artslice

Bestiaries

2011-01-31T18:14:00.000-08:00

Master Ermengaut, November, Acorn Harvest. Escorial, Monastery of San Lorenzo, Library.

A bestiary is a scientific and educational collection of writings about animals. Bestiaries were very fashionable in the West. Thanks to them, the naturalistic knowledge from antiquity was disseminated. The bestiaries were primarily used as collections of exempla, which were referred to during sermons. As the same time they reflect those elements of the fantastic and the supernatural in the early medieval imagination, which had first appeared in the so-called libri monstruorum during the early Middle Ages. The animals which occur so often in medieval art are derived from a variety of sources and traditions - in the bible alone nearly one hundred and fifty animals are mentioned. These may have derived partly from the bestiaries, but are ultimately all related to the same cultural heritage. (Riccardo Belcari and Giulia Marrucchi)

A Smidge of Hopper's Ledger

2010-06-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

Few documents testify so insistently to an intimate relationship between a husband and wife as the Hopper ledgers. They present another aspect of the marriage of Edward Hopper and Josephine Nivison Hopper, a marriage on its way to becoming legendary. Edward Hopper died in 1967, his wife the following year. She bequeathed to the Whitney Museum a trove of paintings (including her own), documents, drawings, and memorabilia. In ten months of her widowhood, she edited the surviving material, which after her death may have suffered further losses before it found its permanent home. A generous woman, she acknowledged the long-term support of the Whitney's their direction, Lloyd Goodrich, by leaving him the four ledgers, which record in detail almost every painting and etching made, exhibited, and sold throughout Edward Hopper's long career. (Brian O'Doherty)

From the Book, Edward Hopper: A Journal of His Work. Deborah Lyons. 1997, Whitney Museum of American Art.

William Blake

2010-06-03T08:15:00.001-07:00

When the Morning Stars Sang Together (1823) - William Blake.

William Blake (1757-1827) was a gifted engraver... here is one of my favorite pieces.

Blake invented a method of relief printing from metal plates, and ways of obtaining many colors simultaneously that only recently has been equalled.

This particular plate has been selected as one of the best of Blake. "When the morning stars sang together," one page from The Book of Job illustrated by Blake, reveals the sweep of his admittedly complex and obscure but wedded to the realities of his time - a breadth of vision moving beyond the theme of conflict between Good and Evil. (Jules Heller)

2010-05-21T09:38:00.000-07:00

Illustration, 1902. From a Novissima annual, Milan 1902. Lithograph, 12 x 26 cm.

Antonio Rizzi
Born 1869 in Cremona Italy, Died 1941, Florence.
Italian painter and graphic artist. Rizzi was professor of graphic art at the Academy in Perugia and a contributor to the Munich periodical Jugend. His work has a general resemblance to Munich Art Nouveau, in particular the work of Franz von Stuck. As a painter, he produced historical and genre paintings, portraits and sets. (Gabriele Fahr-Becker)

Asphaltum

2010-05-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Applying the asphaltum to the matrix.

Asphaltum: A stop-out varnish employed in the intaglio process when long bites are required. Usually mixed with turpentine or benzine for better control. Also one of the ingredients in hard ground. Also employed in lithography by some printmakers in preference to tusche. Called bitumen in older texts. (Jules Heller)

Coming Soon...

2010-04-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hall of Doges, Davenport Hotel, Spokane.

I'm planning a comeback! Starting next week, I will attempt to post at least 2 to 3 times a week. It's been too long away from art history and I'm excited to bring some fun stuff from the bookshelves :)

Alice Schille

2010-01-28T12:25:00.000-08:00

Horse Race, Siena, 1901-10. Watercolor, 9 x 11". Courtesy Perry Nicole Fine Art, Memphis, Tennessee.

Trafalgar Square, London (night), 1909-10. Pastel and watercolor, 12 x 9". Private collection

Nice, 1909-10. Pastel and Watercolor. 10 x 7". Private collection

Alice Schille (1869-1955) was born in Columbus Ohio, and studied in New York and Paris and was influenced by progressive art movements. She was a world traveller, painting throughout the US, Europe, North Africa and Latin America. Her medium of choice was watercolor but she also worked in oils. Her subject matter included still lifes, landscapes, gardens, mothers and children, market and harbor scenes. Her paintings of the working class Jewish and Italian neighborhoods on the Lower East Side are some of the most exciting watercolors ever rendered of urban life in New York.

Schille's work evolved from Tonalist naturalism, through Impressionism and Post-Impressionism (including Pointillism) to include the influence of Fauvism as well as an exploration of the faceting of the Cubist methodology. Her later work also reveals the influence of Rivera and the Mexican muralists. (William H. Gerdts)

Letter O

2010-01-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

O has been written the same way since early Semitic times, but since there were no vowels in the written language, this form signified a guttural "C" sound, from the word cayin (eye). The Greeks assigned it the "O" sound. (Rose Folsom)

A Difficult Indigo...

2010-01-11T11:30:00.000-08:00

Around 1878, Emil Fischer* and his brother determined the structure of fuchsin, (a cherry-red dye) and were then able to develop a scientific method of synthesizing it. This procedure was used by many chemists who were trying to create new synthetic colors. The biggest challenge was to synthesize the 'king of colorants', indigo. By 1880, a German chemist, Adolf von Baeyer completed the synthesis of indigo in his lab, but couldn't find a synthesis that was cost-effective on an industrial level. After 20 years and 20 million marks spent, he succeeded. In 1904, Germany exported 9,000 tons of synthetic indigo, and 3 times as much in 1913. Whole regions were ruined - in India and the Caribbean; the English indigo trade disappeared and the shipping trade of Marseilles, wholly dependent upon it, also collapsed. (Delamare and Guineau)

*Emil Fischer - Organic chemist (1852-1919) devoted to the graphic representation of molecular structures, study of the major types of organic chemical reactions,and the study of colorants.

Honore Daumier

2009-11-24T11:32:00.000-08:00

Daumier (1808-79). French caricaturist, painter and sculptor. During his lifetime he was known chiefly as a political and social satirist, but since his death he has been increasingly recognized as a painter. In 1830, after learning the still fairly new process of lithography, he began to contribute political cartoons to the newly launched anti-monarchist weekly, La Caricature. It's said he produced more than 4,000 lithographs, wishing at the time that the one he had just made could be his last. His paintings were probably done for the most part fairly late in his career. As a caricaturist Daumier stands above all others of the 19th century. The essence of his satire lay in his power to interpret mental states in terms of physical absurdity, but in his directness of vision and lack of sentimentality he has affinities with the realism of Courbet. Although he never mad a commercial success of his art, he was appreciated by the discriminating, his friends and admirers including Baudelaire, Degas, Delacroix, and Forain. In his final years he was almost blind and was saved from destitution by Corot. (Ian Chilvers)

Susan Rothenberg

2009-11-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

Maggie's Cartwheel 1981-82. Oil on canvas, 25 x 30"

Mondrian Dancing 1984-85. Oil on canvas, 78 x 91"

Pontiac 1979. Acrylic and flashe on canvas. 88 x 61"

"Some of the pictures are truly mysterious to me... which is why I so often say publicly that I don't know or don't care what they're really about. And yet I can say that the paintings are prayers... that they have to do with whatever it is that makes you want more than what daily life affords." - Susan Rothenberg.

"The Only Rule is Work " - Corita

2009-11-10T10:51:00.000-08:00

One of my all time favorite artists, Sister Corita Kent (1918-1986) made up this list of rules for the art college in which she worked. No. 7 is the best rule ever... it's my mantra!

'Admired by Charles and Ray Eames, Buckminster Fuller and Saul Bass, Sister Corita was one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the 1960s, battling the political and religious establishments, revolutionizing graphic design and encouraging the creativity of thousands of people - all while living and practicing as a Catholic nun in California.

Mixing advertising slogans and poetry in her prints and commandeering nuns and students to help make ambitions installations, processions and banners, Sister Corita's work is now recognized as some of the most striking - and joyful- American art of the 60s. But, at the end of the decade and at the height of her fame and prodigious work rate, she let the convent where she had spent her adult life. ' - (Julie Ault.)

**From the book, Come Alive! The Spirited Art of Sister Corita by Julie Ault. Published by Four Corners Books, 2006.

To Clam Island

2009-07-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

Just a note to say hello and hope you all are enjoying summer! Our boat has set sail and I probably won't be back blogging more regularly 'til school starts. Until then, enjoy and see you soon :)
This painting is acrylic on canvas... by me. It's at one of my favorite 'secret beaches' in my hometown.

Konrad Witz

2009-07-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

Konrad Witz, The Miraculous Drought of Fish, from the Altarpiece of St. Peter, 1444. Tempera on wood, approx 51"x61". Musee d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva.

German-born Swiss painter whose sharply observed realism suggests that he was familiar with the work of contemporary Flemish artist such as Jan van Eyck. Lake Geneva is the setting for a biblical story in his best-known work, The Miraculous Drought of Fishes 1444, representing one of the earliest recognizable landscapes in European art. (Brockhampton)

The Storm is Coming

2009-06-22T13:38:00.000-07:00

Woodcut by Antonio Frasconi. Emigrated from Uruguay, Frasconi is a master graphic and woodcut artist. He's one of my personal faves... I did a previous post (December 2008) with some of his Christmas and winter scenes.
"Coupled with technical virtuosity is a rich, meaningful content. Frasconi has taken the popular art of the woodcut and clothed it in visually exciting color. " (sorry there were only black and white photographs available!) (Jules Heller)

Scratchboard

2009-06-08T07:50:00.000-07:00

Scratchboard is a lovely way to draw and it looks a lot like an etching or wood engraving but is much easier. It only requires the scratchboard and a few scratching knifes and tools. It is available on a panel or thick, rigid bristol board like paper. It's made by coating paper or board with a thin layer of clay and a layer of India ink on the surface. After scratching out the image, it can be colored or painted. Cool stuff!

Images from an enchanting children's book called The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson. Pictures by Beth Krommes. (Houghton Mifflin Co. 2008)

PS. I've been experiencing a family crisis which is why I haven't been posting on this blog much in the past few months... it's a bit time consuming to post because I do research things. Please bear with me. I love sharing art history with you all and have greatly enjoyed and appreciate your comments and visits. (I've no intention of shutting down Artslice.) Hopefully things will improve and I can get back on track.

V

2009-06-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

V had been, in early roman Times, both vowel and consonant. Its vowel value was eventually supplanted by 'U' and 'W.' As a Roman numeral it stands for 5, variously explained as half of 'X' (10) or five fingers of the hand held in a 'V' shape. (Rose Folsum)

Lucien Pissarro

2009-06-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

Femme au bois, 1891

Gardeuse d'Oies, 1923

Liseuse, 1891

from The Queen of the Fishes, 1894

Born in Paris in 1863, died in 1944 in Epping, England. Lucien Pissarro was the son of painter, Camille Pissarro. He grew up surrounded by his father's great artist friends: Gauguin, Seurat, Signac and Felix Feneon. As a young man Lucien was inspired by the work of Kate Greenaway; one can see the influence in his designs and illustrations of children's stories. In 1886 Lucien exhibited his paintings, drawings, and prints in the 8th and final Impressionist Exhibition, then turned almost exclusively to making prints. Soon after, he moved to England permanently.

Lucien arrived in London just as the Arts and Crafts movement was gaining momentum. William Morris had just established his Kelmscott Press. Lucien saw the opportunity to combine his love of book making and illustration and founded the Eragny Press. It ran for 20 years from 1894-1914 and published 32 titles (including works of Flaubert, Francis Bacon, Christina Rossetti and Keats) with more than 300 wood-engraved illustrations, borders, and fancy capitals. The press closed when WWI broke out but its legacy is a beautiful combination of the French Impressionistic interest in color and light and the English aesthetic of Arts and Crafts design. (Lora Urbanelli)

**from The Book Art of Lucien Pissarro by Lora Urbanelli, 1997. Published by Moyer Bell.

Vintage Advertising

2009-05-15T08:09:00.000-07:00

1920's.

1930's

1950's

Just for fun, check out these old Cigarette Advertisements... with the Doctors smoking! These range from the 1920's , 30's (these are the first 2 images and are illustrated). The late 40's-early 1950's have photography in them.

Sorry for the blur today!

'F'

2009-05-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

F from early Greek times until about 200BC this sign looked something like a backward "F." and had the wound of a modern "W." The Latins gave it the form and phonetic value that we use today. (Rose Folsum)

Hopper's Ledgers

2009-05-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

A sketch from my favorite Hopper painting - above.

"What I wanted to do was to paint sunlight on the side of a house."

- Edward Hopper

Here's a small glimpse of Edward Hopper's sketchbook. So fascinating! He planned the colors, even sometimes the brand of paint. Sometimes he drew from newspaper photographs. He seemed to be quite a planner of his paintings... not terribly spontaneous... rather calculated.

Hopper also wrote about to whom a painting was sold, the check number, and the breakdown of the gallery percentage of the sale. (this info was usually penciled in at the end of an entry.) Sometimes he wrote who had come to see certain paintings. Fascinating to see his own personal handwriting and dealings.

From the book, Edward Hopper: A Journal of His Work. By Deborah Lyons. Whitney Museum of American Art, NY and W.W. Norton & Co. NY. 1997.

PS click on image if you want to read his entries! Fun stuff!!

Red Canna

2009-05-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

Red Canna, 1920. Georgia O'Keeffe. Watercolor on paper, 19 x 13". Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven CT.

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to see a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not." - Georgia O'Keeffe.

Glassmaking at Jamestown

2009-04-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

Captain John Smith

Some examples of vessels they made.

These are drawings from a historical book, The Tryal of Glasse - The Story of Glassmaking at Jamestown about the Virginia Colonists during the presidency of Captain John Smith.

Glassmaking in America began at Jamestown, Virginia in 1608, where a glass factory was operating in the nearby forest just a little more than a year after the first colonists arrived from England. The 'tryal of glass' sent back to England that year was the first glass make by Englishmen in the New World, and the manufacture of glass, therefore, can justly lay claim to being the first factory industry in England's American colonies. (J.C. Harrington)

Aquatint

2009-04-27T09:26:00.000-07:00

Georges Rouault, French. Born 1871. Grimacing Man from Flowers of Evil. Aquatint.
The top narrow rectangle is an enlarged cross-section showing particles of resin on a plate surface.

1. Stopped out* before biting
2. One-minute bite - then stopped out.
3. 4 minute bite- then stopped out.
4. 16 minute bite, then stopped out.

Intaglio process. A tonal medium which permits 'grainlike' values in the print ranging from silvery grey to intense black. A porous ground of resin or other substances in applied to the plate, heated, then etched a number of times to produce the required values. (Jules Heller)

* Stopping out: Preventing certain lines or areas of a plate from biting, by brushing on an acid-proof material.

Sabra Field

2009-04-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

Fields and Mountains

Dandelion Galaxies

Windows of Light on the Snow

Deer in the Orchard

"The pastoral image... is a model for man to shape his environment with care, to make the natural world more beautiful, more whole. ...The pastoral image poses an answer to the question, 'How are we to live with our planet?' " - Sabra Field

Her prints hang in imposing corporate boardrooms and in rustic New England fishing camps. Her 1991 Vermont Bicentennial commemorative stamp depicting yellow farm fields, a red barn and blue mountains quickly became of the the USPS's best selling issues, with more than 60 million copies purchased. Sabra Field is that rare contemporary artist whose work has found a large falling well outside the traditional realm of collectors and art experts. At her home and studio set in the Vermont countryside, she meticulously carves and hand-inks the wood blocks with which she creates her magical prints, one color at a time. (Tom Slayton)

** From the book, Sabra Field - The Art of Place. by Tom Slayton. University press of New England.

Indicum

2009-04-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

Indicum or Indigo Blue

In antiquity indigo was imported as indicum in flat, dried bricks, and Roman writers such as Pliny did not know that it was made from a plant. He described it in the Natural History as 'a certain silt that forms in frothy water and attaches itself to reds. This color seems to be black when ground, and yet when diluted it makes a certain very rich purplish blue.' (Delamare and Guineau)

Paulus Berenson

2009-04-08T09:01:00.000-07:00

This is a different kind of post... but it's what I love about writing this blog - discovering new artists and learning more about them) I've been drawn to the artwork on the cover of Red Bird by Mary Oliver ever since I bought the book last summer on a visit to Portland, OR. So, I thought I'd do a post on the artist but came up with only nebulous information about him. No bio could be found on the web... just a book he wrote in 1997, Finding One's Way with Clay: Creating Pinched Pottery and working with Colored Clays. (available at amazon if you're interested)

I think this looks like a woven or quilted piece... but it could also be a 2-D relief clay sculpture. What do you think? Anyone who knows more about Mr. Berenson... please feel free to leave a comment. I'm very curious now!

Winslow Homer

2009-04-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

Afterglow, 1883. * (half of the painting... other half below.) Watercolor on paper, 14 x 21 ". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Taking Wet Provisions, 1903. Watercolor and graphite on white wove paper, 14 x 21". (MOMA, New York)

* see above

Prout's Neck Breakers, 1883. Watercolor 14 x 21". Art Institute of Chicago.

1836-1910. US painter and lithographer, known for his vivid seascapes, in both oil and watercolor, which date from the 1880s-1890s.

Born in Boston, Homer made his reputation as a Realist painter with Prisoners from the Front 1866 (MOMA, New York), recording the miseries of the American Civil War. After a visit to Paris he turned to lighter subjects such as studies of country life, Which reflect early Impressionist influence. (Brockhampton)

Bob Dylan Drawings

2009-04-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

Brussels 2007

House of Union Street, 2007

Tabletop

View from 2 Windows, 2007

"Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but to inspire them?" -Bob Dylan

I just love the view points and perspectives Bob Dylan chooses when drawing interior and exterior scenes. It figures he would be good at art too! Some people have so many gifts!

Matthew the Evangelist

2009-03-31T12:24:00.000-07:00

Matthew from the Book of Durrow. Late 7th century. Dublin, Trinity College.

In the Book of Durrow, the most important insular manuscript of its time, the ornamental repertory includes the interlaced frames that were typical of the northern islands. The chromatic palette is limited but well distributed in the magnificently executed designs. (Riccardo Belcari, Giulia Marrucchi)

This figure's clothing reminds me of Klimt's paintings and love of pattern and design. Maybe he was inspired by ancient manuscripts?

Addorsed

2009-03-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

Lion capital of column erected by Emperor Asoka (272-232 B.C.) from Patna, (ancient Pataliputra), India. Polished sandstone, 7' high. Archaeological Museum, Sarnath.

Set back-to-back, especially as in heraldic design. (Gardner)

Pounce Wheel

2009-03-24T08:55:00.000-07:00

A small wheel with a handle and spikes, for pricking holes along the outline of a design. The pricked-through paper is then set on top of the surface to be lettered, and is dusted with fine powder (chalk, charcoal, etc.) which settles through the holes to outline the design on the final surface. A pricker, also called a runner, was a similar device run up the margins of a page against a straightedge by 19th century scriveners to prick markings for guidelines into the parchment writing surface. (Rose Folsom)

Alizarin

2009-03-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

Aside from the ochers, which are mined, today's pigments, lakes and dyes are produced by specialized chemical industries. The first synthetic dyes appeared on the market in the middle of the 19th century. Among them was alizarin, isolated as one of the main coloring agents found in madder. (Francois Delamare and Bernard Guineau)

Natalie Goldberg

2009-03-20T09:14:00.000-07:00

Santa Fe Chair, 1989.

A lovely book - where the images came from.

Her latest book... it's a great read and provides inspiration for me as an artist. I exchange the word 'write' for 'paint' and it really has given me motivation!!

Janet's Living Room, 1984

Dog, 1984

My Fair Lady, 1984.

She's a great writer and most famous for her books about the craft of writing ie- 'Writing Down the Bones'. She's also an artist... her watercolors and super-colorful, loaded with pattern and have a funky viewpoint. They seem a bit off kilter which is why they appeal to me.

A Little Color History - Alum

2009-03-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

Alum miners at work in miniature. Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris.

Alum is a vitriolic clay composed of sulfuric acid, aluminum,and potassium. It comes in many variants, including rock alum, Yemenite alum, Roman alum, and shale alum. It was used as a mordant for dyeing throughout the ancient world, including India. Until the 15th century, it was processed mainly in Constantinople, Aleppo, and a site near Smyrna (modern Izmir) called Rocca. In the mid-15th century, a Genoese merchant who had travled to the East and spent some time in Rocca founded the first alum factory in Europe on the island of Ischia. (Francois Delamare and Bernard Guineau)

Pierre Bonnard

2009-03-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

Woman Indoors Reading a Journal, 1925. Oil on canvas, 57 x 35". Private Collection, New York.

Ambroise Vollard, 1906. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36. Art Museum, Zurich, Switzerland.

Tea in the Garden at Cannet, 1925. Pencil on paper. Private Collection, Paris.

I think this quote sums up Bonnard (1867-1947) so well. He's one of my favorite painters; I'm fascinated with his color combinations, figures, water landscapes and most of all his interior scenes. He was great friends of Vuillard and I can see many similarities in their work.

"The glowing calm and lethargy that impregnate all the work of Bonnard answers to a profound human response, to an interior richness that has no need of mechanical subterfuges, or brilliant or demanding, in order to efface the nothingness of empty time, or in order to be moved by the presence of man." (Raymond Cogniat)

Mark Rothko

2009-03-12T22:08:00.000-07:00

Mark Rothko, Baptismal Scene, 1945. Watercolor on paper, 19 x 14". Whitney Museum, New York.

1903-1970. Russian-born US painter, an Abstract Expressionist and a pioneer towards the ends of his life, of Color Field painting (an abstract style dominated by areas of unmodulated, strong color) . Rothko produced several series of large-scale paintings in the 1950s and 1960s, examples of which are owned by Harvard University, The Tate Gallery, London, and a chapel in Houston, Texas. (Brockhampton)

Lithograph- 'Transfer Drawing'

2009-03-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

Yeux Clos - Odilon Redon lithograph.

Here is a lithograph that has a lovely textural quality... it is believed Redon used the 'transfer drawing method' to achieve it and then re-worked it with crayon.

'There are many other possibilities for transfer in addition to the traditional method of making a design with crayon and/or tusche on paper, then damping the sheet, laying it face down on a freshly grained stone, and pulling it through the press several times to get it to offset onto the stone. By direct or indirect methods we can transfer the imprint of net, chiffon, or other loosely woven fabrics. We can offset fresh proofs from any other graphic arts medium. (Jules Heller)

John LaFarge

2009-03-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

Wild Roses and Irises, 1887. Gouache and watercolor on white wove paper, 14.5 x 10". The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

Seascape, 1883. Watercolor on paper, 6 x 4".

Mountain Gorge Near Dambulla, Ceylon. Watercolor on paper, 16 x 13". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Wild Roses in an Antique Chinese Bowl, 1880. Watercolor on paper 10 x 9" Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

John La Farge (1835-1910). US painter and ecclesiastical designer. He is credited with the revival of stained glass in America and also created woodcuts, watercolors, and murals. Lafarge visited Europe 1856 and Far East in 1886. In the 1870s he turned from landscape painting (inspired by the French painters, Corot) to religious and still-life painting. Decorating the newly built Trinity church in Boston, MA, he worked alongside the sculptor Saint-Gaudens. (Brockhampton).

Peter Behrens

2009-03-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Peter Behrens
Design for a poster advertising an AEG metal filament light, 1907. color lithograph, 67 x 52 cm. AEG company archives, Frankfurt/Main.

1868, Hamburg - 1940, Berlin.
Behrens was a German architect, painter, graphic artist, industrial designer, applied artist, typeface designer, and book artist. He studied painting in Karlsruhe, Dusseldorf, Munich and with the luministes in Netherlands from 1885-19=892. from 1899-1903 he was a member of the Darmstadt artists' colony, where he designed furniture and furnishings (wallpapers, textiles, decorative glass) as well as theatre sets , and where he first turned is attention to architecture. From 1903-07 he was head of the School of Arts and Crafts in Dusseldorf. His buildings from this period are characterized by simple cubic forms with a linear ornament.

From 1907-14 he was a member of the AEG artistic advisory committee in Berlin, in which capacity he designed - alongside all AEG's factories and office buildings- typefaces, advertising material, and electrical goods (including domestic appliances and lighting).

In his graphic works, which reveal the strong influence of van de Velde, he fused classical motifs with abstract Jugendstil ornament. He also created 2 new typefaces: Behrens Italic and Behrens Roman. He is one of the founders of the Munich Secession. (1892) (Gabriele Fahr-Becker)

M

2009-03-04T08:56:00.000-08:00

M from the Semitic mem (water). It has been written as various types of wavy and zig-zag lines for thousands of years. As a roman numeral it stands for 1,000. (Rose Folsum)

Travertine

2009-03-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

Abbey of Sant'Antimo, nave. Montalcino, Italy.
The stone used here is local blocks of traveretine stone which has a similar appearance to alabaster.

Travertine

A limestone formed by the precipitation of the calcium carbonate in spring water upon exposure to air. It has been found in large quantities in the Tiber valley near Rome and elsewhere in Italy. It varies in color from pale buff to orange pink and has been frequently used for the buildings of Rome, notably the Colosseum and the colonnade of St Peter's. Recently it has been exported in great quantities from Italy on account of its popularity as an external cladding material in some forms of modern architecture. (Michael Clarke)

G

2009-02-26T21:35:00.000-08:00

The letter G-
Derived from the Semitic gimel, it was written like an upside down, slightly lopsided 'V' in the Sinai around 1500 BC. This sign had roughly the ephonetic value of our 'G,' but because the cultures who used the letter drew little or no distinction between the sounds of the letters 'C,' 'G,' and 'K' (in the same way as we make no difference between certain C and K sounds), the gimel (gamma in Greek) eventually became the Greek letter 'C' (being the original gimel turned 90 degrees). The Romans developed the letter 'G' ('C' with a crossbar) around 300 BC. (Rose Folsum)

Jean Cocteau

2009-02-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

Menton's Marriages (Registry Hall) - A room decorated my Jean cocteau. (In the city of Menton, France)

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) . French poet, dramatist and film director. A leading figure in European Modernism, he worked with Picasso, Diaghilev, and Stravinsky. He produced many volumes of poetry, ballets such as Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof - 1920), plays IE-Orpheus, 1926, and a mature novel of bourgeois French life, Les Enfants Terribles (Children of the Game - 1929). (Brockhampton)

I thought this piece so interesting, I wanted to share it. The lines throughout the figures and background remind me of Spanish embroidery... although can't remember the name of it! Cocteau was much more than a poet and film director he was also an artist. He created an art museum as part of his legacy in the town of Menton on the gorgeous French Riviera. Read and see more of his art here.

Joan Steiner

2009-02-23T09:03:00.000-08:00

Circus

Harbor

Sweet Shop

Joan Steiner -

Is a graduate of Barnard College and a self-taught artist. Her Look-Alike books have sold millions of copies. She has won numerous art and design awards and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Ms. Steiner lives in Claverack New York.

**Taken from the book, Look Alikes by Joan Steiner, 1998. Little, Brown and Company.

***Photography by Thomas Lindley

**** Click on the picture to really see all the details!!

A Little Break

2009-02-20T22:07:00.000-08:00

Just a note to say... I'm taking an impromptu break and will be back on Monday! Have a great weekend :)

Richard Diebenkorn Quote

2009-02-16T22:01:00.000-08:00

Figure on a Porch, 1959. Oil on canvas, 57 x 62". Oakland Museum of California.

Woman with Hat and Gloves, 1963. Oil on canvas, 34 x 36". Pvt collection.

Girl Smoking, 1963. Oil on canvas, 33 x 25". Collection of Christine and Pierre Lamond.

Sleeping Woman, 1961. Oil on canvas, 70 x 58". Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan.

July, 1957. Oil on canvas, 59 x 54". Pvt collection.

"When I'm half way there with a painting, it can occasionally be thrilling... But it happens very rarely; usually it's agony. I go to great pains to mask the agony. But the struggle is there. It's the invisible enemy." -Richard Diebenkorn.

Raymond Legueult

2009-02-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

The Blue Dress, 1952.

French painter, born in 1898 in Paris, died in 1971. He belonged to the group, 'Painters of Poetic Reality' - inspired by the desire to preserve the direct inspiration of nature filtered through his individual personality. His paintings are reminiscent of Oriental painting. His figures seem to dilute themselves in a magical world where everything has an equal density and , as in Bonnard's canvases, one has the impression of confusion, but little by little details appear to recompose the forms and thus to give to the poetry the added value of a secret language. (Samuelson, Kaplan, Hart and Marchutz)

Tympan

2009-02-12T10:04:00.000-08:00

Printing paper, blotters and tympan placed on stone.

Tympan: The tallow-covered sheet of red pressboard, zinc, or other material between the scraper of the lithographic press and the printing paper. A cushion. (Jules Heller)

Engross

2009-02-10T11:38:00.000-08:00

To copy a document in a formal, ornate way for ceremonial purposes. Today, 'engrossing' connotes the rendering of a certificate or resolution in a 19th century style of lettering, often employing Gothic, Copperplate and Lombardic capitals (sometimes all in the same piece of work). This style is typified by the meticulous work in the Zanerian Manual of Alphabets and Engrossing (1895, 1981). Until the mid-1970s, many Americaln scribes who made their living hand lettering awards called themselves engrossers. Since then, the label 'calligrapher' is much more common. (Rose Folsum)

Tasha Tudor

2009-02-09T20:46:00.000-08:00

Tonight, there is a full moon and our yard looks something like this... minus the rustic, log fence!

This is by no means a culmination of Tasha Tudor's work. However, for now I'd like to bring you a few winter-y scenes from one of her many books.* A favorite theme of mine is the way she captures the dogs and cats in her illustrations. She had several Welsh Corgis and cats - many are found in most of her books. I find her life and way of living so interesting and inspiring. She died just last year. Learn more about her life and art here.

*From The Night Before Christmas by C.C. Moore and Tasha Tudor - Little, Brown.

Serigraphy

2009-02-05T16:40:00.000-08:00

Edward Landon: "Northern Winter"

Albrecht Durer: Melencolia. (this is an etching but I couldn't stop myself from adding it to this post!)

Sister Mary Corita: This Beginning of Miracles. Enriched Bread - Sister Mary Corita (my personal collection! Sorry for the glare, I'm so very lo-tech.)

Serigraphy: Stencil process. A method of producing original, multicolored prints having a real paint quality. Paint, ink, or other color is forced through a stencil of silk each time for each color required in the print. (Jules Heller)

Willi Baumeister

2009-02-04T09:10:00.000-08:00

Baumeister. Gouache, 1923. Private collection.

He was born in Stuttgart, 1889 and is the least German and possibly, the most European of the German painters. He was active during the German Expressionism movement but his paintings did not reflect that style at all. Instead, one can notice Neo-Plasticism, Constructivism, African or Aztec art, speleology, prehistory and calligraphy.
During the war, prohibited from teaching by the Hitler regime, Baumeister began to devote himself to scientific research on color, and became passionately absorbed in the study of prehistoric archaeology. This influence was infused in his work. He has been compared to Legerr and Miro. (Samuelson, Kaplan, Hart and Marchutz)

Garth

2009-02-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

Fra Angelico

The Annunciation, 1432-33. Tempera on wood, 175 x 180cm. Cortona, Museo Diocesano.

Garth - The garden of a cloister. (Gardner) Note the predella at the bottom of the painting with an 'ongoing story' being told in pictures.

Maurice Prendergast

2009-01-30T15:40:00.000-08:00

Hankerchief Point, 1896. Watercolor, 20 x 13 ". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Umbrellas in the Rain, Venice, 1899. Watercolor over graphite on paper, 13 x 20". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

(1859-1924). Canadian-born American painter and printmaker. He was a member The Eight, but stood somewhat apart from the rest of the group. Boston was his home for most of his life and he spent much of his career travelling and painting abroad; it was only in 1914 that he moved to New York, the centre of The Eight's activities. The main thing he had in common with other members was a desire to revive American art from academic stagnation, and his work is remarkable for its brilliant decorative color. His paintings were often of people enjoying themselves in innocent pleasures. He was one of the first American artists to be influences by Post-Impressionism, notably in the way in which he emphasized flat pattern. In 1913 he showed 7 works in the Armory Show and at this time he stood out as one of the most stylistically advanced American artists. Most of his paintings were in watercolor, but in his later years he turned increasingly to oils. H also made about 200 monotypes an unusually large oeuvre for this medium. (Ian Chilvers)

E. Ambrose Webster

2009-01-29T11:49:00.000-08:00

St. Paul II, France, 1925, 32 x 45"

Sunny Portrait, Taormina, 1922, 30 x 40", The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KentuckySketching, Provincetown, MA, 1915, 14 x 19".

E. Ambrose Webster was born in 1869 in Boston, MA to a working class family. He was one of 3 sons. He studied at the Boston Museum School in his 20s while working in many different printing shops as an engraver. He was greatly influenced by Monet, van Gogh and Matisse. Some have called him the 'American Fauve'. He is very well known for being a pioneer of modernism in painting. He preferred to travel and paint more exotic locations rather than his native Boston.

"Webster was a self-assured artist who dedicated his life to painting and teaching and did it with exuberant determination and authority. Hes convictions ran deep enough that throughout his career he remained undeterred in his sometimes lonely stance as a modernist in the mostly conservative Provincetown art community." (Gail R. Scott) He died in 1935.

**Photographs and information gleaned from American Art Review magazine, December 2008.

S

2009-01-27T18:14:00.000-08:00

The letter S is derived from a rough version of S and similar letters in early Greek and Latin inscriptions. The Phoenician W, and Hebrew '3' are relatives of "s" with the phonetic value of 'sh.' The long S can be seen in early Roman graffiti and hastily written documents on wax and papyrus. It made its way into formal writing around 6th century and was used, often along with the 'S' in many scripts and printing types, until the 19th century. It was phased out after 1795 when John Bell, a British printer and type designer, discarded it in his own work, and the change became universally accepted. (Rose Folsum)

Madonna of Mercy

2009-01-25T22:38:00.000-08:00

Madonna of Mercy, center panel Misericordia altarpiece. Piero della Francesca.

Piero della Francesca and others. Misericordia altarpiece. Commissioned 1445; still incomplete 1454. Panel, 8'8" x 10'6". Museo Civico, Sansepolcro.

Madonna of Mercy - A representation of the standing Virgin Mary protecting worshipers, usually kneeling, under her mantle. (In Italian, Madonna della Misericordia.) Hartt

Piero della Francesca is one of my favorite Renaissance painters and this particular Madonna is probably my favorite portrait of all. The model who posed for this painting also appears in many other Piero paintings, she has a captivating face in my opinion!

Serdab

2009-01-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

King Zoser's Stepped Pyramid and mortuary precinct. Saqqara, Egypt. Dynasty III, circa 2675-2625 B.C. Architect: Imhotep.

Interior map of stepped pyramid.

A small concealed chamber in an Egyptian tomb or mastaba for the statue of the deceased. (Gardner)

This particular pyramid (King Zoser's) is one of the oldest pyramids in Egypt and the first royal tomb. It was the model for the 3 famous pyramids of Gizeh. It is believed to have originally been covered in marble - which was stolen in antiquity.

Jamb

2009-01-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

The Jamb is directly around the wood door... apologies for the poor quality photograph!

Workshop of Pietro of Alberico, fragment of jamb with Telamon. Bologna, Cathedral of San Pietro. 12th century.

Workshop of Pitro of Alberico, fragment of jamb with vine motif filled with fantastic animals. Bologna, Cathedral of San Pietro. 12th century.

The side of an archway, door-opening, or window that, properly speaking, is load-bearing; generally used to describe the vertical linings of such architectural openings. (Michael Clarke)

Roman Cursive Script

2009-01-17T08:58:00.000-08:00

Roman handwriting. Quickly written, unserifed everyday version of Roman Majuscule, executed with a stylus in wax or with a reed brush and ink on papyrus. In the first centuries BC the letters were rarely joined, but during the later centuries of the Roman Empire they were often connected, and began to show characteristics of minuscule. (Rose Folsum)

Carl Larsson: Influences

2009-01-15T08:41:00.000-08:00

Karin is Reading, 1904. Watercolor.
In 1904, they had nearly finished re-decorating their dining room. There is a paper cactus-flower shad that now had electric light and a 'sin-cupboard' was installed under the window. It would be used to hold liquor and cigars. Karin's profile is echoed in the portrait in the window... alongside her is Carl himself.

Marriage Feast at Cana. Painted wall hanging from southern Sweden, 1781

Famed Swedish artist, Carl Larsson and his wife were a bit like William Morris of the British Arts and Crafts movement. They took great care decorating their house and I guess you could say they were the founders of modern Swedish design! Carl immortalized his home and grounds by painting most of his watercolors there. Here is a piece he saw in a museum that is believed to have greatly inspired his work. The Marriage Feast at Cana (detail). 'The fresh directness of such Southern Swedish paintings, abounding with figures, had a strong appeal for Carl Larsson. This example was collected for the Nordic Museum, Stockholm.' (Snodin and Stavenow-Hidemark).

**From the book, Carl and Karin Larsson - Creators of the Swedish Style. Edited by Michael Snodin and Elisabet Stavenow-Hidemark. Published by Bullfinch, 1997)

Diane Kempler

2009-01-13T21:43:00.000-08:00

Root Maidens (earthenware) glazed and unglazed

detail of Celebrations

Celebrations of the House

Ceramicist, Diane Kempler, likes to work mostly with human form and enjoys its connection to nature. Thorn, root and leaf forms are often combined with the figure. She first encountered ceramics while working at a crafts center in MA, (a native of New York) after college, and found it was what she wanted to do with her life. She stopped working as a studio artist for a while and took a job as director of a puppetry arts center museum while she continued to teach. But after 8 years she returned to ceramics with a new vision and energy. Her work is all sculptural and focuses mostly on the abstracted human torso. She often uses elements of nature such as tree forms, root shapes, or other green growth. (Tommy Simpson and William Bennett Seitz)

Joni Mitchell Quote

2009-01-12T12:35:00.000-08:00

"One line came like a gift. It flowed out. I drew back and said 'thank you' to the room." -Joni Mitchell.

The Canadian singer/songwriter, Joni Mitchell was really a painter 'first' before she was a musician. She went to art school and I believe started singing at that time. I think this quote could be meant for painting or songwriting... or both! I love the way art can sometimes 'flow' out of us... those are the good creating days. Funny how other times it just doesn't come easy. This CD has one of her paintings on it - a self portrait holding an iris bouquet. She has a way of painting in the van Gogh style... visit her website to see many more paintings here. I love the idea of her art and music melded together in this one useful object - a CD.

Kento

2009-01-09T19:37:00.000-08:00

Kento is Japanese for Registration Marks in Japanese Printmaking or Moku Hanga.

'The genius of the kento system of registration lies in its very simplicity. The position of the kento is fixed in relation to the image on the original drawing/keyblock and faithfully transferred to each block. The principle maintains exactly the size of the margin around the printed area on each block thus guaranteeing accurate registration. ' (Rebecca Salter)

**Taken from the book, Japanese Woodblock Printing by Rebecca Salter, 2001. I highly recommend this book if you're looking for a good reference for woodblock printmaking! You can buy it at McClain's.

Georgia O'Keefe's Hands

2009-01-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

Ghost Ranch, 1966

Holding Eliot Porter's Rock, Abiquiu, 1966

Ghost Ranch, 1966

Holding a book by Leonard Baskin, bedroom, Abiquiu, 1966

Most of us have seen the beautiful photographs that Alfred Stieglitz took of Georgia in the early part of the 20th century. I thought it would be fun to show those same lovely hands at an older age. These photos were taken in 1966 as part of a Life Magazine story by John Loengard.

I especially like the ones with the bones... she collected a lot of bones from the desert to take back to New York and paint. She said she wanted to to somehow take a little bit of New Mexico with her (she spent her summers painting there during the 1930s and 40's). Georgia O'Keeffe said they never represented death to her - on the contrary, they were very lively. She loved the shapes of the bones, especially in relation to the sky.

**photos taken from the book, Image and Imagination: Georgia O'Keeffe by John Loengard - 1994.

Baldacchino

2009-01-05T21:51:00.000-08:00

Gianlorenzo Bernini, baldacchino, St. Peter's, Rome, 1624-1633. Gilded bronze, approx 100' high.

Baldacchino- A canopy on columns, frequently built over an altar. (a similar term is...)

Ciborium - A canopy, often freestanding and supported by four columns, erected over an altar; also, a covered cup used in the sacraments of the Christian Church. (Gardner)

Hans Hofmann

2009-01-04T10:37:00.000-08:00

Fairy Tale. 1944. Oil on wood. 59 x 36". Private Collection.

(1880-1966). German-born painter and teacher who became an American citizen in 1941. From 1904 to 1914 he lived in Paris, where he knew many of the leading figures of Fauvism, Cubism, and Orphism. In 1915 he founded his own art school in Munich and taught there successfully until 1932, when he emigrated to the USA. He founded the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in New York in 1934 (followed the next year by a summer school at Provincetown MA) and became a teacher of great influence on the minority group of American artists who practiced abstract painting during the 1930s. Hofmann continued teaching until 1958, when he closed his schools so he could concentrate on his own painting. He experimented with many styles, and was a pioneer of the technique of dribbling and pouring paint that was later particularly associated with Jackson Pollock. He was an important influence of Abstract Expressionism. The essence of his approach was that the picture surface had an intense life of its own. (Ian Chilvers)

Avatar

2009-01-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

Boar avatar of Vishnu, Cave V at Udayagiri, India, around 400. Vishnu is 12'8" high.

(just for fun) Seated Buddha preaching the first sermon, from Sarnath, India, 5th century. Stele, sandstone, 63" high. Archaeological Museum, Sarnath.

An avatar is a manifestation of a deity incarnated in some visible form in which the deity performs a sacred function on earth; the number of avatars a deity has varies, with Vishnu usually having ten, or sometimes twenty-nine. (Gardner)

mosaic

2008-12-28T17:18:00.000-08:00

Doves Drinking from a Fountain, 5th Century. Ravenna, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia.

The technique of making pictures or patterns from small pieces of colored stone or glass set into cement or plaster. It was invented by the Romans and first used for pavements. In the Early Christian and Byzantine periods it was adapted for wall and ceiling decoration; outstanding surviving examples include the 6th century mosaics of San Vitale,Ravenna. Mosaic has also been used for the decoration of the facades of medieval churches and in modern architecture. (Michael Clarke)

Joy to the World

2008-12-25T21:17:00.000-08:00

Host of Angels from The Nativity by Gerard David- Flemish, active by about 1484, died 1523. Tempera on wood, 11 1/2 x 26 1/2 ". Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

A little Christmas greeting from our table to yours. Thanks to all my readers for tuning in with listening ears (I mean eyes...) I've really enjoyed writing this blog for a whole year now. Here's to another year of art history in many different forms :) Peace to you and yours.

Andy Warhol says 'Merry Christmas'

2008-12-23T20:51:00.000-08:00

Christmas Fairy, 1954. Ink on white bond paper. 11 x 8".

Study for Star of Wonder, 1960. Ink and gouache on Strathmore Seconds paper. 23 x 29". Tiffany & Co. Archives.

Faries Playing Instruments, 1957. Stamped gold collage and ink on Strathmore paper. 22 x 28".

"That was my life in the '50s: greeting cards and watercolors and now and then a coffee house poetry reading." for Andy the illustrator, anything he was fond of could become material for a card. This included fruit, like the fruit he sold off a truck as a child to help his poor family's finances; angels, like the 'angel in the sky' his classmate and childhood friend Philip Pearlstein compared him to; stars, because he was always 'star struck'. (John Loring)

"And the bigger the box, the less present..." - Andy Warhol, 12-25-1983.

From the book, Greetings from Andy (Warhol,) Christmas at Tiffany's, by John Loring.

Anne-Francoise Couloumy

2008-12-20T09:07:00.000-08:00

Le Cafe New Yorkais

Couloumy was born in Paris in 1961 and was educated at the Ecole National Superieure des Arts Decoratifs. She's enjoyed much success and has sold out shows in Paris, London and New York. She really reminds me of Vermeer and Hammershoi for her interior subject matter, the light and shadow and intricate details. There is a stillness and quiet and even a sense of loneliness that seems to be present in all of the paintings I've seen... which really reminds me of Hopper. Visit her website here.

Compound Piers

2008-12-17T22:33:00.000-08:00

The nave of Durham Cathedral, England, begun around 1093. (the orange eraser pointing out the compound piers)

Compound or Cluster Pier - A pier composed of a group or cluster of members, especially characteristic of Gothic architecture. (They support the transverse arches of the vaults.) (Gardner)

Pier - A vertical, freestanding masonry support.

Minoan Linear 'A'

2008-12-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

Developed from a pictographic around 1700-1450 BC, it was yet more cursive than its predecessor and included between 76 and 90 signs. Written from left to right, examples have been found inscribed in stone, metal and clay and written with ink on pottery. It has not been deciphered. (Rose Folsum)

Religious Manuscript Woodcuts

2008-12-15T16:34:00.000-08:00

The Journey of the Magi. Leben der Heiligen Drei Konige, by Johannes Hildesheimus. H. Knoblochtzer, Strassburg, about 1484.

The Annunciation. Gaistlich usslegong des lebes Ihesu Cristi. Johann Zainer, Ulm, about 1485.

The Annunciation. Meditationes, by Johannes de Turrecremata. Ulrich Han and Simon Nicholi Chardella, Rome. 1473.

The Virgin and Child. Book cover for Historia...Trium regum, by Johannes Hildesheimus. Rocciola, Modena, 1490.

These lovely woodcuts are taken from a Christmas Story book published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It was published in the 1950s. All the images are housed at the Met. I don't really have much information about the artists or the books they may have appeared in. Since we are nearing Christmas I wanted to share them just for the pure beauty of them...enjoy!

Gerard David

2008-12-12T17:13:00.000-08:00

The Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard David. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Gerard David (1450-1523). Netherlandish painter active chiefly in Bruges from about 1484. His style follows that of Rogier van der Weyden, but he was also influenced by th taste in Antwerp for Italianate ornament. (Brockhampton).
(The Marriage at Cana, 1503 at the Louvre is an example of this style of work... sorry I don't have an image of that one to show you!)

Notes to Myself... Richard Diebenkorn

2008-12-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

Self-portrait - no date. Sketchbook sheet, private collection.

Urbana No. 6, 1953. Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX

Cityscape I, 1963. MOMA - San Francisco.

Girl with Flowered Background, 1962

Urban No. 4, 1953.

Coat I, III, IV, V, 1990. Etchings, private collection.

Notes to myself on beginning a painting...

1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.

2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to b valued - except as a stimulus for further moves.

3. Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for.

4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.

5. Don't 'discover' a subject - of any kind.

6. Somehow don't be bored - but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.

7. Mistakes can't be erased but they move you from your present position.

8. Keep thinking about Polyanna.

9. Tolerate chaos.

10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

From the Art of Richard Diebenkorn by Jane Livingston. Published by Whitney Museum of American Art, NY.

Albert Swinden

2008-12-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

Flower Still Life in Browns and Red, 1940. Gouache on paper, 13 x 16 ". From the estate of the artist. Available through Childs gallery of Boston.

Born in Birmingham, England, Albert Swinden moved to Chicago at the age of 18 to study at the Art Institute. In the mid-1920s, he moved to New York where he studied at the National Academy of Design and the Art Students League of NY. He was a student of famed Abstract Expressionist artist Hans Hofmann and as a result, developed a strong interest in Synthetic Cubism and Neoplasticism, a movement made popular in the 1910s by artist Piet Mondrian. Typically recognized for his abstract style, he was the founder of American Abstract Artists. (from American Art Review magazine, December, 2008)

Edward Steichen

2008-12-07T13:31:00.000-08:00

Katharine Cornell and Basil Rathbone as 'Romeo and Juliet' in the Broadway production

George Gershwin

Norma Shearer and Irving Thalberg - actress and head of production for MCM.

Isadora Duncan at the steps of the Parthenon

1897-1973. American photographer in both world wars, and also an innovative fashion and portrait photographer.

**Continued*** He was born in Luxembourg and came to the US in 1881 and became a US citizen in 1901. Steichen was actually a painter before he became a photographer. In 1905 with Alfred Stieglitz, he helped create the 'Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession'.

I'm a big fan of his portraiture, I love the black and white imagery, the lighting and especially the era of fashion, hairstyles and 'social mindset.'

Quill Pen

2008-12-05T13:03:00.000-08:00

Quill Pen- Made from a primary flight feather of any large bird, usually a goose or turkey, but also a swan, crow, peacock, etc. The feather is soaked in water, cured (hardened) in hot sand, a small slit is made for the middle of the nib, and the quill is cut to form a pen. Some scribes prefer to omit curing and store the cut quills in water always.
The direct ancestor of the quill was the reed pen cut to a broad edge. Reeds wrote beautifully on papyrus, but as this began to be replaced by parchment around the 6th century A.D., the sharp, crisp quality of a quill better suited the silky smooth surface of the skin. Also, feathers were more plentiful in Europe than were the reeds used by Mediterranean scribes. As paper largely replaced parchment in Europe in the late 15th century, the quill remained. It was not until the flexible steel nib was developed in the 1830s that the quill began to die out as the Western World's writing tool. Nonetheless, many scribes today favor the quill for its incomparably crisp strokes and hairlines as well as its sensitive balance of strength and flexibility in writing, especially on parchment. (Rose Folsum)

A Short Lesson in Japanese Woodcutting Tools...

2008-12-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

No. 1 is the Hangito tool, the most useful and important tool in woodblock printmaking. (also called the kiridashi. It is capable of cutting intricate, flowing lines that are at the heart of Japanese printmaking. All the outlines in the print are carved with this knife. No. 3 is the Komasuki tool or round gouge. It has a semi-circular tip used for clearing away wood around the areas carved in outlines using the hangito.

No. 2 is the Aisuki - a flat-bladed chisel. It's used for 'cleaning up' carved areas so they're not so jagged. No. 4 is the Sankakuto - a V-shaped gouge. It's a Western influenced cutting tool and was not originally used by Japanese ukiyo-e carvers. *

top left - made with the sankakuto tool top right- made with the hangito tool

bottom left - made with komasuki tool bottom right - made with aisuki tool

Here's the print of the woodcut above.

The following are some prints by Antonio Frasconi **- a renowned Western printmaker... these are woodblock prints - although I'm not sure if they are printed in the traditional Japanese method.

* from the book, Japanese Woodblock Printmaking by Rebecca Salter

**Images from the book, At Christmas Time by Valerie Worth and Antonio Frasconi.

2008-12-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

Interior of the Grand Bouillon, Restaurant du Chalet, F549. Paris, 1887. 21 3/4 x 25 5/8". Private collection.

Interior of a Restaurant, F342. Paris, 1887. Oil on canvas 18 1/8 x 22 1/2". Museum Kroller-Muller, Otterlo.

"I hope I shall be able to make some drawings in which there is something human." - Vincent van Gogh.

I have a personal love for interior scenes - they give a sense of daily life and what it may feel like to have lived in a certain place and time. For me, they can be a vehicle of time travel - if you will... depending how long I gaze at a painting. It's funny how many interior scenes are timeless except for the differences in clothing fashions.

Deconstruction in Architecture

2008-11-29T08:35:00.000-08:00

Gunter Behnisch, Hysolar Institute Building, University of Stuttgart, 1987.

Deconstruction- A method of analysis proceeding by re-reading the received art-historical picture and showing where and how it is false to the realities of the cultures in attempts to explain and to the meanings of particular works of art - or in this case architecture. (Gardner)

'Deconstruction in architecture proposes to disorient the observer. To this end, the conventional categories of architecture are set aside and our expectations based upon them upset. Order, harmony, balance, symmetry, regularity, clarity, consistency, continuity, completeness are replaced by their negatives: disorder, dissonance, and so on. We are meant to be confused by a haphazardry of volumes, masses, planes, borders, lighting, locations, directions, spatial relations and disguised structural facts. According to deconstructionist theory, it's the very absence of the assurances given us by habit and the traditional architecture that create the presence of a deconstructed building.' (Gardner)

Night Herons

2008-11-26T19:05:00.000-08:00

Otto Eckmann. Night Herons - Three Philosophers, 1896. Color woodcut, printed in watercolor on Japanese vellum, 26.5 x 46 cm.

"With Eckmann, sentimentality in ornament was perhaps extinguished for good. He was, if not its final mainstay, nevertheless the one who lent ornament enough attraction to arouse the desire to preserve it... He always made me think of Chopin. Neither of them troubled themselves with the pure line of construction... His fingers quiver on the line like those of a violinist on the strings." (Henry van de Velde - from Gabriele Fahr-Becker's Art Nouveau).

Pictorialism

2008-11-24T22:02:00.000-08:00

Mark Tansey, Innocent Eye Test,** 1981. Oil on canvas, 6' 6" x 10'. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A postmodern approach which sets aside Modernist formalism, Expressionism, and Realism in favor of picture-making, where idea and subject matter determine what the picture will look like. As in Conceptual Art, the artist begins with an idea and the picture follows. (Gardner)

**The Innocent Eye Test refers to a term primarily used by John Ruskin a famous, British art critic of the 19th century. He referred to it as the ideal condition for viewing art, much as a child who might see art without preconception for what it actually is; or a blind man, who sees the world for the first time. For a truly 'innocent eye' to be tested we might resort to a non-human subject - in this case, a cow. (Gardner)

Soak-Stain

2008-11-23T19:17:00.000-08:00

Helen Frankenthaler, Bay Side, 1967. Acrylic on canvas, 6'2"x 6' 9". Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York.

Soak Stain- A technique of paintings pioneered by Helen Frankenthaler in which the artist drenches the fabric of raw canvas with fluid paint to achieve flowing, lyrical, painterly effects. (Gardner)

A Glimpse into 1880s Paris...

2008-11-21T20:20:00.001-08:00

Edouard Manet. At the Cafe, study of legs. Circa 1880. Watercolor, 7 1/4 x 4 3/4 ". Musee du Louvre (Cabinet des Dessins), Paris.

"...Have you noticed how mysteriously pretty women look, at night in carriages? ...They seem to have something shadowy, ghostly, mask-like about them... a veiled look, a voluptuous appearance, things one can guess at and not clearly see, a vague hue, a night smile, with lights falling on their features, all those half-reflections which swim beneath their hats, the great touches of black they have in their eyes, their very skirts, so full of shadows..." (from , Manette Salomon by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt - published in 1866.)

Picasso Peace Posters

2008-11-19T12:55:00.000-08:00

Picasso designed his first posters in 1948, at age 67. This was astonishingly late, seeing as he had devoted himself to other applied arts such as book illustration, ballet costumes and sets, tapestries, and carpets from very nearly the start of his career. Over the following 2 decades, Picasso produced approximately 70 posters - and his treatment of image and word were extremely unconventional. Intrigued by his playful and emotionally charged style, it is collectors - more than art historians - who have done justice to Picasso's poster art. (Marc Gundel)

Air Bridge

2008-11-18T18:09:00.000-08:00

The 'synapse' between two separate sequential strokes in which the pen's, or brush's, movement above the paper can be charted without having been graphically recorded. (Rose Folsum)

Camille Pissarro

2008-11-16T12:33:00.000-08:00

Apple Gatherers, 1891. Gouache on silk on paper, 10 1/4 x 8 5/8 in. The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, 2001.

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). French painter, printmaker, and draughtsman, born on St. Thomas in the West Indies, where his parents (a French Jewish father and a Creole mother) ran a prosperous general store. He was educated at boarding school in Paris, but returned to the Caribbean and didn't settle in France until 1855. In 1859 he met Monet, and with him became a central figure of Impressionism. Pissarro was the only artist who participated in all 8 Impressionist exhibitions and he was a much-respected father figure to his colleagues - he was about a decade older than most of the other members of the group. He's famous for his genre scenes. By 1895, his eyesight was going and caused him to give up painting out of doors and many of his late works are urban scenes painted from windows in Paris and elsewhere. He's best known for his landscapes and city views, he painted usually from Paris hotels.

He had 5 painter sons, of whom the most important was the eldest, Lucien (1863-1944). He was often overshadowed by his more famous father but he was an important figure in helping to introduce Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism to England. His daughter, Orovida Pissarro (1893-1968), often known simply as 'Orovida', was a painter and etcher , mainly of animal subjects. (Ian Chilvers)

Dark Abstraction

2008-11-13T18:14:00.000-08:00

Dark Abstraction, 1924. Oil on canvas, 25 x 21 in.

It is surprising to me to see how many people separate the objective from the abstract. Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting just because it is a hill or a tree. It is lines and colors put together so that they say something. For me that is the very basis of painting. The abstraction is often the most definite form of the intangible thing in myself that I can only clarify in paint.

-Georgia O'Keeffe

Josef Albers

2008-11-11T19:27:00.000-08:00

Homage to the Square, 1964. 30 x 30 in. Tate Gallery, London

4 squares of yellow nest together. Despite a rigid format, they float freely, creating an optical illusion of another dimension. Each area has been painted in a single color. The paint has been applied with a knife, directly from the tube.
Joseph Albers was born in Bottrup, Holland in 1888 and died in New Haven, CT in 1976. Between 1920-23, Albers studied at the famous Bauhaus school. He joined the staff in 1923. He is from Holland but moved to the USA in 1933, where he taught many established artists at the Black Mountain College and Yale University. His influential book The Interaction of Color was published in 1963. In this he explores the perception of color, which was a dominant theme throughout his life. (Butler, Van Cleve, Stirling)

**Apologies for the quality of this photo... after several attempts, I just couldn't get a clear one!**

Celtic Spirals

2008-11-10T21:04:00.000-08:00

An example of how to make a spiral border

The spiral design comes from the cross-slab at Aberlemno, Angus, in Scotland. A good working understanding of the use of the triskele (an archetypal symbol of power, later called the 'legs of man') is needed to conceive such a design.

When early man observed the beauty of nature's spirals it is not surprising that the spiral would become a potent symbol for creation and growth. It is the only decorative motive used in Christian Celtic art proven to have its roots in the preceding pagan period, the best examples of which are found on stone monuments such as the decorated kerb-stone at the entrance to the burial chamber at Newgrange, Co. Meath, in Ireland, which dates from around 3000 BC.

(from the book, Knotwork and Spirals by Courtney Davis)

Pietra Serena

2008-11-09T10:29:00.000-08:00

Interior of Pazzi Chapel- Filippo Brunelleschi, Santa Croce, Florence, begun 1440.

Literally, 'serene stone,' a type of gray stone used for its harmonious appearance when contrasted with stucco or other smooth finish in architecture. In the photo above, articulations and trim are done in pietra serena, which stands out against the white, stuccoed walls and crisply defines the modular relationships of plan and elevation. (Frederick Hartt)

ps - today's the last day of the fiber art sale in my Etsy shop... take a look!

Grain

2008-11-06T19:01:00.000-08:00

Direction in which most of the fibers of machine-made paper are lying. The direction is important if paper is to be folded or rolled. It will fold more easily and smoothly along the grain. 2 methods of determining grain are firstly, to bend the paper in half, noting how much it resists bending: and secondly, to tear the paper. Handmade paper may be folded indiscriminately, as it has no grain. Its fibers are lying evenly in all directions. (Rose Folsum)

Mandorla

2008-11-05T12:31:00.000-08:00

Mosaics of the Last Judgement, Ranks of Angels, and Scenes form the Lives of Christ and St. John the Baptist; this figure is attributed to Coppo Di Marcovaldo. 2nd half of the 13th century. Baptistery, Florence.

Andrea Orcagna. Enthroned Christ with Madonna and Saints. 1354-57. 9' x 9' 8". Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

From the Italian word for almonds. An oval or almond-shaped halo that surrounds the body of a figure to indicate divinity or holiness. (Frederick Hartt)

Don't Forget to Vote!!!

2008-11-04T08:30:00.000-08:00

If you have not voted by mail.... don't forget to vote today or drop off your ballot. Every vote counts and is important! :)

Sarah Lugg

2008-11-03T17:31:00.000-08:00

Sarah Lugg's innovative mixed-media collages have captured the attention of are and design communities around the world and won her a legion of devoted fans. Sarah's distinctive artistic style has led to many prestigious commissions and exhibitions, including 60 collages for the UK Mission to the UN in New York, and a further 30 collages for the British High Commission in Trinidad. Her work has also been commissioned by many interior design companies, art galleries, and private collectors.

Sarah was honored as Victoria magazine's Artist in Residence for 1999. (Photos and text from Sarah Lugg's Handcrafted Wedding by Sterling Publishing, 2003.)

Jamie Wyeth

2008-10-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

Automaton, 1979

Mischief Night, 1986

Giuliana and the Sunflowers, 1987

Pumpkinhead - Self-Portrait, 1972.

James Wyeth (1946- ) Born in Pennsylvania and is the son of the famous painter, Andrew Wyeth and grandson of another famous painter, N.C. Wyeth. He is known as part of the 'Brandywine Tradition' which is a group of painters who worked in the countryside of Delaware and Pennsylvania. He has been influenced by the methods and styles of his family as well as the Flemish and Dutch masters. He was also influenced by Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins. During the 1970s he did many portraits of famous people including Jimmy Carter, Nureyev and Andy Warhol.

These images were taken from a beautiful book, Wondrous Strange, The Wyeth Tradition, published by Bulfinch.

BIG FIBER ART SALE GOING ON IN MY ETSY SHOP... CHECK IT OUT!