cshimokita
[Photo Forum Moderator]
10714
"The Duel After the Masquerade"... the composition
A winter morning in the Bois de Boulogne (a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris). A man dressed as a Pierrot (a stock male character in French pantomime) has been mortally wounded in a duel. A surgeon, dressed as a doge of Venice (leader of the Republic of Venice between 726 and 1797), tries to stop the flow of blood, while a Domino (a loose cloak, worn with a mask for the upper part of the face at masquerades) clutches his own head.
The survivor, dressed as an American Indian, walks away with his second, Harlequin (a mute character in traditional pantomime), leaving behind his weapon and some feathers of his headdress.
Why these masqueraded dudes were dueling is beyond me... It was characteristic of Gérôme to depict not a violent event itself, but the aftermath of violence...
Background information from various websites...
Casey
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"The Elements of a Pictorial Photograph" (1896) by Henry Peach Robinson
In Chapter 19, "Winter Photography" Robinson writes about the difficulty of taking photos in the cold white months... " the fear of rheumatism, neuralgia, colds, fevers, and the multitudinous ills to which suffering humanity is subject from fall of temper...
"The Duel After the Masquerade"... the composition
A winter morning in the Bois de Boulogne (a large public park located along the western edge of the 16th arrondissement of Paris). A man dressed as a Pierrot (a stock male character in French pantomime) has been mortally wounded in a duel. A surgeon, dres...
good example, wish I was there...
I guess the ability to capture and represent the different moods of a snow scene has improved since 1896 ; )
One of my favorite Japanese Photographers...
小島 一郎 (Ichirō Kojima - 1924~1964) from Aomori Prefecture... served the war effort in China during World War II, returning to Aomori, in 1946 he helped out in the family photographic equipment business. Kojima participated in an amateur photography group (...
Casey, you posted one of the above pictures quite a while ago...
...and I was so taken with it I saved it. I then looked at many more of his pictures and I can see why you like them so much. He certainly captured the bleakness of winter perfectly. You can almost feel how cold it is. Regards Kev.
hahaha... I do like his work...
I just ordered his only photo book JPY 4,180 (including tax and delivery). I was surprised that it was shown as available on Amazon JPN... not 100% convinced that Amazon can deliver... we'll see. Casey
I agree fernando...
It looks like Kojima bleached out the area around the middle person's head, and he was known to print the sky darker than exposed. The sky looks to be reworked with sandpaper ; ). The second photo is a nice composition as well, but I could only find a ver...
