The mystery painting is "The Dead Toreador" by Manet (in his Spanish phase), 1872.
More obscure than I thought. Even seeing the original, a couple friends familiar with European art didn't know it.
Until Linda Sue sent me to look at Manet's dogs ("Bob"!), this was the only painting by Manet I've really liked.
Art critic Sebastian Smee calls it,
"one of the smoothest, coolest, most ravishing things he painted."
--"Death Becomes Him" in the Washington Post.
I like the way the body floats at an angle, how pretty it is, and how pink. Zoom in on the painting, here, (the NG in Wash DC website), and you see that not only the cape but the fabric at his neck and waist is pink.
(That ridiculous little bit of blood--did he die of a cut finger?)
It's so fun, recreating paintings with toys--it's a sort of puzzle:
Match things in your house with this image. My favorite match is the red-headed pins for blood.
All sort of problems to solve: I had to tilt the chair on one leg to get the angle.
The pink-haired doll inspired the whole thing. I'd brought her home from the thrift store to clean her. She's from the 1980s, and her name is Raspberry Torte, from the Strawberry Shortcake family.
I was going to take her back to the store, but in the making of the photo, one of her legs was... damaged (um, pulled off, that is irreparably--her foot kept sticking out).
I cannot make my usual disclaimer, No Toys Were Harmed.
She says she's glad she has to live here now and play Pink whenever called for.
But not just fun--spending time with the beautiful dead man and the toys pretending to be dead made me quite sad. I felt like crying and had to remind myself the toys were just pretending, and the man has been dead for one hundred and fifty years.
Art works.
(That ridiculous little bit of blood--did he die of a cut finger?)
It's so fun, recreating paintings with toys--it's a sort of puzzle:
Match things in your house with this image. My favorite match is the red-headed pins for blood.
All sort of problems to solve: I had to tilt the chair on one leg to get the angle.
The pink-haired doll inspired the whole thing. I'd brought her home from the thrift store to clean her. She's from the 1980s, and her name is Raspberry Torte, from the Strawberry Shortcake family.
I was going to take her back to the store, but in the making of the photo, one of her legs was... damaged (um, pulled off, that is irreparably--her foot kept sticking out).
I cannot make my usual disclaimer, No Toys Were Harmed.
She says she's glad she has to live here now and play Pink whenever called for.
But not just fun--spending time with the beautiful dead man and the toys pretending to be dead made me quite sad. I felt like crying and had to remind myself the toys were just pretending, and the man has been dead for one hundred and fifty years.
Art works.
I KNEW the bear representation looked familiar. My mother somehow had a giant book with gorgeous representations of famous paintings in it and I spent hours as a child, going through it, trying to puzzle out the stories behind the paintings. The Dead Toreador was one of them.
ReplyDeleteSubsequently, I found a copy of that same book at a flea market and it is now in my library. I keep hoping that one of my grandchildren will pick it up, open it, and begin to wonder.
So far, nope.
MS MOON: I'm so happy the Bear representation rang a distant bell!
ReplyDeleteIf I'd used a piece of pink cloth instead of a doll with pink hair (!), that'd been clearly a bullfighter's cape,
and maybe the pieces would have fallen into place.
I used to stare and stare at my parents' art books too! And then I worked in an art college library, and stared at a whole ton more of reproductions--and now I get to make my own... :)
That's neat you found the book at a flea market.
P.S. Ms Moon, you are the only one who recognized it at all, so you win the Prize!
ReplyDeleteWhich is . . . the girlettes all stand and cheer,
"Hurray for Ms Moon!"
I am so proud!
ReplyDelete