The Kiss by Gustav Klimt

(right picture: detail)

I thought that I had to publish "The Kiss", 1908, by Klimt even thou it is very famous but since Munch's painting is at the post below it is easier to compare them.

I could swear that the couple is the same in another place shrouded in gold on a bed made of flowers.

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Munch's The Kiss: "I try to dissect souls"

Right: The Kiss, 1895. etching

Left: The Kiss, 1897. painting

These are two versions of Munch's "The kiss" that inspired Gustav Klimt's famous painting with the same title.

Some of Munch's quotations explain not only his intentions, and the expressionist attitude, but also distance him from impressionism:

"No longer shall I paint interiors, and people reading, and women knitting. I shall paint living people who breathe and feel and suffer and love."

"Certainly a chair can be just as interesting as a human being. But first the chair must be perceived by a human being... You should not paint the chair, but only what someone has felt about it."

"Just as Leonardo da Vinci studied human anatomy and dissected corpses, so I try to dissect souls."

"I do not paint what I see, but what I saw."

Edward Munch

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Auguste Renoir: "your favorite painting is at a private collection"

Right: Self-portrait, 1910

Left: Woman with a necklace, 1910

I was searching for Renoir's paintings that I do not know and I noticed that many of his paintings are at private collections including the two above and some that I have published.

At this site there is a list of Renoir's paintings with the indication of their whereabouts and 47 are at private collections at the hands of people who might not even admire the artist and have them as a way to show how wealthy and powerful they are. The real number of Renoir's paintings at private collection I did not find yet and what these 47 have in common is that they were all done in 1910.

This is really sad thinking that these paintings are in the possession of people who seldom look at them and are maybe storing them in an ambient that might not be appropriate for conservation.

But this is the market of art and there is nothing to be done about it but it is amazing that the name of those who possess what is world's heritage is not known facilitating the black marketing of famous works of arts that are stolen.

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The insanely astonishing universe of Karin Taylor

This is magical, fantastic, incredible, incredibly beautiful, so cute, these colors!, childhood, elephant in my garden!, amazing, and so many words pop in your head while you are browsing Karin Taylor's portfolio.

She is an Australian artist that masters many techniques that she uses to make her pieces of incredible magical universes.

She also has a blog where she wrote:

"Drawing is what gives me peace of mind, and i think that's the gift I share with the world. I am so fortunate to be able to share my heart and my thoughts through my art.

The other day, i had this little revelation, that when a pencil is available to me, it's like having a microphone in my hand. I get to say, feel, express and outwardly share what i feel in my innermost parts and dreams, I'm so enjoying this process. I'd forgotten how good it felt."

Not only a great artist, what a great woman! Go, go... Take a look at her portfolio!

Pictures Copyright

© all rights Karin Taylor

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Rembrandt: A Young Girl Leaning on a Window-still

Two reproductions of A Young Girl Leaning on a Window-still, 1645, so that you can see how different they are as I stressed on the post below.

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Roger de Piles anecdote about Rembrandt

Right: Girl at an Open Half-Door, 1645

Left: A Young Girl Leaning on a Window-still, 1645

The art critic and art dealer Roger de Piles wrote this anecdote in his book "L'Abrégé de la vie des peintres" (The Art of Painting and the Lives of the Painters, 1699):

“Rembrandt diverted himself one day by making a portrait of his servant in order to exhibit it at his window and deceive the eyes of the pedestrians. He succeeded because the deception was only noticed a few days later. It was not beautiful drawing, nor a noble expression which produced this effect. One does not look for these qualities in his work. While in Holland I was curious to see the portrait. I found it painted well and with great strength. I bought it and still exhibit it in an important position in my cabinet”

Poor Rembrandt.

These reproductions are terrible but it is getting harder an harder to find a good reproduction of some paintings because now when we search there are many sites that sell posters and painted in oil reproductions that change the colors of the original to match coughs I believe. In some of them they show how your acquisition will be at a living room. As you can see these two paintings are from the same year but the colors are totally different. I will publish two versions of the same painting again to make visible how we cannot rely on reproductions.

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Two paintings by Caravaggio

Right: Judith beheading Holoferne, 1599.

Left: The conversion of Mary Magdalene, 1598.

I love Caravaggio but I never read too much about his life that was very difficult because of his temper.

At this site you can find good reproductions and his biography. I took this excerpt because it is important to understand his work:

"Caravaggio's three paintings for the Contarelli Chapel not only caused a sensation in Rome but also marked a radical change in his artistic preoccupation. Henceforth he would devote himself almost entirely to the painting of traditional religious themes, to which, however, he gave a whole new iconography and interpretation. He often chose subjects that are susceptible to a dramatic, violent, or macabre emphasis, and he proceeded to divest them of their idealized associations, taking his models from the streets. Caravaggio may have used a lantern hung to one side in his shuttered studio while painting from his models. The result in his paintings is a harsh, raking light that strikes across the composition, illuminating parts of it while plunging the rest into deep shadow. This dramatic illumination heightens the emotional tension, focuses the details, and isolates the figures, which are usually placed in the foreground of the picture in a deliberately casual grouping. This insistence on clarity and concentration, together with the firm and vigorous drawing of the figures, links Caravaggio's mature Roman works with the classical tradition of Italian painting during the Renaissance."

Caravaggio painted on the canvas without and previous drawing.

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David Hockney, Homage to Van Gogh and wisps

Left: Homage to Van Gogh, 1988.

Right: Moving wisps. 1995.

It is a party of colors. The right is at a private collection and I feel very sad that such a great painting, that makes our eyes move to one texture to another, is not available to the public.

In the left Hockney homages Van Gogh by recreating the artist famous chair "Chair and Pipe" done in 1888 a century ago. I will do a post about how this chair became part of Van Gogh's iconography.

I created a label for David Hockney because he has been coming here many times.

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Botticelli's Madonna of the Pomegranate and Gregorian Chants

Gregorian Chants by Anonymous

This is a detail of Botticelli's Madonna of the Pomegranate, 1487. I added the Gregorian Chants because it helps quieting my mind and I wanted to share it with you. About the Madonna:

"Botticelli painted many images that include the Virgin, the Child and the angels. In this image, Mary is sitting holding the Holy Child with a heavenly light shining directly on her. Botticelli painted an oversized Mary to symbolize how her arms can support Christ. There is no visible architecture; the angels and Mary themselves become the supportive structure symbolizing that God can handle anything. 

 The elements of this image contain many symbolic items. Each figure wears a sad expression as if their mind is somewhere else thinking of Christ’s death. The seed of the pomegranate the infant is holding signifies that Christ will receive resurrection through rebirth just as the seed will cause the birth of a new plant. The angel in front is holding lilies and roses which are both symbols of the Virgin. That same angel is wearing sashes with the words AVE GRAZIA PLENA which mean “Hail [Mary] full of grace.”" (emphasis mine)

BE AT PEACE 

Gregorian Chants: here. 
Text about the painting: here.

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Van Gogh's La Pietà after Eugene Delacroix

Right: La Pietà by Eugene Delacroix, 1850.

Left: Van Gogh's La Pietà after Delacroix, 1889.

While Van Gogh was at the hospital in Saint-Rémy he kept painting and he had a lithograph of Delacroix's painting that he used as model.

Van Gogh seldom used biblical themes thou he wanted to be a pastor during his youth following his father.

“I am not indifferent, and pious thoughts often console me in my suffering.” he wrote to Theo, his brother.

This is how he describes Delacroix's Pietà:

"The Delacroix is a "Pietà" that is to say the dead Christ with the Mater Dolorosa. The exhausted corpse lies on the ground in the entrance of a cave, the hands held before it on the left side, and the woman is behind it. It is in the evening after a thunderstorm, and that forlorn figure in blue clothes - the loose clothes are agitated by the wind - is sharply outlined against a sky in which violet clouds with golden edges are floating. She too stretches out her empty arms before her in a large gesture of despair, and one sees the good sturdy hands of a working woman. The shape of the figure with its streaming clothes is nearly as broad as it is high. And the face of the dead man is in the shadow - but the pale head of the woman stands out clearly against a cloud - a contrast which causes those two heads to seem like one somber-hued flower and one pale flower, arranged in such a way as mutually to intensify the effect."

Looking at the two paintings side by side is amazing.

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Delacroix's Women of Algier

"The Women of Algiers in their apartment", done in 1834, is another of the most 
famous of Delacroix's painting.
The right photography (Reuters) depicts the painting in an exhibition and a woman looking 
at the version Picasso did.
Picasso did versions, reinterpretations of 
other artists like Velazquez's Las Meninas, and works of Monet and El Greco. I will publish them.

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Representing books: William Barnett and Jan D. de Heem

Right: Music and Literature, 1878, by William Barnett

Left: Still Life of Books, 1628, by Jan Davidsz de Heem

Although these two paintings are separated by two centuries they have a lot in common. The right one depicts books and some objects we cannot quickly recognize as being part of our lives and we have the feeling that everything that is on he table was put carefully at each place so that the painter could show his skills in painting realistically.

The left one has an atmosphere that someone is working at these place and can reappear at any moment making the scene part of quotidian life but we can feel that it was one of the painters intention. Jan Davidsz de Heem has many still lives where it is clear that objects were arranged. 
We can only hope that someone was there to clean them or the painter would not be able to see the texture of the metal, glass or the other materials accurately.

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Paintings that reproduce reality will never stop amazing. Why?

These are not photos, they are acrylic painting by  by ~duytter . The wet effect of the right one is amazing.
Why paintings that represent reality move us? 

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Picasso's blue period: two women

They need silence.

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Raoul Dufy's regattas

I have nothing to say about Dufy. Just wanted to plunge in his blue. This water...

There's something about blue that touch us deeply.

"Because the sky is blue it makes me cry

Because the sky is... blue!"

John Lennon

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Michelangelo's contrast of colors revealed

The site WebExhibits is dedicated to the study of colors in a very easy and stimulating way. This is the way they explained how Michelangelo exaggerated the contrasts of color:

"Just a few years after Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) achieved tonal unity, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) tried a different approach. His colors are brilliant and contrasted, whereas da Vinci’s are subdued and unified. Michelangelo’s contours are crisp and set off against a contrasting background, whereas da Vinci’s blend and avoid silhouette.

Doni Holy Family, Michelangelo Buonarroti, c. 1503.

Michelangelo mixes his colors with both black and white to maximize the contrast range for all the colors he uses. This means the lighter parts of each color (even the black of Joseph’s tunic) are almost white and unrealistically de-saturated."

The only color that has a high enough luminance in pure form is the yellow of Joseph’s cloak; Michelangelo does not have to de-saturate the yellow to get a high value. Therefore, the yellow robe has a different quality from all the others, the hues of which vary substantially in saturation and therefore look somewhat metallic. By using such a wide range of luminances, Michelangelo achieves vivid depth from shading. Still, both contemporaries and present day critics were surprised by his use of color. Why?

Michelangelo was the undisputed master of drawing in 16th century Italy. The cleaning of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Doni Tondo have revealed him to be a colorist of great originality, working with a fully-saturated palette.

Keep reading here. Browse the site if you're interested in studying colors. They have interactive tools.

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David Hockney's enhanced reality

David Hockney was among the pop artists in the sixties but his work is so diverse that it's hard to put any label.

This post was supposed to be about his photocollages where he plays with reality enhancing it's boundaries in a very unique way that inspired many artists. I couldn't make up my mind which works to choose.

His site is a collection of his works that include drawings, paintings, photographies, graphics all part of Hockney's world.

These two paintings are very known and I want to share them with you. The left one seems to be influenced by his collages. I'll post some of them.

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Liberty leading the people by Eugene Delacroix

Delacroix painted "Liberty leading the people" in 1830 and could never imagine that his work would be studied for so many decades witness, and guide, other periods in history.
I've been seeing this painting in many places, sites and blogs lately.
Here there is a good article about many interpretations and academical studies of the work.
I rather watch it watching us. 

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Vicki Shuck's world in motion

I did a post with a painting by Vicki Shuck and today I went back to her blog. I didn't noticed before all the movements she gives to her creatures. Everybody seems to have something to do after what is being depicted but it doesn't take the pleasure of that moment.

It was difficult to choose and did choose the "Walk" because I love graphite drawings and "Beaudreau" because he is: "a little dog that occasionally visits the local dog park. He is such a kick--just runs and runs, getting the other dogs to chase him. His favorite thing, though, is chasing balls--he lives for it!" as Vick describes him.

Vick's blog is a good place to go on a Sunday. I hope you like these two.

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Degas's intimacy of his dancers

In Degas's numerous paintings of ballet dancers there is always this atmosphere of women concentrated in themselves. It is not a place where the dancers talk to each other about their problems or victories.

It seems they are thinking if the clothes are well adjusted, if their postures are fine, movements correct, everything related with their own performances.

They are self-conscious an maybe fearing any tiny little thing wrong can ruin it all.

I don't know why for me they always finish in standing ovation.

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