Monday, December 06, 2010
‘Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,’ by Caspar David Friedrich
I’ve just hung a print of this inspirational 1818 German Romantic piece above my desk. As you can imagine, I’m thrilled to have it there.
It has that feeling you get when you’ve just conquered a piece of work, a line of thought, something with which you’ve been struggling—you’ve reached a new plateau and you see how all your previous work and thinking fits together—and you’re at that moment of rest, savouring the moment before conquering the next peak.
Like I say, thrilling.
And the piece didn’t cost an arm or a leg. It came at a very reasonable price from Inspirationz, with the words inscribed in the clouds,
It’s made me a very happy man.“Happy are those who dream dreams, and
are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”
Labels: Art, Caspar David Friedrich
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Demeter & Persephone
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Demeter was the Greek goddess of the harvest, and Persephone, her beautiful daughter, the goddess of the seasons (who Pluto famously “took to wife”). In a pre-scientific culture intimately dependent on the vagaries of the harvest, where a bad crop could mean famine and death, the manner in which the gods or goddesses responsible for the life-giving harvest is personified tells you a lot about the culture.
In most cultures, the god was a violent, unpredictable god requiring placation. (A personification in mythic form of the malevolent universe premise.) But in the Hellenic Greek culture, the life-giving divinities were depicted not as monsters or ogres with the arbitrary power of life or blod-curdling death, but as beautiful women who must be seduced—a a depiction in stone and ceramics of the sunlit, benevolent universe premise that would inform and eventually permeate the life-affirming pagan Greek philosophy to come.
And artists today still use the myths to tell a tale that Homer told…
Monday, November 01, 2010
Tower of Babel – Pieter Bruegel
The story of the Tower of Babel is a myth “explaining” the break-up of one language into many—and being a Biblical myth it involves a tale of man’s hubris, and the god’s great ego.
Men, you see—early men, still united “as one”--felt so good about themselves and what they could do, and had heard so much about the wonders of Heaven, that they began building a great tower to get there and see for themselves.
But their god, being God, was outraged at this boldness (or at least scared they’d pull it off), so he sent down upon men a “babble” of different languages (from the ancient Hebrew, "balal", meaning to jumble), a “confusion of tongues” to confuse the construction, and to set men against each other men.
So like a jealous god, isn’t he--jealous of men’s ability; jealous of what they can do. (And if he wasn’t scared they’d succeed, he wouldn’t have needed to send the babble.)
Anyway, Pieter Bruegel painted this depiction of the tower from his own imagination, at a time when the tallest building in the world was the north tower of Amiens Cathedral, which at 113m was tall, but not as tall as Brueghel needed. So the painter added a few Gothic flying buttresses to a core that looks remarkably like the Roman Colosseum, and hey presto, he’d combined much of human architectural history into a painting of a building that at once tells the story of man’s hubris, and at the same time shows his promise.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
“The Light” – David Knowles
When I posted last night’s art post, the stunning sculpture by Mt Eden sculptor Shona Lyon, an old memory stirred. A memory revived by an email this morning.
It was a memory of this painting from several years ago by Wairarapa artist David Knowles, in a pose that looks oddly similar …
Labels: Art, David Knowles
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
“Aphrodite” – Shona Lyon
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Shona Lyon studied under Martine Vaugel in France (one of our favourite sculptresses) and now produces miracles in bronze, copper and clay in Mt Eden.
Her website is here. And you can visit her Mt Eden Gallery and workshop by appointment.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Self Portrait – Leonardo Da Vinci
Yes, he was a genius. You can see it in the eyes, in the broad sweep of the forehead, in the focus and intensity of the gaze—and you can see it in the way he depicts himself, in this sketch, with such clarity and just a few well-chosen pencil lines.
Labels: Art
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Icarus – Gabriel Picart
There are many inspirational art works based on the Icarus myth. This is Gabriel Picart’s.
One of the inspirational pieces of art you can buy at Inspirationz.
Sign up at the Inspirationz Facebook page for more daily inspirational art like this.
And visit the artist’s website for more work of this searing quality.
"Never regret thy fall,
O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light."~ Oscar Wilde
Hat tip Terry V, who shared the artist’s Oscar Wilde quote.O Icarus of the fearless flight
For the greatest tragedy of them all
Is never to feel the burning light."~ Oscar Wilde
One of the inspirational pieces of art you can buy at Inspirationz.
Sign up at the Inspirationz Facebook page for more daily inspirational art like this.
And visit the artist’s website for more work of this searing quality.
Labels: Art
Monday, October 18, 2010
‘The Hunted Slaves’ – Richard Ansdell
‘The Hunted Slaves 1861 Richard Ansdell (1815 – 1885)
Oil on canvas, 184 x 308cm
As a metaphor for that global struggle in which they were enmeshed, it’s dead on.
More about the painting and its context here.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
The Man Exalted (aka, God Releasing Stars Into the Universe), by Michael Newberry
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The Man Exalted (aka, God Releasing Stars Into the Universe), oil on linen, 7' x 5'Michael Newberry,1993-2000
Stephen Hicks describes the work:
This is a big composition that is in transition from black and white underground painting to color overlay. The subject is a man on his outspread knees, with his eyes and mouth open wide, and his outreaching hands extended in an ecstatic gesture. The man is releasing a current of fantastic light that weaves and curves through the night space. There are rocks in the foreground and underneath him. In the background there is indication of mountains to come. The artist is only beginning to apply color to his black and white underground work but the vibrations of light and shadow are already perceptible.
The man is naked, unaffected, pure. And he becomes one with the energy. The man is a physical catalyst for the expression of the light; the light is the man’s nature.
Labels: Art, Michael Newberry
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose - John Singer Sargent
Anybody can paint a sunset. And virtually everybody who can hold a brush and paint straight has painted “the innocence of childhood.” But only an artist of the calibre of Sargent could combine the two to create this unforgettable scene, evocative of our own summer childhoods when snatching that last moment of daylight seemed so precious, and so important.
The skill it takes makes me proud to be a long-lost, distant, relation.
Labels: Art
Saturday, October 09, 2010
“Abassi” – Shona Lyon
Abassi, bronze by Shona Lyon
68cm (Height) x 24cm (Width) x 24cm (Depth)
Another brilliant figurative piece by Mt Eden sculptress Shona Lyon. [Check out the “Aphrodite” posted here the other day.] In Central African mythology, Abassi was the creator … a jealous god who put the first men on earth, created in his own image naturally, and then became worried they might match him.68cm (Height) x 24cm (Width) x 24cm (Depth)
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Japonisme print
I love dramatic illustrations.
I love graphic prints.
I really like this highly stylised piece.
But all I can tell you about it is it appeared in a recent post at the Japonisme blog, without any attribution.
And that it’s pretty damn neat.
Labels: Art
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
Art Nouveau – Brussels edition
The city of Brussels is now the home of the world’s biggest bureaucracy, but around the turn of century it played host to something more life-enhancing—with architects Victor Horta, Paul Cauchie, and Henry Van de Velde it was a pioneer is launching the organic style of Art Nouveau on the world, a style using the new materials of steel and glass to begin to liberate architecture from the past, and make the machine age more natural.
Here’s a trip around just a few of the many thousand beautiful Art Nouveau buildings built in Brussels around that time and since.
And here’s a few more stunning examples in this trip around European Art Nouveau.
Here’s a trip around just a few of the many thousand beautiful Art Nouveau buildings built in Brussels around that time and since.
And here’s a few more stunning examples in this trip around European Art Nouveau.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Kanaya, ‘24th Station of the Tokaido’ – Ando Hiroshige
Last night I posted master artist Hokusai’s wood-block print “Mount Fuji from Kanaya on the Tokaido Road. Tonight, a scene from the other celebrated Japanese print artist, Hokusai, from his series “Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido.”Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Romeo Y Julietta con una Testigo - José Manuel Capuletti
Romeo Y Julietta con una Testigo (Romeo and Juliet with a Witness), 25.5" x 18" oil on linen
José Manuel Capuletti was a student of Salvador Dali (I’ll bet you guessed that) and a favourite of Ayn Rand’s (but maybe not that). His work, she said,View his Full Collection and Bio at the Cordair Gallery, which carries many of his works, including this one.has the passionate intensity of Spain, the elegance of France, and the joyous, benevolent freedom of America.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
‘Water-Lily Pond’ - Claude Monet
The Water-Lily Pond (Le Bassin aux Nymphes), Calude Monet, 883mm x 931mm, 1899
Now this is actually pretty cool.In my mailbox this morning was a picture of the Mona Lisa, and another of Claude Monet’s Water-Lily Pond. Not full-size pictures, you understand, but bigger than A4, and faithfully reproduced on a canvas simulacram. These are nicely done.
The offer is one of those complicated Reader’s-Digest type of “send-in-this-lucky-coupon-now” pieces of runaround, but what it boils down to is that if you somehow contrive to get on their mailing list and then either make the right cancellations or the right payments at the right time, you can get several of these very fine prints for very little .
They have a website at www.imponline.co.nz, and you can apparently phone them on 0800-446291 if you want to get in on this. I’ll leave the rest to you, including deciding whether or not you want to.
In the meantime, I invite you to enlarge and then stare at Claude’s painting for a few minutes. If it doesn’t come to life while you’re staring at it, I’d almost* pay for your prints myself. Because, by Galt, the old bugger knew what he was about.
* I said “almost,” alright!
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