Your favourite painting

[Bartleby]

I don't know, my friend, I just google-searched his art and all I keep seeing is young men's delightful posteriors,

I know right? I mean, as much as I understand the sight of those posteriors potentially arousing a viewer in a sexual way, I believe they’re not the work of a pervert hehe, they (in my view) are meant to and can be appreciated for aesthetic value alone, for beauty in sight of all of creation; as in Whitman’s view that every man and every woman, every body is beautiful; that’s why I’m dying to read Death in Venice; I may be proven wrong, but I reckon people view Aschenbach’s astonishment by that boy’s beauty as erotic, i.e. his wanting to start a romantic relationship with the lad; but it may just be the fact of being struck by beauty, wherever it comes from, as opposed to something like Humbert Humbert’s condition... but then it could be argued that everything granting pleasure is erotic: a handshake, the sight of a beautiful flower, the reading of an arresting passage in a book, a nun’s ecstatic state etc...

 

[Bagharu]

Hmm, I guess "sensual" doesn't have to equal "sexual." Like in all those Renaissance paintings of the cherubim--all those childlike angels--they are definitely sensual (the pink skin, the flaxen hair, etc) but sexual? Not really. That would be super weird.

Now that I read your comment, yeah, somehow i mixed up the word 'sensual' with 'sexual' ?
However, my mixup aside, his paintings are really beautiful, and joy to behold
?

 

[Liam]

Hmm, I think a work of art is, in the end, its own justification. The artist can't control what type of thoughts a viewer brings to the fore when viewing a painting. I suppose you see what you want to see. Reading his bio on Wikipedia though, it seems that Tuke was never implicated in any scandal and was very generous to his models, leaving many of them money in his will (and he wasn't even that rich toward the end of his life).

PS. Out of all his paintings, I do like the one you chose for your avatar in particular--there is something almost... wistful about it--it's very moving!

 

[Bartleby]

Hmm, I think a work of art is, in the end, its own justification. The artist can't control what type of thoughts a viewer brings to the fore when viewing a painting. I suppose you see what you want to see. Reading his bio on Wikipedia though, it seems that Tuke was never implicated in any scandal and was very generous to his models, leaving many of them money in his will (and he wasn't even that rich toward the end of his life).

PS. Out of all his paintings, I do like the one you chose for your avatar in particular--there is something almost... wistful about it--it's very moving!

Yeah, sure. It seems he just found that Falmouth place, appropriate for nude bathing, and people (men, boys) were unashamed there and he reproduced that pure, eden-like vision in his work.

 

[Bartleby]

Hmm, I think a work of art is, in the end, its own justification. The artist can't control what type of thoughts a viewer brings to the fore when viewing a painting. I suppose you see what you want to see. Reading his bio on Wikipedia though, it seems that Tuke was never implicated in any scandal and was very generous to his models, leaving many of them money in his will (and he wasn't even that rich toward the end of his life).

PS. Out of all his paintings, I do like the one you chose for your avatar in particular--there is something almost... wistful about it--it's very moving!

And I totally get what you say. I agree. Once a work of art is brought into the world, it its open to interpretation, provided what’s being read in it is there. Overinterpretation can be a thing.

 

[Bartleby]

PS. Out of all his paintings, I do like the one you chose for your avatar in particular--there is something almost... wistful about it--it's very moving!

my earlier, Delon’s picture, also had a rimbaudian quality that was wistful as well. I guess if becomes me

 

[Liam]

^Sure, just don't be sad,

On the subject of apparent or not-so-apparent eroticism, there's a Soviet-era Russian painter, Alexander Dayneka, who mostly painted in the party-approved socialist realist vein: he has a painting called Future Pilots (1938)--if anyone had told him they perceived anything remotely sensual about it, I'm sure he would have been perfectly horrified! ?

 

[Liam]

Looking at his other stuff more and more, I'm beginning to wonder, actually... about those Soviets, LOL.

 

[Bartleby]

Looking at his other stuff more and more, I'm beginning to wonder, actually... about those Soviets, LOL.

View attachment 752

Is this his? I remember him more for his young bathing boys. These are more mature men. Hadn’t come across this one before. Well, your typical military group shower scene hehe

“The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.”

 

[Liam]

I google imaged him in Russian and that was one of the paintings that did come up (among many). It's a little too "Nazi" for my tastes, but therein lies the joke, I guess, since the painter was from USSR,

 

[Bartleby]

I google imaged him in Russian and that was one of the paintings that did come up (among many). It's a little too "Nazi" for my tastes, but therein lies the joke, I guess, since the painter was from USSR,

Oh so it’s not his (Henry Scott’s)? Makes sense haha

I like this one as well

 

[Liam]

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear: it is one of his, actually. How the hell do YOU know him? He's so obscure, even by Russian standards.

The painting is called "After the Fight": it has its own Wiki page devoted to it, but it's entirely in Russian.

 

[Bartleby]

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear: it is one of his, actually. How the hell do YOU know him? He's so obscure, even by Russian standards.

The painting is called "After the Fight": it has its own Wiki page devoted to it, but it's entirely in Russian.

That’s odd. Henry Scott Tuke is English. And I tried Googling his name+ men+shower and only prepubescent boys in beaches and lakes appeared ?

 

[Bartleby]

^Sure, just don't be sad,

On the subject of apparent or not-so-apparent eroticism, there's a Soviet-era Russian painter, Alexander Dayneka, who mostly painted in the party-approved socialist realist vein: he has a painting called Future Pilots (1938)--if anyone had told him they perceived anything remotely sensual about it, I'm sure he would have been perfectly horrified! ?

View attachment 751

Oh I completely missed this post! Hahahaah no I didn't know this Russian artist haha

 

[Bartleby]

^Sure, just don't be sad,

Thank you, my friend, I try ?

 

[Liam]

Yes, young man, next time be a little more attentive!

 

[Bartleby]

Yes, young man, next time be a little more attentive!

Hehe sure. A succession of posts like those, tho. But I’ll do me best next time

 

[Liam]

I love this short video lecture about one of my favorite paintings (ever!), which I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes when I spent a few wintry days in Madrid with my partner a few years ago (lovely city, btw: great food, clean streets, and amazing people!)--

 

[Bagharu]

I love this short video lecture about one of my favorite paintings (ever!), which I was lucky enough to see with my own eyes when I spent a few wintry days in Madrid with my partner a few years ago (lovely city, btw: great food, clean streets, and amazing people!)--

I love nerdwirter1's videos, and just the other day after watching Rick Steve's Madrid, I had to watch this poetic video on Las Meninas again. This one is also one of my most favorite paintings of all time!

Liam, by any chance have you also seen Picassos' 58 las Meninases?

 

[Liam]

^I did see a bunch of Picassos, mostly at the Museo Reina Sofía (also in Madrid). But they all pale in comparison with his Guernica--which is exhibited in a room of its own, with no other painting present. You really have to see it to believe just how humongous that canvas is--it overwhelms the viewer with its sheer size and the tragic depth of history depicted therein. It was staggering--and I didn't even consider myself a Picasso fan until then.