Tag Archive: Painting
Ariadne & Theseus at the Mortlock Chamber
Picture courtesy of Dr Daniela Kaleva
To the Mortlock Chamber in the State Library of SA, to hear L’Arianna abbandonata e gloriosa and Lamento d’Arianna (1608), works reconstructed from Monteverdi’s fragmented scores, with solo voice and harpsichord, accompanied by the odd stage effect to evoke waves crashing on lonely Naxos, where (failed Argonaut) Theseus has parked Ariadne to show his gratitude for her help surviving the labyrinth on Minos. This paring away eschews the go-for-baroque approach that could overwhelm the purity of the harmonics, which are quite reminiscent of Purcell’s Dido pieces…
Continue Reading →Nazi Philistines – Arthur Boyd – The Brians
Pyjamas
The Wall Street Journal reports that the art collection of Cornelius Gurlitt, who died on 6/5/14, has been bequeathed to a museum in Bern. The collection included works looted by the Nazis and ‘assayed’ under the stewardship of Gurlitt’s father, Hildebrand: Matisse, Franz Marc, Monet and Renoir (which last perhaps suggests the basic philistine nature of the national socialists). German authorities famously carried out a home invasion of Gurlitt’s Augsburg home in 2012 and confiscated the art as, according to the WSJ, “Gurlitt sat shocked in a corner wearing his pyjamas.” This property was never returned to him but the…
Continue Reading →The Turner Exhibition
(2013)* The Tate’s collection of works by J W M Turner came to Adelaide. Rain, Steam and Speed: The Great Western Railway 1844 with its ludicrous train and hare is not in this collection, thank god, the picture that doubtless drove Dali, the consummate draftsman, to say “The worst painter in the world, from every point of view, without the foggiest hesitation or any possible doubt, is named Turner.” This is harsh, considering JMW’s Lorrain-inspired Carthage paintings and some of the more inspired proto-impressionist swishes of colour but really, he never could draw and his vivid whites, yellows and blacks…
Continue Reading →The Sistine Chapel
Image courtesy of Titimaster
Unless you have some Papal credentials, see the Vatican City with a proper guide. Not merely to jump queues but to navigate the treasures within. Giotto’s triptych; Caravaggio’s Entombment; the Laocoon; Raphael’s Transfiguration, Liberation of St Peter and School of Athens…some of the greatest mythical painting ever made and there it all is, before you, towering over the tourist hurly-burly, busy taking selfies. Blessed with a bit of height, the Varnished Culture could stake out some wall space and gaze over the sea of baseball caps. Down sparse casements and through subterranean galleries of truly hellish ‘modern’ art, up a…
Continue Reading →Rijksmuseum Moments
Statue of Anne Frank in Amsterdam
We spent the better part of a day drinking in the marvels contained in this lovely Dutch pile of bricks. A Franz Hals portrait of a couple reminded me of Rose & Freddy West. We didn’t think much of the Night Watch, we have to admit, preferring Rembrandt’s Denial of St Peter with its third-degree searchlight from nowhere. Rembrandts in wonderful abundance, recalling Wyndham Lewis’ observation that “No serious artist thinks or propagates the notion for his own use that anything better can be done than such works as hang above Rembrandt’s name in Amsterdam or the Hermitage.” Corot never…
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