Paul Gauguin (1848-1903): Van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888 (Oil on jute, Van Gogh Museum) - Gauguin moved in with Van Gogh at the Yellow House in Arles in late October 1888... Van Gogh’s first impression on seeing the painting was that Gauguin had depicted him as a madman… He later softened his view. „My face has lit up after all a lot since, but it was indeed me, extremely tired and charged with electricity as I was then.”
Ikenaga Yasunari (Japanese, b. 1965): Glamour Girl c.2004 (Mineral paint, Menso brush on linen) - Ikenaga creates his paintings utilizing Japanese paint and Menso brush on linen canvas with various mixed media that includes mineral pigments, gelatin glue, soot ink and occasionally gold leaf…
“I think the quality of sexiness comes from within. It is something that is in you or it isn’t and it really doesn’t have much to do with breasts or thighs or the pout of your lips” - Sophia Loren
Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510): Idealized Portrait of a Lady (Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Nymph) c.1475 (Tempera on wood. Städel, Frankfurt) - Vespucci’s outfit is a nymph costume in the antique or classical-mythological style… The background contributes to Simonetta’s idealisation: it is as black as that of the little stone carving she wears around her neck, and it lends the painting the plasticity of a relief. Botticelli depicts the contemporary feminine ideal – consummate in beauty, virtue and conceptual proximity to antiquity…
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): Le Moulin de la Galette, 1900 (Oil on canvas, Guggenheim) - Le Moulin de la Galette, his first Parisian painting, reflects his fascination with the lusty decadence and gaudy glamour of the famous dance hall, where bourgeois patrons and prostitutes rubbed shoulders… Picasso had yet to develop a unique style, but Le Moulin de la Galette is nonetheless a startling production for an artist who had just turned 19.
Claude Monet (1840-1926): The Beach at Trouville, 1870 (Oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London) - The figure to the left is probably Monet’s wife Camille, and the woman reading may be the wife of Eugène Boudin… The painting is unusual in its composition - a close-up of symmetrically disposed figures - and in the bravura of its technique. The white dashes of paint indicating the dress are prominent. They contrast with the shadowed face, probably concealed by a veil, and the parasol shading the flowered hat…
Robert McGinnis (b.1926): The Exhibition, Gouache on board
Art Scott in his The Art of Robert E. McGinnis wrote that McGinnis is “one of the most widely seen and admired… His colleagues at the Society of Illustrators recognized that fact when he was elected to the Illustrators’ Hall of Fame in 1993.”
You may not immediately recognize McGinnis’ name, but there’s little doubt that you’ve spotted his artwork at one time or another during your life…
Dorothea Tanning in her studio, Sedona, Arizona, 1946.
As a Surrealist artist, Ms. Tanning mined her unconscious, producing disturbing images like “Maternity” (1946), showing a troubled mother, her long gown ripped to rags at the belly, holding a fretful baby. At her feet lies a poodle with a child’s face. The photograph shows the work in progress…
(Photograph by Lee Miller, From : Patricia Allmer (ed.), “Angels of Anarchy - Women Artists and Surrealism” (Prestel, 2009))
Golden Mosaics of San Marco, Venice - The light reflects on the mosaic walls, arches, and ceilings made of hundreds of thousands of tiny golden tesserae or tiles in the Cathedral San Marco in Venice. It looks like golden fire ablaze in the afternoon sun…
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919): Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876 - Renoir’s main aim was to convey the vivacious and joyful atmosphere of this popular dance garden on the Butte Montmartre. The study of the moving crowd, bathed in natural and artificial light, is handled using vibrant, brightly coloured brushstrokes. The somewhat blurred impression of the scene prompted negative reactions from contemporary critics…
Georgy Kurasov (b. 1958): Love Letter, 2001 - Kurasov's artwork combines surrealism and abstraction and yet, it is narrative and iconic…
Although a challenge, he has found a balance in all these elements of artistic expression…
Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606-1683/84): Still Life with Books (1628)
This painting dates from De Heem’s early career. The monochromatic composition (a style in vogue from 1625 onwards) contrasts powerfully with the sumptuous, colourful still lifes that the painter produced later in Antwerp… Professors and students would have understood the allusions to the vanity of knowledge conveyed in this pictorial motif…
“En Pointe - Accompanied by dancers from the Royal Ballet School, Chanel’s chiffon masterpiece has all the fragility of a feathered ballet dress. Lagerfeld looked to French artist Marie Laurencin, who created the sets and costumes for Diaghilev’s Les Biches.”
Arizona Muse with ballerinas in “Let’s Dance” for Vogue India, August 2011
(Photo by Patrick Demarchelier)
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973): Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (The Young Ladies of Avignon), 1907. Although it is probably the single most analyzed picture of the century, ironically, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was not exhibited in public until 1916. Picasso's friends felt that the highly distorted brothel scene would be too controversial. - The work of Paul Cézanne, and also African masks, were crucial in shaping it, and for many years it was regarded as the first Cubist painting. Critics have since concluded that it is a transitional work, but this has done nothing to dampen its enormous power or influence. Willem de Kooning's Woman series (1951-53), for example, was directly informed by this work…
