do you recognize this woman?

[rm]

Went to the Neue with my parents today. We ate in the little German cafe there and I had to instruct my parents on the finer points of European table settings while my father decided to be intentionally gauche. It's a long and not very interesting story. I spent most of the time staring out the window and cheering on the guy who took 20 minutes to park a tiny car in a big space between two SUVs. "Come on, come on, hit the Tacoma again."

Then we went to the galleries, which I found fairly interesting for someone who doesn't care for most painting. They had a room of photos of the artists, which I appreciated, and it was interesting to watch the mix of visitors which seemed to be Germans, and then Americans who seemed moderately embarassed or unsure of the appropriateness of their interest in German art.

The museum currently has a large collection of work by Egon Schiele, who was known primarily for his erotic (and I do mean erotic) nudes of both men and women. His work is generally disturbing, and his images, particularly of men, have a ghostly, haunted look. I'm oddly fond of some of his portairs of Max Oppenheimer.

At any rate, there was a minor Schiele work there (which is mostly considered minor for not being nude or masturbating, one would imagine), a portrait of some random woman named Elisabeth Lederer that looked exactly like me. Like every facial proportion, down to the smirk in my headshot. Of course, after looking in about twenty Schiele books, and all of the Internet, I can't find a picture of it anywhere, which is quite irritating. But it's seriously weird. Weirder even than the Romaine Brooks stuff. UPDATED: here she is: http://digilander.libero.it/webpainter/megaschiele/lederer.htm

Been listening to The Stars We Are Nearly constantly. What's interesting to me about it is both how evocative it is of when I first acquired it in 1989, and how much it isn't. Unlike many albums I liked in high school it is neither darity dark dark nor tied to any particular crush or woe. Listening to it now, it fits in so oddly with who I am currently, as well as who I was then, and it makes so many recent interests seem less sudden. Among other things it's very earnest while also containing the last recording Nico ever did and laughing its ass off about all of it. It's hard to explain.

I will note that I can't recall my high school yearbook quote, but the following from this album was in the running (and may have even won): "And if one day I don't wake up remember I was good upon reflection, and if I say they was a fool, be cool, but demand correction." But you have to hear it to get how fun and sincere and oddly not jejune the song is. At the end of it, and I had forgotten this is "But sometimes dear my heart's my own, I don't wish to exclude you or distress you." If that had been my high school year book quote, if I had remembered it at all, my life would have been a lot different, a lot sooner. Certainly, I think any number of my insanities can be traced ot the fact that this album features a song entitled Kept Boy.

Ahhhhhhhhh.

Comments

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Is it this one?

Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer

[rm.livejournal.com]

Nope, but I just found the link and added it.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

That's eerie.

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Whoops! I see you found it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Timing!

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

"Be cool, but demand correction."

I'm being cool and suggestin'...

The likeness is, indeed, close enough to be unheimlich.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Aie... I type like shit, thanks.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Speaking of likeness - did you see the pic I posted last week about the woman in the bookstore who looked alot like you circa late 90's ?

Theo agreed.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Just looked. I wish I could say I disagree about why you did a doubletake.

From someone who has never met either

[ekatarina.livejournal.com]

Yes, very much like you. Do you find that cool, creepy, or something in between?

Ekatarina

Re: From someone who has never met either

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's very strange. Oddly, there is one other painting that looks very much like me that was painted by someone else entirely (as a self-portrait) in 1912, the year before this Schiele. I'm now thinking that as an art model, there's a one woman show in this.

Re: From someone who has never met either

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

You have a very intertesting face- the sort that artists want to examine and explore.

[anathemadevice.livejournal.com]

That's spooky

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

It's always spooky to find random antique art that resembles oneself, and that one's decidedly a little spooky, in a really neat way.

My father inexplicably thinks I vaguely resemble the _Girl with a Pearl Earring_, which I can't see. There is also somewhere a marble frieze of a young girl (I remember none of the details) that my fifth grade principal sent my family a postcard of because it shockingly resembled my fifth-grade self. Thankfully I no longer resemble my fifth grade self in the least.

I am reminded to be grateful that my parents, whatever their faults, are never gauche unless it is both deliberate and deserved. I will always admire my father for the time we took an old friend out to an outdoor restaurant and the waiter dumped a lot of wine on her dress, only to return with one napkin which he used on the tablecloth. My father captured a large and angry wasp with a water glass and his bread plate, and gave it to the waiter, asking him to dispose of it.

[00goddess.livejournal.com]

The portrait's eyes are bigger, but otherwise very doppelganger. That's very interesting.

[lllvis.livejournal.com]

Man, that's eerie. In a good way, I like the picture and it does look like you!

Had a similar experience finding an old photo that looked exactly like another friend of mine. The old photo was of a Nazi officer (whose name escapes me for the moment), and my friend happens to be career Army. Talk about disturbing...

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Pray you are never in the car with me should I haev to parallel part. Last time I gave up and drove away after I hit the car in front of me three times. While Two cops stood on the other side of the street.

Otto the insane yet gorgeous Czech art professor took me to an exhibit of Schiele's work while I was in Cesky Krumlov.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes, but people don't paralell park where you live. Here they do, and peopel driving here should have figured this out. Also, the dude was plenty close to the curb, but was being all OCD about it and turning it into a thing. I was bad. But it was that or cheer Dad on about the Jesus thing.

[volund.livejournal.com]

... Americans who seemed moderately embarrassed or unsure of the appropriateness of their interest in German art

Which gives rise to an interesting dichotomy: the embarrassment possibly being due to Germany's Nazi past, contemporaneous or nearly so with much of the art, contrasted with the fact that much of that art and its makers were condemned by that regime.

[czarchasm.livejournal.com]

This is merely proof that you'll travel back in time. Lucky gal....