Gustave Klimt loves to design textiles and models for Emilie
Flöge’s fashion salon. She is Klimts
true love and compagnion until the end of his live.
Monday 29 September 2014
Saturday 27 September 2014
James Whistler 'Chez George Sauer' - 1858
At the age of 24, the American painter James McNeill
Whistler, makes a drawing of George Sauer, the French pub owner of ‘Le Lion Rouge’ for a plate of soup ... – source: Freer Gallery of Art
Friday 26 September 2014
Detail painting Antonius Claeissens 1605
Antonius Claeissens (Bruges 1536-1613) paints 'Mars conquers Ignorance' in 1605.
Mars, surrounded by Art (holding her painters palette - photo detail) and Sciences, steps on Ingnorence depicted with long pointy ears. - Location Groeninge Museum Bruges
Thursday 18 September 2014
Saturday 13 September 2014
Friday 12 September 2014
The Apprentice Pillar - Rosslyn Chapel
Roslin Glen, Scotland - The "Apprentice Pillar” gets its name from
a legend dating from the 18th century involving the master mason in charge of
the stonework in the Roslin chapel (°1446) and his young apprentice. According to the
legend, the master mason did not believe that the apprentice could perform the
complicated task of carving the column without seeing the original which formed
the inspiration for the design.
The master mason travelled to see the original himself, but upon his
return was enraged to find that the upstart apprentice had completed the column
anyway. In a fit of jealous anger the mason took up his mallet and struck the
apprentice on the head, killing him. The legend concludes that as punishment for
his crime, the master mason's face was carved into the opposite corner to
forever gaze upon his apprentice's pillar.
Wednesday 10 September 2014
Georges Vantongerloo (Antwerp 1886 - Paris 1965)
"The disappearance of the function to depict opens the way to pure art." - 'Seeing, understanding, appreciating art', by Kurt Kranz 1964
Composition (GV 10A)
- 1918
Oil on canvas, ca. 20 x 30 cm, collection Chantal & Jacob
Bill, Swizerland
After Vantongerloo was wounded in World War I, he moved to Den
Haag in Holland where he met Jules Smalzigaug, the only Belgian Futurist. Smalzigaug
introduced him to Modern Art. In 1918 Vantongerloo signed the ‘DE STIJL’
manifest.
Sunday 7 September 2014
Saturday 6 September 2014
Michelangelo's signature on Pietà - 1499
The story goes that Michelangelo (at age 24) signed his
pietà after it was placed in the Basilic because he could not endure that the public was guessing by whom it was made. Not only die he sign with his name but added his provenance ‘Florence’ as well:
“Michael. Agelus.
Bonarotus Florent Faciebat”. He never signed his work again.
The Pietà (174cm x 195cm) from Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is located in the St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.
Thursday 4 September 2014
Gino Severini's Blue Dancer 1912
FUTURISM AND THE VITALIST INHERITANCE
Out of its origin in Greek metaphysical thought, Vitalism
favours the fluid state of ‘becoming’ over the state of completion suggested by
the notion of ‘being’, it prefers movement to stillness, values action above
inaction and enjoys more than structure. In short, Vitalism envisages life in
terms of a force that arises from within and produces its own very special type
of order. For this reason shades of Vitalist thinking frequently emerge in
thinking of artist and this is particularly true when, like the Futurists, they
are speaking on behalf of some imagined, new universal order.
As Carlo Carra wrote in 1913: ‘We Futurists seek to
identify with the core of things through the power of intuition, so that our
Ego will merge with their uniqueness in a complex whole. Thus we depict the
planes of a picture like a spheric expansion in space, obtaining the sense of
perpetual motion which is innate in every living thing. Only this way can we
express the soul and atmosphere of all things.’ – source: ‘How to read Modern
Painting’ by Jon Thompson /Thames & Hudson 2006
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