{"@context":["https://schema.org","https://art-official.org/ns/"],"@type":"VisualArtwork","@id":"https://bernardbolter.com/the-stage","name":"The Stage","url":"https://bernardbolter.com/the-stage","dateCreated":"1994","creator":{"@type":"Person","name":"Bernard Bolter","alternateName":"Bernard John Bolter IV","identifier":[{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"Wikidata","value":"https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q140782973"}],"@id":"https://bernardbolter.com/bio#person"},"artMedium":"Mixed media on canvas","width":{"@type":"QuantitativeValue","value":60.96,"unitCode":"CMT"},"height":{"@type":"QuantitativeValue","value":60.96,"unitCode":"CMT"},"isPartOf":{"@type":"CreativeWorkSeries","@id":"https://bernardbolter.com/series/og-oil-paintings#series","name":"OG Oil Paintings","url":"https://bernardbolter.com/series/og-oil-paintings"},"image":"https://pub-6a869efbfec4404396a52a3b7056bfc7.r2.dev/the-stage.jpg","additionalProperty":[{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"art-official:intent","name":"Intent","value":"Painted around the same time as Space Time (1993-94) as part of a short-lived figure-testing experiment not carried forward stylistically. Loosely informed by Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy — the Apollonian/Dionysian split — read around the time of painting. The artist frames the scene not as violence depicted but as something reenacted or performed on a stage: a formal containment of raw force, consistent with the Apollonian move of giving shape to the Dionysian. The direct Nietzsche reference recurs later in a separate work, Nietzsche's Dream."},{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"art-official:encounterNote","name":"Encounter Note","value":"Two grey figures on a dark ground beneath a hand-painted vortex sky of red-to-green radiating bands. A standing figure, cloaked in maroon, advances on a fallen figure holding a knife; the fallen figure has a gold halo-glow around the head. Blind description held unchanged through the full session — the surface reading was correct from the start; what opened up was the meaning underneath."},{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"art-official:artHistoricalContext","name":"Art Historical Context","value":"Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy — Apollonian/Dionysian split read by the artist around the time of painting; direct influence, later recurring explicitly in the work Nietzsche's Dream."},{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"art-official:sizeTier","name":"Size Tier","value":"md"},{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"art-official:orientation","name":"Orientation","value":"square"},{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"art-official:catalogueNumber","name":"Catalogue Number","value":"BB-OGP-1994-009"},{"@type":"PropertyValue","propertyID":"art-official:dominantColors","name":"Dominant Colors","value":"#D62B1F, #F2A71B, #2E8B7A, #6B1F2A, #4A4A4A"}],"art-official:recordUrl":"https://bernardbolter.com/api/corpus/the-stage","art-official:visionPageUrl":"https://bernardbolter.com/the-stage/vision","art-official:indexUrl":"https://bernardbolter.com/api/corpus/index","art-official:sessionsUrl":"https://bernardbolter.com/api/corpus/the-stage/sessions","art-official:sessionsPageUrl":"https://bernardbolter.com/sessions?artwork=the-stage","art-official:scope":"work","art-official:depth":"record","art-official:tier":4,"art-official:availableTiers":{"1":true,"2":true,"3":true,"4":true,"5":true},"art-official:tierMap":{"1":{"url":"https://bernardbolter.com/api/corpus/index","scope":"corpus","depth":"gist","description":"triage — identity, series, gist"},"2":{"url":"https://bernardbolter.com/api/corpus/index?depth=survey","scope":"subset","depth":"survey","description":"narrowing — description, intent, colors, keywords"},"3":{"urlTemplate":"https://bernardbolter.com/{slug}/vision","scope":"work","depth":"vision","description":"vision analysis — HTML page of model analyses for this work"},"4":{"urlTemplate":"https://bernardbolter.com/api/corpus/{slug}","scope":"work","depth":"record","description":"full record — all fields, all vision analyses"},"5":{"urlTemplate":"https://bernardbolter.com/api/corpus/{slug}/sessions","scope":"work","depth":"sessions","description":"session transcripts — how it came to be known"}},"art-official:relatedByThroughline":[{"name":"Space Time and The Stage both use flat color blocks to represent 'space' balanced against a linear, grid-like structure ","url":"https://bernardbolter.com/statement/throughlines/space-time-and-the-stage-both-use-flat-color-blocks-to-represent-space-balanced-against-a-linear-grid-like-structure-representing-time-by-the-artist-s-own-account-this-was-tested-in-only-these-two-works-and-was-not-carried-forward-as-a-lasting-current-in-the-practice"}],"art-official:relatedByBioEvent":[{"name":"Around the same time as Space Time (1993), the artist tested figure painting in a small cluster of works (The Stage, Cor","url":"https://bernardbolter.com/bio/entries/around-the-same-time-as-space-time-1993-the-artist-tested-figure-painting-in-a-small-cluster-of-works-the-stage-corner-self-portraits-1993-1995-before-settling-into-cityscape-landscape-work-which-came-more-easily-in-recent-years-the-artist-has-felt-a-pull-toward-learning-portraiture-drawing-an-analogy-to-learning-singing-versus-learning-an-instrument-believing-landscape-like-an-instrument-offers-external-structure-to-lean-on-while-portraiture-like-the-voice-has-nowhere-to-hide-a-weak-line"}],"art-official:embeddings":[{"@type":"art-official:Embedding","art-official:model":"clip-vit-large-patch14","art-official:dimensions":768,"art-official:specUrl":"https://huggingface.co/openai/clip-vit-large-patch14","art-official:shortDescription":"Language-informed visual embedding — 768 dimensions","dateCreated":"2026-06-18"},{"@type":"art-official:Embedding","art-official:model":"dinov2-large","art-official:dimensions":1024,"art-official:specUrl":"https://huggingface.co/facebook/dinov2-large","art-official:shortDescription":"Self-supervised visual embedding, no language influence — 1024 dimensions","dateCreated":"2026-07-16"}],"art-official:visionAnalyses":[{"@type":"art-official:VisionAnalysis","text":"A square-format oil painting on canvas, 61x61cm. Two stylized grey figures occupy the lower third against a vertically radiating vortex sky of red, orange, yellow, teal, and green bands — the same hand-painted vortex device seen in Space Time. On the left, a figure with a golden halo-glow around the head lies reclined/fallen, knees bent. On the right, a standing figure wrapped in a dark maroon cloak-like form advances toward the fallen figure holding a knife. The ground is a dark, muddy band grounding the otherwise saturated, non-naturalistic color field. The halo functions as a compositional device separating the figure from the background rather than as symbolic content, per artist testimony. Figures are rendered in a flat, mask-like, simplified style consistent with the early OG Oil Paintings figure-testing cluster (Space Time, Corner, Self Portraits 1993-1995).","art-official:model":"claude-sonnet-4-6","dateCreated":"2026-08-16"}]}