The Beatles in Art movements through the ages

Kolkata Traffic Police use a Poster depicting The Beatles famed Abbey Road Picture, to get pedestrians to stop jaywalking, in India.

The fab four known as The Beatles were the most influential British band of the last century. Though they lasted just one decade (as a group), from 1962 to 1970, their iconic status, shall never diminish. Here’s a look at various Beatle loving artists’ creations, using techniques derived from various art movements, that existed pre, during & post, The Beatles. (Also see my Beatle News #01 to #33 from March 2013 to February 2014). For this Blog-Post, I’ve incorporated my aesthetic knowledge with my love for this iconic 60’s Boy Band!!!!

RENAISSANCE ART
(Beginning in Italy, renaissance artistic styles date back to the 1200’s, a style that lasted till about mid-17th century)
Famous artists of this movement include, Paolo Uccello, Piero Della Francesca, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi (the first woman to dare to become an artist, in that era, and thus condemned for it), Giovanni Bellini, Jan Van Eyck, Joos van Cleve, and many many others.

REALISM (a.k.a. NATURALISM)
(famous in the 1850’s, lasted a very short period of time)

The Beatles by Eduard Kazaryan – Kok Tobe Mountain in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Though Realism was a trend that was famous, during the 1850’s, the seeds of Realism, are present way back in the late 1700’s. If you see works like Francisco Goya’s Retrato de Martín Zapater from the 1790’s & The Family of Charles IV, from Year 1800, or Eugène Delacroix’s Portrait of Dr. François-Marie Desmaisons, from 1832-33, those are very realistic and somewhat dull, portraiture works of art.

Tom Murphy’s The Beatles in The Liverpool Art Cafe

Some famous artists that existed during this period, included, Gustave Courbet, Théodore Géricault, Honoré Daumier, Karl Bryullov, Jean-Hippolyte Flandrin and Rosa Bonheur, to name a few. Being a successful artist of the 19th century, Rosa Bonheur represented the New Woman (a feminist ideal that emerged in the 19th century, which in turn influenced feminism of the 20th Century).

MODERN ART (a.k.a. MODERNISM)
(Late 19th & early 20th Century)
Modern Art styles that existed within the last two centuries, happen to be my favourite, after the Renaissance period. Although, I do love the Romantics and the Realist, of the 18th Century too, yet not to the same extent as the Renaissance or the Modern. There’ve been various art movements within Modern Art, from Impressionists to Surrealist. Surrealism happens to be my favourite art movement, and Salvador Dalí, my all time favourite artist, ever since I discovered him (and his work), as a teenager in the 1990’s.

Impressionism/Post-Impressionism (two avant-garde art movement)  
(Prominent during 1870’s & 1880’s)

The Beatles (Abbey Road) watercolour by Fabrizio Cassetta

LeRoy Neiman The Beatles Painting

The Beatles watercolour by Fabrizio Cassetta

The Beatles by Paul Meijering

My favourite Impressionist artists include Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, Camille Pissarro, Gustav Klimt, Édouard Manet, Amrita Sher-Gil, Cristóbal Rojas, Dragan Mihailovic, Alfred Munnings, Harold & Laura Knight, Florence Carter Wood, Isaak Brodsky, Eugène Delacroix, Albert Tucker, Arthur Boyd, Paul Cadmus, etc etc…. When it comes to Impressionist/Post-Impressionist artists, majority of my favourite artists, as a collective, exist from this particular period.

The Beatles watercolour (Artist Unknown)

The Beatles watercolour (Artist Unknown)

Art Nouveau (an avant-garde art movement)  
(1890’s to 1910’s)

John Lennon of The Beatles (Artist Unknown)

Alphonse Mucha, Antoni Gaudí, Gustav Klimt, Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to name a few, were a part of the Art Nouveau movement.

The Beatles – Art Nouveau (Artist Unknown)

Expressionism (an avant-garde art movement)  
(Early 20th Century)

Curt McDowell’s nude Beatles

Gustave Moreau, Egon Schiele, Lucian Freud, Antoni Gaudí and Edvard Munch, were some of the famous Expressionist artists.

Ken White’s nude Beatles

Cubism (an avant-garde art movement)   
(Starting from the early 20th century, from 1910’s onwards)

Beatles Cubist (Artist Unknown)

Beatles Cubist (Artist Unknown)

The Beatles (Unknown Artist)

David Adickes’ The Beatles

The Beatles Monument (aprx 7000 pounds & 36 ft) in Houston, USA

The great Cubists include, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Metzinger, Marcel Duchamp, Juan Gris and Albert Gleizes, to name some. Henri Matisse, Henry Moore, Jackson Pollack, Amedeo Modigliani, Piet Mondrian, Sidney Nolan and M.F. Hussain, happen to be some other famous artists known for artworks involving distortion & abstract.

The Beatles (Artist Unknown)

Tom Whalen’s The Beatles

The Four Musicians (Beatles) – This is a direct copy of The Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso

Surrealism (an avant-garde art movement)   
(From the 1920’s onwards)

The Beatles (Artist Unknown)

Insects (Beatles) – beetles artwork (Artist Unknown)

Beatles Surreal (Artist Unknown)

The Beatles painting by Daniel Janda

The Yellow Submarine by Belius

Surrealism – with Dreamy, Psychological, Freudian (Sigmund Freud, not Lucian Freud) & Fantastical elements – happens to be my favourite art movement ever, especially from the modernist era. Not just in art, but also in literature & cinema. As is Magical realism. Salvador Dalí, happens to be my all time favourite artist ever. Georgia O’Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, René Magritte, Terry Gilliam and Giorgio de Chirico are some other influential surrealists.

The Beatles & Elvis Presley (Artist Unknown)

The Beatles by A.Pedicelli

Sam Van Olffen’s Beatles

The Beatles by David Ballinger

POST-MODERNISM
(The 1950’s, 60’,70’s & early 80’s)
The most popular art form during Post-modernist era, no doubt was Pop Art styles of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Martin Sharp, Richard Avedon, George Segal, Tom Wesselmann, Wayne Thiebaud et al. Other post modernists artists include Harold Stevenson, Duane Hanson, David Salle, Claes Oldenburg, Susan Rothenberg, Robert Moskowitz, Wes Wilson, Pablo Amaringo, Yoko Ono, David Vaughan, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jörn Pfab and Brett Whiteley, to name some greats.

The Beatles sculpture by Jörn Pfab (1970) in Hamburg, Germany

David Wynne in 1964 with his sculpture of The Beatles

Terry McGunigle and Joe Forrest created the 8x16ft Mount Fab Four

Spirit of The Beatles by Kris Atkinson

The Beatles (Artist Unknown)

The Beatles by Hector Monroy

Pop Art (an avant-garde art movement)  
(from the mid-1950’s to the early 80’s)

Richard Avedon’s The Beatles
from 1967

Los Beatles (Artist Unknown)

With it’s psychedelic hues and acid painting techniques, Pop Art happens to be my favourite Post-Modernist medium.

Beatles – Beetles on Abbey-Road (Artist Unknown)

ART AFTER POST-MODERNISM (a.k.a. POST-POST-MODERNISM)
(Emerging towards the end of 1980’s decade, and into the 21st century)

The latest trends of art (from the late 80’s onwards), includes the deconstructive styles of Blobism (or Bloberism), an architectural movement, inspired by the 50’s, Sci-fi, B-movie, The Blob (1958), starring Steve McQueen, in his first leading role. Architect Frank Gehry happens to one of the most well known faces behind, the amoeba shaped building designs, known as, Bloberism.

The Beatles – Poultry chicken wire by Ivan Lovatt

Yet, one of the latest trends in art today, is the Re-use of Refuse, using all kinds of waste material, letting nothing go to waste, including bodily fluids.

The Beatles rubber soul by Darin Shock

The Beatles by Jeff Zuck

Artists involved with this Post-Post-Modernism movement include Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Bill Viola, Shilpa Gupta, Mathew Barney, Chris Ofili, Wang Guangyi, Yukinori Yanagi, Andres Serrano, The Chapman Brothers, Félix González-Torres, Takashi Murakami, Jeff Koons, Renée Cox, David Osagie, Alexander Kosolapov, Koya Abe, Maurice Heerdink, Ruben Ortiz-Torres, Elizabeth Peyton, David LaChapelle, Sebastian Horsley, Chris Dyer and Jenny Saville.

Nuwan Sen’s Art Sense
Nuwan Sen n’ The Beatles
Nuwan Sen’s Music Sense  

AINSI SOIENT-ILS – Thus They May (2012)

Ainsi soient-ils (2012), a TV series, was shown on TV5MONDE. It started on Tuesday, the14th of January, 2014, with the first two episodes; and two episodes were shown every Tuesday night, for the last four weeks; culminating last night, with it’s last two episodes. Thus, a series of eight episodes altogether.

Ainsi soient-ils (2012), the English subtitled translation for which read And so they came to pass, but the more literal translation, which too somewhat makes sense, would be Thus they may.

Ainsi soient-ils, deals with five young men, in their 20’s and 30’s, who join the Capuchin Church Seminary, in Paris, France, with a deep devotion and intense faith in the Catholic Church, to someday attain Priesthood. All five young Seminarians, have had some sort of unpleasant experience (or a misguided conception) in their past, that made them take up this divine route. But towards the end, we see them questioning themselves, with strong doubts, whether this was the correct path they’ve chosen or was it just escapism on their part.
Raphaël Chanseaulme (Clément Roussier), a son of an Entrepreneur, who joins the seminary to get away from his family and fathers business. But later, once his brother commits suicide, finds himself being dragged back into the family business (as he’s now the soul heir) and starts a liaison with a married woman, Claire Boddet (Jeanne Bournaud), with whom once he was in love with.
Yann Le Megueur (Julien Bouanich), a 22 year old virgin, and an innocent guitarist, who joins ‘cause of a brainwashed view of giving oneself to god, where he thinks he felt the divine presence as a young Boy Scout. Yet, after a concert with Camille (Lou Sirchis), he unknowingly drinks a spiked drink, having been drugged, next morning he wakes up in his underwear next to Camille; which in turn makes him question his love for Jesus, and his love for a Girl Scout he had as a teenager. Once he finds out the Girl Scout is engaged to be married, he finds himself give way to Jealousy, a bottle of alcohol and an argument with his religious parents.

Emmanuel Charrier (David Baiot), an archaeologist, joins after having suffered a deep depression due to his encounter with a male prostitute in a Brothel in the Mediterranean, during an archaeological dig there; finds himself becoming violent, with his suppressed homosexuality, towards a comparatively openly gay seminarian, with whom he starts a secret affair within the walls of the Capuchin.
Guillaume Morvan (Clément Manuel), the comparatively openly gay seminarian, mentioned above, comes from a dysfunctional family, where his irresponsible mother (Christiane Millet) runs off to India, and his teenage sister (Gaby Fragnaud) gets pregnant and wants an abortion, against Guillaume’s better judgement. And Guillaume; who previously has had an affair with a rebel student, Jocelyn (Xavier Boiffier); now starts a secret love affair with Emmanuel. Both men seem divided, and confused, in terms of their love for god and love for one another. They discuss whether, this is not for them and whether they should leave the seminary.

José Del Sarte (Samuel Jouy), a man who found ‘God’ when he was in prison (he was imprisoned for killing a Russian thug), finds himself at loggerheads with the law, again and again, when trying to help a group of homeless people (some of whom are illegal Immigrants) along with the other four seminarians and Jocelyn (who began this cause to help these people in need).

Besides the five young Seminarians, there are two lead priests, who also happen to be their teachers, and quite a lot of other supporting characters.

Père Dominique Bosco (Thierry Gimenez), who has great trust in the head priest of the seminary, Père Fromenger; finds himself losing faith, when he (Père Bosco), discovers Père Fromenger has been secretly taking money from a Real Estate, who’ve been charging their customers more, and the excess cash has been handed over to him. Added to which Père Bosco, who’s been ill for a while, finds out he has a tumour. He’s seen aimlessly walking around Paris.

Père Étienne Fromenger (Jean-Luc Bideau), is the director of the seminary of the Capuchins. Who, besides having a few skeletons in a closet, is a good hearted, incredible, 21st Century priest, with very modern open minded views, who helps people, agrees to do a mass for Raphaël’s brother (who committed suicide, which is seen as a sin in the eyes of the church), who refuses to call the police, when a seminarian (not among the five) trashes a statue, and later when all the homeless people take refuge in the Capuchin Church, causing a political chaos. When the French Bishop, Monseigneur Joseph Roman (Michel Duchaussoy), president of the Bishops’ Conference of France, goes against Étienne, and complains to the Vatican, in Rome, and there is an investigation from Rome, and only two people have no doubts about Étienne, Sœur Antonietta (Céline Cuignetand) and Père Bosco, and they stand by him (that is until he learns of Étienne’s money laundering scam). Étienne, is also invited to Rome, to be a mediator to discuss a matter of a Chinese Bishop, whom the Vatican refuses to accept to be ordained as a Bishop. But Étienne manages convince them, with the Chinese concept known as ‘The Boxing of a Drunken Man’, where you study the other party’s moves and strike at the right moment, and reminds them of Diplomacy; ultimately the pope agrees to meet with a Chinese diplomat, who’s been in friendly terms with Étienne. Étienne even manages to save his church before Easter, with it’s leaky roof getting fixed.
When Étienne returns from Rome, he is forced to hand in a ‘dignified resignation’ by Monseigneur Roman (who’s had a grudge with Étienne for ages), due to the chaos involving the homeless people taking refuge at the Capuchin, headed by José, besides the fact it took place during Étienne’s absence. And Père Dominique Bosco, is appointed the new director of the seminary.

In the end, out of the five seminarians, only three remain, to continue their journey towards priesthood. One leaves, to start new life, and another gets shot , execution style, while trying to gain forgiveness for his past sin, but luckily is found by two trekkers and his life is saved.

It’s a beautiful, sad, tragic, television series, worth checking out. One sees the hardships these young seminaries have to go through. For once, we are shown how sensitive men can be. One ends up feeling sorry for all of them. Nobody is perfect, and these men, including the priests, have their flaws. But, each one has his own share of sufferings. We see them happy, we see them sad, we them crying. It’s a very touching story.
I loved this show. 10/10 for Excellence!!!!

Apparently this was only Season One. A second Season was supposedly made in 2013, and third is said to be in the works. I would love to see the next two seasons as well. But at the same time, the way it ended, I felt the eight episodes, in one season, was an excellent little gem, that doesn’t need any more seasons.
Lets just hope the next two seasons, not yet released, are just as great this one.

Nuwan Sen’s Television Sense

538th Birth Anniversary of Michelangelo

Statue of David

 Michelangelo, one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance period, was born in Italy (current Tuscany area) on 6 March 1475.

With Michelangelo’s Rebellious Slave & Dying Slave at the Louvre, in Paris (August 2008)

Growing up as a kid, my knowledge of artists of modern arts was pretty limited, with the exception of Dali, Picasso, M F Hussain and a few others. But when it came to the Italian Renaissance artists, I was a bit of a pro. Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael etc etc…, were among my favourites (second only to Dali) ever since I realised I had a passion for, and was gifted with talent for, the arts. Most beautiful works by the Renaissance artists was their study of the human figure, which added to their scientific knowledge, whereas Da Vinci went to the extent of designing machines (sketches on paper only) applicable to the human form. Yes, the study of the human anatomy gave rise to everything architecturally surrounding us, since way before. Everything, from the chairs we sit on, the houses we live in, high-rise buildings, are an extension of the human form, made specially for humans. Michelangelo’s Statue of David, is one of the most popular sculptures, although am yet see the original, despite having visited Florence in the Spring of 2005, I didn’t get a chance to do so. Again in the Spring 2005, besides visiting Rome (and the Vatican), I missed out on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. The thing was, in April 2005, I travelled around Europe for a month with a Eurail pass, valid on the European rail network for a month, covering as much as possible, occasionally sleeping in trains (few places I had a place to stay in, and once at a Bed & Breakfast in Vienna, Austria; but generally I took the night train from country to country as to use the daytime as much for travel within a country), putting my bag in a locker at a station and covering a town, hopping on the next train etc etc.. So whatever I could catch that Spring was pretty limited.

But I have seen a some other works by Michelangelo, the highlight was when I got to see some of his works at the Louvre (picture above), which I visited four times, July 2008, August 2008, April 2009 & May 2009. I passed his two famous sculptures many times, but it’s only in my second visit that I took a picture alongside the sculptures (pictured above). Most of my photographs of paintings and sculptures, are the ones I took. So from my second visit onwards I’ve tried to take pics with me in them as much as possible.

Back again in April 2005, even though I never got to see the Sistine Chapel, I did visit the Vatican, and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica was designed by Michelangelo (pictured below), although he died (on 18 February 1564) before he could compete it.  

Nuwan Sen’s Art Sense

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