Tag Archive | art

Gothic Nightmares

May21

Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination is the book of an exhibition I never went to. I’ve had it for so long I’ve forgotten where I got it. I first started reading it about ten years ago but didn’t get very far with it because it is too big to carry around and I don’t read much at home. And finally I’ve finished it, thanks to my miracle morning routine.

Fuseli’s The Nightmare is one of my favourite pictures and there are several others in this collection that I was taken with. I’m not such a fan of William Blake. The book explores Fuseli’s position on the divide between neoclassical and romantic art. The use of neoclassical forms in new ways with new themes to produce something that reflected the changing times of the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th.

I enjoyed looking at the pictures and learning a bit more about art history. Maybe one day I’ll know what it all means.

The Boy

Mar26

I have a new morning routine, inspired by the Miracle Morning, which involves spending 25 minutes reading while having breakfast before I leave for work. Most of my reading is done on the train which means that I don’t like to carry any book too heavy or large. I have a stash of books that I’ve been wanting to read but not getting to because I don’t read that much at home. There are some lovely art books, some lengthy histories, and some epic sagas. Now I have my morning reading routine I can start to work through them.

One of those lovely art books is The Boy by Germaine Greer. It explores the young male nude as a subject of art throughout history. The conventional wisdom is that the female nude is the object drawn to be observed by the male gaze. Greer argues that this elides boys as an object and ignores women as both artists and patrons of art. It focuses on young males, boys rather than men, which were historically much more studied from real life, whereas female nudes were constructed from ideal proportions.

I really enjoyed it. I find art history a little hard going, mainly because I have scant knowledge to build on, but the pictures are wonderful to look at. I learnt something and started my days with some beautiful images.