a_painting_you_should_see raze "madonna" (1894-1895) edvard munch oil on canvas there are five versions of this painting, all of them different in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. this is the version owned by the national gallery of norway. munch didn't name the work himself, and he wasn't known for being religious or producing religious-themed paintings; that angle seems to be something projected onto the work by others. i can tell you i'm not thinking anything biblical when i look at it. i'm thinking, "jesus christ, that's beautiful." wait. that kind of *is* biblical, isn't it? with the jesus and all the...oh, i give up. the model is thought to have been dagny juel-przybyszewska, who sat for some of munch's other paintings, and with whom he was close for a time. the exact nature of their relationship remains murky, but given the nature of paintings like this one, it's speculated that they may have been lovers at one point. look: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ae/Edvard_Munch_-_Madonna_(1894-1895).jpg 130221 ... PeeT it is easy to see why they would be lovers. 130221 ... unhinged anything by alexander arshanksy he is like salvador dali and vincent van gogh mashed into one brain 130221 ... PeeT your description is apt, nicole. thank you so much for introducing us to this amazing artist. my favorite piece of his: fearless citizen or creme brulee... http://arshansky.com/gallery/?content/Gallery/Most+Recent love 130221 ... raze whoa. "fragile" is a fun one to get lost in. 130221 ... unhinged i met him a few years ago at a gallery opening in tucson. i was in southwest arizona visiting my parents for my birthday and my mother took me there. (she had researched cool artsy things to do in the area while i was in town) he was teaching graphic design at a nearby community college and it was his first exhibition of paintings, maybe ever. it was a cool gallery space just completely full of his paintings and there was a pretty cool young singer/songwriter chick playing in the background. my dad wandered around kind of bored but me and my mom took our time examining each painting; we both wanted to buy at least five or six paintings each but didn't have the cash, even in the bank. alexander wandered over to us and talked to us for awhile. he was a big burly russian gay guy with twinkling eyes and a wide smile. he seemed a little nervous about putting his paintings out there in the world and was happy that people liked them. he made a comment something to the effect that his paintings were where his heart was while his graphic design was how he made a living so it was a little nerve wracking to him to finally show his paintings. even the smallest square canvas was covered in minute details, kinda like the where's waldo books me and my brother poured over as kids, but a little more trippy and adult in subject matter. 130222 ... unhinged (i seem to like art more when i actually know the artist that made it on some level) 130222 ... unhinged i like all the dark ones with somewhat sad titles shaddow unmasked fragile prima and missing you are nice too 130222 ... PeeT i love this. 130222 ... raze "de sterrennacht" / "the starry night" (1889) vincent van gogh oil on canvas the nighttime view outside van gogh's sanitarium room window, as painted from memory in the middle of the day. he was not overly happy with this painting, and wrote in a letter to his brother theo: "where these lines are close and deliberate it begins to be a picture, even if it is exaggerated. that is a little what bernard and gauguin feel, they do not ask the correct shape of a tree at all, but they insist absolutely that one can say if the shape is round or square — and my word, they are right, exasperated as they are by certain people's photographic and empty perfection. certainly they will not ask the correct tone of the mountains, but they will say: in the name of god, the mountains were blue, were they? then chuck on some blue and don't go telling me that it was a blue rather like this or that, it was blue, wasn't it? good — make them blue and it's enough!" i think it's beautiful. look: http://www.masterpieceofthemonth.org/Art_Enrichment/Van_Gogh,_Starry_Night_files/van-gogh-starry-night-vincent-van-gogh.jpg 130304 ... raze untitled / "sept. 08" (2008) hilary brace charcoal on mylar hilary brace is a seattle-born artist best known for her charcoal drawings of cloud-filled landscapes (so maybe i should have called this blathe "a painting or drawing you should see"). the artist statement on her website reads: "when i compose an image i work without premeditation, beginning with only a vague suggestion, so the places i make often surprise me as they unfold in a series of unanticipated discoveries. the subjects change and shift as a nascent world comes slowly into focus. even though my desire is to create places and events that are vivid and seem true — to make impossible places tangible — they stay elusive and enigmatic to me. in the end, the drawings are both a record of discovery and a means of re-experiencing the mystery. they also remind me of our desire to search for truth and meaning as we encounter and attempt to define our shifting world, even if such a search might be futile." look: http://hilarybrace.com/drawings/7_Sept08.jpg 130305 ... raze "automat" (1927) edward hopper oil on canvas (borrowing my own words from blue) it's cold outside. probably late at night. a cast iron radiator throws off just enough heat to make the inside of this well-lit place feel like a small sanctuary. for a time, the world outside seems far away. the woman sits with one gloved hand, the other bare. a bowl of fruit rests behind her on the windowsill. she's alone. how does she take her coffee? what is she thinking of? does she feel like a ghost haunting her own life? disconnected? detached? or does she feel every small kindness or cruelty stab at her like a dagger deep in the thigh of compassion? what makes her love? what makes her cry? what does she hope for? what does she regret? what is her name? would she let you sit with her and ask these questions with your eyes? would she meet your gaze to answer? i could stare at this painting and wonder all day. look: http://eriklundegaard.com/media/2/automat.jpg 130308 ... raze "young hare" (1502) albrecht dürer gouache and watercolor on paper from wikipedia: "'young hare' (german: 'feldhase') is a 1502 watercolour and bodycolour painting by german artist albrecht dürer. painted in 1502 in his workshop, it is acknowledged as a masterpiece of observational art alongside his 'great piece of turf' from the following year. the subject is rendered with almost photographic accuracy, and although the piece is normally given the title 'young hare', the portrait is sufficiently detailed for the hare to be identified as a mature specimen — the german title translates as 'field hare' and the work is often referred to in english as 'the hare' or 'wild hare'. the subject was particularly challenging; the hare's fur lay in different directions and the animal was mottled with lighter and darker patches all over. dürer had to adapt the standard conventions of shading to indicate the outline of the subject by the fall of light across the figure. despite the technical challenges presented in rendering the appearance of light with a multi-coloured, multi-textured subject, dürer not only managed to create a detailed, almost scientific, study of the animal but also infused the picture with a warm golden light that hits the hare from the left, highlighting the ears and the run of hair along the body, giving a spark of life to the eye, and casting a strange shadow to the right." look: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Durer_Young_Hare.jpg 130310 ... raze "butterfly daydream" (2008) rose evenson medium unspecified (watercolour, maybe?) if butterflies had dreams, and if they dreamed about one another, i imagine those dreams might look something like this. look: http://roseevenson.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/butterfly-daydream.jpg 130425 ... unhinged the mountain view when i stand at the intersection of 15th and lake city way today the sky is blue with sparse white clouds i could actually see the mountains the snow topped peaks and the valley of pine trees i wish i was better at painting and drawing then i could show you photos don't really capture the glory 130425 ... raze untitled (c. 1780) artist(s) unknown wallpaper once upon a time, wallpaper was an artform, painstakingly painted by hand. some of the 17th and 18th century chinese wallpaper is especially striking. this example depicts a funeral procession. look: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/KA-Tapete-Beerdigung05.JPG 130506 ... raze "autumn" (1573) giuseppe arcimboldo oil on canvas giuseppe arcimboldo was an italian painter whose best known work consists of unique portraits; his figures are made up entirely of non-human objects (fruits, vegetables, books, flowers, clothespins), arranged to form all the parts of a person normally supplied by their faces and upper bodies. his "four seasons" and "four elements" series are especially fascinating to look at. look: http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/autumn-giuseppe-arcimboldo.jpg 130618 ... raze "der wanderer über dem nebelmeer" / "wanderer above the sea of fog" (1818) caspar david friedrich oil on canvas sometimes it's hard to tell the fog from the clouds in the sky. look: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Caspar_David_Friedrich_032_%28The_wanderer_above_the_sea_of_fog%29.jpg 130912 ... raze "maldives #4" (2013) zaria forman soft pastel on paper yeah, i have a thing for water and sky. yeah, this is another one that's technically a drawing. don't sue me. i don't want to have to pay for a lawyer. look: http://www.zariaforman.com/#!Maldives-4-/zoom/c8a1/image1os0 what i can't get over is how dimensional her drawings are. it's incredible. i mean, take a look at this (and be ready to catch your jaw before it hits the floor): http://www.designsmix.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Zaria-Forman-work-in-progress.jpg 140104 ... epitome of incomprehensibility Those are some amazing waves and clouds. They look real, and she even captured the slight difference in colour. And the second, to clarify, that drawing's not 3-D, it's just the shading? 140104 ... raze i'm pretty sure it's just the shading, but the images almost seem to jump off the page. i don't know how someone does that with a stick of powdered pigment. it's nuts, i tells ya! nuts! 140105 ... raze "impending" (2013) arturo samaniego oil on canvas i swear i didn't go looking for another image with water in it. the realism here was just too striking to ignore. this is from a series of paintings called "emergence", about which arturo writes: "the human figure is placed in isolation, submerged in the waters. the sea is a metaphor for the life that surrounds each one of us, with all its beauty and unpredictability. an element which can be, at the same time, nourishing and treacherous." look: http://s3.amazonaws.com/saatchi-print-preview/41651-1559700-canvas-black.png 140209 ... raze "the somnambulist" (1871) john everett millais oil on canvas art critic frederic george stephens, in expressing his affection for this painting in spite of himself (feeling it was somewhat "easy" and beneath the talents of millais), wrote, "its charms steal our verdict." i like that. 19th century art critics knew how to turn a phrase, didn't they? look: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/John_Everett_Millais%2C_The_Somnambulist.jpg 140310 ... raze "we tried to build a raft" (2011) jim dingilian soot on glass a painting made inside a bottle. but how? american artist jim dingilian sees empty liquor bottles as "[artifacts] of consumption, delight, or dread". he collects them and turns them into works of art by creating soot inside each bottle with candle smoke, using a q-tip extended from a dowel rod as a subtractive paint brush, wiping away the darkness until he's created the scene he wants to be seen. look: http://www.mckenziefineart.com/images/JD10125F.jpg 140622 ... epitome of incomprehensibility I found this! A poet I know a bit is raising money to fund medical treatments for her daughter, and she also does paintings. So she's holding a raffle, and the painting I like is the one on the bottom right corner called "burning up," showing a naked woman made of light and shadow hugging her arms together in a shower of something between water and fire. You can see a similar play of opposites - opposite colours, at least - in the two abstract orange and blue paintings. see http://drawingforbron.weebly.com/raffle-page.html 140624 ... raze very cool (and with an admirable motivation behind it). i really like the sketches in the blog section, too. 140624 ... raze paintings, plural: http://twistedsifter.com/2012/04/adding-monsters-to-thrift-store-paintings/ best, funniest thing i've seen in a while. now that's how you give a painting you find in a thrift shop new life. 140701 ... e_o_i Whoa! That's awesome, especially the one with the guy on horseback meeting the tentacle monster. They both seem slightly hesitant, somehow, and I find it cute. And then there was a link to this, which puts Star Wars figures in Thomas Kinkade paintings. The weird thing is, they seem to fit; Kinkade has a shiny style that reminds me of fantasy-book illustrations, like an old Lord of the Rings-themed calendar I saw at Hallmark. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/jeff-bennett-star-wars_n_4228130.html 140701 ... raze oh, that's good! the rancor one kills me. 140702 ... e_o_i Max Ernst's The Robing of the Bride, not just because of surrealism but because of textures: rock-like marbling created by frottage, feathers on a very strange costume, and the familiar pimple-like shape of breasts. I'll even go all Words_and_Pictures on this and quote what J. G. Ballard said about this in his notes to the expanded edition of The_Atrocity_Exhibition: "An unseen woman is being prepared by two attendants for her marriage, and is dressed in an immense gown of red plumage that transforms her into a beautiful and threatening bird. Behind her, as if in a mirror, is a fossilized version of herself, fashioned from archaic red coral. All my respect and admiration of women is prompted by this painting, which I last saw at Peggy Guggenheim's museum in Venice, stared at by bored students. Leaving them, I strayed into a private corridor of the palazzo, and a maid emerging through a door with a vacuum cleaner gave me a glimpse into a bedroom overlooking the Grand Canal. Sitting rather sadly on the bed was Miss Guggenheim herself, sometime Alice at the surrealist tea-party, a former wife of Max Ernst, and by then an old woman. As she stared at the window I half-expected to see the bird costume on the floor beside her. She was certainly entitled to wear it." ALL his respect and admiration for women? Huh? Well, the guy's off is rocker even by my standards; in the notes to a different chapter he writes about "playfully" trying to run over a New York poet with his car. Deliberately off his rocker, it seems. Though why should anyone be ON a rocker? All you do is go back and forth. Here's a link to the painting, though the words below it sound like they belong to sleepy-eyed essay: http://utopiadystopiawwi.wordpress.com/surrealism/max-ernst/robing-of-the-bride 140709 ... e_o_i (the quote from The_Atrocity_Exhibition is from p. 61 in the Harper Perennial 2006 version; it isn't part of the novel, but the author's notes at the end of each chapter that were added later) 140709 ... raze various drawings (1925) harry clarke pen and ink on saint patrick's day, take a look at some of the work of irish artist harry clarke. he did stunning things with stained glass windows and book illustrations, and some of his images for goethe's "faust" are fascinating. look: http://50watts.com/Harry-Clarke-s-Faust 150317 ... e_o_i Those are strange and sometimes beautiful (big-eyed goth Faust is beautiful; shrimp with breasts strangely beautiful.) 150318 ... raze i'd never heard of him until a friend turned me onto his work the other day. my brain went kablooey. some of his stained glass windows are otherworldly: https://paraicd.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/photo-of-eve-of-st-agnes.jpg 150318 ... raze dangerous crossing (1970) will sampson oil on canvas best known for playing chief bromden in "one flew over the cuckoo's nest", will sampson was a painter first. the magic of nature was a recurring theme in his work. "mountains, thunderstorms, lightning, rain — they awe me," he said. "man doesn't." look: http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2010/01/28/2727804/DangerousCrossing.jpg 150331 ... raze as with a_picture_you_should_see, some of the links in this blathe have gone dead over time. thought i'd swoop in and replace the ones that don't lead anywhere anymore. i wish things weren't stretched out quite so much from the horizontal subterfuge of past linkage (it's always a little annoying when you have to scroll sideways to read a blathe), but what can ye do? "madonna" (1894-1895) edvard munch new link: https://i.ibb.co/nnQv5YM/Madonna-Edvard-Munch.jpg "de sterrennacht" / "the starry night" (1889) vincent van gogh new link: https://i.ibb.co/BT6nm09/De-Sterrennacht-The-Starry-Night-Vincent-Van-Gogh.jpg "butterfly daydream" (2008) rose evenson new link: https://i.ibb.co/Bq0dMQJ/Butterfly-Daydream-Rose-Evenson.jpg untitled wallpaper art (c. 1780) artist(s) unknown new link: https://i.ibb.co/KcPCBPf/Funeral-Procession-artist-unknown.jpg "der wanderer über dem nebelmeer" / "wanderer above the sea of fog" (1818) caspar david friedrich new link: https://i.ibb.co/YXC7sx3/Der-Wanderer-ber-dem-Nebelmeer-Wanderer-Above-the-Sea-of-Fog-Caspar-David-Friedrich.jpg 211027 ... unhinged artsy.net 211028 what's it to you? who go blather from