Weirdly Beardsley and Beard's Nudes

The Tate's new exhibition about Aubrey Beardsley opens at Millbank next week, which allows a new appraisal of his works, and is rather apt to the current fashion for all things queer.   Some images are so in the earlier meaning of the term, as odd, freakish, singular, bizarre; others with a distinctly gay, intersexual aspect.

He had a phenomenal graphic talent for alluring grotesqueries,  beguiling sinuous lines and sexually ambiguous figures with triffid-like flowers [maybe they inspired the triffids]. Certainly weirdly attractive parabolic curves and dramatic black shapes.

Though he disclaimed personal homosexuality, drawing these images was auto-erotic, and plainly deviant to those in the gay culture of the 1890s, who encouraged and paid for illustrations to Mademoiselle de Maupin and Wilde's Salome.

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One can only post some of the Lysistrata designs, as the outsize phalluses will be deemed offensive  today.    

which is interesting in relation to the recent BBC programmes on female and male nudes, in which Prof Mary Beard happily dwelt on  Courbet's L'Origine du Monde [probably not postable either] but was very coy in respect of male nudes, showing only limp genitals  and nothing by Beardsley or Mapplethorpe.

As it happens,  I am publishing a small book on Beardsley with the V&A /Thames & Hudson, with 100 images mostly from V&A collections. 

I'm looking forward to Tate's monster display of original pieces.  

Somewhat oddly, but in keeping with Beardsley's off-centre reputation, Tate's publicity cites his work as key inspiration for today's tattoo artists.

William Ansah Sessarooko

Contemporary records to Black individuals in London in 1700s and 1800s are relatively rare.  Here is a reference to rumoured news of William Unsah Sessarakoo [as he was spelled in Britain]

James Ducarel, a Huguenot gentleman, writing to his lawyer brother Andrew Ducarel on 11 January 1749: -

'You will see upon this day's paper the story of a Black King's Son being sold by a Captain with whom his Father had trusted to him to be brought to England for this education.  That Captain was George Hamilton, who sold him for 40£ in order to sink the gold-dust and other effects which the Black King had given him to bear the charges of his education    This and other particulars I have had from a gentleman lately come from the West Indies, who knows the truth of these things.'

It was indeed true, though other sources name the perfidious captain as  David Crichton.  
Sessarakoo reached Britain about a month later, being greeted as something of a celebrity and having his portrait   painted by Gabriel Matthias.

May Morris in 30 seconds

according to Ashmolean Museum :  

https://twitter.com/AshmoleanMuseum/status/1227895408631963648
you may be able to craft a different clip  emphasising creative and conservation endeavours?  LINK

Stunners' Opera

Briefly, about THE STUNNERS’ OPERA being written by composer Howard Goodall and librettist Joanne Harris:

This brings the  Pre-Raphaelite Sisters out of their frames and on to the musical stage.  Howard and singer Josie Richardson gave a glimpse [what’s the aural equivalent?] of the songs for Elizabeth Siddal at the National Portrait Gallery last week.

Very exciting afterlife to come…  hopefully before the end of 2020

photo: Katherine Leedale

Fanny Eaton in duplicate

During the last week of Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, the owner of a duplicate copy of the profile head of Fanny Eaton by Joanna Boyce Wells  brought it to the National Portrait Gallery for comparison with the version that has been lent to the exhibition  from the Centre for British Art, University of Yale.

It is quite exciting to learn of this copy, which is the same size and slightly variant in composition - one row of blue beads in the hair - but otherwise virtually identical.  Without more technical inspection of the support and the paints, it's not possible to judge when and where and by whom the duplicate was made. Its framing indicates it has been in existence since at least 1960.



Together with the discovery of an inscription on the profile head by Boyce, previously identified as a 'self-portrait' but now known to depict the artist's 'darling sister' Anne Boyce Mordan, this has made the exhibition an exciting one.



Thanks to all who came and who commended the exhibition to others.  It ends today, after  a very crowded final week.   I hope that it will stimulate more interest, more research and more exhibitions.  There are more Pre-Raphaelite Sisters to meet.

24/7

I've been otherwise busy recently and have  missed out on several exhibitions, but got to 24/7 at Somerset House, and without knowing what to expect [having missed out on reviews etc] found it chimed neatly with recent experience that is in many ways one's chronic experience nowadays - that of having too many tasks and rapidly shrinking time in which to achieve them. [Who has a to-do list that gets done every day?]

It's not only about the pernicious always-online aspect of digital devices, though they have aggravated the situation to intolerable levels.  24/7 ranges widely, in no particular order, with time-lapse videos next to mechanically pecking hens, next to Mark Zuckerberg gabbling 'more, more, more', and inexorably ticking clocks, then swinging back historically to a dramatic 1780s painting of  Arkwright's textile mill by night, every window illuminated to demonstrate non-stop production through two 12-hours shifts daily.  Which is essentially the modern experience, in varied forms.   Plus of course Bentham's famous panopticon, an apt precursor of today's continuous surveillance.


I half-expected to see a calligraphic version of W.H.Davies's once-famous poem 'What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?'  And perhaps missed it, as 24/7 has over a hundred exhibits, randomly distributed in Somerset House's southern undercroft, a string of spaces on different levels that begins to feel like an Escher drawing, with stairs up and down, mysterious frosted lifts and dark caverns for immersive installations behind thick black curtains.  One has benches and  continuous recordings of the dawn chorus by actual and electronic birds, another invites one to hum along with a humming soundtrack as the bench vibrates. Parts are frankly scary and nightmare-inducing.  One's balance is disturbed, and with it, possibly the balance of one's mind.

Flickering screens everywhere,  with abrupt clips of factory workers and slow-time videos of artists writing and reading real letters.Naturally, the visitors were filming the exhibits on their phones...

Brechin

A little behindhand for Holy Innocents.  It took me some time to locate an image of the Victorian anti-type to the Massacre  - Christ's 'Suffer little Children to come unto me'.   This is a three-light window in Brechin's honorary  cathedral,  produced by Morris &Co, under Henry Dearle and attributed to him, although several elements, including the tiled sky, the female heads and the infant faces are plainly copied if not actually drawn by Burne-Jones. [it was after all, a house style]

My attention was caught by the mother and babe on the far right, whose dark skins give a global aspect to the religious message, albeit marginalised.  i must now search for other versions.  Happy New Year to all newborns and their forebears.

[Apologies and credit to Sandy, from whose anonymous blog I borrowed the image, my own proving hopeless...]  .