“The Colossus” was thought to be one of a series of Franscisco Goya’s most powerful and famous works: the dark paintings. It shows a massive flight of terrified people while a gargantuan giant walks, stomping on his prey. The painting shows the gore and dark subject matter characteristic of the Spanish artist’s latter years. The giant symbolizes Napoleon, a subject Goya frequently returned to as he witnessed the Peninsular Wars.
But unfortunately, the museum in which the canvas resides has declared that the artwork is indeed not by Goya at all, but rather completely painted by one of his assistants. Close inspections may have uncovered parts of the initials “AJ,” which would have stood for Asensio Julia, Goya’s main assistant. Further X-Rays have found minute differences from this and other authentic Goyas. The Prado museum in Madrid made the official removal of the artist’s name on Monday, at least until further notice.
Experts have found parts of many great artists such as Leonardo and Michelangelo were executed by apprentices and assistants, but it’s sad to find out when an entire painting, once thought to be an authentic work by a prominent artist is wholly the work of someone else. If what the museum has found is true, it is certainly the work of a skilled artist to match Goya’s hand and style so closely. Of course, it doesn’t make it so horribly less of a painting, but not on the level of Goya’s other masterpieces.
Priceless still, maybe, but not quite so priceless.
What artist these days wouldn’t want to have their work on a list of highest paid paintings? Unfortunately, the reality is that they don’t call them “starving artists” for nothing. The majority of aspiring new Rembrandts will barely etch out a living from their art, let alone swim in a pile of Benjamins.
To be fair, most of the best artists don’t do it for money. They paint because they have to, even if it means skipping dinner to pay for supplies. Paint flows in their veins. However, the fruits of your labor hitting the financial big-times is one surefire way to measure artistic success, even if it is posthumous (e.g.- Vince van Gogh.)
These are ten of the most expensive paintings sold at auction adjusted for 2008 dollars.
1. No. 5, 1948, Jackson Pollack $149.7 Million
Pollack exploded onto the art scene in 1950s America as his paint splattered onto his canvases. After experimenting with Cubism with relatively mediocre success, Pollack innovated his “paint drip” method, dripping and throwing from sticks and brushes, and the world was fascinated.
The painting was sold in 2006 and remains the most expensive painting ever sold, privately or at auction.
2. Woman III, Willem De Kooning $147 Million
Willem De Kooning was a friend of Jackson Pollack and also belonged to the same New York abstract expressionist movement. Woman III was part of a series painted in the early ’50s with a theme of, you guessed it, women. This one demonstrates De Kooning’s unique style and color palette.
3. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, Gustave Klimt $144.4 Million
Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, wealth industrialist and patron of Klimt’s artworks.
The Adele paintings are extravagant examples of Klimt’s beautiful gold leaf methods of combining gold to an oil painting. He is one of the most prominent modern artists to use precious metals silver and gold in paintings. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only model to have been painted by Klimt more than once.
It sold in a private sale in 2006 for $135 Million, and was the most expensive painting until the Pollack sold.
4. Portrait of Dr. Gachet, Vincent van Gogh $136.1 Million
Portrait of Dr. Gachet, when sold in 1990, held the record for most expensive painting al the way until 2006. Van Gogh painted the portrait of his doctor during his last few months with a melancholy mood, which he thought expressed the inner soul.
We all know van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime, but fortunately this never stopped him from being a prolific and innovative artist who, years after his death up till now, remains one of the most popular and well-known artists. It is only fitting that 3 of the top 10 most expensive paintings belong to him.
5. Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, $128.8 Million
Painted in 1876 by Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, this painting shows the distinctive Impressionist style and technique and the optimism of an up-and-coming young artist ready to tackle the world with his art. Its composition and the openness of the subject matter shine a light on Renoir’s personality.
6. Garcon a la Pipe, Pablo Picasso $118.9 Million
Another frequent name on the list of most expensive paintings is Pablo Picasso, the prolific founder of Cubism, who never stopped changing and innovating his styles. Boy With Pipe shows a Picasso painting of early years, from his “Rose Period,” aptly named for its warm tones and subject matter.
Its place on this list helps to show that Picasso has extremely popular paintings from all his periods, and not just the well-known Cubist paintings. Other Picasso paintings of this period often depict locals, like this boy, clowns and acrobats.
7. Irises, Vincent van Gogh $102.3
The second van Gogh on the list shows a slightly more cheerful, yet just as cool painting portraying a close-up of irises. Van Gogh always painted from nature and surroundings and loved to paint flowers, the most famous being his Sunflower series. Though painted in an asylum a year before his death, this painting shows van Gogh’s release from tension and ability to use art to calm his nerves. He called painting a way to keep from going insane.
The painting also highlights the strong Japanese influence on the artist.
8. Dora Maar au Chat, Pablo Picasso $101.8 Million
This painting shows more of his well-known Cubist style and much more intensity than the Boy With Pipe. The subject is Dora Maar, with whom Picasso had a nearly 30 year relationship. She was his lover and artistic companion and even assisted with the famous Guernica. Contrary to what you may think at the first glance of such an unflattering depiction, to be painted in one of Picasso’s most vibrant and complex portraits is quite the compliment.
9. Portrait of the Artist Without a Beard, Vincent van Gogh $94.6 Million
The third van Gogh on our list is one of many self-portraits executed by the artist. Van Gogh was a prolific painter, and painted constantly everything he saw. During the last two months of his life, he painted about a canvas per day. Painting the auto-portrait only made sense because the model would always be there, and wouldn’t complain too much.
This painting, one of the unique one without a beard, sold at Christie’s Auction house in New York in 1998.
10. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II, Gustave Klimt $94 Million
Adele Bloch-Bauer enjoys her status of being the only model to have been painted by Klimt twice, and the second, less extravagantly painted, Klimt work to be on the top ten most expensive paintings.
The world lost a great American painter early Friday morning. Andrew Wyeth, who was 91, died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.
Wyeth was a Realist painter, using the surroundings of his lifetime homes in Chadds Ford and Cushing, Maine as inspiration. Besides the farms and landscapes of rural Pennsylvania, he also painted the figure. The most famous was the Helga series depicting in somber settings the Prussian immigrant whom Wyeth knew. This somberness often described his paintings, with their muted colors and bleak subjects.
His main medium was tempera, an egg-based paint rarely used by artists in favor of oils any more. This paint was better suited to his style as it creates a matte finish. Sometimes he would mix dirt with his paints to get just the right gray or dull colors. The paintings were highly detailed: each blade of grass, each strand of hair painstakingly portrayed. His second medium of choice was dry-brush watercolor, producing an entirely different effect- less detailed forest scenes or a creek with waterfall.
Wyeth enjoyed a long and successful career, though not without criticism as any prominent artist would know. Critics have called his art verging on illustration, and he has even been called a “Naive artist.” During his climb to fame in the mid-20th century, he forged his own way and shunned the ever-popular abstract styles his contemporaries preferred. Major museums around the country house Wyeth’s work, with the Brandywine River Museum in Chester County, PA housing one of the largest, along with his father N.C. Wyeth, and son Jamie Wyeth. He was awarded numerous awards, most recently being the National Medal of Arts in 2007.
Posted on 2009 under Uncategorized | Comments are off
This blog has touched on modern art, art history, and illustration with subjects like creativity and inspiration making appearances from time to time. Rarely will we mention poetry, the art of writing, fiction, or the graphic novel along with the other topics. The literary arts web-zine “Escape Into Life” touches on all of these aspects of art and literature, and then some.
Escape Into Life, to which I have the pleasure of linking in the sidebar on the right, encompasses art, literature, and philosophy in a web magazine (or web-zine) format. The site provides a lounge for free thinkers, artists, writers and aficionados of Outside Art.
One of the main themes of this web-zine is how art, music, and literature are not exclusive of each other. It’s kind of like looking at a Wassily Kandinsky painting and hearing the same symphonies he wanted to imply with the colors and brush strokes, or how the best authors can put you physically in a scene much like the best paintings do.
You’ll notice plenty of illustrations by Henry Darger, the foremost American Outside Artist, or Naive Artist, not to mention others such as Adolf Wolfli. This helps to set the indy, out of the mainstream kind of mood, and hopes to attract like-minded folk to join the community and submit their own artwork. The more “outside,” the better.
It may shock you to know the quietest, seemingly most banal people are amazing writers and artists incognito. Before you write off that old man next door, stop and realize you may be living next to a treasure trove of knowledge and imagination. You may be looking at the next Henry Darger…
Great Artist In Disguise
Henry Darger lived a troubled life and had a very harsh childhood. Few people knew the recluse and fewer had any contact with him on any regularity except for his landlord. He had been quiet, keep odd jobs, and kept to himself. He died a poor and lonely man. That was when the world first caught a glimpse of the secret Henry Darger. The glimpse would open a fantasy world which today is by far the most prominent and prolific example of outsider art in art history.
When Darger died in a Catholic mission, his landlord went in to retrieve Darger’s personal effects and was astonished by what he saw. In the cluttered apartment of the old shut-in, filled with odds and ends and horded objects, was a buried wealth of art and literature which Henry had created over the last six decades of his life.
A 15,145 page book called “In The Realms of the Unreal,” which was typed and profusely illustrated by Henry, must be one of the largest examples of fantasy fiction, and shows the same magnitude of the imagination of its author. The book spreads across 15 volumes about a war of abused children against an evil army. Much of the book was influenced by Henry’s early childhood living in orphanages and asylums. Several hundred illustrations include drawings and watercolor scrolls.
An 8 volume 5,084 page autobiography was found, “The History of My Life,” which described his life on the first 200 or so pages, and then blended into a fantastical account of a tornado called, “Sweetie Pie.” Darger also kept a faithful recording of the weather in a journal which spanned a decade. 10,000 pages of yet another book called, “Crazy Horse” was completely hand-written.
For decades the man wrote and drew illustrations for these works which meant the world to him. He was deeply upset about the abuses of children and found the books as a way to vent his frustration. After he failed to adopt a child he found a pseudo-replacement in a photograph of a murdered young girl. When he lost the photograph, Henry was distraught and could take it no longer. That was when he began “In The Realms of the Unreal,” and vowed that the loses of these two children “shall be avenged to the uttermost limit.”
This amazing secret aspect about Henry Darger’s life could never have been guessed in a hundred years by the people who knew him or happened to come across him. After he passed away, his landlords took care of his estate with all his artworks and helped to immortalize Darger by recognizing the true artist that he was.
Today, Darger is the most famous Outside Artist with works going for upwards of $80,000. At the American Folk Museum in New York, the Henry Darger Study Center was opened in 2001. In 2004, a documentary was filmed “In The Realms of the Unreal,” detailing the artist’s life and works.
This delightful Cheshire-looking cat is a detail of Portrait of Pierre Loti, by 19th century French painter Henri Rousseau. Note the painterly brush strokes and simple palette. The strong contrast of the cat’s stripes, ears, and eyes against the man’s black suit make it seem to glow. The rest of the portrait is a composition with simplified shapes with few tones, and show’s the artist’s complete disregard of academic fundamentals. These traits are representative of what is known as Naïve Art.
When looking at the cat in the picture, you get the impression of a childlike art. “Simplicity” is the main word we’re looking for here: just enough lines and colors necessary. There is no worry of perspective, anatomical correctness, or true natural depiction. Only the most elementary techniques are used. Each leaf of the tree, and every window of the buildings are painstakingly painted, with no indication of the buidlings receeding as they would across a real landscape.
This style allows the artist to express imaginary, dream-like settings without having to consider scientific and natural accuracy. It’s no surprise that Henri Rousseau painted wild jungle scenes and parts of dreams from memory and imagination. There is a surreal quality to works like The Dream and The Snake Charmer.
Naïve Art is often overlapped with terms like Primitive Art and folk art. One of the most famous and beloved 19th century American folk artist is Anna Mary Robertson, known as Grandma Moses. Her charming portrayals of country life are still very popular today. Another Naïve painter is Horace Pippin, a 19th century painter from Pennsylvania, known for his folksy depictions of lower class African-American life.
The general idea is that artists classified as such have no formal training. This is not necessarily etched in stone, and moreso in recent years an artist can have training and choose to belong to Naïve Art as a school. However many of the early Naïve artists such as Rousseau were self-taught.
Also, Naïve art shouldn’t necessarily be confused with Outsider Art as it is a generally accepted style today. It is not anti-art, or anything like that but rather a charmingly simple painting style, which doesn’t have to be by the books to be good.
I think I have a new addiction. The other day I posted a method of “perfect binding” a paperback book using minimal tools and materials, and a printer. I highly recommend trying this if you love books and/or if you love crafty projects. But I must warn, you’ll get hooked…
I ran into Project Gutenberg about a year ago. I’ve found so many free books I’d like to read, but didn’t really feel like sitting in front of a computer to read them, especially the long ones. I also happen to be cheap so I either get a book at a library, or not at all. $24 for a paperback? Forget about it. But now I can make my own books for less than $3, and it only takes about 20 to 30 minutes.
Here is a picture of the jig I made, in case you want to make one yourself. Except for the 2 bolts, everything was found around the house:
I wanted to share with you some links. The first is the DIY Book-binding site. On it, I watched a video (below) which not only made the project look easy, but convinced me it actually was. The guy went through these easy steps and in no time came up with a beautifully bound paperback book, which got me onto the project right away.
In case anybody out there isn’t into the paperback idea, I also ran into a bunch of sites with detailed instructions on how to make a nice hard-bound book. These books, when finished, really show how you can make more of an art than a craft out of these book-making projects, and really are great looking. You can bind them any which way you want and put some of your personality into them with decorate cover papers or jacket designs all the way down to the type of paper you use.
Here is a list of some of these hard-back book-making sites I found to be useful:
Most book binders see their craft as a labor of love, an activity to which you can’t really put a price. Reading some “how to” articles it becomes clear why: to make a hard-bound book, one must go through a long list of difficult and cumbersome steps, each of which seem to need a good amount of skill before it accomplished, or well at any rate.
I had other intentions. What I wanted was a physical book to hold in my hands and I wanted it now. Sewing classes, making laundry lists of materials, and mind-boggling directions were not part of the itinerary. So I quickly learned how to put together a “perfect-bound” paperback book, and I just as quickly made one.
The Plan
There is no shortage of book-binding sites on the internet, but like I said earlier, some are hard to follow, include unnecessary steps, and the directions may appear downright cryptic at times. By far the best resource I’ve found is diybookbinding.com.
You may have several reasons for wanting to make your own book:
You’d love to read a bunch of free public domain classics, but don’t want to sit and read them off your computer. Thousands of great books can be found at projectgutenberg.com, ready for you to convert into real book form.
You’d like to make a nice journal with some style. Design your cover how you’d like, print out ruled paper patterns, or even set a day-planner or dated diary entries.
You have plans of self-publishing your book, collection of stories, or articles, and don’t want to pay Print-On-Demand publishers over $7 + shipping, when you could easily make your own for less than $2.
Give personalized books complete with illustrations or photographs, or even classics or your own written poetry as gifts.
You’re a crafty or DIY-type person, and just want to make some notebooks, journals, or photo-albums from scratch.
Materials
Now if I wanted to pay $15 for materials to make each book, I may as well either buy it from a book-store, or if it is my own writing I’d send it to lulu.com or something. So the plan is to spend as little money as possible.
The most expensive tool you need may be the paper cutter. If you don’t have access or don’t want to spend the $20-$50 for one, you can get by with an X-acto knife and a metal ruler. My cutter is an X-acto 12″ guillotine which costs about $47. The cost is a lot up front but at least I have it to use for years to come. Check Amazon.com for some $19.99 cutters.
Paper- you can use cheap newsprint or any kind of printer paper.
The cover- pick up some cover-stock 11″ x 17″, or any size that is at least 8.5″ x 12.”
Glue - Superglue 5 minute epoxy sets in 5 minutes and works perfectly. You can find this for about $3- $4. You can use contact cement, or maybe even regular white glue.
Any inkjet printer.
A press. In the picture above you’ll see I took two pieces of scrap wood and drilled two holes for bolts with wing nuts. If you don’t have the wood, you might get by with some clamps.
The material list seems like a lot of money at first. But just think of how many books you can make from just one trip to the store. The tools like the cutter, knife, press and printer you may already have and can be used for years. The cost of materials for one book: about $2.
Making The Book
1. The first thing you need to do is print the pages. With my HP Photosmart printer, there is the option to print a “booklet.” This arranged the pages for you and will make one big booklet which would normally be folded in half. If you have a PDF writer or reader (you can download CutePDF reader for free), you can do the same thing. The point is to have 4 book pages printed on one sheet of printer paper, which you would cut in half to make each leaf of the book.
Just open your document and leave it alone, without re-ordering any pages. Hit print and find preferences, options, or properties. Hopefully, you’ll be able to find an option such as this:
With my printer, the odd pages print out first, then I put that stack in, press “continue” and then the even pages print out. It couldn’t be easier.
2. Once all the pages are printed, cut each in half and stack in order. It pays to include page numbers in your document.
3. Print the cover. Most printers have options of choosing page size. In my case, I only wanted the front cover to print so I made my graphic upside down, with no borders, and printed on the card-stock which was previously cut to fit the printer. It came out oriented to be the cover of a “left-edge” book.
4. Put the cover on the book “block.” Take the stack of ordered pages and put together with the cover in the right direction. Score the part where the cover meets the book, so you can fold it. Place both the cover and the block in the press and tighten it. You’ll want the spine edge exposed and a little higher than the edges of the press.
5. Now you’re ready to glue the spine. Mix the epoxy, and brush it on the spine. Take the rest of the cover and fold over to press the spine together with the cover. Wait 5 minutes, then remove the book from the press. Now all you need to do is score the other side of the cover, fold it, and cut the excess off the ends of the book.
So that’s it. It may seem intimidating reading the instructions, but once you try it you realize how much of a cinch it really is.
After I took “art” class in high school you’d think I would have given up on the hopes that art or art history could actually be fun. The teacher was unenthusiastic and boring and gave the dullest assignments leaving most of those kids to think that that was it for art. Who cares about exact dates and quizzes? Who wants to draw a picture of their shoe? How could art suck this bad?
Good art isn’t academic and by the books. Likewise reading page after page of encyclopedia art bios and painting a stupid flower exactly the way an instructor tells you to isn’t going to be fun. What I hope to accomplish with this blog and specifically with this series is to let people know that enjoying art can indeed be a lot of fun.
1. Take the family to the museum
Chances are you are within driving distance to an art museum, so why not fill the family station wagon with the little ones and head on over. These museums are there to entertain you; they want you and your kids to come back, so they will likely have a calender chock-full of activities.
“Make and take” workshops are a big hit at museums. Many of these workshops are targeted at kids to let them get a hands on feel for some type of art such as clay, finger paints, acrylic paints on canvas, textiles, or even something like silk-screen printing or calligraphy. When was the last time you finger painted? Whether they are for your kids or just yourself, these workshops will let your inner artist burst free and allow to get instruction and experience with a new art.
Events such as dance theaters, ballets, and films are all good for you and the spouse while the kiddies play. Something like a puppet theater is enjoyable for the whole family. All of these things are on my museum’s calender for the first week of January alone. Your museum will surely have a similar lineup, so visit the museum or check out their website.
2. Nothing planned for Friday? Go to Art After 5
Once again at the museum, the Art After 5 program has been going on at every museum I’ve been to, and is a fun way to spend the first part of a Friday evening. From 5 o’clock, after normal museum hours to about 9 o’clock, you can sip some wine or liquor while enjoying a live jazz band, or piano, or even something like traditional Japanese music, all depending on the theme.
They might show a silent film while the music is playing or some other type of entertainment. The nice part is, after listening to some live music, you can head on over to the galleries and browse through the collections in a more exclusive way without bumping into rooms full of people. And checking out classic art while a little tipsy can give you a whole new perspective.
3. First Friday fun
This is something I used to frequent around my local area which is whole lot of fun. The first Friday night of every month, a few blocks of the historic part of my city opens up its art galleries to the public. Some galleries can host quite the part with music, alcohol, food. One place had a Celtic Irish band playing some diddies on fiddle, squeeze-box and guitar.
People just hop from gallery to gallery at their leisure, eat some good food and get a look at some local up-and-coming artists, some of whom will be there for discussion. All the art is priced depending on the gallery and the artist for serious buyers. First Friday lacks the stuffy, and sometimes pretentiousness of usual galleries, because people aren’t expected to buy, and there is no pressure. It’s mostly just a fun way to spend an early Friday night.
4. Art games for all ages
Who said all those video games are just for kids? While targeted at a young audience, and sometimes a little cutesy, there are several art video games which can be quite fun and addictive at all ages.
Mario Paint for SNES is one that requires mention. This is more than just a game which brings back some familiar characters, but a complete art program which even includes a mouse. It allows you to paint with an infinite number of brushes and effects, compose music, and even make animation. It gives your brain a total workout, and since it’s Nintendo it’s bound to be a lot of fun.
Another one I used to love is a little obscure program for Windows 3.1 called Microsoft Fine Artist. This one is definitely directed at little kids but the concept is a good one. It is a thousand times better than Microsoft Paint. It includes an impressive collection of ClipArt, which can be put into the paintings, allowing you to create your ClipArt, or stickers, for use in future paintings.
5. Art movies for movie night
Good movies involving art can be an excellent way to learn about famous artists and give you a splash of culture at the same time. Check out 6 Films About Painters, and 6 More Films About Painters for my list of good art movies.
6. Be creative
Creativity and the act of creation releases endorphins in your brain which make you feel not just satisfaction for accomplishing something, but an overall warm and fuzzy feeling. In other words: it’s good for you! There are so many ways you can be creative:
Get your hands dirty: get some clay and see what you can come up with. If you want to go all out, get a kiln or a pottery wheel and make your own projects.
Take an art class. Community colleges provide an inexpensive way to learn an art such as drawing or painting.
Play with Photoshop. Photoshop or its spinoffs can be a lot of fun to tinker with. Take a couple of unlikely pictures and splice them together in a funny way. Then print it out as a birthday card, etc.
Go to workshops. Like I said earlier, find a museum that has adult workshops for art. You can take all kinds of workshops such as quilt-making and textiles, or even tea tasting!
Posted on 2008 under Illustration | Comments are off
This is a continuation of the earlier post The Holidays and J. C. Leyendecker to point out some of the early 20th century American illustrator’s New Years paintings.
Joseph Christian Leyendecker was first commissioned to illustrate the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1899. This would begin a fourty-four year long career which made him incredibly popular with the Post’s editors, and of course the readers. He came up with the idea of using a baby to illustrate the birth of a new year and faithfully returned to the theme at each New Years holiday.
Keeping up with current events, as always, Leyendecker would show the baby in all types of creative poses in relevant settings. The one above shows an optimistic rebound from the Great Depression. The ‘34 cover would show a baby tycoon reading stock ticker tape at the end of a rainbow. In the years to come the little tike would anticipate and participate in World War II sometimes with little uniform hats or helmets and a rifle.
Along with the New Year Baby, Leyendecker helped to popularize the new image of Santa Claus as a jolly red fat man in his now familiar suit, and he began the tradition of giving flowers on Mother’s Day in his May 30, 1914 cover shortly after President Wilson made the day an official holiday. His influence would reach the younger Norman Rockwell, who idiolized Leyendecker and emulated much of his style. Rockwell would go on to be the main illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post after Leyendecker.
Speaking of Rockwell… In the Christmas post I showed one of his Four Freedoms paintings. It’s interesting to find one of them in Empire of the Sun, the movie which introduced a young Christian Bale to the spotlight. Early in the movie, after talk of impeding war escalates, the Bale character is shown being tucked in by his parents (from whom he would soon be separated); a perfect resemblance to the Freedom From Fear. This was no accident, as the Bale character keeps a copy of the actual Rockwell print as a reminder of his parents.
Vince' s ear: your art blog about art, art history, painting, sculpture, drawing, illustration, animation, artists, galleries, museums, and plenty more. Dan Kretschmer is the author of Vince' s ear, and also the author of a book called "Masters of the Renaissance," which takes a look at 18 of the most important artists of the Renaissance in Europe.
The purpose of this art blog is to raise general awareness of art and to share knowledge and interests. The author's goal is to spark interest in as many people as possible, and to inspire them to pursue art to enrich their lives.
