Noli me tangere – Touch me

Tiziano

Do not touch me

Nolde

Touch me

Runge

Do not touch me

Bacon

Touch me

Friedrich

Do not touch me

Beckmann

Touch me

Kandinsky

Do not touch me

Argyrakis

Touch me

Friedrich

Do not touch me

Nolde

Kiss me

Crucifixion II

I continue today with the second part of the Crucifixion paintings, from the 19th  to the 20th century.

Paul Gauguin

Yellow Christ (1889)

Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin

Albright-Know Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, USA

Emil Nolde

Crucifixion (1912) 

Emil Nolde
Emil Nolde

Nolde Stifftung, Seebull

On February 20, 1912, the painter Emil Nolde wrote to his friend and patron Karl Osthaus, director of the Folkwang Museum in Hagen, concerning an upcoming exhibition there, and announced a major new work:

In the last year I have created a piece consisting of nine biblical pictures that belong together.I finished it during the last few weeks. I thought that I would also send this to you forexhibition. The size of the entire piece: 240cm high, 630cm wide.

On February 28, 1912, he wrote to his long-time friend Hans Fehr about the piece, enclosing a thumbnail sketch of it that shows a large central picture of a crucifixion flanked on either side byfour paintings. Nolde identified the subjects of the eight smaller canvases in writing on thesketch: Holy Night and The Twelve-Year-Old Christ (left above), The Three Magi and TheBetrayal of Christ (left below), Women at the Tomb and Ascension (right above), Resurrectionand Doubting Thomas (right below).2 All nine canvases of this work, known collectively as TheLife of Christ, remain together today in the galleries of the Nolde Foundation, near Seebüll,Germany. 

Nolde no doubt recognized that the monumental scheme of The Life of Christ–far larger than any previous work–almost literally hinged on Crucifixion.7 For it he incorporated a symmetrical severity and a solidity of construction well beyond any earlier picture. The three crosses establish the central axis, outer boundaries, and upper edge of the composition. Nolde pushed the figures almost into a single plane very close to the picture’s surface. He reinforced the iconic effect that results with certain aspects of his primitivizing style, mainly angular forms, flat colors, and unworked surfaces….

Of the individual canvases for The Life of Christ, Crucifixion contains the most obvious traces of an interest in Northern Medieval art. Crucifixions from this period frequently include several motifs—all incorporated by Nolde. First, the tortured flesh of Christ, in the form of an emaciated body, prominent wounds, and streams of blood. Grünewald’s Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece is the best known and most extreme example of this type. Second, the followers traditionally stand to the left of the cross and display intense emotions through gesture and physiognomy, often with the Magdalene on her knees and grasping the base of the cross and the Virgin collapsing into the arms of St. John. Third, many contrast the followers on the left with an equally distinct group of executioners and mockers to the right. Nolde even imitated a convention of some Medieval art by enlarging the body of Christ for prominence.

Source: William B. Sieger, Literary Texts and Formal Strategies in Emil Nolde’s Religious Paintings

Georges Roualt 

Crucifixion (early 1920s)

Georges Rouault
Georges Rouault

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Pablo Picasso

Crucifixion (1930)

Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso

Musee Picasso, Paris, France

Picasso in addition to the painting (oil on wood) prepared more than ten drawings with ink as “studies” on crucifixion. The Isenheim Altarpiece of Grunewald gave him inspiration and challenge.  

Marc Chagall

White Crucifixion (1938)

Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall

Art Institute of Chicago

Francis Bacon 

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion  circa 1944

Francis Bacon - Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion
Francis Bacon - Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

Tate Gallery, London, UK

When this triptych was first exhibited at the end of the war in 1945, it secured Bacon’s reputation. The title relates these horrific beasts to the saints traditionally portrayed at the foot of the cross in religious painting. Bacon even suggested he had intended to paint a larger crucifixion beneath which these would appear.He later related these figures to the Eumenides – the vengeful furies of Greek myth, associating them within a broader mythological tradition. Typically, Bacon drew on a range of sources for these figures, including a photograph purporting to show the materialisation of ectoplasm and the work of Pablo Picasso.

Source: Tate Gallery’s website

Fragment of a Crucifixion (1950)

Francis Bacon - Fragment of a Crucifixion
Francis Bacon - Fragment of a Crucifixion

Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Major artists create myths around themselves or have  the ability to motivate others to do it for them. The way Francis Bacon’s work has been received is coloured by this. The view that at certain moments the person and the work sometime coincide gained increasing emphasis in Bacon’s career, culminating with the feature fi lm Love is the Devil (1998) by John Maybury. There is hardly any other artist whose world is so much a part of his work, and spicy details about his life are happily quoted by biographers and reviewers. Bacon himself refused to go into the interpretation of his paintings and after 1962 even forbid any interpretive comment in catalogues. His argument was that there was not anything to explain. Fragment of a Crucifi xion and the response to Bacon’s work give cause to think about interpretation, biography and autonomy. Do the paintings exemplify a state of mind, or can they be related to views about identity and the male body? Do they represent a post-war view on the world, in which the automation of human interaction can be heard, or do the themes deprive us of an insight into a painter ‘easy on himself’?

Source: Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven

Salvador Dali

Christ of Saint John of the Cross: Nuclear Mysticism  (1951)

Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali

Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

“The title of the painting was said to have been inspired by a drawing made by a Spanish Carmelite friar who was canonised as St John of The Cross in the 16th Century.

It was made after the saint had a vision in which he saw the crucifixion from above.

Dali painted his crucifixion scene set above the rocky harbour of his home village of Port Lligat in Spain. “

Source: BBC

Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) (1954)

Salvador Dali
Salvador Dali

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA

Dali commented on his painting:

“Metaphysical, transcendent cubism, it is based entirely on the Treatise on Cubic Form by Juan de Herrera, Philip the 2nd’s architect, builder of the Escorial Palace: it is a treatise inspired by Ars Magna of the Catalonian philosopher and alchemist Raymond Lulle. The cross is formed by an octahedral hypercube. The number nine is identifiable and becomes especially consubstantial with the body of Christ. The extremely noble figure of Gala is the perfect union of the develpment of the hypercubic octahedron on the human level of the cube. She is depicted in front of the Bay of Port Lligat. The most noble beings were painted by Velazques and Zurbaran; I only approach nobility while painting Gala, and noblity can only be insired by the human being.” 

Antonio Saura

Crucifixion (1959)

Antonio Saura
Antonio Saura

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Euskaleria

“Ever since I was a boy I have been obsessed with Velázquez’ Christ in the Prado in Madrid, with his face darkened by the black hair of a Flamenco dancer, with his bullfighter’s feet, with the stillness of a flesh and bone puppet transformed into Adonis. I can even see myself immersed in the hazy museum, holding my father’s hand and looking at the terrible pacific cross, which I remember as something immense”.

The constant presence of the Crucifixion between 1956 and 1996 doesn’t respond to religious belief. It is, in the artist’s own words, a way of looking at the “timeless presence of suffering”.

“Contrary to Velázquez’ Christ, in these works I thought that by giving the image a feeling of tension and protest it was possible to capture a trace of almost blasphemous humour, but there is something else. In the image of the Crucified Christ, I may have reflected my situation of man alone in a threatening universe at which it is possible to shout, although, seen from another angle, I am also interested in the tragedy of a man “not that of a god” absurdly nailed to a cross. An image which can still serve as the tragic symbol of our era”.

Source: Guggenheim Museum’s website


 

 


Grilled shrimp wrapped in bacon – Μπουκετα γαριδες με μπεικον

Today’s dish is grilled shrimp wrapped in bacon. The shrimp comes from Euvoia (7 Euros per kilo) and the bacon originated in Serbia (10 Euros per kilo).

Τα υλικα μας: γαριδακι ευβοιας (7 ΕΥΡΩ το κιλο) και μπεικον σερβιας (10 ΕΥΡΩ το κιλο).

Γαριδακι Ευβοιας στο Λαυριο
Γαριδακι Ευβοιας στο Λαυριο

The shrimp I bought in the port town of Lavrio in Attica, and the bacon in the city of Novi Sad in Serbia.

Και το μεν γαριδακι εκ Λαυριου αγορασθεν εστι, το δε μπεικον εκ Νοβι Σαντ Σερβιας.

Μπεικον απο το Νοβι Σαντ
Μπεικον απο το Νοβι Σαντ

I bought the slab of bacon one morning in a shop in Novi Sad, where they sell all parts of a pig. Most of them you can find fresh or smoked.

Το βρηκα ενα πρωι σε ενα μαγαζακι που εχει ολα τα μερη ενος γουρουνακιου καπνιστα, και αναμεσα σε αυτα και το μπεικον!

Με το υπεροχο μαχαιρι του σεφ που διαθετουμε κοβουμε λεπτες φετες μπεικον.

Φετες μπεικον
Φετες μπεικον

Prepare the shrimp.

Καθαριζουμε το γαριδακι.

Καθαρισμενο γαριδακι
Καθαρισμενο γαριδακι

I wrap about 4 -5 shrimp in one slice of bacon and put them through a stick.

Τυλιγουμε σφιχτα 4-5 γαριδες σε μια φετα μπεικον  και περναμε το μπουκετο σε ξυλακι μικρο.

Ετοιμα για ψησιμο
Ετοιμα για ψησιμο

Last step is to grill on moderate heat, so that the shrimp remains juicy and moist and the bacon becomes warm enough to release its parfumes.

Το τελευταιο βημα ειναι ψησιμο στη σχαρα σε μετρια φωτια.

Σερβιρισμενα ετοιμα!
Σερβιρισμενα ετοιμα!

To make things easier for the healthy eating readers, I prepared also a stick with shrimp only.

Οπως βλεπετε, εφτιαξα και μια “υγιεινη” μεριδα, μονο με γαριδακια, αλλα τι τα θες τι τα γυρευεις!

The dish is divine in its simplicity. As long as the ingredients are fresh and of top quality, the only difficulty is the grilling.

I find this combination of flavors (the brutal power of the smoked bacon and the discrete sweetness of the shrimp) as uplifting.

Ειναι ενα πιατο που εχει απολα! Οι μυρωδιες σε ξεσηκωνουν απο το ψησιμο. Η υφη ειναι ποικιλια απο το λιπαρο του μπεικον μεχρι το σφιχτο της γαριδας. Η γευση ειναι ανεπαναληπτη, αφου ολα τα αρωματα απο το καπνιστο γουρουνακι αγκαλιαζονται με τη χαρη της θαλασσας! Εκεινες δε οι μοναχικες γαριδες στο ξυλακι, τρωγονται σαν κουφετακια.

Λετπομερεια
Λετπομερεια

Needless to say, it does not help that you can eat loads of the sticks before you realize what you have done! Bon appetit!

Ασε που ειναι πανευκολο και γινεται τοσο γρηγορα!

More recipes in the Panathinaeos recipes for pleasure!