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Joan Miro

History, but not for the faint-hearted

Mature readers click through to see this grisly image in better detail. It is of the execution of François Ravaillac, the assassin of Henri IV of France, in the manner reserved for regicides. You will see there are various stages of the execution played out in the picture, so you get to see before and after the horses tear him limb from limb.

Interesting, huh?

Happy New Year

Sir Walter Raleigh and his son

Happy New Year, dear readers.

Stony ground

Jacopo Robusti detto il Tintoretto - Predica di Cristo (1545 - 1547 ca.)
Venezia, Ca' Rezzonico - Museo del Settecento Veneziano

I was arguing with an atheist today. I left it at the point that the Inquisition and the Crusades were being invoked. It's very difficult to convince some people that Christianity contributed anything to western civilisation. So I gave up and listened to Mozart's Requiem instead.

Wow

I mentioned below that I was happy to celebrate Mervyn Peake's centenary year, and fully intend to visit the exhibition of his work. Browsing the web I came to this site dedicated to him, where I saw the striking image above: Alice coming through the looking glass.

'Suckled on Shadows'

Fuchsia and the villainous Steerpike

I must join in communion with my fellow fans of Mervyn Peake and visit the British Library's exhibition to mark the centenary of his birth. A very great talent, cruelly cut short in life by illness, but leaving behind the masterpiece that is Gormenghast, and a wealth of illustrations.

Who is this?

The answer is Elizabeth Bromley Brown, wife of the artist Ford Maddox Brown, whose series of grand paintings depicting moments from the history of Manchester I have just been marvelling over.

The nature of tax discovered

I saw this James Gillray cartoon on the Online Library of Liberty website (an excellent resource with hundreds of books available for free download), together with some others which are just as great. The resolution here doesn't do it justice, so please go and take a look at a bigger version and the rest.

The straw man of Nuremburg

Whilst searching for an image to illustrate a post on straw men, I came across this fellow, a straw man of another kind. The origin of the picture was a 16th century book known as 'The Nuremburg Chronicle' or else 'Schedel's World History' after the author. I recommend a tour of this interesting site, which is full of amazing illustrations, such as 'headless man', 'umbrella foot' which I know I've seen before, maps (or what passed for thereof), Biblical scenes and much more.

Oil Painting

I have begun to regret my post below featuring the head of Deborah Arnott, realising that I'm going to have to increase my lazy blogging to force it down and off the page, or else have to look at it. Let's face it, she's no oil painting. This, however is - Titian's Venus - so apologies for the post below, I hope this will serve as an antidote.

The sort of filth Dawkins abhores

Raphael's Sistine Madonna. See it before the atheists ban it and burn it.

What is art and what is not

This is an example of art - Giovanni Bellini's 'Drunkenness of Noah' - I could have chosen anything really. This, in contrast, is not art, it's just a bunch of fucking morons with no clothes on.

Ooh, isn't it big!

There is a saying; 'empty vessels make the most noise'. The principle translates into installation art thus: 'if you ain't got nothing to say, make it big!'

Hence we have the unveiling of what Boris Johnson has dubbed the 'Hubble Bubble', a huge scupture for the 2012 London Olympics, which is apparently being backed by Lakshmi Mittal (and you can bet the steel for the structure won't be made in Britain). Not long ago they were talking about installing a massive horse down in Kent. Why? Dunno, but it'll be really big! And then there's Damien Hirst's 'Virgin Mother' monstrosity - oh clever, how you ticked all the boxes there, Damien.

Bollocks to the 'Hubble Bubble'. If you want a symbol, plant a fucking tree.

Virgin? I'm saying nothing

Reading through a volume of English History concerning the late Middle Ages, I noted a reference to Jean Fouquet's painting of the Virgin and Child, dating from 1450, with the part of the former played, according to legend, by Agnes Sorel, mistress to Charles VII of France.

I must say; a very striking image, incredibly modern-looking to my untutored eye. What it lacks in anatomical exactitude, it compensates in style (especially close up - click the link).

Cheer the place up

Lorenzo Lotto's Saint Catherine. Found here.

Mona Lisa's boyfriend

Detail from The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger.