Reinventing the Gods: “The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony”
Tags/ Posted by Tony ThomasI came at a wee hour into my miniature existence.continue reading this poem
In the first of twelve, long chapters of The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso retells the story of the abduction of Europa by Zeus and repeatedly poses the question: “But how did it all begin?” Ostensibly this question refers to the mythical history leading up to the abduction but more generally to the philosophical question: how did our world and everything in it begin.
Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams
Tags/ Posted by Tony ThomasLet me order my death as I would order a partycontinue reading this poem
Redon was born into a prosperous Bordeaux family and began drawing at the age of ten. As a young child he suffered from epilepsy and was sent away to live with his Uncle on the family vineyard at Peyrelebade in the Medoc, where he experienced the “full solitude of the countryside”. It was perhaps here that he formed the fusion of the natural and the fantastic that characterised his work as a graphic artist.
In Dialogue with the Muse of Art History: Brett Whiteley
Tags/ Posted by Tony ThomasFollow the weather of longing, fat, pink Rubenesque cloudscontinue reading this poem
Brett Whiteley was born in April 1939, a few months before the outbreak of WWII. Like Ginger Meggs, Brett had a mop of red hair and was a bit of a tearaway, but unlike the comic book hero was no Aussie battler, coming from a comfortable middle class background on Sydney’s north shore. He had a precocious talent for drawing, winning an art prize at the age of seven, the first of many that came early in his career.
The Art Museum and its Origins
Tags/ Posted by Tony ThomasIn a bubble bath Of Kandinsky shapes A universe of rings Circling in an orbitcontinue reading this poem
One of the oldest displays of art is in the caves at Lascaux, which contain around 2,000 painted figures, including over 900 identified as animals, dated at around 16,000 BC. There are similar caves at Altamira in Spain, and some aboriginal rock art in Australia may be at least 40,000 years old.
