Tattoos and Shadows

Last updated

Tattoos and Shadows is a color photograph created by Canadian photographer Jeff Wall in 2000. It was staged and inspired by a classical work of art, like others of his photographs. It is exhibited in a lightbox at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. [1]

History and description

The staged photograph was inspired by the painting Luncheon on the Grass (1863), by Édouard Manet. The original painting, who had been inspired itself by the Pastoral Concert (c. 1510), now attributed to Titian, had a nude woman staring at the viewer, at the center of the composition, while she was being addressed by a man, and had another man at her left side. In Wall photograph, the set is changed to a suburban garden, where a large tree stands, with her foliage filtering the light. Three figures appear, of which two are female and one male, but they don't interact with each other, and both women have absent gazes. A man seated at the right in the grass is casually dressed in a shirt and shorts, displaying his arm tattoos, while he reads attentively a book. His sunglasses and a plastic bottle lie nearby in the ground. At the center of the composition, an ethnic Asian girl leans calmly, seemingly relaxed, dressed in a pink shirt and jeans, with one of her hands on her head, touching the tree, while the other hand is between her legs. To her left, a redhead woman is seated on the ground, with her legs crossed, wearing a greenish dress, while also showing her right arm tattoo. Her eyes are lowered and she doesn't look at the viewer. At her front, a small bottle lies on the ground. An empty chair stands at her left and her slippers lie on the ground, left of the chair. The picture does haver a sense of intimacy and at the same time of loneliness, since the relationship between the figures remains unexplained and they seem oblivious to each others presence. [2] [3]

Related Research Articles

<i>Las Meninas</i> 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez

Las Meninas is a 1656 painting in the Museo del Prado in Madrid, by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Baroque. It has become one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting for the way its complex and enigmatic composition raises questions about reality and illusion, and for the uncertain relationship it creates between the viewer and the figures depicted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeff Wall</span> Canadian photographer

Jeffrey Wall, OC, RSA is a Canadian photographer. He is artist best known for his large-scale back-lit Cibachrome photographs and art history writing. Early in his career, he helped define the Vancouver School and he has published essays on the work of his colleagues and fellow Vancouverites Rodney Graham, Ken Lum, and Ian Wallace. His photographic tableaux often take Vancouver's mixture of natural beauty, urban decay, and postmodern and industrial featurelessness as their backdrop.

<i>Le Déjeuner sur lherbe</i> Painting by Édouard Manet

Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe – originally titled Le Bain – is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863.

<i>A Bar at the Folies-Bergère</i> Painting by Édouard Manet, considered his last major work - 1882

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère is a painting by Édouard Manet, considered to be his last major work. It was painted in 1882 and exhibited at the Paris Salon of that year. It depicts a scene in the Folies Bergère nightclub in Paris. The painting originally belonged to the composer Emmanuel Chabrier, a close friend of Manet, and hung over his piano. It is now in the Courtauld Gallery in London.

<i>The Death of Sardanapalus</i> 1827 painting by Eugène Delacroix

The Death of Sardanapalus is an oil painting on canvas by Eugène Delacroix, dated 1827. It currently hangs in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. A smaller replica, painted by Delacroix in 1844, is now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

<i>Doni Tondo</i> Painting by Michelangelo

The Doni Tondo or Doni Madonna is the only finished panel painting by the mature Michelangelo to survive. Now in the Uffizi in Florence, Italy, and still in its original frame, the Doni Tondo was probably commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a powerful Tuscan family. The painting is in the form of a tondo, meaning in Italian 'round', a shape which is frequently associated during the Renaissance with domestic ideas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">House of the Vettii</span> House in Pompeii, Italy

The House of the Vettii is a domus located in the Roman town Pompeii, which was preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The house is named for its owners, two successful freedmen: Aulus Vettius Conviva, an Augustalis, and Aulus Vettius Restitutus. Its careful excavation has preserved almost all of the wall frescos, which were completed following the earthquake of 62 AD, in the manner art historians term the Pompeiian Fourth Style. The House of Vetti is located in region VI, near the Vesuvian Gate, bordered by the Vicolo di Mercurio and the Vicolo dei Vettii. The house is one of the largest domus in Pompeii, spanning the entire southern section of block 15. The plan is fashioned in a typical Roman domus with the exception of a tablinum, which is not included. There are twelve mythological scenes across four cubiculum and one triclinium. The house was reopened to tourists in January 2023 after two decades of restoration.

<i>Paris Street; Rainy Day</i> 1877 painting by Gustave Caillebotte

Paris Street; Rainy Day is a large 1877 oil painting by the French artist Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), and is his best known work. It shows a number of individuals walking through the Place de Dublin, then known as the Carrefour de Moscou, at an intersection to the east of the Gare Saint-Lazare in north Paris. Although Caillebotte was a friend and patron of many of the impressionist painters, and this work is part of that school, it differs in its realism and reliance on line rather than broad brush strokes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tornabuoni Chapel</span> Main chapel in the church Santa Maria Novella, Florence

The Tornabuoni Chapel is the main chapel in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, Italy. It is famous for the extensive and well-preserved fresco cycle on its walls, one of the most complete in the city, which was created by Domenico Ghirlandaio and his workshop between 1485 and 1490.

<i>Office at Night</i> Painting by Edward Hopper

Office at Night is a 1940 oil-on-canvas painting by the American realist painter Edward Hopper. It is owned by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which purchased it in 1948.

<i>The Guitar Player</i> (Vermeer) 1672 painting by Johannes Vermeer

The Guitar Player is an oil painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675), dated c. 1672. This work of art is one of Vermeer's final artistic activities, providing insight into the techniques he mastered and approaches to painting he favored. The painting has been on display at Kenwood House, London since the 1920s, as part of the Iveagh Bequest collection. After being recovered from a theft in 1974, when the painting was held for ransom, The Guitar Player was returned to Kenwood House.

<i>Crucifixion and Last Judgement</i> diptych Two panel paintings attributed to Jan van Eyck

The Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych consists of two small painted panels attributed to the Early Netherlandish artist Jan van Eyck, with areas finished by unidentified followers or members of his workshop. This diptych is one of the early Northern Renaissance oil-on-panel masterpieces, renowned for its unusually complex and highly detailed iconography, and for the technical skill evident in its completion. It was executed in a miniature format; the panels are just 56.5 cm (22.2 in) high by 19.7 cm (7.8 in) wide. The diptych was probably commissioned for private devotion.

<i>The Baptism of the Eunuch</i> Painting by Rembrandt

The Baptism of the Eunuch is a 1626 painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn, owned by the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht since 1976. It shows Philip the Evangelist baptising an Ethiopian man, a eunuch, on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, traditionally marking the start of the Ethiopian Church.

<i>Nativity</i> (Christus) Oil on wood panel painting by Petrus Christus

The Nativity is a devotional mid-1450s oil-on-wood panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. It shows a nativity scene with grisaille archways and trompe-l'œil sculptured reliefs. Christus was influenced by the first generation of Netherlandish artists, especially Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, and the panel is characteristic of the simplicity and naturalism of art of that period. Placing archways as a framing device is a typical van der Weyden device, and here likely borrowed from that artist's Altar of Saint John and Miraflores Altarpiece. Yet Christus adapts these painterly motifs to a uniquely mid-15th century sensibility, and the unusually large panel – perhaps painted as a central altarpiece panel for a triptych – is nuanced and visually complex. It shows his usual harmonious composition and employment of one-point-perspective, especially evident in the geometric forms of the shed's roof, and his bold use of color. It is one of Christus's most important works. Max Friedländer definitely attributed the panel to Christus in 1930, concluding that "in scope and importance, [it] is superior to all other known creations of this master."

<i>Jupiter and Antiope</i> (Watteau) Painting by Antoine Watteau

Jupiter and Antiope is an oil painting by the French artist Antoine Watteau. It is also known as the Satyr and the Sleeping Nymph and was probably painted between 1714 and 1719. Intended to be placed over a doorway, today it hangs in the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

<i>A Nude Woman Doing Her Hair Before a Mirror</i> Painting by Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg

A Nude Woman Doing her Hair before a Mirror is an oil painting from 1841 by the Danish Golden Age painter CW Eckersberg. The painting is in the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen. The relatively small image is regarded as one of the masterpieces of the Danish Golden Age, and is also one of the Hirschsprung Collection's 20 most important works.

<i>The Lovesick Maiden</i> Painting by Jan Steen

The Lovesick Maiden is a c. 1660 oil-on-canvas genre painting by Jan Steen. It shows a young woman suffering from love-sickness surrounded by her doctor and a maid-servant. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

<i>Lot and His Daughters</i> (Orazio Gentileschi, Los Angeles) Painting by Orazio Gentileschi

Lot and His Daughters is a 1622 painting by Orazio Gentileschi. Executed in oil on canvas, the large painting depicts the Biblical tale of Lot and his two daughters after the destruction of Sodom.

<i>David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy</i> Painting by Joshua Reynolds

David Garrick Between Tragedy and Comedy is a 1761 painting by the English painter Joshua Reynolds, depicting the actor and playwright David Garrick caught between the Muses of Tragedy and Comedy. It is regarded as one of Reynolds's most studied and well-known paintings, and is now in the collection of Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire.

<i>Venus and Adonis</i> (Rubens, 1635) Painting by Peter Paul Rubens

In 1635, Peter Paul Rubens created Venus and Adonis, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He followed the mythological story in the Metamorphoses by Ovid, inspired from his love of classical literature and earlier depictions of this scene. This oil on canvas painting shows Venus accompanied by Cupid, embracing and pulling Adonis before he goes off to hunt. The artist uses specific colors, detail and strong contrast between light and dark to depict a dramatic and emotional scene. At the time Rubens created the painting, the mythological story of Venus and Adonis was popular in Renaissance and Baroque court art. Rubens was clearly inspired by the many existing depictions of this scene, in particular the famous Titian composition of the same name, of which there are numerous versions. This depicts the same moment of Adonis leaving Venus to hunt, despite her pleas to stay. He is killed later in the day.

References