Blackpaint 683 – Michelangelo: Animals, Trees, Colours and Tits

Modern English

Forgot this one last blog – “At this moment in time…”

Why not “Now”?

 

Michelangelo’s Animals

“I’m an admirer of Michelangelo’s representations of animals, none more than the mighty fish flanking Jonah on the Sistine Ceiling.”: (Martin Gayford, the RA Magazine, winter 2020).

I’m an admirer of Martin Gayford’s writing on art, especially his great book “Modernists and Mavericks”, second only, in my view,  to “The Dream Colony”, the book of Walter Hopps interviews.  Gayford’s book is really interesting in its examination of the links between London artists of the 60s.  Brilliant book, marred  by the omission of Albert Irvin, surely a very important London painter.

I find this remark about Michelangelo’s animals puzzling, however.  Offhand, I couldn’t think of any animals M had actually done, apart from the odd snake.  A few years back, I did several blogs on the theme  “Michelangelo doesn’t do trees”(see Blackpaint 112)  This was in response to a report that someone, a German expert I think, was proposing a” Sermon on the Mount” as a previously unacknowledged Michelangelo.  The painting portrayed a heavily wooded mountain top; I showed, I believe, that M never painted trees, and if this was by M, it was the only one he’d ever done that included trees (apart from a couple of dead ones and the tree of knowledge in Garden of Eden – see below).

Just for fun, then, I’ve researched Michelangelo’s animals to see what Gayford means, and if his portrayals are anything special.  Results below:

 

Here’s the image that Gayford cites above.  It’s like a big trout, sucking at Jonah’s left thigh.  Sort of colourless; reminds me of those Billy Bass talking fish.

 

Here’s Paul on Malta(?), struggling with a serpent.

 

 

Here’s another serpent, this time handing Eve the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Not really an animal, is it?  More of a woman, really.  As for the tree, this is about as complete and leafy a tree as Michelangelo ever painted.  It looks as if the serpent has interrupted Eve in some activity…

 

Here’s Minos, with yet another snake attacking his penis.  Michelangelo gave Minos the face of Biagio, an old enemy.  He doesn’t look too bothered. does he?

 

Here’s Noah and his sons, sacrificing rams in thanks to God for the survival of the Ark  There’s a touch of Wallis and Gromit about the cow’s face; I think it’s the eyes.  I’ve noticed that in some medieval paintings, usually horses.

 

Tityan attacked by an eagle.  feathers and neck are rather odd..

 

Ganymede being abducted by the same bird, by the looks of it.

 

Looks like a Barn Owl on a tomb.  Face looks accurate; not sure about the legs.

 

 

Two versions of Phaeton tumbling from his chariot as it falls; contortions of the horses are great.

 

Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus.  Horse is OK but not stunning…

 

Couple more mounts at the crucifixion of Peter (off picture to the right).  Again, OK but stiff and nothing special.

 

A very pithy critique offered by Alan Bennett, through the words of a character in “The History Boys” (I think the James Corden character):  “Michelangelo doesn’t do women, Miss – he does men with tits.”  Spot on, at least for the sculpture above.  there’s the owl again, under her/his leg.

Another great insight from Waldemar Januszczak; he talks about Michelangelo’s “Opal Fruit colours” with regard to the Sistine ceiling.  Spot on, again.

That’s pretty much it.  I don’t think Michelangelo’s animals are anything special;  His trees are almost non-existent; his landscapes are arid, rocky, desert-like, featureless.  What he is rather good at is the human body, especially the (naked) male body.

A couple of my figure drawings/paintings below, Definitely NOT offered for comparison  with those above.

Rising in the Mist

 

Seated in the Dream Studio

Blackpaint

11/12/20

 

 

 

Blackpaint 682 – Sex, Art, Stoats and Greenfinches

Grimsditch and the stoat – HS2

I was dismayed to hear on the TV that Grimsditch Wood on the Ridgeway path has been destroyed by the HS2 bandwagon.  I remember walking the Grimsditch stretch in the middle of the night 30 and more years ago – lines of huge trees closely enclosing the path, tangles of bramble and ground elder behind the trees.  Very Blair Witch.  In the daylight, I was confronted by a stoat, rearing up to face me, threatening my left calf; then it turned and streaked off.  Now, if the reports are correct, it’s gone,

 

Those terms and phrases…

Grown up, as in “We want a proper grown-up discussion about this…”.  In other words, I’ll tell you what I think and you can be grown-up and agree with me – or disagree, if you insist on being childish.

On a daily basis.  Why not just “Every day…”?

So..  as in the start to every answer to a question in a formal situation.  It used to mean “as a consequence”…

We are where we are / It is what it is…  No we aren’t and no it isn’t.

 

Circles and Squares, The Lives and Art of the Hampstead Modernists,  Caroline Maclean (Bloomsbury 2020)

I think I wrote about this fascinating book last time, but more staggering facts about these various groups reveal themselves, or rather Maclean reveals them, as I read on:  for example, Eileen Agar was sent on a steam ship from Buenos Aires to school in England by her mother – who sent a cow and an orchestra with her, for her dairy and musical requirements.  There is a photo of Herbert Read in the book; “What a drip he looks,” I thought.  On the next page, I was shamed to discover  that he won the Military Cross AND a DSO on the Western Front.  In 1937, at the time of the Surrealist Exhibition in London, Roland Penrose invited a group of artists to Lambe Creek in Cornwall; it sounds as if it was a veritable shagfest; Agar was there, as was Lee Miller, Eluard and Nusch, Man Ray, Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst.  Miller and Agar danced naked in the headlights of Herbert Read’s car.

There  also many interesting facts about art…

 

Stroke

On Sunday, I had a slight stroke and as a consequence, spent an afternoon, a night and the next day in the Stroke Unit of St George’s Hospital in Tooting (London).  I had a full complement of tests: Covid (ouch! that nostril probe); ECG (twice); CT scan; MRSA; chest Xray; Echo heart scan; MRI brain and neck scan; numerous tests for neural or brain damage from a team of physios.  I’ve probably forgotten a few.  The staff were friendly, respectful, efficient and attentive, despite the obvious demands of their jobs.

In addition, I got a chicken and sweetcorn sandwich, a chicken stew dinner, cheese and biscuits, porridge, tea and coffee.  And a bag of medication.  And when I left, I hadn’t parted with a penny.

The most interesting test was the MRI scan; you are laid out on a metal stretcher with your head contained in a sort of frame and with a plate over your face so that you don’t move.  Your head is then rolled into a huge drum (the rest of your body goes with it, I’m pleased to say) and a series of very loud electronic sounds bombard your (protected) ears for about 10 minutes.  The sounds are just like those in a video game – and, oddly, like the song of a greenfinch, played through a huge amplifier.

 

Some new and old paintings to finish:

 

Pink Leg

 

Inside Out

 

Black Storm

 

Rear View

 

Seated Green and Pink

 

Untitled

 

Gone in the Dark

Blackpaint

1/12/20