At the risk of being risqué

 

An innocent detail that hopefully will not trespass 

on forbidden social media territory.

Since my recent inadvertent trespass into Google's forbidden territory I have become cautious of images that can be taken out of context and the risk of being risqué. 

I trust that the above image will not offend the censors, but I can no longer be sure. What was permissible in the days when Blogger was Blogger, is not permissible now that Blogger is Google. 

On the other hand, Google post images that can be ogled over, but which offend my sense of decency. It's an anomaly that leaves me in a quandary.

What google permits!

The above image is one of many taken at a recent British Virgin Island music festival. They are all posted on Facebook.

Differentiating between model, lover and muse

Study, Torso, Effect of Sun by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1875-76)

I was once asked to differentiate between model, lover and muse. When does one become the other? Without love - albeit platonic - between artist and model very little of real worth can be accomplished. But the transition from model, to lover, to muse is a relationship that seldom materialises. On the other hand, the muse is not necessarily model or lover; at least not in the accepted meaning of lover. 

Once in a while the role muse can be mutual, as was the case between Virgin Island poet Sheila Hyndman and myself. Forty years ago Sheila expressed our creative relationship in her poem "Revelations".

 

I am a seeker of wisdom

You are the active force

That manifests my truths

For the good of humanity.

I am a contemplator of what was and shall be,

You are the revealer of the link that is.

I am of the sky and would flee the cares of men.

You are the Earth, the balance that keeps my sanity.

I am night, the creator of fear and uncertainty

You are the sun, that brings me ecstasy

At the dawn of our union.

I am black with the seed of knowledge

You are fair

And the fire of your purity

Bounds me to the seat of wisdom.

It is possible that Renoir's model for his painting Study, Torso, Effect of Sun fulfilled all three roles. Marguerite Legrand (1856 –1879), known as "Anna", was a nineteen year old seamstress and single parent when she first modelled for Renoir. Sadly she died of smallpox at the age of twenty-three. The painting now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay and her beauty forever lives on.

In my book Notes on the Nude I delve deeper into the relationship between artist and model.

At my carpenter's workbench

Following my recent affray with Goggle, a friend begged me to keep out of trouble. I assured her that for a couple of months I'll put controversial painting and sculpture aside and spend my days content at my carpenter's workbench. But come to think of it, carpentry didn't stop Jesus from saying what had to be said.

The pictures below are from sixty years ago. They show me working in the hold of my barge Brookfoot - a direct descendent of the the square-sail Viking Ships. When I bought her she was carrying 60 tons of coal to Thornhill Power Station. The hold became my studio and with my wife Norma and daughter Diana, we sailed her from England to the canals of France.  

The tools on the workbench are still with me. Along with additional woodworking tools, they have since built four boats and five houses...with lots of mischief along the way!

Triumphs, trials and tribulations

My bas-relief of a rose.

My online diary posts began before the days of Blogger, before the days of YouTube, and before the days of Google. They recorded the triumphs, trials and tribulations of my work as a painter and sculptor. In those days, complaints were in the public domain, by way of a letter to the press or a dissenting voice at a meeting. Hence, the artist had a means of countering criticism. But that has changed. 

A week ago, in all innocence, I posted a picture created by one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century. To my mind, it was brave, profound and beautiful. But alas, the image fell foul of social media censors with the result that all my Google accounts were closed pending an appeal. It's a frightening scenario!

I trust that this week's image - my bas-relief of a rose - will not result in further trials and tribulations. 

Calling Vietnam

In the heart of Saigon, S&S Art Gallery.

Over the last few weeks my blog has been inundated with page views from Vietnam. An indication that my posts go beyond friends, family and my small island in the Caribbean. 

I would love to hear from my far and wide follows. What attracts you to my work? I welcome your feedback.

Insights: curtesy of lovers, muses and models.

Nude:  Amedeo Modigliani

Valeria Parisi's film, Maverick Modigliani, is narrated from the point of view of his common-law wife. That being one of the reasons why it has been damned by many critics. The New York Times called it a textbook outline of how not to film the life of a legendary artist. 

I beg to differ: first hand insights from lovers, muses and models are worth more than the all the fine-art academia conjectures put together. Even the film's pointless youth-skateboarding linkages are no worse than the usual art documentary continuity device that shows the unconvincing hand of an extra carefully applying paint to a canvas. 

The prolific art forger's contribution stressing that speed is of the essence gives an accurate insight. Artists don't dawdle, they paint with a passion. Many of his successful Modigliani forgeries were knocked off in thirty minutes. Quite possibly, that was the time it took the artist to paint the originals. 

If only we had a first hand account from Leonardo's model for the Mona Lisa. And on that score, I still subscribe to the possibility of her being the baker's wife. 

My book Notes on the Nude delves deeper into the contribution of the artist's lover, muse and model.

The passage of time

Fifty years separate me in the photo above and me in the self portrait below. Other than the transition from red to white, not much else has changed. 

My fling with flowers

 

Click on the image to view the video

My fling with flowers further demonstrates my way of rapidly working in watercolour. For these paintings I am quite literally, flinging paint on the paper and scribbling in the ink lines, wet on wet. 

In my younger days I stove for an exact botanical rendering, But now that I'm in my eighties, I realise that life is of the essence. 

The sculptor Jacob Epstein, claimed that he has earned more from his flower paintings than what he had earned from his controversial nudes. Perhaps I'll find the same.

Throwing off all restraint

A flower.

For my video Variations on a Theme, by way of the abstract, I threw off all the restraints associated with depicting a certain piece of the female anatomy. The paintings were elusive to the extent that few viewers could fathom them out. Therefore, instead of inducing shock and horror, they attracted favourable comment as to the beauty of line and colour. They also sneaked by social media censors. 

In contrast, my interpretation of flowers, if assembled in a similar collage, might be damned by the "isn't that pretty" beautificationists. 

In point of fact, there's no difference between the two. Both celebrate the raw beauty of nature.

Under my nose

Each morning, when I open my studio door, this is the view that greets me. Within the confusion of its component parts, right there under my nose, in the first rays of sunlight, are countless subjects for my paintings. Furthermore, unlike the complication of arranging and paying for a model, they are there for the asking.

Breaking the Ice

A rough note jotted down on paper.

A video I am working on is about the creative relationship between artist and model. It begins with a twenty minute trail session for a new model. The purpose of the session is to break the ice. I spend most of the session giving the model words of encouragement. The painting is secondary; it amounts to no more than a rough note jotted down on paper. The challenge is how to capture the hesitancy of both artists and model in random words and fleeting moving images. I know what I'm after, but achieving it won't be easy. 

Annihilating a whole oppressive culture.

The girl with dark hair was coming towards him across the field. With what seemed a single movement she tore off her clothes and flung them disdainfully aside. Her body was white and smooth, but it aroused no desire in him, indeed he barely looked at it. What overwhelmed him in that instant was admiration for the gesture with which she had thrown her clothes aside. With all its grace and carelessness it seemed to annihilate a whole oppressive culture, a whole system of thought. (George Orwell, 1984) 

Life-size sculpture of my idylic bathing figure.

My 1989 diary refers to a similar scene while sketching on a riverside in Grenada.

One day, a young woman, undeterred by the teasing of her mates, planted down her basket of washing on a boulder close to my chosen spot.  I rapidly made sketch after sketch until she had scrubbed, beaten, and rinsed her last item.   But her day’s wash didn’t end there, for she next deftly took off her dress and added that to the wash.  Then, unabashed, she soaped herself down and - using a calabash bowl as a ladle - knelt and poured the cooling river water over her naked body.

Prêt-à-porter

Robert Altman’s film Prêt-à-Porter is a stylish and sexy satire on the fashion industry.  The catwalk scene with a difference brought home to me what I've been getting at all along, that being: the human body is less sexually alluring nude than when scantily dressed. 

For the fashion houses the catwalk model has to be devoid of personality. She serves only as a stereotype clothes hanger. But what we see here is a refreshing change. No high heels, no make-up, no spindly ectomorphic figures, no weird costumes. Nothing distracts from the innocent beauty of the nude. The scene bowled me over and made me realise that my interest is not in fashion per se, but in the beauty that lies beneath.  

The nude is truely prêt-à-porter (ready to wear). 

ÔøΩ ÔøΩphanous

 

The bronze torso of my wife Denise drapped with clinging cotton voile.

Diaphanous is derived from the Greek word diaphanes. The prefix dia- means "through", and ÔøΩ ÔøΩphanous means "to show or to make visible". Thus, diaphanous translates directly as "to show through". 

Clinging drapery on the nude figure is a sensuous device that reveals rather than conceals. The scantily clad figure is more sexually provocative than the nude. By partially concealing the model’s attributes by what the French call Draperie mouillée the nude form becomes all the more alluring. It also suggests movement.

This leads me back to my Bare Minimum fashion designs and the allurement of the fleeting glimpse. A video of the collection is one of my works in progress. The word ''video'' is appropriate as it is derived from the Latin videre ''to see''.

Venus Genetrix (Roman, 100-200 A.D.) 

Based on a Greek sculpture created in about 410 B.C.

Out of the blue

There is a connection between my sculpture for the West Yorkshire town of Sowerby Bridge, my painting of the Yorkshire moors, and the photograph of my mother (first on left) when she worked as a mill girl in the Yorkshire mills.

The connection is a request that came a few days ago out of the pale blue of my native West Riding of Yorkshire and into the brilliant blue of my adopted Caribbean. 

That's all for now, but I will connect the dots in a future blog post.