"To take a photograph means putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis."

Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) is one of the unique, accomplished, influential, and dearly loved figures in the history of photography. His ingenious and innovative work of the 1930s helped frame and launch the creative potential of modern photography. He will always be infamous in the art world as one of the first candid photographers as his uncanny ability to capture life on-the-run made his work synonymous with “the decisive moment”— the concept he described as the time when you take a great photograph, capturing the essence of something.  “To photograph is to hold one’s breath, when all faculties converge to capture fleeting reality. It’s at that precise moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.”  Take a look at some of my favorite photos that he took throughout his magnificent influential career... Queen Charlotte’s Ball London, 1959 Martine's Legs,1968 Au Bord de la Marn, 1938 (Henri Matisse is in this one !) Jardin des Plantes, Paris (Couples Embracing; One with Child), 1959 Italy, 1933 Rue Mouffetard, 1954

A couple of my favorite french items for today.

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I've been craving this for a while now. Hopefully I will be attending a french wedding very soon. This Croque en Bouche is traditionally a french wedding cake. It is très délicieux and everything and anything I would ever want in a desert. 

2.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' Le Grande Odalisque 1814 (Louvre, Paris, France) has inspired me today with its everlasting beauty that truly stands the test of time. Having studied in David's school in France, he was a well trained artist yet did not let the restrictions of anatomical realism in neoclassicism interfere with his Romantic vision for this gorgeously rendered sensually exotic harem woman. Ingres did not consider himself a modernist, he strove to be like Rafael and create works whose spirit would remain alive through epochs that would follow its time of creation. In my opinion, he succeeded.

“Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Pablo Picasso

Picasso’s Weeping Woman, 1937

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Andy Warhol Camouflage Suite, 1987

“What can I do that would be abstract but not really abstract?”

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Erik Parker Royal, 2008

No matter how flamboyant the compositions, Erik Parker's psychadelic work has a very raw yet wholesome feel to it. Unusual and intricate geometric forms twist and turn, while vibrant colors drip and ooze, showing the convolution of psychological and emotional workings of the mind.

If you are in the LA area, be sure to catch Erik Parker’s new exhibition, Endless Anytime at Honor Fraser Gallery in Culver City.

October 30, 2010 — December 18, 2010

 

Venus transcends through Herve Leger's New Collection

  Above is the image of Botticelli's Venus that represents all of the complexities of women with a seemingly endless array of exceptional love, fertility, war, birth, death, magic, mystery, marriage, maidenhood, sorrow. This image evokes alluring beauty, sensuality, and passion. Venus, goddess of love, represents an agent provocateur of sensual desire and infatuation, whose enchanting charms were enough to lure even the gods into acts of lust and illicit love. 

Venus' reputation and image of classical beauty transcend magnificently through to present-day style in Herve Leger's Fall and Spring 2010 line (below). These bold-statement-making dresses are empirically rendered to flatter the beautiful womanly figure with simplicity, in true Venus-like style, in the midst of an unexpectedly exciting nude color palette. 

Fall 2010 Herve Leger:

 

Spring 2010 Herve Leger

http://www.herveleger.com/

Let The Eyes Say It All!

Hello! Today is a great day because after a week of rain and gray skies, snuggling up by the fire, and way too many excuses as to why I could not work out, the beautiful sun has made an appearance and there is finally life popping up in every corner. People are actually willing to leave there house tonight... AMEN. Mainly, I am happy because I get to pull out my favorite pair of sunglasses. Peggy's pair! I got them at the Peggy Guggenheim foundation gift shop in Venice, Italy.

Peggy Guggenheim was glamorous icon for Art as well as Fashion. Her trademark look in the 60s was her winged, gondola-shaped, vintage sunglasses usually encrusted with little stones. She was a bold woman who knew herself well, allowing herself to run freely with her eccentric style, nothing held her back. And for this reason, she became admirable.

This is Karl Lagerfeld's use of the sunglasses in his Peggy inspired photo shoot...

Chic Women Who Will Forever Feed Our Souls

To start this blog, I would love to share with you a few of the women that inspire me most. As a young college student, I look up to these women as strong, beautiful, sophisticated, and elegantly chic women who contribute greatly to the idea of beauty and aesthetics in a way that it impacted the world in many different ways. If you are like me and ever wonder whether an actual universal beauty exists, these women are to thank for sparking that interest. Their major contribution to the portrayal of an ideal beauty in varied forms of art along with their ethereal personalities make them divinely inspirational!

One of the first Divas was Lyda Borelli. Borellismo was a term coined in Italy to describe the craze and obsession that teenage girls used to describe Lyda. Girls strove to imitate her twisted postures and her decadent strange Pre-Raphaelite beauty. She was thin with thick, wavy, dark blond hair, that accompanied her distinct poses. Lyda was a star because she pushed the envelope of social norm by portraying odd film roles as a cryptic and ethereal woman.

The next woman needs no introduction, Sofia Coppola.

And finally, Peggy Guggenheim.