Category: Fine Art

I have always been fascinated, not to say turned on, by the appearance of the female form when loosely covered with soft, diaphanous materials such as silk, satin or linen.  Here’s an example of what I mean, that of a statue of Callipygian Venus, in the Louvre:

The nineteenth-century American sculptor William Wetmore Story specialized in the form, seen here with his Cleopatra Reclining:

…and Semiaramis:

That last pic I took myself when the statue was on display at the Dallas Museum of Art, and I stared at it for ages.

Story, by the way, had this to say about sculpture in general:

Quite so.

Nowadays, of course, such wondrous sights are few and far between, and pretty much confined to photography.  Although there is this lovely picture of Mr. and Mrs. David Bowie:

…wherein even the bony Angela looks quite appealing, most such pictures seem to need backlighting:

…while most (shall we say) are more prurient:

Honestly?  I prefer Story’s sculptures to all of them.

I need some help, and I have no idea where to start.  Observe this oil painting:

All I know about it is mostly supposition:

• the unknown artist is supposedly Iranian (or perhaps Persian, back when it was painted)
• he was supposedly a court painter for the Shah of Iran/Persia
• the painting is one of a small series — this one is called, I think, “Green”, and others are likewise entitled “Blue”, “Red”, etc.
• it’s quite large:  60″x48″
• it was purchased sometime during the 1980s, from a gallery in Los Angeles.

That’s all I know.  I’ve looked and looked all over Teh Intarwebz, but nada.

If anyone can shed light on the piece, or tell me where I can look further, I’d be eternally grateful.

It was a popular theme, for a while:  people having a picnic lunch en plain air, in some park or other.  Here’s (I think) the best-known example of “Dejeuner sur l’herbe”, painted by Edouard Manet:

(all pics can be right-clicked/embiggened)

His similarly named contemporary Claude Monet also did one (albeit less shockingly):

…and Paul Cézanne did two:

  (I’m pretty sure the second was painted during his Drunken Phase, but whatever.)

Here’s Marcel Dyf’s pair:

…although it must be said that Dyf had a thing about barely-pubescent girls, the dirty old sod.

Of course, Picasso had to add his two pesetas:

…while Egon Schiele went off-script completely:

Some American guy followed the trend:

…but he cocked it up completely, i.e. no nudity — I’m frankly surprised that he had wine in the pic.

The theme has continued into the modern era, mostly through photography (here’s Robert Doisneau):

…and in glorious (?) color:

…and even as a party theme:

There’s been some modern art on the topic, of course. Here’s Chinese artist Yue Minjun:

…which made me howl with laughter.  Absolutely brilliant satire.

There was even a French movie entitled “Dejeuner sur l’herbe”.  Here’s a still:

And yes, that was yesterday’s Caption Competition pic.

I really, really like the work of one-time civil engineer and now photographer Alec Dawson.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, each one of Dawson’s eerie still-life pics is a volume.  Here are several of my favorites (right-click to embiggen).

In case you missed the detail:

Some suggest abandonment:

And then there are the more explicit (and even more tragic) ones:

I could write a short story — or possibly a novella — about each and every one of these, simply because of the feelings and emotions contained in that simple picture.

I’m not even going to get into the lighting, other to say that it’s a rare skill to light a night scene without making it look contrived and artificial.  And if these pics are nothing else, they’re realistic, almost hyper-realistic.

While all the above are part of Dawson’s Nocturna  series, here’s a video sample of Nobody Claps Anymore.  The man’s a genius.