Category Archives: art

Sir Kenneth’s Clark 1969 book Civilisation

While in Bruges, I also visited second hand book store De Slegte and while I passed on René Wellek’s Theory of Literature, I bought Sir Kenneth’s Clark 1969 book Civilisation. This book contains the script of the BBC television series with the same name.

From the foreword:

“Writing for television is fundamentally different from writing a book.

[In writing for television] “generalisations are inevitable and, in order not to be boring, must be slightly risky. There is nothing new in this. It is how we talk about things sitting round the room after dinner; and television should retain the character of the spoken word, with the rhythms of ordinary speech, and even some of the off-hand imprecise language that prevents conversation from becoming pompous.”

“I believe in television as a medium, and was prepared to give up two years of writing to see what could be done with it.”

See also: 1969 – television – civilization

Groeningemuseum, Bruges, Belgium

The Flaying of the Corrupt Judge Sisamnes (1498-99) – Gérard David

Went to Bruges yesterday and visited the Groeningemuseum which houses Bruges’s collection of Flemish Primitives. The primary attraction was Bosch’s triptych of The Last Judgement. The most vivid memory of my (short) visit was Gérard David’s gruesome painting of The Flaying of the Corrupt Judge Sisamnes (1498-99).

According to Herodotos, Sisamnes was a corrupt judge under Cambyses II of Persia. He accepted a bribe and delivered an unjust verdict. As a result, the king had him arrested and flayed alive. His skin was then used to cover the seat in which his son would sit in judgement. Sisamnes was the subject of two paintings by Gerard David, “The Arrestation of Sisamnes” and “Flaying of Sisamnes” both done in 1498. Together they make up the Cambyses diptych. —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisamnes [Sept 2006]

A similarly themed painting is Apollo Flaying Marsyas (1637) – Jusepe de Ribera

See also: art horror – Flemish Primitives – 1400s

Premature burial

Premature Burial (1854) – Antoine Wiertz

“Can you possibly conceive it. The unendurable oppression of the lungs, the stifling fumes of the earth, the rigid embrace of the coffin, the blackness of absolute night and the silence, like an overwhelming sea.” –Guy Carrell in The Premature Burial (1962)

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Premature_Burial

See also: grave – asphyxia – E. A. Poe – Antoine Wiertz

The praise of folly

My native town has an exhibition with the title The praise of folly (after the book by 16th century Dutch writer Erasmus). It features paintings by Antoine Wiertz, Félicien Rops, Léon Herbo, Armand Rassenfosse, Jan Steen, etc… and write-ups by Belgian writers. The exhibition is divided thematically in

  • Luxuria
  • Avaritia
  • Acedia
  • Ira
  • Invidia
  • Gula
  • Superbia

Google galleries: 1 2 3 4 5

Rosine à sa toilette (1865) – Antoine Wiertz

The Reader of Novels (1853) – Antoine Wiertz

Psyché () – Léon Herbo

Singulier Animal (1893) – Armand Rassenfosse

Couple in the Bedroom () – Jan Steen

Icons of kitsch #1

Crying Boy (?) – Bruno Amadio

Bruno Amadio, popularly known as Bragolin, and also known as Franchot Seville, Giovanni Bragolin, and J. Bragolin, is the supposed creator of a group of paintings known as Crying Boys. The paintings, which feature a variety of tearful children looking morosely straight ahead, [are the prime example of 1900s kitsch.]

There does not seem to be a coherent biography of Bragolin, although tradition makes him Sevillian. —http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno Amadio [Sept 2006]

Link: A whole gallery and bibliography: http://www.quasimondo.com/bragolincryingboy.php

See also: Kitsch and compare the work of contemporary artist Jill Greenberg.

Une Belle Dame Sans Merci

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (1926) – Frank Cadogan Cowper

Une belle dame sans merci is a merciless and beautiful lady, a femme fatale.

Keats’s poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci (French: “the beautiful lady without pity”) is recited by the protagonist of Susanna Moore’s In the Cut. I love films and books which heavily refer to literature. Examples include Borges and Erica Jong in Fear of Flying. There is a website dedicated to poetry in the movies.

Part of Lou Reed’s lyrics of Femme Fatale recorded by The Velvet Underground in 1966:

Here she comes,
You’d better watch your step,
She’s going to break your heart in two,
It’s true.

It is reported that Lou Reed wrote the 1966 song about “Warhol superstar” Edie Sedgwick at the request of Andy Warhol. Here is CIAO! MANHATTAN lost footage Of Edie Sedgwick.

 

Momus on thin models

Audrey Marnay

Momus:

I find calls to ban “unrepresentative” or “abnormal” models from the catwalk farcical not only because I’m a thin person myself, or because I’m an artist whose work is often about beauty, and who doesn’t think that art should restrict itself to merely average levels of beauty. It’s also because I’m fundamentally anti-rockist. In other words, I’m against “keeping it real”, and I think that claims that a catwalk show, or even a street fashion shoot, are only valid when they’re “based on a true story” are overblown. (If rockism is Stanislavskian, all about realism, anti-rockism is Brechtian, about drawing attention to the fact that all spectacle produces illusion.) —Momus

Digression #1: Vanessa Beecroft Google gallery

See also: heroin chic – fashion