David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.


21 August 2011

Disappearance Day Centenary

.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the theft of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa [aka La Gioconda/La Joconde] from the Musée du Louvre, Paris, by Vincenzo Peruggia (below).


detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...

LOGOS/HA HA

Here are a few of y/our postcards from around that time


click image to enlarge
all of which, under your image, recount the bottom line :

LA JOCONDE, de Léonard de Vinci
Disparue du Musée du Louvre le 21 Aout 1911

Mona Lisa_1911 Postcard_#1 image_sRGB_400

On this first card someone's over-written that, upside down
so you can glance down and read,
and over your lovely mouth there's a smudge of postal ink
or somesuch



It's the sort of thing could provoke a young Marcel
to pen a saucy mot and
add a hairy frame a swell
o' tongue et la langue, even


by Marcel Duchamp (1919) : click image to enlarge

Here's another postal souvenir to celebrate this day and date.
Just three weeks since your disappearance,
the sender signs their initials and their date (Le 13/9/11)

Mona Lisa_Postcard 1911_signed & dated
over the monogram of the printer,
or is it of the publisher?
or some passing engraver tagger?



The more you are
the less you are

The less you are
the more you are
Infinitely Empty

Supreme Goddess as Void
with projection-space for image

2011.08.11_SG as VOID_Mona L_400w
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...

LOGOS/HA HA

HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY

from all your admirers at

bLOGOS/HA HA