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Thursday, June 8, 2006

The Other Death of Jane McCrea

Posted by on June 8 at 9:00 AM

In today’s Blart, I write about Lichtenstein’s totally loopy 1951 version of John Vanderlyn’s 1804 painting The Death of Jane McCrea. Here’s the original, in all its glory:

mcrea.jpg

If that weren’t enough, the 18th-century poet Joel Barlow (among others) waxed about the buxom Jane in a long poem you can read here. A glimpse:

She starts, with eyes upturn’d and fleeting breath, In their raised axes views her instant death, Spreads her white hands to heaven in frantic prayer, Then runs to grasp their knees and crouches there, Her hair, half lost along the shrubs she past, Rolls in loose tangles round her lovely waist; Her kerchief torn betray the globes of snow That heave responsive to the weight of woe. Does all this eloquence suspend the knife? Does no superior bribe contest her life? There does: the scalps by British gold are paid.

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sigh... if only people still appreciated globes of snow instead of globes of tanning booth glory...

Snuff poetry...hot.

Poor John Vanderlyn, he tried to make Americans like History Paintings and utterly failed. His great albatross of a painting, "Belshazzar's Feast" was never completed after 30 years of work.

Oh, we appreciate. Trust me. We appreciate.

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