Category Archives: death

Notes

Hans_Baldung_Grien_The_Young_Woman_and_Death_Dornai

Ira Levin (Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives) died, so did Norman Mailer (The Naked and the Dead) a couple of days ago. Above is an image by Grien celebrating one of my favorite themes: death and the maiden. The painting is probably a detail of a larger – unidentified – piece. I had never seen a painting with a blindfolded baby. Tip of the hat for the painting: Morbid Anatomy.

No Beast is there without glimmer of infinity,
No eye so vile nor abject that brushes not
Against lightning from on high, now tender, now fierce.

–Victor Hugo, La Légende des siècles

It made me utter several moans

Bernini Saint Theresa

Ecstasy of St Theresa by Bernini

“In his hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them out with it and he left me completely afire with a great love for God. The pain was so sharp that it made me utter several moans; and so excessive was the sweetness caused me by the intense pain that one can never wish to lose it, nor will one’s soul be content with anything less than God.”

 

Of pain and pleasure

The Tears of Eros, in a German translation, with a cover by José Manuel Capuletti.

I’ve been re-reading Bataille’s last book The Tears of Eros, including the introduction by J. M. Lo Duca and their correspondence. I also found an online version (see above) of the cover picture as used in the German and Dutch translations. The painting is by José Manuel Capuletti, a now forgotten surrealist, here depicting yet another Danaide just as Rodin did in post #795.

This afternoon I acquired the excellent Quatre siècles de Surréalisme, L’Art fantastique dans la gravure.

The capricious interference of the artist

Etching of the bones, muscles, and joints, illustrating the first volume of the Anatomy of the Human Body. 2d ed. London, 1804. Etching. National Library of Medicine.

Further to my post More Géricault I tried to find the source of the Géricault Severed Heads painting and I found John Bell at the classic Dream Anatomy site. I couldn’t find the pictures I was looking for, that’s why I am giving you the above (there is one more over at my Flickr stream). I did find the story behind the Severed Heads painting of Géricault:

Théodore Géricault‘s painting Severed Heads (1818) [2] painting of two severed heads on a white cloth, turns out to be, not a painting of two heads fresh from the guillotine, but a painted elaboration of an illustration to a book on anatomy (Engravings, explaining the Anatomy of the Bones, Muscles and Joints ) by British surgeon John Bell. This site on France and Scotland in the Arts gives a detailed explanation how Délacroix’s Severed Heads is a painted elaboration of the work of John Bell, not an image of guillotined heads.

Also from dreamanatomy : “John Bell criticized “the subjection of true anatomical drawing to the capricious interference of the artist, whose rule it has too often been to make all beautiful and smooth, leaving no harshness….” His own drawings and etchings are notably harsh.”