Jeff Koons at The Ashmolean

Tags

Ashmolean, Jeff Koons, kitsch, Venus

                           and- yes- I kitsched- the Venus up!

Diesel Recall

Tags

Bodleian, diesel, Douce, re-call, Venus, Volkswagen

 

 

(Venus Rides her Chariot: bodl_Douce 195; orig

uploaded by Tony Harrison)

 

Volkswagen

managed to adapt

their diesels.

Painshill (Vernal Equinox, 2017)

Tags

Apollo, Bacchus, Canadian Goose, Genius of the place, Gianbologna, Gothic tower, grotto, Hamilton, Matthew Arnold, Mercury, Painshill, River Mole, Romantic landscape, Venus, Zeus

( The ‘Abbey’  WyrdLight.com; Antony McCallum, 2007

transferred to Commons from Wikipaedia by Kurpfalzbilder)

 

 

At Painshill, absence rather than presence

is tangible.  Arnold’s cottage now gone;

no Temple of Bacchus: at least, not yet

(so no iconographical message

from Apollo, Mercury, Venus, Zeus);

the Gothic Tower and Crystal Grotto closed-

the latter seems to have lost its sparkle;

the former lost its marbles long ago.

A middle-aged couple are unable

to have a sly snog behind a pillar,

as I appear on cue with a camera,

desecrating a Romantic landscape;

ready to immortalise an abbey

that never was….

…..I forgot to take note

of one of Europe’s most lofty cedars;

I managed to miss the Gianbologna;

was underwhelmed by the mausoleum’s

empty, uncommemorative niches.

I can’t say that I noticed the cork tree

and walked around a silver, ghost-like Mole,

but saw no gentlemen in silk breeches

pop myopic heads up from mounds of earth.

Even the hermit scarpered to the pub,

with his employer’s seven hundred quid

and Hamilton himself retired to Bath.

Smoke spiralled from branches that left bare stumps;

no doves hovered over The Chinese Bridge;

nomads had vacated the ornate tent

and pushchair-strolling mothers ignored me.

 

But though there was no fruit left on the vine

and there were no fish on the angler’s line;

the cascade was a desultory drip

and I trod on Canadian Goose shit,

yet the Genius of the Place reached out and

touched my heart with elegant green fingers.

New Master

Tags

Christ, Dora Maar, George Braque, Guernica, Pablo Picasso, Picasso's Blue Period, Venus

My blue period arose because few

pigments were in the range I could afford.

I prematurely blossomed with rose-hued

saltimbanques.  Those dull, bullish critics gored

other artists, but I escaped attack:

a skilful matador…Who loved me best?

I’d say no woman, but my old friend, Braque.

When lovers left, they could, in truth, attest

I missed their dogs more than I missed them.  Did

I propose to Gaby?  I don’t know.  War,

its ghastly preoccupations, outbid

her for my attention.  Yes, caviare

was Olga’s favourite; I preferred sausage-

Catalan- and beans.  She wanted her face

recognisable; to be centre stage:

wanted too much from me, in any case.

her image had by then begun to fade:

I was playing with Dora Maar (a mouse),

slashing Guernica with a razor blade,

careless of mistress, as careless of spouse.

Woman becomes a suffering machine.

Some Nazis asked me: “Did you do this art?”

I replied: “No. You did.”  When black with spleen,

Francoise and I could claw each other’s heart.

She who had resembled Venus became

Christ.  Martyr.  She left me: it was her loss.

She’d been expert at apportioning blame:

“Who was it then who put me on the cross?”

I did, but, so doing, set her apart:

made her immortal in the realm of Art.