Looking at the remnants of Greek and Roman culture one would think that the Ancients lived in a Black & White movie. Marble after a few centuries will be scrubbed clean by wind, sand and rain.
But the Ancients loved colors! Researchers have discovered and shown us that walls were painted, full of colorful mosaics and statutes were beaming with bright decorations.
Click image for more geometry.
In many Picasso paintings I often wonder if he wanted to insult or make fun of his models? The three ladies on the left are portrait almost realistically and in classic poses. While the two on the right look rather ghastly.
What do you think?
Click image for a larger Connoisseur.
Watching the watcher. I can’t help myself thinking that Maestro Rockwell is taking the piss out of modern art lovers and painters as well?!
Right?
One of the great classic Maestro’s of Photography. He shot many poses and captured many moments other photographers still try to snap today. Many of these acolytes could learn from the great Master: most of all he didn’t see objects and people like we would classify and describe them. He didn’t see a woman, a toilet, a pepper or a shell. He only saw shapes, light and composition.
That is why he was able to capture beauty in every object he photographed. He didn’t rate or classify what he say - he just looked at it’s ‘being’ and framed the beauty that was obvious to him.
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? 
I love Ron English - nah, not just for his Cowgirls. He has pulled of some great stunts and created MANY impressive pieces of art. Take some time to visit his great site and discover the many sides of this great Master of wild ideas.
Especially his wacky Billboards are brilliant! Make sure to click through all sections to find some of the better ones deeper into his site.
Overall I am udderly thrilled about this stuff!
More? Official Site or a quick glance at some of his work (with many Udders)
Click image for more surrealism.
Dali and Halsman are both Maestros in their fields of expertise. So their collaboration could only result in a work of supergenius.
I like that image, because it was hard work - they didn’t have Photoshap back in the 1940’s …
More? Philippe Halsman
Sometimes less is more … more excitement, more mystery and more space for our imagination …
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.
Click image for even bigger gates.
I am a huge fan of Kandinsky: his shapes, compositions and most of all color excite me every time. Good thing he lived here in Munich and I can visit some of his great work in local museums.
After the Nazis took power they not only burned books, but also introduced the concept of ‘entartete Kunst’ (degenerate Art - great website covering this topic). This kind of art was of course ungerman, unpatriotic, sick and almost an act of treason.
So I always shake my head in disbelief, when I hear American pundits screaming about unpatriotic and unamerican art. But the same applies to other cultures as well. Anyone remember the fatwa against Salman Rushdie?
Art and self expression still have great power - that is why clerics and politicians still fear them and suppress artists (and ideas), which can endanger their ‘pure’ path of domination.
Diversity of opinions, races and ideas is still facing an uphill battle - but it’s unstoppable and that is why the control freaks are so desperate.
Boring 3D has LOADS of charming, funny and very cool 3D moments. Just have a look at this archive and you get my point. It’s just brilliant! I like the mind behind it - Jimmy Maidens - who has a wicked humor and great sense for drama and composition.
Looking forward to more of this. Enjoy!
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.
What a wonderful site! If you like collages and great art this is the place to visit: nshakespeare.blogspot.com. He has a wicked sense of humor as well as a keen eye for great art. His artwork connects with our daily madness in every aspect. He shows scenes from politics, media, sports, spirituality and sexuality.
I especially love this series of collages with two guys playing cards and drinking wine - not matter what happens around them. This is fabulous!
Enjoy!
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.
Rarely I have heard such a sweet, intoxicating and fascinating blend of Arabic and European melodies and instruments. Please visit the great Tania Eshaghoff and simply wait till the music starts to flow from her website to your ears. A musical special journey awaits you …
Thanks to Edosan for another great link.
More? Wikipedia entry or simply buy this great music.
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.
Love art? Go and knock yourself out: www.artdaily.org. But bring some time with you - this website has some depth!
Sometimes sketches are better than fine art. Go and look into artists sketchbooks at the Moleskin Project.
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.
Another great woodcut by Maestro Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Until the second world war Japans cities mostly consisted out of wooden buildings. So fire was a real threat to them - and firefighter even more important.
Too sad that American decided to totally devastated these old cities through incendiary bombings - which totally snuffed out most of Japan’s cities BEFORE they dropped the atomic bombs. Actually both cities were spared any air attacks to ’save’ them for the big experiments.
Anyway - this is a great painting. Bugger.
