#The Three Odalisques

[balletthebestphotographs]

Valeriya Bespalova

Valeriya Bespalova Валерия Беспалова as one of “The Three Odalisques”, “Le Corsaire Корсар”, choreo by Jules Perrot, Marius Petipa and Pyotr Gusev Петр Гусев, libretto by Jules Henri Vernoy de Saint Georges and Joseph Mazilier, edited by Yury Slonimsky Юрий Слонимский and Pyotr Gusev Петр Гусев, music by Adolphe Adam, Cesare Pugni, Léo Delibes, Riccardo Drigo and Pyotr Oldenburg Петр Ольденбургский, Mariinsky Ballet Мариинский театр, Saint Petersburg, Russia (October 30-31, 2024; New Stage).

Source and more info at: Photographer Aleksandr Neff on Facebook Photographer Aleksandr Neff on Instagram Photographer Aleksandr Neff on VKontakte

via Valeriya Bespalova on Instagram

[johnwickb1tsch]

lessons in anatomy

an art professor Wick x drawing model muse! reader AU...

I.

-You’re a favorite amongst the studio art students at the university where you model. Not because of your looks, but because of your exceptional ability at sitting still. When you retreat inside your mind and you’re sitting in a position that doesn’t have any pinch points, you can go a solid hour without moving a muscle. 

-Maybe it helps, that you were once an art student too. You’ve studied the classical positions immortalized by the greats. The drama of the Renaissance martyrs to the quiet repose of the Impressionists to the silent anguish of the Pre Raphaelites. You do a damn good Odalisque, if you don’t say so yourself.

-You’ve been doing this for a while, and you’re pretty comfortable with it. That is, until you walk into the first day of Figure Drawing 101 to find the most handsome man you’ve ever seen behind the desk–decidedly not the usual portly, gray-haired, female professor who hired you years ago. He is tall, and dark, with soulful black eyes that make your lady parts ache. It’s incredibly embarrassing when your mitt veritably disappears in his in a cordial handshake (good lord, what poetic, long-fingered hands!) and you almost forget your own name. 

-He is incredibly gracious about your impression of a goldfish at feeding time. Undoubtedly, he’s used to this effect he has on women. Deep down, he must be laughing at you, and this more than anything helps you get a grip as you disappear into your little supply closet to change. 

-You emerge in your pretty paisley-print robe that sweeps the floor, and you realize you haven’t been nervous about taking off your clothes in class since your very first day on this job. Your palms are actually sweating, as you perch on the model stand with your legs crossed, watching him out the corner of your eye. He is stupidly dapper, in a dark tweed suit and tie. His hair swings down into his eyes as he reads something on his desk, and you’re not proud of what you would give for the privilege to run your fingers through that fluffy dark hair. 

-Thoroughly disgusted with yourself, you’re grateful when it’s time for class to begin. You’re surrounded by young adults who are [mostly] eager to learn with charcoal in hand. All eyes are on you, but its Professor Wick’s eyes you feel like a weight on your skin when the robe slides from your shoulders. You are so glad you can blame the air conditioning for your state of…attention. 

-You start with quick warm ups, then some five minute studies, and finally an extended pose with small breaks in between. When the kids take a break in the middle of the three hour period you slide back on your robe and make a round of the room, perusing the sketches. You can already tell who will be at the top of the class, but also who has potential for improvement if they work hard and practice. And some…better be good at math, because art is not their thing.

You do not hear him behind you, until he speaks. “I'm not sure how your clavicle could be at that angle…unless it was broken in two places.” You cover your smile with your hand as you glance back over your shoulder at him, a hot blush spreading like wildfire up your neck for some ridiculous reason. 

Mere proximity, you fear.

“Maybe their professor will set them straight.”

He chuckles with a charming self-deprecation that you find painfully endearing, scrubbing the back of his neck. 

“I like to see where everyone stands on the first day. I promise that lessons in anatomy will be forthcoming.” He only meets your eyes for a bare second as he tells you this, but you are astonished you do not spontaneously combust.

TBC...

___

masterlist/chapter map

pinterest board/photo credits

[thebrickinbrick]

Preliminary Gayeties, Part 2

"Besides, Laigle de Meaux, that bald-head, offends my sight. It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that baldy. However, I criticise, but I do not insult. The universe is what it is. I speak here without evil intent and to ease my conscience. Receive, Eternal Father, the assurance of my distinguished consideration. Ah! by all the saints of Olympus and by all the gods of paradise, I was not intended to be a Parisian, that is to say, to rebound forever, like a shuttlecock between two battledores, from the group of the loungers to the group of the roysterers. I was made to be a Turk, watching oriental houris all day long, executing those exquisite Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a Beauceron peasant, or a Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentlewoman, or a petty German prince, furnishing the half of a foot-soldier to the Germanic confederation, and occupying his leisure with drying his breeches on his hedge, that is to say, his frontier. Those are the positions for which I was born! Yes, I have said a Turk, and I will not retract. I do not understand how people can habitually take Turks in bad part; Mohammed had his good points; respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises with odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is ornamented with a hen-roost! Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they are going to fight, all those imbeciles, and to break each other’s profiles and to massacre each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might go off with a creature on their arm, to breathe the immense heaps of new-mown hay in the meadows! Really, people do commit altogether too many follies. An old broken lantern which I have just seen at a bric-à-brac merchant’s suggests a reflection to my mind; it is time to enlighten the human race. Yes, behold me sad again. That’s what comes of swallowing an oyster and a revolution the wrong way! I am growing melancholy once more. Oh! frightful old world. People strive, turn each other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used to it!”

And Grantaire, after this fit of eloquence, had a fit of coughing, which was well earned.

“À propos of revolution,” said Joly, “it is decidedly abberent that Barius is in lub.”

“Does any one know with whom?” demanded Laigle.

“Do.”

“No?”

“Do! I tell you.”

“Marius’ love affairs!” exclaimed Grantaire. “I can imagine it. Marius is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race of poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, Tymbræus Apollo. Marius and his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette. They must make a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven. They are souls possessed of senses. They lie among the stars.”

Grantaire was attacking his second bottle and, possibly, his second harangue, when a new personage emerged from the square aperture of the stairs. It was a boy less than ten years of age, ragged, very small, yellow, with an odd phiz, a vivacious eye, an enormous amount of hair drenched with rain, and wearing a contented air.

The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed himself to Laigle de Meaux.

“Are you Monsieur Bossuet?”

“That is my nickname,” replied Laigle. ���What do you want with me?”

“This. A tall blonde fellow on the boulevard said to me: ‘Do you know Mother Hucheloup?’ I said: ‘Yes, Rue Chanvrerie, the old man’s widow;’ he said to me: ‘Go there. There you will find M. Bossuet. Tell him from me: “A B C”.’ It’s a joke that they’re playing on you, isn’t it. He gave me ten sous.”

“Joly, lend me ten sous,” said Laigle; and, turning to Grantaire: “Grantaire, lend me ten sous.”

This made twenty sous, which Laigle handed to the lad.

“Thank you, sir,” said the urchin.

“What is your name?” inquired Laigle.

“Navet, Gavroche’s friend.”

“Stay with us,” said Laigle.

“Breakfast with us,” said Grantaire.

The child replied:—

“I can’t, I belong in the procession, I’m the one to shout ‘Down with Polignac!’”

And executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is the most respectful of all possible salutes, he took his departure.

[evolvingsidekick]

YAGP Phoenix Jan 17–19, 2025

MBA:

Sylvie Win Szyndlar: Solitude (Catherine Lewellen)

Sylvie Win Szyndlar: Magic Within Me (Chantel Aguirre)

Sylvie Win Szyndlar: White Swan (Crystal Huang)

#86 Sylvie Win Szyndlar: La Esmeralda

#107: Sylvie Win Szyndlar: Satanella

#120 Sylvie Win Szyndlar: Graduation Ball

Violet Marti: Interstellar (Rasta Thomas)

#121 Violet Marti: Raymonda

#143 Violet Marti: Talisman

Ophelia Thiem: Swan (Ophelia Thiem)

#129 Ophelia Thiem: Talisman

#150 Ophelia Thiem: Paquita

Ellary Day Szyndlar: Where the Truth is Held (Chantel Aguirre)

Ellary Day Szyndlar: Eternal Struggle (Hanna Brictson)

Ellary Day Szyndlar: Chrysalis (Crystal Huang)

#158 Ellary Day Szyndlar: Medora

#173 Ellary Day Szyndlar: Talisman

#190 Ellary Day Szyndlar: Paquita

Victoria Carrillo: Lost and Never Found (Harrison Stevenson)

Victoria Carrillo: Kolysanka (Jason Coosner)

#165 Victoria Carrillo: Harlequinade

#185 Victoria Carrillo: La Esmeralda

#94 Riley Jones: Paquita

Sasha Ellis: Labyrinth (Brooke Anderson)

#198 Sasha Ellis: Paquita

#236 Sasha Ellis: Kitri Act III

Taylor Cucci: Rispetto (Michael Crawford)

#201 Taylor Cucci: Grand Pas Classique

#239 Taylor Cucci: Three Odalisque

Nikolas Adarmes: Untamed (Leonidas Adarmes)

#243 Nikolas Adarmes: Franz Coppelia

Channing Dennis: Rediscovering (Erina Ueda)

#246 Channing Dennis: Paquita

#279 Channing Dennis: Coppelia

Ella Isaac: Solo (Erina Ueda)

#251 Ella Isaac: La Esmeralda

#284 Ella Isaac: Coppelia

Sabrina Dorsey: Mindscape (Erina Ueda)

#254 Sabrina Dorsey: Raymonda

#287 Sabrina Dorsey: Paquita

Natan Grzybowski: Solo (Myles Lavallee)

#266 Natan Grzybowski: Talisman

#298 Natan Grzybowski: Paquita

#378 Ellary Day Szyndlar, Sylvie Win Szyndlar: Mercy on Me (Jennifer Peterson)

#396 Ellary Day Szyndlar, Natan Grzybowski: Ensemble

#397 Channing Dennis, Felipe Ramos: The Nutcracker Suite PDD

#398 Jake Cohen, Sabrina Dorsey: Le Corsaire PDD

#400 Ophelia Thiem, Raphael Ollert: The Artist's Little Dancer (Ophelia Thiem, Raphael Ollert)

#388 Ellary Day Szyndlar, Natan Grzybowski, Sylvie Win Szyndlar: Ensemble

#381 Channing Dennis, Natan Grzybowski, Sabrina Dorsey: Don Q Excerpts

#389 Aubrey Nieson, Carlo Vela, Emma Sautia, Lily Hennessy, Ruby Stewart, Victoria Carrillo, Violet Marti: Waves Of Change (Harrison Stevenson)

Club dance:

Harper Schwalb: In the Light of the Moon (Jenn Peterson)

Harper Schwalb: Final Waltz (Chelsea Jennings)

#91 Harper Schwalb: La Esmeralda

#115 Harper Schwalb; Raymonda Act 1 Pizzicato

Bella Linman: In the Light of the Moon (Jenn Peterson)

Bella Linman: Fawn (Jenn Peterson)

#117 Bella Linman: Lilac Fairy

#92 Bella Linman: Paquita

Aspen Brandt: Solo (Jenn Peterson)

Tatum Self: Spectrum of Love (Chelsea Jennings)

#88 Tatum Self: Cupid

#113 Tatum Self: Pas D'esclave

Lucia Piedrahita: Heartstrings (Jessie James)

Lucia Piedrahita: Mad Virtuoso (Jordan Pelliteri)

#127 Lucia Piedrahita: Gamzatti

#151 Lucia Piedrahita: Giselle

Libby Johnson: Embers (Avery Stamm, Reina Stamm)

Libby Johnson: Crippled Bird (Jaycee Wilkins)

#130 Libby Johnson: La Fille Mal Gardee

#152 Libby Johnson: Paquita

Ellie Self: Emergence (Brittany Lents)

#167 Ellie Self: Cupid

#187 Ellie Self: Pas D'esclave

Brooklyn Besch: A Dream Discarded (Jenn Peterson)

#169 Brooklyn Besch: Talisman

#189 Brooklyn Besch: Raymonda Act 1 Pizzicato

Larkin:

Maylin Munos: Fading Soul (Mackenzie Larkin)

Maylin Munos: Still (Shelby Feddema)

#122 Maylin Munos: Le Corsaire

#144 Maylin Munos: Coppelia

Neala Murphy: Silent Memory (Mackenzie Larkin)

Neala Murphy: Arms Length (Chelsea Jennings)

#125 Neala Murphy: Cupid

#147 Neala Murphy: La Esmeralda

Elia Cocchiarella: Dreams (Mackenzie Larkin)

#137 Elia Cocchiarella: Flames of Paris

Leah Pribyl: Reflection (Mackenzie Larkin)

Leah Pribyl: My Heart (Shelby Feddema)

#159 Leah Pribyl: Raymonda

#179 Leah Pribyl: Princess Florine

Vera Souvannavong: Loom (Mackenzie Larkin)

Vera Souvannavong: The Light (Mackenzie Larkin)

#161 Vera Souvannavong: Medora

#181 Vera Souvannavong: Cupid

Hailey Turnbull: The Aching (Madison Paulson)

Hailey Turnbull: Unbound Grace (Mackenzie Larkin)

#163 Hailey Turnbull: Medora

#183 Hailey Turnbull: Paquita

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Halloween (9) Masterlist

part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight

a scent and a sound (i'm lost and i'm found) (ao3) - SylvesterLester

Summary: Something strange is happening to Phil.

an odalisque, au naturale (ao3) - queerofcups

Summary: So a doll and a nun walk into a Halloween Party

Creature of the Night (ao3) - obsessive-fics (xoPrincessKayxo)

Summary: Phil is the monster under Dan's bed

crossing the bar, seizing the day (ao3) - jestbee

Summary: Phil doesn't know how he ended up blowing a Sim in the toilets of the student union bar.

Dress (ao3) - ForeverJustAnEmoKidAtHeart

Summary: After the Halloween Baking video, Sister Daniel has some fun with Phil and Phil… Well, Phil should just be glad he made it through the end of the filming.

hotter than i've ever been (ao3) - dizzy

Summary: Halloween is strong drinks and a balmy late night breeze and Dan ripping his fishnets then laughing until he cries about it.

Impulse Buy (ao3) - sleepyslag (galacticneighbor)

Summary: Dan needs new underwear to go under his Halloween costume. 4,000 miles away, Phil wants to see them.

Made for Each Other (ao3) - BREAD2000yeet

Summary: Dan and Phil 2009 Halloween YouTube meetup but it's insanely sweet. Based off some of the videos other people uploaded of them standing off alone during it. More emo boys kissing vibes.

Marigold (ao3) - Mysticallykai

Summary: When a haunting tune plagues Phil nightly, he turns to his family for help. But it seems like only he can hear it. Is he going crazy? Or is there more to the song than there seems?

They Did the Monster Mash (ao3) - tellsfromhale

Summary: Dan and Phil decorate for Halloween.

Trick or Treat (ao3) - Bandom_Squirrel

Summary: Maybe Phil just thinks it would be cute to see Dan hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.

You're Supposed To Be Scared Of Me (ao3) - skygremlin

Summary: The year is 2016, and when the news isn't talking about Brexit or Donald Trump, all eyes are on the wave of mysterious and sometimes murderous clowns taking over the streets.

Dan doesn't pay attention to the fearmongering on the news. If he ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, so be it.

[ahb-writes]

Comics Review: 'The Grand Odalisque' & 'Olympia'

The Grand Odalisque & Olympia by Bastien Vivès, Florent Ruppert, Jérôme Mulot

anthology

burglary

European comics

thief

My Rating: 2 of 5 stars

Carole is the experienced thief; she's a skilled planner and knows precisely how to take control of the room. Sam is the muscle; she's practical, rides motorcycles for stunt work, and is good at pretending she isn't nervous. Alex is an irrepressible idiot. Insisting these three women broach some semblance of camaraderie to steal a few massive paintings from Paris' most respected art institutions is a difficult ask.

The Grand Odalisque and Olympia are an impatient gamble. These graphic novels feature art that teases beautiful colors and a remarkable architectural design aesthetic. The book also wields deliberately formless character art with washed-out facial expressions, which leaves readers with a plethora of continuity errors, awkward exchanges, and unintentional comedy. The graphic novels feed a duplicitous cycle of characters consistently bailing one another out of their own messes. Carole, Sam, and Alex comprise a fun but frustrating, exciting but chaotic cocktail of marginally plausible art thievery.

Stealing giant paintings from famous French galleries is all fun and games until your inexhaustibly simpleminded partner forgets her cue. Plundering the wealthy under the guise of party shenanigans is a daring enterprise until the French Special Forces raid the dang place. Plotting a massive, three-part heist of the Petit Palais makes for good exercise until you remember (a) one of your partners is nine months pregnant and (b) a mafia assassin is sleeping on your couch, just in case things go sideways.

The duology makes for a quick, enjoyable read. And although one might readily roll their eyes at the prospect of three bickering women being capable of pulling off such feats, the books' primary delights rest in the artful framing of each heist rather than their sloppy execution.

The books' occasionally spectacular environmental design come very close to convincing readers that each book's character development isn't as terrible as it really is.

The side-room to a flourishing European disco is flush with green lighting and floral ambiance. The glass ceiling of an art museum shatters, scattering thousands of shrapnel over twisted and expressionless marble statues. The background art is delightful. But it's a distraction.

In between detailed, wide-angle shots of grand museum architecture, one finds characters who stumble, repeatedly, and complicate an otherwise feasible narrative. Some characters are solid. Sam is tough but insecure, and despite regularly being labeled the crew's getaway driver, offers plenty of skill and support in the way of strength and flexibility. But on the other end of the spectrum, Alex is a waste of space.

The sad truth is that Alex is profoundly incompetent. Typically, the creative team weds her naïve and spontaneous disposition to the story's blunt humor (e.g., faking attraction to an assassin to get his guard down), but more often than not it sidetracks the narrative in excruciatingly cancerous ways. For example, Alex derails a plan to break into the Louvre by flying to western Mexico to save a gun runner she doesn't know but insists she's in love with, or, in the titles' opening scene, ignoring Carole's call for help because she's busy fighting with a non-boyfriend over a text message.

One finds it hard to trust the character dynamics when one-third of the equation routinely sabotages the remaining two-thirds.

To wit, Carole is the star: She gets the blueprints, she calls the weapons dealers, she negotiates with black-market brokers, and she's adaptable when her partners invariably screw things up. Where Alex privileges recklessness (e.g., alcohol, drugs, astonishing feats of clumsiness), Carole exerts impulse control. And where Sam goes wide-eyed with uncertainty (e.g., fretting over splintering the crew's goal), Carole reminds the women that levelheadedness typically wins the day.

If either The Grand Odalisque or Olympia narrowed their point of view to focus exclusively on Carole, then the narrative would've gained far more than it would have lost. The graphic novels conjure clever criminal activities beneath a colorful tapestry native to whatever French museum happens to be within the sights of these three ladies. Also, the comic books offer brief but kinetic action, as well as a few cool chase scenes, albeit relegated to each tome's Third Act. In the end, after arduously side-stepping Alex's rife stupidity, which tangles much of the narrative, one finds the books are quite entertaining.

❯ ❯ Comics Reviews

[anjelalala]

Daria Kulikova

Coryphée of Mariinsky Theatre

Dainty... Delight... Darling Dasha!

All photos are from her IG account.

My personal new favorite Mariinsky ballerina. Born in moscow, she spent 7yrs at Bolshoi Ballet Academy, Dasha made a big decision to transfer to Vaganova Ballet on her final year under Yulia Kasenkova's class, and was invited to be part of Mariinsky corps de ballet after her graduation on 2023.

Coached by Margarita Kullik, Daria first debut at her first season as Masha from Nutcracker. Part of her repertoire is Queen of the Dryads, Juliet's companion, Three odalisque, Prince's friends, and recently Princess Florine.

Although early to tell, she has potential and charisma, i only hope to see her improve and progress in her career, also to have a strong healthy mind and body. I wish her luck and toi toi toi! 🩰

[uselessdancedata]

Pre-comp repertoire:

Coppelia 1st act variation

Cupid Don Quixote

Fairy Doll

Flower Festival at Genzano Pas de deux variations

Giselle Peasant pas de deux variations

Graduation Ball pas de deux variations

Harlequinade pas de deux variations

La Bayadere Three Shade variations

La Fille Mal Gardee pas de deux variations

Le Corsaire Odalisque variations

Paquita all (excl. principal) variations

Raymonda all (excl. principal) variations

Swan Lake pas de trois variations

Flames of Paris pas de deux variations

Sleeping Beuty fairies and bluebird oas de deux variations

ah yeah that is definitely more than 10 I was way off 😭 thanks for this!

they still have a lot less to choose from than the seniors though, that's still true

[balletthebestphotographs]

Alisa Khayrnasova Алиса Хайрнасова

Alisa Khayrnasova (Rusina) Алиса Хайрнасова (Русина) as one of “The Three Odalisques”, “Schéhérazade Шехеразада”, choreo by Mikhail Fokine (1910) reconstruction by Isabelle Fokine and Andris Liepa Андрис Лиепа (1994), music by Nikolay Rimsky Korsakov Николай Римский Корсаков, set and costume design by Anna Nezhnaya Анна Нежная, Anatoly Nezhny Анатолий Нежный (original set by Léon Bakst Леон Бакст), Mariinsky Ballet Мариинский театр, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

Source and more info at: Photographer Aleksandr Neff on Facebook Photographer Aleksandr Neff on Instagram Photographer Aleksandr Neff on VKontakte via: Alisa Khayrnasova (Rusina) on Instagram

Note I: This blog is open to receiving and considering any suggestions, contributions, and/or criticisms that may help correct mistakes or improve its content. Comments are available to any visitor.

Note II: Original quality of photographs might be affected by compression algorithm of the website where they are hosted.

[libidomechanica]

“Who want took advantage”

A Meredith sonnet sequence

               1

Our humble salve which I should that which was   to blame, for aught it not sleep she sped, is   most sweet odours to a shrink—what care of thine. Who want took advantage! The inherit, and Taste, is lying idle. I have   him smiles to the Skies, where on lattice edge   like death and too long the Lucius Junius Brutus of the amorous o’erflow. And the angels’ trumpet down tents. Love were   ingage, proves their happening ring, if ye gie   a woman’s horn, batt’ning men, she dead ride not to her bed, and ill. Easy to under fingers; th’ inestimately   thought, seemed too by your lovers like an   empty bee that our breath The name flowers they could flowers of the largeness of Lead?

               2

’ ‘My fault beeing to all one small: little hearse.   This explicit sadness. As many reason   be taught, and passions and Trumps the same fair she-world, on conditional and signal conversation. Giving and command   met her Heaven looked himselfe beleeue that they?   And in the white, that words of lighter the anger more! To say prayed, as Argus was gone out, and the flocke of the shine with weak   as everywhere! And sensuall eares and   bones to interpret God them back when some respects and then rent her Victim of her Force, from God made where he said One who mends   of bane: want my knee designs and make a   fish. Walls mount looks from the voice within the Sylphids, to stand, so little hair behind!

               3

Destined not that rubs its eclipse, and the   full consecrates have climax of his   Princess cramped understand—better fits himself had streets, after flight and flow: a hollow sky, she shadow of three horses that   has slave, those look’d about the forms go by,   and brave. To dust of helth. Too sopping; just as his lastly on earth and what longer; and the take Lodgings in Battel seize hairs   less in losing me in their Doom; and subside.   And therefore, Charms conceits your Chief th’ unequal Fight, while amid the number’d Throne. My scholar, and the individual   with Ribs of Whale. Hine oath, must thy   joes hae sent from all honour of the skie doth beating rage inside the other’s dart.

               4

And here so wonder and mean to labour   and torture at the fierce inscription waits   to Day. In sorrows, such as forehead’s smooth- sliding shade, glittering levin, that all; old I am desolate to Fate, thou   like an all he promise you and Infidels   adore. Glory the same sweet ecstasy complain, the fiddling both attends a bee circle and talk seem’d to dedicate   your flocks the first who, his presentful,   impatience. And sobbed us so, thus beguiles: she courteous, even a sprights my soul is every woman, she’sgane, and walk   upon thy gentler day; and lose convent,   studies as we once again, on every moment that keep your worthy bidden field.

               5

Grows here! To pluck the colors, all things, the   eye and build a bonny footsteps to flit   in a circling to him time to clear as human voice is to make the foremost faith, the score years fortitude, lest Glory of   my spirit’s plait then? Turn thee thou less   glorious Off’rings are fair days are more these just what: but like a lewde lust, may yet hangs freedom, wisdom, Better were engraved invite   so easy thing, with me and passions   fly, thy Eyes first and fine; brother: keeps chance in the accents of a nobler age; when I kiss dropped, and all thy charm that I have   done. Up-locked through windows of thine. Give me   here gratefulnesse the way to live. Night Militia of these were a little Booke.

               6

I weene the hallan, a child, and to thy   golden bow Oh, tis we, who made my Grandsire,   thou not! This Lock, this Morning I wrote should be alwaies free shallow rivers tost a barre again: find the woodmen hearth in   two should he, if I could not his face more,   far from the night as Vision sets us praised her country; no tears the enduring passed a dreame. The Sonne betray’d to rival   brine sleek Odalisques, or for buttondown,   and fame you go the heard grow to use. In mystic Vision of her stops of various dews began to those follows many   lies—the string? As yet lifts and dear delight,   while I am forst the trains may have been worships it. She sat in crystal Dome.

               7

To scorn Two Pages and elbowing thin!   Lifting to a slope of change and Absál   the Prize aspire them—sometimes of milk shalt win much morning passed over, and send the golden day. And leany knaues, tho’ Honour   of the gray barbarous isles of birth; and,   asleep: vainly no great master-hands, and have seen fanning better grant Steams she said, My life, I am tough Walebone. And   said she, now breaking each others could see   to spreads her hearth, and twenty summits old in skin like a key in skins, raw fresh wood and my breast, to say: That is not his peer.   ’Er thy ruling Spoil. And wins oh shame one   Spirit should not half his soul and on the day three Realms obey, dost someone elbows.

               8

Happy starv’d, ’mid a’ this my Mother-sisters   of his lip should yede, thou hast making   one, since she, and there he saw fair starv’d betwixt. Cried Misery, or under the If and Why I loved you. Their Insect-Wings unfold,   when not for the dusky strange Poet-   princely pow’r of mincing fire with the less: some thrid the cometh not, how hollow smoke … no, it’s hardly credible how it all   the gate is the world. You should be call? That   was wonder I seemed about hope all the people apart, but Homer’s keen beyond more I cry, less the Prize is my delicious   part, thou iollye shepheards were one who   expectation times, tongue aspire to the natural order festers, Stars, to die. Forsworn.

               9

And gold, upon thee I so belonging.   Slighted, a breath, whose words, were late the night,   nor wish is under the figured, and try to the rocks, seeing the lowe, and half for thy feete are sped; and also the Pythian   of thee from Psyche, Ah—Melissa—you!   Gossips wan they: alas that in the bar, a blank; it fall out you, when the other’s breast. That keep Cease, bright of him: when his know   she’d just behind he thatch upon the rope   that heart is she! All you can emeral insect the uncouth, twas really see, doe not with tender voice might all the giddy   Motion seat your sight, music driving words,   weep and on the night and well at cloud of him too, and forefingers brought in her kind.

               10

We pull; fair Tresses from the lawful things   were stars to the least encumbered winged reeds,   like a wafu’ man was. And we as right across the Course of Christian woman than Christ was as rich, after all, and thing of   the rest. Thunderous fond will be paid thou   less thy middle jimp wi’ a langer and they to where was uprights came: but live, performing bubbling never: our sin, nor the   one who under thing all the warm serge gown   master, Sirens thy Children—that might’st help to make these Eyes are wrong’d me, if one, including me,—That is not set you only   crueltie farre worship him, it is the church,   refusing is in thee—behold the mesh, their fasting the slouches on all the wind fall.

               11

Our telephone for very loud about   the sky, where this same film over, if you   like pale jessamine, for such as he light of succeeding on delight at you and my most beauteous Grief to face be to me!   And lodge such as charge to disrupt your   adventrous world’s bitter at lineaments, like breath. No witch, haunting lies, all morn before thanke, to recover of broken fence, and   the windchime into the expire, to blind   old man, womankind, I do change of thy right arbour, yet of hand is, the dear. And braes, wi’ hawthorns gray, that sun thine on her   the air this faire with gold; a belt of such   a wretched for Love’s Elysian ground, one Arm held in story, by thy soul at all.

               12

She said: “And she hurricane all night— ouf!   That the long retreats of roses fed, but   shepherds came invisible because I take Physick, other lips, nor can intent sane and many wished—our kirtle embroidered   all to Locks, and you feel the order   fill’d in man’s statues, musical of milk and why should I presume? Ladies still musical of monk, you still some lived with his   Tongues, which suns perisheth on the fair   philosophies th’ expressive Embleme. The dizzy proceeds, and funked; the thing down Armies in mockery of flesh, you   the two. Not by the window-panes; there was   more the shore, and in hell on Earth am rotten by name. He waters Matron’s Ears.

               13

That while night across the Gift away: they   did draw, rot inward clime, he touch solitude!   Wine wither. Fresh from side by side, that manacles for kisses breast. Of the balmy Rest. I tossed with Secretary Sis   to catch the hills bend there footless for wider   carnage taught of lost Lady Blanche. A breath sweet, scramble at the song oared a narrownes you knead me and many lies a   brother within the softer voice is but   fount, anxious Cause, you through Love’s stands upon thy aid, my flash, their laws, and weetles,—blind and equipp’d a Camel tumble down with   that he should kisse. Be done. As where’s naked   love must need thou Air, and loved so she well: and I said so dear the laughs at home!

[balletomaneblog]

Please, share some news and your thoughts on Vaganova last graduation performance! I'm really curious to know where are the girls going! I know that from Kasenkova's class, she always show much support to Kulikova, Karamysheva, Sharova, Rissanen and Kuprina (though she's going to the BT). So my guess is, if the MT is taking four girls this year, it will be them. But it's just a guess anyway... but I hope it happens. They are good, but aren't much in the spotlight compared to the ones going to BT

I enjoyed the graduation performances, the students all performed wonderfully. Their cleanliness on stage made me feel like it was close to watching a professional company's performance. I especially enjoyed Koshkareva and Kodama-Pomfret's grand pas de deux, Risannen's variation, and Valiulina and Kulikova's variations. Kuprina also performed beautifully, though I thought she especially didn't get enough time on stage.

I enjoyed them bringing back the Laurencia Wedding scene which hasn't been put on in full by Vaganova since 2015. And having the Lively Garden from Le Corsaire was entirely new to the Vaganova.

However, I was hoping for a three-act performance like they've had in many past years. Even though they did Paquita three years in a row (2017-2019), now that it's been four years I would have liked for them to perform it since it gives so many dancers an opportunity for featured roles. It would have also been wonderful for them to do the Kingdom of the Shades which I believe hasn't been put on since 2011 with Shapran and Smirnova as Nikiya. There isn't often that Vaganova has a dancer mature and talented enough to perform the role, and I think there were quite a few graduates this year who could have done it, especially Kuprina or Koshkareva.

Really, my reasoning for wanting more pieces in the graduation shows are that the 8th year and 7th year classes are so so strong and there were so many girls that could have been featured more heavily. Even Kuprina and Koshkareva had only one relatively short appearance each compared to star graduates in the past who either had many different roles or one large leading role. However Kuprina, Koshkareva, and Barinova all shared the spotlight in Le Corsaire and then that was it for them.

I was also disappointed with how little Karamysheva was used. Her only featured role was as one of the Four Girls in Laurencia. Karamysheva would have made a beautiful Gulnare, 1st Odalisque, or Pasquala.

I'm still not positive where Karamysheva, Sharova, and Rissanen are going, but I know for sure now that Kulikova is going to the Mariinsky! Thank goodness with Kuprina, Koshkareva, and Valiullina all going to the Bolshoi. Hopefully Karamysheva, Sharova, and Rissanen were invited too. We'll see!

But even if some of them weren't accepted, it's definitely not the end of the world! Dancers who haven't been the absolute best in their graduating class who have gone to smaller theaters have often done very well. There's Lada Sartakova ('21) as a first soloist at the Primorsky, Mara Tudose ('21) as a leading soloist at the Eifman, Polina Chekhoviskikh ('20) as a soloist at Samara, and Maria Arseneva ('19) as a soloist at Novosibirsk to name just a few of the most recent ones!

[ashleytrainor]

Post #1: On Experiencing Art Museums

In the time we have been in Paris thus far, we have been able to see artwork at both the Louvre and the Musee d’Orsay. Overall my experiences at both museums were incredible as I was able to see pieces of art that I had viewed for my whole life on a computer screen or in a book. I was also able to experience new artworks that were equally as influential and beautiful including several works by Jaques Louis David that I had not seen before. In the Louvre, seeing The Great Odalisque and learning about its history was very interesting.

In the Musee d'Orsay, I found Luncheon on the Grass by Edouard Manet, created in 1863, to be a particularly fascinating painting. Being able to listen to Dr. Kraus explain the painting and further researching the elements of design in this artwork has helped me to understand the meaning of this painting. This oil on canvas painting in the realism style depicts four people, two men and two women in a forest with water near them. Three of the individuals appear to be having a picnic while one is seen walking towards them from the other. The people in this painting fill most of it with their belongings and fruit filling the space near them. There is negative space in the painting that is filled with the green space of nature, grass, and trees. The women are shown being cast in bright light with shadows being seen under parts of their bodies, giving a more three-dimensional appearance. The proportions are off in this painting, indicating that the perspective is also off as the man’s thumb is larger than normal and the woman in the back appears to be too large for the distance she is at. The people are arranged in a triangular perspective with the woman in white being at the top of the triangle. The main colors shown in this painting are the blue of the woman’s clothes, the green of the surrounding nature, the beige of the people’s skin, as well as the brown and black of the men’s clothing. The painting shows heavier brushstrokes which is indicative of the Realism style and show that it has moved past the neoclassical style of smooth paintings. It is of particular interest that the two men are completely clothed while the woman sitting with them is fully naked and the other woman is dressed more provocatively for the time. The naked woman sitting with clothed men makes this piece provocative and suggests an absence of classical context. At the time of this painting, this was very problematic as the naked woman was a modern female rather than the goddesses who were celebrated when nude. This painting was Manet’s refusal to conform to academic art as he painted a scene of everday life with a naked modern woman. 

Prior to this program, I had an appreciation for art that was very surface level as I was only able to look at it and appreciate its beauty without knowledge of the elements of design that are so crucial to art. Learning these things in class and applying this newfound knowledge to the art pieces I have been able to see in person has strengthened my appreciation for the art itself. I have found that I understand the perspective of the artist better and can determine the meaning that the artist intended when creating the artwork. I grew up with a parent who wanted to instill an appreciation for art in me from a young age and this was something that I have developed over time but being able to understand the art on a deeper level has strengthened my appreciation for it significantly. (636 Words)

[evolvingsidekick]

Just some entries for YAGP Las Vegas, Pittsburgh & Chicago Jan 23-26

Las Vegas:

Ophelia Thiem – Swan (self choreo age 11!!), Talisman, Paquita

Melina Biltz – Dakiti (Yadiel Figueroa), Kitri Act III

Peyton Nowacki – Succession (Quinn Callahan)

Tiara Sherman – Spain in Blue (Quinn Callahan)

Pittsburgh:

Mikaela Florez – The Rise (Victor Smalley), La Esmeralda

Giada Reino – Morpheus (Holly Ryder), Jester (Jordan Pelliteri), Harlequinade, La Fille Mal Gardee

Bella Rose Penrose – Moonlight (Chelsea Sebes), Kitri Act III, Aurora Act III

Chicago:

Juliette Balija – Sunflood, Humming Star (Christa Smutek), Cupid

Savannah Jackson – No More Tears (Chelsea Jennings), Veiled (Mackenzie Larkin), La Fille Mal Gardee, La Esmeralda

Scarlett Manzel – Reminisce (Mackenzie Larkin), A Thousand Steps (Chelsea Jennings), Paquita

Lilly Anderson – My Love (Chelsea Jennings), Maybe This Time (Michele Larkin), Bridesmaid, Paquita

Malia Scott – Wild is the Wind (Chelsea Jennings), Inner Voice (Chelsea Jennings), Gamzatti

Aurielle Balija – Fluid (Christa Smutek), Voila (Hanna Brictson), Kitri Act III, Gamzatti

Kya Massimino – No Other Path (s/c), Solo (Victor Smalley), La Fille Mal Gardee, Paquita

Taylor Cucci – Rispetto (Michael Crawford), Grand Pas Classique, Three Odalisque

[alchemisland]

Some brutal nation

Some brutal nation subjugating neighbours

Stripping naked, upbraiding

Finally raping and hanging captors

Not only way but their way

Inherited from violent forebears

Inherited bearing becomes weighted burden

Ass asked to bear until death, tare of legacy

Horseback archers rare skills surpassing

Indeed, anpiels in blazing!

By amazing speed melding

It seem’d, with wielded weapons, spun mithrils.

.

Gilt conveyance graced with Inanna’s painted face

Spiralbound ivory frames, at corners housing flameflecked gems

Taking the field lupine Sennacherib and fifty three times men

Arrows gelled with venom slathered in salival death

Each breath spent cursing, enemies to all Eden

Despising freedom’s every seedling.

.

Berserkers bowing wolf king peacock

Divers temper movable as the ridden cockhorse’s tracks

What lacks in Mercury exalts in red Mars

His word scarring brand

His band land’s scourge

Discouraging travel and trade

Destroying terrains by torch

Leaving behind rainless plains further scorched

Endorsing hatred in every name and guise

Scalding Adam’s Sons, harrying Edom.

.

Sennacherib feasts during battle

Death dulcifying apple segments, like red-rounded lunula

Speckled eggs eaten off an armless odalisque’s legs

Odd, malformed concubines of a world-tired conqueror

Women and men splayed bring to pleasure donkeys

Some bearing forth children half-bay, born to graves

Whiskey brought from Ogygia, which he briskly sips at until tipsy

Falling chair to bed, one tenth of those he wedded waiting

Eager to sate his titanic lusts.

.

Gales briskly tracing faces of gyring buzzards

Blustering against his summer tent’s walls

Multicoloured striations, like a thing painted

Pentagons couple-coloured foolmotley rolandfarter

Turtle’s shell harbouring stained glass wonders

Culminating to a minaret

King’s grandest lazaretto, on high bluff overlooking throes

Casting force careless, stones into oceans thrown

Skips uncounted

Tired of bounty yet abounding amount

Has not counted him satisfied, nor slaked brute ambition.

.

A redoubt stately and vain, fain envy inducing

Mirthful to him as it is menacing to attendants

Its floor sod, earth itself

Letting his chasuble’s dragging hem turn dirt

Which he herded sheep over, once

What felt another lifetime ago

All let go, water flowing but forward.

.

Appearing to himself from the tent’s corners

He had ferried here myriad busts

From kingdom’s interior hauled, with difficulty

To the perilous frontline, that he would indulge

Even his most needless need kens his divinity.

.

He Assyrian Sennacherib

Whom Byron described a wolf, cutlass-toothed

Whose crib a fierce Mac Tíre’s teat

Whose seat high Assyria

Feared by warlike nations

His voice clanking chains, angel-enraging

Hell’s tendering his cavalries mustering, thunderous

Mustard yellow throat of doublet, scarlet below

Rousing singularly, placid minds enflaming with warlike tendency

He is delivered, an Ifrit with fire imprinting battlelines

Stoking rivalries between tribes, reddening the Euphrates for Nergal.

.

Delivering a speech

Moving slowly, deliberately

To supreme ovation

No wasted rotation

Sleeves yawning open ovals, silken cavemouths

Vast carriage chariot arrayed in golden livery

Winding train like wagons parading new trades routes

Worshipful beard, a Lear in aspect

Curly, red-flecked black and trained to a fork

Like a place of folkloric devildealing.

.

All war’s rules repeals, ruled by greedy Mars

His armies’ steels thirst to bleed infidels

First through the breach, delving over corpses rubbled-shrouded

In the houses of foreign gods despoiling goods-laden altars

Sundering exalted statues and assaulting holy virgins

For use only by Jove and chosen acolytes, high priests

Pray to the bodiless ankles of smashed marbles

Weeping, marvels an age surviving tossed aside like garbage.

.

When considerate, pulls beard’s frays

Phrase to lips presaged by dour countenance

Feared pronouncements the rout of principals

Palanquin pulled by red-eyed foals, kin to Diomedes’ mares

Gross throne footed by foes’ skulls

Skin still peeling from some, sun defaced

Blood spatters the stair thereto.

.

Granted courage and strength by terrible Gods

Chaotes in mighty motions alike to a Charybdis

Daring’s surfeit every naked surface of their bodies

Riding into battle, warriors without armour

Save armlets and protection-bestowing wode spiral

Coming army unlike lacking rank, banner, livery

Ants akin in disorganised harmony.

[pissmd]

The man’s Work was amateurish, she’d seen, when Orin had had his brother — the unretarded one — lend them some of The Mad Stork’s Read-Only copies. Was amateurish the right word? More like the work of a brilliant optician and technician who was an amateur at any kind of real communication. Technically gorgeous, the Work, with lighting and angles planned out to the frame. But oddly hollow, empty, no sense of dramatic towardness — no narrative movement toward a real story; no emotional movement toward an audience. Like conversing with a prisoner through that plastic screen using phones, the upperclassman Molly Notkin had said of Incandenza’s early oeuvre. Joelle thought them more like a very smart person conversing with himself. She thought of the significance of the moniker ‘Himself.’ Cold. Pre-Nuptial Agreement of Heaven and Hell — mordant, sophisticated, campy, hip, cynical, technically mind-bending; but cold, amateurish, hidden: no risk of empathy with the Job-like protagonist, whom she felt like the audience was induced to regard like somebody sitting atop a dunk-tank. The lampoons of ‘inverted’ genres: archly funny and sometimes insightful but with something provisional about them, like the finger-exercises of someone promising who refused to really sit down and play something to test that promise. Even as an undergrad Joelle’d been convinced that parodists were no better than camp-followers in ironic masks, satires usually the work of people with nothing new themselves to say.³⁰⁶ ‘The Medusa v. the Odalisque’ — cold, allusive, inbent, hostile: the only feeling for the audience one of contempt, the meta-audience in the film’s theater presented as objects long before they turn to blind stone.

But there had been flashes of something else. Even in the early oeuvre, before Himself made the leap to narratively anticonfluential but unironic melodrama she helped prolong the arc of, where he dropped the technical fireworks and tried to make characters move, however inconclusively, and showed courage, abandoned everything he did well and willingly took the risk of appearing amateurish (which he had). But even in the early Work — flashes of something. Very hidden and quick. Almost furtive. She noticed them only when alone, watching, without Orin and his rheostat’s dimmer, the living room’s lights up high like she liked them, liked to see herself and everything else in the room with the viewer — Orin liked to sit in the dark and enter what he watched, his jaw slackening, a child raised on multi-channel cable TV. But Joelle began — on repeated viewing whose original purpose was to study how the man had blocked out scenes, for an Advanced Storyboard course she went the extra click in — she began to see little flashes of something. The M v. O.’s three quick cuts to the sides of the gorgeous combatants’ faces, twisted past recognition with some kind of torment. Each cut to a flash of pained face had followed the crash of a petrified spectator toppling over in her chair. Three split-seconds, no more, of glimpses of facial pain. And not pain at wounds — they never touched each other, whirling with mirrors and blades; the defenses of both were impenetrable. More like as if what their beauty was doing to those drawn to watch it ate them alive, up there on stage, the flashes seemed to suggest. But just three flashes, each almost subliminally quick. Accidents? But not one shot or cut in the whole queer cold film was accidental — the thing was clearly s-boarded frame by frame. Must have taken hundreds of hours. Astounding technical anality. Joelle kept trying to Pause the cartridge on the flashes of facial torment, but these were the early days of InterLace cartridges, and the Pause still distorted the screen just enough to keep her from seeing what she wanted to study. Plus she got the creepy feeling the man had upped the film-speed in these few-frame human flashes, to thwart just such study. It was like he couldn’t help putting human flashes in, but he wanted to get them in as quickly and unstudyably as possible, as if they compromised him somehow.

306. Some of her and Jim’s best arguments had been over the connotations of ‘Everybody’s a critic,’ which Jim had liked to repeat with all different shades and pitches of ironic double-edge.

— David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

[exhibit-of-the-century]

Lecture Notes MON 27th NOV

Masterlist

BUY ME A COFFEE

Doing Art History: Painting 2

French Art in the 19th century was heavily focused on Establishment painting, which is painting through patronage and academic painting type. However, while that type of painting was typical at the time, Avant-Garde (favouring or introducing new and experimental ideas and methods.) was coming in and reshaping art.

Leon Bonnat is one of these older French artists upholding academic painting, he was the default portraitist, especially for well-known and important figures.

Léon Bonnat, Louis Pasteur and his Granddaughter Camille Vallery-Radot, 1886, oil on canvas, Musée Pasteur

Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, 1889. Oil on canvas, 60.5 x 50 cm, Courtauld

Now look at Vincent Van Gogh and his self-portrait, made just three years later. Comparing the two artists, one is clearly far more Linear and the other Painterly. Bonnat was trained to paint in this style, the lack of eye contact from Pasteur gives him a thoughtful occupied academic look, while his granddaughters presence makes him appear as a family man. Moreover, she retains eye contact with the viewer, affirming the position of the viewer, bringing them in. While Van Gogh’s eye contact is far more subjective and debatable, to me he’s dissociating, looking far into the world, and lost to his mind. Ruminating if you will.

Which one do you refer? To what degree does an artist need to be trained/know painting to be good?

During this time historically there were new developments in colour and out understanding of the eye and retina: the prism, retinal imagery, etc.

Another Establishment artist: Alexandre Cabanel

Alexandre Cabanel, Birth of Venus, 1863, oil on canvas, 130 x 225 cm, Orsay

Consider the touch and tension, the fluidity of the painting.

Perhaps a feminist reading of the painting, as suggested by the lecturer was that to a 19t century audience, her nudeness and laid-back nature is one of relaxation. And while a 19th century lady would’ve had many layers of clothing, this nudeness would’ve appeared as freeing. However, there is something to say on a male artist telling a woman how to relax.

Although there is something to be said between nude bodies being depicted as opposed to a naked body. Nude: clothes in conversation of Western art, is depicted and painted as if the subject had never worn clothes and is idealised, by the skill of the painter. This painting is an example of that. Naked: is far less idealised, one that implies a body that has worn clothes before or even has some featured around somewhere in the painting. It might even appear dirty, and far more realistic.

Compared to Olympia, you can observe the difference between a nude and naked body.

 Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863, 130 x 190 cm, Orsay

The painting is linear, her gaze directed at the viewer, she’s sitting up in confrontation. A painting that’s non-allegorical, she is supposedly a prostitute, while unusual for nudes, she created quite a reaction from contemporary audiences. Critics considered her to have armpit hair even, with the way Manet painted her. They also criticised her femininity, as long flowing hair was a far more associated trait with femineity. Here she has hair bunched, and it almost disappears into the background, they claimed it made her look bald and dirty. This is very clearly a naked body as she has left over items of clothing on her, which imply the existence of clothes.

The person of colour featured in the painting is considered the attendant to the lady laying on the bed, as many brothels employed people of colour.

Orientalism:

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Moorish Bath, 1870., Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Renoir, Odalisque, 1870. Oil on canvas, 69.2 x 122.6 cm , National Gallery Washington D.C.

Monet and Renoir were known to paint together, a good example of this are these two paintings of a boat house/boating place. They set up easels next to one another, creating similar but certainly different, emphatic paintings. Creating simple figures but different renderings, creating suggestions of figures. What is a finished work?

Sketch aesthetic: quick lines, shapes, casual blotting of colour, considered thoughtless. But focusing on mood and atmosphere more than anything. Created by the light, colour, weather – was always a race against the changing weather for the painters to capture.

This creates an individual experience for each viewer, applying and projecting personal experience onto the works, this was probably one of the great aspects and playing into impressionism. This temperament probably didn’t benefit the critics, but made art form a greater connection to that of the masses.

(Left) Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Grenouillère, 1869, oil on canvas (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow (Right) Claude Monet, Bathers at La Grenouillère, 1869, oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm (National Gallery, London)

Recommended further reading: The Painter of Modern Life, Charles Baudelaire, 1863 Part 1, 2, 3

Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 48 x 63 cm., Marmotton Paris

(Left) Monet, La Gare Saint-Lazare à l'Extérieur (Le Signal), 1877 , musée d'État de Basse-Saxe (Right) Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare (or Interior View of the Gare Saint-Lazare, the Auteuil Line), 1877, oil on canvas, 75 x 104 cm (Musée d’Orsay)

Completed as a series of studies of the La Gare Saint-Lazare, these paintings depict a modern life. Especially the one on the left, depicting perhaps an underside of modern life, through the choice of colour palette the painting evokes a dangerous atmosphere. And in some cases, lacks colour, depicting a fiery railway station and perhaps the underbelly a hellish side of the Industrial Revolution. The painting holds a certain thickness, with the figures reminiscent of the architecture, almost dehumanising the modern industry. Although, this thickness presents challenge, like the opacity of the piece, falling short in seeing and the lack of colour legibility. Monet manages to capture something visceral in the smoke.

Claude Monet, The Gare St. Lazare, 1877. Oil on canvas, 54.3 × 73.6 cm. The National Gallery of Art, London, Room 44

His style, while baring the characteristics of Impressionism also hold a certain pattern of texture, as he repeats the technique and repeats the textural pattern in his paintings. Not only in the smoke but in the landscape also.

(Left) Monet, Le matin au bord de la mer, 1881. Oil on canvas, 61 x 81 cm, Private Collection (Right) Monet, Falaises des petites dalles, 1880. Oil on canvas. 59 x 75 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Claude Monet, La Falaise à Varengeville, 1882. Oil on canvas. 64.8 x 81.3 cm. Private Collection, USA

Claude Monet, Water-Lilies, after 1916. Oil on canvas, 200.7 × 426.7 cm. The National Gallery of Art, London, Room 41

1916 post-war Water Lillies were created by Monet as a symbol for peace and his response to WW1.

Berthe Morisot, The Wet Nurse and Julie, 1879 , 50 x 61 cm. Private Collection

Morisot was an upper-class woman, and to me this painting is a radical one. This is her wet nurse, feeding Morisot’s daughter, who is painting them. An example of a modern woman, critics didn’t wish to comment on her pieces due to liking her and believed Impressionism to be an art for women. Due to its atmospheric importance, and emotion behind it.

Georges Seurat, Bathers at Asnieres, 1884, National Gallery, 201 x 300 cm

Seurat, A Sunday on the grand Jatte, 1884. 207 x 308 cm., Art Institute of Chicago

Seurat was considered more of a post-impressionist (or neo impressionist), in the sense that he just came after the impressionists did. During this time pointillism was becoming a trend within art, due to the sciences attempting to link the arts into a more “disciplined art”. This art was considered mechanical and scientific in its creation, with the single dots that made up and blending at a distance. Although this creates a linear painting, making it static and like the bodies are mannequins.

Paul Seurat. Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp, 1885. 64.8 × 81.6 cm. The National Gallery of Art, London, Room 43

Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892, oil on burlap mounted on canvas, 116.05 x 134.62 x 13.34 cm (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY)

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Nevermore, 1897, The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

Gaugin’s Nevermore, was created by Gaugin when he was visiting certain islands, expecting to find an untouched paradise. When he arrived to find a colonised land that was not that primitive, there he used women to establish a place for himself and used the relationships with them to survive. These paintings in fact, are an example of that. His critics claimed his art appeared primitive, the opposite of civilised in this case, with the flat colours and basic shapes, although going against the common nude depictions.