Author Topic: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi  (Read 60753 times)

Offline Sason

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #50 on: October 20, 2010, 04:03:41 pm »
the person with the bad English accent you can hear in the video.  Me that is. ::)

I'm sure the person with the bad English accent is me!   ::)  :D

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #51 on: October 05, 2012, 02:46:15 pm »
I don't know how generally known is the connection between the "look" of the Twists' living room and the paintings of the 19th century Danish artist, Vilhelm Hammershoi. In case it's not generally known, I thought I'd post a section of an interview that Rodrigo Prieto, the director of photography, gave to the magazine, American Cinematography, in the January of 2006:

Their farmhouse is "very stark, with grayish-white walls," says Prieto. "I tried to do something very simple but with a powerful contrast, which is difficult to achieve in a white room, so I blew out the windows and made them bright spots while keeping dark shadows on the faces. For this scene, we were inspired by the work of Vilhelm Hammershoi, whose paintings are very moody but devoid of color. We used an 18K HMI as the main source, lighting from a large window next to the table where Jack's father talks with Ennis. The light was diffused with a 12-by-12 full grid that was as close to the window as the framing allowed in each shot. We had two 6K Pars over the smaller windows coming in as direct sunlight through the sheer curtains, and a 4K Par through the small window in the door. For close-ups, I added an Image 80 on the ground to give a sense of light bouncing off the floor, plus a single 2-foot Kino tube wrapped in 216 under the lens for a very slight glint in the eyes. The goal was to suggest that Ennis feels uncomfortable in the stale, monochromatic atmosphere."

I came across this in a review of an exhibition of his paintings put on in London a little while back. It may help to explain his appeal:

Hammershoi understands the power of negatives, the unsaid, the unshown. His art is full of refusals. The back-turned woman, revealing nothing of her mind; the unmotivated presence of these figures, haunting the rooms like ghosts; the doors  closed or ajar, implying something hidden beyond; the apartments' unexplained emptiness, occupied only by light, or with a few isolated signs of life, like the Mary Celeste.

Everything conspires to create a mood of absence, loss, denial. Somebody is dead. Somebody is abandoned. Somebody is fatally repressed. Life is on hold, proceeding in a reduced, trance-like manner. Behind the scenes, on everyone's mind, there's a secret.

And Hammershoi embodies the unending and the unknown with his walls – those blank, flickering expanses, stretches of nothing that face out, flat-on to the picture surface. The paintings' viewers, like the figures in them, do a lot of staring at walls.

It is an intensely narrow art. You might think of Jane Austen's phrase – "the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush" – but compared with Hammershoi's, her world is a herd
of elephants. And it's not just within the pictures that so little happens, but between them.

The second paragraph seems strangely apposite for the Twist household.

A wonderful thread to read, along with "Red and Green".
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline southendmd

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #52 on: November 26, 2012, 10:16:57 pm »
I saw "Life of Pi" last night, and remarked that the last scene, vital to the story, is also done with a stark, white background.  Ang at work again!

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #53 on: May 10, 2017, 07:16:31 pm »
My random reading for today. We said lots of things, all of them interesting to me.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline southendmd

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #54 on: May 10, 2017, 08:30:44 pm »
My random reading for today. We said lots of things, all of them interesting to me.

Thanks for the bump.  I enjoyed re-reading this.

Offline BBM_victim

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #55 on: May 11, 2017, 10:10:23 pm »
The paintings are just great! *putonmylisttosee*
Thanks for this!

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhQmS8KJeUo[/youtube]
Michael Palin and the Mystery of Vilhelm Hammershoi
BBC4





Published on Jul 27, 2013
A poetic voyage in the paintings of Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi with Michael Palin.
Broadcast on BBC Four on June 29 2008.
(I do not own the rights on this program.)




http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007ccc2

Broadcast: Sun 29 Jun 2008



With a passion for art that is rivalled only by travel, Michael Palin combines both in a European journey to discover more about Vilhelm Hammershoi, an enigmatic Danish artist that has fascinated him for years. Curious to see more of Hammershoi's paintings and discover what kind of life the artist lived, Michael searches for clues in London, Holland and Copenhagen.











[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFggPGsHgyE[/youtube]
Vilhelm Hammershoi and Tortoise-Four-Day Interval
Published on May 17, 2011




"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #57 on: July 24, 2017, 06:11:58 pm »
Looking forward to watching this tonight! Thanks, John!
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Looking forward to watching this tonight! Thanks, John!



Enjoy, Lee!  ;)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhQmS8KJeUo[/youtube]
Michael Palin and the Mystery of Vilhelm Hammershoi
BBC4




"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Sason

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Re: The Twists' living room and the paintings of Vilhelm Hammershoi
« Reply #59 on: August 12, 2017, 08:11:15 pm »
The programme was most interesting!

Thanks for posting it, John!

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre