Picture of the Month: Live & Direct from Dublin

‘The Liffey Swim’ – Jack Yeats 1923

I think this is only the second time I have written a Picture of the Month right in front of the picture itself. The first time was in Buenos Aires in front of a Frida Kahlo self-portrait with monkeys. As I referred to this Jack B. Yeats painting [‘The Liffey Swim’ 1923] in my last post I thought I’d pick up the baton with it, here in the National Gallery of Ireland on Merrion Square, Dublin.

I spent a bit of time yesterday along the Quays and looking at the Liffey, and had a chat with my son about the notion of swimming in this river. He had been watching a documentary about swimming the channel between Scotland and Ireland just before. I mentioned this painting as evidence that people were known to brave the Liffey.

The painting has a real sense of event around it, with spectators filling the bottom left half beneath the strong diagonal that bisects the composition from top left to bottom right. We see a mixed gender crowd (a bare-headed blonde woman prominent near the front) filling the pavement, filling both decks of a bus or tram, filling the bridge and the opposite quay. This is 1923 (or at least painted that year), the first half of which was the time of the Irish Civil War, so to see a crowd united in a joyous occasion must have been resonant.

The image and composition remind me of an early 20th century English painting of an East End music hall (perhaps Sickert? or was it Bomberg?? – I’ll try to find it another time*). And the overall style has something of the Camden Town Group about it – a muddy palette and loose, free brushwork. Yeats was not born in Dublin but in London in 1871, so was 52 at the time of painting this.

The swimmers are swimming crawl in what gives the impression of a strong current. One of the brightest colours is the orange in the part of the water closest to us. The figure nearest to us, a cap-wearing man leaning on the wall to look down into the river, is sliced in half, only his cap, a bit of hair protruding at the back, his neck and shoulder visible, cropped in a photograph-like way.

We can see the face and open mouth of one swimmer as he takes a crawl breath – it has something of Munch’s ‘Skrik’ (Scream) about it though is probably more about the breath of life than anything dark.

No Dublin rain in sight – the skies are blue with some high white clouds.

Apparently this swim was an annual event from 1920. [My brother-in-law Des subsequently informed me that it is still an annual event.] As the War of Independence raged from 1919-1921 at least one, possibly two of these races took place in wartime which indicates life must have gone on during the conflict. It ended in July 1921 so if the race happens in July or later and the one depicted was 1922 not 1923 this would be the first one free from British rule in the capital of a modern sovereign Irish state.

For all I know Yeats may have had little political intent – he was known to be interested in sporting themes (horse-racing etc.) – but I am going to take this as a depiction of joy, hope, energy and freedom.

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* It was Bomberg – a painting from the Ben Uri collection, from just three years earlier

‘Ghetto Theatre’ (1920) – David Bomberg, [Ben Uri collection]

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Art Vandals 2: La Pietà

Weapon: Geologist’s Hammer

Reason: Religion, religious delusion

La Pietà by Michelangelo (1499)

The exquisite Renaissance sculpture La Pietà by Michelangelo was attacked with a hammer in 1972 in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican where it resides. On 21st May a man with a professional interest in stone, geologist Laszlo Toth (then 33), hit the statue 15 times while exclaiming: “I am Jesus Christ, risen from the dead!” Toth was a Hungarian-born Australian who moved to Rome in June 1971, knowing no Italian. He  wanted to be recognised as Christ. He was born into a Roman Catholic family. He sent letters to Pope Paul VI and tried to meet him, without success.

He chipped the Virgin’s head, nose, left eyelid, neck, veil and left forearm. The forearm fell off and the fingers broke on the ground. Most of the fragments were saved and collected but a few were taken by tourists.

Toth was subdued by other tourists (the good kind), including American sculptor Bob Cassilly, who hit Toth several times as he dragged him away from the Pietà.

The sculpture was repaired and is now shielded by bulletproof glass.

Toth was not charged with a crime (due to his evident insanity) but was sent in January 1973 to a psychiatric institution in Italy for two years. On his release in February 1975 he was deported to Australia. He died in September 2012.

Art Vandals 1: Ivan the Terrible & His Son Ivan

Weapon: Metal pole (2018) / Knife (1913)

Reason: Politics (2018) / Aesthetics (1913)

Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan by Ilya Repin (1883-1885)

The full title is: Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan on 16 November 1581. It was painted by the Russian Realist painter Ilya Repin between 1883 and 1885. It shows grief-stricken Russian ruler (first Tsar of Russia) Ivan the Terrible cradling his fatally wounded son, Ivan Ivanovich. The father dealt the fatal blow to his son in a fit of rage. It is considered one of Russia’s most famous paintings. It resides in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

It has been vandalised twice – first in 1913 and again in May last year.

25 May 2018

Igor Podporin (37) attacked it with a metal pole, smashing the security glass around the painting. It was one of the security poles used to hold the rope to keep visitors at a distance. He told police he attacked it after drinking vodka. In court he added that he had done it because the painting was “a lie”. Some Russian nationalists believe Ivan the Terrible was not so terrible and his name has been blackened unfairly. (Russian leader depicted as murderous – who’d have thought?)

The canvas was torn in three places though luckily not near the faces and hands of the two characters. The artist had used a heavy canvas so the painting was able to withstand the attack relatively well. The damage was still “serious” and a special group of art experts have been charged with planning and executing the restoration, which is expected to take several years. They have Repin’s notes from the first attack which may help with restoration work.

16 January 1913

Abram Abramovich Balachov attacked the painting with a knife, making three parallel slashes above the faces of the two characters. The then director of the Tretyakov Gallery, Ilya Ostroukhov, resigned. The curator of the Gallery, the landscape painter Georgy Khruslov, was so upset about the attack that he threw himself under a train.

Repin returned to Moscow from Finland to restore the work. Repin thought the attack motivated by extreme dislike of his adopted artistic style which some considered very old-fashioned. He suspected the attack was “the result of that monstrous conspiracy against the classic and academic monuments of art which is daily gathering momentum”.

Balachov’s vandalism was applauded by Symbolist poet Maximilian Voloshin, who published an essay On the significance of the catastrophe that befell Repin’s painting and lectured on the subject, sponsored by Futurists at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. Repin himself was in the audience and came up to the podium to respond.

At the time of the attack Balashov was removed from the scene shouting: “Enough blood! Down with blood!”

Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan by Ilya Repin (1883 – 1885)

The three slashes of 1913

The pole marks of 2018

 

Quote of the Day: Body’s Light

The Embrace [The Loving] by Egon Schiele (1917)

Bodies have their own light which they consume to live: they burn, they are not lit from the outside.

Egon Schiele

to mark my visit to ‘Klimt / Schiele’ at The Royal Academy of Arts, London

More on Schiele & me here:

On the Trail of Egon Schiele

More Egon Schiele

Bowie & Schiele

 

Quote of the Day: Resolution

‘Helmet Head No.1’ (1950) by Henry Moore (1898-1986)

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.”

Henry Moore

Picasso’s menagerie

Bull: Guernica (1937)

Horse: Guernica (1937)

Goat: Faun and Goat (1959)

Cock: The Rooster (1938)

Dove: Dove of Peace (1949)

Owl: Cage with owl (1947)

Bull (1945)

Boy Leading a Horse (1906)

The Goat (1946)

Woman with a Cock (1938)

Child with dove (1901)

Picasso and owl (1947) photographed by Michel Sima

 

The Neo-Romantics

This is following up a pub conversation from last Friday evening. The British painters & artists referred to as Neo-Romantic include:

Paul Nash (1889-1946)

Totes Meer [Dead Sea] (1940-1) – Paul Nash

Graham Sutherland (1903-1980)

Pastoral (1930) – Graham Sutherland

John Craxton (1922-2009)

Dreamer in Landscape (1942) – John Craxton

John Minton (1917-1957)

Summer Landscape (1950) – John Minton

John Piper (1903-1992)

Somerset Place, Bath (1942) – John Piper

Ivon Hitchens (1893-1979)

Damp Autumn (1941) – Ivon Hitchens

Keith Vaughan (1912-1977)

September (1956) – Keith Vaughan

Michael Ayrton (1921-1975)

Skara Brae, Orkney (1959) – Michael Ayrton

Henry Moore (1898-1986)

Tube Shelter Perspective (1941) – Henry Moore

The movement centred on the run-up to the Second World War and the wartime, and was based in landscape painting.

In 1940 the British government commissioned artists including Paul Nash,  John Craxton, John Minton, Leslie Hurry, David Jones, and Ceri Richards, to document lives in villages and towns across the nation under the umbrella title ‘Recording Britain.’ The initiative was intended to boost national morale during the War by celebrating the country’s landscape and architecture.

Age in 1940

• Paul Nash 51
• Graham Sutherland 37
• John Craxton 18
• John Minton 23
• John Piper 37
• Ivon Hitchens 47
• Keith Vaughan 28
• Michael Ayrton 19
• Henry Moore 42

Paul Nash c.1940

Graham Sutherland with his portrait of Churchill

John Craxton

John Minton

John Piper at Fawley Bottom farmhouse c.1935

Ivon Hitchens

Keith Vaughan

Michael Ayrton by Lola Walker [Lola Marsden] (1950)

Henry Moore by Lee Miller

Henry Moore & director Jill Craigie during the filming of ‘Out of Chaos’ (1943) in Holborn tube station

Finn Fordham and members of the Finnegan’s Wake Research Seminar at Senate House, University of London got on to this subject via Powell & Pressburger:

Black Narcissus (1947)

The Red Shoes (1948)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

I Know Where I’m Going! (1945)

On the trail of Egon Schiele

I first heard of the Austrian artist Egon Schiele in a radio interview with David Bowie when I was at school. At university I got a travel scholarship to do some research on him in Austria. I stayed a short train ride outside of Vienna (Payerbach-Reichenau) and, beside going into the city, I travelled out to Neulengbach (under an hour from the city centre) to where Schiele lived and had his studio at one of the most productive times of his life. When I went there that time (1984) there was no sign of Schiele in the town. When I went to ask the way to his studio I was told people didn’t talk about him.

Last summer I was working at ORF in Vienna and took the opportunity to revisit Neulengbach and various other Schiele-related places. In the intervening 33 years much has changed. Schiele has a strong presence in Neulengbach and in his nearby birthplace, Tulln, and is widely celebrated. There are posters across Vienna and galleries of various sizes.

In my eyes he’s one of the great artists of the 20th century and since this year is the centenary of his early death (at the age of just 28 from the Spanish flu epidemic in the wake of the Great War) I’m publishing this photo-post to mark the occasion. The day of his death was 31st October 1918 (his birth was 12th June, the same day as my other half).

On the trail of Schiele in Tulln, Austria

Schiele’s birthplace – upstairs in the station at Tulln

The artist whose name dare not be spoken three decades ago is now celebrated and signed

The plaque at his birthplace

The station where his father was station master (before he set fire to it in his madness)

Schiele’s school, Tulln

A presence in the streets of Tulln

The Egon Schiele Museum – Tulln. Opened on the centenary of his birth (12th June 1990).

The museum is housed in what was formerly the gaol. Schiele was imprisoned here in 1912.

Statue of Schiele outside the Egon Schiele Museum, overlooking the Danube

Schiele’s presence around Vienna – advertising the Leopold Museum

The atrium of the Leopold Museum, Vienna – opened 2001

Leopold Museum, Vienna – the world’s largest collection of Schiele’s paintings and drawings

Neulengbach where Schiele lived with his girlfriend/model Wally

Bust of Schiele in the centre of Neulengbach – erected in 2016

Once invisible, he even has his own Platz now

The courthouse in Neulengbach where Schiele was confined and sentenced

The courthouse now contains a small museum

The orange on the cell bed (brought by Wally to paint and eat)

Orange on cell bed

gaol guitar door

Schiele’s cell

I had a moment in here – the whole place was empty

Death mask in a cell

Schiele in cell (he’s on a plastic bag)

He’s now got a Place and a Street

on the way to his studio

And Wally’s even got her own lane

Schiele’s road – Au

A neighbouring house of the same period

Site of Schiele’s house & studio – it was torn down in the 60s(?)

Schiele & Wally’s place (photographed 1963)

Schiele’s house/studio

Captured for posterity by art historian Alessandra Comini

After the cell experience, Schiele left Neulengbach

In 1912 he moved to a studio in suburban Vienna (Hietzing) at 101 Hietzinger Hauptstraße

I happened to be staying in Hietzing by chance on this visit – beschert

Schiele’s studio is on the top floor

101 Hietzinger Hauptstraße

Treading in the great man’s footsteps

He spotted his future wife (Edith) in the building opposite where she lived with her parents and sister

The Harms’ apartment – 114 Hietzinger Hauptstraße, Vienna

Both Edith and Egon died in this building in 1918

Edith & Adele’s view of Egon’s place

A letter from Egon to sisters Edith and Adele Harms 1914

Schiele’s mentor, Gustav Klimt, is buried nearby in Hietzing Cemetery

Headstone designed by Josef Hoffmann – Cemetery Hietzing, Vienna, Group 5, Grave #194

Klimt’s The Kiss in Schloss Belvedere, Vienna

Truly magical

 

4 paintings visiting London

Here are some paintings I saw on the way to work this morning courtesy of The Collection of Peggy & David Rockefeller, a selection of which is currently being hosted at Christie’s, London in the run-up to the sale in New York to benefit a range of charities. {These paintings are copyright of the Rockefeller Collection}

1 Odalisque couchée aux magnolias – Matisse (1923)

A very alluring painting executed in the South of France and more redolent of there than anywhere Oriental. What’s strange about it is that the figure is barely prioritised over the rest of the design, from the still life bowl of fruit to the floral wallpaper. Luxe et volupté.

2 Fillette à la corbeille fleurie – Picasso (1905)

Exquisite palette from the rose period. Her face is fascinating (this photo doesn’t do it justice, it’s much finer than it looks here) – she clearly has roots somewhere far from Paris.

3 La Vague – Gauguin (1888)

Takes its cue from Hokusai’s Great Wave and the Post-Impressionist love of Japanese prints. The red of the beach is much the same hue as Gauguin’s ‘Vision After The Sermon’ (in the National Gallery of Scotland) – and the colour I chose for our front door. Strikingly eccentric composition.

4 Camille assise sur la plage à Trouville – Monet (1870/71)

The face of Camille Doncieux/Monet is remarkably modern looking, like a 50s fashion magazine illustration. The whole painting has the freshness and energy of being executed there and then on the windy beach. My favourite of the four.

The tour of which this quartet is a part continues in Paris, LA, Beijing and Shanghai until early April. The sale takes place in May at Christie’s, Rockefeller Center, New York. You can see these top-drawer paintings in London until this Thursday (8th March 2018) at Christie’s in King Street, St James’s. Well worth the trip.

Coincidences No.s 270 & 271 – Eat Your Heart Out

11/10/17

I go in to Eat opposite my office to have a coffee with an Irish TV presenter I’m meeting for the first time. We sit at one of the only two tables in the branch, two two-person tables side by side. The presenter asks me early in the conversation where I live. I tell him and mention that Feargal Sharkey (Northern Irish lead singer of The Undertones) also lives there. I am about to mention other music-related people in the neighbourhood, striving for a moment to recall, when I sense the person sitting diagonally opposite me, alone at the other table, perhaps four feet away, has had their attention drawn to our conversation. It turns out he had overheard reference to East Finchley. Because that is indeed where he lives too. And he is the very person I was about to name because he was in the much admired post-punk band Gang of Four. It’s nearly four years since I last saw him (when I was writing my first book). The three of us ended up having a fascinating conversation about Catalunya as the musician splits his time between East Finchley/Fortis Green (home of The Kinks) and Catalonia.

Gang of Four

12/10/17

I go to see the Basquiat exhibition at the Barbican. I notice how he uses three parallel horizontal lines for E and think perhaps I’ll adopt that for my own surname.

I walk away from the Barbican and pop into the nearby Eat for a sarnie. As I walk in I notice a prominent display (Grill Club) that uses a three parallel horizontal lines symbol.