Here we are, on a Friday morning, and we’d like to discuss the role of pandas in art history. I don’t know if anyone noticed in the most recent Wu on Wednesday cartoon, that Bai Yun’s pose in the first panel, was taken directly from a Caravaggio painting at The National Gallery in London, Supper at Emmaus. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that I had wasted seven years in art school.
Speaking of pandas in art, a painting that was recently discovered in the basement of a London Gallery, which wished to be unnamed, proves beyond the shadow of a doubt, that James Abbott McNeil Whistler had a thing for pandas, in this first version of a painting of his mother. Rumor has it that he had asked his mother for funds to travel to Italy, as he had recently been bankrupted after the Ruskin trial. She refused, and he painted this portrait of her, as a panda. later he relented and painting a portrait that was more of a likeness, but many thought that the original painting was more flattering.
“Arrangement in Black, White, and Gray” by James A. McNeil Whistler
Till next week,
Be the Bear!
Bob T. Panda
We like Furry Friday
Me too! all fridays should be fabulous, not to mention furry. :o)
It is also one of my all time favorites, too.
Listen, about Wusday……couldn’t we get like a five day week so Wusday would come around more often? The faces and bodies are so them….you are wonderful to be able to see Bai and Mr. Wu self the way you do, and give us your vision…..love grammmie
p. s. are you going to do a book on cub raising? Bai could be “the head of the team, with WuZi featured, Po and his mommy, the others in the U. S. A. that have babies this year, their tips and trials. And a bit from ZZ in China, and perhaps Su Lin if she gets lucky again. This will give you lots for book three, now there is lots of time for book four, and two hasn’t gone to bed yet! Love grammmie
what….more work? can I go to bed now?
Of course you can go to bed, after answering my questions. I took the time to ask them, Bob, the polite thing to do is to at least you are considering my suggestions, and will dream about the cub raising book, and book four while sleeping. Pandas take enough naps to cover that quickly. Love grammmie
Sorry, but you know how we pandas are. when it’s time to sleep, it’s time to sleep! The panda advisory board considers all suggestions, but sometimes the way we act on them is not always what the suggester intended. That is the way things go in the world of panda satire. We do love suggestions, but we reserve the right to think on things for a long time and see how it percolates through the little gray cells, as Poirot would say. Please keep sending them. I never know when someone will suggest something that makes my creativity spark.