This particular work isn’t so much about the theme as it is the use of color. Everything is precisely colored and juxtaposed and contrasted in such a way to draw the eye from one place to another in sequence. It’s very effective, and the bright hues make it impossible to ignore the demand.
Tag: European Art
Thursday
You can’t appreciate this work without realizing that it’s basically bloody enormous – seriously, the damn thing is huge. Like, to get the picture, I literally had to go into another gallery and fiddle with my zoom to get everything into the frame, and I had to make sure I wasn’t going to interfere with anyone else in either gallery before I did it – which is a major feat, considering both galleries are always insanely busy. But I digress!
This is classic 18th century art masquerading as Baroque come Renaissance religious art. It’s trying to be everything at once and the result is actually a stunningly romanticized version of the Annunciation that actually works in a way that many of the Old Masters couldn’t quite get across – it’s a softer, cleaner, sanitized version of religion without all the hyperbole and the hellfire of the middle ages. And it works in a different way to the Renaissance works as well. There are clever nods to Italian aesthetics over the French hyperindulgences as well in the choices of fabrics portrayed as well as in the lack of abundance of precious metals and jewels, which would have been splayed about if the painting had been done by a French artist of the same period.
Wednesday
You can tell this is an item that was used as intended because of the wear on the handle – the carved lines aren’t nearly as deep or distinct as they would have been originally. As such, you can also imagine that the family that this coffeepot belonged to was not necessarily of the highest reaches of the aristocracy, or even the middle ranks of the peerage, based on the design work. This probably belonged to a lower ranking modest country estate, such as featured prominently in the writings of Bronte and Austen, or even in the household of a mistress or a bastard child that was not shunned.
Tuesday
I’m going to gloss over the pretentiousness of the silversmith’s chosen moniker (Godbehere indeed, she scoffs, stuffing an Oreo in her face as god is definitely not in this hood), and point out that, pretentious git or not, he was really rather decent at his craft. His design is nowhere near some of the ornately decorated wares of the Baroque, Rococo, and Georgian/American Revolutionary periods, but it is in its simple flashiness a kind of testament to a grander form of elegance that would come into vogue immediately following the Regency and into the early Victorian periods.
Monday
For all that this is meant to be a tranquil landscape scene, it is anything but: it is full of drama and movement and force of nature. Everything about it speaks of impending climactic change.
Sunday
Even though the subject is clearly a prepubescent girl, the perspective is all off. Her legs aren’t shaped correctly, her arms are disproportionate, her head is too large for her shoulders in context, etc. Clearly, this is all meant to add to the theme of surrealism and be a stopping off point for making everything just a little tiny bit wonky. It’s working.
Saturday
Where Mondrian was only about sharp geometric lines and intersections on a linear grid of basic concept abstraction, those who were able to tread his footsteps and branch away such as Helion with the movement into curved forms and other similar but still basic abstraction soon laid the groundwork for explosion into a world of abstraction of pure color as a form of its own.
Friday
Sometimes, a bull fight is a psychological manifestation of sexual tension and energy unfulfilled and blah blah blah, and sometimes it’s just a bull fight and randomly violent and not anything else. And sometimes, it’s a bloody painting.
Thursday
This actually screams post-modern art deco when you look at it properly. The lines are all the fluid, geometric forms of art deco, but taken to a streamlined form ala Bauhaus.
Wednesday
The composition of this painting reminds me, funnily enough, of a candle, both in coloring and in structural elements. It has a very distinct feel to it, and even the paint reflects light and shimmers like the flame of a candle.