Tony Cairns

Art and Film. Two Figures (1): Silhouettes. The ancient tradition of making a silhouette has a paradoxical effect: it unifies and divides. Its outline generates a tension between the active (black) and passive (white) components of an image.  Illustration 1. Illustration 1 shows a common example: an optical illusion. Two facial profiles exist in perfect symmetry, providing they are seen as the positive 'figure'. When viewed as a negative 'ground' the edges of a vase emerge. Each form is dependent upon a mental configuration, or 'gestalt', in which foreground and background are integrated as a coherent depiction. The foregrounded object, however, is thrown into relief - isolating it (i.e. we see the faces but we don't register the vase, and vice-versa). This shifting quality, where one part of the pattern must recede, has interesting implications for art and film; especially when, as in the following examples, the representation of two hu

Cézanne, Cubism and Giacometti (2): Figures. Illustration 1:  'Self-Portrait', c. 1880, Paul Cézanne; National Gallery, London. Cézanne's portraits are exceptional for their sense of detachment and impersonality. One might say they attempt to erase the ego of each subject. In 'Self Portrait', c. 1880 (Illustration 1), the head and shoulder are represented as spherical forms, with reiterations of mini-hemispheres: a domed forehead, eye-socket and nose. ' ... to   treat   nature   through   the cylinder , the   sphere , the   cone ... ' - Cézanne . Directional brushstrokes describe rounded surfaces as planes, producing a faceted, mask-like appearance, reinforced by the glassy right eye. This blocks the viewer's inclination to make inferences about psychology or mood. I would argue that the painter has reduced character to the level of form; or that form has become character. Illustration 2: 'Portrait of Ambroise Vollard'

'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère:' painting, 1882; Edouard Manet. 'Paris, Texas:' film, 1984; Wim Wenders (director), Robby Müller (cinematographer) and Nastassja Kinski (actress). Illustration 1, 'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère:'  A barmaid stands before a mirror, which reveals the view that she sees (including a man at the counter). Illustration 2 and 3, 'Paris, Texas:'  A female figure is shown from behind, accompanied by a male at a bar. She glances over her shoulder at someone she thought had approached (her husband, who has been missing for four years), but recognizes no one. A woman stares out at, but appears not to see, us. The bar, functioning as a barrier and a framing device, establishes a tension: between the actual space depicted, and an implied space outside of the picture-frame. The mirror becomes a further window, a 'world-within-a-world.' As observers, we move towards the woman, and, in 'A Bar at

Amedeo Modigliani. 'Jeanne Hébuterne', 1919. Included in the exhibition: 'Modigliani'; Tate Modern (UK), November 2017 - April 2018. Illustration 1: 'Jeanne Hébuterne', 1919. Modigliani [1884-1920] did few society portraits, preferring to paint close friends and acquaintances. The alteration and exaggeration of form - a distinctive characteristic of his art - makes some of the images veer towards a type of Expressionism. Sometimes the human subjects are depersonalised, like still-life objects. He seemed to hit upon a method of extreme elongation of the body in an intense period of sculptural activity, from 1909-1914. These stone carvings display an acknowledgement of primitive traditions, especially African. Individuals are presented as remote idols. A frontal and vertical attenuation of facial features appears to flatten the head: Illustration 2. In profile, however, there is a deep and unexpected recession, as each bust extends horizontall

The Naked Self-Portrait: Women. 3: Violation. Artemisia Gentileschi's 'Susanna and the Elders' (1610 version). Illustration 1: 'Susanna and the Elders,' 1610, by Artemisia   Gentileschi (c.1593-1652).   Not precisely self portraits, Gentileschi's series of 'Susanna and the Elders'  paintings (1610, 1622 and 1649) function as a form of autoportrait 'by proxy.' The 1610 version is viewed as a breakthrough work (she was approximately sixteen years old) in which there may be coincidental biographical connections to the theme. The fact that it was completed only a year before the artist's rape, by Agostino Tassi (a painter who worked with her father,  Orazio , during a period in which Artemisia was probably 'groomed' by both Tassi and a papal clerk,  Cosimo   Quorli ), stimulates an alternative discussion regarding her level of identification with the subject: Susanna. Illustration 2: (top) Agostino Tassi - consi

Thoughts on 'The Fountain' (directed by Darren Aronofsky, 2006). 'Questions'. Does the character ' Tom   Creo ', a doctor who had been unable to cure his wife's ('Izzi's') brain tumour, use an extract from the 'Tree of Life' to outlast humanity; and, as ' Tommy ', travel through space-time to 'Xibalba', a dying star - a place where Izzi  had told him souls are united and reborn? And is he the reincarnation of a dead Spanish explorer, who failed in his quest to discover the source of life and save his queen? Illustration 1: Tomas Verde (top), Tom Creo (bottom-left) and Tommy (bottom-right) - actor, Hugh Jackman. By opening out a 'story-within-a-story' - Tom's attempt to 'finish it' (Izzi's incomplete book, 'The Fountain', about a 16th c. A.D. conquistador) -  into three parallel tales, the film maintains an entirely allusive narrative texture. Mayan myth and Catho