Artsy Fartsy time

The other day I was wandering aimlessly on the 'net, trying to find a picture of particularly powerful pulchritude (ha) to adorn my computer desktop. I kinda ran out of time and settled on the picture you see here at left...

Go here to see the high-def. GINORMOUS version that I put on my desktop.

As I'd said, I kinda ran out of time to find something and just settled for this one. Which is not to say that I don't like it, it's just not what I was looking for exactly. But y'know....the more I stare at it, the more it intrigues me. Methinks I shall let it remain on my desktop for a spell. It's by Georges de la Tour, a French Baroque era painter who lived 1593-1652. I'm generally not that into pre-nineteenth century stuff. I'm really a sucker for the whole Pre-Raphealite asthetic--Waterhouse and all that crew. I think pre-1700 and I imagine ancient SCARY art...something along the lines of like Hieronymous Bosch (yyyyikes!!) But even though the subject in this work are wearing obviously 17th century attire--- the crazy epaulets and boobie-smashing bodices--- there's something about his painting style that strikes me as modern. I dunno, I dunno, I clearly do not know what the hell I'm talking about. I started to read an essay on de la Tour where the writer opened by comparing him to Vermeer, and I kinda see the similarity.

Here is what is intriguing me (thus securing this piece's place on my desktop for the time being)
It's called "The Card Sharp" this piece, and pretty obviously de la Tour is referring to the player in the left side
foreground. He maybe "sharp" but he's not exceedingly slick. Even the serving wench can tell he's cheating. Another thing I noticed about this strangely contorted cheater--you have to look at the blown-up high res image to catch this though--the guy looks exactly like Rob Lowe. Eerie. It might be that Rob's great-great-great-great-great-great-great (how many greats do I need to do to get back to the early to mid 1600s??) great great grampa looked EXACTLY like him, but I highly doubt that. I suspect, rather, that I've hit upon one of the greatest uncovered celeb secret of our time. ROB LOWE IS A VAMPIRE!!

It's also possible that the serving wench (are those anchors on her blouse??) is not on to Rob Lowe's disingenous sporting maneuver.... her and the bosslady could be exchanging looks about the card player at far right who may well be an adolescent girl in drag. She like, read it in Twelfth Night, and thought that just anyone could go incognito as a man in real life but she's not fooling anybody, although nobody's letting her know that they ain't fooled. I mean look at that look...the serving wench gives the bosslady a look of "What the hell is THAT all about???" and bosslady's clearly shooting back an "I KNOW!!!!!"

Ok so, I'm no Sister Wendy, but that's my take on "The Card Sharp". And that concludes the cultural portion of my blog......FOR TODAY. Be forewarned...I aim to show my readership (all 4 or 5 of youse) that I am not only a couch-tater...I can do multi-faceted. Or try to.

Oh, and as for the Wizard of Oz trivia... in the book, Dorothy's kicks were silver. Apparently when they shot the 1939 movie, they found that on film, silver didn't look so hot against the Yellow Brick Rd so they altered the hue de shoe.