"STRAY visual REFERENCES"
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Sentimental Journey etc Chris Mullen collection
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Sentimental Journey etc Chris Mullen collection
Was the Kingdom of David and Solomon a glorious empire—or just a little cow town? It depends on which archaeologist you ask...
...The eccentric Piccolo brothers were, like their cousin, talented and very unproductive intellectuals. The elder, Casimiro, took months to paint a picture of goblins in a style influenced by Arthur Rackham, while Lucio spent thirty years composing but never managing to complete a Magnificat in the style of Malipiero. In the 1950s the younger brother decided to publish his poems, Canti barocchi, which won a literary prize in Lombardy, an unexpected achievement that turned his cousin Giuseppe competitive and impelled him to write The Leopard. “Being mathematically certain”, he wrote, “that I was no more of a fool [than Lucio], I sat down at my desk and wrote a novel.”
Why the Female Ghosts appear unto Ulysses, before the Heroes and masculine spirits? Why the Psyche or soul of Tiresias is of the masculine gender; who being blinde on earth sees more then all the rest in hell; Why the Funerall Suppers consisted of Eggs, Beans, Smallage, and Lettuce, since the dead are made to eat Asphodels about the Elyzian medows? Why since there is no Sacrifice acceptable, nor any propitiation for the Covenant of the grave; men set up the Deity of Morta, and fruitlesly adored Divinities without ears? it cannot escape some doubt...What Song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzling Questions are not beyond all conjecture...
John Sloan (American, 1871–1951)
Chinese Restaurant, 1909
Oil on canvas; 26 x 32 1/4 in. (66 x 81.9 cm)