var article_index = {"love":[{"id":135,"category_id":3,"name":"I\u2019m too old for hugs","description":"The intensity and depth of their closeness is moving. The child\u2019s nose nestles into the mother\u2019s cheek. The closing of the mother\u2019s eyes is not a sign of distance, but makes us feel how absorbed she is in the moment of devotion, care and protection. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nThe need for love is one of the basic features of our common humanity; we want to be cherished and accepted, and we want to find someone who will never turn their backs on us in boredom or contempt. Yet so often this is achingly missing from our lives. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nA work of art can go some of the way towards meeting this need. It cannot embrace us, but it can offer the image of someone who understands, who forgives, who searches always to meet our true needs, to whom our sorrows are always of profound importance. While we have endless models of fame and material success before our eyes, we have far fewer which remind us of the shape of love \u2013 and our need for its embrace. <br \/>\n","artist_name":"Barbara Hepworth","painting_name":"Mother and Child","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398969586mother-and-child-1927.jpg","stub":"mother-and-child","order":2,"category_name":"Love","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398969586mother-and-child-1927.jpg"},{"id":136,"category_id":3,"name":"I\u2019m feeling impatient, and getting too many emails","description":"The grain of the lines is delicate and reserved. Whatever claim it might have upon our admiration is advanced very quietly, almost shyly. This image gets us to rehearse, in the safety of an art gallery, an attitude of attentiveness and patience that really needs to be a part of the rest of life. It can be so hard to access in times of stress, yet that is when it is most needed. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nWe know in our hearts that mental health involves attending to a few things well, being rational, calm, logical and focused. But so much about our lives is set against such priorities. Agnes Martin\u2019s work is likely to move us not because our lives are like it, but because we so much want them to be, and yet they are almost always far more chaotic and disrupted. We would ideally spend a few moments in front of this work, willing our lives into the spirit it shows us, then buy a postcard and repeat the exercise a few times a week. We would be kinder people, and easier to live with too.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nAttentiveness and patience don\u2019t sound very romantic. But they are crucially important if love is to endure the tensions and frustrations that are almost inevitable in relationships. ","artist_name":"Agnes Martin","painting_name":"The Rose","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398857170L2.jpg","stub":"the-rose","order":3,"category_name":"Love","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398857170L2.jpg"},{"id":137,"category_id":3,"name":"My ideal age range is 25\u201332","description":"This woman used to be strong and decisive; she had lovers once; she put her makeup on carefully and set out with a quiet thrill in the evening. Now she\u2019s hard to love and maybe she knows this. She gets irritated, and she withdraws. But she needs other people to care for her. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nAnyone can end up here, and there are moments when a lot of people \u2013 at whatever stage of life \u2013 are a bit hard to admire or like. Love is often linked to admiration: we love because we find another person so exciting and attractive. But there\u2019s another aspect to love in which we are moved precisely by the needs of the other, through generosity. Tully is generous to her. The artist looks with great care into this woman\u2019s face and wonders about who she really is. ","artist_name":"Sidney Tully","painting_name":"The Twilight of Life","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398855736L3.jpg","stub":"the-twilight-of-life","order":4,"category_name":"Love","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398855736L3.jpg"},{"id":152,"category_id":3,"name":"I have difficulty remembering why we ever got together","description":"They are so in love and it\u2019s easy to see why. They are having such a good time with each other: teasing and gazing fondly into each other\u2019s eyes. It seems a bit too good to be true, if we imagine it as telling us the whole truth about relationships. Of course, the troubles come along. There are worries about career, disagreements about how to furnish an apartment, fury at what might look to other people like tiny things. One day she will turn coldly on him for not cleaning his clogs before coming indoors; in time, he will get irked by how much she spends at the fruit shop. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nBut that\u2019s not the point. This picture is a reminder of how most relationships start \u2013 two people in love with each other. Later on, when they are a bit sick of their relationship, they should look back on this image and refresh their sense of why, after all, they do love each other. The love has not disappeared \u2013 it has only been hidden by the normal distractions and frustrations of life. ","artist_name":"Fran\u00e7ois Boucher","painting_name":"The Wooden Shoes ","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398866242L6.jpg","stub":"i-have-difficulty-remembering-why-we-ever-got-together","order":19,"category_name":"Love","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398866242L6.jpg"}],"politics":[{"id":138,"category_id":4,"name":"I tend to switch off when the news is too awful","description":"One big function of art is to show us suffering and injustice to which we have closed our eyes \u00ac\u2013 and thereby encourage us to pave the way to a better world. Art takes the first crucial step of raising consciousness, and thereby helps to generate the political will to remedy big social ills. Vincent Van Gogh directed the attention of a prestigious urban audience to the plight of a hitherto neglected constituency: the rural poor.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nOf course, it\u2019s not that before van Gogh people in France weren\u2019t aware of the horrifying statistics. The news \u2013 then and now \u2013 is always informing us of appalling facts. The average life expectancy for a peasant in France in 1880 was 35. One out of eight peasant women died in childbirth. To switch centuries, nowadays the unemployment rate in Greece is 28%. The average wage in Liberia is less than $200 per year. And no one much cares...<br \/>\n<br \/>\nThat\u2019s why we need art. The prestige of data is fed by the tempting but false idea that \u201cknowing the facts\u201d is what matters. Abstract statistics look clever and serious, but so often they just wash over us. The woman with a spade takes us in the opposite direction. We are creatures designed for intimate contact, for local lives and personal relationships. For ideas to become powerful in our souls, they need to be anchored in experience. We need to feel them, see them. This is what art, at its best, can help us with.","artist_name":"Vincent van Gogh","painting_name":"Woman with a Spade, Seen from Behind ","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398857379P1.jpg","stub":"woman-with-a-spade","order":5,"category_name":"Politics","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398857379P1.jpg"},{"id":139,"category_id":4,"name":"Nothing is ever perfect","description":"Perfectionism is something we tend to feel mixed about. Without it, we lose the will to drive ourselves through difficult challenges. We compromise too soon and give up on the grander opportunity. Of course perfectionism is also a recipe for frustration and disappointment. Nothing is ever quite as shiny and clean and neat as it could be. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nIn this work, Donald Judd is generous to the perfectionist instinct: order, harmony, serenity are political ideals, which the world continually fails to live up to. We have to both love those ideals of perfection and cope with the fact that they are merely ideals \u2013 they will never be fully realized in the world. Judd keeps the perfectionist impulse alive and nurtures it when we may be all too ready to abandon it a little too soon.","artist_name":"Donald Judd","painting_name":"Untitled","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398855831P2.jpg","stub":"untitled","order":6,"category_name":"Politics","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398855831P2.jpg"},{"id":140,"category_id":4,"name":"Patriotism feels embarrassing","description":"At first sight this picture is utterly remote from the concerns of modern politics. It illustrates a foundational episode in the collective national myth of the Roman people. Aeneas was their distant ancestor, and it was (they imagined) his descendants who founded the city of Rome. Here he is with his mother, who happens to be a goddess, receiving a present of military equipment \u2013 the material he happens to need at that time in order to help his people. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nBut the point of this picture is simple and highly relevant. It is an attempt to answer a question that we often feel uncomfortable about, but which is actually of great political importance: What should I feel proud of about my country? The question has so often been badly answered that it has come itself to feel embarrassing, but it shouldn\u2019t be. Every country needs to understand where it comes from, what it stands for and what it can legitimately feel proud of. What Poussin was doing for the Romans, we need to find a way to do with Canada today.","artist_name":"Nicolas Poussin","painting_name":"Venus, Mother of Aeneas, Presenting him with Arms forged by Vulcan","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398855863P3.jpg","stub":"venus-mother-of-aeneas-presenting-him-with-arms-forged-by-vulcan","order":7,"category_name":"Politics","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398855863P3.jpg"}],"sex":[{"id":141,"category_id":1,"name":"Thinking sex is just good clean fun","description":"On closer inspection this is quite a disturbing, even creepy, image. An average, slightly upmarket couple is kissing. To their friends they are respectable, quite successful. He has a good position as an officer in the military. She\u2019s a bit of a society figure. They are a bit greedy, on the lookout for a bit of fun. Maybe they tell a few lies here and there to smooth things over. They are pretty imperfect, but they are not at all unusual. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nBut then, behind them and around them are the bizarre and confronting symbols and semi-divinities of the ancient world. As many works of art do, this one is telling us something about the minds of the central characters. These people carry within them a whole lot of strange baggage. They think of themselves as up to date. They have opinions and attitudes that, in their own circle, pass for enlightened. But the artist is telling us that deep down these people have, like everyone, destructive urges, obscure lusts, wild fantasies (which could sound deranged if described). They are haunted by the fear of death. The Egyptians gave names and faces to their dark parts of the mind. More often than not, we keep them hidden from view. But they are there all the same. ","artist_name":"Thomas Rowlandson","painting_name":"Modern Antiques","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398855904S2.jpg","stub":"modern-antiques","order":8,"category_name":"Sex","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398855904S2.jpg"},{"id":142,"category_id":1,"name":"I think that sex should only ever be gentle","description":"It could start out as a kiss, a sweet caress of the neck. But it\u2019s about to turn into a bite. She could turn playfully nasty and then outright destructive. And maybe there\u2019s part of him that wants that. If he\u2019s a victim, then he might be a willing one. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nAt times we like to think of sex as the expression of love, as the physical manifestation of care and admiration. But sex has many other, far darker dimensions: we may want to hurt and be hurt as much as we want to caress and nurture. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nIt can be hard to reconcile loving feelings \u2013 including tenderness, sympathy, care, gentleness and equality \u2013 with some of the requirements of our sexual imaginations. Munch knew a lot about the violent, obsessive, sadomasochistic aspects of our sexuality and did humanity an enormous favour by giving these a public and dignified expression. It\u2019s easy for some of our sexual wishes to be dismissed as weird, perverted and sick. Munch does not judge his figures. In fact, he wants to stretch our conception of ourselves and suggest that we are more like these people than we would normally admit. ","artist_name":"Robert Munch","painting_name":"Vampire","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398855932S3.jpg","stub":"vampire","order":9,"category_name":"Sex","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398855932S3.jpg"}],"nature":[{"id":147,"category_id":6,"name":"I spend too much time dithering and being at a loose end","description":"We see freedom in the wilderness, but want it in our daily lives. The wilderness is a place where money isn\u2019t important, where the hierarchies and expectations of everyday life fall away. You have to get into your small boat and make your way across the cold choppy water to the unknown territory. You will have to get wood for the fire tonight. Do the clouds mean it\u2019s going to rain? There\u2019s nobody to turn to. But it\u2019s not an image of fear. There\u2019s an atmosphere of resilience, competence and self-reliance. It\u2019s tough, but we are going to cope. It\u2019s a place where the priorities are simple: shelter, food, warmth. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nA distant place can show you something you need here: the freshness, the clear tasks. But the response can\u2019t always be to set off for the hills. The relevant challenging environment might be close to home: the mess of documents for the tax return, the chaotic attic, the overgrown garden. And the response \u2013 with its sense of freedom \u2013 might not be pitching a tent but ticking off the to-do list. ","artist_name":"Arthur Lismer","painting_name":"Old Pine","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398856087N1.jpg","stub":"old-pine","order":14,"category_name":"Nature","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398856087N1.jpg"},{"id":148,"category_id":6,"name":"I lack perspective. I\u2019m too wrapped up in routine","description":"This is nature, entirely independent of us. There are no signs of human endeavour, no reminders of technology, industry or settlement. It is the world apart from people \u2013 with no need of anything from us. The day-to-day concerns of our lives don\u2019t matter here. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nNakamura is providing a balancing experience. Most of the time we just have to be obsessed with our own lives. We have to live in cities, think about money and plot and scheme to keep our lives in reasonable order. ","artist_name":"Kazuo Nakamura","painting_name":"Blue Reflections","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398856116N2.jpg","stub":"blue-reflections","order":15,"category_name":"Nature","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398856116N2.jpg"},{"id":149,"category_id":6,"name":"I get cynical when things seem too nice","description":"Lorrain sought out particular moods that nature could speak to \u2013 and sought to intensify them in his pictures. He\u2019s not trying to be realistic \u2013 perhaps no part of nature could be as artfully composed as this. Everything is calculated to make us feel wistful. It is evening, and the mild sunlight tinges the western sky. The shadows are lengthening, but far away on the horizon there is a distant island. The headlands break sweetly into the bay as the lines of the hills melt away. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nObviously, this painting is not paying much attention to the darker aspects of existence. That\u2019s not because it is ignorant of them or wants to pretend that everything is rosy. Rather it is giving us a restorative break. It is deliberately drawing our attention to more delicate and sweet states of mind, because it understands how easily they get swamped by the tribulations of everyday life. ","artist_name":"Claude Lorrain","painting_name":"The Embarkation of Carlo and Ubaldo","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398857241N3.jpg","stub":"the-embarkation-of-carlo-and-ubaldo","order":16,"category_name":"Nature","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398857241N3.jpg"}],"money":[{"id":143,"category_id":2,"name":"I hate all this materialism","description":"Artists tend to distrust money, as well as bourgeois values like punctuality, industry, time-keeping. But here we have an artist celebrating work in a variety of forms. Everyone is busy, eagerly engaged in getting the ship loaded, while other people are on their way to the market to purchase things they need that have recently landed at the docks. Still more are heading to offices that organize the finances; an entrepreneur will be coming in looking to invest in another ship. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nBecause money can invite \u2013 both personally and in our thinking about society as a whole \u2013 such negative reactions, it is helpful to encounter a corrective, balancing image of the positive achievement of industry, work and money. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nObviously, not everyone needs to learn this lesson. But for those who do, it is important to hear this message from a trustworthy source. Pissarro obviously understood beauty \u2013 he was devoted to contemplation, he didn\u2019t like to be hurried, he loved looking for hours at grey skies and small, choppy waves. He understood all the attractions of indolence. And yet, he\u2019s the one telling us about the importance of industry, work and getting the job done. He loves what we might call materialism. But that\u2019s not because he is shallow or lacking in imagination. ","artist_name":"Camille Pissarro","painting_name":"Point Boieldieu in Roueu, Rainy Weather","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398857216M1.jpg","stub":"point-boieldieu-in-roueu-rainy-weather","order":10,"category_name":"Money","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398857216M1.jpg"},{"id":144,"category_id":2,"name":"I worry that money is evil","description":"Brancusi loved to work with expensive-looking materials. There is unusual luxury and refinement in his pieces. Recently, one of his works sold for more than $30 million, setting a world auction record for a sculpture. When we think of art, money often feels like a crude and offensive consideration. Money seems opposed to the higher values that we expect art to deal with. Many of the best things in life \u2013 looking at the sky on a windy day, reading to one\u2019s child, laughing with a friend \u2013 don\u2019t have price tags and don\u2019t require cash. So the instinct for sensitive, serious people is to denigrate money, or at least politely ignore it, or to see it as at odds with beauty, dignity and depth of feeling.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nThe fact is, though, that money is not essentially or necessarily opposed to good values. The sheer luxury of Brancusi\u2019s work pulls us toward an awkward but important idea. Sometimes money can work in the service of good things. It can give lustre to important aspects of life that might otherwise get lost. We are familiar enough with the stupidity of luxury. But here Brancusi tells us something else: money can help to add a necessary prestige to the deepest, most important truths.","artist_name":"Constantin Brancusi","painting_name":"The First Cry","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398855999M2.jpg","stub":"the-first-cry","order":11,"category_name":"Money","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398855999M2.jpg"},{"id":145,"category_id":2,"name":"The rich are all awful","description":"She was wealthy \u2013 whatever she wanted she could buy. She lived in a large, beautiful house. She had servants to do the domestic chores. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nThere are many negative images of the rich, so it\u2019s not hard to conclude that they are almost universally scandalous, unfit to manage their privileges and a waste of time. There may be a little truth in this, but there is also \u2013 understandably \u2013 a lot of repressed envy too. The most natural response to being denied something one desperately wants is to pretend it isn\u2019t worth having. That is comforting but ultimately impoverishes our self-understanding. In fact, the wealthy Mrs. Benson was a woman who used her privileges well. She was \u2013 and looks \u2013 sensitive, serious, refined. She is an exemplar of how to put money to good use. <br \/>\n<br \/>\nThat may sound like a depressing idea, because it seems to vindicate inequality. But actually it\u2019s making a demand. We may very well not be able to remove inequality, which seems to be a fixture of the modern world. Instead we should have higher expectations of wealth. She\u2019s not admirable because she\u2019s got money. She\u2019s a fine person and she has resources, and that combination is too rare and one that we should want more of. ","artist_name":"George Richmond","painting_name":"Portrait of Mrs. William Benson","image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/560x1000\/1398856025M3.jpg","stub":"portrait-of-mrs-william-benson","order":12,"category_name":"Money","large_image":"\/dynamic\/thumbs\/960x960\/1398856025M3.jpg"}]}