Sunday, May 19, 2024

Rae - Brassaï - De Kooning - Bakst

Jude Rae
SL 264
2010
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Jude Rae
SL 266
2010
oil on linen
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Jude Rae
SL 349
2015
oil on linen
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Jude Rae
SL 359
2016
oil on linen
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Brassaï
Kiki with Accompanist
ca. 1932
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Brassaï
Dancer at the Opéra, Paris
ca. 1935-36
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Brassaï
Giacometti in his Studio, Paris
ca. 1948
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Brassaï
Jean Genet, Paris
1950
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Willem De Kooning
Woman V
1952-53
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Willem De Kooning
July 4th
1957
oil on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Willem De Kooning
Two Figures in a Landscape
1968
oil on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Willem De Kooning
Figures in a Landscape
1974
pastel and charcoal on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Léon Bakst
Costume Design for Pavlova in Swan Lake
ca. 1904
watercolor and graphite on paper
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Léon Bakst
Costume de Scène
ca. 1909
lithograph
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

Léon Bakst
Costume Design for Shah Zeman
1910
watercolor and gouache on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Léon Bakst
Costume Design for Odalisque
1910
watercolor and gouache on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

from Pleasure Island

What there is as a surround to our figures
     Is very old, very big, 
Very formidable indeed; the ocean
     Stares right past us as though
No one here was worth drowning, and the eye, true
     Blue all summer, of the sky,
Would not miss a huddle of huts related
     By planks, a dock, a state
Of undress and improvised abandon
     Upon unshadowed sand.
To send a cry of protest or a call for
     Protection up into all
Those dazzling miles, to add, however sincerely,
     One's occasional tear
To that volume, would be rather silly,
     Nor is there one small hill
For the hopeful to climb, one tree for the hopeless 
     To sit under and mope;
The coast is a blur and without meaning
     The churches and routines
Which stopped there and never cared or dared to
     Cross over to interfere
With this outpost where nothing is wicked
     But to be sorry or sick,
But one thing unneighbourly, work. Sometimes
     A visitor may come
With notebooks intending to make its quiet
     Emptiness his ally
In accomplishing immortal chapters,
     But the hasty tap-tap-tap
Of his first day becomes by the second
     A sharp spasmodic peck
And by the third is extinct; we find him
     Next improving his mind
On the beach with a book, but the dozing
     Afternoon is opposed
To rhyme and reason and chamber music,
     The plain sun has no use
For the printing press, the wheel, the electric
     Light, and the waves reject
Sympathy: soon he gives in, stops stopping
     To think, lets his book drop
And lies, like us, on his stomach watching
     As bosom, backside, crotch
Or other sacred trophy is borne in triumph
     Past his adoring by
Souls he does not try to like; then, getting
     Up, gives all to the wet
Clasps of the sea or surrenders his scruples
     To some great gross braying group
That will be drunk till Fall. The tide rises
     And falls, our household ice
Drips to death in the dark and our friendships
     Prepare for a weekend
They will probably not survive: for our
     Lenient amusing shore
Knows in fact about all the dyings, is in
     Fact our place, namely this
Place of the skull, a place where the rose of 
     Self-punishment will grow. 

– W.H. Auden (1948)