Hieronymus Bosch

I have discovered that I have not paid enough attention to the artist Hieronymus Bosch. He came up in my War and Peace book club today. 

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch painter. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oak wood, mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. Within his lifetime, his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell.

Well, those aren't topics I'm drawn to, but I still appreciate masterpieces and talented artists.

It seems I missed an opportunity: to see his work The Garden of Earthly Delights at the Prado in Madrid. 

The Garden of Earthly Delights
by Hieronymus Bosch
at the Prado in Madrid - wikicommons

Just making a note here, to remind myself to learn more about him and his work.

Sonia Delaunay

A new-to-me artist today: Sonia Delaunay

Sonia Delaunay, 1914, Prismes électriques
oil on canvas, 250 x 250 cm
Musée National d'Art Moderne

An art collector in my art club named the works on the wall behind him today, and one was by Sonia Delaunay. I say new-to-me, as I don't remember her name, but when I googled her, I wondered if I had been exposed to her work before (at the Centre Pompidou in Paris).

Sonia Delaunay, Rythme, 1938
oil on canvas, 182 x 149 cm,
Musée National d'Art Moderne
Centre Pompidou, Paris

Sonia Delaunay
wearing Casa Sonia creations
Madrid, c.1918-20

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) was a Russian-born French artist who spent most of her working life in Paris. She was part of the School of Paris and co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes, with her husband Robert Delaunay and others. 

Sonia Delaunay was the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre in 1964. Her modern design included the concepts of geometric abstraction, and the integration of furniture, fabrics, wall coverings, and clothing into her art practice.

In 1967 (25 February – 5 April) she was a part of an exhibition of artist-decorated cars entitled 'Cinq voitures personnalisées par cinq artistes contemporains' ('Five Cars Personalized by Five Contemporary Artists') organized by the journal Réalités as a fundraiser for French medical research. She designed the pattern for a Matra 530 by experimenting with optical effects causing the car to recompose the pattern into a light blue shade when in motion 'so as not to attract other drivers' attention to the point of causing accidents through distraction. See pic below. 

Sonia Delaunay Was a Multimedia Artist Before the Term Was Invented - 1000 Museums

One for the Ages: Sonia Delaunay’s Wearable Abstractions - NY Times

‘Sonia Delaunay: Living Art’ Review: Radiantly Modern - WSJ

Sonia Delaunay on Wikipedia

Sonia Delaunay or Robert Delaunay
(or both), 1921-22
published in Der Sturm
Volume 13, Number 3, 5 March 1922

Mondial de l automobile de Paris
(October 2006)

Sonia Delaunay, Blaise Cendrars, 1913,
La prose du Transsibérien et de la Petite Jehanne de France
(illustrated book)

Artemisia Gentileschi

Today I learned about the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Her work is quite stunning... and very haunting (think Caravaggio!).

Highlights from Wikipedia: 

• Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished seventeenth-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by the age of 15. She was also known as Artemisia Lomi.
• In an era when women had few opportunities to pursue artistic training or work as professional artists, Gentileschi was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and she had an international clientele.
• Many of Gentileschi's paintings feature women from myths, allegories, and the Bible, including victims, suicides, and warriors. 
• Gentileschi was known for being able to depict the female figure with great naturalism and for her skill in handling colour to express dimension and drama.
• Her achievements as an artist were long overshadowed by a trauma as a young woman. I'll let you read about it in Wikipedia. 

Operation Night Watch

I was listening to a podcast not long ago and learned many interesting things about Rembrandt's Night Watch. So much has come to light about his technique, and the many instances he changed his mind and painted over spots. All this is thanks to modern day technology.

That's only half the story.

When I started to draft this post, I turned to Wikipedia.

What really caught my attention was the image size choices, as I generally select the largest size for use in my blog. Here's what I saw: 287 × 240 pixels | 573 × 480 pixels | 917 × 768 pixels | 1,222 × 1,024 pixels | 57,813 × 48,438 pixels. "Wow," I thought, then I wondered why.

Here's the story:

On May 13, 2020, the Rijksmuseum published a 44.8 gigapixel image of The Night Watch, made from 528 different still photographs (24 rows of 22 pictures stitched together digitally with the aid of neural networks). Created primarily for conservator scientists, by making it public the Rijksmuseum has opened the virtual door for anyone to see the master's brushstrokes.

Never before has such a large painting been photographed at such high resolution, and it is still a work in progress. In total the robot will take more than 8400 photos at an extremely high resolution of 5 microme-tres, or five thousandths of a millimetre.

Operation Night Watch - Rijksmuseum

The Roll Call: Lady Butler's first

This week I learned about an artwork with an interesting history that otherwise would have passed me by, thanks to Malcolm Gladwell's podcast.

The Roll Call (officially Calling the Roll After An Engagement, Crimea), an 1874 oil-on-canvas painting by Elizabeth Thompson Butler (Lady Butler) was a first, depicting army forces exhausted and depleted after a battle. At the time, soldiers were only portrayed pre-battle, pristinely groomed and brave. This little-known female artist changed all that.

Thompson was just 26 years old when she submitted the painting to the Royal Academy, and it was an instant hit. Butler wrote that she awoke and "found myself famous". Queen Victoria insisted that she should buy it, and the work remains in the Royal Collection, hidden from public view.

In the inaugural episode of his popular podcast, Revisionist History, Malcolm Gladwell visited the painting in London and shared his learnings. In particular, Gladwell explores the 'first' nature of the work, and the fact that the artist has remained largely unknown. It's a good listen.

The Lady Vanishes - Revisionist History episode

The glorious works of Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero Angulo is Latin America's most recognized living artist, but is still new to me. His distinctive style is referred as "Boterismo", depicting people and figures in large, exaggerated volume.

"When we look at the work of Fernando Botero, be it a painting, drawing or sculpture, we are amazed at the enormous size of the figures, as much animals as people and things...The figures painted and sculpted by Botero are not really ‘fat’. They are his formal bid for expressing the sensuality of form, to explore the possibilities of volume and give monumentality to the protagonists of his pictorial world"... [continue reading on Raising Miro]

"I don’t paint fat women. Nobody believes me but it is true.
What I paint are volumes. When I paint a still life I also
paint with volume, if I paint an animal it is
volumetric, a landscape as well."
Fernando Botero

10 Facts You Need to Know About Fernando Botero - Daily Art Magazine
Big, big, bigger Botero - Raising Miro
Inside Botero's NYC Apartment and Studio (great sneak peak from $6M 2017 listing) - Street Easy Blog
Botero’s Voluminous Sculptures Around the World - Art Weekenders
Fernando Botero - Colombian Artists (GREAT photos!) - The Art Reference Blog
The Art of Fernando Botero: Colombia’s ‘Most Colombian’ Artist - Culture Trip
Fernando Botero in the casting room, a thought experiment - The Art Blog
Fat is Beautiful - The Art of Fernando Botero - Travel Ark 2.0
Fernando Botero & his amusing versions of the Mona Lisa - Public Delivery
Inflated Animal and Human Shapes in the Art of Fernando Botero - 300 Magazine, A Medium Corporation
Visual collection of Botero's work (2500+ works) - ArtNet

Public Art: Johnson St Parkade

A block or so away from where I live sits the City of Victoria's Johnson Street Parkade, a non-descript cement faced structure. I've never paid much attention to it, including when I used it a few times in December, and walking past it multiple times. Yet, not long ago, I had my eyes up and my attention outward, I (finally) noticed the public art adorning it. And it's brilliant.

I dug a bit deeper, and found that it is called Woven Together, and was created in 2016 by Musqueam artist, Thomas Cannell, with his mother Susan Point (you may very well have seen his art on public installations throughout BC, or adorning BC Ferries new Salish Class ships - read Thomas Cannell's biography here).

From the 2015 announcement:

Woven Together will consist of colourful, powder-coated aluminum circular forms that are often used in Coast Salish art to represent the cycle of life, but also the traditional weaving spindle whorl and transportation. Colour will play a significant role in symbolizing cultures and different beliefs around the world all coming together to complete the circle. The centre will be made up of four eye motifs that create four butterfly images symbolizing the ability to accept change, metamorphosis, and the beauty of nature. The number four is important within First Nations culture as it represents the four winds, seasons, directions, elements, moons and peoples..." [read the full story here].

Related resources
Thomas Cannell lantern design - LunarFest 2020: Year of the Rat
Susan Point and Thomas Cannell to Create Public Art to Enhance Johnson Street Parkade - City of Victoria
Artwork revealed for Salish class ferries - Salish Sea Sentinel
Where Did the New Musqueam Banner Design Come From? - YVR Airport
Public artwork by Thomas Cannell ready to rise in Deer Lake Park - Georgia Strait
Thomas Cannell profile - Salish Weave Collection
Thomas Cannell, Creator - Westover profile
thomascannell.com - Thomas Cannell's website

A Merchant's Wife Teatime

I love discovering a new artist. Or a new-to-me artist.

Today it was Boris Kustodiev.

I stumbled across Kustodiev's work, A Merchant's Wife Teatime, when I was searching online for a picture of watermelon seeds! Thank you Google.

Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev (1878-1927) was a Russian painter, book illustrator and stage designer. If I have seen his art before, it didn't connect with me, as some of it is quite traditional.

But this image caught my eye. The colours, her rich robes, the cat... how WONDERFUL it is!!

Below are a few other works of his that I like.

Boris Mikhaylovich Kustodiev - Wikipedia

Reflections on the passing of Floyd (RIP)

I find myself trying to get a little perspective today. It has been a roller coaster of emotion these past few days. Tremendous grief and shock to learn if Floyd's passing. How is it that the warmest, kindest, most positive man with the BIGGEST HEART has a heart attack? And how is it possible that this vibrant, strong and vivacious man relied on life support to stay alive? It is hard to imagine him just going quietly when his family made thr difficult decision to take him off life support... How did that huge, generous heart cease to pulse? He touched sooooo many people. Hearts were breaking everywhere.

The only way I can make sense of it is to believe that Floyd was put on this earth to shine his bright smile, spirit and optimism to everyone he met, so that they would know it is possible to live like he modelled.

In between episodes of weeping, I have been inspired in so many ways.

Floyd passed on my birthday eve, at the end of a day when I had started feeling blue and moping about turning 59. Well, that didn't last long. I am devastated that someone as young and full of life as Floyd could be gone so fast. It's true, the good do die young.

My perspective flipped to being thrilled to turn 59. Holy shit, look how far I made it!!

It doesn't feel surface, it feels deep. Rather than weaken me and discourage me, I feel strengthened, with a new resolve.

Today I'm tired, looking around for a little of that passion, but its not so far away...

RIP Floyd ~ I feel so fortunate that you touched my life. I love you buddy.

UPDATE (May 2020): I recently discovered that Floyd's website is no longer active. As the archives of his works are slowly disappearing, I scoured the net to find what I could, which I have posted below.

Also:
http://www.floydsinclair.ca/ - Floyd's art
Black Vancouverites respond to question 'Where are you from?'
Floyd Sinclair exhibit at Gallery 1515

PS. My later blog post about sickle-cell anaemia

Glorious Mountains

All morning I have been thinking about the view of North Shore mountains from James' place. Oh, how totally glorious!!! Absolutely took my breath away then, and still does when I think about it. How glorious it would be to wake up that view each morning. How inspiring it would be to create art in that place. What a lovely backdrop to life. I feel honoured to have been there, and can't wait to go back. And I'm so totally honoured to have seen an artist's studio, to have been there right in the midst of his marvelous creations. It was totally the right space in which to give form to my dreams of a life of art and other ventures. A new vision of a new life is coming into view. It's funny that I say that, as I can't really tell what it will actually look like, but I know what it will feel like and I trust all the rest will fall into place. I'm inspired, and excited, and energized. Yet calm. It's good. It's all good.

Written after an art-themed life coaching session with artist James Melcher.