Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

Socialize

Beer In Art #79: Jasper Johns’ Field Painting

By

art-beer
I found today’s work of art wandering around the National Gallery of Art in D.C. this afternoon, taking a day to recover from SAVOR before heading to Philly Beer Week. The second artwork that I featured in this series was by the same artist, Jasper Johns, a sculpture of two Ballantine Ale cans bronzed over, called Painted Bronze. This work, entitled Field Painting, was completed about four years after Painted Bronze, in 1964.

Jasper_Johns-field_painting

It may be difficult to see, but the work includes many elements Johns used in his art, including a can of Ballantine Ale. You can see it more clearly in the detail below.

Jasper_Johns-field_detail

Here’s what the National Gallery has to say about Field Painting.

Field Painting, for example, pivots references both to art-making and Johns’ own career. The primary colors red, yellow, and blue are spelled out in letters hinged perpendicularly to the canvas, where they also appear in stencil-like doubles. Attached to them are various studio tools. The Savarin coffee tin and Ballantine beer can both allude to Johns’ studio paraphernalia and to his appropriation of them as motifs in his work. Passages of smeared and dripped paint, a footprint, light switch, and a neon “R” collude with other visual codes to multiply the possibility of associations.

Actually, the best way to see this painting is from an angle, on the side, where its three dimensions are more obvious.

Jasper_Johns-field_angled

To learn more about Jasper Johns, Wikipedia has a good overview of Jasper johns, as does Answers.com. Also, the overview at Area of Design includes a few of his representative works throughout his career.

Guinness Ad #21: Seal Hedge

By

guinness-toucan
Our 21st Guinness poster by John Gilroy features a man trimming a hedge of a seal balancing a pint of Guinness on his nose, like had been featured in earlier Guinness adverts. But he’s paying such close attention to watching the pint, that’s he’s not watching what he’s doing with the clippers and is cutting a hole into the seal back. The slogan for this one is “Lovely day for a Guinness.”

guinness-hedge

Beer In Ads #122: Barenbier

By

ad-billboard
Wednesday’s ad is for a German brewery, Berliner Schlossbrauerei, and their brand Bärenbier, or Bear Beer. The slogan, “bringt gute Laúne!,” translates as “brings a good mood.” Ah, I miss the days when you could use a teddy bear in an …. what, there never was such a time in America, was there?

barenbier

Beer In Ads #120: Reszveny Serfozode

By

ad-billboard
Monday’s ad is from Részvény Serfözöde, a Budapest, Hungary brewery. The illustration was done by Paul Foldes. I’m not entirely sure when it was done. I chose it because today is Memorial Day, and the idea depicted that beer could end a war is an attractive one. I believe the scene’s supposed to be during World War I.

paul-foldes-reszveny-serfözöde

And below is a detail of the artwork from the ad.

reszveny-detail

Beer In Art #78: Peter Paul Ruben’s The Village Fete

By

art-beer
Today’s work of art is by one the most famous artists to ever paint: Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens “was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.” Today’s painting was done toward the end of his life, around 1635-38, though others believe he may have started it much earlier in 1620, but then returned to it later. It’s known as the Village Fête, and sometimes as the Village Wedding.

Rubens_village-fete

The paintings hangs in the Louvre, which describes it as follows:

The picture, painted late in the artist’s life, around 1635-38, is manifestly neo-Bruegelian in inspiration. The pig’s snout poking out of the sty on the right is an ancient symbol of gluttony (gula). According to those who date the picture in the 1620s, the landscape was painted before the figures, which are in Rubens’ late lyrical style.

This monumental picture, also called the Village Wedding, is in the northern tradition of depictions of village fêtes. Pioneered by Pieter Bruegel, the enormous popularity of this genre contributed to the renown of the Flemish School. These compositions often had a moral message, denouncing the baseness of the human condition by showing it in all its excesses. However, even though a pig’s snout — a symbol of gluttony — can be seen poking out of the sty in the foreground, denouncing vices was not Rubens’ main preoccupation.

While there’s dancing going on on the right half of the painting, the lower left is consumed with drinking beer. You can see it better in the detail of the painting below.

Rubens_village-fete-detail

You can see all of Ruben’s works online at the Complete Works or Peter Paul Rubens. There’s also a biography on Wikipedia, and more information at the Web Museum, the Art Archive , ArtCyclopedia and Olga’s Gallery.