CREEPY PORTRAITS

I love family portraits, especially those of evil, deceased matriarchs or patriarchs who continue to inspire fear in the family they left behind. 

Of particular interest are the ones who left a will that constrains the family to live in a gloomy, joyless old house for the rest of their lives. 

Maybe their portraits contain the clues needed to discover a hidden treasure, buried somewhere in the house. 

Poor Aunt Matilda: she greedily stared at her father's portrait for years, hoping to discover its secret. Some say that's how she acquired her father's deviant personality. Others say she went mad. 

A death mask (above) was left behind. The terms of the will required it to hang on the wall overlooking the dinner table.

A greedy relative (above) and her worthless husband once stayed in the house for a summer while they tore apart walls looking for the money. Matilda won't say what happened to them.

Yikes! I'm scaring myself! I think I'll change the subject. Let me lighten things up with this cheery picture (above) of Sadie Hawkins, drawn by Al Capp.

Hmmmm. I wonder what Matilda would have thought of Sadie Hawkins...no wait, I said I'd change the subject.

Okay, I'm leaving now. Bye!

RALPH BAKSHI'S "LAST DAYS OF CONEY ISLAND"

This Sunday I paid a visit to Steve Worth's to see Bakshi's new film, "Last Days of Coney island." I knew the film would be good but I didn't know it would be THAT good.  It was gorgeous! Look at the way the painterly way the characters (above) are handled. Who else does that?  All the way through I kept saying to myself, "This is shocking! Absolutely shocking! I don't believe what I'm seeing!!!"

At the film's end it was clear that, at an age when most animators retire, Ralph had created an industry changing film. It's easily the best thing he's ever done.

The first thing you notice is the color.  Ralph did all of it himself. I've always liked Ralph's paintings...I knew he could  paint...but who knew that he could paint like this? He's raised the color bar for the entire industry. What was acceptable last year will get faint applause after people have seen this film.

By way of an example, check out this bar (above). It's red, like something out of a Nolde painting. Not only that but but the woman behind the bar is wearing a similar red, making the bar shape more complex and interesting. The background is green to make the bar pop out, and even the guy sitting at the bar is wearing a type of green. It's a case where red sits on top of green, and green sits on top of red. It's a nice contrast, and it fits the contrasty story, which is flamboyant and melancholy at the same time.

The film is full of exciting color, like this triad (above) of red, green and purple. The big studios are too timid to try things like this.

You can see the character color a little better here.

The second thing you notice is the cartooning. Everybody who's worked for Ralph has lamented that the public never sees his own sketches and animation, but only other artists' translations. Now we get to see Ralph raw and unfiltered and the experience is vastly entertaining. 'More about this in a minute.

The third thing you notice (and this'll be my final bullet point) is how cinematic the film is. Ralph's always had a knack for editing but here the film is uniquely wedded to what's happening with the color, cartooning and music. I'm not aware that his own paintings have ever been shown to greater advantage. It's "synergy." Ralph's a big believer in the power of combined arts to create something bigger and better than its parts.

 I said I'd return to the subject of Ralph's cartooning and animation. Some of his characters are drawn as if they were made for a pencil test. The characters are outlined carefully, but sometimes have internal lines everywhere, and it works spectacularly.

 The lines don't get in the way, rather they help to give the characters a texture, and color reads better on texture than on a flat ground.

The animation, that's done in Ralph's own style and it's beautiful!!!!! It's alternately smooth and deliberately jerky, and when it needs to be wild a Jimmy Tyre influence comes into play. It conforms neatly to the animator's code which is, "funny drawings that move in a funny way."

To sum it up, THIS FILM LOOKS LIKE IT WAS CREATED BY AN ARTIST! AN HONEST TO GOD ARTIST...and a CARTOONIST, NO LESS! Imagine that! What a rarity! Geez, there are some studios where cartoonists are shot on sight and their bodies fed to sharks. Many thanks to Ralph and the visionary supporters who financed this at Kickstarter!

BTW: The film costs 4 bucks through PayPal and is yours for a week. What a bargain! The link:

https://vimeo.com/ondeman/lastdaysofconeyisland

HOCKNEY LANDSCAPES

I'm not a fan of Hockney's minimalist paintings of naked guys in swimming pools, but I like the landscapes he did later in life.

I think this (above) is from Yorkshire in England. It's an example of intellect and style successfully imposed on nature. It's the way an artist organizes what he sees, and makes it pleasing.

Of course real life (above) is more chaotic and gritty. Plants fight for sunlight, grey overcast skies attempt to snuff out everything underneath...well, not really, but it can feel that way.
 

Here (above) Hockney imposes less order on what he sees. It's beautiful but kind of scary, too.

Above, one more variant. I get the feeling that Hockney has tired of this view and is looking forward to trying something else.

Here (above) we're confronted with the mystery of ordinary life. Massive predatory clouds wonder over fields of dense, complex living things. It's extraordinary and commonplace at the same time.

For comparison, here's (above) a Kandinsky showing riders galloping down a hill. I'm not surprised that so many great abstract artists had a background in landscape painting. It's the ideal subject for abstraction. Nature is full of shapes and colors that contradict and reinforce each other at the same time. It always confronts the viewer with a problem and a challenge.

TIM BISKUP REVISITED

Gee, I like this guy's work. Tim Biskup, I mean. In my opinion he's one of the best painters out there now. 

What I see in Tim's work is an intelligent, civilized mind that delights in fun. Seeing a picture like this (above) reminds me how lucky I am to have five senses. It makes me think of the world as a gourmet feast served up because somebody out there likes us.  

That dripping, green paint is a happy counterpoint to what's underneath.

For me a skull (above) represents mortality and intelligence. To see it covered with painterly color like this celebrates the emotional side of intellect. Since it's a skull it also underlines the tragic nature of our short life span, but offers the consolation of "Think of what you saw. Think of what you experienced. Wasn't it great?"

Haw! It occurs to me that artists usually disavow artsy fartsy explanations like this. 

Here's a photo of Biskup's studio. I love to see artists' workspaces.



 Here's (above) the man himself. Is that April March's music in the background?

PAOLO UCCELLO (1397-1475)

I'm always handy with a tip for a present, especially if the receiver is artsy fartsy, like I am. Well, here's my latest tip,  a reproduction of of one of my favorite paintings (above): Uccello's "Hunt in the Forest" (click to enlarge).

Acording to my net sources, what we know about Uccello comes mostly from Vasari. The painter's described as an amiable recluse with one foot in the old Gothic style and one foot solidly in the Renaissance. He loved the new ideas about perspective, but he also loved the flat, medieval look with it's  patterns and pageantry.

In the end he eclectically combined every influence that interested him, regardless of how out of sync he appeared to others. He paid the price, though. Internet biographies differ about his influence, but most say that no other Renaissance painter appears to have been directly influenced by him. When his time was up, he simply slipped out of history til he was rediscovered in the 19th Century. 

I love the frantic energy in this picture (above), the menacing widescreen forest, and the composition which is simultaneously chaotic and ordered, funny and frightening. The aristocrats and their dogs are at the threshold of a great mystery, but they're so keyed up that they don't seem to notice. There's an air of pageantry about it. The people in their finery are giddy with the excitement of it all, but how will it end? Nobody knows.

Here's a portion of another favorite, "The Battle of San Ramone." It makes a powerful argument for a decorative approach to the depiction of historical events. The lances are great, as are the gold balls (helmets?) that seem to float in the sky. Kandinsky used balls like that in some of his representational pictures. Jack Kirby was partial to them. Now I'm wondering if my own drawings are in need of gold balls.

Incidentally, how do you like the linoleum surface on the ground? I imagine it's there to heighten the perspective.

Here's (above) another portion of the same picture. Why is the face of the Prince so ill-defined? My guess is that Uccello had trouble with realistic human faces, but maybe it's the result of physical damage to the painting.

How do you like the drybrushed cerulean blue on the horse?

Here's (above) Uccello's famous stained glass window showing the Resurrection of Christ. Uccello's discomfort with the human form actually worked for him here. The lack of detail makes Christ's figure seem light and airy. I can only imagine how heavy stain glass windows must have been...I mean, they're made of thick glass and lead...but the whole window seems as light and graceful as a feather here. Once again there's the trappings of pageantry, and the detailed Celtic-type frame reminds us of the power and fun of tradition.

If you buy a poster of this glass window, I recommend that the image be no bigger than a foot long. It should be able to sit modestly, pinned on a cork board, sans frame.

BTW: I intended to link to a site where you could buy these posters, but the reproductions I saw looked horrible. I didn't visit all the possible poster sites, though. Maybe you'll have luck where I didn't.

HITLER'S FAVORITE PAINTERS

I'm always curious to know the favorite media of well-known people, what they watch or read for their own pleasure when they're off the time clock. I know Stalin was partial to John Wayne films, and Maria Callas liked to read Archie comics. Ayn Rand read detective stories. What, I wondered, did Hitler prefer when he was sitting around in his pajamas, just passing the time? Well, I don't know what he read, but thanks to a recent article in Arts and Letters Daily I do know what art he hung in his private rooms.

According to the article, Hitler's favorite artist was a Swiss landscape painter named Arnold Bocklin. Hitler owned Bocklin's most famous picture, "The Isle of the Dead" (above).

Actually Bocklin did several versions of the same picture, all capturing the scene in different light. The one Hitler owned has been lost.

Here's (above) the Bocklin displayed in a place of honor, next to Hitler's fireplace.

Bocklin was interested in the legendary goings-on of the Aryans in old Germany. He was a friend of the Mitford family, who organized expeditions to search for artifacts of old German history, and who had a special interest in the real-life site that inspired the Isle of the Dead painting. That's Hitler sitting next to Unity Mitford above.

Bocklin was a pantheist who believed the forest possessed a kind of vital energy which we, as creatures of the forest, need to connect with to discover our true natures. In the painting above I assume that's Pan in the bushes.

Bocklin's mystical beliefs certainly gave him an edge. If I were looking for something to draw in the outback, I might have passed by this scrub (above) without taking notice. After all, scrub is usually regarded by artists as nothing more than background for really romantic subjects like cliffs and tall oak trees. Bocklin correctly realized that scrub is the heart and soul of the forest, and probably gives as much shelter to animals as trees do.

Bocklin was also fond of the philosopher's landscape (above) where thinking man and nature co-exist in harmony.

Here (above) Bocklin imagines Germanic druids expressing their devotion to the forest gods.

Another favorite was Carl Spitzweg (above). I like Spitzweg too, but I have to admit that he's the kind of artist you like when you're young and still struggling to learn the fundamentals. Hitler's art career was cut off early when that struggle was still with him, and pictures like this might have had sentimental value for him because they reminded him of his youth.

He may also have been fond of Spitzweg because both had the same taste for old, unpretentious urban architecture. If Hitler had remained a painter his style might have taken a direction somewhat like this. This would have caused endless frustration for him as modernism took hold. My guess is that he eventually would have attempted an awkward synthesis of the traditional and modern and come to grief with it.

Spitzweg had another side, which might also have appealed to Hitler. He was a painter of lush, romantic landscapes like the one above.

If posters of the above two Spitzwegs were for sale in retail stores today, my guess is that they'd sell pretty well. They depict the world the way we'd like it to be, and express deep yearning for a calm and rational utopia. It's borderline kitsch, but very appealing at the same time.

Franz Von Stuck (above) is sometimes cited as a favorite of the young Hitler. Over time Von Stuck tried to incorporate modern Deco technique into his canvases (the orange and blue canvas above), which is one of the reasons I thought Hitler might eventually have tried the same synthesis.

Hitler's taste in art did evolve over time. His famous plan for the new Berlin (above, re-named Germania) showed that in his maturity he'd definitely been influenced by Art Deco.

Here's (above) a video commissioned by The History Channel, showing what it would have been like to be a motorist, driving down the main boulevard of Germania. I find this modernist vision to be ugly in the extreme, and not at all consistent with the gentle romanticism favored by Spitzweg.

I agree with Lester who said in a comment that Hitler's heart remained with the Spitzweg style, but there's a lot of evidence that his mature mind was seduced by Deco. A lot of the Nazi propaganda posters were done in that style, and it's difficult to believe that they could have been printed without his approval. .

The mature Hitler is also said to have liked Deco artist Anselm Feuerbach (above), who painted classically-posed contemplative women. A bit cold for my taste. In the 30s and 40s a lot of Germans painted this way, maybe because it was a government approved style. I doubt that Boklin or Spitzweg would have approved.



This Cranach painting (above) hung in one of Hitler's public offices. The painting was a gift and my guess is that Hitler admired it only in a formal way.