Untitled

Untitled, 2005, Tom McGrath

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?

Death and Life

Death and Life, 1916, Gustav Klimt

For a closer look at this painting, check out Khan Academy's Smart History segment

The Death of Seneca - 2

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.

The Death of Seneca - 1

The Death of Seneca, 1650 - 1675, Luca Giordano

My Motherland can fuck your Fatherland, William N Copley

My Motherland can fuck your Fatherland, William N Copley 

http://www.paulkasmingallery.com/artists/william-n-copley

Women's Bathing Place Oodeypore, India

Women's Bathing Place Oodeypore, India,

Edwin Lord Weeks 

Mrs Stephen Minot (Sally Minot)

Mrs Stephen Minot (Sally Minot) by John Trumbull,