The Temptation Of Eve

For a guy who isn't Christian, I sure like me some Christian imagery.  This is another tiny panel (5 inches high and 3.75 inches across) that I started a long time ago, then got distracted by other things and never followed up on.

I once was in a relationship with someone else's wife (actually it was the first of two such affairs in my life, where I was "the other man", but anyway).  She was unhappy in her marriage.  She was bored and frustrated with her strait-laced, hidebound husband and feeling trapped.  I guess she found my somewhat unconventional style fresh and interesting, a kind of escape valve from her stifling situation.  As for me, I found her beautiful and sexy, and maybe I was just a little flattered that someone so attractive would be attracted to me as well.

And it's true what they say about creative artists and their muses.  Her beauty has since informed all my subsequent imagery of female nude figures, be they Eves, Venuses, or just anonymous ideals.

[An amusing side note:  Some time after we started our relationship, I gave her a handmade card with the image of myself as the Serpent, offering the Fruit of Knowledge to her (the Serpent finally had arms!).  She loved it, and was particularly tickled by the fact that I had made a point of coloring us with slightly different complexions (she was Caucasian)^.  She gave it to a friend to keep though, as she was afraid of her hubby finding it.

Related post:  And Some More... Old Art

The Fall Of Lucifer

Something I started years ago, inspired by William Blake's Bible illustrations and -- well, pretty much everything else he did - and also Max Beckmann's Falling Man (with apologies to both masters).  I just took it out and dusted it off today.  I quite like the conceptualization;  I don't remember why I rolled it up and put it away unfinished.

That broken chain around Lucifer's ankle may have been a mistake, though.  It isn't really necessary to show his subjugation, and it kind of makes it seem he is hanging rather than falling.  I'm going to have to paint it out.  Also, I'm going to add stars to the space around him, to show he is falling through material space, having been cast out of God's spiritual realm.  The strange mechanistic shapes to either side are intended to show that the Bright One has been exiled to the world of reason and material law -- our human world that is -- which Blake equated to hell.

Related post:  Devil on the Floor;  The Temptation Of Eve;  And Some More... Old Art

Some Really Old Art

This figure was planned to be one of two panels flanking a larger central panel.  I started the project (and never even got close to finishing it) during a period when I was especially enamored of the painters of 15th and 16th century northern Europe (I still am, but since then I have somewhat broadened my horizons to include others).

While I am a great admirer of the heroic figures painted by Michelangelo and other Italian artists of the Renaissance, I have always also been strongly drawn to the delicate figures of the Northern Renaissance painters.  Maybe it's because in their visualizations of the human body the Northerners didn't seem to niggle over brick-by-brick anatomy so much -- their idea of anatomy in a sense was the polar opposite of the Italian tradition;  it was of the perfection of thought made visible, not an idealization of the flesh from the ground up to meet the spirit.  With this I think one of my favorites, William Blake, would have agreed;  he also admired Michelangelo's (or Michael Angelo's, as he would have spelled the name) figures, but he naturally preferred the supra-physical linearity of Gothic figures, and combined them in a personal synthesis of the thick and heroic, with and the sinuous and graceful.


Related posts:  Eve #1;  Eve #2

Some 'Lost' Old Art

AND A CURIOUS MISTAKE



This piece was the central attraction at a show I had way back when, at the Simard & Halm gallery (which no longer exists). It was during a troubled and somewhat desperate time for me, and when it was sold I was only too glad to get the money; I didn't bother asking who the buyer was (I suppose I just assumed I could always ask later, only the gallery soon went out of business and I gradually lost contact with Mssrs. Simard and Halm), nor did I remember to document it; so all I have are these low-quality images from a magazine review. Which is why I say it's 'lost'.

It's a kind of temple-mandala-stupa with four sides, with three of its sides showing images with dreamlike -- or nightmarish -- themes:   St. Anthony assailed by devils;   a nude and rather voluptuous St. Margaret with a dragon;   a toy airplane in both the actual (sculpted) and dream (painted) versions (check here: Dreaming Lucid) -- and the fourth side was open, revealing a hollow interior in which hangs what might be a skinned carcass (not shown in these photos); all very Vajrayana Buddhist if you ask me, despite the presence of Christian saints.

What I only just realized today is that the figure of St. Anthony (right panel in the first photo) is mislabeled as 'Jacob' -- I literally just realized the error as I was preparing to upload these pictures. Given that the Temptation of St. Anthony is a major theme in Christian art, the story of Jacob is also famous, and I am well familiar with both, it is strange that I should have conflated the two. But then, as I stated at the beginning, this all happened during a period in which I was beset with issues.

One last thing -- it was never quite finished. I was seriously pressed for time, and in the mad rush to get the piece into a presentable state for the gallery opening, I had to cut a few corners; that is why the base and the plaques bearing the sub-titles are so plain and simple, in contrast to the rich ornamentation in the rest of the piece. Had I had more time to work on it, everything would have been as elaborately finished as the main 'building'. In fact, I was still touching up the St. Margaret panel when guests started arriving. Later the curator chucklingly told me that some of them noticed the paint was still wet.

More Old Art

THE BIRTH OF VENUS

Among the comments I probably overheard at the opening of this group show:

#1. "Men tend to eroticize the anima"

#2, "Are those organs?"

#3. "Wonder if his girlfriend posed for it (giggle)"

#4. "It's too busy; too many things going on"

#5. "Ha ha, I love it"

#6. "Why did he paint her on book pages?"


Responses:

#1. Yes, we do.

#2. Yes, they are.

#3. Yes and no;  someone I was in a relationship with did serve as the model, but I had to change some things because she didn't want to be recognized by her husband.

#4. Yes, it's true.

#5. Yes, it's lovely.

#6. So that it would look intellectual instead of pornographic.

And Some More... Old Art

'THE TEMPTATION OF EVE'

Painted on a mask about 3.5 inches in height, this is the closest I've come to painting a miniature.

Edit: It occurs to me that at this pre-Fall stage the Serpent still had limbs... Oh, well.

Double Portrait

That's me and the missus. She doubles as my chief bodyguard. Aren't we cute?

Speaking of Dragons...

More Old Art from back when I still painted somewhat regularly

For a non-(formally)religious guy, I sure love religious imagery. I was trying my hand at a version of the Fall of the Rebel Angels. This is the upper half of a very long painting, showing Michael the Archangel triumphant over the Devil (in the guise of a hydra-like serpent/dragon); I'm not sure if it's proper to show the Devil beheaded, though -- wouldn't that imply that the Devil was not just defeated, but completely destroyed? Maybe I should have just shown him stabbed through the eye or something.

Yeah, I know the photo quality is crappy. It's partly because the surface of the painting was deliberately maltreated to make it look like an old, peeling fresco, and partly because I took this shot in situ at a gallery, where it was impossible to control the lighting conditions.

Oh wait, I forgot that the Devil in this painting has two heads -- it's hard to see in this image, but it's there, right below that severed head. So it's O.K. -- the Devil may have lost one of his heads, but he has another in reserve. Wouldn't want Ol' Scratch gone, you know...

Eve

REASON AND INSTINCT, LOFTY AND BASE

It's been seven months since I moved into this loft, and I'm still unpacking. I just came across this photo of a small panel of 'Eve' I worked on years ago. It was never quite finished (the common fate of many of my projects), but I actually like it this way. I wish I knew where the actual painting is.

EDIT:  Found it.