Showing posts with label Ides of March. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ides of March. Show all posts

Friday, March 15, 2013

Arty Farty Friday 15 March

15 March 44 BC : Julius Caesar was murdered on the Ides of March.
Typogravure of a 19th century painting by Karl von Piloty:



Julius Caesar, the "dictator for life" of the Roman Empire, murdered by his own senators at a meeting in a hall next to Pompey's Theatre. The conspiracy against Caesar encompassed as many as sixty noblemen, including Caesar's own protege, Marcus Brutus. Caesar was scheduled to leave Rome to fight in a war on March 18 and had appointed loyal members of his army to rule the Empire in his absence. The Republican senators, already chafing at having to abide by Caesar's decrees, were particularly angry about the prospect of taking orders from Caesar's underlings. Cassius Longinus started the plot against the dictator, quickly getting his brother-in-law Marcus Brutus to join.

Caesar should have been well aware that many of the senators hated him, but he dismissed his security force not long before his assassination. Reportedly, Caesar was handed a warning note as he entered the senate meeting that day but did not read it. After he entered the hall, Caesar was surrounded by senators holding daggers. Servilius Casca struck the first blow, hitting Caesar in the neck and drawing blood. The other senators all joined in, stabbing him repeatedly about the head. Marcus Brutus wounded Caesar in the groin and Caesar is said to have remarked in Greek, "You, too, my child?
From This Day in History.






Nearer to our own time:

Janet Leach was born 15 March 1918 in Grand Saline, Texas, USA died 12 September 1997. She was a studio potter working in later life at St Ives, Cornwall in England. In 1956 she married Bernard Leach, a famous British studio potter. Janet was a potter in her own right before meeting Bernard and her independent spirit ensured that her work was quite different from much of her husband's in style. She never felt the need to pay reverence to her husband's work, was sometimes even critical of it. In return her own work was not always valued within the St Ives Studio, much of it remained hidden. David, Bernard Leach's son from one of his previous marriages, stated before his father's death: "Janet must be the one person who has worked closely with him for a number of years without being visibly influenced. She is so strong in herself that she has maintained more independence than anyone else who has been as close to that dangerous fire, my father!"

See more about Janet Leach HERE and HERE








Aldo Giorgini, artist and scientist, pioneer in computer graphics, was born in Voghera, Italy on 15 March 1934. He was one of the first computer artists to combine software writing with early printing technologies, leaving an aesthetic legacy in the field of the digital arts. He died in 1994.








Ruth Bader Ginsburg United States Supreme Court Justice was born on
15 March 1933, in Brooklyn, New York. Simmie Knox, under commission of the United States Supreme Court painted this portrait of her. She is the second female justice (after Sandra Day O'Connor) and the first Jewish female justice. She is generally viewed as belonging to the liberal wing of the Court. Before becoming a judge, Ginsburg spent a considerable portion of her legal career as an advocate for the advancement of women's rights as a constitutional principle. (Wikipedia)






Finally - another link to the date, and - stretching things a bit to achieve arty-fartyness - a famous ceiling painting by Caravaggio (the only ceiling painting by him).

The date:

Every 248 years Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for about 20 years. The period January 23, 1979 to March 15, 1999 was the last time Pluto's very eccentric orbit carried it inside the orbit of Neptune. During that time, Neptune became the outermost planet in the solar system.

For 35 interesting facts about Pluto, see Random Facts, HERE



The painting:






The fresco, features Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune as allegorical representations of alchemy. The artist used his own body and facial features as model for the figures. Jupiter stands for sulphur and air, Neptune for mercury and water, and Pluto for salt and earth. The fresco was commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte for the ceiling of a small second-floor alchemy lab of his hunting lodge in 1597.

On his eagle, Jupiter swoops down towards Neptune and Pluto, who are standing at the opposite edge of the ceiling, as if he were making the sky light up with a crystal ball. Any interpretation of the gathering of the gods, seen, unusually, from below, must shift between mythology (the gods, identified by the animal associated with each: an eagle for Jupiter, a sea stallion for Neptune and the three-headed dog Cerberus for Pluto); astrology (zodiac signs can be seen on the globe), and alchemy.
Hat tip to Guia Bargigli at THIS BLOG for clear representations, information and interpretation of the painting.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Movie Monday ~ The Ides of March ~ Ryan Gosling ~ US Politics

I'd been waiting to see The Ides of March since first reading of it months ago. The movie never did reach our local cinema, so we awaited the DVD release, rented it during its first week out. Main reason for being so keen to see the movie: Paul Giamatti is in it. Bored, disgusted and disillusioned as I'm feeling about the whole US political circus, The Ides of March's fictional political scenario wasn't enough to put me off seeing a performance by Giamatti.

Sad to report, though, I was disappointed in the movie, apart from Giamatti's performance. He never disappoints; Philip Seymour Hoffman likewise.

Maybe I was expecting too much. Maybe the travesty that is real-life US politics has by now completely deadened my appetite for more. I've enjoyed every past political movie - seen all the big ones, and a few lesser known. This is the first where my reaction was definitely: "Meh!".

The film is an adaptation of an original stage play, Farragut North, by Beau Willimon who assisted George Clooney and Grant Heslov in writing the screenplay. Strange title - Farragut North; it is, I discovered, a Metro station in Washington DC in the business district. I suspect the story's transition from stage to screen may be where something went wrong. I understand that in the original stage version the candidate character (George Clooney in the movie) never appears, is only referenced. Dialogue is between campaign managers and other "interested parties". I can kind of see how that would have worked. The presentation would have been a more oblique and subtle look at the backroom workings of political power. Simplifying it all, filling in the blanks, joining the dots for a movie audience might have brought the whole thing down a notch or several, caused it to become...I don't know....shallow, facile, comic-bookish?

Cast of the movie at the Venice Film Festival. Photo from HERE.

Clooney isn't the "star" of the film, but plays a key character: one of two Democratic primary candidates duking it out for the nomination. Ryan Gosling is meant to have the star-billing. He plays an up and coming press secretary in Clooney's campaign workforce. It's the first time I've seen him in a movie. He has earned the reputation of being a real hot shot actor, yet I didn't "get" him or believe this characterisation at all. He mumbled much of his dialogue, it was a real effort for me to understand at times, and such a relief when superb actors, Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman delivered their lines. There's also something about Ryan Gosling's face that just doesn't appeal. Eyes too close together?

George Clooney plays George Clooney, pretty much, until the last scenes. Some of his campaign speeches were music to my ears - or would have been if I hadn't lived through our current president's campaign speeches - and what has followed.

The two main female characters, a hard-bitten reporter, Marisa Tomei and a supposedly naive intern played by Evan Rachel Wood, both gave decent performances with the rather clichéd material available. In the case of Wood's character there were several plot loopholes, not her fault, of course.

The movie's title, from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, is the best thing about it. There were "Et tu, Brute?" moments for each of the main characters at some point in the movie. (The biggest real life "E tu, Brute?" nowadays is the 99% shouting it out to all politicians, everywhere.)

Bearing in mind what we all know, now, about a succession of political characters in real life, a medley, mosaic or montage of the sum total of it all might satisfy some viewers. I couldn't find it satisfying, not without seeing a few just deserts being dished out. Real life politics may not dish out just deserts very often these days, but it is within the power of movie makers to depict what is missing.

A peek at Ryan Gosling's natal chart. Maybe I can identify something to account for my apathetic reaction to him and his performance which many critics have praised highly.

Born 12 November 1980 in London Ontario. Chart is set for 12 noon - no time of birth known. Moon would be in Capricorn, but degree uncertain. Rising sign unknown.

All his planets lie in the segment of the zodiac between Libra and Capricorn. Not a lot to dislike there. In spite of the clustered formation there's "a bit of everything" : Air, Water, Fire and Earth; Cardinal, Fixed and Mutable involved. The emphasis on just four of the twelve signs indicates a certain strength of focus in his nature, something which, no doubt, will have energised his zoom to success.

Creative Neptune conjunct dynamic Mars in mutable Sagittarius is an excellent combination for an actor.

Without Gosling's time of birth it's not possible to know which of the planets and signs lie in strong positions, i.e. near chart angles (ascendant, mid-heaven and opposite points). That information would throw a brighter light on his real-life personality.

I don't see any astrological reason why I didn't warm to him. To parody another quote from the same source as the movie's title: "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in the movie".

A quote, again from the same source, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and apt in view of the movie's plot and events of the US political scene in 2012:
How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er,
In states unborn, and accents yet unknown
!