To the brotherhood!

Magnet #1258 - Degas signature

This Degas signature is the first in a set of about 33 artists signature magnets. I know. Wait til you see tomorrow's 63 magnets set.

Anyway, I picked this for today because I finally finished watching the BBC's Desperate Romantics, all about the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of Millais, Hunt and Rossetti, and a few others, artists who banded together back in 1840s England. I could bore you with all the details of what they painted, and what they stood for, but that would defeat the purpose of watching this six-part miniseries.

The six-part miniseries that I thought DCSis had watched and liked, and therefore I felt like I had to sit through all six hours. Only to find out she barely made it through the first episode. Sigh. By the time I realized I didn't want to watch the rest of it...I was about five hours in. Goodness.

I definitely had to watch it, because I thought it'd be like the other BBC miniseries, The Impressionists, explaining the stories behind their famous works of art. Instead, I got Entourage, for artists...which is how they billed it. I don't mind Entourage at all, but honestly, I couldn't get into the backstabiness of these artists - true or not.

The best part of the movie was the one painting backstory that I really loved, that of Millais' Ophelia. In a magnificently cast role, the woman who posed for Ophelia, basically their Yoko (or Sloan) inadvertently causing strife between the boys, was superb and eerily a carbon copy for the real painting. If the series is to be believed, then while she was posing in a cold bathtub of water, she nearly drowned because of hypothermia and passing out in the water. Crazy.

The saddest part of the movie? Is watching how hard (or not hard) this band of brothers worked to make themselves known to the art world.

And in the end? Not a one was included in my magnet set of 35 artists.

The glass of fashion*

Magnet #756 - John Everett Millais' Ophelia

I know. I can't help it. She kinda looks how I feel right now, a little bedraggled and run over.

Part has to do with this crazy rain today. The other part, well, whatever, it's a magnetblog, dudes.

So, I bought this magnet at the Yale Center for British Art - such a great museum, for the art, for the architecture. Still, I squealed a little dance of joy because this was my best find of the day. I was so happy to find this as a magnet, because I saw this painting at the Tate in London, and they didn't have the magnet for it!

I absolutely love this painting of poor drowned Ophelia, Hamlet's sister. I'll concede it's a more than a little dark, and I know when I saw it in person, it irked crap out of me, because I was in London and not able to see David Tennant's Hamlet and I was still ticked over that and will likely not get over it for a while, but whatever, because you know he's totally coming to Broadway at some point in his life, and it'll probably be in a play that I'll never want to go see, but will go see more than a couple times, and probably stalk the theatre door, just because he'll finally be on my home turf. Anyway, moving on.

I'll leave the background learning up to you and the Tate description, mostly because I'm refusing to use the word Pre-Raphaelite in a magnetpost and not really know (or honestly care) what it means. Of course, now I know having read that description what it means, but I'm still not using it.

The very word just seems too, too lofty here on joy magnetism. So, lay on, Macjoy.

What? Oh, like I wasn't going to pun it. Or include David Tennant in reference to this particular magnet. Hahaha. Nope. I'm not bitter at all.


*Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1, 150–154

eta:
Why? Why do I always think that Ophelia is Hamlet's sister? Kudos to Jenny for pointing it out. But I shan't fix it above. Because I'm kinda wondering what my mental block is about it!

eta2:
She's Laertes' sister. And yet, in my head, Ophelia/Hamlet, sibyay. You'd think I didn't go see Hamlet.

I did, though. I have the notice about David Tennant's absence to prove it. Grrr.

Welcome, Little Man Tate

Magnet #424 - Tate Gallery

So, some friends of mine just had a baby! Congratulations! And his name? Tate! How cool is it that I have a magnet just for him!

I bought this pin magnet over at the Tate Britain, surprisingly my favorite over the Tate Modern. Really, because of two paintings:

Ophelia by John Everett Millais - a Pre-Raphaelite painting that's just gorgeous viewed up close. And, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, the last painting of Edward Burne-Jones that's just gorgeous viewed from afar, as seen in this Telegraph pic.

Oddly, Hamlet's sister, the drowned Ophelia, is the most popular postcard that the Tate sells - and of course, I totally bought one. Even though I can't stand Hamlet, there's just something about this painting that's oddly haunting. Even more odd, since December when I saw the painting, I was convinced that we used it as cover art back in my publishing days a dozen years ago. It's not, but the cover of this Patricia A. McKillip novel is very close. Hello, false memory.

For Arthur, the Tate had the chance to purchase the painting for a steal 40 years ago, but let it go, and now, it's owned by a museum in the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico, and it's worth millions now. And, because the Museo is undergoing renovations, they've loaned it to the Tate and now the Prado, having signed, sealed and delivered it, in a hugely complex and kinda supercool process. I mean, the thing's like 9 feet x 21 feet big, and took Burne-Jones something like 17 years to paint...he was supposedly working on it right up to his death!

Ooof, such somber works for such a happy occasion! Eh, it's all very circle of life-y, I guess.

So, these two paintings were definitely worth the museum drop-by. Also, definitely worth the magnet!

Especially now - welcome, little man Tate!