What a weekend. I got no internet in my new apartment yet, so I missed quite a lot of updates. I’ll try to make up for it.
Starting with a few personal notes, life in our new flat is being a lot of fun, with a few minor hiccups. The other night I had a close friend visiting, and showing off the house and furniture, at some point I proudly showed him a present my buddy Smurfpower got me: a ceramic kitchen knife.
For those who don’t know, ceramic edges are created from a particularly hard kind of ceramic (generally zirconium dioxide) that, through a quite fascinating forging process, is turned into something harder than steel. On the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, zirconium dioxide is rated 8.5. Hardened steel is 6. Diamond is 10.
So we’re looking at a very hard blade that basically never needs sharpening. My friend picks it up and says “it looks like a toy, so it’s probably absolutely lethal”. Well, it is. I was making a salad yesterday, and cutting some onions with the knife I underestimated the blade. It went through a 7 cm-wide onion like it was paper, and I managed to cut my finger. It kept bleeding for the entire day. So yes, thanks Smurfpower, it’s a really sharp blade. I’m loving it.
Moving on to the topic subject, I wanted to share some pictures from one of my favourite oriental artists: Yoshitaka Amano.
My reference to Klimt is probably inappropriate, but I always felt a connection between the two artists (possibly because I like them both). Amano worked mostly on comicbooks and videogames (he’s mostly famous in the west for his silouette work for the logos of the Final Fantasy saga, and that’s how I came to know him too).
What I absolutely love about him is how he’s fundamentally a melting pot of influences and sensibilities. His style is extremely “western” for a japanese artist, yet it’s also clearly inspired by japanese prints and watercolors. His subjects range from improbable anime heroes to western characters in victorian clothes to scenes pulled straight from the Arabian Nights. He’s delicate yet powerful, and his vision of beauty, while uncompromising, is absolutely charming. The men he draws are feminine YET manly. His women are beautiful but flawed. There’s a vague air of sadness or rather melancholy in his work: everything he depicts seems part of a dream, and aware that at some point you’ll have to wake up and leave the magic behind. That’s probably the key to understanding the bittersweet beauty of Amano’s work. He’s a man drawing dreams.
sirquincyfancypants 