film school dropout

When I came out into society, I was fifteen. I already knew that the role I was condemned to—namely, to keep quiet and do what I was told, gave me the perfect opportunity to listen and observe. Not to what people told me, which naturally was of no interest, but to whatever it was they were trying to hide. I practiced detachment. I learned how to look cheerful, while under the table, I stuck a fork into the back of my hand. I became… A virtuoso of deceit. It wasn’t pleasure I was after, it was knowledge. I consulted the strictest moralist to learn how to appear. Philosophers to find out what to think. And novelists to see what I could get away with. And in the end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle: Win or die.

Salomé, Alphonse Mucha, 1897, Minneapolis Institute of Art: Prints and Drawings

see object file for complete description of contents Fin-de-siècle Europe turned Salome into an obsession, parading her deadly dance in operas, ballets, poems, paintings, and more. (By one count, 82 percent of all Salome works date between 1860 and 1920.) Now characterized as poisonous and depraved, she was the perfect symbol of the culture’s decadent mood and its new wariness of female power. Alphonse Mucha’s Salome is erotic and exotic in her filmy costume and stylized hair, an Art Nouveau staple. Her half-closed eyes stare provocatively, reflecting Mucha’s interest in the new field of hypnotic suggestion. Size: 16 ¾ x 12 5/8 in. (42.55 x 32.07 cm) (portfolio) Medium: Color lithograph

Sagrado corazón

When cassettes ruled the world….

Shepherd in a Downpour, 1889, Camille Pissarro

Diego Martelli, 1879, Edgar Degas