LA BELLE ÉPOQUE AND OUR CHRISTA KIEFFER

Came across this. Actually long, long ago but decided quite suddenly to let you know. Stunning and sublime really, Christa Kieffer's oil on canvas captures a world of rich, glittering colours and a golden glow of the quaint streetlights in the pinkish hue the retreating sun leaves behind. She does it deliberately too, 'To me, the transition of light is espeically appealing.' Christa Kieffer does it with a rare finesse. Even to my untrained eye, her work assaults with such a stark longing, that I immediately want to click my golden shoes together and find myself back in 'The Beautiful Era'.
The beautiful era - La Belle Époque. An era before the world was ravaged by the great wars and went on to achieve the distant dream of Socialism to kill all traces of privilege by birth. The more profound reflections apart, I think what suffered the most was the style of dressing.

Edwardian wide-brimmed hats and Victorian waist-squeezing corsets, donned with Etonian jackets to complement that hour glass figure - a thing of the past. Kieffer's work although captures the earlier dressing styles of this era. The mega sleeves, the rich gowns - a true indicator of your social standing and pedigree. And now pedigree determines only the price of the next dog I wish to own. And righ gowns are donned by anyone and everyone on their wedding day. Socialism retaliates with free and fair personal identity.

Not much of a post, but some of vicarious nostalgia.



11 comments:

suraj sharma said...

mogambo khush hua!!! very clever use of light, actually, me likes :)

aandthirtyeights said...

note the reflections - as in the actual reflections, not what one reflects on while one sees the paintings.

iz said...

As someone who doesn't know anything about art, I'm intrigued by the way you write about it....

aandthirtyeights said...

oh, incidentally, i found mr.ex! it took some smart searching, and extreme joblessness, but i found it...

kb said...

Ho hum..The victorian era is a massive bore(and that's not a good thing as in a gun).Check out Dadaism in all its forms, photomontages et al. Descriptive art is fine enough but somewhere along the line its a wee bit bland.

suraj sharma said...

@weedyboy: how typical. pffft. although i did try to introduce the owner of this blog the finer nuances of surrealism et hoc genus omne, i don't think it's everyone's cuppa...i mean, i haven't really met a person who would label Dali as bland or crass, but then i'm sure some people do feel that way.

kb said...

True that. Surrealism isn't and I guess wasnt meant to be mass appeal anyhow. But I'd have to take a heady cocktail of mind numbing intoxicants before I end up lah-di-dah-ing psuedo nostalgic snapshots of prissy ornateness. Oh my! That's so pretty, I want to shoot me a unicorn.

MISSquoted** said...

aandthirtyeights: Yes, that requires updating. It would be a reaction to that interesting M.C. Escher. You didn't think I am macabre did you?
Also I must affect some gratitude for your joblessness, mine doesn't quite match up to your grandiloquence now does it :)

iz: Intrigued? Good?

brahmarakshasa and suraj: Thank you for your insights. I am an Impressionism loyalist. So I suppose we are off to a less than compatible start. I have never quite learnt to appreciate Dali and Escher. And having said this, I have liked specific works of both, meaning I am capable of acknowledging the art of surrealism in all its lack of mass appeal (horrors!). Surrealism remains for those who wish to eschew reality and find a little something morbid and macabre in everything. I don't fall in that category. Finding colour, magic and beauty in everything around me reeks of romanticism and I shall remain an 'Oh my! That's so pretty, I want to shoot me a unicorn.' skunk.
Thank you very much.

suraj sharma said...

pfft. reality is SO overrated ;)

Anonymous said...

nice blog!

:D

Bina said...

pleasure having you drop in, madame!...the point is, how on earth did you find your way to my island???

read some of your posts...hmmm...very interesting..not surprisingly so, i must admit:-)