Perspective - Friday Flash
Planet C3762YBReport of the Cultural Bureau(cont)Exhibit 273-275National Look Up AT The Sky Day
Triptych
It is perhaps pertinent that the only aureole of light in the entire tableau, rests not over the hooded figures, but that from the overhead streetlamp casting down on them. Indeed the artist has chosen to efface the features of the monks beneath their cowls. The chiaroscuro is clearly in place, with the dark, heavy tones of the raiment of the holy men, their pallid hands the sole pale contrast, suggestive perhaps of how fragile the flesh lies. Or perhaps the diaphanous nature of prayer, as these hands are deployed in all manner of encoded gestures just adjacent to the supplicant, transferring their devotional energies into his body. The craquelure in the lead monk’s leather jacket attests to this interesting reversion to oil paints rather than the acrylic which after all would echo the fabrics worn by the rest of his brotherhood in the picture. The sheen of sweat in the supplicant is minutely picked out by the artist and there is an echo of the shape of these perspiration drops in the anointing of him with red pigmented droplets from the head monk’s ordination dagger. The supplicant’s (presumed) outstretched fleshy hands are eclipsed by the circle of the monks, as if he has yet to develop the more pliant, yielding markers of flesh that these holy men have ascended to. He remains a creature bound head to toe in the earthly tissue of raiment. This is further reinforced by the translucency at the edge of the monks’ forms, whereas for the supplicant there seems only to be a black void encompassing his outline. Perhaps this is suggestive of a negative, impure energy he has yet to slough from his doubting ontological being. The rictus on his face could be the dread at the start of his metamorphosis, or it could be the residual distaste as he struggles internally with his unwillingness to make the leap of faith, and figuratively give himself into the arms of the monks. That rictus is echoed in the expression of the dog that hovers around the men. But the genius of the artist is it’s not only the dog’s expression, but the whole convolution of its body as it skittishly keeps itself on the fringes of the action. Another leifmotif is the cylindrical metal chalice that rolls on its axis on the ground. A bead of golden liquid hangs pendulously from its lip, again echoing the sweat beads of the supplicant.
In the middle of the three panels, the supplicant is shown bowing, as now it is his mass which swallows and occludes the lead monk’s ordination rod. The other monks have almost ceded the ground to their leader, as they fly back centrifugally from the centre, pressing themselves against the margins of the canvas. The dog has retreated to the base of the lamp post where it squats, its rictus even more predominant now, so that its tongue is exposed in exquisite brushwork detail. The chalice has become distorted in form, (an allusion to future Cubist style?) hammered flat, perhaps beneath the foot of the supplicant or one of the monks. While in the final panel the canvas is emptied of the entire bustle of its two predecessors (is this what they mean by ‘vanishing point’? The guidebooks are a touch unclear as to the meaning of this term). Now the supplicant lies prostrate, presumably the humility required and recognised of his new lowly status before his divinity. His entry into stillness as portrayed by the starkness of the image. There are a scattering of mass tones of the red pigment about his form while a more atramentous glaze limns the ground where it borders his body, as if to represent some sort of holy spirit entering his corpus. The technique of this final panel is one of sfumato, the whole image being hazier and more smoky than the previous two, suggestive of the more numinous and divine powers that abound in this frame. It as if the materiality of both dog and the chalice have evaporated in an extramundane puff of smoke.
Exhibit 276National Yo-Yo Day
Still Life
The light source for the picture is that of the sun, but it is refracted and filtered through a thin column of smoke ascending in the foreground. The architecture is framed by the heaped automobiles through which the viewer is granted snatched or privileged access, perhaps like that of a voyeur, that in a homegrown resident would provoke feelings of guilt, but which in us of course we experience no such sentiment. Intriguingly the colour scheme has been reversed by the artist. Since the atmosphere above the ground is depicted in gun-metal grey, tinged with pink, which is of course what we might expect to see in the portrayal of the automobiles. However, they are rendered in the burnt umbers and russets suggestive of decay, corrosion and oxidation which one would normally associate with the polluted atmosphere…
Triptych
It is perhaps pertinent that the only aureole of light in the entire tableau, rests not over the hooded figures, but that from the overhead streetlamp casting down on them. Indeed the artist has chosen to efface the features of the monks beneath their cowls. The chiaroscuro is clearly in place, with the dark, heavy tones of the raiment of the holy men, their pallid hands the sole pale contrast, suggestive perhaps of how fragile the flesh lies. Or perhaps the diaphanous nature of prayer, as these hands are deployed in all manner of encoded gestures just adjacent to the supplicant, transferring their devotional energies into his body. The craquelure in the lead monk’s leather jacket attests to this interesting reversion to oil paints rather than the acrylic which after all would echo the fabrics worn by the rest of his brotherhood in the picture. The sheen of sweat in the supplicant is minutely picked out by the artist and there is an echo of the shape of these perspiration drops in the anointing of him with red pigmented droplets from the head monk’s ordination dagger. The supplicant’s (presumed) outstretched fleshy hands are eclipsed by the circle of the monks, as if he has yet to develop the more pliant, yielding markers of flesh that these holy men have ascended to. He remains a creature bound head to toe in the earthly tissue of raiment. This is further reinforced by the translucency at the edge of the monks’ forms, whereas for the supplicant there seems only to be a black void encompassing his outline. Perhaps this is suggestive of a negative, impure energy he has yet to slough from his doubting ontological being. The rictus on his face could be the dread at the start of his metamorphosis, or it could be the residual distaste as he struggles internally with his unwillingness to make the leap of faith, and figuratively give himself into the arms of the monks. That rictus is echoed in the expression of the dog that hovers around the men. But the genius of the artist is it’s not only the dog’s expression, but the whole convolution of its body as it skittishly keeps itself on the fringes of the action. Another leifmotif is the cylindrical metal chalice that rolls on its axis on the ground. A bead of golden liquid hangs pendulously from its lip, again echoing the sweat beads of the supplicant.
In the middle of the three panels, the supplicant is shown bowing, as now it is his mass which swallows and occludes the lead monk’s ordination rod. The other monks have almost ceded the ground to their leader, as they fly back centrifugally from the centre, pressing themselves against the margins of the canvas. The dog has retreated to the base of the lamp post where it squats, its rictus even more predominant now, so that its tongue is exposed in exquisite brushwork detail. The chalice has become distorted in form, (an allusion to future Cubist style?) hammered flat, perhaps beneath the foot of the supplicant or one of the monks. While in the final panel the canvas is emptied of the entire bustle of its two predecessors (is this what they mean by ‘vanishing point’? The guidebooks are a touch unclear as to the meaning of this term). Now the supplicant lies prostrate, presumably the humility required and recognised of his new lowly status before his divinity. His entry into stillness as portrayed by the starkness of the image. There are a scattering of mass tones of the red pigment about his form while a more atramentous glaze limns the ground where it borders his body, as if to represent some sort of holy spirit entering his corpus. The technique of this final panel is one of sfumato, the whole image being hazier and more smoky than the previous two, suggestive of the more numinous and divine powers that abound in this frame. It as if the materiality of both dog and the chalice have evaporated in an extramundane puff of smoke.
Exhibit 276National Yo-Yo Day
Still Life
The light source for the picture is that of the sun, but it is refracted and filtered through a thin column of smoke ascending in the foreground. The architecture is framed by the heaped automobiles through which the viewer is granted snatched or privileged access, perhaps like that of a voyeur, that in a homegrown resident would provoke feelings of guilt, but which in us of course we experience no such sentiment. Intriguingly the colour scheme has been reversed by the artist. Since the atmosphere above the ground is depicted in gun-metal grey, tinged with pink, which is of course what we might expect to see in the portrayal of the automobiles. However, they are rendered in the burnt umbers and russets suggestive of decay, corrosion and oxidation which one would normally associate with the polluted atmosphere…
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