Dalliance : Art History Revisited
Nancy Wyllie Dalliance : Art History Revisited pigment print
The Bather
2009
pigment print
17 X 22

For the past eight years I have requested permission to photograph works of art in museums all over the world including The Hermitage, The Louvre, The Vatican Museums and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. While documenting these works, I have often imagined that familiar figures held captive for centuries in marble and paint finally break free of their official poses to fraternize after hours both inside and outside museum walls.
Digital technology has made it possible for me to create unlikely romances, mysteries and a general mischief that playfully reconfigures centuries of art historical fact. Ingres' "The Bather" enjoys some sun by a fountain at the base of the Spanish Steps. Manet's "Olympia" seeks a tryst with a Roman soldier from the Villa Borghese in Rome. Gauguin's island girl in "The Spirit of the Dead Watching" is no longer watched over by a hooded specter. Rather the intrusive European influence of Ingres' "The Princess de Broglie" disrupts Gauguin's vision of pure native terror with the even more horrifying corrupting influence of civilization.
Several works included in 'Arizona Digital Media Investigations,' Northern Arizona University, School of Communications.
Nancy Wyllie Dalliance : Art History Revisited pigment print
Olympia's Tryst
2015
pigment print
17 X 22
Nancy Wyllie Dalliance : Art History Revisited pigment print
Spirit of the Dead Watching
2015
pigment print
17 X 22
Nancy Wyllie Dalliance : Art History Revisited pigment print
Ingres Interlude
2009
pigment print
17 X 22
Nancy Wyllie Dalliance : Art History Revisited pigment print
Spanish Girl
2014
pigment print
17 X 22
Nancy Wyllie Dalliance : Art History Revisited pigment print
Sargent's Minors
2010
pigment print
17 X 22