Display Explanation:
The 20' by 14' ft room would be divided into three corridors, one directly in front of the entrance and one on either side of the viewer. The hallways leading to the paintings are made of dark panels and are about 8 feet long. Underneath the panels are sensors so your footsteps light up cream on the ground as you walk and spread out around 3 inches. If you are curious enough to touch the walls or ceiling, the same thing happens with your handprint. Each corridor is its own “whisper room”, which means depending on where you are in the hall you hear something different but if you stand in the entrance you can’t make out anything specific. If you look up right at the entrance you would see the source of light, a fake skylight. It is a video of a strawberry sunset on repeat, a neverending faint cascade of pink and purple reflecting off of the panels.
The painting right in front of the viewer is Two Nude Women II By Picasso. The painting is sitting on an elaborate swirling easel wrapped in different types of love knots. The rope is slightly frayed and tan, starkly contrasting with the dark steel underneath. The only lighting is a tall, steel, swirling candle holder with spots jutting out to hold fake red candles. Long, bright white bedsheets are draped behind the painting and end right before the fabric hits the floor. The song playing is Goodnight My Love by Sarah Vaughan.
To the left is Scheile’s Two Women Embracing, which is projected from a brass vintage 1940s projector unto a white screen. The screen is on top of a bed of neutral white and sprinkles of small cardinal, mustard, and amber pillows. Both square and circle pillows piled behind and in front of the painting, almost enticing enough to jump in. Instead of the usual black panel ceiling, puffs of white cover the ceiling, putting a dreamy haze over the display. The warm hue from the clouds bounces off the reflective panels and expands the cozy atmosphere. The only thing heard is the faint piano and voice of Patrick Watson along with the whirring and flickering of the rickety projector.
To the right is Victory of Faith by George Hare, seemingly floating. Looking closer you can see 2 chains straight from the ceiling hanging the painting. Where the chains make contact with the framing, there is a padded hook that support the painting without causing damage. Two chains in the wall, on either side of the painting, hold a metal bar behind it to stop it from swinging. Decorative chains hang and drape from the ceiling, overlapping each other and hanging slightly over the edge of the painting. The only light sources are 2 red spotlights that shine down on to the art piece and bounce off the metal links and white spotlights that shine directly onto the painting. Below the painting is a small vermillion upholstered bench. With ornate gold legs, it looks to be purely for decoration and not to sit on. Finishing off the room, the sounds of piano, saxophone, and Billie Holiday soften the space.
Installation note:
The greeks are well known for many things, but one of the biggest is the 7 different words for love, with this installation 3 are represented.
3 different paintings from 3 different artists can be so different but still contain a similar message. In front of you is a primitivism painting by Pablo Picasso, Two Nude Women created in 1920. The way the women are close to each other and holding unto each other suggests ludus. This type of love is playful and uncommitted, but still intimate. The women in this painting share the hand positions with the painting to the right, showing a certain aspect of the relationship is the same. There is an air of intimacy, passion, and possibly seduction. The art style is a comfortable in between the two other paintings, also representing the love style this produces. Ludus is an in-between step of philia and eros, it can go either way and they are often confused with each other.
To the right is a painting by George Hare, a realistic painting called Victory Of Faith. Bar the background to the painting and just focusing on the body language between the women, they are both physically and emotionally close. There is a simplistic but noticeable attraction and comfortableness in the air around them. It is romantic, passionate, and hintingly sexual. The placement of both of their hands, one covering the other's pelvis and the other going behind the head to tough the upper arm. Both of these hand placements can be seen as both sexual and intimate in certain settings. In other words, Eros is the best way to describe the relationship between the subjects. It is definitely not playful like ludus, but not platonic like philia. The art style also supports this, showing one side of the art spectrum and the love spectrum.
To the left is Two Women Embracing by Egon Schiele, a very simplistic but evocative art piece. While the vague outlines of the bodies don’t give quite as much insight into their relationship as the other paintings, it still tells us enough. While they are both nude, there is no air of sexual nature. There is a comfortable and fluffy feeling about this in my eyes. There is no desire for sex, there is only friendship or philia. The friendship type of love with shared goodwill and authenticity. This style continues to support my reasoning, there is no focus on ‘erotic’ parts of the body, but instead just the subjects themselves. What the artist draws to viewers' attention is actually the hair or the heads which translates to authenticity. He wants us to see the women for their heads and not their bodies, or the emotional relationship between the two and not the physical positions. Another point of differing styles is that both Picasso’s and Hare’s paintings were oils on canvas, while Scheile used several different materials in this piece and throughout his career. Different art materials are used in many different ways which can translate to a certain closeness with the painting. This shows that Schiele experiments with many different topics and thoughts in his paintings than others. Picasso is well known to have many sexual muses and a majority of his works surrounded around eroticism. While Hare did something different than Picasso and Schiele, it wasn’t abnormal for his time.
Hare, George. Victory of Faith. 1891. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:George_Hare_-_Victory_of_Faith.jpg
Accessed 23 Jan. 2023.
Picasso, Pablo. 2 nude woman II. 1920 https://pixels.com/featured/two-nude-women-ii-by-pablo-picasso-1920-pablo-picasso.html
Accessed 23 Jan. 2023
Scheile, Egon. Two women embracing, 1913. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/485728
Accessed 21 Feb. 2023