Monday 29 March 2010

Manet versus Degas


These two old dandies stuck it out in Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and I like them for that. Some 'revolutionaries' like Courbet and Zola scarpered out of Paris before the siege began. This painting is somewhere in a Japanese private collection now. They fell out over it as Manet thought that Degas made his wife look plain and dowdy, and himself lazy and bourgeois- so he slashed it. Degas offered to return a small painting of plums which Manet had given him, but Manet told him to keep it. Degas took the portrait back to repair, but never got round to finishing it. They didn't talk much after the episode.

Sunday 14 March 2010

Google Image of Franklin Carmichael


Is one course of action for 'image' painters to simply re-use any photograph that is of interest to them, sourced from the internet? Here is an image used by Peter Doig, of the Canadian painter Franklin Carmichael. I don't know where Doig sourced his image from, but it is out there amongst the millions available through Google Image. When I was at art college, working from photographs was frowned upon.

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Wrestling Arena Munich 72

Untitled work


Second small painting after collage work, based on the wrestling arena at Munich 72 Games. I coincidently recall afterwards that some Israeli wrestlers were amongst the victims of the Black September terrorist attack on the Olympic village.