Ian S wrote:
What about the Virginia Plain painting ? Any opinions ? I think it looks a bit amateurish and clumsy. Or was it delibarate, in a Picasso way ?
The painting looks like an unfinished idea that needs more work, and obviously doesn't match the glamour and multiple imagery and puns of the subsequent song....descriptions I've read about this watercolour included the "fact" the painting was a triple pun - the girl is called Virginia Plain, she's on a cigarette packet containing virginia plain tobacco, and the whole setting was a plain in Virginia - Can't see the third bit here. Another story I heard (from a former Newcastle art student), was that the girl was actually sitting on a huge cigarette packet in the desert plain.....and was like a giant billboard ad......and given the cover of the debut album I'd love to think this is the true version!
The Pop Art movement (and yes I am a former art student) heralded a lot of emphasis on ideas rather than developing traditional skills and craft, and some artists (and a helluva lot of us students) got away with promoting the idea above the skill and execution/presentation of the idea, which, generally speaking, only comes after years of practice.
Peter Blake, for example, when asked why so many of his "enigmatic" portraits looked unfinished, just admitted that he wasn't very good at painting eyes! Great guy.
Thesis over.....