Art, Romantics and Rock Music

This post is the product of the idea I got recently about mixing art with lyrics from rock music, mostly The Smiths to be honest. I absolutely enjoyed doing it because I love combining pop culture and classic works of art. Assembling these paintings and lyrics filled me with such rapture and I hope it shall do the same for you. This is a rather frivolous post, just like my other posts lately. Being engaged in other ‘projects’, I had very little time for myself and as a result I didn’t feel very inspired, but I hope to write some proper posts soon.

”The dream is gone
but the baby is real
oh you did a good thing
she could have been a poet
or, she could have been a fool…” (This Night Has Opened My Eyes, The Smiths)

 

”…this night has opened my eyes
and I will never sleep again (…)
and I’m not happy
and I’m not sad…” (The Smiths)

”I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I’m miserable now.” (The Smiths)

 

”No it’s NOT like any other love
this one’s different
because it’s us!” (The Smiths, Hand in Glove)

”I dreamt about you last night
and I fell out of bed twice
you can pin and mount me
like a butterfly…” (The Smiths, Reel Around the Fountain)

 

”Chimes sing Sunday morn
Today’s the day she’s sworn
To steal what she never could own
And race from this hole she calls home.” (The Stone Roses, Made of Stone)

”Everyday is like Sunday
Everyday is silent and grey
Hide on the promenade
Etch a postcard, “How I dearly wish I was not here.” (Everyday is Like Sunday, Morrissey)

”Take me now baby here as I am
Pull me close, try and understand
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe
Love is a banquet on which we feed” (Because the night, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen)

”I’m happy when it rains I’m happy when it pours…” (Happy When it Rains, Jesus and Mary Chain)

 

”Oh watcha gonna do, ‘Marianne’?
You’re a sweet sweet girl.
But it’s a cruel, cruel world a cruel, cruel world.” (What Katie Did, The Libertines)

Mary to Percy: ”We’ll live a life no one has ever known
But I know you’re thinking that I’m hardly grown
But oh thank God, at last and finally
I can see you’re gonna stay with me” (Marianne Faithfull – Come & Stay With)

 

Shelley’s response: ”A dreaded sunny day
So I meet you at the cemetery gates
Keats and Yeats are on your side…” (Cemetry Gates, The Smiths)

 

Lord Byron flirting with Caroline Lamb: ”Gimme danger, little stranger
And I’ll give you a piece
Gimme danger, little stranger
And I’ll feel your disease
There’s nothing in my dreams
Just some ugly memories
Kiss me like the ocean breeze

 

Caroline’s response: ”You’re bad, mad, and dangerous to know.”

”I’m eighteen and I don’t know what I want
Eighteen I just don’t know what I want
Eighteen I gotta get away
I gotta get out of this place
I’ll go runnin’ in outer space oh yeah” (Alice Cooper)

”When she wakes up in the morning
She writes down all her dreams”
(What a Waster – The Libertines)

”There’s a club if you’d like to go
you could meet somebody who really loves you
so you go, and you stand on your own
and you leave on your own
and you go home, and you cry
and you want to die…” (The Smiths, How Soon is Now)

”Life is very long, when you’re lonely
Life is very long, when you’re lonely
Life is very long, when you’re lonely
Life is very long, when you’re lonely” (The Queen is Dead, The Smiths)

Egon Schiele’s Nudes and Manic Street Preachers

Egon Schiele is known as the painter of anxiety, sexuality and death – a combination of which makes his paintings provocative, twisted, slightly morbid and trashy. Schiele was too radical for his contemporaries but later on he proved to be an inspiration for pop icons and rock stars from David Bowie to Manic Street Preachers.

The May 1991 NME cover of Nicky and Richey, photographed by Kevin Cummins

Many artists painted nudes, but Schiele’s nudes are certainty one of the most striking. Titian’s Venus of Urbino, Goya’s The Nude Maja, Manet’s Olympia – none of these masterpieces are as eye-catching, as disturbing or as decadent as any of Schiele’s nude or semi-nude women with pale skin, ribs sticking out, untamed pubic hair, dark circles underneath the eyes, overall unsettling appeal – Schiele defined ‘heroin chic’ look eighty years before it was trendy. And I’m sure Kate Moss would be more than welcomed to pose for him because Schiele’s ideal was a fragile and lean body.

Twisted body shapes and very sexualised poses typical for Schiele’s oeuvre raised the dust in conservative society of the decaying Austro-Hungarian Empire. Poses, more than nudity, shocked the audience. His anti-academic tendencies and subjectiveness to the core drove him to explore human body and perspectives like no one else at the time. He captured his models in bizarre movements and weird, probably uncomfortable poses. Often, he’d step on the ladders and draw the model from above. The process of sketching is interesting as well. Schiele was very skilled in drawing, had a firm hand, never used a rubber, and if he did make a mistake, which was rare, he’d simply throw the paper away. Schiele’s paintings were based on lines, just like those of Ingres. He’d always colour his drawings in the absence of the model, working from the memory. This was probably good for the models because it meant that they didn’t have to spent a lot of time in those awkward poses – sketching was quickly done, and they could get their money and go home. About his fragile, world-weary figures Schiele said: ‘They were intended to look buckled under, the bodies of those who are tired of life, suicidal.‘

Egon Schiele, Pair Embracing, 1917

It’s easy to see the similarities between Schiele’s expressive, twisted body shapes and Kevin Cummins’ photo of Nicky Wire and Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers. Wire is in a leopard print shirt, Edwards in a black crocheted top; they both have make-up, this, along with the gold background certainly evokes the ‘trashy glam look’ that Cummins was aiming for. Still, the position of their bodies, their hands interwoven, along with love-bites and slogans written on their chests evoke a slightly nihilistic, anxious mood of Egon Schiele’s paintings. Also, with his angular face and messy hair, Edwards does look a bit like some poor girl Schiele would pick up from the streets and use as his model.

And now a bit about the Manic Street Preachers’ first ever NME cover shoot:

”The May 1991 NME cover of Nicky and Richey was photographed by Kevin Cummins. ‘This was their first NME cover’, he says, ‘I bought the gold sari cloth to give it a trashy glam look – although it’s since drawn comparisons to the paintings of Egon Schiele, with the gold backdrop and the slightly twisted bodies‘. The cover image showed the two band members on their backs, gazing up at the camera. Wire has his right arm around Edwards’ shoulders and Edwards is pressing it to his chest. Both have panda-eyed make-up. Wire is in a leopard print shirt, open to below his nipple, while Edwards has a black crocheted top. Before the shot, they’d decided that they should both have a collection of love-bites on display and so the night before they had gone nightclubbing to try and get some. Wire succeeded but Edwards didn’t, much to his own disgust. In the photo studio, Kevin Cummins wrote ‘Culture Slut’ across Nicky Wire’s upper chest in lipstick. Edwards, upset about losing the love-bite competition, was determined not to be upstaged. He produced a school geometry compass and wandered over to a mirror, where he scratched ‘HIV’ into his upper chest. But he forgot he was looking at his reflection so what he actually wrote was ‘VIH’. It still made the cover.”* (A Version of Reason: The Search for Richey Edwards, by Rob Jovanovic)

Egon Schiele, Kneeling Girl, Resting on Both Elbows, 1917

Egon Schiele, Female Nude (Weiblicher Akt), 1910

Egon Schiele, Squatting Female, 1910

Egon Schiele, Woman, 1917