Louis Sullivan, Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. Building, Chicago, 1899, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
“It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic, of all things physical and metaphysical, of all things human and all things superhuman, of all true manifestations of the head, of the heart, of the soul, that the … Continue reading
Parmigianino, Madonna with the Long Neck, c. 1535-1540, oil on wood, 85” x 52”, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
It’s not that the Italian artist Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, a.k.a. Parmigianino, was horribly confused and thought that the baby Jesus suffered from a rare disease that made him the size of a four-year-old child when he was only an … Continue reading
Attributed to the Brygos Painter, Red-figured cup from Athens, c. 490-480 BCE, ceramic, 5" high, British Museum, London, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Red-figure (adjective) A type of pottery painting from ancient Greece that shows red figures against a black background. The Brygos Painter is one of the best known red-figure vase painters of his era. This scene of a symposium, or a … Continue reading
Jasper Johns, Map, 1961, oil on canvas, 6' 6" x 10' 3 1/8", Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by neutralSurface via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic License.
Now get out there and vote!
Pyramid of Cheops, El Giza, Egypt, 2560 BCE, limestone, 455' high (originally 481' high), photo by Hedwig Storch via Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
“Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids.” Arab Proverb
Henry Fuseli, The Nightmare, 1781, oil on canvas, 40” x 49 ⅞”, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The Romantic art movement in European art endured approximately sixty years, from the late eighteenth century until the middle of the nineteenth century. Romantic artists attempted to elicit strong emotions from a viewer by presenting dramatic, exotic and sometimes frightening … Continue reading
Glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly set in the Dallas Arboretum, Photo by chrissam42 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial 2.0 Generic License.
The exhibition of Dale Chihuly’s gorgeous glass sculptures at the Dallas Arboretum that was slated to close next week now will be open through the end of the year. Brian Shivers, chairman of the board for the Dallas Arboretum, said the extension … Continue reading
Doryphoros, Roman copy after an original by Polykleitos from c. 450-440 BCE, 6'6" high, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
You won’t get out of Art History 101 alive without knowing who this guy is. This is the Doryphoros, which means “spear bearer,” a Roman copy of a sculpture from the High Classical period of Ancient Greece. At one time, this … Continue reading
William Hogarth, Tête à Tête from Marriage à la Mode, 1743, oil on canvas, 27.6” x 35.8”, National Gallery of Art, London, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
William Hogarth was a rebel. He rebelled against the art academy and he had something to say about London society in the mid-eighteenth century. He didn’t like the nouveau-riche middle class, nor did he care for the gentry. His mode … Continue reading
Madinat al-Zahara workshop, Al-Mughira’s pyxis, 968 CE, ivory, 5.9” high, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
The Musée du Louvre recently opened the doors to their new 32,000 square foot gallery space filled with Islamic art. It is the first big addition to the building since I. M. Pei’s glass pyramids were finished in 1993. Nearly … Continue reading
Otto Dix, Portrait of Sylvia von Harden, 1926, oil and tempera on wood, 47⅗” x 35”, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Photo by Clapagaré via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.
Film often imitates art and it’s fun to find references to famous paintings or sculptures when watching movies. One of the more obvious adoptions of a painting into film is Bob Fosse’s use of Otto Dix’s Portrait of Sylvia von … Continue reading
© 2012 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Linear Perspective (noun) A technique for creating an illusion of three-dimensional space in two-dimensional artwork that was invented by Filippo Brunelleschi during the early Italian Renaissance. In a work of art that uses this system to create space, all straight … Continue reading