Corner of the Garden at Montgeron - Claude Monet

Corner of the Garden at Montgeron is a landscape done by Claude Monet in 1876. It is 175 x 194 cm and is an oil on canvas. Monet was an impressionist and this was painted at the climax of the movement, painted with their style. The purpose was to give a brief look, or impression of a scene. In this case, the scene is a garden in Montgeron with many different colors of blooming trees and flowers. To the right is a river cutting through the scene.

This painting is one of four in a series that was supposed to be on the wall of the large drawing room of the chateau of Rottenburg at Montgeron. Ernest Hoschede, the owner of the house, commissioned the works. Monet spent the summer there painting every appealing landscape he could find. Two of the other three pieces are "Turkeys" and "The Hunt". Hoschede fell into debt and was unable to pay for the paintings.








Sources
http://www.arthermitage.org/Claude-Monet/Corner-of-the-Garden-at-Montgeron.html
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/artwork/claude-monet-paintings-1873-187810.htm

Cafe Terrace at Night - Vinvent van Gogh

Originally titled Coffehouse, in the evening, Cafe Terrace at Night (The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum) is an oil on canvas painting by Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. It was painted in Arles, France in 1888 and is 80.7 x 65.3 cm. If you stand in the Northeastern corner of Place du Forum and look South, you can still see the cafe from the view of the painting.

This was one of the paintings in a study of opposites. Its counterpart is Vincent's Night Cafe is a vastly differing reddish colored painting with no blues or hints of outside light. They were both painted after van Gogh studied in Paris and they both take place in Arles where he painted them. This was painted at the scene as it looked and interestingly used no black paint, the darkest color being a midnight blue.

The painting itself depicts the patio of a cafe which still remains in the same place, however it has been renamed The van Gogh Cafe and has been remodeled to look more like the painting. Starting from the left hand side is a blue doorway with yellow windows. On the patio is a waiter wearing black and white holding a tray and taking orders from several customers in the restaurant. Above them is a large yellow awning and above that are green shutters that are open to the night air. Back on the street there are several passersby that are clothed in bright outfits. The street itself is cobble stoned. Across the street are more stores open late with colorful drapes on the windows. The street leads into a dark alleyway. On the very right is a large tree with deep green leaves. On the upper portion of the painting is an open blue sky with giant flower like stars. This the first painting by van Gogh where he depicted stars this way as a background. A famous painting where these stars were also used is obviously Starry Night.


Sources
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/14507/education/analysis_of_the_night_cafe___vincent_van_gogh.html
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Formal-Analysis-The-Cafe-Terrace-992218.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cafe_Terrace_at_Night

The Son of Man - Rene Magritte

The Son of Man is an oil on canvas self portrait painted by Belgian Surrealist Rene Magritte in 1964. It is 116 x 89 cm.



In the painting there is a man, Magritte, in a black overcoat and a bowler hat. These articles of clothing are what he would normally wear. He is standing in front of a short stone wall, behind which is an ominous mixture of a cloudy sky and a foggy sea. Obscuring the man's face is an inconveniently placed green apple. The edges of the man's eyes are visible from behind the apple. Magritte says that our burning desire to find out what lies behind the apple reveals something about human nature. We have an insatiable desire to figure out the obscure and unknown. Also unusual is the fact that the mans left arm appears to be put on backwards, his elbow visibly pushing the cloth from the front.

This painting resembles many other versions of this painting by Magritte. A less ominous version of the painting The Great War on Facades showplaces a woman standing in the same place in a white dress and umbrella in which a flower is obscuring her face.

Also Man in a Bowler Hat is a close up of this painting, except with a bird obscuring the man's face rather than a flower.






Sources
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vopj2s2wkWw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_of_Man
http://www.rene-magritte.org/the-son-of-man.jsp
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/rene-magritte/son-of-man-1964
http://totallyhistory.com/the-son-of-man/

Flaming June - Frederic Leighton

Flaming June is a striking 120 x 120 cm oil on canvas painting that was painted by Sir Frederic Leighton in 1895. This painting was originally planned to be a motif, or ornament, in one of his other paintings, Summer Slumber, but he cherished the design so much that he decided to make it a painting itself. This was painted in the Late Classical period.

The model used in the painting was an actress named Dorothy Dene. Leighton admired her greatly, and she can be found as a model in many of his paintings. The models unique position in this piece gave Leighton much trouble in reproducing. Many sketches of his can be found where he is trying to get the placement of her body just right. The scene takes place in front of a large body of water with the sun setting behind her as can be seen in the background. The fabric with which the brilliant, bright orange cloth is made of is very unique and has a puzzling texture. On her body, the cloth is transparent and thin, while around the edges of her body it appears to be thicker and more opaque. It and the other cloths around her have the appearance of melting, furthering the warmth of the scene. The model is resting on a marble bench on the edge of a marble balcony.

In the top, right hand corner is the Oleander plant. This plant is poisonous if ingested and makes the viewer wonder if the woman is in a deep slumber, or in fact, recently dead. The flower illustrates the fine line between sleep and death. In the bottom left of the orange fabric, the profile of Leighton in a portrait done by G. F. Watt can be seen.

This piece is commonly criticized for being too idealistic and is often compared to "a travel brochure". The warm climate, open ocean, sunset, slight eroticism with the visible right nipple make critics despise the painting for some reason. However the painting is incredibly aesthetically attractive and nice to look at.



Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming_June
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/leighton-frederic-flaming-june-1895-814972.html
http://everypainterpaintshimself.com/article/lord_leightons_flaming_juneon
http://kennywordsmith.hubpages.com/hub/Flaming-June---My-take

Girl with a Pearl Earring - Johannes Vermeer

Girl with a Pearl Earring, also known as "the Mona Lisa of the North" or "the Dutch Mona Lisa", was painted by Johannes Vermeer in 1665. It is an oil on canvas and is 44.5 x 39 cm. Very little is known about the picture or the painter, adding to its mysteriousness. The painting has inspired both a novel and a movie which attempt to create a story for the background of the painting. It is technically a tronie, or a painting that shows an exaggerated facial expression or a stock character in costume, rather than a portrait. Furthermore, tronies are not usually commissioned and are sold on the market without identifying the sitter. The portrait was lost for nearly 200 years until it was bought in 1881 for only two guilders and thirty cents.

In a 1994 restoration, the dark black background was found to have been a deep, enamel like, glossy green which had faded over the years. A turban would not have been found in this time period or place, and the type of turban in the painting does not actually exist. It is a simplified version of the Turkish turban. The blue of the turban was created with only two brilliant shades of blue. The woman is wearing a yellow brown cloak made of a coarse, rigid fabric, and has a white undergarment on as well. The cloak would not have been a typical object of clothing in this time either, and these foreign objects were placed in the painting to show off the painters technical prowess and versatility.

Now on to the face of the girl. The color of the right side of her nose matches the color of her right cheek perfectly, leading to no definite border of the nose. This detail along with the two shades of blue in the turban lead many art critics today to believe that a camera obscura was used in capturing this painting, as this would have faded distinct lines and limited the range of colors due to the imperfect lens. Prior to the 1994 restoration, there was a yellowish protective varnish placed on the painting. Due to this, the painting was aesthetically unattractive, especially the yellowing of the eyes, and had to be removed with a cotton swabs soaked in a solvent. During the restoration, many minute details were brought out and restored. Specifically two pink dots on the left corner of the girls mouth. This revealed the brilliant subtlety of color and realism.

Before this, I always thought the pearl was just the bright glint of white light below her ear. However, the pearl earring is in fact the exaggerated, oblong, unnaturally large, teardrop shaped pearl below her ear. The bright white is just a reflection of a small portion of the pearl. It is likely that no such pearl actually existed, but was exaggerated by Vermeer to emphasize this lady's class status.




Sources
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/25/girl-pearl-earring-story-painting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tronie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/catalogue/girl_with_a_pearl_earring.html

View of Delft - Johannes Vermeer

View of Delft is a painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It is an oil on canvas and is 98 x 118 cm. It was started in 1660 and finished in 1661. The genre is landscape art, and in the time it was painted, cityscapes were not a popular subject for paintings. It is one of three of his paintings of Delft. The other two being The Little Street, and House Standing in Delft, which is lost.

When looking at this picture the eye is immediately draw to the cityscape, however after a longer period of time, one notices that the sky takes up more than half of the canvas. Clouds cover most of the blue, and at the very top is an ominous, looming thundercloud. At the bottom on the canvas there is more detail, and an even greater amount in the middle. In the bottom left hand corner is a group of people conversing. There is a woman and her child, a man talking to a couple, and two older women off to the side. They are all wearing traditional clothing. Just above them is the Schie Canal and several types of boats. These include a tow barge, sailing ships, tow barges, and herring busses.

The larger tower in the back to the right of the channel is the New Church. In the actual city of Delft, the New and Old Church are just as grand and assuming. However, in Vermeer's painting, the New Church is pictured nearly twice as wide and much more prominently. Furthermore, the bell tower appears to be empty. However, it has been proven that during the summer of 1660, the bells were taken for restoration. Some of the other buildings are the Rotterdam Gate, part of which are the twin towers in the picture, the Schiedam gate, the Armamentarium, and the Kethel gate.

Among art historians, there is a debate as to whether or not Vermeer used a camera obscura, the precursor to the modern photographic camera, to aid him in painting this cityscape. The lengthy depth and immaculate focus of all the details in the painting lead many to believe it would have been impossible to do with the naked eye. Others believe he used an inverted telescope to view the scene rather than a camera obscura.



Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_Delft
http://kalden.home.xs4all.nl/verm/ship/Ships_main.html
http://kalden.home.xs4all.nl/verm/view/Vermeer_main.html
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/v/vermeer/02c/13view.html
http://www.artble.com/artists/johannes_vermeer/paintings/view_of_delft
http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/177/index.html

Las Meninas - Diego Valazquez

Las Meninas (The Family of Felipe IV) is Spanish for The Maids of Honor. This painting was painted in 1656 by Diego Valazquez (1599-1660), a Spanish portrait artist during the Baroque period. The painting itself is oil on canvas and is a grand 318 x 276 cm. The painting was damaged during a fire in 1734. Parts of it were repainted including all of the Infanta's left cheek.

This painting is complex with detail and has been interpreted in many ways by many art critics. When one first views the painting, they can't help but notice the many paintings cluttering the walls and the numerous subjects in the room, which is a hall of Madrid's Alcazar Palace.

The main subject, Infanta Margarita, the five year old daughter of Felipe IV, is positioned near the center in a white dress. To either side of her are her meninas. Isabel de Velasco is in the middle of curtsying to the girl, and Maria Agustina Sarmiento de Sotomayor is kneeling, offering her a drink on a golden platter. The girl is accepting because her hand is placed on the red cup. Then off to the right are two juxtaposed dwarfs. I don't know if it was common practice for royalty to house midgets, but they definitely threw me off and made the mysterious painting even more enigmatic. Regardless, the larger female dwarf was a German named Maribarbola, and the smaller dwarf to the right is the Italian Nicolas Pertusato. He is nudging the dog with his foot, trying to rouse him. The two people further behind are the princess's chaperone, Marcela de Ulloa, and the princess's bodyguard whose name is unknown. Beyond the door frame is Don Jose Nieto Velazquez, the queen's chamberlain, posing on a staircase with his feet on different steps.

The last three subjects in the painting are where the different interpretations of the painting come in. To the left is a self portrait of Valazquez painting on a giant canvas. His magnificent moustache is flowing wildly on his face, he is holding paint brushes and a palette, and he has a red cross of the Order of Santiago across his chest. He added this cross to the painting at least three years later when he received it. On the back wall is a mirror. It is assumed to be a mirror because it looks more reflective than the other canvases on the wall. In the reflection is King Philip IV and Queen Mariana de Austria. The discrepancy is between what Valazquez is painting and what the viewers' perspective is. The first theory is that Valazquez is painting the King and Queen, and the mirror is reflecting that image back to the viewer, and therefore our perspective can be our own or the King and Queens. The other theory is that Valazquez is painting the painting we are viewing, and that we are viewing this scene from the perspective of the King and Queen, and our own image is being reflected back at us. There are also many other philosophical theories including different versions and combinations of the above theories. Some don't believe that the object on the back wall is a mirror, but another portrait.

Now that we've covered the subjects in the painting, we can move on to the paintings in the painting. The only two fairly clear paintings are the large two on the back wall. They are thought to be oil sketches by Peter Paul Rubens. The one on the left being Minerva Punishing Arachne and the one on the right being Apollo’s Victory over Marsyas.





The painting has been copied in many styles and versions by several artists. Most notably Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.





Sources
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0RZQqdcnqJOQB_czD1NbtQ4G_trKbzwZbUDpKNixgWF5hjDI-VhT8vCeL8V68xLTuENVqxVL_mYxKDelhlb1_qULw4PBLsrfu8YjNGPWNMxY7AvFwEhBaKG59nmOgKDw6XuKOCiTFzIQ/s1600/Velazquez-LasMeninas.gif
http://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/online-gallery/on-line-gallery/obra/the-family-of-felipe-iv-or-las-meninas/on of atmosphere.]
http://stephaniekrills.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/47/
http://www.evl.uic.edu/chris/meninas/
http://secrethistoryofart.blogspot.com/2010/12/velazquez-las-meninas.html
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/23/AR2010122301932.html?sid=ST2010122301989
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Meninas

Vertumnus (Portrait of Rudolf II) - Giuseppe Acrimboldo

Vertumnus: Portrait of Rudolf II. This portrait was painted in 1590 by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, an Italian painter (1527-1593). I have found sources that said it was painted with oil on panel and oil on wood. The painting itself is 70.5 x 57.5 cm. The work was commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II. Arcimboldo was granted the title of Count of Palantine after he completed the portrait because Rudolf II was so pleased with it.

In the painting, the model takes the form of Vertumnus, the Roman god of seasons, change, plant growth, gardens, and fruit trees. He is composed entirely of fruits, vegetables, and flowers in the portrait. Archimboldo created a number of paintings with the same form: a larger figure composed of a conglomeration of related objects. For example, he painted another portrait titled The Librarian in which the subject is composed of books. Some speculate whether or not this form of painting by Arcimboldo suggests he had a mental illness, however most art critics believe this bizarre, unique creativity is fitting for the time period.

Archimboldo was popular in his lifetime, however after he died people lost interest in his work for over 300 years. In the early twentieth century when the Surrealist movement was gaining ground, Archimboldo again came into sight. His work has influenced artists such a Salvador Dali.

Sources
http://rhetoricaldevice.com/images/arcimboldo/vertumnus.jpg
http://arthistory.about.com/od/from_exhibitions/ig/arcimboldo_paris/gaml1007_12.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertumnus
http://www.lifeasmyth.com/journalWatershedArcimboldo.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Arcimboldo
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/giuseppe-arcimboldo/vertumnus-emperor-rudolph-ii

I am a math and science oriented person and I wanted to become more cultured by learning about and learning to appreciate art. Magnastra is a website created to share pieces of art: paintings, architecture, music, photographs, literature, sculptures, films, etc. I plan to learn about a new piece of art each day and write a summary of what I learned on this website. There are several reasons for doing this. Firstly, doing this will provide a review of what I've learned that day. Secondly, this will allow me to refresh my memory on past pieces I've learned about. And lastly, it will give both me and you an opportunity to share the learning experience.