Shake your hips
Category Archives: Art History/Antiquity/Anthropology
stigmata of contradiction
Putting the world in order in just the opposite way. That is, instead of simplifying, the material the world offers to that artist, the opposite effect occurs and we have a multiplication of detail. That is the case of Van … Continue reading
fracturing the bow
In spite of distortion, objects in an expressionistic painting are still recognizable. However, in abstraction, objects tend to lose their identity as objects and take on an existence as pure form. An example is George Braque’s “Musical Forms” which is … Continue reading
it’s an ordered world: plane enjoyment
The essential element in any classical composition is order. Although, all composition is order in one form or another, in classical composition order is associated with the idea of repose and possibly can exist for itself alone as an exercise, … Continue reading
family affairs
Particular circumstances of individual relationships in all their psychological subtleties fascinated a young Frenchman who painted a family group about 1860 when he was not even thirty years old. But at that age Edgar Degas was already an urbane cosmopolite. … Continue reading
composing with the “conversation piece”
As a solution to the problem of composition and context, “The Night Watch” by Rembrandt was a brilliant consolidation of a given number of figures into a group portrait and, under the conditions of this particular assignment, seems to have … Continue reading
The Night Shift
A misunderstood picture? … The figures in the picture are awarded varying degrees of prominence. The fact that some of them had all but disappeared, obscured through coats of yellowed varnish and layers of dirt, helped give rise to the … Continue reading
all together now
Group portraits represent one of the most vexing problems a painter is ever required to resolve requiring as it may, expressive ingenities that defy standard compositional devices… In a group portrait each member must be awarded their proportionate measure of … Continue reading
daumier: love and merciless
Honore Daumier made his living as a cartoonist. His paintings were known to few during his lifetime. But, upon his death a syndicate acquired them and made a tidy killing on the proceeds. Daumier did about five thousand cartoons, though … Continue reading
print collecting in the arcade
Art of the fantastic or visionary art. Generally at best a tenuous relationship with the world we know and must depend upon associations of the most personal and inward kind. Our response to visions and dreams hinges on these connection, … Continue reading
klee: emptying the void
Paul Klee. First thing to hang your hat on is that his great technical skill and intellectualism were peripheral to his art. His art, for the most part, remains a mystery to be solved by most, a sophisticated harmony battling … Continue reading
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