BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 114
C U LT U R E & A RT S
making mischief. Salvador Dalí,
who made a sculpture of a phone
with a lobster as the receiver once
complained that when he asked for
grilled lobster in a restaurant, he was
never served a cooked telephone.
(btw Hiëronymous Bosch was
depicting a similarly dystopian world
some 500 years before with his array
of grotesques in Garden of Earthly
Delights. Top marks for dropping that
into the conversation).
Be a tad controversial by claiming The
Young British Artists (YBAs) now
the OBAs (Older BAs) were cleverly
marketed Sensation seekers. Play
safe and laud David Hockney as the
Greatest Living British Artist.
Renaissance Man
Now you have to up your game.
The heart of soul of the story of art
lies in the Renaissance, the golden age
of art, music, and literature from the
1400s to the 17th century, in which
artists rejected the formality expected
of religious work to create a world of
harmony and beauty.
The names are household: Leonardo
da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli
and Raphael. Where to stop? Titian,
Tintoretto, Veronese.....
Lobster Telephone, Salvador Dalí, 1936
Contemporary Art
More labels here than a Tesco
superstore. Land art, street art,
feminist art, performance art, video
art, black art. All too confusing.
To prove your credentials come up
with something slightly left 昀椀eld.
Flowers for example. Red carnations
in a painting symbolise love, pink is
for marriage, a white 昀氀ower, good
luck and white lilies like the one
Gabriel presents to Mary in Leonardo
da Vinci’s Annunciation (1472–1475)
represent purity.
Annunciation, Leonardo da Vinci, c.1472
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ISSUE 24
To really show how clever you
are point out where the artists put
themselves in the picture.
Raphael peeks out from The School
of Athens fresco he painted in the
early 16th century. Sandro Botticelli
portrayed himself as the young blond
man on the right of The Adoration of
the Magi staring boldly out in a sort of
Renaissance sel昀椀e.
Michelangelo who hated working
on The Last Judgment in the Sistine
Chapel included a gruesome image of
himself as St. Bartholomew after he
had been skinned alive.
Artful
Picasso, who worked his way through
most of the isms of the 20th century,
could have a guide to himself. He once
declared: ‘Art is a lie that makes us
realise the truth.’
Hmmm.
