Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

But in later life his technique became increasingly loose. We might say, “impressionistic” - yet there is no sense of sacrifice of detail. In fact quite the reverse!

 

From a distance, his figures appear stunningly real. Yet the illusion breaks down the closer we approach, until the whole literally dissolves into a swirl of seemingly random marks that make no apparent sense.

 

 

 

Which is to say that you could stare and stare for hours and still not figure out how the artist – using short brushes as can be seen in the painting, meaning he is up close and personal –just knows that a certain arrangement of seemingly disconnected abstract marks will collapse into reality from a distance of 7 to 10 feet!

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Artists ever since have like me been fascinated by it, and tried to plumb its depths. Picasso painted no less than 47 versions.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The renowned American artist John Singer Sargent is known to have visited the Prado and made a transcription. In his lifetime Sargent, quite unjustly earned a reputation for being all technique and no substance (since he had the misfortune to be living in an age when “modern art” was coming to the fore and he was seen as an academic). He is better appreciated today.

 

The Daughters of Edward Darley Bolt, 1882 another of my favourites, and of which as a student I myself made a transcription, clearly shows his fascination with and understanding of Velasquez both in the magic of his – quite different but masterful - technique, and by his use of depth of field and handling of space, light and shadow to bring out the psychology of what is probably his masterpiece.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In it’s own way it is as disturbing a picture of childhood as anything ever painted.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

I’ve long been fascinated by mirrors and this is my sorry attempt to create the illusion. (It's shown here hanging in my last exhibition, some years ago now, and measures roughly 10'x7'.)

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

As with the two paintings discussed, this picture is also about childhood.

 

 

 

I worked on it off and on for a period of about 10 years. On the right hand side of this detail there is a snowglobe.

 

 

 

 

See it? Inside the snowglobe is captured an image of my childhood home, the windows lit.

[Flex Mentallo]

A Litany in Time of Plague

 

Adieu, farewell, earth's bliss;

This world uncertain is;

Fond are life's lustful joys;

Death proves them all but toys;

None from his darts can fly;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Rich men, trust not in wealth,

Gold cannot buy you health;

Physic himself must fade.

All things to end are made,

The plague full swift goes by;

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Beauty is but a flower

Which wrinkles will devour;

Brightness falls from the air;

Queens have died young and fair;

Dust hath closed Helen's eye.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Strength stoops unto the grave,

Worms feed on Hector brave;

Swords may not fight with fate,

Earth still holds open her gate.

"Come, come!" the bells do cry.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Wit with his wantonness

Tasteth death's bitterness;

Hell's executioner

Hath no ears for to hear

What vain art can reply.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Haste, therefore, each degree,

To welcome destiny;

Heaven is our heritage,

Earth but a player's stage;

Mount we unto the sky.

I am sick, I must die.

Lord, have mercy on us!

 

Thomas Nashe

 

[Pat Calhoun]

from Tom o' Bedlam's Song

 

I went down to Satan's kitchen

To break my fast one morning

And there I got souls piping hot

All on the spit a-turning.

 

There I took a cauldron

Where boiled ten thousand harlots

Though full of flame I drank the same

To the health of all such varlets.

 

My staff has murdered giants

My bag a long knife carries

To cut mince pies from children's thighs

For which to feed the fairies.

 

The moon's my constant Mistrisse,

And the lowly owl my morrowe,

The flaming Drake and the Nightcrow make

Me music to my sorrow.

 

The palsie plagues my pulses

When I prigg your pigs or pullen,

Your culvers take, or matchless make

Your Chanticleers, or sullen.

 

I know more than Apollo,

For oft, when he lies sleeping

I see the stars at bloody wars

In the wounded welkin weeping,

 

With a host of furious fancies

Whereof I am commander,

With a burning spear and a horse of air,

To the wilderness I wander.

 

By a knight of ghostes and shadowes

I summon'd am to tourney

Ten leagues beyond the wild world's end.

Methinks it is no journey.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Thanks for that Pat - I had not read that before.

 

 

 

This is an interesting snippet from Wikipedia:

 

 

The elusiveness of Las Meninas, according to Dawson Carr, "suggests that art, and life, are an illusion". The relationship between illusion and reality were central concerns in Spanish culture during the 17th century, figuring largely in Don Quixote: the best-known work of Spanish Baroque literature. In this respect, Calderón de la Barca's play Life is a Dream is commonly seen as the literary equivalent of Velázquez's painting:

 

What is a life? A frenzy. What is life?

A shadow, an illusion, and a sham.

The greatest good is small; all life, it seems

Is just a dream, and even dreams are dreams.

 

 

..and of course, we are back to mirrors again, since the image in a mirror is nothing but light....

[Flex Mentallo]

And some more Arthur Rackham

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with this one Robert - but I love it! The maiden's profile is beautifully rendered.Do you know what the story illustrated is?

[Flex Mentallo]

I'm very partial to the work of Caravaggio, and his use of light and shadow

 

Caravaggio's St. Francis

 

Francis contemplates his mortality by looking at a human skul and a cross, remembering his eternal destiny. The skull motif is common throughout the history of art, and has made it's way to the covers of several classic comic books.

 

 

 

No discussion about the evolution of Western painting can be complete without understanding the far reaching influence of Caravaggio.

 

He was by all accounts a terrible man - the Renaissance equivalent of a street gang leader, who actually did murder someone over a game of tennis. He came to a sticky end himself, fleeing his enemies in a swamp on the outskirts of - I think it was Naples. No one is quite sure what happened.

 

His work made a huge impression on artists like Rembrandt, Vermeer, De la Tour and Velasquez. As you've indicated Larry, his use of dramatic staging and light and shadow (called "tenebrism") was a game changer. He used ordinary people as models, which he depicted warts and all, rather than idealising.

 

It was an astonishing leap.

[Flex Mentallo]

Georges de La Tour 1593 – 1652 is a fascinating artist who was influenced by Caravaggio before going on to develop a distinctive style based on extreme simplification of form in scenes lit by candles but unlike Caravaggio deliberately divested of melodrama.

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

He is a wonderful artist who was forgotten after his death and only rediscovered in the early 20th Century.

 

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Like many artists of the time, the preoccupation with mortality...

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

...is evident in the frequent juxtaposition of young and old...

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

...the depiction of skulls...

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

...and subjects featuring funeral rights and interment of saints.

 

 

 

[Boba]

And some more Arthur Rackham

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with this one Robert - but I love it! The maiden's profile is beautifully rendered.Do you know what the story illustrated is?

Not really. I was literally looking at tons of photos of his works, trying to pick what looked to have scans good enough to post. It'd probably would be easy to find out though.

[Flex Mentallo]

And some more Arthur Rackham

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not familiar with this one Robert - but I love it! The maiden's profile is beautifully rendered.Do you know what the story illustrated is?

Not really. I was literally looking at tons of photos of his works, trying to pick what looked to have scans good enough to post. It'd probably would be easy to find out though.

 

Yes, it occurred to me to Google "Rackham" and "parrot" and it came up immediately!

 

Mary Colven and the Parrot ~ from Some British Ballads

[Flex Mentallo]

Fascinating....

 

The song appears in many variants but the main theme is that the knight of the title woos the lady with music (i.e. blows a magic horn, or in some variations sings a magic song), or abducts her, and carries her off to a deep wood or seaside, where he tells her that he has killed seven (or more) other women and plans to do the same to her. In many European versions it is made explicit that he proposes to "dishonour" her as well. She, however, distracts him by one of a number of means and then contrives to kill him in her stead.

 

The lady of the title is named variously as "Lady Isabel", "the King's daughter" "May Collin", "May Colven", "pretty Polly", or not named at all. Variants of the song usually imply that she is rich and beautiful. The knight is, in some versions, a normal, but villainous, mortal man, but in others he is an "elf knight". The term "outlandish knight", which appears in several variants might imply something supernatural about the character, or may be a reference to the border regions between England and Scotland.

 

Depending on the characteristics of the knight, he may woo the lady by the usual human practices or by supernatural powers. For instance, in some variations he blows a magic horn or sings a magic song, causing the lady to profess love to him:

 

If I had yon horn that I hear blawing,

And you elf-knight to sleep in my bosom.

 

She is made to leave her parents' house and go with the knight, either by persuasion, coercion, or magical enchantment. In some versions the knight persuades her to steal money from her parents before she leaves.

 

"Now steal me some of your father's gold, and some of your mother's fee,

And steal the best steed in your father's stable, where there lie thirty three."

 

They arrive at their destination, which in some versions is explicitly named (e.g. "Bunion Bay" or "Wearie's Well") and may be beside the sea or a river, or in a deep wood. He tells her about his previous victims and that she will be the next.

 

"Loup off the steed," says false Sir John, "Your bridal bed you see;

For I have drowned seven young ladies; the eight one you shall be."

 

In most versions, he then orders the lady to undress and remove her jewels. In some variants, she then asks him to turn away while she undresses, giving her the opportunity to surprise him and, for example, push him in the sea or "tumble him into the stream". In other variants, she tells him to "lay your head upon my knee", in some cases offering to de-louse the knight. He agrees, on the condition that should he fall asleep, she shall not harm him while he sleeps. However, she sings a magic song: "Wi a sma charm she lulld him fast asleep". While he sleeps, she ties him up, sometimes with his own belt, then wakes the knight and either stabs him with a dagger or beheads him:

 

If seven king's-daughters here ye hae slain,

Lye ye here, a husband to them a.

 

Some variants end at this point, but several include a curious final section in which the lady returns home and engages in conversation with a parrot in a cage. She usually makes a bargain with the bird that she will give it a golden cage if it refrains from telling her father of the escapade with the knight.

 

"Oh hold your tongue, my favourite bird, and tell no tales on me;

Your cage I will make of the beaten gold, and hang in the willow-tree."

 

 

(From Wikipedia)