“The Quai Saint-Michel and Notre-Dame” by Maximilien Luce

”Morning, Interior” by Maximilien Luce

I would expect, frankly, that the United States would ditch Israel in a moment if U.S. planners found this in their interest. In that case, the Jewish lobby would be as ineffective as it was in 1956, when Eisenhower and Dulles, on the eve of a presidential election, ordered Israel out of the Sinai.

- Naom Chomsky

"From Shell (The Dress)" by Serge Marshennikov

"It's hard to make people safe and secure, because life is seriously not safe. And the way that you make people resilient is by exposing them to things they are afraid of, and make them uncomfortable. While if you over-coddle them and protect them from everything that's sharp, then you are making them dull and stupid"

- Jordan Peterson

"البيوت كانت أكثر ألفة،
‏عندما كانت مثلنا، من طين!"

"إن السلطة ليست وسيلة بل غاية، فالمرء لا يقيم حكماً إستبدادياً لحماية الثورة، وإنما يشعل الثورة لإقامة حكم إستبدادي. وكلما زاد الحزب قوة ومنعة قلت درجة تسامحه"

- جورج أورويل

There's tension between evolved aesthetics and learned aesthetics. Our evolved folk aesthetics still value ornamental precision, representational accuracy, bright coloration, and other traditional fitness indicators. But we have learnt a new set of consumerist principles based on market values. Since handmade works are usually more expensive than machine-made products, we learn to value indicators of traditional craftsmanship even when such indicators (crude ornamentation, random errors, uneven surface, irregular form, incoherent design) conflict with our evolved preferences.

- The mating mind

الفكرة هي أنه بعد الثورة الصناعية كدرنا نصنع مكائن وآلات تطبع الآلاف من لوحات دافنشي ومايكل أنجيلو بوقت قصير... بعد إختراع التصوير الفوتوغرافي كدرنا نصور بورتريهات دقيقة جداً ما جانوا رسامي عصر النهضة يحلمون انه يرسموها أصلاً...

هاي الأشياء جعلت الرسم الواقعي ماله قيمة مثل قبل؛ ليش ترسم بورتريه واقعي لروحك في حين تكدر تاخذ سيلفي؟
بالنتيجة، ظهرت إتجاهات جديدة بالرسم مثل الرسم التكعيبي، ال impressionism، السريالية، والتجريدية... ضربة الفرشاة صارت هدف بحد ذاته، واللا-مثالية صارت الدليل على انه العمل يدوي (بشري) صنعه فنان وبالتالي قيمته (المعنوية والمالية) أعلى وأكبر، من العمل المثالي جداً اللي هو إنتاج صناعي.

Therefore, the new criteria of modern art: "if it's too perfect, then it's not made by humans"

Before photography, accurate visual representations required enormous skill to draw or paint, so were considered beautiful indicators of painterly genius. But after the advent of photography, painters could no longer hope to compete in the business of visual realism. In response, painters invented new genres based on new, non-representational aesthetics: impressionism, cubism, expressionism, surrealism, abstraction. Signs of handmade authenticity became more important than representational skill. The brush stroke became an end of itself, like the hammer-marks on a handmade spoon

- The mating mind

"love, like everything human, is conditioned"

- Simon May