Favorite piece(s) of art (by a dead artist)

Gassed by John Singer Sergent


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I’m sure I’ve heard Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings many times before without realizing it, but the first time I became fully aware of the piece was when my parents and I went to an exhibition on the work of John Singer Sargent at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

At some point, we come across this painting. Part of Barber’s piece was softly playing in the background while the voice on our audio guide explained the painting. It shows World War I soldiers blinded by mustard gas being led in lines back to the hospital tents and the dressing stations; the men lie on the ground all about the tents waiting for treatment.

To this day, Samuel Barber's piece reminds me of this painting.
 
Gassed by John Singer Sergent


gassed.jpg




I’m sure I’ve heard Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings many times before without realizing it, but the first time I became fully aware of the piece was when my parents and I went to an exhibition on the work of John Singer Sargent at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

At some point, we come across this painting. Part of Barber’s piece was softly playing in the background while the voice on our audio guide explained the painting. It shows World War I soldiers blinded by mustard gas being led in lines back to the hospital tents and the dressing stations; the men lie on the ground all about the tents waiting for treatment.

To this day, Samuel Barber's piece reminds me of this painting.

The yellowish tinge to the entire canvas makes you wonder why it's there. It could be showing the remnants of mustard gas still in the air after the attach (that's what I believe) and the strips of cloth across the soldiers' eyes are to protect any further irritation.

Or it could be the aftermath of the gas assault and the artist put the yellow there just to keep the continuity of mood.
 
I love everything by Otto Dix, but these are some of my favorites.

At The Mirror
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Portrait Of The Journalist Sylvia von Harden
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Nude Girl With Gloves
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Self-Portrait With Nude Model
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Wounded Veteran
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Two Victims of Capitalism
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Dying Solider
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(I got most of the information of these paintings from my philosopy of beauty textbook: Arts & Ideas by William Flemming).


The Allegory of Spring (La Primavera) by Sandro Botticelli
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Someone else mentioned this painting, but I love it, too. I how diaphanous some of the ladies' outfits are. I love the colors and the folds of the clothes.

It was painted for the instruction of a young cousin of Lorenzo de' Medici who numbered among his tutors the poet Poliziano and the Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino.

The eight figures, with Venus in the center, form an octaval relationship, and together they run a gamut of myth and metaphor.

The drama reads from right to left:
  • The gentle south wind, Zephyr, is pursuing the shy nymph of springtime, Chloris.
  • As he impregnates her, flowers spring from her lips and she is transformed into Flora in an appropriately flowery robe. ("I was once Chloris, who am now called Flora." - Roman poet Ovid.) This figure also refers to Florence, an allusion not lost on the citizens of the city of flowers.
  • The blind Cupid is shooting an arrow toward Castitas (Chastity), the youthful central dancer of the three graces. Her partners are the bejeweled Pulchritudo (Beauty) and Voluptas (Passion). Their transparent, gauzy drapery vibrates with the figures of their dance to create a ballet of rhythmic flowing lines. (In his Pagan Mysteries of the Renaissance, historian Edgar Wind sees the dance as the initiation rites of the virginal Castitas into the fullness of beauty and passion.)
  • At the far left stands Mercury, both the leader of the three graces and the fleet-footed god of the winds. As Virgil wrote, "With his staff he drives the winds and skims the turbid clouds." Lifting his magic staff, the Caduceus, he completes the circle by directing his opposite number, Zephyr, to drive away the wintry clouds and make way for spring. (On the philosophical plane, Mercury is dispelling the clouds that veil the intellect so that the light of reason can shine through.)
  • Presiding over the entire scene is the meditating and ameliorating figure of the goddess of love. Pico della Mirandola observed that the "unity of Venus is unfolded in the trinity of the three graces." She also reminds us that love is the tie that binds both the picture and the world together.


The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli
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When people think of a well-known piece of art, they usually think of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa or The Birth of Venus. I can see why this one is so familiar. I love the way the artist showed Venus's hair, the colors, the folds of the clothes, the pink shell . . . .
  • There are four figures instead of eight, a triad grouped around Venus. Her presence and modest posture express the duel nature of love, the sensuous and the chaste.
  • These motifs are carried out on the left by the blowing winds, which Poliziano called amorous Zephyrs, and the chaste Hora on the right (one of the Hours present at classical births), who is rushing in with the robe.
  • Botticelli's achievement is to produce a picture of great lucidity and freshness. Venus seems to be floating gently across the green sea on her pink shell.

La Primavera is my no. 1 favorite painting of all times. I've seen these paintings in the Uffizi museum in Florence :loveeyes: I'm a Botticelli fan.

Another favorite painting is the Lady of Shalott from John William Waterhouse. I hope to see this painting IRL one day.

Then comes the painting of Tamara De Lempicka Blue Woman with a Guitar:heart:

Love paintings. Wish to visit the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg one day.
 
Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir


One of four permanent circuses in Paris, the Cirque Fernando opened in Montmartre in 1875, attracting an enthusiastic following that included members of the Impressionist circle. Francisca Wartenberg (left), 17, and her sister, Angelina (right), 14, members of an travelling German acrobatic troupe. In this painting, the girls take their bows after a performance, gathering up the tissue-wrapped oranges tossed to them as tributes by members of the audience.


I remember after one of my dance recitals (it was ballet, and I think I was in second or third grade at the time) a family friend gave me a card with this on the front afterwards.
 

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