oil on tin

The Cabinet Paintings 
by Francisco Goya 
oil on tin, circa 1795

This series of small scale figure paintings that Goya made during the last decade of the eighteenth century, a time of great upheaval, hope and brutality, mark a great turning point in his work.  They reflect contemporary news stories of spectacular disasters, the sort of stuff that comes by way of imperialist expansion, current popular fantasies concerning savages, noble and otherwise,  and they clear the ground for the great graphic series just to come, his great examination of the "Spanish Character", Los Caprichos.

Murnau’s Faust, 1926

 This was FW Murnau’s last film made in Germany

 before he went off to Hollywood to make Sunrise.

It’s a loose adaptation of Goethe’s dramatic poem,

incorporating elements from the folk puppet plays,

that Goethe’s drew upon, which in their turn 

took Marlowe's Doctor Faustus as a model.

Indeed, there’s a distinct puppet like quality

to Camilla Horn movements as Gretchen, 

especially after she has been denounced 

as a harlot, lurching around in a trance. 

Murnau spent six months filming it, 

crafting a very unreal yet elaborate 

medieval world for his marionettes.

Preparations for a Journey

 
Before going to Burma at the end of next month, I've been testing out various film stocks to take with me. I had some photographs I wanted to try making here in San Francisco, and as I hadn't used my medium format camera very much for a long time until just recently in Los Angeles, I figured I should go ahead and shoot the pictures I had in mind before the images were forgotten using this particularly fine yet costly apparatus.  Anyone familiar with my present work and concerns should keep in mind that these images are meant as contributions to my current long term project, the Old Curiosity Shop (from the novel and related texts by Charles Dickens.)