Sir posted about the awards ceremonies they’ve been to in Edinburgh yesterday. With the post, he shared a painting by Jack Vettriano. Of course, I knew of Vettriano, but had never really looked at much of his work.
He really does have his own very obvious style. You could see a painting of his and quite easily say, “Yes! That’s a Vettriano.” This “mark” of an artist I’m unsure is evident in the stuff I do. Maybe it is…maybe I just can’t see it? Dare I even call myself an artist? Twelve months ago, I definitely wouldn’t have! A certain someone helped to change that. 🙂
Intrigued by the piece, I looked at some of Vettriano’s paintings. There are some fabulous subjects he gives visuals to. From what I saw and/or felt from the 50+ paintings I looked at, the main themes for me were lust, desire, intimacy, loneliness, independence and freedom…but romance too. Always underneath each piece, romance.
Of the paintings I looked at yesterday, the one below was my favourite. It is a piece called “Game On”. I do love that title! It is a painting, as far as my own personal interpretation goes, of the most brazen act of lust and desire.
If I am brutally honest (let’s face it, I tend to be nothing less, right?), I see a young Jim in this painting. Jim in LDF guise. (The persona I gave him as Laird Dash Fandango…an image and style he has, circa 1981…wearing high waisted tailored trousers and collared shirts. Very 1940s film star. Very beautiful.) I can only wish to be the lady pinned against the wall! I certainly don’t think I’ve ever had a figure like that! Lol. Perhaps for a brief period around the late 80s/early 90s, when I had my first (and subsequently only) long-term boyfriend.
That is the style of Jack Vettriano’s paintings that resonates with me most…and what makes them most recognisable as his work…that 1940s/50s sharp dressed men/stilletoed, stockinged ladies look. Even in amongst those most brazen lustful and physical of works….there is still that air of romance. And they are just full of passion and erotisism.
As for the LDF Jim of the early 80s…one could imagine he just stepped out of a Vettriano painting. And heaven knows what he’d been up to in one! I have no doubt he has pinned a few ladies against a wall in his time! Oh…the dreams I could have with that image! 🙂
Vettriano, for me personally, has tapped into that eternal longing, to experience those lustful, frantic, fleeting joys of sex that have loooong escaped me. I have not had sex in almost 25 years. I know!!! I’m a Scorpio FFS! Lol. (I’ll be booted out, I swear! “Born on Halloween?”, they’ll say, “I don’t think so!”. Lol.) I could have gone into the convent…seriously! (If only masturbation was not seen as a sin!) It’s surely some kind of record for a Scorpio not to have had sex for as long as I have, right? Lol.
If nothing else, my lack of sexual activity for the past quarter of a century reveals, perhaps, a resolve and dedication that few possess? Or, it shows how sheltered and inhibiting my life has been, and how little I have let myself live…or have taken chances.
Either way…it’s been too long!!! (Well, how’s that for honesty?! The things I am willing to share, eh? Lol. And yet…there are things I can keep to myself. There will be things nobody will ever know.)
Romance is all well and good…but sometimes you just want to be pinned against a wall.