# 6 John Singer Sargent - " A Bedouin Arab "

I love the painting but hate the title.  Why?....because it feels to me (and others are free to dissent)that by naming this handsome man by his ethnicity is inherently racist when compared to Singer Sargent's practice of naming the Caucasian pillars of society he painted surrounded by all the familiar trappings of that achieved by upper echelons.

The key question is - why this man didn't deserve to be named?  To have produced the clarity and sheer animus in that expression, Singer Sargent must gazed long and hard upon this face, the detail the observations, but...to have intimately scanned every inch of this face and not know the name of the sitter....that is bewildering.   Not to have conversed even through an interpreter....

The face is of a strong proud defiant man, full of spirit and intensity behind the eyes.  I imagine this individual as capable of testing the will of another with his silence, with his gaze.   The style of the painting too is mixed.  The contrast of the treatment of the headress, is of the impressionistic style, carved out in a few simple but earthy strokes.  Vague but dramatic none the less.  It conveys all the elements necessary to tell the viewer that this is the dramaturgical apparel of the Arab man, why give the dress any more complex a treatment as perhaps the Caucasian eye has enough information it needs to recognise a stereotype it is so wedded to.

Perhaps I am wrong.  An opposing view might be that the detail of the Individual's face is a test to us to look deeper, and the juxtaposition of the simple garment painted in an impressionistic style is a device that gives the viewer a road map to stare at this individual and see him as unique.  The transition and merging of stlyles was the next line in a shift from Singer's other works.  These follow the watercolour series he created in Venice.  Is this Singer Sargent's way of showing that his own views were adapting and evolving through art.   Certainly his journey to the Middle East did not have a primary purpose of documenting the tribal Bedouin.  Instead it was to visit predominantly Christian historic sites for inspiration to create a mural.  Instead he  became seduced by the Middle East and along that path at one point he was guided and befriended by the legendary "Queen of the Desert" Gertrude Bell.

However I view the painting, my mind keeps on crawling back to the title and debates whether it is truly racist or whether there's a deeper Irony that fails to attach to my thinking.

# 5 George Goodwin Kilburne "Enoch Arden"

This to my mind is a beautiful watercolour, full of richness and showing an age old situation - STALKING.  The young people sitting are unware that they are being spied upon.   But not just spied upon but glared at with an expression that is charged with emotion.  Its for the viewer to decide which but certainly its not with positivity, and does the negativity belong to the face projecting it or is it aimed at the young man and woman sitting by the beach.   In order to decide you have to know that this painting was inspired by the narrative poem of Lord Alfred Tennyson called "Enoch Arden".   It is the story of a man who takes to sea to earn a proper living so that he can support his wife and children.   He himself becomes shipwrecked on a desert island.  He manages to get off the island and return home after many years only to find out the following, his best mate shacked up with his wife, one of his own children died, and his wife had a new child by his best friend.   Its an age old story and has been compared to Homer's Odyssey and the plight of Odysseus. The protaganist Enoch, never lets his identity known to his family or wife and eventually dies of a broken heart.   That story itself engages emotionally challenging questions affecting the human condition, such as one has to accept when other people move on, and that people do move on.  The ones that dont remain marooned on that emotive desert island until they wither constantly stalking their past. This painting if you look at it without knowing the story upon which it was based, might be viewed by you in an entirely different vein.    But if you do take in the background story context, who do these characters become, are the young people sitting Enoch Arden's children, and does he spy on them? Or is it the best friend of Enoch Arden avariciously yearning for his wife, life family?

 

(The other reason I like this painting is that the artist was a local to my borough and bears the name of Kilburn where I live.   Kilburne the artist actually lived in Hampstead, which is close enough, to my beloved Kilburn which is actually part of the Roman Road of Watling street.   Kilburn was also a celtic settlement and prounounce Cylebourne, because the river Bourne ran through it, but centuries ago the civil engineers re-directed the river to flow underground, but beneath our feet in Kilburn runs a river!)

# 4 Alouysus O'Kelly - Mass In a Connemara Cabin

This painting is about freedom of conscience.   The right of an individual to believe and conversely the right of an individual not to believe in another's doctrinal beliefs.  The mood is clandestine and the drastic portrayal of deference to a divinity reflects perhaps the urgency and desperation of the worship.  Even the dishes held in the upper tier of the dresser seem also to bow forward in reverence.   The use of light is significant, there is not a single face that is not illuminated by the candlelight, and the perhaps the artist wants us to feel something of the divine can be found in the humble yet consecrated surroundings.

Imagine the risks involved. The priest's disguise, his fine coat and top hat on the chair betray a dilemma.  How difficult was the priest's struggle between wanting to be "a man of the cloth" and then the moment he steps outside the cabin the priest having to go about incognito.  The painting is also the celebration of the human spirit, the defiance, taking of risks, that test of character to be faithful to what one believes in.  For the most part we enjoy such basic freedoms...but this painting should remind us that those freedoms are fragile.  Where ultimate power, control and weaponry are wielded for an evil purpose such freedoms can be crushed as easily as egg-shells

Ultimately, does not this painting demonstrate the core human principle? That each individual must new true to themselves, whatever that is.

# 3 Edouard Manet "Bar at the Folie Bergere"

It started with a diss.  The elitist salon of Paris and positivist art critics as they were gave the Impressionists this label.  They and in particular the leader of this movement Manet wore the slight like a badge of honour.  Their persistence to their ideal can now be seen as an enduring legacy.  Art loved universally, with the power, (that is if you allow yourself to succumb) to let you see inside your own soul.

This painting was the final piece of work Manet completed, and he worked through discomfort and illness sketching studies for the final piece.  Knowing the cultural context makes this work even more remarkable.  The zeitgeist of this movement clashed with the Parisienne cognoscenti, it's hard to keep the faith with disdain yapping around one's ankles.  Not only did the impressionists commit a cardinal sin by departing form the classical realism - heaven forbid they also painted outdoors and painted the sleazier aspects of life.  (Note separately Manet's "Dejeuner sur L'Herbe" if he had painted it today the title might have quite easily be "Dogging"). Manet did indeed keep the faith and this painting both teases and challenges the viewer.  The puzzle of the incorrect technical application of the principles of mirror reflection; the contrast of the main protagonist barmaid Suzon, her ennui, her gripping the bar edges in a desperate cling to re-establish reality, while all the revellers are dream like in the reflection behind her; the sinister man...ooh! Some people posit that Suzon's expression reflects the hopelessness of social class and her predicament.  Who knows, maybe she just had a cheeky few snorts of absinthe under a blind eye.   The beauty of this painting is that it's down to you to decide, think of it as a scene from a movie, you decide the frames, let it tell you it's story.

Some critics say that Warhol's work echoes Manet's work as he observes more simplistically social irony.  One commonality between them both is certainly product placement.  In Manet's bar their are the clearly recognisable labels of the drinks bottles, the creme de menthe that has not changed and the very distinguishable red triangle of Bass beer.  Trivia alert....this trademark being the first ever entry on the British Trademark Register in 1875! It's easy to forget that Warhol wasn't the first to capture the burgeoning obsession with brands, just goes to show that the roots of label whoring are deeper than we think in time.

# 2 Tamara de Lempicka "Calla Lilies"

Lempika's still life is broadly stated to have been painted in 1941 although some art historians would date the style of this painting to her creations spanning 1930s.  There are so many other breath-taking portraits that I could have chosen - however I fixed upon this painting as it calls upon the audience to be a detective unravelling the mysteries of her inner feelings.  I feel instinctively that there are coded messages to be dicyphered and perhaps a deeper mystery within as to who this painting might have originally spoken to.

There is mood, texture technical prowess is the use of light colour tone, richness of style.  The main subject are the arum Lilys. The arum lily is associated with death sexual desire and sanctity. In Greek mythology the arum lily is said to have grow from the spilled breast milk of the goddess Hera.  Apparently Hera woke up shocked to find the spawn of Zeus, Hercules suckling from her nipple when she detached him from her breast her milk spurted and formed the Milky Way.  The drops that fell to earth grew into arum lillies.

The lilies themselves are dipicted from all angles, perhaps they are as just as posed as the human figures in her paintings.  If you look deep into the flowers especially at the ones in the front and the base of the stems in water there are signs of aging, in my view.  Some of the foliage looks yellowing towards the edges of a painting. Why pick such glorious flowers and then paint them when they are going into decline, slipping into decay? If the flowers were symbolic to Lempicka of love and the sanctity of marriage in all it's forms, then she might be reflecting upon her own sadness.  Showing us that she is mindful that something is on the way out. 

We can all draw on our inner Sherlock Holmes and decide what this painting means.....and embark on a sleuth's narrative.....who was the present for? If It came with the flowers then why did it remain unwrapped until the flowers were turning.  Were the flowers given as an apology? was the present intended for someone who never showed up? All these mysteries and shadows perhaps of sadness and disappointment can speak to us as they may have touched all of our lives and loves. The tokens displayed are clues to a loving relationship of some sort - but what and who are the players?  This is to my mind a moving painting filled with theatre and emotional depth.

# 1 - Vermeer "Woman with a lute"

I totally love this painting, a Vermeer called "woman with a lute".  I love her dreamy multi-tasking as she twists the tuning on her lute strings, guiding herself by her own ear and doing the prep that natural musicians do.  While she does this the light of the world shines on her face with harmonics testing and peaking. I wonder what she had gazed upon below?  What was happening in her little world below while she plucked on that string and would it inspire the choice of composition she would play?  Yet behind her is a map of the bigger world as known, darker and full of mystery and so carefully reproduced by Vermeer.  She knows not America. Her music books on the table are closed, she has not yet chosen a piece to practice on.   Could it be that Vermeer was on the brink of seeing something new being created.  Perhaps a new melody that was just born, inspired by the world below all hesitant and shy of showing itself to the world for the first time?  How tender this painting and the moment is. N'est-ce pas?