September 6, 2012  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Wikipedia Wiktionary Wiki Commons Tumblr Wikisource YouTube Shop Featured: Reverse Side Of a Painting (1670) by Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts, the start of Proto-Surrealism.

User:Jahsonic/Villon and Rowlandson The Old Harlot's Dream by Thomas Rowlandson.

My friend Paul Rumsey alerted me to this recently discovered Rowlandson watercolor.

I recently purchased some François Villon poetry (superbly translated to Dutch by Ernst van Altena) and the dreaming old harlot of Rowlandson and the ageing whores of Villon call for juxtaposition.

Here is a bit of Villon's "Ballade de la belle heaumière aux filles de joie":

And you, Blanche Slippermaker fair,

I'd have you see yourselves in me :

Look all to right and left take ye ;

Disdain no man ; for whores that bin

Old have nor course nor currency,

No more than money that's called in. tr. John Payne

Other interesting finds include the woodcut "[The Three Hanged Men, from 'Oeuvres' by Francois Villon (1431-63) Pierre Levet, published 1489 (woodcut)]" [[1]] and this other engraving or woodcut[2] from Villon's oeuvre.

Also, if you like old women in art, there is The Old Courtesan[3] by Rodin and Donatello's wooden sculpture of Magdalene.