Art that you like

[knight66]

The Titian example above is an instance of the painting being designed to communicate with the viewer. The model is looking out at the observer who can read what 'he' wants into the expression on her face. Very much a piece designed to be looked at in private.

Mike

[facehugger]

oh wow, wtf

[Bunny]

Yes, and the actions of the figures in the background are equally enigmatic.  The servants, both clothed offer a strange contrast with the reclining figure, especially the girl on her knees with her head buried in the cabinet under what I believe is a window seat.  The scene is extremely intimate.

The Veronese on the other hand is less mysterious.  The allegory, that love disarms (or conquers) war, is didactically illustrated by Botticelli.  Veronese instead shows Venus nude (vulnerable) while Mars retains his armor. Cupid may be uniting them in symbolic marriage (note the garter he fastens around the legs of both Mars and Venus), but even Venus' symbolic offering of her breast (the milk of human kindness, as it were) is not motherly but provocative.  The very sexual nature of the scene is further enhanced by Mars who carefully drapes Venus's lower body, shielding it from the view of the childlike Cupid.  It is a scene filled with contradictions.  The allegory is given token representation by the putto carelessly playing with the sword, seemingly offering it to the still armed horse, with the stone satyr/atlante looking on.  While this painting is grander in scale than the Titian, it has too many intimate features for more public display. 

[Bunny]

oh wow, wtf

Illustrations of deadly sins were always strange.  The nude is holding a mirror, the symbol of vanity.  She is flanked by death and Hell; I think the lesson is very clear.  The back of the triptych shows Salvation flanked by the arms of the patron who commissioned the work, and a skull as another symbol of the impermanence of earthly life.

[Siedler]

Edvard Munch:

Ashes (1894)



Jealousy (1895)

[mahlertitan]

i like E.Hooper, and Dali.

[Brian]

Sadko!

[mahlertitan]

according to Duchamp art is useful too!

[Bunny]

i like E.Hooper, and Dali.

Hooper or Hopper?

[mahlertitan]

Hooper or Hopper?

hopper, Edward Hopper.

[karlhenning]

Hopper Exhibit opens at MFA Boston on 6 May

[knight66]

I saw an exhibition of his work last year, I was surprised by it. Having seen the occasional reproduction, I had gained the impression he had been recording The American Dream. However, seeing a broader range of his pieces, it struck me he was often portraying loneliness and alienation.

Superb work, several I would have liked to smuggle home.





Mike

[karlhenning]

I love his color and composition.  I might wish only that he drew figures better, Mike.

For stylized figures, you've got to love Tamara de Lempicka:

[karlhenning]

Although, come to think of it, that left arm of hers seems a bit hefty for her figure, generally . . . .

[knight66]

Yes Karl, that arm does look a little baloon-like and odd in relation to the very sculptured look of the rest of the painting, almost cubist.

Mike

[pjme]

Rik Wouters 1882-1916)



Jean Fouquet's extraordinary Madonna ( ca 1420 -1450)

[pjme]

Yes Karl, that arm does look a little baloon-like and odd in relation to the very sculptured look of the rest of the painting, almost cubist.

Mike

But then dear Tamara is the queen of (sexy - Hollywoodian) cubism!

[karlhenning]

That Fouquet Madonna is the cover for the Taschen Gothic title.

[knight66]

But then dear Tamara is the queen of (sexy - Hollywoodian) cubism!

Well, I wonder, perhaps synthetic cubism, soft cubism....art deco. She had quite a range over the years and this earlish example is as close to actual Cubism as she seemed to come, though perhaps this is even closer....the curls on the head.



But in general although there are elements of Cubism there, I do feel she combined the style with a more rounder sculptural aspect.

Mike

[pjme]

The Fouquet painting is here in the Museum ( Antwerp Fine arts) - Fascinating work !

Rik Wouters left a rich legacy -although he died at age 33. beautiful portraits & interiors. he was also a great sculptor :



" het zotte geweld" ( Wouter's wife Nel - crazy violence - extatic exuberance is propably a better translation)