December 19, 2014

Day 353- Pierre-Auguste Renoir- “The pain passes, but the beauty remains”

It’s Day 353 and I was a little nervous about today’s artist. First of all, his style is the most challenging (to me at least) and his artwork is so wonderful. I kept describing his paintings as whispers…since they are so soft looking. I find this type of impressionistic painting so difficult to do since I tend to paint bolder lines than this. Please join me in honoring Pierre- Auguste Renoir today.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Dance in the Country (Aline Charigot and Paul Lhote), 1883- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that “Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau.”

Pierre-Auguste was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–69). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, the child of a working-class family. As a boy, he worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talents led to his being chosen to paint designs on fine china. Before he enrolled in art school, he also painted hangings for overseas missionaries and decorations on fans. During those early years, he often visited the Louvre to study the French master painters.

In 1862, he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and Claude Monet. At times, during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Although Renoir first

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864, recognition did not come for another ten years, due, in part, to the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War.

During the Paris Commune in 1871, while Renoir painted on the banks of the Seine River, some Communards thought he was a spy and were about to throw him into the river when a leader of the Commune, Raoul Rigault, recognized Renoir as the man who had protected him on an earlier occasion.

In 1874, a ten-year friendship with Jules Le Cœur and his family ended, and Renoir lost not only the valuable support gained by the association, but also a generous welcome to stay on their property near Fontainebleau and its scenic forest. This loss of a favorite painting location resulted in a distinct change of subjects.

Le Moulin de la Galette- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir experienced his initial acclaim when six of his paintings were hung in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. In the same year, two of his works were shown with Durand-Ruel in London.

In 1881, he traveled to Algeria, a country he associated with Eugène Delacroix, then to Madrid, to see the work of Diego Velázquez. Following that, he traveled to Italy to see Titian’s masterpieces in Florence and the paintings of Raphael in Rome. On 15 January 1882 Renoir met the composer Richard Wagner at his home in Palermo, Sicily. Renoir painted Wagner’s portrait in just thirty-five minutes. In the same year, after contracting pneumonia which permanently damaged his respiratory system, Renoir convalesced for six weeks in Algeria.

In 1883, Renoir spent the summer in Guernsey, creating fifteen paintings in little over a month. Most of these feature Moulin Huet, a bay in Saint Martin’s, Guernsey. Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands in the English Channel, and it has a varied landscape that includes beaches, cliffs and bays. These paintings were the subject of a set of commemorative postage stamps issued by the Bailiwick of Guernsey in 1983.

While living and working in Montmartre, Renoir employed Suzanne Valadon as a model, posing for him (The Bathers, 1885–87; Dance at Bougival, 1883) and many of his fellow painters while studying their techniques; eventually she became one of the leading painters of the day.

In 1887, the year when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, and upon the request of the queen’s associate, Phillip Richbourg, Renoir

La Grenouillere (Bathing at la Grenouiller) -Pierre-Auguste Renoir

donated several paintings to the “French Impressionist Paintings” catalog as a token of his loyalty.

In 1890, he married Aline Victorine Charigot, who, along with a number of the artist’s friends, had already served as a model for Le Déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881), and with whom he had already had a child, Pierre, in 1885. After his marriage, Renoir painted many scenes of his wife and daily family life including their children and their nurse, Aline’s cousin Gabrielle Renard. The Renoirs had three sons, Jean Renoir became a filmmaker of note, Pierre Renoir, became a stage and film actor.

The Two Sister on the Terrace- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Around 1892, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. In 1907, he moved to the warmer climate of “Les Collettes,” a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer, close to the Mediterranean coast. Renoir painted during the last twenty years of his life even when he was wheelchair-bound and arthritis severely limited his movement. He developed progressive deformities in his hands and ankylosis of his right shoulder, requiring him to change his painting technique. It has often been reported that in the advanced stages of his arthritis, he painted by having a brush strapped to his paralyzed fingers, but this is erroneous; Renoir remained able to grasp a brush, although he required an assistant to place it in his hand. The wrapping of his hands with bandages, apparent in late photographs of the artist, served to prevent skin irritation.

In 1919, Renoir visited the Louvre to see his paintings hanging with those of the old masters. During this period, he created sculptures by cooperating with a young artist,Richard Guino, who worked the clay. Due to his limited joint mobility, Renoir also used a moving canvas, or picture roll, to facilitate painting large works.

Renoir’s portrait of Austrian actress Tilla Durieux (1914) contains playful flecks of vibrant color on her shawl that offset the classical pose of the actress and highlight Renoir’s skill just 5 years before his death.

Renoir died in the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, on 3 December 1919.

Renoir’s paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated colour, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions. The female nude was one of his primary subjects. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed

La Roge- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

touches of color, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings.

His initial paintings show the influence of the colorism of Eugène Delacroix and the luminosity of Camille Corot. He also admired the realism of Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet, and his early work resembles theirs in his use of black as a color. Renoir admired Edgar Degas’ sense of movement. Another painter Renoir greatly admired was the 18th-century master François Boucher.^[14]

A fine example of Renoir’s early work and evidence of the influence of Courbet’s realism, is Diana, 1867. Ostensibly a mythological subject, the painting is a naturalistic studio work; the figure carefully observed, solidly modeled and superimposed upon a contrived landscape. If the work is a ‘student’ piece, Renoir’s heightened personal response to female sensuality is present. The model was Lise Tréhot, the artist’s mistress at that time, and inspiration for a number of paintings.

In the late 1860s, through the practice of painting light and water en plein air (outdoors), he and his friend Claude Monet discovered that the color of shadows is not brown or black, but the reflected color of the objects surrounding them; an effect today known as diffuse reflection. Several pairs of paintings exist in which Renoir and Monet worked side-by-side, depicting the same scenes (La Grenouillère, 1869).

A Girl with a Watering Can, 1876- Pierre-Auguste Renoir

One of the best known Impressionist works is Renoir’s 1876 Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette). The painting depicts an open-air scene, crowded with people at a popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre close to where he lived. The works of his early maturity were typically Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling color and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women, as in The Bathers, created during 1884–87. It was a trip to Italy in 1881, when he saw works by Raphael and other Renaissance masters, that convinced him that he was on the wrong path, and for the next several years he painted in a more severe style in an attempt to return to classicism. Concentrating on his drawing and emphasizing the outlines of figures, this is sometimes called his “Ingres period”.

After 1890 he changed direction again. To dissolve outlines, as in his earlier work, he returned to thinly brushed color. From this period onward he concentrated on monumental nudes and domestic scenes, fine examples of which are Girls at the Piano, 1892, and Grandes Baigneuses, 1887. The latter painting is the most typical and successful of Renoir’s late, abundantly fleshed nudes.

A prolific artist, he created several thousand paintings. The warm sensuality of Renoir’s style made his paintings some of the most well-known and frequently-reproduced works in the history of art. The single largest collection of his works—181 paintings in all—is at the Barnes Foundation, in Philadelphia.

Biography is from wikipedia.

“The pain passes, but the beauty remains.”
― Pierre-Auguste Renoir

I hope you enjoy my piece today. It was quite a challenge, but I think I pulled it off. 🙂 It’s a self-portrait of myself as a child. I will see you tomorrow on Day 354.

Best,

Linda

Petite Fille dans le Manteau Rouge Chinois- Tribute to Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

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Petite Fille dans le Manteau Rouge Chinois- Tribute to Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 1
Petite Fille dans le Manteau Rouge Chinois- Tribute to Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 2
Petite Fille dans le Manteau Rouge Chinois- Tribute to Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 3
Petite Fille dans le Manteau Rouge Chinois- Tribute to Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Tagged art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, beauty, challenges, Claude Renoir, contemporary, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, en plein air, figurative, Figurative Painting, france, French, French Artist, French Impressionist, French Painter, impressionism, Impressionist, Impressionistic, Jean Renoir, landscape, linda cleary, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, Pierre Renoir, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, portrait, portrait artist, portrait painter, portraiture, projects, Realism, Renaissance, sensual art, still life, Waterscape
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December 16, 2014

Day 350- Salvador Dalí- Overdose of Satisfaction

It’s Day 350 and I spent forever today painting and making sure I did a wonderful tribute to today’s artist since he’s been one of my favorite artists since high school! Please join me in honoring Salvador Dali today. I’m posting this kind of late since I was rushing around doing holiday stuff this evening!

Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí Painter (1904–1989)

Spanish artist and Surrealist icon Salvador Dalí is perhaps best known for his painting of melting clocks, The Persistence of Memory.

Still Life Moving Fast- Salvador Dali

Salvador Dalí was born on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain. From an early age, Dalí was encouraged to practice his art and would eventually go on to study at an academy in Madrid. In the 1920s, he went to Paris and began interacting with artists such as Picasso, Magritte and Miró, which led to Dalí’s first Surrealist phase. He is perhaps best known for his 1931 painting The Persistence of Memory, showing melting clocks in a landscape setting. The rise of fascist leader Francisco Franco in Spain led to the artist’s expulsion from the Surrealist movement, but that didn’t stop him from painting. Dalí died in Figueres in 1989.

Salvador Dalí was born Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí y Domenech on May 11, 1904, in Figueres, Spain, located 16 miles from the French border in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. His father, Salvador Dalí y Cusi, was a middle class lawyer and notary. Salvador’s father had a strict disciplinary approach to raising children—a style of child-rearing which contrasted sharply with that of his mother, Felipa Domenech Ferres. She often indulged young Salvador in his art and early eccentricities.

It has been said that young Salvador was a precocious and intelligent child, prone to fits of anger against his parents and schoolmates. Consequently, Dalí was subjected to furious acts of cruelty by more dominant students or his father. The elder Salvador wouldn’t tolerate his son’s outbursts or

The Persistence of Memory- Salvador Dali

eccentricities, and punished him severely. Their relationship deteriorated when Salvador was still young, exacerbated by competition between he and his father for Felipa’s affection.

Dalí had an older brother, born nine months before him, also named Salvador, who died of gastroenteritis. Later in his life, Dalí often related the story that when he was 5 years old, his parents took him to the grave of his older brother and told him he was his brother’s reincarnation. In the metaphysical prose he frequently used, Dalí recalled, “[we] resembled each other like two drops of water, but we had different reflections.” He “was probably a first version of myself, but conceived too much in the absolute.”

Salvador, along with his younger sister Ana Maria and his parents, often spent time at their summer home in the coastal village of Cadaques. At an early age, Salvador was producing highly sophisticated drawings, and both of his parents strongly supported his artistic talent. It was here that his parents built him an art studio before he entered art school.

The Burning Giraffe- Salvador Dali

Upon recognizing his immense talent, Salvador Dalí’s parents sent him to drawing school at the Colegio de Hermanos Maristas and the Instituto in Figueres, Spain, in 1916. He was not a serious student, preferring to daydream in class and stand out as the class eccentric, wearing odd clothing and long hair. After that first year at art school, he discovered modern painting in Cadaques while vacationing with his family. There, he also met Ramon Pichot, a local artist who frequently visited Paris. The following year, his father organized an exhibition of Salvador’s charcoal drawings in the family home. By 1919, the young artist had his first public exhibition, at the Municipal Theatre of Figueres.

In 1921, Dalí’s mother, Felipa, died of breast cancer. Dalí was 16 years old at the time, and was devastated by the loss. His father married his deceased wife’s sister, which did not endear the younger Dalí any closer to his father, though he respected his aunt. Father and son would battle over many different issues throughout their lives, until the elder Dalí’s death.

“Don’t bother about being modern. Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, you cannot avoid.”

—Salvador Dalí

In 1922, Dalí enrolled at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid. He stayed at the school’s student residence and soon brought his eccentricity to a new level, growing long hair and sideburns, and dressing in the style of English Aesthetes of the late 19th century. During this time, he was influenced

Salvador Dali

by several different artistic styles, including Metaphysics and Cubism, which earned him attention from his fellow students—though he probably didn’t yet understand the Cubist movement entirely.

In 1923, Dalí was suspended from the academy for criticizing his teachers and allegedly starting a riot among students over the academy’s choice of a professorship. That same year, he was arrested and briefly imprisoned in Gerona for allegedly supporting the Separatist movement, though Dalí was actually apolitical at the time (and remained so throughout most of his life). He returned to the academy in 1926, but was permanently expelled shortly before his final exams for declaring that no member of the faculty was competent enough to examine him.

While in school, Dalí began exploring many forms of art including classical painters like Raphael, Bronzino and Diego Velázquez (from whom he adopted his signature curled moustache). He also dabbled in avant-garde art movements such as Dada, a post-World War I anti-establishment movement. While Dalí’s apolitical outlook on life prevented him from becoming a strict follower, the Dada philosophy influenced his work throughout his life.

My Mother- Salvador Dali

In between 1926 and 1929, Dalí made several trips to Paris, where he met with influential painters and intellectuals such as Pablo Picasso, whom he revered. During this time, Dalí painted a number of works that displayed Picasso’s influence. He also met Joan Miró, the Spanish painter and sculptor who, along with poet Paul Éluard and painter René Magritte, introduced Dalí to Surrealism. By this time, Dalí was working with styles of Impressionism, Futurism and Cubism. Dalí’s paintings became associated with three general themes: 1) man’s universe and sensations, 2) sexual symbolism and 3) ideographic imagery.

All of this experimentation led to Dalí’s first Surrealistic period in 1929. These oil paintings were small collages of his dream images. His work employed a meticulous classical technique, influenced by Renaissance artists, that contradicted the “unreal dream” space that he created with strange hallucinatory characters. Even before this period, Dalí was an avid reader of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories.

Salvador Dali

Dalí’s major contribution to the Surrealist movement was what he called the “paranoiac-critical method,” a mental exercise of accessing the subconscious to enhance artistic creativity. Dalí would use the method to create a reality from his dreams and subconscious thoughts, thus mentally changing reality to what he wanted it to be and not necessarily what it was. For Dalí, it became a way of life.

Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening- Salvador Dali

In 1929, Salvador Dalí expanded his artistic exploration into the world of film-making when he collaborated with Luis Buñuel on two films, Un Chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog) and L’Age d’or (The Golden Age, 1930), the former of which is known for its opening scene—a simulated slashing of a human eye by a razor. Dalí’s art appeared several years later in another film, Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Dalí’s paintings were used in a dream sequence in the film, and aided the plot by giving clues to solving the secret to character John Ballantine’s psychological problems.

In August 1929, Dalí met Elena Dmitrievna Diakonova (sometimes written as Elena Ivanorna Diakonova), a Russian immigrant 10 years his senior. At the time, she was the wife of Surrealist writer Paul Éluard. A strong mental and physical attraction developed between Dalí and Diakonova, and she soon left Éluard for her new lover. Also known as “Gala,” Diakonova was Dalí’s muse and inspiration, and would eventually become his wife. She helped balance—or one might say counterbalance—the creative forces in Dalí’s life. With his wild expressions and fantasies, he wasn’t capable of dealing with the business side of being an artist. Gala took care of his legal and financial matters, and negotiated contracts with dealers and exhibition promoters. The two were married in a civil ceremony in 1934.

By 1930, Salvador Dalí had become a notorious figure of the Surrealist movement. Marie-Laure de Noailles and Viscount and Viscountess Charles

The Dream- Salvador Dali

were his first patrons. French aristocrats, both husband and wife invested heavily in avant-garde art in the early 20th century. One of Dalí’s most famous paintings produced at this time—and perhaps the best-known Surrealist work—was The Persistence of Memory (1931). The painting, sometimes called Soft Watches, shows melting pocket watches in a landscape setting. It is said that the painting conveys several ideas within the image, chiefly that time is not rigid and everything is destructible.

The Temptation of St. Anthony- Salvador Dali

By the mid-1930s, Salvador Dalí had become as notorious for his colorful personality as his artwork, and, for some art critics, the former was overshadowing the latter. Often sporting an exaggeratedly long mustache, a cape and a walking stick, Dalí’s public appearances exhibited some unusual behavior. In 1934, art dealer Julian Levy introduced Dalí to America in a New York exhibition that caused quite a lot of controversy. At a ball held in his honor, Dalí, in characteristic flamboyant style, appeared wearing a glass case across his chest which contained a brassiere.

In 1980, Dalí was forced to retire from painting due to a motor disorder that caused permanent trembling and weakness in his hands. No longer able to hold a paint brush, he’d lost the ability to express himself the way he knew best. More tragedy struck in 1982, when Dalí’s beloved wife and friend, Gala, died. The two events sent him into a deep depression. He moved to Pubol, in a castle that he had purchased and remodeled for Gala, possibly to hide from the public or, as some speculate, to die. In 1984, Dalí was severely burned in a fire. Due to his injuries, he was confined to wheelchair. Friends, patrons and fellow artists rescued him from the castle and returned him to Figueres, making him comfortable at the Teatro-Museo.

In November 1988, Salvador Dalí entered a hospital in Figueres with a failing heart. After a brief convalescence, he returned to the Teatro-Museo. On January 23, 1989, in the city of his birth, Dalí died of heart failure at the age of 84. His funeral was held at the Teatro-Museo, where he was buried in a crypt.

Partial biography is from biography.com.

I hope you enjoy my tribute today! I will see you tomorrow on Day 351!

Best,

Linda

The Burning Elephants- Tribute to Salvador Dali
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Side-View
The Burning Elephants- Tribute to Salvador Dali
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 1
The Burning Elephants- Tribute to Salvador Dali
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 2
The Burning Elephants- Tribute to Salvador Dali
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 3
The Burning Elephants- Tribute to Salvador Dali
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Tagged art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, automatism, biomorphic, challenges, chiaroscuro, cinematic, contemporary, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, Erotic, Figurative Painting, Film/Video, Grotesque, Group of Objects, Hyperrealism, intaglio, Isolation/Alienation, landscape, linda cleary, Nostalgia, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, paranoiac-critical method, prints, Salvador Dali, sculpture, Spain, Spanish, surrealism, Symbolic Composition, The Fantastic, Unsettling, War and Military, Work on Paper
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November 30, 2014

Day 334- Katsushika Hokusai- Sketching From Life

It’s Day 334 and I really had a great time creating today’s piece. I immediately wanted to do a painting of Mt. Fuji, which I did, but then I found paintings that the artist had done of demons and ghosts and was sad that I hadn’t found those first! But alas, I am happy with how my piece turned out. 🙂 Join me in honoring Katsushika Hokusai today!

Self Portrait- Katsushika Hokusai

The waterfall of Amida behind the Kiso Road – Katsushika Hokusai

Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎), October 31, 1760 (exact date questionable) – May 10, 1849) was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting. Born in Edo (now Tokyo), Hokusai is best known as author of the woodblock print series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (富嶽三十六景 Fugaku Sanjūroku-kei^?, c. 1831) which includes the internationally recognized print, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, created during the 1820s.

Hokusai created the “Thirty-Six Views” both as a response to a domestic travel boom and as part of a personal obsession with Mount Fuji. It was this series, specifically The Great Wave print and Fuji in Clear Weather, that secured Hokusai’s fame both in Japan and overseas. As historian Richard Lane concludes, “Indeed, if there is one work that made Hokusai’s name, both in Japan and

Fuji, Mountains in clear Weather (Red Fuji) – Katsushika Hokusai

abroad, it must be this monumental print-series…”. While Hokusai’s work prior to this series is certainly important, it was not until this series that he gained broad recognition.

Hokusai’s date of birth is not known for certain, but is often said to be the 23rd day of the 9th month of the 10th year of the Hōrekiera (in the old calendar, or october 30, 1760) to an artisan family, in the Katsushika district of Edo, Japan. His childhood name was Tokitarō.

The Dragon of Smoke Escaping from Mt Fuji- Hokusai

It is believed his father was the mirror-maker Nakajima Ise, who produced mirrors for the shogun. His father never made Hokusai an heir, so it is possible that his mother was a concubine. Hokusai began painting around the age of six, possibly learning the art from his father, whose work on mirrors also included the painting of designs around the mirrors.

Hokusai was known by at least thirty names during his lifetime. Although the use of multiple names was a common practice of Japanese artists of the time, the numbers of names he used far exceeds that of any other major Japanese artist. Hokusai’s name changes are so frequent, and so often related to changes in his artistic production and style, that they are useful for breaking his life up into periods.

At the age of 12, he was sent by his father to work in a bookshop and lending library, a popular type of institution in Japanese cities, where reading books made from wood-cut

A colored version of the Big wave – Katsushika Hokusai

blocks was a popular entertainment of the middle and upper classes. At 14, he became an apprentice to a wood-carver, where he worked until the age of 18, whereupon he was accepted into the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō. Shunshō was an artist of ukiyo-e, a style of wood block prints and paintings that Hokusai would master, and head of the so-called Katsukawa school. Ukiyo-e, as practiced by artists like Shunshō, focused on images of the courtesans and Kabuki actors who were popular in Japan’s cities at the time.

After a year, Hokusai’s name changed for the first time, when he was dubbed Shunrō by his master. It was under this name that he published his first prints, a series of pictures of Kabuki actors published in 1779.

The Lantern Ghost, Iwa- Hokusai

During the decade he worked in Shunshō’s studio, Hokusai was married to his first wife, about whom very little is known except that she died in the early 1790s. He married again in 1797, although this second wife also died after a short time. He fathered two sons and three daughters with these two wives, and his youngest daughter Sakae, also known as Ōi, eventually became an artist.

Upon the death of Shunshō in 1793, Hokusai began exploring other styles of art, including European styles he was exposed to through French and Dutch copper engravings he was able to acquire. He was soon expelled from the Katsukawa school by Shunkō, the chief disciple of Shunshō, possibly due to

The Phantom of Kohada Koheiji- Hokusai

studies at the rival Kanō school. This event was, in his own words, inspirational: “What really motivated the development of my artistic style was the embarrassment I suffered at Shunkō’s hands.”

Hokusai 1820. Erotic wood block print

Hokusai also changed the subjects of his works, moving away from the images of courtesans and actors that were the traditional subjects of ukiyo-e. Instead, his work became focused on landscapes and images of the daily life of Japanese people from a variety of social levels. This change of subject was a breakthrough in ukiyo-e and in Hokusai’s career. Fireworks at Ryōgoku Bridge (1790) dates from this period of Hokusai’s life.

From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp

Kajikazawa in Kai Province – Katsushika Hokusai

the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie.

Partial biography is from wikipedia. His bio is extraordinarily large and very interesting! Check it out.

I hope you enjoy my piece today! I will see you tomorrow on Day 335…only 30 to go! Wow.

Best, Linda

View of Mount Fuji- Tribute to Katsushika Hokusai
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic & Metallic Paint on Canvas

Side-View
View of Mount Fuji- Tribute to Katsushika Hokusai
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic & Metallic Paint on Canvas

Close-Up 1
View of Mount Fuji- Tribute to Katsushika Hokusai
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic & Metallic Paint on Canvas

Close-Up 2
View of Mount Fuji- Tribute to Katsushika Hokusai
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic & Metallic Paint on Canvas

Close-Up 3
View of Mount Fuji- Tribute to Katsushika Hokusai
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic & Metallic Paint on Canvas

Tagged Architecture in Art, art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, challenges, Chinese style painting, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, Edo Art, Edo period, Edo Period art, Erotic, Figurative Painting, Grotesque, Illustration/Art, Ink-and-Wash Painting, Isolation/Alienation, Japan, japanese, Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai, landscape, linda cleary, Modes of Transportation, Mount Fuji, nature, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, print maker, prints, projects, Red Fuji, The Fantastic, The Great Wave, Travel/Tourism, Ukiyo-e, ukiyo-e painter, Water, Waterscape, wood block, wood cut blocks, wood cutting, Woodcut and Linocut, Work on Paper
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November 28, 2014

Day 332- Georges Braque- Temporal Spaces

It’s Day 332 and I’ve been a little ahead of myself with painting because of the holidays. I worked on this last night and finished up this morning. I was very intimidated with today’s artist because of his painting style and I hope today’s piece helps me when I get to Duchamp! Join me in honoring Georges Braque today. 🙂

Georges Braque

Georges Braque 1882-1963

Violin and Candlestick- Georges Braque

Georges Braque was at the forefront of the revolutionary art movement of Cubism. Braque’s work throughout his life focused on still lifes and means of viewing objects from various perspectives through color, line, and texture. While his collaboration with Pablo Picasso and their Cubist works are best known, Braque had a long painting career that continued beyond Cubism. Braque was also often dedicated to quiet periods in his studio rather than to being a personality in the art world.

Though Braque started out as a member of the Fauves, he began developing a Cubist style after meeting Pablo Picasso. While their paintings shared many similarities in palette, style and subject matter, Braque stated that unlike Picasso, his work was “devoid of iconological commentary,” and was concerned purely with pictorial space and composition.

Braque sought balance and harmony in his compositions, especially through papier colles, a pasted paper collage technique that Picasso and

Bottle of Run 1914- Georges Braque

Braque invented in 1912. Braque, however, took collage one-step further by gluing cut-up advertisements into his canvases. This foreshadowed modern art movements concerned with critiquing media, such as Pop art.

Braque stenciled letters onto paintings, blended pigments with sand, and copied wood grain and marble to achieve great levels of dimension in his paintings. His depictions of still lifes are so abstract that they border on becoming patterns that express an essence of the objects viewed rather than direct representations.

Georges Braque, Portugalczyk, 1911

Childhood

Georges Braque was guided from a young age toward creative painting techniques. His father managed a decorative painting business and Braque’s interest in texture and tactility perhaps came from working with him as a decorator. In 1899, at age seventeen, Braque moved from Argenteuil into Paris, accompanied by friends Othon Friesz and Raoul Dufy.

Early Training

Braque’s earliest paintings were made in the Fauvist style. From 1902-1905, after giving up work as a decorator to pursue painting full-time he pursued Fauvist ideas and coordinated with Henri Matisse. He contributed his Fauvist colorful paintings to his first exhibition at the Salon des Independants in 1906. However, he was extremely affected by a visit to Pablo Picasso’s studio in 1907, to see Picasso’s breakthrough work – Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

After this encounter, the two artists forged an intimate friendship and artistic camaraderie. “We would get

Baluster and Skull- Georges Braque

together every single day,” Braque said, “to discuss and assay the ideas that were forming, as well as to compare our respective works”. The drastic change in Braque’s painting style can be directly attributed to Picasso. Once he understood Picasso’s goals, Braque aimed to strengthen “the constructive elements in his works while foregoing the expressive excesses of Fauvism”. His landscape paintings in which scenes were distilled into basic shapes and colors inspired French art critic, Louis Vauxcelles, to coin the term Cubism by describing Braque’s work as “bizarreries cubiques.”

Braque and Picasso worked in synchronicity until Braque’s return from war in 1914. When Picasso began to paint figuratively, Braque felt his friend had betrayed their Cubist systems and rules, and continued on his own. However, he continued to remain influenced by Picasso’s work, especially in regards to papier colles, a collage technique pioneered by both artists using only pasted paper. His collages featured geometric shapes interrupted by musical instruments, grapes, or furniture. These were so three-dimensional that they are considered important in the development of Cubist sculpture. By 1918, Braque felt he had sufficiently explored papier colles, and returned to still life painting.

Musical Instruments 1908- Georges Braque

Viewers noted a more limited palette at Braque’s first post-war solo show in 1919. Yet he steadfastly adhered to Cubist rules about depicting objects from multi-faceted perspectives in geometrically patterned ways. In this, he continued as a true Analytical Cubist longer than did Picasso, whose style, subject matter and palettes changed continuously. Braque was most interested in showing how objects look when viewed over time in different temporal spaces and pictorial planes. As a result of his dedication to depicting space in various ways, he naturally gravitated towards designing sets and costumes for theater and ballet performances, doing this throughout the 1920s.

In 1929, Braque took up landscape painting once again, using new, bright colors influenced by Picasso and Matisse. Then in the 1930s, Braque began to portray Greek heroes and deities, though he claimed the subjects were stripped of their symbolism and ought to be viewed through a purely formal lens.

He called these works exercises in calligraphy, possibly because they were not strictly about figures but more about sheer line and shape. In the latter half of the 1930s, Braque embarked on painting his Vanitas series, through which he existentially considered death and suffering. Growing increasingly obsessed with the

Still Life with Clarinet 1927- Georges Braque

physicality of his paintings, he explored the ways in which brushstrokes and paint qualities could enhance his subject matter.

The objects used in his still lifes were highly personal to Braque, however, he did not reveal these meanings. Skulls, for example, were objects he painted repeatedly at the onset of World War II. In 1944, when World War II ended, Braque began to embrace lighter subjects like flowers, billiard tables, and garden chairs.

His final series of eight canvases made from 1948-1955, each titled Atelier, or Studio, depicted imagery that represented the artist’s inner thoughts on each object rather than clues to the outside world. At the very end of his life, Braque painted birds repeatedly, as the perfect symbol of his obsession with space and movement.

Woman with a Guitar 1913- Georges Braque

Braque is remembered as a progenitor of Cubism, who was both rational and sensuous in his still life paintings. He was a classic painter in this sense, and has influenced the likes of Jim Dine andWayne Thiebaud, who focused on still life painting. Braque is also a celebrated colorist, and can be traced through contemporary art to those painters who work with color in similar ways. Perhaps Braque is most remembered for his use of collage, as many contemporary artists, from sculptors like Jessica Stockholder to painters like Mark Bradford, apply paper to their works as a means to comment on society and its products.

“To work from nature is to improvise.”

“One must not imitate what one wants to create.”

“One must beware of an all-purpose formula that will serve to interpret the other arts as well as reality, and that instead of creating will only produce a style, or rather a stylization.”

Biography is from www.artstory.org.

I hope you enjoy my piece today! It was a very educational experience and interesting as well! I wish I had more time to work on it. It’s not perfect, but I think I did well. I will see you tomorrow on Day 333.

Best,

Linda

Woman at a Piano- Tribute to Georges Braque
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic and Ink on Canvas

Side-View
Woman at a Piano- Tribute to Georges Braque
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic and Ink on Canvas

Close-Up 1
Woman at a Piano- Tribute to Georges Braque
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic and Ink on Canvas

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Woman at a Piano- Tribute to Georges Braque
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic and Ink on Canvas

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Woman at a Piano- Tribute to Georges Braque
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic and Ink on Canvas

November 26, 2014

Day 330- Roy Lichtenstein- Forming Art

It’s Day 330 and I was excited about today’s artist. Join me in honoring Roy Lichtenstein today!

Roy Lichtenstein

Illustrator, Painter (1923–1997)

Little Big Painting- Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was an American pop artist best known for his boldly-colored parodies of comic strips and advertisements.

American artist Roy Lichtenstein was born in New York City on October 27, 1923, and grew up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

In the 1960s, Lichtenstein became a leading figure of the new Pop Art movement. Inspired by advertisements and comic strips,

Girl In Mirror- Roy Lichtenstein

Lichtenstein’s bright, graphic works parodied American popular culture and the art world itself. He died in New York City on September 29, 1997.

Early Years

Roy Fox Lichtenstein was born on October 27, 1923, in New York City, the son of Milton Lichtenstein, a successful real estate developer, and Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein. As a boy growing up on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Lichtenstein had a passion for both science and comic books. In his teens, he became interested in art. He took watercolor classes at Parsons School of Design in 1937, and he took classes at the Art Students League in 1940, studying with American realist painter Reginald Marsh.

Still Life with Cow Skull- Roy Lichtenstein

Following his graduation from the Franklin School for Boys in Manhattan in 1940, Lichtenstein attended The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. His college studies were interrupted in 1943, when he was drafted and sent to Europe for World War II.

After his wartime service, Lichtenstein returned to Ohio State in 1946 to finish his undergraduate degree and master’s degree—both in fine arts. He briefly taught at Ohio State before moving to Cleveland and working as a window-display designer for a department store, an industrial designer and a commercial-art instructor.

Commercial Success and Pop Art

In the late 1940s, Lichtenstein exhibited his art in galleries nationwide, including in Cleveland and New York City. In the 1950s, he often took his artistic subjects from mythology and from American history and folklore, and he painted those subjects in styles that paid homage to earlier art, from the 18th century through modernism.

Lichtenstein began experimenting with different subjects and methods in the early 1960s, while he was teaching at Rutgers University. His newer work was both a commentary on American popular culture and a reaction to the recent success of Abstract Expressionist painting by artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning.

Girl with Tear I- Roy Lichtenstein

Instead of painting abstract, often subject-less canvases as Pollock and others had had done, Lichtenstein took his imagery directly from comic books and advertising. Rather than emphasize his painting process and his own inner, emotional life in his art, he mimicked his borrowed sources right down to an impersonal-looking stencil process that imitated the mechanical printing used for commercial art.

Lichtenstein’s best-known work from this period is “Whaam!,” which he painted in 1963, using a comic book panel from a 1962 issue of DC Comics’All-American Men of War as his inspiration. Other works of the 1960s featured cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and advertisements for food and household products. He created a large-scale mural of a laughing young woman (adapted from an image in a comic book) for the New York State Pavilion of the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City.

Melody- Roy Lichtenstein

Lichtenstein became known for his deadpan humor and his slyly subversive way of building a signature body of work from mass-reproduced images. By the mid-1960s, he was nationally known and recognized as a leader in the Pop Art movement that also included Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist and Claes Oldenburg. His art became increasingly popular with both collectors and influential art dealers like Leo Castelli, who showed Lichtenstein’s work at his gallery for 30 years. Like much Pop Art, it provoked debate over ideas of originality, consumerism and the fine line between fine art and entertainment.

Later Career

By the late 1960s, Lichtenstein had stopped using comic book sources. In the 1970s his focus turned to creating paintings that referred to the art of early 20th century masters like Picasso, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger and Salvador Dalí.

In the 1980s and ’90s, he also painted representations of modern house interiors, brushstrokes and mirror

Drowning Girl- Roy Lichtenstein

reflections, all in his trademark, cartoon-like style. He also began working in sculpture.

In the 1980s, Lichtenstein received several major large-scale commissions, including a 25-foot-high sculpture titled “Brushstrokes in Flight” for the Port Columbus International Airport in Columbus, Ohio and a five-story-tall mural for the lobby of the Equitable Tower in New York.

Lichtenstein was committed to his art until the end of his life, often spending at least 10 hours a day in his studio. His work was acquired by major museum collections around the world, and he received numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the National Medal of Arts in 1995.

Personal Life and Death

Roy Lichtenstein. Portræt / Portrait, 1977

Lichtenstein married twice. He and his first wife, Isabel, whom he married in 1949 and divorced in 1967, had two sons, David and Mitchell. He married Dorothy Herzka in 1968.

Lichtenstein died of complications from pneumonia on September 29, 1997, at the New York University Medical Center in Manhattan.

Biography is from www.biography.com.

I hope you enjoy my tribute today. I’m trying to get a little ahead so that I can relax tomorrow on Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a great holiday and I’ll see you tomorrow on Day 331!

Best,

Linda

Regret- Tribute to Roy Lichtenstein
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Side-View
Regret- Tribute to Roy Lichtenstein
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 1
Regret- Tribute to Roy Lichtenstein
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

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Regret- Tribute to Roy Lichtenstein
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 3
Regret- Tribute to Roy Lichtenstein
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Tagged advertisement art, American, Appropriation, art, art challenge, art history, Art in Art, Art of the 1960s, art project, artists, challenges, comic art, comic strips, Comic/Cartoon, contemporary, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, Dotted, Figurative Painting, Flora, Food, Group of Objects, Interiors, landscape, linda cleary, New York City artists, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, pop art, Popular Culture, post war american art, projects, Representation of Everyday Objects, Roy Lichtenstein, sculpture, silkscreen, still life, Text, United States, Work on Paper
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November 17, 2014

Day 321- Wolf Kahn- Sweeping Bands of Color

It’s Day 321 and I’m still healing…or still getting sick. I hate being on the teeter toter of getting ill. It could just be the weather…who knows? I am excited about today’s artist…I love his paintings and enjoyed doing today’s piece. Join me in honoring Wolf Kahn today.

Wolf Kahn

Wolf Kahn – Woodland Swamp

Wolf Kahn (born October 4, 1927) is a German-born American painter.

Kahn is known for his combination of realism and Color Field, and known to work in pastel and oil paint. He studied under Hans Hofmann, and also graduated from the University of Chicago. Kahn

Wolf Kahn Original Oil on Canvas

is a resident of both New York City and, during the summer and autumn, West Brattleboro, Vermont.

Wolf Kahn was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1927. He states that he began drawing at the age of 4. In 1939, at the age of 12 he fled Germany for England and in 1940 moved to the United States of America.

Barn on Cooks Lane- Wolf Kahn

He attended the High School of Music and Art in New York City and graduated in 1945. Under the GI Bill, he was able to continue his studies with abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann at the Hans Hofmann School. He became Hofmann’s studio assistant. He enrolled for a degree from the University of Chicago in 1950 and completed this in only one year, receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in 1951.

His wife Emily Mason is also a painter. They have two daughters,

Wolf Kahn – Order in Disorder

Cecily and Melany.

Wolf Kahn works in oil and pastel. His works usually covers the subject of landscapes and his own personal vision of nature. His convergence of light and color has been described as combining pictorial landscapes and painterly abstraction.

His gallery, Ameringer|McEnery|Yohe, states

Yellow Symphony- Wolf Kahn

“The unique blend of Realism and the formal discipline of Color Field painting sets the work of Wolf Kahn apart. Kahn is an artist who embodies the synthesis of his modern abstract training with Hans Hofmann, with the palette of Matisse, Rothko’s sweeping bands of color, and the atmospheric qualities of American Impressionism. It is precisely this fusion of color, spontaneity and representation that has produced such a rich and expressive body of work.”

Wolf Kahn has received a number of awards including a Fulbright Scholarship in 1962, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 1966, and an Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1979.

Wolf Kahn became a member of the National Academy of Design in 1980 and the American Academy of Arts

Wolf Kahn

and Letters in 1984. He is currently on the Board of Trustees forMarlboro College, in Marlboro, VT.

In 2005 the Smithsonian Art Collectors Program commissioned Kahn to produce a print to benefit the cultural

and educational programs of the Smithsonian Associates. The screen print, entitled Aura, hangs in the Graphic Eloquence exhibit in the S. Dillon Ripley Center in the National Mall.

Biography is from wikipedia.

I hope you enjoy my piece today. I didn’t use pastels or oil paints. I only have oil pastels and I don’t think they would’ve worked as well as soft pastels. I used watercolors and acrylics, but I think the style and spirit came through. I will see you tomorrow on Day 322!

Best,

Linda

Autumn Forest- Tribute to Wolf Kahn
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolor & Acrylic on Canvas

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Autumn Forest- Tribute to Wolf Kahn
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolor & Acrylic on Canvas

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Autumn Forest- Tribute to Wolf Kahn
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolor & Acrylic on Canvas

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Autumn Forest- Tribute to Wolf Kahn
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolor & Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 3
Autumn Forest- Tribute to Wolf Kahn
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolor & Acrylic on Canvas

Tagged abstract, abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist, American, art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, barns, challenges, color field, contemporary, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, expressionist, figurative, German, German born, landscape, light and color, linda cleary, oil paint, paint, painterly abstraction, painters, painting, painting a day, pastel, pictorial landscapes, projects, Realism, Wolf Kahn
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November 15, 2014

Day 319- Raoul Dufy- Painting With His Heart

It’s Day 319 and I thought, “Why not paint a vase of flowers?”. I’m still a little under the weather so it was nice to paint something cheerful. Join me in honoring Raoul Dufy today.

Raoul Dufy

Interior with Indian Woman – Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy (French: [ʁa.ul dy.fi]; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events. He was also a draftsman, printmaker, book illustrator, Scenic designer, a designer of furniture, and a planner of public spaces.

Raoul Dufy was born into a large family at Le Havre, in Normandy. He left school at the age of fourteen to work in a coffee-importing company. In 1895, when he was 18, he started taking evening

Bouquet of Flowers 1937- Raoul Dufy

classes in art at Le Havre’s École d’Art (municipal art school). The classes were taught by Charles Lhuillier, who had been, forty years earlier, a student of the remarkable French portrait-painter, Ingres. There, Dufy met Raymond Lecourt and Othon Friesz with whom he later shared a studio in Montmartre and to whom he remained a lifelong friend. During this period, Dufy painted mostly Norman landscapes in watercolors.

Raoul Dufy

In 1900, after a year of military service, Raoul Dufy won a scholarship to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where again he crossed paths with Othon Friesz. (He was there when Georges Braque also was studying.) He concentrated on improving his drawing skills. The impressionist landscape painters, such as Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, influenced Dufy profoundly.

His first exhibition (at the Exhibition of French Artists) took place in 1901. Introduced to Berthe Weill in 1902, Dufy showed his work in her gallery. Then he exhibited again in 1903 at the Salon des

Independants. A boost to his confidence: the painter, Maurice Denis, bought one of his paintings. Dufy continued to paint, often in the vicinity of Le Havre, and, in particular, on the beach at Sainte-Adresse, made

Raoul Dufy

famous by Eugène Boudin and Claude Monet. In 1904, with his friend, Albert Marquet, he worked in Fecamp on the English Channel (La Manche).

Henri Matisse’s Luxe, Calme et Volupté, which Dufy saw at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, was a revelation to the young artist, and it directed his interests towards Fauvism. Les Fauves (the wild beasts) emphasized bright color and bold contours in their work. Dufy’s painting reflected this aesthetic until about 1909, when contact with the work of Paul Cézanne led him to adopt a somewhat subtler technique. It was not until 1920, however, after he had flirted briefly with yet another style, cubism, that Dufy developed his own distinctive approach. It involved skeletal structures, arranged with foreshortened perspective, and the use of thin washes of color applied quickly, in a manner that came to be known as stenographic.

Raoul Dufy- Still Life 1941

Dufy’s cheerful oils and watercolors depict events of the time period, including yachting scenes, sparkling views of the French Riviera, chic parties, and musical events. The optimistic, fashionably decorative, and illustrative nature of much of his work has meant that his output has been less highly valued critically than the works of artists who have addressed a wider range of social concerns.

Dufy completed one of the largest paintings ever contemplated, a huge and immensely popular ode to electricity, the fresco La Fée Electricité for the 1937 Exposition Internationale in Paris.

Dufy also acquired a reputation as an illustrator and as a commercial artist. He painted murals for public buildings; he also produced a huge number of tapestries and ceramic designs. His plates appear in books by Guillaume Apollinaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and André Gide.

In 1909, Raoul Dufy was commissioned by Paul Poiret to design stationery for the house, and after 1912 designed textile patterns for Bianchini-Ferier used in Poiret’s and Charvet’s garments.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s Dufy exhibited at the annual Salon des Tuileries in Paris. By 1950, his hands

Raoul Dufy

were struck with rheumatoid arthritis and his ability to paint diminished, as he has to fasten the brush to his hand. In April he went to Boston to undergo an experimental treatment with cortisone and corticotropin, based on the work of Philip S. Hench. It proved successful, and some of his next works were dedicated to the doctors and researchers in the United States. In 1952 he received the grand prize for painting in the 26th Venice Biennale. Dufy died at Forcalquier, France, on 23 March 1953, of intestinal bleeding, which is a likely result of his continuous treatment. He was buried near Matisse in the Cimiez Monastery Cemetery in Cimiez, a suburb of the city of Nice.

Biography is from wikipedia.

What I wish to show when I paint is the way I see things with my eyes and in my heart. (Raoul Dufy)

I hope you enjoy my piece for today. I will see you tomorrow on Day 320.

Best,

Linda

Vase of Flowers- Tribute to Raoul Dufy
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolors and Acrylics on Canvas

Side-View
Vase of Flowers- Tribute to Raoul Dufy
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolors and Acrylics on Canvas

Close-Up 1
Vase of Flowers- Tribute to Raoul Dufy
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolors and Acrylics on Canvas

Close-Up 2
Vase of Flowers- Tribute to Raoul Dufy
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolors and Acrylics on Canvas

Close-Up 3
Vase of Flowers- Tribute to Raoul Dufy
Linda Cleary 2014
Watercolors and Acrylics on Canvas

Tagged art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, book illustrator, challenges, color field, contemporary, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, draftsman, fauve, Fauvist, French, French Artist, furniture designer, Impressionist, landscape, landscape painter, linda cleary, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, Printmaker, projects, raoul dufy, scenic designer, stenographic
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October 21, 2014

Day 294- Per Kirkeby- Landskaberne

It’s Day 294 and today’s painting was fun yet challenging. Today’s artist has a special abstract style. Join me in honoring Per Kirkeby today.

Per Kirkeby

Per Kirkeby, Nikopeja II 1996, Oil on canvas

Per Kirkeby (born Copenhagen, 1 September 1938) is a Danish painter, poet, film maker and sculptor.

Per Kirkeby is one of the most internationally acclaimed Danish artists today. By the

Per Kirkeby Untitled, 1998

time he completed a masters education in arctic geology at the University of Copenhagen in 1964, he was already part of the important experimental art school “eks-skolen” and working primarily as a painter, sculptor, writer and a lithographic artist which he has pursued ever since.

Kirkeby’s interest in geology and nature in general, still plays a crucial role in his artistic expressions these themes are therefore very characteristic in the works of the artist. Kirkeby’s works have been shown at many art exhibitions worldwide and are represented in many public collections such as Tate Gallery, London; Metropolitan Museum of Art,New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris. Kirkeby has been teaching as a professor at the Art Academy in Karlsruhe (1978–89) and Frankfurter Städelschule (1989–2000).

Weltuntergang- Per Kirkeby

Biography is from wikipedia.

Danish painter, sculptor and writer. In 1962 he entered the Eksperimenterende Kunst-skole (Experimental Art School) in Copenhagen.His first important one-man exhibition abroad was at the Museum Folkwang, Essen, in 1977. He later exhibited widely at public and commercial galleries throughout Europe and the USA.

A prolific artist, Kirkeby used a range of different media. He was a member of the Fluxus group and was influenced by Pop art in the 1960s. Later he was influenced by Tachism and Abstract Expressionism. The vigorous brushwork and chromatic beauty of his, mostly untitled, paintings and the sensuous modelling of his rough black bronzes have earned him the title ‘lyric expressionist’. The paintings, which tend towards the abstract, bear veiled iconographic reference, largely to the Danish landscape and the female figure.

In contrast to the poetic and dramatic character of his paintings and black bronzes Kirkeby’s brick sculptures display an unusual clarity.

Per Kirkeby

They make strong reference to traditional Danish housing and are inspired by Mayan architecture, as in the house-like, symmetrical form (1973) at Ikast, Denmark.

Per Kirkeby

In 1981 Kirkeby completed a group of such sculptures for the County Council building in Ålborg. His concern with experiment and conceptual art led him to execute a series of works in chalk on blackboard, and he regularly published poetry, essays and travel books, as well as making television and full-length documentary films. He also produced many artist’s books, such as the ‘picture novel’ Landskaberne (‘Landscapes’; Copenhagen, 1969).

Biography above is from the Tate website.

I enjoyed doing today’s piece and I hope you enjoy it. I will see you tomorrow on Day 295.

Best,

Linda

Klipper og Sprækker- Tribute to Per Kirkeby
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Side-View
Klipper og Sprækker- Tribute to Per Kirkeby
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 1
Klipper og Sprækker- Tribute to Per Kirkeby
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 2
Klipper og Sprækker- Tribute to Per Kirkeby
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 3
Klipper og Sprækker- Tribute to Per Kirkeby
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Tagged abstract, abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist, abstract landscape, abstract landscape painter, art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, challenges, contemporary, creativity, daily art, Danish, Danish artist, day of the artist, female figure, figurative, geologist, Gestural, landscape, landscape artist, linda cleary, lithographic, lithography, lyric expressionist, Lyrical Abstraction, lyrical abstractionist, mountains, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, Per Kirkeby, projects, rocks, sculptor
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October 20, 2014

Day 293- Valentin Serov- Carried Away by the Human Face

It’s Day 293 and I fell in love with today’s artist. I started it last night because I knew it would take a little longer. My piece didn’t turn out exactly like the artist’s work, but I think I captured his style and I did use his paintings as constant inspiration. 🙂 Join me in honoring Valentin Serov today! PS He has a planet named after him, a minor one…but still!

Valentin Serov

Portrait of Anna Benois- Valentin Serov

Valentin Alexandrovich Serov (Russian: Валенти́н Алекса́ндрович Серо́в; January 19, 1865 – December 5, 1911) was a Russian painter, and one of the premier portrait artists of his era.

Serov was born in St. Petersburg, son of the Russian composer Alexander Serov, and his wife Valentina Bergman, a composer of German-Jewish background. In his childhood he studied in

Portrait of Ida Rubinstein- Valentin Serov

Paris and Moscow under Ilya Repin and in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1880–1885) under Pavel Chistyakov. Serov’s early creativity was sparked by the realistic art of Repin and strict pedagogical system of Chistyakov.

Further influences on Serov were the old master paintings he viewed in the museums of Russia and Western Europe, friendships with Mikhail Vrubel and (later) Konstantin Korovin, and the creative atmosphere of theAbramtsevo Colony, to which he was closely connected.

The greatest works of Serov’s early period were portraits: The Girl with Peaches (1887), and The Girl Covered by the Sun (1888), both in the Tretyakov Gallery. In these paintings Serov concentrated on spontaneity of perception of the model and nature. In the development of light and color, the complex harmony of reflections, the sense of atmospheric saturation, and the fresh picturesque perception of the world, there appeared the features of early Russian impressionism.

Portrait of Helena Ivanovna Roerich- Valentin Serov

From 1890 on, the portrait became the basic genre in Serov’s art. It was in this field that his early style would become apparent, the paintings notable for the psychologically pointed characteristics of his subjects. Serov’s favorite models were actors, artists, and writers (Konstantin Korovin, 1891, Isaac Levitan, 1893, Nikolai Leskov, 1894, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, 1898, – all in the Tretyakov gallery).

Initially abstaining from the polychromatic, brightly colored painting style of the 1880s, Serov often preferred a dominant scale of black-grey or brown tones. Impressionistic features appeared sometimes in composite construction of a portrait, or to capture a sense of spontaneous movement.

As in the work of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Anders Zorn, the impressionism is

Portrait of Pobedonostsev- Valentin Serov

not doctrinaire, but derives as much from the study of Hals and Velázquez as from modern theory. Receiving wide popularity, in 1894 Serov joined with the Peredvizhniki (The Itinerants), and took on important commissions, among them portraits of grand duke Pavel Alexandrovich, (1897, Tretyakov Gallery), S.M. Botkin, 1899, and F.F. Yusupova, 1903 as well as Princess Olga Orlova (these in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg).

In these truthful, compositionally skillful, and picturesque executions in the grand manner, Serov consistently used linear-rhythmic drawing coupled with decorative color combinations.

Child Portrait- Valentin Serov

At the same time, he developed a contrasting direction: he frequently produced intimate, heartfelt, chamber portraits, mainly of children and women. In portraits of children Serov aspired to capture pose and gesture, to reveal and emphasize a spontaneity of internal movement, sincere cleanliness and clearness of attitude of the child (Children, 1899, Russian Museum; Mika Morozov, 1901, Tretyakov gallery).

Serov frequently called upon various graphic techniques – watercolors, pastels, lithographs and so forth. Figures in Serov’s portraits gradually became more and more graphically refined and economical, particularly during the late period (Vasily Kachalov, 1908, Tamara Karsavina, 1909; numerous figures from Ivan Krylov’s fables, 1895–1911). From 1890 to 1900 Serov produced many landscape compositions on country themes, in which the artistic direction took a romantic turn.

Serov married Olga Trubnikova in 1887. His wife and his children were the subject of many of

Portrait of Maria Botkina- Valentin Serov

his works. Notably, his painting “Children” was of his sons Yura and Sasha.

During his late period, which began in 1900, Serov was a member of “The World of art”, an influential Russian art association and magazine which grew, in part, out of dissatisfaction with the Itinerants movement. At the start of the 20th century, Serov was at a stylistic turning point: features of impressionism disappeared from his work, and his modernistic style developed, but the characteristic truthful and realistic comprehension of the nature of his subjects remained constant. In the early 20th century Serov created heroic portrait images; within the genre of the fashionable portrait, Serov focused on the dramatic depiction of creative artists, writers, actors, and musicians of import:Maxim Gorki’s portraits (1904), A.M. Gorki’s museum, Moscow; Maria Yermolova (1905), Feodor Chaliapin (charcoal, 1905) – both in the Tretyakov Gallery.

Self-Portrait- Valentin Serov

Serov’s democratic beliefs were clearly shown during the Revolution from 1905 to 1907: he depicted a number of satirical figures exposing chastisers. A full member of theSt.Petersburg Academy of Arts since 1903, in 1905 he resigned as a gesture of protest against the execution of striking workers and their families on January 9, Bloody Sunday. His late creativity found expression in historical painting (Peter II departure and Empress Elizabeth Petrovna on hunting, 1900, Russian Museum), and depth of comprehension of the historical maintenance of an epoch (Peter I, distemper, 1907, Tretyakov Gallery).

The last years of Serov’s life were marked by works on themes from classical mythology. While addressing images from the ancient tradition, Serov endowed classical subject matter with a personal interpretation.

Valentin died in Moscow on December 5, 1911. He is buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

The best works of Serov are among the greatest of Russian realistic art. He taught in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1897 to 1909), and among his students were Pavel Kuznetsov, N. N. Sapunov, Martiros Saryan, Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, N.P. Ulyanov, and Konstantin Yuon.

A minor planet 3547 Serov, discovered by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1978 is named after him.

Biography is from wikipedia.

Any human face is so complex and so unique that you can always find in it traits worthy of portrayal be they good or bad. For my part, each time I appraise a person’s face I am inspired, you might even say carried away, not by his or her outer aspect which is trivial, but by the characterization it can be given on canvas.~ Valentin Serov

I hope you like my self portrait I did in tribute to Serov today! I love his style. I did my best with the time I had! I will see you tomorrow on Day 294.

Best,

Linda

Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Serov
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Side-View Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Servo Linda Cleary 2014 Acrylic on Canvas

Side-View
Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Serov
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 1 Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Servo Linda Cleary 2014 Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 1
Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Serov
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 2 Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Servo Linda Cleary 2014 Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 2
Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Serov
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 3 Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Servo Linda Cleary 2014 Acrylic on Canvas

Close-Up 3
Self-Portrait- Tribute to Valentin Serov
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic on Canvas

Tagged art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, challenges, charcoal, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, expressionist, figurative, gesture, landscape, linda cleary, modern art, modernism, modernistic, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, portrait, portrait artist, portraits, portraiture, pose, projects, Russian, Russian Impressionism, Russian impressionists, Russian painter, self portrait, Valentin Alexandrovich Serov, Valentin Serov
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October 4, 2014

Day 277- Charlotte Posenenske- Repeatable and Objective

It’s Day 277 and I’m so hot that my mind is foggy and I can’t concentrate. I did do my painting for today despite the heat! Please join me in honoring Charlotte Posenenske today. Biography is from Frieze Magazine. I will paste the link below.

Charlotte Posenenske

Streifenbild (Striped Picture)- Charlotte Posenenske

Charlotte Posenenske

GALLERY AK, FRANKFURT, GERMANY

Charlotte Posenenske was born in 1930 to a Jewish family. During the war, friends hid her from the Nazis; her father, however, committed suicide to avoid persecution. Shortly after the war she studied art under Willi Baumeister, who taught her about Modernism – which, of course, the Nazis had attempted to obliterate.

She became particularly interested in painters who explored the spatial qualities of

untitled (after nature: tree trunks), ca 1959
acrylic applied with palette knife on paper- Charlotte Posenenske

a pictorial surface, in particular Cézanne and early Mondrian. She travelled to the places where they had lived and made plein air paintings.

Her earliest surviving pictures date from the late 50s and reveal her exploration of contemporary movements such as Informel and Abstract Expressionism. It is interesting that she appeared to be less interested than many of her male colleagues in individual expression, applying the paint with a palette knife to create a greater distance between herself and the painting’s surface.

Charlotte Posenenske

During the 60s, Posenenske increasingly minimised her use of colour and shapes, indicating landscapes, for example, simply by horizontal lines which denoted the sky and earth. As her interest in Constructivism grew, she began painting a series of simple black ink circles, reminiscent of musical notes.

It was during this period that she began her sculptural work and it is greatly to the

Untitled Free Structures- Charlotte Posenenske

credit of this exhibition, curated by Konstantin Adamopoulos and Burkhard Brun (the artist’s husband who administers her estate), that it is possible to understand that leap.

Posenenske applied primary coloured sticky strips to paper, creasing them and then applying them in layers until shapes were built up – as in CMP 65 (1965) for example. She progressed to using sheet metal sprayed with monochrome paint which she then folded into sculptural shapes, and combined this with corrugated cardboard to produce the series ‘Vierkantrohre’ (Square Tubes, 1967) which look like ventilation shafts. She conceived these early sculptures as modules that could be adapted according to available space, each one assembled into a shape ultimately appropriate to the context it found itself in. Anonymity was important to Posenenske. Shifting between Minimal and Conceptual art, she viewed her function as that of a supplier who made material available, but who did not have to be present at the moment of artistic realisation – i.e. at the installation of the pieces in the exhibition space. Gradually Posenenske became increasingly indifferent as to whether or not her creations could be identified as art.

Bretagne- Charlotte Posenenske

She stopped working as an artist in 1968, no longer believing that art could influence social interaction or draw attention to social inequalities. Instead, she turned her attention to sociology until her death in 1985, becoming a specialist in employment and industrial working processes. She refused to visit any exhibitions during this period, or show her work. There have been a few posthumous exhibitions of her ‘Square Tubes’, mainly in galleries and public spaces. Only now, displayed in the context of her entire artistic output, does her significance to the history of Modernity become apparent.

Martin Pesch

Biography is from Frieze Magazine.

‘I make series because I do not want to make individual pieces for individuals,in order to have elements combinable within a system,in order to make something that is repeatable, objective, and because it is economical. The series can be prototypes for mass-production.[…] They are less and less recognisable as “works of art.” The objects are intended to represent anything other than what they are.’- Charlotte Posenenske

I enjoyed doing my tribute today. It was nice to do a minimal piece today and I really like her style. I will see you tomorrow on Day 278.

Best,

Linda

Verschiedene Streifen- Tribute to Charlotte Posenenske
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic applied with palette knife on Canvas

Side-View
Verschiedene Streifen- Tribute to Charlotte Posenenske
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic applied with palette knife on Canvas

Close-Up 1
Verschiedene Streifen- Tribute to Charlotte Posenenske
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic applied with palette knife on Canvas

Close-Up 2
Verschiedene Streifen- Tribute to Charlotte Posenenske
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic applied with palette knife on Canvas

Close-Up 3
Verschiedene Streifen- Tribute to Charlotte Posenenske
Linda Cleary 2014
Acrylic applied with palette knife on Canvas

Tagged abstract, abstract expressionism, abstract expressionist, art, art challenge, art history, art project, artists, challenges, Charlotte Posenenske, conceptual, Conceptual art, constructivism, contemporary, creativity, daily art, day of the artist, en plein air, geometric abstractionist, Informel Art, landscape, linda cleary, line paintings, minimalism, minimalist, minimalist art, modern, modern art, modernism, paint, painters, painting, painting a day, plein air paintings, projects, sculptor, sculptures
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Day of the Artist

One year, one girl, one painting a day…can she do it?

Tag Archives: landscape

Day 353- Pierre-Auguste Renoir- “The pain passes, but the beauty remains”

Day 334- Katsushika Hokusai- Sketching From Life

Day 321- Wolf Kahn- Sweeping Bands of Color

Day 319- Raoul Dufy- Painting With His Heart

Day 294- Per Kirkeby- Landskaberne

Day 293- Valentin Serov- Carried Away by the Human Face

Day 277- Charlotte Posenenske- Repeatable and Objective

Charlotte Posenenske

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