del Giocondo.

In response to the announcement of the discovery of this document, Vincent Delieuvin, the Louvre representative, stated "Leonardo da Vinci was painting, in 1503, the portrait of a Florentine lady by the name of Lisa del Giocondo. About this we are now certain. Unfortunately, we cannot be absolutely certain that this portrait of Lisa del Giocondo is the painting of the Louvre."

The model, Lisa del Giocondo, was a member of the Gherardini family of Florence and Tuscany, and the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea. The Italian name for the painting, La Gioconda, means 'jocund' ('happy' or 'jovial') or, literally, 'the jocund one', a pun on the feminine form of Lisa's married name, Giocondo.  In French, the title La Joconde has the same meaning.

Before that discovery, scholars had developed several alternative views as to the subject of the painting. Some argued that Lisa del Giocondo was the subject of a different portrait, identifying at least four other paintings as the Mona Lisa referred to by Vasari. Several other women have been proposed as the subject of the painting. Isabella of AragonCecilia Gallerani, Costanza d'Avalos, Duchess of Francavilla, Isabella d'Este, Pacifica Brandano or Brandino, Isabela Gualanda, Caterina Sforza, Bianca Giovanna Sforza—even Salaì and Leonardo himself—are all among the list of posited models portrayed in the painting. The consensus of art historians in the 21st century maintains the long-held traditional opinion that the painting depicts Lisa del Giocondo.










DESCRIPTION

The Mona Lisa bears a strong resemblance to many Renaissance depictions of the Virgin Mary, who was at that time seen as an ideal for womanhood. The woman sits markedly upright in a "pozzetto" armchair with her arms folded, a sign of her reserved posture. Her gaze is fixed on the observer. The woman appears alive to an unusual extent, which Leonardo achieved by his method of not drawing outlines (sfumato). The soft blending creates an ambiguous mood "mainly in two features: the corners of the mouth, and the corners of the eyes".

The depiction of the sitter in three-quarter profile is similar to late 15th-century works by Lorenzo di Credi and Agnolo di Domenico del Mazziere. Zöllner notes that the sitter's general position can be traced back to Flemish models and that "in particular the vertical slices of columns at both sides of the panel had precedents in Flemish portraiture."  Woods-Marsden cites Hans Memling's portrait of Benedetto Portinari (1487) or Italian imitations such as Sebastiano Mainardi's pendant portraits for the use of a loggia, which has the effect of mediating between the sitter and the distant landscape, a feature missing from Leonardo's earlier portrait of Ginevra de' Benci.

The painting was one of the first portraits to depict the sitter in front of an imaginary landscape, and Leonardo was one of the first painters to use aerial perspective. The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her, a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. Leonardo has chosen to place the horizon line not at the neck, as he did with Ginevra de' Benci, but on a level with the eyes, thus linking the figure with the landscape and emphasizing the mysterious nature of the painting.

Mona Lisa has no clearly visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Some researchers claim that it was common at this time for genteel women to pluck these hairs, as they were considered unsightly. In 2007, French engineer Pascal Cotte announced that his ultra-high resolution scans of the painting provide evidence that Mona Lisa was originally painted with eyelashes and with visible eyebrows, but that these had gradually disappeared over time, perhaps as a result of overcleaning. Cotte discovered the painting had been reworked several times, with changes made to the size of the Mona Lisa's face and the direction of her gaze. He also found that in one layer the subject was depicted wearing numerous hairpins and a headdress adorned with pearls which was later scrubbed out and overpainted.

There has been much speculation regarding the painting's model and landscape. For example, Leonardo probably painted his model faithfully since her beauty is not seen as being among the best, "even when measured by late quattrocento (15th century) or even twenty-first century standards."  Some art historians in Eastern art, such as Yukio Yashiro, argue that the landscape in the background of the picture was influenced by Chinese paintings, but this thesis has been contested for lack of clear evidence.

Research in 2003 by Professor Margaret Livingstone of Harvard University said that Mona Lisa's smile disappears when observed with direct vision, known as foveal. Because of the way the human eye processes visual information, it is less suited to pick up shadows directly; however, peripheral vision can pick up shadows well.

Research in 2008 by a geomorphology professor at Urbino University and an artist-photographer revealed likenesses of Mona Lisa's landscapes to some views in the Montefeltro region in the Italian provinces of Pesaro and Urbino, and Rimini.






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HISTORY

Creation and date

Of Leonardo da Vinci's works, the Mona Lisa is the only portrait whose authenticity has never been seriously questioned,[43] and one of four works – the others being Saint Jerome in the WildernessAdoration of the Magi and The Last Supper – whose attribution has avoided controversy.[44] He had begun working on a portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, the model of the Mona Lisa, by October 1503.[14][15] It is believed by some that the Mona Lisa was begun in 1503 or 1504 in Florence.[45] Although the Louvre states that it was "doubtless painted between 1503 and 1506",[8] art historian Martin Kemp says that there are some difficulties in confirming the dates with certainty.[18] Alessandro Vezzosi believes that the painting is characteristic of Leonardo's style in the final years of his life, post-1513.[46] Other academics argue that, given the historical documentation, Leonardo would have painted the work from 1513. According to Vasari, "after he had lingered over it four years, [he] left it unfinished". In 1516, Leonardo was invited by King Francis I to work at the Clos Lucé near the Château d'Amboise; it is believed that he took the Mona Lisa with him and continued to work on it after he moved to France. Art historian Carmen C. Bambach has concluded that Leonardo probably continued refining the work until 1516 or 1517. Leonardo's right hand was paralytic circa 1517, which may indicate why he left the Mona Lisa unfinished.

Circa 1505, Raphael executed a pen-and-ink sketch, in which the columns flanking the subject are more apparent. Experts universally agree that it is based on Leonardo's portrait.  Other later copies of the Mona Lisa, such as those in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design and The Walters Art Museum, also display large flanking columns. As a result, it was thought that the Mona Lisa had been trimmed. However, by 1993, Frank Zöllner observed that the painting surface had never been trimmed; this was confirmed through a series of tests in 2004. In view of this, Vincent Delieuvin, curator of 16th-century Italian painting at the Louvre, states that the sketch and these other copies must have been inspired by another version, while Zöllner states that the sketch may be after another Leonardo portrait of the same subject.


The record of an October 1517 visit by Louis d'Aragon states that the Mona Lisa was executed for the deceased Giuliano de' Medici, Leonardo's steward at the Belvedere Palace between 1513 and 1516 —but this was likely an error.  According to Vasari, the painting was created for the model's husband, Francesco del Giocondo.[68] A number of experts have argued that Leonardo made two versions (because of the uncertainty concerning its dating and commissioner, as well as its fate following Leonardo's death in 1519, and the difference of details in Raphael's sketch—which may be explained by the possibility that he made the sketch from memory). The hypothetical first portrait, displaying prominent columns, would have been commissioned by Giocondo circa 1503, and left unfinished in Leonardo's pupil and assistant Salaì's possession until his death in 1524. The second, commissioned by Giuliano de' Medici circa 1513, would have been sold by Salaì to Francis I in 1518  and is the one in the Louvre today. Others believe that there was only one true Mona Lisa, but are divided as to the two aforementioned fates.  At some point in the 16th century, a varnish was applied to the painting.[3] It was kept at the Palace of Fontainebleau until Louis XIV moved it to the Palace of Versailles, where it remained until the French Revolution.  In 1797, it went on permanent display at the Louvre.


Refuge, THEFT, Vandalism 


After the French Revolution, the painting was moved to the Louvre, but spent a brief period in the bedroom of Napoleon (d. 1821) in the Tuileries Palace. The Mona Lisa was not widely known outside the art world, but in the 1860s, a portion of the French intelligentsia began to hail it as a masterwork of Renaissance painting. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), the painting was moved from the Louvre to the Brest Arsenal

In 1911, the painting was still not popular among the lay-public. On 21 August 1911, the painting was stolen from the Louvre. The painting was first missed the next day by painter Louis Béroud. After some confusion as to whether the painting was being photographed somewhere, the Louvre was closed for a week for investigation. French poet Guillaume Apollinaire came under suspicion and was arrested and imprisoned. Apollinaire implicated his friend Pablo Picasso, who was brought in for questioning. Both were later exonerated. The real culprit was Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia, who had helped construct the painting's glass case. He carried out the theft by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet, and walking out with the painting hidden under his coat after the museum had closed.

Peruggia was an Italian patriot who believed that Leonardo's painting should have been returned to an Italian museum. Peruggia may have been motivated by an associate whose copies of the original would significantly rise in value after the painting's theft. After having kept the Mona Lisa in his apartment for two years, Peruggia grew impatient and was caught when he attempted to sell it to Giovanni Poggi, director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It was exhibited in the Uffizi Gallery for over two weeks and returned to the Louvre on 4 January 1914. Peruggia served six months in prison for the crime and was hailed for his patriotism in Italy. A year after the theft, Saturday Evening Post journalist Karl Decker wrote that he met an alleged accomplice named Eduardo de Valfierno, who claimed to have masterminded the theft. Forger Yves Chaudron was to have created six copies of the painting to sell in the US while concealing the location of the original. Decker published this account of the theft in 1932.

During World War II, it was again removed from the Louvre and taken first to the Château d'Amboise, then to the Loc-Dieu Abbey and Château de Chambord, then finally to the Ingres Museum in Montauban.

On 30 December 1956, Bolivian Ugo Ungaza Villegas threw a rock at the Mona Lisa while it was on display at the Louvre. He did so with such force that it shattered the glass case and dislodged a speck of pigment near the left elbow.[85] The painting was protected by glass because a few years earlier a man who claimed to be in love with the painting had cut it with a razor blade and tried to steal it.[86] Since then, bulletproof glass has been used to shield the painting from any further attacks. Subsequently, on 21 April 1974, while the painting was on display at the Tokyo National Museum, a woman sprayed it with red paint as a protest against that museum's failure to provide access for disabled people.  On 2 August 2009, a Russian woman, distraught over being denied French citizenship, threw a ceramic teacup purchased at the Louvre; the vessel shattered against the glass enclosure. In both cases, the painting was undamaged.

In recent decades, the painting has been temporarily moved to accommodate renovations to the Louvre on three occasions: between 1992 and 1995, from 2001 to 2005, and again in 2019. A new queuing system introduced in 2019 reduces the amount of time museum visitors have to wait in line to see the painting. After going through the queue, a group has about 30 seconds to see the painting.







POSITANO 

The AMALFI COAST

TRAVEL & COOKBOOK
















"START YOUR DAY OFF RIGHT"




















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