Here's a great article I wrote on Goethe, Newton, and color. It is unpublished, but you can see my other published and unpublished articles here:



Goethe's Morality of Color

Newton tried to keep color in the realm of an independently provable entity by analysing that light refracted from a prism was separated into a spectrum of colors. He tried hard to maintain objective observations and had an assistant help him make his readings to avoid his own subjective perceptions. He avoided “colors in a dream or what a mad man sees”, and emphasized a quantifiable, objective analysis of color. His works on color and light were published in the much celebrated "Opticks" showing that light was made of colored rays.

It is chemical and physical scientists who have shown the most interest in measuring and studying color, and not the artists who would rather use it rather than analyze it. Yet, alongside the very lucrative paints (and other color industries) which they propagated, these same chemists have realized that the history of color is not just a numerically speculative phenomenon, but involves other values such as emotions and morals to which artists espouse. In fact, the history (or the understanding) of color is closely intertwined with these objective scientists and the more subjective artists.

If one were to place Goethe in this continuum, he would definitely figure at the other end with the artists and other poets of color. Goethe insisted that color should be studied as the human eye perceives it, rather than as instruments measure it. In his unparalleled “Theory of Color Theory”, he spent many experiments trying to show the role our eyes (our perceptions) play in determining the effects of color.

For example, he studied the phenomenon that is now called ‘after-images’ where after looking for a prolonged time at a certain color, when switching to a blank white canvass, we see the ‘contrasting’ color on that white canvass – blue instead of yellow. His premise became that color is not a fixed entity, but depended on many other human and non-human factors in order to be seen. Goethe was convinced that color affects us morally, physiologically, and psychologically; that we react subjectively to color. He eventually started to establish his theory on the ‘morality’ of colors, introducing us to his color polarities starting out with specific colors, and incorporating subjective values on to them: Yellow vs. Blue; Force vs. Weakness; Brightness vs. Darkness; and one is tempted to add Good vs. Evil. Of course, these may only be his subjective views, and another artist may decide that it is red and green that are in such opposition.

Goethe’s emphasis on the perceptions of color, what colors meant, emoted, symbolized, how they affected our senses, feelings and morals influenced the direction and importance of color in painters from there on. Color, up until then, had been give a secondary role to drawing, where line, light and shade dominated. Earlier painters had always delegated a secondary role to color finding no way of equating it with line and form. If Newton were to critic Goethe, I’m sure he would side with these earlier artists and put more emphasis on the straightforward drawing, rather than Goethe’s elusive perceptions of color.

Despite the differences that Goethe found between his and Newton's work, he eventually reconciled these differences, asserting that both objective and subjective views were possible. Newton also had never rejected the idea that color can be a subjective phenomenon. Ultimately, it is this supreme interest in color that unites Newton and Goethe. But Goethe was perhaps more right than wrong in emphasizing the elusive nature of color, and in disagreeing so vehemently with Newton at the beginning of his studies. Color has continued to be as elusive, subjective and ephemeral as he had suspected it to be. Perhaps both Goethe and Newton opened a pandora's box when they decided to put color at the fore-front of their inquiries.

Still , in just a matter of decades, we go from Newton’s predominantly ‘objective’ "Opticks" to Goethe’s ‘subjective’ "Theory of Color". From quantitative measurements to subjective perceptions. How did this come about? Why was Goethe interested in demonstrating the subjective, while Newton insisted on the objective?

I believe it has to do with transcendence. Both Newton and Goethe profoundly understood the human 'will'. Newton wanted it subservient to and Goethe wanted it at the center of man. Newton stressed, in his method of inquiry, that something beyond man determines things. Goethe’s central figure is man himself, and man’s perceptions are the primary factor in his life. It really was a battle between the supremacy of God, and the supremacy of man. In Goethe’s world, man finally wins. By allowing man to focus on his will and whim, Goethe put a stop to this transcendence. Color became the easiest way for artists to win this battle (if they were fighting it in the first place). It was no longer necessary to accurately depict lines and, in Newton’s heroic attempt, colors. Artists no longer had to describe, as best they could, our natural, external world. They could only be expected to personally interpret it, where wilful perceptions finally take over.

Color became a manifestation of the artist’s personal feelings, personal will, personal interpretation and personal desires. Goethe’s "Theory of Color" became the gateway for artists to focus on the much easier human will rather than on Godly transcendence. This led to color being the most important element in painting, and eventually dominating the whole canvass. Later on, this would also result with the distortion of line, form and even content subject to the artist’s interpretation. Color released the artist from any outside commitments, and allowed him to be accountable only to himself. This is essentially the attribute of the modern artist. “What does this mean?” becomes a common question directed at most modern paintings.

Since color is really a manifestation of the modern artist’s personal interpretations, it becomes all about the artist’s feelings. Thus, emotions (or sensations) play a very large part in these paintings. Monet may have attributed his bluish/pinkish haystacks to the time of day, and type of sunlight falling on the dried grass, but it is essentially his subjective and exaggerated interpretation of that particular moment of the day. This later became much more pronounced in his Rouen series, where a blue Cathedral finally exists. This is only a step before Van Gogh’s who tried to “express the terrible passions of humanity by means of reds and greens…” in his Night Cafe. No longer are we subjectively describing a scene, but expressing and interpreting it emotionally as well. Artists even suggested choosing colors "from their palette than from nature".

Feelings are naturally unstable – one is not always happy, or always sad, or always angry. Van Gogh’s deep sense of alienation in red and green could just as soon turn into the calm accommodations of pastels, which he did use in his "Almond tree in Bloom". With nothing to ground these paintings, and focussing on shifting personal sentiments and emotions, artists can say and paint anything they want, and then change their minds about them. Kandinsky, after seeing Montet's variously hued haystacks said, "Deep within me the first doubt arose about the importance of the object as a necessary element in a picture". Now, even the object, the epitome of form, is no longer required as a reference to the external world. The artist can draw anything he wants, and color it anything he desires. Even the title to Kandinsky's paintings is indicative of this belief.

With no external responsibilities, or a sense of transcendence to force these artists beyond the self, this battle of relevance has now raged for more than a century. I think it all started when color, that fickle, deeply personal, ephemeral quality, took precedence over the drawing. When previous attempts at objectivity were superseded by subjectivity. This unwillingness to face the difficult external world, and perhaps humbly attribute it to something greater than oneself, changed the focus of the artist from the external world to his internal landscape. The color field aritsts of the 1960s epitomize this attitude, where nothing but color dominates the whole canvass. This has been the saga of modern art.


References:

Gage, John. Color and culture : practice and meaning from antiquity to abstraction. Boston ; Toronto : Little, Brown and Co., c1993

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Goethe's color theory / Arranged and edited by Rupprecht Matthaei. New York : Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1971.

All About the Print

Faux fur leopard prints that are all over the place right now.

You cannot, of course, get the real deal anymore (as far as I know), but from designer labels to Walmart's Everyman's clothing line, we are graced with the presence of these winter warmers.

Perhaps it is the "inner feline" that is awakened. Or it is simply something undecipherabley attractive, innate and instinctive, about these prints, that has lured women to take out their pocket books and spend their dollars on a faux fur craze which has now lasted for several decades. And there's no risk of red paint to tarnish your respectability by (crazed) faux fur advocates (with whom you have NO allegiance, since you never know when they might turn).

Here is Walmart's $70 faux fur coat, soft and warm (I've tried it on!).


CAN$77 (US$60)

Walmart tells us:

Get coverage and style when you pull on George women's AOP faux fur car coat. Knit from soft, patterned faux fur, it’s styled with a revere collar [What is a revere collar - my link], jetted pockets and concealed snap closure. Fully lined, the shiny coat on this box-cut jacket will add an element of chic to any outfit you throw it over.

• 100% Polyester
• Faux fur knit
• All over pattern
• Full lining
• Revere collar
• Full snap button closure
• Jetted pockets
• Soft hand feel
• Dry clean only

Holt Renfriew, The Bay, Simons, Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Saks, Bergdorf Goodman, all have their variations (all at least $100 more than what Walmart offers).

Everyman wins, hands down.

Below is a fascinating, and I think very good, article on the "history" of the leopard print.

January Garden

January Garden
[Photo By: KPA]

"The belief in objective truth is the keystone of traditional Western culture, and the explicit basis of the United States of America. For America's founding generation and their posterity, man's inalienable rights to liberty and self-government proceed, not from from the will and desire of man, but from "nature and nature's God." Man's freedom is ordained, and constrained, by a reality higher than man. It was the shared experience of that truth that formed the American nation."

Lawrence Auster
Our Borders, Ourselves: America in the Age of Multiculturalism
Chapter 4: The Spiritual Effects of Multiculturalism
P.58

Double Country

I made it to the Art Gallery of Mississauga on Saturday, ignoring the forecast of a snowstorm. The storm was worse than I had expected, the falling snow was a snow/ice mixture, with a blowing wind that made these pellets feel like mini pine needles.

The AGM hosted its the annual juried show presented by Visual Arts Mississauga the night before. I prefered to see the exhibition at a quieter time, at my own pace. The VAM Facebook page has uploaded photos of the event, including some of the paintings (there were 40 entries).

Here are two that caught my eye in the exhibition, and which I took snapshots of:


Left: Hannah Veiga: You Used to be My Favourite Colour
Right: Stuart Godfrey: 4th Line Backside

Albeit, they are both a little bleak in concept.

Veiga writes on her website that her fabric piece is: "a contemplation of what constitutes a home, and what remains when something loses its meaning of a home." Is is not clear what she means by that. Perhaps her curtains don't have any place to hang, other than in galleries and design shows. Her floral design is a complicated process with seven color scheme (red, light red, green, light green, grey, yellow, white), and its mockup on (Japanese) Kozuke paper - no less! I assume the fabric was printed through the digital fabric printing processes now readily available, probably more so than silkscreen studios. Manual printing, the method I used to print on fabric, prepares each color separately on a silk screen, and in this case, seven separate screens, to produce the whole pattern.

And Godfrey's barn has no front, and the items within it, or surrounding it, look like old fences, sacks and what look like mattresses. But it is still standing, as are many old and non-functional barns throughout the countryside, waiting to be rediscovered, remodeled, and to be put to use again. Godfrey is a talented painter, whose oil panel is meticulously painted, to the last blade of grass.

Both pieces allude to a surer time, when no-one questioned the "favourtism" of a home's choice of colors. When curtains WERE colorful, and the black/white/gray/beige variety that line "designer" stores these days (for color and variety, go to Walmart!) And both have solid structures: the barn still has an upright frame, and all a farmer need do is restore the floors and facade; the pattern promises of a home of florals. And both reference a time in the recent past when we had such things in our landscapes, both internal and external, and lived better lives through them.

Waiting to Skate

Waiting to Skate
[Photo By KPA]

This little girl was briefly out on the skating rink in Mississauga's City Centre, but had to come back into the shelter because the Zamboni was clearing the snow, which would fill up the cleared tracks just a few minutes later. We were in the middle of one of the worst snow blizzards I had experienced. A few brave souls went out nonetheless. I went because I wanted to view the latest exhibition at the Art Gallery of Mississauga which had opened day before. Here's my post on two works. The gallery would open a half hour later at noon - on week-ends. She came with her sister I am sure convincing their mother that it would be OK. She (and her older sister) got an apple each for their efforts!

Three Wise Men in the Modern World

The Adoration of the Magi
Copy woven 1894 for the Corporation of Manchester
Designed by Edward Burne Jones with details by William Morris and John Henry Dearle
The Adoration of the Magi, tapestry, wool and silk on cotton warp, 101 1/8 x 151 1/4 inches
Manchester Metropolitan University

E. Michael Jones is referring to the Three Wise Men as "The Three Wise Persians."

This is both biblically and historically incorrect.

It appears that Jones' insistence on the Persian origin of ALL the magi may be to give credence to the current, Islamic, anti-American, regime in Iran and to connect the birth of Christ with a Persian legacy, and to legitimize the "Death to America" chants of Iranians in Tehran. The Persians after all acknowledged the birth of the Messiah, and even brought him gifts.

The world is becoming anti-American, anti-West, and anti-Christian. Jones should know this. No ancient gift would expiate the ruthless aggression of this "Death to America" or its subtext, "Death to Christian America," proclamation. And why doesn't Jones understand, or acknowledge this?

Perhaps he does wish "death to America," in an innocent desire to abate what he believes is now a sinful, Godless, country, and to start afresh with a country which he believes could be re-positioned closer to God.

Here are some biblical and historical accounts of these magical, ancient, men: kings who came from afar to pay homage to the infant Christ.

From Matthew 2:1–12:

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.'" Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another path.

The biblical version identifies these men as "wise men from the east."

Biblical historians and analysts say:

They were of noble birth, educated, wealthy, and influential. They were philosophers, the counselors of rulers, learned in all the wisdom of the ancient East. The wise men who came seeking the Christ child were not idolaters; they were upright men of integrity.

They had apparently studied the Hebrew Scriptures and found there a clear transcript of truth. In particular, the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament must have claimed their attention, and among these they found the words of Balaam: “A Star shall come out of Jacob; a Scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Numbers 24:17, NKJV). They certainly were acquainted with the prophecy of Micah: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel” (Micah 5:2, NKJV; see also Matthew 2:5, 6). They probably also knew and understood the time prophecy of Daniel regarding the appearance of the Messiah (see Daniel 9:25, 26) and came to the conclusion that His coming was near.
[Source: The Magi]

And

They have become known most commonly as Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar (or Casper). According to Western church tradition, Balthasar is often represented as a king of Arabia or sometimes Ethiopia, Melchior as a king of Persia, and Gaspar as a king of India. [Source: Britannica.com]

And a more precise origin of Balthasar as an Ethiopian:

Balthasar is the young black King of Ethiopia and wears a purple/blue cloak. Balthasar is traditionally associated with the gift of myrrh. [Source: Jesuit Institute, London: Feast of the Epiphany]

An explanation: Ethiopia stands at the southern post of the Arabian peninsula, and is often categorized as an "Arabian" land. Its history may connect it to Arabia, but it has always maintained an independent and separate identity. It is very likely that one of the magi did come from Ethiopia.

And here is a longer account (and analysis) concluding that the probable land of origin of one of the magi was Ethiopia. Sheba's empire, now part of the modern state of Yemen, reached far north from what is currently Ethiopia into the Yemen.

Scholars have tried to connect the gifts the Queen of Sheba brought with the possible location of Sheba. She brought spices, gold, and precious stones, all products of extreme wealth. Spices, in particular frankincense and myrrh, came from the area of modern-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia, on the African coast of the Red Sea. Ancient gold mines have been found in the same area.

And

That Abyssinia (Ethiopia) was peopled from South Arabia is proved linguistically...[Source: Britannica.com]

And below is an excerpt from the chapter “Where is Medieval Ethiopia? Mapping Ethiopic Studies within Medieval Studies” by Suzanne Conklin Akbari (of the University of Toronto), in Toward a Gobal Middle Ages: Encountering the World through Illuminated Manuscripts (Ed. Bryan Keene).
[Note 1: images referenced in the text can be viewed at the linked site
Note 2: T-O map refers to a type of early world map]

In theological terms, Ethiopia was understood as a place of special grace and apocalyptic expectation. In the Hebrew Bible, the story of Solomon and Sheba was interpreted in terms of a mystical union that brought the earthly Jerusalem into contact with the southern riches of Ethiopia; in the Acts of the Apostles, the queen of Ethiopia, named Candace, is identified as the ruler of the Ethiopian eunuch who converts to Christianity. Apocryphal stories of the Magi, seen in a twelfth-century Beatus manuscript from San Petro de Cardeña (1175–85; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991.232.1), also associate one of the three wise men with Ethiopia, in a reassertion of the fundamentally tripartite division of the world found in the medieval world maps and medieval encyclopaedias. These texts divide the world into three parts—Asia, Africa, and Europe—to correspond to the three sons of Noah: Shem is associated with Asia, the biggest part; Ham, the outcast, with Africa; and Japheth, the youngest, with Europe. The three Magi recapitulate the sons of Noah, but while the sons of Noah are scattered outward into the wide world after the Flood, their descendants populating each of the three continents, the three Magi come inward toward the sacred center of the nativity. On this Beatus manuscript page, a depiction of the Virgin and Child with the Magi, to the right, is integrated within a larger genealogy laid out in a series of linked circles, plus the familiar form of the T-O world map at the top left. Note that the T-O map includes not just the names of the three continents, but also the three sons of Noah, as a visible reminder of the Old Testament prefiguration of the three Magi, seen at right. The economy of type and antitype is expressed in terms of word and image, with the
names of the sons of Noah foreshadowing the vivid human forms of the three Magi.

Depictions of the Magi vary in how they present the ethnic origins of each of the three kings. Some, such as the Beatus image mentioned above and as in a book of hours from Naples (1460s; Los Angeles, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. Ludwig IX 12), show exotic dress but only moderate differences of physiognomy, while others, as in the Prayer Book of Albrecht of Brandenburg illuminated by Simon Bening (ca. 1483–1561), show bodily diversity more vividly, with black skin (fig. 4.4). Like the Ethiopian magus, depictions of the Queen of Sheba also vary in how they portray ethnicity. While there was a rich medieval commentary tradition on the Song of Songs that interpreted the allegory of the beautiful and black bride in historical terms, as the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba, pictorial depictions of the encounter of Solomon and Sheba often show the queen as fair-skinned, as in the page by Simon Bening that faces his image of the Magi.10 The queen is attended by two other women, her attendance on Solomon and offering of gifts appearing as a counterpart to the offerings of the three Magi. To put it another way, a chain of typological prefigurations links various moments in salvation history, with each one of them rooted in an essential notion of Ethiopian identity. In one typological relationship, the sons of Noah prefigure, and are fulfilled in, the three Magi. In a second typological relationship, the encounter of Solomon and Sheba, and the tribute offered by the Ethiopian queen to the king of Israel, is fulfilled in the tribute offered by the Ethiopian magus to the newborn king of the new Israel.

Tresor on January 10

Tresor

January 10th:

Capricorns born on January 10 have heightened perception and fiercely held likes and dislikes. They are not shy about dealing with others in a direct and honest manner. They have no secret agenda. They are proud of their forthright approach to life and may even flaunt it.

Pretty much true, if I may say so myself.

We Are His Workmanship

Mississauga City Hall Clock Tower
[Photo By: KPA]

Ephesians 2:10 King James Version (KJV)
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The Mississauga Civic Centre: Photo Exhibit

Here is my most recent exhibition at the Mississauga Central Library,as well as my previous two.

All posted at Ontario Views

The World According to Greta

I imagine that Greta must be really difficult to get along with. Her sense of importance, her grandiose view of herself, must distance her, and even ridicule her, in the eyes of her contemporaries (that is other sixteen-year-olds).

Sure, she has been abducted by nefarious and evil adults, who will toss a child to Moloch's grasping octopus arms. But she also set the stage.

People are often too ready to excuse children.

By age seven or eight, there is already an established sense of right and wrong, even in children who were raised otherwise.

God's word, God's message, is an intuitive message. Right and Wrong are certainly culturally learned, but they are also innate to all human beings, and I believe as young as seven, and even younger.

Ask a child if he has lied, and he will go through a whole convoluted theatrics of "No! He hasn't!" with the incriminating evidence right beside him. It may be the degree of sophistication that is different between adults and children, but not the knowledge itself.

So, Greta, now no longer the eleven-year-old child who "started" this movement but a young sixteen-year-old woman, may be surrounded by hordes of malevolent adult allies, but she alone comes up with the Truth herself.

Her "climate change" message has NOT resonated with the political and cultural elite. Television shows are mocking her, and she is under no "youth" protection to NOT be mocked, having put herself in that limelight.

And even the Nobel Prize which she lost, and which I think digs much deeper than she lets on, is better off without her. And perhaps her continued perseverance, her insistence, was spiked by this loss. "The World Hates Me And Here's The Proof."

The Nobel Prize for Peace winner, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, has been thankfully removed from the spotlight because of this narcissistic young woman and her entourage, and he can continue the serious matter of leading his country removed from the malevolent eyes of the Western world, whose communist/liberal leaders would sabotage his Meddemer movement if they weren't so skillfully distracted by this new "religious" icon.

Do not be afraid to critique, and to criticize, "young" children. The normal step would be of course to remove them and put them in the proverbial corner, or mete out some other appropriate punishment.

But in our Brave New World, shine the light on Greta's narcissistic needs and let her lead those marches, allow her to speak in her disjointed language, permit her to proclaim rude messages to world leaders.

Meanwhile, an important revolution is happening at the other end of the world, which Greta in her arrogance has dismissed. After all, who cares about Africa when there are real global climate issues to contend with.

This, as usual, is the disguised racist stance of Western countries, mostly liberals, who will tag on religiously to a fraudulent icon while dismissing the lives and hopes, and dreams of change of a country far away in the dark continent of Africa.

Greta is cleverer than you think, and she is out to get what she wants. We are not quite sure what that is...yet.

Good Vs. Evil

Call Me Jen

Reclaiming Beauty has always been about popular culture, as a non-elitist stand which pulls ordinary people, and others, into a world of beauty, culture, and society, that aims to prevail over the nihilism that is (I believe deliberately set-up) part of our contemporary world.

So, let's go into the real pop culture, a world which the Walmart checkout lines display in full view. Where young women scan assiduously as they get ready to buy the next edition of InStyle for the exorbitant price of a book - that's $9 Canadian for me.

One of my favorite actresses, Jennifer Aniston, is back into the real world.

She suffered a lot. Her husband, the handsome Brad Pitt, and by all accounts the love of her life, abandoned her for that evil woman, Angelina Jolie. You don't believe me? Then look at what Jolie is up to these days (image courtesy of the movies), in her new movie Malfecent: Mistress of Evil.


Angelina Jolie in the second edition of the movie Maleficent, with her Devil's horns

Jennifer was engaged to someone else - a second-rate actor, nowhere near the talent of Pitt (at least in his pre-Jolie, pre-global adoption years) - but apparently broke it off.

She is now back on track, looking as young and fresh as Rachel Green, in her Friends days, a show of which I was a great fan, only to see what was the latest outfit that the photogenic and charismatic Rachel (aka Jennifer) wore.



Poor Rachel. She was cast with these wimpy, erratic men, more "female" than her. But she, in her wisdom, never outshone them unless it was in dress or in her ability to get out of their pathetically induced difficult situations. Jennifer ALWAYS came out on top.

Now, Brad Pitt is back in the market. I think he's super handsome, which may have been his Achilles heel. He was in some late night talk show recently, and he did pretty well.



Jennifer can win him back. Cleverly, and with femininity.

She is, after all a Single Woman, and he an eligible (divorced/separated) bachelor.

And Jolie, against whom Aniston never uttered a SINGLE malevolent word, is out making her witching tale, conniving with the Devil and his horns, and a new edition of her film franchise Malefecent.

I hope her Ethiopian adopted daughter turns to Pitt (her adopted father), and to Jennifer, for her salvation.

Blasphemy With the Poor

Matthew 26: 6-11

6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,

7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.

8 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.

10 When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.

11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.

13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

Zanele Muholi (South Africa)
Miss D’Vine II, 2007
From the series Miss D’vine
Chromogenic print

The image above is from the exhibition The Way She Looks: The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, a photography exhibit on photographs by and of African women at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC).

The exhibition's photographs were assembled from the Walther Collection

RIC Facebook page here
RIC web page here

A perverted, selected, imagery of African Women

Real Beauty
From the exhibition: The Way She Looks
At the Ryerson Image Centre

The gyrating "African Woman," exploited by those who claim to be on her side, but who voyeuristically inspect her every fold of fat, which feed in nicely into their "African Woman as Our Savior" discourse.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time"

Fall Leaf Patterns
[Photo Collage By: KPA]

Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time.

African Woman

Jodi Bieber
Babalwa, from the series Real Beauty
2008, pigment print

Above image from the Ryerson Image Centre exhibition: The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, on view also at the RIC website, and other publications such as Canadian Art. More information at the RIC Facebook page.


African Woman,
Dj Shimza (South Africa)