Queensland Art Gallery: The Good

December 4, 2021 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | ART, TRAVEL | 0 Comments |

November 2021

After a few nasty snickers concerning the quaint homage to the Louvre (below), we entered the Gallery after finally mastering the Queensland QR codes.  It’s full of good stuff.

We have traversed the pitiful pieces: but  thankfully there was plenty of fine art to be found here.  Apart from the sublime Dürer woodcuts, and Artur Loureiro’s Study for “The spirit of the new moon” (1888)(see main image) inspired by the Luciads by Camoens, there were:

A Madonna and child encircled by flowers and fruit (c. 1615), attributed to Andries Danielsz:

“Wisdom supporting Liberty” by Jules Dalou (1889):

No idea what this is – we add it for the sake of completeness:

Brisbane is synonymous with the Jacaranda tree and its pretty detritus, so it was a nice touch to sprinkle some local petals under R. Godfrey Rivers’ well known painting (1903).

Tintoretto is here – “Cristo risorgente” (c1555):

This might be ‘after’ Rembrandt rather than by the Master, but this etching of Dr. Faust in his study (c. 1652) would be worthy of him.

We liked this seated apostle by an unknown artist from the 17th century:

and “First Missionary, Mornington Island” (1977) by Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey:

Like Bilbo Baggins, P loves maps: here’s a nice one of “Batticaloa Fort” (2020-21) by Pala Pothupitiye:

A disturbing vicious circle is shown in “Holy matrix” by Saira Wasim (2005):

Rodin‘s “The acrobat” (1909):

Rupert Bunny’s “Bathers” (1906) above, outshines the cartoonish style of William Dobell, whose “The Cypriot” (1940) is nonetheless full of morbid interest:

Less bullish was Kathleen Shillam’s “Bull” (1964-65) (copper, polyester resin and Queensland pine) :

We even (ye gods) kind of liked Arthur Boyd’s “Sleeping bride” (1957-58).

And we voted with our ‘Creativity’ card at Vipoo Srivilasa’s “Shrine of Life” (2021), featuring 5 ceramic deities, apparently in celebration of same sex marriage, a topic we have discussed but which seems to have resulted in less marriages, now that everyone can…

Sydney Long’s “Spirit of the Plains” (1897) echoes his love of classical mythology and the Australian landscape. A lot like his “Pan” at Sydney:

We liked the Gourd-shaped purse from the Qing dynasty (c. 1870) and tiny shoe-shaped salt carriers, made of silver (19thC):

Attributed to Jan Brueghel the Younger (it is very Brughellian), is “Christ calling the disciple Peter” (1641):

“The Annunciation” (when the Archangel Gabriel tells Mary she’s pregnant), attributed to Jan Provost (1520), is gorgeous:

By the time we emerged from the cool of the Gallery into the heat of its garden, a cool image faced us: “Snowman” by David Weiss and Peter Fischli, a friendly ice sculpture in refrigerated vitrine.

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