Fancy Pictures
2016
$84.00
Fancy Pictures by Mark Neville. First edition. First impression large format hardback in new condition. Flat signed by Mark Neville to title page. No markings, this is a brand new book. No jacket as issued. Please see pictures. PayPal accepted, any questions please get in touch.
About Fancy Pictures
The term ‘Fancies’ was first used in 1737 by art chronicler George Vertue to describe paintings by Mercier of scenes of everyday life, but with elements of imagination, invention or storytelling. Later, the name ‘fancy pictures’ was given by Sir Joshua Reynolds to the supreme examples of the genre produced by Gainsborough in the decade before his death in 1788, featuring rural life in particular.
Shot in the grounds of Mount Stuart and on Bute farms, the film ‘Fancy Pictures’ features several ultra slow motion sequences of indigenous animal life filmed in front of backdrops taken from Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century portrait paintings in the Dining Room at Mount Stuart. The portraits include works by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Allan Ramsay and Sir Henry Raeburn. The film questions the role of landscape in portrait painting, the changing relationships between landowners and animal life, and creature symbolism in film history.
Technological advances in photographic techniques, and how we use them to frame animals, say as much about value systems in Britain today, as a painting by Reynolds tells us about the aristocracy’s relationship to the land two hundred years ago. This connection was made using backdrops, so that the wildlife action in the foreground seems like an elegant graffiti.
Related Links
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