Giordano Bruno said of a dream he had wherein it was revealed to him that the universe is indeed infinite: I spread confident wings to space and soared toward the infinite, leaving far behind me what others [The Gros/Mi/Ti-Jeanne women] strained to see from a distance. Here, there was no up, nor down, no edge, no center. I saw that the sun was just another star and the stars were other suns, each escorted by other earths like our own. The revelation of this immensity was like falling in love.
Later, Giordano Bruno visits London and addresses a (supposedly) enlightened and educated gathering by saying:
I beg you, reject antiquity, tradition, faith, and authority. Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven. Your God is too small.
Let us begin anew by doubting everything we assume has been proven.
Photographer Lloyd Ziff signing copies of his new books at Rizzoli, New York
Talk about received wisdom and its inherent ignorance! Valentin de Boulogne (Met Museum)
(Yes-I did think of this post’s segue before going to the Met Museum this morning;) I may sometimes turn up a little bedraggled but I am there: awake, and even more awake this morning, and I even white balanced today-though when it comes to images/paintings vs. real talking people there is still somewhat of a color issue problem. Art reflects life reflects art? I try color correcting in Final Cut editing but I wish I had a nubile young lepruchaun beside to do in an hour what it takes Andrew relative ‘eons’ to accomplish. However: what I saw in Valentin de Boulogne at the Met defied all pre-research: breathtaking was well, totally unexpected.
This pre-amble is not pre-unnecessary: though the Valentin colors have faded (like they do..!) -if you are looking for striking color then may I suggest Times Square-sorry…though that’s not necessarily a put down for that zip code.
What Valentin offers is unbelievable cinematic painting. There is Manga here beyond what you’d ever imagine. You want energy and zap! It's here. Over and over again. But this is even more more-over Visconti. Why? Few remember that the great wide screen film director Visconti began his career introducing American ‘realist’ plays to the Italian theater such as Arthur Miller. What Valentin does is meld the ‘status quo’ myth painting with the reality. It is nothing short of extraordinary. A case in point: Judith and Holofernes. Painted over and over again in art history. But here, Judith is the reality. She is a teenage, dare I say terrorist (depending which side of the sword one is on). And she does the deed that she intended without flinch nor remorse. Holofernes severed head is still terrified nay mortified.
You would have thought a show like this would have been a shoe-in for the Met. Most definitely no! according to the show’s instigator Keith Christiansen. The influence Valentin’s painting had on such ‘known’ ‘recognized’ greats as Velasquez is nothing short of extraordinary and revelatory in this exhibition. Mr. Christiansen proudly boasted (as he did with a long-forgotten, by some, Ribera show) that you will never see a show like this again. How did they get some of these loans that are priceless? Mushroom magic?:) Not implying at all at all that the Vatican...;) (Munich's Alte Pinakothek remained sober and never budging an inch on loaning their Valentin and the Hermitage couldn't due the longstanding embargo but there is one very similar and equally frenetic in the Met show.)
VIDEO to come (it takes a lot of Leprechaun time..;)
Martyrdom of Saints Processus and Martinian (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome) (pic courtesy Met Museum Press Office USB images)
the colors here are somewhat 'more enhanced' than what you will see in the show. So: there's where my Final Cut jokes are not amiss. The Judith and Holofernes video snip (posted above from this morning) is also a case in point. The Met press image on USB is not quite the same as the living image. (Not that 'my cameraphone colors' are anywhere near correct either!) I say this to be kind and interesting nit cruel and boring! Colors, though, in fairness, were not really Valentin's thing. Strange? Yes. In retrospect, yes. OK: enough. If you want a lecture on that, then the Met are the ones to petition;) ! Check the internet images for the Saint Mark and Saint Matthew (an unbelievable loan from the Versailles bedroom). Versailles sent them both to the cleaners. The results are remarkable. Valentin de Boulogne (Met Museum) could have painted (photographed in B/W) and still be hailed as a genius. Go figure! Go see! Go paint! Go live! Go fly. Go dream. Go evaporate! Go anything but just EXIST! !! !! !! !!
P.S. (Having said/stated 'lepruchaun' : in fairness: Jack Yeats would never the same been without color. Is that a shillelagh '&^*^^%^%&^%' statement under my arm...? We was just wanted to be fair minded. !! Dreaming of 'across the pond', Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts is at the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge) as an dialectical antidote to Valentin de Boulogne film noir.
As if Valentin wasn't banquet enough, The Met just opened Fragonard: Drawing Triumphant—Works from New York Collections. And when you've Stendhal-syndromed enough on Valentin, take the elevator right beside the bookshop to the 4th floor and stairs to the roof to see Cornelia Parker's Transitional Object (PsychoBarn) (closes Oct 31). Parker's work has always been deceptively simple: as Oscar Wilde wrote: The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
