PABLO PICASSO
In a deep depression, Picasso could paint in nothing but blue. For three years, he works became all but monochromatic; rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, they are overwhelming in their coldness and affecting in the totality of moroseness they represent. It was the suicide of a close friend that led Picasso into his aptly named ‘Blue Period’, and his art was changed not just in palette but in subject. He retreated into the darkness of society, finding solace in the outcasts: the sick, disabled, marginalised, and rejected, as he saw himself in his misery as equally apart from the world he once inhabited. The works made during this period are more than melancholy - they are entirely absent of joy, and amongst the most urgent and potent communications of sadness ever created. This work, of an older man, ailing with little food to eat, is an exemplary work of this period. There is something unsettling in his depiction, as he moves between dimensions his body seems to exist both as rounded, fully formed flesh in the face, neck and hands, and as a flat, false image in his torso and arms. The table appears to retreat back against the wall, trapping him in a purgatorial space between planes. In social position and depiction, Picasso’s unnamed subject exists as an outsider, unplaced within the physical world he is painted in and rejected by the one he inhabits.
MAURICE DE VLAMINCK
Vlaminck ignored the details. From an early age he rejected the traditional teaching methods of copying masterpieces from museums, keen to make sure that his inspiration was pure and his style unadulterated by influence. Landscapes were but a vehicle for a violent expression told through brushstrokes. The subjects of the scenes were carefully considered but Vlaminck felt no allegiance or responsibility towards them, in both landscape and portraiture. Instead, he was deeply committed to himself, and prioritised the authenticity of his own expression above all else. A lifelong fauvist, art was for him a wild and personal thing, and he saw Picasso and Braques cubism as a dead-end that dragged painting into a state of confusion, away from the expression of human emotion and into something all the headier and more distant. This painting of Vue Saint Maurice tells us little of the road, but in the furious snow and aggressive sky, we learn a lot about Vlaminck.
RENÉ MAGRITTE
Surrealists were delving the unconscious depths of their mind to create works that transcended reality, turning their dreams and visions of impossible worlds into visual actualities. Magritte, however, while participating in this element of the movement, was simultaneously exploring something altogether different. ‘The Blank Signature’ is not about the visions of the subconscious but instead about the inner workings of it. An optical illusion of the highest order - at first glance it is a simple scene, masterfully rendered, but on the second something seems off. Our brain constructs the picture we assume is there, that of a woman riding her horse through a forest, partially obscured by trees. Instead, the horse is bisected by nothingness, exists simultaneously in front of and behind the plane it rides on. We do not need painting to show us the world of our dreams, Magritte seems to say with this work, when the mind already constructs the impossible.
Wednesday 18th June
As the Moon moves from Aquarius into Pisces today, a shift from cool detachment to watery sensitivity may be felt within and around us. Yet, the Moon also crosses its ascending node, making the middle part of the day less favourable for gardening. Best to pause, observe, and prepare rather than act—tend to your tools, check your compost, or simply walk the garden paths and listen. Avoid sowing or planting today, especially in the midday hours. You may feel slightly unsettled or in-between, so let the day be one of reflection and light touches rather than deep action.
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Ben Timberlake June 17, 2025
Maeshowe is a Neolithic chambered burial complex on the Orkney Islands, an archipelago to the north of Scotland that is a floating world of midnight suns and brutal, dark winters. The tomb overlooks the Lochs of Harry and Stenness. On the narrow spit of land that separates the two lochs is The Ring of Brodgar, an ancient stone circle. It is nothing to look at from the outside - bored sheep munching salty grass on a small mound — but inside is one of the finest prehistoric monuments in the world…
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