The Still Life Continues

I was sitting listening to Beethoven and working on the still life (on a Friday night?? Yes, desperate times call for desperate measures!) and I started thinking about the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood. Oh my goodness I haven't thought about them in years. The movement was a result of Realism and was a romantic idealistic art movement that was short lived with very few followers. John Everett Millais was the artist I was thinking of. His painting called Ophelia captivated me from the moment I first saw the image. Of course, I've been told that when you see the works in real life your responses are completely different - but not having had that experience, I have to go with what I know and that is how I absolutely adored this movement and idolised Millais. Which is really rather ironic since my style bears no resemblance or slightest traces of influence. I remember seeing the whole process he undertook to complete this work. His model lay in a bath tub suspended above stacks of candles which were supposed to heat the water for the poor model. I can't imagine this job did much for her health! To model in a draughty artist's studio is one thing, to do so in 19thC clothing in icy water attempting to immitate tepid temperatures is quite another! In my first year of studies we had a model who arrived in a turqoise hoody. By the end of the painting, she swore blind that although the hoodie had been one of her favourites, she never wanted to see the thing ever again. I can only imagine Millais' model must have felt a million times more adamant about her outfit.
Another of my absolute favourites is Hans Holbein the Younger. Look at his painting The French Ambassadors and see if you can spot the skull. I was at school when I was first introduced to him. I was in awe of Holbein's ability to produce such richly textured paintings with fabric that was almost tactile.
Manet is also one of my favourites. I loved the way he mocked the snobbery of the Salon and their rules of what constituted acceptable art. As a student, I was fed up with seeing women draped on couches, in half naked subservient poses, so I produced a life size oil of a man in a pair of jeans lying on a couch in the same pose. It was my tongue in cheek response to what we were being subjected to. Sadly my entire portfolio from Technikon was turfed out by a very well meaning cleaning lady... I think I cried for 2 days over that.
So, enough procrastinating, let me finish the still life!