Artwork Title: Sunset Over the Adriatic

Sunset Over the Adriatic, 1910

Joachim Raphaël Boronali

Artwork Title: Sunset Over the AdriaticArtwork Title: Sunset Over the Adriatic
But perhaps a better-known story of one of these fleecings comes from the Montmartre section of Paris, early in the 20th century. There, in the Lapin Agile, a small restaurant and cabaret frequented by such young artists as André Derain, Maurice Utrillo, Amedeo Modigliani, and Pablo Picasso, a plan was hatched to dupe the Modern art-establishment. Café patron Roland Dorgelès, a writer and outspoken critic of new art forms, was the genius of the scheme; his accomplice who carried out the actual painting was Aliboron, nicknamed "Lolo,"the manager's popular donkey. After setting a canvas outside the front door of the Lapin Agile and tying a paintbrush to Lolo's tail, Dorgelès dangled various vegetables in front of the donkey's nose, causing the animal to swish his tail with excitement.¹⁰ The resulting painting was titled Sunset Over the Adriatic, and was attributed to a fictitious Genoese painter called Joachim Raphaël Boronali ("Boronali" being in fact an anagram of Aliboron). When exhibited at the 1910 Salon des Indépendants, the painting earned high praise, and was eventually sold for 400 francs.¹¹ Only afterwards did Dorgelès reveal his fumisterie (prank), when he relayed the true story in the satirical magazine Fantasio, and lambasted the Salon des Indépendants for indiscriminatingly allowing so much work into their shows, that a painting by a donkey could be hung beside those of honest artists. Lolo and the painting became quite famous, and the farce was met with much hilarity, but as widespread as the news of the hoax was, its message had very little effect on the art world. (http://underpaintings1.rssing.com/chan-10103856/all_p7.html)
Uploaded on Jun 28, 2017 by Suzan Hamer

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