|
View previous topic :: View next topic
|
|
| Author |
Message |
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
- #142
- Posted: 05/27/2022 04:00
- Post subject:
|
J.M.W. Turner (1775 - 1851)
Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway - J.M.W. Turner (1844)
FULL VIEW - VERY LARGE: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/...y_file.jpg
FULL VIEW - VERY LARGE - HIGHEST QUALITY - ZOOM FUNCTION: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/pain...rn-railway
IMAGE - THE NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON: https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucker/50404337601
Misc notes for future analysis (that should be better edited, better explained, more focused and professional)
-Very abstract (especially for its time), details hard to make out ... on the verge of impressionism ("proto-impressionism") and abstract art in the coming decades, while also something of a precursor to the expressionism of Munch (the forced perspective and angle of the train pre-dates the same as that of the bridge in Scream, as well as the swirling "incoherent" atmospheres of the adjacent skies merging with the scene. Also, thematically pre-dates Futurist art, and the energetic expressionism and abstraction of, for instance, Boccioni (City Rises).
-Train is heading straight towards the viewer into his/her space, whether they are accepting of it or not
-Train is open, without a roof, with a blur of passengers view-able in it. The passengers are also at the whim of the elements, whether outside or inside.
-The swirling mass of clouds and steam and light and rain and the surrounding landscape and water, merges as one inter-mixed abstraction, impression and combustion of elements, of energy. Turner uses heavy impasto, frenetic brush strokes, producing a dynamic sense of movement, color, light.
-Turner seems to use the picture to dissolve the semi-abstraction of his previous works into an extreme abstraction in this one, with much detail lost into a swirling play of impressions, abstractions
-In doing so Turner seems to be reflecting, in his old age (69 years old) on the passing of his age (and his own paintings) into a new "state of mind" that may be threatened in its ability to think by the higher speeds and industrialization of technologies (at the loss of the individual, at the loss of the country side, the poetry and simplicity of living in quiet space, in and among nature). This was alluded to in his earlier works but never brought to such a peak between impressionistic reality and extreme abstraction, into a state closer to the mind, closer to pure "sense" or "sensation" (with little detail, suggesting the destruction of the time and space needed to be able to think and understand what's going on).
-In the painting, all the steam and energy and on-rush of the train, its physicality stretched and forceful, is inter-mixed, merging, with the depiction environment (little clear separation), the people in its box car or blurred to a rush of disintegrated figures, all as if one and the same. Technology merging with, overtaking, replacing nature, the steam and wind and sky and light merging with each other into a mass of abstraction/impressionism (one and the same). In the foreground (harder to make out than when the painting was introduced), the train is chasing a hare (a race between machine and nature).
-The painting is as much a "state of mind" as it is a "depiction of reality". In Turner's ouvre, it represents a culmination of an ambiguity between a miraculous dream (the miraculous sense of the divine play of lights and dynamic colors and the emergence of its images that occur upon further looking and reflection) AND the violent ferocity of that dream being interrupted, cast aside by the onrush of the train, symbol of technology, now blasting through nature and landscape replacing its sounds, visions and environment. Turner's prior works often showcased this sort of juxtaposition (of the divine beauty and atmospheres amongst great events or scenes of violence, etc), but because here he has culminated his art into its greatest abstraction (without completely losing focus) and the increase of is vision into that of a dream-state, of a purer "state of mind" (at least as much as "reality"), the sense of all this is enhanced further beyond the striking beauty of the picture into these deeper, more profound feelings, emotions, allusions.
-Further, with the train in the foreground and right of the painting, speeding across the bridge, it is juxtaposed by the calm of the person in the boat on the waters to the left below, plus the heavenly dream of the bridge to the far left above him (which looks like a bridge to heaven, disappearing, fading, into the mist) further reflecting this ambiguity and juxtaposition: the poetry and quietude of the past, as much as a dream of the future, it reflects anxiety/hysteria about what the speed of trains, industrialization may do to states of mind. The sides of the painting left-to-right are split by this sensation, and in the brush strokes and ferocity of its paint (from the heavy impasto of the "front" of the picture plane to the thin, details, foundation of its image, under that impasto), the "image" is being overtaken by a combination of "dream" and "violence" (and many other ambiguities/dichotomies one could draw from the technique and depiction, its beauty and poetry vs its anxiety and ferocity, etc).
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings
Last edited by AfterHours on 11/19/2022 21:36; edited 2 times in total
|
|
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
- #143
- Posted: 05/27/2022 04:47
- Post subject:
|
To anyone interested in this list/project...
I just finished rearranging my main "Greatest Paintings" list (7.3/10 and above) to where each artist so far featured on it now has his/her own "artist page" (still on this same thread though). Now the main list features basic imagery of each listed work and then just under that is a link to "further images, links, notes/analysis", which takes you to the artist's page in the same thread. "Further images/links/analysis" are no longer on the main list because it was becoming very arduous to update due to an overload of content causing unbearable slows while in edit mode. This has been going on for a few months or so actually, but I was just dreading having to do this rearrange (not only is it a long process, but one has to deal with the edit-mode slows while doing it, until the speed gets better as more content is removed and placed in its new location, so it also takes longer than it would have otherwise)...
I still need to do the same re-arrangement for the "Extended" list (6.8/10 to 7.2/10) below the main one, which I'll probably do soon. Not trying to "hi-jack" the thread with "useless" updates, but just a heads-up that I'll probably try and knock that out today or tomorrow or a combo of both. After that -- the world now saved from slow-motion tyranny and my endless assault of "new (but not really new) posts" -- such updates (of a new artist page) will thereafter just happen as they come and not usually more than one or maybe sometimes a couple/few at a time.
NOTE: None of the new "artist pages" are even close to complete. I plan to add more of the artists' works to most (maybe all) of them eventually, including bios, analysis, etc ... not to mention any time I can find superior imagery, virtual tours, and so on...
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings
|
|
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
- #146
- Posted: 05/27/2022 18:59
- Post subject:
|
George Grosz (1893 - 1959)
Metropolis - George Grosz (1917)
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
FULL VIEW - LARGE: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rupertsnaps/32807180305/
FULL VIEW - VERY LARGE - HIGHEST QUALITY - ZOOM FUNCTION: https://www.museothyssen.org/en/conecta...metropolis
FULL VIEW - VIRTUAL TOUR - LARGE - HIGHEST QUALITY: https://static.museothyssen.org/microsi...3.64,0,0);
The Funeral (Dedicated to Oskar Panizza) - George Grosz (1918)
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
FULL VIEW - LARGE: https://40.media.tumblr.com/cea7153749b...1_1280.jpg
FULL VIEW - VERY LARGE - ZOOM FUNCTION: http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/viewer/sho...0/mode/1up
-George Grosz's The Funeral (Dedicated to Oskar Panizza) is an expressionist, apocalyptic nightmare, with its city a horror-show of psychotic characters, distorted buildings and angles revolting against itself.
-The work bears some resemblance to James Ensor's Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889. The striking geometric, crossing, angular lines of action and buildings show Grosz's inspiration from Futurist painters of the era. The characters seem to be jutting out from inside, around and behind the buildings of the city. They come from streets and alley-ways that are depicted as if small crevices between the structures that can't seem to hold their collective force. In the back of the painting the buildings seem to be tipping towards the right, while the main building in the front-left of the picture seems to be tipping in opposition to them.
-The striking reds and blacks evoke blood, murderous desires, intense rage and paranoia.
-The windows on the sides of the buildings are views into the covert degradation and shady ethics of the bourgeois, while outside is the furious outcry against them. The panes of these windows are also stricken by Christian crosses as their structural grid, each representing angry crucifixions of the characters inside them.
-One half of the painting is a funeral procession masquerading in black mass, with masked men and a crazed priest among those leading the charge. They are followed by a horrifying assortment of characters, including the figure of Death (the skeleton) sitting atop a coffin (and still drinking post-death). Surging along the evangelical fury and scream of blaring horns are howling freaks, the diseased, the deformed, the paranoid-delusionals, the drunkards, criminals, businessmen, clowns, beggars, pirates, and those left as faceless shadows. Beneath all of them are further bodies, in burning hot reds, a furnace of hell, the wave that carries them to their deaths.
-The mass of unrelenting bodies is confused, erupting and furious, collapsing through the painting, representing total anarchy and death, a rage and chaos enveloping humanity, reflecting the emotions and resulting societal downfall of World War I.
“Gin alley of grotesque dead bodies and madmen....
A teeming throng of possessed human animals...
think: that wherever you step, there's the smell of shit.”
- George Grosz (describing his painting in a letter).
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings
|
|
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
- #147
- Posted: 05/27/2022 19:15
- Post subject:
|
Gregorio de Chirico (1888 - 1978)
Il Grande Metafisico - Gregorio de Chirico (1917)
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
FULL VIEW - LARGE: https://uploads8.wikiart.org/images/gio...n-1917.jpg
-The painting achieves the metaphysical through its contrasts and vision.
-The sky is ominous and morbid. The muted, pastel and empty city, its exaggerated structures and shadows, exudes a profound despair and loneliness.
-There is a figure of a man in the distance, in what feels like the middle of a city at the end of the night with morning just peeking. The figure is reduced to a colorless, faceless black dot or stem.
-The figure is being confronted by a large mass in the front and center of the image, composed of seemingly random boards and objects into a great statue. It seems to be a metaphor for the materialistic state man finds himself in. Note that half-way up there appears to be the lid of a coffin with a cross-like symbol on it, and the structure is topped by the head and shoulders of a blank mannequin, further adding to the complexity and interpretation. Standing the height of the painting, the statue is erected to a towering, dominant, powerful presence by De Chirico.
-The painting is angled and viewed from the perspective of the statue, further diminishing the presence of the man, and further reducing him to nothing. From its perspective, the statue is hundreds of times larger and more powerful than the man.
-The surrounding environment, contrasting visualization and relative stature between the two figures seems to suggest that the man is confronted by his materialistic nature. It also seems to be a metaphor for how Man builds up possessions as an attainment of power. However this power seems to turn against him as he tends to become "owned" by such an accumulation of possessions, losing his identity/sense of self in the process.
-In reality, the statue can't possibly have perspective because it is not alive. The work is a representation of how Man turns other entities into God, building them up into his Maker. It is a profound expression of the denial of spirituality of modern man, of how he assigns his own "God-liness" and responsibility for his own destiny to another entity, thus losing it and reducing his own power. Therefore, the reading of its symbols and assigning of meaning to the painting is, itself, evidence of its message back upon the viewer (who becomes the "real" point-of-view from the statue), an endless riddle that simultaneously validates and denies itself.
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings
|
|
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
- #149
- Posted: 05/27/2022 21:02
- Post subject:
|
Albrecht Altdorfer (circa 1480 - 1538)
The Battle of Alexander at Issus - Albrecht Altdorfer (1529)
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
FULL VIEW - HIGHEST QUALITY - ZOOM FUNCTION: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset...h1gQ?hl=en
DETAIL - LOWER RIGHT CORNER: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/...sso_04.JPG
DETAIL - LOWER MIDDLE/LEFT SIDE: https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucke.../lightbox/
DETAIL - LOWER LEFT CORNER: https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucke.../lightbox/
DETAIL - MIDDLE: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...sso_02.JPG
DETAIL - MIDDLE/RIGHT SIDE: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...daten).jpg
DETAIL - MIDDLE/LEFT SIDE: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...daten).jpg
DETAIL - MIDDLE (Alexander): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...sso_23.JPG
DETAIL - MIDDLE/LEFT SIDE (Darius III): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...sso_20.JPG
DETAIL - MIDDLE/LEFT SIDE: https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8342/821...53bd_b.jpg
DETAIL - FAR LEFT SIDE: https://www.flickr.com/photos/profzucke.../lightbox/
DETAIL - UPPER MIDDLE/RIGHT SIDE (Horizon & castle): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/...er_002.jpg
IMAGE - ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH, GERMANY: https://www.flickr.com/photos/anita_pra.../lightbox/
-Albrecht Altdorfer's The Battle of Alexander at Issus exhibits an awe-inspiring depth-of-field, a vastness of space and distance previously unprecedented in the visual arts. The level of detail is extraordinary, particularly with regards to the number of figures and degree of action on display, the variation in landscapes and color, and the astounding and intricate use of lighting and shadow cast upon the various figures, across the crowds, landscapes, water, mountains and castles. These factors contribute greatly towards exalting this work into that of a visionary.
-Alexander's army is an overwhelming mass of bodies following the length of the landscape. They seem perfectly organized into a "domino effect" colliding against the opposing forces of Darius in massive quantities. At each juncture of the painting there are smaller battles taking place, each massive on their own. All tolled, there is a colossal organization of swarming, vigorous, colliding action on display in the descending/ascending echelons and facets of the battle. Beneath the armies can be seen seas of fallen, dead bodies left in their wake.
-The figures are colored and characterized by nobility, and touches of heavenly light seem to follow Alexander's forces throughout the painting and guide them into the horizon.
-The painting seems to metaphorically visualize the drama of humanity in mythic, epic terms. It seems to exhibit the cycle of birth-to-death on into the afterlife. Alexander's army (life), trouncing Darius III, the opposition (death), overtaking materialistic possessions (the castles) the "world" over, under a vast sky in the throes of both day and night (the moon [death] in the upper left and the sun [birth] setting on the right). In the distance lies the glow of heaven (the horizon, the sun). Simultaneously the sky seems to suggest an impending apocalypse, with its clouds gradually darkening and collecting into a spiraling force of nature. The landscapes in the distance may suggest the aftermath, alluding to a barren, post-apocalyptic planet or maybe even an ice age.
-This spectacular sky is also probably a metaphor for God arranging the events in favor of Alexander, the sun triumphantly "defeating" and "casting aside" the moon. This celestial drama correlates with the human drama below and seems to act as the overpowering, God-like force that is predetermining it.
-The work removes increments of time and event and unfolds an entire day of these into a single picture. It shows a scope and depth of landscape geography that were physically impossible to see all at once and a series of events that occurred over a long period of time, all in one pictorial sweep. This elevates the depiction to an overpoweringly visionary, mythic event of Biblical drama and proportions.
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings
|
|
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
AfterHours
Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)
|
- #150
- Posted: 05/27/2022 21:06
- Post subject:
|
Andrew Wyeth (1917 - 2009)
Christina's World - Andrew Wyeth (1948)
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
FULL VIEW - LARGE: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont...rmat=1500w
DETAIL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/eoskins/5841748002
IMAGE - MUSEUM OF MODERN ART: https://www.farnsworthmuseum.org/wp-con..._world.jpg
Misc Notes for future analysis...
-It's a minor masterpiece of evocative and impressively detailed technique, and most especially, very subtle and suggestive figurative, perspective and spatial composition. The slope and angle of the hill is subtly distorted in tilted perspective so as to suggest an incline that keeps expanding as she moves forward, gradually pitting the viewer into her predicament (gradually and deftly, more immersive the more you see and work out the subtle details and composition, and look again with all in consideration). The masterful ambiguity of her body positioning and suggested movement contributes greatly: her body is depicted right before the apex of moving forward and, simultaneously, just being thwarted in momentum or holding back -- just pushed back so that the slope, which seems (upon recognizing this) more and more imposing and seems to be pressing her backward in precisely equal measure to her suggested forward motion, analogous to being in "quicksand". The depiction is aided by sickly thin arms and the clenched hands which are both gripping the ground, holding on for dear life, and trying to climb forward simultaneously (both trying to pre-empt her "fall" backward and provide an anchor to lunge herself forward) and the debilitated/paralyzed legs she must drag (which look more sickly and lifeless the closer one inspects). Looking at the grass, one realizes that Wyeth painstakingly rendered the blades in excruciating numbers and detail. This painterly attention to drawing out each little detail on her field and journey becomes an empathetic symbol for Christine's predicament, the artist immersing himself (and us) in her shoes, in that each movement for her is so minor and that she must confront and feel and pass through each blade on her long journey home. Furthermore, the sky and housing ahead portray both a longing, poetic nostalgia of the evocative time and place, but also the haunted gray of the sickly and pending or confrontation with death. This includes the expanse of the field, which alludes as well, with its many graying hues mixed in with its green. As well, Christina's body at a glance looks like that of a rather youthful young woman and one's initial impression of her action could easily be that she is sitting in the grass and enjoying the evocative, poetic time and space before she gets up and dances on home. But as one looks closer, one sees the sickly body and sees the semi-ratty or unkept, almost elderly, hair, and the closer one looks, realizes the body has grown old right before our eyes. The scene itself too: the sky and field and house and barn all have their nostalgic mid western and evocative beauty and wide open space, the sort of freedom one can feel in youth, but as one looks longer, they are ambiguously stricken at least as much by the graying and decrepit theme of old age, and the space an eternal (also heroic) entrapment she must traverse in all its effort, going home and longing for home but always in the distance too. One soon realizes the whole painting is a moving, haunting , nostalgic and empathetic metaphor for her whole life, the passing, fading of time from youth to old age, shown all at once, metaphorically and physically, the whole world (of hers) captured in a single unresolved and expansively suggestive moment that is both a snapshot and an eternity.
_________________
Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings
|
|
|
|
|
Back to top
|
|
|
  |
All times are GMT
|
| Page 15 of 20 |
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
