I'm returning to my mini-theme of portraiture by a roundabout route. In my next post I'll put up some portraits by the naive painter Henri Rousseau (1844–1910); but first I'm posting a different aspect of his work. Rousseau is far better known for some of the most popular and memorable paintings of the modern era. He is celebrated for his visionary jungle paintings that captivate the viewer with the lushness of their plant and animal life painted with incredible detail and precision. Extraordinarily the artist never saw the tropical scenes he brought so much to life, as he never left France. His exotic jungle paintings are the fantasies of a city dweller, constructed from visits to the zoo and botanical gardens, from postcards, books and from Rousseau’s vivid imagination. These jungles have intrigued people for decades, offering a dream of escape from humdrum reality to a savage and yet enchanting realm.
Rousseau’s unique vision was celebrated by his modernist contemporaries like Pablo Picasso and the surrealists René Magritte and Max Ernst, who saw his work as opening up new realms of artistic possibility. They were particularly fascinated by his bold, primitive style and the dream-like nature of his paintings. For a customs official who was self-taught and only took up painting full-time in retirement, this was an extraordinary accomplishment.
This post isn't meant to be flippant in the light of the stream of bad news that keeps coming from Pakistan. Now contending with the human disaster of the monsoon floods, and the seemingly endless reports of terrorist bombs in the larger cities of Pakistan might make it seem like a bad time to be looking at a lighter side of the nature of Pakistan, but I think it's a valid point.
Pakistani truckers consider their vehicles as national symbols and make it a competition as to who has the most fabulous truck. Owners often spend over $3000 on paint and metal designs for their vehicles, which can be many times their monthly salary. Truck art started as a way to differentiate trucks in Pakistan from those in India after the countries split in 1947. Many of the treasured vehicles have an average age of 30 years and every part is replaced to keep the vehicle running as long as possible.
I love these painted vehicles, it's real folk art done with aplomb. I think there are many similarities with the old gypsy caravan painting and fairground art in this country. In Pakistan it's like the 60's and the Hippy trail never died.
Following my post about the minimal portraiture style of the contemporary artist Julian Opie, I thought I'd thought I'd contrast his work with the self-portraits of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). She was born and raised near Mexico City and married the famous painter and muralist Diego Rivera. Frida was the third daughter of a Hungarian-Jewish father and a Spanish-Mexican mother. She grew up in the midst of the Mexican Revolution, and throughout her life she would face many struggles. At the age of 6, she contracted Polio. Some also speculate she also had spina bifida. Her original passion was not to be a painter, but to work in medicine.
Unfortunately, at the age of 18, she was in a bus accident where she suffered from severe injuries including a broken spinal chord, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, and fractures in her right leg. As a result of this accident, her uterus was also damaged, and she would lose the ability to reproduce. She was not able to accept this until many later years later, and eventually was able to conceive only to miscarry. Although she would eventually heal form the accident, its memory caused her much trauma and she would often have painful relapses.
From this accident, though, Frida began her painting career. Confined to a hospital bed, wearing casts that limited her mobility, Frida began painting to pass the time and to deal with her suffering. Her paintings were heavily influenced by traditional Mexican art and consisted of 2-D images in vibrant and bold colors. She painted 155 paintings, with about a third of them being dedicated to self-portraits. Her pain, miscarriage, and marital difficulties with Diego Rivera were often depicted.
She travelled to America in her later life with Diego, and held art exhibitions in New York. She gained some popularity in the 1940’s, but it was not until a revival of the feminist movements in the 1980’s did she gain more fame, many years after her death. She suffered from cancer, and died at the age of 47.
Following on from my last post featuring portraits by the contemporary artist Julian Opie, I thought I'd show another main aspect of his work, his figures. Very minimalised, the heads of his figures become detached circles. Some are paintings, others neon lights, some computer animated.
And finally, on a lighter note, I knew I'd seen this theme somewhere before!
Julian Opie (born 1958) is a contemporary English artist. Julian Opie was born in London and raised in Oxford. He is a graduate of Goldsmiths College (1979-82) and achieved some early gallery success, which was an incentive for slightly younger artists in the same college, such as Damien Hirst to do likewise.
His highly stylised work, involves the reduction of photographs (or short films) into figurative reproductions (created using computer software). In his portraiture, the human face is characterised by black outlines with flat areas of colour, and minimalised detail, to the extent that an eye can become a just the black circle of the pupil, and sometimes a head is represented by a circle with a space where the neck would be. In this way, Julian Opie tries to present the complexities of the human form by reducing it to its mere basics.
I must say that on a more basic level his portraits of have always reminded me of Hergé’s Tintin cartoons! Hergé:
Julian Opie:
Julian Opie's style was brought into the public eye when he was asked to design the cover for the British band, Blur's best of album. On the cover, the band members Graham Coxon, Alex James, Dave Rowntree and Damon Albarn are transformed into Opie's style. Here they are in that order:
Other portraits:
