March 2007
03/26/2007
The Art Of Odilon Redon
Odilon Redon [Bio
1840-1916] was an extraordinarily gifted and creative French Symbolist
painter and printmaker. His early prints were darker in nature, but
his later artwork exploded with beautiful colors like a butterfly from his
earlier gloomy cocoon. In short, I think Redon's oil and pastel paintings
are simply magnificent.
The Cyclops (1914)
According to the
Encyclopedia Britannica:
"French Symbolist painter,
lithographer, and etcher of considerable poetic sensitivity and imagination,
whose work developed along two divergent lines. His prints explore haunted,
fantastic, often macabre themes and foreshadowed the Surrealist and Dadaist
movements. His oils and pastels, chiefly still lifes with flowers, won him
the admiration of Henri Matisse and other painters as an important colourist."
Please click the link below to see rest of the article and images of Redon's
wonderful artwork.
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Painted Portraits Of Girls
This is a very interesting set of about 137 paintings from Wikipedia Commons. The older I get,
the more attracted I am to portraiture painting, and girls have always been
a favorite subject matter of mine and artists throughout history.
Alice
(1915) by Amedeo Modigliani
Click the link below to see my
favorites in chronological order to emphasize the change in art history.
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03/20/2007
Surrealist Playing Cards
These are cool. The first
set of cards was designed by the members of the Surrealist Movement in
Marseille in the 1940s. Other decks on the site are based on the works of
Salvador
Dali and
Paul
Delvaux.
"The deck was conceived in Marseille during a meeting of the
surrealist group. The designs for the deck were made by eight artists from
the group. Each made the designs for 2 court cards (including the aces). The
artists were Victor Brauner, André Breton, Oscar Dominguez, Max Ernst,
Jacques Hérold, Wilfredo Lam, Jacqueline Lamba and André Masson."
Surrealist Playing Card
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Erotic Art
in Pompeii and Herculaneum
I was not familiar with the erotic painting from Pompeii and Herculaneum,
until I found this collection surfing on Wikipedia.
"Erotic art in Pompeii and Herculaneum was discovered in the
ancient cities around the bay of Naples (particularly of Pompeii and
Herculaneum) after extensive excavations began in the 18th century. The city
was found to be full of
erotic
art and
frescoes, symbols, and inscriptions regarded by its excavators as
pornographic."
Erotic Pair
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Hirohiko Oda
I like the color in these paintings.
Untitled
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Patricia Nix
Elizabeth I
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Marcos Lopez (Neurastenia)
Gardel Appeared at the Picnic (1997)
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The Science Fiction Art of H. W. McCauley.
Mr. Margate's Mermaid
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03/19/2007
Yasujiro Ozu's Floating Weeds (1959)
Most people are familiar with the work of the great Japanese movie director
Akira Kurosawa, but not everyone is as familiar with the wonderful work of
Yasujiro Ozu.
Scene From Floating Weeds
Ozu's films are very understated and almost seem like documentaries of real
family life in Japan. His camera angels are low and static.
It's as if you are watching the characters with a secret security camera, but
the scenes themselves are composed almost like living wood block prints with
sub-frames and lots of movement by the cast moving about in the shot.
Floating Weeds (Ukigusa, 1959), which he made with the great cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa
of Rashomon and Ugetsu fame, is a remake of Ozu's silent movie (1934), and is the
fourth movie by Ozu that I have seen. It is only a handful of
his films in color so it
is very special indeed, which is why I think this movie would make a
great introduction to Ozu. The first three movies I saw were in black and
white and part of the
Noriko Trilogy:
Late Spring
(1949),
Early Summer (1951) and Ozo's masterpiece
Tokyo Story
(1953) all starring the delightful actress
Setsuko Hara
as the eternal virgin Noriko.
Read the whole review
here.
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03/12/2007
Venus, But Not In
Blue Jeans
This is an IWR article on the "Venus Art" search I did on Google.
There are like hundreds, if not thousands, of Venus themed artworks that
have been created in the last 500 plus years.
Botero's Venus
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Paul Delvaux
[Bio]
Belgian Paul Delvaux is my favorite surrealist painter. His dreamlike
paintings of his female subjects are quite natural and enchanting. I
wish I could have dreams like his artwork depicts. I found three
archives of his work from
Paintings Art In The Picture,
Anarkasis
and
IWeb.
My favorite for the moment is Femme Au Mirror.
Femme Au Mirror (1934)
The Great Sirens is from the Met's Timeline of Art History.
The Great Sirens (1947)
It's interesting how his backgrounds line up slightly off center to mitigate
the otherwise static settings.
The Wedding Dress (1941)
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George Owen Wynne Apperley [Bio]
George Apperley was an English oil and watercolor artist who lived in
England, Spain and Tangier. I think his Art Deco oil painting
A Dancer
of Ancient Egypt was his greatest work, but it would be too small for
this blog entry to really appreciate. Also, I found out from George
Apperley's son Henry that his mother posed for most of his father's nudes
and also served as his inspiration and muse. Here are three archives of his
work from his main page in
the UK,
the
Art Renewal Center and
Anarkasis.
Andromeda (1917)
Rosa de Granada (1917)
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The Czar of Bizarre
Johnny Meah is a top notch illustrator and artist. Admittedly, he is a
bit of a weirdo, though. ;-)
The Anatomical Venus
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03/05/2007
Ichiro
Tsuruta [Bio]
Ichiro Tsuruta's figurative art lithographs and silk screens are a wonderful
mixture of Art Deco and Japanese Bijinga
(Beautiful Woman) in the tradition of the printmakers Utamaro and Goyo.
Miyabi (Sophisticated Lady) (1999)
The Heroine J (1992)
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Margarida Cepeda
[Bio]
Portuguese figurative artist Margarida Cepeda's artwork reminds me of a
Pre-Raphaelite work of art, but without the naturalistic settings.
Her work also touches on the surreal.
Golden Rest (2005)
Dialogue (2003)
Light are the Birds (1999)
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Anna Jaap [Bio]
I really love the natural simplicity and color of her artwork.
Wish (2004)
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Jennybird Alcantara [Bio]
I found Jennybird Alcantara by accident when I was working on the Condi Land parody.
I really enjoyed her painting, but I think her dolls are truly exceptional.
Moribund
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Carrie Notari [Bio]
At first glance, one could dismiss Carrie's work as kitsch, but her
photomontages are very unique, and I personally wouldn't mind having a poster
from her
Aphrodite orGraffiti series! I don't know if that is her image in the
photos, but whoever it is, she is very pretty.
Flower Bodies: Rose III (2002)
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Vintage Nude Photographs on Wikimedia Commons
The Moulin color Daguerreotype below is a truly outstanding work of
photography from any age.
Félix-Jacques Antoine Moulin,
Daguérotype coloré, 1851-1854
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19th
Century Pornography on Wikimedia Commons NSFW
Not a lot has changed in the last 200 years. There's only so many
options. ;-) BTW, I wish I could have seen the Barrison Sisters
vaudeville routine in 1890! Be sure to check out all three of the
featured artists:
Édouard-Henri Avril,
Peter Fendi
and
Thomas Rowlandson.
Barrison Sisters & Kittens (1890)
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Family Resource Network -
Lending Library
I'm sure the Lending Library is a very worthy organization that serves its
community quite well, but this inventory of toys is a crackup for weird dude
like me. Check out for example the
Jingoism Game or the
Crocodile Dentist.
"Oh Noooooo!" Says the Emotion Doll
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Fate Magazine
Covers
(Bibi's)
These are great covers. I never hear of this magazine before.
October (1953)
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February 2007
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