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Today is World Rhinoceros Day. It's true - we heard it on the radio this morning.read article here:Which is quite a coincidence because, following a tip-off by the Black Bats, we've been researching the history of one of our favorite plays, Rhinoceros (1959) by Eugène Ionesco.
WWF Calls for End to Rhino Poaching on World Rhino Day
As part of that research, we talked with members of a local Theatre of the Actors of Regard tableaux troupe. Ionesco's Rhinoceros was well known to them also. Discussion about that lead us on to Pietro Longhi's Clara the rhinoceros (1751).
Many of his paintings show Venetians at play, such as the depiction of the crowd of genteel citizens awkwardly gawking at a freakish Indian rhinoceros (see image). This painting, on display at the National Gallery in London, chronicles Clara the rhinoceros brought to Europe in 1741 by a Dutch sea captain and impresario from Leyden, Douvemont van der Meer. This rhinoceros was exhibited in Venice in 1751.[2] There are two versions of this painting, nearly identical except for the unmasked portraits of two men in Ca' Rezzonico version.[3] Ultimately, there may be a punning joke to the painting, since the young man on the left holds aloft the sawed off horn (metaphor for cuckoldry) of the animal. Perhaps this explains the difference between the unchaperoned women.
from Wikipedia : Pietro Longhi
Apparently, this painthing was one of the key inspirations for the founding of Theatre of the Actors of Regard.
As is stated in the Wikipedia extract, Pietro Longhi was a Venetian and the scene above is Venetian too. Thus link-by-link we return to our ongoing consideration of Australia's Venice Solution: the proposed AUSTRALIA(N) PAVILION~OFFSHORE
The tip-off mentioned earlier is that Melbourne's mischievous Black Bats have organised with a group of Venetian umbratects (UV) to present today, among the crowd who increasingly gather around the AUSTRALIA PROCESSING FACILITY in the Giardini Pubblici, an umbratecture performance after Ionesco' Rhinoceros.
AUSTRALIA : Doors Closed _ file photo
While that is happening in Venice, in the Australia(n) Parliament the Gillard/Labor Party government will attempt to amend the law that the High Court recently ruled illegal, the sending of asylum seekers to places Offshore for Processing.
Asylum bill due for vote today
Michelle Grattan
THE AGE, September 22, 2011
detail
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/
someone looks at something ...
LOGOS/HA HA