Greek Chariot

Slipping out the backdoor of the National Portrait Gallery after a lazy morning at the BP portrait awards, I suddenly and without reason felt injected with a curious anxiety. As a freelance writer, what was my judgement of these portraits? Did I like them? I sure did. But why? What do they say? And can I draw a line across all of them that points to one quality of modern portraiture itself? I didn’t know where to start. I was begging to answer a question that I didn’t have. But to my relief my helpless fright didn’t last for long. Once I read Paul Beel’s report on the making of his portrait, Epic Mirtiotissa, my frosted thoughts started melting fast, spilling continuous drops of questions onto the tip of my tongue.

Beel happen to get his hands on the BP Travel Award in 2010 – probably the most exciting thing that can happen to any aspiring young artist. Every year the BP Travel Award invites artists to propose ideas of portraits set in interesting locations around the world. If their proposal wins, they are given the opportunity to travel to that exact location in order to work on their desired portrait. Only one artist’s proposal is accepted each year. Their final piece is then shown as part of the following year’s BP Portrait Award exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. Beel won the prize for his proposal to paint a portrait of the nudist beach, Mirtiotissa, on the Greek island of Corfu. At first thought I unjustifiably assumed that Beel saw this as a chance to suck empty an opportunity overflowing with all the effortless benefits of a paid holiday. He took a brave chance at proposing the most idyllic, glamorous and relaxing location he could find on planet earth and happen to be lucky enough to win the prize. What a bargain? A week of holiday on the beach in Corfu...

It turns out, my parasitical judgement of Beel’s intent was a big mistake. 'Holiday' was what Beel needed after his 1^st two months of preparing the project prior to his journey to Corfu. And the real work was yet to begin. As absurd as this may sound to us ‘normal’ people, half of the two month preparation involved the emotional state Beel had reach before the commencement of his project - which he intently decided had to be completed as lived ‘through the experience of a Greek God’. The other part of the preparation entailed researching the exact layout and proportions of the beach, planning how to reach the bottom of the beach with all his equipment and hence was followed by Beel’s design and building of custom made equipment as well as a painting cart with which to transport it all(this – Beel bizarrely regarded as his ‘chariot’) and lastly a serious and long overdue exercise routine – the benefits of which Beel would feel as he made his way to and from the beach everyday for as long as the project may have last.  

Beel also organized for two models to be flown in to Corfu for the project - one from America and the other from London. The rest of his models – idealistically free willing - had to be recruited on location, which meant spending long, late nights in Greek restaurants throwing back sufficient litres of ouzo to win the respect of the 'not-so-eager-on-Beel' beach regulars. Beel kept at it for a whole month, painting every day from sunrise till sunset, spending days on some models and minutes on others, until his Epic Mirtiotissa - now known as  a masterpiece – was complete. Beel regards his creation not as a group portrait, a seascape or a genre painting. Rather he considers it to be ‘...a portrait of a place’.

Why did all this make me want burst with inquisitiveness? You’ll be sure to find out if you stick around for the next episode...     

Sassy Schiele

sas·sy ¹  (ss)

adj. sas·si·er, sas·si·est

adj. 1. lacking restraint or modesty, rude and disrespectful.

        2. also a modern term for stylish, chick or sophisticated

A man who was infatuated with sex. The ‘artist’ who painted porn in its most explicit form at a time when the word ‘porn’ didn’t even exist. A complete narcissist, who detested his mother, angered his father and fantasized about his 12 year old sister, Gerti. The ‘painter’ who’s studio became a candy shop where little girls spent long afternoons sucking on sweets. Egon Schiele. The ‘pervert’ who was arrested and briefly imprisoned on charges of molesting and pornography. He painted mostly nudes – often sickly and deformed and engaging in savage sexual acts: males with females, females with females and girls with girls. I am not too surprised that his work scandalized the Viennese public of the time. Or am I?  

I cannot deny that Schiele’s nudes make me feel somewhat uncomfortable. But they also make me feel. They contain an indescribable form of sensation. They make me want to sob. Not because I feel disgusted, upset or even pity for his subjects, but because I think they touch on something deep that very few other nudes touch on. They celebrate the beauty of our savage sexual natures without apology. Schiele’s nudes are shameless. 

Compare Schiele’s nudes with photographs from a 21^st century fashion publication or even a fashion feature from a contemporary pop culture magazine and you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find: cadaverous, wasted-looking girls with dark, gothic make-up, slouched shoulders, aggressive attitudes - androgynous even. Schiele’s nudes resemble something very similar to these photographs. They address issues very familiar to our present day lives: depression, lesbianism, pornography, anorexia, rebellion. Egon Schiele seems to have been foretelling the coming of modern culture when modern culture was but a fetus.

    

Schiele’s ‘porn with a paintbrush’ makes pornography become beautiful, even essential. It puts porn right up there with Goya, Cezanne and Titian’s nudes. Or perhaps even above them. Compare a Titian nude to that of a Schiele. Which is more captivating, more grabbing? Titian’s nudes seem cold, dead, almost inhuman. They are female sexuality ‘well-behaved’. They are 'sweet' if you like. And for those of us who regard Egon Schiele's work as objectifatcations of the female body - it doesn't take a connoisseur to realize there is much more sexism to discuss in a Titian nude than there will ever be to consider in one of Schiele’s nudes and, needless to say,  much more to pity. Besides, Schiele painted himself in very similar, often much more explicit ways than he did his female subjects. Titian's female subject exist for the mere purpose of pleasing. They are objects of male satisfaction. We feel sorry for them. In Schiele’s nudes the pity seems to be reversed back to the viewer. Schiele’s nudes pity all those prudish cowards who fail to rejoice honestly in the beauty of our savage sexual natures. His nudes are different from the rest. Schiele’s nudes breathe. They have warm blood flowing through their veins. Where a Titian nude is poised, seductive, firm, healthy, balanced, adorned and rich, Schiele’s nudes are sick, savage and hardcore. They personify those things that we, as humans, actually experience in real life. His nudes are alive. They feel and make feel. Egon Schiele was a ‘silver-tongued poet’, not a pervert.