Joseph entertaining the baby Jesus

Bob Georgeson, Joseph entertaining the baby Jesus, Date ?, Photomontage

I have never been a great fan of Joseph Beuys, or Jesus for that matter. For me there are similarities in that perhaps both have tried to 'pull the wool' (felt?) over people's eyes. Beuys's claims to be an art 'shaman' is not reflected in the self indulgent drabness of his art, while the pomp and ceremony of the church does not really 'deliver us from evil' or offer any salvation...perhaps the library (archives?) in the background are a better path to enlightenment...

Other titles for this work are 'Religious Cymbalism' or 'The Immaculate Conceptual'. OK...I will stop! Enough is enough...apologies to van Eyck. Merry Christmas...

Immaculate Deception

Fra Angelico, The Annunciation, c.1430-32, Tempera on wood, Prado Museum, Madrid

Regular readers might be a little surprised to find Fra Angelico adorning the pages of this blog, but don't worry folks...I am not about to change my wicked ways and find God! I suppose technically I should have posted it around 8 months and 3 weeks ago on the basis that despite divine conception the little bastard would have gestated full term before landing in the manger. 

I used this image in a talk I gave a few years back at the local regional gallery on 'Eroticism in Art'. I began the talk with it not because it is in anyway erotic, but it is very revealing. Why? Because I believe that without religion (or at least Christianity) eroticism would not exist, or at least in the form it does today. Call it simplistic if you like, but the churches effort to suppress human desire has created the 'forbidden' nature of eroticism that makes it so interesting.

Above, we see the Archangel Gabriel do the 'Ave Maria' bit while in the top left hand corner Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden. Take home message: Mary good, Eve bad, and it is this 'evilness' of Eve as temptress that led to Christ and his disciples adopting chastity as a desirable quality. And what a wonderful little chain of events and attitudes that has left us with for the past 2000 odd years.

So, while I will certainly be enjoying the company of family and friends this Christmas I won't be celebrating the birth of Christ. I will be thinking about an increasingly fragmented world that sadly appears on a collision course with itself, and on that cheery note I am shutting down the system for a couple of weeks and going fishing...

The Temptation of Saint Anthony

"Go out and see" Saint Anthony is reported to have said. It might be a useful lesson for art teachers to impart to their students, and the story of this ascetic and his trials in the desert has been a favourite of artists for centuries. On one hand a vehicle for the depiction of the triumph of piety over evil, on the other for the temptations of the flesh in the form of phantom women. Saint Anthony was an Egyptian Coptic but I have never come across a work that shows him as middle-eastern in appearance, and the phantoms are invariably Caucasian as well. Mmmm...he thinks...I have just given myself an idea! Maybe I should forget this blogging rubbish and get busy on the 'real' Anthony with some Nubian goddesses in the bomb shelled Libyan desert...

But before I do, some of my favourites...we begin with Paolo Veronese...

Paolo Veronese, Temptation of St Anthony, 1552-3, Oil on canvas, Musee des Beaux-Arts, Caen

An interesting comparison with the earlier work on paper below. From the fairly 'mainstream' Renaissance style he has gone straight for the jugular (so to speak) in this Mannerist masterpiece of chiaroscuro and composition. Anthony is about to get pounded with the hoof of a goat while the female figure claws his palm with her nails while languorously dangling an exposed breast over his eyes as demonic figures lurk in the background. It's almost like Saturday night at the Wyndham pub...

Paolo Veronese, Temptation of St Anthony, 1552, Pen and chalk on paper, Musee du Louvre, Paris

Felicien Rops says of his version: " Here is more or less what I wanted Satan to say to the good Anthony. I want to show you that you are mad Anthony, to worship your abstractions! That your eyes may no longer search in the blue depths for the face of Christ, nor for incorporeal virgins! Your Gods have followed those of Olympus. But Jupiter and Jesus did not carry off eternal Wisdom, nor Venus and Mary eternal Beauty! Even if the Gods are gone, Woman remains. The love of Woman remains and with it the abounding love of Life."

Felicien Rops, Temptation of St Anthony, 1878, Etching and aquatint, Felician Rops Museum, Namur, Belgium.

Here, an almost comic Satan displaces Christ from the crucifix, and replaces him with a engaging nude. Rops nearly always laces his eroticism with a generous dose of humour. The normal INRI at the top of the cross has been turned into EROS. Perhaps Saint Anthony is more horrified of Rop's imagination than he is of the elements that make up the picture? It is interesting to see the preparatory drawing for the female figure, and the change that has occurred in the final print. I like the shroud ringing the breasts, and the garter and black stay ups are always a nice touch...

Felicien Rops, study for Temptation of St Anthony, 1878, Etching, Felician Rops Museum, Namur, Belgium.

Max Ernst takes a different tack and looks at the second of Saint Anthony's temptations where he was attacked by visions of demons. Influenced by the extremes of Matthius Grunewald and Hieronymus Bosch his hallucinatory vision allows for some of his favourite motifs to appear. Painted in 1945 it reflects on the horrors of war. A good reason not to venture into the desert alone...

Max Ernst, Temptation of St Anthony, 1945, Oil on canvas, Wilhelm-Lehmbruck Museum, Duisberg, Germany

...plus my own humble version (with apologies to Nan Goldin for the appropriation of the blonde). It just fitted perfectly! Almost got the Coptic bit right though...

Bob Georgeson, Temptation of St Anthony. 2010, Photomontage

Perseus and Andromeda

By way of contrast to the complexity, subtlety and mystery inherent in Olympia, Giorgio Vasari's Perseus and Andromeda (or Story of the origin of coral) is a classic example of Renaissance pseudo-eroticism...

Giorgio Vasari, Perseus and Andromeda, 1550-52, oil on slate, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

What is going on here? Beheadings, bondage, bathing nymphs, exhibitionism, lesbianism, drownings, sea monsters. Never meant for public view this painting appears a veritable feast or perversions, or is it? Originally designed as a door to a cupboard whose contents would be in some way related to the subject matter (perhaps a collection of coral which was seen as a good luck charm), it is in fact illustrating the myth as told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses. Perseus...

...made a bed

Of leaves and spread the soft weed of the sea

Above, and on it placed Medusa's head.

The fresh seaweed, with living spongy cells, 

Absorbed the Gorgon's power and at its touch

Hardened, its fronds and branches stiff and strange.

The sea-nymphs tried the magic on more weed

And found to their delight it worked the same,

And sowed the changeling seeds back on the waves.

Coral still keeps that nature: in the air

It hardens; what beneath the sea has grown

A swaying plant, above it, turns to stone....

Then to his heart he took Andromeda,

Undowered, she herself his valour's prize.

The inspiring, the woeful, the moving and the brilliant!

A brief cultural journey...

First stop was Gallery Bodalla, where Linda Childs - van Wijk was exhibiting a lifetimes work in an show mysteriously called the naive eye. At first glance Linda's paintings are presented in a 'primitive' form, but closer inspection reveals an conceptual sophistication and technical rigour that belies the show's title. Fascinating pictures that invite you into the mind of their creator. The Gallery is also one of the most delightful 'spaces' I have been in, and matched by the charm of Director Valerie Faber, who has a social conscience and is not just interested in profit and power when it comes to art. Inspiring...

Linda Childs - van Wijk, Beyond midnight, acrylic on canvas

Next stop was ANCA Gallery in North Canberra, where the warm fuzzy glow dissipated seconds after entering. The show Material World - extraordinary environments made from ordinary things was a shocker and reflected everything that is wrong with contemporary art. The two bright young things that 'curated' this show say in their introduction, 'the artists have seized the opportunity to remind us of the responsible use of energy and technology, the need to recycle, reuse, reforest and, above all, to respect.'  Well, how about respecting the intelligence of your audience? A twig sculpture? You must be kidding...Another work was so clever that it was hidden from view, another required the use of  a smartphone (not supplied) in order for it to work. Art you can't see, music you can't hear. I must be getting old. Woeful...

Fortunately spirits were revived with a visit to the National Library of Australia to see the Treasures Gallery, where major pieces from the National collection are on display. Having recently read about Cook's voyages it was a treat to see his portable writing bureau, and to imagine him charting the oceans and writing his journals on such a small surface. Jan Utzon's model for the proportions of the Sydney Opera House was a beautiful object in itself, and intriguing in its concept. Photographs from immigrant detention centres lent a sobering note. I have always been fond of maps and the early charts of Dutch explorers are as graphically pleasing as they are historically interesting. Moving...

Attributed to Abraham Anias (1694–1750), Chart of the Indian Ocean 1730

Displayed in the foyer on the way out was a copy of Helmut Newton's SUMO, the largest and most expensive book produced in the 20th century (by favourite publisher Taschen of course). Newton is very high on my list of influences. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, the book was open on a portrait he had taken of art critic Robert Hughes...I would have much preferred one of his more perverse images ;-)

Then off to the National Gallery of Australia to see Renaissance - 15th & 16th century Italian paintings from the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. An outstanding exhibition in every way. Not only a rare opportunity to see the 'real deal' up very close, but a superb lesson in art history and techniques. From International Gothic through to late Renaissance one could trace the transition from tempera on panel to oil paint on canvas, and the development of human representation from idealised form to actual portraits of real people. Standouts for me were Mantegna's Saint Bernardino of Siena...

Andrea Mantegna, Saint Bernardino of Siena, c.1450

...absolutely dripping with piety...and the four works by Lorenzo Lotto:

Lorenzo Lotto, Portrait of a young man, c.1500

Lorenzo Lotto, Portrait of Lucina Brembati, c.1518-23

Lorenzo Lotto, Holy Family with Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c.1533

Lorenzo Lotto, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c.1523

Not only a profound lesson in technique, but a demonstration that you don't have to work on a large scale to convey beauty and complex ideas. Brilliant!