I do love a list & whilst this might not be the most imaginative concept for an arty blog, it’s nevertheless a handy idea during a busy week & fun too. It’s not as easy as it looks though & it seems to be oddly time-consuming. As always, my indecision haunts me, as I try to choose from the list of options I’ve made & struggle to a conclusion.
Here’s the idea: I go through the alphabet & take the next letter. Then I refer to yet another list – this list is of different possible subjects to cover. I pick ten of them & contrive a meeting of the options & the week’s letter. Meanwhile, I’ll take as many liberties with the format as I see fit.
Fun fact: this is the first time Frida Kahlo has appeared in any of my entries. To be honest, I’m not a fan. I find her interesting but I do feel the contemporary Cult of Frida is greater than the sum of her works. Other opinions, as always, are available…
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1. An Artist (Bellini): Giovanni Bellini (Italy, c. 1430-1516)
Doge Leonardo Loredan was keen to appear modest in his role as Doge & Bellini has adopted Dutch portraiture convention instead of the common Italian profile favoured at the time. Bellini himself was significant in changing Venetian painting, both with ideas about composition such as this, but in methods & treatment of paint. Using slow-drying & translucent paints he was able to build up richer & more profound colouring.
2. A Mammal (bear): Head of a Bear by Leonardo da Vinci (Italy, 1452-1519)
I’m not usually interested in prices but this is a record breaker. On 8th July this year, this beautiful & sensitive drawing of a bear’s head was sold for £7.7m. A mere seven centimetre square, the silverpoint drawing dates from c. 1480. Da Vinci made a number of bear images, their feet & way of moving being of particular interest. But this seems to be a particularly soulful & sympathetic rendering as well as being technically stunning.
3. A Painting (Bacchus): Bacchus & Ariadne by Tiziano Vecelli, known as Titian (Venice, c. 1488/90-1576)
Talking of Titian, here’s one of his complex compositions & we can see how he progressed after Bellini’s tutelage. It sounds like a disaster – the god of wine falling in love with a mortal but unlike many other Greek myths, their story had a happy ending, with Ariadne becoming Bacchus’s immortal wife.
4. Food (bread): Bread by Ben Nicholson (England, 1894-1982)
1922’s Bread does not look delicious but the composition & style are interesting & was a transitional piece for Nicholson in terms of subject & approach. Here we can see that travel had enabled him to be influenced by Picasso, Braque & Cézanne. But are we to take the five loaves as having a religious significance?
5. An Insect (butterfly): Poppies & Butterflies, Vincent van Gogh (Netherlands, 1568-1625)
In 1889-90 Vincent painted a series of what are referred to as “butterfly” pictures, although one is a moth & one of the butterfly pictures is lost. From 1888, van Gogh had indicated a wish to paint this subject & did so in 1889 from his “yellow house” in Arles, France. It has been suggested this painting would work as a textile design, with strong lines & a layering to create depth.
6. A Body Part (back): Seated Woman, Back View by Egon Schiele (Austria, 1890-1918)
The model for this lovely work is probably Egon’s wife Edith. Her striped shirt is reminiscent of one of his best-known portraits of her. Although her hair is up & she wears a short jacket, we can nevertheless see that she is dressed as Egon typically dressed his prostitute models from the waist down. It makes one wonder why her back is turned. Is it an attempt to create more mystery in her, the marriage or the image or is she fed up posing & refuses to speak to him?
7. The Sea (Baltic): Peter the Great meditating the idea of building St Petersburg at the Shore of the Baltic Sea by Alexandre Benois (Russia, 1870-1960)
This image functions both as a straightforward image & as a metaphor. On the one hand, it’s a common subject – man walks to the shore for a bit of contemplation & gathering of strength & stares out at the sea. On the other, he is standing resilient & solid against the tide & winds. He will build St Petersburg, no matter what! Furthermore he’ll call it what he likes!
8. Medical (broken): The Broken Column by Frida Kahlo (Mexico, 1907-1954)
Despite what I’ve just said, this is a compelling & intriguing image. It’s well known that she suffered a great deal with injury & had to undergo major surgeries. What we see here is a highly personal surrealist image, a self portrait where she not only catalogues her relentless pain but also her interior life – a feeling of being trapped, caged in the metal frame which helped support her body. The overall message is: yes I’m in agony but I’m strong inside & out & will prevail.
9. Digital Artist (Brown): Untitled Computer Assisted Drawing (Netherlands, c. 1550-75)
The Slade School of Art in London founded its “Experimental & Computing Department” in the early 1970s. Making this work in 1975, Brown had created a system of drawing of repeated shapes, a little like tessellation. Although the individual shapes that make up the image themselves do not look too elaborate, it’s mind-boggling to think about how long it would have taken to write such programs in the mid-70s.
10. A Sculpture (bust): Bust of Nefertiti by Thutmose (Egypt, 14th Century BCE)
It’s good to get a bit of ancient art in now & then. It reminds us where we’ve come from & what we’re missing. In fact, it’s wonderful to think we know who the artist is. One of my huge bugbears is that many crafts & craftspeople get lost in the mists of time, their patrons usually being more celebrated throughout art history. Thutmose created this sculpture in 1345 BCE & he is believed to have been the official sculptor to the pharaoh Akhenaten. The bust is thought to have been made as a model for others to copy & was found in Thutmose’s store. Perhaps one of the reasons this piece seems so contemporary is because Thutmose made comparatively faithful portrayals of women generally, in which he included wrinkles & body features such as sagging & roundness. Nefertiti is nevertheless shown here as young, slender, beautiful & entirely believable.
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