Category Archives: visual culture

Art history revisionism

Grotesque Head (c. 1480-1510) by Leonardo da Vinci, clearly the inspiration for The Ugly Duchess
Grotesque Head (c. 1480–1510) by Leonardo da Vinci,
clearly the inspiration for The Ugly Duchess
The Ugly Duchess by Quentin Matsys

The Ugly Duchess (1525-30) by Quentin Matsys

In my previous post I argued for a revisionist approach to art history, favoring discarded art historical movements related to the grotesque and the fantastic. I called for a start of art history with the work of Bosch rather than Da Vinci. I realized when writing it that I sort of short-changed da Vinci since the latter has also made many lesser-known works including several grotesques [1] and caricatures[2]. See the book Leonardo Da Vinci: The Divine and the Grotesque by Martin Clayton.

The reason I short-changed da Vinci is that he is much better known for “mainstream” works such as the Mona Lisa and Vitruvian Man. While researching da Vinci’s relation to the grotesque I came up with Grotesque Head, a powerful caricature which is clearly the inspiration for Quentin Matsys‘s The Ugly Duchess. Enjoy.

Introducing Paul Rumsey

Two Bodyheads (2003) by Paul Rumsey

Two Bodyheads (2003) by Paul Rumsey

Regular readers may have noticed the informed comments of Paul Rumsey, so I thought it was time for a proper introduction.

I discovered the work of Paul Rumsey in December 2005, when I was researching The Waking dream: Fantasy and the surreal in graphic art, 1450-1900 (1975).

Anonymous Flemish print, end of the 17th century, from The Waking Dream book.

Anonymous Flemish print, end of the 16th century,
from The Waking Dream book; please notice thematic similarities
in Rumsey’s work such as this.

I’ve always been an obsessive Googler and searching for certain terms from “The Waking Dream,” I stumbled upon an essay by Rumsey in which he cited the The Waking Dream as an early inspiration and also quoted 20th century names partly already familiar to me:

“In the twentieth century this type of imagery has permeated culture, and is found everywhere, in diverse art forms including: the satiric installations of Kienholz, the drawings of A. Paul Weber, the cartoons of Robert Crumb, the animated films of Jan Svankmajer, photographs by Witkin, plays by Beckett, science fiction by Ballard, fantastic literature like Meyrink’s The Golem, Jean Ray’s Malpertuis, the art and writings of Bruno Schulz and Leonora Carrington, films by David Lynch, Cronenberg and Gilliam; all are part of a spreading network of connections, the branching tentacles of the grotesque.”

This quote – as well as the preceding passages – were so dense with names of artists I admired that I decided to investigate further and to find out what it was that gave me a certain frisson in these artists which I found lacking in others admired by established art criticism; a frisson that could be summarized as fantastic, as in fantastic art.

Paul Rumsey’s work fits squarely into this fantastic art tradition: buildings growing on people’s heads[1], humans who have their faces on their bellies, horrifying animals [2], human-animal hybrids [3], polymorphous objects shaped out of breasts [4] and imaginary structures [5] are some of the themes to be found in his work.

Rumsey’s work calls for a revisionist approach to art history. An art history which starts with Bosch rather than Da Vinci (born just two years later), with Odilon Redon rather than Monet (born in the same year) and which prefers Kubin over Picasso (born four years apart).

If you are interested in this kind of art history, here is a list of books that give an extensive overview of the field:

Also visit Rumsey’s official page and the site of the Chappel Galleries, which has Rumsey’s work on display.

Icons of erotic art #19

Venus (1532) by Lucas Cranach the Elder. From March 8 until June 8, 2008, the London Royal Academy of Arts will hold a retrospective of Cranach's work. The posters for the expo were considered offensive for the officials of the London Underground, who stated that

Venus (1532) by Lucas Cranach the Elder

From March 8 until June 8, 2008, the London Royal Academy of Arts will hold a retrospective of Cranach’s work. This advertising poster for the Cranach expo (which displays the Venus painting) was recently considered offensive to the officials of the London Underground, who banned it and stated that

“Millions of people travel on the London Underground each day and they have no choice but to view whatever adverts are posted there. We have to take account of the full range of travellers and endeavour not to cause offence in the advertising we display.”

Lucas Cranach the Elder (Lucas Cranach der Ältere, 1472 –  1553) was a German painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving of the school now known as Northern Renaissance. His influence is readily displayed in the work of 21st century American artist John Currin [1].

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

Icons of erotic art #18

Via the newly discovered blog aileron comes the film The Lost Secret of Catherine the Great by Peter Woditsch and Sophie Schoukens.

I had first heard about the erotic furniture of Catherine the Great a couple of years ago and even traced the existence of the documentary by Woditsch, but had never actually seen the pieces of furniture that presumedly belonged to Catherine before the collection was destroyed during WWII. Catherine was a strong and independent woman (it helped that she was an empress) who throughout her long reign, took many lovers, often elevating them to high positions for as long as they held her interest, and then pensioning them off with large estates and gifts of serfs. She also cultivated Voltaire, Diderot and D’Alembert — all French philosophes encyclopedists who later cemented her reputation in their writings.

Note: In the erotic furniture category belong art works such as Chair, Table and Hat Stand by Allen Jones and Les Krims‘s Heavy Feminist with Wedding Cake [1] (1970).

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

Introducing Praxis

[Amazon.com]
[FR] [DE] [UK]

It’s actually strange that I’ve never actively come across this band besides of having heard of them. I am a big fan of Bill Laswell and all P-Funkiana, both are canonical to my encyclopedic work. Praxis introduces a whole collective of adventurous culture, from cutting edge music to exciting graphics, rebellious texts and tetsuoesque performances (is the life-size doll by Rammellzee?).

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUL_gcHv0EA]

“Animal Behavior” (1992) from the Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) album.

Praxis is the name of an ever-changing Bill Laswell musical project. Praxis combines elements of different musical genres such as funk, jazz, hip-hop and heavy metal into highly improvised music. First appearing in 1992 with the critically acclaimed Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis), Buckethead, Bill Laswell, Bernie Worrell and Brain have defined the direction of the band over the last 15 years.

Transmutation (Mutatis Mutandis) is the first album by Bill Laswell‘s everchanging “supergroup” Praxis. This first album features Buckethead on guitar, Bootsy Collins on bass and vocals, Brain on drums, Bernie Worrell on keyboards and DJ AF Next Man Flip on turntables and mixer.

Transmutation features a wide range of musical styles, all mixed together to make a very diverse and unique album. Styles such as heavy metal, funk, hip hop, ambient, jazz and blues are blended together to form a strange style of avant-garde, with extended guitar and keyboard solos, and highly improvised passages.

The artwork is by James Koehnline, photography by Thi-Linh Le and liner notes by Hakim Bey.

 

Icons of erotic art #17

Sensuality (1891) - Franz von Stuck

Sensuality (1891) – Franz von Stuck

Although a mediocre painter at best and deservedly one of the minor figures in European fin de siècle Symbolism, there are two paintings by Franz Von Stuck that I like: Salome, which I “exhibited” here, and Sensuality (pictured above) . In Sensuality, the image of the serpent as phallus is left in little doubt and shows an enormous python-like creature passing between the legs of a nude woman. The serpent’s head rests on the woman’s right shoulder; both the serpent and the woman gaze at the viewer. There are obvious connections to the tentacle eroticism trope.

Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.

Horticultural horror

Following my recent post on an ugly plant, which was actually a very beautiful plant as suburbanlife remarked, I stumbled upon a photograph of a Tetrameles nudiflora tree at the Ta Prohm temple in Cambodia. This is a very frightening plant, the roots of which cover this entire temple in Cambodia and like the “ugly plant”, it seems to be dripping like a fluid over the structure.

I first came across horticultural horror in the stories of Stephen King but a quick search on “horticultural horror” at Google turns up many more examples. For example, “The Garden of Adompha”, a 1938 story by Clark Ashton Smith, tells of a king who maintains a gruesome garden sown with human limbs grafted onto plants.

“A bare, leafless creeper was flowered with the ears of a delinquent guardsman…. Some of the salver-like blossoms bore palpitating hearts, and certain smaller blossoms were centered with eyes…”

Previously at Jahsonic:

The beneficial side-effects of censorship

 

Cover of the 1937 guide book to the Degenerate art exhibition.

Cover of the 1937 guide book to the  Degenerate Art Exhibition.

Nazi Germany disapproved of contemporary German art movements such as Expressionism and Dada and on July 19, 1937 it opened the travelling exhibition in the Haus der Kunst in Munich, consisting of modernist artworks chaotically hung and accompanied by text labels deriding the art, to inflame public opinion against modernity and Judaism. The cover the 1937 guide book (illustration top) features a sculpture of unknown origin. It could be Polynesian or any other tribal art work, please help me out here.

The sculpture clearly links modern art with primitivism.

This exhibition is also a perfect illustration of the beneficial side-effects of censorship. Beneficial in the sense that any attempt at banning works of art, books or other cultural artifacts results in an aide to discerning culturati to seek out these artifacts with zeal. Such has been the case with Video Nasties, the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (the Catholic Index) and the Degenerate Art expo mentioned above.

I once again repeat my question to you, dear reader: what is the origin of the statue depicted in the picture above. I thank  you beforehand for a reply.

Eye candy #6

Pinson, Femme Assise, on the cover of Monsieur Vénus by Rachilde

I had been intrigued by this cover of French decadent author Rachilde’s Monsieur Vénus for a while, and I always wondered what the cover was, even asking the blog Morbid Anatomy, which specializes in this kind of material, what it was.

Pinson, Femme Assise

It turns out that this is the origin of the photograph. The anatomical sculpture was produced by André Pierre Pinson (1746-1828), a French ‘medical artist’, who made the sculpture called La Femme assise (the seated woman). Voila. Case closed.

Previously on Eye Candy.