On 17 Jun, 2019 With
Article by Adrian Zain
Leonardo Da Vinci is easily one of the greatest artists of all time, giving us works such as the Mona Lisa, Salvator Mundi, and the Last Supper along with surprising and delighting us all for 100s of years, and while Leonardo’s paintings are certainly his claim to fame, Da Vinci also has a series of notebooks and manuscripts that give us unprecedented insight into both his knowledge, and his process in painting and drawing, his notebooks are also filled with mathematical and scientific knowledge, but we’re going to take a look at the artistic side of his notebooks, in which there is so very much we can learn.
Read More
On 16 Jun, 2019 With
Article by Adrian Zain
In 1500, Louis XII of France commissioned Leonardo Da Vinci to paint what, today is known as, Salvator Mundi, or ‘Savior of the World’. However, the painting has been through a long journey to reach its present state, a painting worth 450 million dollars, and will in the future reside at Abu Dhabi Louvre. The painting portrays Jesus holding an orb in his left hand and giving a Benediction with his right hand, both are painted with stunning detail, we also see these luscious curly locks of his hair leading to his face, which gazes at the viewer in a solemn yet mysterious gaze. Jesus is also portrayed as wearing a stunningly detailed gown with wonderful drapery.
Read More
On 24 May, 2019 With
Article by Adrian Zain
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn is in most regards considered to be one of the greatest visual artists in history, as well as being one of the greatest Dutch painters of all time. His dozens of paintings and drawings were intimately beautiful, and awe inspiring. He was also a very dynamic artist, with him painting and drawing all sorts of things from portraits to historical scenes, Rembrandt practically went into dozens of themes. But his prolific and well-known artworks, are the many self-portraits he did over the many years he was alive, and they give us an incredible insight into Rembrandt that we rarely have with any other artist that was born at that time.
Read More
On 10 May, 2019 With
Article by Willie Jimenez
I recently wrote an article about how taking photographs, along with travel, helped me with building a visual library. I feel it was a great way to learn composition and learn what makes a photo unique and interesting, by trail and error, without the time and effort it takes to do the same with a drawing and/or painting.
Read More
On 24 Apr, 2019 With
Article by Adrian Zain
Michelangelo, is known by many across the world to be an incredible painter and artist, with him painting the Sistine Chapel and the Last Judgement, but at the same time it should be known, that first and foremost – Michelangelo thought of himself as a sculptor, and he was an extraordinary one, with him sculpting works such as ‘David’ and ‘Bacchus’.
Read More
On 19 Feb, 2019 With
Article by Mies Šmes
In 1893, Monet was able to acquire the adjacent land to his property at Giverny (which was separated by the railway), where he gave life to an extravagant oriental water garden. For this lush project, not only he had to divert water from a branch of the Epte river, but he also had to stand against his neighbors, as they did not want the water to be contaminated by his exotic plants. Still, in the end, Monet got away with it and was permitted to carry out his plan. Inspired by the Japanese prints he avidly collected —his two hundred and thirty one Japanese woodblock prints are currently exhibited in the house—, he designed a green wooden footbridge over an artificial pond, surrounded by wisteria vines, bamboo, irisis and different varieties of newly bred water lilies.
Read More
On 19 Feb, 2019 With
(Part I): Clos Normand
Article by Mies Šmes
Who could be more fair to judge Claude Monet’s oeuvre than the French artist himself? Acknowledged by the father of Impressionism as his ‘most beautiful masterpiece’, the garden at Giverny —to which he dedicated half his life— was not only a living canvas in which he used flowers instead of paints, but also the most important subject of his late years’ paintings.
Read More
On 11 Feb, 2019 With
Article by Mies Šmes
Aurore Dupin did not behave as other women did. She liked to wander through the Parisian salons dressed like a man, smoking cigars and since her divorce, she had taken several lovers. When George Sand, the pen name by which she is best known, laid her eyes on pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin, she set out on a mission to possess him.
Read More
On 11 Feb, 2019 With
Article by Mies Šmes
Not much is left from Claude Monet’s first wife, Camille Doncieux: just one photograph, official French documents and the paintings that have immortalized her. After her premature death at only 32 years old (it is unknown whether the reason was a malpracticed abortion or cervix cancer), the painter destroyed her family photographs and all the correspondence she had ever written or received. The surviving photograph had been taken in Amsterdam in 1871, and it was saved only because Monet did not know about its existence. Nothing else was left from the woman he had married in spite of his family’s disapproval; the woman that had given him two sons. According to the art historian Daniel Wildenstein, his second wife, Alice Hoschedé, consumed by jealousy, was the one to blame for the damnatio memoriae (condemnation of memory) that was imposed on Camille.
Read More
On 11 Feb, 2019 With
Article by J. Danilo Garcés Rodríguez
I thought about this one a lot. When so much has already been said, when almost every corner and detail of a subject has already been study so thoroughly as the life and work of Vincent van Gogh has been, is really hard to just start writing without thinking that whatever you’re about to say probably has been told a thousand times already and you don’t even know if the way you are going to tell it will be worth reading at all. As a result of these thoughts I found myself looking in doubt to the empty page for minutes at a time before closing it and giving up to the incapability of creating for another day. Days passed on like this and I was about to quit trying to write about Van Gogh.
Read More
