Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" - 1907

 “Every now and then one paints a picture that seems to have opened

a door and serves as a stepping stone to other things.” ― Pablo Picasso



Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon, and originally titled The Brothel of Avignon)

Oil on canvas,  size: 243.9 cm × 233.7 cm (96 in × 92 in) 

Location: Museum of Modern Art - Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, New York City

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Les Demoiselles d'Avignon” is one of the most famous works of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). It is painted in a period of nine months during 1906 and 1907, when Picasso had retreated himself to a small village in the Pyrenees. When he showed the painting to his avant-garde friends, they fell silent. Only Matisse broke out laughing.

Picasso was during a visit to the Museum of Ethnography in Paris captivated by the magical fetishes, objects that were made for the expulsion of evil spirits. Against the writer André Malraux Picasso speaks of the work as "my first devils elimination painting".

In 1916 it was shown in a private room. The name of this salon was then temporarily changed from "Le bordel d'Avignon" to "Les Demoiselles". The canvas was only shown in public for the first time in 1937. In 1939 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City bought it. It still hangs there.

(source: Honour & Flemming, General art history, Meulenhoff, Amsterdam NL).



‘The Turkish Bath’ by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1862-63. Louvre, Paris

Andrew Graham-Dixion in 'The Art of France' about ‘The Turkish Bath’ : "It is the painting that marked the beginning of Modern Art. With this painting Art declared itself, forever, to be the creation of the individual, cut adrift from tradition."

 

 

Fernand Khnopff's "Incense" - 1898

 

“Art transports us from the world of man’s activity to a world of aestethic excalation.”

– Clive Bell ‘The Aesthetic Hypothesis’, London  1914

“Incense” - Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921), pastel on charcoal and paper, 1898, Collection: Vlaamse Gemeenschap, location: MSK Gent. (Khnopff’s sister Marguerite was model for this triptych of which only one part is made)

William Turner's "Goldau" - 1841

 

Many artists suffered from Turner's syndrome: They tried to get the sublime from the inside on the canvas - the main symptom of this syndrome. For Kazimir Malevich the sublime was a black square. He called the black square "the face of God." Wassily Kandinsky believed that art is created by God and artist together. Barnett Newman captured the sublime in "the pure idea”. Mark Rothko wanted his paintings to spread a transparent light from the wall. Sunlight, maybe. The symptoms may differ in nuances, the diagnosis is the same in each case.

Source: Article> Volkskrant> Visual Arts> By Joost Zwagerman January 6, 2015

Zwagerman look at Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), the ‘Legitimate grandfather of 20th-century abstract expressionism’.
Discussion: Many artists suffered from Turner's syndrome, the British painter who wanted to capture the sunlight. And thus God.

Goldau - Joseph Mallord William Turner (1841) - Private Collection

Style: Romanticism - Genre: landscape

Media: watercolor, paper - Dimensions: 30.5 x 47 cm

 

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with more than 60% growth. Go forward artlovers!

 

Fernand Léger 'Soldiers playing cards' - 1917

“Physical nature is nothing but a memory, like a tale about something marvellous that has long since disappeared. The Factory-Town dominates everything. …

Robot-like we have become habituated to life – getting up, going to bed, eating and working to set times; and this sense of rhythm and mechanical harmony is reflected in our entire life, cannot but be reflected in our mode of thought, in our spiritual life, in art.” – A. Shevchenko /1912

Gustav Klimt 'Judith I '- 1901

 

“The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things,

but their inward significance.”- Aristotle (384-322 VC)

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) Judith I (Judith and Holofernes-6e VC),

1901 Oil and gilding on canvas 84 x 42 cm

Location: Österreichische Galerie Belvedere Belvedere, Vienna.

 

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Two Women in the Street" - 1914

“With faith in progress and in a new generation of creators and spectators, we call together all youth. As youth, we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and of movement against the long established older forces. Everyone who reproduces that which drives him to creation with directness and authenticity belong to us!” – Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1934) Programme of Die Brücke – 1905

Two Women in the Street - 1914, oil on canvas, size: 120.5 x 91 cm
Location: Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf

http://www.threadforthought.net/kirchner-berlin-street/