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Irish Examiner
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Karl Whitney: Why you should sketch your cats before attempting to paint tigers
The artist Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863) had an affection for animals that is reflected in his paintings and sketches. I have a couple of postcards bearing prints by him: one is a sketch of his cats, in various states of feline relaxation; another is of tigers in the same poses. The domestic animals were, in essence, models for the wild ones, which he had glimpsed at the zoo in the Jardin des Plantes. Often, if I'm in Paris, I'll visit the museum dedicated to Delacroix, housed in the apartment in which he lived his final years. A decently sized apartment, it makes a small museum, especially when crowded. On the day my girlfriend and I visited a few weeks ago, slightly harried guides tried to encourage us into the artist's studio, behind the main building, to ease congestion in the main rooms. When I go there, and especially when I'm in the back garden, I think about his cats, partly because it amuses me to think about cats, but also because I wonder what the close attention he paid to his pets says about the artist. Known for large canvases, notably the orgiastic historical painting The Death of Sardanapalus (1827-28) and the allegory of the July 1830 revolution Liberty Leading the People (1830), he nonetheless remains carefully attentive to minute detail and texture. Self-portrait of Eugene Delacroix: Delacroix learned from others, why shouldn't we learn from him? Picture: Getty I find the oscillation between small scale and epic scene when comparing his sketches to his finished work interesting: he responds to the challenge of painting a large canvas by considering the effect the combination of elements will have on the viewer. What will stand out? Perhaps the glint of a brandished sword, or a ray of light catching a jewel. Will that detail distract from the overall effect desired by the artist or enhance it? Such questions are raised in his journals, which he began as a young man, left aside for many years, and took up again in the late 1840s. He views other artists' work and makes notes, or makes sketches, to glean something of their style or to understand the technical challenges which they had faced. He makes notes about what he approves of in their work and what he dislikes — it's unmistakably the activity of an artist engaging his critical skill to improve his own technique. In the early entries, made when he was in his twenties, he records how much he's owed for work completed. Call those his freelancer years. In the later entries, as a mature, highly-successful artist, we get a greater sense of his perfectionism: rather than use assistants to perform some tasks connected with a large work, he carries the tasks out himself. As I writer, I think about what I can glean from these journals. Delacroix learned from others, why shouldn't we learn from him? First of all, you should sketch your cats before attempting to paint tigers. That is, your bigger works should emerge from your smaller ones, and you shouldn't shrink from putting something of yourself into even the most epic of works. The second thing that struck me — and this is very much related to Delacroix being a Romantic artist — is that it's essential that you reflect deeply on what you want to do, how you do it, and why. There's obviously a danger in this of boiling down a complex artist to a couple of rules, as if artistic practice is like a management technique that can be rationalised and packaged. Nevertheless, we engage with the world around us and a byproduct of that interest in the world is that we may learn something that could come in useful someday. We might observe Delacroix, and perhaps even ourselves, in a similar manner to that with which he observed his cats. Should one keep a diary? As a writer, it's useful to have somewhere to keep a record of one's reflections on life and work, but I've found it best to avoid using a traditional diary for such note-making. The pressure of having to write something, anything, every day can feel like drudgery. Over the years, I've kept copybooks, notebooks, and a series of digital documents written on word processor, all of which you might class as diaristic, and much of which contains reflections on the difficulties and satisfactions of writing. At the centre of such an endeavour is an ongoing dialogue with yourself about who you are, what you want, and what you think. Coincidentally, it provides a testing ground for your own writing, helping you to develop your style and sharpen your focus. One can attempt to emulate the precision of Delacroix's critical judgements by taking note of what we're reading and considering what we might take from that work and what we wish to avoid. When I wander through the museum that was once Eugène Delacroix's home, as I navigate my way through the packed drawing room and bedroom, eyeing the paintings hung on the walls, I think about the artist as somehow being still present. Perhaps that's an inevitability given the place's biographical significance. But it's also a leap of the imagination. We're so used to looking to past eras to find reflections of our own, failing to grasp how much the perspective we bring to that process shapes our understanding. Think of a classic book and how the writer might be presented to us as 'our contemporary' or the novel as 'speaking to the present' in some way. No matter how well-meaning such statements are, they reveal the narcissism of the present. When Delacroix drew his cats, he wasn't doing so to domesticate them further in his depiction. He wasn't looking to make them cuter than they were; rather he was examining them for their wildness — the suggestion of a tiger's prowl in their gait. He tuned into the exotic and unknowable aspects of their behaviour, retained and even amplified their difference, rather than making them familiar. Reading the journals of an artist who lived two centuries ago, it's tempting to find the commonalities: how he worked and how it compares to the way I work; how he approached others' work and what he thought of it (and what I can learn from his approach). It's appealing to allow your imagination to fill in the gaps, making him your contemporary. We love the idea of time travel because it flattens time in the way that we've been able to contort geographical distance. But there's value to distance because it helps make the specificity of a place more striking, and there's a lot to be said for postponing your understanding of a figure from the past: delay judgement until you find out more. Not everything is instantly intelligible, and our impatience to categorise and move on can act as a barrier to a greater understanding. The bridge between past and present, between one person and another, between an artist and their cat, between a writer and their own life, can be as long or as short as one chooses. And it is a choice. You don't have to grasp everything in a single moment. You don't have to distil everything into a kernel of wisdom. Make room for your imagination to roam. Keep your cats wild for as long as you can so that you can regard them with as clear an eye as possible.
The Hindu
05-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Big-name porn sites black out in France over age checks
French visitors to major adult websites Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube were met Wednesday with a message denouncing privacy risks from government demands that they verify users' ages. "Your government suggests checking your age every time you visit our site - that's crazy, right?" asked a message displayed on Pornhub in place of the platform's usual torrent of explicit content. It was topped with an image of the bare-breasted allegorical figure of Liberty brandishing the French flag from Eugene Delacroix's 1830 painting "Liberty Leading the People". France has this year gradually introduced requirements for all adult websites to have users confirm their age with details like a credit card or ID document, aiming to prevent minors from accessing pornography. In a bid to preserve privacy, operators must offer a third-party "double-blind" option that would keep the platforms themselves from seeing users' identifying information. But Pornhub parent company Aylo says this is an ineffective mechanism that puts people's data at risk from bad actors, hacks or leaks. "Requiring you to repeatedly provide sensitive personal information creates an unacceptable security risk that we refuse to impose on our users," the message read. The platform argues that the French law also "diverts users to thousands of sites that deliberately circumvent regulations" and that fail to moderate videos for issues like the age and consent of performers. Aylo has called for governments to instead have makers of operating systems like Apple, Microsoft and Google verify users' ages at the level of individual devices. An "age signal" from the operating system could then be used to grant or deny access to adult content without compromising privacy, the company argues. "Let (Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube) go," France's digital affairs minister Clara Chappaz said in a statement. "They can come back the day they're ready to finally respect our rules." Women's rights group Osez le feminisme (Dare to be Feminist) said in a statement that "this multi-billion-dollar industry prefers to mobilise its resources to fight any attempt at regulation... rather than give up the free, unconditional access that feeds its business model."
Time of India
04-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Biggest porn websites Black Out in France; complain to users: Your government suggests ...
Major adult websites Pornhub , YouPorn , and RedTube , owned by Aylo , have reportedly blocked access to their content in France in protest of new age verification requirements aimed at protecting minors from accessing pornography. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now French visitors attempting to access these platforms on Wednesday were greeted with a message denouncing the privacy risks posed by the government's mandate, which requires users to verify their age using sensitive personal information such as credit cards or ID documents. According to a report by news agency AFP, the message on Pornhub, accompanied by an image of the bare-breasted Liberty from Eugène Delacroix's 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People, criticized the French law: 'Your government suggests checking your age every time you visit our site — that's crazy, right?' Aylo, formerly MindGeek, argued that the requirement to repeatedly provide personal data creates an 'unacceptable security risk' for users, citing potential vulnerabilities to hacks, leaks, or bad actors. The company also claimed that the law pushes users toward unregulated sites that fail to moderate content for issues like performer age and consent. What France's new law says on adult websites France's new rules, part of a broader global trend, align with the EU's Digital Services Act, the UK's Online Safety Act, and similar laws in several U.S. states, all designed to restrict minors' access to inappropriate online content. The European Commission recently launched an investigation into Pornhub, Stripchat, XNXX, and XVideos for alleged failures to protect minors. France, which was Pornhub's second-largest market in 2024, requires adult platforms to offer a 'double-blind' third-party verification option to shield user data from the sites themselves, but Aylo dismissed this as ineffective. Instead, Aylo proposed that governments mandate age verification at the device level through operating systems like Apple, Microsoft, or Google, which could provide an 'age signal' to grant or deny access without compromising user privacy. The report quoted France's Digital Affairs Minister Clara Chappaz who responded firmly. He said, 'Let [Pornhub, YouPorn, and RedTube] go. They can come back the day they're ready to finally respect our rules.'
France 24
04-06-2025
- Business
- France 24
France's top porn sites protest new age verification rules by blacking out
French visitors to major adult websites Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube were met Wednesday with a message denouncing privacy risks from government demands that they verify users' ages. 'Your government suggests checking your age every time you visit our site – that's crazy, right?' asked a message displayed on Pornhub in place of the platform's usual torrent of explicit content. It was topped with an image of the bare-breasted allegorical figure of Liberty brandishing the French flag from Eugene Delacroix's 1830 painting 'Liberty Leading the People'. France has this year gradually introduced requirements for all adult websites to have users confirm their age with details like a credit card or ID document, aiming to prevent minors from accessing pornography. 'Unacceptable security risks' In a bid to preserve privacy, operators must offer a third-party 'double-blind' option that would keep the platforms themselves from seeing users' identifying information. But Pornhub parent company Aylo says this is an ineffective mechanism that puts people's data at risk from bad actors, hacks or leaks. 'Requiring you to repeatedly provide sensitive personal information creates an unacceptable security risk that we refuse to impose on our users,' the message read. The platform argues that the French law also 'diverts users to thousands of sites that deliberately circumvent regulations' and that fail to moderate videos for issues like the age and consent of performers. 'Let them go' Aylo has called for governments to instead have makers of operating systems like Apple, Microsoft and Google verify users' ages at the level of individual devices. An 'age signal' from the operating system could then be used to grant or deny access to adult content without compromising privacy, the company argues. 'Let (Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube) go,' France's digital affairs minister Clara Chappaz said in a statement. 'They can come back the day they're ready to finally respect our rules.' Women's rights group Osez le feminisme (Dare to be Feminist) said in a statement that 'this multi-billion-dollar industry prefers to mobilise its resources to fight any attempt at regulation... rather than give up the free, unconditional access that feeds its business model.'
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Big-name porn sites black out in France over age checks
French visitors to major adult websites Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube were met Wednesday with a message denouncing privacy risks from government demands that they verify users' ages. "Your government suggests checking your age every time you visit our site -- that's crazy, right?" asked a message displayed on Pornhub in place of the platform's usual torrent of explicit content. It was topped with an image of the bare-breasted allegorical figure of Liberty brandishing the French flag from Eugene Delacroix's 1830 painting "Liberty Leading the People". France has this year gradually introduced requirements for all adult websites to have users confirm their age with details like a credit card or ID document, aiming to prevent minors from accessing pornography. In a bid to preserve privacy, operators must offer a third-party "double-blind" option that would keep the platforms themselves from seeing users' identifying information. But Pornhub parent company Aylo says this is an ineffective mechanism that puts people's data at risk from bad actors, hacks or leaks. "Requiring you to repeatedly provide sensitive personal information creates an unacceptable security risk that we refuse to impose on our users," the message read. The platform argues that the French law also "diverts users to thousands of sites that deliberately circumvent regulations" and that fail to moderate videos for issues like the age and consent of performers. Aylo has called for governments to instead have makers of operating systems like Apple, Microsoft and Google verify users' ages at the level of individual devices. An "age signal" from the operating system could then be used to grant or deny access to adult content without compromising privacy, the company argues. "Let (Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube) go," France's digital affairs minister Clara Chappaz said in a statement. "They can come back the day they're ready to finally respect our rules." Women's rights group Osez le feminisme (Dare to be Feminist) said in a statement that "this multi-billion-dollar industry prefers to mobilise its resources to fight any attempt at regulation... rather than give up the free, unconditional access that feeds its business model." tgb/jhb
