Bonfire Of The Vanities

I spent a wonderful couple of hours at the Babel exhibition at the National Museum of Art in Osaka this morning. Most of the works were by Pieter Breugel I and Hieronymous Bosch, some of which I have recently already seen at the Belgian Fantasy Art exhibition in Kobe. However, I didn't mind because there were still some incredible paintings on display. For example, Bosch's The Wayfarer was interesting because it showed a more realistic side of the artist with no fantasy elements at all, apart from the allegorical owl representing both wisdom and vice. However, it does show Bosch's typical mix of the sacred and the profane, with a virtuous man looking very much tempted by the woman calling from the brothel.

However, without doubt the highlight of the exhibition was Pieter Bruegel I's The Tower of Babel. I never before appreciated the incredible amount of narrative detail in this painting. For example, white paint spilled from an upper storey onto the workers below making them look like ghosts. The same thing with red paint giving a Hell-like effect. Women hanging their washing out to dry, giving a wonderful juxtaposition of the mundane and the magnificent. Men chopping firewood in the forest. Traders unloading goods from ships in the harbour. Boat building. All that and so much more. The original painting is quite simply stunning in the richness of its colours and its painstaking attention to detail. However, the 300% exact reproduction really helped to make it easier to see all the detail contained in the original which was difficult to see from one meter away (which was as close as you were able to get.)

Another interesting exhibit was a painting called Inside Babel by Katsuhiro Otomo, the manga artist most famous for the groundbreaking Akira, the series which first got me interested in manga and anime.

Without doubt, The Tower Of Babel is now one of my favourite paintings and I would recommend anybody who has the chance to see the original on display to do so, or at least to spend some time examining the painting closely. It deserves your time.