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Today — 7 April 2025Main stream

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 302

By: hoakley
7 April 2025 at 16:00

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 302. Here are my solutions to them.

1: Shortened characters into the most common extension, formerly ASCII.

Click for a solution

txt

Shortened characters (text, shortened) into the most common extension (it is), formerly ASCII (it used to be).

2: Medical practitioner at the end of word files until gaining a cross in 2002.

Click for a solution

doc

Medical practitioner (a doc) at the end of word files (the extension for Word native format) until gaining a cross in 2002 (progressively replaced by the newer docx from 2002 onwards).

3: At the end of real estate inventory, most commonly for Info and preferences.

Click for a solution

plist

At the end (a filename extension) of real estate (property) inventory (list), most commonly for Info (Info.plist in bundles) and preferences (also usually property lists).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They are common filename extensions.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Yesterday — 6 April 2025Main stream

Kitty, Wezterm, Alacritty, Ghostty 该用哪个?

6 April 2025 at 15:43
hzzhzzdogee:

个人写一点自己整理的异同, 权当抛砖引玉, 希望有熟悉这几个工具的小伙伴能提供建议

共同点是:

  • gpu 加速
  • 基于文本配置的, 高度自定义化

一些对比

特性 Kitty WezTerm Alacritty Ghostty
编程语言 C 和 Python Rust Rust Zig
配置方式 纯文本( kitty.conf ) Lua 脚本 YAML/TOML 键值对文本
开发状态 成熟 活跃 成熟但更新慢 新兴, 正在开发中, Warp 团队作品

All aboard: a century of painting railways 2

By: hoakley
6 April 2025 at 19:30

In the first of these two articles tracing the first century of railways in paintings from the early 1840s, I had reached Claude Monet’s views of the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris before 1880. By this time few countries in Europe had no railways, and trains frequently conveyed artists from their studios in the cities out to the beaches and mountains, journeys that a few years earlier could have taken days rather than hours.

Frits Thaulow, The Train is Arriving (1881), oil on canvas, 14.5 x 24 cm, National Gallery (Norway), Oslo. Wikimedia Commons.
Frits Thaulow (1847-1906), The Train is Arriving (1881), oil on canvas, 14.5 x 24 cm, National Gallery (Norway), Oslo. Wikimedia Commons.

Although Norway was a greater challenge for the railway engineers, Frits Thaulow seized the opportunity to show the results in The Train is Arriving from 1881. The country’s first public steam-hauled railway was developed by the son of George Stephenson, whose Rocket locomotive had inaugurated the first steam railway in the world. Norway’s line opened in 1854, and during the 1870s progressively made its way to Trondheim.

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), The Blue Train (Viaduct in Arles) (1888), oil on canvas, 46 x 49.5 cm, Musée Rodin, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.
Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890), The Blue Train (Viaduct in Arles) (1888), oil on canvas, 46 x 49.5 cm, Musée Rodin, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

In 1888, Vincent van Gogh gave us The Blue Train (Viaduct in Arles).

orlovskysteppe
Volodymyr Orlovsky (1842–1914), Steppe (date not known), oil on canvas, 95 x 183 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Volodymyr Orlovsky’s undated Steppe shows a river in summer, with water levels at their minimum. Cattle are taking the opportunity to drink and cool off in the water. In the distance is the plume of smoke from a railway train, probably carrying grain and other produce from the Ukrainian countryside to one of the growing coastal cities for export.

The twentieth century brought the beginning of the end of the power of steam, marked in an unexpected twist of history. Between 1898 and 1900, a new railway station, initially known as the Gare d’Orléans, was built on the bank of the Seine at Quai d’Orsay, Paris. The first electrified urban railway terminal in the world, it was a star of the Exposition Universelle in 1900, where many Impressionist paintings were exhibited.

marectravauxgaredorleans_rwk
Victor Marec (1862-1920), Construction de la gare d’Orléans en 1899 (Construction of the New Gare d’Orléans Station in 1899) (1899), media and dimensions not known, Musée Carnavalet, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Victor Marec’s painting shows construction work being progressed in 1899, with a steam locomotive hauling construction trucks.

The Gare d’Orsay, as it became, started to suffer physical limitations in 1939, and its upper levels closed from 1973. In 1986 it re-opened as the most extensive collection of Impressionist art in the world, the Musée d’Orsay.

lucegaredelest
Maximilien Luce (1858–1941), La Gare de l’Est (1917), oil on canvas, 129.5 x 161.5 cm, Musée de l’Armée, Paris. By Ji-Elle, via Wikimedia Commons.

Maximilien Luce was one of the most expressive artists, who wasn’t an official war artist, to show scenes relating to the First World War. In his La Gare de l’Est (1917), a collection of wounded and battle-weary soldiers are shown at the entrance to this large Paris railway station.

lucegaredelestsnow
Maximilien Luce (1858–1941), The Gare de l’Est in Snow (1917), oil on canvas, 130 x 162 cm, Musée de l’Hôtel-Dieu, Mantes-la-Jolie, France. Wikimedia Commons.

The Gare de l’Est in Snow (1917) is even better-known, and a classic painting of falling snow in a large city.

urynollendorfplatzstation
Lesser Ury (1861–1931), Nollendorfplatz Station at Night (1925), media and dimensions not known, Märkisches Museum, Berlin, Germany. Image by anagoria, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lesser Ury’s Nollendorfplatz Station at Night from 1925 shows the brilliant electric lighting around this busy railway station to the south of the Tiergarten, in one of Berlin’s shopping districts.

By this time, painting trains was becoming something of a sub-genre, particularly as steam trains were being replaced throughout Europe.

Eric Ravilious, Train Landscape (1940), watercolour and pencil on paper (collage), 44.1 x 54.8 cm, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collection, Aberdeen, Scotland. WikiArt.
Eric Ravilious (1903-1942), Train Landscape (1940), watercolour and pencil on paper (collage), 44.1 x 54.8 cm, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums Collection, Aberdeen, Scotland. WikiArt.

Eric Ravilious is one example of a twentieth century artist who painted motifs deeply embedded in the railway, in his Train Landscape from 1940.

A few narrative artists, including Joaquín Sorolla, set their stories inside railway carriages. My favourite among these is Berthold Woltze’s Der lästige Kavalier (1874), rendered into English as The Annoying Bloke, from 1874.

woltzederlastigekavalier
Berthold Woltze (1829–1896), Der lästige Kavalier (The Annoying Bloke) (1874), oil on canvas, 75 x 57 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

This is set in a railway carriage where there are two men and a young woman. She is dressed completely in black, and stares towards the viewer with tears in her eyes. Beside her is a carpet-bag, and opposite is a small wooden box and grey drapes.

Leaning over the back of her seat, and leering at her, is a middle-aged dandy with a brash moustache and mutton-chop whiskers, brandishing a lit cigar. He appears to be trying to chat her up, quite inappropriately, and very much against her wishes. Behind him, and almost cropped off the left edge of the canvas, is an older man with a dour, drawn face.

The young woman has apparently suffered a recent bereavement, and may even be travelling back after the funeral. She looks too young to have just buried a husband, so I think it more likely that she has just lost her last parent, and is now living alone, prey to the likes of this annoying and abusive bloke.

Kitty, Wezterm, Alacritty, Ghostty 该用哪个?

6 April 2025 at 15:43
hzzhzzdogee:

个人写一点自己整理的异同, 权当抛砖引玉, 希望有熟悉这几个工具的小伙伴能提供建议

共同点是:

  • gpu 加速
  • 基于文本配置的, 高度自定义化

一些对比

特性 Kitty WezTerm Alacritty Ghostty
编程语言 C 和 Python Rust Rust Zig
配置方式 纯文本( kitty.conf ) Lua 脚本 YAML/TOML 键值对文本
开发状态 成熟 活跃 成熟但更新慢 新兴, 正在开发中, Warp 团队作品

Former Aides to Ken Paxton Win $6.6 Million in Whistle-Blower Case

6 April 2025 at 02:41
A judge found that four whistle-blowers who accused Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general, of corruption and reported him to the F.B.I. were unjustly fired.

© Jordan Vonderhaar for The New York Times

The four whistle-blowers from the Texas attorney general’s office attending the final day of the impeachment trial of Ken Paxton in September 2023.
Before yesterdayMain stream

All aboard: a century of painting railways 1

By: hoakley
5 April 2025 at 19:30

The nineteenth century brought huge changes in technology and society. Some, like telegraphy, telephones and radio, haven’t featured in many paintings, and even the bicycle has largely escaped the canvas. But the advent of railways, and later motor cars, had greater impact on visual art. In this weekend’s two articles, I trace the first century of railways in paintings from the early 1840s.

turnerrainsteamspeed
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844), oil on canvas, 91 x 121.8 cm, The National Gallery (Turner Bequest, 1856), London. Courtesy of and © 2018 The National Gallery, London.

JMW Turner was among the first painters to capture this in his Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway in 1844. This pioneering railway connected London with rich farming country across the south of England, down into western counties, eventually reaching Cornwall in 1859, fifteen years after Turner completed this painting, and eight years after his death.

frithrailwaystation
William Powell Frith (1819–1909), engraved by Francis Holl (1866) The Railway Station (1862), original oil on canvas, this print mixed media engraving on wove, finished with hand colouring, 66 x 123 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

William Powell Frith’s The Railway Station (1862) captures the atmosphere of a major railway station in a capital city, here Paddington Station in London, by coincidence Brunel’s terminus for his Great Western Railway. Stations like this became a focus of activity, emotional partings and arrivals, migration, and a fair bit of crime too, everything the narrative painter might wish for.

Britain may have been the first to build railways, but the mania spread like wildfire across Europe and North America.

hahnsouthernpacificsacramento
William Hahn (1829–1887), Southern Pacific R.R. Station at Sacramento (c 1873-74), oil on canvas, 64.7 × 94.6 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

As the railroad, it started to cover the far greater distances of the USA and Canada. William Hahn’s Southern Pacific R.R. Station at Sacramento (c 1873-4) shows its rapid growth there.

Smoke, steam and other atmospheric effects brought inspiration to the French artists who were developing painting from where Turner’s death had left it.

manetchemindefer
Édouard Manet (1832–1883), Le chemin de fer (The Railway) (1873), oil on canvas, 93.3 × 111.5 cm, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

France had been an early innovator and adopter, although such post-classical motifs wouldn’t have been appropriate for the Salon, of course. It took Édouard Manet painting his favourite model Victorine Meurent, in Le chemin de fer (The Railway) (1873), to break the ice. Its background is the Gare Saint Lazare in Paris. This painting was completed and sold in 1873 to the singer and avid collector Jean-Baptiste Faure, and astonishingly was the only painting accepted of three submitted to the Salon by Manet the following year, where it provoked outrage and ridicule, and a torrent of sarcastic cartoons in the press.

denittistrainpassing
Giuseppe De Nittis (1846–1884), The Passing of a Train (between 1869 and 1880), oil on canvas, 31.1 x 37.6 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Near Manet’s painting in the Salon, a couple of works by Giuseppe De Nittis were given a warmer reception. Yet sometime between 1869 and 1880, De Nittis painted The Passing of a Train, his unashamed comment on the coming of the train.

As De Nittis, Monet, Pissarro, and the other Impressionists started painting in even more unacceptable styles around Paris, trains and railways came to appear even more.

monetpontcheminderferargenteuil1873
Claude Monet (1840–1926), The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil (1873), oil on canvas, 60 × 99 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Claude Monet’s The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil (1873) is one of his several landscapes centred on the railway from the years immediately after the Franco-Prussian War. At this time, Monet was a regular commuter by train: when he, Camille and his son moved out to Argenteuil at the end of 1871, he travelled the short distance into Paris by train.

monetrailwaybridgeargenteuil1874
Claude Monet (1840–1926), The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil (1874), oil on canvas, 54 × 71 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Monet liked this bridge so much that he painted it again the following year, in The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil (1874).

By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, steam power had become so essential to modern life it was assimilated into the everyday. Paul Cézanne’s family estate in Aix-en-Provence was connected by rail to Paris by 1856, and express trains to the Mediterranean coast enabled many artists whose studios were in the capital to paint in the remarkable light of the Midi. The prominent light ochre structure sweeping across many of Cézanne’s views of Mont Saint-Victoire is the long viaduct built to accommodate the railway that transported artists between Paris and the coast of the Midi.

monetnormandytraingaresaintlazare
Claude Monet (1840–1926), Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877), oil on canvas, 59.6 x 80.2 cm, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Wikimedia Commons.

In 1877, Claude Monet became the most painterly railway buff of them all. By then, he was becoming detached from Argenteuil, and sought a new radically modern urban theme. Where more appropriate than the steaming hubbub of the Gare Saint Lazare? Caillebotte paid the rent for him on a small studio nearby, and Monet gained approval to paint in the station. By the third Impressionist Exhibition of April 1877, Monet had assembled seven views of the station, including one that even seemed to please the critics. Among the paintings from that campaign is his Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare (1877).

monettraintrackssaintlazare
Claude Monet (1840–1926), Train Tracks at the Saint-Lazare Station (1877), oil on canvas, 60.5 × 81.1 cm, Pola Museum of Art, Hakone, Kanagawa, Japan. Wikimedia Commons.

Monet was too smitten to stop in the station, though. In his Train Tracks at the Saint-Lazare Station (1877) he reversed the view and started showing railway signalling.

monetwesternregiongoodssheds
Claude Monet (1840–1926), Saint-Lazare Station, the Western Region Goods Sheds (1877), oil on canvas, 60 × 80 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

He went even further in his Saint-Lazare Station, the Western Region Goods Sheds (1877), showing the working parts with the smoky city beyond.

Saturday Mac riddles 302

By: hoakley
5 April 2025 at 16:00

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: Shortened characters into the most common extension, formerly ASCII.

2: Medical practitioner at the end of word files until gaining a cross in 2002.

3: At the end of real estate inventory, most commonly for Info and preferences.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

Trump Sidelines Justice Dept. Legal Office, Eroding Another Check on His Power

4 April 2025 at 19:42
As President Trump claims expansive and disputed powers, his administration has curbed the influential Office of Legal Counsel.

© Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

President Trump’s administration has undercut the power of the Office of Legal Counsel, speeding up Mr. Trump’s ability to act but creating mounting difficulties for Justice Department lawyers.

Interiors by Design: Dressing table

By: hoakley
4 April 2025 at 19:30

Originally known as a toilet table, or simply a toilet, dressing tables or vanities featured near the beds of ladies from the late seventeenth century. They are a fusion of storage boxes used for cosmetics and jewellery, a small flat surface on which to place their contents, and the inevitable mirror to check that she looked right. By the eighteenth century they were made popular by royal mistresses including the Marquise de Pompadour, and became integrated into the morning reception phase of the lady’s day.

hogarthmarriage4
William Hogarth (1697–1764), Marriage A-la-Mode: 4, The Toilette (c 1743), oil on canvas, 70.5 × 90.8 cm, The National Gallery, London. Courtesy of The National Gallery London, inventory NG116.

William Hogarth even titles the fourth painting in his moralising narrative series Marriage A-la-Mode, The Toilette (c 1743). The Countess Squander is being entertained while completing her dressing and preparations for the day. To the right of the Countess, Silvertongue rests at ease, his feet uncouthly laid on the sofa, clearly intimate with her. He is offering her a ticket to a masquerade ball, where no doubt he will meet her. His left hand gestures towards a painted screen showing such a masquerade.

At the left an Italian castrato (by his wig and jewellery) sings to a flute accompaniment. The rest of the room are disinterested, apart from a woman in white, who is swooning at the singer. The Countess’s bedchamber is behind the pale red drapes at the rear left, and to the right of centre is a typical dressing table with a mirror.

tenkatechaperone
Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate (1822–1891), The Chaperone (1858), oil on panel, 15 x 19 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Herman Frederik Carel ten Kate’s Chaperone (1858) recreates an interior from a similar period. A suitor clutching his tricorn hat and walking stick is chatting up a young woman with her companion and moral guard. Behind her chair is a dressing table with a similar layout to Hogarth’s.

Over the next century, dressing tables were modernised and adopted by even the middle classes.

degaswomandryingherselfafterbath
Edgar Degas (1834–1917), Woman Drying Herself after the Bath (c 1885, or 1876-77), pastel over monotype, 43 × 58 cm, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA. Wikimedia Commons.

Edgar Degas’ Woman Drying Herself after the Bath is one his first works showing a woman bathing, dating from 1876-77. It’s also one of the few in this series setting the woman in a broader context, here a plain and simple bedroom with a single bed. The woman, wearing only bright red ‘mule’ slippers, stands just behind the shallow metal tub, watching herself in the mirror of her dressing table, as she dries her body with a towel. On its shelf is a small range of cosmetics, with the mandatory mirror behind.

vallottonmisiadressingtable
Félix Vallotton (1865–1925), Misia at Her Dressing Table (1898), distemper on cardboard, 36 x 29 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Félix Vallotton affords us a glimpse into the private life of one of the most influential patrons and muses of the day, in his Misia at Her Dressing Table from 1898. Her first marriage was to her cousin Thadée Natanson, who had socialist ideals and lived in artistic circles. The Natansons entertained Marcel Proust, Stéphane Mallarmé, André Gide, and Claude Debussy, but they were closest to their painter friends: Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Odilon Redon, Paul Signac, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

friesekenudeseateddressingtable
Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874–1939), Nude Seated at Her Dressing Table (1909), oil on canvas, 162.3 x 131.1 cm, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.

For Frederick Carl Frieseke a Nude Seated at Her Dressing Table (1909) is an opportunity for mirror-play. This vanity is more decorative than functional, with curves, a glass top and a painted porcelain figure.

Pierre Bonnard’s domestic interiors are rich with dressing tables, and inventive mirror-play. I show here just two examples.

bonnardeltocador
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), El Tocador (The Dressing Table) (1908), oil on panel, 52 x 45 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The Athenaeum.

In Bonnard’s El Tocador, which means The Dressing Table (1908), his partner Marthe’s headless torso is seen only in reflection. The direct view is of the large bowl and pitcher she used to wash herself.

bonnardbathroommirror1914
Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), The Bathroom Mirror (1914), oil on canvas, 72 x 88.5 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. The Athenaeum.

In 1914, Bonnard moved back for a wider view in The Bathroom Mirror. Marthe’s reflection is now but a small image within the image, showing her sat on the side of the bed, with a bedspread matching the red floral pattern of the drapes around her dressing table. Bonnard has worked his usual vanishing trick for himself, and a vertical mirror at the right adds a curiously dark reflection of the room.

The Toilet exhibited 1914 by Henry Tonks 1862-1937
Henry Tonks (1862-1937), The Toilet (1914), pastel on paper, 33 x 44.1 cm, The Tate Gallery (Presented by Geoffrey Blackwell through the Contemporary Art Society 1915), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/tonks-the-toilet-n03016

Henry Tonks’ The Toilet from the same year separates his nude from her dressing table, and shuns mirror-play altogether.

vallottoncoqueterie
Félix Vallotton (1865–1925), Coquèterie (Sauciness) (1911), oil on canvas, 89 x 116 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Félix Vallotton’s Coquèterie (Sauciness) from 1911 shows a young woman still undressed in her white chemise, her unmade bed behind. She looks at herself in the mirror of a small dressing table with that mirror mounted in its lift-up lid, thinking what clothing she should wear from those scattered around.

Garbage Strike in UK’s Second Largest City Leaves Trash Piled High

4 April 2025 at 17:28
A standoff between garbage collectors and municipal officials in Britain’s second largest city has left an estimated 17,000 tons of trash on the streets.

© Phil Noble/Reuters

A large pile of trash on the pavement of a street in Birmingham, United Kingdom on March 24.

Commemorating the centenary of John Singer Sargent’s death: 2 London

By: hoakley
3 April 2025 at 19:30

By 1880, just two years after he had completed his training under Carolus-Duran in Paris, John Singer Sargent was in the ascendant. His skills were in growing demand for the portraits of the rich and famous, and he also took time to travel and paint abroad, mainly in Spain and Italy.

sargentspanishdancer
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Spanish Dancer (1880-81), other details not known. Wikimedia Commons.

When he was in Spain in around 1880-81, he painted this Spanish Dancer.

sargentvenetianglassworkers
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Venetian Glass Workers (1880-82), oil on canvas, 56.5 × 84.5 cm, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL. Wikimedia Commons.

During a visit to Italy in the period 1880-82, he painted these Venetian Glass Workers.

In early 1883, Sargent made overtures to one of the best-known young socialites in Paris, Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, a French creole immigrant from New Orleans, who had married the French banker Pierre Gautreau. Her beauty was the talk of the town, and numerous artists had asked to paint her portrait as a means of promoting their own careers. The first request that she accepted was Sargent’s, in February 1883. She proved a reluctant sitter, and it wasn’t until June of the following year that Sargent was able to pin her down in her estate in Brittany to start preparatory studies. He didn’t complete the finished work until well into the autumn.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Portrait of Madame X (1884), oil on canvas, 235 x 110 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

We can’t see his original version of Madame X, as its reception drove him to make alterations to tone down its overt eroticism. Her pose was considered sexually suggestive, and one strap of her gown had fallen down her shoulder adding to the image’s sexuality. It caused a scandal when exhibited at the Salon, and was lampooned mercilessly in the press.

Sargent sought temporary solace flirting with the fashion for Impressionism.

Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood ?1885 by John Singer Sargent 1856-1925
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood (c 1885), oil on canvas, 54 x 64.8 cm, The Tate Gallery (Presented by Miss Emily Sargent and Mrs Ormond through the Art Fund 1925), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2017), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sargent-claude-monet-painting-by-the-edge-of-a-wood-n04103

He had first met Claude Monet in 1876, but it’s thought that this painting of Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood was made in 1885, when they were painting together at Monet’s house in Giverny. At the right is Alice, Monet’s wife.

That year Sargent decided to move his portraiture studio away from the scandal in Paris, to London.

John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6), oil on canvas, 174 x 153.7 cm, The Tate Gallery, London. WikiArt.
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose (1885-6), oil on canvas, 174 x 153.7 cm, The Tate Gallery, London. WikiArt.

By 1886, Sargent had fully settled into his London studio, and the following year had established his reputation, which was reinforced when he exhibited Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose at the Royal Academy. This was bought immediately by the Tate Gallery. From then until he closed his studio in 1907, he was the leading portrait painter in London. In spite of his obvious success, he was among those who were unhappy with the Royal Academy, and was a founding member of the New English Art Club in 1886.

His uncommissioned work often took him plein air and with progressively loosening style. He visited France frequently, attended Impressionist exhibitions, and developed his friendship with Monet. His informal works were often loose bravura gatherings of marks that appear to have been painted very quickly indeed.

John Singer Sargent, A Gust of Wind (c 1886-7), oil on canvas, 61.6 x 38.1 cm, Private collection. WikiArt.
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), A Gust of Wind (c 1886-7), oil on canvas, 61.6 x 38.1 cm, Private collection. WikiArt.

This is shown well in Sargent’s virtuoso Gust of Wind from about 1886-7, which compares with Claude Monet’s La Promenade from 1875.

By the end of the 1880s, his critics in England considered him an Impressionist, but Monet thought he was still under too much influence from Carolus-Duran to be considered Impressionist. His portrait business prospered: in 1887-8 he toured the US and gained over twenty important commissions, including that of Isabella Stewart Gardner, a major patron of the arts in Boston, where twenty-two of his paintings were shown in his first solo exhibition.

sargentbunker
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot (1888), oil on canvas mounted on masonite, 68.6 x 64.1 cm, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL. Wikimedia Commons.

Sargent met Dennis Miller Bunker (1861-1890) in November 1887, during that visit to the USA, when Bunker was a rising star of American Impressionism. Like Sargent, Bunker had trained in Paris, and the two became good friends. Bunker stayed with Sargent in England in the summer of 1888, when Sargent painted him at work, in Dennis Miller Bunker Painting at Calcot. Bunker tragically died of meningitis just two years later, at the age of only 29.

John Singer Sargent, Morning Walk (1888), oil on canvas, 67.3 x 50.2 cm, Private collection. WikiArt.
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Morning Walk (1888), oil on canvas, 67.3 x 50.2 cm, Private collection. WikiArt.

Sargent painted this Morning Walk in 1888.

sargentoutofdoorsstudy
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), An Out-of-Doors Study (c 1889), oil on canvas, 65.9 × 80.7 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

Paul César Helleu (1859–1927) first met Sargent when the former was a precocious student at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1876. Sargent was the first person to buy one of Helleu’s paintings, for which he paid the huge sum of a thousand francs. Helleu and his wife Alice remained close friends with Sargent, and the couple often appear in his paintings. When he painted them in An Out-of-Doors Study in about 1889, they had been married three years.

John Singer Sargent, La Carmencita (1890), oil on canvas, 54 x 35 cm, Private collection. WikiArt.
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), La Carmencita (1890), oil on canvas, 54 x 35 cm, Private collection. WikiArt.

On the evening of 1 April 1890, when Sargent was back in New York, he, William Merritt Chase and the famous Spanish dancer Carmencita met in Chase’s Tenth Street studio; she danced for them, and they sketched. On this occasion, Sargent opted for a more static pose in his La Carmencita (1890), with her hands at her hips, driving her bust out and her chin high, in assertive pride.

Demand for Sargent’s portraiture skills remained high during the 1890s.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes (1897), oil on canvas, 214 x 101 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Bequest of Edith Minturn Phelps Stokes (Mrs. I. N.), 1938), New York, NY. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 1895, two notable young residents of New York City married. He was Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes (1867-1944), a recent graduate of Harvard who studied architecture for three years at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Sargent’s alma mater. He went on to co-found the architectural firm of Howells & Stokes, and was a pioneer in social housing. She was Edith Minturn (1867-1937), daughter of the shipping magnate Robert Bowne Minturn, Jr., and destined to become a philanthropist, socialite, and artistic muse.

A close friend decided that a good wedding gift would be a portrait of Mrs Stokes painted by the greatest of the age, John Singer Sargent. For various reasons this was delayed, but in 1897 the artist and the couple got together and Sargent started work. His original intention had been to paint Mrs Stokes wearing formal evening dress sitting next to an Empire table. However, he changed his mind and decided to paint her standing in informal walking attire next to a Great Dane. As he was reconceiving this in his mind, he turned to a portrait that had been donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Sargent’s patron Henry Marquand in 1889: that of James Stuart, by van Dyck.

Unfortunately, Sargent was unable to find a suitable dog. Mr Stokes then “offered to assume the role of the Great Dane in the picture”, as he put it in his memoirs. The result puts Mrs Stokes in charge, as an example of ‘The New Woman,’ and her husband as a surrogate dog.

Commemorating the centenary of John Singer Sargent’s death: 1 Pupil

By: hoakley
2 April 2025 at 19:30

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were three dominant painters who flirted with Impressionism but retained conventional styles: Anders Zorn from Sweden, Joaquín Sorolla from Spain, and John Singer Sargent, an American expatriate who worked from studios in Paris and London. All three died in the 1920s, and this year we commemorate the centenary of Sargent’s death on 14 April 1925. This is the first in a series of six articles outlining his career with but a small and personal selection of his paintings.

Sargent was born to American expatriate parents in Florence, Italy, in 1856. He was educated at home and showed early skill in drawing. Already competent in watercolour at the age of 14, he saw many of the works of the great Masters during travels around Europe with his family. In 1874 he succeeded in gaining admission to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was taught mainly by Carolus-Duran, and less by Léon Bonnat.

Although his initial enthusiasm was for landscapes, Carolus-Duran encouraged him towards portraiture, and his first significant portrait was accepted by the Salon in 1877. His talent was recognised by the critics, and he made friends with Julian Alden Weir and Paul César Helleu, who in turn introduced him to other leading artists of the day, including Degas, Rodin, Monet, and Whistler.

John Singer Sargent, Fishing for Oysters at Cançale (1878), oil on canvas, 41 x 61 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. WikiArt.
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Fishing for Oysters at Cançale (1878), oil on canvas, 41 x 61 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. WikiArt.

Sargent’s early style was realist, particularly in portraiture, and leaned towards Impressionism as seen in this painting of Fishing for Oysters at Cançale from 1878, but was quite distinct from the work of the leading Impressionists at that time. In the summer of 1878, John Singer Sargent had just completed his studies with Carolus-Duran, and went off on a working holiday to Capri, staying in the village of Anacapri, as was popular with other artists at the time.

Capri was still quite a select holiday destination then, and unspoilt. But getting a local model was tricky, because of the warnings that women were given by priests. History has proved those priests only too right in their advice. One young local woman, Rosina Ferrara, seemed happy to pose for him, though. She was only 17, and Sargent a mere 22 and just developing his skills in portraiture. Over the course of that summer, Sargent painted at least a dozen works featuring young Rosina, who seems to have become almost an obsession with him.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Capri Girl (Dans les Oliviers, à Capri) (1878), oil on canvas, 77.5 x 63.5 cm, Private collection. The Athenaeum.

One, Dans les Oliviers, à Capri, above, he exhibited at the Salon the following year. A near-identical copy A Capriote, below, he sent back for the annual exhibition of the Society of American Artists in New York, in March 1879. The latter is now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), A Capriote (1878), oil on canvas, 76.8 x 63.2 cm, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA. Wikimedia Commons.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), View of Capri (c 1878), oil on cardboard, 26 x 33.9 cm, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.

He also painted a pair of views of what was probably the roof of his hotel. In View of Capri, above, made on cardboard, Rosina stands looking away, her hands at her hips. In the other, Capri Girl on a Rooftop, below, she dances a tarantella to the beat of a friend’s tambourine. The latter painting Sargent dedicated “to my friend Fanny”, presumably Fanny Watts, who modelled for the first portrait that Sargent had exhibited at the Salon the previous year.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Capri Girl on a Rooftop (1878), oil on canvas, 50.8 x 63.5 cm, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR. Wikimedia Commons.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Portrait of Rosina Ferrara (1878), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Rosina appears to have danced for Sargent again, for him to paint her in Portrait of Rosina Ferrara, above, as a precursor to his later paintings of Spanish dancers. But of all Sargent’s paintings of Rosina, the finest portrait, possibly one of the finest of all his ‘quick’ portraits from early in his career, is another painted in oils on cardboard: Rosina Ferrara, Head of a Capri Girl, below.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Rosina Ferrara, Head of a Capri Girl (c 1878), oil on cardboard, 49.5 x 41.3 cm, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO. Wikimedia Commons.

This he dedicated to “Hyde” (the artist Frank Hyde), and signed in 1878, while he was still on Capri. There are another couple of portraits he painted of a young woman during that summer on Capri. Although she’s in more serious mood, possibly even a little surly with ennui, I wonder if they also show Rosina Ferrara.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Head of a Capri Girl 1 (1878), oil on canvas, 43.2 x 30.5 cm, Private collection. The Athenaeum.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Head of a Capri Girl 2 (c 1878), oil on canvas, 47 x 38.1 cm, Private collection. The Athenaeum.

Sargent left Capri, eventually returning to Paris and his inexorable rise to greatness, fortune and success. But that wasn’t the end of Rosina’s modelling career, not by a long way. Frank Hyde, to whom Sargent had dedicated a portrait of her, painted his own version a couple of years later.

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John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Portrait of Carolus-Duran (1879), oil on canvas, 116.8 × 95.9 cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. Wikimedia Commons.

Sargent’s famous Portrait of Carolus-Duran (1879) is not only his personal tribute to his teacher, but when it was shown at the Salon proved the foundation of Sargent’s own career as a portraitist.

John Singer Sargent, Fumée d'ambre gris (Smoke of Ambergris) (1880), oil on canvas, 139.1 x 90.6 cm, Sterline and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. WikiArt.
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Fumée d’ambre gris (Smoke of Ambergris) (1880), oil on canvas, 139.1 x 90.6 cm, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA. WikiArt.

He continued to travel in Italy and Spain, where in 1880 he painted Smoke of Ambergris, demonstrating what was to come beyond mere portraits.

Can APFS special files save storage space?

By: hoakley
2 April 2025 at 14:30

I’ve long been critical of some of the best-selling utilities for the Mac, that set out to perform deduplication of files by detecting which appear to be identical, and removing ‘spare’ copies. This is because APFS introduced clone files, and in the right circumstances those take up no space in storage, as their data is common and not duplicated at all. As it’s practically difficult to tell whether two files are clones, any utility or command tool that claims to save space by removing duplicates can’t tell you the truth, and in most cases won’t save as much space as it claims.

Claims made by those utilities are often exaggerated. This is because they calculate how much space they think they’ve saved by adding the sizes of the potential duplicates they have deleted. That’s not correct when a clone file is deleted, as that doesn’t actually free any space at all, even though the clone file has exactly the same nominal size as the original.

Benefitting from clone files

I’m delighted to see the eminent John Siracusa turn this on its head and finally make better use of clone files in his app Hyperspace, available from the App Store. Instead of deleting clones, his app can replace duplicate copies with clones, and so achieve real space savings. This comes down to simple arithmetic:

  • if you have two copies (not clones) of a file in the same APFS volume, the total size they take on disk is twice the size of one of them;
  • if you have two clones (not copies) of a file in the same APFS volume, the total size they take on disk is only the size of one of them, as its clone takes no additional space at all.

Hyperspace thus checks all the files in a selected folder, identifies which are identical copies, and (where suitable) will replace those copies (except an original) with clones, so saving real storage space.

I also think it has the most user-friendly payment scheme: download Hyperspace free of charge and check your Mac with it. If it doesn’t find sufficient savings, and you decide not to use it to replace any duplicates with clones, then it costs you nothing. If you want to reclaim that space, then you can opt to pay according to the amount of space it saves, by subscription, or with a one-time payment. On that basis, I unhesitatingly recommend everyone to download it from the App Store, and at least check their Home folder to see if it’s worth paying to reclaim space. You have absolutely nothing to lose.

In my case, perhaps because I tend to clone files using the Finder’s Duplicate command, the savings that it offered were of little benefit, but your Home folder could be different and release 100 GB or more.

Sparse files

The other space-saving special file type in APFS is the sparse file. Although it can bring great savings in storage space, that’s largely up to the app(s) that create and maintain the file, rather than the user. Devising an app that could go round converting plain to sparse files is harder, and risks incompatibility with those apps that access those files.

Fitting 285 GB into 16.5 GB

As a demonstration of how effective APFS special files are in saving disk space, I built myself a 100 GB partition (APFS Container) on an SSD and tried to fill it with clone and sparse files until I got bored.

At this stage, the 100 GB partition contains:

  • One 16.5 GB IPSW image file, with nine clones of it, created using the Duplicate command.
  • Eleven 10 GB sparse files and one clone, created using my app Sparsity.

Add those file sizes together and they come to 285 GB, yet the 100 GB partition only has 16.5 GB stored on it, and still has over 83 GB free. No compression is involved here, of course.

As the saying goes, there ain’t such as thing as a free lunch, and that free space could vanish quickly depending on what happens to those files. The worst case is for an app not to recognise sparse files, and write one to disk in plain format, so swallowing 10 GB at once. Editing the cloned files would be a more gradual way of their growing in size. Only changed data would then need to be saved, so free disk space would steadily fall as more changes were made to the clone.

Clone and sparse files are by no means unique to APFS, but they can be impressive, and above all they’re effective at reducing excess erase-write cycles that age SSDs, whatever you do with the storage they free.

I’m very grateful to Duncan for drawing my attention to Hyperspace, and to John Siracusa for an outstanding app.

Reading Visual Art: 202 Rabbit & Hare

By: hoakley
1 April 2025 at 19:30

As today is the first day of April, it’s a double danger: as the first of the month you should say rabbit or white rabbit when you first wake up, and it’s All Fools’ Day as well. I have no hoaxes for you this year, I promise, but I do have rabbits, some of them white, and a few hares as well. Rabbits and hares are relatively infrequent in paintings, and where they do occur they seldom have any deeper reading.

Because they’re so familiar, they appear in animal gatherings.

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Hieronymus Bosch (c 1450–1516), The Garden of Earthly Delights (left panel, detail) (c 1495-1505), oil on oak panel, central panel 190 × 175 cm, each wing 187.5 × 76.5 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Wikimedia Commons.

In the left panel of Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (c 1495-1505) is a curious mixture of real and imaginary creatures. There’s an elephant and a giraffe, both early depictions of those species, together with monkeys, brown bears, rabbits, and more, even a white unicorn drinking at the lake on the left.

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Paulus Potter (1625–1654), Orpheus and Animals (1650), oil on canvas, 67 x 89 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Wikimedia Commons.

Among the many superb animal paintings of Paulus Potter, Orpheus and Animals from 1650 is one of his most unusual, showing a wide range of different animal species, some of which weren’t well-known at that time, and one of which (the unicorn) didn’t even exist. Those seen include a Bactrian camel (two humps), donkey, cattle, ox, wild pig, sheep, dog, goat, rabbit, lions, dromedary (one hump), horse, elephant, snake, deer, unicorn, lizard, wolf, and monkey.

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Jacopo Tintoretto (c 1518-1594), Creation of the Animals (1550-53) (E&I 55), oil on canvas, 151 × 258 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, Italy. Wikimedia Commons.

In Tintoretto’s Creation of the Animals, the first of his Old Testament cycle for the Scuola della Trinità in Venice, God flies along as he creates pairs of different species of bird, fish, and animal, from cormorants to rabbits.

Among their leading roles is in Elihu Vedder’s delightful painting of the unfortunate Marsyas.

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Elihu Vedder (1836–1923), Young Marsyas (Marsyas Enchanting the Hares) (1878), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Private collection. The Athenaeum.

Late in 1877, Carrie Vedder, the artist’s wife, recorded in a letter that her husband had been thinking about Marsyas, and considered that, before the contest with Apollo, Marsyas must have proved his skill with the aulos. He therefore came up with the idea that this must have at least been charming hares with the instrument. He started this painting early in 1878, setting it in the New England winter. This was shipped to Paris for show at the Exposition Universelle later that year, but Vedder was disappointed that it didn’t do well there.

The hare is known from fable for its speed, although not so much when racing against a tortoise.

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Frans Snyders (1579–1657), The Fable of the Hare and the Tortoise (1600-57), oil on canvas, 112 x 84 cm, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. Wikimedia Commons.

At some time during the first half of the seventeenth century, Frans Snyders painted the still popular Fable of the Hare and the Tortoise. The tortoise and the hare disputed which of the two was the faster, so agreed to run a race against one another. Although the hare was much faster when running, he laid down beside the path and slept. The tortoise, being aware of his relative slowness, ran as fast as he could, past the sleeping hare, until he won. Snyders shows the hare at full pelt, and the tortoise crawling away in the distance, giving little clue as to the surprising outcome or its cause.

JMW Turner alludes to this fable in his Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway from 1844.

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Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway (1844), oil on canvas, 91 x 121.8 cm, The National Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.

Running ahead of this very early steam locomotive as it crosses the River Thames at Maidenhead is a hare, barely visible at the lower right.

Albrecht Dürer, Hare, 1502, watercolour and bodycolour on paper, 25 x 22.5 cm. Albertina, Vienna (WikiArt).
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Hare (1502), watercolour and bodycolour on paper, 25 x 22.5 cm. Albertina, Vienna. WikiArt.

Perhaps the most famous painted hare appears in one of Albrecht Dürer’s watercolour masterpieces, dated to 1502.

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Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939), Hare Studies (1885), paper, 32 × 24.5 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Following this tradition, one of Bruno Liljefors’ favourite species was the elusive hare. This page of Hare Studies from 1885 shows a tiny part of the image library he assembled, as well as their spring antics.

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Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939), Winter Hare (1910), oil on canvas, 92 × 78 cm, Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Unlike the common rabbit, some hares become white for the winter. This is one of the many paintings that Liljefors made of a Winter Hare, here from 1910.

Both hares and rabbits have been traditional meats, and there are several still life and hunting paintings depicting them dead and being prepared for a meal.

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Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), Rabbit and Copper Pot (date not known), oil on canvas, 59 x 56 cm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden. Wikimedia Commons.

Several of Chardin’s small output of about 200 paintings included hanging game, here an undated Rabbit and Copper Pot, elsewhere hares and others.

The rise of the sciences during the nineteenth century didn’t spare rabbits from being used in physiological experiments.

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Léon Augustin Lhermitte (1844–1925), Claude Bernard and His Pupils (1889), copy of original by unknown artist, oil on canvas, 86.5 x 112.5 cm, Wellcome Library no. 45530i, London. Courtesy of Wellcome Images, via Wikimedia Commons.

Following the death of the physiologist Claude Bernard, the Sorbonne (where he had taught) commissioned Léon Lhermitte to paint his portrait in 1886. Sadly I’ve been unable to trace an image of the original, but Claude Bernard and His Pupils is a faithful copy of the painting that Lhermitte exhibited at the Salon in 1889. This shows Bernard in the midst of performing an experiment on a rabbit, his students discussing its results, and one writing the experimental observations in the laboratory daybook.

Rabbits have been favourites with children, and kept as domestic pets. From there they appear in some of the most surprising places.

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Johann Eleazar Zeissig (1737–1806), A Family Making Chinese Shadows (date not known), oil on canvas, 55.3 x 45.7 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Johann Eleazar Zeissig shows A Family Making Chinese Shadows in his painting from the late 1700s. A family are entertaining themselves late in the evening with the aid of a lamp as a point source of light. An older boy is tracing the silhouette of his mother on a sheet of paper which he holds on the wall behind her. At the upper right are examples of his ‘shadowgraph’ drawings. Three younger children are holding up their hands to form the silhouettes of a rabbit and a cat, clichés of childhood.

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August Macke (1887–1914), Little Walter’s Toys (1912), media not known, 50 x 60 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

August Macke’s Little Walter’s Toys from 1912 includes two of the favourite family pets, a rabbit and guinea pig.

My last guest appearance of a white rabbit is the most curious of all.

The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl exhibited 1823 by Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851
Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl (1823), oil on canvas, 145.4 x 237.5 cm, The Tate Gallery (part of the Turner Bequest 1856), London. © The Tate Gallery and Photographic Rights © Tate (2016), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-bay-of-baiae-with-apollo-and-the-sibyl-n00505

JMW Turner painted this narrative landscape of The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl in 1823. Apollo is on the left, with his lyre, and the dark-haired Sibyl has adopted an odd kneeling position. She’s holding some sand in the palm of her right hand, asking Apollo to grant her as many years of life as there are grains. Opposite the couple, on the other side of the path, under the trees, is a white rabbit.

Maybe it was just the first day of the month.

LogUI build 37 now has more power for browsing the log

By: hoakley
1 April 2025 at 14:30

By anyone’s standards, the macOS log contains a great many entries, and being able to filter out the noise is essential. This is accomplished by applying predicates to determine which entries are extracted and shown in a log browser like LogUI. However, using predicates requires knowledge about the log and its entries, and forms the greatest barrier for most users. This new version of LogUI improves features to help you use predicates to make the log more accessible.

This all happens in the toolbar of its browser window.

The section at the left of the lower row of tools now provides two methods to apply your own predicates: a one-off predicate editor, and an editor for custom entries in its popup menu.

One-off predicates

Click on the Set button to open the one-off predicate editor.

Here you can compose and paste in your own custom predicates that will extract only the log entries that you’re interested in. In this example, only entries whose subsystem is com.apple.duetactivityscheduler, or contains com.apple.xpc, will be gathered and displayed. Those tell you what’s going on with DAS and CTS scheduling and dispatch of background activities.

LogUI keeps that one-off predicate, even after a restart, as it’s automatically written to its preference file.

Once you’ve clicked Save, selecting the [ … ] item in the predicate menu will apply that predicate to each log extract you obtain.

There’s also an additional standard predicate using the senderImagePath.

Custom menu predicates

Predicates listed in that menu below blowhole are custom predicates saved to LogUI’s preferences using its new Predicate tab in its Settings. This editor is very basic at the moment, and its use a little awkward. This is because SwiftUI much prefers menu contents to be static, so adding items to the predicate menu doesn’t go down too well. This editor allows you to add one predicate at a time, in plain text format.

Click on the Append button here and there’ll be a new predicate named XProtect Remediator with the predicate shown. You can only add one new predicate, then need to quit the app before adding another. I’m sorry that’s so laborious, but once you have set up your custom predicates you can return to using LogUI fully.

The Settings General pane now contains a button to Reset Predicates back to their defaults.

Predicates

A basic predicate is composed of a log field name, like subsystem, followed by an operator such as == (equals) or CONTAINS[c] (case-insensitive contains), and a filter term, usually a string like "com.apple.xpc". So the predicate
subsystem CONTAINS[c] "com.apple.xpc"
will return all log entries with their subsystem containing the text com.apple.xpc. You can combine those basic elements into a more selective predicate using combinators such as AND and OR, so
subsystem == "com.apple.duetactivityscheduler" OR subsystem CONTAINS|c] "com.apple.xpc"
returns entries with a subsystem of precisely com.apple.duetactivityscheduler together with those whose subsystem contains the text com.apple.xpc.

Some years ago I wrote a primer here, and you’ll find some useful predicates in the Further Information section in the Help book for Mints. I’ll be writing more here to help you get the best out of LogUI.

There are a couple of oddities with predicates. SwiftUI tends to like using typographic double-quotation marks, but the macOS predicate builder doesn’t accept them as a substitute for straight marks. So LogUI changes all styled marks to straight ones automatically for you, to ensure those shouldn’t cause a problem. However, when it encounters errors it can behave erratically; while I’m trying to make this more robust, I apologise in advance if using a broken predicate upsets LogUI. It’s worth being careful to check your predicates before trying to use them.

LogUI version 1.0 build 37 is now available from here: logui137

My next task is to improve editing and saving predicates to its preferences, to make them accessible as menu customisations.

Changing Paintings: 64 Scylla meets Glaucus

By: hoakley
31 March 2025 at 19:30

By the end of Book 13 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Aeneas is on the island of Sicily. Scylla has been combing Galatea’s hair, listening to her tell the tragic story of the death of her lover Acis. Ovid resumes the narration for the tale of Scylla, which doesn’t conclude until the start of the next book.

Scylla is walking naked along the beach when the figure of Glaucus suddenly breaks the surface of the water. He’s immediately enchanted by her, and tries to engage her in conversation to stop her from running away. But Scylla runs away in terror, and climbs a nearby cliff. There, she gets her breath back, and tries to work out whether he’s a god or monster with long hair and fishy scales below the waist.

Glaucus assures her that he’s a sea-god. He had once been an ordinary mortal, and fished with nets, and rod and line. One day, the fish that he had caught started to move when he had laid them out on the grass, and one by one they escaped back into the water. He couldn’t understand how that had happened, so chewed stems of the plants they had rested on. He was then transformed and swam off in the sea to visit the gods Tethys and Oceanus for removal of the last remains of his mortal form.

Scylla runs away, leaving Glaucus angry, so he makes his way to the sorceress Circe.

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Bartholomeus Spranger (1546–1611), Glaucus and Scylla (1580-82), oil on canvas, 110 × 81 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. Wikimedia Commons.

Bartholomeus Spranger painted his version of Glaucus and Scylla in 1580-82. Although the artist hasn’t followed Ovid’s distinctive colour scheme for his body, Glaucus is clearly pleading his case before the beautiful young woman. In the next book, Ovid will describe how Scylla was turned into a rock, and Spranger provides that link forward in the story in his background.

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Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), Glaucus and Scylla (date not known), oil on canvas, 87.5 x 75 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen, Caen, France. Wikimedia Commons.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, Salvator Rosa makes Glaucus more of a beast, roughly mauling Scylla’s fair body and giving her good cause for her flight to the cliff.

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Nicola Vaccaro (1640–1709), Glaucus fleeing from Scylla (date not known), oil, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

A little later, probably in the late seventeenth century, Nicola Vaccaro is more sympathetic in his Glaucus fleeing from Scylla. Glaucus may be a bit rough, but arouses more pity. Scylla is accompanied by three Cupids as she flees not to the top of a cliff, but to the goddess Diana above.

The most interesting and unusual depiction of this story is surely JMW Turner’s from 1841, just a decade before his death.

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Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), Glaucus and Scylla (1841), oil on panel, 78.3 x 77.5 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX. Wikimedia Commons.

Turner’s Glaucus and Scylla (1841) would perhaps have looked more at home among paintings made fifty or even eighty years later.

The naked Scylla is on the beach at the right, with a couple of cupids flying about. The inchoate form of Glaucus is emerging to the left of centre, holding his arms out towards Scylla. She will have none of it, though, and has already turned to run, and looks back over her shoulder towards him.

We look directly into the setting sun colouring the world a rich gold. In the right background the low coastal land rises to sheer cliffs with a temple on top. A tower atop a nearer pinnacle, or more distant lower red rocks, may be a reference to Scylla’s fate.

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Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), Glaucus and Scylla (detail) (1841), oil on panel, 78.3 x 77.5 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX. Wikimedia Commons.

In the foreground are clues of the beach setting, with a crab, and several seashells. Turner has applied his paint in innovative and gestural ways, resulting in richly varied textures.

Turner had made an earlier and more traditional study in about 1810-15, but revised it almost completely by the time that he painted this in 1841. Its light appears influenced by the harbour landscapes of Claude, and its general lack of form anticipates Impressionism, perhaps even Abstract Expressionism in passages.

Rejected by the scared Scylla, Glaucus travels from Sicily to visit the sorceress Circe, whom he implores to use her dark arts to force Scylla to return his love. But Circe refuses, telling Glaucus to woo another: as she is in love with him, he could spurn Scylla and love Circe instead.

Glaucus rejects her, saying that nothing will change his love for Scylla. That annoys Circe, who cannot harm Glaucus because of her love for him, so turns her anger on Scylla instead. The sorceress prepares a magical potion from herbs, weaving her spells into it. Dressed in a deep blue robe, she then goes to a small bay where Scylla likes to bathe, and pours her potion into the water.

When Scylla wades into the water the lower half of her body is transformed into a pack of dogs. As Ulysses’ ship passes her, those dogs take some of its crew, but they allow Aeneas to pass safely. Scylla is finally transformed into a rock and becomes a famous hazard to navigation.

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John William Waterhouse (1849-1917), Circe Invidiosa (1892), oil on canvas, 180.7 x 87.4 cm, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

John William Waterhouse chose to portray the figure of Circe the sorceress in his Circe Invidiosa (1892). Despite its narrative limitations, this offers a marvellous insight into the character of Circe, as she pours her brilliant emerald green potion into the water, ready for Scylla to come and bathe.

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John Melhuish Strudwick (1849–1937), Circë and Scylla (1886), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Sudley House, Liverpool, England. Wikimedia Commons.

John Melhuish Strudwick also chooses a moment early in Ovid’s story, which makes his painting of Circë and Scylla (1886) narratively rather thin. Circe, dressed in brown rather than blue, is sprinkling her potion into the water from within a small cave, as Scylla, at the left, walks down to bathe.

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Eglon Hendrik van der Neer (1634–1703), Circe Punishes Glaucus by Turning Scylla into a Monster (1695), oil on canvas, 64 x 53.3 cm, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons.

By far the most complete visual account is Eglon van der Neer’s Circe Punishes Glaucus by Turning Scylla into a Monster (1695). Circe takes the limelight, as she casts her potion from a flaming silver salver held in her right hand. Dripping onto that is the wax from a large candle, held in her left hand. In the water below, Scylla has already been transformed into a gorgonesque figure, with snakes for hair, and the grotesque Glaucus watches from behind. Above and to the right of Circe is a small dragon perched on a rock ledge.

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Ary Renan (1857–1900), Charybdis and Scylla (1894), oil on canvas, 89.5 x 130 cm, Musée de la Vie romantique, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Ary Renan’s Charybdis and Scylla (1894) shows Charybdis the whirlpool with its mountainous standing waves at the left, and the rocks of Scylla at the right.

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Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), (Odysseus passing Scylla and Charybdis) (c 1575), fresco, dimensions and location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

This fragment of fresco by Alessandro Allori shows Odysseus’ ship passing Charybdis, depicted as a huge head vomiting forth the rough waters of the whirlpool at the right, and the dogs’ heads of Scylla, which have captured three of Odysseus’ crew.

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Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybdis (1794-96), oil on canvas, 126 × 101 cm, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, Switzerland. Wikimedia Commons.

Henry Fuseli’s Odysseus in front of Scylla and Charybdis (1794-96) is another vivid depiction of Odysseus passing the twin dangers. He stands on the fo’c’s’le of his ship, holding his shield up in defence as the oarsmen down below him struggle to propel the craft through the Straits of Messina.

Solutions to Saturday Mac riddles 301

By: hoakley
31 March 2025 at 16:00

I hope that you enjoyed Saturday’s Mac Riddles, episode 301. Here are my solutions to them.

1: Roll pasted on the interior background.

Click for a solution

Wallpaper

Roll pasted on the interior (what wallpaper is) background (it sets the Desktop, and replaced Desktop & Screen Saver).

2: Secure partition for the idle display.

Click for a solution

Lock Screen

Secure (to lock) partition (a screen) for the idle display (it sets what is shown on the display when it’s idle).

3: Pastime bull’s-eye for the player.

Click for a solution

Game Center

Pastime (a game) bull’s-eye (a centre) for the player (it enables access to game features).

The common factor

Click for a solution

They were all introduced in macOS Ventura’s System Settings, but weren’t in System Preferences.

I look forward to your putting alternative cases.

Paintings of the Franco-Prussian War: 2 The Siege of Paris

By: hoakley
30 March 2025 at 19:30

Following a series of disastrous defeats of the French Army, on 19 September 1870, Prussian forces had taken control of the country around Paris, and put the capital under siege. With the surrender of the French Emperor Napoleon III, a provisional republican government had been established, and ushered in the Third Republic as successor to the Second Empire, in the most difficult of circumstances.

The new French government wasn’t yet ready to admit defeat. They called for guerilla warfare against the occupying Prussian forces to deprive them of supplies, and the formation of large armies from the unoccupied provinces to the west and south. Prussian opinion favoured the bombardment of Paris to try to bring the war to a more rapid conclusion, but thankfully Prussian High Command wouldn’t accept that on moral grounds.

As the Prussians sent small armies out to the provinces to disrupt French attempts at re-organisation, conditions in Paris steadily deteriorated.

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Anton von Werner (1843–1915), In the Troops’ Quarters Outside Paris (1894), oil on canvas, 120 x 158 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Anton von Werner shows the contrasting life In the Troops’ Quarters Outside Paris (1894), here in the luxurious Château de Brunoy, which had been abandoned to or requisitioned by those occupying forces. Prussian soldiers were blamed for the almost complete destruction of Pissarro’s work prior to the war, when they occupied his house in 1870.

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Édouard Detaille (1848–1912), Champigny, December 1870 (1879), oil on canvas, 121.9 x 218.4 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Édouard Detaille’s painting of action at Champigny, December 1870 (1879) took place only 12.5 km (under eight miles) from the centre of Paris.

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Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville (1836–1885), Bivouac after the Battle of Bourget, 21 December 1870 (1873), media and dimensions not known, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

There were French counter-attacks. On 29 October 1870, General Carey de Bellemare attacked the Prussian Guard at Le Bourget, despite having no orders to do so, and forced them to cede the town to his troops. Despite these positions being of little value to either side, the Prussians re-took them in the Battle of Le Bourget on 30 October. Although incorrectly dated, de Neuville shows French soldiers sheltering in a Bivouac after the Battle of Bourget, 21 December 1870 (1873). This was a major blow to the beleaguered citizens still in Paris.

As the winter grew colder, Parisians were starting to starve. A city which had long been proud of its restaurants and food was reduced to scavenging meals based on horse, dog, cat, and even the city’s rats.

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Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1815–1891), The Siege of Paris (1870), oil on canvas, 53.5 x 70.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier’s romanticised view of The Siege of Paris from 1870 combines almost every symbol relevant to the city’s distress, dressing Marianne in a lionskin against a battle-worn flag. Meissonier had originally been attached to the staff of Napoleon III, and accompanied him in early phases of the war in Italy. During the siege of Paris, though, he was a Colonel commanding an improvised infantry unit, and knew well the realities of combat.

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Gustave Doré (1832–1883), Sister of Charity Saving a Child. An Episode of the Siege of Paris (1870-71), oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm, Musée Malraux (MuMa), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre, France. Wikimedia Commons.

Another artist who was trapped inside Paris was the great illustrator and painter Gustave Doré, who made several works showing scenes such as this Sister of Charity Saving a Child. An Episode of the Siege of Paris (1870-71).

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Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905), The Defence of Paris (1883), sculpture cast in bronze, dimensions not known, La Défense, Paris. Image by Velvet, via Wikimedia Commons.

The greatest memorial to those who lost their lives in the siege, and those who survived it, is Louis-Ernest Barrias’ bronze The Defence of Paris of 1883. This has so dominated the part of the city where it’s situated that the area is known as La Défense.

Military action continued into 1871, although it was already clear that France was utterly defeated. Secret discussions about an armistice started on 23 January, but the French government feared that their capitulation could precipitate rebellion, even revolution.

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Édouard Detaille (1848–1912), The Armistice of 28th January 1871 (1873), media and dimensions not known, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Édouard Detaille’s depiction of The Armistice of 28th January 1871 (1873) shows the moment the symbolic white flag was raised over a bleak plain.

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Anton von Werner (1843–1915), Crowning of Wilhelm I as Emperor of Germany, in Versailles (second version) (1882), media and dimensions not known, destroyed in World War 2. Wikimedia Commons.

To the nearly 400,000 French dead from the war, the Prussians were determined to add profound insult: as shown in Anton von Werner’s painting of the Crowning of Wilhelm I as Emperor of Germany, in Versailles (1882). Prussia had celebrated victory in this ceremony held at the most famous of French royal palaces, on 18 January 1871.

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Emil Hünten (1827–1902), Welcome of Empress Eugénie by Prussian Soldiers (date not known), oil on canvas, 64.5 x 85 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Neither were participants afraid to spread ‘false news’: Emil Hünten’s undated Welcome of Empress Eugénie by Prussian Soldiers shows an event that never occurred. When the Empress was told of her husband’s surrender to the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, she’s reported to have said:
“No! An Emperor does not capitulate! He is dead!… They are trying to hide it from me. Why didn’t he kill himself! Doesn’t he know he has dishonored himself?!”

With hostile crowds forming outside her Tuileries Palace, she slipped out to find sanctuary in the company of her American dentist, then fled to England by yacht on 7 September 1870. She was later joined by the former emperor, and the couple lived at Chislehurst in Kent. She never fraternised with Prussian soldiers.

Gustave Doré had a deeply personal involvement, as he had been born in Strasbourg, a French city the Prussians had taken early in the war. He volunteered to serve in the National Guard, and produced several moving paintings of the suffering of Paris.

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Gustave Doré (1832–1883), The Enigma (souvenirs de 1870) (1871), oil on canvas, 128 x 194 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

His The Enigma (souvenirs de 1870) and two other works were painted using grisaille, greys normally used to model tones in traditional layered technique. This shows the shattered and still-burning remains of the city in the background, bodies of some of the Prussian artillery in the foreground, and two mythical beasts silhouetted in an embrace. The winged creature is female, and probably represents France, who clasps the head of a sphinx, who personifies the forces that determine victory or defeat. The enigmatic question would then relate to the Franco-Prussian War, and the reasons for France’s defeat.

Over the next seventy-five years, France and Germany were to fight one another twice more, before the Treaty of London of 5 May 1949 created the Council of Europe, which West Germany joined in 1951, and became ancestor of the European Union.

Paintings of the Franco-Prussian War: 1 Collapse

By: hoakley
29 March 2025 at 20:30

Painting in Europe during the latter half of the nineteenth century was centred on Paris. A lot happened in other countries too – such as the Pre-Raphaelites – but the major movements of the time came together in the capital city of France. Yet in the middle of this, from 1870-71, there was a major war in northern France between two of the great empires of the day, France and Prussia. Paris was put under siege, fell to Prussian occupation, and was then torn apart by the Commune.

These events had great impact on art and artists at the time. Some fled for safe places: several went to London, where they were exposed to important influences such as the paintings of Turner and Constable, who were formative to the Impressionists. Some died during that war, and promising and influential careers were terminated abruptly. Many stayed, and witnessed the horrors of war at first hand.

This weekend I look at the Franco-Prussian War and its immediate aftermath, stopping short of the ensuing turmoil of the Paris Commune.

Like so many wars, the Franco-Prussian War arose because of the conflicting ambitions of countries. The French Second Empire under Napoleon III had been in decline for several years, and had already demanded Belgium, Luxembourg, and the left bank of the Rhine in ‘compensation’ for Prussia’s annexation of territories to form the North German Confederation. Prussia was clearly seeking to become the dominant power in Europe, by forming a single nation from those previously separate states, plus the Southern German States and the French territory of Alsace-Lorraine.

France and Prussia were on a collision course, and on 19 July 1870 France declared war on the North German Confederation, a war for which the French were almost completely unprepared.

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Augustin Pierre Bienvenu Chenu (Fleury Chenu) (1833-1875), Trainees, Snow Effect (1870), oil on canvas, 170 × 152.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Fleury Chenu’s father in Briançon, France, was a master tailor working for the French Sixth Regiment at the time. Chenu’s Trainees, Snow Effect from 1870 gives a good idea of the limited preparation which the French had made as tensions mounted during the previous winter. Although a detailed realist painting, Chenu’s sky is powerful, and sets the scene for the straggling trainees as they make their way along the icy road.

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Pierre-Georges Jeanniot (1848–1934), Reservists (1870), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Pierre-Georges Jeanniot had become an officer in the French infantry in 1866, and at the time of the war was a Lieutenant in the 23rd Infantry. He must have known how numerically inferior and weak the French forces were when he painted these Reservists (1870) queueing in the heavy showers to enlist and serve their country. This mobilisation occurred before reforms had been implemented to the system, and proved chaotic and inadequate.

Jeanniot was wounded at Rezonville, was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for his service during the war, and eventually left the army in the rank of Major.

vonmenzeldepartureofking
Adolph von Menzel (1815–1905), Departure to the Army of King William I, 31 July 1870 (1871), oil on canvas, 63 x 78 cm, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Emperor Napoleon III left Paris for the new headquarters in Metz, as commander of the Army of the Rhine, on 28 July 1870. Although the Prussian army had its own professional General Staff under the command of Field Marshal von Moltke, Adolph von Menzel here shows the ceremonial Departure to the Army of King William I, 31 July 1870 (1871). That same day, Napoleon’s forces moved towards the Saar River to pre-emptively seize the Prussian town of Saarbrücken.

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Anton von Werner (1843–1915), Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm with the Body of General Abel Douay, Weißenburg, 4 August 1870 (1888), media and dimensions not known, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

Anton von Werner had been sent with the staff of the Prussian Third Corps under the command of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia. When French and Prussian forces fought their first substantial action in the Battle of Wissembourg on 4 August, the French were soundly defeated and forced to retreat. The commander of the French I Corps was killed, and von Werner committed that to canvas in 1888 as Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm with the Body of General Abel Douay, Weißenburg, 4 August 1870.

That was the first of a series of major defeats for the French during August.

deneuvillelastcartridges
Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville (1836–1885), The Last Cartridges (1873), oil on canvas, 109 x 165 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville made his reputation with a succession of popular paintings showing the war. The Last Cartridges (1873) shows French snipers from the Blue division of the Marines ambushing Bavarian troops in l’Auberge Bourgerie in Bazeilles just prior to the Battle of Sedan, in which the French suffered their most disastrous defeat to date: on 2 September 1870, Napoleon III himself was forced to surrender with 104,000 of his soldiers.

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Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville (1836–1885), The Spy (1880), oil on canvas, 130.2 x 213.4 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

De Neuville’s The Spy from 1880 shows a scene exploiting the humiliation of the French defeat. As Prussian forces advanced through northern France, they captured and shot good French citizens who they considered had got in their way. The Frenchman in blue to the right of centre is being searched and stripped in front of a group of Prussian officers, clearly accused of trying to defend his own country. Paintings like this fuelled Revanchism, the lasting sense of bitterness and demand for revenge against Prussia, and were disturbingly popular.

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Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville (1836–1885), In the Trenches (1874), oil on canvas, 57.7 x 96.5 cm, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD. Wikimedia Commons.

De Neuville’s In the Trenches (1874) is perhaps a more faithful depiction of the conditions that French soldiers had to endure as the Prussians took more French territory during the early winter. Members of the Garde Mobile take what shelter they can in the bitter cold.

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Paul-Émile Boutigny (1853–1929), Scene from the Franco-Prussian War (date not known), oil on canvas, 49 x 60 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Paul-Émile Boutigny’s undated Scene from the Franco-Prussian War shows that life was no easier for the better-trained and properly equipped Prussian forces as the fighting moved into the winter. I’m very grateful to Boris for decoding the uniforms and equipment shown here (see his comment below). The soldier on the left is French, and holds a French Chassepot musketon with a long yataghan bayonet, while his colleague on the right appears to be Prussian, with his pickelhaube spiked helmet and a heavy cavalry cuirass that’s essentially modernised armour. Behind them is a group of mixed French and German soldiers who appear to be walking wound proceeding in front of an ambulance wagon.

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Émile Betsellère (1847–1880), L’Oublié! (Forgotten) (1872), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne, France. Wikimedia Commons.

Émile Betsellère’s moving L’Oublié! (Forgotten) from 1872 shows the appalling conditions facing the wounded after a winter battle.

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Albert Anker (1831–1910), Bourbakis (1871), media not known, 95 x 151 cm, Musée d’art et d’histoires, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Wikimedia Commons.

Albert Anker was a Swiss artist who you wouldn’t have expected to have painted scenes from the Franco-Prussian War. However, in January 1871, he was witness to a strange event that must have affected him deeply.

The French General Charles Bourbaki (1816-1897) had been put in command of the Army of the East, soldiers who had been hastily trained and were ill-equipped. He and his troops were defeated in their attempt to raise the siege of Belfort, and were pursued by the Prussians until they crossed the border into Switzerland in late January and early February. Just over half of his 150,000 men had survived, and were in desperate straits by this time, as the winter conditions worsened. The Swiss disarmed them, gave them as much shelter and aid as they could, as shown in Anker’s painting of Bourbakis from 1871, and returned them to France in March.

Most important of all, though, was the fact that on 19 September 1870, Prussian forces had taken control of the country around Paris, and put the capital under siege.

Saturday Mac riddles 301

By: hoakley
29 March 2025 at 17:00

Here are this weekend’s Mac riddles to entertain you through family time, shopping and recreation.

1: Roll pasted on the interior background.

2: Secure partition for the idle display.

3: Pastime bull’s-eye for the player.

To help you cross-check your solutions, or confuse you further, there’s a common factor between them.

I’ll post my solutions first thing on Monday morning.

Please don’t post your solutions as comments here: it spoils it for others.

[求助] 美区 PayPal 招行 Visa 卡不能支付

By: XiLemon
29 March 2025 at 11:51
XiLemon:

美区 PayPal 绑定的招行 Visa 卡,注册有几年了,最近没怎么用过。美区的 appleID 也绑定了这个美区 PayPal 。

这次在美区苹果商店充值,因为设置了境外锁卡,使用时忘记先解锁,支付直接失败了。然后解锁后再支付,仍然显示失败。

紧接着在网页版的 PayPal 上购买礼品卡,支付也显示信用卡不可用,联系发卡银行。

然后我重新删除了信用卡,再绑定了一次,能绑定成功,验证的时候能扣 1 刀,然后返还。但是仍然不能支付,提示这张卡片不可用。

有没有老哥知道怎么解决的么

原点original|谁在凌晨骑车穿隧道过江?

By: unknown
29 March 2025 at 00:26
CDT 档案卡
标题:谁在凌晨骑车穿隧道过江?
作者:冯蕊 黄子睿 丁立洁
发表日期:2025.3.26
来源:原点original
主题归类:低端人口
CDS收藏:人物馆
版权说明:该作品版权归原作者所有。中国数字时代仅对原作进行存档,以对抗中国的网络审查。详细版权说明

约113公里长的黄浦江上有18条隧道。代驾赵伟还未能从中找到一条安心回家的路。

转机在一个月前出现。自2月16日起,每天深夜11时至次日清晨5时,复兴东路隧道上层允许电动车试通行。这是上海第一条专门、合规开放给非机动车的跨江通道。

截至3月底,隧道入口的值守人员统计,每晚从两岸穿越的电动车数量在1400到1600辆之间,其中大部分是代驾,剩下是外卖员、地铁维修工、结束加班的职员。他们链接着2487万人口的城市在深夜不断生长的需求。

他们自身朴素的需要,却常常湮没在飞驰之中。当车轮下的路程越来越长,车轮上的人们,始终等待着那条真正看见、接纳他们的通道。

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开放前后的隧道浦东入口。 冯蕊 摄

01

复兴东路隧道的浦西入口是片老城厢。在这里,深夜总是静悄悄的。

但2月16日晚,电动车一辆挨一辆排了数十米长。不时有记者穿梭在人群的空隙间,举着手机直播、采访。

28岁的骑手陶水排在队伍的首位。当三四个话筒围拢过来,他有种说不清的自豪感。

“我是第一个跨江的。”陶水强调,“不罚款的那种。”

去年12月,他在送货时违规穿越复兴东路隧道,被罚了50元,而一笔跨江订单的配送费不到40元钱。这般经历,此前在骑手中是常态。

晚11点整,隧道口的路障徐徐撤离,信号灯变成绿色。

三十余辆电动车,如同被唤醒的鱼群瞬间涌向入口。口哨一声接一声响起。‍

“慢一点、慢一点!”交警焦急地劝导,“(限速)15公里,都开慢一点啊。”

此刻在浦东入口,刘飞第一个开着电动车进入隧道。“很宽敞、很空旷。”在没有汽车的两条道路上,他尝试放下速度、自由地骑行。

从这周开始,他“至少有了回家的方法”。晚上来浦东的朋友家聚餐,他不再担心多聊两分钟而错过9点半的末班轮渡。

隧道开通的当晚,根据官方统计,电动车过江由西向东247辆,由东向西242辆。

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22:45,开始搭设路障。

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22:55,最后一辆出租车通过。

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23:00,隧道准时向电动车开启。 冯蕊 摄

消息很快在网络扩散,更多人闻讯赶来。

2月17日,在陆家嘴上班的余崇光特地熬到11点前来体验。他打转许久才找到隧道的入口。“很新鲜,效率高多了。”他骑小电驴通勤6年,第一次在5分钟内跨过黄浦江,以往时间都在30分钟以上。

3月8日,代驾杜宇跑单后骑到隧道。张望到有人站在入口,杜宇慌张起来,“是查电动车的吗?”他骑过去轻声询问。

“你可以走。”对方朝他招了招手。杜宇这才松口气。他曾因“违法”感到忧心,只跟着代驾的老师傅或戴上口罩偷偷穿越过几回。

3月22日,管理人员张阳已经熟练地指挥通行。

他紧紧盯着前方,每驶入一辆电动车,都要划动一次计数器。一个多月来,他看着手里的数字从每晚250、500跳动到近800。‍

“对面的情况差不多。”张阳感慨,“还是很多人都不知道(隧道)。外卖和跑代驾的晓得。”

早上5点前,张阳都要守在这里。他的脚边放着一只保温杯,陪他熬过整夜。

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17岁的李伟儿每晚骑电动车从学校回家。 冯蕊 摄

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管理人员歇息喝水。 冯蕊 摄

02

数字背后的车轮,链接着一座城市的运转。

晚上11点半,地铁检修工人张景刚刚上班。此时在各大地铁站,列车陆续停止运转、回到车库检查。在庞大的设备系统中,每个零件都有不同的生命周期。

张景的工作,便是在部件老化之前换掉它们,减小地铁出现故障的概率。15年间,公司的检修网络覆盖到全部517座车站,张景往返过其中近300个站点。

深夜的道路上,同样传递着紧急的需要。

陶水三年前刚到上海,便成为外卖骑手。一些平台开放了“全城配送”的业务,骑手分为“专送”与“众包”。与“专送”不同,陶水作为众包骑手,没有平台与范围的限制,能够在全市自由抢单。

他送货的距离逐渐从5公里拓展到50公里、80公里,平均的配送时长却从60分钟削减到35分钟。保温箱里原先是麻辣烫、螺蛳粉,现在一半空间给了相机、衣服、汽车配件。他经常遇见,跨城通勤的上班族回到苏州家里,才发现钥匙和身份证遗落在了陆家嘴的办公室。

按照陶水的说法,尽管轮渡停航后,系统不再自动给骑手派发跨江业务,但这些需要常常以普通订单的形式,出现在“抢单大厅”中。一些单子标注着“商家配送”,实则也是店主寻找骑手服务。

承担风险的责任转移到他的身上。陶水算过,深夜跨江的订单平台不派、新手不敢送,配送费就能涨到普通单子的六到七倍。他主动抢下了生意。

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周五晚上,浦东一家餐厅仍在营业。 冯蕊 摄

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在路口等待的代驾。 丁立洁 摄

交际与消费的欲望,也从白昼蔓延至黑夜。

赵伟在四年前干起代驾的兼职。每晚8点,从工厂下班的他换上马甲,开启接单页面。

他在两家平台上切换账号。在其中一家平台上,他已经跑了2119单。他曾三次遇到同一位男人,对方从不提自己的职业,永远在打电话,谈论“明天去哪应酬”;他曾在深夜12点的农村见证过商业谈判的酒局,在没有路灯的村庄迷失方向,被5只野狗追逐。他看见“酒驾入刑”后,一些公司老板哪怕离家只有两公里,也不敢冒风险侥幸开车;很多时候,他甚至见不到乘客,越来越多人不再亲自去取维修、购买的车辆,赶在夜晚4s店歇业前选择了代驾。

只要赵伟没关页面,系统就会自动匹配订单。在90%的夜晚,他都被算法甩到了黄浦江的对岸。尤其是周五,工作一周后的人们挤在延长营业到凌晨的饭店、酒吧。

此时,陆家嘴的灯光并未休止。从事IT行业的余崇光通常在晚上8点下班,每个月,他总有一两天加班到十点之后。他觉得比起其他IT公司的“996”,这是一份还算不错的工作。

在附近的商圈,一位火锅店的职员在晚11点刚刚结束忙碌,准备骑车返回对岸家中。她没来得及换下工作服,一阵暖风吹过,空气中散发出牛油的气味。

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23时,隧道浦东入口的商圈逐渐寂静。 冯蕊 摄

03

随着城市越转越快,新的需求出现在规划以外。

张景记得,最早上海有通宵的渡船。然而随着轨道交通与桥梁建设,轮渡公司开始出现营收的难题。2015年后,黄浦江上最后一条通宵航线退出历史。

一段时间里,清晨4点下班的张景就蹲在站点外的马路牙子,等到5点半之后第一班地铁开放。后来他决定骑着两轮车通行。

赵伟刚入行时,每晚都有往返于浦东、浦西之间的“夜宵公交”。凌晨两点的那一班上几乎全是代驾,走道里堆满了折叠的电动车。

2022年初,上海修订了公共汽车的乘坐规定,指出代驾车的锂电池容易爆炸、存在安全隐患。公交司机不再允许代驾携带电动车搭乘。

从那之后,赵伟看见灰色营运的“打捞车”出现。一过凌晨,在浦东外环的匝道出口,每十分钟、二十分钟有一辆“金杯”“全顺”品牌的面包车经过。瞄到代驾师傅,车主摇下车窗喊道:“要去哪里啊?一人只要25到30。”

车上的座位已经拆除,车厢后半段安装了铁架放置电动车。最拥挤的时候,赵伟和所有人贴在一起,不敢动一下脚尖。尽管如此,经过彻夜工作,许多人都能站在这里睡上好觉。

这些车辆往往出没在陆家嘴的20公里之外,整车拉满人要一到两个小时。等到四、五点天色渐亮,它们便消失在道路上。

此刻在这座城市,留给电动车的合法通道只剩下17条轮渡路线和3座大桥。

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夜晚在杨家渡渡口的船上,有许多等待过江的电动车。 冯蕊 摄

有几回,加班后的余崇光骑到杨家渡渡口时,22时30分的末班船已经开走。他只得把电动车留在公司打车回家。在十公里外的金桥路渡口,一位刚下班的职员骑行5公里,赶上了23时40分,黄浦江上最后一班渡船。他的电动车只剩下1%的电量。下船的地点离家还有5公里,他不敢把电动车仍在原地,半小时后,他加价到60元,等来一辆货拉拉。

深夜配送时,系统给陶水的时长仍然按照轮渡计算,不会向顾客收取骑手绕路的费用。陶水考虑,有“超时”和“差评”的出现,他会被扣分、扣款;而通过隧道,往往只要三到五分钟。

他计算过,违规穿越隧道,被罚的概率只有5%,这些单子的收入远远抵消了这笔罚金。

在一些代驾平台上,赵伟直到坐上对方的汽车,才能看到终点。在“客户至上”的规则里,他很难有拒绝的权利:代驾主动取消订单,会被平台判定为“有责销单”,一次扣除3分。每位代驾共有12分,一旦被扣完,账号自动取缔。

他试过当面向客户请求。“老板您好,”他顿了顿,放低语气,“我是兼职做代驾的,第二天要上班,这个时间到浦东,我是回不去的。”

有时对面会爽朗地按下撤销。另一些时候,对方直接拒绝,或是醉酒发了脾气。赵伟装作什么也没发生,接着跑单。

四年前,他第一次被“甩”到浦东市区时,已是凌晨时分。

最早一班轮渡将在5点开放,三座大桥距离他都在40公里以上。他只得开着导航往家的方向骑,隧道成了必经的跨江路径。

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复兴东路隧道的浦西段。 冯蕊 摄

04

当时离赵伟最近的便是复兴东路隧道。抵达入口时,他犹豫了许久。

赵伟明白,隧道禁止非机动车通行,其实是出于安全的考量。

在国家的安全规范里,长度大于1000米的隧道不得在同个孔内设置非机动车道和人行道,以免混行发生安全事故。

何况隧道下坡铺着凹凸不平的减速带,还有不少排水的小渠。他和杜宇描述,仅仅两厘米的高差,就容易卡住一辆代驾车的轮子。代驾电动车比一般的电动车要轻,一旦车轮陷入,车上的人几乎都会向前、摔倒在地。

但此刻,“骑车入隧”成了无奈的决定。

赵伟打开头盔上的爆闪灯,能够在黑暗中提醒汽车避让。隧道下层有条废弃的摩托车道,他紧贴着最右侧的路沿向前骑行。

骑到中途时,赵伟突然感受到一阵大风扑来,吹得电动车身剧烈摇晃。有辆汽车正从他一米外的距离驶过。

“嘟——”听到汽车的喇叭声,赵伟越来越慌。把速度加到四十码,恨不得立刻驶离出口。

事后他对自己的冒险后悔不已。代驾平台有专门负责司机管理的部门,出了安全事故,会有司机拍摄视频、照片发在部门群聊里。

他时常看见,群里有骑电动车摔成骨折、受伤的人,不少是在穿越隧道时发生的事故。他心里有种说不出的滋味。“这种事情哪天会不会也发生在我身上?”

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在路口等待隧道开启的电动车。 冯蕊 摄

何况在他的行业,“出事”更意味着失业的风险。

赵伟看到,不少代驾在平台上报事故、申请保险。没过多久,账号被封禁、管控。事故严重的人,容易背着“不安全”的标记,很难再重新步入这行。

他们常常默默消化了事故的发生。赵伟每次摔跤后,就去卫生中心买药回来擦下伤口。撞到其他车,他会自己掏些钱赔偿。他从没联系过司管部门,在手机里设好提醒事项,“今天一定要戴护膝”。

有一天,他和妻子说,“我把手机定位在你的手机录入一下吧。”

赵伟永远不知道,下一刻他会去往城市的哪个角落。“我害怕出事,没有人知道我在哪。”感受到妻子的担心,他变了语气,“开玩笑的”。

杜宇同样在群里看到事故的视频。他曾经在通过减速带时,差一点就摔了跤。回想起来,他始终感到不安。

他开始站在隧道的100米外,抢顺风车的单子通过隧道,通常前半夜要十多块钱,后半夜不到十元。

两三个月后,他“真的不舍得”花这笔钱,下定决心,“骑吧,只能骑。”他骑了20公里绕到最早开放的渡口,等着4:40第一班船。这样一来,下船后他还能骑到热闹的市区继续接单。

后来他发现,每天0点到3点之间,许多隧道要养护,这时会有一条车道封起来,摆上反光筒、反光锥。遇见代驾经过,作业的工人往往靠在一边,让出一条路来。

一次他在偷偷穿越时撞见了交管人员。

杜宇感到害怕,他听说过有深夜执法抓到了代驾,罚款从20到50元都有。

“你走吧。”一位交管人员朝他喊了一声。紧接着补充,“注意安全!”他劝道,穿越隧道很危险,下次不要这样了。

“好。”杜宇舒了口气。

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23时后,路障的一部分打开。 丁立洁 摄

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05

在更长的人生里,赵伟也在等待路的出现。

16岁前,他在大山里长大,愿望是成为军人。当时老家有一面很大的黑板,写上那些成功入伍的名字。

他看到自己的名字出现在黑板上,没过一礼拜,却被抹掉替换成了“张伟”。他第一次觉得看不到未来,从大山跑了出来。

17岁的大年三十,他坐着火车来到上海,那节车厢只有他一人。

他找到青浦的汽车工厂上班,认识妻子、成立家庭。四年前,女儿无法就读上海的初中,妻子辞职陪她回老家念书。他又成了一个人。

躺在十平米的房间,赵伟时常感到孤独,还有一种越发沉重的担子。他想让时间走得更快。

有一天,赵伟在抖音上刷到代驾的视频。看到行业正值鼎盛时期,他想要试试。

他第一次感觉自己充满干劲。每个晚上,只要出去跑单都会有两三百元的收入,一个月挣的钱。刚好能抵上孩子的开销。

但变化逐渐在行业发生。赵伟居住的镇里,代驾数量从40、50增长到200多个。好几个晚上他出去等单,最后面对着页面里“0”的数字。

赵伟却不敢停下车轮。他说,每天一睁开眼,总会想怎么样才能多赚一点。他说,手头上有点积蓄,生活才能有安全感。

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轮渡上的人们与甲板外的城市。 冯蕊 摄

与赵伟不同,陶水曾觉得生活有很多条路。

高考失败后,他从老家徐州去广东谋生。有商家做活动搭了舞台,他在台上铺了张垫子,睡了整整两晚。

后来他数不清自己干过哪些活,有搬运工、保安、群演,还卖过手机壳。三年前,他在深圳租了仓库,企图抓住电商的风口,结果没挣三个月的钱就欠了一身债。他去剪了头,来上海“从头开始”。

刚到城市时,他从火车站、陆家嘴一路骑到了迪士尼,又到兰州、武汉各地打转。这份没有社保的工作,反而让陶水感受到自由,“今天的钱拿到手,明天就可以不干了。”

直到今年2月,他在医院确诊了二型糖尿病。没有单位缴纳的保险,他花了2000多元做了检查。

治疗与饮食的限制,让陶水周游各地的旅行计划搁浅,他从医院回家后,在床上躺了八天。

陶水突然失去了方向。他第一次意识到,自己仍然需要那丝微小的保障。

然而,这些需要很少在日光下显现。

杜宇说,大家没有公开表达过通行的需求。“我们去说的话,是不会有人受理的。”他笃定,反而会让别人觉得自己怎么这么爱反映问题。“我潜意识里就觉得这样是不行的,会被当作一个负面的典型处理。”

陶水在抖音做起账号,把生活中没有说出的苦恼、控诉放在了网络上。粉丝很快就涨到1万。

这和他在横店做群演时的感受完全不同,当时他演了一个路人甲,走来走去、没有一句台词,“没人看见、记得这个角色。”陶水说,自己始终没有忘记。

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开放前后的隧道出口,多了路障的维护。 冯蕊 摄

06

直到转机发生在现实的世界里。

今年2月,杜宇无意间刷到新闻,“复兴东路隧道上层将开放电动车通行。”

他第一反应是,“假新闻吧?”此前他听过类似的风声,那是一条有着上下两层的隧道。他去入口看过许多次,双层都还是汽车在飞驰。

真正到了现场,他有一种“安心”的感受。

隧道开放以来,他已经骑行了十多次。比起其他隧道,这里的上层坡度要更缓一些,长度比下层短了一千米左右。

他惊讶地发现,在隧道的浦西出口,绿化带的一段被打开放上黄色的隔离栏,改造成一条非机动车道。交警值守在那里看护着最后一段红绿灯。

杜宇和陶水坦承,在这条隧道以外,城市里仍有许多被阻断的跨江通道等待打通。“隧道承接的主要是右半边的区域,其余地方还是打断的。尤其在浦江镇、周浦那一块儿,有许多跨江的需求。”杜宇说。

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信号灯随着隧道开启发生改变。 丁立洁 摄

但看见才能成为改变的起点。

在家休息时,陶水接受到平台的入职邀请,这是一个有社保的配送岗位。

陶水犹豫后选择了拒绝,他已经习惯问自己,下一站要去哪里。在做出选择以前,他又奔忙起来。“像我们这种人,一天工作五个小时算是很长的休息。”

赵伟开始思考人生新的可能。他说,在车轮上,他看到了一个流水线以外更大的世界。

去年底,有客户在下车时突然问他,“能不能留个电话?”他说自己是做产品的,赵伟性格随和,和人沟通起来很舒服,“我需要这样的业务人员。”

赵伟也有顾虑,变化对37岁的他而言“没那么容易”。他还想再干一段时间的代驾。深夜的骑行是他一天中最放松的时刻,现实的焦虑被抛在脑后,他仿佛又回到了大山里那段自由、年轻的时光。

杜宇仍然记得六年前的决定。一个朋友告诉他,自己在上海干了四年外卖,从早到晚跑,终于攒钱买了房子。和杜宇在短视频里看到的财富神话不同,那是一段普通人坚持下来得到回报的故事。

杜宇却因此受到触动,只身来到这座城市。在越转越快的世界里,他始终相信那些最笨拙却最踏实的通道。他想继续骑下去。

(文中受访者除赵伟外均为化名)

Urban Revolutionaries: 9 Poverty

By: hoakley
28 March 2025 at 20:30

The reality of urban life was that precious few who migrated from the country ever made their fortune in the city. For the great majority life was a constant battle to avoid poverty that, in the long run, turned out to be their only reward. Just as there were social realists who painted rural poverty in the middle of the nineteenth century, so there were a few who depicted urban poverty in its closing decades.

raffaelliragpicker
Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850-1924), The Ragpicker (1879), oil on panel, 77 × 69 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

During the mid-1870s, Jean-François Raffaëlli started painting the poorer residents of Paris and its surrounds. The Ragpicker from 1879 was a great success, and his work was promoted by the influential critic Joris-Karl Huysmans.

raffaelligarlicseller
Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850–1924), Garlic Seller (c 1880), media not known, 71.8 x 48.9 cm, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, MA. Wikimedia Commons.

Raffaëlli’s elderly Garlic Seller from about 1880 is making his way across a muddy field just beyond one of the new industrial areas on the outskirts of Paris, his battered old wickerwork basket containing the garlic he hoped to sell. Behind him is his companion, a dog.

raffaelliparisianragpickers
Jean-François Raffaëlli (1850-1924), Parisian Rag Pickers (c 1890), oil and oil crayon on board set into cradled panel, 32.7 × 27 cm, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY. Wikimedia Commons.

Raffaëlli painted these Parisian Rag Pickers in about 1890 using mixed media of oil paints and oil crayons.

breitnerdistributionsoup
George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923), Distribution of Soup (1882), watercolour, dimensions not known, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Wikimedia Commons.

In 1882, George Hendrik Breitner met Vincent van Gogh, and the pair went out sketching and painting in the poorer parts of The Hague. Among Breitner’s paintings of that campaign is his watercolour Distribution of Soup (1882), showing those from poor families queuing for free soup.

pelezhomeless
Fernand Pelez (1848-1913), Homeless (1883), oil on canvas, 77.5 x 136 cm, location not known. Image by Bastenbas, via Wikimedia Commons.

Most of Fernand Pelez’s paintings of the poor are deeply unsettling, often frankly depressing. His Homeless from 1883 shows a worn and weary mother and her five children living on the street. She stares from sunken eyes straight at the viewer, as her children huddle in filthy blankets and sacking around her.

pelezmartyrvioletvendor
Fernand Pelez (1848-1913), A Martyr – The Violet Vendor (1885), media and dimensions not known, Petit Palais, Paris. Wikimedia Commons.

Pelez’s painting became even more pointed, as in A Martyr – The Violet Vendor from 1885, showing a child of the street. One of the small bunches of violets has fallen from his tray. His eyes are closed, and his mouth agape: is he dead asleep, or simply dead?

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Christian Krohg (1852–1925), The Struggle for Existence (1889), oil on canvas, 300 x 225 cm, Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo, Norway. Wikimedia Commons.

In the late 1880s the Norwegian artist Christian Krohg had been working on his next major painting, The Struggle for Existence (also translated as The Struggle for Survival) (1889). It shows Karl Johan Street in Oslo in the depths of winter, almost deserted except for a tight-packed crowd of poor women and children queuing for free bread. This was Oslo’s main street at the time, and three years later was to be the setting for Edvard Munch’s famous painting of Evening on Karl Johan Street.

The people are wrapped up in patched and tatty clothing, clutching baskets and other containers for the food. A disembodied hand is passing a single bread roll out to them, from within the pillars at the left edge. That was yesterday’s bread; now stale, the baker is giving it away only because he cannot sell it. A policeman, wearing a heavy coat and fur hat, walks in the distance, down the middle of the icy street, detached from the scene.

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Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy (1853–1924), The Night Hostel (or, The Soup Kitchen) (1891), further details not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Better known for his many paintings of schools and children, Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy’s painting of The Night Hostel or The Soup Kitchen (1891) shows homeless women and children being fed in what appears to be almost a prison.

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Erik Henningsen (1855–1930), Evicted (1892), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Statens Museum for Kunst (Den Kongelige Malerisamling), Copenhagen, Denmark. Wikimedia Commons.

In Denmark, Erik Henningsen’s Evicted from 1892 shows a family of four being evicted into the street in the winter snow. With them are their meagre possessions, including a saw suggesting the father may be a carpenter. In the background he is still arguing with a policeman.

The PRC’s Original Sin

28 March 2025 at 17:39

In Sparks, I wrote about Fang Fang’s novel Soft Burial but at the time it hadn’t been translated into English. Now, thanks to the effort of UCLA professor Michael Berry, it has just been published by Columbia University Press. 

In this review for The Atlantic magazine, I explain why Fang’s novel is so important. The key to understanding it is that land reform is so sensitive to how the PRC writes its own history. In its telling, it was a great, necessary step that fulfilled a promise of justice to rural Chinese.

In fact, it was an incredibly (and purposefully) brutal campaign to eliminate the local landed gentry, which posed a threat to the CCP’s new authoritarian rule. On top of that, the land that farmers did get was soon taken away from them–and to this day they still cannot own land. 

Fang’s novel exposes this troubled history. Making it more significant is that Fang is not a dissident writer, but a pillar of the establishment. The book was also published by a reputable publishing house and even won a prize–until leftists attacked it. This seemed to make the government aware of how subversive the novel really was and they banned it. 

So kudos to Berry and CUP for bringing out this book in English. It sheds new light on China’s past and makes more of Fang’s works available to the English-reading public. (Besides Soft Burial, they also published The Running Flame, about a woman on death row for killing her husband. And of course readers will know Fang’s Wuhan Diary, which made her internationally famous.)

For more on land reform, please check out the China Unofficial Archives, a registered nonprofit that serves as a home for banned Chinese books, magazines, and films. The archive, where I do volunteer work, has a page on land reform with a few other works on the topic, as well as a page dedicated to Fang Fang (no bio up there yet, but we’re working on it!). 

The post The PRC’s Original Sin appeared first on Ian Johnson.

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