AWIL-UM : Thoughts in Perspective: Art History

Showing posts with label Art History. Show all posts

2015-08-17

.: Irving Penn :. photography

I recently discovered Irving Penn while doing research for a Slovak photographer which I will showcase in a future article of the series. Irving was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1917 to a family of Russian Jews. He attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art from 1934 to 1938. He studied under Alexey Brodovitch drawing and painting. In the 1950's he started his own studio in New York and began making advertising photographs. Around the same time he married model Lisa Fonssagrives.

Irving Penn / 16 June 1917 - 7 October 2009
Parents / Herry Pen and Sonia Greenberg
Spouse / Lisa Fonssagrives (1950)
Children / Tom Penn (1952)
School / Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art
period / 1934- 1938
professors / Alexey Brodovitch

He is best known for his fashion photographs done for Vogue magazine however he also pursued different themes. For example his interesting series of celebrity portraits or his still life works.

Nadja Auermann

1947 - Salad Ingredients

1947 - Salvador Dali in New York 20 February

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2015-06-24

aPaD : Luis Ricardo Falero

.: artist : Luis Ricardo Falero :.

.: country : Spain :.

.: title of work : The Moon Nymph :.

.: year : 1883 :.

.: comment : Luis Falero was born in Granada in 1851, he studied art in Paris and then settled in London where he died in 1896 at just 45 years of age. His work is centered around nudes which he uses in different subjects ranging from mythology to orientalism and allegories. :.

2015-04-04

Francois Dufault [French composer 17th century]

Suite in A minor by Francois Dufault

Theodoor Rombouts
The Lute Player, c. 1620

The 17th century was a time of great development in France but also of conflicts and revolts. Cardinal Richelieu, minister of Louis XIII began a series of projects to strengthen France militarily and culturally, the methods he used were not always to most peaceful and pleasant. In December 1642 he died and after five months Louis XIII also died in Paris leaving the country in the hands of minister Cardinal Mazarin and king Louis XIV who continued in the trend set during the first half of the century.

Regarding Francois Dufault not much remained except for twelve lute compositions and a few individual works in manuscripts. His works are written with a lot of harmonic freedom. He was born in Bourges around 1604 and died in England probably in the early 1670's. Dufault was a contemporary of Sebastien Bourdon.An excellent article about this composer can be found here.

2015-03-27

Sebastien Bourdon [French Baroque Painter]

Sebastien Bourdon is a French Baroque era painter born in 1616 in Montpelier. His father was a painter on glass and this influenced the young boy to undergo a career in art, being sent at the age of seven to Paris as an apprentice to a painter. At the age of 14 he left his apprenticeship and went to Bordeaux and the to Toulouse. Having a precarious financial situation, to say the least, he enlists in the army where in 1634 an officer recognizing his talent directs Sebastien on the road of his destiny by discharging him from military service and financing his journey to Rome. There he studied works by Poussin, Claude Lorrain and Caravaggio and earned his income by selling reproductions of other works.

In 1637 he returned to Paris and began to have his own commissions, among them St. Peter's martyrdom for Notre-Dame and the Martyrdom of St. Andrew for Church of Saint-André in Chartres. In 1648 he was one of the founders of the French Royal Academy. The next important moment in his biography is the year 1652 when Christina of Sweden made him chief court painter. He continued to execute commissions for the church of Saint-Benoit, for the cathedral of Montpellier, in Cologne and for the Tuileries Palace.

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2013-03-09

Overview of Caravaggio's Christian Art

Sometime in the early 13th century, between 1227 and 1234 [1], a liturgical drama was composed now known as "The Play of Daniel" (Ludus Danielis). Out of several versions only one survived complete with musical notation and that is the version from Beauvais. The play dates back to ~1140 [2]. What you are listening to now is only a small part of it but the part which in my opinion clearly stands out from the rest because of its unforeseen power. How much of the original composition was altered, maybe none, maybe a lot, I don't know, but this does not alter the experience of hearing it.

I doubt Caravaggio would of had the chance to listen to this song, but who can know such things. Born as Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio in 1571 studied in Naples under Simone Peterzano, he remainde in the history of art a very intriguing character and an exceptional painter who had a formative influence on Baroque painting. His biography is quite entertaining in the sense that he was a veritable rock star of his time, if I could say so and apparently I can. Among the highlights of his eccentric behavior I can remember that he used a well known prostitute as his model for St Mary and that he killed a man. He died in 1610. He didn't have many years of painting but what he eventually painted is truly art at its highest. I don't know what his painting habits were but I don't think he was following the method used by Byzantine painters while working on their icons, immersed in prayer. This being said it is safe to assume that many of his religious works are not entirely religios, meaning that they also have roots in his personal life, in fact there are studies done on this which I am sure you can find on the web.