A temporary art installation by Peter Majendie near the CTV building in Christchurch acknowledging the lives lost in the 2011 earthquake. The chairs stand on a vacant lot once occupied by a church.
Antonio Lopez Garcia /
If there is one type of artist who I have an issue with, it's the serial achiever. Antonio Lopez Garcia fits that description perfectly. Born in 1936 in Tomelloso, Spain he is regarded as the most prominent of the Spanish Realists. He is criticized in some circles for his dry, academic realism but I can still admire his technical ability.
Atocha, 1964, Oil on Wood
He is credited with an extremely subtle use of light and a delicate drawing ability.
Sink and Mirror, 1967, Oil on Wood
Perhaps he is following in the footsteps of the great baroque masters of the past.
Portrait Of Maria, 1972, Pencil
Atocha, 2008, Bronze Installation
Sounds Of Silence /
H J. Johnstone specialized in peaceful evening riverside scenes in the 19th century. The painting below depicts the Murray River in South Australia in 1880. Johnstone's strong background in photography is evident in the stillness and precision of the painting. The subtle colour gradations is what impresses me as well as the stillness. Apparently aboriginal campsites along river banks were becoming increasingly rare by the 1880's due to pastoralists and government policy of herding them into settlements for "Christian education".
Evening Shadows, Backwater of the Murray, South Australia 1880 121 cm x 180 cm
"Evening Shadows" was the first acquisition by the Art Gallery of South Australia of a painting of an Australian subject.
Twilight, River Goulburn Victoria 1878
Strange as it may seem, these works were painted in London on commission. Johnstone, who was born in Birmingham in 1835, came to Australia to prospect on the Victorian goldfields in 1853. He returned to the UK via California in 1876.
The Billabong 1876
What Are Art Galleries For? /
Author Alain De Botton has been arguing for some time that there is something inherently wrong with the way art is presented in museums. Not for him the notion of art-for-arts-sake. It is a question of curatorship to some degree, but also an inability on the part of administrators to define exactly what purpose an art museum is meant to perform.
Architecture Way Ahead Of Its Time /
This is the Barcelona Pavilion designed by Mies Van Der Rohe for the 1929 World Expo. According to author Alain De Botton he was frustrated with the clutter and fussiness of domestic architecture.
Mies Van Der Rohe wanted something that was simple yet elegant. It's difficult 86 year on to appreciate what an impact this architecture must have had on audiences at the time.
Gustave Dore's Mid Victorian London /
In 1869 French artist Gustave Dore teamed up with journalist Blanchard Jerrold to produce an illustrated record of the 'shadows and sunlight' of London. As Jerrold later recalled, they spent many days and nights exploring the capital, often protected by plain-clothes policemen. They visited night refuges, cheap lodging houses and the opium den described by Charles Dickens in the sinister opening chapter of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. According to The Guardian, the project took 4 years during which time, Dore produced 180 engravings.
Over London By Rail
Some doubts have been cast as to the accuracy of these images as Dore disliked sketching in public. Jerrold's text was thought to be superficial at the time.
Dudley Street, Seven Dials
However both men were "transfixed by the deprivation, squalor and wretchedness of the lives of the poor, even though they realised that London was changing and some of the worst social evils were beginning to be addressed." THE GUARDIAN
Scripture Reading In A Night Refuge
Their work has been described as a landmark account of the deprivation and squalor of mid-Victorian London.
Wentworth Street Whitechapel
Diane Arbus - Photographer of Oddity /
Ah, the exhibitions we just don't see in this country! The Met in New York is staging an exhibition of the photography of Diane Arbus.
Born into a wealthy family, Arbus was fascinated by poverty and oddity. “I love to go to people’s houses,” Diane Arbus once told a reporter, “exploring — doing daring things I’ve not done before.” She was brilliant at school, sexually precocious and married young. In the 1950's Arbus was shooting for a fashion magazine, a job she began to loathe - drawn as she was to the "flawed and unusual".
The Jewish Giant
A biographer described Arbus as being adventurous, charismatic and always taking terrible risks. Norman Mailer described giving Arbus a camera "was like putting a live grenade in the hands of a child.”
This image of identical twins so haunted Stanley Kubrick that he had to include something like it in his movie The Shining.
Some found her images ungainly, freakish even brutal but Arbus responded by saying these people wanted to have their photo taken - they liked being paid attention to.
Arbus had two daughters by her marriage, which ended in 1959. In later years, ill health, loneliness and depression got the better of her, especially after her daughters left home. “My work doesn’t do it for me anymore,” she told a friend. She committed suicide in 1971, aged 48.
The Poor Side Of Town /
"A Meeting", 193 cm x 177 cm, Oil On Canvas 1884
This is a painting by Maria Bashkirtseff. Given the canvas is almost 2 meters tall the boys are depicted life size. To the far right we can see a little girl walking off. Bashkirtseff was known to have strong feminist tendencies. Given the boys' well worn clothing it can be inferred that they are from a working class area, and the surroundings reinforce this impression. Although this painting was well received at the 1884 Paris salon, Bashkirtseff was furious that it didn’t win a medal. Her reaction mirrors that of many artists today,
"I am exceedingly indignant [...] because, after all, works that are really rather poor have received prizes" and also "There is nothing more to be done. I am a worthless creature, humiliated, finished".
At the time she was aware she was dying of tuberculosis at age 25, and was concerned she would die a forgotten artist. She needn’t have worried, as this painting is housed at the Musee d’Orsay.
Among the artists she admired was Jules Bastien-Lepage whose painting "The Potato Gatherers" hangs at the NGV in Melbourne.