One of the most annoying things about the past couple of years has been not going anywhere. As much as I love being at home, it’s nice to have a change of scene from time to time. It’s a boat we’ve all been stuck in. We’ve had holidays cancelled, concerts postponed, we’ve been ill & unable to travel, public transport has been dodgy etc & it’s been a mightily tedious time all round. Round these parts we’ve even had a couple of storms in the last few months that curtailed everyone’s plans good (fun things like holidays) & bad (work). Extreme weather is unusual for us & we’re ill-prepared.
This weekend however, we’re getting away a couple of hundred miles down the road, purely because we can. Make no mistake, we’ll be topping up our art gallery miles in the dozens just for the sake of it. Even when there’s not a pandemic though, the public transport systems in Scotland are pitiful. Unlike Germany or the Netherlands, they are unreliable & poorly maintained. The least thing can provoke cancellations, postponements or breakdowns – vehicles & passengers. With this in mind, we’ve opted to go by bus this weekend. We’d have preferred the train, but we’ve been stung too many times. Sometimes a train will be cancelled & you are shovelled onto a bus replacement service. All the expense of a train but the inconvenience, misery, extended journey time & cramped conditions of a bus. So we figure, we may as well just pay for a bus & cross our fingers.
The art world feels our pain & although various modes of transport are widely represented, some are difficult to portray as exotic or fun.
Tamara de Lempicka, Autoportrait (Tamara in a Green Bugatti) (1925)
That can’t be said of Tamara’s stunning self portrait. As stylish as they come, she & the Bugatti are the stuff of Roaring Twenties legend – both racy & glamorous. Not only does Tamara make travel look exotic & fun, it’s almost sexy. She celebrates her independence on what people today like to call “her own terms.” She has painted the motor with the coolness of a convertible in mind but the steering wheel would have been on the right side, so she even dares to take liberties with a design classic. Of course we know the reality of a soft top in Scotland is quite something else & frankly you’d be asking for trouble putting the roof down. Everyone would say you’d richly deserve to get blown away/a car filled with snow/soaking wet seats, showing off like that & everyone would be right.
Leonardo da Vinci, Plans for a Helicopter/The Aerial Screw (1493)
As he often did, here Leonardo blurs the lines between science & art. Although there have always been people willing to risk life & limb in conquering the air in “flying machines,” Leonardo’s is unusual because it shows no traits or design features reminiscent of birds or other flying creatures. He was using science, technology & was well ahead of his time. It’s not even clear if he’d have had the means to ever try it out.
Winslow Homer, The Gulf Stream (1899)
Seemingly, Homer was very bemused at the endless stream of literal & allegorical interpretations of this painting. Even today, we can think of a number of narratives we could apply to the work. To my eyes it appears to symbolise isolation & abandonment…but then a lot of paintings do, haha. At the time however, Homer resisted providing a meaning & grew sarcastic, saying that the man in the picture “will be rescued & returned to his friends & home & ever after live happily.”
Wolf Vostell, Concrete Traffic (1970)
Vostell’s incredible concrete structure contains real Cadillac. Swathed in concrete, it weighs in at a whopping 16.2 tons & even the act of it being made was regarded as an event. Surprisingly, after forty years outdoors, it required conservation & between 2012 & 2016 was restored.
Paul Friedrich Meyerheim, Vor der Vollendung (Before the Completion) (1873-1876)
I’m not going to lie – part of the reason I love this painting is the cat. It’s actually beautifully captured in all its nosy-cat glory. But we’re here for the vehicles & we see the construction of the train & everyone is involved. This is one panel from Meyerheim’s Life History of a Locomotive series for the Borsig-Werke company that made trains. The seven panels are painted on copper.
Jean Metzinger, Au Vélodrome (1911-12)
There are few sports I enjoy watching: football, darts & baseball & there are some I don’t enjoy particularly but am always amazed by. Cycling falls into the latter category & vélodrome competitions look pretty exciting. This painting – which apparently counts sand among its multiple media – was notable as it depicted a champion in the sport, one Charles Crupelandt, 1912 winner of the Paris-Roubaix race.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Carriage (c. 1881)
This small painting is in part so effective because of the tipped look of the carriage. We get the sense that carriage riding is not the most comfortable mode of transport.
Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! (1963)
One vehicle I’d rather not be on, thank you very much.
Paul Kenton, Bus Stop Blues (?)
Blues are definitely what I associate with bus stops, since I apparently spend much of my life waiting & sulking at them. But here we have a London bus – lively & red whilst all around is gloomy, miserable & probably wet. It stands out from the dull street scene, vibrant & hopefully on time…
Corradino D’Ascanio, Vespa (1946)
Of course a lot of quality artworks are made for commercial use or appropriated for advertising. Although there are plenty of adverts & rip-off adverts for Vespas, I thought it’d be nice to look at the original design made for the Piaggio company. A symbol of mod culture in the UK for decades, a key aim was to fit on as many mirrors & lights to the front & wings as was humanly possible. A symbol of youthful freedom, it featured widely in the film Quadrophenia; Jimmy’s Vespa was like a whole other character. It was his trusty sidekick: like Trigger or Toto or Robin. & I’m not going to spoil it, but one way or another, it followed him everywhere…
No comments:
Post a Comment