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hank1 β Portrait of Ayn Rand
Published: 2008-04-20 15:55:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 6543; Favourites: 84; Downloads: 1
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Description
Oils on panel14 x 12"
1999
My favorite author. There is no color photo of this. My reference is a B & W photo on the back of the book "The Early Ayn Rand". It's a photo of her as she looked just having arrived in the United States from the Soviet Union (she was born in Russia), never to return, as she loved the United States passionately even before she got the hell out of the Soviet Union. Drab dress with a little tear, the kind of dress her hear-to-for wealthy family was reduced to after the Soviets destroyed Russia, nationalizing her father's pharmacy. I imagined all the color, and that surely she would have found a way to put some color, a flower or something in that torn dress.
I don't imagine anyone would care about this painting unless they know her story. The greatest author and philosopher in history. Not a pretty woman, but she made a point of making herself attractive as she could during her great life.
By the way her book "Atlas Shrugged" is the "second most influential book for Americans today" after the Bible, according to a joint survey conducted by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club.
My portrait is featured in the new book The Selfish Path to Romance. [link]
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Comments: 142
But you are very skilled if also stupid. Β
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A revolutionary person, with incredible ideals! Long Live Objectivism in all aspects of its existence! A woman with truly incredible ideals. No religious mysticism, and no "common good," tyrannical, thuggery.
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So we should live in a world where we should bow before the super rich and hope they decide we can eat that day? Seriously go fuck yourself you pathetic excuse for a human being.
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Seems like we've got yet demented another 12yr old Bernie lover blaming the rich for society's woos. Hint: If it hadn't been for those super wealthy human beings, there's be no computer to type on! Also, last I checked, Objectivism's pretty pro-charity. We just hate involuntary, collective-slavery. Last but not least, almost all of Rand's worst villains in her books are rich people. Grow up.
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First I have graduated college and I did study both economics and political science so trust me when I say you and Ayn Rand are full of shit. If you really think taxes and business regulations are "collective slavery" then you don't know what slavery actually is. Also many of the people who did help build the modern internet did not end up being super rich you dumbass. And finally while many of Ayn Rand's villains where super rich, they where super rich for the wrong reasons. As in they where good business men who manipulated the system and market to provide for their rational self interest instead of pulling inventions or ideas out of their asses, even though nearly every invention and idea humanity has come up with was just built upon other inventions and ideas. For instance Thomas Edison while having invented a number things on his own was much better at taking others people's ideas and improving them so they could be marketable, Steve Jobs was also very good at this, and even Shakespeare based many of his own plays, like Romeo and Juliet, off of other plays.Β Besides in her works if you weren't super rich you didn't matter. Ayn Rand treated the middle and working class like they where just faceless moochers, even though in reality if a bunch of CEOs go on strike they would just be replaced by the next guy on the ladder, but if your entire work force walks out on you, you are screwed.
The fact is Ayn Rand strongly believed that to be a true individual one had think just like her. That's why none of her heroes ever disagree or argue, because they are all super smart and know the truth about the universe. If she really did believe in individuality her heroes would argue and bicker as they try to figure out how to approach the problem with each one having different goal or desire. But no, they are all super perfect who just mindlessly fallow John Galt who is even more super perfect than they are.Β Also Objectivism is not pro charity, you justΒ pulled that from your ass hole. Β
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I think she's a depressing human being
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amen to that...and now thanks to her (and also this awful election year), people are seriously considering voting libertarian
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I would have voted Harambe had it not been for his political assassination.
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Thank you for the compliment.
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Ok, I don't really think that she herself is terrible, just her ideals.
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Actually she really was a terrible person. She cheated on her husband openly, drove him to become an alcoholic, accused the man she was sleeping with of trying to steal from her when he started dating a younger woman, said the Native Americans had no right to their land because they were not developing it and that Europeans did not conquer America, had a crush on a serial killer, and said and did many other terrible things.Β
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... Holy shit, what a thundercunt!
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Also she accused Palestinians of being savages and of women having to be mentally unstable to want to be president. Also in Fountain Head the hero rapes a woman and then has a naked picture of her painted.
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Why fuck the English? She was a Russian Jew who moved to the USA. England had nothing to do with her, lucky bastards.
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Fuck English CLASS, not the language.
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Do you have to read her crap for your English class?
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I had to read Anthem and Atlas Shrugged.
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You poor bastard. What was your teacher thinking? What was she hopping you would learn? That all poor people are evil and that any kind of sacrifice for the greater good is a sin. Or did she want you how to write in away that makes people feel smart for reading it while relying only the manipulation of emotion to convince people of your opinion while never actually using logic or facts?
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She wanted for us to read books about individualism.
The flawed moral of Anthem was just horrible.
"People must work to earn my respect, but they should respect me immediately."
Just... No!
I would much rather read books about how people can be good. That why I love Huckleberry Finn. The only positive book in my entire current year of English III.
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I didn't have to read anything by Ayn Rand (thank God) but I did have to read the giant steaming pile of crap known as Catcher in The Rye. The main character of that book was just a small minded teenager who whined constantly about how bad his life is and how everyone sucks. Also back in middle school I had to read another steaming pile of crap known as Ethan Frome, a book about a boring man living in a boring New England town in the dead of winter. Now I live in Massachusetts so I can tell you that during the winter the only way you can describe the area is grey and white. No one liked this book and the only reason we read it is that people believe it was written well or something. Β Β Β Β Β
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Nothing wrong - She just destroys the irrational and truly pathetic parasites of society. Rand is a hero.
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Just like Kim Jong Un.
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No, he was socialist.Β
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There is no difference between a communist (not a socialist) and an objectivist. In the end both systems result in all the money and power in the hands of a few people.Β
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Uh... You really have no idea what Objectivism is. How does it result in a society where all the money and power is in the hands of a few people? Objectivism emphasizes a small government, which does not intervene in economic affairs. In an Objectivist society, there would be no social programs (thank god! No parasites.), and would be no corrupt, overbearing socialist bureaucrats. The only government agencies needed would be the courts, the police (to make sure order is there), and the military, for defense. Objectivists go against foreign aid (easy to corrupt), special interest groups (horribly corrupt), giant government agencies needed to run a socialist state (MAJORLY corrupt.) and an authoritarian bureaucracy. They love Reason and Liberty - The enemies of Socialism, which is nothing but enslaving one's self to others. Communism has no similarities to Objectivism, and is the highest form of a socialist state. The state intervenes in all walks of life (if Communist), and forces everyone to give in the name of a greater good. Communism is purely a collectivist idea, that stresses for everyone to be altruistic to one another, and altruism is the ultimate enemy of Objectivism.Β You should learn more before speaking on a topic who have no knowledge of, my friend...
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Ayn Rand on a woman U.S. president (in 1968):
"For a woman to seek or desire the presidency is, in fact so terrible
a prospect of spiritual self immolation that the woman who would seekΒ it is psychologically unworthy of the job... (and) what would thisΒ imply of the character of the men at that time?"
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Yes, and what would it imply of the character of the man to whom she is married?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but she was a heartless bitch who believed in stepping on everybody else just for the sake of one's own ego, and this has made her a big influence on conservatives.
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An excellent portrait. I first read 'The Fountainhead' when I was fourteen years of age and dove right into 'Atlas Shrugged,' as soon as I finished. The two lessons I came away with were to think for myself, and to never let another person's experiences and assumptions hinder my progress.
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Thank you very much.
And you took away from these two books just exactly what was intended by the great writer, Ayn Rand.
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Remarkable, I can feel the wanderlust and the passion she so madly pursued.
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Thank you very much, Pedro. You've read Ayn Rand?
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yes I do
Atlas Shrugged it's one of the 7 books I re- read every year
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Her ideals do deserve admiration. Glad you do, Doc.
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Having read most of Rand's works, and seen a number of photos of her, I like the portrait. It is accurate in an unusual way. It catches the fact that she seldom really smiled for pictures, but had rather the sort of half-smile you see here. Beyond that, it's a very good likeness. She was an original thinker with great influence, but understood reason and rationality in a way that I have never totally agreed with. However, at her best, she was always worth reading.
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I've read all her works. Every line of every book, fiction and non-fiction, some not published to the general public. Also the hundreds of other writers she mentions. "Atlas Shrugged" 20+ since 1970. "The Romantic Manifesto" countless times since 1969. She was always the best. I've found nothing to disagree with. The fundamental philosophy is this: think for yourself. So,I'm no "cult" member.
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