dialogue | ZETEO

Jane Horton, Sue Tilley portrait, 2022 ('stab himself')

Sue Tilley after Lucian Freud (Art as Conversation)

January 31, 2022 by William Eaton

Sue Tilley came to fame as a model for the painter Lucian Freud (who died in 2011). She began posing for him in 1991, when she was also working as a full-time benefits supervisor at a London employment agency. Thus, for example, among the several large nude portraits of Tilley painted by Freud, two were named Benefits Supervisor Resting (1994) and Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995). In January 2022, Tilley modeled for an online drawing session hosted by Deryck Henley of […]

Categories: art • Tags: art, dialogue, illustration, portaits

“What are the unreal things, but the passions that once burned one like fire?”

January 4, 2015 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] Given that Mike Leigh and Timothy Spall are now offering us such a rich, idiosyncratic portrait of the painter J.M.W. Turner, and given that the movie, for whatever silly reason, takes a detour to make fun of the art critic John Ruskin, I should begin with this: Who cares whether Mr. Ruskin’s views on Turner are sound or not? What does it matter? That mighty and majestic prose of his, so fervid and so fiery-coloured in its […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: dialogue, History, J.M.W. Turner, John Ruskin, literature, Mike Leigh, movies, Oscar Wilde

“A phrase in connection first with she”

August 24, 2014 by William Eaton

I have long wanted to write in praise of the Bob Dylan song “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word,” a song that Dylan has apparently never recorded, but that Joan Baez has been performing since 1965. In a documentary about Dylan, Baez is shown saying that she was with Dylan when he first heard her recording of the song on the radio. She says that he said, “Hey, that’s a great song!”, apparently having forgotten that he had written […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: Bob Dylan, dialogue, isolation, love, Martin Scorsese, narrative, philosophy of language, poetry, popular music, relationships, songs

Poetry as Conversation

November 8, 2013 by William Eaton

Poetry as Conversation By William Eaton Discussion, orchestrated by William Eaton, of Haikus du temps présent by Mayuzumi Madoka, translated into French by Corinne Atlan (Philippe Picquier, 2012).[1] In a museum gift shop I came across a book of translations, Haiku Love, credited to Alan Cummings of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Included in this volume was the following contemporary haiku which I quite liked: choosing a swimsuit when did I […]

Categories: Review • Tags: Bakhtin, bees, dialogue, French, haiku, Japan, Lacan, poetry