Drinking to Art History Again...

Today the opposite of tomato is 'this new Kurt Weill razor unit, made with the highest British attention to the wrong detail'


graphite & putty eraser with watercolour/30x20cm

...Even if only with a shandy on this particular occasion!

As a perfect example of found 'roadkill' subject/object matter for the continuing diptych series of drawings, this can displaying the branded legend 'Bass' (& aestheticized most pleasingly with patches of rust) certainly got the old art historical juices flowing, recalling instances where it had occurred previously, at least a couple of times in Cubist table top still life compositions by Picasso,



(both images from Harrison, Frascina & Perry 'Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction', Yale/OU)

and the iconic red triangle also featured earlier (1881-2), amongst the array of bottles upon either side of the 'Bar at the Folies-Bergere' by Manet.


(image from Bernard 'The Impressionist Revolution', Macdonald Orbis)

Soundtrack:


Chris Whitley 'Living With the Law'
Duke Special 'Songs From the Deep Forest'
The Fall '50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong'

Remembering John Peel again, at the time of the fifth anniversary of his passing (26th October), & a fitting tribute provided by the sonic juggernaut of The ('Mighty') Fall, appropriately magnificent after all these years, 'Classical-ly' so, indeed.

Further to...

the previous post & its references to the Venuses of art history comes this article in the Guardian based upon a new book reappraising the life (as an artist in her own right) of Victorine Meurent, who modelled frequently for Manet & not least for both 'Dejeuner sur l'Herbe' & 'Olympia', those icons of modern art & painting which subverted the academic tradition of the female nude & so shocked in their time with their uncompromising directness: note, for instance, how 'Olympia' confronts the spectator with both her unwavering gaze & the unpretentious starkness of the fact of her physical reality, her naked modern womanliness, rather than being merely the passive site & recipient of the viewer's gaze or the coy creature of tradition.

Looking Up...

Today the opposite of tomato is the enduring melancholy beauty of the music of The Go-Betweens


graphite & putty eraser/30x60cm (3 parts, each 30x20cm)
original source: ‘The Guardian’ 28/04/08

This image was chosen for transcription primarily for the juxtaposition of the contemporary figure with those fauns in the painting, of a European academic, ‘Salon’, clichéd, bourgeois style popular particularly during the first half of the 19th century & of a type that pioneer realists & Modernists such as Courbet & Manet sought to challenge & render redundant through their art. The art-historical combination of clothed male & naked female figures was a familiar one, & perpetuated by Courbet & Manet in, for example, ‘The Painter’s Studio’ & ‘Dejeuner sur l’Herbe’ respectively & again here in the source photograph, of Russia’s wealthiest oligarch at the Irkutsk Oblast Museum of Art (accessing the institution’s website has alas not yielded the artist & title of the painting in question). The photo’s composition might also be said to follow a clichéd convention in picturing all concerned united in their heavenward gazes.

Soundtrack:


Sigur Ros ‘Takk’
Lambchop ‘Aw C’mon’ & ‘No, You C’mon’

06/05/08


In fond remembrance of the work of the late Grant McLennan, on the 2nd anniversary of his untimely death (upon which I posted at the time), The Go-Betweens in all their glory:

‘Before Hollywood’, ‘Spring Hill Fair’, ‘Liberty Belle & the Black Diamond Express’, ‘Tallulah’, ‘16 Lover’s Lane’, ‘The Friends of Rachel Worth’ & ‘Bright Yellow, Bright Orange’