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© John Cooper, 2024
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Tag: art
How To View Art
THE AESTHETIC WAY
In my recent article about the Whistler painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I admitted to being no expert in art appreciation. I now realize that was a needless confession.
Apparently, the amateur aesthete can abandon artistic authenticity.
Continue reading “How To View Art”Six Marks
PURPLE AND ROSE: THE LANGE LEIZEN OF THE SIX MARKS.
J. M. Whistler, 1864.
I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art recently to see James McNeill Whistler’s 1864 work “Purple and Rose: The Lange Leizen of the Six Marks”
The painting depicts Whistler’s model (and of course, partner) Joanna Hiffernan in a classic Whistler composition, here given an oriental setting in the sitting-room of his studio. The details in the picture display some of Whistler’s personal collection and reveal his burgeoning interest in East Asian art.
Being no expert on the artistic merits of the painting itself, I thought I would concentrate instead on the terminology of its title, littérateur that I might be.
And as Wildean that I am, I was drawn immediately to the reference to “Six Marks” because the expression The Six-Mark Tea-Pot is the caption to a well-known cartoon satirizing the aesthetic movement, and I was anxious to decipher its coupling with the “Lange Leizen” of the low-country.
Continue reading “Six Marks”The Rops Vignette
Not Everyone’s Kettle of Fish
Oscar Wilde’s symbolist play Salome is notable for its licentious artwork by Aubrey Beardsley. But Beardsley’s infamous illustrations appeared only when the English edition of the play was released in 1894.
When the original French Salomé had been published a year earlier, it contained no illustrations pertinent to the text. The only graphical representation in the French edition was the Rops Vignette, which had nothing to do with Wilde’s play, but it rivals Beardsley in its decadence.
So what is the Rops Vignette?
Continue reading “The Rops Vignette”Numa Patlagean
Clay bust of Oscar Wilde, 1914. Numa Patlagean (1888—1961).
Oscar Wilde’s modeling career has been under discussion recently.
I refer, of course, to the art of sculpture, a subject that held a fascination for Oscar: he referenced it in his essays on art, and in his reviews of art galleries; he bought sculptures, commissioned sculptures, and even had his hair styled after a bust of Nero in the Louvre.
Oscar used say that he could only think in stories and correspondingly asserted that a sculptor thinks only in the raw material of his art. He told André Gide, “the sculptor doesn’t try to translate his thought into marble; he thinks in marble, directly”. 1 This thought echoes the symbolism of Oscar’s table talk about a man who thought only in bronze melting down the statue of eternal sadness that adorned his wife’s grave, and making of it a bronze homage to the joy which dwells only in the moment.
Continue reading “Numa Patlagean”Turn of the Crank
Oscar Wilde on Machines
The irresistible force of the industrial revolution meets the
immovable objection of the aesthetic movement.
The reasons for Oscar Wilde’s much-heralded lecture tour of America seemed clear enough: to promote Gilbert & Sullivan’s latest operetta, Patience, while conducting a series of lectures on subjects of his own choosing.
At least that was the undertaking devised by the theatrical impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte.
Any suggestion that Oscar might, meanwhile, attempt to inculcate the American masses with what he perceived as much-needed ideas about art and aesthetics, would be entirely ulterior.
But Oscar made it his self-imposed mission to do just that.
Continue reading “Turn of the Crank”Wilde House Fundraiser
Wilde Sunflowers – original painting by Gerard Byrne, Signed.
Oil & acrylic border on canvas. Bespoke tray frame.
FUNDRAISER EXTENDED INTO THE NEW YEAR
—A Chance To Own This Original Painting—
VISIT RESTORATION PROJECT RAFFLE
The Oscar Wilde family home, built in 1760 at 1 Merrion Square North, Dublin, has embarked on a much-needed restoration to the annex that houses Sir William’s former consultation room, a gallery, and the balconied first floor orangery.
Here is an opportunity to support the project and in the process win an original artwork by one of Ireland’s leading contemporary artists, and artist-in-residence, Gerard Byrne—the painting was made in the Speranza lounge of the house during the recent Oscariana festival.
Artist Gerard Byrne with Oscar Wilde’s grandson, Merlin Holland,
who visited the house recently and lent his support to the project.
VISIT RESTORATION PROJECT RAFFLE
Closing Date is Thursday, 7th December 2023 @ 10pm
© John Cooper, 2023.
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