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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On 8 Jun, 2010 With
The redisplay of the museum’s Medieval and Renaissance Galleries By Anna Somers Cocks In the Middle Ages it rained a lot, the beastly barons kept throwing the peasants into dungeons and there was very little for the poor to eat except potatoes. This gallimaufry of Robin Hood meets Blackadder meets Marx on feudalism came from art college students in a survey conducted by the Victoria & Albert Museum in preparation to redisplaying its 3,250 square metres of Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. The galleries opened on 2 December. The survey also showed that most people did not think much of medieval art: flat, ugly and “my children can draw better than this” was the most common reaction. The Renaissance elicited a…
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On 7 Jun, 2010 With
Egyptians cancel Algerian pavilion at Alexandria Biennale following violent protests By Claudia Barbieri The letter mailed to Zineb Sedira at her London home on 22 November was short and to the point. Mohsen Shaalan, head of the fine arts sector of the Egyptian culture ministry and president of the 25th Alexandria Biennale (17 December-31 January), informed the video artist that in response to “the request of the Egyptian population and notably the nation’s intellectuals”, her invitation to take part in the biennale, starting three weeks later, had been cancelled. The reason, it said, was “recent incidents committed by the Algerian public”, a reference, seemingly, to the mob violence by both Egyptian and Algerian football fans that swept several countries before…
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On 7 Jun, 2010 With
No doubt about it, Picasso was brilliant: artistically, he was years ahead of his classmates who were all five to six years older than him. But Picasso chafed at being told what to do and he was often thrown into “detention”: “For being a bad student I was banished to the ‘calaboose’ – a bare cell with whitewashed walls and a bench to sit on. I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly … I could have stayed there forever drawing without stopping”
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On 7 Jun, 2010 With
Most writers observe that Titian had four different manners, at as many different periods of his life: first that of Bellini, somewhat stiff and hard, in which he imitated nature, according to Lanzi, with a greater precision than even Albert Durer, so that “the hairs might be numbered, the skin of the hands, the very pores of the flesh, and the reflection of objects in the pupils seen:” second, an imitation of Giorgione, more bold and full of force; Lanzi says that some of his portraits executed at this time, cannot be distinguished from those of Giorgione: third, his own inimitable style, which he practiced from about his thirtieth year, and which was the result of experience, knowledge, and judgment,…
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