Chris Sabian

If you want to know the time ask a policeman and he’ll ring the speaking clock!

2012-01-24T07:19:00.001-08:00

We now know, thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, that the Metropolitan Police has spent more than £35,000 on calls to the speaking clock in the last two years.

It sounds a lot and it is a lot. There is no doubt spending £35,000 on calls to the speaking clock, in an age where every mobile phone and PC constantly displays the time, seems ridiculous. But the number perhaps warrants closer examination.

The Metropolitan Police is a huge organisation: it has more than 35,000 officers and PSCOs, plus more than 13,000 civilian staff. Even trivial amounts of spending per officer quickly add up and that surely is the point.

The force spent £16,879 on calls to the service in 2010/11. At 31p per call, that's just fewer than 54,500 calls over the year.

That works out as 1.5 calls to the speaking clock for each officer, or in other words represents each officer in the force using the service just once or twice each year.

Is that unreasonable? Accurate time is occasionally important to police, when noting chronologies in reports or ahead of operations. It seems almost trivial but if you can save £35,000 per annum by looking at your mobile phone or PC for the time instead of ringing TIM what other savings could be made.

The Metropolitan Police is a huge organisation with a budget in excess of £4 billion each year. Given its scale, there is huge scope for aspects of its spending, outside of context, to look ridiculous in terms of per employee ratio. But no doubt there are areas of waste within the organisation, and elsewhere in the public sector.

Grabbing numbers without putting them in context fires can be misleading, particularly at a time when the public sector faces significant cuts in budgets and staff, but ask yourself this – how many times have you called TIM in the last 20 years? Never, right?

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Get your t*ts out but don’t expect me to pay!

2012-01-24T07:15:00.000-08:00

What another fine mess we find ourselves in with the PIP implants scandal.

Typical of today's society when everyone is blaming the Government because some French company sold sub standard silicone bags to a bunch of over-paid surgeons who carried cosmetic surgery on a group of women who thought that having enlarged breasts would improve their lives and it has all gone wrong or has it?

"Inspiring Confidence in You," says the poster in the reception of the Harley Medical Group clinic in central London.

But the firm's refusal to replace the implants of women who it fitted with PIP implants will hardly do that.

According to the company’s chairman they do not have the resources, the operating theatres or the surgeons to provide the replacements.

The company carried out by far the largest number of implant operations using PIP implants - 13,900, between September 2001 and March 2010.

Harley Medical Group has 31 clinics in the UK and Ireland and says it does around 2,000 breast augmentation operations a year.

The Government say private firms have a moral responsibility to replace PIP implants free of charge if that's what women want. But Harley Medical Group says it is the Government who has the moral responsibility "as they have inflicted the problem on clinics, surgeons and patients".

Why? Because the medical regulator the MHRA had failed to ensure that the PIP implants were safe.

The implants had a European CE mark of safety - similar to those handed out to toy manufacturers. But the safety tests are not nearly as strict as those governing medicines.

Now the fact that it carries a European CE mark of safety takes the level of responsibility to another level. Let’s say Brussels.

But if you buy a car that has a MOT (which means the car should be safe) and it turns out to be a dog with fleas, do you immediately blame the Government. No, of course you don’t.

It is the MHRA's responsibility to act when safety issues surrounding implants emerge. It says it did, although there has been criticism from other quarters too, but that seems to be part of the blame shift culture we have developed so well in this country over the past 15 years.

The NHS in England will remove PIP implants if firms refuse to do so, but in Wales’s ministers says the health service will remove and replace them. That is until they get independence of course.

The Harley Medical Group said it would provide free replacement implants to the NHS, but Andrew Lansley seems certain to reject this.

Another major provider of PIP implants, Transform, has also said it will not replace implants for free. Like the Harley Medical Group it says it will do the surgery for cost - up to £3,000.

Some firms which did a small number of PIP implants, BMI Healthcare, Nuffield Health and Spire have said they will remove and replace them free of charge.

This is a highly confusing situation for women. Whether they get their implants replaced now depends not only on who did their surgery in the first place, but also on where they live.

And don't forget that the official advice in the UK is that there is no medical need to remove PIP implants.

The PIP implants contained industrial grade silicone which did not undergo medical tests. So there are no guarantees about its long term safety.

But the recommendation that implants be removed by authorities in France, Germany and elsewhere is not based on strong evidence of harm but rather the potential that there could be problems in the future.

It seems perfectly obvious to me what the women should do. Clearly the silicone implants were inferior and not fit for purpose. Consequently, plastic surgeons that fitted the inferior product are in the first instance liable. Your contract is with the person who carried out the surgery so sue them.

Why did cosmetic surgeons choose this product in the first place? I don’t know, but I would bet it was cheaper than other products. Cheap means more profit. These companies were quite happy to take your money and profit. Consequently they should pick up the bill for their cheap boob job.

It is an unsatisfactory situation. Women will have to make a judgement - do they want the implants removed as a precaution - bearing in mind that any surgery carries an element of risk? But there were more than 9,000 women in the UK that had surgery last year and if I was a lawyer I would contacting everyone to bring about a case against the likes of Harley Medical Group who are happy to profit but ignore responsibility.

I would presume that these implants carry a guarantee – would they renege on that too?

Hopefully, the adverse publicity will lead to fewer breast enhancement operations in future – big breasts aren’t everything.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - MARK ROTHKO

2012-01-10T08:57:00.000-08:00

MARK ROTHKO (1903-1970) – The influence of Rothko in the history of painting is yet to be quantified, because the truth is that almost 40 years after his death the influence of Rothko's large, dazzling and emotional masses of color continues to increase in many painters of the 21st century.

Born Marcus Rothkovitch in Dvinsk, Russia, Rothko emigrated to the US in 1913. He studied briefly at Yale and in New York, although he considered this to have had little influence on his painting. rothko's style took many years to evolve. His early figurative works included portraits and psychologically-infused urban scenes, which he exhibited with the American expressionist group, The Ten.

Rothko embraced ancient myth as he moved into a surrealist phase in the late 1930's, drawing on them as subjects for his increasingly abstract works. By 1946, he moved into pure abstraction, painting amorphous shapes that would coalesce into his familiar rectangles on fields of colour by 1949. Although the works were formally quite simple, Rothko executed them with a meticulous eye for colour, balance and brushwork that gave them a dramatic presence beyond their initial appearance.

He was pleased that viewers ofte found looking at his paintings a deeply emotional experience. While he maintained the essential elements of his signature style, Rothko's paintings became generally larger, darker and more meditative in the last dozen years of his life.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - HENRI MATISSE

2012-01-10T08:55:00.000-08:00

HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) – Art critics tend to regard Matisse as the greatest exponent of twentieth century painting, only surpassed by Picasso. This is an exaggeration, although the almost pure use of color in some of his works strongly influenced many of the following avant-gardes.

French painter, printmaker and designer; the dominant figure in the Fauvist movement. Initially a lawyer's clerk, Matisse turned to art in 1890. His first teacher, Borguerreau, was a disappointment, but he learned a great deal from his second master, Gustave Moreau, a Symbolist painter with a taste for exotic colouring.

Matisse's early works were mainly Impressionist or Neo-Impressionist in character but, after painting trips to the Mediterranean, he began to employ more vivid colours, using them to create an emotional impact, rather than simply to transcribe nature.

After years of failure, Matisse and his friends made their breakthrough at the Salon d'Automne of 1905. Critics were overwhelmed by the dazzling canvases on display and dubbed the group Les Fauves ('the wild beasts').

Matisse continued to find his greatest inspiration from painting on the Riviera, but he also travelled widely, visiting Morocco, america and Spain. He decorated a chapel in Vence in southern France, in gratitude for a nun who had nursed him, and he experimented with 'cut-outs' (pictures formed from coloured paper shapes, rather than paint).

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

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Classic in close up - ÉDOUARD MANET

2012-01-10T08:54:00.000-08:00

ÉDOUARD MANET (1832-1883) – Manet was the origin of Impressionism, a revolutionary in a time of great artistic revolutions. His (at the time) quite polemical "Olympia" or "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" opened the way for the great figures of Impressionism.

He was an influential French painter, regarded by many as the inspirational force behind the Impressionist movement. Coming from a wealthy family, manet trained under the history painter Couture, but was chiefly influenced by his study of the Old Masters, particularly Velazquez. His aim was to achieve conventional success through the Salon, but ironically two controversial pictures cast him in the role of artistic rebel.

"Olympia" or "Déjeuner sur l'Herbe" were both updated versions of Renaissance masterpieces, but the combination of classical nudes and a modern context scandalized Parisian critics. This very modernity, however, appealed strongly to a group of younger artists, who were determined to paint scenes of modern life rather than subjects from the past. This circle of friends who gathered round Manet at the Cafe Guerbois were to become the Impressionists.

Manet was equivocal about the new movement. He enjoyed the attention of his proteges, but still hoped for official success and, as a result, did not participate in the Impressionist exhibitions. Even so, he was eventually persuaded to try open-air painting, and his later pictures display a lighter palette and a freer touch.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

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Classic in close up - JACKSON POLLOCK

2012-01-03T07:30:00.000-08:00

JACKSON POLLOCK (1912-1956) – The major figure of American Abstract Expressionism, Pollock created his best works, his famous drips, between 1947 and 1950. After those fascinating years, comparable to Picasso’s blue period or van Gogh’s final months in Auvers, he abandoned the drip, and his latest works are often bold, unexciting works.

Pollock grew up in the American West, becoming familiar with Native American art at an early age. He was briefly influenced by Benton and the Regionalists, but learned more from Siqueiros and the Mexican muralists. He was impressed by their expressive, almost violent use of paint. Pollock also began to explore the possibilities of Jungian psychology. This started as an aspect of his private life - psychotherapy was one of the many treatments he tried for his longterm alcoholism - but it also fuelled his art. For, like the Surrealists, he adopted the idea of automatic painting as a mirror of the subconscious.

After years of isolation and critical neglect, Pollock's experiments bore fruit in the late 1940's. By 1947, he had perfected the 'drip' technique which made him famous. He placed his canvas on the floor and covered it in trails of paint, poured directly from the can. This process was carried out in an artistic frenzy of 'Action Painting', comparable with the Indian ritual dances which he had witnessed as a boy.

His paintings offer no articulate meaning, but they are fraught with energy, tension, passion and drama. Pollock's output slowed in the 1950's, and he was killed in a car crash in 1956.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

2012-01-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI (1475-1564) – Michelangelo, along with Picasso, is the greatest artistic genius of all time, but the fact is that Michelangelo defined himself as "sculptor", and even his painted masterpiece (the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel) are often defined as 'painted sculptures'. Nevertheless, that unforgettable masterpiece is enough to guarantee him a place of honour in the history of painting.

Italian painter, sculptor and poet, one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and a forerunner of Mannerism. Michelangelo was raised in Florence, where he briefly trained under Ghirlandaio. Soon his obvious talent brought him to the notice of important patrons. By 1490, he was producing sculpture for Lorenzo di Medici and, a few years later, he began his long association with the papacy.

Michelangelo's fame proved a double-edged sword. He was often inveigled into accepting huge commissions, which either lasted years or went unfinished. The most notorious of these projects was the Tomb of Julius II, which occupied the artist for over 40 years.

Michelangelo always considered himself primarily a sculptor, and he was extremely reluctant to take on the decoration of the Sistine Chapel. Fortunately, he was persuaded, and the resulting frescoes are among the greatest creations in western art. The ceiling alone took four years (1508 - 12), while the Last Judgement (1536 - 43) was added later on the alter wall. In these, Michelangelo displayed the sculptural forms and the awesome power, which made him the most revered artist of the time.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - PAUL GAUGUIN

2012-01-03T07:27:00.000-08:00

PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903) – One of the most fascinating figures in the history of painting, his works moved from Impressionism (soon abandoned) to a colourful and vigorous symbolism, as can be seen in his 'Polynesian paintings'. Matisse and Fauvism could not be understood without the works of Paul Gauguin.

Although he was born in Paris, Gauguin spent his early childhood in Peru, returning to France in 1855. He worked for a time as a stockbroker, painting only as a hobby, until the stock market crash of 1882 prompted a dramatic change of career.

His first pictures were in the Impressionist style, influenced in particular by his friend, Camille Pissarro. Increasingly, though, Gaugin became dissatisfied with the purely visual emphasis of the movement, and tried to introduce a greater degree of symbolism and spirituality into his work.

Inspired by Japanese prints, he also developed a new style, coupling bold splashes of bright, unmixed colour with simplified, linear designs. At the same time, haunted by memories of his Peruvian childhood, Gauguin developed a growing fascination for exotic and 'primitive' cultures.

Initially, he was able to satisfy this need in Brittany where, inspired by the region's distinctive Celtic traditions, he produced The Vision after the Sermon, his first great masterpiece. Then in 1891, he moved to the French colony of Tahiti. Dogged by poverty and ill health, he spent most of his later life in this area, producing the paintings for which he is best known today.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - FRANCISCO DE GOYA

2012-01-03T07:25:00.000-08:00

FRANCISCO DE GOYA (1746-1828) - Goya is an enigma. In the whole History of Art few figures are as complex as the artist born in Fuendetodos, Spain. Enterprising and indefinable, a painter with no rival in all his life, Goya was the painter of the Court and the painter of the people. He was a religious painter and a mystical painter. He was the author of the beauty and eroticism of the 'Maja desnuda' and the creator of the explicit horror of 'The Third of May, 1808'. He was an oil painter, a fresco painter, a sketcher and an engraver. And he never stopped his metamorphosis.

He was raised in the small town Fuendetodos near Saragossa, Spain. Frequently involved in parochial gang fights, he fled to Madrid in 1765 after a brawl in which three youths were killed. As a result of continued sparring he left Madrid precipitately, joining a troupe of itinerant bull-fighters and eventually reaching Rome, where he resumed his studies in art.

In 1798 he returned to Spain as a designer for the royal tapestry factory and executed a number of frescoes drawn from contemporary life, asa well as a series of satirical etchings. In 1799 he was appointed court painter to Charles IV, which resulted in some of his most notable portraits.

After the French invasion (1808) he sided at first with the invaders, but secretly sketched their atrocities, which resulted in both full-scale canvasses and numerous etchings. In 1824 he moved to Bordeaux where, in old age, he produced some of his finest genre paintings.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Classic in close up - VINCENT VAN GOGH

2012-01-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

VINCENT VAN GOGH (1853-1890) – Few names in the history of painting are now as famous as Van Gogh, despite the complete neglect he suffered in life. His works, strong and personal, are one of the greatest influences in the twentieth century painting, especially in German Expressionism.

A leading Post-Impressionist and forerunner of Expressionism. Vincent's first job was for a firm of art dealers, but he was sacked after a failed affair affected his ability to work. After a brief stint as a teacher, he became a lay preacher in a Belgian mining district.

Here again he was fired when the Church became concerned at his over-zealous attempts to helpthe poor. Vincent had at least found his true vocation: illustrating the plight of the local peasantry.

Previously influenced by Millet, in 1886 Van Gogh went to Paris where his style changed dramatically. Under the combined impact of Impressionism and Japanese prints, his pallette lightened and he began to employ bold simplications of form. Like Guaguin, he also used colours symbolically, rather than naturalistically.

With financial help from his brother, Theo, Vincent moved to the South of France. Gauguin joined him but the pair soon clashed, hastening Van Gogh's mental collapse. Despite his illness he continued working at a frenzied pace until his suicide in July 1890.

Van Gogh sold only one painting in his lifetime, but his work has since become the most popular and sought after of any modern artist.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

The Real Tracey Emin

2011-12-31T05:13:00.000-08:00

I once saw Tracey Emin described as a Badass and True Artist and that maybe correct but I saw an interview she gave to the BBC last week and I think there is more to it than that.

What a person looks like and acts like says a lot about themselves and in the case of an artist, about their art. Tracey appears risky, honest, and crazy. She doesn't really care what people think about her and neither do I for that matter and this shows in her image. But it is not just that.

She said that if she wasn't an artist then she would be the best entrepreneur ever and to be fair she isn't doing a bad job now. My opinion of her work isn't good but it sells and sells for a lot of money.

She is highly intelligent, thoughtful and incredibly articulate. Tracey is class-blind, which is one of the many things I admire about her. You have to be really stupid to think that Tracey Emin is stupid.She is not afraid to expose herself. She is provocative but she has something to say.

Emin is renowned for her honesty, which for some is seen as either a cheap publicity stunt or vulgar exhibitionism - both of these ideas are incorrect. Emin is a dynamic, blunt and intelligent artist and I will now look at her in a totally different light.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Rubbish Bin Wins Turner Prize

2011-12-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

The Turner Prize, awarded each year to a contemporary artist under 50, has been awarded to some pretty awful pieces. Between Tracy Emin's 'My Bed,' which incorporated soiled underwear and condoms, and Chris Ofili's paintings made of elephant dung, the un-orthodox nominated pieces are often regarded as trash. So this year's winner had the perfect qualifications to win. The award went to Martin Boyce's 'Perforated and Porous (Northern Skies),' which is an installation incorporating a trash bin.

I was somewhat bemused by the piece in question but was mightily relieved when a judge explained "Distinctive for the way that he employs his grammar of forms, Boyce's sparse, intelligent sculptures evolve each time they are exhibited, exploring new tensions and new contrasts." Which tranlated into English means a complete load of bollocks.

One respondent summed it up perfectly.

"None of it matter, does it, as they seek only validation from other morons? It's like one of those self-contained ecosystems you can buy. Modern art exists in the same kind of protected bubble of moronism - a place where all morons can go and bark all kinds of 'moronisms' at each other, trying to convince themselves that they live on a totally different plane to us great unwashed."

Anyway till next year when I will probably enter one of my dogs artistically challenged turds.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

What is all the fuss about Jeremy Clarkson

2011-12-02T01:26:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Clarkson's opinionated but humorous tongue in cheek writing and presenting style has often generated much public reaction to his viewpoints and his call for strikers to be "executed in front of their families" was just another incident. But you know what, if you don't like Clarkson's brand of populist right-wing humour, switch over. But few chose that option.

The whole episode has erupted out of all proportion to the point that Clarkson's outburst is getting greater coverage than the strike itself. The Twittersphere erupted in outrage and Labour rushed out a late night press release calling on David Cameron to "condemn" Clarkson's remarks (Cameron has since said it was "a silly thing to say" and quite frankly that should be the ned of it). Now, remarkably, Unison, one of the country's biggest trade unions, is taking "urgent legal advice" over whether the Top Gear presenter could be prosecuted for his "I'd have them all shot" comment.

Look at the clip yourself. It is perfectly obvious that the comment was made in jest. Indeed, immediately before the remarks, he joked that he supported the strike (the roads were clear for once) but needed to give the other side since he was on the BBC. Infact if the two very lightweight presenters had been better briefed they could have squashed the whole incident. Instead they sat there in stunned silence not knowing what to do.

Those on the left "outraged" by Clarkson's comments are the mirror image of those on the right who shout when Ken Livingstone jokes about hanging Osborne or compares Boris to Hitler.

Censorship or tolerate bad jokes- you decide.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

We are peering into the Abyss.

2011-11-18T08:24:00.000-08:00

As I get older I have found myself not liking people very much. I like my own company because deep down I am the only person I can trust. This is based on a life time of being f**ked by people who you thought were your friends and secondly on the state of not just the country we live in but the whole world.

Let's face we are f**ked aren't we! The end is nigh, not just the euro zone but the whole god dammed shooting match.

It is like the countdown has already begun and you don't have to read the bible to see this coming.

T - minus 5 In the Beginning

Pre-9/11, the American people were showing reluctance to back an escalating US militarization and enhanced role as an advancing hegemonic world super power. So what was required was a galvanizing “catastrophic and catalyzing event - 9/11. The American global military dominance machine was set in motion.

But ten years on the public is growing war weary. Never mind the obvious strain the war machine has on the failing economy. The small staged terrorist alerts are keeping it alive but they obviously need more.

T - minus 4 The Middle East

The Middle East is more unstable now than at anytime. Revolutions are widespread and the position in Syria is becoming critical. Russia stood by President Bashar al-Assad last Thursday as Arab and Western countries sought to pile pressure on the Syrian leader to halt a violent crackdown on his opponents.

The Arab League has suspended Syria and given it until the end of the week to comply with an Arab peace plan to end bloodshed that has cost more than 3,500 lives, by a U.N. count.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country is one of Syria's few remaining foreign friends, said demands for Assad's removal would destroy the initiative, which calls for dialogue between the Syrian government and its foes.

The rhetoric for war with Iran begins to mount. Iran threatens US interests throughout the Middle East and the US and Israel for that matter will protect those interests with, if necessary, a military confrontation.

T - minus 3 Closer to Home

The whole of Britain in shrouded in doom and gloom. With Christmas less than six weeks away there is no cheer in this country. Blighted by euro zone debt and hatred for bankers, the country is grinding to a halt.

In the shopping centres and in dole queues, in the playgrounds and on the shop floors, on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral and in the tents surrounding the Cathedral, we are talking of doom, death and dread. As Bank of England governor Sir Mervyn King announced our catastrophically rubbish growth figures earlier this week, did you detect the fact that he was resigned to the fact that it's all over bar the shouting?

Vince Cable announced Europe's debt crisis could unleash economic “Armageddon” which will collapse UK banks. Hazel Blears said there was no good news left and "just call me Dave" can't stop talking about what an "alarming time" it is. The markets are "incredibly volatile" and we have "clear and present dangers" to face, he reckons. So even the Prime Minister is feeling miserable now.

Unemployment is spiralling out of control, inflation will follow and therefore petrol, gas and electric and food will rocket in price.

Merkel wants Europe for the Germans, sound familiar? And we are too frightened to get out and look after number one.

T - minus 2 Population Explosion

The United Nations estimates that the world population increased by one billion people in just 12 years to reach seven billion in October 2011. It will add another billion in 14 years to reach 8 billion in 2025. There may be over 9 billion people in 2050 and over 10 billion by the end of this century. Why the explosion will slow down when life expectancy is increasing and social security, tax credits, unemployment and boredom encourages shagging and childbirth I'm really not sure. Oh, and the number of infant deaths has dropped because of more food, sanitation and medicine. I believe the population will grow at a much faster rate than predicted.

Just think of what this means for food and natural resources, including fossil and gas-based energy. Nearly all the population growth will happen in Asia, Africa and Latin America worsening the competition for resources and deepening social inequity.

Everything else is a challenge.

T - minus 1 Civil Unrest

The US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain and others have implemented austerity plans that threaten ‘social cohesion’. The economic crisis has become the greatest threat to national security. The global economic crisis is the most serious one in decades, if not in centuries. Economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if prolonged and this is certainly going to be prolonged.

This week, following the news that youth unemployment has passed the one million mark, an eviction notice has been served on the protest camp outside St Paul's and the New York sanitation department rips up and tosses away the Occupy Wall Street camp.

When you can’t feed your family do the Ten Commandments still prevail? When survival is the first law of nature what do you do? What will the authorities do when people erupt in the streets? It’s coming!

All of these pressures are going to mobilise a set of dynamics which are unpredictable and profoundly disruptive to countries.

T - minus 0 Full Scale Insanity

The conflagration begins, the final provocation arrives, everything stops as the world watches Freddie Starr chomping on mice tails, turkey testicles and a pig's bottom and then heads for hospital sparking ARMAGEDDON.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

The Apprentice - what a load of tosh

2011-11-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

I was unfortunate to watch a The Apprentice on the television the other night and quite quickly concluded that it is a complete load of tosh. I have been in business for thirty years and at no time have I experienced the complete and utter bollocks that I witnessed on the box.
　
I concede that nice’ ‘warm’ and ‘unsure’ don’t make for confrontational TV. However the program delivers a negative impact on the perception of anyone in business, and if we are led to believe that kids are impressionable then it might make young aspirational people feel that the behaviours they see the apprentices portray are the ones they need to replicate to ‘get on’ in business.

The overall behaviour witnessed by the apprentices is the one to be ‘right’ at all costs and then vigorously defend their view irrespective of the facts or evidence. It also encourages the individuals to personally attack each other, all good for the viewing figures but completely wrong in the real world.

A considered approach will win the day over a belligerent bully anyday.

All I see in the apprentices is brash, arrogant, forceful, and disingenuous and sadly I don't see thoughtful, reflective, analytical, and integrity.

And what is all this kiss ass Lord Sugar crap. A better name for him would be Brown Sugar. As I recall he made his name on the sale of an unremarkable personal PC, and by taking last place in the satellite aerial industry.

But he was mates with the Labour party heirarchy when they were dishing out titles for donations.

As for Karen Brady...what is she on? Honestly some kids sold a few bunches of flowers and some other tat and she says they have created a succesful floristry business. Well I sold a DVD on ebay does that make me HMV?

I won't bother again.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Thomas Crown - you are small time

2011-11-16T06:15:00.000-08:00

Last night quite by chance I watched a documentary called Billion Dollar Art Heist, a Storyville. It is the cautionary tale of the “destruction” of one of the greatest art collections ever created.

This is the all-American story of a self-made man from the wrong side of the tracks setting him against an establishment that wreaked a spectacular revenge on him decades after his death – with what are, on the face of it, the best of aims in view.

The film opened with Philadelphia’s avuncular mayor, John Street, announcing that Alfred C Barnes’s collection of Impressionist art is about to move to a purpose-built public gallery in the centre of the city. It takes a few moments for the penny to drop that this is the heist of the title.

Albert C Barnes was born in Philadelphia January 2, 1872 to working-class parents. His father had been a butcher before the American Civil War where he lost his right arm in at the Battle of Cold Harbour and became a letter carrier. His mother was a devout Methodist who took Barnes to African-American camp meetings and revivals.

He earned a spot at the public academic Central High School in Philadelphia and helped put himself through the University of Pennsylvania by tutoring, boxing, and playing semi-professional baseball. At age 20, he was a medical doctor.

In 1899 with a German chemist named Hermann Hille, Barnes developed a mild silver nitrate antiseptic solution, marketed as Argyrol. Used in the treatment of venereal disease and as a preventative of gonorrhoeal blindness in newborn infants, Argyrol was an immediate financial success. Within five years of starting the business in 1902, the firm cleared $250,000 in profits (roughly $5.8 million today).

Barnes bought out Hille and became a millionaire in the 1900s by the age of 35. In July 1929, Barnes sold his business for a reported sum of $6 million. The move was well timed as he sold before the market crash of 1929 and the antibiotic age that started during WWII.

From about 1910, Barnes began to dedicate himself to the study and pursuit of art. He commissioned one of his former high school classmates, the painter William Glackens, to buy several 'modern' French paintings for him. In 1911 Glackens returned from Paris with some 20 paintings for $20,000 that formed the core of Barnes' collection.

By 1912 he was meeting the artists such as Matisse and Picasso, Modigliani, Giorgio de Chirico and Soutine among others.

With money, an excellent eye, and the poor economic conditions during the Great Depression, Barnes was able to acquire much important art at bargain prices. "Particularly during the Depression," Barnes said, "my specialty was robbing the suckers who had invested all their money in flimsy securities and then had to sell their priceless paintings to keep a roof over their heads."

He built up a collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art – 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 59 Matisse’s, the list goes amazingly on – only rivalled by Paris’s Musee d’Orsay. The 2,500 items in the collection include major works by Rousseau, Modigliani, Soutine, Seurat, Degas, and van Gogh. The entire collection is estimated today to be worth between $20 and $30 billion. Although John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were vastly wealthier than Albert Barnes, the Barnes Foundation has assets 10 to 20 times greater than either the Carnegie Corporation or the Rockefeller Corporation.

The collection has always been spoken about in art circles as a jewel of a collection, a holy of holies of the art world, a sanctum sanctorum of great art. It was, arguably, the best early Modern, French Impressionist and Post Impressionist compilation in the world.

Barnes hated the power elite of the City of Philadelphia. Therefore he wanted to build an artistic oasis for serious students who could learn from his collection away from those who wanted art as a backdrop and as a tourist location. Barnes never wanted to create a museum.

The Barnes collection was built during a time when the conservative and arrogant Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and certainly the Boston Museum of Fine Arts had little or no interest in the French Impressionists, Post-Impressionists and Early Modern works coming out of Europe. These works and artists were considered not at all by these still august institutions.
Yet when Barnes threw his collection open to the public, in a gallery in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 1923, the response from the art establishment, press and general public was unalloyed hostility and ridicule. Barnes’s French modernism was simply too way-out for local tastes.

Insulted, Barnes retreated into himself, turning his collection into an educational foundation. Public access was limited according to Barnes’s personal whims and you can imagine what they were.

At the same time Barnes’s prickly personality, liberal politics and refusal to open his collection to the public prompted a barrage of criticism from the Right-wing Philadelphia establishment.

When in retrospect the value and depth of Barnes' collection became clearer, the Philadelphia elite felt that this was too much grand art to be residing in a more or less isolated small township suburb.

To protect his vision, Barnes hired some top Philadelphia lawyers to draft an iron-clad will that not only endowed his foundation with appropriate funds to maintain the collection where and how he saw it in perpetuity. Purposely, he had included in the will the codicil that the collection could not go anywhere near the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

After Barnes’s death in a car crash in 1951, the terms of his will – that nothing should be changed, and no painting lent or sold – were stringently enforced by his secretary Violette de Masia. But Barnes had given a controlling interest in his foundation to Lincoln College, an impecunious African-American dominated university he had chosen for its non-establishment credentials.

It was not until 1961 that the collection was open to the public regularly two days a week. That schedule expanded slightly in 1967. Up through the early 1990s, long after Barnes's death, access to the collection was extremely limited, and the foundation restricted the reproduction in colour of many works, so they could only be seen in person.

Richard H Glanton, a charismatic African-American lawyer, who had been made president of the Barnes Foundation, decided to open it to the world as the instrument of his own glorification. Thwarted in plans to sell parts of the collection to pay for the upkeep of the building, he also sent the art on a fundraising world tour in 1993 in flat contravention of Barnes’s will.

When local residents objected to the building of a car park to accommodate the crowds turning the Barnes into “the Super Bowl of Art”, as one neighbour puts it, Glanton cried “racism”, invoking legislation designed to fight the Ku Klux Klan in a legal battle that drained the Foundation of the funds raised by the world tour.

Glanton rightly or wrongly was sacked shortly after and the vultures closed in.

In a series of complex moves that defy easy comprehension, three other foundations mounted an aggressive take-over of the Barnes. They then contrived the removal of the collection to the centre of Philadelphia – despite stringent protests from Barnes’s supporters and claims of flagrant illegality on the part of the courts.

Through political twists turns and power elite deals, nearly 60 years after Barnes' accidental death in a car wreck, the opposite of what Barnes had wanted is now going to happen.

So is allowing the public to experience this great collection rather than it be limited to a few scholars and a select group of students really wrong? Here the social good has prevailed over private desires. However, the difficult point is that what has occurred is counter to the explicit desires of Dr. Alfred C. Barnes. He was very specific about this. His wishes as stated in his last will and testament are now not being followed. The Art of the Steal demonstrates that $25 billion in art and aggressive politicians and establishment types can eventually trump an eccentric millionaire's thoughtful and legally stated last desires.

In 2012, a new Barnes Foundation will open in Philadelphia. The art collection will then be shared by all as a fabulous new public museum. Dr. Alfred C. Barnes is turning in his grave.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Blair Africa Charity seeks taxpayers money

2011-11-14T03:25:00.000-08:00

Is there anyone more irritating than Tony Bloody Blair? This
supercilious little man has really erked me this weekend.

How on earth does he have the bare faced cheek to be seen in public and on television this weekend of all weekends wearing his poppy with the stench of murder under his nose from a campaign in Iraq derived from his lies.

And if that wasn't bad enough I read that his Africa charity is seeking to obtain cash from the £8bn foreign aid budget.

We all know that Blair looks after number one and no one else - how else does he earn a reported £7m a year and in excess of £25m since he left office. He is what is known as a "smiling knife". Just ask Gordy.

The Blair years greatly encouraged the transformation of charities into, in reality, arms of the government. There was no more selling flags and shaking tins under people's noses. Instead they accepted very large government subsidies and overnight their independance was gone.

So now Blair is taking a leaf out of his own book and is now seeking Whitehall endorsement - and presumably aid - for his charitable activities.

We have a situation in todays world where there is no clear disclosure between private charites and government intervention. It is all very murky.

The same can be said for Blair. Since getting on the "yellow brick road" he is about as transparent as a muddy puddle.

Charities help Blair make vital contacts to increase his fortune, so call me old fashioned but once a snake always a snake and his actions can only be construed as helping himself. If I'm wrong then he should be applauded for his efforts. But let's face he has a lot to make up for.

Either ways up he shoud do it alone and not with the help of British taxpayers money which is there to help more worthy recipients than him.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

The Artful Forger

2011-11-10T09:14:00.000-08:00

Forgers have been conning the art world for generations and it is still going on now despite dedicated teams of experts and police trying to stop it.

It is not beyond the realms of possibility that as much as half the art in circulation on the international markets is forged. And there is plenty that reaches these shores and the high and mighty London auction houses. Actually in all seriousness there isn't a year that passes without some so called art expert is duped and hits the headlines to the delight of the crowd.

There was an absolute classic example a couple of years ago. They were known as the "Bolton forgers", and consisted of the father, mother and son. They hit the news after conning enormous sums out of the art world and museums selling fake sculptures, artefacts and paintings. The kitchen and garden shed of their council house in Greater Manchester doubled as one of the most prolific, and successful, art forgery studios in the world. When the arts and antiques squad raided the property in March 2006, they discovered an Aladin's Cave production line.

It is thought that the family of forgers – George Greenhalgh, 84, his wife Olive, 83, and son Shaun, 47 – made about £2m from their scams, while claiming welfare benefits - the greedy so and soes. They came unstuck when they tried to sell the British Museum an ancient Assyrian relief, having become overconfident after off-loading an Egyptian sculpture for nearly £500,000 in 2003. Spelling mistakes in the cuneiform script sought of gave the game away and even plod couldn't miss this startling error.

Then there was the case of Robert Thwaites. In 2006 the 54-year-old artist with no formal training and failing eyesight, was sentenced to two years in prison for selling forged oil paintings by Victorian artist John Anster Fitzgerald, famous for his macabre fairy scenes. He operated for nearly five years – between 1999 and 2004 – before police confiscated his easel. Thwaites sold one of his fakes for £20,000 to Rupert Maas, a gallery owner and art specialist for the BBC's Antiques Roadshow. So convincing was Thwaites' work that Maas was able to sell it on for three times the price he paid for it. Gallery owner Christopher Beetles was also taken in, paying more than £100,000 for another of Thwaite's forgeries.

Now new x-ray techniques that provide far more detailed images of what lies beneath old masters could have major implications for the detection of fraudulent artworks.

Computerised image-processing systems should get better at detecting forgeries the more scientists can learn about artists' techniques and styles and they can also use other wavelengths, including ultraviolet, to analyse brushwork. Once the system is perfected, the multi-billion pound art forgery industry could find itself feeling the pinch. Unless, of course, the forgers find ways to dupe the authentification technology, which is always a possibility.

Artistic licence: famous fakers
* Han van Meegeren (1889-1947)

Van Meegeren was a Dutch painter who focused on faking the works of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675). Van Meegeren's most famous Vermeer fake, 'The Disciples at Emmaus', for example, was proclaimed authentic by the eminent art historian Abraham Bredius in 1937, and then sold for $6m (£3.3m). Van Meegeren's activities came to light after he was arrested for selling one of his "Vermeers" to Hermann Goring. After being found guilty of forgery, he died of a heart attack before his one-year prison sentence could begin.

* Elmyr de Hory (1906-1976)

De Hory was a Hungarian-born painter who, for three decades, used his extraordinary talent to forge masterpieces from some of the world's greatest artists, including Picasso, Vlaminck, Chagall, Toulouse-Lautrec, Dufy, Derain, Matisse, Degas, Bonnard, Laurencin and Modigliani. Not only did his fakes go for the highest prices on the art markets, but he managed to elude Interpol and the FBI for most of his criminal career.

* John Myatt (1945-)

Myatt is a British artist generally considered to have been the greatest art faker of the 20th century. According to police estimates, Myatt painted about 200 forgeries (including fakes of works by Renoir, Picasso and Modigliani), delivering them to an associate who sold them to London auction houses and to dealers in Paris and New York. Scotland Yard detectives arrested him in 1995. Since his release from prison in 2000 (having served four months of a one-year sentence), Myatt has made a successful career as an artist in his own right and his paintings now sell for up to £50,000.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

FIFA - What a bunch of corrupt muppets!

2011-11-10T07:39:00.000-08:00

Did FIFA say no to the home nations football teams wearing a poppy on their shirts for political reasons or was it because the British Legion wouldn't slip someone a bung. Whatever the reason have we actually won the day when infact there has been a compromise.

As with the World Cup bid England and the other home countries have been shafted by an organisation that smply doesn't like us. The sooner we make the feeling mutual the better for British football and probably world football at that.

　

In contrast, there was no dispute when England and Wales rugby league players asked to wear poppies on their tops this weekend, along with the other two teams involved in the four nations contest — Australia and New Zealand.

I would still urged the FA to take a "strong line" against the governing body’s stance which is that by not wearing an embroidered poppy protects the neutrality of football.

Just call me Dave and Prince Willie got involved, both expressing their dismay at the decision not to allow England players to wear the commemorative poppies at a friendly match. Well I would have told them to take a running jump that ended in off.

We await to see what happens on Saturday apart from the inevitable defeat, ofcourse.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Tate Modern Occupied by Anti Capitalist Protesters

2011-11-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Anti-capitalist protesters have set up camp outside London's most famous contemporary art museum, Tate Modern, this morning (1st November). Apparently, the eleven protesters pitched up at 3am this morning on the patch of grass just outside Tate Modern, with one arrest made in the process. The protesters have stated that their presence is a civil matter and anyone wishing to evict them must do so through the courts.

With the Occupy London encampment outside St Paul's Cathedral expected to be issued with a 48-hour eviction notice at some stage today, it's hardly surprising that the protesters are looking elsewhere to continue to express their views about the inequality and corruption seemingly embedded in every fibre of today's capitalist system.

But why Tate Modern? One of Occupy London's major grievances has been against the so-called 'sweetheart' deals apparently given the go-ahead by HMRC boss Dave Hartnett - allegedly letting companies like Goldman Sachs and Vodafone off tax bills totalling billions of pounds. Earlier this year, Tate Modern announced a new sponsorship deal with Vodafone, and its launch was systematically undermened by political action group UK Uncut. Tate Modern are also sponsored by BP, which has led to many protests at the gallery since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Gustave Moreau

2011-11-01T08:21:00.000-07:00

Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) – One of the key figures of symbolism, introverted and mysterious in life, but very free, exotic and colourful in his works. Henri Matisse was a pupil of Gustave Moreau.

Born in Paris, Moreau studied under Francois-Edouard Picot and became a friend of Theodore Chasseriau, whose work strongly influenced his own.

His first painting was a Pieta which is now located in the cathedral at Angouleme. He showed A Scene from the Song of Songs and The Death of Darius in the Salon of 1853. In 1853 he contributed Athenians with the Minotaur and Moses Putting Off his Sandals within Sight of the Promised Land to the Great Exhibition. Oedipus and the Sphinx, one of his first symbolist paintings, was exhibited at the Salon of 1864.

He became a professor at Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1891 and among his many students were Matisse and Rouault and Jules Flandrin.

During his lifetime, Moreau produced more than 8,000 paintings, watercolors and drawings, many of which are on display in Paris' Musee National Gustave Moreau.

Roy Lichtenstein

2011-11-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1977) – Along with Andy Warhol, the most famous figure of the American Pop-Art. His works are often related to the style of the comics, though Lichtenstein rejected that idea.

Roy Lichtenstein enrolled at the Art Students' League (1939) and later studied at Ohio State College. After military service (1943-46) hereturned to Ohio State as a teacher, and later taught at New York State and Rutgers Universities.

He began exhibiting in 1949, his early works inspired by aspects of American history, strongly infuenced by Cubism, though later he tended towards Abstract Expressionism. While teaching atRutgers he met Allan Kaprow, who opened his eyes to the artistic possibilities inherent in consumerism and from about 1960 he developed what later became known as Pop Art, in which images are painted in the style of the comic strip.

Even the dots of the screening process used in the production of comic books is meticulously reproduced in Lichtenstein's highly stylised paintings.

Famous work - Kiss II
Other work - In the Car, M-Maybe, Whaam!

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Conquerors one and all

2011-10-29T06:46:00.001-07:00

For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph - a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.

It’s time to get out Europe

2011-10-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

If you are like me then you will be sick to the back teeth of hearing about EU bailouts and having seen the disgraceful way in which “just call me Dave” was treated at the big pow-wow last night (26^th October) then enough is enough. Let’s get out pronto.

There are many problems with the EU. It is built on the vanity of politicians and unelected officials, drunk on power. If you remember in the beginning this originally was the common market for free trade but it's now become a dinosaur full of money grabbing little Hitlers.

Ted Heath, the Conservative leader at the time, took us into this club to facilitate an easy way of trading with Europe. Since then it has become almost a police state with new rules and regulations appearing nearly every day which affect all of us but we have no say in whether they are implemented.
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The over-regulation that we hear so many complaints about in this country is a direct result of the basic difference between the origins of law making on the continent and the UK. UK law has historically been "you can do what you like unless we say you can't". European law on the other hand, with origins in the Code Napoleon, is "you can't do it unless we say you can".
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The current problems in the Euro-zone have certainly been compounded because the politicians/officials decided to ignore the tight fiscal requirements required of membership and allow countries such as Greece into the Euro when there was not a hope in hell that they could meet the requirements. That piece of hubris is now costing Europe billions. The only way the single currency could hope to succeed is with complete political and fiscal integration and nobody wants or in fact wanted that.
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The continued expansion of the EU has resulted in ever leakier borders, allowing pretty much unchecked migration. This, compounded by human rights legislation applied by an exceeding liberal and out of touch legal system, has led to increasingly creaky welfare systems throughout the EU and heightened racial tensions between "indigenous" and immigrant populations’.

The EU is a corrupt and inefficient edifice. Their own auditors have refused to sign off the accounts for many years because the books don't balance. Officials who raise concerns are dismissed and vilified.

Europe has become the dictatorship which so many millions died for during world war two to prevent. The only difference now is that goose stepping is a health and safety issue and the Christian name Adolph isn’t as popular as it used to be.
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It is a home (and fat pension) for failed politicians who want to assure their place in history with what is known in France as a "Grande Projet". Only those on the gravy train want to remain in Europe.
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The EU will ultimately fall, as all artificially constructed "empires" throughout history have fallen.

I’m trying to think of who has benefitted from membership. Certainly a raft of under privileged Johnny Foreigners has arrived and got stuck into our generosity. But what about the British?

Just think if we get out now we can – run our own country; employ our own people; catch as much fish as we like; sink the Spanish fishing armada again; sell in pounds and ounces; sell curved cucumbers and bent bananas; get back to m.p.h.; and most of all save a boat load of dough every day.

Then we could get rid of the hated Human rights rubbish which protects the criminals and ignores the victims of crime, allows rapists and murderers to remain in this country and prevents the authorities from sending illegal immigrants back where they belong.

The gravy train for the MEPs and others needs derailing. We can all see the 'career progression' for UK politicians who try and make a name for themselves here while not blotting their reputation with the EU powerhouse. Look at the Kinnocks for example.

How can we stop this, apart from signing another petition for another referendum, and keep the pressure on? We need a true leader to step forward who isn't afraid to challenge the fools we seem to be surrounded with. Mass 'people power' needs to be harnessed positively and led effectively, with a strategy formulated to get the required change peacefully, preferably without any anarchic tendencies. Didn’t the Daily Express start something last year?

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk

Lucy Liu shares her art in a new book

2011-10-26T06:38:00.000-07:00

The actress has a new book titled "Lucy Liu: Seventy Two" which features her black and white paintings. She said she was inspired by a chart containing a graph of Aramaic letters and her fascination with how the energy of those letters could create something.

Apparently, each square of the chart has a significance which relates to the meditation of prosperity, healing , unity, things like that. As an art book you can flip through it and then if you want to go deeper, you can go in the back and for each painting there's a meditation and you can read that as well. No shit!

Liu, who has a showing of her work right now in London, said writing the meditations for her book were challenging, as she didn't want to come off as "didactic or someone who knows it all - oops you said it!

And in art studios all over the world, people who have devoted their lives to their craft weep in frustration. It must be nice to be a celebrity and have the pull to get a bunch of meaningless brush strokes published and shown as "art". What was the point of art school again?

Chris Sabian is a portrait artist with http://www.kutefineart.com and co-owner of http://www.paragonprints.co.uk