Evening Standard refers to painting of older woman as "this ancient crone...ghastliness of ageing flesh... this repellent body."

[Bidisha]

www.bidisha-online.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/this-ancient-crone.html

Jodie - great picture - but isn't it another body? Albeit with a hat and T-shirt.

I love the BP Portrait Award. It is lovely to see so much excellent relatively traditional portraiture alongside all the conceptual/Turner stuff.

Pip I know what you mean - although I am now thinking of Alan Partridge ("But Alan we'er all naked under our clothes." "I'm not." "Oh...but you are..." "No I'm not." "You are!" "No I'm not.")

But I think there is a tendency for some modern portraiture to be deliberately provocative to catch the eye/shock/offend etc., and doing 'nude dead lady' (year before last? Can't remember) or 'nude old lady' has become a bit of a short hand. And although I do actually find both those paintings very beautiful, as soon as it becomes shorthand for shocking and provocative we're almost back at Brian Sewell, if you see what I mean...

I mentioned him being gay but it was to wonder whether it was because of this that maybe he wasn't used to what the norm is for women

From his description, I was expecting to see a woman like this and even then, his terminology remains offensive and ignorant.

Chairman, you're quoted on the blog!

GaryTankCommander With regard to the skill of the artist though, he does have a point though regarding her proportions. Her belly button for example is too high. It just doesn't look right. Her body look too big for her head.

to me it doesn't look realistic its looks totally out of proportion

Tell that to Picasso!

Its art! Its not a photograph. Its not necessary for art to be accurate anatomically to within a mm . . . that's because its ART! Its not an informational illustration in a doctors textbook.

Having been through art college and worked in the area for many years i have spent my life feeling frustrated by comments like this. Usually it more along the lines of "yeah but that's not proper art init" and "well i much prefer a nice picture of a vase of flowers".

Yeah fair point... If it was abstract! But it's portraiture. No?!
I'd expect the proportions to be correct for a portrait.

But as the MNer who mentioned the elbow to belly button height corrected me already, I've already accepted that.

And incidentally can you get off your arty high horse. I have only said that it didn't look right to me. It's an amazing painting. The artist is clearly extremely talented. But to me it just doesn't look right. Do you not accept criticism or interpretation, or is your opinion the only allowed opinion?

what blog?

OMG so i am!

christ it's like being famous! haha, and they dont even know i'm a bloke,
sorry if i misrepresented the MN women, assuming they did assume i'm a woman.

Yeah fair point... If it was abstract! But it's portraiture. No?! I'd expect the proportions to be correct for a portrait.

Who are you to say that a portrait has to show anatomically correct proportions? Do you set the rules? Picasso painted portraits but they are not anatomically correct because that's not what he chose to do as the artist. Or is it that in "commanderland" a piece of art is only allowed to be allegedly inaccurate if it falls into the abstract category? Artists don't have to work to "categories" to keep the public suitably reassured that they are working within it.

Wow! He thinks no one has an issue with page 3 girls . . . yeah we love them! We think they are a fantastic role model for young girls and so nice to see them being taught that their worth is in their tits!

Actually PooPoo, I am an art teacher and I would agree with Gary to some extent.

Since the portrait is painted in a realist style, whilst proportions may be exaggerated, this does render them incorrect. This may or may not be the artist's intention (incidentally, I don't think that the proportions are out in this work). If I was teaching a life painting class and a student was measuring proportions and made a mistake, it would be churlish to argue that it was the 'artist's intention'.

Of course, the artist can alter the proportions in any way he or she pleases and it is still art. However, it does not mean that it is figuratively correct or beyond criticism.

"But I think there is a tendency for some modern portraiture to be deliberately provocative to catch the eye/shock/offend etc., and doing 'nude dead lady' (year before last? Can't remember) or 'nude old lady' has become a bit of a short hand. And although I do actually find both those paintings very beautiful, as soon as it becomes shorthand for shocking and provocative we're almost back at Brian Sewell, if you see what I mean..."

Excellent point, Jodie.

Of course it's because he's gay. Also many gay men (not all) are much slimmer, fitter, healthier and better dressed and better off than straight men of the same age and seek a certain visual aesthetic which your average fat ugly bald middle aged/older British man long since abandoned.

We need many more pictures of older men. This is good one.
Sewell entitled to his views of course. We could make a modern art work - it would consist of the portrait in the middle, Sewells words across it and a naked Sewell with a gorgeous 25 year old young male lover. I haven't quite worked out where that would go.

We have his father, Peter Warlock, however to thank for some wonderful pieces, which I expect a lot of us and our children sing, particularly Christmas -

GaryTank....it's the perspective that makes it look odd to you...her stomach sticks out but as the pic is front on, that makes the belly button appear higher.

Oh FFS... Look you've been to art college I get it! But that does not mean I can't have an opinion.

I give up! The picture is amazing, I am not an artist, I couldn't paint it. However it doesn't look right to me. You don't need to explain perspective... I'm not an idiot.

I will in future, in all matters art criticism, okay my opinions with you first because oh yes I forgot you went to art college and therefore no one knows more about art and art criticism than you.

Sorry spokennerd... I though you were the other poster and that you'd now decided to lecture to me about perspective!

And thank you tethersend... I understand that she has more knowledge art wise than myself (as do you), you have both studied it. I just said it isn't look right to me.

I give up now...

I went to art college and think you have a point

x post

I disagree that you need art knowledge to be able to criticise art.

All I can say is I learnt something very interesting today... That one's elbows are at the height of one's belly button...

And that BS doesn't like naked, old ladies!

This reminds me very much of the bit in Zadie Smith's 'On Beauty' where she has a character who is studying art history and getting patronized by the (male) teachers, and she is looking at a picture of an old women that lots of male art critics have said is disgusting, and she's disagreeing. If you've not read it is worth a look ... I think it's interesting anyway.