Pablo Ruiz Picasso (1881-1973) is considered to be the greatest artist of the 20th century. So much has been written and said about this artist. He created his art and lived as he liked.
To begin to have some understanding of Picasso the man and artist, he had this to say about his art and of himself:
" The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. That is why we must not discriminate between things. Where things are concerned there are no class distinctions. We must pick out what is good for us where we can find it -- except from our own works. I have a horror of copying myself. But when I am shown a portfolio of old drawings, for instance, I have no qualms about taking anything I want from them. " ~ Picasso [1]
" To me there is no past or future in art. If a work of art cannot always live in the present it must not be considered at all. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians, of the great painters who lived in other times, is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was. Art does not evolve by itself, the ideas of people change and with them their mode of expression. "~ Picasso [2]
Enjoy some of Picasso's portraits in this video by 'eggman 913' (Philip Scott Johnson), music by Yo Yo Ma.
References: [1] Ingo F. Walther, Pablo Picasso 1881-1973, Genius of the Century, trans. Hugh Beyer (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1993), 18. [2] Ibid., 24.
Claude Monet (1840-1926), photo by Félix Nadar,1899.
Claude Monet's garden at Giverny, France lives on, inspiring and delighting many who visit. Monet shaped his garden and assigned every plant its place, planning and ordering, laying out beds and borders according to varieties and colors.
Giverny, where Monet spent the second half of his life, became his passion, his refuge, his world. "Wherever he travelled, he always asked after his flowers in letters home. The garden on sunny days was very life to him, and when it rained he withdrew to bed, depressed.[1]"
The following are excerpts from an eyewitness account, written during Monet's lifetime, by Arsène Alexandre (1859-1937), critic, art historian and collector, writing for Le Figaro, dated August 9, 1901:
" Everywhere you turn, at your feet, over your head, at chest height, are pools, festoons, hedges of flowers, their harmonies at once spontaneous and designed and renewed at every season.
. . . . . . He also wants, perhaps above all, his flower palette before him to look at all year around, always present, but always changing. Everything is designed in such a way that the celebration is everywhere renewed and ceaselessly replaced. If a certain flower bed is stilled in a certain season, borders and hedges will suddenly light up. The other day, what dominated--or at least most charmed one's gaze--were the broad but subtle harmonies of yellows and violets.
This last helps to describe the master's creation; the effect is explosive and joyful, and every effect is planned.
Photo of Claude Monet's Water Lily Pond and Japanese Bridge, Giverny, France. From Wikimedia Commons.
There is also a second garden . . . . . . This is the famous water lily garden, with its little green Japanese bridge spanning the ornamental lake surrounded by willows and other trees, either fancifully shaped or rare. When the sunlight plays upon the water, it resembles--damascened as it is with the water lilies' great round leaves, and encrusted with the precious stones of their flowers--the masterwork of a goldsmith who has melded alloys of the most magical metals.
. . . . . . This, then, is why I say that the garden is the man. Here is a painter who, in our own time, has mutiplied the harmonies of color, has gone as far as one person can into the subtlety, opulence, and resonance of color. He has dared to create effects so true-to-life as to appear unreal, but which charm us irresistibly, as does all truth revealed."[2]
Enjoy a beautiful tour of Monet's Garden in Giverny, France. Video from 'lynnvm'
Visit a blog post at daily Qi about the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) re-opening, with a video media tour of the revitalized AGO and Frank Gehry's architecture.
References: Photo of Claude Monet from Wikipedia. [1] Christoph Heinrich, Claude Monet trans. Michael Hulse (Cologne: Benedikt Taschen, 1994), 73.
[2] Charles F. Stuckey, ed., Monet: A Retrospective (New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc., 1985), 220-223.
Robert Motherwell (b. January 24, 1915; d. July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter. Apart from his paintings, Motherwell also made numerous drawings, prints and inspired collages of ripped paper which incorporate paint.
Robert Motherwell was originally an academic, who studied philosophy at Stanford and Harvard University, before changing his field to art and art history at Columbia University, studying under Meyer Schapiro. He wrote extensively, giving the abstract expressionist movement intellectual weight and investing his own work with literary and historical parallels.
His most famous works are a series entitled "Elegy to the Spanish Republic," a homage to Picasso's "Guernica."
The Abstract Expressionists, or New York School as they are also called, broke new ground. Although their styles and philosophies varied widely, they "were united in their revolt against conventional art and in their commitment to a spontaneous freedom of expression."[1] Robert Motherwell, married to fellow artist Helen Frankenthaler, was one of the principal members of this movement, which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Barnett Newman.
Here's a very moving and beautiful video of Robert Motherwell's art from 'artpopulus' with music by Leó Ferré, Ne chantez pas la mort.
"Abstract Expressionism was a movement in American painting that developed in New York in the 1940s. Most Abstract Expressionists were energetic (or 'gestural') painters. They invariably used large canvases and applied paint rapidly and with force, sometimes using large brushes, sometimes dripping or even throwing paint directly onto the canvas. This expressive method of painting was often considered as important as the painting itself. Other Abstract Expressionist artists were concerned with adopting a peaceful and mystical approach to a purely abstract image. Not all the work from this movement was abstract or expressive, but it was generally believed that the spontaneity of the artists' approach to their work would draw from and release the creativity of their unconscious minds."[2]
Posts
