Coming up pretty soon, I'm getting a show at the Black Lab Brewery, and I was asked to produce at least a few dog portraits of some kind or other. I reached out to my dog-parent friends for use of their fur-childrens' likenesses. Of course, now I'm overwhelmed with choices for my paintings, and there's no way I could possibly get to everyone before this show ends. I'm going to do my best!
With the limited time I've had to work the past couple weeks, I've only started and finished one so far. So I present to you, Sleeping Fefe.
As soon as I saw her, I thought Manet's Olympia, and Titian's Venus of Urbino. Only, I've already painted iterations of each of those classic pieces -
So I wanted to do something fitting that vein, but new to me. Giorgione was a contemporary of Titian, but died before completing his original of the original of this piece above. He died in his 30's during one of the plague outbreaks in the early 1400's. Titian is said to have completed this piece around 1410. Titian then went on to complete Venus of Urbino, which was somehow less contentious than Manet's version about four centuries later.
In Titian's time, it was the kind of artwork suitable for the bedroom of young newlyweds, for the bride to glean information from, having probably very little knowledge on her own sexuality as yet.
Fast forward to the 18oo's France, puritanism has extinguished the normalcy of female sexuality. Manet's Olympia creates a huge stir for being not just an ordinary nude, not just a courtesan awaiting a client, but a brash one staring right into the eyes of the on-looker without any shame at all. After Manet's premature death, Monet and other contemporaries fought tooth and nail to get his piece accepted into the Louvre. Their success marked a new era in art history.
Anyway, my version is far from contentious, unless you read too deeply. I'm not making any sexual suggestions about Fefe, or derogatory ones about Venus. As far as I'm concerned, this is just a cute little dog super-imposed into a piece of history.
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