wallpaper George Segal and Stephen Hansen: on women

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Right: High Maintenance, 2003 by Stephen Hansen

Left: The Curtain, 1974, by George Segal

wallpaper Gauguin's painting on a wraparound

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I came across with this photography that Alan D. Hull shot during his travel to French Polynesia where Gauguin lived after leaving behind his family.

It is a pareo, a wraparound used by women.

I love this Gauguin painting and I think that it is a very beautiful work. I would hang it at my wall if I had it.

Left: Copyright © 2000 by Alan D. Hull

wallpaper Gustav Klimt beyond The Kiss

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I remember when the first search engineer appeared and the few answers we had.

It is amazing that now we are able to find many paintings of an artist, of course still far to have all works of each one, but I believe that in the future we will be able to see all 200 works Gustav Klimt left and much more.

Klimt's most famous oeuvre is The Kiss* and comparing his work having as much as we can would be great.

"Whoever wants to know something about me -- as an artist, the only notable thing -- ought to look carefully at my pictures and try to see in them what I am and what I want to do."

Gustav Klimt

*The Artchive was the first initiative to create a database of paintings on the WWW and I remember when it's founder Mark Harden had to start putting advertisements to continue the project.

wallpaper The girl and the woman going their way

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I came across with Erik van Elven's blog and I loved the painting he did of this young lady, his daughter. I browsed around the blog and from there I went to visit Vicki Shuck's blog and did chose the "Purple boots" because is depicts a woman from the back going her way just like the girl.

(click at the images to enlarge)

wallpaper Woman sleeping by Picasso and Rembrandt

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Picasso's drawing was done in 1952 and Rembrandt in 1654. Three centuries apart and using different representational methods in the essence they suggest the same feeling.

wallpaper Gabriel Metsu at the National Gallery of Ireland

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Vermeer is the most known of the Dutch painters but there were many others competing against each other.

Gabriel Metsu is one of them and the National Gallery of Ireland is presenting an exhibition of his works since September 4 that will end in December 5.

"The subject of love-letters became popular in Dutch art in the 1650s thanks to Gerard ter Borch. Metsu painted many variations of Ter Borch’s works in which he made the subjects more engaging to the viewer. Whereas Ter Borch painted a woman concentrating on writing her missive, Metsu made her look outside the picture. She smiles seductively at us, presumably to invite us to think that she is writing a message to us."

"Metsu was a particularly gifted painter of dogs, which appear alongside many of his figures. While men are usually escorted by a Dutch partridge dog, women entertain themselves with a papillon, a small type of spaniel."

Go to this page and click to see more details of his works.

wallpaper Art and reality: Magritte and Ben Heine

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Art and reality has been a theme for many studies, theories and discussions since the Greeks but artists show with their work what it takes ten chapters to be explained.

René Magritte, the famous surrealist painter, did many works about the illusion of art.

This excerpt explains "The Human Condition", 1933 at the right:

"At first, one automatically assumes that the painting on the easel depicts the portion of the landscape outside the window that it hides from view. After a moment's consideration, however, one realizes that this assumption is based upon a false premise: that is, that the imagery of Magritte's painting is real, while the painting on the easel is a representation of that reality. In fact, there is no difference between them. Both are part of the same painting, the same artistic fabrication. It is perhaps to this repeating cycle, in which the viewer, even against his will, sees the one as real and the other as representation, that Magritte's title makes reference." (emphasis mine)

Ben Heine, Belgium like Magritte, has a series Pencil vs Camera, I did this post about it, where he adds some elements to his photographies with drawings and than take a picture of his creation:

"I took this photo near Rochefort in Belgium. I also drew the rough

sketch on the crumpled paper. I wanted to make something very simple and minimalist. We always need a sun!"

Still, it's a photography. Art is about creating, not copying.

Text sources: Magritte.

Ben Heine.

(Click at the pictures to enlarge)

wallpaper The amazing sketching life of Ken Foster

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It's been a long time I want to publish about Ken Foster's sketches but I always found it very difficult to chose one or two of his amazing works.

I'm just publishing these two because I want to share it with you but I'm thinking about all the others that I didn't publish.

You have to visit Ken's blog and experience his work. The only problem is that you will feel sorry for not being able to draw and having to use a digital camera to register your life.

wallpaper Albert Einstein Memorials at Washington and at Ulm

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Left: "The Albert Einstein Memorial in Washington's National Mall neighborhood is one of the most instantly recognizable landmarks in Washington DC. Measuring 12 feet / 3.5 meters, this large and imposing statue of Albert Einstein is actually seated on a bench, at the front of Washington's National Academy of Sciences." Sculpture by Robert Berks. Photo" By wallyg at Flickr.

Right: detail of "Jürgen Goertz bronze sculpture of Albert Einstein, Ulm’s internationally most famous son, in 1984. It is located on the grounds of historic Zeughaus. (Zeughaus is Ulm’s historic arsenal; today it is home to parts of Ulm’s municipal court.)

It consists of three elements:

The rocket symbolizes technology, the conquest of the universe and the atomic threat.

On this base you see a big snail shell which symbolises the opposite, namely nature, wisdom and scepticism about mankind’s dominance of technology."

"It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."

Albert Einstein

wallpaper Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe "portrayed" by Whistler

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Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

The picture is a pastel by Whistler done in 1890 for one of the most famous of Poe's poem Annabel Lee.

wallpaper Whistler's Arrangements in Gray: Portrait of mother and Portrait of Carlyle

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The "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. I", known as Whistler's Mother, is an American icon but he did "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 2" that portrays the poet Thomas Carlyle that is not that popular.

Whistler did a painting for Edgar Allan Poe's poem Annabel Lee that I will publish tomorrow.

wallpaper Poetry in a toilet paper roll: Anastassia Elias collages

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She says she is a grandma and this is her site where you can see how talented she is.

This is how she explains the collages on toilet paper:

"I cut the small paper shapes that I stick inside the toilet paper rolls. I use tweezers to manipulate the paper shapes. I selecte the paper of the same color as the roll. It gives the illusion that the paper figures make part of the roll."

I will surely publish more of her works.

Thank you Anastassia Elias for bringing more poetry to this world!

(click at the images to enlarge)

wallpaper Botticelli: Madonna with Child and Madonna of the Book

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Right: Madonna of the Book: ca 1483

The Madonna del Libro is a design that is extremely gentle and beautiful; it is a small vertical format panel painting. Mary and the Child are sitting in a corner of the room in front of the window, and her hand is resting on an open book. Some words are visible, showing that this is a Book of Hours, the Home beatae Mariae. As a symbol of his future Passion, the Christ Child is holding the three nails of the Cross and the crown of thorns.

Botticelli created the additions to the scene with a great deal of loving detail, and the ensemble of boxes and a lavish fruit bowl is very much like a still-life. The parchment pages of the book, the materials and the transparent veils have an incredibly tangible quality to them. Another refinement of Botticelli's painting is the gold filigree with which he decorated the robes and objects. The use of expensive gold paint was a result of a contractual agreement made with the clients, which laid down the price of the painting.

Left: Madonna and Child, 1478

There is a strict symmetrical structure to the composition with its life- size figures, and the finely toned down colors are very charming.

Surrounded by eight wingless angels, Mary is breastfeeding her Child. There is direct eye contact with the observer, involving him in the intimate scene. The angels are holding lilies, the sign of Mary's purity, and are engaged in antiphonal singing: while some of them are calmly waiting to start, the others are singing and reverently looking at a hymn book.

Source: Sandro Botticelli.

wallpaper Happy Halloween TIME: Clocks by Salvador Dali

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These are two works by Salvador Dali, a painter I admire for the techniques he masters, that talks about time.

Time is never enough and one of the reasons for stress.

That is why I did chose time as a theme for this Halloween.

Happy Halloween! The next one is just around the corner and it seems it was yesterday I wrote this post, and this one about last year's Halloween.

wallpaper The Moulin de la Galette by Renoir and Picasso

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This is the moulin de la galette where people went to dance instead of watching dancers like in the moulin rouge.

It was depicted by some impressionists like Renoir, right painting, and also by Picasso, left.

"An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature."

August Renoir

"Painting is a blind man's profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen."

Pablo Picasso

These quotations explain a little the difference of both painters.

wallpaper Ingres and Goya's works that inspired Robert Ballagh

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Left: The Turkish Bath, 1862, by Ingres

Right: The Shootings of May Third 1808, 1814, by Francisco Goya

As I promises yesterday these are the paintings by Ingres and Goya that Robert Ballagh celebrates (post below). If you want to know more about Goya you can read this article by Kenneth Clark.

wallpaper Robert Ballagh dialog with tradition

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"Robert Ballagh is an Irish artist born in Dublin. He graduated from the Dublin Institute of Technology. He is both a painter and designer. His painting style was strongly influenced by pop art and his paintings are often playful and didactic. He began with an apprenticeship to the painter Michael Farrell and taught himself the rest."

Left: it is based on an Ingres work

Right: it is based on a Goya.

Still don't know? Tomorrow they will be here.

wallpaper The Great Odalisque by Jean Dominique Ingres

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Left: The Great Odalisque, 1814, by Ingres
Right: Detail

wallpaper Cezanne's studio in Aix en Provence

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This is Cezanne's, "the father of modern art", studio in Aix en Provence where he spent most of his time.

" A long shelf is hung on the western wall...

A table, a drawer, a short ladder, a high easel,
a potbellied store, a sofa, a few chairs, the items that posed for his "still life",
are basically the only furniture present in the closed world of Cézanne.
a few locally decorated vases, a ginger jar and an olive pot,
a fruit bowl, a plate, a glass, a bottle of rum, three skulls, a little "plaster cupid" by Francois Dusquenoy are still today the famous models of the painter."

You can find more here.

wallpaper Cézanne's still-life inspiring Gauguin and Maurice Denis

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Compotier with Glass, 1879-1822 by Cézanne

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As I pointed in Toulouse-Lautrec's Van Gogh portrait impressionists used to homage their friends by depicting oeuvres of each other.

"Compotier with glass" is at the background of "Portrait of a woman with Cezanne's Still Life" by Gauguin who owned the painting for a period of time, and also at Maurice Denis's "Homage to Cézanne".

In Gauguin's work the painting is part of the structure of the picture, it is the background of the scene but it treated in such a space that it doesn't lose importance.

Maurice Denis put Cezanne's work exposed in an art gallery surrounded by friends and critics.

If you write "still-life" in a search engineering it's almost certain that Cézanne will be on top because his influence is still present in our times.