Click image for a closer look.

Here some info about this great Sculptor (taken from here):

Damián Campeny y Estrany

(b Mataró, 12 April 1771; d Barcelona, 7 July 1855). Spanish sculptor and teacher. He began studying at the Escuela de Bellas Artes de la Lonja in Barcelona at the age of 14, and he worked in the studio of Salvador Gurri ( fl 1756-1819), a late Baroque sculptor with Neo-classical tendencies. Campeny left the studio after he was attacked by Gurri, who, as a teacher at the Escuela (1785), continued to persecute him and threw him out. Campeny then worked in Lérida, Cervera and Montserrat. He produced his first major work, St Bruno (1795; destr. 1831), in carved polychromed wood. He also trained with Nicolás Traver and José Cabañeras, both late Baroque artists. Stylistically, Campeny began with a moderate and personal naturalism, later assimilating some of the Baroque influences from his Catalan teachers. Readmitted to the Escuela, in 1795 he won a scholarship to complete his studies in Rome, where he went in 1796 and had his own studio for 17 years. He was at the Accademia di S Luca, worked in the restoration department of the Museo Capitolino and also studied with Antonio Canova, who had a decisive influence on his work and became a close friend. In Italy he became such a pure Neo-classicist that he was called the ‘Spanish Canova’. Various works from this period are held at the Lonja in Barcelona, for example Paris (1808) and Campeny’s masterpiece the Dying Lucretia (plaster, 1803; marble, 1834). The collection also contains a statue of the Virgin as Ianua Coeli (1815), made using various hard coloured stones.

I must say I am totally enchanted by this statue: I want to rush to Lucretia and hold her in my arms to rescue or at least comfort her on her way to the afterlife.

What a great piece of art.

Part of the Art Motive Series: "The Story of Lucretia"

Bouguereau painted many biblical, pagan and really trivial moments in his life. Most biblical paintings pick a well known or popular scene to play to the audience or the rich patron.

In this case Bouguereau has chosen a very unusual situation: Adam and Eve mourn the death of Abel - who was famously slain by his Brother Cain. Abel was the first human to die - and also the first one to by slain by his own kin and kind. And he is also considered the first Martyr.

What a great start for humanity after being exiled from Paradise.

Death scenes make great drama and many painters really go for christian kitsch and symbolism (especially in biblical scenes). Bouguereau keeps it very simple and very human.

The painting has also a very personal meaning: Bouguereau painted it after the death of his second son.

More? Adolphe-William Bouguereau @ ArtRenewal.org and Wikipedia

Dedicated to Lisa and lucecorner - who both asked for more paintings with music. Bitteschön!

He seems to be quite a charming young fellow, don’t you think Lord Archibald?

I really love his sensual paintings and lush surroundings. When you see more than three of his images you immediately spot his style and addiction to a certain type of woman.

But once you know that his wife Elizabeth Siddal in 1862 - who killed herself after the birth of their dead child - it all becomes all so understandable.

Heartbroken Rossetti drowned his sorrows with booze and drugs. His life was not a happy one. Apart from being a gifted painter he also wrote poetry and published works on Italian authors.

Elizabeth was also the model for many other artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood - so you might know her from other paintings as well.

He died sad, broken and mentally unstable 1882.

More? Rossetti @ ArtRenewal.org or @ Wikipedia and a List of his paintings. And an excellent online exhibition by the Walker Art Gallery.

Click image for a bigger apple and arrow …

The title derives from Latin literature and means ‘Venus, turner of hearts’. This is the Sonnet he wrote for this painting:

She hath the apple in her hand for thee,
Yet almost in her heart would hold it back;
She muses, with her eyes upon the track
Of that which in thy spirit they can see.
Haply, ‘Behold, he is at peace,’ saith she;
‘Alas! the apple for his lips, - the dart
That follows its brief sweetness to his heart,-
The wandering of his feet perpetually!’

A little space her glance is still and coy;
But if she give the fruit that works her spell,
Those eyes shall flame as for her Phrygian boy.
Then shall her bird’s strained throat the woe foretell,
And her far seas moan as a single shell,
And through her dark grove strike the light of Troy.

Poetry and image information taken from here.

More? Rossetti @ ArtRenewal.org or @ Wikipedia

Hey Stumblers … don’t forget to check out the other Rossetti paintings below.

Click image for more red hair …

Lilith is the first woman Adam met in paradise - not Eve. She was an tempting topic for many painters. And this motive is pre-christian and appears in the Gilgamesh epos.

More? Rossetti @ ArtRenewal.org or @ Wikipedia

Click image for more Rossetti music …

The model is Alexa Wilding and the paintings shares some creative DNA with another of his great images "Venus Verticordia".

More? Rossetti @ ArtRenewal.org or @ Wikipedia

Click image for more blue amazement.

Once again the classic Rossetti Lady (the famous Jane Burden aka Jane Morris) in perfect pose. Unusal are the blue and green tones - he usually prefers red hair and warm earth tones. This is his last painting before he died in the same year.

More? Rossetti @ ArtRenewal.org or @ Wikipedia

Click image for an even larger master piece.

I think this is the most touching painting I know. Blindness surrounded by the beauty of nature and color (in form of a rainbow in the background). But it’s also about the unfairness of life itself. She is blind, her little sister / daughter isn’t.

More? Some articles discussing the painting: Victorian Web, Wikipedia and Millais entry @Artrenewal.org

Click image for more Death and Drama.

In the absence of mass media and the Internet in the old days it could take years or even decades before important scenes were framed and ‘archived’ for the public to see.

Word of mouth was often the only and the fastest ways to get the news. It must have been a strange time compared to our high speed lifestyles.

Just compare this ‘lonely painting’ to all the news, images, videos and dribble that has been written and broadcast about Princess Diana’s death.

Click images for a more stunning Venus.

Once of the most iconic images of European art - and one of the greatest goddesses of all times. If you look around you we are surrounded by fit young and blonde Sisters of Venus these days.

Her breasts are a bit too small compared to the current beauty ideal and her facial expression is also a bit too innocent. We like our woman a bit more slutty these days.

Click image for a larger drama.

Gustave Dore is a giant. He created amazing illustrations and paintings. Too bad that modern publishers hardly illustrate their books anymore.

Click image for more drama.

Breath taking moment from a great master. Open the big image and get lost in this painting …

Click image for an even mightier Jupiter.

What a monumental moment - although Jupiter (the Roman version of Zeus) looks a bit like wearing a wig? I love Ingres for his dramatic and powerful style. His creations have the same quality like movies - Ben Hur and the like.

You feel like being in the presence of Jupiter - almost touching that godly aura of his. And just in case you are wondering who Thetis is … visit this Wikipedia entry.

More? Ingres on Wikipedia

Click image for a larger wave.

Another classic from one of my favorite painters. This painting feels fresh and vibrant. Her nudity is natural - not extra sexy and not extra horny.

The only thing I want to see now: what happens when that wave hits her?

Click image for a larger execution.

The drama, the tears, the brutality! I am actually surprised that so many old paintings are pretty bloodless. You rarely see gory scenes like in modern movies. This is especially surprising since those times were pretty bloody, so horrific scenes have been pretty normal to those people - not like us, who see violence and war only mostly on TV or made up movies.

Heinrich Heine:

I don’t know what it may signify
That I am so sad;
There’s a tale from ancient times
That I can’t get out of my mind.

The air is cool and the twilight is falling
and the Rhine is flowing quietly by;
the top of the mountain is glittering
in the evening sun.

The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, wondrous to tell.
Her golden jewelry sparkles
as she combs her golden hair

She combs it with a golden comb
and sings a song as she does,
A song with a peculiar,
powerful melody.

It seizes upon the boatman in his small boat
With unrestrained woe;
He does not look below to the rocky shoals,
He only looks up at the heights.

If I’m not mistaken, the waters
Finally swallowed up fisher and boat;
And with her singing
The Lorelei did this.

German Original:

Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.

Die Luft ist kühl, und es dunkelt,
Un ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
In Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.

Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Leid dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh’.

Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer uns Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lorelei getan.

Sirens and other watery female creatures seem an endless topic in European myths (like other Rhine Maidens, Mermaids or Siren in general). One of them is is Germany’s Lorelei.

It’s actually a place: a rock somewhere down the Rhine.

Like so many waterspirits she also tempted guys to go into the water and suffer a miserable death.

More? Wikipedia

Inspired by Edosan - who sent me the Heine Poem today.

Click image for a bigger final moment.

I personally like realistic paintings best, when they tell an impressive story in a way no photography could. This is such a painting: real, painful, scary, brutal and without merci. Every element works and transport that sense of final judgement to us.

Take a moment to study all the faces in the image. Wow!

John Singer Sargent has created many trivial paintings like family portraits - but he also created a few magical ones. Whoever Madame X was - Sargent has captured her beauty and fascination well. A dream on canvas.

Click image for larger version.

Hypatia is one of my biggest heroes and one of the saddest stories I know (from Wikipedia):

Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, who was her teacher and the last fellow of the Musaeum of Alexandria. Hypatia did not teach in the Musaeum, but received her pupils in her own home. Hypatia became head of the Platonist school at Alexandria in about 400. There she taught on mathematics and philosophy, and counted many prominent Christians among her students. No images of her exist, but nineteenth-century writers and artists envisioned her as an Athene-like beauty.

In 391, Theophilus, the patriarch of Alexandria, ordered the destruction of some of the native Roman pagan temples in the city, which may have included the Musaeum and certainly included the Serapeum (a temple for the worship of Serapis and "daughter library" to the Great Library). In the same year Emperor Theodosius I had published an edict prohibiting various aspects of pagan worship, whereupon (although this was part of a wider phenomenon) Christians throughout the Roman Empire embarked upon a thorough campaign to destroy or christianize pagan places of worship.

Hypatia lived during a conflict between pagans and Christians, who were demanding the final destruction of paganism as an imperial institution. Hypatia, herself a pagan, was respected by many Christians, and was even exalted by a few later Christian authors as a symbol of virtue, often being portrayed by them as a virgin until her death.

Theories about the origins of the mob violence that ended Hypatia’s life range from a local, spontaneous Christian uprising tolerated by the Christian Patriarch Cyril of Alexandria over a conflict between Cyril and the city prefect Orestes; to a conspiracy by the Emperor himself; to a lawless, civilian "peasant stock" mob (soldiers are never mentioned) made up of Christians and non-Christians alike, led by a man named "Peter". Another point of view holds that Hypatia was part of a rebellion and her murder inevitable.

Basically she was murdered for religious and political reasons. She is one of the many Martyrs of Science. She died like so many before and after her, because she simply knew too much and was ahead of her times.

Some more information about the painting and the artist here.

Click image for a larger version.

Even Heroes need support. But not often in our lifes we receive the help of a divine intervention and extra special weapons for the task at hand.

From Wikipedia:

Perseus, or Perseos the legendary founder of Mycenae and of the Perseid dynasty there, was the first of the mythic heroes of Greek mythology whose exploits helped establish the hegemony of Zeus and the Twelve Olympians in the mainland of Greece. Perseus was the hero who killed Medusa.

After some time, Polydectes fell in love with Danae and desired to remove Perseus from the island. He thereby hatched a plot to send him away in disgrace. Polydectes announced a banquet wherein each guest would be expected to bring him a horse, that he might woo Hippodamia, “tamer of horses”. The fisherman’s protegé had no horse but promised instead to bring the head of Medusa, one of the gorgons, whose very expression turns people to stone. The Medusa was horselike in archaic representations (Kerenyi 1959:48), the terrible filly of a mare—Demeter, the Mother herself— who was in her mare nature when Poseidon assumed stallion form and covered her. The issue of her foaling were the gorgon sisters. Polydectes held Perseus to his rash promise.

For such a heroic quest, a divine helper would be necessary, and for a long time Perseus wandered aimlessly, without hope of ever finding the gorgons or of being able to accomplish his mission should he do so.

According to the iconography of the vase-painters, the gods Hermes and Athena came to his rescue. They did not know the way themselves, being of a younger generation of deities, but they knew ancient ones who would know; they led him to the Graeae, sisters of the gorgons, three perpetually old women with one eye and tooth among them. Perseus snatched the eye at the moment they were blindly passing it from one to another and would not return it until they had given him directions. He also received winged sandals, a magic wallet (kibisis), the cap of Hades that made one invisible, also known as the Cap of Darkness, an adamantine sickle such as the one that reaped the genitals of Uranus, and a mirrored shield. With all this, “Like a wild boar he entered the cave” where he came upon the sleeping gorgons. By viewing Medusa’s reflection in his shield he could safely approach and cut off her head. Seeing her own reflection in the shield, the Gorgon herself was turned to stone. The other two gorgons pursued him, but in his cap of invisibility he escaped.

1. Start Audioplayer below:

2. Click image for a much lager version.

3. Sacrifice five minutes of your life to really look at this painting.

I wonder if this was considered porn during it’s days?

I am actually very surprised that I hardly posted any paintings from this great Artist. First of all his style is dark, brutal and sensual - just adore it. You’ll hardly find another painter with such simple compositions, but such honest and direct execution of his stories.

Second - he is part of the Munich Secessions - so that’s home - so expect some more Stuck in this blog.

More? Artrenewal.org and Wikipedia

The ‘original’ - Guido Reni’s San Sebastian.

Japanese writer Mishima posing for the same position.

Pamela going for dollars.

Piere and Gilles - the high Priests of Gayness in Art

Classical themes are still alive and kicking - we just often don’t recognize their heritage in a new composition. Their are deeply rooted in our collective art memories.

Every day should start like that … a cosmic muse smiling down on us mere mortals …