Eternally Obvious Lola

[jack_babalon]

"Among such beauties as one can see everywhere


I understand, my friends, that desire hesitates


But one sees sparkling in Lola of Valencia


The unexpected charm of a black and rose jewel"

~René Magritte
Lola de Valence
1948
w/
Charles Baudelaire
Lola de Valence







All based on this naughtly little Lolita and the preimpressionist who made her famous~
"Parlez vous Sexy Baby?"
"MmmmmmMmmmm Si Senor Manet"

Edouard Manet
Lola de Valence
1862

What I wanted to do here was take Magritte's 'Lola' and break it up and permeate it in the style of another Magritte favorite of mine, 'The Eternally Obvious' ( http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/11/euwl/ho_2002.456.12a-f.htm ) where the artist cut the canvas of a painting of a beautiful nude and breaks it down (deconstruct maybe?) into five sections representing the choicest parts of the image. In this case I broke it down into four images to represent the four lines of the Baudelaire quatraine of the same name.
I've always had a thing for Magritte. Not sure why really. I'm sure there are all kinds of great reasons any Art Major with a grudge could go on and on about. All I have is the impact, the aftershock of the mind reconcilling the fuzzy distances of a dream that have been bound by a clockmakers logic, a machine precision guiding the cogs & wheels of the subconscious. It it is the beat of a different conundrum we 'hear' with Magritte.
This piece in paticular I always found, well, "Sexy".
The pupiless eyes that seem to look at you anyway, that seem to see your wanting of her, and yet without those pupils there is no judgement. She neither accepts nor refuses the yearning she produces. By doing that she freezes the wanting of the veiwer(okay this veiwer), she stirs but does not satisfy. She shields but does not push away. Like elements of Tantric sex where the climax is delayed as long as possible to produce a deeper experience of the interaction of the body.
I look at this Lola and it is the same preadolescent fasination I had with Rachel in Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. The cold shell of android beauty slowly overshadowed by the growing animal flame soul within.
The rose bleeds petals in her left hand.
The cascade of torsos behind her, revealing her to be complete, to be the need that goes beyond the lust of the torso.
The right hand on the rock in the grass stabalizes her. Grounds her. The Buddha sitting under the Bo tree when he places his hand down on the ground to justify and answer the Demon Mara and his armies of fear & seduction.
Like I said i'm probably way off base. But does that matter? Is art the result it produces in us or an elusive philosophy that chase around?
Running around Plato's cave trying to net shadow butterflies to pin down later in frames of 'Truth' & 'Reason'.

Comments

[mizraim.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you for posting that, it was illuminating. I love your inclusion of Baudelaire!

[jackbabalon23.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it.
Baudelaire wrote the poem in response to the Manet piece, but I found the translated version to fit the Magritte version so perfectly I couldn't resist hooking the two works up.