Beautiful People

Maria Callas

Maria Callas
13 x 4.75 inches, oil on wood, 2018

After showing many Maria Callas record sleeves (that of course were played too) in the post named Maria, Maria Callas also entered in the top 100 of 2017/18. For the painting I was to do this year I stayed away from using one of the record sleeves as I had done before and selected a paparazzi style photo found on a simple Google image search. The top 100 aria Si. Mi Chiamano from Puccini's La Boheme is not from any of those records that I posted either. The source: YouTube, Maria Callas Live.

Maria

Ever since I met this most generous and hospitable woman named Maria I'd loved the name Maria. This Maria was the partner of a classmate and hostess of a weekend long party in the Achterhoek that I attended during my college years at AKI. She was a true angel and I've regarded all Marias as angels ever since. I have now been happily married for 17 years to a Maria. (I somehow knew I was destined to marry a Maria.) Hurricane Maria however, has been no angel. She is the embodiment of this myth of the beautiful but deadly woman that since ancient Greek times (Helen) has affected the mind of Western masculine culture. The idea that a beautiful woman is also a dangerous woman has subverted the minds of men while objectifying women. Hurricane Maria ravaged the Caribbean this week but she is not supposed to cause any harm to my hometown in Florida. Two weeks ago hurricane Irma left two feet of water in my studio. About 750 records were submerged and I spent a whole week to salvage the most important ones. Most classical records and about half of the folk from around the world discs were under water. The salvage process focused on sub-collections; 25 Maria Callas records, all records from the Nonesuch label, my records from India, just had to be saved. Besides the 25 Callas records I realized just how many records I owned by singers named Maria. Coincidence or not, they all had be salvaged too. 

The history of the top 100 has not featured too many Marias though. This years list has A Mushroom Vedanta by Maria Sabina while Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot has featured several times. The most Maria paintings (besides those of my wife) have been portraits of Maria Callas, who has been in the Top 100 many times. The painting above is from the Top 100 2009, the one to the right from 2008. The song Casta Diva from Bellini's Norma is listed in the 100 Greatest Recordings of All Time. 

Just for fun I'll share some of the Marias from my record collection.

I propose a scientific hypothesis: The percentage of women named Maria who are incarcerated is significantly lower than the overall percentage of women named Maria. While so many songs about women (written by men) are full of misogyny, songs about Maria are not, I can't think of a single song that treats a Maria as evil, backhanded, cheating, or mistreating the subject (the singer) in any other way.

The 100 Greatest Recordings Ever: 26, Maria Callas

The Hurdy Gurdy (2)

David Munrow with Gillian Munrow on the hurdy gurdy 
8.5" x 11" (cropped), ink and watercolor on paper, 2012

2011 as a Top 100 music year has ended and the Top 100 2012 starts today. In a few days I will forward the complete list as I am still working on finishing it. Posts with paintings for the 2011 year will continue to be published until the Top 100 2011 exhibition opens on March 26th. At the moment I'm selecting 24 more tracks from about 50 tunes with 9 points to complete the list that must contain 100. Many of these last 24 entries will be illustrated with ink drawings and small watercolor paintings. Then another ten songs still have to be painted (with oils) from the 76 that scored 10 or more points in the 2011 Top 100 year. The posts will come fast and furious now. I will double them up. The first two to enter the Top 100 with 9 points are both interpreters of classical music. Maria Callas sings Casta Diva from Bellini's opera Norma, and David Munrow's The Early Music Consort of London performs Joliveté et bone amor on the hurdy-gurdy from the 13th Century composer Jehan d'Esquire. 

I have a fairly large collection of medieval and early renaissance music and I felt it had to be represented this year. I chose a track from the double record set Instruments of the Middle Ages and Renaissance by The Early Music Consort of London that I've played quite a few times this past year. The Consort's leader David Munrow is a remarkable chapter in the history of recorded old music. He was a scholar, a gifted, mostly self taught musician, wrote several books, and recorded over 50 albums in a very short career (Munrow committed suicide in 1976 at the age of 33.) Music from the middle ages barely has any musical notation so the performers of such early music rely on written accounts of performances, previous recordings of the material, associations with similar, later, and better documented music, but most of all their personal creativity and interpretive abilities. As far as my humble musical expertise can evaluate these criteria David Munrow belongs to the best.

That Maria Callas belongs to the best in her category goes without saying. I love Maria Callas. I have twelve records dedicated to the American born Greek opera diva and many of these are box sets. The aria Casta Diva is her signature song and one of her recordings of it represents for me one of the most beautiful voices ever recorded. 

Maria Callas
8.5" x 11"
ink on paper, 2012