While I’ve been immersed in 3D Virtual Worlds over the last 4 days I can’t get over how much good stuff is created by people in the Metaverse and by people in Social Networks.

I hope to get over to the studio later today and paint an idea I have for a Coke Bottle in real life vs. a Coke Bottle in Second Life - being 100 times magnified.  Still working on the idea.

I’m sorta getting the desire to do paintings that are about the dominant theme of the week - because I’m getting to spend about a day a week painting - if that (but I’m constantly working on my art work in my mind and heart).  

In fact, last night while at the MetaVerse Meetup as I stood in front of the Bar, as dark as it was in the club I was at - I thought of Manet’s painting of A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (below).

But the photos I took at the Bar did not come out - it was too dark.  I was thinking I’d paint a scene much like this one - but the Modern Bar - the East Village Bar.

The Bartender reminded me of her, the woman in the picture - it’s like I just saw her at the Bar, like she’s someone I know.

And to end the evening - and hopefully go to bed soon - here’s some User Generated Content, enabled by KickApps.com, that shows you just how powerful works by fans can be:

Enjoy!

I guess, being that I saw the Execution of Maximilian at MOMA yesterday, it reminds me how much I admired Manet’s work, though it has nothing much to do with the subject matter he chose - it’s his brushwork and his feelings.  Manet’s work had a connection to the elemental world.

I don’t own this painting, I sold it in 1989, for 1800 dollars - but if I had to do it over again, I would have kept it for myself - because paintings like this don’t happen that often for me and were I to sell it ….I’d want it to go to someone special, and that’s not what happened.

 

I did not know what I did - how this painting happened - I put a lot of work in mixing the colors for the rug and table/chair.   Perhaps the mauve, purple, lavander like colors were part of my Homage to Manet - he had a special connection with that range of colors and they appear, in various ways, in his paintings.

Being that it’s my birthday today (actually, November 9th), I thought I’d give my self the treat of being able to look at one of my best paintings. 

When I paint now, I still have all the feelings - and more - not overworking anything….. not saying I did that here….but I worked so hard on this painting but what’s me here … the way I mix colors - t h a t ’s   w h o   I  a m - that’s my gift.  

Manet and the Execution of Maximilian was going on tonight so I went to view the Manet Paintings.   One thing about the show I did not like - it focused way too much on the time-line of events and not so much on the paintings.

Here’s the marketing notes:

“Between 1867 and 1869, Edouard Manet completed a series of compositions depicting the execution of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Maximilian, a member of the Hapsburg family of Austria, had been installed in power in Mexico by Napoleon III of France in an attempt to recover unpaid debts and establish a European presence there. This endeavor failed miserably, ending with the execution of Maximilian and two of his generals by firing squad on June 19, 1867. The execution was by order of Benito Juárez, who had been displaced as president when the French took control of Mexico.

News of the execution reached Paris on July 1, and Manet, a republican ideologically opposed to Napoleon’s policies, set to work almost immediately. Informed by a steady stream of written and graphic accounts of the event, he produced three large paintings, an oil sketch, and a lithograph on the subject.

Due to the political content of these works, there was no opportunity for Manet to display them in Paris under Napoleon III. Only the final, largest painting was exhibited during the artist’s lifetime, when a friend arranged to take the work to New York and Boston in 1879. A handbill was made to advertise that exhibition. The painting attracted little attention, however, and this and Manet’s other compositions on the subject remained largely unknown until the early twentieth century.

Manet and the Execution of Maximilian unites these five works for the first time in the United States and features selected additional works that illuminate the fascinating development of this series.”

It seems to me Napoleon III of France deserves to have his head handed to him as he desired to collect money from a bankrupt Mexico by convincing a stupid relative rule Mexico and act like an emperor.  Well…that lasted a couple of years till Napoleon III pulled most of his forces out, realizing it was a mistake, but he left is buddy, Maximilian, a member of the Hapsburg family of Austria, hung out to dry.   Not that anyone is an angel here… but it seems to me that Napoleon III should have been the one shot at.

The paintings …were great, but the I liked some of the smaller paintings better.  I’m really exhausted or I’d write more.

Manet is one of my favorite painters and I wanted to really focus more on that … and I had not seen any of the Execution of Maximilian paintings - and was not aware there were actually 3 versions of it.   What I did get is ….Manet had a little of the social revolutionary with him …. he painted Execution of Maximilian to protest what he saw at the corrupt regime of Napoleon III and he was right.