"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity"....meaning that all that is material will soon fall away and all that will be left is our immortal soul. All the things that give pleasure and sustain our egos and gluttony are fleeting. Easily gone in a flash. So what is an artist to do? We make entertainment. That too is fleeting. And I really cannot think of a more vain and self-centered line of work. With that said, how many times has the artist in history been the fortune teller of things that come to pass? Perhaps what we do is not so fleeting after all.

Vanitas,Jacques de Gheyn the Elder, 1603

Above is a Vanitas by de Gheyn the Elder painted in 1603. The tulip in this Vanitas cost 10 times the amount that a skilled craftsman would make in one year. But fast forward to 1637 and you could get this same tulip for the cost of an onion. From the cost of a house to the cost of an onion in just a blink of an eye. It all came crashing down in Febuary of 1637. Fortunes lost. Fortunes based on a flower.  But if you had told that to a Dutchman in 1603, he would have thought you a madman. Or an artist.

Vanitas, Georges Braque 1939

A work above by Georges Braque made in 1939.  I realize that in 1939 it was not such a leap for an artist to predict WWII.  Still, it gives one pause to see symbols of religion and mortality just before the Nazi Jackboots tore apart all that was taken for granted in life. And this from the artist, who with Picasso, his partner in the invention of Cubism, changed the face of art forever some thirty years before.

And now I end with a Vanitas by Damien Hirst made in 2007. This Vanitas is the mother of all Vanitas, made with more gluttony and greed than any 17th century Flemish painter could imagine. It's made of platinum and 8,601 perfect diamonds including a 6.5 million dollar pink diamond on it's forehead. The cost to make this pure and most perfect Vanitas was a mind blowing (especially for this humble artist) 30 million dollars. It was sold one year prior to the October 2008 crash of our global economy, in August of 2007, to a consortium of businessmen for 100 million dollars. It has been speculated that Hirst himself is one of those in the consortium so that he can retain exhibition rights.

For the Love of God, Damien Hirst 2007

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It's A Lovely Post War Italian Art World.

My mother Clotilde Scarpitta is holding the balloon with her friends, painter Piero Dorazio and his wife Virginia, and sculptor Pietro Consagra and his wife Sophia, in Rome 1962.

                              
This is where I came from. Everything that comes from my head onto that canvas in front of me comes from this world.
A world of studios on beautiful streets like Via Margutta. That was our street. My family had a studio on that most lovely of Roman streets. Full of yelling, paint and the sublime European attitudes of the 50's and 60's. After their marriage finally and officially ended in 1958 (but really it was 1956 if one wants to be truthful) my mother and I moved to large and elegant apartment on Via Bocca di Leone, just a whisper away from the Spanish Steps. 
I have so many lovely memories of Rome during this time. My earliest is of my mother coming back from France when I was around two or three. I was in my playpen that I'm sure by it's construction would have strangled a lesser child. Darwinism is always at work...She brought with her a small toy camera. I can still remember her hand coming down at me holding this perfect little metal camera. My mother was always coming and going. She was a force of nature because when she appeared a whirlwind of conversation, yelling and her raw beauty took everyone by storm. This is no exaggeration. A world of men, important and not, were always trying to catch her eye. And women just wanted to be like her.
She was born a child of two eccentrics. Intelligence and anarchy ruled the family. She showed promise as a portraitist in elementary school painting Mussolini's portrait for the entrances of all the public schools in Rome. The principal knew he had a good thing going so he made her do portrait after portrait of Mussolini's mug until she made dozens and dozens of them. She must have seen his face in her sleep.
When that bit of exploitation was over, she ended up in the art conservatory in Rome called Belle Arti.

Belle Arti is where all the artists in the photo above went to. Just imagine going to a state art school in fascist Italy. Neither can I. But what a wonderful way to learn subversion. Art that impacts with thunderous meaning. Or not... The fascists loved the figure, the ideal. And what did these artists do when they were finally permitted to paint, sculpt and do just whatever they pleased?


I leave you today with these images, born from struggle, war, censorship and finally, invention.

Untitled, 1957
Piero Dorazio

Gli Scar, 1947
Giulio Turcato

Blue Concentric, 1947
Carla Accardi

                                      
                                                            

Conversation with the Wind, 1962
Pietro Consagra

    

Artist's Shit, 1961
Piero Manzoni

Salvatore Scarpitta, 1959, Forager for Plankton

The Art of Critique.

My name shall be nameless. I'm just an artist. An old fashioned easel artist. I paint disturbing. I paint sad. I paint funny. I paint the ironic. I'm really just a Diarist because the work are pages from my mind and memory.
I like what I paint. And if I don't, I euthanize it. I don't give a rats ass if other people don't care for it or it makes them uncomfortable. If I like it, chances are there are others who will too. The odds are pretty good if you take into account that there are over 7 billion people in the world.
But this blog is not about my work. This blog will be about other people's art.  Famous and dead. Alive and unknown. Sometimes, famous and alive. Or dead and unknown. But for obvious reasons that is my least favorite combination. But please bear in mind that all in art is subjective. Just one more thing, I do think my muse will be back soon and my studio looks so lonely without me dancing around in it with a paintbrush. So I will not be posting a whole helluva a lot.
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