On 11 Jun, 2010 With
Richard Gray, who has galleries in Chicago and New York, is donating a substantial portion of his collection to public museums US dealer Richard Gray, who has galleries in Chicago and New York, is donating a substantial portion of his collection to public museums. Predominantly works on paper, his 200-strong collection is rich in early Italian and French old masters, as well as late 19th-century and early 20th-century European and US artists. Nine promised gifts to the Art Institute of Chicago will be officially announced at the opening of its exhibition “Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Master Drawings” (24 September-2 January 2011). “The bulk of the collection will end up at the Art Institute,” says Gray. “But I have started…
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On 11 Jun, 2010 With
A Brief History of Printmaking from arthistory.about.com In the beginning, before the printing press, printmaking was not considered an art form, rather a medium of communication. It was not till the 18th century that art prints began to be considered originals and not till the 19th that artists began to produce limited editions and to sign their prints along with the technical information necessary to authenticate the work. Engraving goes back to cave art, executed on stones, bones and cave walls. The duplication of engraved images goes back some 3,000 years to the Sumerians who engraved designs on stone cylinder seals. Academics think that the Chinese produced a primitive form of print, the rubbing, as far back as the 2nd…
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On 11 Jun, 2010 With
Actually no, but in 1911, when the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre, the police took in Picasso’s friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire. Apollinaire fingered Picasso as a suspect, so the police hauled him in for questioning. Both were later released.
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On 10 Jun, 2010 With
Titian, the great head of the Venetian school, like Raffaelle, the head of the Roman, had a host of imitators and copyists, some of whom approached him so closely as to deceive the best judges; and many works attributed to him, even in the public galleries of Europe, were doubtless executed by them.
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On 10 Jun, 2010 With
HISTORY OF OIL PAINT from arthistory.about.com The oldest Mediterranean civilization, Greek, Roman or Egyptian have extensively used painting techniques based on mixtures of encaustic (probably rich in bee wax), mineral pigments (iron, copper, manganese oxides) and tempera. Vegetal oils, such as flax, walnut or poppyseed oil were known to ancient Egyptians, Greeks or Romans, but no precise indication of their use in painting may be found. Tempera is a fluid mixture of binder (organic medium), water and volatile additives (vegetal essential oils). Organic binders used by Italian artists were proteinaceous materials available from animal sources (whole egg, animal glues or milk). At the end of the roman empire and up to the Renaissance period (15th century), this ancient technique was lost…
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On 9 Jun, 2010 With
There were many colossal statues of Memnon in Egypt, but the most remarkable were the two in the Memnonium or palace of Memnon, at Thebes. The largest is of rose-colored granite, and stood in the centre of the principal court; its height was sixty-four feet, and its remains are scattered forty feet around it. Rigaud, one of the French savans, says, “the excavations are still visible where the wedges were placed which divided the monument when it was thrown down by Cambyses.” The trunk is broke off at the waist, and the upper part lies prostrate on the back; it measures six feet ten inches over the front of the head, and sixty-two feet round the shoulders. At the entrance…
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On 9 Jun, 2010 With
Being a famous artist certainly helped Picasso get the girl. Girls, in fact – many, many girls. Here’s a short list of known wives and lovers of Picasso – Fernande Olivier (Picasso’s first love, she was 18?; he was 23) – Marcelle Humbert AKA Eva Gouel (she was 27, Picasso was 31) – Gaby Lespinasse (he was 34, I don’t know how old Gaby was, but she was young, that’s for sure!) – Olga Khokhlova (Picasso’s first wife; she was 26 and he was 36 when they met) – Marie-Thérèse Walter (she was 17, he was 46) – Dora Maar (she was 29, Picasso was 55) – Françoise Gilot (she was 21 when she met Picasso, who was 61) –…
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On 9 Jun, 2010 With
When thwarted in the Academy (which happened not unfrequently), his wrath aired itself in a polyglott. “It is a pleasant thing, and an advantageous,” said the painter, on one of these occasions, “to be learned. I can speak Greek, Latin, French, English, German, Danish, Dutch, and Spanish, and so let my folly or my fury get vent through eight different avenues.”
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On 8 Jun, 2010 With
In 1909, Picasso and French artist Georges Braque co-founded an art movement known as cubism. Actually, it was a French art critic Louis Vauxcelles who first called it “bizarre cubiques” or cubism, after noting that Picasso and Braque’s paintings are “full of little cubes.”
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On 8 Jun, 2010 With
The temple of Luxor is about one and a fourth mile above that of Carnac, and though it is of smaller dimensions it is in a superior style of architecture, and in more complete preservation. The entrance is thought to surpass everything else that Egypt presents. In front are the two finest obelisks in the world, formed of rose-colored granite, and rising, as Denon supposes, after allowing for the portion buried in the ground, to the height of one hundred feet. But the objects which most attract attention, are the sculptures which cover the east wing of the northern front. They represent on a grand scale, a victory gained by one of the ancient kings of Egypt over their Asiatic…
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