Cheers! (1)

It is Sunday, and Sunday afternoon is the perfect time to relax with a cocktail and enjoy a work of art. I entered the word ‘cocktail’ on the NGV website and found ten Sybil Craig linocuts of cocktail glasses and an enticing Japanese poster called ‘The cabaret hostess’s song’. Then Anne Hunt directed me to a new initiative from The Frick Collection in New York  – ‘Cocktails with a Curator’.  On Friday evenings at 5pm (New York time) Xavier Salomon (Chief Curator at The Frick) hosts a 15 minute youtube discussion of a work of art accompanied by a cocktail whose recipe is on The Frick webpage.

The series commenced on Friday 10 April with Salomon’s discussion of ‘St Francis in the Desert’ by Bellini.  The accompanying drink was not a ‘Bellini’ but a ‘Manhattan’ (to acknowledge the current plight of New York City).  The episode can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD8KxM1Ia9c&list=PLNVeJpU2DHHR_0y_Zvgn3MgZQQFcFx2eI&index=2&t=0s

Last Friday Salomon looked at Rembrandt’s ‘Polish Rider’ while sipping on a ‘Szarlota’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NotIFQRPnjo&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=Frick+eNews&utm_campaign=7c80e1787d-cocktails_2_apr_2020&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_518a4c86ac-7c80e1787d-364525373. Attentive guides will doubtless reflect on the cassone placed under the painting.

Next week on Friday look forward to ‘Sir John Suckling’ by Van Dyck while imbibing a ‘Pink Gin’ (youtube link will be available on The Frick website on the day).

If you decide to start with the ‘St Francis’ work by Bellini, you might have a look at similar depictions of ‘St Francis’ in the NGV Collection online while enjoying your drink. There are two etchings which depict St Francis receiving the stigmata.  The first is a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer c. 1503/4 and the second is by Jacques Callot from his ‘Les Penitents’ series dated c.1632. And if you continue with the enigmatic painting by Rembrandt, take a look at the drypoint etching of ‘St Francis, beneath a tree praying’, 1657 which was created by Rembrandt around the same time as ‘Polish Rider’.

Another very interesting series of artworks, based on the life and legends of St Francis, comes from the Australian artist Arthur Boyd (1920-1999). Boyd produced original works to accompany a reprint of a 1936 biography of the saint by art historian Tom Boase in the 1960s. Boyd made a set of 25 lithographs as well as versions in colour pastels. In the 1970s he also produced 20 tapestries based on the pastels. In the NGV collection, there are 16 lithographs from the series. Subsequently in 2004, Margaret Pont (Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s School of Art History) published a book on these artworks – ‘Arthur Boyd & Saint Francis of Assisi’. This volume reproduces and examines each of the artworks in detail and also includes discussion of the significance of St Francis in Italy and key Italian artistic renderings of the saint.

To share the experience with drinks, here are the recipes:

Have a safe weekend and week to come. Cheers!