It’s August and that means it’s time for the monthly LWD Art Appreciation selections. This year we are reading classics, exploring a variety of types of art, architecture and design, listening to opera and watching some the all-time best films.
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ART APPRECIATION
August 2025
Classic Literature
Walden
by Henry David Thoreau
“I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.”
Eschewing a conventional residence and lifestyle, Thoreau set up home in the woods on the shore of Walden Pond in Massachusetts, a mile from his nearest neighbor, and earned his living by labor of his own hands. Most people, he says are so occupied with the factitious care and toils of life that its finer fruits remain unplucked. So he went to Walden in an attempt to find, in the seemingly simple routines of life stripped to its essentials, the shape beneath what is apparently chaotic.
Walden describes Thoreau’s domestic economy, the wildlife, the few visitors to his remote wooden hut, and his reflections on the quality of human life in age of growing materialism and of prevailing work ethic. It has become poignant critique of the values of Thoreau’s society which retains its relevance and extraordinary power today.
Note: Many of us are doing our best to avoid purchasing from Amazon and a number of other large corporations, for a variety of reasons. I recommend purchasing books from local book stores if you have them in your area. If not, Bookshop.org is a great option.
Art/Architecture/Design
Christo and Jeanne-Claude
The work of the artist couple Christo (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude (1935–2009) resists categorization. It is a hybrid of art, urban planning, architecture, and engineering, but above all an aesthetic uniquely their own: surreal and ethereal environmental interventions that have graced monuments, public parks, and centers of power alike.This compact book spans the complete career of the couple who were born on the very same day, met in Paris, fell in love, and became a creative team like no other. With rich illustration, it spans Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s earliest projects in the 1950s right through to The Floating Piers, installed at Lake Iseo, Italy, in 2016. The book celebrates all of the couple’s most famous environmental interventions, such as The Gates in New York’s Central Park and the Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin, while also featuring early drawings and family photos unknown to the wider public.
Opera
The Barber of Seville
Classic Film
Sunset Boulevard
Gloria Swanson gives a career-defining performance as faded silent screen star Norma Desmond in director Billy Wilder’s dark and masterful film classic, “Sunset Boulevard.” William Holden is Joe Gillis, the young, down-on-his-luck screenwriter whom Norma drafts to help provide her with a workable script for her planned “return” to the modern-day screen. Erich von Stroheim is Max von Mayerling, Norma’s devoted servant and chauffeur, who harbors a few personal revelations of his own. Hollywood has never taken a more ominous, compelling or electrifying look at Hollywood than in this brilliant, Oscar®-winning tour de force that still mesmerizes with it’s witty, sardonic script, unforgettable cast, and provocative storyline. The exceptional cast also includes Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb and – as themselves – Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson and H.B. Warner. (English), Gloria Swanson, as Norma Desmond, an aging silent-film queen, and William Holden, as the struggling young screenwriter who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen’s most memorable characters in “Sunset Boulevard.” Winner of three Academy Awards®, director Billy Wilder’s powerful orchestration of the bizarre tale is a true cinematic classic. From the unforgettable opening sequence – a body found floating in a decayed mansion’s swimming pool – through the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, “Sunset Boulevard” is the definitive statement on the dark and desperate side of Hollywood. Erich von Stroheim as Desmond’s discoverer, ex-husband and butler, and Nancy Olson as the bright spot amidst unrelenting ominousness, are equally celebrated for their masterful performances.
If you have any favorites to recommend for future posts feel free to share in the comments!
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