Favourite tableaux and Art in general

[Val]

I am a strong  believer in the power of Art to free (at least temporarily)  human beings from all of their agonizing torments and exacerbated feelings of resignations. 
And following this argumentation, I will post my choice of Art in general paying especial attention to Painting and Photography.   Whenever possible, I will also comment on the painter/sculptor and/or photographer.

I will start this thread with a Dutch graphic artist and one of my favourites ever ---    Maurits Cornelis Escher(1898-1972)


Eight Heads   ---   1922




Day and Night   ---   1938




Sky and Water I   ---   1938




Drawing Hands   ---   1948




"Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) is one of the world's most famous graphic artists. His art is enjoyed by millions of people all over the world. He created visual riddles, playing with the pictorially logical and the visually impossible.
He is most famous for his so-called "impossible structures", such as Ascending and Descending, Relativity, his Transformation Prints, such as Metamorphosis I, Metamorphosis II and Metamorphosis III, Sky & Water I or Reptiles. M.C. Escher, during his lifetime, made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and over 2000 drawings and sketches. Like some of his famous predecessors, - Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer and Holbein-, M.C. Escher was left-handed. Apart from being a graphic artist, M.C. Escher illustrated books, designed tapestries, postage stamps and murals. He was born in Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, as the fourth and youngest son of a civil engineer. After 5 years the family moved to Arnhem where Escher spent most of his youth. After failing his highschool exams, Maurits ultimately was enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. After only one week, he informed his father that he would rather study graphic art then architecture, as he had shown his drawings and linoleum cuts to his graphic teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, who encouraged him to continue with graphic arts. After finishing school, he traveled extensively through Italy, where he met his wife Jetta Umiker, whom he married in 1924. They settled in Rome, where they stayed until 1935. During these 11 years, Escher would travel each year throughout Italy, drawing and sketching for the various prints he would make when he returned home. Many of these sketches he would later use for various other lithographs and/or woodcuts and wood engravings, for example the background in the lithograph Waterfall stems from his Italian period, or the trees reflecting in the woodcut Puddle, which are the same trees Escher used in his woodcut "Pineta of Calvi", which he made in 1932. He played with architecture, perspective and impossible spaces. His art continues to amaze and wonder millions of people all over the world. In his work we recognize his keen observation of the world around us and the expressions of his own fantasies. M.C. Escher shows us that reality is wondrous, comprehensible and fascinating."


Val
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[Val]

Fish and Scales   ---   1959




Relativity   ---   1953




Bond of Union   ---   1956




Val
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[Val]

I stick with European artists for a while.  Next,  Frantisek Kupka (1871-1951) from Eastern Bohemia.


Position of Mobile Graphic Elements I  ---   1912-1913




Composition in Blue   ---   1925




Organization of Graphic Motifs   ---   1912-1913




Blue   ---   1912-1913




Lignes Animées   ---   Between 1920-1923





"Frantisek Kupka 1871-1957 - School of Paris painter and wood-engraver; a pioneer of abstract art. Born in Opocno in Eastern Bohemia. Apprenticed as a youth to a master saddler, who initiated him in spiritualism; became a medium. Began to paint and received his first instruction from Studnicka at Jaromer. Afterwards studied at Prague Academy 1889-92 under the Nazarene painter Sequens and at the Vienna Academy 1892-3 under Eisenmenger, also a Nazarene. Influenced by Czech folk art, abstract ornamental patterning and Theosophy. Settled in 1896 in Paris, where he worked first primarily as satirical draughtsman for magazines such as L'Assiette au Beurre and as book illustrator. A friend and neighbour of Jacques Villon from 1901, first in Montmartre, then from 1906 in Puteaux on the outskirts of Paris. His paintings influenced by Symbolism, then Fauvism; experimented from 1909 with ways of rendering figures in motion inspired by high-speed photography. From 1911 his work became abstract with cosmic themes and rhythms, intersecting arabesques, rectilinear vertical planes, etc. First Paris one-man exhibition at the Galerie Povolozky 1921. Wrote a book on his theories, La Cr-23ation dans les Arts Plastiques (first published 1923). Appointed professor by Prague Academy in 1922, to introduce Czech students in Paris to French culture. Co-founder of Abstraction-Cr-23ation 1931, and adopted a more geometrical and classical abstract style. Died in Puteaux."


Val
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[Ihavehope]

I like that one.

[Val]

Me too, darling!  I adore his works in general.  So, have you figured out how many heads there are in the first one?  And the fishes?  There are fishes all over the place, I tell you!

Val
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[Ihavehope]

Valerie

I don't think my eyes can't stand couting them fishes.

But it is nice art. Thanks girl for sharing it with us

Al

[Val]

She is by far my favourite American artist for the 20th Century.   Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)


From the Lake I   ---   1924




Jack-in-the-Pulpit IV   ---   1930




An Orchid   ---   1941




Two calla lilies on pink   ---   1928




Red canna   ---   1923




Jack-in-the-Pulpit V   ---   1930




"Georgia O'Keeffe is known for her brilliantly colored paintings with confident shapes and simple patterns. She painted a great many floral paintings which were large pieces with the flower exaggerated and enlarged to completely fill the canvas, then stylized to their most essential forms. She is also known for her Southwest paintings which include adobe buildings, desert mountain panoramas or floating cow skulls against rich blue skies. The emphasis on the simplest aspects of the shapes created a surrealistic dynamic that is captivating. O'Keeffe was born on November 15, 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She knew from a young age that she would be an artist when she grew up. She studied first at the Art Institute of Chicago. After stopping her education due to a bout of typhoid, she resumed study in 1907 at the Art Student League in New York. She was following a family tradition of educated women- an idea not prevalent at that time. Even as she excelled in her studies it was believed that she would end up teaching art rather than making it. Georgia moved for a time with her family to Virginia, but in 1914, when a teaching job opened in Amarillo, Texas, she took it. After two years she went to New York's Columbia Teacher's College, and took a job at Columbia College in South Carolina. Georgia O'Keeffe's friend Anita Pollitzer was taken by O'Keeffe's works and took some samples to show Alfred Steiglitz at the 291 Gallery in New York. Some sources say that she did so without O'Keeffe's permission. Steiglitz was a respected Gallery curator and artist himself, and O'Keeffe respected his opinion, but even though he loved them it took some negotiations with O'Keeffe to convince her to let him exhibit her work. O'Keeffe returned to Texas and worked at the West Texas Normal College while painting the scenes she loved, and hiking the Palo Duro Canyon. An illness caused her to quit her job- or perhaps it was her radical political views clashing with her colleagues. In any case, she returned to New York at Alfred Steiglitz's urging. After several years of cohabitation, Steiglitz divorced his wife and they married when she was 23 and he was 54. O'Keeffe was not enthusiastic, however. Their many trips to the Steiglitz family home in the Adirondacks were the inspiration for many paintings. They spent several years living in a New York City hotel, and her view there also served as inspiration. It was in New York that she painted her first large flower paintings. Beck Strand was a friend who invited O'Keeffe on a trip to Taos New Mexico at a time when the artist was craving new scenery to paint. Steiglitz didn't like travel and firmly stayed in New York except for occasional uncomfortable forays elsewhere with O'Keeffe. She spent all her summers in Taos from then on, and when Steiglitz died in 1946, she moved there permanently. She purchased a hacienda at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico and it became her lair for much of the remainder of her life. Her eyesight began to fail in the early seventies and by 1972 she could no longer see well enough to paint. A young man named Juan Hamilton, a potter, came to do odd jobs for O'Keeffe and ultimately became her closest companion in her later years. Many felt he was using her for his own ends, but O'Keeffe liked him and he stayed. She even did a bit of pottery herself while knowing him. At the very end of her life she moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was there that she died in 1986 at the age of 98. She was cremated the next day and Juan Hamilton scattered her ashes from Pedernal Mountain as she had requested."


Val
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[Val]

I hesitated a great deal before doing this, but then I said "why not?"   In fact, I was letting the matter stand 'cause he is my artistic father (mon maître), my buddy with whom I play golf once a week, and the person who taught me almost everything I know about Art.
Needless to say, he is the greatest Franco-Chinese painter alive for me --- and for millions of people throughout the world!

Zao Wou-ki (1921-    )


Sans titre   ---   2002




Hommage à Henri Matisse   ---   1986




Sans titre   ---   1980




Huile sur toile   ---   1960




Académie des Beaux-Arts

http://www.canalacademie.com/Le-Peintre-Zao-Wou-Ki.html


Val
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[Val]

The world of French painting would not be the same without the precious works of this famous XVIII Century painter.  He was one of Madame de Pompadour's  protégés.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806)

Diana and Endymion   ---   Circa 1753/1755




The Progress of Love ---  The Pursuit




Psyche showing her gifts




The Swing




Love Letters




The Meeting




Biography
http://www.museesdegrasse.com/MVF/fla_ang/JHFragonard.shtml


Val
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[bear60]

I understand that this Italian Renaissance painter was gay.  I love Caravaggio's work.

[Val]

Something curious about Caravaggio, Bear, is that he was also very violent.  His paintings don't really appeal  to me that much, for I am a late 17th Century paintings kind of guy, but I do visit several galleries where you find loads of Caravaggio's works in Rome.
For example, the last time I was in Rome, we went for a concert at one of my favourite churches:  Saint Louis of the French, and I had the opportunity of seeing several of his paintings; including the one you posted!

He was definitely gay and some of his lovers can be seen below. His first lover, though, was  Cardinal del Monte who almost became Pope...


Michelangelo Merisi detto  "Il Caravaggio"  (1571-1610)

Mario Minniti as Baccus




Checco or Cecco




Il Fruttaiolo




Ragazzo morso da un ramarro




San Giovanni Battista




Biography

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/bio/c/caravagg/biograph.html


Val
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[Ihavehope]

That pic looks like a lady's private part with pubes. tee-hee.

Al

[Val]

Al, your definition of this painting is exactly what Art is all about:  "To make you reflecton things that surround us, to think and ask away questions"!  I agree with you.

And this afternoon,  I would like to introduce to you a Brazilian artist that I really admire.  His works are in some ways similar to Escher's i.e. you gotta look closer because there are alot of hidden details!


Vignoli, Fernando (1960-    )


The Portal of the Fall   ---   2003




The Big Apple




The Blue Tree   ---   2003




The Rebel of the Fine Arts




Vignoli's website

http://www.fernandovignoli.com/pages/1/index.htm


Val
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[Val]

One of the masters  of Symbolism.   Gustave Moreau 1826-1898  French painter

The Martyred Saint Sebastian   ---   1869




Oedipus and the Sphinx   ---   1864




Dejanira (Autumn)   ---   1873




Prometeus   ---   1875




Les Prétendants  ---   1870






Jupiter and Sémélé   ---   1895




Jason   ---   1865




Biography
Gustave Moreau spent the early part of his career obsessed with the ideas of Romanticism, believing that art was intended for the presentation of the beautiful as a perfect combination of ideas and form. Throughout his life he struggled to elevate his work to the level of an unapproachable ideal. Moreau deplored the salons that so strongly dictated artistic styles and tastes, yet he never strictly abandoned the themes and motifs that were the stock-in-trade of the Salon painter. Much of his work is illustrative, depicting the mystic idealisms prevalent at the time or concerned with the Romantic thematics of women-Helen, Delilah, Circe, Salome-as bewitchers or wily temptresses of men. From this particular perspective, the ideal of purity was inevitably opposed to sex and sensuousness. Women were equated with nature-a mindless force of impurity - while men, on the other hand, were elevated to the status of Artist-who must wrestle with this force and emerge transcendent, at one with all that is beautiful in human experience. The themes prevalent in Moreau's work were continually reworked, sometimes thirty years after they were begun, and it is therefore difficult to establish a chronology of his painting.

However, in the Salon of 1876, one of Moreau's versions of "Salome," the painting "Hercules" and the "Hydra of Leme", electrified the audiences and established the style by which Moreau came to be known to the public. The artist was, by this time, fifty years old. The criticism often expressed a strong ambition for allegory. It was these allusions to unconscious desires and dreams that were, however, to establish him as a forerunner to the Surrealists. Even more important in terms of twentieth-century art than he is to 19th Century models, Moreau created a private oeuvre that he kept to himself and exhibited only to a few close friends and students. In these he created a new aesthetic that included remarkable textures and strong colorations close to an abstract style. At the end of his life, in 1892, Moreau became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where he proved a gifted teacher. Among his devoted pupils were Rouault and Matisse. Moreau believed of his teaching that: "I am the bridge over which certain of you will pass." His teaching indeed proved inspirational, not only to the next generation, but to the Surrealists that followed.

 

Val
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[Val]

He is one of my favourite British painters ever.  And he was a friend of Gustave Moreau!

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones  1833-1898


The Mirror of Venus




The Wheel of  Fortune




The Arming of Perseus




Tree of Forgiveness




The Beguiling of Merlin




The Lament




Angel




Biography

Edward Coley Burne-Jones was born in Birmingham on August 28, 1833; his mother, Elizabeth Coley, died only a few days later. Through his father Edward Jones, a frame-maker, and other relatives, Edward was able to develop his natural gift for drawing, although he had little or no formal tuition before leaving King Edward VI School, Birmingham, to enter Exeter College, Oxford, in 1853. There he met William Morris, with whom he indulged in a passion for all things medieval and for the writings of Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin; through the University Printer Thomas Combe, they were introduced to the work of the Pre-Raphaelites. With others of a like mind, they contributed to the short-lived Oxford and Cambridge Magazine in 1856. Both had intended to enter the Church but decided to become artists after making a tour of northern French cathedrals in 1855. In November 1856 they moved into rooms in London at 17 Red Lion Square which had formerly been occupied by Rossetti, from whom Burne-Jones (as he now styled himself) took some informal lessons. They were also the leading figures in the campaign of mural painting in the Oxford Union debating chamber in 1857-1858.

Decoration of the rooms at Red Lion Square and in Morris’s new home, Red House at Bexley, from 1859, included the making and painting of Gothic Revival furniture. Burne-Jones was one of the founding members in 1861 of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company, and went on to become the firm’s principal designer of stained glass, producing more than five hundred individual figure subjects. His early work as an artist was chiefly in pen and watercolour, much influenced by Rossetti, but it also benefited from contact with other artists such as George Frederic Watts. After visits to Italy in 1859 (with Val Prinsep) and in 1862 (with Ruskin and with his wife Georgiana, whom he had married in 1860), his own style, which embraced classical as well as Pre-Raphaelite traits, soon emerged. Large watercolours such as The Merciful Knight (1863, Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery) marked his election as an Associate of the Old Water Colour Society in 1864.

The furor over a male nude subject, Phyllis and Demophoön (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), led to his resignation from the society in 1870, and for the next seven years he worked in virtual seclusion at The Grange, Fulham, in west London. In the same year he survived a scandal over an affair with his model Maria Zambaco. Visits to Italy in 1871 and 1873 increased his knowledge of the High Renaissance, which infused paintings such as The Mirror of Venus (Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon) and The Beguiling of Merlin (Lady Lever Art Gallery, National Museums of Liverpool), finally shown to great acclaim at the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877. His later paintings were exhibited there and at the New Gallery from 1888, as well as through the dealers Agnew & Sons. Even with the help of his studio assistant T.M. Rooke (1842-1942), many large-scale canvases were never finished, including the biggest, The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon (Museo de Arte, Ponce, Puerto Rico).

An abiding interest in the decorative arts led to the design of jewelry, mosaics, and needlework, as well as tapestries – especially the Holy Grail series (1890-1895, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and elsewhere) – for the Morris workshop at Merton Abbey, and book illustration for Morris’s Kelmscott Press starting in 1891. Many such works were shown at the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society. Although elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1885, he exhibited only once and resigned in 1893; other honours included the Légion d’Honneur, following his success at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889, and the award of a baronetcy in 1894. He died of heart failure on June 17, 1898, and his ashes rest at the church in Rottingdean, Sussex, where he kept a holiday home.


Val
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[Val]

Manolo Yanes is a contemporary artist that lives and works in between France and Spain.  He has exposed his works throughout Europe, and right now has in display the  "Metamorphoses"  series in a parisian gallery.

Manolo Yanes (1957-    )

Kentauro




Attis




Prokne




Hermes




Philomele




Kiknos II




Methamorphoses

"Metamorphose: of the Greek méta = beyond, and morphê = form. Change of a form in another. Important transformation of the body and the way of life of certain animals at the time of their development. Change of the state and character of a person. Transformation. Change.

The Metamorphoses are the main works of the Latin poet Ovide (43 front. J.C.-17 ap. J.C.). It is a long poem which chronologicals a great number of greek myths and particularly fabulations relating to the characters who suffer from the metamorphoses.

Metamorphosis is an attempt at interpretation of these myths with a current eye through a series of drawings. Transformation, change, metamorphosis are concepts on the agenda in a world which becomes more than ever dubious and changing. In this personal interpretation of the metamorphoses ovidiennes there are two opposite and complementary routes.

On the one hand the mythological "real" characters, whose names sometimes given the scientific name (in Latin) of the animal or the plant object of the metamorphosis (p. ex. Nisos or Nisus, metamorphosed into a sparrowhawk, remained in the scientific name of this animal: accipiter nisus). In the other direction the scientific name of an animal or plant can give place to the creation of a mythological chara. "


Val
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[bear60]

Salvador Dali was gay as well.


"Colossus of Rhodes"

[Val]

Bear,
I wouldn't say he was exclusively gay.  From what I know about his secret life and the times during which he lived, I'd say he was bi-sexual.  It is notoriously known in France, moreover, his tastes for transexuals and  Amanda Lear was one of them -- perhaps the one he loved the most!

By the way, Amanda Lear used to have a huge collection  of Dali's tableaux and other works, but a fire destroyed her Provence house some years ago;  and, in the fire went most of the precious oeuvres she possessed!  She almost died because of that.

The true love of Dali, though, and his main muse was Gala.  Now, the parties that they threw in the Côte d'Azur were famous for the youngsters (boys and girls) that would hang around both for Dali and Gala...!


Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dali   (1904-1989)


Exploding Raphaelesque Head  ---  1951




Dream caused by the flight of a bee around a pomegranate a second before waking up




Apparition of a face and fruit dish on a beach  --  1938




Femme à tête de roses  ---  1935




The persistence of memory  ---  1931




Biography

Dalí, Salvador (1904-89): Spanish painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and designer. After passing through phases of Cubism, Futurism and Metaphysical painting, he joined the Surrealists in 1929 and his talent for self-publicity rapidly made him the most famous representative of the movement. Throughout his life he cultivated eccentricity and exhibitionism (one of his most famous acts was appearing in a diving suit at the opening of the London Surrealist exhibition in 1936), claiming that this was the source of his creative energy. He took over the Surrealist theory of automatism but transformed it into a more positive method which he named `critical paranoia'. According to this theory one should cultivate genuine delusion as in clinical paranoia while remaining residually aware at the back of one's mind that the control of the reason and will has been deliberately suspended. He claimed that this method should be used not only in artistic and poetical creation but also in the affairs of daily life. His paintings employed a meticulous academic technique that was contradicted by the unreal `dream' space he depicted and by the strangely hallucinatory characters of his imagery. He described his pictures as `hand-painted dream photographs' and had certain favorite and recurring images, such as the human figure with half-open drawers protruding from it, burning giraffes, and watches bent and flowing as if made from melting wax (The Persistence of Memory, MOMA, New York; 1931).
In 1937 Dalí visited Italy and adopted a more traditional style; this together with his political views (he was a supporter of General Franco) led Breton to expel him from the Surrealist ranks. He moved to the USA in 1940 and remained there until 1955. During this time he devoted himself largely to self-publicity; his paintings were often on religious themes (The Crucifixion of St John of the Cross, Glasgow Art Gallery, 1951), although sexual subjects and pictures centring on his wife Gala were also continuing preoccupations. In 1955 he returned to Spain and in old age became a recluse.

Apart from painting, Dalí's output included sculpture, book illustration, jewellery design, and work for the theatre. In collaboration with the director Luis Buñuel he also made the first Surrealist films---Un chien andalou (1929) and L'Age d'or (1930)---and he contributed a dream sequence to Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945). He also wrote a novel, Hidden Faces (1944) and several volumes of flamboyant autobiography. Although he is undoubtedly one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, his status is controversial; many critics consider that he did little if anything of consequence after his classic Surrealist works of the 1930s. There are museums devoted to Dalí's work in Figueras, his home town in Spain, and in St Petersburg in Florida.

 

Val
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[Val]

The grandfather of Naïf painting was a brilliant French artist from the 19th Century.

Henri Rousseau  (1844-1910)


Le Navire dans la tempête  ---  1893




Les Flamants  ---  1907




Le repas du lion  ---  1907




Bords de l'Oise  ---  1908




Le rêve  ---  1910




Nègre attaqué par un jaguar  ---  1910




Cheval attaqué par un jaguar  ---  1910




Biography

"Henri Rousseau was a self-taught Sunday painter who began intensive painting when he was 40 years old. At his times he was belittled and even today some art critics regard his art as something nice to look at but not as serious art. Henri's big drawback was his background. He came from the working class.

Le Douanier
Henri Julien Rousseau was born in Laval in Northern France into a family of a plumber. As a kid Henri showed an interest in arts, both music and drawing. He would have liked to become an artist but with the modest means of his family it was nothing but a dream. Henri finished the Lycee, a kind of high school. And for a short time he worked for a lawyer before he joined the French army in 1863. Later he would claim that he had served in Mexico. But art historians agree that this was nothing else but a fiction.

In 1868 Rousseau took a minor job at the French Customs department where he collected customs fees at a toll station from the local farmers who brought their merchandise to the Paris markets. This gave him later his nickname le douanier, the customs inspector.

His job as a customs collector gave him enough time to paint. In 1884 Rousseau had obtained a permit to make copies and sketches in the National museums of Paris. In 1885 two of his paintings were exhibited at the Salon des Champs-Elyssees. From 1886 until his death he exhibited every year at the Salon des Independents. This was the exhibition platform of the avant-garde artist in contrast to the Salon des Artists Francais, which represented the "official", classical art. The Salon des Independents had no jury and admission procedure and every artist could exhibit for a fee.

The Grandfather of Naive Painting and Surrealism
In 1893 Henri Rousseau took the chance to retire at the age of 49 on a small pension to realize his dream of becoming a full-time artist. Henri tried to supplement his pension by giving violin and painting lessons and by making portraits on commission. He earned some extra money as a street musician.

The Leitmotiv of Henri Rousseau's paintings are scenes of the jungle and wild animals like tigers, monkeys or buffalos. Today it is assumed that he painted the jungle landscapes after the images of the Botanical Garden in Paris. And the images of wild beasts were painted from photographs and after a drawing book of his daughter. On one of his paintings the bananas are shown growing upside-down and on other paintings he grouped different animals that in reality live on different continents and could never have been seen in this combination.

Rousseau was self-taught in every way. Even his painting technique was different. He painted the different colors one by one - first the blues and then the greens and so on - and he painted from top to bottom of the canvas.

Towards the end of his life his painting style showed no substantial changes. But it had developed - into depicting imaginative, unrealistic worlds. And the motif of dream appeared in his late paintings. The surrealist movement would later consider Rousseau as one of their forerunners.

Henri Rousseau - the Outsider
Somehow Henri Rousseau got the attention of some professional avant-garde artists. The discussion whether they took him serious or if he was only some kind of exotic amusement for them fills many books. Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, Odilon Redon, Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin and later Pablo Picasso, Georges Braques and Wassily Kandinsky certainly appreciated his works.

It is astonishing and impressive at the same time how this man from the working class and without any academic art training was able to find a style of his own and how he was immune against adopting anything from the avant-garde artists around him. From an outsider who finally got some limited acceptance, you would expect some eager readiness to absorb the styles of the established art world or to experiment with the trendy styles of his avant-garde comrades like impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism or cubism. Not so for Henri. And this makes him so unique.

The Banquet
In 1908 several artists under the leadership of Picasso organized a banquet in honor of Henri Rousseau. Many great names of avant-garde art attended the banquet, among them Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay and Wilhelm Uhde. Picasso appreciated Henri Rousseau and for Henri it meant a lot to be a part of the avant-garde artist circles. Rousseau was seemingly unimpressed by the derision with which he was treated by art critics. He considered himself to be a great artist. Two years before his death he said to Picasso:

"We are the two greatest painters of this era: you in the Egyptian style and I in the modern style!"
By "Egyptian style" Rousseau meant the elements of African tribal art that Picasso and other artists had assimilated when they developed the art movement known as cubism. This citation not only shows the exaggerated self-esteem but also the naivety of Henri Rousseau. He seemed to live in a different world of his own.

The art dealer Ambroise Vollard with his unerring sense for successful art, bought several of Rousseau's paintings shortly before Henri's death.

Henri's Death
Henri Julien Rousseau died September 2, 1910 in Paris at the age of sixty-six. Appolinaire wrote the epitaph written on Rousseau's tombstone.

"We salute you
Gentile Rousseau you can hear us
Delaunay his wife Monsieur Queval and myself
Let our luggage pass duty free through the gates
of heaven
We will bring you brushes paints and canvas
That you may spend your sacred leisure in the
light of truth
Painting as you once did my portrait
Facing the stars"
In 1911, one year after the artist's death, Wilhelm Uhde organized a memorial exhibition for Rousseau in the Salon des Independents and published the first biography of the artist. Henri Rousseau's paintings now began to sell. In this he shared the same fate with Paul Gauguin. Why do so many artists first have to die before they can become famous? "


Val
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[Ihavehope]

I like Manolo Yanes' art.

it's fabulous.

Thanks Valerie.

Al

[Val]

Al, glad you liked  Manolo's art!  The next artist's art may appeal to you as well, but in a different way...  We're talking about CyberArt.  Anyway, I do like what he does!

Davide dell'Acqua  (1961-    )

Vanity




Notre Dame




Dark Boy




Starlights




Leather Chair




Chrysler Building




Sebastiane




Biography

"People often ask me why I place "cyber" in the signature of my works.
I was brought to computer art by a wide range of experiences. I've grown
in an artistic environment (my mother and my grandpa are both famous artists);
since the beginning I used "traditional" painting tecniques, then the passion
for photography brought me to some personal exibits. I wrote also a collection
of novels, then I entered computer art world. I live computer art as a new
mean of expression to depict modern and contemporary subjects.
Digital mean allows me to obtain peculiar effects and sharp realism. Anyway
every work comes out of a handmade drawing made with inks and pencils and
it requires about a month from the beginning to the end.
My favourites subjects are both architectures and erotic figures, male and female.
This research generates an imaginary world linking the present to a romantic
and erotic future (my cyberworld).
Many works are stored in private collections, both in Italy and mostly abroad.
Many monographic articles appeared on digital art magazines and erotic art magazines."


Val
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[bear60]

Val
Some of the pictures you post ...the last ones...and a few others ....are not loading....... ??

[Val]

Ain't that funny, some time ago I was having problems with my computer 'cause people would PM me saying that they could indeed see the pictures, whereas in my screen there was just a little square with the letter "x"  in red!  Now that I have apparently fixed the problem in my laptop, this?  Because now I can view all the paintings that I've posted so far net and clear in my screen!
Hum, what do you think I should do, Bear, stop?  This actually was just a try to get some kind of beautiful things into our lives online here at AidsMeds anyway...

Val
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P.S. Here is Davide's home page in case his Art appeals to you.

Davide dell'Acqua  ---  From Italy

http://davidedellacqua.altervista.org/opere.html

[Val]

One of the European capitals where Art is just about everywhere  ---  Paris.

Paris vu du ciel  ---  Yann Artus Bertrand




Le Château de Versailles au coucher du soleil  ---   Yann Artus Bertrand





Artus Bertrand webpage

http://www.yannarthusbertrand.com/yann2/index.php


Biography

http://www.bibliomonde.net/pages/fiche-auteur.php3?id_auteur=115


Val
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[carousel]

Val

Does all this mean that you've weened yourself off sharing youtube vid's?

Just askin'

xx

[bear60]

Val
Oh I love your art.  I am an artist and love to look at art. Don't stop!!!! Keep posting.  I was simply alerting you to the possibility that something was wrong.  I haven't a clue what the problem is however....lol.

[J.R.E.]

I like the relativity---1953 !! I am sure I have seen a print of this somewhere before. Looking at it, reminds me of many, many years ago, when I was tripping out on the occassional LSD. 

In fact, the more I look at it, the more I think I am having a flashback !! Try saving it and rotating it 90 degrees. at a time.



Ray

[Val]

Bear,
Let me know if it is working, please, 'cause in my computer screen I can see all of the paintings and pictures that I've posted!  Thanks for the nice words, baby!

Val
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P.S. Charles, will send you a PM later.

[Ihavehope]

Val

thanks for sharing with us those lovely pics of Paris. I love Paris, I wish I was there now eating a crossaint and walking down the Marais cruising the bi-curious Algerian boys who wear the tight jeans. Ugh, how I desire to be there now. I loved walking down the Hotel-D'ville at night. You lucky Bitch. lolz.

AL

(who may neva return to Paris because he is now broke  and needs to save his money to buy his Kaletra pills)

[Val]

This is a surprisingly harmonious Brazilian artist that had some rough times throughout her life.  At the end of her life, though,  she became more European than Brazilian, since she lived for quite a long time in France.

Tarsila do Amaral ---  (1886-1973)


Sol Poente  ---  1929




Abaporu  ---  1929




Antropofagia  ---  1929




Boi na Floresta  ---  1928




O Lago  ---  1928




Carnaval em Madureira  ---  1924




A Cuca  ---  1924




Tarsila's web page

http://www.tarsiladoamaral.com.br/index_frame.htm

Biography

http://www.gringoes.com/articles.asp?ID_Noticia=1011


Val
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[Val]

This artist is by far the most American of all the European artists, 'cause in fact he is American in his heart!  Needless to say, he has a special place in my heart as well.

Thomas Barbèy  (1957-    )


Sowing the seeds of love




High Security




Crash course in Italian




Inner Beauty




Masquerade




Under the Weather




Natural Disorder




High Societies




Urban Offering




His website:

http://thomasbarbey.com/index.cfm


Biography:

"Thomas Barbey was born in Connecticut in 1957, and was taken to Europe by his parents when he was six months old. After Italy and Germany, came Switzerland where he lived for 17 years. All his schooling was in French. He left the University of Geneva after one semester to pursue a career in the music business. After entering the Italian music charts, he moved to Italy and stayed there for 15 years. He successfully pursued the music business to pay for all his bills and kept photography as an expensive hobby. He then owned a full blown photographic studio for Fashion photography in the early 90s and finally moved back to America in 95. Today he's teamed up with his wife Suzanne and they both live in Las Vegas. She takes care of the business side and he works on black and white surrealistic images that he likes to call "photomixage".


Val
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[Val]

A German artist who spent most of his artistic life in France.

Hans Hartung  (1904-1989)


Composition T-1924



Composition T-1961



Composition T-1963



Composition T-1963 R6



Composition T-1974



Composition T-1982



Composition T-1973



Biography:

"In my opinion the painting which is called abstract is none of the 'Isms' of which there have been so many lately, it is neither a 'style' nor an 'epoch' in art history, but merely a new means of expression, a different human language - one which is more direct than that of earlier painting." (Hans Hartung) Hans Hartung was one of the few artists who spent their entire life working in an Informel manner. He began studying philosophy and art history in 1924 at the university of Leipzig, but soon changed to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Leipzig and then Dresden. He continued his training in 1928 with the painter Max Doerner in Munich. This period is reflected in his oeuvre in spontaneous, sketchy line compositions in which Hartung was guided by the inspiration of chance and analysed the tension between the areas of colour and the lines. After a lengthy stay on the Balearic island Menorca Hartung settled in Paris in 1932. Here he met Kandinsky, Mondrian, Miró and Calder and exhibited works at the 'Salon des Surindépendants'. At the beginning of the war Hartung joined the Foreign Legion and returned to Paris in 1945 with severe injuries. He became a French citizen. His work during this period is characterised by suspended areas of colour superimposed by calligraphic bunches of lines. Hartung had important exhibitions in Paris, Brussels, Munich and Basle after 1949 and frequently showed works at the documenta in Kassel between 1955 and 1964. He was honoured with the 'Prix Guggenheim' in 1956 and awarded an honorary membership of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. He was awarded the Great International Prize for Painting at the Biennale in Venice in 1960. During the 1960s Hartung made monochrome areas of colour in which he engraved rows of parallel grooves, thus introducing not only a calligraphic but also a three-dimensional element into his work. Hartung published his memoirs called 'Autoportrait' in 1976. One year later he became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris and in 1981 was awarded the Oskar-Kokoschka-Prize of the Republic of Austria. The large number of awards Hartung received for his work prove him to be an artist of international importance. He died in 1989 as one of the most important painters of the European Informel "


Val
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[Val]

He was Madame/Marquise de Pompadour's favourite painter and protégé.


François Boucher  (1703-1770)


The Toilet of Venus  ---  1751




The Fountain of Love  ---  1748




La Cible d'Amour  ---  1758




Les présents du berger ou Le Nid  ---  1740s




Diane sortant du bain  ---  1748




Venus consoling Love  ---  1748




Landscape with a mill  ---   1756




Boreas abducting Oreithyia  ---  1769




Biography:

Born on 29 September 1703 in Paris, the son of a minor painter, Nicolas, by whom he was probably first taught. He studied briefly under François Lemoyne before winning the prix de Rome at the Académie in 1723 (Evilmerodach and Joachim; unlocated), but there was then no place for him at Rome. Until 1728 he worked for J.-F. Cars, providing drawings for engraving, and made etchings after Watteau for Jean de Jullienne, continuing meanwhile to paint small historical and religious pictures.

In 1728 he went to Rome, probably at his own expense, with Carle, Louis-Michel and François van Loo; Vleughels, Director of the Académie de France, found him modest quarters. Although not in good health, he seems to have looked at works by Reni, Albani, Cortona, Correggio and Sebastiano Ricci, and he made a number of landscape drawings (in 1735 he was to publish twelve etchings of figures after Abraham Bloemaert, Le livre d'etude). He was in Paris in 1731 when he was agréé, and his morceau de réception, Rinaldo and Armida (Louvre) was accepted in January 1734. In 1735 he was made adjoint à professeur and in 1737 professeur. His industry and facility rapidly brought him success, at home and abroad.

His first commission from the Crown, paintings for the chambre de la Reine at Versailles in 1735, was followed by others for Versailles (between 1736 and 1756), Fontainebleau (1737-53), the Bibliothèque du Roi (1741-46), Choisy (1741-7) and La Muette (1748-9). His first tapestry designs were made in 1736 for Beauvais, whose output he dominated over the next twenty-five years, and he provided stage designs for the Opéra (1737-9, 1743-8). By 1750 he was painting for Madame de Pompadour whose lavish patronage enhanced his later career. He continued to supply stage designs for the Opéra and Opéra-comique and his work inspired porcelain figure groups for the Vincennes and Sèvres factories, 1749-56.

On the death of Oudry in 1755 he became inspecteur at the Gobelins. Although in his later years his work was less vigorous and attracted some criticism at the Salon (essentially for its profligacy), his official career was unimpeded. At the Académie he was made adjoint à recteur in 1752, recteur in 1761 and Director in 1765 (a post he resigned in 1768). In 1765 he was appointed premier peintre du Roi. He visited the Netherlands with Randon de Boisset in 1766. He exhibited at the Salon between 1737 and 1769 (excluding 1741, 1744, 1749, 1751, 1755 and 1767), and died in Paris on 30 May 1770. His collections, which included all kinds of curiosities, were sold in Paris from 18 February 1771.




Val
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[Val]

These dudes rock!  They are the enfants terribles of French photography.

Pierre et Gilles  France

Pierre et Gilles form a couple, an entity whose work is inseparable from their life and everyday universe. They create portraits of stars and unknowns in unique hand-painted photographs, through an established process:
- they first draw a sketch of the work they have imagined together, according to the model and the role they want him to play;
- they conceive the entire production from the set made with carefully selected materials and accessories, collected worldwide during travels or shopped all around. They also realize the lighting in order to animate and magnify the subject by a play of angles and filters. They select or even realize themselves the costumes, make-up and hairdressing, sometimes with the help of the best specialists;
- Pierre photographs the scenery they have imagined together. Gilles then paints the unique print with successive layers of paint and glaze, exceeding reality. It results in a unique, perfectly aesthetic image that definitely cannot be done by any kind of digital software;
- finally, they conceive the specific frame that is an integral part of the work. Actually, they consider the frame as the extension of the image's universe ;
Everything is considered in order to achieve an aesthetic perfection and a vision of an enchanted world, corresponding to their dreamed reality. As they state: "This is a little bit of photo, a little bit of painting. There is the idealization of the sopped moment; Gilles with his brush can go and go back, and there is no time limit."
Their own universe always shows the same reoccurring idealized set of themes: stars and unknown friends, sailors and princes, saints and sinners, fairy paradises and lowest depths, popular iconography and magic, all mixed together in a world of love and grace.


























Val
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[Val]

When the subject is Mythology painting, he is indisputably one of the master!

Francesco Albani  (1578-1660)


The Rape of Europa  ---  1645




La Toilette de Vénus  ---  1635




Le Repos de Vénus et Vulcain  ---  1633




Les Amours désarmés  ---  1631




Biography:

Albani studied in Bologna with the Mannerist Denijs Calvaert before joining the Carracci Academy where he was an enthusiastic pupil. Like so many other artists from Bologna, he moved to Rome to study classical art which he then applied with zeal to his own work. Albani's classicism can be seen in the altarpieces he painted after returning to Bologna. Among them is The Baptism of Christ now in the Bologna Pinacoteca Nazionale.

His love of classical antiquity is still more evident in the cycles he painted on mythological subjects, a genre of painting he practically established. He used mythology in Dance of the Amorini or the allegorical tradition (elements, seasons) as the pretext to paint smiling idylls to which he added nymphs, goddesses, and happy little putti all set against luminous ideal landscapes. In this way he created an appetite for light-hearted, pleasant works which lasted throughout the seventeenth century. It did, however, tend at times to decline into insipidity. His favourite format for this type of composition was the tondo or oval.


Val
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[bear60]

Val
All of your recent posts seem to be ok.  Post #20, the images still are not there for me. I would not worry about it.

[Val]

Thanks, Bear, for the information.  Post #20 is showing just fine on my screen.  Anyway, there is the webpage of the artist posted as well!

I have several British artists that I admire.  Blake is one of them!

William Blake  (1757-1827)


Europe a prophecy  ---  1824




Nebuchadnezzar  ---  Circa 1805




Newton  ---  Circa 1795




Pity  ---  Circa 1805




The poison tree




The Angel of the Revelation




The Angel of the Divine Presence  ---  1803




The Great Red Dragon  ---  1805




Biography

William Blake was born on 28 November, 1757, in London, England, the third son of Catherine née Wright (1723–1792) and James Blake (c.1723–1784) a hosier and haberdasher on Broad Street in Golden Square, Soho. Young William was prone to fantastic visions, including seeing God, and angels in a tree. He would later claim that he had regular conversations with his deceased brother Robert. It was soon apparent that Blake’s internal world of imagination would be a prime motivator throughout his life. Noting something special in their son the Blakes were highly supportive of and encouraged his artistic creativity and thus began his education and development as an artist.

He had early shown an interest in and aptitude for drawing, so, at the age of ten Blake entered Henry Pars’ drawing school. Then, at the age of fourteen Blake started a seven year apprenticeship with engraver James Basire, the official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries. From his bustling shop on Queen Street, Blake learned all the tools of the trade that would become his main source of income. He was often sent out on assignments to create sketches and drawings of statues, paintings, and monuments including those found in churches like Westminster Abbey. The intense study of Gothic art and architecture appealed to Blake’s aesthetic sensibility and brought out his penchant for the medieval. He also met numerous figures from London’s intellectual circle during this period. After attending the Royal Academy under Sir Joshua Reynolds for a time Blake left because he found the intellectual atmosphere there too restrictive to his burgeoning artistic side. In 1780 he obtained employment as an engraver with publisher Joseph Johnson.

In 1782 Blake married Catherine Sophia Boucher (1762-1831). Although they had no children it was mostly a happy marriage and Blake taught Catharine to read and write. They were a devoted couple and worked together on many of Blake’s publications. He had been writing poetry for quite some time and his first collection, Poetical Sketches, appeared in 1783. While Blake was busy with commissions he also undertook the task of creating the engravings that would illustrate his own poetry, and he also printed them himself. He experimented with an early method of creating images and text on the same plate. His highly detailed illustrations often focus on parts of the human anatomy or fantastically imaginative creatures surrounded by various natural forms. Often tackling difficult metaphorical themes, his characters embodying inspiration and creativity do battle with oppressive forces like law and religion. He employed techniques for decorative margins and hand-coloured the printed images, or printed with the colour already on the wood or copper plate, the paint of which he mixed himself. This attention to the craft and details of each volume make no two of his works alike. He also illustrated works for other writers and poets including Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Original Stories from Real Life (1788).

The Book of Thel (1789), one of Blake’s first long narrative poems, was followed by the first of his prophetical works, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c.1793). Other works finished around this time were America: A Prophesy (1793), Europe: A Prophesy (1794), Visions of the Daughters of Albion (1793), and The Book of Urizen (1794).

In 1800, the Blakes moved to Felpham in Sussex where William was commissioned to illustrate works by his then patron, poet William Hayley. In 1803 Blake was charged with sedition after a violent confrontation with soldier John Scolfield in which Blake uttered treasonable remarks against the King. He was later acquitted. In 1805 he started his series of illustrations for the Book of Revelations and various other publications including Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th Century Canterbury Tales, Robert John Thornton’s Virgil and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Milton: A Poem was published around 1811. Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion (c.1820) is Blake’s longest illuminated work.

In 1821 the Blakes moved to lodgings in Fountain Court, Strand. There he finished his work on the Book of Job in 1825, commissioned by his last patron John Linnell. The following year he started a series of watercolours for Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, which he worked on up to the day of his death. William Blake died at home on 12 August, 1827. Unable to pay for a funeral, Linnell loaned the money to Catherine. Blake was buried in an unmarked grave in the Non-Conformist Bunhill Fields in London where Catherine was buried four years later among other notable figures of dissent like Daniel Defoe and John Bunyan. A grave marker now stands near to where they were buried. In 1957 a memorial to Blake and his wife was erected in Poet’s Corner of Westminster Abbey, London.



Val
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