The Last Supper
"the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table.'
Milan, 1999, 28 MAY Leonardo’s The Last Supper was restored this day to public view after 22 years of restoration, roughly 501 years after the great artist completed it. You can clamber over the crowds and see this acme of Renaissance fusion (christian myth and enlightenment art) at Santa Maria delle Grazie, in Milan, a scene recounted in the books Matthew and John, where Jesus, looking serene after a tasty lunch, gives all the apostles indigestion with his infamous accusation. Leonardo (15 April 1452 – 2 May 1519) was not only a polymorphous genius, he was also reputedly quite crafty. All the…
Continue Reading →Prisoners
(Dir Denis Villeneuve) (2013) A disclaimer is probably in order – The Varnished Culture has spent quite a bit of time, trouble and ingenuity avoiding Hugh Jackman. That’s right: we’ve managed to dodge his horse-opera, Australia; we’ve shied away from his faux opera, Les Misérables; we contrived to avoid Wolverine’s psychotic clutches in the 900 odd versions of X-men in which Hugh has appeared. And if we are to watch Professor Van Helsing tackle Count Dracula, we’ll take Edward Van Sloan, thanks. As a matter of fact, we recall seeing Hugh only once before, as a very shadowy character in Scoop, in which he was,…
Continue Reading →Wagner and Modernism
Wagner by Albrecht Leistner, 1911 (photo by Koernerj2000)
Modernism has many adherents and many parents. It began, more or less, in the late 19th century (particularly in France) and flourished in the 20th century (early on, particularly in Italy – Ezra Pound’s admonition to ‘make it new’ probably reflected his italianate longings). Although some point to Kant as the great begetter of modernism, there are folks who were closer to home that can stake a better claim. In France: Édouard Manet, Gustave Flaubert and especially Charles Baudelaire, and rather more globally, Richard Wagner. Nietzsche regarded Baudelaire in this context as Wagner’s ‘intelligent adherent.’ But surely Wagner takes the prize, both in…
Continue Reading →The Melancholy of Resistance
(By László Krasznahorkai) (Translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes) Here at The Varnished Culture, we are pleased to review yet another excellent novel set in a small Hungarian Town*. Like Sárszeg from Skylark, or Czinkota, this town is a dot on a map but what map? Like the train which returns Skylark to Sárszeg from visiting relatives, the train which returns Mrs Plauf to her own town after the same errand is very late but in this book, it is a cobbled-together “emergency train”. Why? Well, that’s the thing: “To tell the truth, none of this really surprised anyone any more since rail travel, like…
Continue Reading →The Fries Are On Me
Glenelg has won a Premiership! Okay, it was the Under 16s, but who cares? Silverware is good at every level, and it also bears out the fact our historically constricted zone is still choice, being chock full of talent and determination. Having come through the finals the hard way, taking care of South in the Preliminary Final, the lads faced Woodville-West Torrens in the Macca’s Cup Grand Final on Saturday 21 May at Football Park and triumphed, 16.16 (112) to Eagles 8.10 (58). See the Glenelg FC site and SANFL site (Macca’s Cup page) for reviews, including an incisive report…
Continue Reading →