The Visual Arts: Exploring the History of "Fine Art" and Beyond

My point here is that there are non-western artists whose body of works are not included in Art History because well they are not Western-- in short, racism.

Undoubtedly racism exists... and was part of what led past generations to ignore the achievements of artists of other cultures... but to suggest that because an artist who was Black or Female or Gay or non-Western was ignored and is still ignored because of sexism or racism or any other such bias is making something of a leap. For every Black or Female or non-Western artist whose work has been ignored, there are just as many... if not far more... Western Male artists who have largely disappeared or been ignored.

Who decides which artists make it into the so-called "canon" of art history? This is a process that continues to evolve over the course of time and is the result of the opinions of those who have invested most into art: art dealers, art collectors, art historians, academics and professionals of all walks, and then obviously the well-informed art audience and the subsequent artists. For better of worse art often follows money and power because it is here that the artist will find patronage, support, and promotion of his or her work. We are constantly "discovering" ignored masters. 150 years ago Vermeer was largely ignored, today he is a towering figure of art history. Vilhelm Hammerschoi and Anders Zorn... both masterful painters... were only recently "rediscovered". Japanese Art has benefited from Japan's history... their trade with the West, their military and economic power have resulted in their art being the subject of study and exploration by the West. Chinese art becomes increasingly important as China becomes a military/economic power to be reckoned with.

The reality is that every culture pushes their own culture/history/artistic vision. You cannot blame the United States of Europe for not taking Filipino or Ecuadorian or Sudanese art seriously. The French promote their tradition... and those traditions they deem relevant to their development. The same is true of the English, the Italians, the Germans, the Americans, and the Filipinos.

Not really. If you recite in the proper order facing west at the exactly time, you can quote in the midle. :.

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Anyway, you are on ignore from now. :lol:....... I don’t want this thread to be closed.

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The owls are not what they seem

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Originally Posted by ftil

Have you noticed that when you quote somebody the name is on the top of the post not in the middle of the post?
If you use quote bottom there are no numbers behind the name.

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Thank you for showing your art…..I prefer Gerhartz’s and Coombs’ art that is full of feelings.

There is no art that is full of feelings. A work of art is an inanimate object. The feelings are in the viewer. A work of art may inspire feelings in the viewers, but ultimately you bring these to the work. I have a response to Coombs and Gerhartz as well. I find the work overly sentimental, unrealistic, and cliche. The paintings are technically very well executed, but they strike me as pastiches of works by artists that I find far more original and far better. Artists in the same painterly tradition, including Boldini, Charles Chaplin, Anders Zorn, Watterhouse, Ingres, Girodet, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Anton Raphael Mengs, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Sorolla, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Frank Duveneck, Manet, William Merritt Chase, etc... to say nothing of Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Velazquez and Raphael were all far more original, far more innovative, and far better painters all around. You can't honestly express surprise if an artist you like paints in a manner that is little more than a pastiche of Impressionism or Cubism if others are likely to compare these artists to Monet and Degas or Braque and Picasso and feel that the pastiche comes up lacking. I admitted as much in connection with the artist Catherine Able, whose work I posted earlier... and admitted that it was a pastiche of Art Deco, Cubism, Tamara Lempicka, etc... While I like her work... I don't imagine that it is in any way in the same category as Lempicka... let alone Picasso and Braque.

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Originally Posted by JCamilo

Not really. If you recite in the proper order facing west at the exactly time, you can quote in the midle. :.



The owls are not what they seem

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Why don't you offer miyako73 your company? :lol:


I remember that a member posted Beksinski art on the forum. I didn't know his paintings and I don't regret.

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Zdzisław Beksiński was a renowned Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor. Beksiński was born in the town of Sanok, in southern Poland. After studying architecture in Kraków, Beksiński had no formal training as an artist. His paintings were mainly created using oil paint on hardboard panels which he personally prepared, although he also experimented with acrylic paints. The 1980s marked a transitory period for Beksiński. During this time, his works became more popular in France due to the endeavors of Piotr Dmochowski, and he achieved significant popularity in Western Europe, the United States and Japan.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdzis%C...Beksi%C5%84ski

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His paintings.
http://art.vniz.net/en/beksinski/


Beksiński claimed, "I wish to paint in such a manner as if I were photographing dreams".


I reminds me about Henry Fuseli's The Nightmare and S. Freud.


When Max Eastman visited Sigmund Freud's apartment at Berggasse 19,Vienna, Austria, in 1926, he noticed a print of John Henry Fuseli's (1741-1825) The Nightmare hanging on the wall next to Rembrandt vanRijn's The Anatomy Lesson.


Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jo..._Nightmare.JPG


Sigmund Freud was also fascinated with demonology.

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Sigmund Freud calls the Praestigiis Daemonum one of the ten most significant books of all time.
http://www.esotericarchives.com/solomon/weyer.htm

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De praestigiis daemonum is a book by demonologist Johann Weyer, also known as Wierus, first published in Basel in 1563. The book also contains a famous appendix also circulated independently as the Pseudomonarchia daemonum, a listing of the names and titles of infernal spirits, and the powers alleged to be wielded by each of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_praestigiis_daemonum

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@St. Luke

We have traditions in sculptural and textile arts. But the West looks at them as exotic and too ethnic; thus, they are called handicrafts. Our painting history can be traced back in 1800's or even earlier when the Spanish painters came and put up art schools in the Islands. I don't think your "cultural cringe" is applicable as far as the painting history of the Philippines is concerned.

Earliest painting/drawing/illustration works in my country:


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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

Thank you for showing your art…..I prefer Gerhartz’s and Coombs’ art that is full of feelings.

There is no art that is full of feelings. A work of art is an inanimate object. The feelings are in the viewer. A work of art may inspire feelings in the viewers, but ultimately you bring these to the work. I have a response to Coombs and Gerhartz as well. I find the work overly sentimental, unrealistic, and cliche. The paintings are technically very well executed, but they strike me as pastiches of works by artists that I find far more original and far better. Artists in the same painterly tradition, including Boldini, Charles Chaplin, Anders Zorn, Watterhouse, Ingres, Girodet, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Anton Raphael Mengs, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Sorolla, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Frank Duveneck, Manet, William Merritt Chase, etc... to say nothing of Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Velazquez and Raphael were all far more original, far more innovative, and far better painters all around. You can't honestly express surprise if an artist you like paints in a manner that is little more than a pastiche of Impressionism or Cubism if others are likely to compare these artists to Monet and Degas or Braque and Picasso and feel that the pastiche comes up lacking. I admitted as much in connection with the artist Catherine Able, whose work I posted earlier... and admitted that it was a pastiche of Art Deco, Cubism, Tamara Lempicka, etc... While I like her work... I don't imagine that it is in any way in the same category as Lempicka... let alone Picasso and Braque.

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There are paintings full of feelings and paintings completely void of feelings. If people have vibrant bodies full of feelings, they will feel them. But I am not going into details as it is off topic.

You are entitled to have your opinion about paintings, so I am. Please, don’t forget that it is your opinion and not the opinion of all artists or art historians. Likewise, my opinion is only my opinion. ;)

Also, one modernist Filipino Painter named Manansala did impressive works in the 50's to 60's he called Transparent Cubism, which was original, yet you can't find his name in art history books:


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We have traditions in sculptural and textile arts. But the West looks at them as exotic and too ethnic...

Actually, that's a bias within the West as well. There are great debates concerning the divide between the so-called "fine arts" and the "applied" or "decorative arts". William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Pre-Rapahelites, and the Bauhaus all challenged this notion... but it became re-entrenched under Clement Greenberg and other Modernist critics that used terms such as "narrative", "illustrative" and "decorative" as insults... the idea being that such works of art were less "pure".

One of my favorite living artists, Robert Kushner...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_469894.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...rt-kushner.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...rt-kushner.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...bitimgashx.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...itimgashx2.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...er-everest.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...DAHLIA2000.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_RK00-01f.jpg

...was part of the so-called "Pattern Art" movement that embraced pattern and decorative art rooted in tapestries and other decorative art forms including textile arts. Kushner traveled through the Middle-East and Japan and was struck by the absence of such a divide between applied/decorative art and "fine art". There are more than a few Western critics/historians/artists who are exploring art forms and genre once dismissed as minor in comparison with painting, sculpture, and architecture.

You are entitled to have your opinion about paintings, so I am.

The statement that a painting is an inanimate object and has no feelings is not an opinion, but a fact... unless you have some bizarre interpretation of the terns fact and opinion... or unless you can show how a painting has feeling.

A painting can inspire feelings... but these feelings are in the audience not in the painting. Fact.

The feelings inspired by a work of art vary between people because of the fact that the audience brings their own feelings to bear. Fact.

St Lukes is correct. A painting is an inanimate stimulus that can stir emotions. If you see a laughing image of a person in a canvas, it's just an image of a person with an open mouth and a distorted face. Does the painting feel happy? Nope. Is it a painting about happiness? Not necessarily. Does it make you happy? That's the question only you can answer. Even paintings which have figures that giggle make me sad. See, it is its viewer who gives emotion to a painting.


Okay, poker game is over. I lost.

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Originally Posted by stlukesguild

The statement that a painting is an inanimate object and has no feelings is not an opinion, but a fact...

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This is just your opinion not a fact. :lol:

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unless you have some bizarre interpretation of the terns fact and opinion... or unless you can show how a painting has feeling.

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LOL! Well, if you don’t pick up feelings from the paintings, I am not going to explain it to you. Nobody would. As I said, you have to feel the feelings to understand what I am talking about. If you are interested to learn, I may give you some books to read so that you may understand it and evaluate your level of emotional awareness. Otherwise, I don’t want to waste your and my time. It starts with cognitive knowledge but it is the beginning and until you experience it, you wouldn’t have a clue what I am taking about. ;)


I have forgotten to ask you which of your paintings you presented was awarded.

My god, ftil! Do you know the meanings of "inanimate" and "object"? I seldom agree with St. Lukes; I think you don't know what you're talking about.

She actually knows, she said "you have to feel" and "until you experience" and not "the painting feels" or "the painting has experience", but her desire to pull Stlukes leg is too much to admit one single agreement with him. And no cognitive theory will help out, as the majority of cognitive models focus too much on the individual. This is funny :D

Thanks, JC. You got that one. I did not continue to read after she said inanimate object having no feelings is not a fact. Inconsistency problem again. Damn! inconsistency.

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Originally Posted by miyako73

My god, ftil! Do you know the meanings of "inanimate" and "object"? I seldom agree with St. Lukes; I think you don't know what you're talking about.

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LOL! I was just curious if you were going to do what Cioran did, knowing that he was on my ignore list but for 14 pages responded to my posts.

I guess I can expect another 14 pages..... Forums are..... delightfully entertaining. :lol:

You have made my day.


My gift for you.

Rene Magritte, Le Modele Rouge

http://store.myartmatch.com/enlarge/89442/

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Originally posted by JCamilo

She actually knows, she said "you have to feel" and "until you experience" and not "the painting feels" or "the painting has experience", but her desire to pull Stlukes leg is too much to admit one single agreement with him. And no cognitive theory will help out, as the majority of cognitive models focus too much on the individual. This is funny

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You didn't understand what I said. I am not going to repeat it.........you already has a company. :lol:

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Originally Posted by ftil

LOL! I was just curious if you were going to do what Cioran did, knowing that he was on my ignore list but for 14 pages responded to my posts.

I guess I can expect another 14 pages..... Forums are..... delightfully entertaining. :lol:

You have made my day.



My gift for you.

Rene Magritte, Le Modele Rouge

http://store.myartmatch.com/enlarge/89442/

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Didn't you just respond to my post? I thought I was on ignore. C'mon. I know you can't resist.

Stluke, I bet you'd probably like Tadashi Nakayama. He does a mix of modern and traditional Persian styles.

I didn't know Tadashi Nakayama.

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Nakayama begins each print by drawing the design on ordinary paper. After the design is completed, it is painted with watercolors an he may add gold and silver to help him visualize the final work. Next, Nakayama transfers each color of the design onto separate sheets of tracing paper. For example, every section of the print which will be magenta is traced onto a separate sheet of paper, every section which will be cadmium yellow is traced onto another sheet, etc....

When all of the areas of color have been transferred onto sheets of tracing paper, the next step is to transfer the image to the woodblocks, again using one block for each of the different areas of color. Nakayama craves his blocks using chisels, awls, knives and other tools. Upon completion of the carving, he begins the printing of trial proofs. During this process, he determines the order in which the colors and the leaf gold and silver will be printed. Determining the order of colors is influenced by the shadings of color he wishes to create and it also depends to some extent on where the colors are located in the composition. For example, when certain colors are printed over others, a certain grain or striation might occur which Nakayama does not want in his print. Experience has taught him the general order of the application of colors and the optimum time for the printing of 24 carat leaf gold and silver. Nakayama's goal might be to achieve the clearest printing possible or it might be to create a kaleidoscope of brilliance by overlapping colors.

Because Nakayama's prints are very complicated, they are very time-consuming and he is able to complete only one or two prints each year. He is the sole creator of his work and until very recent years, he did all of the work of each print. He drew the basic design, traced the colors onto the blocks, carved the blocks, printed the trial proofs and final edition. At this time, he receives some assistance in the carving of blocks and in printing. However, all stages of carving and printing are done under his supervision. He controls every stage of his creativity.
http://www.hendricksartcollection.com/nakayama.html

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http://www.hendricksartcollection.com/nak30.html


http://castlefinearts.com/search_res...eno=3&pn=&rpp=


http://www.azumagallery.com/exhibiti...g%20Horses.jpg


http://www.azumagallery.com/exhibiti...fly%20Wind.jpg


http://www.azumagallery.com/exhibiti...g%20Horses.jpg

What a shame that someone as brilliant and generous with his time as stlukesguild comes here and gives everyone, for free, an art education, and yet the thread is persistently mucked up by a couple of plonkers. Even more a shame that moderation is loose enough here to permit that to happen.

After this post, I'll make thumbnails for the works I post.

Robert Coombs' painting, "Almost Sundown," is, like all his works that I have seen online, nothing more than visual cliche. I'm sure he knows it. As I mentioned, he's a talented painter, which talent most shows up in his loose, free, impressionistic backgrounds, but obviously he is also a businessman who wants to make money off his art. No garret for him. And that's fine. But the rest of us can become visually educated enough to understand why paintings like this just don't sufficiently nourish the mind or the heart. They are Reader's Digest Art. If you want Shakespeare, or Dostoevsky, or even Feminist Post-Colonial Marxism, you'll have to set your sights higher.

It's worth pursuing for a moment the literary analogy. If you are a reader and a writer and someone came along and wrote nothing but simple little stories in simple language with a formulaic plot, one-dimensional characters, simple, predictable resolutions and cheap, easy sentimentality, would that be enough for you? I should hope not.

Compositionally, "Almost Sundown" is as basic and unchallenging as it can be: foreground, background. No visual challenge. Everything is on the surface. Easy.

The girl's attitude and bearing, her expression, the way she twines her hair, is all formulaic. It's idealized and pedantic. Trite. The artists uses (mostly) local color to render her flesh and garments, though he becomes freer and less constricted in the background.

I suppose the highlight of the painting is intended to be the way the sunlight plays off her hair. And it's well done. The problem is, stuff like this has been done countless times, and better. See: the Impressionists. This is what we want from art? The play of sunlight on hair? It's fine to have that. But is that all we want?

Looking at the work, we might think: is this made at sunrise or sunset? At least that might give us something to think about. We might imagine something different about the girl's attitude and bearing, the thoughts running through her mind, if the work were made in the morning, rather than in the evening. Maybe, maybe not. But at least it would give us something to think about,

But, no. The artist is determined to give us nothing to think about or ponder. We are offered no challenges. He has helpfully titled the work "Almost Sundown," so we aren't even allowed to reflect on the time of day depicted in the work.

Verdict: Yawn. It's wallpaper.

Here's a 1921 work by Edward Hopper. It's called Night Shadows.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CRBK_oJYQO...adows_1921.jpg

Even the name sings of poetry, without giving away the meaning of the work.

Compositionally, the work is daring and unconventional, the exact opposite of Coombs's soporific compositional cliches. It's a striking view from above, not too often seen in fine arts in general, though a staple of graphic novels.

The inky, enigmatic shadow, that bold velvet-black line, cutting diagonally from left to right, intersects with, and provides a jarring counterpoint to, the gracefully curving expanse of the spacious white sidewalk. By itself that design is interesting to look at, even if nothing else were in the work.

What's it a shadow of? No doubt of a streetlight. That is the source of the illumination. But as the shadow crawls up the side of the building, it becomes immense, face-like, vaguely threatening. It looms.

Who is the man, and where is he going at this late hour? What is the storefront? We don't know. He seems to be walking at a brisk gait, and we sense that if we waited another moment, he might break out into a trot -- even into a run. Is he on some sinister mission? Or perhaps he is being pursued, and feeling threatened, in this lonely, street-lighted concrete island of the New York City night. We don't know. We are not given this information but left to ponder it.

So much of Hopper's work is like this: enigmatic, full of isolation, asperity, foreboding and solitude. It's spooky. It reminds us that the big city, for all its hustle and bustle, its swarming mobs, is at bottom a foreboding and lonely place, a place of anomie and alienation. We're faces in the crowd. Desolation. Loneliness and death. With no solution to the riddle of why we are here or where we go, if anywhere, when we die.

These are not the cheap, easy, facile emotions that Coombs trades in, but dark and disturbing emotions that are important precisely because they are authentic and we all must confront them whether we wish to or not. With an astonishing economy of means, and no recourse to color, Hopper has vividly evoked existentialism.

The line work and cross-hatching by itself is expressive, and so damned interesting to look at. It is reminiscent of Rembrandt. The sharp light/dark patterns hold one's attention and prefigure Noir film of the 1940s, still two decades in the future when Hopper made this.


Earlier I mentioned local color, and expressiveness in the visual arts. As I recall, someone took issue with my naming "expressiveness" as vital to the visual arts. I've no idea why. What is visual art, if not expression? Perhaps one could contend that some of the more extreme abstractions and simplifications of certain minimalist art are void of expression, or intended to be so, but I don't think so. Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie is one of the most expressive works I've ever encountered. Here it is:

http://uploads2.wikipaintings.org/im...oogie-1943.jpg

As to local color, what happens when the artist abandons it? Remember, local color is an attempt to reproduce as faithfully as possible the colors in the subject of the painting, the colors before one's very eyes.

Let's look at another work with the world "night' in it. It is the Night Cafe, by Vincent Van Gogh. In it, Van Gogh abandoned local color.

http://www.3cushion.com/Pics/Art%20W...ght%20Cafe.jpg

Of this painting, Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo: "I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green."

The terrible passions of humanity by means of red and green! Not only is there expression in art, as someone earlier took issue with, but it may be done -- somehow! -- by means of red and green!

But how?

Red and green are complementary colors,

What does that mean?

Well, now we are into color theory. Color doesn't care whether you are a post-colonialist feminist Marxist, a Libertarian, a devotee of George Romney or whether your subscribe to Readers' Digest. It doesn't care about the "fiscal cliff" or anything else.

In the painter's color wheel, there are three primary colors: red, yellow and blue. These are the linchpins of the subtractive color wheel. In the additive color wheel, such as is used in Photoshop, the three primaries are red, green and blue, and in printing cyan, magenta and yellow.

Primary colors are colors that contain no trace of any color but themselves. That is why they are primary. They reflect the fact that the human eye is trichromatic.

Each of the primary colors has a secondary color that is its opposite and complement. In the case of red, that color is green: which is a 50/50 mixture of the two other primaries, yellow and blue. The complement of the primary yellow is violet: a 50/50 mixture of the primaries red and blue. And the complement of the primary blue is orange, a 50/50 mixture of the two other primaries red and yellow.

It is a curious fact about the way that the human mind is wired that these complementary colors reinforce each other. Red set against green brings out redness and greenness most powerfully. Yellow against violent brings out yellowness and violetness most powerfully. Blue against orange brings out blueness and orangeness most powerfully. This phenomenon is called complementary contrast.

Google Joseph Albers for more on this.

Van Gogh's painting isn't the best expression of the violent Red/Green complementary contrast, since the green of the pool-table felt is not set directly against the blood red of the walls, although the green of the ceiling does meet the red of the walls. And the painting of course contains a lot of yellow.

The main point, though, is that by abandoning local color -- for surely the cafe did not look just like this -- Van Gogh has gained powerful expressiveness. His expression is less subtle than that of Hopper, but along the same lines: He has painted a place, he wrote, where one can go mad.

By simple means of bold color and powerful three-point perspective, the artist has used paint by itself to pry open the door to the oubliette of the human psyche, down which he himself would ultimately plunge.

From such simplicity does the visual arts draw upon immense resources, with searing and soaring results.

More later.

I actually don't like Mondrian much... and I hate Broadway Boogie Woogie. I had a college painting professor, somewhat of an Expressionist (as I was as the time) once give us a lecture on Mondrian's composition. During the lecture, I asked, "Do you REALLY like Mondrian? REALLY?" He stopped and thought for a moment, and then replied, "Well...... I really don't like Broadway Boogie Woogie. No... That's not right... I really don't like Mondrian.":lol:

I actually like some of Mondrian's earlier works... largely because they have something of a more human touch to them. That's what I like about Sean Scully. He found a way to marry two opposite strains of abstraction: Hard-Edged Geometric Abstraction/Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism/Gesture Painting:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...dOhio/th_8.jpg

I suspect my aversion to the strain of geometric Abstraction has to do with the fact that I was inundated with such as a student. A good many of my teachers were former students of Joseph Albers. The head of the painting department at my school was one of the leading figures of the Op Art movement: Julian Stanczak:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Seven-site.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...rilinparis.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...-in-Red_lg.jpg

There's a certain irony to the fact that in spite of my proclaimed aversion, geometry and pattern have become so central to my work.

*****

Hopper on the other hand, is brilliant. He is an example of the difference between the master craftsman and the master artist. I was able to see Hopper's Retrospective at the National Gallery a few years back. While his watercolor paintings are quite fluid and convey some of the sense of virtuosity that you find in Winslow Homer and even John Singer Sargent, his oil paintings have a certain rudimentary crudeness. I never find myself impressed by his handling of paint... let alone his drawing... which can be lumpen at times. In spite of this, the results are quite brilliant. He plays this geometry, which so well conveys a stark modern American urban landscape, against the color and isolated figures which so well convey a sense of atmosphere. Here are a few of my favorites:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...RoominNY2z.jpg
-A Room in New York

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...084c04f32b.jpg
-Night Windows

Hopper spent some formative years in Paris and had studied the great Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. His paintings build upon the manner in which Degas, Vuiilard, and Bonnard set the viewer up as voyeurs to intimate domestic dramas. In A Room in New York we view a domestic scene through the window as if through the lens of a camera out on the balcony. The faceless man sits reading the evening paper while his faceless wife turns away and absent-mindedly plunks a few keys on the piano. They are separated by the table and the door... yet the red chair enveloping the man and the woman's red dress suggests an undercurrent of passion... unrequited desire.

In Night Windows, Hopper takes the voyeuristic view even further. We look across the street through the windows of a neighboring apartment. We are offered but a few suggestive details. The warm summer breeze blows the curtains outward. We see the edge of the bed (draped in red) and a woman clothed only in a rose (red) towel bends over (perhaps drying her hair) offering us a view of her shapely bottom. To the right, a lamp with a red shade casts forth a crimson light like those of the Red Light District in Amsterdam. Like Jimmy Stewart playing the voyeur in Rear Window, we are led into drawing all sorts of conclusions... making up narratives... many of a rather erotic nature.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...fice-night.jpg
-Office at Night

In Office at Night we are presented with a scene of a male office worker and his secretary working late into the night. The hard simplified forms presents a setting where everything is proper and business-like... but there is something unsettling about the greenish light... which is rather hellish as in Van Gogh's Night Cafe... if not as extreme. The man and the woman are framed and brought together by the light on the wall. He looks as if he is trying all he can to remain professional... unaware of the gaze his secretary makes in his direction and her voluptuous body that is barely kept contained by her tight business attire. The curved arms of the chair behind her almost reach out to caress her full buttocks... as perhaps the man desires. The entire setting conveys the sort of understated sexual tension one finds in film noir... like a scene from The Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_hopper16.jpg
-Summertime

Hopper can create a dramatic mood from the simplest of means: a curtail blowing in the wind as a lovely red-haired woman in a clinging and semi-transparent white dress steps out of a stark white building into the blinding light of the summer sun which casts raking shadows on the walls.

I fully realized the limitations of Clement Greenberg's theories when it came to his comments on Edward Hopper. Greenberg was unable to wholly dismiss Hopper in spite of the fact that his paintings challenged all of his theories about abstraction, narrative, American provincialism, etc... He recognized the genius of the work... but was unable to admit that perhaps Hopper just might be a great painter. The best he could offer was to suggest that Hopper represented some debased strain of literature.

Another artist who recognized the genius of Hopper was Alfred Hitchcock. The way Hopper stages his scenes, the unexpected points of view, the single figure isolated against the modern city landscape, the psycho-sexual dramas, the sexual undercurrents in a society that was ever very proper... all of these had an immense impact on Hitchcock. And who could fail to recognize this as the very model for Norman Bates' house?

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...heRailroad.jpg

Sorry, I'm sort of on the go so I have not had time to read and consider all of your latest post, but ... you HATE Broadway Boogie-Woogie?

:eek6:

Doh!

It may be that you have to live in New York City, as I do, to get it.

Anyway, keep up the good work, and don't let the plonkers get you down! ;)

Great stuff on Hopper, stlukesguild. Thanks.

How's Cioran today? Can you explain why you like Broadway Boogie Woogie? I know I'm not on ignore. Be honest to yourself.

St Luke, can you comment on my reading of your Noli Me Tangere? Like my formalist analysis of your work's title. Thanks.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stlukesguild

...Up until about 5 years ago I was working mostly in collage related to books and reading. A few examples:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...omasMoresm.jpg
-Winter Meditations on a Theme by Thomas More

...I'll post two of my newer figurative paintings that I have posted on line before:

...The second image is to give some concept of scale. My figurative paintings are 80"x44" and are constructed of mixed media (pastel, acrylic, pencil, and gold-leaf on paper). My major influences include Japanese Ukiyo-e prints and screen painting, Indian sculpture, Persian, Arabic, and Medieval European illuminated manuscript paintings, Byzantine mosaics, early Italian Renaissance painting, Ingres, Klimt, Bonnard, Matisse, Beckmann, Francis Bacon, and recently... popular culture, posters, etc...

---

Thanks for sharing examples of your work. A couple years back you shared Temptation on the Let out the artist thread (posts 473 and 476) along with a blog entry. Temptation is very similar to Tyger, Tyger and Noli me tangere, are they part of a more extensive series on a theme?
I’m drawn more to your collage works, with the use of old envelopes, inclusion of postage stamps, the overall geometrical composition and proportions are pleasing, “comfortable”. They appeal to my architectural eye.


Happy New Year in art

I took a moment to see what 2013 has to offer as it pertains to upcoming local museum exhibits.
One exhibit that I already had my sights on from last year, is the “Bernini Sculpting in Clay” coming to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth this February.

The Bernini exhibit is an absolute must for me. I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to see many of his sculptures in the flesh when visiting Rome on two occasions. The exhibit will feature 49 of his clay and terracotta study models as well as several of his drawings.

https://www.kimbellart.org/exhibitio...sculpting-clay

Fountain of the Four Rivers at Piazza Novona (1988):

http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/a...20-R02-187.jpg

^Note: the lion at the bottom of the tree just above the water, now look at the museum link above and the photo of Bernini’s clay study for the lion. Btw that is St. Agnes church in background left.

In addition to the Bernini exhibit, the Kimbell will also host “Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes” and “The Age of Picasso and Matisse: Modern Masters from The Art Institute of Chicago”

https://www.kimbellart.org/exhibitio...-ancient-andes

https://www.kimbellart.org/exhibitio...titute-chicago

Speaking of the Kimbell, the museum expansion is slated to open late 2013. The expansion is designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano.

The Dallas Museum of Art is still showing “Posters of Paris: Toulouse-Lautrec and His Contemporaries.” See St. Lukes posting earlier on this thread (Post no. 6)
The exhibit ends January 20th, so I better hurry.

http://www.dallasmuseumofart.org/Vie...ons/dma_442782


Heading back to Fort Worth, I skimmed through the Amon Carter Museum of American Art website to see what’s cooking for 2013. I discovered the artist Romare Bearden and his upcoming exhibit with a literary connection; “A Black Odyssey”.

http://www.cartermuseum.org/exhibiti...-black-odyssey

I’m interested in seeing this one.



Sorry to bury your questions miyako73.....St. Lukes?, Cioran?...


.

~

R e m i n d e r

Please do not personalise your arguments.

Off-topic and/or inflammatory posts will be removed without further notice.

~

Cioran and St. Luke, do you find "Broadway Boogie Woogie" better, more beautiful, more briliant than this painting "Avenida Manila" that won a medal in Biennale Internazionale dell’ Arte Contemporonea Florence. The painting is a depiction of a street in Manila. I want to learn from you guys how you compare paintings with almost the same subject.

Attachment 8577

As most here probably know, I am an incurable bibliophile... nay, a biblio-maniac. I am writing these words from an office den that by most definitions is a decent small library. I am surrounded by several thousand books... at last count at least 3500. The book shelves are full. Books are stacked on top of these reaching to the ceiling. Books teeter and tower on the desk, on the tables, on top of the computer, and on the floor, turning the room into a labyrinth of the written word that J.L. Borges would surely understand. I became hooked on reading and books from a young age... and it was through books that I was first truly introduced to art.

The first book that I remember reading and wholly enjoying was Dr. Seuss' classic, Green Eggs and Ham. I have little doubt that I was as enthralled by the visual imagery as I was by the text:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...gs-and-ham.jpg

Not long after, my brother received Dr. Seuss The Sleep Book for his birthday... a gift that taught me the meaning of "envy". The visual imagery of this book was even more fantastic... surreal, even (although I did not then know the term):

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...1c62801efc.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._Book_017f.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...reen2large.jpg

When I first stumbled upon Salvador Dali not too many years later, I could not help but recognize a similarity of visual language. This painting in particular, entitled Sleep, struck me as quite "Seussian" with the head balanced on stilts...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_Dali-8.jpg

... an apt image of the tenuous nature of sleep and dreams.

Other books that ranked among my favorites due primarily to the art included Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Things-Are.jpg

A good many years later I found that I was just as enthralled with Sendak's unique visual magic and fantasy when I attended his production of Mozart's Magic Flute:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_003067.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...l287472811.jpg

as well as his contributions to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_nmbc02.jpg

Both Seuss and Sendak inspired me and fueled me with a love of the fantastic. I am still far more enamored of the fantastic and the fabulous than I am of the realistic... in literature and art.

I was lucky enough to have inherited several older books from my grandparents that were illustrated with engravings or lithographs. Among these, I remember Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-glass...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...hio/th_121.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...7qpo1_1280.jpg

Mother Goose...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...0newy_0001.jpg

the whole Wizard of Oz cycle...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...w-Oz-ch5-2.jpg

Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ckfinn_1_e.jpg

the tales of Edgar Allan Poe...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...RDCEAA4XOV.jpg

and the collected works of Shakespeare:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...dPrint_100.jpg

I didn't get around to reading Shakespeare until later... the texts proved far too dense for me at the time... but the engraved illustrations were incredibly atmospheric and highly seductive. I still remember the image of Richard III's hired goons killing his young nephews as they slept.

As I approached adolescence, my tastes in illustration shifted toward comic books. I followed any number of comic book superheroes: Batman, Spiderman, Superman, Captain America, the Fantastic Four, etc...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...man-flying.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...an-vs-zod2.jpg

I didn't know it at the time, but comic books had roots in some truly "serious" art. The graphic elements of the imagery, the page layouts, the shifting point of view and scale... even the narratives laden with superheroes undertaking impossible deeds, monsters, ghouls, ghosts, epic battles... all of these and more could be found in Japanese Ukiyo-e prints dating back to the 18th and 19th century.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...o/th_K2620.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._actorspan.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...uniyoshi02.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...yoshi-Defy.jpg

Even if I had known about "serious art"... "fine art"... at the time, I doubt I would have been the least interested. This was a period dominated by Modernist abstraction. In actuality, the greatest draftsmen of the age were employed in illustration and comic books. Where the Baroque had Caravaggio and Rubens and Van Dyck painting grandiose oil paintings of Christian and Greco-Roman heroes and saints... the mid-20th century had Batman, Superman, and Wonder-Woman... drawn with all the Baroque love of the muscular body seen in dramatic action and from breathtaking points of view.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...nd-700x545.png

Speaking of Wonder Woman... comic books also offered the adolescent boy, such as myself, the first real sexual fantasies... in the form of hot, scantily-clad women:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...1books_600.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...bell_super.jpg

Along with the comic books of superheroes, I was also reading those that featured fantastic tales of aliens, monsters, ghouls, ghosts, and the like:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...etales-097.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...etales-099.jpg

And then there were the more "underground" satirical comics ala MAD, Cracked, and Plop! These accompanied my first nascent adolescent steps toward teenage rebellion:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...TmX-126039.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_Madhk1.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...lverton_cv.jpg

It was around this time that I discovered and became obsessed with my first real "fine artist", Salvador Dali. Dali was introduced to me by a young, female art teacher, just out of art school. He was like an unadulterated drug:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...iled_beans.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_cannibal.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...memory1931.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_narciss.jpg

The guy could paint with the facility of any realist... but didn't waste his time on such boring crap. Instead he painted dream-like images of melting watches, ant invasions, elephants on stilts and giraffes on fire... bodies morphing into strange monsters and devouring themselves, bizarre illusions... and all the strange sexual imagery... Here was an artist any teenage boy could love.

I ran out and bought my first art book on Dali... and it was a magnificent and incredibly expensive book. At $100 it was a luxury item for me at the time... but worth every bit. The pages were gilt in gold leaf, the cover was also laden with gold and embossed, and the book weighed a ton... illustrated with the finest quality reproductions. I gloated over and gorged myself on that book... until I virtually knew every painting... intimately.

My obsession with Dali lasted perhaps a year... at least until I discovered Heironymus Bosch...


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8234/8...9231654f_n.jpg

If Dali was like an unadulterated drug... he was marijuana... where Bosch was pure crack cocaine or heroin. Nothing in Dali prepared me for this 15th century madman. To this day I would name the Garden of Earthly Delights as one of the ten... if not 5 greatest paintings ever. Dali's surreal imagery came from his private dreams and fantasies. Bosch' nightmares came from reality. He recognized that reality was as surreal, fantastic, absurd, and nightmarish as any fantasy or dream. I can think of no other painting that has so kept me enthralled... looking ever closer at all those unimaginable details... all the little dirty deeds...

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8094/8...01e4a400_n.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8470/8...4356bc29_n.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8493/8...7785b9f8_n.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8357/8...37aba9c8_n.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8211/8...647808c5_n.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8055/8...f73660b2_n.jpg

The symbolism is such in Bosch, that one could write entire volumes on just the Garden of Earthly Delights... and indeed, more than a few art historians have done just that.

And where the "Garden" leaves off, The Temptation of St. Anthony picks up:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...StAnthony1.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_tempt-l.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_tempt-c.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_tempt-r.jpg

More than a few viewers have noted that Bosch' paintings suggest an almost frenzied LSD inspired vision... so it shouldn't come as a surprise that there may indeed be a link. St. Anthony, due to the tales of his visions, was considered the patron saint of the affliction known as "St. Anthony's Fire" or ergot poisoning caused by fungal infections of rye and other cereals which is then ingested. The symptoms include gangrene as a result of vasoconstriction induced by the ergotamine-ergocristine alkaloids of the fungus leading to poor circulation, loss of peripheral sensation, edema and ultimately the death (gangrene) and loss of affected tissues, painful seizures and spasms, diarrhea, itching, headaches, nausea and vomiting. The mental effects including mania or psychosis including LSD-like hallucinations.

Quote:

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Originally posted by stlukesguild

Bosch' nightmares came from reality. He recognized that reality was as surreal, fantastic, absurd, and nightmarish as any fantasy or dream. I can think of no other painting that has so kept me enthralled... looking ever closer at all those unimaginable details... all the little dirty deeds...

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I could not say that Bosch kept me “enthralled”. I have learned about Bosch by…… an accident as I searched books about Gnosticism. I have found Wilhelm Fraenger’s The Millenium of Hieronymus Bosch. I haven’t finished reading his book as Fraenger didn’t provide specific references so that I could verify the sources. His book didn’t even have bibliography.....perhaps, the publisher has forgotten. :D

I have found in Wikipedia about Fraenger.

Quote:

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Wilhelm Fraenger (5 June 1890 in Erlangen – 19 February 1964 in Potsdam) was a German art historian.
Fraenger was a specialist in the epoch of the German Peasants' War and of the mysticism of the Late Middle Ages. He wrote important studies of Jerg Ratgeb, Matthias Grünewald and Hieronymus Bosch. His work on Bosch was very influential in its day and considered Bosch under the aspect of occultism, seeing Bosch as an artist guided by an esoteric mysticism. He maintained friendships with numerous artists and intellectuals, some stretching decades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Fraenger

---

Occult (from the Latin word occultus "clandestine, hidden, secret) is "knowledge of the hidden" …bibliography or specific references, therefore, must be hidden. :lol:

Great post, StLukes. Interesting reading.

The last little bit reminded me of how I really need to go out and see more paintings in person. It truly changes the way you experience visual art.

Wilhelm Fraenger was more than a bit of a whacko... although his book on Bosch provided the first real look at his work in depth. I still have a copy myself. The Garden of Earthly Delights by the writer, Peter S. Beagle was far more useful. Beagle offered far more solid interpretations of Bosch' works based on the writings of mainstream art historians as well as his own observations and conclusions as an art lover and a writer. The book presents Bosch is a manner accessible to the non-art historian. The best book on Bosch available at present appears to be that by Larry Silver which is built more on solid research without the desire to prove some personal theory, which marred Fraenger's book. Fraenger assumed that the "heretical" details mocking the clergy proved that Bosch must have been a member of some heretical cult into the occult... but in all reality, Bosch's mockery of the clergy and the aristocracy are no different from that of Chaucer or many other artists and writers. Bosch had the added advantage that he did not need to sell his paintings. He had married one of the richest women in the county which provided him a degree of independence that left him free to paint as he wished.

SLG- I might note... that up to this point I had never been to an art museum nor seen a real painting of merit in reality. While I may have known that many paintings were far larger than they appeared in reproduction in books, having only seen them in this manner had a profound impact upon my perceptions of painting.

PM-The last little bit reminded me of how I really need to go out and see more paintings in person. It truly changes the way you experience visual art.

Yes... at this point, even though I knew that many of the paintings by the old masters that I was just then exploring were quite sizable... the dimensions were printed right there in the books... my actual experience... what I was seeing... was limited to book-scaled reproductions. As a result, all of my efforts at painting at the time might be termed as miniatures. I have little doubt that William Blake's work was marked by the fact that most of the artists he knew and admired he only knew through mechanical reproductions: engravings.

Vampirella... so strange they started to try to make her history as if she is not just an impossible walking swimsuit. Frank Frazetta art in black white was the best thing for cheap horror stuff.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by stlukesguild

Wilhelm Fraenger was more than a bit of a whacko... although his book on Bosch provided the first real look at his work in depth. I still have a copy myself. The Garden of Earthly Delights by the writer, Peter S. Beagle was far more useful. Beagle offered far more solid interpretations of Bosch' works based on the writings of mainstream art historians as well as his own observations and conclusions as an art lover and a writer. The book presents Bosch is a manner accessible to the non-art historian. The best book on Bosch available at present appears to be that by Larry Silver which is built more on solid research without the desire to prove some personal theory, which marred Fraenger's book. Fraenger assumed that the "heretical" details mocking the clergy proved that Bosch must have been a member of some heretical cult into the occult... but in all reality, Bosch's mockery of the clergy and the aristocracy are no different from that of Chaucer or many other artists and writers. Bosch had the added advantage that he did not need to sell his paintings. He had married one of the richest women in the county which provided him a degree of independence that left him free to paint as he wished.

---

Well, I would say that Bosch was a whacko. Therefore, you may be right that Wilhelm Fraenger was a whacko too……. for choosing to write about Bosch. :lol:

Second, I don't understand how you can say that Fraenger "provided the first real look at his work in depth". It is a work of pseudo scholar who didn't provide specific references and bibliography.
I wouldn’t waste my time to read others interpretations of his art. As I said, it was by an accident that I discovered his paintings.

It is interesting, St Lukes, that, separated as we are by thousands of miles and from similar but different cultures, that we share a good number of pictorial influences. I don't mean to suggest I'm an artist, or even cultured, but I recognise many of those references you made from my own childhood.

Dr Suess books were coveted in my first class - we had The Cat in the Hat - and the kids would rush to be the first to get that book. It was the same with Green Eggs and Ham later. Mother Goose, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were all there, and I really loved the marvel comics and read them over and over when I could afford them. Mad was there too, but I always went for the X-Men or Dr Strange. I came across Bosch and, in my teens, a friend introduced me to Dali, though I have to say I had barely an artistic or appreciative bone in my body at that time.

Interesting post.

Around the time of my discovery of Bosch I began to make something of a systematic exploration of art history on my own. Today this would have been so much more easy with access to the internet, Wikipedia, and literally millions of works of art available in reproductions on-line. Back then I relied on the small library in the small town in which I lived, as well as those in the towns immediately surrounding. Newsweek had published this great series on the major museums around the world: the Louvre, the National Gallery London, the Hermitage, the Prado, the Uffizi, the Met, etc... These presented the artists by nationality and chronologically. I also began to pick up monographs on artist who really caught my attention.

Being so floored by Bosch, I began to look around for something similar and I rapidly stumbled on Pieter Bruegel (Brueghel) the Elder. Brueghel began his career as something of an heir to Bosch. This was especially true of his engravings which employed similar themes and imagery:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._-_WGA3537.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...-_Gluttony.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...jjio1_1280.jpg

Like Bosch, Brueghel presented landscapes that were teeming with tiny figures... often engaged in all sorts of dirty deed... all laden in symbolism and allegory. The meaning of Big Fish Eat Smaller Fish is not too difficult to discern but prints such as Christ in Limbo (the Harrowing of Hell) and Gluttony from the series on The Seven Deadly Vices are full of bizarre Bosch-like details that leave the viewer puzzling for hours.

Brueghel also produced a number of paintings that following in the fantastic tradition of Bosch. Among my favorites are The Fall of the Rebel Angels:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...bel-angels.jpg

As the Rebel Angels are driven from heaven by those Angels loyal to God, they already have begun to metamorphose into strange creatures... amphibians, fish, one toad-like creature that opens his own belly to reveal his guts and eggs... and another fallen angel... the most beautiful... perhaps Lucifer himself... is blessed with the lovely wings of a butterfly. As with the "Hell" panel of Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights the viewer can virtually hear the cacophonous noise of this scene as the battle is accompanied by yelling, howling, horns blaring and bleating, the drone of a hurdy-gurdy, and the pluck of various stringed instruments. Of course Bosch takes this even further, transforming the instruments that in earthly life were the source of profane and lurid music, into the very means of torture for sinners in his hellish orchestra.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8515/8...f57e921e_n.jpg

Another favorite painting by Brueghel in the tradition of Bosch is the painting entitled Dulle Griet (or "Mad Meg"). The painting portrays a tale from Flemish folklore of a woman so driven by desire for riches that she leads an army of women in a raid on hell itself. The painting is an obvious comment on the sin of avarice.

Perhaps the greatest of Brueghel's paintings in the realm of Bosch-inspired fantasy is the harrowing Triumph of Death. In this painting, death is unrelenting and unforgiving. He shows no mercy and no concern for age, wealth, or rank. Women, children, kings, knights, Popes, court jesters, musicians, mothers, lovers... death comes for all... and all are ferried away to the scorched landscape of the dead.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...th_death-1.jpg

Brueghel, however, worked with a broader range than Bosch. He was no mere follower of Bosch. Along with Bosch, he established the tradition of Netherlandish landscape painting with his God's eye view of the natural world. Brueghel's landscapes exhibit an acute observation of the details of the real world that is astounding. These were clearly the result of endless life studies... some of which have survived.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...ng_bruegel.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...jjio1_1280.jpg

Brueghel's study of beekeepers presents an almost "surreal" image... wholly rooted in reality. In spite of the fact that the Netherlandish painters lacked the formal understanding of anatomy, physiology, and perspective that the Italian masters such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, etc... displayed, Brueghel still exhibits an unprecedented grasp of foreshortening, the body seen in a broad array of poses... at work and at play... and the illusion of receding space as conveyed through scale and aerial perspective.

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Gloomy_Day.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...Harvesters.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._hunters-1.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...aking-1565.jpg

Nor has any artist surpassed Brueghel in his ability to capture not only the details of the landscape... but the sense of atmosphere and color. The teal-pewter-gray sky and the black figures isolated against the stark white snow in Hunters in the Snow perfectly conveys the frozen atmosphere of February. In the painting The Harvesters/August one can literally feel the heavy oppressive humid atmosphere that has led a number of the farm-workers to collapse with exhaustion. In Haymaking/July(?) we are presented with a glorious summer day. I have always thought it appears more like June than July. The weather is not yet too hot as conveyed by the cool colors, the clothing, and the attitudes of the laborers. While hay is gathered in the fields, girls haul baskets of fruit... berries and cherries... off to market.

Peter Paul Rubens, who would become the greatest Flemish painter, and the artist perhaps most instrumental in the development of the genre of the landscape... especially in France and England... was a great admirer of Brueghel. Indeed, he owned several of Brueghel's paintings and was a close friend and co-worker with Brueghel's son, Jan. Rubens made a study after the three farm girls in Brueghel's Haymaking (which unfortunately I cannot find online)...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/.../th_14july.jpg

... and other elements of Brueghel's landscapes pop up again and again in the later artist's work:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_rubens01.jpg

One of my absolute favorite paintings by Brueghel is the so-called Netherlandish Proverbs:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...h_proverbs.jpg

At first glance, the painting is a realistic view of the comings and goings in a small Netherlandish village... although some of the things being carried out appear a bit strange. Nearly every last detail in the painting, however, is a literal representation of then-commonly-known proverbs: "He has an eel by the tail" (Akin to our "tiger by the tail". "She holds fire in one hand and water in the other" (She blows hot and cold). "One must crawl to make one's way through the world." "He has the world balanced on the tip of his thumb" (In the palm of his hand). "he runs his head against a brick wall." "Their so close they s*** from out of the same hole." The meanings of many of these proverbs are still recognizable today.

One of the most intriguing of Brueghel's paintings was his last, Magpie on the Gallows:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...The_Gallow.jpg

Gallows were a common site in the war-torn Netherlands as they struggled against oppressive Spanish rule. But here we have the gallows in the most beautiful... even idyllic of landscapes. Beneath it peasants dance joyfully. Clearly the painting suggest the co-existence of life and death. Like Poussin's painting "Et in Arcadia ego"... even in paradise we shall find death...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...arcadie_ii.jpg

The fact that Brueghel left this one painting to his wife in his will has led others to surmise that the image of the magpie (a symbol of gossip) on the gallows was something of a warning to his wife against excessive loose talk after he was gone.

St. Luke,
I am curious where you found that Brueghel was inspired by Bosch’s paintings. Did Brueghel say that Bosch was his inspiration?

Well, I would say that Bosch was a whacko. Therefore, you may be right that Wilhelm Fraenger was a whacko too……. for choosing to write about Bosch.

Bosch is acknowledged as one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance and one of the key figures in the development of the Northern Renaissance. I don't see how electing to study and write about him could be deemed "whacko"... except by yourself.

Second, I don't understand how you can say that Fraenger "provided the first real look at his work in depth". It is a work of pseudo scholar who didn't provide specific references and bibliography.

Yes, Fraenger's book... or rather the common English translation doesn't include a separate bibliography according to modern/contemporary formal academic standards. However, the book includes an appendix of some 100+ pages with hundreds of citations and there are hundreds more citations throughout the text itself. Obviously, you have not read or even come across a complete copy of Fraenger's Heironymus Bosch.

I probably should not have termed Fraenger as a whacko. He is far from being a pseudo-scholar. He has far more legitimate claim to being a respected scholar of art history than either you or I. Fraenger began his studies of Art History at Studied at the University of Heidelberg in 1915. He was awarded a major prize by the university for his essay on 17th century art theory, and earned his Doctorate from Heidelberg in Art History in 1917. He dis further studies in France, Holland, and Switzerland and was appointed Library Director of Schlossbibliothek in Mannheim. Fraenger founded a group of academics opposed to certain aspects of "elitism" in the study of the arts, and in support of Progressive ideas in education. In 1927 Fraenger was forced out of power by Nazis due to his progressive views. The nazi's took an even more hostile view of his book of the German painter, Matthias Grünewald. After the war, Fraenger became active in politics and education, and was later appointed appointed director for the Center for German Folk Studies (Institut für deutsche Volkskunde), part of the German Academy of Sciences. His books on Bosch and Grünewald remain important Art Historical texts.

Fraenger's studies on Bosch are incredibly well-researched. Fraenger constructed an explanation of the artist's work based on his theory that Bosch belonged to a heretical group, the Adamites in 's-Hertogenbosch, which practiced many of the rites depicted in Bosch's paintings. The theory remained controversial and unaccepted by other Bosch scholars, including Charles de Tolnay.

I wouldn’t waste my time to read others interpretations of his art. As I said, it was by an accident that I discovered his paintings.

Yes... it's much easier to make up your own interpretations based on a complete lack of knowledge of the artist, his biography, the culture/society in which he worked, his artistic predecessors and sources of inspiration.

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Originally posted by stlukesguild
Yes, Fraenger's book... or rather the common English translation doesn't include a separate bibliography according to modern/contemporary formal academic standards. However, the book includes an appendix of some 100+ pages with hundreds of citations and there are hundreds more citations throughout the text itself. Obviously, you have not read or even come across a complete copy of Fraenger's Heironymus Bosch.

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There are citations but there is no specific references so that the reader can’t verify the sources.
Perhaps, you don’t have a problem about that but I do.
Too many pseudo scholars and pseudo scientists of my liking. :brow:

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Fraenger's studies on Bosch are incredibly well-researched.

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Too bad that he didn’t learned how to provide specific references.

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Yes... it's much easier to make up your own interpretations based on a complete lack of knowledge of the artist, his biography, the culture/society in which he worked, his artistic predecessors and sources of inspiration.

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Well, I haven’t finished Fraenger’s book. Again, it is a pseudo scholar work. If it wasn’t, he would provide specific references. Sorry, but I don’t consider pseudo work as a source of knowledge. :lol:

I am curious where you found that Brueghel was inspired by Bosch’s paintings. Did Brueghel say that Bosch was his inspiration?

Brueghel's works clearly follow in the fantastic tradition of Heironymus Bosch... especially early on. Bosch was already dead by the time Brueghel had become a mature artist, but his work remained highly popular and there were any number of copies and forgeries:

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8368/8...3ccd333c_n.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8088/8...eab2db6e_n.jpg

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8335/8...3c1e7995_n.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...e-egg-1480.jpg

Demand for Bosch-like paintings and prints continued well into the 16th century. Hieronymus Co ck, the great Flemish printer and publisher fed this demand with prints after Bosch and in the manner of Bosch. Brueghel was among the many artists who provided images for Co ck, and his print Big Fish Eat Little Fish

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._WGA3537-1.jpg

...was actually published attributed to Bosch... no doubt in hope for a larger audience.

It doesn't call for a great leap of imagination to recognize that as Brueghel knew Bosch' work, provided prints for the same publisher who was promoting works after Bosch or in the style of Bosch, allowed for one of his first prints for this same publisher to be printed attributed to Bosch... then it is just quite probable that images such as this:

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/...io/th_11-4.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._bruegel17.jpg

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/..._bruegel18.jpg

... were inspired (at least in part) by the artist's exposure to Bosch's work... Brueghel almost certainly knew of Bosch' Garden of Earthly Delights (which remained in the Netherlands until 1566) either through the original, or through one of the dozens of known copies.

There are citations but there is no specific references so that the reader can’t verify the sources.

How specific do you need? My copy of Fraenger's book lists hundred of texts which Fraenger cites by title, author, date, and page. How much more do you need to verify? You're not a scholar nor an art historian.

Perhaps, you don’t have a problem about that but I do.
Too many pseudo scholars and pseudo scientists of my liking.

Starting with that face in the mirror?

Fraenger's studies on Bosch are incredibly well-researched.

Too bad that he didn’t learned how to provide specific references.

Again... what do you want? A hand-written copy of the artist's autobiography?

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Originally posted by stlukesguild

Brueghel's works clearly follow in the fantastic tradition of Heironymus Bosch... especially early on. Bosch was already dead by the time Brueghel had become a mature artist, but his work remained highly popular and there were any number of copies and forgeries:

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I asked a question about Brueghel because Fraenger mentioned that the person who ordered the The Garden of Earthly Delights was unknown. He also talked about the secrecy about that painting. So, I was wondering how Brueghel could see it…unless he had the same sponsor. Or perhaps, Fraenger wasn’t that wrong. :lol:

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How specific do you need? My copy of Fraenger's book lists hundred of texts which Fraenger cites by title, author, date, and page. How much more do you need to verify? You're not a scholar nor an art historian.

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Well, you have a different copy that I had then. There was only the name of the author. No the title of the book , no page, no year, no bibliography. How would you call that? :brow:

I am really curious and I may look at university library, if I can find a copy you have.

I have checked in both university libraries and both have a copy of The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch. Interestingly enough both copies were published by Chicago, University of Chicago Press [1951].
The copy I have read was also published by Chicago, University of Chicago Press [1951]
Very intriguing, I will definitely check it out how did it happened that my copy didn’t have neither specific references nor bibliography.