Picturing the Price of Being an Artist

“Artists don’t have families,” the mysterious Warner Dax tells confused painter Daniel at their first meeting in the new film The Time Being. Dax (played by film and theater legend Frank Langella) challenges Daniel (played by Wes Bentley) not just to complete a series of obscure tasks for the cash to keep his struggling career, marriage, and family alive, but also to consider the price he’s paying in the pursuit of art. Time spent painting means time not spent with family. An enigmatic film full of subtle acting and shot in a subtle, but powerfully evocative style, The Time Being thoughtfully examines the cost of the creative life and seriously asks if it is truly worth paying. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "Picturing the Price of Being an Artist."

[Image: Wes Bentley as Daniel beside a portrait of Frank Langella as Warner Dax in The Time Being, distributed by Tribeca Film. Portrait by Stephen Wright.]

[Many thanks to Tribeca Film for providing me with the image above from, press materials for, and a screener copy of The Time Being, starring Frank Langella and Wes Bentley and opening in select theaters on July 26, 2013.]

How to See and Hear Vermeer

Many of Johannes Vermeer’s most famous paintings seem almost eerily silent: The Milkmaid pouring cool milk into a jar, The Lacemaker deep in concentration, the Girl with a Pearl Earring looking fetchingly over her shoulder. But in Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure, which runs through September 8, 2013 at the National Gallery, London, we not only see Vermeer—we “hear” him. Through genre pictures of people making music in the home for their own entertainment, Vermeer (and his contemporaries) captured the very sounds of the day in their paintings. Accompanied by musicians playing the music of Vermeer’s time in the galleries with the paintings, Vermeer and Music brings the Dutch master resoundingly to life. Please come over to Picture This at Big Think to read more of "How to See and Hear Vermeer."

[Image: Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). The Guitar Player, about 1672. Oil on canvas. 53 x 46.3 cm. On loan from English Heritage, The Iveagh Bequest (Kenwood). © English Heritage.]

[Many thanks to the National Gallery, London, for providing me with the image above and other press materials related to Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure, which runs through September 8, 2013.]