Thursday 21 March 2013

The Easter Bunny


EASTER BUNNY NUMBER 555

The man in this marvelous painting by George Baselitz which I recently saw for the first time at the Essl Museum of Contemporary Art near Vienna was born on an Easter Saturday. He became a political leader who quickly realized that people liked to worship symbols. He took the golden cross of the sun, such as the one I saw painted on the side of a sky blue box in the tent of a Tibetan nomad on my TV yesterday evening, and being a mediocre art student in his youth, he repainted the cross of the sun as black as night and replaced the sky blue background of summer with his own  blood-red and lily-white striped background. It  wasn't long before thousands of his followers were wearing the black crosses on their armbands and obeying his every satanic whim. Number 555, in case you are wondering, is the man's official NSDAP membership card number. I would recommend anyone visiting Vienna to take advantage of the free bus which runs to the Essl Museum for there is always something of more than passing interest to see. The museum's cafe does good food too!

ps - the picture titles are mine (this post and a post above it). I hope Professor Baselitz doesn't mind. It was Renee´ Magritte who said: Paintings should have poetic titles.


2 comments:

  1. I like Magritte's idea more than I like that painting!

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  2. Think yourself lucky Pat, the artist often paints his subjects upside down! Maybe I could to to write an upside down poem? The last line at the top for the first line and the penultimate line as the second line and so on. Why not? Half the world is already upside down.

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