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,

Summer Evening, Edward Hopper

Back Where You Belong

Back Where You Belong, Jack Vettriano

Room in New York

Room in New York, Edward Hopper

Timeless Beauty

Timeless Beauty, Mark Spain

Sunset Beach

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. 

Portrait of Artist's Mother

Rilke, Portrait, Moscow, 1928

Rainer Maria Rilke, Portrait, Moscow, 1928, Leonid Pasternak

Self-Portrait, 1906

 Self-Portrait, 1906, Paula Modersohn-Becker

Great American Nude, Tom Wesselman

The Wounded Angel, Hugo Simberg

The Wounded Angel, Hugo Simberg

Gran Cairo, Frank Stella

Gran Cairo, Frank Stella

Elle Loge La Folie, Roberto Matta

Elle Loge La Folie, Roberto Matta

Haystacks at Chailly at Sunrise

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.

Venice, 1899

Venice, 1899, Roger Fry

Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait, 1547, Tintoretto

Monk by the Sea

Friedrich Caspar David, 1809

Suprematist Composition, White on White

Suprematist Composition, White on White , Kazimir Malevich

Tianenmen

Tianenmen , Zeng Fanzhi

Toxic beach ? Radioactive waste / reworking of Singing Butler

Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani

Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani, Leonardo da Vinci