The `Violin Door` at Chatsworth House in the UK, the violin is actually a painting.......... Behind a door in Chatsworth’s State Music Room hangs a very famous violin. It is not an actual instrument, but rather an extraordinary tromp l’oeil depiction that is celebrated for its astonishing illusionism. So uncannily convincing is this painting that “People will say to me, Who last played it? Who owned it? Who made it?” says Shenagh Firth, Head Guide at Chatsworth. “I have to sometimes take people and show them much nearer that it’s actually a painting, not an object.” The violin and bow appear to hang from a gilt-metal peg, which is, in fact, three dimensional, adding another layer to the visual game. Although unsigned, the image was likely painted in the early 18th century by Jan van der Vaart, one of a group of Dutch artists who began to return to England with the British aristocracy following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, after the English Civil War. But it was only the 6th Duke of Devonshire who, in the 19th century, cleverly decided to hang painting on the back of the door by the music room. “It is to me, really important, because it’s a thing that visitors remember more than any other single thing,” says the current Duke.
Right, good observation. It's a fiction, a deception, promulgating a false mythology; mom, apple pie and all that. It's propaganda in support of the lie that is America. This painting (illustration really) has always made me ill.
Sorry if I ruffled your feathers. My comment was more on the feeling of warmth and good times that one shares with family. Not a specific time period or location. I know its a fiction, but then again, unless one is depicting a specific event. Isn't all art fiction? This painting represents a feeling more than specific events or physicality. As an artist myself I particularly enjoy pieces with a sense of feeling.
Not to worry, you didn't ruffle my feathers. I can understand how this painting would resonate with someone.
I love that! It reminds me of the many, many wonderful holiday dinners with family and friends that I've been blessed to share. Not this year unfortunately but I'm looking forward to the next.
I found this Charles Surendorf original watercolor, signed in pencil and dated 1951, in Goodwill last week for a few bucks . Surendorf was mostly known from his blocks but he also did oil and water color. As a California Regionalist he mostly created bucolic scenes from the gold county around Yosemite.. The large speech bubble on the wall, the snake emerging from the tree, the ladders and the cuts in the border of the artwork are puzzling and unlike any other painting I have seen from him. Was this a self portrait during a time of emotional turmoil. Maybe related to the eviction from his studio in Columbia, California. So personal, not something I would hang on the wall, but I like it.
I just found a quote that may be attributed to Surendorf's daughter. He was a "rugged and opinionated character".. who "was known to have torn down his art exhibitions in the middle of previews, in one case at the prestigious Maxwell Gallery in San Francisco" Maybe this explains the blade cuts in my painting?
It’s very unfashionable to admire 19th century academic painting and some of the executions are in the modern parlance “problematical” in their depiction of race, women etc But I agree
From Bougurereau's entire works which there is a ton of it just Googling his name most of it repeating itself using what seems the same models going by the shape of their eyes and hairstyle I don't see the artist making any kind of aesthetic statement other than he found a way to make reality decorative much like what was done for churches only it wasn't centered around any religious dogma. It centered around making us appreciate light and the feeling of being alive depicted mostly by females, a symbol for their life giving qualities which is similar to the divine and spiritual. I don't see his work as political or racist, just decorative much along the lines of Maxfield Parrish.
Again I don’t disagree. But so much contemporary commentary reads like this from a 2019 exhibition. “They’re actually rather salacious. Perhaps it’s the bare feet, a sexual symbol that goes back to ancient Greece, the source of Bouguereau’s inspiration.Here, the fixation on the fetishized proletariat, especially in the context of women’s history, conjures exploitation rather than social consciousness. One canvas celebrates lost virginity symbolized by a doe-eyed girl at a well with a broken pitcher. A water pump’s protruding spout reiterates the sexual innuendo. It hangs next to a painting of a fair pre-pubescent subject weaving a crown of fresh daisies placed strategically in her lap”. Anyway I’ll clam up before I get a yellow card for politicising the thread.
Precisely. The gleeful urge to wield the censor’s pen which seems to have slithered back into public discourse in the past few years makes me want to vomit. As to my choice of art? Emil Nolde - Rain Over A Marsh JMW Turner - The Angel Standing In The Sun John Everett Millais - Portrait of Sophie Gray Marc Rothko - Untitled (Black & Grey) 1970 Gustav Klimt - Tod & Leben. Although I wish I could have seen Klimt’s university paintings.