Art Club 20

This is very, very powerful, in my opinion.



Otto Dix, Sturmtruppe geht unter Gas vor (Assault under Gas) 1924 - Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

This work is part of Dix's War series, which he painted after the war itself.  When this was exhibited in Germany, it was felt that Dix had little regard for his fellow veterans, since most of the series dwelt on German troops, and dwelt on them negatively, rather than allied soldiers.  Little wonder that, when the Nazis came to power, they blacklisted Dix's art as degenerate, had him sacked from the Dresden Academy, burnt some of his works and, when they allowed him to paint again, ordered him to do landscapes only.

Onto the work itself.

Nightmarish, inhuman, depraved, savage, horrific.  Indeed, what more needs be said?

Absolutely stunning.

Art Club 19

Onto today's piece -



C. R. W. Nevinson, Machine-gun 1915 - Tate Gallery, London

A near complete departure from yesterday's piece, Christopher Nevinson was one of the official war artists for Britain - and there may actually be more pieces I put up from him in the next few weeks.

Unlike yesterday's cavalry charge, this work is completely static, you cannot even be sure whether the machine gun is being fired or is at rest.  However, like yesterday's piece I love the angles and lines Nevinson has put in here, though they do not denote movement or dynamism in this case.  The faces and helmets especially are absolutely fantastic.

With the sky looking so unnaturally grey blue, added to the fact that the barbed wire splits it up so nicely, with the angles and colours of the troops and the trench, this could fairly easily be made into a stain glass window.

Such a dark piece - love it :D

Art Club 18

Just a quick one today - it is all Olympics all the time here in fortress chunu, and of course, being this part of the world, the swimming about to start is an absolutely massive thing.

But back to the art for a second or five.  No, I am not going to stint on the quality (or lack thereof) of my posts here, just that instead of twenty minutes, they may come in over the course of several hours...



Umberto Boccioni, Charge of the Lancers 1915 - collection Jucker, Milan

The break through the trenches, pouring the cavalry behind enemy lines, was a warmly held strategy by most of the high command on both sides during the war.  It hardly ever happened though, and this piece by Boccioni is just such a flight of fantasy.

The angles in this piece are fantastic - the rounded shapes of the horse and rider, the hardness of both the cavalry lances and the opposing infantry rifles.  I love the blackness of the horse, and especially the design of its head.

Boccioni was mobilised for the war, but, tragically enough, was trampled by his horse in a training accident in 1916, and died the next day.

Art Club 17

Egon Schiele, Heinrich Wagner, Leutnant i. d. Reserve (Portrait of Reserve Lieutenant Heinrich Wagner) 1917 - Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna

Another bleak painting, though from almost the polar opposite of Dix yesterday.  In this piece it is the lack of detail, the blankness, that is striking.  A face, medals and hands that appear to come out of nowhere.  The most stunning feature of this piece is the fact there is no background whatsoever.  Portraits are usually supposed to humanise the subject, especially during wartime, but with this piece, I feel that facet is completely lacking.

And for the first time on this blog, I am finding it extremely difficult to place into words how the piece makes me feel.  On the one hand, I draw a blank, yet on the other, I feel I could write and write and write and not come anywhere close to my inner feelings of this work.

Art Club 16

The First First World War piece I will put up is -



Otto Dix, Selbstbildnis mit Artillerie-Helm (Self-Portrait Wearing a Gunner's Helmet) 1914 - Municipal Gallery, Stuttgart

This piece was painted shortly after Dix enlisted, very early in the war.  His enlistment was enthusiastic - at least, according to wiki - although with this work, Dix seems to show a sense of uneasiness about the whole situation.

It is a very dark canvas - there is no brightness nor much of any light.  The blacks and ruddy reds of the uniform and Dix's face seem to suck all the life out of the rest of the portrait.  The white eyes could be interpreted as an utter sense of blankness towards the war - or, perhaps if the interpretation is of glancing leftward, a general sense of unhappiness.

What also impresses me about this picture, is that it is a German artist showing himself as a German soldier, yet the painting seems so bleak.  Put together long before the 'Germans bad, Allies good' stereotype exuded its way through the allied public consciousness.

Very powerful.

Also, just an aside on Dix - some of his etchings, the War series, will be in the local art gallery early next year.  I am very much looking forward to seeing his work 'in the flesh'.

Art Club 15

Back in the day, when I was Nerdy McNerd and did stamp collecting - yes, nerdier even than staying online most of the day and posting art to blogs - there was a maxim us stamp collectors had. Either nation or theme. Now, in the rarefied air of Art Club, LJ Edition, I translate it thus - Individual or Theme. And the theme we will work to for the next couple of weeks is (drumroll please) - First World War Art Thanks to the mutual art appreciation on instant messenger between myself and my friend Jane, she was able to find a treasure trove of WWI art, basically a 'virtual online exhibition' all of itself. If anyone wants to read ahead of the rest of the class, and have the link to where I am getting the next lot of art from, please feel free to ask. Mmm, war and art - I am in heaven, subject wise...

Art Club 14

Sidney Nolan, Self Portrait in Youth 1986 - Royal Academy of Arts, London

And so, we farewell probably Australia's most famous artist of the 20th Century.  No, I do not count Rolf Harris as an artist :D

I'm not actually sure whether I like this piece or not, but it is very striking and very powerful.  I think I have rabbited on enough the past couple of weeks, so will stop with the commentary at that point, and just let the work sink its way into your eyeballs.

Tomorrow, something completely different - stay tuned ;)

Art Club 13

Again, we go past a few good works - Mt Erebus 1964, Salt Flats Wimmera 1966, Rainbow Over Pilbara 1982 - before I can find the next Nolan I like from the exhibition, that I could also find online.



Sidney Nolan, Chinese Mountain Landscape with Three Boats c.1982

Unfortunately, this is another small picture, online at least, but just imagine it 1.8 metres tall, as it is the gallery.  Nolan, later in life, fell in love with both China and spray paint, as a topic and medium of his art respectively.  Both of these loves can be seen in this piece.  With this painting, I love the way the mountains are shaped, so impossibly tall and thin.  The white of the clouds make this work other-worldly, and take up the attention so that you can hardly see the stylised boats in the lower right.  The colours, as I have found usual with Nolan, are stunning.

Art Club 12

Getting towards the latter part of Nolan's career, and the google monsters are helping less and less, so if anyone can find Young Monkey or African Landscape, both of 1963, it would be helpful to the completist in me - though not a big issue per se.



Sidney Nolan, Glacier 1964

Again, not a piece in the retrospective exhibition itself, but the best online example I could find of Nolan's Antarctic series.  The colours on this are simply marvellous, especially the blue, and this work absolutely puts me there, on the mountain, on the ice, with a sense of a shiver.  This is a cold painting, meant in the most positive of senses, as, being Antarctica, the way it should be.

Art Club 11

Sidney Nolan, Burke 1962 - Art Gallery of New South Wales

This piece is another of Nolan's 'Australiana' works, based around the 1860-61 expedition of Burke and Wills, who explored inland Australia in a north south direction before seven of the party died - the two leaders reportedly from starvation.

However, this piece is not particularly bleak, though perhaps a tad lost, showing Burke riding a camel in the outback.  The colouring of the piece, from the white at the bottom, to the red centre, to the piercing blue sky is very striking.  The hurried brush strokes on the camel and the man, seemingly naked, and the lack of detail on these two subjects - appearing almost to become part of the landscape themselves - is also very worthy of note.

Art Club 10

Sidney Nolan, Leda and Swan 1960

First off, I must note that this isn't the exact same piece I saw in the gallery - the piece in the retrospective is the same colouring, from the same series, but with the bodies of Leda and the Swan muddled together, with the swan's head sticking right, and the woman's head left.  Think of the Russian double headed eagle with this red/green/yellow paint scheme.

This is the closest I could find on the internet though, and what I can comment on about this piece is 99% similar to what I would say about the one in the gallery.  That one percent different is the fact the gallery piece was perhaps my favourite work in the entire exhibition.  It just struck me again and again as I kept gravitating towards it, almost in awe.

I love the dynamism of the colours in this piece - the positioning of Leda is very suggestive, very submissive, and there seems a tinge of violence to the swan/Zeus.  This picture is all about power, at least to my mind.

I actually didn't know how much a motif Leda and Swan was in art before I went exploring (wiki/google, thank you very much), and boy there are some classic and weird ones out there - I might get onto a Leda theme later on in the thread.  Also, there is a personal edge Nolan had to his Leda paintings - he was actually attacked by swans himself as a child, and there could perhaps be a frisson of fear to the animal in these works.

Did I forget to mention I love love LOVE the colour scheme on this one?

Art Club 9

Welcome to Art Club.  Feel free to slip into your weekend here with me and other art lovers - the low hum of conversation, maybe a latte, maybe a lovely chardonnay, maybe even a touch of jazz in the background.

Mmm, nice.



Sidney Nolan, Woman In Billabong 1957 - Tate London

Again, I love the muddiness of this piece, so much more blatant than After Glenrowan Siege, especially in the bottom half of the canvas.  As for the top part, I love the blackness, and I love the way it looks almost an etching.  And the woman in the billabong herself, she seems to have been created with casual, nonchalant brushstrokes - I adore the splash of blonde hair.

FYI, billabong is an Aboriginal word for watering hole

Art Club 8

Sidney Nolan, After Glenrowan Siege (second Ned Kelly series) 1955 - Museum of Modern Art, New York

In 1953, Nolan left Australia for Europe, and, despite regular visits home, this was a permanent move.  He was able to do this because of the financial success of his late 40s/early 50s outback pieces.  Although he was overseas, he often came back to Australian subjects in his art, and reworked Ned Kelly in the mid-50s, with an eye to the then-contemporary European school.

In this, and other pieces from the series, Nolan added facial features to the mask, lips and the merest hint of a nose here.  Although the first series is now classic Australiana, I preferred the colours in this series, even if they appear muddied rather than vibrant.  The destruction of the Glenrowan Hotel in the background is also very striking to me.

Art Club 7

In 1947 Nolan left Victoria, for the next few years living between Queensland and Sydney.  He ventured further for inspiration for his paintings, as evidenced -



Sidney Nolan, Inland Australia 1950 - Tate London

Nolan flew over and travelled through the Australian Outback several times during this period, working on pieces covering the landscape, the buildings, the flora and fauna, and the drought that was ravaging the interior at this time.

What grabs me with this painting is how realistic it is - a development from Nolan's earlier work, which were either stylised or abstract.  And yes, ladies and gentlemen of the international audience, parts of the Australian interior do look like this, almost a Mars-scape.

Art Club 6

Sidney Nolan, Flinders Street at Night c.1945

I adore this piece.  The darkness, the ill-defined ill-focussed buildings, especially to the left, the broad brushstrokes of yellow indicating the lights reflecting in the river.  If this was an impressionist piece, the reflections would likely be mottled, but I love love love the way Nolan has just plastered the strokes over the canvas...

Art Club 5

Continuing the Nolan retrospective, we return, via chronological order, to the first of his Ned Kelly series -



Sidney Nolan, Return to Glenrowan 1946 (reworked later) - Nolan Gallery, Cultural Facilities Corporation, Australian Capital Territory

This is the only work in his first Kelly series which doesn't have the armour/face showing as jet black - whether the coloured stripes were put on during the rework, or as it was originally, is not noted.  Instead of the usual effect of Kelly being the dark, intense portion of the painting, in this piece the whole landscape broods.  The dark skies, the greenish/black ground all add to a sense of dread and foreboding.

In reality, Glenrowan was the hamlet that Ned Kelly was captured at, while the rest of his gang were killed.

Art Club 4

Sidney Nolan, Hare in Trap 1946 - Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

This is a painting which is leant quite a bit of meaning according to the exhibition notes.  After the war, Nolan spent much of his time at Heide, the home of his patrons, John and Sunday Reed, the latter with whom he had an affair.  She rejected his suggestion to leave her husband though, and it appears Nolan felt more and more trapped in Melbourne.

Thus this painting, a remembrance of travelling with his father and seeing a rabbit in such a trap, is a fair approximation of how Nolan was feeling at the time.  The fear and terror of the animal, indicated by the piercing blue eye [which, unfortunately, may not be visible to full effect in the picture above], the blood and fur splattered in the foreground of the picture, and the ever present sunburnt countryside, all put together, makes this work quite the bleak appraisal.

Art Club 3

Today on Art Club, as we continue the early works of Sidney Nolan, we present you with a fairground scene -



Sidney Nolan, Luna Park 1941 - Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Luna Park is a Melbourne fixture, opening in 1912 in the inner city suburb of St Kilda, and entertaining generations of Victorians.  Many of Nolan's early works were based around St Kilda, where he kept a studio before being drafted into the army for World War Two.

I like this piece because it is light, airy, abstract - the roller coaster appearing so small and fragile, and in some ways taking on the appearance of a big top circus tent.

Art Club 2

Today on Art Club, we have for you part of the bound to be continuing Nolan series - I considered putting up a different artist day to day as well, but thought that would come across too scattergun - so, now that we have his most famous piece out of the day (see yesterday), onto the wider range.



Sidney Nolan, Woman on Beach 1940

One of his earliest pieces, the colours of this one are immediately striking to me. During his time at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, Nolan had devoured the modern artists such as Gaugain, van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso, and I can see the influence, particularly of the latter two, in this work.

Art Club 1

Hello, and welcome to Art Club.

This concept has been inspired by the timeless genius that is known as Jazz Club.

Great.

Each day, I will be adding a new piece to this blog.  Now, whether there are any other fans of the visual arts out in LJ-land, we are just going to have to find out.  Crazy!

To kick things off, something from the local collection - Australia even.  Sidney Nolan, the first Australian artist to break through the million dollar mark for a piece of his work.

Sidney Nolan, Ned Kelly 1946 - National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

This is part of probably his most famous series of work, following the last days of Ned Kelly, a Victorian outlaw who has been the centre of a seemingly frenzied myth-making industry ever since his 1880 execution in Melbourne.  Nolan's grandfather himself was part of the police gang sent into the countryside to track Kelly down.

The black armour with the bleak sunburnt country behind has almost made this painting an iconic piece of Australiana.  So much so, that I was more than pleasantly surprised at the depth and range of the rest of Nolan's retrospective.

Wunderbar.

Welcome To Two Thou Eight

Yes, it has been a while, hasn't it? 2007 was basically my family's annus horribulus, so by the end of it, raking over the coals of two dead grandparents and all the uncertainty of where will we live next week - well, it did feel a game show at some points, hmm. Just needed to take a bit of a break I guess.

So the big news is that the parents have moved, to Woop Woop 90210 (aka halfway to the Sunshine Coast), and because I wouldn't move with them - eight kays away from public transport, and I don't want to have to rely on the taxi service - I had even less time than them to find a rental place. Nundah to be precise, lots of rental places around here, and I must have looked at at least fifty of them online if not in real lol. By myself, which is a positive, with broadband (so am listening to Vancouver radio station at the moment, mmm the accents). Of course, setting the household up basically took all my savings, and the number of arguments with the close friends, well, let's just accentuate the positive :)

Although the New Year has started off delicately in another direction, had a seizure, the first in fourteen months, last weekend. Was all by myself at home as well, until someone decided to put a phone call in and start a general conversation. I was at that babbling stage, and then my parents were on the case and came and picked me up. Feeling uber crappy at work this week, had one day off sick, two doc appointments, one set of blood tests, which are epilim is low, liver count is high, play with the dosage and have more tests in two weeks. Uber crappy...

One two bedroom flat (one bedroom acting as a study) is four weeks bond, two weeks rent in advance, three ute tray loads of furniture from home, one x LCD TV, one x washing machine, one x fridge, one x microwave, one x computer, and endless trips to the supermarket. LOL I have fallen in love with Woolworths.

Work is same old same old. Staff are good, but work is less than good. Hope to have the next social drinks this coming Friday, fingers crossed more than three people will turn up... off to the parents for dinner tonight.

Later taters
Paul