![]() Yet my response to it is limited by the fact that I have no idea what Gaitskell looked like. Hamilton's 1964 Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland places a fleshy, dead-eyed mask over a collaged newspaper photograph of the Labour leader. These three pictures are shown side by side in Edinburgh, constituting an allegory of the Troubles.Ī retrospective of Hamilton's art that concentrates entirely on his responses to political events might seem a glancing way to look back, in his 86th year, on the career of the man who put the word "Pop" into art, displaying it on a lolly held by a bodybuilder in his 1956 collage, Just What Is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? In fact, it turns out to be a terrific way of looking again at Hamilton's passion and intelligence. ![]() In Hamilton's 1993 work The State, a British soldier patrols a depopulated city street, juxtaposed with an empty countryside. It shows an Orangeman marching, sword in hand in the other panel, car headlights create a blinding emptiness. After completing The Citizen in 1983, Hamilton painted another diptych on the same grand scale, The Subject. On the contrary, Hamilton stresses the false notes in the pose, invites a cold analysis of the politics of martyrdom. But what kind of artist does this make Sands - a raw primitive, or a clever manipulator of images? In his portrait, he stands so self-consciously: the evocation of Christ is already there - it's not just an emotional response by Hamilton. Finger marks and manic arabesques fill the void with excremental markings that resemble the work of an alienated cave man, or the last pathetic effort of a drunken Jackson Pollock: they look like art. The romantic figure of Sands in the right hand panel inhabits a cell-like interior in the other panel, real space dissolves. The Citizen is a diptych, comprising two narrow canvases held together in a metal frame. The contemplative mood might seem at odds with Hamilton's disturbing theme in fact, it mirrors the painting's cool. Outside, the Royal Botanic Garden buzzes with nothing more than the occasional bee. Today, The Citizen hangs in a quiet white room at Inverleith House in Edinburgh.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |