© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
Whether Georgia O’Keeffe’s subjects are representational or not, they always have a source in the natural world. Her Blue Black and Grey is a composition of abstract shapes and planes that are nevertheless reminiscent of the curves and colors one finds in … Continue reading
Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-1908, oil, silver and gold on canvas, 70.9
“All art is erotic.” Gustav Klimt Happy Valentine’s Day from The Art Minute.
© 2013 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
“The Apostles of Ugliness” is what the critics called members of the Ashcan School of painting because these artists painted the life of working-class New Yorkers at the turn of the 20th century using dirty and dark colors that reflected … Continue reading
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871, oil on canvas, 56.8
“An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.” James Abbott McNeill Whistler
Franz Kline, Chief, 1950, oil on canvas, 58 3/8
“I paint not the things I see but the feelings they arouse in me.” Franz Kline
Federico Barocci, The Nativity, 1597, oil on canvas, 52.75
Working near the end of the Mannerist era, Federico Barocci was given to unusual compositions and colors, as is seen in his Nativity with the steep, diagonal recession into space where Joseph opens the door to let the shepherds into … Continue reading
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 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
Edward Ruscha, Standard Station, 1986, oil on canvas, 51
“Good art should elicit a response of ‘Huh? Wow!’ as opposed to ‘Wow! Huh?’” Edward Ruscha
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
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
Winslow Homer, The Fox Hunt, 1893, oil on canvas, 38” x 68½”, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Winslow Homer, the American Realist painter, lived and worked in his studio at Prouts Neck in Scarborough, Maine for nearly thirty years before he died, creating many of his most memorable paintings such as The Fox Hunt. Today, this studio will … Continue reading
© 2012 Sally Whitman Coleman, PhD. All rights reserved.
We can learn a great deal by looking at the same subject in art as it is represented over time. The similarities and differences speak volumes as to the true intentions of the artist and his or her cultural reality. … Continue reading