Fed up with this bloody shitty life

So let’s take our mind off things…

Dreaming of Ashurbanipal (aka Sardanapalus)
[I mean the lion — as for the lad and his stern looks, I leave him to your fancy… :  the lion is downright more likeable].
With him began the decline and fall of Assyria and he was not especially known for his kindheartedness, but at least he collected in Niniveh one of the biggest libraries, to the happiness, bliss and delight of archaeologists and philologists two and a half millennia thereafter…

The tirade from Macbeth will be for another time.

Some pictures from a travel to the Levant

The Sinai seen — or at least what could be seen therof despite the cloudy weather which prevailed at the end of March — from the summit of Jebel Musa, where Moses allegedly received the Tables of the Law

Wu Meng Chun

Wu Meng Chun est né en 1973 à Jingzhou dans la province de Liaoning et a fait ses études à l’université de Shenyang et à l’académie des Beaux-Arts de Pékin. Il a plusieurs fois exposé, en Chine et à l’étranger, en particulier à Paris en 2000.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
 
The purpose of my paintings is to show the "present state of living." I want to express the deep feelings of life, especially men's feelings, which is what I care about the most. The figures I portray neither look at the viewers nor have any eccentric actions or exaggerated expressions to attract people's attention. They are not there to communicate with the viewers. They appear in the most natural and common way, without any artificial poses. These typical actions are just a moment in life, a moment in time, almost like slow motion in a movie showing one action, in a series of actions. This expresses "truth." Truth, in my opinion, should be presented in a neither lonely nor intimate way. What I aspire to in my artwork is to free myself from any burdens and fetters, not criticize or praise. To have or have not, this is a serious social problem today, and man is the cause of this problem.
Some of my paintings are about the interaction between men. Though illustrated through men, it could also be considered as the relationship between men and women. Illusory movement of arms, bottles frozen in the air and glowing watches are all for the expression of this real or illusive, true or false feeling. In my paintings, time and space have been condensed into a single moment.
I like to draw people's bodies, and nude is the most natural and genuine state of being. I use myself as a model, but the person in my paintings is not me. In my paintings, I want to emphasize man's weakness and softness, not the strength and hardness. I want to show something else that is more female, like the female part of Yin and Yang. In my paintings, I always show opposites: Light and dark, strong and weak, rigid and delicate, male and female, dynamic and static, red and blue, cold and warm colors. I present these polar contrasts in an equal and impartial way. The whole world is filled with such opposites and union/unity, and the end result is harmonious and complete.