Leave it to Vivienne Westwood to fashion the world's cheekiest rape alarm. This penis whistle also happens to belong to someone I know who lent it for display in "Musical Bodies," an unusual exhibit at the Met that made a much bigger impression than the one I went to see.
Male artists have long invested woodwind depictions with sexual innuendo. Leering examples include this 18th-century British porcelain
. . . and this Japanese woodcut from the 19th. "Skin flute" was one of the first metaphors embraced by my dirty mind.
Spread-legs guitars like this one, custom made for the 2006 film Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny, spoof rock 'n roll's testosterone-driven shredding.
Boys just gotta be boys!
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| Untitled, from Fornicon by Tomi Ungerer (1969) |
Except maybe Prince. A gender-fluid pioneer long before his time, he combined the astrological signs for Mars and Venus to create his "Love Symbol," embodied by this purple guitar. It's both curvy and phallic. David and I caught him at Radio City in 1983 when it looked as if he were using the neck of his guitar to make love. We partied like it was 1999. Unforgettable!
Odalisques can be found under harpsichord lids, too.
These more modern works have an added political dimension. The hand of god holds these robed figures, emphasizing Black spirituality in the face of segregation
Raphael: Sublime Poetry
Saint Sebastian looks more refined than tortured in this portrait no doubt because the young nobleman who served as Raphael's model didn't want to appear nude and bloody.
This fresco decorated the hood of a fireplace in the Vatican Palace.
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| Italian harpsichord by Alessandro Trasuntino with lid interior painting by Titian & Paris Bordone (1531) "Venus & the Lute Player" by Titian (ca. 1485/90?-1576) |
The multimedia exhibit also includes performances by people who use different body parts to make unique sounds like Beatbox House
. . . and Savion Glover.
Even mannequins can exponentially increase their note output with the Piano Arc 360.
Visitors are invited to make their own kind of music by walking through a long, carpeted hallway that emits light and tones with each step.
Some artists have illustrated musical bodies literally.
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| "The Kingdom of Harmony" by Alexandre Lacauchie (1848) |
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| French lithograph depicting Henri Huerta (1871) |
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| "Lift Every Voice and Sing (The Harp)" by Augusta Savage (1939) |
. . . while a life-size, mind-blowing musical sculpture commissioned by an Indian prince to express opposition to relentlessly encroaching British colonialism inspired this drawing, which I initially mistook for a lascivious armadillo. It depicts a Bengal tiger mauling a soldier with a concealed organ providing a soundtrack of wails. When the British East India Company finally won the Anglo-Mysore wars of the late 18th century, the victors took the sculpture back to London where the automaton trophy played "Rule Britannia" at the East India House until its demolition in 1861. Now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, "Tipu's Tiger" seems like plunder that ought to be returned!
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| "Repatriation of Tipu's Tiger" by Saba Qjzilbash (2022) |
In Ghana, music can be as enveloping in death as in life. Yep, this is a casket. It lacks only a Stairway To Heaven.
Arizona artist John Douglas painted this macabre drum kit for Alex González of the Latin rock band Maná.
The Day of the Dead imagery is a reminder of this mortal coil.
Man Ray loved a metronome. For musicians the instruments took over time-keeping from the human body; for a surrealist like him, they're a taskmaster that kept the creative impulse producing under the eye of a watchful muse. Tick tock. Tick tock.
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| Indestructible Object (1963) |
Walt Disney injected more than a little surrealism into his "Silly Symphony," a series of cartoons produced by his animation studio during the '30s. These two clips feature skeleton xylophones, and a saxophone crushing hard on a stringed instrument.
It's not like I don't recognize Raphael's incredible talent and productivity, especially after visits to Florence and Milan last fall. Religious imagery, aside from a few saints, just doesn't appeal to me as much as quirkier subject matter, usually secular.
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| "Saint Francis of Assisi" (predella detail, ca 1504-05) |
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| (ca 1502-03) |
Raphael's baby Jesus is more playful than was usually found in other depiction of the Madonna and Child, but he appears to be bearing the weight of the world with resigned weariness.
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| The Niccolini-Cowper Madonna (1508) |
Raphael's portraits are more my speed. He has conferred Apollonian beauty on this young Florentine banker
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| "Portrait of Bindo Altoviti" (ca 1515-16) |
. . . and has painted his mistress as Venus, the goddess of love. Given the nudity, it seems odd that he painted her in collaboration with Giulio Romano.
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| "Portrait of the Nude Fornarina" (ca 1518-20) |
The exhibit includes many fine studies that Raphael did prior to painting, including this one of Homer whose storytelling, nearly three millennia old, is about to dominate ours when The Odyssey, the first narrative film shot entirely on IMAX by Christopher Nolan, opens in July.
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| Standing Putto Bearing a Garland (ca. 1512) |
The Renaissance doesn't get higher than the suite of reception rooms that Raphael also painted there. The exhibit re-creates them through projections. When I visited Rome, I recall only seeing Michelangelo's work in the Sistine Chapel probably because photos were prohibited. It's hard to believe Raphael created so much before his untimely death at the age of 37 which Vasari attributed to "excessive lovemaking," although pneumonia was more likely the cause.
Raphael illustrated the acts of the apostles in a series of "cartoons" that also were rendered as tapestries. In this one, Jesus tells Peter "Henceforth you will be catching men." Sounds like me in the Ramble during my salad days!
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| "The Miraculous Draft of the Fishes" by Jan van Tieghem and Frans Gheteels (late 1540s or early 1550s) |
In this one, Saint Paul converts his Roman jailers to Christianity by performing a miracle that opens the doors where he has been imprisoned: a literal earthquake.
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| "Saint Paul in Prison" by Pieter van Aelst (ca 1517-21) |
Giacometti in the Temple of Dendur
I had just enough time before closing to check out the 20th century sculptures that the Met has juxtaposed with the Temple of Dendur.
It really is a brilliant mash-up.
I didn't realize until this visit that the temple had been rescued from submersion in Egypt's Lake Nasser.
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