Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Lesson Overview

Featured Article: A Poem (and a Painting) About the Suffering That Hides in Plain Sight by Elisa Gabbert

With war looming, W.H. Auden stood in a museum and was inspired to write. The resulting poem, Muse des Beaux Arts, is one of the most famous ever written about a work of art. More than 80 years later, with war raging in Europe once again, human suffering is forcing us to confront many of the same issues.

In this lesson, you will experience a passionate and poetic close reading of Muse des Beaux Arts by the poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert, embedded in an interactive that can help you zoom in on specific details of both the poem and the painting that inspired it.

Then, via a menu of Going Further activities, we invite you to write your own analysis and interpretation of a poem or painting using the featured article as a mentor text; write your own ekphrastic poem; or learn more about W.H. Auden.

Part 1: Look closely at the painting Landscape With the Fall of Icarus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, circa 1560.

Before reading the poem that is at the center of todays lesson, take several minutes to look closely at the painting that inspired it.

Then, respond in writing or through a class discussion, or conversation with a partner or small group, to the following prompts. The first three are borrowed from our weekly Whats Going On in This Picture? feature:

Share your thoughts with a group or the whole class: What ideas do you have in common with others? Where do you differ in your analysis or interpretations? What questions do you have?

Finally, discuss the title of the painting, Landscape With the Fall of Icarus. Icarus was the character in Greek mythology who flew too close to the sun on wax wings and fell into the sea and drowned. Why do you think Icarus the drowning man in the lower right corner of the painting is not the center of the painting?

Part 2: Read and respond to the poem Muse des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden, 1938.

Now youll repeat the same set of activities with the poem. First, read it at least three times, both aloud and to yourself. Mark up a copy of it (PDF) with observations as you go. You can listen to W.H. Auden, the poet, read the poem here.

Return to the same partner, group or full class you joined to discuss the painting, and respond to the prompts again:

Whats going on in this poem?

What do you see, read or hear that makes you say that?

What more can you find?

Share your thoughts with a group or the whole class: What ideas do you have in common with others? Where do you differ in your analysis or interpretations? What questions do you have?

Finally, discuss the point of view of the poems speaker. What is this speaker saying about the Bruegel painting? About human suffering in general? How does this perspective resonate with your own understanding of suffering?

Note to teachers: The interactive article is longer than our typical featured pieces. If your time is limited, you might ask your students to read up to the lines Ignoring them is the most natural thing in the world. It is also a moral error., which is about a third of the way through the piece. They can still address the questions below.

Read the featured article, then answer the following questions:

1. Which images, themes, details, words or lines did Ms. Gabbert identify? Which aspects of the Bruegel painting and the Auden poem stood out for her? What personal connections did she make?

2. How did your observations from the warm-up activity compare with those of Ms. Gabbert? Does her analysis make you see the painting or the poem differently?

3. Ms. Gabbert says of the painting, As you can see, its not about the fall of Icarus, exactly. What does she mean by that statement? What, in her eyes, is the painting about?

4. Ms. Gabbert writes of the poem:

Somethings only a disaster if we notice it.

The message seems simple enough, but the poem is full of riches, hidden details that you might miss if, like a farmer with his head down or a distracted museumgoer you werent looking at the edges.

The edges, as Auden keeps reminding us, are part of the picture.

Ignoring them is the most natural thing in the world. It is also a moral error.

What do you think of this interpretation? Is ignoring disaster both the most natural thing and a moral error? Explain your thinking.

5. Of the poems final lines, Ms. Gabbert writes:

Theres a feeling of reluctant acceptance in the poems final lines, a surrender to forces beyond ones control, which may be the engines of commerce, or something like God, a God who either punishes us for our failings or has simply set the clockwork world into motion, and let it go.

On some reads Auden may seem to be offering a pass this is the way of the world, after all.

At other times it strikes me as implicating Icarus, Daedalus, the ploughman and shepherd, and God or the gods all equally as well as us you, me and Auden strolling the museum or reading the poem in comfort.

Do we spare a thought for the suffering, or sail calmly on?

How does Ms. Gabberts interpretation of the poem and its final lines compare with yours? What does it mean for a poem to implicate the author and the reader? What do you think is Audens moral stance on the seeming indifference of humans to the suffering of others? Do you think the poem excuses humanity for its indifference to suffering? Or implicates us? Provide evidence to justify your claim.

6. Why do you think Auden titled the poem Muse des Beaux Arts? If you had to give the poem or the painting an alternative title, what would it be and why?

7. What big takeaways are you left with after this experience of both closely observing yourself and following someone elses close observation. What qualities of the poem do you find most meaningful, moving or memorable in the end? Would you recommend it to others? Why or why not?

1. Create your own zoomed in analysis of a poem or a painting.

Ms. Gabberts interactive essay is a kind of instructive how-to for learning to read a poem, or a painting, closely. What lessons did you learn, if any, about appreciating poetry from her commentary?

Now its your turn: Write your own analysis using the featured article as a mentor text. Consider how you can draw on Ms. Gabbertss vivid, sensory language and ability to zoom in on many aspects of a single poem or artwork in order to draw conclusions about context and meaning for your own piece.

You can choose a poem or a painting, and for inspiration you might view the other works that are part of this New York Times series, Close Read. For example, you might look at Elizabeth Bishops poem One Art, discussed in the interactive 19 Lines That Turn Anguish Into Art.

You can write your analysis and interpretation as an essay, or consider a creative presentation application like Google Slides or Prezi to help you focus your audience on the details of the artwork you find most significant.

Use the questions from the warm-up activity to begin:

You might also think about questions like these:

What do you notice about the various elements of this work? (If it is a poem, think about aspects like the imagery, structure, punctuation and word choice. If it is a painting, think about things like the use of space, line, color and texture.)

Why does this work stand out to you? What do you find interesting or moving about it?

What connections can you make between the work and your own life or experience? Does it remind you of anything else youve read or seen?

What do you think is the purpose of this artwork? What do you think the artist wanted to communicate?

What questions would you ask the artist about this work?

2. Learn more about Audens life and his poetry.

Some of Ms. Gabberts analysis of the poem focuses on W.H. Auden the poet and the times he lived in. For example, she writes that the preoccupations of his work during this period were social and political the rising threat of totalitarianism, the evils of capitalism. How does having this historical context help to illuminate the themes and meaning of the poem?

You can learn more about Audens life and work by visiting some of these free online resources below, including poems, recordings, criticism, timelines and photos. You can also read his Times obituary from 1973 here.

After exploring one or more of these resources, discuss: What are two new things you learned about Auden his life and work? How does it affect the way you understand his poetry? What new question do you have about him or poetry in general?

3. Write your own poem based on a work of art.

Ms. Gabbert notes that Muse des Beaux Arts is one of the most famous examples of ekphrasis, a poem based on another artwork. Have you ever been inspired by a painting or work of art? What emotions and thoughts did it evoke? What about it made the experience memorable?

Now its your turn: Write a poem about a visual work of art, whether a painting, sculpture, photograph or drawing. Your poem can be long or short, rhymed or unrhymed, in prose or in verse as long as it is related to your chosen work of art.

Want more Lessons of the Day? You can find them all here.

Read the original post:

Lesson of the Day: A Poem (and a Painting) About the Suffering That Hides in Plain Sight - The New York Times

The Gemaldegalerie acquired Landscape with Arched Bridgein 1924, when it was attributed to Rembrandt. The work came from the private holdings of Friedrich August II, the last Duke of Oldenburg, whose prodigious art collection was sold off after the abolishment of the German monarchy.

Like many of Rembrandts innovative landscapes, it depicts the Dutch countryside dramatically lit by sunlight and shadow. The museum hailed the acquisition as closing an important gap in the narrative it presents about Rembrandt.

In the late 1980s, the Rembrandt Research Project, comprised of Dutch art historians who judge by consensus the authenticity of Rembrandts worldwide, reattributed Landscape with Arched Bridge to Rembrandts student Govert Flinck. Defending their decision, they cited the paintings astonishingly far-reaching stylistic, technical, and thematic similarities to an earlier Rembrandt, Landscape with Stone Bridge, which is held by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

In other words, they thought it was a conspicuous attempt to replicate a Rembrandt, like a forger tracing a signature.

Determined to restore the Berlin paintings attribution, the Gemaldegalerie utilized technological advancements in painting analysis to evaluate the age and application of the paint. Researchers determined it was painted prior to the Amsterdam landscape, explaining the latter works more sophisticated manipulation of light.

Rembrandt also returned to the Gemaldegalerie work several times to revise the composition and color, settling on a denser atmosphere. By contrast, the Amsterdam painting is more precise and the sunlight more thickly painted, implying that the worst of the storm has passed.

Decisively attributing a work to Rembrandt is often a contentious task. He had a large workshop and a titanic visual impact on European painting, inspiring numerous imitators. Its common for a presumed Rembrandt to have its authenticity stripped and then later restored.

In 2020, a 400-year-old portrait in the collection of the Allentown Art Museum first credited to the Old Master, then in the 1970s reattributed to Rembrandts studio, was determined to have been executed by the Dutch painter.

A century ago, some 700 paintings were attributed to Rembrandt, but by the late 1960s the Rembrandt Research Project had downgraded that number by nearly half. Institutions including the National Gallery in London, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have faced challenges to the authenticity of presumed Rembrandts in their collections. In the case of the Met, the labels of two workPortrait of a Man and Portrait of a Womanwere updated to read From the workshop of Rembrandt.

Independent Rembrandt historians have opposed the projects validating system and its resistance to outside opinions. Today, the groups energy is devoted to developing a comprehensive catalogue of Rembrandts oeuvre. Most major art institutions now have their own team of researchers.

Despite his influence on the genre, Rembrandt painted few landscapes. The reattribution of the Berlin painting brings the number of known landscapes by the artist to seven. Landscape with Arched Bridgeis currently on display in the exhibition David Hockney Landscapes in Dialogue, which includes Hockneys series Three Trees near Thixendale.

Together, Hockney and the restored Rembrandt create a striking conversation, according to the Gemldegalerie.

Visit link:

A Contested Landscape Painting in Berlin Is Deemed an Authentic Rembrandt - ARTnews

Cinthia Alaralak imagines her late father,John Illupalik, was longing for home when he painted a team of sled dogs resting beside two igloos, with an inukshukon a mountain in the distance.

He was perhaps eight or nine at the time, at the residential school in Chesterfield Inlet in what is now Nunavut, where he would spend much of the 1960s.

"I believe he was really homesick for igloos," she said.

Now, 60 years later, the painting has returned to his daughterin Igloolik. It came home after Valerie Ipkarnerk, who has had the painting for years, launched a search online for its rightful owner.

"He would feel happy, great about it. He would talk about it I know for sure he would talk about it, how he painted it, when he painted it," said Alaralak, imagining how Illupalik would react to having the painting home.

Illupalik passed away in late April 2021. Alaralak recalls him telling her about that painting he sold it for $20, which felt like a lot of money for a young boy in the 1960s.

For years after that, it hung in a room at the old St. Theresa hospital in Chesterfield. That's where Ipkarnerkremembers seeing it for the first time as a little girl.

"We used to go to the hospital and go visit the patients there, and every time I would use the phone, there was a little room for the phone and the painting would always be in there," she said.

"I knew it had a special meaning or something."

Years later, whenIpkarnerkwas helping with the sale of all the items left in the hospital before it closed, she decided to buy two of the paintings that hadn't sold. One of them was Illupalik'sartwork.

"That painting always caught my eye," she said.

Ipkarnerk said at first she didn't think about who painted it. Then, in 2012, her late cousin Bernadette Niviatsiak spotted it and exclaimed that she knew its creator.

"She said, 'Well, I should take this painting with me I know the person that made it!'" Ipkarnerk recalled with a laugh."But it seemed like I had a connection, a bond to that painting, so I kept it."

Niviatsiak passed away in January.

"I was thinking about her and I was thinking, I should maybe try to find the person who painted it," she said.

The search, once it began, was over in an instant. Ipkarnerk posted to an Iqaluit Facebook page, and within minutes, Cinthia's friends had tagged her on the post.

"I'm just so happy that Cinthia and her siblings are able to keep the painting, and I hope she will treasure it," Ipkarnerk said.

Alaralak said being reunited with the artwork of her ataata, her father, brought a mix of emotions. The painting arrived in Igloolikbefore the first anniversary of Illupalik's death.

"I was happy, I was emotional. I had them mixed at the same time, so I couldn't cry I was just happy about it when I received it," she said.

See the article here:

Daughter reunited with late father's painting from Chesterfield Inlet residential school - CBC.ca

When Xeo Chu was four, he had a figurative period. Ears are very difficult to do, the 14-year-old Vietnamese art prodigy tells me at his first solo exhibition in London, as we examine his first painting, a portrait of his mother.

Nguyen Thi Thu Suong is a fitting first subject for the artist. She owns two galleries in Ho Chi Minh City and encouraged Xeo and his two brothers to take drawing lessons not long after they could walk.

Without mum, of course, I would be, like, nothing. I certainly wouldnt be here talking to you. He bows sweetly and takes my hands. Not that thats a bad thing.

The story his mum tells me is that Xeo Chu would beg to be allowed to attend art classes with his older brothers. So she gave him a pencil and an eraser and let him attend lessons after school. His brothers gave up the lessons, but Xeo Chu had found his passion. I love painting. Even if I am sometimes lonely when I paint it fills me with joy. I disappear for hours while I am painting.

If, to my eyes, there is nothing outstanding about that first portrait the charmingly oversized ears and even the maternal smile the little boy fondly gave his subject would be unexceptional, if delightful, if you saw them gracing a nursery school wall Xeo Chus artistic development in the decade since is extraordinary, at least judged in terms of sales and column inches. He sold his first picture to a visitor to his mums gallery. I was really happy. That was when I was like six. Since then his work has been collected all over the world from the US to Japan and beyond. Today critics regularly compare him with Jackson Pollock, his pictures come with $150,000 price tags and, with this new exhibition in Londons Mayfair following others in Vietnam, Singapore and New York, he has had solo shows on three continents. Not bad work for anyone, but especially remarkable for someone born in 2007.

Xeo Chu is even more of a rebuke to slacker teens than this suggests. He combines the precocity of Diego Rivera (who began drawing at the age of three) with the great-heartedness of Marcus Rashford. When he was 10, Chu had his first painting exhibition in Singapore and used the $20,000 proceeds to support heart surgery funds, the elderly living alone and street children in his city.

Last summer, Xeo Chu sold eight of his works as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in an online auction on his Facebook pages, donating the total proceeds of the auction VND2.9 billion (96,000) to a hospital to buy medical equipment to combat Covid-19. His mother says: He may only be a little boy but I am learning from him. He is teaching me what it is to be generous.

And last summer, too, he proved himself to be at the cutting-edge of art during a show in Ho Chi Minh City that could be visited virtually by art lovers around the world, thanks to a wheeled telepresence robot that enabled spectators to look closely at 30 different paintings created during the pandemic. It also allowed them to interact with Xeo Chu as he painted live.

Now is the moment that you might want to break off from this article to text your underachieving offspring a cross-face emoji. I ask Xeo Chu if his brothers and school mates get resentful of his success? I really dont like talking about my painting to them for just that reason. I kind of keep it hidden from my friends.

We climb a staircase to the main exhibition of his work, passing on the way walls hung with his earliest paintings. These are the works that caught the eye of his art teacher, Nguyen Hai Anh, who told Chus mother: This is the first time I saw a four-year-old child draw like that. Palm lines fly, firm like a true artist. One of them is a landscape he painted aged five as he sat on a terrace overlooking the citys District 4 canal. There are other paintings of dogs, a trellis of bitter melon, sunshine slanting through the doorway and lots of flowers. I love flowers, says Thu Suong, and it makes me very happy when he paints them.

One day, she received a bouquet of peonies. She tells me that she loved them so much she stayed home for three days to look at them. Xeo Chu noticed her hugging the vase. I drew three colour pictures to prevent my mother from wilting any more, the boy told one interviewer.

As he developed, Xeo Chu (which means little pig his real name is Pho Van An) took photographs of what he saw on trips to the countryside and made paintings of them at home. I love nature. That is what I find beautiful. I want to draw and paint what I see.

This, I suggest, makes the comparison with Jackson Pollock seem misplaced. The abstract expressionist, after all, didnt paint what he saw at least not in the way that you do. Oh Jackson Pollock! laughs Xeo Chu, feigning exasperation. Everybody says Im like him, but Im not so sure.

Were standing before one of the colourful abstract paintings from his more mature, non-figurative period that induced New York gallerist George Bergs, who put on Chus first American show, to compare his work to Pollocks: Xeo Chu is creating similar works from the very beginning of his career.

Bergs argues that Chus 300-plus painting oeuvre taps into the collective unconscious in a way older artists struggle to manage. To me it was very interesting to work with an artist whos before puberty, because it challenged my notions about art and how life experience has to go into it. If there is depth and complexity in a piece of work from someone who has very limited life experience, it gives you a glimpse of the universal unconscious that we all have and can tap into.

Perhaps: or maybe the perspective of one of his collectors, Karlene Davis, New Zealand consul general in Vietnam is nearer the mark. I love the way Chu shows light and colour. He sees more than the naked eye and shows the spirit of the picture. They are so delicate.

Show me, I ask Chu, your favourite painting. He takes me to a work hanging over a fireplace, a sunburst of a sunset. I had been indoors for so long because of the pandemic and then finally we went to the country so this showed how I was feeling to be back in nature again. His best paintings, I think, are landscapes, such as his series depicting northern Vietnams Mu Cang Chai terraced rice fields (The wave of yellow [in the rice fields] when the harvest season comes is incredible, he says of his 2019 canvas October, Autumn in Canada). His biggest piece so far, Ha Long Bay in Cave, which measures 200cm x 480cm, took three months to paint.

Has your work evolved? It definitely has. When I started I saw mainly flowers so I painted them. Then I started to travel so I painted some of the really unique landscapes of Vietnam. We go to Canada sometimes. Will you paint what you see in London? I hope to have time.

Chu is hardly the first artistic child prodigy. In 2013, Kieron Williamson a 10-year-old from Norfolk dubbed the Mini Monet, saw his lifetime earnings soar to 1.5m after 23 of his works sold for 250,000 in under 20 minutes. When Romanian-American artist Alexandra Nechita, dubbed Petite Picasso for her cubist works, was 11 in 1996 her works sold in the $100,000 range.

But when collectors put pieces by these artists on the secondary market, they do not necessarily fare well, according to art appraiser Barden Prisant. Writing in Forbes magazine, Prisant found that the top recent auction he could find for a Nechita was only $20,000. Revealingly, and disquietingly, that very same piece had sold in 1998 for $92,000. Prisant found that two of Williamsons works auctioned recently did not sell. Perhaps Xeo Chus celebrity and bankability will be similarly brief.

None of this matters to Xeo Chu. I dont really know what prodigy means. And I dont really care. Thats not why I paint. His teacher rightly points out that his pupil is not bound by any school or rule, and so his work has a youthful freshness. He always let me be free to choose what I want to draw and paint, laughs Xeo Chu. Sometimes he will say that would look better done like this but theyre only suggestions.

The worry is that the youthful freshness will dissipate as Xeo Chu grows up and gets seized, as surely all adult artists are, by the anxiety of influence. Bergs says his client needs to be protected from too much press, which I suspect is right: too much exposure that could make Xeo Chu reflect on things that are irrelevant to making art. The exhibition in London is a retrospective of his first 10 years as an artist. Can you imagine what another exhibition in 10 years would look like? Who knows if I will still be painting, he replies.

Xeo Chu tells me he doesnt know much art, but he wants to learn. When I tell him that in the gallery next door to his exhibition is a show of work by the late Swedish mystical artist Hilma af Klint, Xeo Chu looks fascinated to learn that someone was instructed by spirits to paint her canvases. His mum tells me that they are spending time in London with a view to her son studying art here. You could become the next Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst, I tell him. Well maybe, he says, uncertain. But Im not really sure what I want to be when I grow up. Im just a kid.

Read the original post:

14-year-old art sensation Xeo Chu: I kind of keep it hidden from friends - The Guardian

Video: Artist Ben Miller fly-casts a painting of the Chicago River on April 3, 2022. (Courtesy of Friends of the Chicago River)

From mid-morning through early evening, Ben Miller cast his fishing line along the Chicago River on Sunday, and didnt have a single bite to show for the effort.

Granted, hed never actually dropped his lure into the water. Instead, Miller, an acclaimed artist who paints with a rod and reel, had spent his day angling his line toward a plexiglass canvas some 20 feet away,creating a portrait of the river. Its a style he calls fly cast painting in a nod to the techniques borrowed from fly fishing.

Depending on which fly brush is attached to the end of his line, Miller can lay down delicate whispers of strokes or powerful splotches that land with a thump. To add an extra degree of difficulty: He places colors in reverse. When hes finished with his casting, Miller flips the canvas to expose the actual work thats been taking shape in his minds eye.

It was astounding to watch, said Margaret Frisbie, executive director for Friends of the Chicago River.

Though shed only planned to swing by to catch a bit of the work in progress, Frisbie couldnt tear herself away and stood mesmerized for hours.

We were captivated, she said. It was magic.

Miller, whos in town for theExpo Chicagointernational art exhibit, had reached out to Friends of the Chicago River in advance of the show. With rivers as his primary subject matter, hes become an advocate for endangered waterways and has recently begun a series of paintings of environmentally threatened rivers. The Chicago River was a natural fit for the theme, though its the first that Miller, who makes his home in Montana, has painted in a large city.

A portion of the proceeds of the Chicago River paintings sale his works can fetch in the five figures will be donated to Friends, but the artworks real value lies in what it represents, said Frisbie, who was nearly brought to tears when Miller turned the canvas to reveal his vision of the river.

Miller, she said, came to the Chicago River with no preconceived notions or biases about what the waterway is or isnt. What he saw, and captured, was the living organism that Frisbie has been fighting to have acknowledged for decades.

Its just the river, she said. Its absolutely beautiful.

Contact Patty Wetli:@pattywetli| (773) 509-5623 |[emailprotected]

Read the original here:

The Chicago River Comes Alive in New Portrait Painted With Fishing Rod and Reel - WTTW News

SUITLAND, Md. (WDVM) Saturday is World Autism Awareness Day, and a DMV-based art group is spreading awareness in a creative way.

Children and their families left Creative Suitland not only with their colorful butterfly paintings but also left with a better understanding of autism. It was all hosted by Artbae (Art before anything else), an arts, entertainment, and education-based lifestyle brand with a passion for advocacy.

My favorite part about todays event was painting the butterfly and putting my quote on there which is love is love because it really spoke to me, said participant Angelina Bryant.

My favorite part of the day was learning about autism too, and painting the butterfly, said participant Joshua Bryant.

Cary Michael Robinson created Artbae in 2018. His class today was focused on bringing the community together with a paintbrush and canvas.

I want them to feel like they matter feel like they are important and want them to have something that they create that they can take with them and be proud of them, said Robinson. I know the importance of how art can be therapy. I have the privilege to work with different kids who were challenged and had autism. Their parents were just so thankful that they were able to find the activity that helped the children kind of cope with it.

Many guests even left with a better understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

I learned that its nothing wrong with autistic people they just have a special power, said participant Neveah Bryant.

There was also a special character dressed as a butterfly, Robinson calls it Sethemba. He created the character since the name represents hope in Zulu. Sethemba walked around the event helping kids paint and passing out books.

It just brings me joy to my heart that knowing that me doing something that Im passionate about has the ability to help someone in a positive way, said Robinson.

In honor of International Childrens Book Day, kids were given free books and school supplies donated from the community.

Giving kids books and just giving them a different activity outside of technology gives them the ability to kind of inspire them, said Robinson. Kids want to feel valued out know the kids need positive outlets outside of sports and things like that, to express themselves because art is expression.

More here:

Art group spreads autism awareness by painting - WDVM 25

It has often been said that art mirrors real life and one key element of that reality is nature. Nature is indeed a delightful form of inspiration; its majestic splendor and mystery offer an endless source of creativity. She is a muse that is hard to ignore, taking center stage with her powerful expressions spanning all around us.

Numerous aspects of nature appeal to the artistic senses, but the most captivating is the beach. From thrashing waves to gritty sand, the seaside reflects the duality between land and sea and the thrills of the beachgoers themselves. Perhaps it is this euphoria that draws the attention of artists alike.

The seaside remains a famous landscape for capturing light, color, and movement in the art world. Whether its a tropical Hawaiian setting or a windy seashore in England, many paintings beautifully depict these elements in various forms. Here are five of the most famous beach paintings ever seen:

This beach painting by the famous artist depicts two women racing across a beach. The painting is a miniature gouache on plywood created in 1922 during Picassos neoclassical period. It has a simple background lacking details, with the sky and sea almost merging into each others blue hue. The vibrant blue is also contrasted by the tan bodies of the women and the white dresses they have on.

The semi-nude women run wildly on the shore with their hair blown back by the sea breeze. They do this hand in hand, depicting their agreement to pursue freedom and an unleashed passion. This represents a homage to the newfound liberties the world enjoyed after the First World War.

An enlarged version of the painting was used as a curtain for Le Train Bleu, a French ballet production with a beach theme.

Mary Cassatt is notable for her portrayals of tender familial emotions, particularly mothers and children, and was the only American-born impressionist to exhibit at the Impressionist Exhibitions in Paris.

This is one of the most famous beach paintings depicting a typical day at the beach for children, building sandcastles. This work of art debuted in 1886 at the eighth and final impressionist exhibition. It is a painting of two little girls engrossed in their sandy fun, enjoying their day at the beach. Being a cropped painting, it blocks most of the background and focuses on the girls and their activities.

Various aspects of the artwork, particularly the perceived affinity between both girls, suggest it was created to tribute Cassatts late sister Lydia who died in 1882.

This iconic piece of renaissance art is one of the most recognizable paintings in art history. The exact creation date is unknown, but it is pegged at the mid-1480s. As is typical for renaissance paintings, the painting portrays Roman culture by delving into its mythology.

It is a painting of the Roman goddess of love, Venus, surfacing from the ocean in a giant Scallop shell after being born. The goddess stands nude against the backdrop of a beautiful beach landscape with Zephyr, the wind god, on her left and a minor goddess on her right, holding out a cloak for her.

The painting features pale, gentle hues and is themed after the writings of the ancient poet Homer. It is said to embody the rebirth of civilization and a cultural shift. These elements are critical to the renaissance, French for rebirth.

Created sometime between 1808 and 1810, this piece by Friedrich is a stellar example of Sublime Art. Sublime is an art form that showcases the overwhelming power of nature, evident in contrast created between the vast landscape and the monks meager figure.

The painting depicts a figure believed to be a monk, standing atop a low dune by the seashore, looking out to sea. Natures incredible presence is also emphasized in the paintings dark colors and the shadows they cast, with the cold sky and empty foreground almost swallowing up the tiny monk.

There has been some debate over time as to the monks identity. Some believe it represents the artist himself, while others infer from the perceived location depicted in the painting: pastor and poet Gotthard Ludwig was known to give sermons on the shore. However, owing to the flimsy rendition of the monk as opposed to the vastness of the background, his identity has been left somewhat ambiguous.

This 1931 famous beach painting created by famous artist Salvador Dali is considered one of the most important works of Surrealism and is probably one of Dalis most recognizable works. It was donated to the Museum of Modern Art in 1934 and has been on display ever since.

It is often descriptively referred to as Melting Clocks. Described by Dali himself as resembling Camembert melting in the sun, the melting watches are believed to symbolize Albert Einsteins Theory of Relativity. This is a nod at the distorted notions of time and space, with the dreamy beach setting acting as a surreal backdrop to that distortion.

Although the painting may generally seem abstract, the beach scenery in the painting is also believed to have been inspired by the Cadaques beach in Catalonia, Dalis hometown. This landscape is repeated in many of Dalis works.

Seascape paintings have become a staple in the world of art as the union of land and sea continues to inspire many more artists today, just as it did in history. Artists have found that it offers limitless artistic expression possibilities and aptly takes advantage of its generosity. The beach, in turn, rewards their creativity with stunning depictions that reflect natures beauty and incite deep emotions. Thus, forming a mutual benefit between sea and art.

The rest is here:

Famous Paintings Taken On The Beach - Daily Bayonet

Im sure we all look just this fashion-forward when were doing a spot of house painting, right?

Informative Caption says:

English singer, musician and actor David Bowie (1947 2016) paints the coving of his ground floor flat at Haddon Hall in silver paint, Beckenham, south-east London, 24th April 1972. This was after the recording of Bowies concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, but before its release on 6th June 1972.

I learned a new word! Coving is a curved or shaped strip of wood or other material fitted as a feature at the junction of a wall with a ceiling, or what we Americans would call the moulding. Bowies coving his Bowving, if you will is as spectacular as his ensemble, as is his ceiling, and I would expect nothing less from him.

Haddon Hall has since been demolished because, per the internet, the roof was threatening to blow off which does seem like a potential issue. It does look like it might have gotten a bit structurally precarious:

This seems a bit tilty. Very rock and roll!

View post:

On This Day in 1972 (Or Thereabouts), David Bowie Was Painting His Ceiling - Go Fug Yourself

Grayscale Investments has rebalanced its portfolio to include Polkadot, Avalanche and Atom, among other digital assets in its $480 million Digital Large Cap Fund. Proponents believe the asset manager's move indicates rising institutional demand for DOT, AVAX and ATOM.

Grayscale, a leader in digital currency investing, performs a quarterly balancing of its portfolio. The giant decided to add Polkadot (DOT), Avalanche (AVAX) and Atom (ATOM) to its Digital Large Cap Fund.

The addition of DOT, AVAX and ATOM to the crypto investment giant's $480 million fund indicates rising institutional demand for cryptocurrencies. Grayscale added ATOM to its smart contract platform ex-Ethereum fund.

The Digital Large Cap Fund has added AVAX and DOT without removing any assets from the existing portfolio. The fund was launched in 2018 and enabled users to gain exposure to the top 70% of the crypto market. AVAX and DOT's combined allocation in the fund is greater than 3%, while ATOM makes up 5% of the DeFi fund.

Grayscale removed Sushi and Synthetix from its DeFi fund focused on smart contract networks as they failed to meet the market capitalization criteria.

Institutional demand for AVAX, DOT and ATOM has climbed steadily and the digital assets are on track for a rally.

@Ninjascalp, a crypto trader and analyst, believes Avalanche is currently undervalued and predicted a rally in the altcoin. @BenjaminCowen, a leading crypto analyst, believes Avalanche price is on track to hit the target of $100.

See the rest here:

Institutional demand for DOT, AVAX and ATOM is on the rise, painting a bullish outlook - FXStreet

In 1768, with the personal blessing of George III, the Royal Academy of Arts was founded as a school or academy of design for the use of students in the arts. The British nation was late in possessing such an institution the French Acadmie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture had been established more than a century earlier, in 1648 but the new academicians were determined to slough off any residual cultural cringe and catch up with their continental peers. So, in 1769, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the RAs inaugural president, delivered the first of 15 Discourses.

The Discourses, for the edification of the RAs 77 students, laid out Reynolds vision of art, one based on the emulation of the Renaissance masters and the antique. In Discourse Five, delivered in 1772, he grappled with the problem of exactly which great name the students should best look to for inspiration and example. The choice, he was clear, lay between Michelangelo and Raphael (neither Leonardo nor Titian was even considered). These two extraordinary men, he said, carried some of the higher excellencies of art to a higher degree of perfection than probably they ever achieved before. They have certainly not been excelled or equalled ever since.

Although, he conceded, Michelangelo would win the duel if the sublime in the sense of a moody and rumbling intensity were the measure, it was Raphael (1483-1520) who was Reynolds clear choice because he alone exemplified the great style. (In 1787, prompted by a visit to the Vatican, Goethe plumped, almost reluctantly, for Michelangelo instead. It is so difficult to comprehend one great talent, let alone two at the same time, he concluded, adding that, To make things easier for us, we take sides. It would always be this way, he thought, until the unlikely event that mankind acquires the capacity to recognise and appreciate equally, different kinds of greatness.)

For Reynolds though, the excellence of Raphael was surpassing. It lay in the propriety, beauty and majesty of his characters, the judicious contrivance of his composition, his correctness of drawing, purity of taste, and skilful accommodation of other mens conceptions to his purposes. This last trait was of particular importance to art students and nobody excelled Raphael in that judgement, with which he united to his own observations of Nature, the energy of Michael Angelo [sic], and the beauty and simplicity of the antique.

For more than a century those who sided with Goethe were heavily outnumbered. Raphael talented, multifarious, soign, socially adroit, and dead at just 37 fully merited Vasaris sobriquet the prince of painters, since he showed not only how to paint but also how to be the ideal artist. Raphaels pre-eminence was not to survive, however. Post romanticism, artists and aficionados began to desire less purity of taste and more grit in their oyster, and they found it in Michelangelos terribilit, Leonardos universality and Titians emotive colour.

Even Ruskin failed to be swayed by Raphaels merits, later writing waspishly of his first encounter with the painter in Rome in 1840: Of Raphael, however, I found I could make nothing whatever. The only thing clearly manifest to me in his compositions was that everybody seemed to be pointing at everybody else, and that nobody, to my notion, was worth pointing at.

Raphaels reputation as one of the greatest of the Renaissances Renaissance men has survived but he is perhaps more often admired than loved. The quincentenary of his death fell in 2020 and was due to be marked by an assortment of celebrations, including a much anticipated exhibition of his work at the National Gallery. That show twice fell victim to the Covid pandemic but is now, belatedly, taking place and offers the opportunity to see why Reynolds and so many others held him in such esteem.

One reason was that Raphael seemed preordained for greatness he was the golden child who went on to fulfil his destiny. Vasari called him Natures gift to the world and ascribed his sweetness of temperament to being breastfed by his mother, rather than by a wet nurse. Raphaels mother, Mgia, died when he was only eight, which may account for the centrality of Madonna and Child paintings throughout his career. The boys early training was with his father, Giovanni Santi, official painter (and sometime poet) at the highly cultured court of the Duke of Urbino. By the time of Giovannis death in 1494, his 11-year-old son was precocious enough to work as his assistant.

Some time around 1500 Raphael joined the Perugia workshop of Pietro Perugino, one of the leading painters of the day, and also received his first recorded commission, for an altarpiece: in the contract, although just 17, he was recorded as magister, master. Raphaels ability to absorb the influence of other artists, remarked on by Reynolds, was evident in his adoption of Peruginos softly harmonious and jewel-like manner and it was further demonstrated from around 1504 when he first started to visit Florence to learn from the art there. Both Fra Bartolommeo and Leonardo were synthesised in his work, and a drawing of a young woman of 1505-06 shows that he had clearly seen the Mona Lisa in Leonardos studio, while another depicts Michelangelos recently unveiled sculpture of David.

The example of these artists resulted in Raphael imbuing his forms with greater weight and clarity and, through the expressive use of pose and gesture, endowing his pictures with resonant emotion (Leonardos notion of the moti dellanima motions of the soul) and a sense of storytelling. This step change is clear in his painting of The Deposition (1507) in which the heft of the dead Christs body and the pain of grief that runs throughout the cortge combine in a narrative that Vasari said would move the hardest heart in pity.

In the autumn of 1508, at the summons of the Della Rovere Pope Julius II, Raphael moved to Rome and was to remain there for the rest of his life. He initially worked on Juliuss private library in the Vatican and so impressed the pontiff that he was tasked with frescoing the suite of four ceremonial rooms known as the Stanze. At the same time, Michelangelo was at work on the Sistine Chapel ceiling a mere hundred yards or so away. It was Raphaels frescoes, completed either by himself or to his detailed designs by members of the workshop that quickly formed around him, that made his reputation.

In paintings such as The School of Athens, Parnassus and The Deliverance of St Peter, Raphael found new ways of handling large numbers of figures in lucid and rhythmic compositions (it has been claimed that he never repeated a pose in his work); of using a telling variety of expressive gesture, foreshortening and colour; of inventing innovatory light effects (The Deliverance has moonlight, dawn sunlight, torchlight, reflected light, and divine light), all in the service of a sophisticated melding of Christian and pagan theology. The 19th-century critic Walter Pater described the frescoes, in effect a summation of Renaissance humanist thought, as large theoretic conceptions that are addressed, so to speak, to the intelligence of the eye, and Kenneth Clark had this harmony of conceit and expression in mind when he called Raphael one of the civilising forces of the Western imagination.

Some of the figures also show a debt to Michelangelo. At some point before the first part of the Sistine ceiling was unveiled in 1511, Raphael managed to sneak into the chapel to see Michelangelos work in progress and, as a result, a new monumentality emerged in some of his figures. The proprietorial older artist was outraged by the trespass, by the appropriation and by the fact that Raphael gave this assimilated style a public airing in the figure of The Prophet Isaiah painted for the church of SantAgostino in Rome. Raphaels popularity with the Pope, with whom Michelangelo himself had fractious relations, only further soured his mood and it rankled: as late as 1542 he claimed sourly that, What he [Raphael] had of art, he had from me.

As with all his designs, Raphael first refined his figures and harmonised groupings in drawings of exquisite beauty. These were worked up to full-scale cartoons by his assistants (who were frequently also his models) and transferred to the walls for frescoing. Drawings were the basis for his oil paintings too, as well as being used as gifts (he exchanged drawings with Drer, for example), as models for engravings, tapestries, sculptures and medallions, and as the basis for paintings by other artists. Reynolds thought Raphaels greatest genius lay in his frescoes, but others might argue that it was with pen or chalk in hand that he was truly peerless.

Raphaels closeness to the seat of spiritual power also gave him added lustre in the eyes of Romes patron class. Among those to employ him was Agostino Chigi, the Popes banker and a man so rich he would have gold plates made bearing the arms of his dinner guests, which he would then encourage them to throw into the Tiber at the end of the meal. While they went away staggered by his liberality, he ordered the goldware hauled out again in nets he had hidden in the river. Raphael would design two chapels for the Chigi family ensembles of architecture, statuary and metalwork as well as decorations for Agostinos villa then on the edge of Rome, now the Villa Farnesina, which included his celebrated fresco of The Triumph of Galatea (1512).

In the figure of the water nymph, derived from his own gently ecstatic painting of St Catherine (1508), he not only showed his mastery of mythological subjects and the female nude but his conception of ideal beauty. In a letter traditionally thought to be from the painter to his friend Baldassare Castiglione, author of The Book of the Courtier (1528), Raphael wrote that, To paint one beautiful woman, I would have to see several beauties but, since both good judgement and beautiful women are scarce, I make use of a certain idea that comes to mind. Just as he transmuted the work of other artists so he sought to depict not simply nature but nature improved.

Within two years of painting Galatea, Raphael was appointed chief architect of St Peters by Pope Leo X, and a year later, in 1515, supervisor of Roman antiquities and excavations. The leap from artist to architect was not as great as might be imagined (Michelangelo had held the same role): the great architect Donato Bramante was a distant kinsman, mentor and fellow Urbinite and Raphael included imagined architecture in many of his paintings, as well as inventing more practical iterations for his stage and chapel designs. As Prefect of stones and marbles Raphael was a proto-conservationist, reluctant to take material from Romes ancient buildings for reuse in its new ones, notably St Peters. In his Letter to Leo X, written in 1519 with Castiglione, he hymned antique Roman architecture, while he also embarked on a survey of ancient Rome that was incomplete at his death.

Raphaels rise led to an unrealisable demand for his work. At one point he sustained a workshop, or perhaps more accurately an artistic enterprise, of up to 50 artists, many of the first rank. Giulio Romano, who would become one of the leading painters of the next generation, was his most notable assistant; Marcantonio Raimondi was the foremost engraver in Italy; Giovanni da Udine was its leading decorative still life painter; and the Flemish weaver Pieter van Aelst, who brought Raphaels tapestry designs including the ten monumental hangings he designed for the Sistine Chapel to fruition, was the most accomplished tapestry weaver of the age. What impressed Vasari most, however, was not how hard Raphael had to work for all his preternatural talent but his ability in keeping harmony between normally fractious artists. Meanwhile his literary friendships encompassed not just Castiglione but Pietro Aretino and Pietro Bembo too.

This sense of sympathy, a gift for human relations, emerges clearly in his portraits. His depiction of Julius II (1511-12), for example, is not an image of religious authority but of extraordinary, indeed daring, intimacy in which the Pope is shown not as St Peters heir but as an elderly man weighed down, almost broken, by the responsibility of his office. However, Raphael could paint power too: his 1518 portrait of Juliuss successor, Leo X flanked by Giulio de Medici and Luigi de Rossi (Leos family cardinals), is above all a summation of dynastic potency.

Although Raphael left many patrons frustrated by his unwillingness to take on commissions or by his tardiness in completing them, he seems always to have found time to paint portraits of his friends. In contrast to his papal portraits he made a series of informal works for private rather than public view that show the trust and ease between painter and sitter. In paintings such as his Double portrait of Andrea Navagero and Agostino Beazzano (1516), Bindo Altoviti (1516-18), Baldassare Castiglione (1519), Self-portrait with Giulio Romano (1519-20), and La Fornarina (1519-20), a calm amiability is tangible: these are records of relationships that are as comfortable with silence as with conversation.

Just occasionally, Raphaels equability could crack. He was once teased by two cardinals who complained that in one of his paintings, St Peter and St Paul were too red in the face. Raphael snapped back that the Church fathers must be as red in heaven as you see them here, out of shame that their Church is being ruled by such men as you. There are, however, only two existing letters from his hand, so his true personality remains elusive and shaped by the anecdotes of others.

That he was widely loved as well as revered is nevertheless clear from his death. Vasari records that the unmarried Raphael had an eye for the ladies and that pursuing his amours in secret, Raffaello continued to divert himself beyond measure with the pleasures of love; whence it happened that, having on one occasion indulged in more than his usual excess, he returned to his house in a violent fever. The doctors bled him but that only made his condition worse, and Leo X was so concerned that he sent emissaries to offer what aid he could at least six times. Neither medicine or prayer worked and when Raphael realised the end was coming he dismissed his mistress from his house (courteously leaving her the means to live honourably), made his will and confessed his sins.

He died on 6 April 1520, on the same day that he was born, which was Good Friday, and a story quickly circulated that a crack appeared in the Vatican Palace foundations at the moment of his death. In fact it was due to a construction error and had appeared days earlier but it served nevertheless to reinforce the links between the painter and Christ. Raphael had bought a burial plot in the Pantheon, the former Roman temple turned church, and his funeral procession, with four cardinals carrying his body (there were rumours too that the Pope had been about to offer the painter a cardinals hat) was lit by 100 torchbearers and accompanied by a huge crowd. Leo X wept and kissed the dead painters hand and the bier was surmounted by Raphaels last work, the huge altarpiece showing The Transfiguration.

Some 300 years later, in 1833, Pope Gregory XVI ordered Raphaels tomb to be opened so that his body could be studied. While the public bought tickets to view his remains, scientists examined his skeleton to see if it would yield clues as to his genius. The most interesting finding was that he had a large larynx, which suggested the gentle artist, contrary to the image of his hagiographers, had an unusually loud voice. Hans Christian Andersen was among those present when Raphael was reinterred and recalled the solemnity of the moment being broken when the coffin was tipped while being reinserted into the tomb and the bones rattled noisily to one end.

Perhaps Raphael was due a moment of posthumous bathos after a life and body of work of such conspicuous grace.

RaphaelNational Gallery, London WC2, 9 April 31 July

Sign up for The New Statesmans newsletters Tick the boxes of the newsletters you would like to receive. Morning Call Quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics from the New Statesman's politics team. World Review The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. The New Statesman Daily The best of the New Statesman, delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Green Times The New Statesmans weekly environment email on the politics, business and culture of the climate and nature crises - in your inbox every Thursday. This Week in Business A handy, three-minute glance at the week ahead in companies, markets, regulation and investment, landing in your inbox every Monday morning. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter from books and art to pop culture and memes sent every Friday. Weekly Highlights A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. Ideas and Letters A newsletter showcasing the finest writing from the ideas section and the NS archive, covering political ideas, philosophy, criticism and intellectual history - sent every Wednesday. Events and Offers Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates.

This article appears in the 06 Apr 2022 issue of the New Statesman, Easter Special

Continue reading here:

Raphael, the painter of perfection - The New Statesman