vince’s ear

Normally I wouldn’t have shown you this until its completion but I am so pleased with it I must share. I always show unfinished paintings to friends and family as long as I am happy with the progress, so why not here? Two hours have passed and I didn’t really want to stop but I need to grab a bite to eat and another iced coffee.

So here is the result of the first session for recreating David With Goliath’s Head (1610) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. I have recently been commissioned to paint Sacrifice of Isaac on a huge canvas, and I haven’t painted in over six months. So, I need to get back into the art, as well as practice my skills with the strong tenebrism characteristic of Caravaggio, of which Sacrifice is a particularly strong example. David and Goliath is not so bad, so will make good practice.

A little background: Caravaggio revisited the theme of David and Goliath several times. This particular one is thought to be the last. In fact this is regarded as the artist’s last painting executed before he died. He had made the trip on a small boat loaded up with several canvases, including this one, to seek a final pardon and gain the support of patrons. He had been on the run for several years, convicted of murder. As the years progress toward the end of his life in 1610, Caravaggio’s anxiety showed more and more. For instance, his fear of decapitation and persecution are evident in this painting: he has painted himself as the slain giant.

As the head was taking shape I realized I had accidentally made the head look out directly at the viewer. While it differs from the original (as I’m sure many parts will- it’s never perfect), I am thrilled with the result. It’s what Bob Ross would call a “happy accident.” Though I doubt Bob painted many decapitated heads in his career.

I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

If you can’t see the video click here

If you can’t see the video click here

If you can’t see the video click here

If you can’t see the video click here

Death stares us in the face- as is evident in the above detail of an anonymous French painting. It is around every corner, with the threat to show up in an instant to breathe its icy breath down our necks and snatch our frail lives in its bony fingers. There is nothing we can do to stop it, and sooner or later it will consume each and every one of us.

This image is an example of vanitas, coming from the Latin for “emptiness,” and was a popular theme for painters particularly in Northern Europe during the 17th century. This was a time when the still life was becoming a favorite genre and was no longer considered a low art. Caravaggio said that a well portrayed bowl of fruit is as difficult to paint as a person. This was also a time when many painters preferred to depict scenes of pleasure and leisure. Hence the reaction of the rise of vanitas still lifes.

Vanitas paintings show how vain humanity is. A typical object is the skull, frequently juxtaposed against symbols of human pleasures such as musical instruments. The skull above is a particularly powerful statement as it looks in the mirror with black sockets, searching for meaning- searching for anything. It is a warning of the transience of all life.

It is surrounded by games such as chess and cards. Isn’t life a game or a gamble? We see objects of worldly pursuits such as the sword and money purse with coins, books to represent our thirst for knowledge, tulips to show some hint of our vitality. And yet, no viewer can escape the ominous skull. It is a motionless and unforgiving reminder that all human aspirations, hopes, and dreams eventually lead to the grave. We will all end up as dust. The orange will rot, the tulips will wilt.

Memento mori- Remember that you are mortal.

See also Death and Art, Triumph of Death, and Anamorphic Perspective

I wanted to quick show you this picture that I really liked that I first saw on Lines and Colors, where Charley Parker gives us a good commentary. It is called Barge Haulers on the Volga or The Volga Boatmen and was painted in 1873 by Ilya Repin.

Born in the Ukraine, Repin became an important Russian Realist painter and sculptor with artworks usually making a statement on tensions in the social order. After his death a Repin cult was established which praised the artist for being a progressive. His works were painted in shocking detail which seem to put you in the scene much like a good descriptive book. His were the kinds of paintings which make you feel the heat or shade your eyes from the sun.

He was considered not just a Realist because he could portray a landscape as if you were seeing the actual situation with your own eyes, but because he depicted a real situation in terms of social reality- i.e. the differences in class amongst the subjects. Take Religious Procession in the Region of Kursk, for instance. Here we see all social classes- the raggedy poor and infirm juxtaposed against the finely dressed elite, with the State helping to separate the classes in the form of mounted policemen high and mighty on their “high horses.” The policeman on horseback about to strike the woman is as unnoticed in this painting as any police brutality is. All this while they all can agree on this form of religious worship.

The picture above (click for full resolution) can be seen as commentary on the plight of the peasant class. In amazing detail we see this group of laborers with a lack of supervision- the only hint is the sailors barely visible on the barge itself, who stand and wait.

Clear emphasis is placed on the young one in the center. Though his hands are “working man’s hands,” his spirit has not yet callused as the other men’s have. While the much older workers have a quietness and a just-get-it-done work ethic which comes from a lifetime of hard work, the young lad gazes off open-mouthed and wishes he could be absolutely anywhere else. Meanwhile the old man next to him has learned to mentally escape as he jots down some lines of poetry ignoring the sweltering heat and back-breaking work.

These men are most likely the sailors from the barge or for hire to help tug the ships, but it is not totally clear. They could be prisoners or on a work detail akin to community service. Regardless their situations would be similar. If they are prisoners, no guards’ portraits appear. Either way it reminds me of Van Gogh’s Prison Courtyard where the bourgeois guards in their top hats stand tall and look on at the inmates in their “sunshine call” exercise. The sight of the butterflies fluttering off is similar to the boy’s gaze in the Barge Haulers. It’s the idea of “so close but so far” in both situations.

If Repin had included the top hat elite with the women with their parasols present to enjoy the entertainment, this would indeed have been a more biting social statement. This happened at the battle of the First Bull Run a few years earlier in the states when the rich were delighted to view the battle and watch the lower class young men get slaughtered.

The elite, the wealthy statesmen, and the “haves and have mores” are indeed very much detached from the reality of the lower classes. “Send them all a $600 check and a sack of potatoes,” they say, and everything will be fine. Let them eat cakes.

None of that will ever change. But on the bright side we will always have things to make fun of in our paintings and editorials.

We saw some illusions in painting before with some examples of trompe l’oiel (to fool the eye) such as a painted oculus in a ceiling with cherubim looking down, and we even looked at some anamorphosis such as a giant skull super stretched so you can only see it in one angle. Now feast your eyes on some of these illusions of other sorts.

Do you first see the nine dolphins in the middle of that jug? Didn’t think so. When shown to young children all they can make out is the dolphins. The naked intimate couple is not part of their previous experience so they simply don’t see it. But that’s the first thing you saw, right? Get your mind out of the gutter!

Maurits Cornelius Escher was the master of what is called the paradoxical illusion. One famous example above shows the impossible staircase with people ascending and descending at the same time.

And then there’s the Escher with the water from the waterfall feeding itself again at the top- sort of a perpetual motion mill.

M. C. Escher pictures are amusing on different levels.

This one I like. Cover the top half, then cover the lower half. Which way is the window facing?!

Salvador Dali is another famous one for making illusions in his paintings. The one above is an ambiguous illusion called Visions of Don Quixote where we see the Man of La Mancha with his companion Sancho Panza, but at the same time we see the bust of a man. This is just one of many from the Spanish Surrealist.

Similar is this man/couple with sleeping dog.

If you look closely you can actually see Salvador Dali in this illusion.

Many of Dali’s illusions involved skulls.

A bowl of veggies?

Around the time of the Golden Age of Illustration, with illustrators such as Rackham, Sime, and Dulac making a name for themselves, a Czech artist was emerging with a style which would encompass all types of graphic art and help change the art world of Paris.

Alphonse Mucha was a leading exponent of Art Nouveau, a style which fancied itself as a reaction against some of the academic art which was popular toward the end of the nineteenth century. French for “New art,” this style got its name from a gallery in Paris which focused on modern art in the forms of decorative tapestries, modern furniture and other forms of design and art objects. Along with painters such as Gustav Klimt, Alphonse Mucha helped to popularize the decorative style. Creating art which was often consumerist and borderline kitsch, the movement meant to make decorative art from anything and everything.

Like his illustrator contemporaries, Mucha had his art beginnings as an illustrator for cheap and popular magazines. His art appealed to the public in forms such as posters and advertisements for plays and consumer products. With an emphasis on decoration, his art was known for its sweeping contours and flowing lines of clothing with flowers or stars throughout the composition, which often included attractive young girls as centerpieces. Several of his works include four panels of a central theme such as Stars (seen above) and the Four Seasons.

Mucha never saw himself as a famous artist and rejected his fame. He was more interested in his Czech homeland. Considered his most important work, toward the end of his career he worked on the Slav Epic, a series of huge paintings depicting the history of the Slavic people. When Germany invaded his country in 1939 he was arrested and interrogated, making the artist very ill from which he never fully recovered. By the time of his death Art Nouveau had been considered outdated. However Jiri Mucha, Alphonse’s son, helped to draw attention to his father as he wrote about him.

In the 1960s a Mucha revival was seen in such examples as the posters of the artist duo Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, who designed posters for bands such as Pink Floyd. The editor in chief of Marvel Comics has used a Mucha style in designing covers and posters. Graphic artists of today could learn a thing or two about the advertisements and posters of Alphonse Mucha, from a day when everything was designed by hand without the help of a computer.

If you can’t see the video click here

If you can’t see the video click here

If you can’t see the video click here

If you can’t see the video click here

This is technically the third post in a series involving the statues and sculpture of Philadelphia. It is about one of the few cemeteries which is also a National Historic Landmark, the Laurel Hill Cemetery.

The cemetery is a historic one with many prominent Philadelphians laid to rest, such as George Gordon Meade, commander of the Union forces at the pivotal Civil War battle Gettysburg. It also brags of being an extensive sculpture garden filled with angels, cherubim, guardians, and all sorts of decorative monuments. One such monument was designed by the artist Alexander Milne Calder (William Penn statue on top of Philadelphia City Hall), the father of Alexander Sterling Calder (the Swann fountain in view of City Hall), and grandfather of Alexander Calder (among other things the mobile looking at the fountain and City Hall from the art museum).

If you ever find yourself in the Philadelphia area, besides the Art Museum and the Rodin Museum, which are just a stone’s throw away from each other, you definitely should visit Laurel Hill, which is about a five minute’s drive from the museums (see the link for directions); admission is always free. There are plenty of reasons for visiting- it’s more than a nice walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon, no matter how many times you go you always find a new interesting monument, and visiting such a somber and peaceful area can be very therapeutic.

You can see the tombstone used for Adrian in Rocky Balboa (2006). Also don’t forget to see Rocky himself near the famous Rocky steps. Below are a couple of the angels you’ll find. I also put the shots from this recent visit in the Sculpture and Statues Gallery.

Laurel Hill Cemetery website.

See also Sculpture and Statuary in Philadelphia Part 1 and Part 2.

These days if I’m watching cable, I’m watching movies. Rarely do I actually watch “TV.” Aside from a couple of shows most television is crap today anyway, with brain dead “quiz” shows and reality TV. I get enough reality. I want to escape reality and go on adventures, and be entertained with comedy, action, and decent drama. When cinema gives us a good art flick, I’m hooked. So don’t be surprised if I’m a little biased in my ratings- I’ll try to be objective.

This is the second list of movies about painters, the first of which you can read here if you’d like. In that list I mentioned Basquiat (1996), Caravaggio (1986), Surviving Picasso, Love is the Devil, The Agony and the Ecstasy, and I briefly wrote of Pollock, which I had not seen at the time. This time I’ve included a link to the trailers so you can see for yourself. They’re all worth checking out.

Goya’s Ghosts ****½

I did a more in depth post about this one a few weeks ago, but it’s certainly worth mentioning again. It is rare that I give a full 5 star (outstanding) rating but this one came close (I gave 5 to There Will Be Blood and Vanilla Sky). As you can imagine I really liked this one. It’s hard to warn you not to have expectations about something while writing a review. That’s akin to telling you not to think about something specific- of course you’ll think about it. Yet one of the reasons I think the critics didn’t like this was because they were expecting something different. It is not exactly a biography on Goya, but involves him in a story about two of his sitters- one being a powerful inquisitor of the brutal Spanish Inquisition, and the other being an innocent victim of such.

The movie is full of suspense and action, as well as good acting. I consider the political messages and parallels to the modern era welcome, but I will warn that you may disagree with me. However, if you are a Goya fan you will enjoy the many paintings you will see in this with an impressive collage at the closing credits. There’s also a scene which shows the artist making a print from soup to nuts- pretty cool stuff.

Goya’s Ghosts trailer.

Pollock ***

I’ll Admit I mentioned this in the first 6 Films About Painters, and I am also mentioning it here in 6 More Films, which doesn’t make sense entirely- so sue me. But this time I actually watched it and I was impressed. Ed Harris (nominee, Best Actor) directs and plays New York abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock alongside Marcia Gay Harden (winner, Best Supporting Actress) who plays Pollock’s wife, artist Lee Krasner. It also stars Val Kilmer as Willem De Kooning, and Jennifer Connelly as Pollock’s love interest who survived the crash that took the life of the artist and another passenger in 1956.

This is a decent artist biography about the man, the artist, the husband. It is no surprise that Harris was nominated for his performance of an often disturbed and extremely alcoholic artist. We see his frustrations with his wife, his rough dealings with critics, and his reaction to success. You’ll see plenty of abstract paintings throughout Jackson Pollock’s history from his early days to his creative drip paintings - all of which were executed by Harris.

Pollock trailer.

Downtown 81 ***

Ed Harris convincingly portrays Jackson Pollock, Stellan Skårsgaard acts as the deaf Spanish painter Goya, Anthony Hopkins as Pablo Picasso, but how often do we find the actual artist in a movie? This is Downtown 81 starring the New York artist Jean Michel Basquiat. Basquiat was played by Jeffrey Wright in Basquiat, which I talked bout in the first post. Basuiat (1996) was a biographical movie about the young artist’s rise to fame in in the 1980s and his friendship with pop artist Andy Warhol. Downtown 81, made in 1981, is more of a “beat movie” providing a documentary on the hip sub-cultures of the city.

Semi-biographical of the artist it portrays, the movie is a fictional account of his daily life. At one point the landlord throws him out after a fruitless attempt to offer some paintings as rent. The movie progresses to show the dealings and interactions with various unique New York characters. Saying this movie is “artsy” is an understatement. While the movie stars the real life Basquait, the audio has been unfortunately lost, and is dubbed over. Of course this adds something to the hipster indie quality.

Downtown 81 trailer.

Factory Girl **½

I hope I’m not being too harsh on this movie. Let me say it is about Edie Sedgwick, one of Andy Warhol’s Factory Kids, and it does not center on Warhol. Nevertheless a movie involving Warhol is worth mentioning. Even though it is about Edie, she and the other Factory Kids, along with the crazy things they did, and the jet set popularity and fashion, and crazy lifestyle was what Andy’s life was all about at the time.

I guess I didn’t like it that much because of the portrayal of Warhol. Usually I like Guy Pearce. He was good in Time Machine, and the first movie I saw him in Ravenous (now that’s a good movie!). We all know Warhol was gay- he was what was called a “dandy,” fashionably ambiguous, yet didn’t come “out” as it is known today. I’ve read through Andy’s unabridged diaries and even there does he not talk so much of the male member as he does in Factory Girl. So it seems his portrayal was just a little over the top.

That said, I’m sure it was a decent flick on the life of Edie Sedgewick- which is what the movie is about anyhow. So I’m probably judging it wrong. Either way I still give it two and a half stars. But to be fair I think I’ll have to check it out again and reappraise it.
Factory Girl trailer.

Frida

I’ll have to file this under “To be watched” but it looks good enough. It stars Selma Hyeck (whose uni-brow I believe is real-but don’t quote me on that one), and Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera, Kahlo’s husband. It was directed by Julie Taymor (Titus).

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently showing “Frida Kahlo,” in celebration of the Spanish artist’s birthday. It includes 40 paintings with a focus on her numerous self-portraits.

Frida trailer.

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Another I haven’t seen yet, but looks like I’ll give it a try. It is about the novel of the same name about the Dutch Baroque painter Johannes Vermeer and the mysterious girl in the famous painting.

Girl With A Pearl Earring trailer.

Fiery Pit of the Damned

On the mystical island of the ABC series Lost, one of the characters raises the question that the survivors of the plane crash were indeed not survivors at all but have found themselves in hell. “A little hot for heaven, isn’t it?” asks one to the other after it was clear he didn’t get his meaning at first. If it were me, however, the idea of a tropical island for the rest of eternity doesn’t sound half bad.

The ability to ponder our existence is what sets us apart from our close primate relatives. Some of us may smell just as bad as chimps and are almost as hairy, but to question the meaning of life is truly a human capability. For as long as we have had this ability, we have gazed into the heavens and questioned our place in the cosmos, and wondered “Why are we here,” and “What in the hell happens to us when we die?”

Of course, regardless of our religious and spiritual beliefs, we can only make guesses in this lifetime. But leave it to our amazing imaginations and fears to conjure up all kinds of mythical fairy tales, as well as cautionary tales, of what could be waiting for us on the other side. And unless you can bring 2 million SPF sunblock, you’d better not mind roasting a bit if you haven’t lived your life minding your Christian P’s and Q’s. And roasting is only the start of it- then you have harpies, demons, and other hellions ready to have their torturous way with you. Sounds like fun.

With as entertaining an idea like this, it is no surprise that the subject of Hell has been a favorite one amongst artists throughout history, religious or secular.

Hieronymus Bosch and The Garden of Earthly Delights

One of the foremost painters of Hell who comes to mind is the Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch. In his Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch uses a triptych to portray the Creation on the left, the world partaking in Earthly sin in the center, and the ultimate demise of mankind on the right: Hell. His hell is a unique and gruesome one, filled with demons sodomizing victims with musical instruments, bird/human hybrids eating people only to defecate them into a pit, and hellions taking a break in a saloon made out of the gut of a giant tree man. This is not my type of tourist destination. Joseph Bonaparte in Goya’s Ghosts, while examining the panels, “This is not my type of garden, and certainly not my idea of ‘delights.’”

The River of Styx by Joachim Patinir

Part of the mythology of Hell is that the damned are ferried over the River Styx to Hell by a character called Charon. Charon is shown by Michelangelo in the Last Judgment as arriving at the mouth of hell and forcing his passengers off in a non-negotiable and frightening way. Here Joachim Patinir portrays Charon in a wide-angled landscape with both the land of the living and the land of the doomed visible. You can barely see an unfortunate soul cowering and looking up at his devilish escort.

Dante’s Inferno

Probably the most important and well known pieces of literature on Hell is the Divine Comedy by Italian poet Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy is broken down into three parts- Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Hell is separated into nine circles leading to the center of Earth where Satan is. Each circle is worse with sinners and their appropriate punishments. Above is Dante and His Poem, by Domenico di Michelino, which shows the poet in front of the gates to Hell.

Seen above is The Barque of Dante by Eugène Delacroix.

Above is quite possibly the darkest and most disturbing paintings by an artist who usually painted pretty girls and angels. It is Dante and Virgil in Hell, by William Adolphe Bougeureau and shows Dante with his guide, the Roman poet Virgil, as they witness some demon’s punishment of the damned.

The Last Judgment

What better place to warn the impending doom of sinners than on the back wall of the most important chapel in Rome? Some years after he painted the ceiling, Michelangelo painted the Last Judgment in the Sistene Chapel. This was the subject of heated debate amongst the cardinals who called the fresco obscene and immoral on account of the naked flesh. One of the painting’s fiercest critics begged the pope to let him tear it down, calling it worthy of bathhouses, and not the Sistene. In response Michelangelo painted the cardinal’s image as Minos, judge of the underworld. When the cardinal complained, the Pope replied that his jurisdiction did not reach Hell, therefore he could do nothing but allow the portrait to remain.

The Prince of Darkness

No article on Hell would be complete without showcasing the star of the show, the Fallen Angel, the Serpent, the Beast, Lucifer, Satan, Great Red Dragon, the Devil. He is a trickster, some say, convincing the world he does not exist. It lies, it coerces, it endlessly wars with Good, Heaven, and God. Artists have rendered the Beast in numerous ways, usually showing it with horns, scales, and red flesh. Above are the Great Red Dragon watercolor paintings by William Blake.

This is Saint Wolfgang and the Devil by Michael Pacher, showing not so much of a monstrous beast but as a slithering and frail Satan, who can be beaten by the strong will of a saint.

Here Michelangelo portrays the devil as a serpent in the garden of Eden on the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel.

Hell on Earth

No one says hell is confined to the afterlife, as Bruegel points out in Triumph of Death.

All of these show a wide variety of the Devil and the fiery afterlife which can only come from our imaginations creating myths and legends as any other tale has been developed. Of course, it being almost May, the summer heat here is humid Pennsylvania would lead to believe that the idea of hell is not that far fetched.

See also The 10 Scariest Paintings