The

Master Arts
Volume
A COLLECTION OF WORKS ABOUT THE ARTS

by

Dennis C. Miller

The Historic Development

of Artistic Styles
by
Dr. Dennis Carroll Miller, D. B. S.

James Robert Lloyd

A NEURAL ALGORITHM OF ARTISTIC STYLE
I shall attempt in this monologue to explain the historic processes by
which style periods are devised in the field of artistic endeavor. By
course, the field of artistry is constantly changing or fluctuating. For
example, for some period of time, everyone paints with a high
degree of loyalty to the use of every possible shade of brilliant color.
Color becomes everything to those artists and subject matter is
relegated to their own certain color theory. Such was fauvism.

Well, let us use a different sort of example to illustrate how this

can happen. Now just suppose that a prominent and talented group
of artists in a certain Canadian province were to devise a method for
sculpting and painting earthen mud called NATURAL MUDISM.
Their theory will be:
1. The most beneficial colors to use are earth tones only, as they
alone are true representatives of the parts of nature.
2. You can use muds in varying degrees of wetness from heavy and
thick chunks and clods, to malleable and moldable medium thick
lumps, to watery thin and liquified slurry.
3. Only natural materials may be painted on: wood, leather, bark,
paper, cloth, and dried leaves.
4. Only natural materials can be used for doing the work such as
pallets, brushes, sticks, and wide pieces of board.
5. The final result must be allowed to cure in the outdoor weather.
This is our construct, design, and format for NATURAL MUDISM.
It becomes very vogue to use mudist style. So the various artists, all
going by the guidelines understood and designated, begin to paint
their own versions of mudist pieces.
One artist prefers to use reddish muds that are high in iron and clay
or cinnabar. Another chooses highly liquified pigments that are very
easy to spread. And still another artist prefers to use more greenish
clays and ochers to specifically paint mostly plant life.

First of all, we will see many kinds of results. One gal has made
scenes of the earths surface wherein the ground is very real. She
uses little but browns, grays, greens, purples, and dark blues, for her
paints are actually made of earth substances that come in those
colors. Nothing could be more natural. A little mixing is done, but
somewhat discouraged, so as to not drift too far afield from solid
natural mudist COLOR theory.
Another uses very thin materials, even shading them with other
colors of substances, like juices and earth oils. This blending with
other substances is a point of license for him, in that it is going
somewhat away from the purest natural mudist theory. This artists
work is chunky in nature, his own added feature or trademark.
The last artist is more inclined to mold or sculpt than paint, as she is
using very thick clay mixtures. Only her pieces are inclined to have
great depth, for she is only limited in depth as far as the clay will
hold. This gives her a great deal of leeway on subject matter.
A last artist uses all the kinds of mudist treatments together,
slathering blotches of thin muds over thickened monuments to create
fresh and more dynamic results.
Many different types of results are given.
On the next go around, one fellow replaces the mud with cheese. He
can do all the things mud can do, but he now has many types of
cheeses in various colors, some earthen looking and some not.
A new thing, called CHEESISM becomes an outworking of mudism.
It is a variation that is unique and very suitable for indoor display as

long as you keep the temperature rather cool so the cheese will not
spoil. It is also edible art, something the old mudists could not do!
As you can well imagine, given any solid construct, a lot of
creativity, and some time, the entire scheme can change greatly.
Each artist expresses their personal style, preferences, and
personality traits. Artists always do that. This causes a lot of variety
very quickly!
So it goes on for a few years and then it changes when a new idea or
faddish version is found.
Then movement occurs. One artist goes to a different part of the
world, say China. The Chinese take natural mudism and go other
more uniquely finesse oriented ways with it, and the world gets
ASIAN MUDISM. Singapore develops a spin off using natural
brushes made from local plant stalks called BAMBOOISM. Brazil
spins off on edible art and develops a fresh, rhythmic style they call
CARNIVALISM.

MARC CHAGALL

CHANGE ONE ELEMENT, METHOD, BASIC IDEA, OR CONCEPT IN VERY

FEW WAYS, AND A WHOLE NEW STYLE CAN BE CREATED. IT HAS
HAPPENED MANY, MANY TIMES DOWN THROUGH THE HISTORY OF ART.
BUILD ALL THAT THEORY INTO THE PAINTING IN A FRESH AND UNIQUE
WAY, AND YOU JUST MIGHT CREATE WHAT WE CALL ART. IT IS
CERTAINLY WORTH A TRY!
SOME HAVE CRITICIZED THAT THE FIELD OF ART IS NOTHING MORE THAN
DEVISING YOUR OWN METHODS AND TREATMENT, THEN PAINTING
ACCORDING TO THAT AESTHETIC, AND THAT APPEARS TO BE TRUE
SOMEWHAT, BUT THERE HAS TO BE MORE THAT IS CLEARLY DEFINED
THAN THAT. IT MUST HAVE SUBSTANTIVE BASIS, OR GUTS, AND UNIQUE
WAYS TO WORK OUT THE THEORY.

ARTS Hidden Values

You never knew

Konstantin Gorbatov, Post Impressionist, Capri, 1938

{ }

a research study
done by

Dr. Dennis C. Miller, D. B. S.

No part of this work may be copied for resale

unless advance written permission is given by the author
This work was first published by
AMAZON KINDLE

and is a production of

Dennis Loves You to the Nth degree Productions

Copyright

2016 by Dr. Dennis C.

Miller

The art shown above...

~ KONSTANTIN GORBATOV ~
Born: May 5, 1876, Tolyatti, Russia
Died: May 24, 1945, Berlin, Germany

Education: Imperial Academy of Arts

Konstantin Gorbatov was born in Stavropol in the Samara province. He
lived in Riga from 1896 to 1903, and studied civil engineering before painting.
Gorbatov moved to St. Petersburg in 1904 and studied at the Baron Stieglitz
Central School for Technical Draftsmanship. He initially entered the architecture
department of the Imperial Academy of Arts before switching to painting that he
studied under Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy. Gorbatov received a
scholarship and studied art in Rome and Capri. He returned to St. Petersburg
and participated in the Peredvizhniki exhibitions.
Gorbatov left Russia permanently in 1922 following the Russian
Revolution of 1917 and settled on the Italian island of Capri. He moved to Berlin
in 1926, where he remained until his death. Gorbatov became a member of a
Russian emgiree artistic circle that included Leonid Pasternak, Vadim Falileyev,
Ivan Myasoyedov. He became a well-known established artist. Gorbatov
traveled throughout Europe during the late 1930s, visited Palestine and Syria in
1934 and 1935, and often came by Italy. Gorbatov's art became unneeded in the
Nazi Germany and the family soon became impoverished. As a Soviet citizen,
he was forbidden to leave Germany during World War II. Gorbatov died shortly
after the allied victory over Germany on 12 May 1945. His wife committed
suicide on 17 July 1945.
~ WIKIPEDIA
Gorbatov bequeathed to the Academy of Arts in Leningrad. The works
were delivered to the Moscow Regional Museum of history and Arts in the New
Jerusalem Monastery, where they have since been exhibited.[2]

What is with art?

njoying great art can be very enriching.

It brings us

entertainment, grand thoughts, contemplation, fulfillment, other

viewpoints, etc., so many things. Some folks are completely into art and
others just dont see the point of some picture. Is art special? Why? Is it
considered special just because the artist is famous or well liked? Whats THE
BIG DEAL with someone long ago scribbling a bunch of paint on a canvass?
And, just what makes it ART, anyway? I frankly dont get it, some will say.
While others will go, Man, isnt that cool? Look at the melange of crisp and
energetic colorist treatments. Wow, his abiding sense of prairie desolation is
right in my face. The chiaroscuro is brilliant! I like the way he burnished the
graphite, fading it away from the rose. I just love the intensity of angst that Van
Gogh had... Now this last is very much painterspeak, huh?
Well, I have found that the more and better I understand the artist, the
work itself, the theory behind the style of painting that is being used, the
situation and times in which it was painted, the directions and feelings of the
artists colleagues, and the history behind the painting, the more I can
understand, appreciate, and enjoy the painting. The more I know, the more I
have to value.

In our title you will see the words, Hidden Values. That part is intentional
and planned, you see. Not everything that an artist has attempted to insert into
the work will be immediately apparent. In this work, we are going to use a
specific painting by a specific artist at specific times to see what we can
specifically ferret out of the art. We will draw on that which is somewhat and
sometimes not real clear at first, in an obvious effort to enhance what we can
see, and add to it. That will give the art greater value for us.

Learn how to appreciate art in a few minutes

From Lifestyle by Anthony Dejolde

For someone who has not studied art, looking at a painting or a sculpture,
especially if its abstract, can be an experience similar to staring at a work of art
done by an alien. Yep, an art major may enjoy paintings, sculptures, prints,
designs, photography, and other forms of visual art simply because he has
studied art. On the other hand, a non-art major may not be able to appreciate
those art forms because he doesnt understand the elements of art involved.
For instance, in the world of visual art like sculpture or painting, our senses
can perceive elements such as form, shape, texture, line, color and value, or
what we may call tone. Each of these elements play a particular role in every art
piece.
In case you are one of those whose degree doesnt include art history or
any art related subject, you may not be able to enjoy paintings or sculptures

especially the kind which are hard to grasp. No worries, Incident Comics Grant
Snider can help you learn art appreciation fast and easy. The best part is you
can begin to appreciate the classics and even the pieces on parks after taking
the time to peruse the graphic presented here.

Perhaps, and quite clearly so, one of Americas favorite painters is

Norman Rockwell.
Here is some biography on Rockwell, provided by MRM.org,
Born in New York City in 1894, Norman Rockwell always wanted to be an
artist. At age 14, Rockwell enrolled in art classes at The New York School of Art
(formerly The Chase School of Art). Two years later, in 1910, he left high school
to study art at The National Academy of Design. He soon transferred to The Art
Students League, where he studied with Thomas Fogarty and George
Bridgman. Fogartys instruction in illustration prepared Rockwell for his first
commercial commissions. From Bridgman, Rockwell learned the technical skills
on which he relied throughout his long career.
Rockwell found success early. He painted his first commission of four
Christmas cards before his sixteenth birthday. While still in his teens, he was
hired as art director of Boys Life, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of

America, and began a successful freelance career illustrating a variety of young

peoples publications.
At age 21, Rockwells family moved to New Rochelle, New York, a
community whose residents included such famous illustrators as J.C. and Frank
Leyendecker and Howard Chandler Christy. There, Rockwell set up a studio with
the cartoonist Clyde Forsythe and produced work for such magazines as Life,
Literary Digest, and Country Gentleman. In 1916, the 22-year-old Rockwell
painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine considered
by Rockwell to be the greatest show window in America. Over the next 47
years, another 321 Rockwell covers would appear on the cover of the Post. Also
in 1916, Rockwell married Irene OConnor; they divorced in 1930.
The 1930s and 1940s are generally considered to be the most fruitful
decades of Rockwells career. In 1930 he married Mary Barstow, a
schoolteacher, and the couple had three sons, Jarvis, Thomas, and Peter. The
family moved to Arlington, Vermont, in 1939, and Rockwells work began to
reflect small-town American life.
In 1943, inspired by President Franklin Roosevelts address to Congress,
Rockwell painted the Four Freedoms paintings. They were reproduced in four
consecutive issues of The Saturday Evening Post with essays by contemporary
writers. Rockwells interpretations of Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship,

Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear proved to be enormously popular.
The works toured the United States in an exhibition that was jointly sponsored
by the Post and the U.S. Treasury Department and, through the sale of war
bonds, raised more than $130 million for the war effort.
Although the Four Freedoms series was a great success, 1943 also
brought Rockwell an enormous loss. A fire destroyed his Arlington studio as well
as numerous paintings and his collection of historical costumes and props.
In 1953, the Rockwell family moved from Arlington, Vermont, to
Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Six years later, Mary Barstow Rockwell died
unexpectedly. In collaboration with his son Thomas, Rockwell published his
autobiography, My Adventures as an Illustrator, in 1960. The Saturday Evening
Post carried excerpts from the best-selling book in eight consecutive issues,
with Rockwells Triple Self-Portrait on the cover of the first.
In 1961, Rockwell married Molly Punderson, a retired teacher. Two years
later, he ended his 47-year association with The Saturday Evening Post and
began to work for Look magazine. During his 10-year association with Look,
Rockwell painted pictures illustrating some of his deepest concerns and
interests, including civil rights, Americas war on poverty, and the exploration of
space.

In 1973, Rockwell established a trust to preserve his artistic legacy by placing

his works in the custodianship of the Old Corner House Stockbridge Historical
Society, later to become Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge. The trust
now forms the core of the Museums permanent collections. In 1976, in failing
health, Rockwell became concerned about the future of his studio. He arranged
to have his studio and its contents added to the trust. In 1977, Rockwell
received the nations highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 2008, Rockwell was named the official state artist of the Commonwealth
of Massachusetts, thanks to a dedicated effort from students in Berkshire
County, where Rockwell lived for the last 25 years of his life.
Rockwell was quite an interesting guy and an awesome talent, as you can see! Now lets look at

some of his art, shall we? Here is a piece for which he got considerable fame, notoriety, criticism,

and regard.
We the peoples by Norman Rockwell

We the Peoples: Norman Rockwells United Nations, is a historic

exhibition and collaboration between the United Nations, United Nations
Foundation, and The Norman Rockwell Museum. The exhibition was made
possible by support from the United Nations Foundation.
This special exhibition honoring the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations
brings together Norman Rockwells original United Nations drawing, his Golden
Rule painting, and a collection of works that reflect his appreciation for humanity
as a citizen of the world. The artists creative process is explored from first idea
to finished art through Rockwells sketches, color studies, and hand-written
notes for his United Nations and Golden Rule images. In addition, a selection of
reference photographs featuring United Nations Security Council members and
staff, and models posing in his Arlington, Vermont studio, offer insights into the
extensive process that Rockwell undertook to hone his vision. An avid traveler,
Rockwell visited many countries throughout the world, on assignment and for
enjoyment. Other exhibition highlights include a colorful series of travel paintings
featuring spontaneous oil portraits of the people of India and Russia; drawings
from the artists sketchbook created on worldwide tour for a Pan American
Airlines advertising campaign; and paintings documenting the work of Peace
Corps volunteers in India and Colombia, created for Look magazine in 1966.
These, and other iconic images of the civil rights era, reflect Rockwells idealism
and hopeful outlook for the future.

In 1952, at the height of the cold war and two years into the Korean War,
Rockwell conceived an image of the United Nations as the worlds hope for the
future. His appreciation for the organization and its mission inspired a complex
work portraying members of the Security Council and 65 people representing
the nations of the worlda study for an artwork that he originally intended to
complete in painted form. Researched and developed to the final drawing stage,
the artists United Nations never actually made it to canvas. This detailed
charcoal and pencil drawing is being shown outside of Stockbridge,
Massachusetts for the first time, presenting a rare opportunity to experience
Rockwells art in its original form.
In this piece we very much see the heart of Norman Rockwell. Portrayed
are various races, religions, ages, sexes, trades, and even the military. Several
people are in what I shall describe as penitent postures, with hands folder for
prayer. In this, Norman described our directive of being One nation under God,
indivisible, for from the coming of the first colonists to our shores, to the original
Continental Congress, to the founders of this land and our Declaration of
Independence, The Bill of Rights, and the Constitution thy penned, Rockwell
perfectly displays our religious heritage of faith and our unity. Seated at the
table are leaders from the USSR, the USA, and the UK.

FREEDOM FROM WANT BY NORMAN ROCKWELL

Rockwell realized that the freedoms we Americans have are extremely

important to us. He shows four basic ones, Speech, Worship, Want, and Fear.

In art, as in other fields of endeavor, there truly is nothing new under the
sun! For example, notice that,
As the premier cover illustrator for the enormously popular Saturday
Evening Post for much of the first half of the 20th century, Leyendecker's work
both reflected and helped mold many of the visual aspects of the era's culture in
America. The mainstream image of Santa Claus as a jolly fat man in a red furtrimmed coat was popularized by Leyendecker, as was the image of the New
Year Baby.[19] The tradition of giving flowers as a gift on Mother's Day was
started by Leyendecker's May 30, 1914 Saturday Evening Post cover depicting
a young bellhop carrying hyacinths. It was created as a commemoration of
President Woodrow Wilson's declaration of Mother's Day as an official holiday that
year.
J. C. Leyendecker was a chief influence upon, and friend of, Norman
Rockwell, who was a pallbearer at Leyendecker's funeral. In particular, the early
work of Norman Rockwell for the Saturday Evening Post bears a strong
superficial resemblance to that of Leyendecker. While today it is generally
accepted that Norman Rockwell established the best-known visual images of
Americana, in many cases they are derivative of Leyendecker's work, or
reinterpretations
~ WIKIPEDIA

of

visual

themes

established

by

Rockwell's

idol.

3 UMPIRES by Norman Rockwell

TO ME, THIS IS CLASSIC ROCKWELL, 3 UMPIRES, THAT SHOWED
ROCKWELLS LOVE OF AMERICA BY PORTRAYING A SCENE FROM A
RAINED OUT BASEBALL GAME. HIS SENSE OF HUMOR WOULD OFTEN
COME THROUGH.

THE GUYS HERE ARE ON HOLDING OUT THEIR

HANDS TO CATCH THE RAIN, AND HAVE CURIOUS EXPRESSIONS ON

THEIR FACES THAT SHOW DISAPPOINTMENT. ALSO, THE TWO MEN ON
THE RIGHT WHO ARE ARGUING ABOUT THE RAIN CAUGHT A VERY
CURIOUS MOMENT. EVERYONE HAS AN OH, DARN! ATTITUDE. I CAN
JUST IMAGINE THE ONE PLAYER WHO IS POINTING AT THE SKY AS
SAYING, AW, COME ON, MAN. ITS RAINING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.
YOU FEEL BAD? WELL, THINK OF HOW THE FANS FEEL, PAYING OUT

ALL THAT MONEY FOR FOOD AND TICKETS. AND NOW THEY MUST
SIMPLY GO HOME.

JUST LOOK AT THE HIGH LEVEL OF DETAIL ROCKWELL WOULD

COMMIT HIMSELF TO! THE BABYSITTER IS A TYPICAL TEENAGER, FOR
AS THE BABY WAILS AWAY, SHE IS READING HER FAVORITE BOOK ON
HOW TO BABYSIT.

SHE HAS THE CLOCK SO SHE KNOWS WHEN ITS

FEEDING TIME, SHE HAS THE BABYS RATTLES, BOTTLES, AND OTHER
TOYS.

IN FACT SHE HAS EVERYTHING BUT ONE THING - PATIENCE

WITH A CRYING BABY WHO IS PULLING HER HAIR. YES, I LAUGHED.

BOY SCOUTS
ROCKWELL LOVED THOSE THINGS THAT MADE AMERICA GREAT.
SO TO HIM, THE BOY SCOUTS WAS A GREAT AND BENEFICIAL
PROGRAM. THE PLEDGE SAYS IT ALL. ITS ABOUT GOD, COUNTRY, AND
LOVED ONES. HE SAYS, TO KEEP PHYSICALLY FIT AND STRONG, FOR
HE TRULY BELIEVED IN THAT.

THERES A CHURCH RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF LIFES EVENTS.

I JUST LOVED RECEIVING A COPY OF THE SATURDAY EVENING
POST WITH A HIGHLY DETAILED WINTER SCENE. HERE IS ONE OF A
NUMBER OF PIECES ROCKWELL DID OF SNOW COVERED CITY
STREETS, SHOPPERS, AND LOTS OF BUSINESS. HE IS ONCE AGAIN
SHOWING HIS LOVE OF GOD AND WORSHIP BY LIGHTING UP A CHURCH
ON THE TOWN SHOPPING CENTER. THIS ALL FEELS COLD, CRISP, AND
EXCITING TO ME, TO GO SHOPPING IN THE CHRISTMAS SNOW.

SO

NORMAN TAKES US IN A SHORT TOUR OF THE SIGHTS, SOUNDS, AND

SMELLS THAT ARE HERE. THE DARK AND GRAY HILLS ARE IN STARK

CONTRAST WITH THE BRIGHT LIGHTS AND FUN FOUND IN THE

SITUATION. WE HAVE ALL BEEN THERE!
IN THE EXCITING TRIP TIMES MY FAMILY HAD TRAVELING FROM

OUR CALIFORNIA HOME TO MISSOURI TO VISIT MY GRANDPARENTS,

MY BROTHER AND I JUST LOVED TO GO. THATS THE NAME OF THIS
PIECE, GOING. WE DID NOT AT ALL MIND A 2,000 MILE, TWO DAY
LONG TRIP ACROSS A GOOD PART OF AMERICA, FOR THERE WERE
DRIVING GAMES TO PLAY, SUCH AS READING BURMA SHAVE
SEQUENTIAL SIGNS UNTIL THE LAST ONE GAVE YOU THE PUNCH LINE
AND THE COLOR GAME WHERE OUR MOM AND DAD WOULD SAY A
COLOR AND WE HAD TO BE THE FIRST ONE TO FIND IT ON THE ROAD.
MOTHER WOULD REQUEST THAT WE SING FOR HER, SO WE WOULD

GET GOING ON THE EVERLY BROTHERS DREAM, DREAM, DREAM IN

TWO PART HARMONY.
THOSE DAYS WERE FUN, FOR WE AMERICAN KIDS LOVED TO GO
DOWN ROUTE 66. THERE WERE SPECIAL PLACES WE WOULD STOP
WHERE THEY HAD SODA SITTING IN A COOLER OF WATER IN ARIZONA
SO ICE COLD YOUR HAND WENT NUMB AS YOU TOOK OUT THAT
TREASURED BOTTLE OF NU-GRAPE. THE FRIED CHICKEN BASKETS WE
WOULD PICK UP IN AT NOON IN AMARILLO WERE THE BEST! CRUISING
ALONG AND EATING A GREAT MEAL AS WE RODE. THERE WAS
NOTHING BETTER. THIS PIECE BRINGS BACK ALL THOSE FAMILY FUN
TIME FAMILY MEMORIES.

LOVE OF FREEDOMS IS SHOWN HERE AGAIN AS WE SEE GRAMMA

BLESSING THE FOOD RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF A BUSY DINER.

IF

THERE WAS ONE THING THAT GRAMMA ALWAYS DID, WELL, GRAMMA
PRAYED, MOSTLY FOR US. SHE WAS NOT ASHAMED AT ALL. NEITHER
WAS NORMAN.

AMONG

OTHER

PROJECTS,

ROCKWELL

COULD

PAINT

GREAT

PORTRAITS, SUCH AS THIS ONE OF THE TONIGHT SHOWS JOHNNY

CARSON FOR TV GUIDE MAGAZINE. HIS REALISM WAS QUITE
PHOTOGRAPHIC.

LOOK AT ALL THE GREAT THINGS THAT ROCKWELL MAKES US

LOOK AT, THE FEELINGS OF GREAT TIMES ENJOYING OUR COUNTRY
AND ITS PEOPLE, THE EVENTS WE LOVE, AND MOSTLY THE VALUES WE
SHARE. NORMAN WAS PORTRAYING AMERICAN LIFE IN HIS LIFETIME.
SOME OF THAT IS SORT OF HIDDEN UNTIL WE PROBE FURTHER
INTO ROCKWELL AND WHO HE WAS. ONE MUST ALWAYS STEP BACK
AND TAKE A REALLY GOOD LOOK AT A GOOD PAINTING. STUDY IT. SEE
WHAT IT IS SAYING, FOR ONE OF THE GREAT SECRETS OF ALL GOOD
ARTISTS IS THAT THEY ARE ALL AND ALWAYS SAYING SOMETHING,.
WHAT IS

IT?

LEARNING

THAT IS A GREAT KEY

HERE

TO

UNDERSTANDING THE ART AND THE ARTIST.

Norman Rockwell was a prolific artist, producing more than four
thousand original works in his lifetime. Most of his works are either in
public collections, or have been destroyed in fire or other misfortunes.
Rockwell also was commissioned to illustrate more than forty books,
including Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. His annual contributions for
the Boy Scouts calendars between 1925 and 1976 (Rockwell was a 1939
recipient of the Silver Buffalo Award, the highest adult award given by the
Boy Scouts of America[26]), were only slightly overshadowed by his most
popular of calendar works: the "Four Seasons" illustrations for Brown &
Bigelow that were published for seventeen years beginning in 1947 and

reproduced in various styles and sizes since 1964. He painted six images
for Coca-Cola advertising.[27] Illustrations for booklets, catalogs, posters
(particularly movie promotions), sheet music, stamps, playing cards, and
murals (including "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "God Bless the Hills",
which was completed in 1936 for the Nassau Inn in Princeton, New Jersey)
rounded out Rockwell's uvre as an illustrator.
In 1969, as a tribute to Rockwell's seventy-fifth anniversary of his
birth, officials of Brown & Bigelow and the Boy Scouts of America asked
Rockwell to pose in Beyond the Easel, the calendar illustration that year.
[28]
Rockwell's work was dismissed by serious art critics in his lifetime.
[29] Many of his works appear overly sweet in the opinion of modern
critics,[30] especially the Saturday Evening Post covers, which tend
toward idealistic or sentimentalized portrayals of American life. This has
led to the often-deprecatory adjective, "Rockwellesque". Consequently,
Rockwell is not considered a "serious painter" by some contemporary
artists, who regard his work as bourgeois and kitsch. Writer Vladimir
Nabokov sneered that Rockwell's brilliant technique was put to "banal"
use, and wrote in his book Pnin: "That Dal is really Norman Rockwell's
twin brother kidnapped by Gypsies in babyhood". He is called an

"illustrator" instead of an artist by some critics, a designation he did not

mind, as that was what he called himself.[31]
In his later years, however, Rockwell began receiving more attention
as a painter when he chose more serious subjects such as the series on
racism for Look magazine.[32] One example of this more serious work is
The Problem We All Live With, which dealt with the issue of school racial
integration. The painting depicts a young black girl, Ruby Bridges, flanked
by white federal marshals, walking to school past a wall defaced by racist
graffiti.[33] This painting was displayed in the White House when Bridges
met with President Obama in 2011.[34]
Rockwell's work was exhibited at the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum in 2001.[35][36] Rockwell's Breaking Home Ties sold for $15.4
million at a 2006 Sotheby's auction.[29] A twelve-city U.S. tour of
Rockwell's works took place in 2008.[13] In 2008, Rockwell was named the
official state artist of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.[37] The 2013
sale of Saying Grace for $46 million (including buyer's premium)
established a new record price for Rockwell.[38] Rockwell's work was
exhibited at the Reading Public Museum and the Church History Museum
in 20132014.

In the film Empire of the Sun, a young boy (played by Christian Bale)
is put to bed by his loving parents in a scene also inspired by a Rockwell
paintinga reproduction of which is later kept by the young boy during
his captivity in a prison camp ("Freedom from Fear", 1943).[39]
The 1994 film Forrest Gump includes a shot in a school that recreates Rockwell's "Girl with Black Eye" with young Forrest in place of the
girl. Much of the film drew heavy visual inspiration from Rockwell's art.[40]
Film director George Lucas owns Rockwell's original of "The Peach
Crop", and his colleague Steven Spielberg owns a sketch of Rockwell's
Triple Self-Portrait. Each of the artworks hangs in the respective
filmmaker's work space.[29] Rockwell is a major character in an episode of
Lucas Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Passion for Life.
In 2005, Target Co. sold Marshall Field's to Federated Department
Stores. After the sale, Federated discovered that Rockwell's The Clock
Mender displayed in the store was a reproduction.[41][42] Rockwell had
donated the painting, which depicts a repairman setting the time on one of
the Marshall Field and Company Building clocks, and was depicted on the
cover of the November 3, 1945 Saturday Evening Post, to the store in 1948.
[41] Target has since donated the original to the Chicago History Museum.
[43]

On an anniversary of Norman Rockwell's birth, on February 3, 2010,

Google featured Rockwell's iconic image of young love "Boy and Girl
Gazing at the Moon", which also is known as "Puppy Love", on its home
page. The response was so great that day that the Norman Rockwell
museum's servers went down under the onslaught.[citation needed]
"Dreamland", a track from Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady
Peace's 2009 album Burn Burn, was inspired by Rockwell's paintings.[44]
Only a Lad is a parody of the Boy Scouts of America 1960 official
handbook cover illustrated by Rockwell.

THOMAS KINKADE
One day, I got a lurky concerning Thoms art. We set out a brand new
copy of a 30 x 60 inch long golden seascape at the art store. Within 15
minutes, a fireman bought it for $1,600! I suddenly realized how much
America loved this guy and his work.
William Thomas Kinkade III (January 19, 1958 April 6, 2012) was an
American painter of popular realistic, pastoral, and idyllic subjects. He is
notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and
other

licensed

products

via

the

Thomas

Kinkade

Company. He

characterized himself as "Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light," a phrase he

protected through trademark but one originally attributed to the British
master J. M. W. Turner (17751851). It has been estimated that 1 in every
20 American homes owns a copy of one of his paintings.
EDITORS NOTE: Thomas also borrowed the technique of layering of light,
with multiple coatings of amber varnish, from Rembrandt. He would paint
a lamp post and add a layer of very thin varnish first where the flame was.
Letting that dry, he would put a little more pigment into the next layer. On
and on went this process until you could put a spotlight on the painting
and dim the light. The light would transmit through the pigment! This

would cause the lights on the painting to incrementally dim or illuminate

as you wished. It was fun thing to show others, your adjustable light
painting!
Despite wide commercial success throughout his life, Kinkade is
generally held in low esteem by art critics; his pastoral paintings have
been described as maudlin and overly sentimental.
I say For whom? Americans love it. Thats the key, art themes
people can enjoy. I used to think of his fantasized, overly bright colors,
and whimsical treatment as a respite from reality. Whats wrong with that?
Not a thing. Dennis Patrick Lewens art is highly whimsical and folks love
it.
Recurring features of Kinkade's paintings are their glowing
highlights and saturated pastel colors. Rendered in highly idealistic values
of American scene painting, his works often portray bucolic and idyllic
settings such as gardens, streams, stone cottages, lighthouses and Main
Streets. AND THATS NICE! His hometown of Placerville (where his works
are omnipresent) was the inspiration for many of his street and snow
scenes. He also depicted various Christian themes including the Christian
cross and churches.

I believe Thomas wanted the result to be beautiful. He also did his

other styles, such as plein air on scene painting with quick strokes.
Kinkade said he was placing emphasis on the value of simple
pleasures and that his intent was to communicate inspirational, lifeaffirming messages through his paintings. A self-described "devout
Christian" (even giving all four of his children the middle name
"Christian"), Kinkade believed he gained his inspiration from his religious
beliefs and that his work was intended to contain a larger moral
dimension. He also said that his goal as an artist was to touch people of all
faiths and to bring a sense of peace into their lives through the images he
created. Many pictures contain specific chapter-and-verse allusions to
Bible passages.
Kinkade said, "I am often asked why there are no people in my
paintings,"[9] but in 2009 he painted a portrait of the Indianapolis
Speedway for the cover of that year's Indianapolis 500 race program that
included details of the diversity of the crowd, hiding among them the
figures of Norman Rockwell and Dale Earnhardt. He also painted the
farewell portrait for Yankee Stadium. About the Indianapolis Speedway
painting, Kinkade said:

The passion I have is to capture memories, to evoke the emotional

connection we have to an experience. I came out here and stood up on the
bleachers and looked around, and I saw all the elements of the track. It
was empty at the time. But I saw the stadium, how the track laid out, the
horizon, the skyline of Indianapolis and the Pagoda. I saw it all in my
imagination. I began thinking, 'I want to get this energy what I call the
excitement of the moment into this painting.' As I began working on it, I
thought, 'Well you have this big piece of asphalt, the huge spectator
stands; I've got to do something to get some movement.' So I just started
throwing flags into it. It gives it kind of a patriotic excitement.[10]
Artist and Guggenheim Fellow Jeffrey Vallance has spoken about
Kinkade's devout religious themes and their reception in the art world:[12]
This is another area that the contemporary art world has a hard time
with, that I find interesting. He expresses what he believes and puts that in
his art. That is not the trend in the high-art world at the moment, the idea
that you can express things spiritually and be taken seriously. It is always
difficult to present serious spiritual and religious ideas in an art context.
That is why I like Kinkade. It is a difficult thing to do.
And yet, many artists have attempted to put spirit into their work,
such as a number of the 19th Century artists.

Essayist Joan Didion is a representative critic of Kinkade's style:[13]

A Kinkade painting was typically rendered in slightly surreal pastels.
It typically featured a cottage or a house of such insistent coziness as to
seem actually sinister (?), suggestive of a trap designed to attract Hansel
and Gretel. Every window was lit, to lurid effect, as if the interior of the
structure might be on fire.
Didion went on to compare the "Kinkade Glow" to the luminism of
19th-century painter Albert Bierstadt, who sentimentalized the infamous
Donner Pass in his Donner Lake from the Summit.[14] Didion saw
"unsettling similarities" between the two painters (why, for many have
borrowed from another), and worried that Kinkade's treatment of the Sierra
Nevada, The Mountains Declare His Glory, similarly ignored the tragedy of
the forced dispersal of Yosemite's Sierra Miwok Indians during the Gold
Rush, by including an imaginary Miwok camp as what he calls "an
affirmation that man has his place, even in a setting touched by God's
glory."[13]
Had Thom wanted to memorialize those events, he would have. But
they were sad, so why not focus on nature? I think that is a weak
argument, for he said the mountains themselves declare His glory, not the
wrong some people have done there.

Mike McGee, director of the CSUF Grand Central Art Center at

California State University, Fullerton, wrote of the Thomas Kinkade Heaven
on Earth exhibition:
Looking just at the paintings themselves it is obvious that they are
technically competent. Kinkade's genius, however, is in his capacity to
identify and fulfill the needs and desires of his target audiencehe cites
his mother as a key influence and archetypal audience and to couple
this with savvy marketing. If Kinkade's art is principally about ideas, and I
think it is, it could be suggested that he is a Conceptual artist. All he would
have to do to solidify this position would be to make an announcement
that the beliefs he has expounded are just Duchampian posturing to
achieve his successes. But this will never happen. Kinkade earnestly

CENTRAL PARKby Thomas Kinkade

believes in his faith in God and his personal agenda as an artist.

Is the park fantasized? Yes, for the things that sometimes happen there are against its design
(robberies and such), to be a place of comfort (He has inserted the old fashioned cab buggies and
candle lamp lights of yesteryear), and joy. It is a beautiful place so Thom conceived it that way. Oh,
that it was! Thomas also very much wanted the owner to have something beautiful to enjoy, so he
beautified the subject matter. Call it imposing beauty if you wish, but the idea worked, Thomas was
very strong on giving his work value. He did that here.

What an elegant scene this is! It has that old fashioned look going
on. In a sense it is a portrayal of perfection.

The elements all work

together, the fresh and lovely colors are beyond compare in the real world.

Life is portrayed at sweet, friendly, fun, and pleasant. What is Thomas

saying? That life can be that enriching!

What joy a lovely garden can bring! This is, perhaps, a look back at
Adams and Eves Garden of Eden, when things were untainted and not yet
soiled. This is a refreshing place and a restful place. See it as a glimpse of
Heaven, if you can. What better image to have on your wall? Kinkade was
thinking about the owners response to such a view. What feelings does
this illicit? How about happiness, calm, and restfulness - they are worthy,
are they not?

In Cortez Style by Thomas Kinkade

In the style (somewhat) of the great Parisian French street scene

painters like Edouard Leon Cortez and Antoine Bouchard, Kinkade has a
fun time here making light bounce everywhere in this rustic environment
in which things were different, the 1930s. Shown here is not the era in
which Cortez painted. And yet Thom was no post-impressionist, now was
he? No, but he inserted his own trademark, the gas, oil, or tallow lighted
candle posts into this busy scene. This is fitly called In Cortez Style.
The pavement looks wet, which like those painted by Cortez were
either snowy, rainy, or wet, providing ample opportunity to reflect light

which, necessarily, was unlike the light of an Impressionist painter that

was not the result of stacked up and thick applications of paint bouncing
extra light, but was a key part of the subject matter. In fact, the light
shines brilliantly. And everyone is in 1930s style clothing and automobiles.
Thomas has used that era before, and will likely use it again. Thom had
some 1930s style cars he owned, you see?

Almost Heaven
Aside from his typical gorgeously portrayed mountains, skies, and
waterways, the red shirted fisherman here IS Thomas.

He quite often

inserted images of himself, his wife Nanette, their four girls, and their
parents into his paintings, investing them with himself, so to speak.

FISHING by Thomas Kinkade

Way back there on the dock Thomas is fishing again. And look at all
those - - Mallards, deer, pheasants, flying hawks, and other creatures, and
his ever present signature of America that is found in many of his pieces,
there is a swooping American Bald Eagle high in the sky at distance. We
see it here at the treetops on the left. In fact, the Point of Focus here is
Thomas, for the foreground stream drives your eyes right to him and then,
just keeps going.

As usual, Thomas has designed a beautiful pallet of colors for this piece. His treatment is fresh,
exciting, and vibrant, for getting to take time off to go fishing was one of his greatest joys in life. The
stream teeming with vibrancy and refreshment indicates that life can bring you joy in an ongoing way
if you bear peace in your heart. The piece also says, Take time to rest and enjoy.

End of a Perfect Day

This piece is also a bit fantastic, for it is how we dream things would
go, by some definition perfect. Mountains, that are not a bit short of
purple mountain majesty, rise over it all in the background. Quiet water,
drifting smoke from our fires, warm light shining around us, and the rest
we are about to take are all mentioned here. Again, the treatment, the

placement of elements, and the blend of it all is just a bit idyllic. Now,
Thoms black and white dog is found in the foreground. He appears n
several other paintings, as well.

Salt Lake City, city of lights by Thomas Kinkade

In this classic, Thom is giving homage to a great city he enjoyed. The
perspective is rich, the lighting resplendent, and the melange of colors are
invigorating to view. You are looking down on a great city built on faith,
fine business, and a caring for society. The Mormon faith finds this home.

TWO OF KINKADES PLEIN AIR, OF CATALINA ISLAND

EARLY IN HIS CAREER KINKADE DID SOME ALASKA PIECES

A PLEIN AIR PIECE OF PORTOFINO, ITALY

A PLEIN AIR PIECE OF UNION SQUARE SAN FRANCISCO

A CUBIST TREATMENT

IN ONE OF HIS EARLIER WORKS, KINKADE SAID THESE MASSIVE STONE

MOUNTAINS REPRESENTED HIS CONFUSION, LACK OF DIRECTION, AND HARDSHIP.

THOMAS COLE
HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL PAINTER
HERES AN ARTIST WHO WAS NOTABLE. HE WILL BE A GREAT EXAMPLE FROM
WHICH TO LEARN.
Thomas Cole (February 1, 1801 February 11, 1848) was an American artist known for
his landscape and history paintings. He is regarded as the founder of the Hudson River
School, an American art movement that flourished in the mid-19th century. Cole's work
is known for its romantic portrayal of the American wilderness.[1]
Early life and education
Born in Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, in 1801, Cole's family emigrated to the United
States in 1818, settling in Steubenville, Ohio. At the age of twenty-two Cole moved to
Philadelphia, and later, in 1825, to New York City with his family.[2]
Cole found work early on as an engraver. He was largely self-taught as a painter,
relying on books and by studying the work of other artists. In 1822 Cole started
working as a portrait painter, and later on gradually shifted his focus to landscape.[3]
Painting
In New York, Cole sold five paintings to George W. Bruen, who financed a summer trip
to the Hudson Valley where the artist produced two Views of Coldspring, the Catskill
Mountain House and painted famous Kaaterskill Falls and the ruins of Fort Putnam.[4]
[5] Returning to New York, he displayed five landscapes in the window of William

Colman's bookstore; according to the New York Evening Post Two Views of Coldspring
were purchased by Mr. A. Seton, who lent them to the American Academy of the Fine
Arts annual exhibition in 1826. This garnered Cole the attention of John Trumbull,
Asher B. Durand, and William Dunlap. Among the paintings was a landscape called
"View of Fort Ticonderoga from Gelyna". Trumbull was especially impressed with the
work of the young artist and sought him out, bought one of his paintings, and put him
into contact with a number of his wealthy friends including Robert Gilmor of Baltimore
and Daniel Wadsworth of Hartford, who became important patrons of the artist.
Cole was primarily a painter of landscapes, but he also painted allegorical works. The
most famous of these are the five-part series, The Course of Empire, which depict the
same landscape over generationsfrom a near state of nature to consummation of
empire, and then decline and desolationnow in the collection of the New York
Historical Society and the four-part The Voyage of Life. There are two versions of the
latter, one at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., the other at the MunsonWilliams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica, New York. Among Cole's other famous works
are the Oxbow (1836), the Notch of the White Mountains, Daniel Boone at His cabin at
the Great Osage Lake, and Lake with Dead Trees (1825) which is at the Allen Memorial
Art Museum.[6] He also painted The Garden of Eden (1828), with lavish detail of Adam
and Eve living amid waterfalls, vivid plants, and deer.[7] In 2014, friezes painted by
Cole on the walls of his home, but which had been decorated over, were discovered.[8]
Cole influenced his artistic peers, especially Asher B. Durand and Frederic Edwin
Church, who studied with Cole from 1844 to 1846. Cole spent the years 1829 to 1832
and 1841 to 1842 abroad, mainly in England and Italy.

Thomas Cole is best known for his work as an American landscape artist. However,
Cole also produced thousands of sketches of varying subject matter. Over 2,500 of
these sketches can be seen at The Detroit Institute of Arts.
In 1842, Cole embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe in an effort to study in the style of
the Old Masters and to paint its scenery. Most striking to Cole was Europe's tallest
active volcano, Mount Etna (Regarding the title: "Etna" is the more common spelling in
the present day, but "Aetna" was a common nineteenth-century variant). Cole was so
moved by the volcano's beauty that he produced several sketches and at least six
paintings of it.[9] The most famous of these works is A View from Mount Etna from
Taormina which is a 78 in. x 120 in. oil on canvas. Cole also produced a highly detailed
sketch of it, entitled View of Mount Etna (pictured below) which shows a panoramic
view of the volcano with the crumbling walls of the ancient Greek theatre of Taormina
on the far right.
After 1827 Cole maintained a studio at the farm called Cedar Grove in the town of
Catskill, New York. He painted a significant portion of his work in this studio. In 1836 he
married Maria Bartow of Catskill, a niece of the owner, and became a year-round
resident. Thomas and Maria had five children:
Theodore Alexander Cole, born January 1, 1838;
Mary Bartow Cole, born September 23, 1839;
Emily Cole, born August 27, 1843;

Elizabeth Cole, born April 5, 1847 (died in infancy);

Thomas Cole, Jr., born September 16, 1848.[10]
Additionally, Thomas Cole held many friendships with important figures in the art
world including Daniel Wadsworth whom he shared a close friendship with. Proof of
this friendship can be seen in the letters that were unearthed in the 1980s by the Trinity
College, Watkinson Library. Cole emotionally wrote Wadsworth in July of 1832: "Years
have passed away since I saw you & time & the world have undoubtedly wrought many
changes in both of us; but the recollection of your friendship... have never faded in my
mind & I look at those pleasures as "flowers that never will in other garden grow-"[11]
Thomas Cole died at Catskill on February 11, 1848. The fourth highest peak in the
Catskills is named Thomas Cole Mountain in his honor.[12] Cedar Grove, also known
as the Thomas Cole House, was declared a National Historic Site in 1999 and is now
open to the public.[13] HERE IS NONE OF COLES MOST FAMOUS PIECES, OXBOW.

view

from

Mount

Holyoke,

Northampton,

Massachusetts,

after

Thunderstorm, commonly known as The Oxbow, is a seminal landscape painting by

Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School. The painting depicts a Romantic
panorama of the Connecticut River Valley just after a thunderstorm. It has been
interpreted as a confrontation between wilderness and civilization. THIS IS THE KEY
ELEMENT!
Background
Between 1833 and 1836, American painter and putative "founder" of The Hudson
River School, Thomas Cole, had been hard at work on his series of paintings, The
Course of Empire. The work was commissioned by New York patron Luman Reed, who
had met Cole in 1832, and the two held a friendship largely based on Reed's generosity
in buying Cole's paintings. Reed requested The Course of Empire to comprise no less
than five paintings of a historic composition. Cole himself was excited by such a
project, but doubt began to set in by the end of 1835. The work was slow and
laborious, and Cole found great difficulty in painting the figures. Reed had begun to
notice Cole was becoming lonely and depressed, and suggested that he suspend work
on The Course of Empire and paint something that was more in his element for the
April 1836 opening of the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition. Cole, in
replying to Reed in a letter, stated that he felt obliged to finish the series as Reed had
been so generous in his support, and instead suggested that he simply complete the
last painting in the series and display that at the exhibition. Reed however, did not
really like the idea, as he thought it might spoil the unveiling of the series as a whole.
He suggested instead that he paint a picture much like the already completed second
painting in the series, The Pastoral State. This depicted a peaceful setting which Reed

thought "no man ever produced a more pleasing landscape in a more pleasing
season." Responding in a letter in March 1836, Cole agreed to take Reed's advice and
paint a picture for the exhibition, writing:[2]
Fancy pictures seldom sell & they generally take more time than views so I have
determined to paint one of the latter. I have already commenced a view from Mt.
Holyokeit is about the finest scene I have in my sketchbook & is well knownit will
be novel and I think effectiveI could not find a subject very similar to your second
picture & time would not allow me to invent one.
Cole also comments that he used a larger canvas, as he was not able to ready a
smaller frame in time for the exhibition, and moreover felt compelled to make a
statement with the one painting he was to present.[2]
Composition
The painting moves from a dark wilderness with shattered tree trunks on rugged
cliffs in the foreground covered with violent rain clouds on the left to a light-filled and
peaceful, cultivated landscape on the right, which borders the tranquility of the
bending Connecticut River. In returning to painting landscapes, Cole was faced with
[the dichotomy of the untamed wilderness and land cultivated by man.] While other
painters of the Hudson River School would merge the two peacefully, Cole did not shy
away from portraying the two as opposites and showing how the cultivation would
destroy the natural wilderness, and as a result never meet in the painting.[3] On the hill
in the far background, logging scars in the forest can be observed, which appear to
form Hebrew letters. This was first noticed by Matthew Baigell long after the landscape

was painted. If viewed upside down, as if from God's perspective, the word shaddai is
formed, "The Almighty."[citation needed] Cole gives himself a tiny self-portrait sitting
on the rocks in the foreground with his easel.[4]
Ownership
Cole sold the painting at the exhibition to Charles Nicoll Talbot (18021874),
merchant in the China trade.[5] In 1838 he lent it to the Dunlap Benefit Exhibition, and
later to the third annual exhibition of the Artists' Fund Society, which was held in New
York in 1862. With his death in 1874, the painting was acquired from his estate by
Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, wife of Russell Sage. Olivia Sage was a known
philanthropist, and her transfer of The Oxbow to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in
1908 would seem rather natural. However, she may have been inspired by a similar
gesture in 1904 by Samuel P. Avery, Jr., who donated The Titan's Goblet, another of
Cole's well-known paintings, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Furthermore, Olivia
Sage's attorney, Robert de Forest, was a secretary on the Board of Trustees of the
Metropolitan Museum. The painting today resides in The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
What was the Hudson River School of artists and what did they base their view
upon?
The Hudson River School was a mid-19th century American art movement
embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by
romanticism. The paintings for which the movement is named depict the Hudson River
Valley and the surrounding area, including the Catskill, Adirondack, and the White
Mountains; eventually works by the second generation of artists associated with the

school expanded to include other locales in New England, the Maritimes, the American
West, and South America.
Neither the originator of the term Hudson River School nor its first published use
has been fixed with certainty. The term is thought to have originated with the New York
Tribune art critic Clarence Cook or the landscape painter Homer Dodge Martin.[1] As
originally used, the term was meant disparagingly, as the work so labeled had gone out
of favor after the plein-air Barbizon School had come into vogue among American
patrons and collectors.
Hudson River School paintings reflect three themes of America in the 19th
century: discovery, exploration, and settlement.[2] The paintings also depict the
American landscape as a pastoral setting, where human beings and nature coexist
peacefully. Hudson River School landscapes are characterized by their realistic,
detailed, and sometimes idealized portrayal of nature, often juxtaposing peaceful
agriculture and the remaining wilderness, which was fast disappearing from the
Hudson Valley just as it was coming to be appreciated for its qualities of ruggedness
and sublimity.[3] In general, Hudson River School artists believed that nature in the
form of the American landscape was an ineffable manifestation of God,[4] though the
artists varied in the depth of their religious conviction. They took as their inspiration
such European masters as Claude Lorrain, John Constable and J. M. W. Turner. Their
reverence for America's natural beauty was shared with contemporary American
writers such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Several painters,
such as were members of the Dsseldorf school of painting.

While the elements of the paintings were rendered realistically, many of the
scenes were composed as a synthesis of multiple scenes or natural images observed
by the artists. In gathering the visual data for their paintings, the artists would travel to
extraordinary and extreme environments, which generally had conditions that would
not permit extended painting at the site. During these expeditions, the artists recorded
sketches and memories, returning to their studios to paint the finished works later.
The artist Thomas Cole is generally acknowledged as the founder of the Hudson
River School.[5] Cole took a steamship up the Hudson in the autumn of 1825, the same
year the Erie Canal opened, stopping first at West Point, then at Catskill landing. He
hiked west high up into the eastern Catskill Mountains of New York State to paint the
first landscapes of the area. The first review of his work appeared in the New York
Evening Post on November 22, 1825.[6] At that time, only the English native Cole, born
in a landscape where autumnal tints were of browns and yellows, found the brilliant
autumn hues of the area to be inspirational.[5] Cole's close friend, Asher Durand,
became a prominent figure in the school as well.
Well, now we can see the key elements these painters were working into their
works.
The second generation of Hudson River school artists emerged to prominence
after Cole's premature death in 1848; its members included Cole's prize pupil Frederic
Edwin Church, John Frederick Kensett, and Sanford Robinson Gifford. Works by
artists of this second generation are often described as examples of Luminism. In
addition to pursuing their art, many of the artists, including Kensett, Gifford and
Church, were among the founders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Most of the finest works of the Hudson River school were painted between 1855
and 1875. During that time, artists such as Frederic Edwin Church and Albert Bierstadt
were celebrities. They were both influenced by the Dsseldorf school of painting, and
Bierstadt had studied in the city for several years. When Church exhibited paintings
such as Niagara[10] or Icebergs of the North,[11] thousands of people lined up around
the block and paid fifty cents a head to view the solitary works. The epic size of the
landscapes in these paintings, unexampled in earlier American painting, reminded
Americans of the vast, untamed, but magnificent wilderness areas in their country.
Such works were being painted during the period of settlement of the American West,
preservation of national parks, and establishment of green city parks.

INDIANS SPEAR FISHING BY ALBERT BIERSTADT

The mountains are seen as steadfast and unmovable, a part of nature
that is a constant. The Indians are seen as just some local guys who are a small part of
the picture. Your eyes are drawn in sequence to the foreground water, then to the

Indians, then to the waterfall, then to the larger lake, then to the skies, and finally to
the sunlight coming from the right rear. Nature is rich and filled with bounty to these
men.

By the luminist aesthetic, light is powerful and radiant, bringing many things to
the world, warmth, clear vision, dazzling colors, and much detail. Light and shadow
are played to each other, the one balancing the other. The brilliance of light is seen,
along with the dimness of it. Smoothness replaces brush strokes...
We see no paintbrush strokes, instead,
Luminism is an American landscape painting style of the 1850s 1870s,
characterized by effects of light in landscapes, through using aerial perspective, and
concealing visible brushstrokes. It is defines as,

In the history of art, the term "luminism" refers to a style of realist landscape painting,
characterized by its treatment of light.

It can be seen as pouring light, as we see in this piece,

Isnt it curious how the light, which emanates from dark, brownish clouds and fog, seems to
come pouring forth right across the water and toward us?

I just love the way these luminists, the real painters of light, could work the light,
twisting it over, around, under, and through, and displaying its features so elegantly.
Water really loves the light, too, as we see here,

The rainbow seems to cares the waterfall and throw its light all over. The effect is
wondrous and it feels as if it has understated power, something it controls. You feel the
tension you feel when you stand looking at a chasm like this, and the dampness is
something you will always remember.

This view by Albert Bierstadt is about one thing LIGHT. AND HERE IS A TRUE
CLASSIC OF THIS PERIOD. THOMAS MORANS

GRAND CANYON OF THE YELLOWSTONE,

The sheer rock walls, the lifting pines, the drifting clouds, and the mere presence of
man says it all. We are part of a big natural world and we must stay in balance with
her.

A number of artists of the period traveled around this grand land, some as guests of various

hunting or explorer parties, going to and experiencing the greatness of our national parks. Most of
them were painting on site, outside, and barren with the world. It was just the world, them, and the
paint. Theres became the only view many early Americans got of an uncharted land, for there was
only a little railway as yet. So their paintings described the land. It was no longer just tales that were
told, but the reality took on the flesh of earthly features, rocks, hills, valleys, mountains, rivers, streams,
falls, and lakes, along with much desert and open prairie.

THE RAILWAY WAS COMING SOON IN A BIG WAY, FOR IT WAS BEING BUILT ACROSS
AMERICA BY THEN. GEORGE INNES SHOWED IT TO US HERE, MACHINES TAKING
OVER THE LANDSCAPE,
Some actually feared that mankind would lose his grip on the wilderness because of
gigantic machines like locomotive steam engines. Perhaps we can now see that this

was a misguided fear, for people came and actually developed the land, built
progressive things, and enriched the world.
What We Can Learn
There is much we can learn from the Hudson River School painters, but for the
purposes of this article, I wanted to summarize them into three main areas:
Composition
Light
Symbolism
Composition
Details, shapes, and leading lines were all masterfully used to convey a deep sense of
realism and depth a window into nature. Creating an immersive experience was
critical to the success of their work since the general public had little exposure to this
wilderness before.
This meant that to hold the viewers attention, they needed to make their compositions
as harmonious and cohesive as possible.
While not necessarily simple in composition, the viewer is drawn to areas of
importance simply and powerfully, and that is the key to mastering the visual language
of photography.
Light

Light was a critical component of the HRS painters since it has such a big impact on
us emotionally. They had the advantage of being able to create whatever light they
needed in their paintings, though mastering this skill took many years of study.
However, through careful use of pigments, color theory, and keen observation, they
created masterpieces of beauty and emotion. Understanding how light interacts with
nature, and how we respond to colors was critical to the success of their work.
As painters we can not create the light needed for a particular image. Instead, we must
wait for nature to cooperate and provide light that inspires us in some way. Cultivating
patience, perseverance, and a developed awareness of light and its many qualities is
an essential skill that always pays dividends.
Knowing what to look for and how to use light as a subject is extremely beneficial
and these painters offer us some fantastic examples.
Symbolism
The goal of any landscape painter should be to create images that convey feelings;
tranquility, tension, mystery, or perhaps a forgotten memory of a significant
experience. But how do we achieve this? How do we get a viewer to look past the
literal and consider the meaning of an image? This is something that the HRS painters
understood and used to great effect in their paintings. They used symbolism and
allegory to convey their feelings about the natural world, often with connotations of the
supernatural.

Much of this was done through composition and the relationships between elements in
their pictures. We often see large landscapes with depictions of small figures (humans
or animals) to illustrate how they saw nature as grand and awesome. They used color,
weather, light and shadow, and other dramatic elements in nature to suggest certain
moods or create strong juxtapositions in the same picture. The viewer is encouraged
to provide their own interpretation, asking more questions about the image over time.
This is the essence of any great work of art.
These are all valuable techniques we can also use. They allow us to create images that
have a little more to offer over repeated viewings and rely less on the wow factor we
see so often today.
As we can see by the previous examples art has to have meaning. By going
through the art, studying the painters and periods in which they lived we can learn
many things.

Regards and good learning,

Dr. Dennis

MORE

ARTS HIDDEN
VALUES
Konstantin Gorbatov, Post Impressionist, Capri, 1938
{ }

a research study
done by

Dr. Dennis C. Miller, D. B. S.

WELL, YOU MUST HAVE ENJOYED VOLUME ONE OF THIS STUDY,
FOR HERE WE ARE AGAIN TO LOOK AT MORE ART AND MAKE FRESH
DISCOVERIES.
FROM THE GET GO, I WILL TELL YOU WE ARE GOING TO START
WITH AN ODD FELLOW WITH SOME ODD ARTISTIC RESULTS. BUT HE IS
ONE OF THE WORLDS MORE SERIOUS, THIS IS GOING TO COST YOU A
FORTUNE PAINTERS. MANY CONSIDER HIM GENIUS!

Starry Night Over the Rhine by Vincent Van Gogh

THATS EXACTLY RIGHT, VAN GOGH. VINCENT. HE WAS A CURIOUS

FELLOW WITH SOME IMPORTANT AND INFLUENTIAL FRIENDS.
Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: [v ns nt lm v n x] ( listen);[note
1] 30 March 1853 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who
is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In
just over a decade he created approximately 2100 artworks, including around
860 oil paintings, most of them in the last two years of his life. They include
landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterized by bold,
symbolic colours, and dramatic, impulsive and highly expressive brushwork that
contributed to the foundations of modern art. He sold only one painting during
his lifetime and became famous after his suicide, aged 37, which followed years
of poverty and mental illness.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was
serious, quiet and thoughtful, but showed signs of mental instability. As a young
man he worked as an art dealer, often traveling, but became depressed after he
was transferred to London. He turned to religion, and spent time as a missionary
in southern Belgium. Later he drifted in ill-health and solitude. He was keenly
aware of modernist trends in art and, while back with his parents, took up
painting in 1881. His younger brother, Theo, supported him financially, and the
two of them kept up a long correspondence by letter.

Van Gogh's early works, which depict peasant laborers and still lifes,
contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886 he
moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. As his work
developed he created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. His
paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully
realized during his stay in Arles in 1888. He lived there in the Yellow House and,
with the French artist Paul Gauguin, developed a concept of colour that
symbolized inner emotion. During this period he broadened his subject matter to
include olive trees, cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and, though he
worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, not
eating properly and drinking heavily. His friendship with Gauguin came to an end
after a violent encounter when he threatened the Frenchman with a razor, and in
a rage, cut off part of his own left ear. While in a psychiatric hospital in SaintRmy his condition stabilized, leading to one of the more productive periods of
his life. He moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise under the care of
the homeopathic doctor and artist, Paul Gachet. While there, his brother Theo
wrote that he could no longer support him financially. A few weeks later, on 27
July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a revolver. He died from his
injuries two days later.

Considered a madman and a failure in his lifetime, Van Gogh exists in the
public imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius, the artist "where
discourses on madness and creativity converge."[2] His reputation began to
grow in the early 20th century as elements of his painting style came to be
incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists. He attained
widespread critical, commercial and popular success over the ensuing decades,
and is remembered as an important but tragic painter. The most comprehensive
primary source for understanding Van Gogh is the correspondence between him
and his younger brother, Theo. Their lifelong friendship, and most of what is
known of Vincent's thoughts and theories of art, are recorded in the hundreds of
letters they exchanged from 1872 until 1890.[4] Theo van Gogh was an art
dealer and provided his brother with financial and emotional support, and
access to influential people on the contemporary art scene.[5]

Theo kept all of Vincent's letters to him;[6] Vincent kept few of the letters
he received. After both brothers had died, Theo's widow Johanna van GoghBonger arranged for the publication of some of their letters. A few appeared in
1906 and 1913; the remaining majority were published in 1914.[7][8] Vincent's
letters are eloquent and expressive. They have been described as having a
"diary-like intimacy",[5] and read in parts like an autobiography.[5] The translator
Arnold Pomerans wrote that "the publication of these letters added a fresh

dimension to the understanding of Van Gogh's artistic achievement, an

understanding granted us by virtually no other painter."[9]
There are more than 600 letters from Vincent to Theo, and 40 from Theo
to Vincent. There are also 22 to his sister Wil, 58 to the painter Anthon van
Rappard, 22 to mile Bernard, and individual letters to Paul Signac, Paul
Gauguin and the critic Albert Aurier. Some are illustrated with sketches.[5] Many
are undated, but art historians have been able to place most in chronological
order. Problems in transcription and dating remain, mainly with those posted
from Arles. While there Vincent wrote around 200 letters in Dutch, French and
English.[10] There is a gap in the record when he lived in Paris as the brothers
lived together and had no need to correspond.[11], whose troubled personality
typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist.

WHO IS FISHING? WHY, VINCENT, OF COURSE! HE IS DOUBTLESS

TAKING RESPITE FROM HIS OWN TROUBLED THOUGHTS.
VINCENT HAD A PREOCCUPATION, A DREAM, A GOAL TO ONE DAY
HAVE HIS OWN HOUSE. HE LONGED FOR THE COMFORT, THE PEACE,
AND THE QUIETNESS OF THAT. HE WANTED TO SETTLE SOMEPLACE.
DURING THIS TIME, HE DID THREE PAINTINGS OF A BEDROOM. THIS IS
WHAT HE WANTED,

ALL THE SAME ELEMENTS ARE THERE, BUT THE TONES, COLORS,

DENSITY, AND WARMTH CHANGED OVER TIME. THE BED, THE CHAIRS,
HIS CLOTHES, PICTURES OF HIS FRIENDS, AND ALL THE REST MADE
THIS HOME FOR HIM. BUT HE STILL HAD NOT GOTTEN IT, ALTHOUGH IN
PICTURE THREE THE LIGHT IS QUITE A BIT BRIGHTER, INDICATING HIS
SENSE OF HOPE ABOUT WHAT HE IMAGINED WOULD BE COMING SOON.

WHEN THE LIGHT FROM THE WINDOW GOT BRIGHTER SO DID THE
REST.
In Nuenen, Van Gogh focused on painting and drawing. Working outside
and very quickly, he completed sketches and paintings of weavers and their
cottages.[78] In August 1884, Margot Begemann, a neighbors daughter and ten
years his senior, began joining him on his painting forays; she fell in love, and he
reciprocated, though less enthusiastically. They decided to marry, but the idea
was opposed by both families, following which Margot took an overdose of
strychnine. She was saved when Van Gogh rushed her to a nearby hospital.[71]
On 26 March 1885, his father died of a heart attack.[79]
Van Gogh painted several groups of still lifes in 1885.[80] During his twoyear stay in Nuenen, he completed numerous drawings and watercolors, and
nearly 200 oil paintings. His palette consisted mainly of sombre earth tones,
particularly dark brown, and showed no sign of the vivid colours that distinguish
his later work.[81]
There was interest from a dealer in Paris early in 1885,[82] and Theo
asked Vincent whether he had paintings ready to exhibit.[83] In May 1885 Van
Gogh completed his first major work, The Potato Eaters, and the series of
"peasant character studies"; the culmination of several years of work.[84] When
he complained that Theo was not making enough effort to sell his paintings in
Paris, his brother responded that they were too dark, and were not in keeping

with the current bright style of Impressionism.[81] August saw the first public
exhibition of his work, in the shop windows of the paint dealer Leurs in The
Hague. After one of his young peasant sitters became pregnant in September
1885, Van Gogh was accused of forcing himself upon her, and the village priest
forbade parishioners to model for him.[85]
In November 1885 Van Gogh moved to Antwerp, where he rented a small
room above a paint dealer's shop in the rue des Images (Lange
Beeldekensstraat).[86] He lived in poverty and ate poorly, preferring to spend
the money Theo sent on painting materials and models. Bread, coffee and
tobacco were his staple intake. In February 1886 he wrote to Theo that he could
only remember eating six hot meals since the previous May. His teeth became
loose and painful.[87] In Antwerp he applied himself to the study of colour theory
and spent time in museumsparticularly studying the work of Peter Paul
Rubens and broadened his palette to include carmine, cobalt blue and
emerald green. Van Gogh bought Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts in the docklands,
later incorporating elements of their style into the background of some of his
paintings.[88]
Van Gogh had begun to drink heavily again, especially absinthe.[89] He
was treated by Amadeus Cavenaile in February and March 1886,[90] possibly
for syphilis;[91][note 7] he recorded the treatment of alum irrigation and sitz
baths in one of his notebooks.[94] Despite his rejection of academic teaching,

he took the higher-level admission exams at the Academy of Fine Arts in

Antwerp, and in January 1886 matriculated in painting and drawing. For most of
February, he was ill and run down by overwork, a poor diet and excessive
smoking.
VAN GOGH HAS BEEN QUOTED CONSIDERABLY. AS YOU READ,
YOU SHOULD SEE INTERESTING MOTIVATORS HERE,
~ I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
~ For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes
me dream.
~ Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves
much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is
done well.
WHAT A THINKER HE WAS, CONTEMPLATING LOVE, PEOPLE, ART,
STRENGTH, DREAMS, ACCOMPLISHMENTS, ETC. AND SOME SAY THIS
MAN WAS CRAZY? I THINK NOT, NOT INSANE AT ALL, BUT SIMPLY HE
HAD MENTAL DIFFICULTIES AT TIMES. HIS EMOTIONS RUN THROUGH
HIS WORK, AND HIS CONFUSION. WHY, NOTICE THE SWIRLS IN SEVERAL
PAINTINGS. WHY SWIRLS? IS THERE A DERVISH IN HIS MIND, A
CONFUSION, A DIFFICULTY, SOMETHING HE CANNOT MANAGE SO
WELL? LOOK AT ALL THE SWIRLS! WHAT DO THEY MEAN?

ON A STARRY NIGHT THERE ARE SWIRLS IN THE SKY

IN PORTRAITS THERE ARE SWIRLS AROUND HIS HEAD

SWIRLS ALL AROUND VINCENT

SWIRLS IN THE SKY AND FIELDS

SWIRLS IN THE LAND, THE TREES, THE HILLS AND SKY

I wish to suggest that they are in fact indicating his sense of being jangled,
without a future, and unsettling, a need to have a home, an expending of lots of

effort but for what end goal, that sort of thing. At first I thought it was a unique
and rather interesting way to lay in background. But as I looked further,
something else made more sense, an indicator of his emotional condition.
ALSO, I NOTICED HIS RATHER FREQUENT USE OF GREENS,
BRILLIANT BLUES, AND YELLOW TOGETHER. EXCEPT FOR THE DARK
RED-BROWN AND A LITTLE BLACK IN THE BIRDS, THOSE COLORS
DOMINATE HERE. I SEE HIM WORKING WITH SHADES AND TONES,
TRYING NEW THINGS, BUT KEEPING CERTAIN OLD IDEAS, ALSO. WE SEE
SIMILAR COLORS IN THIS PIECE BY HIS FRIEND DAUBIGNY. CURIOUS!

ONE MUST ASK IF THAT IS ACCIDENT OR INFLUENCE ON ONE ANOTHER.

PERHAPS SOME OF BOTH OCCURRED.

IT IS HARD TO SAY FROM

WHERE WE SIT, ISNT IT? THEY ARE INTERESTING TONES THAT ARE
EVEN SEEN IN VINCENTS LILACS PIECE.

THE SAME COLORS ARE SEEN IN FARMHOUSE IN A WHEAT FIELD

SAME THING IN THE VINEYARD: BLUE, YELLOW, GREEN, BROWN

STRONGE

R THIS
TIME ON
THE
BROWN
AND

ORANGE BUT THE SAME

SOMEONE SAID THAT BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.

PERHAPS AESTHETIC IS, ALSO. IN THIS TEXT WE SEE WONDERS,

THE COSMOLOGICAL AESTHETIC WORLDVIEW

IN VAN GOGHS LATE LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS
Erman Kaplama

There is a chance that initial responses to Van Gogh's The Starry Night
may be just as diverse and unpredictable as to any other painting. However, one
can safely say that a mere beautiful! does not adequately account for the
striking experience of seeing The Starry Night for the first time. Some artworks
are called sublime because of their capacity to move human imagination in a

different way than the experience of beauty. The following discussion explores
how Van Goghs The Starry Night along with some of his other late landscape
paintings accomplish this peculiar movement of imagination thus qualifying as
sublime artworks. These artworks constitute examples of the higher aesthetic
principles and must be judged according to the cosmological-aesthetic criteria
for they manage to generate a transition between ethos and phusis and present
them in unity. Van Gogh achieves this effect by depicting the sky, sun, moon,
stars, fields, mountains, trees and human dwellings as extensions of the motion
inherent in phusis. These paintings are dynamic as they relate immediately to
human sense-intuition (Anschauung), thus moving the human imagination and
subsequently stimulating the power of judgment, which by then has already
classified the experience of seeing them as sublime. Once acknowledged as
sublime, this dynamic-aesthetic quality of the artwork actualizes the transition
between the moving forces it represents and the human concept it has
activated. Therefore, the dynamic-aesthetic quality comes to be part of the
universal logos which is timeless, in other words is, was, will be, and spaceless,
or which is there, here, closer, further, inside and outside. When looking at these
paintings one is also looking at logos, the bridge on which humanity dwells. The
moving experience of the artwork means witnessing the very grounding of
humanity within the senseless cosmic forces.

To what extent can we say, then, that a technically perfect photograph of

the Milky Way would fail to create a similar effect to The Starry Night? Is it bound
to fail? While the photograph aims to present the thingly qualities of the Milky
Way, the painting goes beyond merely phenomenal characteristics of the
landscape and thereby becomes the artistic creation reconciling the
phenomenon with its concept. Heidegger explains this as follows:
Art presences in the art-work . . . the artwork is something over and above
its thingliness. This something else in the work constitutes its artistic nature. The
artwork . . . says something other than the mere thing itself is. . . . The work
makes publicly known something other than itself, it manifests something other:
it is an allegory. In the artwork something other is brought into conjunction with
the thing that is made.
THATS A FASCINATING ANALYSIS, NOW. HMMM, HOW INTERESTING
THE IDEA THAT THE ART CAN BE MUCH MORE THAN IS OBVIOUS ON THE
CANVASS. IT SOUNDS LIKE THE REAL ART IS CREATED IN THE VIEWER,
BECAUSE THE PAINTER GAVE THEM THAT ABILITY. IT IS LIKE THERE IS
SOMETHING MYSTICAL GOING ON. OR AT LEAST, SOMEONE THINKS SO.

THERE IS A PIECE THAT BARELY LOOKS LIKE VAN GOGH, THE

RESTAURANT DE LE SIRENE AT ASNIERES, AND YET IT DOES LOOK LIKE
HIM. FOR ONE THING, THE COLOR PALETTE IS UNIQUE, WITH LOTS OF
RED.

THE STYLE IS DECIDEDLY POST-IMPRESSIONIST WITH BROAD

BRUSH STROKES, HEAVY PAINT, AND MINIMAL DETAIL.

VAN GOGH EVEN CONTINUED TO PAINT WHILE HE WAS IN CARE AT

ARLES. IT WAS SORT OF THE LOVE THE ONE YOURE WITH IDEA IN
THAT EVEN IN AN ASYLUM HE PAINTED. I CANT HELP BUT NOTICE THE

MAGNIFICENT USE OF GOLDEN YELLOW HERE! ALONG WTH THE MORE

DEFINED DETAIL OF THE PEOPLE ON THE MEZZANINE, THIS LOOKS LIKE
OLDER VAN GOGH, FOR HE WAS INDEED CHANGING. I THINK VINCENT
WAS JUST GUTSY ENOUGH TO GROWL AT HIS EMOTIONAL OR MENTAL
PROBLEMS, TO STARE DIFFICULTY IN THE FACE IN THE ASYLUM AND DO
THE ONE THING OTHERS WOULD HAVE ADVISED HIM NOT TO DO
PAINT. I CAN TELL HE WAS ONE TOUGH MAN. HE SAID, I DREAM MY
PAINTING, THEN I PAINT MY DREAM.

AGAIN,

WE

SEE

GREATER

CRISPNESS

OF

DETAIL,

STRONGER PALETTE, FARMING BY LOCAL DUTCH PEOPLE, AND

TREMENDOUS DEPTH OF FIELD, FROM RIGHT HERE TO WAY OVER
THERE IN THE MOUNTAINS, MANY MILES AWAY.

VAN GOGH DID NOT DO MANY OF WHAT I WOULD CALL DEEP

LANDSCAPES, BUT THIS VIEW OF PARIS FROM MONTEMARTRE IS
TERRIFIC, AS IS THE ONE BELOW, ANOTHER DEEP LANDSCAPE.

Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky

Wassily

Wassilyevich

Kandinsky

(/kndnski/;

Russian:

, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, pronounced [vas il j

kndinskj]; 16 December [O.S. 4 December] 1866 13 December 1944) was
an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting one of
the first purely abstract works.[1] Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his
childhood in Odessa, where he graduated at Grekov Odessa Art school. He
enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in
his professionhe was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the
University of DorpatKandinsky began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching
and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Abe's private
school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914,

after the outbreak of World War I. Kandinsky was unsympathetic to the official
theories on art in Communist Moscow, and returned to Germany in 1921. There,
he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the
Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France, where he lived for the rest of
his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939 and producing some of his most
prominent art. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.
His grandson was musicology professor and writer Aleksey Ivanovich
Kandinsky (1918 2000), whose career was both focused on and centered in
Russia.[2][3]
Der Blaue Reiter (1903)
Kandinsky's creation of abstract work followed a long period of
development and maturation of intense thought based on his artistic
experiences. He called this devotion to inner beauty, fervor of spirit, and spiritual
desire inner necessity; it was a central aspect of his art.
Youth and inspiration (18661896)[edit]
Early-period work, Munich-Schwabing with the Church of St. Ursula (1908)
Kandinsky was born in Moscow, the son of Lidia Ticheeva and Vasily
Silvestrovich Kandinsky, a tea merchant.[4][5] Kandinsky learned from a variety
of sources while in Moscow. He studied many fields while in school, including
law and economics. Later in life, he would recall being fascinated and stimulated
by colour as a child. His fascination with colour symbolism and psychology

continued as he grew. In 1889, he was part of an ethnographic research group

which travelled to the Vologda region north of Moscow. In Looks on the Past, he
relates that the houses and churches were decorated with such shimmering
colours that upon entering them, he felt that he was moving into a painting. This
experience, and his study of the region's folk art (particularly the use of bright
colours on a dark background), was reflected in much of his early work. A few
years later he first likened painting to composing music in the manner for which
he would become noted, writing, "Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the
hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand which
plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul".[6] Kandinsky
was also the uncle of Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojve (19021968).
In 1896, at the age of 30, Kandinsky gave up a promising career teaching
law and economics to enroll in the Munich Academy where his teachers would
eventually include Franz von Stuck.[7] He was not immediately granted
admission, and began learning art on his own. That same year, before leaving
Moscow, he saw an exhibit of paintings by Monet. He was particularly taken with
the impressionistic style of Haystacks; this, to him, had a powerful sense of
colour almost independent of the objects themselves. Later, he would write
about this experience:

That it was a haystack the catalogue informed me. I could not recognize it.
This non-recognition was painful to me. I considered that the painter had no
right to paint indistinctly. I dully felt that the object of the painting was missing.
And I noticed with surprise and confusion that the picture not only gripped me,
but impressed itself ineradicably on my memory. Painting took on a fairy-tale
power and splendour.[8]

Wassily Kandinsky

Kandinsky was similarly influenced during this period by Richard Wagner's

Lohengrin which, he felt, pushed the limits of music and melody beyond
standard lyricism.[citation needed] He was also spiritually influenced by
Madame Blavatsky (18311891), the best-known exponent of theosophy.
Theosophical theory postulates that creation is a geometrical progression,
beginning with a single point. The creative aspect of the form is expressed by a
descending series of circles, triangles and squares. Kandinsky's book
Concerning the Spiritual In Art (1910) and Point and Line to Plane (1926)
echoed this theosophical tenet. Illustrations by John Varley in Thought Forms
(1901) influenced him visually.[9]
Metamorphosis
Art school, usually considered difficult, was easy for Kandinsky. It was
during this time that he began to emerge as an art theorist as well as a painter.
The number of his existing paintings increased at the beginning of the 20th
century; much remains of the landscapes and towns he painted, using broad

swaths of colour and recognizable forms. For the most part, however,
Kandinsky's paintings did not feature any human figures; an exception is
Sunday, Old Russia (1904), in which Kandinsky recreates a highly colourful (and
fanciful) view of peasants and nobles in front of the walls of a town. Riding
Couple (1907) depicts a man on horseback, holding a woman with tenderness
and care as they ride past a Russian town with luminous walls across a river.
The horse is muted while the leaves in the trees, the town, and the reflections in
the river glisten with spots of colour and brightness. This work demonstrates the
influence of pointillism in the way the depth of field is collapsed into a flat,
luminescent surface. Fauvism is also apparent in these early works. Colours are
used to express Kandinsky's experience of subject matter, not to describe
objective nature.
Perhaps the most important of his paintings from the first decade of the
1900s was The Blue Rider (1903), which shows a small cloaked figure on a
speeding horse rushing through a rocky meadow. The rider's cloak is medium
blue, which casts a darker-blue shadow. In the foreground are more amorphous
blue shadows, the counterparts of the fall trees in the background. The blue
rider in the painting is prominent (but not clearly defined), and the horse has an
unnatural gait (which Kandinsky must have known). Some art historians
believe[citation needed] that a second figure (perhaps a child) is being held by
the rider, although this may be another shadow from the solitary rider. This

intentional disjunction, allowing viewers to participate in the creation of the

artwork, became an increasingly conscious technique used by Kandinsky in
subsequent years; it culminated in the abstract works of the 19111914 period.
In The Blue Rider, Kandinsky shows the rider more as a series of colours than in
specific detail. This painting is not exceptional in that regard when compared
with contemporary painters, but it shows the direction Kandinsky would take
only a few years later.
From 1906 to 1908 Kandinsky spent a great deal of time traveling across
Europe (he was an associate of the Blue Rose symbolist group of Moscow),
until he settled in the small Bavarian town of Murnau. In 1908 he bought a copy
of Thought-Forms by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater. In 1909
he joined the Theosophical Society. The Blue Mountain (19081909) was
painted at this time, demonstrating his trend toward abstraction. A mountain of
blue is flanked by two broad trees, one yellow and one red. A procession, with
three riders and several others, crosses at the bottom. The faces, clothing, and
saddles of the riders are each a single colour, and neither they nor the walking
figures display any real detail. The flat planes and the contours also are
indicative of Fauvist influence. The broad use of colour in The Blue Mountain
illustrates Kandinsky's inclination toward an art in which colour is presented
independently of form, and which each colour is given equal attention. The

composition is more planar; the painting is divided into four sections: the sky, the
red tree, the yellow tree and the blue mountain with the three riders.
NOW IT IS TIME TO VIEW KANDINSKYS WORKS AND STUDY THEM
ONE AT A TIME. FIRST, HIS EARLIEST WORKS, THE ABSTRACTS.

This piece is highly geometric, as if referring to the Theosophical

concepts based there. Colors rather balance each other out. Lines intersect
between circles, squares, trapezoids, and rectangles. Those items rather float in
and ethereal atmosphere. So the background is built of cloudy pale blue, red,
and yellow, as if these colors were air brushed into place. Arches, swirls, and
chopsticks are scattered throughout. Kandinsky was definitely working in his
theosophical arena here, sorting out details, attempting to create balance, and
wanting to gain a pleasant and quieting look. He needed this to be very orderly,

not scattered and splattered as some of his works were. I believe he succeeded
on that.

FOR LACK OF A BETTER WORD THIS PIECE FEELS HEAVIER IN NATURE

THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE. I OFFER NO CRITICISM IN CALLING THIS
HEAVIER, FOR I AM ONLY DESCRIBING MY VIEW OF IT, NOT ITS IMPORT.
THERE ARE AREAS HERE OF COMMITTED COLORS, TOO, SUCH AS
LAVENDER, AQUA,
COMPARED

TO

BLACK,

THE

ORANGE,

PREVIOUS,

THE

RED,

YELLOW, AND

GEOMETRICS

MINIMIZED HERE. HIS LOVE OF COLOR IS IMPORTANT.

ARE

BLUE.
MORE

WHERE THE

PREVIOUS PIECE FELT MORE LIKE THEORY, THIS IS SUBSTANTIVE AND

MAY CARRY MORE DEPTH OF THOUGHT. I SUSPECT THIS ONE CAME

AFTER SOME MORE SERIOUS ANALYTICAL THINKING ABOUT LIFE AND
ITS VALUES. HE WAS DEEPLY IN HIS MIND.

THERE

IS

DEEP

COMMITMENT

HEREIN.

THE

HIGHLY

EMPHASIZED FAUVIST COLORS ARE LIVID, VARIED, LAIN DOWN IN

LARGE BOTCHES, AND RUNNING INTO ONE ANOTHER. THE ENTIRE ART
BOARD IS SATURATED WITH PAINT! AND THERE IS EVEN WHAT APPEARS
TO BE AN EYE LOW AND TO THE RIGHT. THIS IS COMPLEX LIKE A HUMAN
BRAIN, SPIRIT, OR SOUL, WITH ALL ELEMENTS RUNNING INTO EACH

OTHER. NO PART IS ISOLATED AT ALL. EVERYTHING IS ONE MOVEMENT

OF FEELINGS, THOUGHTS, AND EMOTIONS. THIS MAY BE THE REALITY
OF BEING HUMAN BEING DESCRIBED TO US, NOT IN WORKS, BUT IN
PAINT.

UNLIKE THE HURRIED AND SINGULAR BLUE RIDER, WE SEE A

LOVING COUPLE RIDING SLOWLY, SAUNTERING ALONG IN BLUES,
PURPLES, AND BLACK. IS ONE A MERE SHADOW OF THE OTHER? NO,
THERE ARE TWO OF THEM, WITH HER FEET TO THE SIDE. BUT, THEY

ARE NOT JUST RIDING, THEY ARE EMBRACING EACH OTHER WHILE
THEY RIDE, GOING IT TOGETHER. THEY LOOK REGAL, WEARING
CORONETS AND HATS. SHE SITS SIDE SADDLE, A VERY LADYLIKE
POSTURE.

THEIR STEED ISNT STUMBLING BUT PRANCING, OH, SO

ELEGANTLY ALONG. THE NIGHT IS DARK AND COOL . SO IS THEIR LOVE.

ALL IS DESCRIBED IN BLOTCHES, OR DOTS, OF RICH COLOR. HE
LOOKS LONGINGLY AT THE CITY ACROSS THE WATER, AS IF HE IS
DAYDREAMING ABOUT TRAVELING SOON. JUST AFTER THIS, KANDINSKY
DID TRAVEL MORE.

This more impressionistic work was done in Munich as he traveled further.

It appears to have been painted plein air, and on site, in a short few moments,
as Kandinsky hurriedly laid down pigments decidedly. The pallet is more demure
with mostly muted shades of color. No splashing here! The mood is subtle and
serene in nature. The water in the foreground is rather muddy, indicating that
there is little clarity before him.

BY MASSIVE CONTRAST, LOOK AT THE GARISHLY ARRAYED

COLORS USED IN THIS FAUVIST PIECE!

HERE, THE MAIN THING IS

COLOR AND PLENTY OF IT. THE SUBJECTS ARE IRRELEVANT TO THE

OVERALL REACTION OF THE PAINTING. EVERYTHING SEEMS TO

SUGGEST TO WALK A GOLDEN PATH, GOING UPWARD. THAT IDEA IS

MADE VITAL TO THE LITTLE CHILD, AS ITS FUTURE IS ALSO GOLDEN,
AND FOUND IN ITS YOUTHFUL INNOCENCE. THE CHILD IS GUIDED BY
WOMEN, JUST AS KANDINSKY IS GUIDED MY MADAME BLAVATSKY, THE
THEORIST OF THEOSOPHY.

BUT IN THIS FAUVIST ADVENTURE, ALL IS COOL AND DISCREET,

ALTHOUGH SOME DETAILS ARE IN THE BRIGHTEST OF REDS, ORANGES,
GREENS, YELLOWS, AND PINKS. WATER IS LEADING US, FLOWING IF
YOU WILL, INTO THE SCENE. IN THE DISTANCE THE FIRST LIGHT IS
COMING IN BLUES, GREENS, YELLOW, AND ORANGE SUBTLE TONES.

HE SOMEHOW ACCOMPLISHED A RETICENT AND RESERVED DAZZLE,

ALTHOUGH MUCH IS DARK. PERHAPS IN THE MOST MUNDANE THINGS
THERE IS EXCITEMENT. THE FUTURE MAY HOLD MANY THINGS BOTH
HAPPY AND GLAD AND OVERTLY CHALLENGING AND DISTRESSING. IN
THE MIDST OF IT ALL, BRILLIANT COLOR REMAINS AND GLOWS HOPE.

IN THIS FAUVIST ATTEMPT, BLENDED COLORS ARE MOSTLY USED,

FOR

THE

WORLD

IS

MADE

OF

MANY

ELEMENTS

AND

EVEN

UNCONSCIOUS IDEAS, HOPES AND DREAMS, SUCCESSES AND LOSSES.

THIS DEEP AND CONSCIENTIOUS THINKER FROM RUSSIA IS FILLED
WITH A MYRIAD OF STRUCTURES, IN HOPES OF RESOLVING THE MOST

DIFFICULT AND SETTLING SOMEWHERE ON PERMANENCE.

HE SEEKS

THE HIDDEN KNOWLEDGE, EXPANDING HIS MIND TO RECEIVE IT. WE

MUST HEREBY RECALL A MAJOR TENET KANDINSKY HOLDS, THAT,
Theosophy is a collection of mystical and occultist philosophies concerning, or
seeking direct knowledge of, the presumed mysteries of life and nature,
particularly of the nature of divinity and the origin and purpose of the universe.
Theosophy is considered part of Western esotericism, which believes that
hidden knowledge or wisdom from the Ancient past offers a path to
enlightenment and salvation.
TO KANDINSKY, RELIGION IS VERY MUCH OF THE MIND AND IS
INTERNAL RATHER THAN FOUND IN AN EXTERNAL DEITY. IF YOU KNOW
ENOUGH, YOU SHALL BE SAVED. ONWARD HE TRAVELS, UP AND OWN
LIFES HILLS AND VALLEYS, SEEKING HIS BEST REALITY. HE IS ALWAYS A
SEARCHER, EVEN AS A PAINTER. TO HIM, THERE IS A RELIGION HIGHER
THAN TRUTH.
AS A COMPARISON, it is clear that theosophy is at odds with the Bible.
Not only does the Bible refute the idea of reincarnation and karma (Hebrews
9:27), it also differs from theosophy on the following points:
1) Theosophy denies the existence of a personal, infinite God. The Bible plainly
teaches the existence of a God who is both personal and infinite (Hebrews 1:10,
11:6).

2) Theosophy denies the need of forgiveness. The Bible proclaims all mankind
to be in need of Gods forgiveness, available only through the death of Jesus
Christ (Romans 3:23-25). While the number of theosophists has dwindled
through the years, the philosophy itself has had a marked influence. Theosophy
has produced great interest in the Eastern religions among those in the West,
leading to revivals of Hinduism and Buddhism. It has also heavily influenced the
rise of other religious movements, such as Rosicrucianism, unity, and the New
Thought movement.
Kandinskys chosen belief in Theosophy seeks a nondescript higher
wisdom, but it fails to recognize the biblical context that there is no higher
wisdom than is found in Jesus Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of
God (1 Corinthians 1:24).
3) Theosophy teaches that Christ was a Great Soul who inhabited the body of
a man named Jesus for a few years (this is an ancient Gnostic heresy). The
Bible teaches that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, God himself who came to us
as a human being who died for our sins (John 1:1-14).
So, Theosophy comes across as conflicted, rather like this abstract image,

Kandinsky's Color theory was published in 1911 and meant to explain the painters palette in
two ways: the effect on the eye (the viewing persons physical understanding of the color) and inner
resonance, psychological effect, when it effects your spiritual experience. Here are the basic points of
the color explanatory by Kandinsky:
Yellow warm, cheeky and exciting, disturbing for people, attack, madness
Green peace, stillness, passive, mix of yellow and blue. The absolute absence of movement, is
good for tired people, but after the rest the feeling of calmness can become boring.
Blue peaceful, supernatural, deep, typical heavenly color, The lighter it is, the more calming
it is. When in the end it becomes white, it reaches absolute calmness.
Red restless, glowing, alive, manly maturity
Light Red is a warm color, expresses joy, energy and triumph.
Middle Red evokes feeling of stability and passion
Dark Red as any other cool color is a deep one, it can be made even deeper with light blue.
Brown dull, hard, inhibited, mix of red and black
Orange radiant, serious, healthy, mix of red and yellow
Violet morbid, extinguished, sad, mix of red and blue

White It is not a dead silence, but one pregnant with Harmony of silence, possibilities.
White is the harmony of silence.
Black extinguished, immovable, Not without possibilities, like an eternal silence, without
future and hope. While the white expresses joy and spotless cleanliness, the black is the color of great
grief.
Grey is the balance between the white and black. It is soundless and motionless, but it differs
from green, because the green is a mixture of two active colors, while the grey expresses a hopeless
stillness.

According to Kandinsky, a dull shape like a circle deserves a dull color like blue. A shape
with intermediate interest like a square deserves an intermediate color like red. A dynamic, interesting
shape like a triangle deserves an energetic, luminous, psychotic color like yellow.
A sharp angle, by Kandinsky, is an aggressive angle, there for an angle of 30 best matches the
color yellow. Straight angle 90 is red (remember the figure square for red). As more dull is goes, it
turns into bluer (for 150), as it has less aggression, and eventually turns into black horizontal line
(180).
Would you find this theory useful to you or not, it is an interesting theory to know. Kandinsky
has developed it not only by his synesthesic understanding of the colors (which could be different for
many people), but also based it on his own experience of peoples reaction on his work.

PABLO PICASSO

EXAMPLE OF CUBISM
Pablo Ruiz y Picasso, also known as Pablo Picasso (/pkso, -kso/;
[2] Spanish: [palo pikaso]; 25 October 1881 8 April 1973), was a Spanish
painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright
who spent most of his adult life in France. Regarded as one of the greatest and

most influential artists of the 20th century, he is known for co-founding the
Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture,[3][4] the co-invention
of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore.
Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
(1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the Bombing of Guernica by the
German and Italian airforces at the behest of the Spanish nationalist
government during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are regarded as the three
artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in
the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant
developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.[5][6][7][8]
Picasso demonstrated extraordinary artistic talent in his early years,
painting in a naturalistic manner through his childhood and adolescence. During
the first decade of the 20th century, his style changed as he experimented with
different theories, techniques, and ideas. His work is often categorized into
periods. While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most
commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (19011904), the
Rose Period (19041906), the African-influenced Period (19071909),
Analytic Cubism (19091912), and Synthetic Cubism (19121919), also referred
to as the Crystal period.
Exceptionally prolific throughout the course of his long life, Picasso
achieved universal renown and immense fortune for his revolutionary artistic

accomplishments, and became one of the best-known figures in 20th-century

art.
Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego Jos Francisco de Paula Juan
Nepomuceno Mara de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santsima Trinidad Ruiz y
Picasso,[1] a series of names honoring various saints and relatives.[9] Ruiz y
Picasso were included for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish
law. Born in the city of Mlaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first
child of Don Jos Ruiz y Blasco (18381913) and Mara Picasso y Lpez.[10] His
mother was of Italian descent, from the territory of Genoa.[11] Though baptized
a Catholic, Picasso would later on become an atheist.[12] Picasso's family was
of middle-class background. His father was a painter who specialized in
naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a
professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz's
ancestors were minor aristocrats.
Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing from an early age.
According to his mother, his first words were "piz, piz", a shortening of lpiz, the
Spanish word for "pencil".[13] From the age of seven, Picasso received formal
artistic training from his father in figure drawing and oil painting. Ruiz was a
traditional academic artist and instructor, who believed that proper training
required disciplined copying of the masters, and drawing the human body from
plaster casts and live models. His son became preoccupied with art to the
detriment of his classwork.

The family moved to A Corua in 1891, where his father became a

professor at the School of Fine Arts. They stayed almost four years. On one
occasion, the father found his son painting over his unfinished sketch of a
pigeon. Observing the precision of his son's technique, an apocryphal story
relates, Ruiz felt that the thirteen-year-old Picasso had surpassed him, and
vowed to give up painting,[14] though paintings by him exist from later years.
In 1895, Picasso was traumatized when his seven-year-old sister,
Conchita, died of diphtheria.[15] After her death, the family moved to Barcelona,
where Ruiz took a position at its School of Fine Arts. Picasso thrived in the city,
regarding it in times of sadness or nostalgia as his true home.[16] Ruiz
persuaded the officials at the academy to allow his son to take an entrance
exam for the advanced class. This process often took students a month, but
Picasso completed it in a week, and the jury admitted him, at just 13. The
student lacked discipline but made friendships that would affect him in later life.
His father rented a small room for him close to home so he could work alone,
yet he checked up on him numerous times a day, judging his drawings. The two
argued frequently.
Picasso's father and uncle decided to send the young artist to Madrid's
Royal Academy of San Fernando, the country's foremost art school.[16] At age
16, Picasso set off for the first time on his own, but he disliked formal
instruction and stopped attending classes soon after enrollment. Madrid held
many other attractions. The Prado housed paintings by Diego Velzquez,
Francisco Goya, and Francisco Zurbarn. Picasso especially admired the works

of El Greco; elements such as his elongated limbs, arresting colors, and

mystical visages are echoed in Picasso's later work.
Picasso's African-influenced Period (19071909) begins with the two
figures on the right in his painting, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which were
inspired by African artefacts. Formal ideas developed during this period lead
directly into the Cubist period that follows.
Analytic cubism (19091912) is a style of painting Picasso developed with
Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colors. Both artists
took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and
Braque's paintings at this time share many similarities. Synthetic cubism (1912
1919) was a further development of the genre, in which cut paper fragments
often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages were pasted into
compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art.
In Paris, Picasso entertained a distinguished coterie of friends in the
Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including Andr Breton, poet Guillaume
Apollinaire, writer Alfred Jarry, and Gertrude Stein. Apollinaire was arrested on
suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre in 1911. Apollinaire pointed
to his friend Picasso, who was also brought in for questioning, but both were
later exonerated.[30]
Crystal period
Between 1915 and 1917, Picasso began a series of paintings depicting
highly geometric and minimalist Cubist objects, consisting of either a pipe, a
guitar or a glass, with an occasional element of collage. "Hard-edged square-cut

diamonds", notes art historian John Richardson, "these gems do not always
have upside or downside".[31][32] "We need a new name to designate them,"
wrote Picasso to Gertrude Stein: Maurice Raynal suggested "Crystal Cubism".
[31][33] These "little gems" may have been produced by Picasso in response to
critics who had claimed his defection from the movement, through his
experimentation with classicism within the so-called return to order following
the war.[31][34]
Picasso's training under his father began before 1890. His progress can be
traced in the collection of early works now held by the Museu Picasso in
Barcelona, which provides one of the most comprehensive records extant of
any major artist's beginnings.[17] During 1893 the juvenile quality of his earliest
work falls away, and by 1894 his career as a painter can be said to have begun.
[18] The academic realism apparent in the works of the mid-1890s is well
displayed in The First Communion (1896), a large composition that depicts his
sister, Lola. In the same year, at the age of 14, he painted Portrait of Aunt Pepa, a
vigorous and dramatic portrait that Juan-Eduardo Cirlot has called "without a
doubt one of the greatest in the whole history of Spanish painting."[19]
In 1897 his realism became tinged with Symbolist influence, in a series of
landscape paintings rendered in non-naturalistic violet and green tones. What
some call his Modernist period (18991900) followed. His exposure to the work
of Rossetti, Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec and Edvard Munch, combined with his
admiration for favorite old masters such as El Greco, led Picasso to a personal
version of modernism in his works of this period.[20]

Picasso made his first trip to Paris, then the art capital of Europe, in 1900.
There, he met his first Parisian friend, journalist and poet Max Jacob, who
helped Picasso learn the language and its literature. Soon they shared an
apartment; Max slept at night while Picasso slept during the day and worked at
night. These were times of severe poverty, cold, and desperation. Much of his
work was burned to keep the small room warm. During the first five months of
1901, Picasso lived in Madrid, where he and his anarchist friend Francisco de
Ass Soler founded the magazine Arte Joven (Young Art), which published five
issues. Soler solicited articles and Picasso illustrated the journal, mostly
contributing grim cartoons depicting and sympathizing with the state of the
poor. The first issue was published on 31 March 1901, by which time the artist
had started to sign his work Picasso; before he had signed Pablo Ruiz y
Picasso.[21]
Picasso's Blue Period (19011904), characterized by somber paintings
rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other
colors, began either in Spain in early 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the
year.[22] Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from the Blue
Period, during which Picasso divided his time between Barcelona and Paris. In
his austere use of color and sometimes doleful subject matter prostitutes and
beggars are frequent subjects Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain
and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas. Starting in autumn of 1901
he painted several posthumous portraits of Casagemas, culminating in the

gloomy allegorical painting La Vie (1903), now in the Cleveland Museum of Art.
[23]
The same mood pervades the well-known etching The Frugal Repast
(1904),[24] which depicts a blind man and a sighted woman, both emaciated,
seated at a nearly bare table. Blindness is a recurrent theme in Picasso's works
of this period, also represented in The Blindman's Meal (1903, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art) and in the portrait of Celestina (1903). Other works include
The Rose Period (19041906)[25] is characterized by a more cheery style
with orange and pink colors, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and
harlequins known in France as saltimbanques. The harlequin, a comedic
character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, became a personal
symbol for Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a bohemian artist who
became his mistress, in Paris in 1904.[15] Olivier appears in many of his Rose
Period paintings, many of which are influenced by his warm relationship with
her, in addition to his increased exposure to French painting. The generally
upbeat and optimistic mood of paintings in this period is reminiscent of the
18991901 period (i.e. just prior to the Blue Period) and 1904 can be considered
a transition year between the two periods.
By 1905, Picasso became a favorite of American art collectors Leo and
Gertrude Stein. Their older brother Michael Stein and his wife Sarah also
became collectors of his work. Picasso painted portraits of both Gertrude Stein
and her nephew Allan Stein. Gertrude Stein became Picasso's principal patron,
acquiring his drawings and paintings and exhibiting them in her informal Salon

at her home in Paris.[27] At one of her gatherings in 1905, he met Henri Matisse,
who was to become a lifelong friend and rival. The Steins introduced him to
Claribel Cone and her sister Etta who were American art collectors; they also
began to acquire Picasso and Matisse's paintings. Eventually Leo Stein moved
to Italy. Michael and Sarah Stein became patrons of Matisse, while Gertrude
Stein continued to collect Picasso.[28]
In 1907 Picasso joined an art gallery that had recently been opened in
Paris by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler was a German art historian and
art collector who became one of the premier French art dealers of the 20th
century. He was among the first champions of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque
and the Cubism that they jointly developed. Kahnweiler promoted burgeoning
artists such as Andr Derain, Kees van Dongen, Fernand Lger, Juan Gris,
Maurice de Vlaminck and several others who had come from all over the globe
to live and work in Montparnasse at the time.[29]
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon, and originally
titled The Brothel of Avignon)[2] is a large oil painting created in 1907 by the
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (18811973). The work portrays five nude female
prostitutes from a brothel on Carrer d'Aviny (Aviny Street) in Barcelona. Each
figure is depicted in a disconcerting confrontational manner and none are
conventionally feminine. The women appear as slightly menacing and rendered
with angular and disjointed body shapes. Three figures on the left exhibit facial
features in the Iberian style of Picasso's native Spain, while the two on the right
are shown with African mask-like features. The racial primitivism evoked in

these masks, according to Picasso, moved him to "liberate an utterly original

artistic style of compelling, even savage force."[3][4]

In this adaptation of Primitivism and abandonment of perspective in favor of a flat, twodimensional picture plane, Picasso makes a radical departure from traditional European painting. This
proto-Cubist work is widely considered to be seminal in the early development of both Cubism and

Modern art. Les Demoiselles was revolutionary and controversial, and led to widespread anger and
disagreement, even amongst his closest associates and friends. Matisse considered the work something
of a bad joke, yet indirectly reacted to it in his 1908 Bathers with a Turtle. Braque too initially disliked
the painting, yet perhaps more than anyone else, studied the work in great detail. And effectively, his
subsequent friendship and collaboration with Picasso led to the Cubist revolution.[5][6] Its resemblance
to Czanne's Les Grandes Baigneuses, Paul Gauguin's statue Oviri and El Greco's Opening of the Fifth
Seal has been widely discussed by later critics.

Melancholy Woman (Blue Period)

RED PERIOD

GUERNICA, 1937

THE WEEPING WOMAN

WOMAN OF ALGER (EARLY CUBISM)

DOVE OF PEACE

THREE FIGURES BENEATH A TREE

NUDE WITH PICASSO AT HER FEET

WELL, ONCE AGAIN WE HAVE LOOKED AT LOTS OF ART, TRYING TO

SEE WHAT IS IN IT. NATURALLY, IT HELPS TO HAVE SOMEONE SHOW YOU OR
TELL YOU WHAT IS THERE, TOO. LEARNING THE SITUATION, SETTING, TIME
PERIOD, AND THE BACKGROUND WILL IMMENSELY EXPAND OUR VIEW. IN
FACT, AS ANY OF US LEARNS ABOUT ART WE ACCUMULATE THAT
KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE IT OUR OWN WAY.

WE DISCOVER ONE

THING, THEN OTHERS. EVENTUALLY, WE BECOME PRETTY EXPERT AT ART

APPRECIATION, AND WE LEARN MANY THINGS.
In cubist artworks, for example, objects are broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in an abstracted forminstead of depicting objects from one
viewpoint, the artist depicts the subject from a multitude of viewpoints to
represent the subject in a greater context.
OH, WE CAN FOCUS ON ONE ARTIST AT A TIME, OR EVEN A CERTAIN
GROUP, SUCH AS THE HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL OR THE CAPE ANN GROUPS.
WE ALL HAVE OUR FAVORITES. WE EACH ARE ALLOWED TO CHOOSE OR
PICK THOSE. TRULY BEAUTY, AND PERHAPS INTRIGUE, AVARICE, OR
STEALTH ARE IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, FOR FROM HEART TO HEART
WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT IN MANY WAYS. ONE PERSON SEES ONE THING,
WHERE ANOTHER SEES VERY DIFFERENT THINGS. WE HAVE LEARNED THAT
VERY GOOD ART HAS SOMETHING FOR MANY OF US.
IN THIS TEXT, AND THE FIRST, WE HAVE ONLY TOUCHED THE SURFACE
OF THE CANVASS, SO I ENCOURAGE YOU TO CONTINUE TO STUDY GOOD

ART AND ENJOY IT, WHATEVER THAT MEANS TO YOU. AS YOU DO THAT,
HAVE YOURSELF A WONDERFUL TIME!

DENNIS