Review 1

Frida (2002)

Frida is a 2002 Miramax/Ventanarosa biographical film which depicts the professional and private life of the surrealist Mexican painter - Frida Khalo. This filw was adapted by Clancy Sigal, Diane Lake, Gregory Nava and Anna Thomas from the book Frida: A Biography of Frida Khalo written by Hayden Herrera. The movie was directed by Julie Taymor and stared Salma Hayek as Frida Khalo, Alfred Molina as Diego Rivera, Geoffrey Rush as Leo Trotsky, Mia Maestro as Cristina Khalo. Frida made its world premiere on August 29, 2002, opening the Venice International Film Festival. 

 

The film begins with Frida's youth when she went to a college. Once her friend and she got into trouble - a trolley bus collided with a bus they were riding. The young woman was impaled by a metal pole and the injuries she sustained plague her for the rest of her life. She stayed at the bed and did't stand up for a long time after the accident. To help her to spend time, her father brought her a canvas and the character started painting. Frida also detailed artist's relationship with the muralist Diego River, she had met at the college. When Rivera proposed to the young woman, she told him she didn't expect from him loyality. Diego's appraisal of her painting ability was one of the reasons she continued to paint. Frida and Diego spent a lot of time together, and once the young painter told she would never sleep with him, but soon they got married. Throughout the marriage, River cheated on her with a wide array of women, while Frida was afraid she hadn't her own children. Then the couple went to New Yourk City as Diego could paint the mural Man at the Crossroads at the Rockfeller Center. While the wife and the husband were in the Unitid States, Khalo suffered a miscarriage, and her mother died in Mexico. Rivera refused to compromise his communist vision of the work to the needs of the patron, Nelson Rockfeller. As a result, the mural was destroyed, and the couple returned to Mexico. Khalo's sister, Kristina, got divorced with her husband and she moved at the studio of two painters to work as Rivera's assistant. Soon Frida discovered that Diego was having an affair with Kristina. Frida left him and subsequently sinked into alcoholism. The couple reunited when he asked her to welcome Leo Trotsky and his wife who had been granted a political asylum in Mexico. Later Khalo and Trosky began a love affair, which forced the married Trotsky to leave artists. Frida went to Paris after Diego realized she was unfaithful. When she returned, he asked her to divorce. Soon Trotsky was murdered in Mexico City. Rivera was temporarily a suspect, and Kahlo was incarcerated in his place when he wasn't found. Rivera helped get her released and then asked her to remarry him, and she agreed. Her health became worse, her leg was amputated. But before the death she had an exhibition in her own contry. The doctors said her not to leave the house, but she couldn't miss such event, and she was brought there on her bed. 

This is a fabulous film about a bright woman, about the revolutionary nature, the indefatigable desire, the energy. Frida Khalo was suffering a lot, but there was nothing that could break her vital energy. After the bus accident Frida Khalo spent a year bedridden, soon she began to capture self-portraits. She drew a foot, because it was the only one part of her body she could see in such position. And then began to draw her suffering. Another side of her life, full of the suffering as well was connected with the relations with Diego Rivera. They had similiar interests -  views on life, politics, history. They loved each other. They were both artists - she was a talent, and he was her critic. But their love, their family, it seemed to broke into pieces, like the terrible bus accident. Frida and suffering was the whole inseparable thing. Maybe just the suffering formed her as a person and artist. And illness forced her always to fight. 

Salma Hayek put a part of her soul in the role of the great painter - Frida Kahlo. To show the way of life of the legendary women from the girl to adult was a difficult task. The other actors also played very well, and we cannot say that someone of them looked just like a shadow in the background of Hayek. 

I think the film is beautiful, emotional and reliable. There is a beauty, pain, betrayal, jealousy and unique talent, towering over all life's turns. Here we can see real Frida Khalo - passionate, pure, bright embodied in the frail body of a small vulnerable woman.

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The article Whaam! artist Roy Lichtenstein was 'not a fan of comics and cartoons' written by Nick Clarck was published in The Inderpendent, February, 18. It reports at length that the painter didn't consider himself as pop-artist, and The Tate is now trying to show him with new side.

Speaking of the painter it's necessary to point out that Dorothy Lichtenstein, his widow, revealed that he was “not a fan of comics and cartoons”, nevertheless Lichtenstein was one of the central figures in American pop art, whose comic strip paintings are among the most iconic pieces of 20th century art. He had another close to 40 years after the working on other imagery, not only the early ‘60s cartoon images.

It's an open secret that the painter was famous for his works based on comic strips coloured using hand-painted dots. Roy Lichtenstein, who died in 1997 at the age of 73, started painting in the late 1940s, but it was not until the early 1960s that he developed his signature style inspired by industrial printing processes.

The author says that Tate Modern is staging the first comprehensive retrospective of Roy Lichtenstein since his death in 1997. The exhibition, which opened a week ago, brings together more than 125 works. As well as the Tate’s own Whaam!, above, and familiar images including Drowning Girl and Masterpiece the show includes little seen sculptures, landscapes, drawings and a series of female nudes.

There are a lot of comments on Dorothy Lichtenstein's words about her husband's exhibition. She added her husband had felt “somewhat” frustrated at being pigeonholed for the comic book pictures and as a pop artist. Despite being known for paintings such as Whaam!, Lichtenstein “was not a fan of comics and cartoons.

The article draws a conclusion that sponsors of the exhibition in Tate Modern and other people as well hope to expand the canon of Roy Lichtenstein. Jack Cowart, founding executive director of the Lichtenstein Foundation, said “We wanted people to say: ‘Gee I didn’t know he did that too’.”

Personally I discovered Lichtenstein's works when I watched Desperate Housewives, an American television series created by Marc Cherry. You can see some artist's pictures in its caption. In my opinion, people need to know more works of a painter and discover new points of view about him. Well, I hope the exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein in The Tate tells us something not just interesting but also something unimaginable and stupendous.

Individual Reading 2.Chapter 8-15

Having returned at London, the narrator met Miss Waterford who told him about Strickland's parting - the husband broke his wife. The young man hurried to talk with Mrs. Strickland, and she said him about the letter from husband where the latter informed that he was at Paris, he decided to never come back and live alone. The woman asked the narrator to follow her husband and try to return him, and the young man went to France. He found Mr. Strickland quickly, and in a very unsuitable hotel, but without any lover. And the man explained his desire to become a painter, that he had visited painting classes at London, which he continued to go to in Paris. The narrator came back without Mr. Strickland, and he didn't know what he would say Mrs. Strickland about the unsuccesful journey.

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The article From (and to) Russia with love was written by David Lister in The Independent, February, 17. It reports at length that V&A Museum opened the exhibition that reveals the golden age of relations between the British monarchy and the Russian Tsars led to the exchange of the freatest gifts the world had seen.

 

Speaking of the relation's history it's necessary to point out that a process of ambassadorial gifts between the two countries when Elithabeth I sent an embasseador bearing gifts to Ivan the Terrible. It resulted in some fabulous treasures being exchanged between the two courts, and even Ivan the Terrible wanted to marry the virgin queen.

 

The article carries a lot of comment on that Ivan the Terrible may have been terrible for the Russians but he was the most friendly Tsar to the English. The two monarchs did continue their relationship in diplomacy, with Elizabeth at one point offering him sanctuary in England, though cannily insisting that he be responsible for his own expenses.

 

The author reports the beginning of the 17th centuary was a period of remarkable closenees between the two countries. Elithabeth I ordered to stage Twelfth Night for the Russian ambassador, and it's significant that Love's Labours Lost has a whole scene in which characters turn up dressed as Muscovites.

 

The article discusses that for the first time the exhibitions will be put on at London's Victoria & Albert Museum and follows a similar exhibition staged in the Kremlin at the end of last year by the Kremlin's director of museums, Elena Gagarina. As the woman said she anticipated an increasingly close cultural relationship.

 

The author says the general galleries of the V&A are now showing the silver-gilt gates from Kiev and other objects ranging from a 19th-century Mother and Child triptych to 200 20th-century posters and a collection of 19th-century photographs of people associated with the theatre in St Petersburg. The museum also Russian toys and revolutionary ceramics as well as jewellery from the Russian Royal collections. But this new exhibition of the Treasures of the Royal Courts with its story of ambassadorial gifts from the founding of the Muscovy Company in 1555 is the biggest venture yet involving unprecedented loans from the Kremlin's own museums. Comprising more than 150 objects, the exhibition will chronicle the ritual and chivalry of the royal courts with heraldry, processional armour and sumptuous textiles, paintings and miniatures. At the heart of the exhibition will be spectacular British and French silver that was given to the Russian Tsars. The important role of heraldry will be stressed with such items as The Dacre Beasts will be on display with the “Kynge's Beeste's” stone lions – the only beasts known to have survived from Henry VIII's royal palaces.

 

The article concludes by saying that closeness between two courts stopped in 1649 with the execution of Charles I, and Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich expelled all English merchants from Russia.

 

In my opinion, the exhibition in the V&A Museum is a good chance to increase warm relations between Russia and the United Kingdom. It's hard to predict the course of events in future but may be the closeness in cultural aspect will become closeness in political one.

Individual Reading 1. Chapter 1-7

Charles Strickland was exceptionally multi-faceted painter, but at the end of his death he was unknown. After the death, a writer, Maurice Huret, wrote the article in Mercure de France about him, and through it rescued the man from oblivion. Many other journalists, writers, and even the son of Charles Strickland tried to tell people about the painter's life, his background. But he was so restrained and reserved that nobody could give complete description, and W. S. Maugham as a narrator of the whole novel decided to tell us his own view of Strickland's life. It was the time of Maugham's youth and in one evening he met Mrs. Strickland who prefered literature, enjoyed art and she gave luncheon-parties, after one of which the narrator and the woman made friends. Then Mrs. Strickland invited Maugham to dine with her family and friends, where promised to introduce the husband to. Charles Strickland was an ordinary husband and father of two children, he worked as a stockbrocker, people thought about him as a dull man, but his wife described him as awfully good and kind one. The summer was coming, and Mrs. Strickland and Maugham was going to go out of London and they arranged to meet in the autumn.

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The article Federico Barocci: divinity in the details was published by Michael Prodger in The Guardian on February 16, 2013. It reports at length that the exhibition of Federico Barocci, a lost old masterful painter whose works because of its non-moving position-he captured altarpieces, for example,- have never been displayed in The National Gallery, London, before.

Speaking of general information about Federico Barocci it's interesting to note that he was the most celebrated artist of the generation that immediately followed the High Renaissance deities of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian and Raphael. The master was patronised by such authoritative people as Pope Pius VI, the Emperor Rudolf, the Duke of Urbino and even a saint, Filippo Neri.Of Barocci's 80 finished paintings Urbino alone has more than Britain, France, Spain and America combined, and many of his altarpieces remain in the churches for which they were painted.

Analyzing the situation in Barocci's exclusively religious pictures, which didn't endear him to Protestant taste, its distinctive style – fondant colour harmonies and an emotional sweetness, the author says that his works were outshine the shadowy dramas of Caravaggio and his adherents. So that's why he has left little impression on the public consciousness. Speaking of the exhibition it's necessary to point that it contains some 20 paintings and 65 drawings, pastel studies and oil sketches.

The article carries a lot comment on the biography of the master. He was born in Urbino, his family's profession as scientific instrument makers influenced on Barocci's compositions, with figures placed around the pictures like the numerals on a dial. In Rome, where the young master went to further his career, he met Michelangelo and probably had access to some of his drawings that Barocci began to reconcile the two Renaissance artistic opposites of design and colour. But Michelangelo first noticed the young painter when he alone among a group of students hung back while the others rushed to gain the great man's attention.  In 1565 when Michelangelo's fellow painters invited Barocci to a picnic and poisoned his salad. Barocci suffered stomach problems for the rest of his life. The discomfort was such that he vomited after every meal, slept fitfully and was plagued by nightmares, and could paint for only two hours a day.

The author says that the master returned to Urbino to the day of his death. Painting three-metre tall altarpieces was too physically demanding for a man who was permanently nauseous, so Barocci minimised his time in front of the canvas by meticulous preparation. Some 2,000 of his drawings exist, which is a sign of both the quality of his draughtsmanship and their importance in his method.According to Bellori, Barocci was kindly disposed to poses, in his brushwork there are no filler passages. Such a degree of planning was unprecedented. The beauty of his drawings and pastels, and the way he would repeat them with the slightest changes, reveal a perfectionist with obsessive tendencies.

Giving appraisal of the style and method of capturing, the author says that the colour marks the master apart. Barocci was a lay member of the Capuchin mendicant preaching order, and he believed that worshippers responded most deeply to colour and sentiment. He was also that rare thing, a good painter of babies, and also liked to include animals in his pictures. He was not, however, always sweetness personified himself, he was also depressive.

The article draws a conclusion that the exhibition in the National Gallery, which includes paintings that have never before left Le Marche, shows that in Barocci sentiment and power are not incompatible. Appropriately though, the exhibition is also a resurrection of a lost master - Federico Barocci.

As for me, honestly I've never heard the name of this painter before. And of course after the reading of the article I thought I had to see some of the master's works, pictures, etc. And I was really impressed by his relegious theme in every work and allegorical meanings of every picture, the colour scheme he used, the striking accuracy of people. Well,  Federico Barocci was one of the most prominent painters of his time, and I hope after the exhibition in London people all over the world will know his name like name of Michelangelo, Leonardo, Titian and Raphael.

My Pleasure Reading

Year I Term I - Charlotte Bronte "Jane Air"

Year I Term II - Stephenie Meyer "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner"

Year II Term III - Helen Fielding "Bridget Jones's Diary" 

Year II Term IV - J. R. R. Tolkien "The Hobbit"

Year III Term V - W.S.Maugham "The Theatre"

Year III Term VI - W.S.Maugham "The Razor's Edge"