The Illustrations for Aristophanes’s Lysistrata by Aubrey Beardsley, 1896

1 Lysistrata shielding her coynte

These are drawings that Beardsley produced fairly near the end of his short career, which he asked his publisher, Leonard Smithers, to destroy following his unfortunate conversion to Catholicism.  Terminal illnesses can have a very ill effect on ones judgement.  Smithers fortunately did not do as he was asked, in fact he continued to sell their reproductions in the same clandestine manner as before (as well as a few forgeries under the name of the great draughtsman.)  These are, in many ways, the culmination of his severe black and white style.  In his own perverse way Beardsley displays his admiration of the Classical Athenian Red Figure Pottery masters, such as Euthymides.  Given the subject matter it makes more than a little sense.  Beardsley’s subsequent work shows a greater reliance on grey tones.

 2 The Toilet of Lampido

 3 Lysistrata haranguing the Athenian women

 4 Lysistrata defending the Acropolis

 5 Two Athenian women in distress

6 Cinesias entreating Myrrhina to coition

 7 Inspection of the Herald

8 The Lacedae-monian Ambassadors

Daumier's Clay Busts and some doubtful Figurines

Daumier was known during his life for his drawings, political cartoons, caricatures.  I’m pretty sure these sculptures were never shown publicly during his life.  Even his paintings were hardly known when he was working, though they quickly gained the interest and admiration of Degas.  He of course had an enormous influence on Degas and Forain.

I’ve been doing a lot of sculpture in clay lately, and though I was thinking more of Nadelman, they came out looking more like Daumier, not these above, but the ones that many regard as forgeries, the statuettes in the Gobin Collection.  These here are all in the collection of the Musée d’Orsay.

These are the suspect statuettes that have been cast in bronze and editioned fairly recently.  They're certainly in the spirit of Daumier and look very different from the various kitsch figurines that are based on his great drawings.  I'm not ashamed that the figures I'm doing (for my video, the Old Curiosity Shop) should look at all like these expressive creatures.

These last two are of course authentic works by the secretive master; and I figured it was nice to see them in plaster and bronze both.  The great bas relief at the bottom is called the Emigrants (or Fugitives.)

Joseph Gandy and the Ruins of John Soane's Bank of England

Gandy was a first rate artist who traveled in the highest circles of his time and yet spent a couple terms in Debtor’s Prison and ended up dying destitute in a mental institution.  He worked for and collaborated with the great English architect, John Soane.  They were partners (he was even responsible for much of the education of Soane’s two surviving sons,) but Gandy made the mistake of setting up an independent practice.  He didn’t deal well with clients.  Eventually he went back to working with Soane, before he went mad.  His most famous works are his renderings of Soane’s designs, but these go far beyond what most folk think of as mere renderings.  One such is a drawing of the Bank of England, rendered as a ruin far in the future.  Of course this massive building could never fall into ruin, since it was torn down in the nineteen twenties.  It didn’t last a century, never mind a millennium, though it was built to last a lot longer.  It seems that an architectural masterpiece is a waste of space under the laws of capital, even when the form it takes is a bank.

 

Diego (o Zeldak,) un otro Escort del DF

Though he spread quite a few of his provocative photographs over the internet and had himself set up as an escort, this particular character seems to have disappeared of late.  I hope it bodes well for him rather than ill.

 I don't particularly like to see pubic hair trimmed, let alone shaved, and some of the poses he gets himself into look uncomfortable and less than thoroughly sexy, but there's so much that I admire about this guy that I'm happy to look at even his clumsiest pictures; and as the video shows very well (though I've certainly never experienced his talents personally) he's an expert fucker.

As promised above, this is a video that he uploaded to some naked dude site last November, which I fortunately saved before it disappeared like the countless others I didn't have the foresight (or disk space) to save.  Though he may look a bit muscle bound in some of these pictures, one can not help but appreciate just how agile he is here and how well deserving of his efforts is the young man, whom he's so dexterously screwing.