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*
To the National Gallery yesterday afternoon, for the Caravaggio exhibit. Unsurprisingly, it was sold out. So instead I wandered around the permanent collection and said hello to old friends. Played "name that saint" (Barbara with her tower; Catherine with her wheel; poor perforated Sebastian) and marvelled anew at van Eyck's mastery. When van Eyck paints, the result is clearly a representation, but with details which achieve a dreamlike hyper-realism. That's his "Arnolfini Marriage", above. Hockney posits quite convincingly that these early masters used a camera obscura to achieve this perfection, but to me this doesn't diminish at all the achievement of turning a sticky, uncooperative mass of green paint into the delicate velvet folds of That Dress.
Afterwards, I wandered across the landing to "Paintings 1500 and later", but rapidly decided I couldn't deal with the bombast of Paolo Veronese and the cacophanous 16th century after the cool, mathematical precision of their earlier, Northern brethren. I escaped into the first evening of British Summer Time - a strange, grudging half-light, but with promise of better things to come.
SYNDICATION: LiveJournal
ARCHIVES: October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007
& FOR HER NEXT TRICKS:
KAT & MOUSE 2
January 2007
ISBN-10: 1598165496
$5.99 / All Ages
AGENT BOO 2
January 2007
ISBN-10: 1598168037
$4.99 / All Ages
***
RECENTLY:
MESSIAH COMPLEX 1
October 2006
ISBN-10: 2731617667
EUR12,90 / Teen
AGENT BOO 1
Sept 2006
ISBN-10: 1598168029
ISBN-13: 9781598168020
$4.99 / All Ages
KAT & MOUSE 1
July 2006
ISBN-10: 1598165488
ISBN-13: 9781598165487
$5.99 / All Ages
SMOKE
December 2005
ISBN-10: 193323928X
$24.99 / Teen
***
Brief Loves:
Music: Berlin Cabaret Songs
Film: Chetyre (4)
Book: Camera Lucida
***
Friends & Conspirators:
Kieron Gillen
Alasdair Watson
Evil Genius
Paul O'Brien
Jonny Nagl
Chad Michael Ward
The Graf von Sarll
Delirium des Anges
Jeremy Love
Frazer Irving
Antony Johnston
Tristan Crane
Laurenn McCubbin
Dan Evans
Farel Dalrymple
Brendan McFeely
Warren Ellis
Dean Haspiel
Brian Wood
Igor Kordey
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Flipron
Tiny Dog Records
Admired Strangers:
Bob Mould
Popbitch
Revenant Records
Grand Central Records
Tom Phillips
The Starn Brothers
The Real Tuesday Weld
Misty's Big Adventure
The Earlies
Menlo Park
Akira the Don
Coop
***
Musical Exotica:
Planet Xtabay
Poison To The Mind