I swear, by Zeus and by Toutatis, that I have not added Monty Python-style eyes to the head on the left, although I have reversed it laterally. It's a bust in the Ashmolean, and it really does look like that:
Classic! And proof that moronic expressions are cultural, and not universal. To a Roman, this man is probably conveying stoic fortitude in the face of an unfortunate toga mulfunction, or perhaps that is the standard Latin lover's longing look of lust. Odi et amo, baby...
Moreover, the latest thinking seems to be that those classically cool and restrained marble and bronze sculptures were all actually rather gaudily painted up, so that a temple like the Parthenon would have resembled nothing so much as a fairground ride. Next thing, they'll be telling us that togas had zips (conceivably the best explanation for our friend above's expression).
In the interests of full disclosure and general enlightenment, I thought you'd want to know that the pillars and architraves in this image are derived from the eroded yellow lines painted on the kerbside of a favourite Southampton carpark.
7 comments:
Strangely, he looks more bonkers in your mirror version. Lovely found art in the car park 'extracts'
Thanks, Martyn -- I'm having a lot of fun with this new direction, and making at least one new picture (usually in several versions) a day. It's gone ominously quiet, though, so I suspect a number of previously loyal photo-purists have backed away in horror... Ah, well, no accounting for taste.
Mike
Wasn't it Garfield who said: "People don't want 'nice'; people want 'consistent'"?
I recently read the obituary of documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark, who said: "I think photography is closest to writing, not painting, because you are using this machine to convey an idea". It's obvious you are enjoying the extra creative input needed to produce these mixed-media collages.
Zouk,
The mechanical nature of photography is a constant issue that will probably never go away -- some have resisted digital cameras because it seems to remove the last vestige of "craft" from the process (Mary Ellen Mark being one such). Funny how no-one minds how few painters these days grind their own pigments.
You're right though, at the moment this is pushing the right buttons for me, and I'm having a new lease of creative life. Which is nice.
Mike
Yes, I think I've seen reference to the issue in these pages before. It reminds me of the attitude of folkies in the sixties to electrification -- and the infamous "Judas" heckle to Dylan. I certainly hope you haven't been getting abuse like that!
I suppose Photoshop et al are to the digital camera what the effects box is to the electric guitar -- and anathema to the chemical purists?
PS Pushing the right buttons: see what you did there!
Zouk,
No abuse received yet, but if I do, like Dylan I will play really fuckin' LOUD!
Yes, it's a bit like that, with film as acoustic guitar, "straight" digital as "amplified but pure", and hyper-photoshoppers as effects-jockeying, but I'm really going beyond all that into the arena of graphic design, which is what Photoshop is really for! The musical analogy might be hip-hop, as I suppose you could say I'm "sampling" the world using my own photographs as the raw material...
Mike
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