1970s Islington
I lived in Islington in the late1970s,
orbiting around the political-social planet whence Jeremy Corbyn came to
conquer the known Labour Party universe. I am not aware of ever meeting Jez,
but I am sure I was sometimes near.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
El Greco an Ironist?
The Ironies of El Greco?
Was El Greco something of a
ironist? His religious paintings are so perfect, so pious. The expressions of
divine and saintly figures are unimprovable as depictions (if one must have
them) of divinity and sainthood. And yet… does El Greco deliberately push it
all a little too far? And do not some of his human figures, when they appear,
subtly undermine the otherwise sublime message?
El Greco, famously, slighted
Michelangelo as painter (but admired his sculptures). He offered to repaint the
Sistine Chapel. Wryness or just arrogance, or perhaps both?
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
The Art of Politics and the Politics of Art in Madrid
The Art of Politics and the Politics of
Art in Madrid
An intense guided art tour to
Madrid, Segovia and Toledo ends fittingly with the contemplation of Picasso’s Guernica in the Reina Sofia Museum. This
painting is on one level rawly simple – basically a long scream far more
visceral than, say, the existentialist and easily parodied howl of Munch. But
the Guernica scream or, rather,
screams are emitted by and among implacable and anguished images that draw on
deliberately oblique and fragmented references to Spanish art and Spanish
history through art.
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