Month: March 2016

Sebastian Castro, “Theban”

Sebastian Castro, “Theban”

The Sacred Band of Thebes (Hieròs Lókhos) was a troop of picked soldiers, consisting of 150 pairs of male lovers which formed the elite force of the Theban army in the 4th century BC. Its predominance began with its crucial role in the Battle of Leuctra in 371BC. It was annihilated by Philip II of Macedon in the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC.

According to Plutarch, the 300 hand-picked men were chosen by Gorgidas purely for ability and merit, regardless of social class. It was composed of 150 male couples, each pair consisting of an older erastês (ἐραστής, “lover”) and a younger erômenos (ἐρώμενος, “beloved”). Athenaeus of Naucratis also records the Sacred Band as being composed of “lovers and their favorites, thus indicating the dignity of the god Eros in that they embrace a glorious death in preference to a dishonorable and reprehensible life”; while Polyaenus describes the Sacred Band as being composed of men “devoted to each other by mutual obligations of love”.

The origin of the “sacred” appellation of the Sacred Band is unexplained by Dinarchus and other historians. But Plutarch claims that it was due to an exchange of sacred vows between lover and beloved at the shrine of Iolaus (one of the lovers of Hercules) at Thebes. He also tangentially mentions Plato’s characterization of the lover as a “friend inspired of God”.

After the success of his previous video, “Bubble” earlier this year, über-hot Manila-based popster Sebastian Castro is back with a new clip entitled “Theban”, skillfully directed by Ian Galsim, featuring a tribe of scantily-clad dancers but sans actor Enchong Dee. Openly gay, the Peruvian-Japanese artist stated that the Sacred Band of Thebes was an ancient Greek army composed entirely of gay men. “It was believed that if you fought next to the person you loved, you would fight much harder to keep them alive. This led the generals to have the lovers fight alongside one another in battle. I can’t think of anything more beautiful -beautiful and sexy… I love the idea of dragging my followers, or any LGBT for that matter, into this world where you are fighting with, fighting for and possibly dying for the one you love. The ultimate message : you belong. Two words gay kids don’t hear enough. Two words they don’t feel enough”, he said.

François-Léon Benouville

François-Léon Benouville, “The Wraith of Achilles”, 1847, Oil on Canvas, Musee Fabre, Montpelier, France

François-Léon Benouville’s splendidly modelled figure of Achilles intrudes into the space of the viewer. He literally steps beyond the surface of the canvas. Thus, in the painting’s careful attention to the human form and in the precision of its modelling of paint, it fulfils ideally the task of the painted academic figure studies required of Prix de Rome winners.

Benouville’s painting of Achilles, a popular subject for nineteenth-century painters, shows the Greek hero at the moment where, after quarrelling with his leader, Agamemnon, he retreats from battle to his tent in a rage. Humiliated, Achilles refuses to continue fighting with the Greeks, who subsequently suffer a series of catastrophic defeats. As Agamemnon’s envoys enter Achilles’ tent, in the hope of convincing him to return to battle, Achilles springs to his feet, launching into a tirade. With a dramatic realism, Benouville renders this precise, violent moment.

Thanks to http://lyghtmylife.tumblr.com for the image.

Michel Groisman

Michel Groisman, “Transferência (Transference)”, 1999

These images are from his 1999 performance piece “Transferênce”.

“In a continuous movement I pass on the light from one candle to another and, blowing through a system of tubes, I can choose the candle I wish to put off.”- Michel Groisman

To see other photographs and works by the artist :  Michel Groisman 

Ross Dickinson

Ross Dickinson, “Valley Farms”, Oil on Canvas, 1934, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transferred from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Long before Ross Dickinson received any formal training, he experimented with oil paint and educated himself through reading. Awarded a scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, Dickinson studied with Frank Tolles Chamberlin (1873–1961) and became interested in mural painting. In 1926 Dickinson spent nine months in New York City studying with John Costigan at the Grand Central School of Art and Charles Hawthorne at the National Academy of Design; he also received a scholarship from the Tiffany Foundation. Dickinson returned to California later that year and studied at the Santa Barbara School of Fine Arts, where he received his first mural commission.

Dickinson depicted the varying California landscape and men and women at work, which often aligned him with California regionalism. By 1934 he was involved in the Public Works of Art Project, which led to numerous mural commissions in the mid-1930s. His later work displays a stylistic change, as he moved toward freer brushwork in fast-drying acrylics through the 1950s and 1960s. He continued to work and exhibit in the southern California area until his death in Santa Barbara in 1978.

Thomas Petersen, “Francis J Smith”

Francis J Smith:  Photography by Grundvold (Thomas Petersen)

Thomas Petersen, known as Grundvold,  is a second year student studying Fine Art and Photography at Glasgow School of Art, Scotland. Group exhibitions:
2011 – Kunstnernes Efterårsudstilling, Den Frie, Copenhagen, Denmark
2015 – Wet Denim Trackie, SWG3, Glasgow, Scotland
2016 – Syzygy, Grace and Clark Fyfe Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland

Thanks to http://grundvold.tumblr.com. Check out the photos.

Ilya Bolotowsky

Ilya Bolotowsky, “In the Barber Shop”, Oil on Canvas, 1934, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transferred from the U.S. Department of Labor

Ilya Bolotowsky was a leading early 20th-century painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric abstraction and was much influenced by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.

Born to Jewish parents in St. Petersburg, Russia, Bolotowsky moved to Baku and Constantinople, and immigrated to the United States in 1923, settling in New York City. He attended the National Academy of Design. He became associated with a group called “The Ten Whitney Dissenters,” or simply “The Ten,” artists, including Louis Schanker, Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, and Joseph Solman, who rebelled against the strictures of the Academy and held independent exhibitions.

Bolotowsky was mentored by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian and the tenets of De Stijl, a movement that advocated the possibility of ideal order in the visual arts. Bolotowsky adopted Mondrian’s use of horizontal and vertical geometric pattern and a palette restricted to primary colors and neutrals.

Having turned to geometric abstractions, in 1936 Bolotowsky co-founded American Abstract Artists, a cooperative formed to promote the interests of abstract painters and to increase understanding between themselves and the public.

Adolfo de Carolis

Adolfo de Carolis, “International Exposition of Industries- Turin, Poster, 1911

Adolfo de Carolis was an Italian painter, wood-cut printer, illustrator and photographer. In 1888, after finishing primary school , he was sent to study at the Accademaia di Belle Arti di Bologna from which he graduated in 1892. His first professional work was a collaborative restoration of the Borgia Apartments in the Apostolic Palace.

In 1899, de Carolis participated int eh 3rd exposition held by the Venice Biennale. He received a commission the following year to design a bronze tabernacle for the baptismal font at the Ajaccio Cathedral. After 1902, Adolfo de Carolis concentrated on creating illustrations for artistic and literary publications for books by Carducci, Pascoli and D’Annunzio.

Adolfo de Carolis’s Turin Interanational poster was designed in 1911 to celebrate this world fair which focused on industry and labor. The fair opened on the 29th of April and covered an area of 247 acres. Over four million visitors attended the pavilions of over thirty countries.

 

Parmigianino

Parmigianino, “Vision of Saint Jerome”, Details, Oil on Canvas, 1525- 1527

The Vision of Saint Jerome is a painting by the Italian Mannerist artist Parmigianino, executed in 1526–1527. It is now in the National Gallery, London, United Kingdom.

The work was commissioned on 3 January 1526 in Rome, by Maria Bufalini, wife of Antonio Caccialupi, to decorate the family chapel in the church of San Salvatore in Lauro. The contract mentioned “Francesco Mazola de Parma” and one “Pietro” with the same name, perhaps Parmigianino’s uncle Piero Ilario Mazzola.

According to late Renaissance art biographer Giorgio Vasari, Parmigianino was working to this painting during the Sack of Rome, and he had to stop when the city was ravaged by the imperial troops. He was able to escape paying a ransom, while his uncle remained in Rome, being able to hide the painting in the refectory of Santa Maria della Pace.

Francisque Joseph Duret

Francisque Joseph Duret, “Chactas Meditating on Atala’s Tomb”, Cast Bronze, 1836, 135 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, France

The Romantic sculptor Francisque Duret, born in 1804, presented the model of his “Chactas Meditating on the Grave of Atala” at the Paris Salon of 1836. Several reduced-size bronzes of the sculpture were cast by the Delafontaine foundry after 1848. Duret based this work on Atala, the famous novel published in 1801 by François-René de Chateaubriand, and on Girodet’s iconic painting “The Entombment of Atala”, painted in 1808 and now on exhibit at the Louvre.

This sentimental and edifying tale tells the story of Chactas, an Indian of the Natchez tribe in Louisiana, returning to the grave of his sweetheart, Atala. The Indian girl, recently converted to Christianity, chose to poison herself, despite her love, rather than break her vow of chastity. Seated on an ivy-covered rock, a symbol of remembrance and fidelity, this athlete in mourning represents the so-called “savage” on the path to redemption, for Chactas will be converted in his turn. This moralizing story, according to Emmanuelle Héran, should be understood in the historical context of  the July Monarchy, which viewed religion as a force for order and social stability

Only the exotic accessories identify this “Hercules of the wilderness:”:  the plaited hair, the earring and necklace… Although the nudity suggests “primitive” man, there is undoubtedly a suggestion of the classical era, for there existed few depictions of the American Indian at that time: Chactas became a pioneering image of the Indian in the Western imagination. The new collective psyche that emerged from the turmoil of the Revolution praised sensitivity and depicted man confronting the mystery of his fate, turning away from the heroes of classical antiquity.