MIKE HEALEY

2012-02-24T08:23:00.002+02:00

HOT NEWS!

IF you live in Nether Wallop OR are an alien from deep space currently visiting our planet thinly disguised as Paris Hilton or Anne Widdecombe, THEN you might be forgiven for NOT knowing that you can see my work at

The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle

The Biscuit Factory is Britain's largest commercial gallery and one of its most successful

My one-man show is on in the Corner Gallery and includes drawings, paintings and three-dimensional dioramas

If you are unable to visit the Gallery, then you can view and buy work online

Its easy, quick and prices cover all budgets. This is your chance to buy original, contemporary art at affordable prices

My exhibition ends 5th March

For direct access to The Biscuit Factory, click on the link below:

MIKE HEALEY AT THE BISCUIT FACTORY

2012-02-20T11:26:00.001+02:00

Dear Blogger

Please note that for the moment this blog is dormant and no new posts will be added for the next few months

This is to allow me to get on with other creative work, including a new novel about Napoleon in Egypt!

If, however, you are new to this blog then there is much about art to see and read

Please feel free to browse the 90 or so arts-related posts that are still available

Mike Healey

The Tempest by Shakespeare

2012-02-09T18:18:00.000+02:00

Why The Tempest?

If you are a regular follower of this blog (if not, why not?) then you will know of my long-term involvement with Shakespeare's The Tempest (1610).

The Tempest - diorama by Mike Healey

If you are not familiar with this play then all you need know is that it is set on a desert island to which Prospero - the former Duke of Milan - and his teenage daughter, Miranda have been banished.

Banishment! - collage by Mike Healey

On the island Prospero uses an airy spirit called Ariel to enact his magic. This beautiful painting (below) of Ariel flying on a bat's wing is by Fuseli, one of the most imaginative and accomplished of artists who have illustrated Shakespeare's plays:

Henry Fuseli, Ariel (c. 1800-10)

Prospero also enslaves a 'savage' called Caliban yet it is Caliban who is the rightful owner of the island.

John Hamilton Mortimer, Caliban (1775-76)

This is Elizabethan colonialism at its most ruthless and one reason why perhaps scholars today have found that this play still resonates with political and social issues.

When Caliban attempts to rape Miranda, Prospero cruelly punishes him:

Henry Fuseli, The Enchanted Island: Before the Cell of Prospero (1797)

The play - like the island itself - is imbued with Magic. One artist who captured the haunted nature of the place was Richard Dadd - an extraordinary, self-taught British artist who later murdered his father.

This is a scene (below) from the opening of the play when Prospero summons the spirits of the island he now controls.

Richard Dadd, Come Unto These Yellow Sands (1842)

Prospero has studied magic and is able to summon up weird and wonderful creatures to torment anyone - such as his enemies from Milan - who are themselves later shipwrecked on the island.

Here Paul Falconer Poole has captured the moment when Antonio, Prospero's evil brother, resolves to murder his colleagues shipwrecked with them.As yet they are unaware that this is Prospero's island and that he is watching their every move.

Paul Falconer Poole, (1856)

Prospero the magician is also able to fabricate Baroque palaces or elaborate masques in order to celebrate his daughter's engagement to Prince Ferdinand who, by chance, is also subsequently shipwrecked on the island.

Tempest Masque (Juno's Descent) - Diorama by Mike Healey

I have long wondered why this play, of all Shakespeare' great works, should so fascinate me - to the extent that I once created an exhibition of some sixty paintings solely devoted to exploring aspects of The Tempest.

Caliban and Miranda - drawing by Mike Healey

Since then I have also created at least seven large dioramas related to this strange, mysterious and entirely magical play.

Caliban's Garden - Diorama by Mike Healey

The question is: Why?

I first directed The Tempest when I was Associate Director at the Oxford Playhouse in the 1970's. My production starred Francesca Annis as Miranda.

Since then I have directed it twice in professional productions and several times with drama students in one form or another.

George Romney, The Tempest (c. 1790)

I suppose one reason is that as a painter/stage designer it offers countless opportunities for imaginative interpretations. For the Cumbria Institute of the Arts I created a short version of The Tempest, featuring the 'back story' to Caliban and Miranda.

Miranda's Dream by Mike Healey, choreography by Gill Roncarelli
(Photo - Sam Henderson)

Prospero's magic gives artistic licence for almost anything. Indeed, that may explain why Derek Jarman (1979) and Peter Greenaway (Prospero's Books, 1991) have both made film adaptations of this play.

John Guilgud as Prospero in Prospero's Books -1991

Recently, Helen Mirren starred in a new film adaptation by Julie Taymor (2010).

Helen Mirren as a female Prospero (2010)

For me, Prospero's ability to summon up extravagant architectural structures or visually complex masques appeals to my sensibilities as a stage director/designer.

If he can do it, then so must I!

And then there are the wonderful characters.

Miranda, for example, has long interested other artists but each interpretation is largely a reflection of the times in which that artist worked. Nothing wrong with that, I guess, but it does make for some very strange Mirandas

Joseph Wright, Ferdinand and Miranda in Prospero's Cell (1800)

The nearest I ever got to creating a convincing Miranda 'look' was in a preliminary sketch in which she is a punk dressed in faded Gucci - or at least a Vivienne Westwood castaway!

Caliban for me is the hero of this complex tale, not least because he is the outsider and the victim of Propsero's particular brand of despotism.

Caliban - Mike Healey

When I first tackled him I conceived him as some kind of monster (as in the little charcoal/ collage above). Later I saw that he was more complex - a 'savage' capable of passion and feeling.

Caliban's Garden - Mike Healey

However, there is another reason why I love this play so much. It is a reason that I only remembered when I started writing this article.

Miranda

Pencil drawing by Mike Healey

When I was about sixteen I would regularly cycle some thirty miles (each way) from my home to a wonderful second-hand bookshop in Tunbridge Wells, Kent (UK).

There, one day, I found a 19th Century copy of The Tempest. It was small, beautifully bound with thick, creamy paper. The act and scene headings were in red. I thought this was sumptuous and bought it, there and then!

Ariel - Mike Healey

So, my real reason for loving The Tempest so much is that little edition - my very first copy of the play. Do you remember Orson Welles' Citizen Kane (1941)? Well, that little edition of The Tempest is my 'Rosebud'.

Postcript

Although Prospero's island is entirely invented by Shakespeare, some scholars and writers (including Lawrence Durrell) claim that it is really Corfu, Greece.

Guess where I now live! Corfu! Spookie, eh?

Mike Healey
Corfu, 1978
"What comes around, comes around!"

This week's featured artist

2012-02-08T04:02:00.000+02:00

Henry Fuseli's Macbeth

I began my professional career in the theatre as a Director, ending up Associate Director at the Oxford Playhouse.

Here I worked with Judi Dench, Ian Mckellan, Ian McShane ('Lovejoy'), Leo McKern ('Rumpole of the Bailey), Leonard Rossiter ('Rising Damp') and many more wonderful actors.

During my period at The Oxford Playhouse I directed a wide range of plays, including several by Shakespeare - but never Macbeth.

Which brings me to my featured artist - Henry Fuseli (1741-1825).

Henry Fuseli was a Swiss artist who first came to London in 1761 where Joshua Reynolds encourage him to become a professional painter.

After studying in Italy, Fuseli came back to England where, many years later, he became Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy.

Fuseli's interest in Shakespeare's Macbeth dates back to 1760 when he saw David Garrick in the part of Macbeth.

It must have made a deep impression on him because he did not get round to painting his memory of that production until fifty years later!

What distinguishes Fuseli's work from other representations of this play is his remarkable sense of drama and his use of what is best described as 'stage lighting' to give emphasis to each character against a pitch-black 'backdrop'

Zoffany - MacBeth

If you compare his work with, for example, Johann Zoffany's efforts (see above) then one can see at once the superior quality of Fuseli's treatment of this subject

This is the same production, starring Hannah Pritchard and David Garrick, that Fuseli first saw

in 1760 but how different Fuseli's treatment is from Zoffany's!

Sarah Siddens - 1814

Even as great an actress as Sarah Siddens is shown in a pose that is, frankly, somewhat ridiculous and entirely without drama. This particular representation (above) is by George Henry Harlow

Compare that with Fuseli's 'portrait' of Lady Macbeth in full flight!

Occasionally other artists start to get closer to the action. Take, for example, Rossetti's study for Lady Macbeth in her madness:

Dante Gabriel Rossetti - Lady Macbeth (1875)

There are elements of drama here but it is still rather static and very two-dimensional.

Indeed, in the history of this particular genre, few artists have captured those elements that make stage productions so exciting - a sense of movement, dramatic lighting and raw emotion.

Henry Fuseli captures all that, even in small character drawings - as in his celebrated study for the three witches of 1783:

When he pulls out all the guns, well, the result is hugely effective:

One gets a real sense of what the stage production itself must have felt like for an engrossed audience drawn into the horror and excitement that is Shakespeare's Macbeth

Mike Healey

If you would like to see other work by Henry Fuseli, then click on the link below:

HENRY FUSELI

If you would like to see how artists have treated other plays by Shakespeare, then click on the link below:

SHAKESPEARE IN ART

2012-02-07T17:16:00.002+02:00

The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle

The Biscuit Factory is Britain's largest commercial gallery and one of its most successful

My one-man show is on in the Corner Gallery and includes drawings, paintings and three-dimensional dioramas

If you are unable to visit the Gallery, then you can view and buy work online

Its easy, quick and prices cover all budgets. This is your chance to buy original, contemporary art at affordable prices

My exhibition ends 5th March

For direct access to The Biscuit Factory, click on the link below:

MIKE HEALEY AT THE BISCUIT FACTORY

2012-02-06T10:46:00.000+02:00

Famous People I Have Met

No.3

Stephanie Beecham

Stephanie Beecham is famous for her role as the very rich, very bitchy Sable Colby in ABC's celebrated TV series The Colbys (1985-1987)

However, when I first met her she was much younger and dressed only in high heels, black basque and knickers and was wielding a long whip!

Sadly, I do not have a photograph of her in that particular costume but at the time we knew each other she looked more like this (above).

We met, in fact, on stage at The Oxford Playhouse where I was a young and inexperienced Assistant Director. Stephanie had just joined the company and was appearing in The Balcony, a play by Jean Genet.The play was being directed by Minos Volonakis and starred Janet Susman. Stepahnie's part was that of a young prostitute in a brothel - hence the whip!

The year was 1970 and Stephanie had not long left The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

We all loved her.
She got on well with everyone in the company and worked hard during the long and demanding rehearsals that minos demande of his cast. She was, however, rather quiet at first but with a dry sense of humour. No one guessed that she was deaf in one ear. She even had freckles!

She lived in a small, ground floor flat somewhere off the Finchley Road, London.

He boyfriend at that time was an architect. He had covered the the walls and ceiling of their front room entirely with cardboard boxes, creating an elaborate three-dimensional sculpture in which they lived. I though it very cool.

Stephanie only stayed for one season at the Oxford Playhouse but during that time she must have been spotted by Michael Winner for the following year she turned up on screen opposite Marlon Brando.

The Nightcomers (1971) was Stephanie's first film role. It bought her instant fame, if not notoriety. Mind you, it is said that Brando wore Y-Fronts and Wellington boots in bed during their torrid love scenes!

Stephanie' success in this film subsequently led to a series of high-profile TV shows, including

Tenko (1981–84) for the BBC and Connie (1985) for ITV.

Global fame, however, came with her creation of Sable in the The Colbys (1985–87) for which she was paid £25,000 a week - somewhat more than we paid her at The Oxford Playhouse, I suspect!

The rest, as they say, is history

Mind you, I will always remember her in high heels, black basque and knickers and wielding a long whip!

Mike Healey

Kustav Klimt

2012-02-05T18:16:00.000+02:00

'Whoever wants to know something about me ought to look carefully at my work!’

Kustav Klimt

When preparing my mini-series on the impact of Japanese art on famous artists such as Degas, Vincent Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec, I was reminded how much I liked the work of Gustav Klimt

The Kiss (1909)

This is his most famous painting. I am not sure why because it is one of his least accomplished. Bland. Anodyne. Anyway, we have to start somewhere!

Gustave Klimt

Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the founding members (later President) of the Vienna Secession Movement in 1897. He remained with the Secession until 1908.

The group's goals were to provide exhibitions for unconventional young artists, to bring the best foreign artists' works to Vienna, and to publish its own magazine to showcase members' work.

The Women Friends (1916-1918)

Klimt’s primary subject was the female body and his works are sometimes marked by a frank eroticism. That may explain why he is hugely popular still and why most of us, at one time or another, have had a Klimt poster on our bedroom wall - such as The Kiss.

The Tree of Life

Klimt was trained at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts as an architectural painter. In 1877 his brother Ernst (like his father, an engraver and goldsmith) also enrolled in the school.

The two brothers - with their friend Franz Matsch - began working together. By 1880 they had received numerous commissions for both domestic interiors, public buildings and theatres.

Hostile Powers

They now called themselves the ‘Company of Artists‘ and gained initial recognition with their murals for the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Personal success for Klimt swiftly followed, including a number of important private and public commissions.

In the early 1890s, Klimt met Emilié Floge.

Klimt and Emilie Floge

Notwithstanding the artist's extensive relationships with other women, Emilie Floge was to be his companion until the end of his life.

Whether their relationship was sexual or not is still debated by art historians yet during their long period together Klimt fathered at least fourteen children with other women - so they either had a 'free' love' arrangement or she was an extremely tolerant partner! Nevertheless, she became the subject of many hugely successful paintings.

Emilie Floge (1902)

One thing that characterised Klimt's work at this time was his use of long, thin canvases. This is derived directly from Japanese models.

Japanese hanging scroll - 18C

In Japanese art these 'pillars' are called kakemono-e or 'hanging scrolls' and date back to the 14th century. Like Degas, Van Gogh and other earlier Modernists, the Secessionists were quick to seize the opportunities this format offered.

Klimt (1899) Moser (1898) Kurtzweil (1903)

Klimt himself exploited this 'pillar' format brilliantly, producing at least one masterpiece - known as Judith II or simply Salome

Salome (1909)

The model here is Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of a wealthy Viennese businessman and the subject for a number of Klimt's finest portraits.

Adele Bloch-Bauer

Many of Klimt's paintings from this period used gold leaf - a skill he first leaned from his father. It is also possible that he drew upon religious icons for inspiration.

Russian Icon

In the village in Corfu where I now live my neighbour, an elderly woman, has at least ten religious icons on her sitting-room wall.

Each one shows a portrait of the Virgin Mary and Child, painted 'realistically' but embedded within a flat, highly ornate surround - either of precious metal or richly coloured paint.

Greek Icon

The similarities to Klimt's work are striking and may also explain why his women appear so lacking in emotion. In the religious icons the figures are of another time and place and exist at a spiritual level that renders them approachable yet remote.

Adele Bloch-Bauer I

Klimt's women are equally iconic, yet also remote and aloof. They are figures of high fashion rather than tactile lovers or living portraits. They too - like the religious icons - have conventionally painted faces but positioned within a rich, flat decorative space, often enriched with gold leaf.

Judith 1 (1901)

Although these portraits occasionally contain erotic elements it is an eroticism that is somewhat suppressed and quite 'distant' - as if one may 'look but not touch'!

Fulillment (1905-1909)

Klimt may have derived these ornate, highly coloured yet essentially flat surfaces from the Japanese kimono, prints of which were readily available at this time in Vienna.

Keisai Eisen c.1830

Since I have tried to show the key elements of Klimt's style at the height of his fame, it may be interesting at this point to look back at his earlier work to see how much he transformed his art.

Klimt's academic training at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts and incredible natural ability helped him obtain a number of large, public commissions in which he could show off his technique.

Allegory of Sculpture

This early work (above) is very much in the style approved by the Viennese Academy but it shows exceptional skill. Klimt must have been a remarkable student. Even at the start of his professional career he painted many murals for public buildings in this style - to considerable critical acclaim.

Idyll (1884)

His figure drawing is also of a very high standard, as is his skill at monumental composition. This is academic work of the highest order - making his later work by which we principally know him even more remarkable.

He also acquired in these early years a reputation as a portrait painter and received numerous commissions from the wealthy citizens of Vienna - such as this charming portrait of Sonja Knips, Baroness Poitiers des Eschelles They were at briefly lovers but Klimt subsequently left her for someone else!

Sonja Knips (1898)

What is less known, perhaps, was that Klimt was also a fine landscape artist, these paintings being amongst my favourite works by him. Take this stunning painting of a copse of silver birch, for example:

Birch Forest

Klimt's landscapes are something I would like to return to at a later date. They are an important, yet neglected part of his oeuvre.

Klimt himself wrote little about his vision or his methods. However, in a rare writing called Commentary on a non-existent self-portraitt, he stated:

‘I have never painted a self-portrait. I am less interested in myself as a subject for a painting than I am in other people, above all women.There is nothing special about me. I am a painter who paints day after day, from morning to night. Whoever wants to know something about me ought to look carefully at my work!’

Klimt and Emilie Folge

I said earlier how I disliked The Kiss, arguing that it was bland and uninspired. Let me leave you, therefore, with my absolute favourite. Its called Mother and Child and was painted in 1909.

The Three Ages of Women

While the young mother and child figures border on being somewhat sentimental, the powerful figure of the older woman on the left wrenches us back to reality. The decorative elements are functional yet wonderfully textured, making this - in my view, at least - on of his greatest works.

Klimt died in Vienna on 6th February, 1918 having suffered a stroke and pneumonia due to the influenza epidemic of 1918. He is buried at the Hietzing Cemetery in Vienna.

Mike Healey

Japonisme Part 4

2012-02-04T06:34:00.004+02:00

Japonisme

In this short series of articles I have tried to show the impact Japanese art had on early masters of Modernism - Degas, Vincent Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec in particular.

If you are new to this blog and would like to read these earlier posts, then simply scroll down to find Parts 1, 2 and 3.

Part 4

This time I would like to look at landscape, yet from a surprising starting point

Kitagawa Utamaro

The outside walls of Japanese houses are often equipped with sliding grille walls known as shoji. The walls inside are defined by similar, lighter walls (fusuma). Indeed, the inner partitions of traditional Japanese houses are light wooden structures covered in paper through which the light shines.

19C Japanese Woodcut

Western artists, exposed to this work for the first time, quickly realised that the grille format pervaded Japanese art, resurfacing in surprising ways.

Bamboo - Tien-Sheng, Ch'ing dynasty

Western artists soon recognised the potential of this visual device and applied it to their own work, starting with copies of domestic scenes from the Japanese woodcuts and coloured prints to which they were increasingly exposed after 1858.

The railway - Edouard Manet (1874)

When this grille format was applied to landscape - as the Japanese masters themselves did - the results were liberating and opened up new ways for Western artists to depict trees, for example, within traditional landscapes:

The edge of the wood - E.H.Taylor (1912)

Japanese artists also showed the way in composition, freeing up French art still hamstrung by the strictures of Academic formalism. The woodcut below is by Ando Hiroshige, dated 1835. The semi-diagonal composition was characteristic of this genre of Japanese art and much copied by western artists.

The Japanese were also adept at finding the essential form of trees or plants, thereby creating a deceptively simple yet formulaic 'shape':

Mount Fuji - Katsushika Hokusai (c.1825)

The French quickly copied this device, creating their own 'bobble' trees on wobbly trunks!

Twilight (detail) - Henri Riviere

The painting shown below is by Maurice Denis and seems to combine not only the grille format but this peculiarly Japanese way of depicting 'bobble' or 'lolly-pop' trees - something surprisingly new in French art of this period.

The dance of Alcestis - Maurice Denis (1905)

The influence of Japanese art is also evident in two other great Modernists - Claude Monet and Gustave Klimt. The painting below is by Monet:

The four poplars - Claude Monet (1891)

Although Klimt is best known today for his elaborately decorated figure paintings (partly inspired by Japanese kimonos), he was a fine landscape artist - as this magnificent representation of a Silver Birch wood shows:

Gustav Klimt - 1902

If you would like to know more about this fascinating subject, then read Japonisme by Siegfried Wichmann, published by Thames and Hudson (1981) from whom I have taken the illustrations used in this short article.

Mike Healey

For other fine art books published by Thames and Hudson, click on the link below:

THAMES AND HUDSON

2012-02-02T08:02:00.000+02:00

The greatest artist ...ever!

If you were to ask me whom I considered the greatest artist ever, I would not hesitate one moment for it is Francisco Goya

I hope one day soon to write an extended article on Goya but meanwhile, let's look at just one of his paintings

Its called Witches' Flight

This great painting was completed in 1798, the year Napoleon invaded Egypt.

Witches in Flight shows three young, male witches abducting a fourth figure. Together they are bearing him aloft, his back arched in agony or in some kind of terrified swoon.

It may be that the witches are trying to eat him!

Below, a second man lies on the ground trying to block out the sounds by covering his ears.

A third figure has abandoned his donkey, covered his head with a sheet and - as he flees the scene - sticks out his thumbs between the index and second fingers of each hand in a (futile) gesture designed to ward off evil.

In Spanish this gesture is called the figa.

Apart from the breath-taking drama of this painting and its brilliant execution, it is almost certainly a satirical work.

Goya saw superstition as a crippling weakness and one to which the uneducated proletariat of Spain were particularly prone.

This painting is also a sideways swipe at the Spanish Inquisition that spent a great deal of energy hunting down and burning 'witches' rather than educating the illiterate and helping the poor peasants of Spain.

Since the Catholic Church was the force behind the Inquisition, priests were equally prone to superstition and clearly capable of dabbling with witchcraft and devilry:

Goya's Witches' Flight is just one of a series of masterpieces that Goya created around this disturbing subject.

If you would like to see the range, technical accomplishment and emotional power of Goya's art, then click on the link below:

COMPLETE WORKS OF GOYA

If you would like to get a sense of the power of his engravings, click on the link below:

LOS DESASTRES DE LA GUERRA

Mike Healey

Liz Taylor and Richard Burton

2012-01-31T17:49:00.000+02:00

Famous People I have met

No 2

How I nearly stole Liz Taylor's jewels!

In 1963 Liz Taylor and Richard Burton appeared together on screen in Joseph Mankiewicz's film Cleopatra. The film was a critical flop but a huge financial success, although not quite covering its production costs of $44 million! Taylor's fee was $7 million.

The much publicised affair between Liz and Richard during the making of Cleopatra and their subsequent marriage in March, 1964 also made global headlines. They were now the two most famous people on the planet. Everywhere they went they were pursued relentlessly by the press.

Three years later they both came to Oxford (UK) to appear in a student production of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. It was a fund-raising gesture on the part of Burton.

That year (1966) I had been appointed Front of House Manager at the Oxford Playhouse. I was twenty-five, having recently graduated. It was, in effect, my first job in the theatre and was to be the start of a brilliant career (or so I hoped!).

My actual job was to keep the world's paparazzi at a safe distance while Burton and Taylor were rehearsing on stage.

I failed miserably, so much so that rehearsals moved to the gymnasium at the police station on Carfax! Not a good start to my new theatrical career!

Liz Taylor's role in the play was Helen of Troy - a non-speaking part. At the start of the third act she enters and is met by Faustus with the immortal words:

On the first night the curtain rose to reveal Liz in a stunning white dress, standing upstage in a pool of pale blue light. She looked fabulous. The stage was covered in a gentle, undulating sea of dry ice.

Unfortunately, as the curtain slowly rose it created a down draft, causing the 'fog' to slide off stage and engulf the first six rows of the audience.

On that night, Dr Faustus' celebrated speech was almost drowned in a cacophony of coughing and spluttering!

Liz Taylor was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. Although quite short and somewhat 'top-heavy', she had perfect skin and amazingly violet eyes.

Her dress sense, however, was terrible!

The Burtons had rooms at the Randolf Hotel next to the theatre. After each show we were all invited for drinks. The first time I went Liz entered - to applause - wearing a lime-green Lycra jump suit. Not good!

Although they kept open house most nights for cast and stage crew (including me) at the Randolf they were actually staying at an old inn out of town, called The Bear. Each night, once the Randolf party was in full swing, they would quietly slip away, get into their Rolls Royce and be driven to Woodstock.

I got to talk to Richard Burton on several occasions. He was very intelligent and our conversations embraced a wide range of literary topics, including the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. One evening Richard recited just for me a long passage from Under Milk Wood in that dark, sonorous voice of his. Magic!

Which brings me to Liz Taylor's jewelry box.

Over the years she had acquired an impressive collection of jewelry, mostly gifts from appreciative film producers or rich admirers. For some reason that still escapes me, she always carried her box of jewels with her where ever she went. They were entrusted to one of her managers who always travelled with her.

Perhaps it gave her a sense of financial security. Who knows!

During the show one night this Manager, who was having a drink with me in my little office, placed the actual box of jewels on the table and invited me to have a look.

I opened the box to reveal the most hideous collection of costume jewelry I had ever seen. Mind you, tit was worth at least $12 million!

For a moment I must confess that I was sorely tempted to slug John with a blunt instrument, steal the jewels and start a new life in South America.

I didn't but stayed on at the Oxford Playhouse to become Associate Director, long after Richard Burton and Liz Taylor had gone - followed, no doubt, by the paparazzi I had so manifestly failed to contain!

Mike Healey

Kafka's Dream

2012-01-30T10:52:00.000+02:00

Kafka's Dream

A short story

JAMES TAIT

Prague

Gregor was an ordinary plumber. All his life he had wanted to appear as an extra in a major movie.

One day his dream came true - but with dire consequences!

Footnote

This short story was inspired by a visit to Prague in 2007 with a group of film students. One day we visited the famous Barrandov Film Studios where, amongst many other great movies, The Bourne Identity had been filmed. When we were there they were actually building the sets for Casino Royale.

Our hotel was a large boat moored on the embankment of the river that runs through the centre of Prague. That night we discovered that a film crew were shooting a scene from Hannibal Rishing, directed by Peter Webber.

They were shooting on the embankment just a few yards from our floating hotel. The scene involved fishing a body out of the river. That was enough to give me the idea for this short story and later that night I started writing it.

To read this short story go to the top of this blog and click on the title - Kafka's Dream.

Hope you enjoy it!

2012-01-30T07:39:00.000+02:00

Something old, something new....

One thing that happens when you move house (hopefully for the last time!) is that you find things that you thought you had lost or forgotten

I have never been very good at documenting my work but I have managed just now to find some old photographs of earlier work

Let me share them with you

Persephone's Summer Garden - Mike Healey

This large work first appeared in an exhibition I had at John Ruskin's former home - Brantwood, Lake Coniston (Lake District, UK)

This beautiful house had what was once an artist's studio and it was there that I regularly exhibited my work, at least once a year during the 1990's

Topiary Garden - Mike Healey

This small watercolour (above) was first shown at Brantwood. It is meant to be an elaborate topiary garden based on the celebrated topiary gardens of nearby Levens Hall, Cumbria

It was one of the first paintings bought by a regular patron of mine - Alan Davis

Venus - Mike Healey

I have always believed that religion - any sort of religion - was a pernicious force in this world and should be avoided. However, I have long had a strictly historical interest in paganism

This little painting (above) is an early draft of Venus - not the Venus of classical, Renaissance art but the real thing - a creature that is both passionate and malevolent

This little fellow (above) is a pagan Creature of the Forest and not someone you would like to encounter at night!

Me? I'm rather fond of him!

The above collage was an early study for a stage set. It never got made but the format was used later in one or two dioramas I made for clients

The tree forms are created using just a palette knife on liquid graphite

This picture (above) is an early version of Persephone, a classical mythological figure I have depicted many times since. The foliage is hand drawn using coloured crayon and charcoal

Dionysus - Mike Healey

This pencil study was an early version of Dionysus (better known as Bacchus, the God of Wine). I think I subsequently sold it under the name of Ariel (Shakespeare's Tempest)!

Dionysus - Mike Healey

In antiquity, Dionysus was an extremely potent yet violent god whose women followers became hysterical and tore men apart, limb from limb!

Forbidden Forest - Mike Healey

Nature for me has always been a powerful force - and not always for the betterment of mankind, as a glance at the news will often tell you

In this painting (above) I have tried to capture both Nature's mysterious beauty and its often sinister character

Dionysus - Mike Healey

Mike Healey

Nicos Souleles

2012-01-29T08:16:00.001+02:00

In the begining was the word..

I would like to introduce you to the creative work of a friend of mine

His name is Nicos Souleles

I first met Nicos when we both worked at the Cumbria Institute of the Arts, in Carlisle (UK). Nicos was Course Leader in Digital Design and I ran the Media Production course. I am pretty sure that we were friends from the start although it was not until I got to know him better that I came to fully admire him for his integrity and dedication as both teacher and individual.

Nicos is a brilliant teacher and while he was in Cumbria he and his students produced some outstanding work, winning a number of prestigious Royal Television Society Awards for digital animation.

Today Nicos works at a university in Cyprus. He is now Dr. Souleles and although he still teaches, his principal occupation is research...and the creation of some remarkable graphic art that combines text and image in exciting ways.

But let him explain his digital work for himself:

"My digital artwork is proof that Andy Warhol's claim - 'In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes' - has some validity".

"Mobile devices, such as the iphone and the ipad, allow everyone great flexibility to capture and manipulate images".

"Combined with the networked potential of the web, our limited and ephemeral time of fame is closer to reality than ever before. These are my tools".

"The inspiration for these images stems from everyday, trivial situations and events - such as depression, loneliness, a rainy day, or perhaps a trip to downtown Dubai" .

"Sometimes the text has no meaning or role beyond being part of the overall composition.The words themselves are taken from various sources - such as Wikipedia or 'The Doors of Perception' by Aldus Huxley. Other times, they are my own words."

"All this adds to the transient nature of the work".

"Even though they are sometimes hard to read, there is a sense of completion when I can combine the appropriate text with the right image".

Nicos Souleles

2012-01-26T08:37:00.004+02:00

Japonisme

Part 3

Edgar Degas - The Bath (1886)

If you have been following this blog in recent weeks you will have seen how I have been looking at the impact Japanese art at the turn of the 20th century had on great Modernists like

Edgar Degas and Vincent Van Gogh

This time I want to look at the work of Toulouse Lautrec

Of the three great painters under discussion, Lautrec is perhaps the one who most readily absorbed the impact Japanese art made on French artists after 1858

Let's start with what he is perhaps best known for - his posters

Undoubtedly, Lautrec was a hugely innovative artist whose style, immediately recognisable then as now, seems to be the product of innate genius

That is only partly true!

Like many other major artists of this period, Lautrec was exposed to an influx of Japanese art, especially coloured woodcuts and prints

Katsushika Hokusai 1814-78

What Lautrec recognised immediately was the absolute freedom with which these Japanese artists drew their figures - revealing an entirely new (to French art, at least) repertoire of intimate, spontaneous actions and postures from everyday life

At this time Lautrec deliberately immersed himself in the demi-monde of Momartre, largely to escape the constraints of polite, bourgeois Parisian life

This, together with new forms of expressiveness derived from Japanese art, transformed his graphic work

There is a ebullience to these drawings but in each case the actual forms are inspired by Japanese precedents directly applied to the circus acrobats or dancers he loved to draw

The figure in the middle of the illustration below is by Hokusai. The acrobat on the left is by Seurat and the one on the right by Lautrec

He took from these woodcuts not only new gestures but also ways of expressing, in graphic form, human emotion. The figure on the right (below) is by Toshusai Sharaku (1794)

In so doing Lautrec acquired a remarkable economy of line, clearly evident - for example - in his early studies for his poster featuring the singer Aristide Bruant. The figure on the left (below) is by Katsukawa Shunko (1784)

This resulted in one of Lautrec's most celebrated posters, first printed in 1893

This influence extended also into his non-commercial work - his paintings and crayon drawings of the prostitutes and dancers he befriended at the Moulin Rouge

These works are amongst his finest, remarkable for both their expressiveness and the freedom with which they are executed

This wonderful crayon study of the dancer Jane Avril reveals Lautrec's stunning technique. The spontaneity of his line and the brave use of colour - particularly the reds in this example - are astonishing

Even though he had clearly mastered Japanese graphic techniques Lautrec still drew on Japanese art for new compositions - like this detail (above) from his poster Reine de joie of 1892

Isoda Koryusai (1775)

The result again is a graphic design that is economical, bold but hugely expressive:

It is clear by now, I hope, that Toulouse Lautrec was greatly influenced by Japanese art at the end of the 19th Century - as were many other major French artists

Although I suspect that this photograph of Lautrec in Japanese costume is very 'tongue-in-cheek' there is no denying the profound influence Japanese art had on his development as an artist

That, combined with his natural genius, produced some of the most expressive works in the history of modern art

Mike Healey

The illustrations for the above article are taken from Siegrfried Wichmann's Japonisme, published by Thames and Hudson in 1981

Orientalism and Jean-Leon Gerome

2012-01-24T23:53:00.002+02:00

Work In Progress

Part 2

If you have been following this blog recently you will know that I am currently engaged in writing a novel about Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign

Gerome - Napoleon in Egypt, 1867

I also explained in an earlier posting ( Friday, 20th January) that I was looking at paintings and engravings of the period in order to gain some insight into the Egypt of 1798

In that context, I would like this time to show you something of the work of Jean-Leon Gerome, a French painter and sculptor who died in 1904

Un Combat de Coqs, 1846

Gerome was an academic painter who studied under Paul Delaroche and at the Ecoles des Beaux Arts in Paris. He went on to become a very successful painter and sculptor, highly regarded by his contemporaries

Today his work is unfashionable, not least because he immediately preceded the Impressionists who dramatically transformed our notions of art

Gerome was also a major sculptor whose works have a scale and apparent realism that is very much of its period

1881

He was, however, also experimental and often used tinted marble, bronze and ivory, inlaid with precious stones

Today his painted statues appear very odd to us but this is exactly how Greek statues from antiquity would have been finished. The polished white marble that we naturally associate with Greek sculpture is entirely wrong

Corinthe (Painted plaster) -1903

Gerome - like many artists even today - was assiduous at promoting himself in a highly competitive market, to the extent that he painted many portraits of himself in his studio, thereby demonstrating his skills as both painter in oils and monumental sculptor

La Fin de la Seance, 1886

What interests me, however, is his subject matter and here we have to be very careful, not least because his representation of the Orient is highly slanted

Anyone who has read Edward Said's book Orientalism (1978) will know that representations of the Orient (and in my case, Egypt) are largely for Western consumption and are an integral aspect (albeit implicit) of Western colonialism

Marche D'Esclaves, 1866

These representations of the 'Orient' by Gerome are also hugely sexist - 'interpretations' of the exotic 'East' in which women are not only objects of male voyeurism but victims of absolute male domination

This is phallocentrism gone mad!

Grande Piscine de Brousse, 1885

The almost photographic 'realism' of these large paintings also gives them a bogus historical veracity and yet, when all is said and done, they are merely excuses to stare at naked women - predominantly white naked women

It is no accident that the central nude here is accompanied by a black servant, thereby contrasting the woman's delicate white skin with the black skin of the slave whose face we cannot (and should not) see

Moreover, the cothurni both women are wearing is an 'historical' detail merely designed to give the picture some kind of historical authenticity and at the same time give the white woman's hips an alluring tilt

Phyrne Devant L'Areopage, (Detail|)1861

Sometimes the sexism is even more blatant

The above picture, for example, shows Phryne being revealed ('exposed' would be a better word) before the Council of Areopagus - the ancient governing body of Athens

It is not difficult to see this as a a bunch of old men ogling a pretty young woman, even if one or two of the elderly politicians are making token protestations of horror or embarrassment!

L'Interieur Grec, 1850

Edward Said makes the point in Orientalism that these representations of the Orient invariably reveal deep-seated notions of Western dominance, power and control

This is particularly true of Egypt over whom the French and the British had fought for absolute control for hundreds of years

Napoleon et Oedipe

Napoleon himself justified his intervention in Egypt (1798-1801) as France's way of 'liberating' the Egyptians from Turkish (more precisely, Marmeluke) despotism

His real motive was to control routes to India and thereby scupper valuable British sea trade with India and beyond

Gerome first visited Egypt in 1856. There followed many orientalist paintings depicting Arab religion, genre scenes and North African landscapes

Le Marchand de Tapis au Caire, 1887

While I do not doubt that his genre paintings are the result of close observation, there is something curiously unconvincing about them

While beautifully painted the colours are just a bit too bright and the groupings somewhat 'staged'. This is a colourful, 'exotic' Orient of the imagination

Flaubert had visited Egypt seven years earlier and although he too sometimes romanticised Egypt he also described the squalor and abject poverty of the country

When Napoleon and his army occupied Egypt in 1798 they were horrified at the poverty, corruption and sheer squalor of ' this once great civilisation'

Charmeur de Serpents, 1880

It should be added here, perhaps, that there is often something prurient about Gerome's choice of subject matter

The naked child, closely observed by an all male audience, gives one an uneasy feeling that this painting is not just a moment in a snake charmer's performance. It is, for example, riddled with phallic symbols - not least the rearing head of the snake itself

Perhaps I am reading to much into this painting but there is definitely something 'uncomfortable' about it

Le Roi Candaule, 1859

While these paintings by Jean-Leon Gerome, therefore, are fascinating for historians and novelists alike, we clearly need to use them with caution and to recognise the hidden agenda (cultural hegemony) that is embedded deep within them

Mike Healey

The illustrations for the above article are taken from Gerome 1824-1904, published by Connaisance des Arts in 2010

Menage a Trois

2012-01-24T08:19:00.000+02:00

This Month's Picture Choice

My choice of favourite picture this month is an extraordinary painting by Max Ernst

It is called At the first clear word and was painted in 1923

Those of you who follow my blog (well done, by the way!) will know that Max Ernst is one of my favourite artists and someone who has inspired my own work

That does not mean that I can tell you what this painting is about - other than I know Ernst was studying Freud at the time!

What I can tell you is that there is an interesting story behind this painting

Max Ernst entered France illegally in 1922 and found refuge with Paul Eluard and his wife Gala at their home in Paris

Eluard was a poet and part of the emerging Surrealist movement. He had met Andre Breton and Louis Aragon - founding Fathers of Surrealism - in 1918

In the photograph above Paul Eluard is at the wheel, his wife Gala is fifth from the left and Ernst is on the bicycle, lower frame

The painting under discussion began life as a mural on the wall of Eluard's house at Eaubonne (a northern suburb of Paris) and was only later transferred to canvas

There were other murals in the house that Ernst painted at this time, together with the painted door shown above

It should be added that at this time (1923) Gala was also Ernst's lover and she, with her husband Paul, lived together as a menage a trois

This may partly explain the sexual nature of these remarkable works, including the one shown above called Reality must not be seen as I am

My favourite from this series of murals is one called Long live Love, also painted in 1923 and anticipating similar work by Magritte by many years:

In 1929 Gala left Eluard and went to live with Salvador Dali, subsequently becoming his most cerebrated 'Muse'

Mike Healey

2012-01-22T16:13:00.003+02:00

Welcome to my Blog

Urban Angel - Mike Healey

If you are new to this blog, then welcome. If you are a regular visitor already then thank you for your support

This is a blog for anyone interested in art

It currently contains about 80 postings, each one either featuring a particular artist that interests me or a topic which I find intriguing

Some of the postings are about my work as a professional painter/writer

Featured Artists

The Tram - Paul Delvaux

Edouard Manet, David Inshaw, Balthus, Edward Lear, Vincent Van Gogh, Fernando Botero, Donald McGill, Oscar Epfs (Lawrence Durrell), Jack Vettriano,
Jean-Leon Gerome, Toulouse Lautrec, Jiri Anderle, Paul Delvaux, Frantisek Koblina, W.Heaton Cooper, Lucien Levy-Dhurmer,Howard Hodgkin, Oldrich Kulhanek, Ingres,
Pablo Picasso, David Hiscock, Piero Mosti, Mervyn Peake, Fabio Calvetti, Fred Deux

Eve - Lucien Levy-Dhurmer

To find short articles on each of these artists, either go to Popular Posts in the right-hand column or scroll down this column until you find what you want

Coming Soon To This Blog

Impact of Japanese art on Toulouse Lautrec
Macbeth
Graphic Art of Nicos Souleles
Helena Bonham Carter

Plus

More short stories by James Tait

Mike Healey

Edouard Manet's Olympia

2012-01-21T23:27:00.000+02:00

Olympia

I have been reading Emile Zola's novel Nana, first published in 1880

Manet - Nana (1877)

It tells the story of a young prostitute in Paris who becomes a fashionable courtesan, infamous for the cruel way she treats her many lovers

We first come across her in an earlier novel - L'Assommoir - but now she is an actress who, at the start of the new novel, appears in an operetta as a scantily clad 'Venus'

Which brings me to Edouard Manet's equally infamous painting - Olympia

Manet - Olympia (1863)

This painting was done in 1863 but when it was first shown in public at the Salon de Paris in 1865 it caused a sensation

The pose is derived from Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538), itself copied from a reclining nude by Giorgione of 1510

Titian - Venus of Urbino

While the pose is very similar, what shocked contemporaries in Manet's painting was the frank depiction - not of a 'Classical' nude - but of a naked courtesan

Manet's treatment of the reclining woman ran counter to contemporary idealisations of the nude female, as espoused by a moribund French Academy

Take Alexander Cabarel's Birth of Venus for example:

Cabarel - Birth of Venus (1863)

This saccharine confection was painted the same year as Olympia and yet it is light years behind Manet's innovative work, with its bold brush strokes and provocative subject matter

Cabarel's painting was bought by Napoleon III - which probablyy speaks volumes for fashionable 'taste' in the Second Empire

It is exactly the kind of painting - with its polished, glossy surface and coy pose - that The Royal Academy actively endorsed

Olympia (detail)

Interestingly, one of the men to support Manet at the time was Emile Zola himself

In 1877 Manet had made a painting of a young courtesan standing before her mirror, with her 'client' seated (adoringly) on the sofa right of frame

This was originally a portrait of Henriette Hauser but after the publication of Zola's novel in 1880 was was widely known as Nana

Manet (albeit quite unintentionally) has caught the cheap character of the novel's Nana exceptionally well

This mixture of coquetishness and undeniable sex appeal is that a young woman who is clearly comfortable with her sexuality and 'commercial' station in society

Manet's Nana is not as effective as Olympia whose hard, unyielding stare out of frame (at her client as well as us, the viewer!) is quite provocative

Manet

Moreover, Olympia's hand - covering her genitals - has none of the innocent languor of the Titian or, for example, the elegance of Goya's Maja desnuda

Titian

In short, Manet created a portrait of an odalisque (reclining woman) very much for his age - a painting that shocked his contemporaries but broke the stranglehold French academicians held over contemporary 'taste'

It also lead the way for the great, Modernist odalisques of Matisse and Picasso

Mike Healey

You can see Olympia at the Musee D'Orsay in Paris

MUSEE D'ORSAY

Jack Vettriano

If you would like to see some of the paintings Olympia inspired, then click on the link below:

OLYMPIA - WHAT NEXT?

Work in Progress

2012-01-20T10:08:00.002+02:00

WORK IN PROGRESS
Part 1

Or not - as it turns out!

Those of you who regularly follow this blog (well done, by the way!) will know that I have an exhibition of paintings, drawings and dioramas currently on view at The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle (UK).

If you would like to see that exhibition, then please click on the link below:

MIKE HEALEY AT THE BISCUIT FACTORTY

It took eight months to get that work together and I am exhausted. As a result, I have stopped work on my art for the time being to concentrate on another major project

Ingres - The Turkish Bath (1862)

My new project is a novel that tells the story of a young woman from Carcassonne (South West France) who marries an officer in Napoleon's army

When he is posted to Egypt, he smuggles his new wife on board ship disguised as a French cavalry officer. In Cairo - and now revealed as a beautiful young woman - she catches the eye of Napoleon and becomes his mistress - his very own, little 'Cleopatra'.

Meanwhile, Napoleon's wife - Josephine - is having her own secret relationship with a French cavalry office back in Paris!

This is a true story. The girl's name is Pauline Foures and she was a trainee milliner in Carcassonne - the town in the south-west corner of France where I have been living for the last four years

Thus far I have written 10,000 words but I am at that stage that most writers will recognise when I cannot progress

It's not exactly writer's 'block' but a sense that I have not yet subsumed my extensive research in such a way that I can reconstruct (and invent) my story with the freedom that is necessary for an historical novel

I am currently reading, for example, no less than nine books on Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, some written from an Egyptian persepective. It is not an easy task to absorb all that historical data without losing sight of my principal task - to tell Pauline's story effectively

It is clearly necessary in an historical novel to 'wear your scholarship lightly' - otherwise the story will become just 'one damn fact after another!' - which is how someone once described history!

That is far more difficult than it might seem because you need to balance historical fact against the invented or fictional components of your story in such a way that the history has credibility without impacting too much on the dramatic flow of your story

One way to make some creative progress is to steep yourself in the images of the period; to soak up the atmosphere and to gain some kind of insight into the events of the Egyptian campaign (1798-1801) from contemporary representations - in this case the engravings and paintings of the period

If you have already read my short article on Napoleon as 'spin-doctor' (see my Posting for Tuesday, 10th January) you will spot the dangers here

Most of the pictures shown here were primarily intended as propoganda, devised by Napoleon and his generals for consumption back in France. They show, accordingly, Napoleon and his army in an entirely favourable light - contrary to the realities of the catastrophic Egyptian campaign that resulted in plague, famine and inglorious defeat

As a writer, my job is not only to tell Pauline's story but to contextualise that personal narrative within the larger, historical narrative of the campaign itself - warts and all!

One advantage that I have is that I know Egypt well

As a schoolboy I lived for a while in Alexandria and Ismailia and have been back to Egypt since then several times

Once, making a film for the BBC, I was arrested and held in an Alexandrian police cell for a few hours - until we bribed our way out! It seems we had been arrested for unwittingly filming 'a military installation'

'What installation?', we asked.'Why', came the reply, 'that tram'

When we protested it was explained to us, with impeccable Oriental logic, that in time of war a tram could be used to transport troops and was, therefore, a 'military installation'

Being a writer - like a general, I guess - is a rather lonely occupation. I cannot, at this stage, tell you when exactly I will resume my writing

For the moment, at least, I am trapped in a kind of creative limbo - anxious to progess but nervous of committing pen to paper. The best I can manage is to tinker with the 10,000 words written so far - crossing a 't' there or dotting an 'i' here. Even then I often forget to save the (very) minor changes I have made!

I should add that it is little consolation to read (in Peter Ackroyd's magnificant autobiography) that Charles Dickens often had the same problem!

Portrait of an inactive author!

I will report back to you when the flood gates open (hopefully) and the dramatic tale of Pauline Foures resumes its unsteady progress towards publication!

Mike Healey

Tate Modern, Liverpool

2012-01-18T10:21:00.000+02:00

Alice Revisited

Liverpool's Tate Modern is currently showing a fascinating collection of art associated with Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass

Mike Healey

In August, 1999 I held a one-man show in the beautiful gallery in John Ruskin's former home - Brantwood - on Lake Coniston, Cumbria (UK)

In this exhibition I explored the notion of Alice - now a young woman - returning underground to rediscover the strange, somewhat disturbing world Charles Lutwidge Dodgson had first created in 1862

Below are a few images I have retained from my exhibition

The above picture provided the poster image for this exhibition. It shows Alice falling, as if in a strange dream

It is a rather complex collage, with a mixture of photographic material printed on acetate - layer upon layer. Today you can achieve this effect more readily using Photoshop!

This large collage (above) was the signature picture of the exhibition

It shows a young Alice, now on the edge of womanhood, confidently entering Wonderland - a Wonderland already somewhat overgrown and run to seed!

In a number of pictures I used John Tenniel's original image of Alice but put her in an enlarged, essentially alien environment. The mushrooms are deliberately phallic!

In my Wonderland Alice experiences an emotional roller-coaster, often having to hide from those she encounters - including a March Hare who has recently escaped from a lunatic aslyum!

This is a Wonderland that has changed much since Alice's first visit - and not necessarily for the better!

I frequently added strange plant forms, many found in the sea or only visible through a very powerful microscope

These represented not only the natural process of fungoid decay but Alice's awakening sexuality and added a slightly disturbing element to Tenniel's overly familiar, conventional depiction of young Alice

The strange forest shown here is done in pencil on hard, smooth paper - thereby allowing me to smear and create highlights with the sharp edge of my rubber

This visit to Wonderland takes on the characteristics of a nightmare as Alice discovers a land of decay and corruption

The head with the enlarged eye is all that remains of the Red Queen!

This collage - one of a set of six in the exhibition - encapsulates the change that Alice herself has undergone since her first visit. Now, on the edge of womanhood, she has discovered sex and (hopefully) love

Here (above) young Alice gazes with ill-disguised curiosity at the teenage Alice in the arms of her young lover

The subtext to this entire exhibition - of which the pictures shown here are but a tiny sample - was the burgeoning sexuality and independence of my own daughter, a development that every parent invariably experiences with a mixture of optimism and anxiety!

Mike Healey

The Tate Modern, Liverpool exhibition ends on the 29th January

Click on the link below for more information:

TATE MODERN, LIVERPOOL

Jack Vettriano

2012-01-17T14:48:00.000+02:00

Strangers in the Night

For some time I have been toying with the idea of devising a dance drama based on the paintings of Jack Vettriano

Queen of the Fan-Dan

If there is anyone left on this planet who has not heard of Jack Vettriano then all they need know is that he is a Scottish artist who has achieved fame and fortune for his work

He now divides his time between London, Methil (in Fife, where he was born) and Nice, in the south of France

Back Where You Belong

He is what is called a 'genre' painter. For that reason, perhaps - and because he is self-taught - he has never been accepted by any of the major British galleries

That, in my view, is a scandal for he is a fine painter whose work is widely appreciated by ordinary art lovers and collectors alike

It is said he makes £500,000 a year - and that's just from his prints!

Suddenly One Summer

My interest in Jack Vettriano began when I came across a small painting of his in the museum in Kirkcaldy, Scotland sometime in 1986

I was intrigued and have followed his career ever since

Just The Way It Is

Vettriano is best known perhaps for his dark, brooding and erotically-charged paintings set sometime in the late 1950's or early 1960's.

This is the world of Christine Keeler and the Profumo Affair, Rachmanism, Soho night-clubs and the equally seedy world of London gangsters

The Party's Over

My idea for using these paintings as inspiration for a dance drama dates from sometime in 2000 when I first worked at The Cumbria Institue of the Arts and was able to help resident choreographer Gill Roncarelli with sets for her own dance dramas

The theatricality of Vettriano's work and the characters that emerge from his paintings on a regular basis seem to cry out for stage adaptation

Dancer For Money

It is also clear from their titles that these paintings have strong musical associations for the artist - a fact that further encourages theatrical adaptation of some kind

A Valentine Rose

Men in Vettriano's work appear largely predatory but his women are beautifully observed and often appear hugely introspective

Although usually the subject of male fantasy or sexual exploitation, Vettriano's woman retain their autonomy

Thoughts Of You

On stage, especially in dance, this makes for strong characterisation

One model - a striking brunette - regularly appears in his work and, for me at least, even resembles Christine Keeler herself

Table for One

That these women clearly have an inner life, often functioning within a dramatic, sometimes tragic dimension, is - for a dramatist or choreographer particularly challenging

The Letter

I should add at this stage that while my plans for a dance-drama are well advanced, they remain entirely speculative

I have neither a theatre nor a dance company involved, let alone permission from Vettriano and his agents

Loser II

Still, this will not be the first speculative project that I have begun nor will it be the last

Many such projects have, in the past, actually made it into a theatre or onto TV - let's hope that this one will one day

So, if you are out there Jack Vettriano or you just happen to be Ashley Page, Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet then do contact me for I have an exciting project - just for you!

Mike Healey

If you want to know more about Jack Vettriano then click on the link below for direct access to his own website

VETTRIANO

The impact of Japanese art on Vincent Van Gogh

2012-01-16T10:42:00.001+02:00

JAPONISME
Part 2

A few weeks ago I looked at the impact Japanese art made on Edgar Degas and the French Impressionists in the latter half of the 19th Century

Edgar Degas - The Bath (1886)

This week I would like to look at the art of Vincent Van Gogh in that context

Self-portrait with bandaged ear (detail) - 1889

Those of us who admire Van Gogh's work would assume, not unreasonably, that the above painting was the unique creation of a singular genius

We would be wrong!

Van Gogh, like other great artists of his period, was profoundly influenced by Japanese art flooding into Europe after 1858

Totoya Hokkri (1856)

Japanese art not only opened up entirely new subject areas for Western practitioners but introduced new techniques which artists like Van Gogh, Lautrec and, later, the creators of Art Nouveau readily embraced

Kung Hsien - Tree beside river (1684)

Both Vincent Van Gogh and his brother Theo (then an art dealer working in London) had access to literally hundreds of prints from Japan

Van Gogh greedily absorbed both the forms and colours of the work of Hokusai, Kuniyoshi, Utamaro and other Japanese masters - to the extent that he began to see Arles (where he now lived) as a Japanese landscape in itself!

"For my part", he wrote, " I don't need Japanese pictures here, for I am always telling myself that here I am in Japan. Which means I have only to open my eyes and paint what is right in front of me, if I think it effective".

He began his absorption of Japanese art by faithfully copying works (mostly colour prints/woodcuts) that he came across

Ando Hiroshige (1856-58) Van Gogh (1886-88)

This was not just a matter of shape and construction but colour. The colours we associate with Van Gogh in Arles are not necessarily, therefore, the colours of Provence but something uniquely Japanese

Van Gogh - Promenade at Arles (1888)

Similarly, the way Van Gogh now used his brush was entirely derived from the 'line and dot' technique traditionally used by Japanese artists. These techniques, themselves derived from earlier traditions in China, were entirely new to the West

Katsushinka Hokusai (detail) 1834

For example, Van Gogh experimented in both landscape and tree forms, copying the Japanese masters while at the same time closely observing the flora and fauna of the countryside around the town of Arles

Van Gogh - Large Tree (1888)

This is evident in the series of tree forms he painted, using the traditional Japanese brush which he also mastered. The examples given here are made with a Japanese reed pen

Van Gogh - Orchard in Provence (1888)

What Van Gogh also grasped was the Oriental notion that the essence of a tree or plant was not necessarily its external form but some kind of conceptual notion of 'tree' or 'plant'

To be 'true' to that aspect was more important than mere verisimilitude

Kung Hsien - Marsh landscape (detail) 1684

These - and other related studies from the Japanese masters - radically transformed the art of Vincent Van Gogh and, inevitably, our own notions of what constitutes beauty and expressiveness in Western art

It is worth adding, perhaps, that these borrowings do not diminish Van Gogh's status as an artist. It takes a genius to accomodate new techniques so effectively and to create works that retain one's 'signature' so effecively

Van Gogh - Boats of Saintes-Maries (detail) 1888

Footnote

The illustrations for this article are taken from Japonsisme by Siegfried Wichmann, published by Thames and Hudson (1981)

To look at the wide range of art books published by Thames and Hudson, click on the link below:

THAMES AND HUDSON

Mike Healey - Retrospective

2012-01-13T11:25:00.000+02:00

The early work of Mike Healey

I would like - with your indulgence - to look back at some paintings, drawings and collages from early in my professional career as a painter

The works I am about to show you have all been sold so my recollections of them are based on a handful of photographs that I have retained - more by chance than design

What is curious is that, until I found these photographs recently, I had little - if any - recollection of this body of work!

This is partly a measure of my failing memory but also evidence of the wide range and productivity of my work at the start of my career

Indeed, in the early 1980's - when I began to exhibit my work (usually two one-man shows a year) - I would regularly produce something like sixty pictures for each exhibition - that's 120 pictures a year. I'm not sure I can produce that many today!

Also, when I think that at that time I was fully employed as a television director/producer and only able to paint in my spare time, my actual productivity is really quite remarkable

What also emerges is the homogeneity of my work - something at this remove that I find somewhat surprising

At the time I felt that each new picture was distinctly different from its predecessor but the works when viewed retrospectively show a continuity that is curiously reassuring - I think!

This is partly due, I suspect, to a uniformity of technique - wide use of collage embedded in more abstract, largely gouache 'backdrops' - but also the ineluctable emergence of a personal aesthetic, unique to me

To look back at this is rather satisfying although at the time I was always conscious of my lack of any specific style or direction. This may have been just my normal anxiety but the photographic evidence is that there clearly was a direction to my work - even if I was myself largely unaware of it

I think it probably true that artists are often the last people to understand their work in any real historical sense. That kind of reflection is, I suspect, contrary to the artist's natural way of thinking

What is crucially important, however, is that each artist actively reflects deeply on the work in hand

Picasso is a perfect example of this ability to delve deeply into what is actually on the canvas before him.The originality of his work - like all great artists - is therefore the result of deep and constant reflection, much trial-and-error and experimentation and the courage to scrap something that his instinct tells him is 'not working'

This is a creative process that is continuous and taking place in 'real time' - not something reflected upon at leisure much later

Lesser artists like me do share this quality, albeit in a far less exalted way

Our ability to reflect on what we have produced is the key to how, even at our level, we progress as artists

Indeed, it is our only hope if we are to improve!

Mike Healey

2012-01-12T13:17:00.000+02:00

Great Masters of Anatomy

Oldrich Kulhanek

Behind this exquisite drawing in pencil of a crouching male nude lies a wealth of technical skill and a profound knowledge of anatomy

Once anatomy was taught in art schools and students spent hours copying classical statues (or largely Roman copies) to understand the human form

Today, sadly, this is not the case - except in former eastern Europe art institutions (Prague, Warsaw, for example) where I have see for myself these skills still being taught

Oldrich Kulhanek

Of course anatomical drawings go back to ancient times - Egypt, ancient Greece, for example - but the connection between medical science and art was bridged in the work of the 'Grand-Daddy' of them all, Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci first studied anatomy during his apprenticeship to Andrea del Verrocchio, subsequently dissecting human corpses at the Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence and later in Milan

From 1510 to 1511 he worked with an eminent doctor called Marcantonio della Torre and together produced over 200 pages of drawings and notes with a view to publishing a treatise on anatomy

The publication of these notes was left to da Vinci's heir, Francesco Melzi, but they were never published in their entirety, not least because of the difficulty in deciphering da Vinci's 'mirror' handwriting

What they do show, however, is Leonardo da Vinci's extraordinary attention to detail, the range of his scientific enquiries and the holistic approach he adopted in exploring the relationship between art and science

Bernard Siefried Albinus

Bernard Albinus (originally Weiss) was born in Frankfurt in 1697

As a young man he studied medicine at Leiden and Paris, later retuning to Leiden where he succeeded his father as Professor of Anatomy and Surgery

Albinus published his monumental Tabulae sceleti et musculorum corporis humani in 1747

His engraver was Jan Wandelaar (1690-1759).

Together they designed a new technique involving a net (or grid) stretched before the anatomical subject to ensure scale and accuracy

I have myself used this figure in a painting called Caliban's Garden (see below) - a mixture of collage and hand-drawn foliage in pencil and charcoal

This figure (representing Caliban himself) also appears in some of my three-dimensional dioramas

Caliban's Garden by Mike Healey

For me, the anatomical engravings attributed to Albinus/Wandelaar are pure art, over and above their primary scientific functions

The attention to detail in the foliage (see below) is extraordinary even though it was criticised by contemporaries of Albinus as 'whimsical' and intrusive

For me the figure, thus posed, acquires a dignity and elegance that is actually quite moving

Wandelaar is also capable of very accurate depiction of bone structure and articulation, as in this simple yet exquisitely drawn study of a rib cage shown below

Note the use of light and shade to give rotundity and emphasis to the curved rib-cage itself; this shows Wandelaar's exceptional skill as a draughtsman

The juxtaposition of this skeletal figure and a rhinoceros (see below)

is a reminder, perhaps, of the public curiosity these engravings excited when first published

For many, a rhinoceros would be as alien and unfamiliar as the anatomical illustration itself

Andreas Vesalius

Andreas Vesalius (Andries van Wesel) was a Flemish anatomist, born in 1514

His De humani corporis fabrica, published in 1543, is considered by many historians of this subject to have made Vesalius the founder of modern human anatomy

After studying in Leuven and Paris, Vesalius settled in Padua, and later Bologna, eventually becoming Imperial physician to the court of Emperor Charles V

In 1539 a Paduan judge became interested in Vesalius' work and made available to him the bodies of executed criminals

There followed a series of anatomical drawings - commissioned from local artists - of flayed figures, as in the gruesome image of a hanged man shown above

The illustration in Versalius' great book De fabrica are largely the work of Jan Stephen van Calcar, a pupil of Titian

The value to science of this seven-volume book is inestimable for Vesalius was able, through careful dissection and examination, to redress many of the medical and anatomical errors that date from the time of Galen

It also produced a series of memorable (if gruesome) images of the human form

Pietro Da Cortona

Pietro da Cortona was born in Tuscany in 1596 and became the leading Italian Baroque painter of his time, mostly working in Rome

His patrons included Pope Urban VIII and the Pope's nephew, the powerful Cardinal Francesco Barberini

During his life time Cortona was not known as an anatomical engraver although his Tabulae anatomicae was thought to have been started around 1618

The dramatic poses he adopts for his subjects are curiously out of step with the scientific function of these engravings, suggesting perhaps that he was more comfortable painting dramatic frescoes than this 'bread-and-butter' work done before he achieved international fame as a decorator of churches

Cortona's The Golden Age

The human form in anatomical studies by Cortona appears somewhat crude yet the study of anatomy during the Renaissance gave artists a structural foundation for their human, albeit allegorical, figures

Even when working directly from a model, the artist's knowledge and understanding of underlying structures, is still essentiall

While the depiction of the female form, for example, is culturally determined - in other words, it will change from one artistic period to another - the basic human anatomy of this woman by Cranach (below) is no different from that of a figure by Botticelli

There is also something hugely sobering about a genuinely sympathetic appreciation of human form when it pertains to iconic figures in the history of art, particularly if they are female and subject - as is often the case in art - to exclusively male scrutiny

Is the anatomical illustration shown above, itself a revolutionary image, not a precursor to a recent controversial statue by Damien Hirst?

Is this not the way art from one period constantly informs the work of later generations?

Bartolommeo Eustachi

Bartolomeo Eustachi was born in about 1514 near Macerata, Italy and was a contemporary of Versalius

His Anatomical Engravings, for which he is now famous, was written in 1552 but not published until 1714, long after his death

One reason his work was not published in his lifetime was his fear of ex-communication by the then dominant Roman Catholic church

Ex-communication (or worse) was an occupational hazard for any scientist whose discoveries ran counter to religious orthodoxy and even Galileo was punished for his revolutionary astronomical discoveries

Eustachi's contributions to medicine include detailed descriptions of the inner ear; the anatomy of teeth and the discovery of the adrenal glands

From an artistic point-of-view, his engravings are clear and simple with none of the graphic 'flourishes' of, for example, Albinus

For me these functional engravings are an effective reminder that the human body is essentially an armature clothed in skin

To achieve the voluptuous shape and form of these women by Ingres, for example, the artist needs not only close observation but a real knowledge of human anatomy

Ingres studied classical sculpture and developed a style of drawing that created its own aesthetic. It also inspired many artists of a later generation, not least Pablo Picasso

In short, the contribution to our understanding of human anatomy and form, provided by the scientific work of these early, largely Renaissance anatomists is, therefore, both extensive and profound

Footnote

The illustrations for this article are taken from Great Anatomical Drawings published by Dover Publications, 2008

If you would like to see more examples of anatomical drawings, then click on the link below:

ANATOMICAL DRAWINGS

Edward lear on Corfu

2012-01-10T17:34:00.000+02:00

Edward Lear on Corfu

Edward Lear (1812-88) is best known perhaps for his Book of Nonsense, published in 1846 and for his poem The Owl and the Pussycat

He was, however, a highly skilled draughtsman and his work for Lord Stanley at Knowsley Hall, Liverpool and the British Zoological Society place him amongst the greatest artists specialising in drawing animals and birds

After 1836, however, he devoted himself exclusively to landscape painting, subsequently travelling to India, Italy (where he eventually lived), northern Greece, Albania - and Corfu

He first visited Corfu in 1848 and returned frequently during the next three years

The above sketch is the earliest known drawing done in Corfu. It is Corfu Town from Aghii Deka and is dated 18th May, 1848

Lear belonged to that school of art that had is roots in the late18th and early 19th centuries (Cotman, Prout, Boys and David Roberts, for example) and yet, in his beautiful watercolour landscapes (like the one above, showing Corfu town from Garouna -1856) there is a modern, Turner-esque sensibility at work

The use of deep purple to render shadow between these ancient olive trees anticipates the Impressionists' experiments in the latter half of the 19th Century

The Citadel, Corfu Town, 1856

Although these watercolours have a delightful tranquillity about them, it should be said that Lear was not a particularly happy man. All his life he suffered from epilepsy which he concealed even from his closest friends

He was also frequently depressed, not least about his rather unprepossessing appearance. Although he often longed to get married, he remained a bachelor all his life

My particular favourite is this view of Corfu from Analipsis.

As I write this I can actually see the snow-capped mountains of Albania on the horizon - exactly as Lear captured them in this exquisite watercolour

Although the foreground figures feel somewhat 'placed' the foliage is worthy of Samuel Palmer - another favourite artist of mine

Pelekas, 26 February,1863

This (above) is the view from Pelekas

I know this view well for it was in Pelekas that I stayed on my first visit to Corfu in 1978

I rented a little villa for one year and frequently climbed up the hill above the village to look across the Ropa valley - as Lear is here doing

Kastro St Angelo, Paleokastritsa, April 1862

Most tourists to Corfu will recognise these rocks, for this is Lear's impression of Paleokastritsa, on the north-west coast of the island

Lear clearly liked this area for he did several sketches and two watercolours, including the one shown above, all done in the same month (April 1862)

The letters and journal that accompany these works provide a lively account of his stay on the island and the predominantly British population in whose company he moved

However, you get very little impression or 'feel' for the people of Corfu. His shyness may partly explain this but is has also something to do with the somewhat dated artistic conventions within which he chose to work

Although rather subdued, these elegant watercolours do capture the mood and atmosphere of the island at its most tranquil and we must be grateful for that

The illustrations for the above article are taken from Edward Lear - The Corfu Years, edited by Philip Sherrard and published by Denise Harvey & Company, Athens (1988)