‘Life Class – Intervention’ is based on Richard Hamilton’s final unfinished three part artwork called ‘Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu’ (The Unknown Masterpiece). It is concerned with seeking to achieve ‘perfection’ in the depiction of ‘the nude’... a theme taken up by artists and poets for centuries e.g. the many Olympia and Venus paintings. See Hamilton’s three part works above:
‘Life Class – Intervention’ also employs ‘The other The Valpinçon Bather (an 1808 painting by the French Neoclassical artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres) in the foreground. See Ingres work above:
In merging the content of the two paintings, ‘Life Class – Intervention’ re-presents the theme of ‘the nude in art’ as a topic for discussion. The image on the wall might be a reflection in a mirror of a foreground we can’t see. It contains an additional female ‘muse’ figure with a painter’s palette... Titian is pictured in discussion and points to a red dot on the bed on which the nude reclines. It is a life class with interventions.
The foreground space, occupied by The Valpinçon Bather, has been made wider to accommodate the additional painting/mirror – we can notionally walk into the space between the curtain and the nude... we can intervene.
The scene is now a virtual stage set, an act from a play in which we can’t hear what the actors are saying or for which the dialogue hasn’t yet been written. What happens next?
Life Class Intervention
One of a kind artwork
Print on canvas... embellished with areas of hand-painted acrylic
Sold Unframed – the pictured old frame is 2D and part of the artwork
76 x 64 cms
Signed and dated on the back
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