“Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden” By Otto Dix Year: 1926

Description: She walked in one direction and he in the other. Dix stopped in his tracks. “I must paint you, I simply must! You represent an entire epoch.” She was amused. “You want to paint my lacklustre eyes, my ornate ears, my long nose, my thin lips. You want to paint my short legs, my big feet – things that can only frighten people and delight no one?” To Dix, her depiction was perfect. The portrait would represent a generation concerned not with the outward beauty of a woman but her psychological condition.
Publisher: Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

http://www.ottodix.org/pix/catalog/gallery/1926-SylviaVonHarden-sm.jpg

http://www.ottodix.org/index/paintings#135.001

The portrait is extremely interesting . While it looks almost like a caricature of the New Woman that had just been emerging between the World Wars it also bore an uncanny resemblance to the reality of Harden, a poet and journalist of considerable fame of those days. But more important is the almost androgenised looks of the woman, a sort of de-sexualized woman- of- the- mind , a stereo-type of those days. I am not sure if she looked all that plain in real life but she definitely looked the modern woman, a liberated woman ,smoking in public and dressed in a patterned frock in keeping with the cylindrical shape of her figure,with a flatness of cultivated form-

There are no feminine curves about her body, just a disproportionate hand where breast would rise. The square patterns accentuate the lack of roundness in a form devoid largely of femininity and contrast with the pink wall behind with a roundness built into its plane.

Watch her monocled eye of sternness, a frosty ,forbidding manner , the largeness of her hands, while they still retained their artistic pointedness.

Love the portrait.

Paul Gauguin’s painting “Two Tahitian women”

Susan Burns, 53, a woman from Arlington recently attacked Paul Gauguin’s painting “Two Tahitian women” in the national gallery of Art trying to rip it from the wall. She had a problem with the painting apparently because she thought Gauguin was evil, his paintings of nude women would have an adverse impact on the children. Here is a thumbnail of the painting, which shows two women in full/partial frontal nudity:

The interesting thing about the painting is the soft golden hues used in the treatment of light. Gauguin was a post-impressionist who preferred to combine the elements of impressionism with primitivism in his Tahitian –themed paintings. The impressionists admirably used light to highlight the human form, especially in their nudes. Here the woman in the front has her bosom fully exposed; the other woman has only a single breast uncovered. The question is whether the painter made the painting deliberately erotic, in the way the viewer’s eyes are directed to the breasts. There is no doubt that the viewer’s eyes are not directed to her eyes nor face which is in shadow. The red flowers held by the woman just below the breasts highlight the yellow hues used in the treatment of the breasts and the arms leaving no doubt about where Gauguin is directing attention to.

Yet I do not see any deliberate attempt towards eroticism. It is the soft shadows on the woman’s breasts that make for their beauty, capturing the essence of femininity in an aesthetically pleasing use of light and shadow which is the mainstay of the impressionistic art.

Incidentally I have seen in some reproductions of the painting the use of the title “Two Tahitian women with mango blossoms” .I do not know whether the mango blossoms thing was there in the original painting. Whether or not they were there, the flowers are not certainly mango blossoms, which are not red or pink in color and have different shapes.

“Shapes of Fear”-painting by Maynard Dixon

(taken from Flickr member : mbell1975)

I love this painting by Maynard Dixon for the way the abstract idea of fear is concretized here,in the way the four shapes representing four humans stand huddled together ,their faces missing but their feet visible under their long cloaks. The cloaks appear like shrouds hiding faces paralyzed by fear . Out of the four shapes only one is facing the viewer ,with a mere hole of a face where the face is supposed to be. The rest of the four may not be having any faces here or may not have had any at any time. Fear makes one so much faceless in the face of danger.

The feet are apparent and visible because in a “fight or flight ” situation, feet are essential,even when the faces are lost.

“Interior of a Masjid”- A painting by William Carpenter

Interior of a Musjid, Ahmedabad – 1853

Water-colour painting of figures inside a mosque at Ahmadabad, Gujarat by William Carpenter (1818-1899) between 1850 and 1856. Inscribed on the reverse is: [In]‘terior of a Musjid, Ahmedabad’.

Situated on the banks of the Sabarmati River, Ahmadabad was founded by Sultan Ahmad Shah of Gujarat in 1411 when he expanded the village of Asaval. As the new capital of an independent sultanate, an expansive building programme was carried out, including the construction of local and congregational mosques, a palace area and square, processional thoroughfares and gateways, and a central commercial zone. The architecture of Ahmadabad, including the style of mosques, is much influenced by local temple construction techniques and decoration. The mosques served not only as places of prayer, but additionally as venues for teaching, legal ceremonies, meetings and discussions, and on occasion as dormitories.

Source : British Library

I have come across this beautiful watercolor painting by a British painter William Carpenter (1818-1899) in the Rare Book Society of India’s collections. The interesting theme here is the interior of a mosque of Ahmedabad and its treatment in a single color of rich brown is in keeping with the exquisite hues of the stone structure of the mosque. Shades of brown with black are extremely pleasing to the eye with not a single harsh line or color in the painting. Watch out for the beautiful expression on the faces of the fakir and his followers and their body languages which so meticulously capture the ambience of an afternoon in a mosque.

For a British painter of the colonial times to capture the authenticity of a mosque’s interior in India is a great achievement.

How schizophrenics hide themselves behind art

http://www.dnaindia.com/img/710/1450961.jpg

This is a painting by B.Datta from Kolkata ,who is under treatment for schizophrenia. The subject of a man and a woman with facetious expressions is interesting. The use of bright colors goes with the exuberant expressions of mirth .As though the characters are acting out a comedy of sorts,some slapstick,may be. For a schizophrenic the face matters because it is the face that can wear masks and hide the soul behind it. The masks here may not be masks but just lockets being hung as pendants.The talent of the schizophrenic is evident.He can use colors to create the mood of the painting beautifully and at the same time hide himself effectively behind his art. Perhaps the artist is trying to distance himself from his art.

http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/slideshow_art-is-a-way-of-expression_1450951-4#top

“Doubts”- a painting(1886) by Ray Henrietta

Love the painting for the subdued colors and the perfect ‘mood’ created between the lovers,the woman having expressed doubts about his faithfulness and the lover trying all his tricks to convince her about his loyalty. There is this slight “doubt” about his sincerity that clearly comes out in the facial expression of the lover while the beloved is merely showing a mock expression of concern as though that was what she would expect from him.She has thrown her tantrums already ,her flower basket upset in anger.

Photographing the absence

Left without the shoes
© Jørgen Opsann

From a farmhouse in the deep forests of east Norway abandoned many years ago. The person who lives there just left, leaving his chair, chest and shoes behind. It was standing like this when I found the house open

http://imghost.1x.com/18152.jpg

I love this photograph, a classic case of photographing the absence.

Keiko Tanabe’s water color paintings on the Paris cityscape

Tanabe’s  paintings have photographic detail ,especially  her several city paintings  which capture the mood of the evening .The  two cyclists who have not got down from the bicycles but carry on small conversation in the street in bright sunlight are a delicious detail.The shadows they cast on the street lend exquisite authenticity to the detail and  define the moment like a photographic image .

Robert Adams “on signal hill,overlooking the Long Beach”

This is from Wikipedia. I have taken similar photographs from the vantage of the Jain temple hill in Bhopal.The beauty of the picture is in the two trees “overlooking” the Long Beach-the overlooking part is the delicious quality of the picture.

The last supper

Leonardo da Vinci

(Taken from the public domain paintings of Wikipedia)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Leonardo_da_Vinci_002.jpg

I have recently taken a closer look at the Last Supper . What I have not noticed earlier was the room and the supper table ,their rectangular shapes falling into amazing symmetry with each other. The supper table of a rectangular shape is entirely visible to the viewer with the diners occupying only one side of the table as though they are appearing in a tableau with each one of them figuring in the picture with their individual expressions -the collective of which is telling the whole story. The colours chosen are subdued but nevertheless add up to tell the story by a clever juxtaposition of the blue with the ochre falling neatly in the brown hues of the room.