100^3

Thu 14 Aug 2014 09:49 AM

Aesthetics for Birds is running a series of posts called "100 Philosophers 100 Artworks 100 Words", the premise of which is probably evident from the title: A philosopher identifies their favorite art work and writes 100 words about it.

Several of the posts have rhapsodized about classic paintings or works of literature. Allen Hazlett set a precedent for a less obvious choice by writing about a mouthful of lamb bacon.

So I considered writing something about Picasso's "Portrait of Ambroise Vollard" or Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, because I adore them both.

The Picasso painting resonates with me for entirely personal reasons. I had seen it in books and talked about it in a humanities class, and I liked it. It had never occurred to me to consider where the actual physical painting was, though, so I was gobsmacked when turned a corner at the Pushkin museum and came face-to-face with it. So thinking of the painting now reminds me of a pleasant summer in Moscow twenty years ago.

I probably would have picked the movie version of R&G rather than the original play. It is fun and clever, both in what it does on its own and what it does to Hamlet. But I don't know how to write about it without starting to sound pretentious.

I ultimately wrote about a relic from my childhood. It resonates for me because of my personal history, sure, but in a way that's shared with many gamers of my generation.

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