Urban Art Association

have you ever asked Guy Denning a question!!!!, by jimbob68 on Feb 17, 2010 1:00:36 GMT 1, in case the moderators think it is wrong to post a private email I do have Guy dennings permission to put this on this site . I was asking himabout the new work that he has been making and why it was called BEHEMOTH ?
'now I am starting to wish I had nOt!!! here is part of his reply! perhaps it is easier to understand if english is your first language
i think i might come to just see the work and leave the words for others!!Guy also said a box set of prints of this with a drawing in every one will be coming. it is not just all about Giovanna d'Arco !!


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Behemoth was written in 1668 by the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes. It followed his other main political work Leviathan and was not published until 1681, two years after his death.
I have long had a personal obsession with the 1928 film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc. This originated with an interest in the story of Joan of Arc and the twentieth century cultural depiction of her as an ambiguously gendered and androgynous hero. Personally this particular portrayal of Jeanne (by Renée Jeanne Falconetti) is one of the most beautifully acted roles I can think of in cinema. The finale of the film, the trial and execution, never fails to move me to tears. I have watched it repeatedly, frequently almost frame by frame, just to follow and fall into that intense performance. I have frequently referred to Jeanne d’Arc in my earlier work but I have never before set about using this section of a film so thoroughly and intensely as a source of inspiration. Working initially from screen-shots I have made over a hundred preliminary works. From these I have worked towards producing perhaps fifty larger finished drawings and from these I hope to produce a series of finished paintings. I have chosen Jeanne d’Arc, and this specific depiction of her, for two reasons. Firstly, the appeal is of an aesthetic nature. Not just the beautiful visual aesthetic of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s direction and Falconetti’s portrayal, but also the aesthetic of androgyny which has always been a constant in my work through the last twenty years. Secondly, the story of Jeanne d’Arc has an enduring political attraction for many people. Not least for the political right wing of France who have frequently co-opted her story as a rallying figure for a nationalist agenda; in a similar manner to the legend and flag of Saint George in England. This is one of the other reasons I wish to portray her at the end of her life, through the reference of this cinematic depiction. I want to make a stand in reclaiming Jeanne d’Arc from the extreme right and portraying, what I feel, is the real conflict she faced at the end of her life. A loss of general, rather than specific, political faith that could only be resolved by rejecting her spiritual faith. A decision that she was ultimately unable to make despite it resulting in her inevitable burning at the stake. This was a personal crisis of a member of the lowest working class, who acted because her supposed political masters were incapable of acting. When put on trial she was defending one deeply held conviction against another deeply held conviction and this could never be satisfactorily resolved. It is I think, an historical antecedent for the despair felt throughout history, to modern times for the consistent incapacity of the political classes to work for a common good at the expense of their own self-interests.
These works are about this continual loss of political faith by the public throughout recent history. Generally brought into focus by a specific political outrage or scandal and related to the personal through my inspiration derived from Dreyer's film.>>