Sunday, May 31, 2015

Le salon

I was inspired in 2000 to do photographic derivatives of Balthus. I wrote about it here, and here. Had I not noticed that Balthus image and article in the February 2001 New York Times I would have never known. That is the price (ignorance) one must pay in not having had an arts education.

Luckily for me my "inquietudes", (a word in Spanish that does not exactly translate as uneasiness but is about the restlesness someone with artistic, even if slight sensibilities might experience) could be shared with my friend Helen who eagerly volunteered for my derivations.

Balthus, Le Salon 1942

More recently a North Vancouver librarian and I worked on some Edward Hopper. With my perennial subject/model Bronwen I found this that had a hint of Hopper.

In today's Sunday NY Times Book Review I read of an unknown American artist (unknown to this unwashed one) Thomas Hart Benton who did have some issues in portraying the Japanese during WWII and similar ones with African/Americans. But his oil painting on canvas Hollywood charmed me. Perhaps a project inspired by it might be beyond my capacity now. And yet. The problem these days is that the increased isolation of someone over 70 from the scheme of city life has left me bereft of willing subjects with which I can explore my inquietudes

Thomas Hart Benton, American (1889-1975). Hollywood, 1937-1938. Tempera with oil on canvas (mounted on plywood panel), 56 x 84 inches (142.2 x 213.4 cm). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Bequest of the artist.,