More pictures to ponder...

[D. Allan]

As far as I can ascertain this picture is an example of 'German Impressionism.'

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Max Liebermann (July 20, 1847 in Berlin - February 8, 1935) was a German painter and printmaker in etching and lithography. The son of a Jewish businessman from Berlin, Liebermann first studied law and philosophy, but later studied painting and drawing in Weimar in 1869, in Paris in 1872 and in Holland during 1876-77. Although residing and working for some time in Munich, he finally returned to Berlin in 1884 and worked there for the rest of his life.

Together with Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt, Liebermann became an exponent of German Impressionism. He used his own inherited wealth to assemble an impressive collection of French Impressionist works. He later chose scenes of the bourgeoisie, as well as aspects of his garden near Lake Wannsee, as motifs for his paintings. In Berlin, he became a famous painter of portraits; his work is especially close in spirit to Edouard Manet. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Lieberman

A Jewish German who admired French painting, he was president of the Prussian academy of arts from 1920 until he resigned in 1932 when the academy decided not to show the work of Jewish artists any longer. Eight years after his death his wife, Martha committed suicide just before the police came to arrest her in 1943. Sad.

If you read German HERE is a nice site with pictures of his home - which I believe was made into a museum.

[John317]

And these:

http://www.allposters.com/-st/German-Impressionism-Posters_c12679_.htm

[D. Allan]

This painting glows - with light - with the joy of being alive -

[D. Allan]

Edvard Munch: Beyond The Scream

Though the Norwegian artist is known for a single image, he was one of the most prolific, innovative and influential figures in modern art

By Arthur Lubow

Edvard Munch, who never married, called his paintings his children and hated to be separated from them. Living alone on his estate outside Oslo for the last 27 years of his life, increasingly revered and increasingly isolated, he surrounded himself with work that dated to the start of his long career. Upon his death in 1944, at the age of 80, the authorities discovered—behind locked doors on the second floor of his house—a collection of 1,008 paintings, 4,443 drawings and 15,391 prints, as well as woodcuts, etchings, lithographs, lithographic stones, woodcut blocks, copperplates and photographs. Yet in a final irony of his difficult life, Munch is famous today as the creator of a single image, which has obscured his overall achievement as a pioneering and influential painter and printmaker. - Smithoniam.com from the March 1006 issue

more here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/issues/2006/march/munch.php

[D. Allan]

And here is another with beautiful light -

However, it glows in the midst of the night -

With the talent of a Russian-born Armenian artist.

[D. Allan]

Here is another picture which 'glows.' It is on my 'desktop' floating over the black background.

[D. Allan]

A more traditional impressionist or expressionist(?) picture full of joyous pastel colors, by the same artist as above.

[D. Allan]

Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Pittsburgh.... An active member of the Impressionist circle until 1886, she remained friends with Degas and Berthe Morisot. As with Degas, Cassatt became extremely proficient in the use of pastels, eventually painting many of her most important works in this medium. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Cassat

[D. Allan]

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domènech, Marquis of Pubol (May 11, 1904 – January 23, 1989), was a Spanish (Catalan) surrealist painter. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking, bizarre, and beautiful images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in 1931. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD

This painting is -realism with out the 'sur-'

[D. Allan]

A surrealist painting with a religious theme:

[D. Allan]

And one more by the amazing Dali; a portrait of his dead brother painted in 1963. To get the full effect of this one you must see it close and then gradually back away from it.

[Gail]

I saw a few Dalis at an art exhibit I went to last week. The show was quite good- called, "From Monet to Dali" at the Vancouver Art Museum.

Featured were paintings and sculptures from all the artists you could hope to see in an art book, mostly from the Impressionist period: Dali, Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Mondrian, Matisse, Rousseau, Picasso (several), Rodin (the Thinker, among others), Modigliani(!), Seurat, Gaugin

Cool!

[D. Allan]

Ah the five 'm's Manet-Monet-Mondrian-Matisse-Modigliani(!)

and the enchanting Rousseau!

Here is a charming picture that reminds me of Rousseau. I found it on the internet without the artist's name. Can anyone provide an attrubution? I think it may be in a Dallas, Texas museum. It makes me think of Rousseau.

[Gail]

Yes, it was nice for me to see a Modigliani, as he lived such a short life and I have just recently learned about his life. When he died, his pregnant girlfriend was so distraught that she threw herself out a window and committed suicide

So many of the artists of the day abused their bodies so horribly, much of it with absinthe (wormwood liquor). I think of Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and also Oscar Wilde drank too much in Paris

[Amelia]

I love that painting! I am going to take a shot and say that is a rhododendron in the back.

[D. Allan]

yes, they do resemble, rhododendrons. the picture looks to me early american or else modern but inspired by early american traveling portraitists.

Kazimir Severinovich Malevich (Russian: Казимир Северинович Малевич), (February 23, 1878 – May 15, 1935) painter and art theoretician, pioneer of geometric abstract art(suprematism) and one of the Russian avant-garde. This early painting is decidedly impressionist, I will ventureto say. His suprematist pictures date from 1915.

[D. Allan]

Another one by Kazimir Malevich - this one from his 'suprematist' phase.

Kasimir Malevich (Russian), "Suprematism with Eight Rectangles", 1915, Oil on canvas, 57.5 x 48.5 cm. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands:

[Amelia]

Sorry, this is an example of what I don't call art. At least it's not art I would pay for. :)

[D. Allan]

Quote:

Sorry, this is an example of what I don't call art. At least it's not art I would pay for.

To really make a judgement we should go to Amsterdam to have a look.

How about this next one by the same man? He must have loved that lady - notice how the golden hat serves as a 'halo'; and despite some turbulent brushwork in the background she herself is tranquil - like da Vinci's La Gioconda (Mona Lisa).

Kasimir Malevich. 'Portrait of Woman in Yellow Hat'. 1930s. Oil on canvas. 48 x 38.5 cm. The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.

[monica]

He must have loved that lady

How do you know?

[D. Allan]

Originally Posted By: D. Allan

He must have loved that lady

How do you know?

its just a guess or intuition : and just by the way he painted the picture

[D. Allan]

This is a painting you may have seen several times before now.

[D. Allan]

Jean Francois Millet (zhahn frahn SWAH mee LEH) was born to peasant parents in France near Cherbourg. He identified with simple working people all his life, and painted many pictures showing them at work. The people of his town recognized his talent and paid for him to study in Paris. However, it didn't work out too well because he had his own ideas about how to paint. He left and began to teach himself.

He finally sold a painting and was able to get enough money to moved to the village of Barbizon where he spent the rest of his life. He was poor and had a meager existence, but after he died his works became valuable. He sold The Angelus for $100, but 15 years after his death it sold for $150,000.

To understand the painting we need to know something about the origin of the title. The Angelus was a Catholic devotion time. When the church bell rang, people stopped their work and said a prayer. This happened three times a day; morning, noon, and evening. In the painting we see the man and his wife stopping for devotion after hearing the bell from the church in the distance. - http://gardenofpraise.com/art21.htm

"Commissioned by a wealthy American, Thomas G. Appleton, and completed during the summer of 1857, Millet added a steeple and changed the initial title of the work, Prayer for the Potato Crop to The Angelus when the purchaser failed to take possession in 1859." - wikipedia.com

[Amelia]

Quote:

The Angelus was a Catholic devotion time. When the church bell rang, people stopped their work and said a prayer. This happened three times a day; morning, noon, and evening.

How very Islamic!