Category Archives: Modern Art

Arthur Dove, Sunrise, 1924, oil on wood, 18¼” x 20 ⅞”, Milwaukee Art Museum, Photo by Micah & Erin, via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License.

Arthur Dove Shows Us What a Sunrise Feels Like

Arthur Dove was a member of a small circle of artists in New York City, including Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe, that introduced modernism to America. Dove developed a highly original form of abstraction based upon the natural landscape and … Continue reading →

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Swing, 1876, oil on canvas, 36.2” x 28.7”, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Swingin’ with Renoir

Like other Impressionist artists, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted outside, or en plein air, in order to capture the light and atmosphere of a split second.  His painting entitled, The Swing depicts his brother, a fellow painter, his favorite model and a little girl … Continue reading →

Louis Sullivan, Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. Building, Chicago, 1899, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

In Their Own Words: Louis Sullivan

“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 →

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.

Otto Dix and Bob Fosse: Together at Last

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 →

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup Cans, 1962, each canvas 20” x 16”, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo by Gwenaël Piser via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.

Make the Time: In Warhol’s Wake

Next week on September 18th, an exhibition entitled, “Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” will open at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  The exhibition explores Andy Warhol’s influence on contemporary art with many works by Warhol himself … Continue reading →

Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater or the Kaufmann House, 1936-1939, Mill Run, PA, Photo by Happy Via via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution License.

In Their Own Words: Frank Lloyd Wright

“No house should ever be on a hill or on anything.   It should be of the hill, belonging to it.” Frank Lloyd Wright  

Vincent van Gogh, Vase with Twelve Sunflowers, 1888, oil on canvas, 35.8" x 28.3", Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Was Van Gogh Color Blind?

He very well may have been.  Click here to read a fascinating article about vision expert Kazunori Asad’s explosive hypothesis.  You’ll find many good illustrations in the article.    

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Just a Second: Fractal Analysis

Fractal Analysis (noun) A type of mathematical analysis that finds patterns and translates it to a set of numbers with a particular mean and standard deviation. About a decade ago, physicists used fractal analysis to examine paintings by Jackson Pollock … Continue reading →