If you are a lover of printed words, you would know how much of your time is taken by books alone. Then one day, sooner or later, you discover a huge vacuum within that you know next to nothing about other art forms. This blog is an attempt to fulfil one such lacunae in the art of painting. We intend to look up a random painting and upload it with a link here every day whilst having our daily cuppa coffee. In this way at least we hope to be better acquainted with colours, colourers and the schools than what we are now.If you wish to be a part, you know where to shout.
Prager Staße or the Prague Street, 1920, Otto Dix one of the great arts to come out of WW1. Dix, who was a first world war veteran, celebrated the idea of the war as a force - bravery that made the conflict and lack of bigotedness in it. This was in an age when wars were generally seen as an exercise of strength and will. However, over the next few years, upon witnessing the untold suffering and indignity imposed by the war, Dix began to transform his views and started painting scenes to capture its horror along with the social and political turmoil building within the post world war Germany.
Prague Street ( 1920) depicts a scene at the leading fashion street in Dresden, Germany. Before a glass showroom of a shop displaying mannequins,and artificial limbs, like in other Dix plantings, two grotesque and crippled veterans are shown begging. A woman dressed in apparent expensive pink outfit along with a dog walks past without glancing at them. A stray dog loiters in the corner.One of the boards, perhaps belonging to the veteran, displays a sign Juden Raus! ( Jews Out)
The painting though not exceptional in terms of technique or innovation of the age ( 20s) , it almost amounts to a photograph of political precision.
Devant le théâtre du Vaudeville, Paris, 1900, Jean Béraud
Cat and Bird, Paul Klee, 1928
The Last Judgement ,
Hieronymous Bosch One of the famous Bosch paintings that shows Bosch's unique skills and is consistent with the overall motif of his work. I just wanted the detail of the middle panel of the painting but could not locate it online, hence posting the whole triptych.
A very clever piece by Albrecht Dürer, 1506.
Rapids on the Nakabusa River, Yoshida Hiroshi
Salome dancing before Herod : Gustave Moreau, 1875
Berlin Street Scene, Ernst Kirchner
Anton Braith, ( Sometime during 1874 - 1894)
Three Women in Church, Wilhelm Leibl
Painting with Two Balls, Jasper Johns
Nobody Like me , 1<3
You can find more about this here:
http://www.streetartnews.net/2014/02/i-nobody-likes-me-new-mural-vancouver.html
My Friend Brien, 1913, Robert Henri
A day early , but Happy Valentines Day everyone! Do what you do best!
La Tour Eiffel et Jardin du Champ de Mars, Robert Delanauy, 1922
Banksy on Class and Establishment, somewhere in Bristol, England.
( apologies for the poor resolution , old phone)
Fanfare, Miriam Schapiro, 1968
McGrath is a personal favourite. I find a lot of resonance in the way he captures blurring whether the view is through a windshield or an aeroplane window or any other moving(?) object. Is the vision clouded, is the entire perception blurred? Is it the impermanence of everything?
The Death of Seneca, 1773,
Jacques-Louis David
This painting seems to be more intent on offering enticing elements to the eye rather than capturing the agony of that ordered attempt at suicide. I prefer the
Luca Giordano version to this one.
Alain De Botton in his book
The Consolations of Philosophy writes:
David's rococo version of the scene was not the first, nor the finest. Seneca appeared more like a reclining pasha than a dying philosopher. Paulina, thrusting her bared right breast forward, was dressed for grand opera rather than Imperial Rome. Yet David's rendering of the moment fitted, however clumsily, into a lengthy history of admiration for the manner in which the Roman endured his appalling fate.
My Motherland can fuck your Fatherland, William N Copley
http://www.paulkasmingallery.com/artists/william-n-copley
Women's Bathing Place Oodeypore, India,
Edwin Lord Weeks
Back Where You Belong, Jack Vettriano
Room in New York, Edward Hopper
Timeless Beauty, Mark Spain
Sunset Beach, Mark Spain.
It hangs in my study; I like the ambience: - the sea-washed beach, the angle of the subject, the perspective, the car- all together remind me of an era, gone or perhaps lost ?
Can't ignore the uncanny resemblance to the style of Jack Vettriano.
The Wounded Angel, Hugo Simberg
Elle Loge La Folie, Roberto Matta
Haystacks at Chailly at Sunrise, 1865, Claude Monet
An early representation of haystacks. When Monet did the famous haystack series later in his painting life he is said to have propped multiple canvases with each canvas capturing the play of light on hay at a certain point of time in the day. The BBC series on The Impressionists shows Monet flitting from one canvas to another in sheer joy as the light changes.
Self-Portrait, 1547, Tintoretto
Friedrich Caspar David, 1809
Suprematist Composition, White on White , Kazimir Malevich
Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, Leonardo da Vinci
Hey Art Lovers!
Quick update on two great art viewing sources on the web:
The Google Art Project, recently updated to include more than 30,000 works of art
Wikipaintings, in beta, aims to be an encyclopedia of fine art. You may
contribute too.
Enjoy!
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