101 Days of Lockdown Art

By Elliott Grey Turner

Elliott Turner designs events, exhibitions and conferences for productions and companies all over the world. As Covid hit, to limit the spread of this virulent pandemic these activities became totally restricted. On the 19th March ’20 he was working at Park Display in Bicester. As a diabetic needing to isolate, he left the office for what he thought would be just a few weeks. Then on 23rd March 2020 to find an activity to occupy himself he decided to mow the lawn. The garden refuse bin was full so he piled the grass clippings at the end of the garden. The clippings looked like a melting snowman, so he put some sticks in with a pair of gloves on, a scarf and a carrot nose with his Panama completed the picture.

He posted it saying: ‘This self-isolation is a piece of piss but I think my grass snowman is melting!’ On the 24th March the bin was emptied, so he filled the bin and put the hat, scarf and carrots on the bin posting: ‘To all of you worried about Mr Grassy the snowman, he’s now self-isolating.’ On the 25th March he power-washed the patio, scoring the letters RIP in the dirt in front of the bin: ‘Sad news everyone. Mr Grassy didn't stay in the bin so now they came and took him away. RIP Mr Grassy.’ On the 26th March Elliott’s eldest son took a photograph of him praying beside the lawnmower in a recreation of Millet’s ‘The Angelus’ and posted: ‘So today we held a quiet service for Grassy, to follow the Covid19 direction there was just one in attendance, sorry Millet.’ Little was he to know that there were to follow 101 days of art recreations in homage to favourite works of art and to artists whose work he has always admired.

This book is a loving tribute to my wonderful mother and how hard she worked trying to educate my brother, sister and I into the joys of art.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brown Dog Books
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781839524516

Book preview

DAY 1

The Angelus

Jean Francois Millet

1859

The fourth-century theologian Saint Jerome said, Fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum, which roughly translates as the devil makes work for idle hands. This book is the work of someone with a lot of time on their hands.

My journey begins on 19th March, fearing the news about this raging Covid-19 pandemic and how people should isolate at home, including those who suffer from certain conditions such as, like myself, type 2 diabetes. I decided to leave work at Park Display Ltd in Bicester, where I had been on a long-term contract on and off for several years. I left for what I thought would just be a few weeks. Who would have thought that it would be more than eighteen months that my profession was put on hold as events, exhibitions and conferences were completely banned in favour of containing the virus.

On the 20th March we sat watching the news as Boris announced plans for restricting movements.

On Monday 23rd March, Boris announced a complete nationwide lockdown, so I decided I had to find ways to occupy my time constructively – cleaning, decorating and tidying up the house and garden.

This social isolation is a piece of piss, but I think my grass snowman is melting.

So I cut the grass, but the green bin was full so I had to pile the clippings to one side. Something about it looked to me like a melting snowman. I stuck some sticks into the pile, put some gloves on the end, put my old Panama hat on top with a scarf, a carrot for a nose and took a photo. I posted a comment on Facebook. This social isolation is a piece of piss, but I think my grass snowman is melting.

The following day, 24th March, they emptied the bin so I filled it with the cuttings, posting a picture of the bin with the hat on top, the scarf and gloves poking over the edge, saying, To all of you worried about Grassy the snowman, he’s now self-isolating. We shall be topping him up with clippings.

On the 25th March, I power-washed the patio and decided to write RIP in the grub, posting the picture and the words, Sad news, everyone. Mr Grassy didn’t stay in the bin so now they came and took him away. RIP, Mr Grassy.

On 26th March, I posed in the garden with my lawnmower, posting a picture with the words, So today we held a quiet service for Grassy; to follow the Covid direction, there was just one in attendance. Sorry, Millet.

Thus began Day 1 recreating works of art – little did I know it was to last for 101 days, five days a week, until the lockdown was eased.

https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/works-in-focus/search/commentaire_id/the-angelus-3048.html

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic

DAY 2

American Gothic

Grant Wood

1930

Last week I ended with a homage to Mr Grassy by evoking memories of the Angelus, an oil painting by Jean Francois Millet completed between 1857–1859. I have decided to continue this theme by reimagining some of the great works of art, revisioned for the self-isolating times we find ourselves in.

Today I have pleasure in presenting you with American Gothic, a painting by Grant Wood created in 1930. Wood was born 1891, he was enrolled in the Handicraft Guild, which was an art school in Minneapolis, an artists’ collective entirely run by women. He taught in Iowa and the School of Art Institute of Chicago. During the First World War, he worked as a camouflage designer for the US military. He lived in Cedar Rapids in the loft of a carriage house with his mother between 1922–1935, working in his studio, which he called 5 Turner Alley.

All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. G. Woods

His 1935 marriage to Sara Maxon was only to last three years. It was while teaching at the School of Art at Iowa University that a colleague denounced him for his moral and religious beliefs. Many believed him to be a homosexual – the American critic Janet Maslin claimed he was known as a homosexual and a bit facetious in his masquerade as an overall-clad farm boy. The university offered him his place back but ill health forced him to decline. His membership of the Mount Hermon Lodge of Freemasons led to him painting The First Three Degrees of Freemasonry in 1921. His lifelong membership further influenced his ethical and moral outlook.

The day before his fifty-first birthday in 1942, he died from pancreatic cancer and is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Anamosa, Iowa. He painted American Gothic in 1930, winning a $300 prize for its submission to Chicago Institute of Art. It depicts a Gothic-revival-style farmhouse, in front of which stands a farmer beside his spinster daughter. The characters were modelled on his dentist Dr Byron McKeeby and his sister Nan. The severity and simple pose and brushwork grew from his love of northern Renaissance paintings and became an icon for Regionalism, an art movement predicated on realistic depictions of simple rural life principally during the Great Depression. It died out when America launched itself into the Second World War, and the economic recovery and industrial boom began. He left behind a body of work which paid homage to the American Midwest, doing for painting what Frank Capra did for the cinema and John Steinbeck did for the great American novel. His painting swiftly joined the American canon, gaining international iconic status like no other painting in the history of the US.

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/6565/american-gothic

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic

DAY 3

The Ambassadors

Hans Holbein the Younger

1533

Yesterday I brought you the delightful American Gothic, today I have pleasure in bringing you The Ambassadors painted in 1533 by Hans Holbein the Younger; it was also known as Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve, the featured characters names. Holbein was one of the most accomplished portraitists of the sixteenth century. He spent two periods of his life in England (1526–8 and 1532–43), portraying the nobility of the Tudor court. Crucially, he enjoyed the patronage of Thomas More, who said to Erasmus, Your painter, my dearest Erasmus, is a wonderful artist.

When More fell from grace, he aligned himself first with the Boleyns and then with Thomas Cromwell. By 1536 he was employed as the king’s painter on an annual salary of £30. His striking front-facing painting of Anne of Cleves did much to persuade Henry VIII to marry her in 1539. Meeting her in real life proved a disappointment to Henry, although most of the court thought she was pleasant enough; indeed it seems it was only Henry who was repulsed by her. At their first meeting Henry burst into her circle disguised as a rowdy courtier. This shocked Anne, so he can only have himself to blame for her cool response to him. Coming from a Puritan background she tended towards a more serious approach to court life. Henry found her rather dour and without a sense of fun. He subsequently named her the "Mare of Flanders". He forgave Holbein for his flattering painting, choosing to turn his ire on Thomas Cromwell for exaggerating her beauty – with the result that Holbein survived but Cromwell was executed.

He painted some of the finest miniatures of all time, Henry and Charles Brandon being his most acclaimed. His 1519 marriage to Elsbeth Binsenstock-Schmid, with whom he had two children, was under pressure due to his absence from Basel, travelling the courts of Europe. He was certainly unfaithful, engaging in acts of infidelity, and was survived by at least two children in London.

Holbein’s famous portrait of Henry VIII (London, National Portrait Gallery) dates from the second of his stays in England. The Ambassadors, also from this period is a supreme display of Holbein’s skill in composing images and in manipulating oil paint to recreate a variety of textures. If viewed from a particular angle, the elongated shape between the men’s feet becomes a skull. This is called an anamorphic depiction, where the artist gets to show their cleverness with imagery. Being a skull it is also called a "memento mori" or "vanitas", images that portend the transience of life and the inevitability of death. Other tricks appear in the picture – the lute has a broken string, to signify the conflict between the secular and clerical worlds. The globe on the shelf below is one of the first depictions of the new projection for globes; this type of globe became known as the Ambassador’s Globe due to its appearance in the picture.

Holbein took to his bed suffering from an infection, where he died aged forty-five in 1543. The location of his grave is unknown, his legacy being recognised as one of the foremost painters of the Tudor period.

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic

DAY 4

La Pietà

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

1499

I hope you all enjoyed yesterday’s offering of The Ambassadors and found time to research the wonderful original, at the marvellous National Gallery website. Today I bring you, reimagined for those self-isolating, La Pietà, which in English translates as The Pity.

It was created during 1498–1499 and is a Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni in St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City. The sculpture is carved out of a single block of the most perfect Carrara marble and is the only work that was signed by Michelangelo himself. He carved the garments on Mary’s lap into a sea of folded drapery, which allowed him to show his virtuosity and superb technique. After his work on the marble was complete, the marble looked less like stone and more like actual cloth because of its multiplicity of natural-looking folds, curves and deep recesses. Mary is depicted in her utter sadness and devastation – she seems resigned to what has happened and becomes enveloped in graceful acceptance. At over 68.5 inches wide by 76.8 inches high, it has been widely described as one of the finest sculptural masterpieces in the world.

Every block of stone has a statue inside it and the task of the sculptor is to discover it. Michelangelo

http://www.italianrenaissance.org/michelangelos-pieta/

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic

DAY 5

The Creation of Adam

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

1512

Yesterday I gave you La Pietà, a wonderful sculpture of Mary and Christ produced by the master Michelangelo. Today I bring you another masterpiece by the great artist – the Sistine Chapel ceiling (Italian: Volta della Cappella Sistina ), painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512. At 134 feet long by 46 feet wide, it is a tour de force.

Central to the ceiling decoration are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, of which The Creation of Adam is the best known, having an iconic standing equalled only by Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, The Hands of God and Adam being reproduced in countless imitations. In the first of the pictures, one of the most widely recognised images in the history of painting, Michelangelo shows God reaching across to Adam and giving life via his touch. In the words of Vasari:

"… a

figure whose beauty, pose and contours are such that it seems to have been fashioned that very moment by the first and supreme creator rather than by the drawing and brush of a mortal man".

Unable to hang from the ceiling my interpretation is from the Sistine Chapel floor. I do hope you get time to explore the web and find out more about this wonderful piece of art, a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark. Michelangelo

http://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/cappella-sistina/volta.html

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic

DAY 6

Elvis I and II

Andy Warhol

1963

Today we move several centuries forward in time to bring you Elvis I and II. This painting was created in 1963 by Andy Warhol in the Pop Art style. The photographic image of Elvis was taken from a publicity still from the movie Flaming Star. This image has become synonymous with the iconic nature of Elvis. It was created using silkscreen ink and spray paint on a silver canvas.

Andy Warhol (1928–1987) was undisputedly one of the most important and influential artists of the twentieth century. He produced many iconic paintings, appropriating images from pop culture such as Marilyn Monroe, Campbell’s Soup Cans, Marlene Dietrich, Mao Zedong as well as Elvis Presley. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons. Lou Reed’s song "Walk on the Wild Side" is an evocation of his time at The Factory.

I hope you had time to discover more about this intriguing painting from the Ago Museum Gallery of Ontario. It was originally bought in 1960 for $6,000 by the Women’s Committee. This was all the money that the committee had at the time. Since then one of Warhol’s similar works, Triple Elvis, sold in 2014 for $81.9 million. That’s the sort of investment we all need to make.

Jumping through time we hope you are enjoying this ramble through the history of the art, which I consider to be the greatest works of all time, all lovingly reworked to reflect our self-isolating times.

In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. A. Warhol

https://ago.ca/collection/object/65/35

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic

DAY 7

Mr and Mrs Andrews

Thomas Gainsborough

1750

To start this week off we travel to the National Gallery in London to discover Mr and Mrs Andrews, regarded as the finest example of the work of Thomas Gainsborough, painted in 1750 when he was just twenty-three years old.

On 23rd March 1960 the painting was purchased for £130,000. In June 2019 a smaller, far less famous painting of his sold at auction for £9 million, making the true value of Mr and Mrs Andrews very difficult to value.

At only 2 feet 3 inches high the painting portrays the recent marriage of Robert Andrews to Frances Carter. Robert was the son of a successful trader in the City and had been at grammar school two years below Gainsborough himself. The critical reception of the painting has waxed and waned over the years, being lauded in the Sixties then derided in the Seventies as being a symptom of the capitalist property relations that legitimise and are sanctioned by the visual sweeping prospect of parkland of this grand estate. The neat parallel rows of corn produced by Jethro Tull’s revolutionary and controversial seed drill show that this is a thoroughly modern and efficient farm. The landscape simply serves to reinforce the ownership and wealth on display. In this tradition the expensive medium of oil-on-canvas itself, and the lack of farm workers in the image are cited as further evidence of his status. Mrs Andrews’ somewhat stiff seated position is said to express her inferior and passive station, as she is placed on display like all the other assets of her husband. Harsh things are said about the appearance and facial expressions of the two sitters, their dress and poses. Mr Andrews carrying a gun leads many to believe that Gainsborough’s intention in making the portrait was in part satirical, something most art historians are unlikely to agree with. Whatever your thoughts on this painting, Gainsborough is credited as the originator of the eighteenth-century British landscape school and was a founding member of the Royal Academy. I hope you find time to explore this wonderful painting in more detail.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ’Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death. T. Gainsborough

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/thomas-gainsborough-mr-and-mrs-andrews

How I kept my sanity during the pandemic

DAY 8

In the Car

Roy Lichtenstein

1963

Yesterday’s romantic painting, Mr and Mrs Andrews, was a beautiful but stilted image of mid-eighteenth-century marriage, stylised and very posed, possessive and male-dominated. Today we explore a more contemporary image of romance. This time we jump to 1963 with Roy Lichtenstein’s evocation of romance, In the Car.

The painting is on a monumental scale, 2200mm wide by 1884mm high. It takes as its theme romance seen through a glamorous, dramatic lens. The original illustration from Girls’ Romance magazine, number 78 from 1961, included a thought bubble which read: "I vowed to myself I would not miss my appointment – that I would not go riding with him – Yet before I knew