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Shelley’s Art Musings – Spotlight on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks
Edward Hopper was born in 1882 in New York. He was brought up in a comfortable family setting as was a was a good student, showing the early signs of being an artist at the age of 5. His parents encouraged this, keeping him in supplies and learning material to hone his skills. In 1899 he started a correspondence course in art and soon transferred to the New York school of art and design. He studied there for 6 years learning about oil painting, he took inspiration from Manet and Degas, yet found it shocking to sketch from live models.
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Canaletto – Typical strong contrast between light and shadow
Canaletto began his career as a theatrical scene painter, like his father, in the Baroque tradition. Influenced by Giovanni Panini, he is specialised in vedute (views) of Venice, his birth place. Strong contrast between light and shadow is typical of this artist. Furthermore, if some of those views are purely topographical, others include festivals or ceremonial subjects.
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Goya (English version)
Goya is perhaps the most approachable of painters. His art, like his life, is an open book. He concealed nothing from his contemporaries, and offered his art to them with the same frankness. He proved that if a man has the capacity to live and multiply his experiences, to fight and work, he can produce great art without classical decorum and traditional respectability.
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Shelley’s art Musings – Spotlight on William Blake
When I think about William Blake, I instantly think of the film “Red Dragon” – you know the one where the character Francis Dolarhyde is obsessed with the painting and kills his family to try and gain the same strength as the creature depicted. The film was inspired by the book “Red Dragon” by Thomas Harris and was a lead into the Hannibal Lector stories. While this is where the majority of us will recognise the work from, Blake was more than just a painter, he was also a poet and a printmaker, who turned his back on formalised religion and created his own personal complex mythology. Blake was largely…
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雕刻轮廓
毫无疑问，拉斐尔在文艺复兴时期的艺术中扮演着举足轻重的角色。如果没有拉斐尔笔下那美丽的圣母玛利亚，没有胖胖的小天使，我们都没办法想象那个时代会变成什么样子。 但是，拉斐尔的才华绝非仅限于绘画，他在再生的发展过程中也发挥着重要的作用。尽管拉斐尔自己并没有创作过再生版画，但他为雕塑家马康托尼奥雷蒙迪的雕塑创作过很多绘画作品。拉斐尔和雷蒙迪两人共同创作了不少当时意大利最负盛名的版画，也带来了罗马的版画业的兴盛。 古腾堡印刷厂通过简易而低成本的复制，使得大众阅读得以成为可能。拉斐尔和雷迪蒙的作品则促进了艺术的流通，使得艺术得以翻出庙堂的高墙。 奇怪的是，拉斐尔只是文艺复兴时代涉猎过版画的两位伟人之一。另一位是泰坦，相比之下，就远不如拉斐尔成功了。 他们将充满活力的艺术带出教堂，这可能能够解释他们在文艺复兴时代默默无闻的原因。在文艺复兴时期，艺术的赞助者多为教堂、宫廷以及美第奇家族（意大利王国的皇族）。但是教堂和宫廷（也包括美第奇）相互交织，为了宗教之外的目的的艺术并没有太大的发展空间。而即使拉斐尔与雷迪蒙的雕刻确实是基于宗教的主题，也无法与教堂那些恢宏、生动和壮丽的绘画相提并论。 即使拉斐尔同时代的人忽视了雕刻艺术，他的作品《帕里斯的审判》对之后的艺术家，例如马奈，产生了深刻的影响。
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Goya: The Original Photojournalist?
Admittedly, Goya never actually took photos. But replace his pencil and etching tools for a camera and Goya was predating the practice of objective war photojournalism by centuries. During the terrible Peninsular War of 1808-1814, the artist visited the Spanish countryside and witnessed unimaginable horrors. His recordings of these became the powerful series Disasters of War, which would go unpublished until thirty years after his death. Goya completed these works for himself, recording simply what he saw and what drew his attention, rather than what any patron wanted to see. Although taken individually they could be powerful propaganda, as a whole the series takes no sides. Goya portrays with equal…
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Degas: The Impressionist that Wasn’t
When is an Impressionist not an Impressionist? Answer: when that Impressionist is Edgar Degas. Degas is considered to be one of the key participants in the Impressionist movement; however, he took objection to this and tried to distance himself as much as possible from being characterised in this manner. Whilst his contemporaries delighted in spontaneity, bright colours, and the effect of light, Degas maintained that his art was completely devoid of spontaneity. The study of the old masters and an interest in realism and composition, this is what shaped the artist’s work and style. This evolution in personal style and approach to art is reflected in the change in genre…
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Doodling with Picasso
The British Museum has managed to wheedle the donation of all one-hundred of Picasso’s etchings which make up the Vollard Suite – no, not the name of a room in a curiously themed hotel, but a massive series of prints created in exchange for a couple of paintings, including two by Cézanne and Renoir. The critics are clambering all over each other to fawn, simper and gush about the prints and to offer their unsolicited opinions about what the lines and shading could possibly mean, squabbling like children over who can kiss the most arse. I agree that the series does reveal the inner workings of the mind of the…
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