On 11 Nov, 2010 With
While Fuseli was laboring on his celebrated “Milton Gallery,” he was frequently embarrassed by pecuniary difficulties. From these he was relieved by a steadfast friend—Mr. Coutts—who aided him while in Rome, and forsook him not in any of his after difficulties. The grateful painter once waited on the banker, and said, “I have finished the best of all my works—the Lazar House—when shall I send it home?” “My friend,” said Mr. Coutts, “for me to take this picture would be a fraud upon you and upon the world. I have no place in which it could be fitly seen. Sell it to some one who has a gallery—your kind offer of it is sufficient for me, and makes all matters…
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On 10 Nov, 2010 With
Odd Nerdrum uses a small (less than 12″ on the longest side) homemade oval shaped palette cut out from foamcore. It is tinted brown. COLORS on the palette: (Old Holland brand) -Titanium White w/ a tint of Old Holland Blue (which he pre-mixed into a tube) -Briliant Yellow Light -Yellow Brown -Madder (Crimson) Lake Deep Extra -Brown Ochre (Deep?) -Green Umber?-Warm Grey (which he pre-mixed from Ti White/ Brown Ochre/ Green Umber) -Mars Black (warmer and less harsh than Ivory Black) -Scheveningen Orange? (I think that’s what he used. but I was surprised because I thought this color is fugitive)
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On 9 Nov, 2010 With
Confronting the Issue of Fake Art (original version of a story I wrote for Mumbai Mirror, which was cut down to 400 words, but I will complain about that some other day) Buyer Beware How to avoid becoming a victim of art fraud by Amitabh Nanda The next time you’re approached about a fantastic investment in an Indian work of art, BEWARE, because it is more than possible that you are buying a fake. According to an alarming estimate made by Thomas Hoving, former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, up to 40% of all the works in circulation globally are really forgeries, and in the last few years, a massive number of fakes have seeped into the local art…
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On 7 Nov, 2010 With
Stolen $50 million Vincent van Gogh painting recovered in Cairo airport, stolen by two Italians The only place the Van Gogh will be going is back to the museum. A stolen painting by the famed artist worth $50 million has been recovered by the cops at an airport in Cairo, according to Egypt’s cultural minister. Airport security confiscated the painting from two Italian bandits trying to flee the country on Saturday evening, said minster Farouk Hosni. The painting, which goes by two titles “Poppy Flowers” and “Vase with Flowers,” was stolen early Saturday from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Cairo. The work is 1-foot-by-1-foot and illustrates yellow and red flowers. It is believed to have been painted by Van Gogh in 1887, three years…
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On 6 Nov, 2010 With
The Art of the Third Reich, the officially approved art produced in Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, was characterized by a style ofRomantic realism based on classical models. While banning modern styles as degenerate, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were narrowly traditional in manner and that exalted the “blood and soil” values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Other popular themes for Nazi art were the Volk at work in the fields, a return to the simple virtues of Heimat (love of homeland), the manly virtues of the National Socialist struggle, and the lauding of the female activities of child bearing and raising (Kinder, Küche, Kirche). Similarly, music was expected to be tonal and free of jazz influence; films and plays were censored. Nazi art bears a close similarity to…
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On 5 Nov, 2010 With
Such was ancient Thebes—a city so populous that, according to ancient writers, in times of war 10,000 soldiers issued from each of her hundred gates, forming an army of 1,000,000 men. That these magnificent ruins are the remains of “the city of an hundred gates,”—”the earliest capital in the world,” cannot be doubted. According to the measurements made by the French, their distance from the sea on the north, is 680,000 metres (850 miles), and from Elephantine on the south, 180,000 metres (225 miles)—corresponding exactly with the 6,800 and 1,800 stadia of Herodotus. The circumference of the ruins is about 15,000 metres (17½ miles), agreeing with the 140 stadia given by Diodorus as the circumference of Thebes. The origin of…
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On 4 Nov, 2010 With
Massacre of the Innocents (1611) by Peter Paul Rubens. Massacre of the Innocents (1611) by Peter Paul Rubens. Sold for £49.5m in 2002, at Sotheby’s, London. This work by the Flemish Baroque artist is the most expensive painting by an Old Master.
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On 3 Nov, 2010 With
During Adolf Hitler’s childhood, academics were not his strong point. In grade school, Hitler’s grades in Mathematics, Science, History, German, and French were adequate at best and this greatly displeased his father, Alois Schickelgruber. However, in the early 1900s Adolf Hitler showed an interest in art and began to excel very quickly. Hitler’s average grades were good enough to get him accepted in a university preparatory “gymnasium” or the technical/scientific, Realschule. He chose Realschule because they offered a course in drawing. In 1906, Adolf was permitted to visit Vienna, but he was unable to gain admission to their prestigious art school. Nonetheless, this did not stop him from creating more works of art. Hitler went on to produce many drawings…
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On 2 Nov, 2010 With
Heroic realism is a term which has sometimes been used to describe art used as propaganda. Examples include the Socialist realism style associated with Communist regimes, and the very similar art style associated with Fascism. Its characteristics are realism and the depiction of figures as ideal types or symbols, often with explicit rejection of modernism in art (as “bourgeois” or “degenerate”). Purposes Heroic realism designs were used to propagate the revolution in the Soviet Union during Lenin’s time. Lenin doubted that the illiterate population would understand what abstract visual images were intended to communicate. He also thought that artists, such as constructivists and productivists, may have had a hidden agenda against the government. Indeed, such movements as Cubism were denounced as bourgeois and criticized for failure to draw on…
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On 1 Nov, 2010 With
Émile Schuffenecker Émile Schuffenecker (December 8, 1851 – July 31, 1934) was a French Post-Impressionist artist, painter, art teacher and art collector. A friend of Paul Gauguin and Odilon Redon, and one of the first collectors of works by Vincent van Gogh, Schuffenecker was instrumental in establishing the Volpini exhibition, in 1889. His own work, however, tends to have been neglected since his death—and even worse, recent season campaigns in the media have reactivated resentments virulent since the late 1920s, when Schuffenecker was suspected to haveimitated the work of other contemporary artists, among them, Van Gogh. Still a contentious issue, it has not been established whether he produced forgeries. Meanwhile, serious scholarly research at least has provided the base for a sober art historical approach…
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