Rijksmuseum
Distant view over the heads of dozens of Dutch school students of the fabulous milk jug Vermeer and a number of Rembrandts, notably the turbaned self portrait and the young self portrait with the wiry hair and round eyes – and of course, the Night Watch, guns at the ready, about to accidentally shoot each other if not careful. Also the Jewish Wedding and several others – fabulous, if you can get near them.
From these galleries, only the huge swan taking off straight at you grabbed my attention.
Jan Asselijn
There was a great exhibition of Breitners, however (see Blackpaint 341), picture after picture of Geesje Kwak, androgynous figure in a series of lush kimonos and in the nude. He was clearly seriously obsessed.
Little like Uglow, this one, I think.
In the 1100 – 1600 bit, there were these two highlights:
Altarpiece by Gerini – the reds and orange with that gold.
Terracotta Girl – could be the BVM but no halo – maybe a saint, couldn’t find a label so I don’t know.
And, tucked away upstairs, some lovely Appels, this one in particular:
Stadelijk Museum
Stunning discovery for me – two favourite de Koonings and a huge, trickled – down Asger Jorn all in the same room:
Asger Jorn – didn’t get the title; something about swan’s wings beating, I think (that swan again…)
Rosy Fingered Dawn at Louse Point, de Kooning
North Atlantic Light, de Kooning
The Beanery, Ed Keinholz
The notice over the bar warns “Fagots” to keep out; all the customers (slumped over tables, propped up at the bar) have clock heads; a soundtrack of “Macnamara’s Band” with a hubbub of voices plays on a loop (Keinholz recorded it at the bar). It’s funny, grubby and creepy and you queue to go in one at a time, admitted by a solemn museum guard.
The Canterbury Tales, dir. Pasolini (1972)
Cruder, but to my mind, every bit as good as Pasolini’s “Decameron”. Several well-known British character actors in there – Hugh Griffiths as a lecherous old Sir January to Josephine Chaplin’s beautiful and – to put it mildly – disengaged May; Robin Askwith, in a break from the “Confessions” series, screwing away upstairs in a brothel and emerging to piss liberally over the amused clientele below. In one scene, there as many naked women as there are on the cover of the celebrated Jimi Hendrix LP. Pasolini smiling thinly to himself as Chaucer, recording the stories ( the one where the friars emerge from the Devil’s arse in Hell is perhaps the best). And a great soundtrack mainly from Topic Records, especially Frank McPeak’s “The Auld Piper” from the “Jack of All Trades ” LP.
Devil’s Arse with emerging friar – actually, maybe it’s a demon’s arse , because the Devil is played by the great, menacing Pasolini actor Franco Citti and he is showing the new arrival around Hell.
Also making a brief appearance at the start of the film is the wrestler Adrian Street, familiar from Jeremy Deller’s work.
Next time, CoBrA in Amstelveen and Delacroix at the National Gallery.
Work in Progress – St. George, of course (who else could it be, today? Shakespeare, I suppose…)
Blackpaint
23.04.16
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