12 Thursday Sep 2019
Posted in art
There are many ways of expressing beauty, and art is one of the best. This is a nice painting by Luc-Olivier Merson, a French artist (1846-1920). Although he is primarily known as someone who belonged the Academic traditions of art, we see here some influence of the Impressionists, especially in the hazy color scheme and overall atmosphere.
01 Monday Jul 2019
A beautiful woman stands before a rocky bay, her hair tussled by the wind. There is something almost classical about this photo. In fact, if I could, I would say that Botticelli himself would have enjoyed painting such a scene.
It is now July. The summer is in full swing. And it has been too long, far too long since Racer X devoted himself to the purely erotic passions of life. Yes, he must resume this. Beauty is too powerful, and life too short. to delay any longer.
There is now much that needs to be said. It is time to once again renew this blog.
29 Tuesday Jan 2019
Sometimes just a few simple lines can express much…
02 Friday Feb 2018
Hylas and the Nymphs from Waterhouse
15 Sunday Oct 2017
This is a little bit of beauty for a Sunday. It is always good, especially in the age of Harvey Weinstein, to reassert the value of good erotic art. An erotic sculpture, painting or photograph is something to be valued, even if just in private. A good erotic image should show the beauty of the human form, and instill within us some pleasant feeling of the goodness of creation. Good erotic art is meant to uplift and celebrate our humanity and the pleasures of love, and not, as Harvey Weisntein and most of his Hollywood ilk do, debase and sully what is supposed to be a beautiful gift from God.
29 Sunday Jan 2017
Posted in art
This is a nice work from one of my favorite artists, Raphael (1483-1520). It is appropriate for a Sunday: calm, peaceful and full of beauty!
What is nice about Raphael’s works, especially as representative of the Renaissance art, is the lovely balance and smooth, fluid harmony that they possess. This is a wonderful example of that. Religion should bring us a certain amount of peace, and this painting is quite peaceful.
Great art is always a wonderful nourishment for the soul! It is a great expression of the God’s presence in the world. With all the negativity and bizarre things out there, we need that.
12 Thursday Jan 2017
The white cliffs of Dover Beach in England.
Dover Beach is one of the great poems in the English language. Written by Mathew Arnold (1822-1888), known more for his great cultural and literary criticism rather than his poetry, this poem nevertheless is a gem of beauty. It may been known to many people, but in today’s educational and cultural environment, I would not be surprised if many students graduating from a university with a degree in English have never even read this. After all, Arnold was not a black lesbian; rather, as a white male he is officially one of the great enemies of the modern Leftist zeitgeist which dominates nearly all of academia.
Still, great poetry fortunately transcends the idiocies of modern thought. What is hauntingly beautiful about his poem is the deep melancholy expressed, a melancholy which is born from the deepening lack of religious faith that Arnold saw overtaking his society. The world in which this poem was written, that of Victorian England at its most glorious, might seem today exceedingly religious. And yet for Arnold, it was not. Imagine what he would think of today’s world.
In addition to a poem about faith, it is also a love poem. Arnold is addressing his young wife in the poem, “Ah, love, let us be true/ to one another!” and he appeals to the power of love to help overcome the dissolution of religious belief.
The beauty of great poem does wonders for the soul. Like good music, it is really not something that can be truly quantified, but rather, it is better simply to appreciate it, to let it infuse the mind and heart with whatever nuances and images and verbal rhythms and echoes it possesses. And this poem possesses all that to the full.
09 Monday Jan 2017
A beautiful blend of heat and ice…
Now that we are in the depths of January, it is good to remember that even winter possesses its own kind of beauty. Yes, it is cold and icy, and now that the happy joy and light of Christmas and New Year’s have passes, it seems there is nothing to look forward to until spring, which seems quite far off. Still, even in the darkest days of winter we can find beauty.
The above photo is quite nice, a stunning juxtaposition of a woman’s soft warmth enclosed within an exotic world of cold and ice. The forces of winter often bring strange and difficult changes in our environment. They do not last though, at least until the next ice age descends upon us.
Now, the ice princess is often a difficult creature to deal with, but we must work with what winter gives us…
11 Sunday Dec 2016
Judi Bowker as Andromeda in Clash of the Titans
The 1981 version of Clash of the Titans is a fun film. Made at a time before CGI, it was not so dependent upon the big screen stunning visuals that are so much a part of today’s cinema, but rather it focused more on the story of Perseus and Andromeda. This ancient Greek myth has always been a favorite story for thousand of years, as it is really a simple fairly tale or love story between a noble hero, Perseus, and a beautiful princess, Andromeda, who is in need of rescue from a sea monster. Although the 1981 film is really a mishmash of various Greek mythological stories, none of which have any relation to each other in traditional mythology, the finished product remains one of the great testimonies to the enduring power of these ancient Classical myths.
Perseus and Andromeda by the 19th Pre-Raphaelite Edward Burne-Jones
The actress who played Andromeda in the movie is the lovely Judi Bowker. Although she made few films, she is fairly well known for this one role, especially for those of us who grew up watching this movie on television, especially in the days before cable. She was the perfect, almost traditional princess in this movie: soft, feminine, vulnerable, and endowed with a gentleness that is attractive to all men. It is interesting to contrast her traditional femininity, so lovely and alluring, with the hardness and barren masculinization of so many contemporary females. Like the myth itself, she seems to belong to an age which has vanished.
Harry Hamlin played Perseus in the 1981 film, one of the reasons why a lot of girls enjoyed it as well.
Films should be fun. They are entertainment. Too many of today’s movies, even the ones that are attempting to be simple stories, are so infused and saturated with social justice PC bullshit that they are unbearable to watch. I go to a movie to escape from the world, not to be lectured to by snobbish and insufferable Hollywood elites about every latest Leftist fad and cause.
So this movie, like the myth itself, was and remains a great piece of entertainment. It is free from all the nonsense of contemporary cinema, and presents a simple, traditional story, as just that, a simple, traditional story. And the simple, traditional beauty of Judi Bowker only makes the film that much more delightful.
One more photo of her…we can’t get enough!
It is always a great pleasure to see such beauty, whether in film or real life!
19 Saturday Nov 2016
Posted in art, beauty, religion, spirituality
A beautiful drawing by Leonardo
I am not sure if I have posted this image before, but this is one of my favorite drawings by one of my favorite artist, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). What I find so alluring about his works is his ability to capture a kind of strange, other worldliness, and to do so with the most exquisite beauty imaginable. Although Leonardo was at best an agnostic, his works still reflect the deep religious feelings of his time, especially in Catholic Italy of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. When I see his works I am reminded that, at least for me, we are physical beings journeying through a world of spirit and and transcendent mysticism.
This is merely a sketch. And yet is has such beauty, evocative and alluring and even mystical, that is really cannot be explained in words. Most great art cannot.
