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Being the artfreak that I am, I can assure you I am fool for paintings. So when I got asked about my favourite painting, the answer was anything but easy. It's not difficult choosing my favourite painters - Picasso and Blake, I adore them fanatically - but this time I picked some pieces NOT painted by them but by other acclaimed and great artists - paintings I like and/or can relate to for some reason.
First of all, The Swing by Fragonard. It was love at first sight, the whole atmosphere of the painting captivated me though it is not that visible and perceptible through this small size picture. For the bigger version, click HERE
The Street by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. When I first saw it, my thought was "vogue". It represents fashion, style, elegance, modernity, urbanization, everything. It's not something no-one else could paint, but it definitely has something capturing, something that makes you stare at it for minutes.
Speaking of staring at paintings for a while, here is Bertalan Székely's Self-portrait. Whenever I tell my friends I would like to go to the National Gallery in Budapest (where it hangs), their response is a quick 'I won't go there with you', because most of them are aware of the fact that to me, a visit to named gallery stands for running to the chamber where this painting is and - not kidding - staying there for hours. I scrutinize it from every angle and from every distance, I like it so much. Even the supervisor lady called for her colleague to check on me to find out what the eff I was doing in front of that picture for such a long time, and it kinda happens all the time I visit the gallery. I don't what it is, but I love this painting and I love the man who painted it and who can be seen in it.
Scream by Edvard Munch - it's pretty much like when you feel like you're screaming in a chamber crowded by people but no-one seems to notice you. It's not that crowded, but the two gentlemen behind the screaming person don't really care, at least in my opinion. It shows me solitude and despair, that's why I like it so much.
Now two non-paintings:
This lithograph by Honoré Daumier got the describing 'Nadar elevant la photographie' as a name (it means something like 'Nadar raises photography', as far as I know, I can't speak French) and it's so windy, so 1800s, even so Jim Carrey in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events that it's simply not possible for me not to like it.
Henri de Toulouse-Latrec's Jane Avril is also a lithograph and I love the bohemian vibe of it, how he manages to depict the Parisian way of (night)life towards the end of the 19th century.
Of course, these are just a few paintings (and lithographs) I like, I could go on and on for ages!
Like many others, I’ve been obsessed with Titanic for ages. Not (only) the 1997 film but the tragic end and sad stories led me to get interested – Guggenheim’s decision to die as a gentleman; the Strauss’ love; beautiful and very sad.
So when I heard the Titanic exhibition comes to my country with actual artifacts that used to go down with the ship and even a piece of the Titanic herself, it was no question if I go.
When you start your trip, you get a similar boarding pass with a passenger's name and brief story - when your visit ends, you can check if you (and those who have traveled with you) survived (I died...).
The first object visitors see is the bell that was used to inform the crew about the iceberg – it is available to examine from every angle and believe me, it is spooky. 
Then there were pictures of the passengers and information on their lives (who they were, why they chose Titanic to travel to the US, etc.) and quotations from newspapers, passengers and the creators and desingers of the ship.
The objects were outstanding, the decades they had spent on the bottom of the ocean are obviously visible and the shoe and hat and letters and playcards someone once used, someone who died in the cold water, young and full with the hope of a new and better life. These words might seem corny but when you are there and think it over, it is really heartbreaking in a way.
The much anticipated piece of ice that was there to show how cold it could be for those stuck in the middle of the ocean didn’t impress me much – it wasn’t even salty water and that is colder than sweet water so it was nothing special – everyone knew ice was cold after all! But the piece of Titanic that could be touched was outstanding – now I am a part of it as well, at least according to my dreamer self.
Oh, and there is also a place where you can smell perfumes brought up from the wreck – it was carried by a passenger who survived, but the samples sank. Let me say, they are anything but good but it is definitely because they had spent about 80 years in 3800 meters of water!
The exhibition travels all around the world - it stays in Budapest until February 5.
Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition
It's Halloween so I guess my instinct led me to watch The Vampire Lestat videos today though I really do not celebrate Halloween. Anyway, my love for Anne Rice and her vampires will never ever fade away, it started many years ago with Interview with the Vampire (the book) and went on with the sequels (oh, my beloved Memnoch the Devil and Merrick...) and, of course, the two movies. The first one, starring Brad Pitt as Louis and Tom Cruise as Lestat (and Antonio Banderas /Armand/, Kirsten Dunst /Claudia/) was perfect (no wonder, Rice wrote the screenplay) but the second, The Queen of the Damned... Well. Many Anne Rice-fans hate that movie for not being the interpretation of the book, The Queen of the Damned but I have always tried to watch it with different eyes. First of all, the actors. Late Aaliyah, divine Vincent Perez and Stuart Townsend, who, despite being a relatively unknown actor (especially comepared to his "wife", Charlize Theron) is wonderful, not only in this movie but in basically everything he's made (think Trapped; About Adam; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - he made me love villains and Dorian Gray even more).
But I am not here to write about it. What I want to write about one of the spooky videos Lestat has made (okay, that were made for Lestat while they were shooting TQotD). There are 3: Redeemer, System and Forsaken. My favourite is Forsaken and you can watch it HERE.
When I first saw the video it captured me and I couldn't set myself free ever since, not that I wanted to.
I have always thought it would be splendid if someone realized how scary those old horrors could have been when they were premiered and how scary a contemporary horror film would be made with that technique.
I am talking about Weine's Dr. Caligari that might seem ridiculous watched with 21st century eyes... So someone finally discovered it and not only Forsaken is made with that particular technique, it is also a kind of remake of Dr. Caligari's notable scenes:
(Sorry for the bad quailty, I had to take the stills myself...)
Forsaken is perfect and, of course, better than Caligeri - it sends the shivers down your spine, not because it's that "scary", of course it is a bit (at least not less scary than a usual horror), but it also has the irony. What makes it spooky is the fact that it is very dark, the lyrics are beautiful and thought wakening, and the discursive moves. Stuart's pretty face versus Lestat's brutally romantic murderer self is an excellent contradiction that actually works, since, you can never know who is a demon, literally and non-literally.
I do not want to write more, I could but I guess it's only me who's stupidly obsessed with the theme... So, as a finale, a trivia via IMDb:
Dr. Caligari writer Hans Janowtiz "claims to have gotten the idea for the film when he was at a carnival one day. He saw a strange man lurking in the shadows. The next day, he heard that a girl was murdered there. He went to the funeral, and saw the same strange man lurking around. He had no proof that the strange man was the murderer, but he fleshed the whole idea out into his film."
Whenever the divine Karl Lagerfeld opens his mouth, the fashion world and the whole pop culture is swimming in joy - who could take over his fabulously ironic and always witty words and over the top style?
This time, he expressed his feelings about the retiring of legendary desginer Valentino: "He should continue. It's no fun, he will be bored". Karl has always said he would never ever give up fashion (thank God!) since it keeps him young (as he stated in the documentary Signe Chanel) and he would be bored without it: "All my contracts are for life, so I am like a death row inmate."
Anyway, he just couldn't stop being a bit critic about the celebrations of designers (he refused to have his own 25th Chanel anniversary celebration), in his lovely way of course: "There were never any celebrations, there will never be any - I hate that. Fashion is about today and tomorrow, not about yesterday. If you have to be taken seriously because you have a heavy past, I don't think it's a good thing. I don't want to remember, I want to do things and go ahead."
How true. But you know Karl, when it comes to geniouses like you or Valentino, you DO deserve to be celebrated...
Valentino, Giancarlo Giammetti and Karl Lagerfeld
Source: CNN
Image via Lefigaro
