BISI FAKEYE - Adieu!

As reported by : Arts and Culture Place.

 The death of veteran artist, Bisi Fakeye, has thrown many into mourning. The news of his death came as what many described as shocking.

Fakeye died on Sunday, October 8, at the Ikorodu General Hospital in Lagos by yet-to-be disclosed ailment.

He was born in 1942 at Ila-Orangun, Ekiti. He was a renowned caver from the great Fakeye family of carvers - Lamidi Fakeye being the best known.

Bisi apprenticed under Lamidi Fake. Although he went through school up to teacher training college and abandoned teaching for carving. Moving to Lagos in 1968, Bisi interacted with formally trained artists, developed a more commercially based practice, and became part of the Lagos art scene. After FESTAC 1977, he settled into the studios on the grounds of the National Theatre, now Universal Studios of Arts.

Final painting of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Final painting of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Riding With Death

Jean-Michel Basquiat began his artistic career while in his teenage years, as a graffiti artist in Manhattan, before transitioning to painting later in life. 

His work quickly attracted widespread acclaim for its depth and composition and Basquiat was soon the toast of the art world. Unfortunately, the artist was also struggling with a heroin addiction and died of a “speedball” overdose (essentially a mix of heroin and cocaine) when he was only 27.

Basquiat was prolific and it isn’t clear exactly which is his final finished painting. But one of the likely candidates seems to be Riding with Death, which was completed in the months before his suicide in 1988.

The work features a skeletal creature being straddled by a human figure. Although much of Basquiat’s late work has been criticized as lazy and overly commercial, Riding With Death remains a firm critical favorite, with some critics linking it to the concept of spiritual possession (“being ridden”) in Haitian voodoo. 

Scull: by Basquiat

Story of a Painting of Jan van Eyck

Story of a Painting of Jan van Eyck

The Arnolfini Portrait, painted in 1434 by Dutch artist Jan van Eyck, is regarded by art historians as one of the most important paintings in history but also a constant source of controversy. For starters, the painting is done in oil—something conventional nowadays but pretty rare in Western European art of the early 15th century. 

This allowed Van Eyck to fully explore his talent for detail in ways that have seldom been seen in other paintings. If you look closely, you can see that the mirror on the back wall reflects the entire room, including two additional figures standing in the doorway. (The dog is conspicuously absent.) The artist even (somewhat) takes into account the distortion of the convex mirror. Incredibly, the even smaller medallions inside the frame of the mirror depict scenes from the Passion of Christ.
However, the controversial part of the painting isn’t the mirror but rather the couple itself. It was unusual for that time to paint contemporary people just standing around the house, so historians have argued that there might be a deeper meaning to the painting. Specifically, some have argued that the artwork depicts a newly married bride and groom with the mysterious figures in the doorway acting as witnesses. 

Not everyone agrees with this assertion, and experts have analyzed every minute detail in the painting from the way the couple is holding hands to how the woman is wearing her hair to try and establish the relationship between the two people.

The Arnolfini Portrait, painted in 1434 by Dutch artist Jan van Eyck, is regarded by art historians as one of the most important paintings in history but also a constant source of controversy. For starters, the painting is done in oil—something conventional nowadays but pretty rare in Western European art of the early 15th century. 

This allowed Van Eyck to fully explore his talent for detail in ways that have seldom been seen in other paintings. If you look closely, you can see that the mirror on the back wall reflects the entire room, including two additional figures standing in the doorway. (The dog is conspicuously absent.) The artist even (somewhat) takes into account the distortion of the convex mirror. Incredibly, the even smaller medallions inside the frame of the mirror depict scenes from the Passion of Christ.

However, the controversial part of the painting isn’t the mirror but rather the couple itself. It was unusual for that time to paint contemporary people just standing around the house, so historians have argued that there might be a deeper meaning to the painting. Specifically, some have argued that the artwork depicts a newly married bride and groom with the mysterious figures in the doorway acting as witnesses. 

 Not everyone agrees with this assertion, and experts have analyzed every minute detail in the painting from the way the couple is holding hands to how the woman is wearing her hair to try and establish the relationship between the two people.

The Monkey Trial.

Legends of Africa: The Monkey Trial.

This is a story of two boys who could not agree.

One day two boys were wandering in the bush and they found some meat. They could not decide which of them saw it first. Each one thought that he had seen it first and each one said, "I saw it first." They would not agree that each should have half of it . Each one wanted the larger piece. They argued and argued and almost fought.


Finally they decided to take it to the monkey court for a trial. As soon as the monkey saw them coming he decided that he was going to taste that meat. The boys saluted him and told him everything that had happened.
 Each claimed that he had seen the meat first. When they had finished talking, the monkey said, "I think that I had better divide the meat for you and have each person take his portion without argument."

The monkey divided the meat, but one piece was larger than the other piece. The monkey picked up the larger piece and took a bite of it and ate it. When he laid down the piece from which he had taken a bite, he saw that it was the smaller of the two. 

He picked up the other piece and took a bite from it and ate it. While the monkey seemed to be trying hard, yet he could not get the pieces equal. Each time the piece from which he would take a bite would be the smaller of the two.

When the monkey saw that both pieces of meat were getting small, he said to the boys, "Go home. What little meat there is I will keep for my fee. You shall not taste any of it." He drove them away without even giving them small pieces of meat.

This is how they lost all their meat. If they had been willing to agree between themselves each would have had a nice piece of meat.  

The Last Painting of christopher Wood

The Last Painting of  Christopher Wood 

Zebra And Parachute

 Zebra And Parachute was one of two paintings that Christopher Wood produced in Paris in the summer of 1930, the other being Tiger And Arc De Triomphe. 

 Both paintings depict a surreal image of an exotic animal against the backdrop of a manmade structure, although Zebra And Parachute is unique in that it adds a parachuting figure in the sky. It may be darkly significant that the parachutist is limp and appears to be either dead or seriously injured.

After leaving Paris for England in August 1930, Wood met his mother in Salisbury to show her his newest works, including Zebra And Parachute. 
Tragically, Wood was suffering from the effects of opium withdrawal, which caused paranoia and the belief that he was being followed by a mysterious entity. In a desperate attempt to escape his imagined pursuer, Woods jumped in front of a train that very same day.

 To avoid upsetting his mother, the death often referred to as accidental by the contemporary press.

Antelope (Kaang)

Legends of Africa: Antelope (Kaang)

The Bushmen, also called the Khoi or San, are the nomads of Africa.

 In the last few decades, many have become farmers due to the dangers that our modern life poses to their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but their territory once stretched from the Cape to Kenya. 

The Bushmen are experts at finding water, and their advice is often sought out due to their precognitive dreams and divining capabilities.

According to their beliefs, the supreme god Kaang created the world but sent death and destruction after experiencing too much disobedience and antagonism. 

Even though he lives in the sky, his invisible spirit still resides in all living things.

 In one story Kaang’s wife gave birth to an eland (African antelope). The god nurtured the calf but it was mistakenly killed by his two sons. Kaang demanded that the eland’s blood be boiled. 

The subsequent fatty residue was scattered across the landscape, in turn becoming other antelope and animals.

 In this manner, Kaang provided the meat that his people hunt, kill, and eat to this day.

The Hippopotamus

Legends of Africa:The Hippopotamus

This remarkable African mammal is usually featured as a goddess in African legends. 

Worshiped in ancient Egypt as Tawaret, the goddess of fertility and childbirth, she was essentially regarded as a protective and caring deity.
 
In Mozambique, the Ronga people tell the legend of a mother who left her child with Mother Hippo for safekeeping as the child’s life was threatened by an envious rival. 

Every night, Mother Hippo would emerge with the child so that it could suckle from its mother.
On the other hand, male hippopotami are usually seen as shape-shifting beasts. 

According to the legend of the hero Fara Maka, one such beast ate all the crops in the fields.

 The hero threw all his spears and sent black hounds against it, but the monster continued eating and could only be subdued and killed after a spell was placed on it by the hero’s wife.