Annual Review 2020

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2020

Pale tree

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Travels

There was one long trip to central Chile.

The Chile trip was a bit strange. I was mostly unhappy for mysterious reasons. Perhaps, because of that I didn`t miss the travel restrictions that Corona virus brought (though as I type I feel a sudden strong melancholy urge to be in New York, where you feel quite free in a way I don't sense anywhere else).

Anyway, I did a few good paintings, including these:

Melipueco, Chile, with itinerant, oil on card 25 x 22 cm

Gardens, Villarrica, Chile, oil on card, 20 x 22 cm

I had intended to do Patagonian Chile in January coming, but that is not possible. 

I had an exhibition at UDESC, the state university, but it was closed after the first few days due to COVID. The exhibition itself was badly managed by CEART, who did everything at the last minute in a a slapdash, even contemptuous fashion. There is a lot of fuss being made about cuts to arts in Brazil, but if this agency is typical, and I fear it might be, then they do not deserve to receive public funds.  

With COVID, the automatic clamouring for public funds among artists was incredible. It seemed inconceivable to  many artists, who eagerly signed ´petitions demanding state assistance, that they might work doing whatever was required to pay rent. Many appeared to believe that society should treat them as essential labour in the same level as police or medical workers.

 I worked very steadily and efficiently in Florianopolis, on the island, increasing the size of paintings, the brightness of their colours, and, I feel, using social isolation constructively.

On the way to Cacupe, settlement

 oil on card, 24.3 x 29.7 cm

The dunes, a rise, oil on card, 20 x 25 cm

I am very happy with this one (above).

Trees by a lake, Winter, Lagoa, oil on card, 28 x 25.8 cm

Above Lagoa, early July, 2020, oil on card 26 x 28 cm

I started to visit the rocky coastline on the south of the island. It's fairly quick to get to on the new road:

Rocks, sea, sky Armacao, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

I also occupied my time with taking photographs, and writing short essays.

 Thus, the year passed.

 I like being alone and did not suffer as much as I usually do. I found the empty streets pleasing and the silence calming. I don't like shopping or crowds so their absence made me happier. I enjoy thinking and I resolved some things about where to live and what to do with the next bit of my life.

I am 51 and it seems that I am entering some other life phase, one characterised by greater self assurance and settlement. I also realised something very obvious, which is that much of what happens to us is arbitrary, and we have only some control over how much and how we interact with this. Ergo, there is little sense in getting too worked up about anything much, though it is wise, of course,  to take precautions.

You will quite possibly think how platitudinous and I daresay you might have a point, but personally speaking, until recently such banal truths were never as obvious to me as they ought to have been and they do therefore have some consequence for me.  

And, slightly wiser, I advance into 2021.

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Social Media

Flickr

I'm not a member any more and I can't post new images as I have reached their non-member limit. 2.3 million all time views. I have 952 followers: a slight decrease from 959.

Blogger

There are 84 people listed: the same as ever. Why does this never increase? Presumably because my Blog can be tracked in other ways, and it isn't necessary for followers to declare themselves. 

Looking at the statistics page with its graphs, for the last 12 months I see: 25,700 visitors, with a peak day on 7 August with 426 views. 

Top countries in terms of percentages are Italy (32%) USA (32%); Russia (4%); UK (4%); Turkmenistan (4%). In absolute numbers: Italy (8.18K); USA (8.15K); Russia (1.16K); UK (1.07K); Turkmenistan (930);

It is surprising how low the UK is, and how high Italy.   

Instagram

There are 287 followers, up from 221. This site is very good for introducing people to your work. It is very easy to use, with excellent editing functions and keywording so you can link your work to that of others. 

I also have an Instagram Account dedicated to photography. It has 46 followers: tderegowskiphotos

Twitter

I have 238 followers. Down a little from 247. I never use this site as I find it dominated by an unpleasant style of discourse. In any case, it isn't really for showing pictures.

Saachi and other sales

There were no sales with Saachi. There was one sale this year, of a Moroccan painting.

A lane, Marrakech, oil on card, 16 x 15.5 cm   SOLD

Facebook

I continue to use this excellent site to talk about art and photography. It is a very good site for artists to use, as through it's "pages" you can create bridges between your personal and creative existences. 

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The future

I move house shortly and, that resolved, and the vaccine available, normal life can perhaps resume. For me that means going at some point to the UK, most likely in late Spring. Then, if at all possible, a visit to Andalucia. But that is in the hands of the Gods.

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Distant rocks, Armação

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Armação, distant rocks, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm  unavailable

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A curled leaf

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Curled leaf

Something I like about this is how much it resembles a piece of Art Nouveau ironwork. Those arabeques are so satisfying.

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Society of Scottish Artists: 30 x 30 online exhibition

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This is a link to the Society of Scottish Artists online showing of small, 30 x 30 cm or smaller, works. 

I am showing a Moroccan picture.

https://sca-net.org/event/ssa-30-x-30-online-edition/

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Trees near a church, Trindade

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Trees near a church, Trindade, oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

It is getting very hot, and even when painting in the shade one returns sun-dizzy.

 It may be time to start painting still lives again, perhaps flowers...

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Segments of rock

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Segments of rock by Doces Campestrini

These are small sections of sticks of rock. I had already chosen and bagged some sweets, but then I saw these, so beautiful next to the cash desk: I had to get them too. 

The flavors are okay. They really belong to a pre-modern, pre-clinical age of sweet manufacture, and are a little unsophisticated. The orange is acceptably Kia-Ora orangey- slightly fizzy (like Spangles, if you remember them?). The green is convincingly apple-ish. The white one has a buttermilk flavour that does take one a little by surprise. Best is the pink which does a solid sex steamy strawberry kiss: a real behind the bike shed snog to boast about on the bus home.

Like many sweets you want to chew them the instant they arrive in your mouth. Usually I'd counsel against this but with these sweeties I'd suggest that this was the right way to go about extracting the best flavour: to crush them between your molars in a prompt, unprincipled manner. 

The thing that got me, really got under my skin and made me impulse buy was the green. That emerald green really just hit me smack in the eyes and I was smitten,  helpless. I became quite stupid and I had to take these sweeties home. 

You don't, these days see this colour often,. It's a bit out of date, and very fin de sciecle like peacock feathers or hippy communes in bottle green velvet jackets and  floppy fedoras. I love how it combines with the citric yellow and I love the nearly but not exact geometricity of it all, which reminds me of stencils. And, of course, broken gemstones.

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A dog going somewhere

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A dog going somewhere

There is a short story here.

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Docile's Maxmallows

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 Maxmallow

 

Shape and colour

The shape is architectural, a joyful spiralling, very Coney Island. It seems to date from the oh-so-distant days when postmodernism might have promised hope.

The colour, likewise, is purest seaside resort: Brighton, Blackpool and Skegness in four glorious sun-faded pastels. But does it convey the vital ingredients of any seaside day trip: easy pleasure, plastic tat and a kiss-me-quick hat, a snog or more with a stranger, fish and chips, cheap music, cheaper beer, and more than a dash of seediness? All serenaded by a thudding hangover the next day?

The Oral Experience

At first the Maxmallow is very soft, like the faintest brushing of a butterfly's wings on your cheek. It's flowery, floury. A dry kiss. Aloof... or shy? 

Then, stealthily, the Maxmallow melts sweetly. You run your tongue up its twisting grooves, removing the sugary dust. And it gives itself away with gracious pacing, an adagio by Ravel. It is first spongy, then (yes!), more compliant, dissolving, melting but still somehow airy. It mesmerises, it is Redonesque, indeed -the Odilon Redon not of brooding Noirs but the lofty Chariot of Apollo. And thus brings to mind not so much the the carnal pleasure-seeking of the English working classes but the refined escapism of opium scented salons.

 

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Praia Mole, trees near the sea

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Praia Mole, trees near the sea

 oil on card, 26 x 28 cm   SOLD

 

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A road and bushes near the university, Florianopolis

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A road and bushes near the university, Florianopolis- available

 oil on card, 26 x 28 cm

Does the plein air painter go out and respond to the world with paints?

Or is it like this: the artist goes out and finds a motif. This motif is like a key which opens a door in their mind.

Behind the door is a pre-existing image which the artist then reproduces, albeit usually adaptng it so it corresponds wih the scene that they are, ostensible, depicting.

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Three new tubes of paints and three brushes

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Three  new tubes of paints and three brushes

The paints are: 

Brown Madder: I've never used this before but think it might combine with Prussian Blue for depicting  deep shadows.

Light Ultrmarine: this is rather a staple, it's not too forceful and is excellent for skies;

Light Cupric Green (aslo known as Scheele's Green): ths is based on Phthalocyanine, and will be strong, probably  difficult to mix.

There are also three brushes. These tend to lose there sharpness after only a few sessions but, fortunately, aren't too dear.

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Those who repeat the expression, "a good workman never blames his tools" must be people with very limited understanding any craft activity because the choice of tools is so evidently critical to the result, regardless of ones level of experience.

 And so is the choice of material. Indeed, if we say that the artwork is the transformation of matter into meaning then what we choose to use is in itself consequential, before we have even begun to manipulate it. 

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Shadows on a table surface

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Shadows on a table surface

  

This is the sort of thing that if you you can spend hours marveling at if you are in your cups.

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Watch

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Broken Rotary watch

 I bought this watch on a flight to Padua.

 I had often sat in flights and wondered exactly what kind of people were those who bought things from the in-flight catalogues that are tucked into the backs of seats. I had thought, they must be people who cannot go to shops or dislike shopping. Or people whose lives were so haphazard that only when secured by seatbelts in a flight could they resolve to purchase such basic things as pens or wristwatches.

But,  in a gleeful Damascene moment, I caught the attention of the flight attendant and, in minutes, the watch was mine.

Dear reader, had I become one of those people .I had needed a watch but yes, I have often felt a sense of grave oppression in shops, especially indeed jewelers. Because in the jewelers a perfumed manager will present an array of watches on a velvet tray . The stillness in the room will be quite oppressive. And he will be watching you very closely as you inquire about the prices which, though enormous, will be written on the tiniest tags.

You are crippled as the assistant (who isn't an assistant at all but a highly trained psychological bully)  makes you feel ashamed, applying all sorts of ruses so you spend a huge amount on something which you don't need or even want. And if you maintain your good sense and chose to get the cheapo thing you can afford  you wither on hearing the condescension in the sellers voice, "very good sir". 

For a while I didn't use a watch because mobile phone had the time. But then I started to resent the phone, seeing  it more as a tyrant than a liberator. I disliked how I continually felt the need to check it and the inane social networks I belong to. I stopped carrying the phone when I went out.

But I can't do anything without measuring myself against time. It's how I am constructed. I needed the watch.

The thing I like about the watch was how the winder had embedded in its crown a tiny dark blue stone. I also liked how smooth and flat the glass was.  It felt reassuring to stroke it.

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Paper boats, picture; painting, travel and photography

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 Boats, picture

I`m beginning to miss painting a lot. 

I have been taking  daily photos daily. I`ve found the camera and the photo editing tools to be superb for examining objects, their condition, presence and significance. The immediate realism of photos, and the faith we have in the veracity of the photo makes this an excellent medium to do this, to discuss memory and give a concrete base to a text. I mainly use sill life photography to do this, but also medium distance photos of buildings and in nature.

I find the "hunter-and-prey" aspect of photography unpleasant. I dislike the secretiveness of its black box processing. Shooting people is highly unpleasant, a controlling and highly unequal ritual in which the person being photographed (the subject) is  pushed around and ultimately objectified, with very little control over the way they are represented.

  I suspect that, as an art form, photography attracts a certain profile and that profile contains a disproportionately large number of very guarded,  controlling, and possible abusive individuals. There have been a series of cases with fashion photographers being exposed as such. Nice people who become photographers are aware of portrait photography's unsavoury aspects, and attempt to engage their subjects more democratically in the representational process. But I suspect it is intrinsic to photography with it's tiny viewfinders and hidden image recording.

I found the camera very good for photographing trees and medium distance nature. It's responsiveness to light and detail is incredible. At a longer distance, with more general views, I found the camera brought forward cliches, or at best a certain obviousness.

Some things I miss from painting:

1.  The physicality of paint is marvelous. It has three-dimensionality: texture.  Photography is smooth and dreamlike: Apollonian.

2. Mixing colours is marvelous. And somehow always surprising. And I have a big batch of expensive paints waiting for me in Scotland.

3. Painting landscapes is very "out there". It's a declaration. Yes, that is uncomfortable, but it isn't furtive like photography. I like sorting out the equipment and deciding what to take.

4. Lugging stuff- palettes, brushes, tripod around is annoying. But packing and unpacking and the ritualistic processes most painters develop over years makes them very aware of how their work is a self-conscious construction.

5. In painting you can respond physically, with marks and gestures and they are layered so you convey a notion of process in time.. There's an eye-emotion- hand-  chain which allows mark-making itself to be way of conveying meaning. Photography is dreamlike. I like this too, but I miss the former, and how difficult it is.

Fingers crossed: eventually the COVID-19 situation will be resolved and I can do a painting trip: a massive 6 monther from Ecuador down to the tip of Patagonia. Or something like that.

 

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Jelly Berries

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Jelly Berries

Gomets Pudim Creme e frutas

Coloured gum, sugar encrusted,  mounted on a white creme base to, just about, suggest a jelly mould.

 They are more or less conical, a shape very pleasing in both hand and mouth. The encrustation of sugar on the surface is lovely to the tongue. That sugary roughness melts to give way to smoothness, an effect erotically stimulating for reasons which you, dear reader, might perhaps enlighten me?

How about the flavours? The idea is that there is a creamy base with a fruit flavour above.

Well, they are not fantastic, the difference in colour being more decorative than indicative of any flavour associations we might make. I do discern a difference with the lime, but that might just be my imagination.

But when taken simply as decorations the colours are, indeed, jolly: bright yet harmonious. 

They would look very nice on arranged on a silver tray as a vehicle to serve drugs such as ecstasy to a assortment of your more louche acquaintances*, perhaps in an ultra modern but just a teeny bit retro apartment overlooking the Thames. You could accompany them with colourful cocktails in martini glasses and  and music by Goldfrapp.

*Will we ever  be louche again?

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Small transparent button and white thread

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Small transparent button and white thread

I was always impressed how clean the items in my mother`s sewing box were. All the things- the reels of thread, the pins and the needles-  had an extraordinary precision about them. They give off silence, concentration. Tools are often mysterious: how they function and what they might make is often not self-evident.

I love the button tin which is made of dark green metal and shakes most invitingly. The variety of buttons is delightful, perplexing even, a tribute to human creativity.

 There used to be such a button shop on Marylebone Lane. I wonder if it is still there?

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Boy

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Boy

This is a companion to Old Man from a few days ago. 

It reminded me of the tousled haired "Little Prince". 

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Foliage and circular shadow

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Foliage and circular shadow

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Hand

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Hand

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Branch

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Branch

This was taken over a month ago and is one of the photos that I'd describe as "modest photography". 

That's a term I've invented for a photography that draws attention to slight phenomena or humble objects, depicted in an undramatiising way. It's deliberately unimpressive.

Thus, I finds myself in a contradictory position: I have to decide which unimpressive photo is most impressive. 

That's a paradox I can live with because the possibilities of modest photography are endless. It opens one up to a totally different understanding of the art.  Liberated from the obligation to seek evermore transcendental or memorable imagery one is free to find value in the commonplace, the overlooked. 

I shall next explore this further with photos of little grey stones, small piles of sand, scraps of litter or small fallen leaves.

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A flower opening

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A flower opening

 

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My bed

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Where I sleep

Sleep 

This is where I lie down and try to sleep. 

I don't like lying there trying to sleep. I don't like thinking about the day and watching thoughts accumulate. I don't like thinking about the day that was or the day to come and what it might mean. These thoughts so often bring anxieties. I just want to fall rapidly into unconsciousness, plunging into a soft abyss.

Recently, I've been waking up early in the mornings. Then, I  try to go back to sleep. Sometimes I manage. I don't want to get up very early because when I do I feel an emptiness.

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There is another photo of my bed that I'll publish another day. It's less classical.  I may do a series about sleep and going to bed. It's a massively unexplored subject, considering how much of our life is spent doing it.

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Old man

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Old man

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Vampire Teeth

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Vampire Teeth

This being Halloween, what could be more appropriate than this delightful product?

The teeth are soft, the gums pliable, both deliriously sweet with a little lemony zing: wonderful. It's lovely how they melt into little gelatinous bits in your mouth, how your saliva transforms into a sugary sauce.

 You could really go crazy on this stuff, and if I hadn't had the privilege of a repressive Scottish education I would surely have devoured the entire pack in one giant scoff and gone back for all the rest in the shop.

The appearance is not charming though is it?  Be honest. It's foul. There is something very nasty about detached body parts, even when obviously manufactured. And this is the case no less when they are eaten than when they are used for other functions (yes dildo manufacturers, I am indeed looking at you). 

And why "vampires"? The canines are hardly developed. I suppose the cannibalistic aspect of vampirism is present in the idea that you are consuming another's flesh but you wouldn't, no matter how hungry or devoutedly Transylvanian eat another's teeth, even those of the fairest peasant virgin in the village. I hope not, at least.  And you wouldn't eat those of another vampire...or would you?

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Pencils in a biscuit box

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Pencils in a biscuit box

The pencils are sleeping. They`ve been sleeping in this box since at least the mid-nineties when I received them following the death of  Wladysław Bednarowski, a Cartesian philospher. There is a lot that could be written about Bednarowski.

I recall in this order: his love of Wagon Wheels, Fanta, his slip on suede shoes  and fondness for brown,  his enthusiasm for French culture, how he fought in the First World War and escaped from a Hungarian prison, his slow, heavy speaking style which made me think of a slow rural bus, the small terraced house on Aberdeen High Street which he rented from the university, his enormous and ever expanding collection of art monographs, his thick, at times bulbous features; and how, with age, his figure became increasingly hunched and how this had the effect of emphasizing the length of his arms.

I remember receiving chocolates every Christmas which he would pass at our house wearing a dark blue suit and bow tie. He drove a red MG for a while, I think.

I inherited a great many art materials from him. He said that when women were wanted to cheer themselves up, they bought hats: he bought art materials.

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The pencils have an enchanting, dryly woody smell, not so unlike cigars.

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Jelly beans

 

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Jelly Beans

These are a nice size in the hand with a pleasing  shape. 

 They are shiny and smooth but the inside is slightly grainy in the mouth, and when that grainy stuff melts in your saliva it becomes a sugary paste. This isn't disagreeable by any measure. It feels nice to crack the bean shell in the teeth- somehow transgressive given how perfect the shiny bean shape is.

They're in bright children's cartoon colours. There isn't much difference between colours of beans when it comes to flavour, with the exception of the light blue which is aniseed and slightly medicinal: in other words, a delight. 

Note: there is is no black. The question of the absent black is interesting because it seems to me to be a missed marketing opportunity- I state this based entirely on memories as when I was a child the black sweets in packets were prized far above the others, and I even suspect the manufacturers played a sort of game by not distributing blacks too commonly, so children bought more packets just to obtain them. 

However, their absence may be no bad thing:

https://nypost.com/2017/04/06/mans-jelly-bean-obsession-nearly-kills-him/

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A natural bower

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A natural bower

A dance took place, girls holding branches, garlands laced in their hair. Their dresses were white. It was first a circle dance, then became a weaving and, laughing, they passed through an arch made by two of the party with sapling branches. 

It went on like that then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, disappeared into the woodland.

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Pink flower

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Pink flower

 

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Touching things

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A pencil

Touching things

In other people`s apartments, I pick things up, weighing them in my hand and holding them, to better understand my hosts and their environments.

Things I like to hold and inspect are mainly small hard items made of metal (preferably heavier metals), wood and ceramics. They include: items such as rulers, tools, treen, shells, eggs, coins, compact hardback books, cutlery, little bottles, ceramics (both earthenware and porcelain such as eggcups, tea saucers, porcelain animals), smaller cameras and candlesticks. I like pieces of wood cut into blocks, seeds, marbles and polished stones. 

Weight and texture then are factors, as is the function of an object. There is something extremely pleasing about the potential in tools. When I pick up the green Faber Castell pencil, and hold it as if I were going to draw I can feel myself mentally preparing to draw: it is as if the pencil itself is compelling me. I 've seldom held firearms but when I have, I have also similarly, and alarmingly felt impelled.

Things I don't like to hold and inspect: items excessively imbued with the identity of another: documents, letters, cosmetic containers, medicines, things made of cloth, anything revelatory of their sexual inclinations (however banal), medicines, clothes of any sort. 

Regarding this last: second hand clothes appall me. This is entirely rational because second hand clothes carry the traces of others not just in their fibres but in how the clothes have reshaped to the bodily form of another. 

Modern detergents, such as Persil Automatic, are very efficient, and can probably remove most human residues: skin particles, hair and bodily fluids such as sweat, mucus, saliva and semen. 

However, the evil secretions that our bodies produce when we engage in wicked thoughts or actions are impossible to dislodge by even the most advanced soaps and remain deeply embedded in the molecular structures of textiles and leathers, however carefully we may clean them.

Felons have their clothing removed on entry into jails. Ignorantly, however, our authorities do not destroy these' clothes. They remain, festering, in storage for felons to collect on completion of their sentences. Hence, our high levels of recidivism.

By wearing second hand clothes you can readily get what in Scotland are called The Jandies-  a curse transferred from the body of another. 

Now, having read this, you will surely start to notice how those who wear thrift shop clothes or hand-me-downs often display pallid expressions, facial tics, skin blemishes, poor teeth, ungainly bodily  postures and even speech impediments. Things are never truly well for them and they are constantly grumbling about this or that or the next thing.

I used to know a large family in  Aberdeen, in North-East Scotland, whose youngest child, as an economy, was forced to wear hand me downs. I never saw the boy without a cold. Sniffle! sniffle! sniffle! and always a droplet of snot billowing, ballooning, ready to fall from his nostril. He came to our house and almost immediately broke a vase- he was, awfully, accident prone, forever with a sprained this or broken that. He had few friends. When he grew older he became addicted to drugs, and had endless difficulties with the law. He is currently on probation for a clumsy attempt to steal a car.

You might remark that these unfortunate phenomena correlate better with poverty than the wearing of used clothes. To counter this, let me draw your attention to the practices of aristocratic families. These do not lack money but, nonetheless,  customarily hand clothing as heirlooms to their offspring. Thus, their children become the bearers of diverse psychological weaknesses, most apparently tendencies to alcoholism, depression and distasteful sexual urges. It is thanks only to their privileged position in society that these ill-effects do not cause them more damage.

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 Read to the Detroit Writers' Group, 24 March, 2021, Pinellas Group July, 2023

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Trunk; St Sebastian

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Trunk

 St Sebastian

From Wikipedia;

"Sebastian had prudently concealed his faith, but in 286 it was detected. Diocletian reproached him for his supposed betrayal, and he commanded him to be led to a field and there to be bound to a stake so that certain archers from Mauritania would shoot arrows at him. "And the archers shot at him till he was as full of arrows as an urchin is full of pricks, and thus left him there for dead."Miraculously, the arrows did not kill him. The widow of Castulus, Irene of Rome, went to retrieve his body to bury it, and discovered he was still alive. She brought him back to her house and nursed him back to health.

"Sebastian later stood by a staircase where the emperor was to pass and harangued Diocletian for his cruelties against Christians. This freedom of speech, and from a person whom he supposed to have been dead, greatly astonished the emperor; but recovering from his surprise, he gave orders for Sebastian to be seized and beaten to death with cudgels, and his body thrown into the common sewer."

When taking the photo, I had a recollection of a work by Redon, that peculiar and very marmite* artist, whose work captured me in my late adolescence.

I found four Redon paintings of St Sebastian being shot, but when I looked at them  I found less similarity in them to my trunk than I had expected. I believe I conflated various pictures by Redon. His Sebastians feature trees but these are not close up like my photo, though the Saint Sebastian (1910/12) in the National Gallery of Art, Washington has the long rectangular format.  There are several Buddha which use a single tree a but these do not feature close views of the tree. 

Closer in spirit and composition are some of the artists's noirs: the magnificently titled lithograph I Plunged into Solitude. I Dwelt in the Tree behind Me (1896) in the Art Institute of Chicago; and two charcoal drawings: The Trees (1890s) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and The Tree (1875) in the Art Institute of Chicago. There is also the cover of In the Dream, a set of lithographs, (1879). In 1883, there is an Angel and Demon.

There is also a painting of the martyrdom by Gustave Moreau, an artistic predecessor, of Redon's, depicting the martyrdom with a large tree behind- it is much like a deposition, with the saint being assisted by two women. Neither Moreau and Redon give detail to the body of Sebastian. Instead they try instead to create the atmosphere of a spiritual event. 

 I was  right to recall that he had his saint killed against a tree- as indeed do many others (some however, use columns, often supporting crumbling structures, as execution posts). The tree, when specified is a Laurel.

Depictions of the martyrdom occasionally show the archers (Signorelli (1441-1523)), while others go closer up and depict the martyr with arrows piecing him. This is often a little bizarre. In Mantegna's painting of 1459, in a feat of archery, an arrow has pierced the martyr's forhead and exited through his neck. Matteo di Giovanni (c.1430–1495) shows the saint walking easily though there are arrows penetrating him.

The subject should allow a range of extreme identifications: of courage, resistance, of sadism, or indifference to pain, or spiritual victory. But few artists show much emotion in Sebastian's face other than a vaguely defiant aspect, as if he is simply refusing to pay for a dessert wrongfully placed on a cafe bill. Or, as with Guido Reni's post-execution picture (1615),  he's looking skyward wth a God, can you come and untie me now? It's been over half an hour and here I am still with these darn arrows expression.

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 *there is, for sure, a histrionic quality in Redon, hence, perhaps, his appeal to adolescents. Personally, I still get him 50% of the time. The drawing is often awkward: sometimes that's effectively naif  and sometimes that's an obstacle.. The melancholy that pervades the best work seems to connect with lived experience and, the sense of humour meeting the macabre is fun or silly depending on one's mood. The blacks are dense and entrancing but I find his colours garish. I adore the titles.

 Julian Barnes writes enjoyably about Redon in his excellent Keeping an Eye Open

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