For Art's Sake

My Favorite Painting...

leeluvfashion — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:26:13 -0700

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte
Georges Seurat, 1884–1886
Oil on canvas

The first time I saw this painting was in 5th grade art class. We were studying pointillism because our last art project in grade school was a wall length mural in the school library created with pointed brushes & Q-tips. Ever since then I had adored this work of art. I always feel calm when I see the colors and landscape of this painting. I greatly admire how much work the artist put into this creation.

Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886. Currently at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Awesome art print electronic skins...

glam sugar — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:51:18 -0700

I was searching for iPod skins and found this site that has artist print skins! http://www.gelaskins.com/ They also have them for laptops, phones and other devices. I think I'll be ordering soon.

Sunset in Venice by Claude Monet

Painting of the Day: Portrait of Félix Fénéon (1890)

Princesskitty22 — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:11:59 -0700

Paul Signac. Portrait of Félix Fénéon in Front of an Enamel of a Rhythmic Background of Measures and Angels, Shades and Colors. 1890. Oil on canvas. 73.5 x 92.5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, USA.

Painting of the Day: River's Edge; The Siene at Herblay (1889)

Princesskitty22 — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:18:40 -0700

Paul Signac. River's Edge; The Siene at Herblay. 1889. Oil on canvas. 33 x 55 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France.

Painting of the Day: Rue Caulaincourt: Mills on Montmarte (1884)

Princesskitty22 — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:36:57 -0700

Artist of the Week: Paul Signac

Princesskitty22 — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:58:04 -0700

Paul Signac was born on November 11th, 1863 into an affluent Paris family. In his youth, Signac wanted to be an architect, but in 1880 abandoned that path for a career in painting. He was influenced, early on, by Claude Monet and the Impressionist movement. In 1884, he joined the Société des Artistes Indépendants, an organization of Independent artists who exhibited freely. There was no “jury” to choose which works got to be exhibited; everyone’s work could be. Here he met Georges Seurat who would become a life-long friend. Together, they formed the Neo-impressionist movement, which focused on color theory and created unique works that examined how our eyes see color and shape.

Signac loved to sail and traveled frequently. Many of his paintings are landscapes that he saw while sailing, though later in his life he did some urban scenes in Paris, as well. Like Seurat, he used dots of complementary colors to create his scene. This is called Pointillism. The Neo-impressionists drew from the intuitive knowledge of color that the Impressionists had, as well as emerging science about color and light.

Signac married Berthe Roblès in 1892. By 1913, they had seperated and he was living with Jeanne Selmersheim-Desgrange, with whom he had a daughter, Ginette. He and his wife never formally divorced, however, and they remained friends for the remainder of Signac’s life. He continued to support her.

Signac is perhaps more famous for his mentorship of another artist than his own work. In the summer of 1904, a young artist named Henri Matisse stayed with Signac in Saint-Tropez. The older man encouraged Matisse and introduced him to Neo-impressionism and color theory. This led Matisse, who had been a somewhat classical painter, down a path that led to Fauvism and some of the greatest contributions to Modern art. Signac had the distinction of being the first person to buy a Matisse painting.

Matisse was not the only young artist to benefit from Signac’s guidance. In 1908, he became the president of Société des Artistes Indépendants and remained so until his death in 1935. He was 72.

SourceandSource

Join the Movement: Neo-Impressionism

HELLO QUEENMARGOT

GOTCHA 10 4 — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:51:39 -0700

*HELLO QUEENMARGOT*
You are a pathetic woman. All of your lies and all that you have done to injure others, is finally beginning to catch up to you. Your mask is falling, and you are realizing that there are many times now that you can't control your thoughts or your emotions. Many people are laughing behind your back. They are calling you the very same disgusting names that you have called others that you felt were not giving you the constant attention that you so desperately need. You have very serious mental problems, and you try to escape your insane thoughts, but you are unable to do so, because the massive amount of random thoughts that you harbor does not even allow you to sleep. You've made the mistake of sharing your evil actions with others that you thought would never betray you. You were wrong! You have been betrayed, and soon everyone will know about all that which you have single handedly orchestrated for the benefit of only yourself. You have only the emotional maturity of a fairly bright 6 year old. Your emotions are limited. you have no conscience, and it is very difficult for you to even understand boundaries, let alone abide by them. You do understand fear. Now is the time to fear that all are about to view and will anxiously await the moment that you will have pay for the havoc that you have caused in so many innocent lives. I bet that you thought that you were covering all of your bases when you devised plans to hurt others. You should have given that a great deal more thought. the world is full of pathological liars like yourself. they all believe all of their lies, and they all believe that they are too smart to ever get caught. In time, most of them are not only caught, but also forced to pay for the damage that they have done with all of those lies. You understand shame. You are about to crawl away alone carrying that shame along with you, because the very people that you have encouraged to plead your case, will be the same people that will see you for the vile creature that you really are. It's a funny thing about a liar, somehow along the way, they tend to forget which lies they told to which people. Most importantly though, the liar always thinks that his secrets are always safe. Not this time my dear. Enjoy your evening!

Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals: Pre-Dynastic Period

Princesskitty22 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:50:48 -0700

This Seal was found near Uruk, Iraq in 1940. It's made of Marble and was probably made around 3000 B.C.E, or so. These Early Seals were probably not meant for individual people, but rather represented whole administrations and Royal families. Not only would the exuisite carving be far too expensive for the average person, but it's too large and heavy for one person to wear. Later seals had holes through middle and were pinned to people's clothing. This one has a sort of handle (the little sheep) rather than a hole and would have been far too bulky to wear on your clothes.

The subject is one that survive all the way through the Greek Conquest of Persia over 2500 years later. A human figure, in this case a deity, holds two branches to feed two deer. This motif is called "Master of the Animals". It's always a human figure, but the figure could be a god, a godess, a mythical or legendary hero, or a king. They either are feeding two animals, letting them drink from a flowing vase, hold them in their fists, or standing on them. However, the message is always the same. The Human figure has dominace over the animals. This symbolizes a couple of different things: Man's Mastry over Nature is the most obvious, but there's a more subtle meaning, as well. The branches, The Flowing Vase (which has two streams coming out of it on either side) or even the animals themselves can represent the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which are the rivers that make up the natural borders of Mesopotamia. So, it can also represent a Certain ruler's dominance over the whole of Mesopotamia.

This one is my personal favortie. The quality of the carving is just amazing and it's absolutely charming.

Crayola Art

Princesskitty22 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:11:23 -0700

Now here's something you don't see everyday. Usually when you hear that a piece of art is "done in crayon" this isn't exactly what you have in mind. Apparently a man from Minnesota named Don Marco creates beautiful art pieces with regular old drugstore bought Crayola crayons. The works, considering the medium, are acutally pretty remarkable. The subjects range from portraits of celebrities and scenes from Westerns to animals in Nature; Nautical Scenes to Native Americans. He's even gotten commisions to do portraits from the likes of Burt Reynolds and Oprah. See more of Don's work

View Slideshow ›

Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals

Princesskitty22 — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:59:45 -0700

Ok, so instead of doing an artist this week, I'm going to do some Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals...don't worry; they're much more interesting then they sound. I just completed a paper on these Seals for a class at school and figured why not share my new found knowledge with all of you. So, here we go:

A Cylinder Seal is a cylindrical (hence the name) piece of stone which has been engraved with a continuous design around it's entire face. When turned on it's side and rolled in a piece of wet clay, the seal transfers it's design onto the clay in relief. They were invented around the second half of the 4th millenium B.C.E. by the same people who invented Cuneiform writing, though they pre-date writing, slightly. Before the advent of Cylinder Seals, there had been other seals used. For example, a clay ball would be fitted with carved tokens and "stamped" into the clay tablet. However, these people did everything with clay: they wrote on clay tablets, they sealed jars with clay; they even sealed vaults with clay. There was a need for something to act as a signature stamp, but that could also be used as a security measure. So, the Cylinder Seal became the object of choice. Not only would their larger surface area cover more clay faster, but it allowed for inscriptions to be added to the design. Also, since their design was continous, it would be easy to tell if the clay seal on a jar or door had been tampered with.

The practical advantage of the Cylinder Seal would not last forever. By the 5th century B.C.E, Aramaic had overtaken Cuneiform as the international written language. Aramaic was written on Papyrus or Linen with ink, not in clay with a stylus. These scrolls were rolled and needed only a dab of clay to seal them. In fact, had they put enough wet clay to roll a cylinder seal on the scrolls, they probably would have disentigrated. Cylinder Seals were once again replaced by a stamp seal, which was used, in one form or another, until very recently. Two hundred years later, Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire; the whole of Mesopotamia fell under Greek control. Therefore, Cylinder Seals are unique to Mesopotamia during the period from 3000 B.C.E to the Greek conquest. There were some found in Egypt and the Indus Valley, but these were influenced the Mesopotamian Seal.

Cylinder Seals are invaluable to archeologists. Not only have many survived because of their durability (they are, after all, usually solid stone) but they offer scenes depicting everything from religous ceremonies and mythology to secluar rituals and daily life. The materials that they're made out of can tell us which country was trading with Mesopotamia at the time. The changing styles and quality of the artwork mirror larger developments. Finally, since very few have been damaged at all, they offer a unique opprotunity: a Cylinder Seal can be rolled into clay today and the modern impression looks exactly like the ancient one. That's not something you get very often when looking at ancient artifacts; there's usually a lot of using your imagination involved.

Tune in tomorrow for our first example.