I sense what you mean. For me this face is great source material for a fun parlour game. You can do it with a mirror or with photoshop. Make two “different” faces by doubling each side of the face.

You may not think different about the face, the style of painting or the man, but you may appreciate more about the times and the hurried rendering of Marat.

-mason

Marat challenge Apollo? As if this death so rendered (this machine) kills fascists? It is all quite heady! But those were heady days.

I think Dick Cheney would simply skip one long mechanical beat to be rendered as Napoleon, or perhaps in a tender moment he’d have David paint Richard Nixon departing in his last helicopter of state. Can it be that hard Republican surface is at last degenerating into – (talking off the top of my head) some kind of Baconian disintegration? Where are the pure productions of America today when we need them so terribly?

I guess these simply are not heady days. Ever since Eliot quoted, “Mistah Kurtz—he dead” classicism is so passée. I am in way over my head, but have not some musicians attempted to continue work in a sort of classical vein?

Lots of stuff flying about in my head. What do you think, Dave: did modernism finish wrestling with classicism? Have post modern aspirations or postures addressed history or even successfully depicted/critisised the spirit of our time? I’ve never been sure if it really matters anymore (shame on me!), but it troubles me. I am sincere.

“The thought of what America, the thought of what America, the thought of what America would be like, if the classics had a wide circulation, why, it troubles my sleep.” If i remember his snarky tone correctly, it still troubles my sleep.

Thank You, Thank You Dave!
-mason

PS. Someone, (himself perhaps?), described Roland Barthes as a sort of structuralist rear guard. Drop me a line via email about your other site and endeavours. I’ve also formulated a possible answer to one question not yet asked in these exchanges.