Set aside a room or a certain hour of the day
Where you do not even know what is in the morning papers
And bring forth what you are, and what you might be
This is a place of creation and incubation
A sacred space that you use every day
At first you might think nothing is happening
But something will happen
And you will eventually find yourself again and again.

                                                                      -Joseph Campbell

@ MMFA:

Amadeo Modigliani (1864-1920): "Young man with a white collar / Jeune homme au col blanc" (1918), oil on canvas.

The use of grey, like two columns on either side of the figure, coupled with the flat grey, almond-shaped eyes. The hair line is made of white scratches, dividing the head into two, showing how flat & thin the paint is...strangely, the most paint was applied at the cheekbones, fleshly, peachy & patchy highlights floating under the eyes.  The collar is shaped like an old school nun's habit, or white wings in flight (or the roof of  Le Courbusier's Ronchamp chapel), a slight touch of blue paint in the upper right hand side to keep it all balanced...slight dove-grey shadows on the edges of his collar...all so simple, all so splendid...starting to feel Modigliani a little more...

                                                                                                    (A. Modigliani in 1918)

Anselm Kiefer, "Das SonnenSchiff ", (1996-2009), Brambles, lead boat, aluminum-painted sunflowers, acrylic, oil, emulsion on canvas, steel & glass.

Leon Golub, "Mercenaires II", (1979), Acrylic on canvas.

We (E.A  & I) watched the new Gerhard Richter doc."Gerhard Richter Painting" @ Cinema du Parc last night, both sensual & serious.  Maybe 40 people in the room, all watching a painter painting.
A strong sense of tension ran through the film, mainly because of Richter's deep vibration of conviction.

"One has to believe in what one is doing, one has to commit oneself inwardly, in order to do painting. Once obsessed, one ultimately carries it to the point of believing that one might change human beings through painting. But if one lacks this passionate commitment, there is nothing left to do. Then it is best to leave it alone. For basically painting is idiocy.” (From Richter, "Notes 1973", in The Daily Practice of Painting, p. 78.)

Quick visit to Landau Fine Art, Montreal:

Hans Hoffman, oil on canvas (1954):

Kees van dongen, Le clown, oil on canvas (1906):

Amadeo Modigliani, 'Bride & Groom (The Couple), oil on canvas (1915):

Picasso pencil drawing, (28.11.1971).
Joan Miro, oil on canvas, mid-40's.
A small Miro bronze statue:

A small guoache by Rene Magritte.
Ferdinand Leger, oil on canvas, 1929.
A small work on painted cardboard, Max Ernst.
Picasso pencil drawing, (29.67.)
Two Paul Klees, oil on burlap.
Jean Dubuffet, oil on canvas, 1975

Jean Dubuffet, oil on canvas, 1952:

A riveting early Dubuffet, apparently hidden in a European vault for 40 years:

 Jean Dubuffet, "Dechaumage Au Brabant", 1943 ?:

 

Pablo Picasso, oil on paper, 1953.

Pablo Picasso, The Sleepers, oil on canvas (13 April 1965), 114.2 x 195 cm

The "world's greatest art critic", Robert Hughes, dead @ 74.
Oh, the shock of the new, indeed.

"The shock of the new, 2004."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TigWa7k9L28