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Swimming in art: more or less well-known works

The theme proposed today is related to the element of water, to the place of the sea, or the swimming pool, in which the bodies of the wet dabblers delight in diving, moving their arms and legs, holding their breath under the more or less salty surface, aimed at nullifying the weight of their bodies and sometimes even that of their thoughts, assimilating them to the lightness of the current summer season. Such a description, traceable to a common moment of your days in the hot month of August, can be experienced not only live, but also through the mere observation of some masterpieces of art history, which, more or less known, have investigated the theme in question. Therefore, it will be interesting to get wet progressively, starting from the wrists until completely submerging the head under water, within a figurative narrative, which, first dedicated to the explication of the most popular paintings of the subject, will proceed by showing the lesser-known ones, in order to acquaint you with their value, surprising you through the treatment of subjects that are not so obvious and commercial, compared to those that are already well spread on the web. Beginning with the indispensable works of art, if we wish to approach the subject of the human figure intent on anxiously heading into the water to toddle, I would certainly start with the oldest must-see of the genre: the Tomb of the Diver, an artifact of the funerary art of Magna Graecia, evidence of figurative painting from the period datable between 480 and 470 B.C., made with the fresco technique and discovered in 1968 about two kilometers south of Paestum (Campania, Italy). This very chest tomb takes its name from the depiction it has on the cover slab: the image of a young diver, which, together with the other four slabs of the artifact, clearly refers to the context of the symposium, to be understood as that phase of Greek banqueting devoted to the consumption of wine, listening to music and poetry. In fact, the symposia scenes could also allude to a funeral banquet, with which the iconography of the plunge would seem to be associated, to be understood as the precise instant in which one abandons life to throw oneself into the arms of death, so much so that the blocks from which the fresco's protagonist jumps might deliberately allude to the Pillars of Hercules, a mythical boundary placed to mark the end of the known world, in which water takes on the meaning of a metaphor for the afterlife, the unknown and the perhaps unknowable purpose of our existence. Continuing with the description of another well-known work of art depicting, among other things, some swimmers, I deliberately avoid dwelling on the analysis of the widely exploited point views on the subject expressed by David Hockney, choosing to consider a well-known tempera on canvas by Gentile Bellini (1429 - 1507), Italian painter and medallist citizen of the Venetian Republic, who was extremely popular for his peculiarly Venetian "bello" style, aimed at manifesting itself mainly in large-scale narrative paintings in which cities and citizens of the late fifteenth century are depicted in detail. It is precisely in this context that the aforementioned Miracle of the Cross Falling into the San Lorenzo Canal (1500) fits in, one of the earliest examples of Venetian vedutism, capable of externalizing a detailed depiction of the canal, its foundations and the characters involved in the sacred event, who are captured, as swimmers or otherwise, in revealing portraits of their social status, aimed at revealing themselves through their very clothing and accessories. 

Gentile Bellini, Miracle of the Cross at the Bridge of S. Lorenzo (1500). Tempera on canvas, 323×430 cm. Venice: Accademia Gallery.

The miracle in question is described by means of an accurate chronicle, including architectural and coloristic details of the buildings of the world's best-known city on the water, where, near the bridge of San Lorenzo, the center of the representation, the aforementioned relic fell, the object of the attentions of the multitude of people, who overlap in suspended contemplation. It is precisely the presence of such a crowd that allows me to juxtapose Bellini's aquatic tale with that narrated by three other lesser-known works aimed at shaping a progressive increase in the number of characters depicted in the water, captured by Edvuard Munch's Naked Men in Swimming Pool (1923), Jeffery Camp's Swimming (1959), and Leon Kossoff's Children's Swimming Pool, Friday Evening (1970). In fact, if the subjects captured in the canal by Bellini number six, those immortalized in the glimpse of the pool painted by Munch are reduced to five, to increase to ten in Camp's interpretation and explode into a vast and indefinite multitude in Kossoff's chaotic vision. Finally, in introducing precisely these last two artists, perhaps not even known to you, it is good to highlight how Michie (1928-2015) was a well-known Scottish painter, particularly popular for his dark-toned works, which, lightened by flashes of bright color, primarily pursued the intent of showing scenes inspired by travel. In any case, his work, speaking in more general terms, can often be traced back to the treatment of everyday themes, which he lent himself to observe through a sometimes humorous approach. As for Kossoff (1926 - 2019), however, the theme of water and aggregation are quite recurrent in his artistic investigation, so much so, that, the intents of the aforementioned Children's Swimming Pool, Friday Evening seem to be repeated in such masterpieces as Children's Swimming Pool, Autumn Afternoon (1971) and Children's Swimming Pool, Autumn (1972). From a more general point of view, the latter Russian-born British artist turns out to be particularly well known for his portraits, life drawings, and cityscapes depicting London. Finally, I wanted to implement the above narrative with some thematic works created by Artmajeur artists, such as: The swimming lesson by Mr. Strange, Intuition by Alexandre Barberà-Ivanoff, and Swimming5 by Vishalandra Dakur.

2015- MUMBAI (2015)Painting by Marylin Forestier Le Bot.

THE SWIMMING LESSON (2022)Digital Arts by Jean-Marie Gitard (Mr STRANGE).

The swimming lesson by Mr. Strange

Time has stood still, while a woman remains trapped in her now static movement, which seems to emulate the pose of a diver, ready to plough the roughest seas, through the simple move of her arms, which, combined with the flapping of her feet on the surface of the water, she was taught as a child, in order not to drink nor fear the water of the sea, but to move within it with great familiarity. Time has also stood still for the sea, which observes the aforementioned girl crystallizing in the motion of a wave, which we do not know whether it will ever break, whether it will ever guigaw to touch the shore by scrambling across the sand. This description, distinctly marked by a suspended atmosphere, illustrates the often Surrealist and ironic digital art of Mr. Strange, a contemporary French artist, who has gradually moved away from classical painting to become interested in polymorphous forms, mixing painting and sculpture, culminating in his experimentation with the digital medium, with which he makes his subversive, hybrid and sometimes absurd photographic manipulations. The themes he investigates are the most disparate, extending from birth to death, from the individual to society, which are addressed through a reflective, poetic and caustic intent, centered on his personal and sensitive discovery of the world, which, in the case of The swimming lesson, probably leads us to reflect on the importance of preparing ourselves, both psychologically and in practice, before embarking on every challenge, every adversity, as well as every stage of our existence: from the simplest, such as swimming, to the most complex...

INTUITION (2023)Painting by Alexandre Barberà-Ivanoff.

Intuition by Alexandre Barberà-Ivanoff

In Alexandre Barberà-Ivanoff's oil on paper, a young and lusty naked man is sucked into a vortex of water, a claustrophobic sensation that it is possible to experience, whether in a disastrous marine accident, or in the development of the saddest states of our minds, when emotions overwhelm us and we no longer know how to control them, favoring ugly thoughts to encompass us, to take us into the deepest abysses of our unconscious, where we encounter monstrous and multiform fears. According to the artist of Artmajeur, however, the remedy to the ills of the soul lies in intuition, a faculty that allows us to float above the aforementioned eddies, safeguarding the extremities of our bodies with the extension of our arms culminating in our little fingers, capable, as in the case of the protagonist of Intuition, of placing ourselves between the storm and our being, preventing the destructive fury of nature from touching us. In fact, if we look closely at Alexandre Barberà-Ivanoff's painting, it is precisely this small body part that keeps the sea away, struggling with it to drive it away, trying to recover even the legs, which have now become invisible parts of the marine world. Speaking of the artist from Armajeur, on the other hand, Alexandre Barberà-Ivanoff studied painting from the age of 12 at a private atelier with painters Christian Welter, Gerard Di-Maccio, and Jean Bertholle, drawing inspiration from a variety of cultures, eras, and influences, drawn from Russian and Spanish, as well as French, roots. Finally, it is worth highlighting how the peculiarity of his figurative paintings is to represent a concretization of the balance of elegance and discomfort, masculine and feminine, light and dark, rational and irrational, as well as fear and courage.

SWIMMING5 (2022)Painting by Vishalandra Dakur.

Swimming5 by Vishalandra Dakur

The close-up of the half-bust of a young girl, who, underwater, is immortalized as she pushes air out of her nose, creating bubbles that partly overlap her features, immediately made me think of what I feel when I dive into the sea, imagining that I am in another dimension, where to the perceived muffled noises I can no longer respond, because, otherwise, I would fill my mouth with water. It would be like listening to someone with a blindfolded mouth, but also hearing speeches to which we do not know how to respond, perhaps because they touch us too much, or because they already summarize much of what was to be said. In any case, the protagonist of Artmajeur's work seems simply serene, caught up in enjoying the freshness of the water, the lightness of her body and the stillness, which lurks beneath the world inhabited by man. Leaving aside other submarine discourses, Vishalandra Dakur is a contemporary Indian artist born in 1950, trained in realism, who, later, opted for experimenting with impasto painting, achieved by blending the peculiarities of Indian art with Western tones. Such stylistic features concur to shape intensity and movement, with extensive references to the artist's personal history and experiences, which are rendered by means of a tendentially dynamic motion, in which lines take on aesthetic significance, capable of describing even the most complex human feelings.