FLASHBACK artwork Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
Sheesh… and I thought I was pushing stuff uphill at the end of 2007! (((chuckles)))
I’m off to Brisbane today to pick up some art supplies. I boxed up much of it when I was home a week or so ago and posted the boxes down to myself here on the Coast… but somehow left behind my large portfolio with a whole (unopened) bag of new paper in it. I had excess baggage anyway… so maybe leaving it behind was a good thing. And I can always get it next time.
Meantime though… I’m chaffing at the bit to get paint to paper. Hence the trip to Brisbane. I can’t wait to browse the aisles of Eckersleys to see what I will find. I love art supply shops. They all have the same smell no matter where in the world you go! It’s a peculiar combination of paint paper clay glue… I don’t know what… but it never fails to spark the flame of inspiration in me.
I knew a guy once who (along with his beautiful wife) owned an art shop. He ran classes occassionally in the loft above the store. He was a big man with a beard and a somewhat gruff personality (if you didn’t know him better). He scared the begeezes out of me for a long time… but then as time went on and I visited the shop and took a few classes… I seemed to catch his drift.
He was passionate about art. Moreover he was passionate about his materials. I remember his thunderous voice on one such occasion loudly booming…
“you’ve got to be in LOVE with your materials”
He punctuated the statement with a ferocious wave of his fist at the back wall where art hung as a glorious exemplary metaphor. I thought he was nuts.
At the time I was only in love with the wafty idea of the subject floating vicariously around in my head… so I didn’t really get it. I thought the paint and the paper or canvas… the clay… or whatever… was just a means to an end.
But no… after all these years… and now that big John has gone to that big art studio in the sky… I do finally get it. I love the stuff that makes it happen!
I do I do I do!
I love the brushes for the varying marks they make… each with their own unique personality. I love the paper which, depending on brand, shape or size gives me a totally different mood and feel. I love the paint as it flows across the paper and settles into crevices along it’s path… creating new and unexpected nuances I could never have ever imagined in the first place.
I love the feel of it. The “doing” of it.
Yes… I love my “stuff”. And I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
After that… maybe a leisurely lunch somewhere… and then on to the Queensland Art Gallery to see what’s new on the exhibition circuit. You might remember my report on Picasso back in August last year which ignited so much new found passion for Modigliani!
Well… watch out here I go again. And depending on whose work is showing… this time they may have to tie me down… (or not!) We’ll see.
Modi’s Girl
Watercolour 22″ x 30″
Copyright 2008 Jean Burman
I am writing this in the early hours of the morning from the Q1 tower on the Gold Coast. The sun gets up so early here as summer approaches… situated as it is near the eastern seabord’s most easterly point. So it’s impossible to sleep past 5.30am. By summer the sun will rise an hour earlier even than that. I would definitely need black out blinds if I should ever live here!
Last week was a busy one for me. The builders moved in to do some repairs on the house before the painters come sometime next week. Zoned out on Mozart and in and out between the hammering and crashing however… I was able to get some painting done. Sadly no writing though… but hey… who can have it all? LOL
Modi’s Girl was born out of a wish (on my part) to give Jeanne Hebuterne… Modigliani’s sweet wife and muse… the eyes Modigliani had omitted in his famous portrait “Jeanne Hebuterne avec un grand chapeau”.
A little arrogant perhaps… but heartfelt nonetheless. And I’m pleased I did it. I think Jeanne wouldn’t mind so much… and I feel now as though I know her (even if only just a little).
Jeanne was an artist in her own right who lived and painted in the shadow of Modigliani’s greatness. How great she herself may have ultimately become will never be known for Jeanne threw herself from an upstairs window… taking her life and the life of their unborn child… one day after Modigliani’s untimely death in 1920 from tuberculosis and substance abuse.
She died for love.
That kind of thing doesn’t happen all that often any more. Passion it would seem… is passe. Replacing it… a kind of generalised emotional malaise in the modern way of life.
I wanted to recapture some of the magic of that past… albeit in my own way… adding my own contemporary spin! Whether I was successful or not I shall leave to the critics whom I feel sure will be swift to have me answer for it! (grin)
Either way… it was fun… and I’m glad I did it. 
On Friday we drove up to Brisbane to visit Picasso & His Collection at the Gallery of Modern Art. As it turned out Picasso himself wasn’t able to attend due to his being largely indisposed (chuckles)… but nonetheless we enjoyed High Tea without him in the Gallery Cafe before viewing the show.
High Tea!
This was an exhibition of Picasso’s personal collection “on tour” from the Musee National Picasso in Paris. It included not only Picasso’s own works but many important pieces acquired throughout his life from artist friends and colleagues… and included paintings, drawings and prints by artists such as Chardin, Matisse, Renoir, Cézanne, Rousseau, Miró, Modigliani (just one) and Braque as well as a selection of Oceanic and African works.
Gallery Cafe @ GOMA Brisbane
Although exceptionally well put together I initially found it difficult to get excited about much of the art. However… as this was Picasso’s personal collection I tried my best to understand what might have compelled this man to collect these particular works.
The conclusion I came to was that the collection comprised works that had “meaning” for him… works by friends and colleagues who had shared the same time and place in history… and a common experience of life in early 20th century Paris. Once I reconciled this… I found a new appreciation.
I admire Picasso’s work but none of it has ever really moved me. Perhaps this could be perceived as some grave failure on my part… but I do know what I like! So for me… only one painting in the whole collection truly resonated. Interestingly… it was the only Modigliani in the collection.
Poorly reproduced here – this image bears little resemblance to the original
Modigliani’s “Seated Dark Haired Girl” (painted in 1918 two years before his untimely death and acquired by Picasso two years after it) literally sucked me in from across the room and held me spellbound.
So simply executed… so profoundly beautiful… so “achingly” human.
I have long admired Modigliani’s work… the big shapes… the deceptively simple execution… but never before had I so completely “got it”. The emotional content was palpable. Tears welled in my eyes. Odd that they did… for Modigliani wasn’t given to painting eyes! But in this painting there was something about them…
The story goes that when Jeanne Hebuterne (Modigliani’s beautiful companion and muse) asked him why he never painted her eyes… Modigliani enigmatically replied
“I will paint your eyes when I know your soul”
I wonder though if this really explains it. Why would a painter choose not to paint his sitter’s eyes? (especially when his earlier work proved him more than capable of doing so.
To me… there seems to have been a creeping cynicism in the artwork from around this time. And this exhibition showed it was not isolated to Modigliani’s work either.
For Modigliani… a potent combination of illness poverty and substance abuse had created a pervasive atmosphere of despair and competitive rivalry with his peers (in particular Picasso). He was reportedly burned out by this time in his career… and through the haze of substance abuse (perhaps) he grew tired and cynical… too tired to look his subjects in the eye… let alone look deeply into their souls!
I believe this is what makes this particular painting all the more extraordinary. It’s as though the artist dug “especially deep” to produce it. How amazing that a stranger might stand before it all these years later and feel the impact of that struggle!
I cast my eyes around the room searching the walls of perfectly rendered images that said… virtually nothing to me… and never before had I been so acutely aware that it matters not what subject the painter paints… nor how technically correct the rendering might be… nor how zealously or slavishly he or she pursues literal perfection, detail or correctness.
What matters most of all is that the work captures the soul of the subject and the spirit of the artist [within it]. When those two forces meet the earth moves and the heavens open up!
To me… that is what is essential. And in the end it’s the only thing that matters… and the only thing worth striving for.
Only rose petals left… (grin)
I should have liked it if Picasso and Modigliani could have joined us for tea (or perhaps in their case something just a tad stronger)… but nonetheless we ate all the sandwiches and cakes… drank copious quantities of coffee and tea and toasted those raucous heady days in the cafes of Montparnasse and the times that defined them all!
