Bunnies On Bikes And Cycling Chicks

Happy Easter!

I know that today is also in the middle of Ramadan and is the third day of Passover.  But I'm going with Easter, not because I was raised Catholic.  Rather, Easter is just a good excuse to post cute and silly images of cycling chicks (who aren't me) and bunnies on bikes.

Enjoy!

This might've been Picasso's Easter card:

And this, because cyclists are "good eggs":

 

If Picasso Had Brifters...

You've probably seen the Bull's Head (Tete de Taureau) Picasso constructed from a bicycle saddle and handlebars:

He created it in 1942.  What if he were using modern parts?  Would he make a bull's head--or a human face?:

From Redbubble

I Don't Think Picasso Tried This At Home

If you can't get to the Musee Picasso, don't worry:  You can still see the "bull's head" he made from an old bicycle saddle and a pair of handlebars.  I've included a picture of it in a few of my posts.  

Somehow I don't think this was his inspiration.  At least, I hope it wasn't:

From Farmer's Weekly

So What Do Picasso's Handlebars Really Mean?

The Presidentiad is in full swing here in the US.  If you like to hear lies, double-talk, evasion, babble, euphemism and things that are just purely and simply ridiculous, you can be, in the immortal words of H.L. Mencken, "entertained as Solomon never was by his hooch dancers".

I couldn't help but to think that the Musee Picasso let some candidate's speech writer--or some candidate for some office somewhere--write the commentary for one of the exhibits:

The good folks at Musee Picasso very thoughtfully provided this translation:

When I read the French, the last two sentences caused me to titter, with my fingers covering my lips, in that very discreet Parisienne sort of way.  The English translation made me laugh out loud.  That, of course, gave me away as an American.

So, gee, maybe, just maybe, Picasso's goats were a stand-in for lust and sex.  Really, now?  My first art history professor--a gay man who devoted the last years of his professional life to explicating the homoeroticism in Caravaggio--would be shocked--shocked, I say!--to learn that.

Hmm...I thought--with all due respect to the man and his work--that everything about Picasso had to do with sex, whether in general or about his own lustfulness.  I mean, you don't even have to read two sentences in any biography of him to know that he was a horny guy.

Want proof?  Take a look:

Lest you think that is an isolated example, check this out:

Now you know what this is really about--and it wasn't about a charge at the end of a Tour de France stage!:

Waking Up And Finding A Bull's Head In Your Box

Today's weather was just like yesterday's, just a couple of degrees warmer.  Still, I did a shorter ride:  I got off to a late start.

But I enjoyed it nonetheless.  I rambled through some Brooklyn and Queens streets.  It's funny how I can roll through neighborhoods I know well, yet as I pedal down a particular street, I might think, "Hmm...haven't been here in a while.

So it was as I cycled down one of the major streets in a pocket of Brooklyn that no one seems to agree on whether it's in Williamsburg, East Williamsburg, Bushwick or Wyckoff Heights. 

("East Williamsburg" is an actual part of Brooklyn.  It's not just something you say when you're trying to impress someone--a potential date, perhaps--but you don't want to say you live deep in the heart of Bushwick.  For that matter, "Wyckoff Heights" actually exists, but about the only people who've heard the name are the ones who use it in reference to the area I rode through today!)

The street is bounded by the Broadway elevated train line and a cemetery.  On one side of the avenue I rode are projects and a senior center; the other side is lined with old factories, warehouses and storefronts.  If that doesn't sound like the sort of place in which artists live for about a decade before the neighborhood gentrifies--or becomes Hipster Hell--well, it is.

Not surprisingly, there are "vintage" and "antique" stores that charge more than most of those artists can afford for things other people threw away.  I stopped in one because it  had a couple of interesting-looking bikes and trombones (How often do you see them together?) outside the door, tended to by a rugged-looking woman in a long black skirt whom I took for one of the Orthodox Jews who live nearby but who, in fact, is the wife of, and co-owner with, a who looks like he could be one of the artists.

The woman was actually nice to me:  She invited me to bring my bike in.  The man was dealing with a haggler--actually, someone who was trying to shame him into giving her something at the price she wanted.  "I just bought property in this neighborhood.  I have a stake in it," she said, stridently.  Yeah, you're going to price all of the artists out of this neighborhood, I said to myself.

Anyway, there was some rather interesting stuff in the store.  This caught my eye:

I wish I could have better captured what I saw:  The curves of the handlebars and trombones.  It wasn't so surprising to see the latter.  But a box full of handlebars?  Even though a few bikes were for sale, that was a surprise.  I asked the female co-owner.  She didn't know how he came upon them.  "Probably they were getting tossed out," she speculated.  Perhaps, I thought, by some bike shop.  Most of the bars were cheap steel and alloy dropped bars, so I'm guessing the shop had them from old ten- and twelve-speeds that were "hybrdized".

Given all of the artists in the area, I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of those handlebars ended up in a sculpture or installation.  Could the next Picasso's Bull's Head be sitting, embryonic, in that box?

Why You Have To Ride A Bicycle To Truly Understand Picasso, Rodin Or Any Impressionist Painter

You all have seen this Picasso sculpture.

Question:  What kind of handlebars are they?  Velo Orange Belleville?  (OK, so VO didn't exist in Picasso's time.)  Whatever they were, they definitely weren't flat bars.  In fact, I can't think of any way even Picasso (or, for that matter, Rodin or Michelangelo) could have made an objet d'art from flat bars.  For that reason alone, they should be illegal. 

(Don't get me started on those mountain bike bar ends that were all the rage circa 1992-1996!  Yes, I had a pair of Onzas--in purple, no less!)

I posted that image because I figured that I should, since I visited the Picasso Museum--my favorite, after the Rodin--today.  However, I didn't actually see the "bull".  The part of the museum in which it is displayed was closed off because a special show is being organized.  Oh well.

At least there's all sorts of other interesting stuff to see there.

Now that's something to think about the next time you're kissing your beloved!

It goes without saying that Picasso, like many great male artists, had complicated relationships with women:

To be fair, he also had a strong social conscience.  You've probably seen Guernica.  A decade and a half later, he painted "Massacre in Korea":

And he understood, I think, how thin the line is between sensitivity and derangement can be.  At least I gather something like that from his painting Absinthe Drinker:

That one isn't in the Picasso Museum. I saw it yesterday in the Musee d'Orsay.  There's so much there and so much has already been said about many things that are there that I'll just choose a few vague (wave) paintings:



Paul Gaugin (another favorite of mine): Marine avec Vache

 

Georges Lacombe:  La Vague Violette


 

August Strindberg (You didn't know he was a painter, did you?) :  Marine avec recif

 

Alexander Harrison (Philadelphia 1853-Paris 1930):  Marine 

I find it very interesting that the Impressionists and Rodin came along around the time the bicycle was taking a form we recognize today, which vastly increased its popularity over that of "high-wheelers" and other predecessors.  For the first time, many people had access to a mode of travel that is faster than walking.  Because we pass by people, landmarks and other parts of the landscape more quickly on a bicycle than on foot, we see them clearly but momentarily, so they form impressions in our consciousness.  That, I believe, is why we can so readily call upon sense memories of what we saw, heard, felt, smelled or tasted during a bike ride.

On the other hand, when Picasso was helping to invent Cubism, the automobile was in its juvescence.  So was cinema.  When we see things from the window of a fast-moving car or other motorized vehicle, we see "cuts" in much the same way we see a series of images on a strip of motion picture film.  Each image in the series differs slightly from the one before it, but the cumulative effect is that what's at the end of the strip is very different from what we saw at the beginning.


I'm sorry if this all sounds like half-baked cognitive psychology mixed with even-less-baked art and film theory.  I'm just doing the best I can to describe what occurred to me as I was riding between museums, and after visits to museums.  If nothing else, it made clearer--to me, anyway--why the trip to the museum, especially if it's on a bicycle, can be just as important and even interesting as the museum itself.

Just for fun, I'll end this post with something from that great interpreter of fin-de-siècle Paris nightlife, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec:

 

Bicycle Paisley?

Although the paisley pattern is named for a town in Scotland, it is thought to have originated in India or Persia (present-day Iran).  Some have said the kidney-ish shapes found in paisleys were inspired by mangoes.  Others have attributed their origins to pears or other fruits.  Also, paisley's swirls and  botanical motifs are said to have been inspired by palm trees (The French often refer to paisley as "palme".) or by pine or cypress trees. 

Whatever you believe, a pattern that has printed on, or woven into, everything from Hermes silk scarves and ties to hippies' T-shirts and headbands originated many centuries ago, long before the first bicycle was built.  What might paisley look like if its creator(s) got around on pedaled two-wheeled vehicles?

All right...So you never asked yourself that question.  I confess: I never did, either.  Somehow, though, I think I found an answer to it here:

From Bike Art:  Bicycles In Art Around The World

It's one of my favorite pieces of bicycle art I've seen in a while.  Now I'll admit that I rarely see an image or representation of a bicycle that I dislike, even if it's of a bike I'd never ride or buy: bikes and cycling make me happy.  Still, I realize that not all drawings, paintings or other objets that include or represent bicycles are art.

So what makes something art? (You weren't expecting to see a question like that on this blog, were you?)  Well, as I understand it, art gets at the essence of something.  A painter or sculptor will make a work about some particular person or subjects and render it from whatever materials he or she chooses or has available. But those people, subjects and materials are really just vehicles for expression of the forms--whether of light, texture, shape, sound or energy--within those subjects.

That is why something like the bull's head Picasso made from a bicycle saddle and pair of handlebars is, if not "high" art, then at least something more than mere amusement.  To me, it represents the energy of moving forward on a bicycle and of the singular determination it sometimes takes to keep on riding, especially in adverse conditions.

So...Is the bike "paisley" a work of art?  Maybe.  Whatever it is, I think it went beyond--if only somewhat--typical stylized representations of bicycles.  That's more than enough to make me happy.

Bicycle Wheels: Tri-Spokes Came And Went, But Duchamp's Endures

No, the man in the photo is not a French bicycle mechanic. And he's not truing the wheel.  In fact, that wheel has remained in the stand, not having been touched by a spoke tool or cone wrench, for the past hundred years.

The man in the picture is indeed French, as his wheel most likely was.  He is long dead, but the wheel didn't end up in the hands of some rich Japanese collector.

In fact, it's in Philadelphia.  But, one hundred years ago, it was in New York.  I've ridden from New York to Philadelphia, though not on that wheel.

All right:  You may have already figured out (if you didn't already know) that the man in the photo is artist Marcel Duchamp.  And his wheel was indeed a wheel, but it's listed in books and catalogues as a sculpture.

One hundred years ago yesterday, it stood among other sculptures, paintings and other objets d'art in the 69th Regiment Armory, on Lexington Avenue between 25th and 26th Streets in Manhattan.  The building still functions as an armory and hosts various events, and is today surrounded  by some of Baruch College's buildings.

On that date, the Armory Show (as it's commonly known) opened.  Little more than two weeks earlier Grand Central Station began, the first travelers and commuters embarked and disembarked from trains at the new Grand Central Terminal, about a kilometer and a half uptown.  It's an interesting turn of history because GCT is, arguably, the last great monument to the Gilded Age, while the Armory Show did as much as any event to move American notions of art, aesthetics and public space away from Gilded Age, and even classical, notions.  Literally steps away from GCT is the Chrysler Building; between them and the Armory, the Empire State Building went up months after the Chrysler Building was completed.  The Chrysler and ESB could hardly be more different from GSC or, for that matter, the Armory; neither of the latter two buildings could or would have been built in the wake of the Armory Show's influence.

So why, you may ask, am I writing about these events on a bike blog?  Well, before the show, almost no American, artist or otherwise, would have thought to declare a bicycle wheel as a work of art.  In fact, very few Americans would have thought bicycles to be appropriate subjects for art, let alone used bicycles or parts of bicycles as materials for works of art, as Picasso and others would later do.

So, the next time you make, sell, buy or wear a bracelet made from a bicycle chain or earrings made from spokes, remember that the Armory show helped to make them possible!


N.B.:  Picasso's "bull" is in the Paris museum dedicated to his works.  Duchamp's bicycle wheel is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

A World Of Christmas Bikes

Around this time last year, I posted "Christmas Bikes And Trees". Interestingly, it's become the fifth-most viewed of the 664 posts on this blog.  What I find even more intriguing is that, although it had more views during the last holiday season, and during this one, there's been a fairly steady stream of viewers throughout the year.

I guess a lot of people associate bikes with Christmas trees, even if they never got a new Schwinn (or Raleigh or whatever) as a childhood holiday gift.  The bike under the tree is a very appealing image.  In fact, it's really a metaphor for a lot of other things--most, if not all, of them positive, I'm sure.

Of course, there are many bicycle-themed holiday ornaments and cards.  Quite possibly the only thing more fun than hanging a miniature bicycle on a tree is decorating a bicycle for the holidays.  

From Cycle The Earth

If you prefer to stick to daytime riding, you could deck out your bike like this:

Also from Cycle The Earth

Now, if you want to be a good little girl or good little boy and help out Santa, here's your steed:

Rudolph The Red Nosed Bicycle

I'm sure that wherever he is, Pablo Picasso is amused.