Blackpaint 668 – Imaginary Tennis and Desperate Housewives

Blow Up, dir.Antonioni (1966)

Saw this for the first time last night, having recently visited Maryon Park in Charlton, where the “murder” was committed.  I love those swinging London films, especially if they’re directed by a foreigner – they get things slightly wrong, making the films even more quaint than the 60’s in London really were..  Nothing I can put my finger on, though.  Fabulous location shots around South East London – instant nostalgia.

Vanessa Redgrave strives to convince us that she fancies photographer David Hemmings, going to the lengths of stripping off (top only, though) for him; we don’t see what happens next so maybe they just have tea and then she leaves, with the negatives of the murder that she came for.

Wait a minute – what’s that painting on the wall?  Yes, it’s an Alan Davie!

Lighting not good here though.

Anyway, the film ends back in Maryon Park, with Hemmings watching a mimed tennis match (don’t ask, as they say), with Julian Chagrin and partner using imaginary racquets and an imaginary ball.  Hemmings picks up the “ball” and mimes throwing it back – I take this to be a suggestion that the murder was imaginary too.  But then he did go back to the park at night and saw the body… Maybe it was all a dream; it WAS the 60s after all.

No galleries open, of course, but I want to post, so just a few old pictures until I can get round to painting.  Should be able to, with three months at least ahead.

 

 

Road to Damascus – very like Caravaggio, I think you’ll agree.

 

Figure Study 1

 

Figure Study 2

 

Desperate Housewives

 

Old Cambridge Circus

Blackpaint

29th March 2020

 

 

 

Blackpaint 667 – From the Belly of the Beast

British Surrealism at Dulwich Picture Gallery until 17th May

Well, it was to be until 17th May; now, gallery is shut down for the duration of the crisis.  I was surprised by how good or interesting some of these paintings are; like many people, I loved surrealism in my teens and twenties, but sort of grew tired of it of it when I discovered colour, texture and form in paint.  I’m less interested in the stories paintings tell, than in paintings as sensual entities in themselves.  Here, there’s plenty to enjoy in the pictures before you even have to try to understand them.  So, below are some of the pictures that please me as arrangements of paint on canvas, not necessarily as surrealistic experiences:

La Cathedrale Engloutie, Ithell Colquhoun

Colquhoun is the most interesting painter here (apart from Bacon and Freud, who have one painting each in the exhibition).  Reminds me I need to make a dental appointment, if I make it through the pandemic…

 

The Oneiroscopist, Edith Rimmington

Yes, Rimmington does a good surreal bird.  Has it eaten the deep sea diver, or is the helmet its own?  If so, how does it get the helmet on over the beak?  Sorry, getting involved in the narrative…

 

Aftermath, Marion Adnams

I used to have a skull the same as this – fox, I think – that I found in an abandoned Scout hut in 1962 or 63 – no bow, though.  I see there’s barbed wire on the parapet, so I guess it may date from WW2 – the picture, not the skull.

 

Graham Sutherland

Slightly blurred photo, sorry; and that’s my reflection in the glass.  Is it really a surrealist painting or one of Sutherland’s stylised landscapes?  I love the colours.

 

The Old Maids, Leonora Carrington

Elongated women, small heads, crab-like chair, naughty monkey – classic Carrington.  I still mix her up with Dorothea Tanning (style, name, Max Ernst connection) and also with  Leonor Fini…

 

Nocturnal Drama (Fantasy), Merlyn Evans (detail)

Reflection in glass again, I’m afraid.  Such a good painting, though.

 

Guardian of Memories, Eileen Agar

You can get this one on a tea towel at DPG – when it re-opens of course.  Great sharp image and execution – Agar is the other champion here, bigger name than Colquhoun.

 

Francis Bacon

Bacon’s dogs remind me of Bonnard’s cows.  I think I read somewhere that the face of the tree thing is supposed to be Goebbels or Goering…

Some other great stuff, but it’s all on hold now.

 

Dulwich Picture Gallery Collection

Copy of work in Uffizi by Cristofano Allori

Surrealistic handbag?  Fabulous little painting. Judith with head of Holofernes, of course.

Willem de Kooning

Just to illustrate that pretentious nonsense I wrote at the beginning, about paintings that you like not for the “story” but for the paint itself, here are a few from the Master (the Mistress would be Joan Mitchell, naturally).

 

I hardly dare to include my own latest painting to follow this group, but it’s my blog, not de Kooning’s, so here it is, entitled “Lockdown” – not for the content, but for the times:

Lockdown

Blackpaint

17/3/20

 

 

Blackpaint 666 – The Number of the Beast

Giotto, Last Judgement

For no reason other than the number of this blog, I’ve been tempted to include some representations of the Christian Devil – of course, he’s not actually a Christian, but a rather important figure in Christian theology – so you will find some more famous ones below.  Now I’m worried that it might be misogynistic of me to assume a male devil; then again, it might be sexist to speculate that the devil could be female.  Anyway, no female representations of the Evil One available – there was Marty Robbins’ “Devil Woman” back in the 60s, but that was a song, not a picture.

 

Carlos Bunga, Whitechapel Gallery 

An intriguing exhibition by this Portuguese artist, located in the  dark downstairs hall of the Whitechapel;  a few paintings like that below; old carpentry and similar tools, chairs and bits and pieces hanging from the walls; a pile of breeze blocks on one delicate table, an old sewing machine on another.  The columns and spaces in the hall enclosed in huge panels of hardboard in a sort of Christo building wrap; and artificially produced decay and stress marks on the same.  The info refers to Bunga’s admiration for Shaker conservation and work/life habits – but doesn’t really explain the exhibition.   That’s a good thing though, isn’t it?

Slightly Richter-ish?  (Gerhard, that is)

Things fall apart…

 

 

There was a Brazilian artist exhibited recently at the Whitechapel who also piled stuff up on tables, but with her it was masses of clay…  Her name was Anna Maria Maiolino.

Here he is again – Grunewald, Isenheim Altar (detail)

 

More Picasso on Paper at the RA

The Picasso is really so large that I think more pictures are justified than the few in the last blog – so here’s a few more:

Slightly blurred, I’m afraid; this is one of the late series of etchings he did with the assistance of the Crommelynks – a period of intense productivity that reminds you of Van Gogh’s last month on Earth.

 

Artist and his model series…

 

Lovely little, little picture  – sort of Cezanne-ish?

 

Like a music hall act…

 

Simple but perfect really.

 

National Gallery

Another blurred photo of a beautiful painting, by an anonymous Italian artist.  I’ve included it for two reasons: first, it’s absolutely beautiful, and memorable for the colours and for the toothless old woman; and second, I visited St. Mary’s Rotherhithe, the Mayflower church, the same week and found this copy over the altar.  It’s identical and was done by one Florence Nicholson in memory of her grandfather, who worshipped at the church.  The commemorating plaque makes no mention of the original; maybe they didn’t know it was a copy.

 

And again – Giotto, Judas and Devil.  Note the money bag J is receiving; the thirty pieces of silver….

 

And here’s mine – Judgement

 

And a new one – Mark of the Beast

Blackpaint

14/03/20

Blackpaint 665 – Picasso, Bomberg and the Old Masters

Picasso on Paper, Royal Academy until 13th April

This is an unexpectedly huge show, covering his whole career, kicking off with the Blue Period beggar and his girl, facing you as you enter, and with a fabulous Blue Period self portrait as well – neither of which are works on paper, but the RA seems often to stray from the stated theme (for example, the Lucian Freud “self portraits”, several of which were nothing of the sort).  Who cares, anyway, except for critics, as long as the paintings are good…

The Blue Period is followed by the Rose Period, more great paintings and works on paper.  It seems that both of these periods lasted about two years; strange that Picasso could confine himself to long periods using the same palette, given his drive for invention and furious work rate.  Anyway, some highlights below as always, with my perceptive and amusing comment where necessary:

 

 

Portrait of Stravinsky, from about 1920, I believe; it’s charcoal over pencil, with some erasure, it appears.  Quite conventional for that date, after Desmoiselles d’Avignon from 1907 and the Cubist works.

 

Shepherd; wideset eyes, rather bland expression (the shepherd, not the sheep).

 

Minotaur painting; I love the shape that the drooping horse makes over the arm of the monster.

 

There are a number of these heads with the bulbous nose which starts at the top of the forehead; I think the model was Marie – Therese Walther.

 

A companion to the Stravinsky drawing from the same period.  This one I at first thought was accomplished in a single line drawing with no errors, or pentimenti, to give them the polite term.  When you look closely, though, there are faint pencil marks, one under her bottom lip for example – so he was human after all.

 

Big late painting, from the Tate Modern, in one of the last rooms, with several brothel pictures, mostly etchings, I think.

 

An earlier work, painting and collage.  I’ll be going again, so no doubt more pictures to follow.

Three punters discussing the Picasso animatedly.

 

Young David Bomberg and the Old Masters at the National Gallery until 1st March

Small (free) exhibition in one room; the idea is to show how Bomberg was influenced by Old Masters in his work.  The early “exploding” abstracts are there; Mud Bath, Jiu Jitsu and The Hold, along with some sketches and preparatory drawings of the same – but so far as I can see, they don’t relate to the supposed theme – no OM influence.  The ones that do are below:

Bomberg stated that he wanted to do a self-portrait full face, looking straight at the viewer, like the Botticelli youth in the red cap.   Here they are; the Botticelli slightly blurred.

 

This picture was painted in 1919, commissioned by the Canadian government to commemorate the Canadian war effort.  It shows sappers in action and was not well received by the Canadians, who felt the style and colours were inappropriate.  Bomberg had been influenced by the El Greco painting below; you can clearly see the shapes and colours of the El Greco in the Bomberg painting. even though this photo  only shows a part.

 

Uncut Gems, dirs. Josh and Bennie Safdie (2019)

Starring Adam Sandler, who is very clearly channeling Al Pacino here, this film reminded me in an odd way of “Dog Day Afternoon”: the same shouting and swagger, the same sudden violence and the same lack of realistic expectation in the main character.  At first, it’s too noisy; the score runs relentlessly through the dialogue making it hard to hear – hard to stand, even – but you are drawn in, and once in…

Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon

 

One of mine to finish…

Midnight Rider

Blackpaint

5.3.20