Word: nouveau
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...gynecologist on Chicago's North Shore, Turow inherited ambition early: "I grew up with a very successful father, whose success I knew I'd be expected to emulate." His early years were spent in what he describes as "a nouveau-riche Jewish ghetto" filled with returned World War II veterans eager to get ahead; he recalls the "sense of identity" he got from that ethnic community and the loss he felt when, at age 13, his parents moved further north to the wealthy and Waspish suburb of Winnetka...
Tiffany trained as a painter; several of his mediocre oils are included in the show, testament more to his sense of composition than his skill with a brush. Influenced by the supple lines and Asian touches of the art nouveau movement, he did better with fabric and furniture. As an interior decorator, he brought exotic warmth to the drafty drawing rooms of Vanderbilts and Mellons. He added Moorish spice to Mark Twain's study, and in the 1880s swathed the public rooms of the Chester A. Arthur White House with such exuberance that one critic compared the ambiance to "steamboats...
...twelve windows represented in "Masterworks" pulse with a colorist's verve and ingenuity. Here are familiar nouveau nature themes: profusions of rowdy blooms and bursting vines, roe deer and sailboats bobbing on azure seas. In the 9-ft.-tall Cockatoo and Parakeet, a bird with opalescent feathers pecks at vibrant cherries. In the magnificent Landscape Triptych, Tiffany played with shade and light in a glade to produce landscape poetry worthy of the Hudson River school of painting. Vase of Red Peonies, dominated by a glorious clot of blossoms, prefigures abstraction...
...excess of gossip and celebrity journalism: it is contemptuous of readers and viewers. It says they are incapable of dealing with real news and that they must be fed Pablum and given the illusion that they are vicariously participating in important stuff. It is also about class: a nouveau celebrity class applauded less for achievement than for the mere acquisition of money or the act of becoming famous. I suspect that the pre-eminence of this type of gossip and celebrity journalism is not unrelated to the private frustrations and envy of the people who write it: the desire...
...tone of the students' works varies greatly--from the fancy of a greeting card collection/sculpture by Lana Wang, an unimaginative attempt at Nouveau Realism, to the power of Georgia Bush's two-part oil painting characterized by vibrant colors and bold movement...