The Beautiful Troublemaker

Top:

Nude on the Couch (from the movie The Beautiful Troublemaker). 2019. Vine Charcoal on Old Master's Paper. 10" x 18.5". Casey Klahn. Actress Emmanuelle Béart.

Bottom:

Nude on the Couch Seen from the Back (from the movie The Beautiful Troublemaker). 2019. Vine Charcoal on Old Master's Paper. 10" x 18.5". Casey Klahn. Actress Emmanuelle Béart.

It's not the best practice: using a photo for your reference. Worse, yet, someone else's photo. Worser, yet, from a movie. But, I told myself when I started this 200 Figures Project, that instructional figure model videos were allowable. After all, I'd be needing practical, fresh sources on a constant basis, and it is about practice.

La Belle Noiseuse (1991, which is The Beautiful Troublemaker, is as much an instructional video as any other. It features long shots of the model posing, and also long sequences of the artist just drawing, or re-arranging the studio furniture. I think that's courageous of the filmmaker; it dares to bore the viewer. I wasn't bored at all! I grabbed my iPad and started sketching along with the sessions.

I am a little more than halfway through this project, but it doesn't help that I go through and cull out works occasionally (I got rid of 2 this morning!). Most of my source work is sketches from life models, and I am constantly re-mining those for new works. I am allowing master copies, and by my count those make up 9-10% of what I've posted. Instructional sources, such as Croquis Cafe and this movie, are fewer, yet. 

Thanks for following along. 

White Christmas!

I get nostalgic, here.  It's snowing today.

We love Christmas movies at my house, and the wartime and post war movie White Christmas is no exception.  As a matter of fact, it's one of my favorites.  Those who know me best, know I have a soft spot in my heart for WW II G.I.s and everyone from that generation.  My father's army division, the TenthMountain Division, returned home and founded the American ski industry almost from scratch.  Rope tow and T-Bar hills became ski lift-served resorts.  Those were the salad days for the ski industry, but it came on the heels of K ration days at the battlefront.

You see the parallel to my father's experiences in the movie White Christmas.  It is a vehicle, really, for Bing Crosby's wartime hit song by the same name.  I read this year about how Bing was visiting a UK airbase during the war, but was too emotional to go on stage after witnessing the bombing deaths of children.  You think he was an elite Hollywood star, but he saw some things.  The movie is sappy to some, but there was a reason for spreading some peace and harmony for my parent's cohort.  

Plus, my dad was overseas at Christmas in 1944.  Reason enough to remember the season and to cherish the good times we live in now.  If you dig the Olive Drab version, like me, these first 2 short videos have that.  I added the glorious version from the end of the movie, because that's the way the old timers wanted to experience it.  The clip dialogue is dubbed auf Deutsch, and the song remains as recorded - it is wonderful to watch at high resolution.

Modigliani - Love, Nonsense & Life (Updated)

Modigliani, not looking well, 1919.

Here is The Modigliani Suite:


Amedeo Modigliani (July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) has been the subject of a couple of feature movies.  Mostly, they cover his love life, which lacked no drama.  I take that back - the more recent flick, Modigliani, 2004, by Director Mick Davis, is also very much about the artistic process.  Critics and the public hated it, but I loved it.  The metaphor of his grand premier compared to a bloody mugging in the snow is rich, and I liked the way he consulted his boyhood self from time to time.  

Watching the 1958 film, Les Amants de Montparnasse, in French, is a nonsensical treat for me, since I don't understand the language.  I had a couple scenes posted before, but they have vanished from YT. Try to find it sometime and enjoy. Tragically, both the first director and the star died during and shortly after the making of this movie. 

Here is a You Tube of his paintings streamed to some music with an Italian title about love's consequences.  I like to watch these with the digital projector on the big screen.  Maybe some of his great style and visual grace will rub off on me.

The Duke

It's telling that even the The San Fransisco Chronicle can't help but dish out praise on The Duke's birthday. Good on them.

Wayne gave us the mythic American man.

Does that sound like nothing? Are we not impressed? Then try watching the last minute of Ford's "The Searchers" or "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949) -- or Hawks' "Red River" (1948) or "The Shootist" (1976), Wayne's lovely valedictory -- and see how it makes you feel. I predict one minute of cold skepticism followed by heart-in-mouth awe. John Wayne is in our collective bloodstream.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/25/DDGRHQ0E2K1.DTL

Happy 100, John Wayne

"Westerns are closer to art than anything else in the motion picture business" - John Wayne

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but I hold that the premier art form of the USA is the motion picture. And the most enduring movie star of all time is the great John Wayne, who would have been 100 years old tomorrow.

Don't worry, I'm not going to turn my art blog into a movie site. But I couldn't let this landmark day go by without a salute to The Duke.

Congressional Gold medal

Presidential Medal of Freedom

Born in Winterset, Iowa on May 26th, 1907, this quintessential American man would go on to make over 175 films, become the only person ever to be posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 1969 he earned his industry's top merit, the Oscar for Best Actor. That was for his role as Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.

Quotes:

"As far as I'm concerned, Americans don't have any original art except Western movies and jazz."

— Clint Eastwood

"Fill your hand, you sonofab!tch!" John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn (True Grit)

Links:

Clip (Real Play) from "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon":
http://www.jwayne.com/media/she_wore_a_yellow_ribbon_T1.rm


My favorite TV commercial of all time: