“Everything you can imagine is real”*…
Gregory Frank Harris, Tea in the Garden, c. 1953
A mash-up of fine art and current SMS messages…
From the sacred…
Diego Velazquez, Christ Crucified, 1632
…to the profane…
Jacques-Louis David, Male Nude Known as Hector, 1778
… readers will find oh so many more at If Paintings Could Text…
Rosa Bonheur, Portrait de Col. William F. Cody, 1889
[TotH to @mattiekahn]
* Pablo Picasso (whose paintings-with-texts are here)
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As we just hit “send,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1545 that François Rabelais received the permission of King François I to publish the Gargantua series– Gargantua and Pantagruel as we know it. In fact, Rabelais’ wild mix of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes, and songs had been circulating pseudonymously for years.
Rabelais wrote at a time of great ferment in the French language, and contributed mightily to it– both in coinage and in usage. But his influence was even broader (Tristram Shandy, e.g., is full of quotes from Rabelais) and continues to this day via writers including Milan Kundera, Robertson Davies, and Kenzaburō Ōe.
