My Top 5 Most Popular Instagram Posts 2021
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
Andrey Remnev, Tertia vigilia (Third Watch), 2020 via @andreyremnev
Yes, a woman in a ruff, holding a rooster, was my #1 most popular Instagram post in 2021.
I'm not totally sure what to make of this information, and there are still several days left until the New Year, so the gold medal could yet go to a different post.
In fact, I just posted about sheep sculptures and the invention of the stiletto heel (there's actually a connection here), which is getting a little buzz, so the door isn't shut.
Still, I predict this post of a painting by Russian artist, Andrey Remnev, will safely hold onto the first position. I'd like to believe it was popular because it so perfectly captures much of the tone and intent of my IG feed and the online courses I'm developing.
That's to say, modern artistic interpretations (or re-interpretations) of history and the art of old masters. I admire artists who push us to rethink elements of the past we may take for granted or that reimagine an iconic work to comment on the present.
In my courses, whether we're talking about the history of cocktails or Gothic architecture, I always bring us forward to understand how a topic is viewed and culturally referenced in today's world.
Andrey Remnev is inspired by the Russian artistic movements of the 15th, 17th, and 18th centuries as well as Medieval icon painting, yet there's always a contemporary feel to his work. Many of his paintings focus on women, sat regally and in fancy dresses and pearls, but offer us knowing, unflinching stares.
About his approach, Remnev states:
I discover many techniques in old masters’ works, which I find more advanced than those used by artists today. I learn delicacy of drawing from Ancient Greeks, I take originality and suddenness of the composition from Japanese masters of engraving; in colour I am inspired by artists of the Italian Trecento and Quattrocento, the Great Venetians, and the Dutch painting of the 17th century. I care a lot for Russian art of the 18th century.
This painting incorporates everything from traditional European painting styles to Coco Chanel. “I was thinking about the Dutch sentinel, but my image is female,” said Remnev.
Perhaps this post was well-liked simply because it's gorgeous and rich.
Hypnotic, even.
Maybe it's fitting to leave it a mystery, just like the painting itself.
Meanwhile, what's not a mystery is the subject matter of the rest of my top 5 posts from 2021.
All four other top posts are about the same woman in history — Marie Antoinette.
Ok, so not all of these posts feature Marie Antoinette, but they do channel or relate to the doomed last Queen of France, who was sent to the guillotine in 1793 during the French Revolution.
I’m intrigued.
While a small sample size, the trend in my feed speaks to the enduring mystique of Marie Antoinette and her controversial legacy as well as the emotional aftermath of the French Revolution, felt to this day.
In 2019, the New York Times wrote:
As queen of France for less than two decades, Marie Antoinette was vilified as extravagant and frivolous. Elaborately coifed and plumed, she embodied all the excesses of the French monarchy. The immortal words “let them eat cake” stuck to her glittering veneer, though there is no proof she ever said them.
When she was 37, her life came to a violent end at the guillotine, a year after the Bourbon monarchy was overthrown by the French Revolution.
Yet for more than two centuries since, Marie Antoinette has been the subject of a relentless fascination and revisionist reinterpretations; she has been cast as a martyr of Christianity, victim of misogyny and xenophobia, patron of the arts, and modern-day princess.
Moving left to right, in order of most popular posts:
01| "Marie-Antoinette, † 1793" an artwork from series "Royal Blood, 2000,” (via @studioerwinolaf)
Dutch photographer, Erwin Olaf, is known for his stylized portraiture, staging large-scale images in a cinematic fashion with orchestrated sets and dramatic lighting. His practice often explores issues of historical and contemporary importance as seen in his Royal Blood series, which depicts the deaths of royalty and includes this staged photograph of Marie Antoinette.
A couple of years ago, an exhibition was staged at the very prison where Marie Antoinette was held in the days before her execution at the guillotine (the Conciergerie), tracing her journey from detested queen to a global pop icon. The exhibit displayed many of her surviving personal objects alongside modern-day artistic interpretations of the queen.
Philippe Belaval, the president of the French Center for National Monuments, says: “There is no doubt she conspired with France’s enemies and it’s no secret she did not approve of the French Revolution so we cannot avert our eyes from her political actions. But like the Princess of Wales, Marie Antoinette was a young, beautiful royal who was a little unhappy and who was the victim of political circumstances. She was not prepared for the situations she had to confront; her destiny was tragic.”
Indeed, the photographer of this image has her costumed in such a way to symbolize everything she was reviled and ultimately killed for. However, she also holds her own head, which to me seems to indicate a gesture of accountability.
In reality, Marie Antoinette did meet her execution with dignity but was dressed in a simple white nightgown. She was only 37 years old, and her blond hair had gone white almost overnight. She was hemorrhaging blood, possibly due to uterine cancer, and had just sat through a 32-hour trial over two days.
02 | "Echoes of Rococo,” 2017, Alexia Sinclair (via @alexiasinclair)
From Alexia Sinclair’s 2017 “Echoes of Rococo” exhibition at James Freeman Gallery:
In the eighteenth century the term 'rococo' was initially intended as a slur, a flippant reference to fancy curves and fantasy sea-shells. But for a style discounted as superficial from the start, the rococo has had a remarkably enduring influence.
Alexia Sinclair combines rococo flamboyance with contemporary fashion photography, creating theatrical re-imaginings of the eighteenth century French & English courts that are threaded with influences from historical painting. At every step, there is an exquisite attention to detail: her costumes are handmade from embroidered silks and muslins, her flowers grown specifically for the purpose, ensuring a textural richness and visual exuberance at every level in her scenes. This is contemporary rococo as a dramatic act, a lucid indulgence in luxuriousness and invention.
03 | "Autumn Gold Bloom," 2021, Sabine Pigalle (Via @SabinePigalle)
This piece does not depict Marie Antoinette, but her sister-in-law, Madame Élizabeth de France, youngest sister to Louis XVI.
Remarkable as much for her exuberant personality as for her great piety, Élisabeth remained loyally devoted throughout her life to her brother and sister-in-law, even during the French Revolution. She was also executed at Place de la Révolution in Paris during the Terror. She is regarded by the Catholic Church as a martyr and was declared a Servant of God by Pope Pius XII.
Digital artist and photographer, Sabine Pigalle, started out in fashion photography. In recent years she has committed to personal research focused on the reinterpretation of myths, history, religion, and paintings particularly of the Mannerism, Renaissance, and the Flemish Primitives periods. Her creative intervention is based on the introduction of contemporary elements and stylistic features in the works of internationally best-known and appreciated great masters of painting.
The resulting effect is a revisiting of the work that sometimes gets to change its own identity or original meaning – for example changing the main character’s face in a portray.
04 | "Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743–1794) and Marie Anne Lavoisier (Marie Anne Pierrette Paulze, 1758–1836)," 1788, Jacques Louis David (Public Domain via The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The Met recently uncovered a mystery that we didn't even know we had on our hands.
Jacques Louis David’s landmark neoclassical portrait of Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, widely considered the father of modern chemistry, and his wife, a key collaborator in his experiments, recently underwent a careful examination and conservation effort for the first time since its arrival at The Met in 1977.
While removing a degraded synthetic varnish on the painting’s surface, the museum conservator noticed points of red paint showing through, particularly at Madame Lavoisier’s head and dress as well as the tablecloth.
Turns out, during the French Revolution, the original painting was completely reworked to present the couple as modern, progressive, and scientifically-minded, and intentionally conceal their identity as wealthy, privileged, fashionable tax collectors.
Beneath the austere background, Madame Lavoisier had first been depicted wearing an enormous hat decorated with ribbons and artificial flowers. The red tablecloth was once draped over a desk decorated in gilt bronze. And guess what? The scientific instruments were also added later!
Museum curators found the hat Madame Lavoisier was wearing in a contemporary fashion plate (see second image).
The revelations wouldn't have been possible without very recent developments in infrared and X-ray technology.
Thanks to the re-worked painting, we remember the couple for their scientific contributions but, at the time, the effort did not save Monsieur Lavoisier. He was sent to the guillotine in 1794.
