Ditlev Blunck, Danish
“Oh Good, It Doesn’t Look Like It’s Going To Rain After All. Turns Out I Was Right Not Bringing a Jacket,” 1840-45
Oil on canvas
Follow That Is Priceless on Social Media and GoComics (the Link button):
Click to Follow This Blog or Share This Masterpiece:
Info, or perhaps links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here (archived if necessary), here (Google translated if necessary), and here (Google translated if necessary), perhaps in addition to what’s in his Wikipedia page.
Perhaps more info can be found here.
/// Ditlev Blunck did “The Ages of Man”
for the Danish King after a ban
which expelled him. The truth
is this painting, called “Youth,”
showed he’s too much of young men a fan.
/// Yes, the King did commission to buy
those four paintings from this exiled guy.
Google says these are facts:
“Homosexual acts,”
(which it seems that he didn’t deny).
/// Number two in a series of four,
each has odd cryptic details galore.
The same four figures float
in a wee crowded boat
which, in each scene, moves further from shore.
/// First is “Infancy.” “Youth,” here, comes next.
Third is “Manhood,” then by “Old Age” vexed.
In the fourth, the man’s sad,
(and he’s finally clad).
Need more proof Ditlev was oversexed?
/// A young woman helps steer from the stern.
Who she is, why she’s here— we don’t learn.
But in each scene she’s dressed,
unlike all of the rest
who are naked and male, we discern.
/// We see two boys, with Cupid wings, bare.
One is dark, one is fair with blond hair.
The third nude’s a young man,
and Blunck’s four-painting plan
is that he alone ages while there.
/// Young man looks up and reaches ahead,
his expression not easily read.
If “Youth” somehow could see
what his “Old Age” will be,
he’d stop sailing and turn back in dread.
/// Blunck’s fourth painting is titled “Old Age.”
The man’s still in his cramped floating cage.
On a sea, still and vast,
with a broken-off mast,
he sits mutely resigned. Where’s his rage?
/// How long now since with purpose he sailed.
Note, his female companion’s now veiled.
First we’re born from the womb,
too soon borne to the tomb.
In his weak, ancient body he’s jailed.