Category Archive: ART
Gaudí
(Biography by Gijs van Hensbergen) (2001) Before the New Brutalism (described as the ‘Screw You Style of Architecture”), there was Antoni Gaudí (1852 – 1926) who dazzled the world with his innovative, modern, rococo buildings in Catalonia and Barcelona. Le Corbusier recognised his daring and complex designs, so it is a pity he declined to follow his example. His simple grandeur evokes late mannerism, coupled with swirls and rounded features that return to classicism as well as recalling some Moorish structures. Who else could have designed the Arcadia-meets-Disneyland that is the Park Güell? (see above and below). He said that…
Continue Reading →Florence and the Uffizi Gallery
(photo by Chris Wee)
(Dir. Luca Viotto) (2015) This documentary on the city that invented the Renaissance is a treat but it could have been better, says Director Pete: We don’t need an actor (albeit highly competent Simon Merrells) in a shiny suit and dubious red flannel to ‘play’ the ‘ghost’ of Lorenzo the Magnificent to talk about his ‘feelings’ and his cultured mates. Medici was formidable, and deserved better. We wanted 3D. We got 2D. We didn’t really appreciate the Director’s exegesis concerning various masterworks. With all due respect to his obvious erudition, they struck us as squarely phallocentric. No problem with that, but it…
Continue Reading →Pierrot at the Show
(By August Macke)
[In the fashion of online construction, transient and elusive as painting fresco – see The Faerie Queen of Estonia – we offer our arts wrap ups in the Great Poet‘s invention, terza rima] Dear Calliope, I am not all that keen To finish up this long account And serve as a meal not fit for a queen. So from my high horse I dismount And warily survey the scene, An open mind is paramount, And hopefully, a brain washed clean (Not confused with an empty mind) To precisely process the heard and seen — Within the Kingdom of the Blind,…
Continue Reading →The Horse in Art
"Whistlejacket" by George Stubbs (National Gallery, London)
“Horses are the survivors of the age of heroes.” (Theodor Adorno) With the Melbourne Cup on today, the Race that stops a Nation (and in particular, the State of Victoria), and The Varnished Culture jaded by the whole thing (P hasn’t made money on the cup since Gold and Black), we thought a tribute to cultural nags would be nice. They feature heavily in painting of course, from pre-history (above) and beyond: And sculpture even more: Horses have been acting humans off the screen since the medium started: Though some of the equine roles can be unusually challenging: Then there’s the horse…
Continue Reading →Landscape and Memory
(by Simon Schama) (1995) This is an art history, but written from the psychiatrist’s couch. It is a cultural – that is to say, a psychological – sociology of the product of human minds under stimulus from our ‘natural’ environment – wood, water, stone – primarily judged from the perspective of the visual arts. Schama observes that even landscapes we consider unspoilt bear our imprint, largely due to our own awareness, but maintains that the natural environment can be both celebrated and cosseted through the machinery of our cultural memory. It is a perverse argument, Freudian almost, but what makes the book worthwhile is the extraordinary magpie-mind of…
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