A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
Parva Scaena (Brief Scenes): Set Nineteen
“What i like about Photography is that it takes moments that should have been forgotten, and just freezes them, and allows us to share it with everyone and share it with future generations. But there is also the sense of secrets in the picture, or the stuff you don’t know, or don’t see. You don’t really know what happened before or after a picture; its time is just frozen in that moment.”
—Jesús Holguin
Pierre Grivolas “ Les Flagellants au XIVe Siècle (Procession of Flagellants in the Fourteenth Century)”, 1867, Oil on Canvas, 175 x 208 cm, Calvet Museum, Avignon, France
Born in Avignon, France, in September of 1823, Pierre Grivolas was a French painter known for portraits, landscapes and genre scenes. Recognizing Grivolas’s early talent for drawing, his parents enrolled him in art classes. He won first prize in the 1843 Biennial Design Contest, sponsored by Avignon’s art foundation, La Foundation Calvet, a collection of historical and art legacies. The prize included a cash award which enabled Grivolas to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
At the École des Beaux-Arts, Grivolas met and was influenced by leader of the French Romantic movement Eugène Delacroix, neo-classical painter Dominique Ingres, and Hippolyte Flandrin, known today for his monumental decorative paintings. The outbreak of the February Revolution in 1848 forced Grivolas to return to his Avignon. Six years later, he became one of the first members of the Félibrige, a literary and cultural association founded by Frédéric Mistral and other writers to promote and defend the Provençal language.
In 1877, Pierre Grivolas became a founding member, along with writer Baptiste Bonnet, sculptor Jean Barnabé Amy, and others, of the Societa Belibrenco dé Paris. whose literary arm was the journal “Lou Viro-Souléu”, The monthly literary journal, published from 1889 to 1912, contained literary texts, and reports of the poetry Floral Games and other Parisian festivals.
Pierre Grivolas became Director of the École des Beaux-Arts d’Avignon from 1878 until his death. During his tenure, he emphasized plain air, or outdoor, painting over the prevalent Academicism, and became credited with creating the art movement known now as “Novelle École d’Avignon”, In 1894 to 1896, Pierre Grivolas, sometimes accompanied by his younger brother Antoine, a still-life painter, traveled through the small villages of France, living like shepherds and capturing the colors of the mountain landscapes in their paintings. Provencal French painter
Pierre Grivolas passed away in Avignon on February 5, 1906. His works are in many museums, including “Procession of Communiantes” at the Alauch Museum, the 1858 “Interior of a Spinning Mill” at the Louis Vouland Museum, and “Self-Portrait” at the Palace of the Roure.
Photographer Unknown, (The Dividing Line)
“But that shadow has been serving you!
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.”
—-Rumi
Kamrooz Aram, “Arabesco”, 2019, Oil, Oil Crayon, Wax Pencil, and Pencil on LInen, 157 x 137 cm, Private Collection
Born in 1978 in Shiraz, Iran, Kamrooz Aram received his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2001 and his MFA from Columbia University in 2003. His work is rooted in the practice and history of painting; in addition, he also works in the fields of photography, collage, sculpture, and exhibition design. Aram’s work is a blend of Modernism with ornamental, often non-Western, art.
Aram’s recent exhibitions often function as full installations, combining painting, sculpture, collage, and exhibition design to create an overall experience. His solo exhibitions have included the 2019 “Arabesque” at the Green Art Gallery in Dubai; “An Object, A Gesture” at New York’s FLAG Foundation in 2018; “FOCUS: Kamrooz Aram” at Fort Worth’s Modern Art Museum in 2018; and “Ornament for Indifferent Architecture” at Belgium’s Museum Dhondt-Dhaenena in 2017.
Photographers Unknown, A Collection: Life Holds You in Its Hand
“So don’t be frightened, dear friend, if a sadness confronts you larger than any you have ever known, casting its shadow over all you do. You must think that something is happening within you, and remember that life has not forgotten you; it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why would you want to exclude from your life any uneasiness, any pain, any depression, since you don’t know what work they are accomplishing within you?”
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Born in Prague, Czechia, in December of 1875, Rainer Maria Rilke was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist, recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets. He was unique in his efforts to expand the realm of poetry through new uses of imagery and syntax and with an aesthetic philosophy that rejected the precepts of Christianity and worked to reconcile beauty and suffering.
In 1899 Rilke made the first of two pivotal trips to Russia, discovering what he called his spiritual fatherland in both the Russian people and the landscape. There he met Leo Tolstoy, L O Pasternak, and the peasant poet Spiridon Droschin, whose poems he translated into German. These trips provided Rilke with the poetic material and inspiration essential to his developing philosophy of existential materialism and art as religion.
Rilke’s verse became firmly fixed in his major poetry collection “Newe Gedichte (New Poems)”, with its verses becoming more objective, evolving from an impressionistic personal vision to the representation of this vision with impersonal symbolism. The major influence of this was Rilke’s association with French sculptor Auguste Rodin, under whom he worked as a secretary from 1905 to 1906. These verses employed a simple vocabulary to describe subjects experienced in everyday life, transforming his observations into art.
In the last few years of his life, Rilke was inspired by such French poets as Paul Valery and Jean Cocteau, and wrote most of his last verses in French. Rilke suffered from illness his whole life and died of leukemia in 1926 while staying at the Valmont sanatorium near Lake Geneva.
“Letters to a Young Poet” is a collection of ten letters written by twenty-seven year-old Rainer Rilke to Franz Xaver Kappus, a nineteen year-old officer cadet at the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. Kappus corresponded with the poet from 1902 to 1908, seeking his advice as to the quality of his poetry, and in deciding between a literary career or a career as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army.These letters offer insight into the ideas and themes that appear in Rilke’s early poetry and his working process.
“Remarkable, this journey from the youthful music of Bohemian folk poetry… to Orpheus, remarkable how… his mastery of form increases, penetrates deeper and deeper into his problems! And at each stage now and again the miracle occurs, his delicate, hesitant, anxiety-prone person withdraws, and through him resounds the music of the universe; like the basin of a fountain he becomes at once instrument and ear.”
—Herman Hesse, My Belief: Essays on Life and Art, (A summary of Rainer Maria Rilke’s evolution as a poet)
Bonifacio Lázaro. “Nazaré Triptych (People of the Sea)”, 1943, Oil on Canvas, Triptych, 200 x 242 cm, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofa, Madrid, Spain
Born on February 15, 1906, in Nazare, Portugal, Bonifácio Lázaro studied at the School of Arts and Crafts of Setúbal and later in Lisbon at the Escola Superior de Belas Artes. Born to parents linked to the fishing industry of Portugal, the expressionist painter dedicated a large part of his work to the people of his homeland, who lived their lives in a constant struggle with the sea. in 1927, Lázaro won the Annunciation Award, an annual award given to students from the Academy of Fine Arts for distinguished work in the genre of animalistic works.
In 1942, Bonifacio Lázaro won the Rocha Cabral Prize from the Lisbon National Academy of Fine Arts for the Nazaré Triptych “People of the Sea”and; in 1943, he obtained the Silver Medal at the National Fine Arts Exhibition for another triptych “Fishermen of Nazaré”, related to the previous one. Both works, having important dimensions of 2 x 2.4 meters, are conceived as ethnographic altarpieces with an atmosphere of mysticism.
Recognized by many awards and medals, Lázaro’s works can publicly be seen at the José Malhoa Museum in Caldas da Rainha, the Museu da Nazaré, the Museu do Chiado in Lisbon, and the Columbus Museum in Georgia, USA. There are also several works at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom and the Provincial Museum in Badajoz, Spain. Lázaro’s works are also included in many private collections.
Photographer Unknown, (Waiting), Silver Gelatin Print
“Waiting. Simply one person doing nothing, over time, while another approached.”
—Ian McEwan, Atonement
Born in 1948 in Aldershot, Hampshire, England, Ian McEwan spent most of his childhood in the Far East, Germany, and North Africa, where his father, an army officer, was posted. Upon his return to England, he studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature in 1970. He later received his Masters of Arts degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia..
McEwan’s 2001novel “Atonement” was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award and was the winner of the W. H. Smith Literary Award in 2002. The novel, beginning in 1935, tells the story of Briony, a young girl and aspiring writer, and the consequences of the discovery she makes about Robbie, a young man destined to play a part in the Dunkirk evacuations. This novel was adapted for the screen, with the film, directed by Joe Wright, opening both the Vancouver International Film Festival and the 64th Venice International Film Festival.
Ian McEwan is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, in 1999. He was awarded a CBE, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, in 2000.
Gian Paolo Barbieri: Tahiti Photogrpahs, Silver Gelatin Prints
Born in Milan, Italy, in 1938, Gian Paolo Barbieri is a self-taught fashion photographer, whose professional career started with a short apprenticeship to Harper’s Bazaar photographer Tom Kublin. In 1963, Barbieri had some images published in the Italian fashion magazine Novità, which later became Vogue Italia in 1965.
As fashion photography had not been fully created in the 1960s, Barbieri had the unique opportunity to create a new style, with its makeup, hairstyles, and jewelry. After opening his own Milan studio in 1964, working both in Milan and Paris, he began to develop creative relationships with fashion designer Walter Albini and Valentino Garavani, who with Barbieri was responsible for innovating modern fashion advertising campaigns. In 1965, Barbieri shot his first cover for Italian Vogue.
An analog photographer who does not retouch his images, Gian Barbieri became a travel photographer in the 1990s. When Vogue magazine sent him to Tahiti for a photographic reportage, he found more than just an exotic island. Like other children who sailed the South Seas through film and books by Melville and James Cook, he saw a dream-like unknown world. Barbieri’s photographs of the Polynesia culture, focusing on their tattoos, became a record of the unspoken language left on the skin of the Tahitian people. These images were collected and published in the photographic hard-cover art book “Tahiti Tattoos”, by Taschen Press in 1998.
Gina Paolo Barbieri was awarded in 1968 the Biancmano Prize as Best Italian Photographer. He was named one of the fourteen best international fashion photographers by the German magazine Stern in 1978.
Etchings and Collages by Tony Fitzpatrick
Born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1958, Tony Fitzpatrick Is an American actor and artist. In the early 1980s, he seriously began drawing with colored pencils on slate boards in the gallery “The Edge”, located in Villa Park, Illinois. Working there during the day, he tended bar at night just across the street. It was during this time that Fitzpatrick developed strong friendships with film director Jonathan Demme and Chicago radio personality and bluesman Buzz Kilman.
During the late 1980s, Fitzpatrick began exhibiting in gallery shows in New York City and Chicago, selling his work and establishing a career as an artist. An accomplished poet, he has authored and illustrated eight books, including “The Hard Angels: Drawings and Poems” in 1988 and the 2015 essay and art book “Dime Stories”. With assistance from friends and local artists Theresa James and Steve Campbell of Landfall Press, Fitzpatrick opened in 1992 his Chicago printmaking studio, Big Cat Press, which exists today as the artist exhibition space Firecat Projects.
Tony Fitzpatrick’s artistic career originally centered on multi-colored drawings on slate, later followed by works presented through printmaking. He has more recently focused on producing multi-media collage drawings, which blend cartoonish drawing, found images, text, and ephemera, such as baseball cards and matchbooks. His subjects have included: memories of his father, the cities of Chicago and New Orleans, hobo symbols, super-heroes, and Japan.
Fitzpatrick’s works are in private collections and numerous public institutions, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Miami’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. He has done cover art for albums, such as the Neville Brothers “Yellow Moon”, nominated for the Diamond Award: Best Album Cover, and Lou Reed’s album “Big Cat”. Working as an actor, Fitzpatrick had roles in “Primal Fear”, “Philadelphia”, and “Married to the Mob”.
Three Artworks by Alan Spazzali
Born in Trieste, Italy, Alan Spazzali is a photographer with Dutch citizenship. He graduated with a Bachelors Degree from the Ecole Nationale Superieur des Beaux-Arts and the Ecole des Arts Decoratief in Paris. Spazzali’s post-graduate work was done at the Rietveld Modern Art Academy located in Amsterdam.
Inspired by the work of surrealist artist Max Ernst and the minimalist works of Joan Miro, Alan Spazzail, a private person by inclination, constructs his work using various mediums to present a personal and symbolic narrative to his images. His work has been exhibited at the Biennale of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, the Biennale Lorenzo in Florence, and the Biennale Sao Paulo in Brazil.
Alan Spazzali’s site is located at: https://alanspazzali.wordpress.com/inicio/
Photographers Unknown, A Collection: Brief and Concise
“Like all sweet dreams, it will be brief, but brevity makes sweetness, doesn’t it?”
—Stephen King, November 22, 1963
Sergei Sovkov, “Dampfbad (Steambath), Date Unknown, Oil on Canvas
Born in Kyshtym, Russia, in 1972, Sergei Sovkov studied at the art faculty of the Togliatti State University located in Samara Oblast, graduating in 1997. He later attended the Repin Academic Institute of Fine 
Arts in St. Petersburg. Sovkov took a position as a lecturer and a professor at Togliatti Stat University where he taught for seventeen years before devoting himself full-time to painting in 2014.
An abstract-realist painter, Sovkov paints colorful and textured images of people, often male nudes, engaged in their daily lives, and has also painted a series of still life images. A member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia since 2006, he was awarded a gold medal of “Cultural Heritage” for his individual style and skill in painting. In 2011, Sovkov was awarded the title of Laureate of Cultural Heritage.
Since his first exhibitions in 1995, Sergei Sovkov has exhibited in galleries and multiple international exhibitions, including among others, the 2018 Parallax Art Fair in London, and two solo shows at the Galerie Time in Vienna. Sovkof’s works are held in many private collections.
In 2015 Sergei Sovkov met his future husband Austrian-born Erwin Sovkov, a photographer and eurythmist who graduated in 2008 from Vienna’s Institute for Eurythmy, which was established in 1912 by philosopher and writer Rudolph Steiner. Sergei and Erwin have together worked on their art project “Crystal House”, a combination of their visions in the fields of painting, photography, and ceramics presenting the inseparable inner and outer worlds of a human being. Married in 2016, they opened their company “Blaue Tauben”, located in Vienna, as a venue for paintings and ceramics by Sergei Sovkov and male nude art photography by Erwin Sovkov.
Sergei and Erwin Sovkov’s Blaue Tauben Art Studio is located at: https://www.blauetauben.com
Sergei Sovkov’s work can be also be found at: https://sergey-sovkov.pixels.com
Franz Skarbina, “Memory of Capri”, 1883, Watercolor and Gouache on Paper, 35 x 25 cm, Private Collection
Born in Berlin in 1849, Franz Skarbina studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts, graduating two years later to become the tutor to the daughters of Count Fredrich von Perponcher-Sedinitzky, during which time he traveled with the family to Austria, Italy and throughout Germany. In 1877, Skarbine mad a year-long study trip to France and the Netherlands where he discovered the Impressionist painters.
Skarbine began teaching at the Prussian Academy in 1878 and later in 1881 taught anatomical drawing at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Berlin. From 1882 to 1886, he mad frequent trips to France, Belgium and the Netherlands, exhibiting his art at the Paris Salon during this very productive period of his work. Appointed a Professor at the Prussian Academy in 1888, he resigned in 1893 due to disagreements with the Anton von Werner, the Academy’s Director, over his participation in the “Group of Eleven”, an association of artists promoting, outside the Academy’s influence, what was to be German Modernism. This group became the Berlin Secession, of which Skarbine was a co-founder.
Franz Skarbine became in 1895 a supervisory board member for the arts and literary magazine “Pan”, which played an important role in the development of the Art Nouveau movement in Germany. Skarbine died at his home in Berlin in May of 1910. During World War II, all the items in his estate, including many of his art works, were destroyed.
In this watercolor by Franz Skarbina, the artists depicted are the Italian Florence-born landscape and portrait painter Alessandro Altamura and his Vienna-born colleague landscape painter Othmar Brioschi.
Image reblogged with many thanks to: https://thouartadeadthing.tumblr.com
Photographers Unknown, A Collection of Black and White: The Dark Images
“He sank back into his black-and-white world, his immobile world of inanimate drawings that had been granted the secret of motion, his death-world with its hidden gift of life. But that life was a deeply ambiguous life, a conjurer’s trick, a crafty illusion based on an accidental property of the retina, which retained an image for a fraction of a second after the image was no longer present. On this frail fact was erected the entire structure of the cinema, that colossal confidence game. The animated cartoon was a far more honest expression of the cinematic illusion than the so-called realistic film, because the cartoon reveled in its own illusory nature, exulted in the impossible–indeed it claimed the impossible as its own, exalted it as its own highest end, found in impossibility, in the negation of the actual, its profoundest reason for being. The animated cartoon was nothing but the poetry of the impossible–therein lay its exhilaration and its secret melancholy. For this willful violation of the actual, while it was an intoxicating release from the constriction of things, was at the same time nothing but a delusion, an attempt to outwit mortality. As such it was doomed to failure. And yet it was desperately important to smash through the constriction of the actual, to unhinge the universe and let the impossible stream in, because otherwise–well, otherwise the world was nothing but an editorial cartoon.”
—Steven Millhauser, Little Kingdoms
Henri Marais, “The Genius of the Arts”, 1789, Engraving on Paper, 31,6 x 22.3 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Born in 1768, Henri Marais was a French engraver and printmaker, who often used the name of J. B. Marais. He studied under engraver Jean Massard who, due to his knowledge of engraving and scrupulous accuracy in his work, was received in the Royal Academy in 1785 . Several of Marais’s engraved works are in The Victoria and Albert Museum including “Venus et l’Amour”, “L’Hermite”, a portrait engraving of Frederick the Great, and “The Genius of the Arts”, shown above. Marais died in the 1830s, actual date unknown.
“The Genius of the Arts” was the frontispiece for “Tableaux, Statues et Bas-Relief et Camèes de la Galerie du Florence et du Palais Pitti” with prints after painter Jian-Baptiste Wicar and published by Etienne Lacombe. The allegorical figure is shown in neoclassical surroundings, with a column and a shield. It is apparently an idealized portrait of the neo-classical sculptor Jean-Guillaume Moitte. He is shown holding a laurel crown, which in portraiture suggests that the subject is a literary or artistic figure.