Yet, I am afraid. I heard Mr Boehner, courtesy of the BBC. He mentioned the Affordable Care Act, but called it what it should no longer be called: Obamacare. The name of the programme is the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act, or ACA, and it is a long-awaited health-insurance plan.
Warren Buffet: “It would be ‘asinine’ if US defaults.”
I listened to Warren Buffet. He stated that the “house” would no longer use a government shutdown to negotiate a rise in the debt ceiling.
All I know about the deal is that, although it will “pass,” it is a short-term arrangement. I expect therefore that we will soon be watching a replay of the drama that is currently ending. When “negotiations” resume, there may not be a government shutdown, but I do not think extremist Republicans will ever want to fund the Affordable Care Act. As for the rich, they will continue to oppose paying their fair share of taxes.
The Raises
Here is the history of the United States debt ceiling, from Wikipedia.
US government indebtedness has been the norm in United States financial history, as well of most Western European and North American countries, for the past 200 years.
The US has been in debt every year except for 1835.
Every President since Herbert Hoover has added to the national debt expressed in absolute dollars. The debt ceiling has been raised 74 times since March 1962,including 18 times under Ronald Reagan, eight times under Bill Clinton, seven times under George W. Bush, and five times under Barack Obama.
Conclusion
This is a brief post. I will end it by saying that I am delighted the crisis is over. We can breathe again. However, we have now seen an episode of obstructionism: a government shutdown. I just hope President Obama will not be blamed. That would be scapegoating. Who knows, President Obama may have gained supporters.
As an academic painter, Matisse earned recognition from the start. In 1896, the year he painted his Maid, he was elected an associate member of the Salon – academic – society. Moreover, his Woman Reading (1894), shown in the gallery below, was purchased by the government. However, Matisse’s artistic orientation broadened when he visited Australian artist John Peter Russell who had settled with his wife at Belle-Île, off the coast of Brittany. Russell knew Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, which could explain the Fauvist period of Matisse’s life. Fauvism is characterized by the use of vivid colours. But, generally speaking, Matisse was an eclectic modernist. His training as an academic painter served him well, as did the year he spent in England studying the works of J. M. W. Turner. Matisse’s paintings also reflect the influence of Japanese and Islāmic art but, above all, they stem from an inner and very personal vision. Artists are influenced by what they are seeking.
Fauvism: Le Salon d’automne, 1905
However, Matisse is linked with an art movement called Fauvism. Following his trip to Belle-Île, Matisse turned to vibrant colours. In 1905, he showed Woman with a Hat at the Salon d’Automne. The Salon d’Automne is an annual art exhibition held in Paris France since 1903. Woman with a Hat, a portrait of his wife Amélie,brought criticism to Matisse. After visiting the Salon d’Automne “Paris critic Louis Vauxcelles called the group les fauves (“the wild beasts”), and thus Fauvism, the first of the important “isms” in 20th-century painting, was born. Almost immediately Matisse became its acknowledged leader.”[i] Other “fauvistes” are André Derain, its co-founder, and Maurice de Vlaminck.
Woman with a Hat, 1905
By 1905, “Matisse’s studies led him to reject traditional renderings of three-dimensional space and to seek instead a new picture space defined by movement of colour. He exhibited his famous Woman with the Hat (1905) at the 1905 exhibition. In this painting, brisk strokes of colour—blues, greens, and reds—form an energetic, expressive view of the woman. The crude paint application, which left areas of raw canvas exposed, was appalling to viewers at the time.”[ii] Matters were remedied when Gertrude Stein and brother Leo bought the painting which is now the property of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The foremost patron and promoter of Henri Matisse’s art was Sarah Stein, Michael Stein’s wife. As for Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) and Alice B. Toklas (April 30, 1877 – March 7, 1967), they had a salon, 27, rue de Fleurus, to which artists and art collectors flocked on an appointed day, Saturday I believe. In 1928, when he was composing An American in Paris,George Gershwin (September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) noted that “[his] purpose here [was] to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere.” (See An American in Paris, Wikipedia.) In the 1920s, Gershwin had been a student of famed pianist, composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger (16 September 1887 – 22 October 1979).
Americans in Paris: Gertrude Stein & brothers
At that time in the history of art, the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, the beau monde of the United States, Hemingway and others, lived in Paris, some, on an almost permanent basis, others, as frequent visitors. The Cone (Kahn – Guggenheimer) sisters, Claribel and Etta, visited Paris at every chance and were generous patrons and collectors of modern art. Ironically, the success of modernist artists in France is inextricably linked to America’s Gilded Age and the years preceding the Great Depression. Matisse would soon break from Fauvism and adopt black as a colour. However, as of his Woman with a Hat and the support of Paris’ American colony, he had become an established artist, which gave him some freedom. He lived in relative affluence for the rest of his life, wintering in southern France and traveling.
Alice B. Toklas
On a sadder and somewhat extraneous note, among possessions Matisse’s first American patron, Gertrude Stein, bequeathed to Alice B. Toklas, were works of art, including Picassos. Because Gertrude and Alice were not married, the Stein family repossessed her collection when its value started to rise. According to Wikipedia, “Stein’s relatives took action to claim them, eventually removing them from Toklas’s home while she was away on vacation and placing them in a bank vault.”(SeeAlice B. Toklas, Wikipedia.) Alice was not compensated and died in poverty, which should not have been the case. However, she is buried next to Gertrude in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Matisse’s Last Days
Beginning in 1941, Matisse was in poor health and confined to a bed or a wheelchair. He continued to paint sometimes using a stick to which a pencil or brush was attached. He was cared for “by a faithful Russian woman who had been one of his models in the early 1930s, he lived in a large studio in the Old Hôtel Regina at Cimiez, overlooking Nice.”[iii]
Tiny Gallery
(Please click on the images to enlarge them.)
Branch of Lilacs, 1914
Crockery on Table, 1900
Woman Reading, 1896 (bought by the government)
Luxe 1, 1907
Photo credit: Google and Wikipaintings (Lilacs)
Not only has Philip Scott Johnson made the lovely video we saw on 3 April 2013, on Picasso, but he has made a series of videos, one of which is on Matisse. The music is Debussy‘s Arabesque No. 1 in E Major, performed by Peter Schmalfuss, piano.
John Boehner and President Barack Obama
(Photo credit: The Telegraph, UK)
© Micheline Walker
October 16, 2013
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