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Peeing on Jesus
#1

Peeing on Jesus
Ha! I thought that title would get your attention.  Pissing on Jesus has gone on for centuries. 

This is a modern art piece by artist Andres Sorrano from 1989.   He took a little plastic Jesus statue and submerged it in glass tank of his own urine and took a picture of it.   It's called "Piss Christ".  A heavy metal rock band in the early 2000's used that title in one of their songs.  The artist wanted it to blurr the lines between sanctity and blasphemy.   

[Image: Piss_Christ_by_Serrano_Andres_%281987%29.jpg]

Anyway, the US Senate was so enraged that by this that they cut all of Andres Sorrano's funding that he got from the National Endowment of the Arts. 

Okie-dokie.


Here's "Yellow Christ" by Paul Gauguin.

[Image: Gauguin_Yellow_Christ.jpg]

The brilliant yellow color in this painting was made from cow urine.  In India cows were fed mango leaves which turned a cow's urine very yellow.  Through a long process the cow urine would end up in a ball shape then shipped out and used by artists in Europe.  

[Image: indin.jpg] 

Here's the Adoration of the Magi by Rembrandt with Mary and Joseph bathed in a light of golden yellow. That's Indian cow urine you're looking at.   Baby Jesus is lead white mixed with Indian Yellow cow urine

[Image: image607.jpg]

Van Gogh's beautiful flowers?  Sorry.  It's Indian Yellow cow urine. 

[Image: ?resize_to=width&src=https%3A%2F%2Fd32dm...quality=80]

Why did I make this thread?  Because I think it's funny that the US Senate revoked money from Sorrano yet they'd probably be perfectly fine with the cow urine on Baby Jesus, his mother Mary and the rest of the gang. I have a weird sense of humor.     


BTW, Indian Yellow from cow urine was banned because feeding only mango leaves to cows which are sacred in India was considered too destressing to the cows and very blasphemous in the Hindu religion.
                                                         T4618
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#2

Peeing on Jesus
Mark 12 or something, mentions something about showers of gold, doesn't it?
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#3

Peeing on Jesus
That's really interesting!

Whereas, ultramarine, the most expensive pigment, used to be reserved for religious paintings Hmm

"Derived from the lapis lazuli stone, the pigment was considered more precious than gold. For centuries, the lone source of ultramarine was an arid strip of mountains in northern Afghanistan. The process of extraction involved grinding the stone into a fine powder, infusing the deposits with melted wax, oils, and pine resin, and then kneading the product in a dilute lye solution. Because of its prohibitive costs, the color was traditionally restricted to the raiment of Christ or the Virgin Mary. European painters depended on wealthy patrons to underwrite their purchase. Less scrupulous craftsmen were known to swap ultramarine for smalt or indigo and pocket the difference; if they were caught, the swindle left their reputation in ruin.

In 1824, the Societé d’Encouragement offered a reward of six thousand francs to anyone who could develop a synthetic alternative to ultramarine. Two men came forward within several weeks of one another: Jean-Baptiste Guimet, a French chemist, and Christian Gmelin, a German professor from the University of Tübingen. The prize was fiercely contested. Gmelin claimed he had arrived at a solution a year earlier but had waited to publish his results. Guimet countered by declaring that he had conceived his formula two years prior but—like Gmelin—had opted not to publicize his findings. The committee awarded the prize to Guimet, much to the displeasure of the German gentry, and the artificial blue became known as “french ultramarine.”

Even the finest natural ultramarine, ground assiduously by hand, is riddled with odd minerals: calcite, pyrite, augite, mica. These deposits cause the light to be refracted and transmitted in subtly different ways. No two strokes of paint are the same in their fundamental composition. Stand at the right angle and you might catch a quiet glimmer of white or gold, like a prick of light from some distant province of the cosmos.

Blue remains a muse precisely because it is a mirage. “Among the ancient elements,” writes William Gass in his treatise On Being Blue, “blue occurs everywhere: in ice and water, in the flame as purely as in the flower, overheard and inside caves, covering fruit and oozing out of clay.” Yet we can’t handle or touch the blue of the flame any more than we can bottle the blue of the sky.

Kandinsky, a connoisseur of color, believed wholeheartedly in its spiritual properties: “The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural.”" Facepalm

[Image: sassoferrato_-_jungfrun_i_bin-814x1024.jpg]

[Image: 600px-The_Wilton_Diptych_%28Right%29.jpg]
“We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?” 
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#4

Peeing on Jesus
(01-25-2022, 05:54 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: Why did I make this thread?  Because I think it's funny that the US Senate revoked money from Sorrano yet they'd probably be perfectly fine with the cow urine on Baby Jesus, his mother Mary and the rest of the gang. 

I think it was Sorrano's very deliberate intention to be provocative which made the difference, since politicians wouldn't know how colors are made.  

Politicians don't like to fund projects that most people will hate.
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#5

Peeing on Jesus
Great title.

I wonder what jesus thought of Golden Showers?
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#6

Peeing on Jesus
(01-25-2022, 07:02 PM)Vera Wrote: That's really interesting!

Whereas, ultramarine, the most expensive pigment, used to be reserved for religious paintings  Hmm

"Derived from the lapis lazuli stone, the pigment was considered more precious than gold. For centuries, the lone source of ultramarine was an arid strip of mountains in northern Afghanistan. The process of extraction involved grinding the stone into a fine powder, infusing the deposits with melted wax, oils, and pine resin, and then kneading the product in a dilute lye solution. Because of its prohibitive costs, the color was traditionally restricted to the raiment of Christ or the Virgin Mary. European painters depended on wealthy patrons to underwrite their purchase. Less scrupulous craftsmen were known to swap ultramarine for smalt or indigo and pocket the difference; if they were caught, the swindle left their reputation in ruin.

In 1824, the Societé d’Encouragement offered a reward of six thousand francs to anyone who could develop a synthetic alternative to ultramarine. Two men came forward within several weeks of one another: Jean-Baptiste Guimet, a French chemist, and Christian Gmelin, a German professor from the University of Tübingen. The prize was fiercely contested. Gmelin claimed he had arrived at a solution a year earlier but had waited to publish his results. Guimet countered by declaring that he had conceived his formula two years prior but—like Gmelin—had opted not to publicize his findings. The committee awarded the prize to Guimet, much to the displeasure of the German gentry, and the artificial blue became known as “french ultramarine.”

Even the finest natural ultramarine, ground assiduously by hand, is riddled with odd minerals: calcite, pyrite, augite, mica. These deposits cause the light to be refracted and transmitted in subtly different ways. No two strokes of paint are the same in their fundamental composition. Stand at the right angle and you might catch a quiet glimmer of white or gold, like a prick of light from some distant province of the cosmos.

Blue remains a muse precisely because it is a mirage. “Among the ancient elements,” writes William Gass in his treatise On Being Blue, “blue occurs everywhere: in ice and water, in the flame as purely as in the flower, overheard and inside caves, covering fruit and oozing out of clay.” Yet we can’t handle or touch the blue of the flame any more than we can bottle the blue of the sky.

Kandinsky, a connoisseur of color, believed wholeheartedly in its spiritual properties: “The deeper the blue becomes, the more strongly it calls man towards the infinite, awakening in him a desire for the pure and, finally, for the supernatural.”" Facepalm

[Image: sassoferrato_-_jungfrun_i_bin-814x1024.jpg]

[Image: 600px-The_Wilton_Diptych_%28Right%29.jpg]

Very true about Ultramarine blue and Lapis lazuli.   I have a 30 year old dried out watercolor tube of Ultramarine blue that belonged to my mother. It's not from lapis lazuli but even the synthetic stuff is a little expensive.  A tiny tube of ultramarine blue costs around $30 USD.   

I'm not into religious icons but I've seen paintings of Mary and her blue cloak jumps out of the painting.  It's almost a shockingly blue but very beautiful.

There are still people who grind up lapis lazuli rocks and make oil and watercolor paints out of it.  It's a very long process.  This guy shows the process. There is no narriation in the video and the music is quiet and relaxing.  I find it very soothing and to watch stuff like this.  I zone out.   He makes a watercolor paint with it so it's more translucent than an oil paint would be. 

                                                         T4618
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#7

Peeing on Jesus
I well remember this...

During a 1997 exhibition of Serrano's works at the National Gallery of Victoria, the then
Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, George Pell, [who was later charged and jailed as a
supporter of paedophilia
 ] sought an injunction from the Supreme Court of Victoria to
prohibit the gallery from publicly displaying Piss Christ—which was not granted. A few days
after this, a gallery visitor attempted to take down the work from the gallery wall, with
another two visitors  later attacking it with a hammer. Gallery officials reported receiving
death threats in response to Serrano's exhibition.

Serrano's supporters argued that the controversy was an issue of both artistic freedom and
freedom of speech.  There was never any actual evidence—other than the artist's claim—that
the fluid in the image was actually urine, as the physical subject itself was never sighted.

—Was telling that Serrano chose not to use Muhammad as the subject.     Consider
I'm a creationist;   I believe that man created God.
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#8

Peeing on Jesus
(01-25-2022, 05:54 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: Ha! I thought that title would get your attention.  Pissing on Jesus has gone on for centuries. 

This is a modern art piece by artist Andres Sorrano from 1989.   He took a little plastic Jesus statue and submerged it in glass tank of his own urine and took a picture of it.   It's called "Piss Christ".  

All this time I've thought this was the work of the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Thanks for the correction!

Was he really anti-religion, or just -- ahem -- taking the piss?
On hiatus.
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#9

Peeing on Jesus
(01-25-2022, 07:29 PM)Alan V Wrote:
(01-25-2022, 05:54 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: Why did I make this thread?  Because I think it's funny that the US Senate revoked money from Sorrano yet they'd probably be perfectly fine with the cow urine on Baby Jesus, his mother Mary and the rest of the gang. 

I think it was Sorrano's very deliberate intention to be provocative which made the difference, since politicians wouldn't know how colors are made.  

Politicians don't like to fund projects that most people will hate.

Sure.  I understand that.  But it's funny to me that Hindus finally banned feeding cows only mango leaves because it stressed out "Holy Hindu Cows" and left them sick and unhealthy.  At the same time Indian Yellow was lauded as very beautiful in western art especially when applied to painting of Jesus or the halos of the "Christian Holy Family".  Western artists always wondered why it had the strong smell of ammonia. Van Gogh didn't know it came from cow urine.   One society's blasphemy turns into something beautiful on another society.   Then when an artist uses urine as a religious statement it becomes a completely different thing. Now we have anti-vaxxers drinking their own urine as a cure for Covid. It's a very interesting world we live in.
                                                         T4618
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#10

Peeing on Jesus
You all reminded me of a major controversy in New York over 20 years ago.  Major Fuckhead, Rudy Giuliani who was then mayor and some time before he learned to speak by mouthing "a noun, a verb, and "9-11" in the words of Joe Biden tried to ban the display of an unorthodox depiction of Mary at the Brooklyn Museum.  Setting a trend for which he has become famous Giuliani got his ass-kicked in court on that one, too!

Some lawyer!

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/steve-...ma-1269002

Quote:The Dung-Adorned Madonna That Giuliani Once Tried to Ban Has Been Donated to MoMA by Steve Cohen

An artwork that once sparked controversy is now joining the New York museum's prestigious collection.


[Image: chris-ofili-holy-virgin-mary-e1432849206356.jpg]


The amusing thing is that the controversy and publicity made it a major success for the Brooklyn Museum.  Nice work, Rudy.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#11

Peeing on Jesus
(01-26-2022, 12:18 AM)Minimalist Wrote: You all reminded me of a major controversy in New York over 20 years ago.  Major Fuckhead, Rudy Giuliani who was then mayor and some time before he learned to speak by mouthing "a noun, a verb, and "9-11" in the words of Joe Biden tried to ban the display of an unorthodox depiction of Mary at the Brooklyn Museum.  Setting a trend for which he has become famous Giuliani got his ass-kicked in court on that one, too!

Some lawyer!

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/steve-...ma-1269002

Quote:The Dung-Adorned Madonna That Giuliani Once Tried to Ban Has Been Donated to MoMA by Steve Cohen

An artwork that once sparked controversy is now joining the New York museum's prestigious collection.


[Image: chris-ofili-holy-virgin-mary-e1432849206356.jpg]





The amusing thing is that the controversy and publicity made it a major success for the Brooklyn Museum.  Nice work, Rudy.

That's funny, Min.   The brilliant purples robes and capes worn by Popes and Catholic clergy used to come from the hypobranchial stink gland from a sea mollusk.   The smell was overwhelming.  Shit smelled much better.   It took 250,000 dead sea mollusks to make 2 ounces of dye.  It was very labor intensive.    

Here's the little fellow of which I speak.  

 [Image: Hexaplex-trunculus-shell-with-hypobranch...th-the.jpg]

As far as I know they don't use sea mollusks anymore for the purple dye.
                                                         T4618
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#12

Peeing on Jesus
It was called the Murex and it did indeed stink.  It was an extremely valuable commodity that merchants would literally kill for because it could be sold to royalty - i.e. The Imperial Purple.  Sidon, one of the main centers of production, is reported to have had its workshop located 14 miles from the city because of the stench!

Estimates were that it took 10,000 murex to produce enough dye to color the hem of one garment.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#13

Peeing on Jesus
Twenty or so years ago I worked with a bunch of Catholics and I remember an uproar about some piece of art which was just a urinal with a crucifix in it that they were all butthurt about.
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#14

Peeing on Jesus
That does sound like something they would go nuts about.

But tell them that you saw jesus on a pancake they'll line up for miles and pray to it.

[Image: ?width=620&version=1430446]
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#15

Peeing on Jesus
(01-25-2022, 08:22 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: Very true about Ultramarine blue and Lapis lazuli.   I have a 30 year old dried out watercolor tube of Ultramarine blue that belonged to my mother. It's not from lapis lazuli but even the synthetic stuff is a little expensive.  A tiny tube of ultramarine blue costs around $30 USD.   

I'm not into religious icons but I've seen paintings of Mary and her blue cloak jumps out of the painting.  It's almost a shockingly blue but very beautiful.

There are still people who grind up lapis lazuli rocks and make oil and watercolor paints out of it.  It's a very long process.  This guy shows the process. There is no narriation in the video and the music is quiet and relaxing.  I find it very soothing and to watch stuff like this.  I zone out.   He makes a watercolor paint with it so it's more translucent than an oil paint would be. 


The very wonderful prof. James Fox (whom I've mentioned before, he has a fascinating documentary on art in the Pacific, and another one about Japan, and yet another one about garden/nature art) has a whole episode about blue (that's how I knew about it being so expensive)



And it really *is* a stunning colour... I just fail to see while the beauty of this very real, very earthy world should evoke thoughts about the "supernatural" and "spiritual". It's like you can love and admire something of this world, it has to be something transcendental or more.

The great Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa, has a great poem about it, sort of...

"Ah! They want a light that's better than the sun's!
They want meadows greener than these!
They want flowers more beautiful than these which I see!

For me this sun, these meadows and these flowers are enough.
But if they weren't enough,
What I would want is a sun more sun than the sun,
Meadows more meadows than these meadows,
Flowers more flowers than these flowers --
Everything more ideal than what it is, in the same way and same manner!
That thing over there more there than it is!

Yes, sometimes I weep for the perfect body that doesn't exist.
But the perfect body is the body that's the most body of all,
And the rest is the dreams of men,
The myopia of those who see little,
And the desire to sit felt by those who don't know how to stand.
All of Christianity is a dream of chairs.

And the soul is what doesn't appear,
The perfect soul is the one that never appears:
The soul that is made out of body,
The absolute body of things,
Existing -- absolutely real -- without shadows or errors,
The exact and entire coincidence of a thing with itself."
“We drift down time, clutching at straws. But what good's a brick to a drowning man?” 
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#16

Peeing on Jesus
(01-26-2022, 03:46 PM)widdershins Wrote: Twenty or so years ago I worked with a bunch of Catholics and I remember an uproar about some piece of art which was just a urinal with a crucifix in it that they were all butthurt about.

Not as butthurt as the alterboys I bet.
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#17

Peeing on Jesus
(01-27-2022, 12:54 AM)jerry mcmasters Wrote:
(01-26-2022, 03:46 PM)widdershins Wrote: Twenty or so years ago I worked with a bunch of Catholics and I remember an uproar about some piece of art which was just a urinal with a crucifix in it that they were all butthurt about.

Not as butthurt as the alterboys I bet.

LOL.

[Image: rim-shot-drums.gif]

Couldn't resist.
                                                         T4618
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#18

Peeing on Jesus
(01-26-2022, 03:59 PM)Minimalist Wrote: That does sound like something they would go nuts about.

But tell them that you saw jesus on a pancake they'll line up for miles and pray to it.

[Image: ?width=620&version=1430446]

That looks more like Charlie Manson than Jesus.
Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Mâyâ.
Fear not — it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies.


Vivekananda
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#19

Peeing on Jesus
At least we actually know what Manson looked like.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
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#20

Peeing on Jesus
(01-27-2022, 02:09 AM)Dānu Wrote:
(01-26-2022, 03:59 PM)Minimalist Wrote: That does sound like something they would go nuts about.

But tell them that you saw jesus on a pancake they'll line up for miles and pray to it.

[Image: ?width=620&version=1430446]

That looks more like Charlie Manson than Jesus.

I though Carl Marx but no, it's Manson.
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#21

Peeing on Jesus
(01-25-2022, 05:54 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote: This is a modern art piece by artist Andres Sorrano from 1989.   He took a little plastic Jesus statue and submerged it in glass tank of his own urine and took a picture of it.   It's called "Piss Christ".  A heavy metal rock band in the early 2000's used that title in one of their songs.  The artist wanted it to blurr the lines between sanctity and blasphemy.   

That bad was Fear Factory with their 1995 album Demanufacture. Most consider it their best album, though I'm partial to Obsolete myself. If you're into 90s industrial metal, it's worth listening to. I still regularly listen to songs from both albums, including Piss Christ.
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