It’s been a very busy day today so I just have time to test out the new “Bluesky embed” feature on WordPress. That means I can share a selection of my very best shitposts directly here. Try this one:
It seems to work on some browsers but not others. How is it for you?
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1565, oil on panel, 117×162 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).
This very famous painting is the subject of this ekphrastic poem, written in 1962, by William Carlos Williams:
The over-all picture is winter
icy mountains
in the background the return
from the hunt it is toward evening
from the left
sturdy hunters lead in
their pack the inn-sign
hanging from a
broken hinge is a stag a crucifix
between his antlers the cold
inn yard is
deserted but for a huge bonfire
that flares wind-driven tended by
women who cluster
about it to the right beyond
the hill is a pattern of skaters
Brueghel the painter
concerned with it all has chosen
a winter-struck bush for his
foreground to
complete the picture
It seems strange to me that the poem misses what I think is the most important feature of the painting: that the hunters are returning empty-handed. It’s that that makes the image so bleak.
by Edvard Munch (1911, 455 x 780 cm, oil on canvas, University of Oslo; this very large work hangs in the University Aula at the University of Oslo where it is flanked by ten other Munch paintings )
I was trying to find a work of art with which to illustrate the start of teaching term and decided on this remarkable painting by El Greco, usually called The Opening of the Fifth Seal though it has been given other names. Actually it’s only part of the original painting – the upper section was destroyed in 1880 – which at least partly accounts for the unusual balance of the composition. What I find astonishing about this work, though, is that at first sight it looks for all the world like an early 20th Century expressionist work, complete with distorted figures and vivid colour palette. It’s very hard to believe that it was painted in the early years of the 17th Century! El Greco was 300 years ahead of his time.
by Doménikos Theotokópoulos (“El Greco“), painted between 1608 and 1614, 224.8 cm × 199.4 cm, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
by Bridget Riley (1994, 1576 × 2278 mm, Oil on Canvas, Private Collection)
Ahead of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, I thought I’d post a reminder of Ireland’s first ever Olympic medal. A silver medal was awarded to Ireland at the 1924 Olympic Games for this painting by Jack Butler Yeats, brother of the poet William Butler Yeats:
Ireland only gained independence in 1922 so 1924 was the first Olympics at which Ireland competed as a separate nation. It may surprise you to learn that art competitions were a part of the Olympic Games from 1912 until 1948, as were competitions in music and literature. The 1924 Gold Medal for painting was won by an artist from Luxembourg called Jean Jacoby who specialized in sporting themes.
Although it was a style Yeats only started to experiment with around 1920, The Liffey Swim (which you can see in the National Gallery of Ireland) is clearly an Expressionist work – the unusual colour palette and texture of the paint are characteristics of that movement – but it also serves as an interesting bit of social history. The Liffey Swim is a regular event in Dublin (except during the Covid-19 pandemic) but only began in 1920 so it was fairly new when Yeats painted it. He captures the excited atmosphere surrounding the event by placing the viewer in the middle of a huge crowd struggling to get a good view, with the swimmers only shown in cursory detail. You see far more of the spectators than you do of the race!
I thought I’d share a couple of little clips I took on my visit to the Fundació Joan Miró last week, one is a few of and from the rooftop, which is dotted with various sculptures, and the other is a fascinating mercury fountain created by Alexander Calder. And don’t worry, it’s enclosed in a glass case!
My time in Barcelona is rapidly drawing to a close so I thought I’d spend the morning visiting the Fundació Joan Miró, which is situated in the Parc de Montjuïc with excellent views of the City. Quite apart from the strange and wonderful collection of things inside, it’s just a beautiful space to wander around; there’s a sense of light and space which is very refreshing. It took no longer than 30 minutes to reach it from my apartment, via the Metro L3 and the funicular railway from Parallel which takes you within 5 minutes’ walk of the building.
As well as the permanent collection of works by Joan Miró, there are pieces that influenced his development as an artist, such as the 14th Century altarpiece shown above: in his early years, Miró experimented with the very flat perspective often deployed in mediaeval art. The exhibition includes a large range of materials, including sailcloth and wool as well as the more usual oil and canvas; there’s also a mercury fountain. There is also a temporary exhibition by Vietnamese sculptor Tuan Andrew Nguyen whose creations include dynamic shapes evoking explosions made from fragments of unexploded bombs found in his homeland in the aftermath of the Vietnam war.
I was not inconsiderably amused by the above homage to The Scream by Edvard Munch which I see as a powerful artistic response to pointless corporate bureaucracy. It was created by Adam Hillman, an artist who specializes in making interesting designs and collages from everyday objects. You can read more about, and see more examples of, his work here.
by Wassily Kandinsky (1909; oil on canvas, 83 x 116 cm; Astrakhan, Dogadin State Art Gallery)
In the Dark 