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Jack is a graduate of Rutgers University where he majored in history. His career in the life and health insurance industry involved medical risk selection and brokerage management. Retired in Florida for over two decades after many years in NJ and NY, he occasionally writes, paints, plays poker, participates in play readings and is catching up on Shakespeare, Melville and Joyce, etc.

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Painter Ernest Lawson, Religious Discrimination, a "Vargas" Girl and Something from Sid

Over the years, one of the most viewed postings on this blog has been the "Understanding Miro" article posted on January 12, 2011.  You might want to check it out.   Anyway, it has been checked out by art students all over the world after they learn of it via a Google search or a search on some other search engine,   With that in mind, today's posting also reaches into the art world, and just as the Miro article did, it uses a painting hanging in the Norton Museum as a starting point.
Jack Lippman

                                          
            
                                      Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL

The Paintings of Ernest Lawson (1873-1939)

There’s a painting in the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach that has repeatedly caught my eye.  It is by Ernest Lawson and it’s called “Hoboken Heights.”  It shows  some goats grazing on a wintry hill overlooking the buildings of early twentieth century Hoboken.  It is well worth checking out.  Unfortunately, I could not find a copy of it to reproduce on the blog but here are three of his other works.  

An impressionist, clearly influenced by the French, Lawson is included with those painters known as the "Ashcan" school.  He lived in Washington Heights and loved to paint New York scenes.  Of local interest is the fact that Lawson was found dead in 1939 on a beach in Miami. Here are a few of his paintings for your enjoyment, but if you are in the West Palm Beach area, be sure to check out “Hoboken Heights” at the Norton.

Over the River.  A view of New York Harbor from Hoboken Heights.


Brooklyn Bridge  (Terra Collection of Art - Evanston, Illinois)


 
Shadows, Spuyten Duyvil Hill (Spuyten Duyvil is the channel between Inwood in Manhattan and the Bronx).  Do you find this reminiscent of Van Gogh?  Lawson frequently painted scenes in the Inwood area at the northern end of Manhattan.  This is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Incidentally, Hoboken Heights is a pleasant area to visit today.  Home of the campus of Stevens Institute of Technology, it boasts a few nice restaurants and lovely views of Manhattan.  Hoboken is midway between the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River and easily reached by the PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) subway line.  Inwood is also easy to reach by subway;  take the A train (the same one that Duke Ellington took to "Harlem - Sugar Hill").  But unless you are going to a Columbia University home football game there, Inwood is not quite so pleasant as Hoboken is.  To view more of Lawson's paintings, check out http://myinwood.net/artist-ernest-lawson/
JL

                                                               


The Longest Word in the English Language

“Antidisestablishmentarianism” is frequently referred to as the longest word in the English language.  It refers to those who oppose doing away with the Church of England as the established official state religion in that country.  You may note that the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh syllables of this very lengthy word constitute the shorter word, “establishment” which also appears in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”


In Great Britain, the Church of England is the “established” church.  There are those who want to “disestablish” it, and there are those who want to leave things the way they are and are against efforts to “disestablish” the Church.  That’s where the prefix “anti” comes in.  Our founding fathers, recognizing that many of those who settled in the thirteen colonies did so to flee from the strictures of an “establshed” church, made sure this problem would never come up in this country by including the words which conclude the above paragraph in red in the First Amendment to the Constitution.  We owe them our thanks that that long, long word has never, therefore, been a factor in American politics.  Let’s make sure things stay that way.    

Because a law may include things which do not entirely agree with the dogma of a particular religion, such as the Affordable Care Act which calls for employers to offer to their employees health insurance which includes contraceptive coverage, does not mean that there is any intention in the law to officially “establish” a religion, or prevent the practice of an existing religion.  When claims that such laws infringe upon religious freedom are made, they should be carefully examined to see whether any intentional discrimination is actually involved or whether any perceived or alleged “discrimination” is merely incidental to the law and not part of a conscious attempt to ”establish” a religion or actually “establish” the "lack of religion" as a faith in itself. I do not believe that is the case, despite the claims currently being made  by the American Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.

                                   
JL



                                                           


Maybe it's something in the water, but we can't seem to stop the pen of Sid Bolotin from pouring out poetry inspired by his family.  Not that we would want to. Great stuff!  Does it move any of you to similarly wax poetic? I would hope so.

Ode to my Daughters-in-Law 

Sid Bolotin

So far my wife and I have been blessed with three fine women
Who married our three sons long ago

They came into the clan as young girls
And now have ripened into maturity

Each is of a unique personality
Yet amalgamate as a cohesive unity

For celebration of family events
Holidays, joyous occasions such as birthdays and graduations, as well as the sad stuff of life

Even more wondrous they join for
Girls-only gatherings for shopping or shows in Boston

As for me personally, they exhibit great caring and consideration
Especially now that I’m displaying cranky, old-man, dinosaur-like tendencies

For example on our recent seventeen-day visit to New England
For the graduations of four of our nine grandchildren

These lovely ladies collaborated to schlep me on a multi-legged safari
That criss-crossed Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont

From and to airports and graduation sites
And repetitive days-long lodgings at their homes

Accommodating my combined idiosyncrasies of
Food, medicines, and physical limitations

But continuing to ignore my protests of
Please, no gifts required

Evidenced by today’s UPS delivery of
Tommy Bahama polo shirts for Father’s Day

Thankfully they at least honored
My plea of nothing electronic

Their caring and nurturing
Blanket me in love


                                                           



It has been quite a while since we featured the paintings of Alberto Vargas, who idealized glamorous girls in his work in Esquire Magazine.  Many of these pin-ups graced Army and Navy barracks around the world throughout the Second World War.  I wonder what kind of bird she is balancing on her foot.  Do you care?
JL



                                                              



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Jack Lippman
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