LWD Art Appreciation ~ March 2025

It’s March and 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
March 2025

Classic Literature

Animal Farm
by George Orwell

George Orwell’s timeless and timely allegorical novel—a scathing satire of a downtrodden society’s blind march towards totalitarianism.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned—a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.

When Animal Farm was first published, Stalinist Russia was seen as its target. Today it is devastatingly clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of George Orwell’s masterpiece have a meaning and message still ferociously fresh.

Your library very likely has a copy of Animal Farm and I highly recommend patronizing your local library. Another option is Bookshop.org:

Animal Farm

It is also available on Project Gutenberg. 

 

Art/Architecture/Design

Charles & Ray Eames

 

The creative duo Charles Eames (1907–1978) and Ray Kaiser Eames (1912–1988) transformed the visual character of America. Though best known for their furniture, the husband and wife team were also forerunners in architecture, textile design, photography, and film. The Eameses’ work defined a new, multifunctional modernity, exemplary for its integration of craft and design, as well as for the use of modern materials, notably plywood and plastics.
The Eames Lounge Chair Wood, designed with molded plywood technology, became a defining furniture piece of the 20th century, while the couple’s contribution to the Case Study Houses project not only made inventive use of industrial materials but also developed an adaptable floor plan of multipurpose spaces which would become a hallmark of postwar modern architecture.

From the couple’s earliest furniture experiments to their seminal short film Powers of Ten, this book covers all the aspects of the illustrious Eames repertoire and its revolutionary impact on middle-class American living.

 

 

 

 

 

Opera

Mozart: Don Giovanni

 

Spotify Playlist:

 

 

 

Classic Film

The Great Dictator 

 

Charlie Chaplin’s World War II–era classic, a seminal satire condemning fascism and antisemitism

In his controversial masterpiece The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin offers both a cutting caricature of Adolf Hitler and a sly tweaking of his own comic persona.

Chaplin, in his first pure talkie, brings his sublime physicality to two roles: the cruel yet clownish “Tomainian” dictator and the kindly Jewish barber who is mistaken for him.

Featuring Jack Oakie and Paulette Goddard in stellar supporting turns, The Great Dictator, boldly going after the fascist leader before the U.S.’s official entry into World War II, is an audacious amalgam of politics and slapstick that culminates in Chaplin’s famously impassioned speech.

 

Where to stream The Great Dictator

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If you have any favorites to recommend for future Art Appreciation posts feel free to share in the comments!

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LWD Art Appreciation