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Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn, Biography (1606-1669) b.Netherlands

Nightwatch - Rembrandt Harmenszoon Van Rijn

The Music Party

Aristotle with the Bust of Homer

Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden the Netherlands He was the ninth child born to Harmen Gerritszoon van Rijn and Neeltgen Willemsdochter van Zuytbrouck. [7]His family was quite well-to-do; his father was a miller and his mother was a baker's daughter. As a boy he attended Latin school and was enrolled at the University of Leidenalthough according to a contemporary he had a greater inclination towards painting; he was soon apprenticed to a Leiden history painter, Jacob van Swanenburgh, with whom he spent three years. After a brief but important apprenticeship of six months with the famous painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam Rembrandt opened a studio in Leiden in 1624 or 1625, which he shared with friend and colleague Jan Lievens In 1627, Rembrandt began to accept students, among them Gerrit Dou.

In 1629 Rembrandt was discovered by the statesman Constantijn Huygens the father of Christiaan Huygens (a famous Dutch mathematician and physicist), who procured for Rembrandt important commissions from the court of The Hague. As a result of this connection, Prince Frederik Hendrik continued to purchase paintings from Rembrandt until 1646.[9]
At the end of 1631, Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, then rapidly expanding as the new business capital of the Netherlands, and began to practice as a professional portraitist for the first time, with great success. He initially stayed with an art dealer, Hendrick van Uylenburg and in 1634, married Hendrick's cousin, Saskia van Uylenburg[10] Saskia came from a good family: her father had been lawyer and burgemeester (mayor) of Leeuwarden. When Saskia, as the youngest daughter, became an orphan, she lived with an older sister in Het Bildt. They were married in the local church of St. Annaparochie without the presence of his relatives. In the same year, Rembrandt became a burgess of Amsterdam and a member of the local guild of painters. He also acquired a number of students, among them Ferdinand Bol and Govert Flinck.

Portrait of Saskia van Uylenburg ca. 1635.
In 1635 Rembrandt and Saskia moved into their own house, renting in fashionable Nieuwe Doelenstraat. In 1639, they moved to a prominent house (now the Rembrandt House Museum) in the Jodenbreestraat in what was becoming the Jewish quarter; the mortgage to finance the 13,000 guilder purchase would be a primary cause for later financial difficulties.[11] He should easily have been able to pay it off with his large income, but it appears his spending always kept pace with his income, and he may have made some unsuccessful investments.[12] It was there that Rembrandt frequently sought his Jewish neighbors to model for his Old Testament scenes.[13]Although they were by now affluent, the couple suffered several personal setbacks; their son Rumbartus died two months after his birth in 1635 and their daughter Cornelia died at just 3 weeks of age in 1638. In 1640, they had a second daughter, also named Cornelia, who died after living barely over a month. Only their fourth child, Titus, who was born in 1641, survived into adulthood. Saskia died in 1642 soon after Titus's birth, probably from tuberculosis. Rembrandt's drawings of her on her sick and death bed are among his most moving works.
During Saskia's illness, Geertje Dircx was hired as Titus' caretaker and nurse and probably also became Rembrandt's lover. She would later charge Rembrandt with breach of promise and was awarded alimony of 200 guilders a year. Rembrandt worked to have her committed for twelve years to an asylum or poorhouse (called a "bridewell") at Gouda, after learning Geertje had pawned jewelry that had once belonged to Saskia, and which Rembrandt had given her.
In the late 1640s Rembrandt began a relationship with the much younger Hendrickje Stoffels who had initially been his maid. In 1654 they had a daughter, Cornelia, bringing Hendrickje a summons from the Reformed church to answer the charge "that she had committed the acts of a whore with Rembrandt the painter". She admitted this and was banned from receiving communion. Rembrandt was not summoned to appear for the Church council because he was not a member of the Reformed church. The two were considered legally wed under common law, but Rembrandt had not married Henrickje, so as not to lose access to a trust set up for Titus in his mother's will.

Rembrandt's son Titus, as a monk, 1660.
Rembrandt lived beyond his means, buying art (including bidding up his own work), prints (often used in his paintings) and rarities, which probably caused a court arrangement to avoid his bankruptcy in 1656, by selling most of his paintings and large collection of antiquities. The sale list survives and gives us a good insight into his collections, which apart from Old Master paintings and drawings included busts of the Roman Emperors, suits of Japanese armour among many objects from Asia, and collections of natural history and minerals; the prices realized in the sales in 1657 and 1658 were disappointing. He also had to sell his house and his printing-press and move to more modest accommodation on the Rozengracht in 1660. The authorities and his creditors were generally accommodating to him, except for the Amsterdam painters' guild who introduced a new rule that no one in Rembrandt's circumstances could trade as a painter. To get round this, Hendrickje and Titus set up a business as art-dealers in 1660, with Rembrandt as an employee.
In 1661 he (or rather the new business) was contracted to complete work for the newly built city hall, but only after Govert Flinck the artist previously commissioned, died without beginning to paint. The resulting work, The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis, was rejected and returned to the painter; the surviving fragment is only a fraction of the whole work. It was around this time that Rembrandt took on his last apprentice, Aert de Gelder. In 1662 he was still fulfilling major commissions for portraits and other works. When Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany visited Amsterdam in 1667, he visited Rembrandt at his house.
Rembrandt outlived both Hendrickje, who died in 1663, and Titus, who died in 1668, leaving a baby daughter. Rembrandt died within a year of his son, on October 4, 1669 in Amsterdam, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the Westerkerk.

Anthony van Dyck - (Antonis van Dijck) Flemish b.1599 - d.1641

Children of Charles 1
Anthony van Dyke,
Windsor Castle, Royal Collection



























Portrait of Charles V on Horseback
Anthony van Dyke

The Virgin and Child, Anthony van Dyke, Louvre, Paris, France

Anthony van Dyck (Antonis van Dijck) is one of the greatest Flemish painters. He was born on the 23rd of March, 1599 in Antwerp, 7th child in the family of a well-to-do silk merchant Frans van Dyck. After the early death of his mother he, at the age of 10, was sent to be trained by painter Hendrick van Balen in his workshop. In 1615, he already had his own workshop and an apprentice. In 1618, he was accepted as a full member of the Lucas Guild of painters.

In 1639, Van Dyck married Mary Ruthven, grand-daughter of the Earl of Gowrie. His only daughter was born on the 1st of December, 1641 and on the 9th of December, 1641 he died in London. He was buried in the St. Paul Cathedral.

In his court portraits Van Dyck established a style of characterization that was to persist all over the Europe for more than two centuries: in his visions of tall and aloof, yet relaxed, elegance, he showed the most subtle ability to bring a precise physical likeness into compositions of fluent and elaborate Baroque splendor.

William-Adolphe Bouguereau - French Academic Painter

Work Interrupted, 1891
Adolph-William Bouguereau
Meade Art Museum, Amherst College
























Le Repose, 1879
Adolphe-William Bouguereau




















Self Portrait, 1879
Adolphe-William Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle France on November 30, 1825, into a family of wine and olive oil merchants. He seemed destined to join the family business but for the intervention of his uncle Eugène, a curate who taught him classical and biblical subjects, and arranged for Bouguereau to go to high school. Bouguereau showed artistic talent early on and his father was convinced by a client to send him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, where he won first prize in figure painting for a depiction of Saint Roch. To earn extra money, he designed labels for jams and preserves.

Through his uncle, Bouguereau was given a commission to paint portraits of parishioners, and when his aunt matched the sum he earned, Bouguereau went to Paris and became a student at the École des Beaux-Arts. To supplement his formal training in drawing, he attended anatomical dissections and studied historical costumes and archeology. He was admitted to the studio of François-Edouard Picot, where he studied painting in the academic style. Academic painting placed the highest status on historical and mythological subjects and Bouguereau won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1850, with his Zenobia Found by Shepherds on the Banks of the Araxes. His reward was a stay at the Villa Mediciin Rome, Italy, where in addition to formal lessons he was able to study first-hand the Renaissance artists and their masterpieces.
Bouguereau, completely in tune with the traditional Academic style, exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon for his entire working life.

Detail from The Birth of Venus by Bouguereau.
An early reviewer stated, “M. Bouguereau has a natural instinct and knowledge of contour. The eurythmie of the human body preoccupies him, and in recalling the happy results which, in this genre, the ancients and the artists of the sixteenth century arrived at, one can only congratulate M. Bouguereau in attempting to follow in their footsteps…Raphael was inspired by the ancients…and no one accused him of not being original.”

Raphael was a favorite of Bouguereau and he took this review as a high compliment. He had fulfilled one of the requirements of the Prix de Rome by completing a old-master copy of Raphael’s The Triumph of Galatea. In many of his works, he followed the same classical approach to composition, form, and subject matter.

In 1856, he married Marie-Nelly Monchablon and subsequently had five children. By the late 1850s, he made strong connections with art dealers, particularly Paul Durand-Ruel (later the champion of the Impressionists), who helped clients buy paintings from artists who exhibited at the Salons. The Salons annually drew over 300,000 people, thereby providing valuable exposure to exhibited artists. Bouguereau’s fame extended to England by the 1860s and then he bought a large house and studio in Montparnasse with his growing income.

Bouguereau was a staunch traditionalist whose realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were modern interpretations of Classical subjects—both pagan and Christian—with a heavy concentration on the female human body. Although he created an idealized world, his almost photo-realistic style brought to life his goddesses, nymphs, bathers, shepherdesses, and madonnas in a way which was very appealing to rich art patrons of his time. Some critics, however, preferred the honesty of Jean-François Millet’s truer-to-life depiction of hard-working farmers and laborers.

Bouguereau employed traditional methods of working up a painting, including detailed pencil studies and oil sketches, and his careful method resulted in a pleasing and accurate rendering of the human form. His painting of skin, hands, and feet was particularly admired. He also used some of the religious and erotic symbolism of the Old Masters, such as the “broken pitcher” which connoted lost innocence.

One of the rewards of staying within the Academic style and doing well in the Salons was receiving commissions to decorate private houses, public buildings, and churches. As was typical of these commissions, sometimes Bouguereau would paint in his own style, and other times he had to conform to an existing group style. Early on, Bouguereau was commissioned in all three venues, which added enormously to his prestige and fame. He also made reductions of his public paintings for sale to patrons, of which The Annunciation (1888) is an example. He was also a successful portrait painter though many of his paintings of wealthy patrons still remain in private hands.

Bouguereau steadily gained the honors of the Academy, reaching Life Member in 1876, and Commander of the Legion of Honor and Grand Medal of Honor in 1885. He began to teach drawing at the Académie Julian in 1875, a co-ed art institution independent of the École des Beaux-Arts, with no entrance exams and with nominal fees.

In 1877, both his wife and infant son died. At a rather advanced age, Bouguereau was married for the second time in 1896, to fellow artist Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, one of his pupils. He also used his influence to open many French art institutions to women for the first time, including the Académie française.

Near the end of his life he described his love of his art, “Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come…if I cannot give myself to my dear painting I am miserable”. He painted eight hundred and twenty-six paintings.

Bouguereau died in La Rochelle at age 80 from heart disease.

Marc Chagall - Rain (La Pluie) 1911

Rain (La Pluie), 1911. Oil and charcoal on canvas, 34 1/8 x 42 1/2 inches (86.7 x 108 cm). The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 76.2553.63. Marc Chagall © 2007 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Other Peggy Guggenheim Collection WorksVIEW AS SLIDESHOW



More Works By Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall’s early work is characterized by a neo-primitive style derived primarily from Russian icons and folk art. When he moved from Russia to Paris in the summer of 1910, the artist took with him several of these paintings depicting the life and customs of his native Vitebsk. During the next year he reworked them and also painted new compositions with similar motifs, infused with nostalgia for his homeland, but now adapted according to techniques and concepts he acquired from exposure to current French art.
Nondescriptive, saturated color is used in Rain in combination with assertive areas of white and black to produce a highly ornamental and vivid surface. Chagall’s use of color was influenced by that of Henri Matisse and Robert Delaunay, whose work he saw almost immediately upon his arrival in Paris. The breaking up of some areas of the composition into shaded planes, for example the roof of the house and the left foreground, has its source in Cubism, though this device is handled somewhat randomly.
Lucy Flint

After Marc Chagall moved to Paris from Russia in 1910, his paintings quickly came to reflect the latest avant-garde styles. In Paris Through the Window, Chagall’s debt to the Orphic Cubism of his colleague Robert Delaunay is clear in the semitransparent overlapping planes of vivid color in the sky above the city. The Eiffel Tower, which appears in the cityscape, was also a frequent subject in Delaunay’s work. For both artists it served as a metaphor for Paris and perhaps modernity itself. Chagall’s parachutist might also refer to contemporary experience, since the first successful jump occurred in 1912. Other motifs suggest the artist’s native Vitebsk. This painting is an enlarged version of a window view in a self-portrait painted one year earlier, in which the artist contrasted his birthplace with Paris. The Janus figure in Paris Through the Window has been read as the artist looking at once westward to his new home in France and eastward to Russia. Chagall, however, refused literal interpretations of his paintings, and it is perhaps best to think of them as lyrical evocations, similar to the allusive plastic poetry of the artist’s friends Blaise Cendrars (who named this canvas) and Guillaume Apollinaire.
Years after Chagall painted The Soldier Drinks he stated that it developed from his memory of tsarist soldiers who were billeted with families during the 1904–05 Russo-Japanese war. The enlisted man in the picture, with his right thumb pointing out the window and his left index finger pointing to the cup, is similar to the two-faced man in Paris Through the Window in that both figuratively mediate between dual worlds—interior versus exterior space, past and present, the imaginary and the real. In paintings such as these it is clear that the artist preferred the life of the mind, memory, and magical Symbolism over realistic representation.
In Green Violinist Chagall evoked his homeland. The artist’s nostalgia for his own work was another impetus in creating this painting, which is based on earlier versions of the same subject. His cultural and religious legacy is illuminated by the figure of the violinist dancing in a rustic village. The Chabad Hasidim of Chagall’s childhood believed it possible to achieve communion with God through music and dance, and the fiddler was a vital presence in ceremonies and festivals.
Jennifer Blessing

Rene Magritte - Voice of Space

Voice of Space (La Voix des airs), 1931Oil on canvas, 72.7 x 54.2 cmPeggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 75.2553 PG 101© René Magritte, by SIAE 2008

Influenced by Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte sought to strip objects of their usual functions and meanings in order to convey an irrationally compelling image. In Voice of Space, the bells float in the air. By distorting the scale, weight, and use of an ordinary object and inserting it into a variety of unaccustomed contexts, Magritte confers on that object a fetishistic intensity. The disturbing impact of the bells presented in an unfamiliar setting is intensified by the cool academic precision with which they and their environment are painted. The dainty slice of landscape could be the backdrop of an early Renaissance painting, while the bells themselves, in their rotund and glowing monumentality, impart a mysterious resonance.

René François Ghislain Magritte was born on November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium. He studied intermittently between 1916 and 1918 at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Magritte first exhibited at the Centre d’Art in Brussels in 1920. After completing military service in 1921, he worked briefly as a designer in a wallpaper factory. In 1923 he participated with Lyonel Feininger, El Lissitzky, László Moholy-Nagy, and the Belgian Paul Joostens in an exhibition at the Cercle Royal Artistique in Antwerp. In 1924 he collaborated with E. L. T. Mesens on the review Oesophage. In 1927 Magritte was given his first solo exhibition at the Galerie le Centaure in Brussels. Later that year the artist left Brussels to establish himself in Le Perreux-sur-Marne, near Paris, where he frequented the Surrealist circle, which included Jean Arp, André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Paul Eluard, and Joan Miró. In 1928 Magritte took part in the Exposition surréaliste at the Galerie Goemans in Paris. He returned to Belgium in 1930, and three years later was given a solo show at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Magritte’s first solo exhibition in the United States took place at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York in 1936 and the first in England at the London Gallery in 1938. He was represented as well in the 1936 Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Throughout the 1940s Magritte showed frequently at the Galerie Dietrich in Brussels. During the following two decades he executed various mural commissions in Belgium. From 1953 he exhibited frequently at the galleries of Alexander Iolas in New York, Paris, and Geneva. Magritte retrospectives were held in 1954 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and in 1960 at the Museum for Contemporary Arts, Dallas, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. On the occasion of his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1965, Magritte traveled to the United States for the first time, and the following year he visited Israel. Magritte died on August 15, 1967, in Brussels, shortly after the opening of a major exhibition of his work at the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Vasily Kandinsky - Upward (Empor)

Upward (Empor), October 1929Oil on cardboard, 70 x 49 cmPeggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 76.2553 PG 35© Vasily Kandinsky, by SIAE 2008

Vasily Kandinsky here achieves an effect of energy rising upward, while anchoring the forms together by balancing them on either side of a continuous vertical line. Geometric shapes and sections of circles combine in a structure suspended in a field of rich turquoise and green. A partial circle rests delicately on a pointed base. Another fragment of a circle glides along its vertical diameter, reaching beyond the circumference of the first form to penetrate the space above it. A linear design in the upper right corner of the present canvas echoes the vertical thrust of the central motif. This configuration resembles the letter E, as does the black cutout shape at the base of the central motif. These forms may at once be independent designs and playful references to the first letter of Empor, the German title of the painting.The physiognomic character indicates Kandinsky’s association at the Dessau Bauhaus with fellow Blaue Vier artists Paul Klee and Alexej Jawlensky. Jawlensky showed sixteen abstract heads in an exhibition of the Blaue Vier in 1929, which offered Kandinsky the model of large, abstract faces composed of geometric planes of non-naturalistic color and accented by bar-shaped features. However, Kandinsky’s working method more closely resembled that of Klee, who began with intuitively chosen forms that gradually suggested counterparts in the natural world, than that of Jawlensky, who began with the model and moved toward abstraction.

Vasily Kandinsky was born December 4, 1866, in Moscow. From 1886–92, he studied law and economics at the University of Moscow, where he lectured after graduation. In 1896, he declined a teaching position in order to study art in Munich with Anton Azbe from 1897 to 1899 and at the Kunstakademie with Franz von Stuck in 1900. Kandinsky taught in 1901–03 at the art school of the Phalanx, a group he had cofounded in Munich. One of his students, Gabriele Münter, would be his companion until 1914. In 1902, Kandinsky exhibited for the first time with the Berlin Secession and produced his first woodcuts. In 1903 and 1904, he began his travels in Italy, the Netherlands, and North Africa and his visits to Russia. He showed at the Salon d’Automne in Paris from 1904.In 1909, Kandinsky was elected president of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (NKVM), a newly founded group that in the same year gave its first show at the Thannhauser’s Moderne Galerie in Munich. In 1911, Kandinsky and Franz Marc withdrew from the NKVM and began to make plans for Der Blaue Reiter Almanac. In December of the same year the Blaue Reiter group’s first exhibition was held at the Moderne Galerie in Munich and Kandinsky’s published On the Spiritual in Art. In 1912, the second Blaue Reiter show was held at the Galerie Hans Goltz, Munich; Der Blaue Reiter Almanac was published, and Kandinsky’s first solo show was held at Der Sturm gallery in Berlin. In 1913, one of his works was included in the Armory Show in New York and the Erste deutsche Herbstsalon at the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin. Kandinsky lived in Russia from 1914 to 1921, principally in Moscow, where he held a position at the People’s Commissariat of Education.Kandinsky began teaching at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1922. In 1923, he was given his first solo show in New York by the Société Anonyme, of which he became vice-president. Lyonel Feininger, Alexej Jawlensky, Kandinsky, and Paul Klee made up the Blaue Vier group, formed in 1924. He moved with the Bauhaus to Dessau in 1925 and became a German citizen in 1928. The Nazi government closed the Bauhaus in 1933 and later that year Kandinsky settled in Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris; he acquired French citizenship in 1939. Fifty-seven of his works were confiscated by the Nazis in the 1937 purge of “degenerate art.” Kandinsky died December 13, 1944, in Neuilly.

Salvador Dali - Birth of Liquid Desires

Birth of Liquid Desires (La Naissance des désirs liquides), 1931–32 Oil and collage on canvas, 96.1 x 112.3 cmPeggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 76.2553 PG 100© Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, by SIAE 2008

By the time Salvador Dalí joined the Surrealist group in 1929, he had formulated his “paranoid-critical” approach to art, which consisted in conveying his deepest psychological conflicts to the viewer in the hopes of eliciting an empathetic response. One of his hallucinatory obsessions was the legend of William Tell, which represented for him the archetypal theme of paternal assault. The subject occurs frequently in his paintings from 1929, when he entered into a liaison with Gala Eluard, his future wife, against his father’s wishes. Here father, son, and perhaps mother seem to be fused in the grotesque dream-image of the hermaphroditic creature at center. William Tell’s apple is replaced by a loaf of bread; out of the bread arises a lugubrious cloud vision inspired by the imagery of Arnold Böcklin. The infinite expanse of landscape recalls Yves Tanguy’s work of the 1920s. The biomorphic structure dominating the composition suggests at once a violin, weathered rock formations, the architecture of the Catalan visionary Antoni Gaudí, the sculpture of Jean Arp, a prehistoric monster, and an artist’s palette. The repressed, guilty desire of the central figure is indicated by its attitude of both protestation and arousal toward the forbidden flower-headed woman (presumably Gala). The shadow darkening the scene is cast by an object outside the picture and may represent the father’s threatening presence, or a more general prescience of doom.

Max Ernst - Attirement of the Bride

Attirement of the Bride (La Toilette de la mariée), 1940Oil on canvas, 129.6 x 96.3 cmPeggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 76.2553 PG 78© Max Ernst, by SIAE 2008

Attirement of the Bride is an example of Max Ernst’s veristic or illusionistic Surrealism, in which a traditional technique is applied to an incongruous or unsettling subject. The pageantry and elegance of the image are contrasted with its primitivizing aspects—the garish colors, the animal and monster forms—and the blunt phallic Symbolism of the poised spearhead. The central scene is contrasted as well with its counterpart in the picture-within-a-picture at the upper left. In this detail the bride appears in the same pose, striding through a landscape of overgrown classical ruins. Here Ernst has used the technique of decalcomania invented in 1935 by Oscar Domínguez, in which diluted paint is pressed onto a surface with an object that distributes it unevenly, such as a pane of glass. Ernst had long identified himself with the bird, and had invented an alter ego, Loplop, Superior of the Birds, in 1929. Thus one may perhaps interpret the bird-man at the left as a depiction of the artist; the bride may in some sense represent the young English Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington.

As shown at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Sandro Botticelli -- Florence 1445 - 1510

Sandro Botticelli, Spring, 1477 - 1482

tempera on wood 80 X 123 3/4 in., Uffizi, Florence

Produced under the supervision of the Humanist Marsilio Ficino for the Medici villa at Castello, Botticelli's great secular paintings stand at the heart of his output and represent the culmination of Florentine Neoplatonism. Painted for the young Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici, a cousin Lorenzo the Magnificent, the paintings had the didactic purpose of inculcating and the taste for beauty.

Sandro Botticell, Birth of Venus 1884 -1486 tempera on wood, 72 3/4 X 112 1/2 in. Uffzi, Florence

Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, Florence 1445 1510

A leading exponent of Florentine art at the last quarter of the fifteenth century, Botticelli is famous, above all, for his works commissioned by the Medici family and particularly for his large profane allegories. These reflect the tastes, of the cultural climate, and refined return to classicism of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Neoplatonic Florentine culture. This was the sophisticated, refined erudite, and serene period of the Italian Renaissance. During the life of Botticelli came in to close contact with other Florentine artists, and his training began in the workshop of Filippo Lippi, in the 1460's. When the latter moved to Spoleto in 1466. Botticelli became an assistant to Verrocchio, and thus came to know the master's other young pupils, including Perugino and Leonardo. The recurrent subject if Botticelli's early works was the Madonna and Child, which he repeated in numerous versions. In 1470 he painted the allegorical work Fortitude as part of a cycle of Virtues executed by Piero Pollaiolo (Uffizi, Florence). In 1472 he and his pupil Filippino Lippi were enrolled in the Florentine Painters' Guild. A series of portraits of the Medici made Botticelli the ruling family's favorite artist, as is demonstrated by the commission he received in 1475 for the great Adoration of the Magi, now in the Uffizi. In 1477 the so-called Spring marked the beginning of the cycle of great mythological allegories, probably painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici (a cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent), the first great paintings on profane subjects drawn from classical antiquity. Regarded as one of the leading masters, Botticelli was summoned to Rome in 1482 and involved in the task of decorating the walls of the Sistine Chapel. He returned to Florence as the favorite painter of Lorenzo the Magnificent. For a decade Botticelli produced frescoes and altarpieces, as well as religious and secular paintings, that marked the end of the experimental stage of Humanism and the development of an extremely linear approach. In 1492 the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent and the moral revolution brought about by Savonarola had a striking effect on Botticelli's style. He used pale colors, his compositions became taut and dramatic, and an intense mysticism reappeared in the choice of subjects. This period of spiritual turmoil saw the artist's last masterpieces, produced on the eve of the new century, which almost anticipate Mannerism.

About the Author

Sefano Zuffi is the Italian art historian and the author of many articles and more than 30 books on art and artists. He has also written la Guida et Musei di Venezia (the guidebook for the Venice Museum). His major biography of the Venetian painter Titian was recently published in Italy. He is author of the commentaries accompanying three fine art volumes published in English by Barrons: Baroque Painting. Modern Painting, and Renaissance Painting.

Tony Curtis -- Giclees of Montages Art

Presenting Tony Curtis
Giclees of Montages

"Hot Pink Marilyn (Fireworks)"











"Triple Self "

"Hollywood Favorites"

"Zing went the strings of my heart.

When I discovered these wildly sexy Giclees by

legendary actor, and artist Tony Curtis."

~ Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com

TONY CURTIS HAS JUST RELEASED A BRAND NEW

SERIES OF GICLÉES OF MONTAGES

The man behind the mask of one hundred and fifty different roles, spanning over fifty years, now reveals himself to be Tony Curtis, fine artist.Tony Curtis' incredible skill and versatility in the performing arts, is matched by his innate ability to create great beauty in fine art, reflecting the rich life of the artist, giving enormous pleasure to the collector.While his acting career continues unabated today, what happens to his enormous need to create when the cameras are off and the sound stages are silent at the end of the day?The same questioning and receptive mind that captures the subtle nuances of daily life, and later incorporates them into his film roles, has spent the last several decades storing sights and memories, collecting objects, posters, lobby cards, candid photos and movie stills that are now all coming together to form his brand new series of delightful, whimsical giclées of montages on canvas that virtually burst with all of the vitality and romantic charm that has characterized Tony Curtis' whole life.The glamour of the film world has left its mark on his visual images. Each film locale and co-star has provided him with new and different inspiration for his art work. Many works seem bigger than life, encompassing great visual concepts within the confines of the canvas.Tony Curtis' long-standing love affair with the beauty and glamour of Las Vegas has inspired the brilliantly conceived and colorful paintings and giclées of montages that he creates at his studio here.Extraordinarily successful exhibitions all over North America, Europe, and Asia, of Tony Curtis' paintings, assemblages, collages, and boxes have earned him tremendous acclaim as a highly sought after artist and a prominent place in many world famous public and private collections.MONTAGE (män-'täzh) Fr.The art or process of making a composite picture by bringing together into a single composition a number of different pictures, or parts of pictures, and arranging these by superimposing and or juxtaposing the images so that they form a blended whole while remaining distinct.GICLÉE (zhee-klay) Fr.Images are generated from high resolution digital scans and printed with archival quality inks onto various substrates, including canvas, providing tighter detail and better color accuracy than any other method of reproduction. Archived files will not deteriorate in quality as negatives and film inherently do. The quality of giclée prints rival traditional silver-halide and gelatin printing processes and are commonly found in art galleries and museums such as NY Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum. Recent giclée auction prices include $9,600 for a giclée by Chuck Close, $10,800 for a giclée by Annie Leibovitz, and $22,800 for a giclée by Wolfgang Tillman.

Tamara de Lempicka - Art Deco Drama

Photograph of Tamara
de Lempicka.
ca. 1935 by M. Camuzzi,
courtesy of Museum
Masters International
(c) Tamara Art
Heritage/MMI,
New York, NY, USA









Kizette in Pink, 1926, oil on canvas























Portrait of Mrs. Bush, 1929, oil on canvas

























Tadeusz de Lempicki unfinished

























Girl in Green, oil painting on canvas





















Adam and Eve, 1032, oil on wood panel



























Portrait of Miss Poum Rachou, 1933
oil painting on canvas

























Tamara de Lempicka (1898 - 1980)
Portrait de Mrs. Bush
oil on canvas

Lot Description
Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) Portrait de Mrs. Bush signed 'T. DE LEMPICKA.' (upper right) oil on canvas 48 1/8 x 26 in. (122.3 x 66 cm.) Painted in 1929

Lot Description
Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) Portrait de Mrs. Bush signed 'T. DE LEMPICKA.' (upper right) oil on canvas 48 1/8 x 26 in. (122.3 x 66 cm.) Painted in 1929
Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY FROM A NEW YORK FAMILY
Provenance
Mrs. Rufus Bush, New York (acquired from the artist, 1929).By descent from the above to the present owners.
Literature
K. de Lempicka-Foxhall, Passion by Design: The Art and Times of Tamara de Lempicka, New York, 1987, pp. 96 and 99-101.A. Blondel, Tamara de Lempicka: Catalogue raisonné, 1921-1979, Lausanne, 1999, pp. 52 and 212, no. B.126 (illustrated in color, p. 212).L. Claridge, Tamara de Lempicka, A Life of Deco and Decadence, New York, 1999, pp. 164-167.
Lot Notes
Tamara de Lempicka had arrived at her mature signature manner by the end of the 1920s, and her career was at its peak. Combining elements drawn from French Cubism, Purism and Neo-Classicism, as well as her own study of Italian Mannerist masters, and showing her awareness of such contemporary realist trends such as Neue Sachlichkeit in Central Europe, Lempicka synthesized her own boldly cosmopolitan classical-realist style. It was the perfect manner for the liberated assertiveness and opulence of the Parisian post-war années folles, the fabled Jazz Age. Her paintings were aggressively modern-looking, and their appeal to the new social elite of her day was no doubt due in large part to their proud and glowing sensuality, in which physical beauty was emblematic of purposeful self-confidence, personal empowerment and success. The urbane and coolly polished surfaces in her pictures mirrored the social ideals of this well-heeled and influential class, which did not hesitate to pursue its passions, but had the good taste to moderate them through the exercise of accomplished formality, self-discipline and dedicated professionalism. Lempicka became one of the most sought-after portraitists of her day, rivaling Kees van Dongen, and she could accept or refuse commissions as she saw fit.The present owners of this portrait recall their mother, Joan Jeffery, whom it depicts, describing how the commission came about. She and her fiancée, Rufus T. Bush, were strolling down a Paris street and saw an extraordinary painting by Lempicka in a gallery window. They entered the gallery and were intent on buying the painting on the spot. Mr. Bush then had the idea of commissioning the artist to paint Miss Jeffery's portrait as a wedding present for his bride-to-be. Lempicka's daughter Kizette (op. cit., pp. 99-101) continues the story. Bush telephoned the artist and announced his intention, Lempicka told him to come right over; she would be soon leaving for a dinner engagement. The young couple arrived fifteen minutes later, and after a brief interview, Lempicka agreed to the commission and stated that she could start very soon. Bush pointed out it could not be done in Paris; his fiancée was due to return to America very shortly. He wanted Lempicka to come to New York and paint her there.Lempicka signed a contract with Bush on the spot, stating that she would arrive in New York on October 14. She charged her usual rate, but when advised by her dinner partner that evening that living expenses in New York would quickly consume her fee, she wrote to Bush asking to renegotiate the payment terms of the contract. Bush agreed without protest to her new fee, which was four times the amount she had previously signed to.Joan Jeffery was then 19 years old. She was the granddaughter of Thomas B. Jeffery, an automobile manufacturer whose company in Kenosha, Wisconsin, produced the first Ramblers during the early 1900s. Rufus T. Bush was 21, and had been studying at Oxford; his father was Irving T. Bush, who in 1900 constructed the Bush Terminal railroad yards on the Brooklyn waterfront to service his own 200-acre industrial park. In 1916-1918 Irving T. Bush built the 29-storey Bush Tower at 130 West 42nd Street to house his company offices; it was regarded for more than a decade as a model for smaller midtown skyscrapers.Lempicka sailed on the liner Paris and arrived on the appointed date. Two Rolls-Royces were waiting at the dock to take the artist and her luggage to the elegant Hotel Savoy. Lempicka wanted to begin work right away, but the Bushes, now married, told her the first order of business was for her to accompany them to the dressmaker Hattie Carnegie, to order the clothes that Mrs. Bush would wear for her portrait. Mrs. Bush closely followed the artist's suggestions, and chose a tailored, full-length red evening coat, with a black skirt hemmed fashionably at the knee.In preparation for her commission, Lempicka made at least two drawings of Mrs. Bush (Blondel, nos. A. 127 and 129). The artist was deeply impressed by the sleek and towering shapes of Manhattan's skyscrapers, which represented for her the ultimate in modernity. Lempicka made several studies of midtown buildings (fig. 1); the last became the source for the background in the present painting. She continued to use skyscrapers as backdrops for portraits she later painted in Europe.Lempicka soon ran into an unanticipated difficulty as she began to paint Mrs. Bush. Her sitter would receive visitors as she posed, and their conversation and champagne-sipping distracted the painter. Lempicka even threatened to return to Paris. Kizette, drawing on letters her mother sent to her from New York, recounted: "But they looked at her so contritely that she couldn't resist them, and she said, 'I will try the American way.' Every day now, she [the artist] wrote, people came, and they all sat around and drank and talked while she painted away. When the painting was done, she wrote that she thought it one of her best portraits" (ibid.).The Bushes were married for only a few years, and when they were divorced, Mrs. Bush placed her portrait in storage, together with other belongings, before moving to Greece, where she later met her second husband. The portrait remained hidden away for almost sixty years, when her daughter read about it in Kizette's book and then located it in storage. Blondel has called this portrait a "masterpiece," and remarked: "This anecdote confirms that, undoubtedly, Lempicka's best works were destined to spend a certain lapse of time sheltered from light!" (op. cit., p. 52) Previously unexhibited and in its near pristine state, Lempicka's Portrait de Mrs. Bush is offered here by the sitter's heirs.



"Madonna and Jack Nicholson are collectors of the
tempetuous art work of 20th-century artist Tamara de Lempicka.
Born Tamara Gurwi-Gorska in Moscow on May 16, 1898,
a privileged infant. Lempicka's life of extravagant excesses:
remained her values and are said to have tarnished the tempetuous
talent that was hers to command."

~ Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com

Maurice Utrillo - Oil Painting Authentication

Chateau de Blois
by Maurice Utrillo
b. 1883 Monmarte
quarter Paris, France








Suburban Street Scene
by Maurice Utrillo
b. 1883 Montmarte
quarter Paris, France









Marizy Sainte-Genevieve
by Maurice Utrillo
b. 1883 Montmarte
quarter Paris, France.







I received an email the other day with this question:
How can I identify a "real" Maurice Utrillo?

This is my response to the query:

The authenticity of a Maurice Utrillo oil painting, is best evaluated by a fine art appraiser. Many copy artists can successfully copy the style of great works of art. But many factors come into play such as the forensics; the age of and composition of oil paint, canvas, and signature of the artist when authenticating an original work of art; such as a Maurice Utrillo.

To detect or confirm fraudulent art, the modern expert has at his or her command, in addition to the aesthetic and critical criteria brought to bear, a wide array of scientific aids. These include standard chemical analysis; dating (of organic materials) by measuring the residual radioactivity of carbon 14; and examinations made with the use of optical instruments, X rays, and infrared red and ultraviolet light.

Maurice Utrillo is one of the most copied artists. Museums and collectors prefer authentic works - i.e. works that were produced during the artists life by the artist - authenticity is potentially a problem in every art transaction.

Since many of his Utrillo's oil paintings are out of reach for many art enthusiasts; hand painted oil reproductions remain a viable and affordable solution.

~ Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com

Frans Hals - "The Laughing Cavalier"

Frans Hals
1580 - 1666 b. Antwerp,
Netherlands
"The Laughing Cavalier"

















"Genius lies not in having new ideas, but being
possessed by the idea that what has already
been said is not enough."

~ Eugene Delacroix


"The Laughing Cavalier" (1624) is a famous painting by the Baroque artist Frans Hals. The current title is a Victorian invention; the subject does, in fact, sport an enigmatic smile, (perhaps Hals answer to the Mona Lisa?). The composition is robust, and flamboyant all at once. The gorgeous silk costume, on close inspection reveals long, quick brushstroke technique. The fame of this painting is accredited to the artist's skill at painting the intricate lace of the costume; and that the glaring eyes eerily seem to follow the viewer from every angle. The identity of the young man is unknown, and originally was called "Portrait of a Young Man".

~ Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com



Frans Hals was an extraordinary Dutch portrait painter of the 17th century. During his career, his art went through several changes as things in his life changed. He is most known for the freedom and looseness in which he painted.

Frans Hals was the son of a clothworker and a local girl, both from Mechelen. He was born in 1580. When Hals was young, they moved to Haarlem in the Netherlands where he spent the rest of his life. Hals only left Haarlem once, for a visit to Antwerp.

It is not known what happened in the first 25 to 30 years of Hals' life. In 1610, he joined the Guild of St. Luke of Haarlem, which registered artists as masters. Shortly after this, he married Annetje Harmensdochter Abeel. They had two children together but she died in 1615. Two years after that, he married Lysbeth Reyniers and had eight children with her. Out of Hals' eight sons, five of them became painters!

Hals was a student of Carel Van Mander, a painter and poet. Together, they started a painting academy in Haarlem. The best of Hals' early works is a painting called "Banquet of Officers of the Civic Guard of St. George at Haarlem". It was painted with a very free brushstroke that is unlike anything of its time. Looking at this painting can also give you a sense of the relationships between the figures. This is incredible because nobody else painted like this then. All of Hals' early works have a jovial spirit to them. Some of his most popular paintings during this time include "The Merry Company", "Peeckelhaering", "The Merry Drinker", "Malle Babbe" and "Gypsy Girl". In his paintings, he seems to have captured a moment in time.

As Hals grew older, the joviality of his paintings began to disappear. After he reached the age of forty, all of his subjects seemed to have sadness in their faces. Some of his paintings during this time are "Man with Arms Crossed", "The Laughing Cavalier", "Portrait of Isaac Abrahamszoon Massa", "Pieter van den Broecke", "Willem van Heythuyzen" and "Nicolaes Hasselaer". During the period between 1630 and 1650, Hals became very popular and painted more than 100 single portraits and six group portraits. In 1644, Hals became an officer of the Guild of St. Luke.
Frans Hals lived to be very old and as he got into his older age, his paintings really showed how he could portray the human character. After 1650, he didn't get as many commissions and was often harassed by family problems. The commissions he did get were not enough to support him financially and because of this, he had to auction off his possessions. In 1662, his right to assistance was seen and he started getting a yearly pension.

During Hals' old age, his work seemed to show that simply being a living person is enough. His themes became less vivid and less intense and much simpler. He even started painting in mostly blacks and whites. One of his most popular paintings during this time is "Governors of the Old Men's Home at Haarlem". This painting is actually two portraits, one of a group of men and another of a group of women. In these portraits he shows that life does not go on forever. Eventually everyone will die. Hals actually lived at this Old Men's Home of the painting.

Frans Hals was a one of a kind artist. He was different than anyone of his time. Because he was so unique, he did not leave behind many followers, unlike most artists. He did influence Adriaen Brouwer and Edouard Manet though. Hals died in 1666.



Michael Russell

Pieter Bruegel - "The Harvesters"

Pieter Bruegel
1525 - 1596
b. Netherlands

The Harvesters
1565, Oil on wood
Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York





Bruegel is the most deceptive of the old masters; his work looks so simple, yet is infinitely profound. The Harvesters is one of a series of paintings representing the months. Five of the series remain, and in Vienna, you can view three of them on one long wall in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (which is lucky enough to own another eleven of Bruegel's paintings, representing nearly a third of his surviving works). Seeing the three in all of their majesty - each a world in itself - made me doubt Bruegel's wisdom in attempting a series. Each one is overwhelming, though it is easier to feel its impact than to explain it.

The Harvesters is basically, I think, a visual meditation on the near and the far. The near is the harvesters themselves - painted as only Bruegel can paint. He shows us real people: the man slumped with exhaustion, or intoxication; the hungry eaters; the men finishing off their work before their noontime break. Yet he caricatures them just slightly. He sees a woman with grain-like hair, and women walking through the fields like moving grain stacks. He smiles, but he also sighs. There is not a sentimental hair on Bruegel's paintbrush, but nobody has more compassion for the harsh life of the peasant. His faces are those of people who are almost brutalized - vacant faces with little to communicate.

He sets this "near" in the wonder of the "far": the rolling world of corn and wood, of small hills spreading in sunlit glory to the misty remoteness of the harbor. Into this distance, the peasants disappear, swallowed up. They cannot see it, but we - aloft with the artist - can see it for what it is: the beautiful world in which we are privileged to live. He makes us aware not just of space, but of spaciousness - an immensely satisfying, potential earthly paradise. No other landscape artist has treated a landscape with such intellectual subtlety, yet Bruegel states nothing. He simply stirs us into receptivity. Sister Wendy Beckett's analysis of Bruegel's "The Harvesters"

New depth, meaning and appreciation of the art
of Bruegel is discovered; each time I visit the works
of Pieter Bruegel's oil paintings.

~ Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com

All About Oil Painting Reproductions

Peter Paul Ruben's
"Battle of the
Standard"
A copy of
Leonardo da Vinci's
"The Battle of
Anghiari"






Who Buys Fine Art Oil Painting Reproductions?

Serious art collectors, art enthusiast’s of all ages, art dealers, corporations, hoteliers, the government, interior decorators, home builders, restaurateurs, and just about any one would like to own a famous work of art. Fine art oil reproductions, can make your make dream of owning the painting you love come true. Beautiful oil paintings of famous-masterpieces from throughout history and from around the world, are available to discerning devotees of art at the click of a link. Fine art hand painted oil painting reproductions, are the definitive answer for art lovers everywhere who would like to own, a distinctive work of art. Now you can commission a priceless work of art as viewed and displayed in museums, or priced in the millions of dollars, at an affordable price.

Growing Public Demand of Oil Painting Reproductions Online

Beautiful fine art oil painting reproductions are an ever increasing source of e-commerce popularity for purchase on the Internet. Buying or commissioning fine art oil paintings online is safe, and convenient for you to view and order a painting, of your choice. Now you can view all genres of art, artists, history and information in the privacy of your home or office, 24/7.

Major Methods Used to Reproduce Fine Art Reproductions

Fine art reproduction isn’t a new process. It has been popular since the 18th Century. Reproductions have allowed artists to share their vision, artistic expression and communicate their ideas to a wide and diversified audience. Reproductions of famous sculpture, drawings and primarily paintings have afforded art lovers an alternative to owning an original work of art or a collection of art, otherwise not within their reach.

In the past, original works of art were created on leather, wood, canvas, stone, ivory and metal, and many of these works still survive today. Unfortunately, many works of art have not escaped the erosion of time, elements, lack of technical expertise, the proclivities of war and errant care. Reproductions were and still are in inevitable and necessary advent as they serve to ensure the longevity of an artists work.

Can A Copyists Be Considered Artists?

The Great Master Artists were Among the First to Create Art Reproductions.

Examples of Master Class Copyists, such as Michelangelo, Andrea del Sarto, Rembrandt, Rubens, Goya, Turner, Delacroix, Degas and other distinguished copyists, are but a few of the famous who are proof that copyists can indeed be artists in their own right.

Examples of Master Class copyists defined:

Andrea del Sarto’s copy of his Raphael’s portrait of Pope Julius II does not lack the quality of the original.

Rembrandt’s copy of Holbein’s drawing of an English lady, has not been made to resemble the original as closely as possible.

Ruben’s copy of his Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari does not show an over careful halting line and soggy treatment of form.

Goya’s copy, or adoption, of Flaxman’s outline does not show lines of any less free and sure than from the work he is stealing.

Thus we may ascertain that not all copies and their attributes of reproductions are created equal even by the great master artists:

- Of the same quality as our model
- Not necessarily to resemble the original as closely as possible
- Free of halting lines and soggy forms
- Contains lines as free and sure as those set down by an artist in the freshness of creation or observation .


About Famous Artist’s Signature Palettes:

Famous artists palettes are used today for the creation of Oil Reproductions.
The same Palette of Hans Hals and Rembrandt van Rijn are used today.

The colors of Frans Hals palette were/are:
Flake white
Yellow ochre
Red ochre
Charcoal black

Rembrandt’s palette was similar with exception of the addition of
sienna’s and his umbers.

Properties of Pigments Known to be used by the Old Masters

Lead (Flake) White
Yellow Ochre an opaque pigment. It is one of the artist’s basic colors employed in every culture and civilization since prehistoric times.
Chrome Yellow basic lead chromate . Chromate pigments have a tendency to turn brown sulpher in the atmosphere, will react with other pigments and may turn green on contact with on exposure to sunlight. there has been no necessity for artists to use chrome yellow for the past 125 years.
Raw Sienna a brownish-yellow Earth Color obtained from natural clay containing iron and manganese. Raw sienna is semi opaque and has more subtlety of color than yellow w ochre in tints with white.

Red Ochre
Burnt Sienna
Vermillion (Cinnabar)
Raw Umber
Burnt Umber
Terre Verte (green Earth)
Genuine Ultramarine (Lapis Lazuli)
Ivory Black


A Rose by Any Other Name Would Still Smell as Sweet

Reputable online e-commerce websites art dealers and galleries are knowledgeable and will help with your questions. It certainly is worth your time, to explore the various websites online to get a sense of a companies, product, guarantees, price points and value.

You get what you pay for. An oil reproduction of a (hand painted) Rembrandt oil reproduction that sells cheaply at one site and a (hand painted) Rembrandt oil painting reproduction that sells at a higher price on another site will not necessarily be of the same quality. If quality is of great importance to you, it is worth investing more money for a high-quality oil painting reproduction.

The Care and Preservation of Oil Paintings

Oil paintings can be maintained for years of use and enjoyment provided that some basic care and attention is given to their preservation. The first step in the care of collections is to understand and minimize or eliminate conditions that can cause damage. The second step is to follow basic guidelines for care, handling and cleaning.

Causes of Damage and Guidelines for Care of Oil Paintings:

The primary cause of damage to oil paintings is the storage or display of paintings in inappropriate environments. This includes display or storage in areas of extreme temperatures or light and dark.

The fascination of collecting beautiful objects goes back to the first person who admired a beautiful shell, or pebble found on a beach and kept it.

Questions about oil painting reproductions?
Contact me, I'm here to help.

~ The Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com

Ivan Sherman - Whimsical Art

Ivan Sherman
OUT OF THE BOX:
Art Created from
Recycled Corrugated
Boxes











Still Life as Architecture
Acrylics, hand-cut corrugated cardboard
3' 6" X 5' 8" X 4"


Quite unexpectedly I found the whimsical art of Ivan Sherman, while searching for new artists. Ivan Sherman's fresh view of architecture as "art form", in terms of corrugated craft; is nothing less than a stupendous treat. It's worth your time to explore Ivan's treasure trove of Love Notes, stationery, announcements, and art prints. He is sure to please inquisitive, art lovers both near and far.

~ Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com

IVAN SHERMAN STATEMENT

Corrugated Home Decor was the embryo from which Ivan’s large corrugated constructions evolved. The pieces on this site are original limited editions, laboriously constructed by hand. They are truly unique and very beautiful. The wall sconces were once electrified, but will not be sold that way. The hanging shades should be professionally wired. Pieces should be examined in person and prices worked out off line.Click on thumbnails for larger image.

ABOUT IVAN SHERMAN

Ivan started recycling used corrugated boxes into whimsical works of art several years ago, inventing a technique of layering concentric triangles and squares of cut corrugated, much like tramp art. The order and balance imposed by the medium gives his work a sense of peace and tranquility, while unexpected flourishes and delightful use of color makes his work fun to look at. He set his goal at making each piece uniquely different, repeating tricks and techniques only when necessary and always coming up with a new twist on his medium. In this way his body of work encompasses his entire artistic background, from that of a representational painter, and including his early years as an art director on fashion accounts, through his whimsical children\'s book illustration, to his history as an award winning designer, right on through to the joy he takes designing and working with typography.

All images copyright Ivan Sherman 2005 An icompendium Site

Georges de La Tour, "The Fortune Teller"

The Fortune Teller probably 1630s
Georges de La Tour, French,
b. 1593–d. 1652, Oil on canvas;
40 1/8 x 48 5/8 in., Rogers Fund, 1960


I vividly recall at a very young age, viewing "The Fortune Teller" for the first time; at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The unexpected surprise of the painting, won me over forever. The presentation, the aesthetic detail, the execution and pure audacity of subject, captivates. It is the embodiment of a Primal Scream, waiting for someone to yell.... STOP! The influences of both Michelangelo and Caravaggio, probably via his Dutch followers, and the genre scenes of cheats and beggars clearly derive from the Dutch Caravaggisti.

~ Art Diva of PaintingsToGo.com


About "The Fortune Teller"

While an old gypsy crone tells his fortune, a naive youth is robbed by her accomplices, a subject popular among Caravaggesque painters throughout Europe in the seventeenth century. La Tour's painting can be interpreted as a genre or theatrical scene, or as an allusion to the parable of the prodigal son. It has been variously dated from about 1620 to as late as 1639. The inscription includes the name of the town where La Tour lived, Lunéville in Lorraine.

Highly successful in his lifetime as a painter in Lorraine whose work was also known and admired at the court of Louis XIII, Georges de La Tour was virtually forgotten after his death. His work first returned to public attention in 1934 in an exhibition in Paris of the "Painters of Reality in France," when a group of paintings reasonably attributed to him seemed the strongest and most personal statement of interests similar to Caravaggio and his followers, yet so distinct as to be compared to such different artists as Nicolas Poussin and Jan Vermeer. Since then further discoveries have been made, more paintings have been added to the number believed to be surely by his hand, and his work continues to exert a wide appeal, but fundamental questions about his life as an artist remain unanswered and perhaps always will.

La Tour was born in Vic-sur-Seille, the small capital of the bishopric of Metz. He was married in 1618 in Lunéville, the summer capital of the duchy of Lorraine, and by 1620 he seems to have had an active studio there. Lunéville remained the center of his life; baptismal records establish the birth of nine children between 1618 and 1636, and other documents record the interest of successive patrons in his work. Two paintings were commissioned early in his career (1623/1624) by the reigning Duke of Lorraine; in 1633 he is mentioned as having the title of Painter to the King (Louis XIII); in the early 1640s the French governor of Lorraine ordered that several of La Tour's paintings be presented to him by the town of Nancy; and after 1644 La Tour is described as the official painter to the town of Lunéville. In 1648 La Tour was listed among the founding members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Documents of payment bear witness to his continued activity in Lorraine until his death early in 1652.
Unanswered Questions

While these archival notices suggest the nature and extent of La Tour's work, there are significant gaps in the records, and it is not easy to correlate the chronology of his paintings with the factual evidence of his life. The signatures of some of the signed paintings are doubtful; different versions exist of paintings described only by title in documents; and some paintings may be copies of now-lost works. There are, in brief, many problems of connoisseurship which will continue to be debated.

The main questions about La Tour's life focus on the time before his marriage in 1618 and the years between 1639 and 1643, when there are no records of his presence in Lunéville. Did he travel to Italy as a young artist or journey to the Netherlands and encounter Italianate ideas in Utrecht? Was he in Paris in the late 1630s and early 1640s, and did he perhaps make a second journey from there to the Netherlands? In Lunéville was he close to the leaders of the current religious revival?

His Works

Whatever the answers to these questions, the primary documents will remain his own paintings. The artist's originality is apparent in his earliest signed painting, The Cheat (1625). The subject of a group of card players, long popular in the Netherlands as well as with Caravaggio and his followers in Italy, is presented with a startling dignity and clarity, showing La Tour's ability to select, simplify, and generalize. The four figures are painted thinly but with absolute precision; handsome costumes and the accessories of the game accent the broad, simple forms presented in a strong, natural light.

With very few exceptions, all of La Tour's paintings after this early date are night scenes, largely dependent on the highly expressive use of a source of light within the painting. Sometimes the source - a candle, torch, or lantern - is partially or completely concealed by a hand, a figure, or an object; sometimes the light flares out brilliantly against the surrounding darkness. In every case light is central to the formal construction of the paintings.

Scholars differ radically in the dates they assign to individual works by La Tour, but they generally agree that he developed gradually and consistently from the naturalism of The Cheat through the greater breadth and concentration of paintings focusing on one or two figures seen at night, as in Job and His Wife and St. Joseph, to the absolute distillation of forms in the late paintings grouped about the Denial of St. Peter (1651) and St. Sebastian Mourned by St. Irene.
None of La Tour's paintings involves more than a few figures; they are shown in simple, stable groupings arranged close to the picture plane in a space defined by light. The range of colors is limited to a few tones: warm tans, copper, and brick-red hues contrast with small passages of white or light yellow against dark grounds. Working with a few formal elements, La Tour achieved results that are suggestive through their very economy. His figures are quiet but not rigid; an atmosphere of silence and permanence emanates from his work. All his paintings, whatever the subject, seem profoundly religious ones, interpreted by a probing, serious, and sensitive mind.

Further Reading
S. M. M. Furness, Georges de La Tour of Lorraine, 1593-1652 (1949), is an enthusiastic if somewhat personal study of the artist that includes the most important documentation. La Tour's place in French art of the 17th century can best be studied in Anthony Blunt, Art and Architecture in France, 1500-1700 (1954; 2d ed. 1970).