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