The Great Art Debate

[William the White]

I have "WAR" tatooed on one hand, "PEACE" tatooed on the other and "THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV" tatooed down my spine.

Brilliant!

I have to give the credit to Alexie Sayle for that one.

But it's one of my all-time favourite lines...

I'm still laughing at it!

[TANGODANCER]

Hey, Hoboh, found you a real jazzy avatar to use when talking art.

[TANGODANCER]

In a reversal of format, perhaps our art bods can tell me why I like this painting? It isn't the subject; Nude descending a staircase, as it suggests nothing of the sort to me. Just appeals and would certainly make me stop and look twice. Your views?

[Zulus Thousand of em]

In a reversal of format, perhaps our art bods can tell me why I like this painting? It isn't the subject; Nude descending a staircase, as it suggests nothing of the sort to me. Just appeals and would certainly make me stop and look twice. Your views?

She's descending the staircase at a fair old lick, isn't she?

[Worthy4England]

In a reversal of format, perhaps our art bods can tell me why I like this painting? It isn't the subject; Nude descending a staircase, as it suggests nothing of the sort to me. Just appeals and would certainly make me stop and look twice. Your views?

She's descending the staircase at a fair old lick, isn't she?

So would you if you were nude, and knew there was a painter there, trying to capture your rudie bits. It's an early equivalent of a paparazzo shot...

[TANGODANCER]

It's not truly modern art as it was painted at the beginning of the twentieth century, but it has a sense of movement and I like the use of the basic colours. It's no daub, as the artist obviously has some skills. Not someone throwing paint balls at a canvas, or riding a bike around it and claiming it as art. Even the greatest art recognisers in the land I'd defy to describe what exactly it was if it didn't have a title. It just appeals without me really knowing why. A real case for just liking something without explanation, rather than claiming "Ah, yes, I can see what he's doing here" or having any emotional content. I like it.

[thebish]

I've just discovered Stanhope Forbes - quite by accident! Some nice stuff in his locker....

Wiki has this about him....

Stanhope Alexander Forbes R.A., (18 November 1857, – 2 March 1947), was an artist and member of the influential Newlyn school of painters. Often called 'the father of the Newlyn School', Forbes's painting A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach (1885), brought national recognition to the art colony and the school of painting he founded with his wife.

Forbes was born in Dublin. He studied art at the Lambeth School of Art (now the City & Guilds of London Art School), then in Paris under Léon Bonnat. Forbes went to Brittany in 1881 with fellow artist La Thangue. In France he came into contact with the new en plein air painters. Well into the 1930s, he was still often to be seen painting en plein air, surrounded by curious local children. He died in 1947, a few months short of his ninetieth birthday.

(is it just me or is his horizon not straight?)

[Little Green Man]

I wouldn't shag it, but I know someone from Portsmouth who would!

What? Is this not the Caption Competition?



Quite liked this meself.



Edward Wadsworth, Dazzle-Ships in Drydocks at Liverpool.

I found it while I was Googling for Percy Wyndham Lewis's stuff. Always liked this self-portait of PWL.

[Il Pirate]

I wouldn't shag it, but I know someone from Portsmouth who would! What you sayin'??

[boltonboris]

That self portrait looks like Freddy Mercury!!

[Bruce Rioja]

(is it just me or is his horizon not straight?)

Perhaps he had his canvas at a slight angle?

That, for me, is a terrific piece of work. On and off I'll be gazing at that for hours now. Cheers.

[Hoboh]

+


=


Now thats what I call perceptive art work (shame he wears a commie tie)

[Bruce Rioja]

I forgot to ask - have any of you been into Neoartists in the Market Hall? A friend of mine has a painting currently on display in there.

[thebish]

might be interesting - might not be - but there you go!

Channel 4, Sundays 7pm - six week series: The Genius of British Art

Six passionate polemics - delivered by presenters ranging from David Starkey to Janet Street Porter - demonstrate how British art has shaped and forged Britain and British identity.

first episode tonight:

Historian Dr David Starkey examines how royal portraiture from Henry VIII to Princess Diana has had an enduring influence on the iconic power of personality.

Henry was enamoured with the imperial power reflected by the art of Rome. His break with the Catholic Church prompted him to embrace the supreme artist of the Reformation, Hans Holbein, and form a partnership whose influence resonates to this day.

Starkey shows how first Henry and Holbein, and then Charles I and his court painter, Anthony van Dyck, set an enduring template for the depiction of power - a template that has been brilliantly adapted in our time by the renegade royal, Princess Diana. Thanks to her own 'Holbein', the photographer Mario Testino, Diana stripped away the pomp of monarchy to promote her own personality in the same way Henry VIII had pioneered 500 years earlier.

Far from being the also-rans in today's age of celebrity, the royals can truly be said to have invented it.

[thebish]

Discovered Bernini today - I'm not really into classical sculpture - but.....

Bernini broke the mould in sculpting marble as if it were real flesh - rather than capturing flesh in stone to give it the weight of immortality...

anyway - WOW - this is solid marble...

[TANGODANCER]

Bernini. Dan Brown's favourite sculptor.

Actually, the man was a genius.

[thebish]

Bernini. Dan Brown's favourite sculptor.

Actually, the man was a genius.

indeed - and at the same time - a bit of a bastard...

(his bell-tower on St Peter's in Rome was a bit of a disaster though...)

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Discovered Bernini today - I'm not really into classical sculpture - but.....

Bernini broke the mould in sculpting marble as if it were real flesh - rather than capturing flesh in stone to give it the weight of immortality...

anyway - WOW - this is solid marble...

Brilliant. I love classical sculpture and you've summed up the fascination of that amazing talent of making cold, hard marble look like it is flesh that would yield to the touch.

One of my favourite pieces of art in the UK is Canova's 'Three Graces', currently housed in the National Gallery in Edinburgh. Canova is, I think, the daddy of those neoclassical sculptors, but I also really like the work of one of his pupils, John Gibson, who was from Conwy of all places. It's difficult to describe, but you can see a Gibson sculpture from across the room and know it was one of his, even though his work was so subtle.


Anyway, I finally made it to this last weekend and loved it: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/painti ... index.html

Bish, if you haven't been, get yourself down there tomorrow as it's the last day.

As ever, the tapestries have not retained their slightly garish glory over the centuries (apparently they were even hung in direct sunlight in St Peter's square at one point http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/ ... nging.html), but they are a fascinating look at some serious papal bling, fascinatingly juxtaposed with Raphael's original designs. How on earth the Belgian weavers thought it appropriate to jazz up Raphael's version of Jesus's white robe by spangling it with gold stars is anyone's guess!

Also, I've read quite a bit about the Medici family, inspired by a trip to Florence in the summer, and it was fascinating to see these works, commissioned by Leo, the Medici pope, and how they were the vehicle for his advertising his famous family crest all over the Sistine Chapel.

I think I agree with Brian Sewell that the tapestries themselves are 'craft' rather than art (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/arts/revi ... ravesty.do) but the whole event is a huge event in art history, for political reasons if nothing else. Waldemar Januszczak (Times art critic) puts it thus:

To mark the papal visit, and perhaps also to soften us up for it, the Vatican is lending to the Victoria and Albert Museum, for the first time ever, four of the tapestries Raphael imagined for the Sistine Chapel. These are going to be shown alongside the full-size designs he made for them, the so-called Raphael Cartoons. Thus, in the coming weeks, tapestries and cartoons will be hanging side by side, in the same room, at the same time, in Britain.

Reader, forget the healing of the lame man. Forget the miraculous draught of fishes. This is a true miracle. The Vatican — possibly the least willing, least adaptable, least approachable, least helpful, least persuadable and most arrogant institution on earth — is lending some of its most precious cargo to the descendants of Henry VIII. Conga, conga!

[Bruce Rioja]

Oh, the irony.

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... _sentenced

[William the White]

Oh, the irony.

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... _sentenced

Sorry, I'm not getting the irony here.

Fraudster gets caught out. The irony is?